Dear Yidden, What’s more important than providing a ‘close to homeless’ family, a roof over their head? Although there are many of us going through a hard time and my cause is not entirely unique, I still feel compelled to reach out to you as a matter of urgency. My close friend living in Eretz Yisroel, originally from Chutz Leoretz, is in extreme financial trouble. The Father and breadwinner owned a successful business which provided a comfortable livelihood for his family. The business has had a large downturn and has now gone sour, leaving them with NOTHING.

by Rabbi Yair Hoffman for 5tjt.com Even during the COVID-19 era there are people that enter shuls to collect Tzedakah.  Some shuls still let everyone in, and others do not. GREATNESS OF TEFILLAH The classic work entitled the Chovos Halvavos provides five things that can be achieved in Tefilah – prayer: • It expresses the yearning of our neshama – to connect and achieve dveikus with Hashem. • It allows us to develop our own sense of humility when contemplating Hashem • It allows us to recognize, ever so slightly and to our limited capabilities, Hashem’s Greatness. • It allows us an opportunity to praise and to thank Hashem for the many kindnesses that He performs for us each day – indeed each moment.

Israel’s Health Ministry updated the statistics of Covid-19 cases after Shabbos. The number of ill patients in serious condition with the disease rose to 398. On Shabbos, some 1,492 people were confirmed to have contracted the disease out of more than 27,000 tests that were conducted. A Color Red Siren sounded in the city of Sderot after mincha time on Shabbos afternoon. The IDF said that they were investigating whether any damage or injuries occurred. None were reported at the time of the writing of this article. In addition to the alert siren, terrorists from the strip launched a number of balloon bombs at Israel resulting in seven fires in the Ashkelon district and the Eshkol Regional Council district. Fire Fighters and volunteers from KK”L managed to put out the fires quickly.

Two tropical storms advanced across the Caribbean on Saturday as potentially historic threats to the U.S. Gulf Coast, one dumping rain on Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands while the other was pushing through the gap between Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and Cuba. Tropical Storms Laura and Marco were both projected to approach Louisiana at or close to hurricane force just two days apart next week. Two hurricanes have never appeared in the Gulf of Mexico at the same time, according to records going back to at least 1900, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach. The last time two tropical storms were in the Gulf together was in 1959, he said. The last time two storms made landfall in the United States within 24 hours of each other was in 1933, Klotzbach said.

The Trump administration will send two top officials to the Middle East this week in a bid to capitalize on the momentum from the historic agreement between Israeli and the United Arab Emirates to establish diplomatic relations. Three diplomats say Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner plan to make separate, multiple-nation visits to the region in the coming days to push Arab-Israeli rapprochement in the aftermath of the Israel-UAE deal. Pompeo is expected to depart on Sunday for Israel, Bahrain, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Sudan, according to the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the itinerary has not yet been finalized or publicly announced.

Israel’s Health Ministry recorded 1,140 new coronavirus cases over Shabbos. There are currently 22,393 active cases, with 398 patients in serious condition, of whom 119 are ventilated. Ten more deaths were recorded, raising the death toll to 819. Israel’s coronavirus czar, Prof. Ronni Gamzu spoke about the controversial issue of Israelis traveling to Uman for Rosh Hashanah during an interview on Channel 12 News on Motzei Shabbos. “Uman is not one of the Tishrei Chagim and is not a devar kodesh,” Gamzu said. “It’s a hillulah or party and it’s not necessary to do it. It can bring us closer to a lockdown. The whole government needs to be firm in order to earn the public’s trust and say to the chassidim – don’t travel during this time to Uman, it will endanger lives in Israel.

Firefighters in California were racing to slow the spread of wildfires that burned nearly one million acres in a week and destroyed hundreds of homes as weekend weather threatened to spark new fires and overwhelm the state’s firefighting ability. Responding to the emergency, President Donald Trump issued on Saturday a major disaster declaration to provide federal assistance. Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement that the declaration will also help people in counties affected by the fires with crisis counseling, housing and other social services. Two clusters of wildfires in the San Francisco Bay Area broke old records to become the second- and third-largest wildfires in recent state history by size.

Federal authorities on Saturday forced demonstrators away from a plaza near a federal building as dueling demonstrations in Portland by right-wing and left-wing protesters turned violent. The area includes county and federal buildings and has been the site of numerous recent protests. Department of Homeland Security officers moved through the plaza across from an 18-story federal building. A federal courthouse is also near that area. The demonstration began at about noon near the Multnomah County Justice Center in Oregon’s biggest city, local media outlets reported. Demonstrators hurled rocks and other items at each other and got into fights. Streets were blocked amid the mayhem.

The head of the U.N.’s atomic watchdog agency will head to Tehran next week to press Iranian authorities for access to sites where the country is thought to have stored or used undeclared nuclear material, the organization said Saturday. It will be the first visit to Iran of International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi since he took office last December, and comes amid intense international pressure on the country over its nuclear program. The focus will be on access to sites thought to be from the early 2000s, before Iran signed the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Iran maintains the IAEA inspectors have no legal basis to inspect the sites.

President Donald Trump is threatening to send law enforcement to polling places for the upcoming presidential election, part of a growing pattern of rhetoric in which he has suggested that he wants to make it harder for Americans to vote. And much like the idea he floated a few weeks ago about delaying the election entirely, it’s not exactly up to him. The effort also could be viewed as a means to intimidate minority voters, who tend to support Democrats. During an interview Thursday night with Fox News host Sean Hannity as part of the counter-programming for the Democratic National Convention, Trump suggested he’d bring in both federal and local law enforcement.