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How a Don McLean Concert Gave Me Insight Into the Torah
The American singer-songwriter Don McLean at the Oxford Union, May 2025. Photo: Screenshot
Last Saturday night, I went to a Don McLean concert at the Saban Theater. Yes, that Don McLean, icon of popular culture, poster child of whimsical 1970s music. As the lights dimmed and a palpable buzz of excitement murmured through the crowd, I felt the nostalgic anticipation bubble within me, knowing exactly why I was there.
You don’t attend a Don McLean concert to hear something new, and you certainly don’t go for a sound-and-light show. You go to pay tribute to a musical hero, to show up for someone who occupies a real, almost mythic place in the popular culture of your youth.
Don McLean isn’t merely another aging performer touring on old hits. He’s a cultural marker. His No. 1 hit, “American Pie,” isn’t simply a song — it’s a time capsule. Eight and a half minutes meditating on the loss of American innocence: the death of Buddy Holly, the shattering of postwar optimism, the uneasy coming-of-age of an entire generation.
People have been arguing about its meaning for decades — precisely because it meant something. Deeply.
Then there’s “Vincent” — better known as “Starry, Starry Night” — a song about Vincent van Gogh so restrained and tender it somehow made a 19th-century painter’s inner torment feel intimate to late-20th-century listeners.
Very few songwriters have managed to do this without tipping into cloying, overcooked sentimentality. McLean did it effortlessly — no theatrics, no emotional manipulation — and it worked. To this day, “Starry, Starry Night” is played regularly at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, quietly soundtracking the experience of standing before the real thing.
Don McLean, born and bred in the bedroom town of New Rochelle, NY — hardly a breeding ground for folk-music greatness — has somehow come to embody the American folk tradition. Mentored and befriended by legends like Josh White, he absorbed the moral seriousness that defines folk music: the sense that songs can carry memory, protest, grief, and conscience all at once.
And he did it without tipping into angry remonstration or cloying sentimentality. Mclean was never flashy, and certainly never cool in the trendy sense. But he mattered. And for many people, he still does.
There is also something meaningful about the fact that McLean has long been openly supportive of Israel, without apology and without hedging — a position that has become increasingly rare in the showbiz world.
At one point, his significant other was Israeli, a connection that deepened his ties to the country. He has written a song about Jerusalem and another — “Dreidel” — built around the familiar Hanukkah game, and he has never been coy or evasive about where he stands.
Unashamedly pro-Israel and a genuine friend of the Jewish community, McLean belongs to that rare group of artists — including, sadly, only some Jewish ones — who don’t feel the need to hide in the herd, and are openly positive about the miracle of Israel.
So, when I walked into the packed theater — a full house, brimming with goodwill toward an 80-year-old legend of American pop music — I wasn’t just going to a concert. I was acknowledging a nostalgic moment in my own life. A time when songs didn’t merely play in the background but actively framed how I understood the world. Which is precisely why the letdown was such a disappointment.
McLean is long past his sell-by date. His energy was low. The singing was often flat and unenthusiastic. Long stretches felt labored and passionless, as though he was simply going through the motions. Even the comb-over hairstyle — epic in its own stubborn way — felt like an unintentional symbol: a refusal to surrender to time, even when time has clearly won.
And then came “American Pie” — the showpiece, the emotional climax, the song everyone had been waiting for — and it simply didn’t land. You could feel the audience willing it to work, wanting to be generous, desperate to preserve the magic. But there was no magic.
We clapped respectfully. We reminded ourselves that legends age, and that memory is often kinder than reality. And we were forced to confront an uncomfortable truth: maybe some things are better left in the mind’s eye as pristine nostalgia.
Maybe seeing a hero of your youth in a diminished state doesn’t deepen the experience — it diminishes it. Walking out of the theater, that was the thought that lingered most.
And that’s when it hit me: our Jewish sourcebook, the Torah, does something very similar to us — almost intervention-style — in Parshat Mishpatim. This is the portion that comes immediately after the revelation at Sinai, the greatest spiritual moment in Jewish history: thunder and lightning, followed by God speaking directly to His newly born nation.
We’re swept into a moment that is dazzling and overwhelming, the kind of experience every believing Jew would love to freeze in time and relive.
But we barely have time to savor it before the Torah pivots sharply. There’s no lingering on the drama, and no attempt to recreate the high. Instead, we’re dropped straight into the mundane reality of law: damages and injuries, loans and workers’ rights, lost property and personal responsibility.
Mishpatim is dry. It’s technical. And, on the surface at least, it’s deeply uninspiring. The juxtaposition feels like a comedown — a real downer.
But that whiplash is entirely deliberate. Inspiration is always a flash. Even the greatest moments in time are just that: moments. Sinai, like a great song or the vigor of youth, cannot be sustained indefinitely. You can’t live forever in a suspended state of awe, and you certainly can’t build a day-to-day life on peak experiences.
Reality is the true engine of our lives. And reality includes fatigue, complexity, disappointment, human weakness, and long stretches that feel decidedly unremarkable. But it is in these moments that there’s a chance for everyday holiness. The Torah, unlike nostalgia, refuses to pretend otherwise.
Mishpatim is the reminder that the spectacular visions that may once have animated our faith are incapable of sustaining us once those moments have passed.
The Torah is teaching us a crucial life lesson: you were inspired — now let’s see what you do with it. Not when God’s voice is thundering from the mountain, but when you’re arguing over financial liability and damages. Not when everything feels elevated and transcendent, but when life is stubbornly ordinary.
Inspirational experiences define moments. But moments age badly if that’s all they are. Which is why Judaism doesn’t try to recreate the emotional experience of Sinai.
There is no commandment to feel revelation. Instead, the Torah translates revelation into structure — into obligations that don’t depend on energy, charisma, or being at your peak. What ultimately matters is how we conduct our lives once inspiration has faded.
God doesn’t want Sinai to be remembered as an unattainable peak, a moment so overwhelming that everything afterward feels like decline. It was never meant to become the yardstick by which all future religious experience is judged, or the excuse for disengagement from the present.
Sinai only has meaning if it translates into better people, expressed through our loyalty to the laws of the Torah that were given there.
So maybe it was good to go to that concert after all. Not because it preserved the magic — it didn’t — but because it clarified something deeper. I don’t need Don McLean to be great now for his impact on my life to remain meaningful now.
The music fades, the voice weakens, the moment passes. What remains is whether what once inspired me is strong enough to shape how my life is lived once the applause has died away.
The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.
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Doctors Without Borders Admits Gaza Hospital Used by Militants, Halts Operations
People walk at the site of Israeli strikes on Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip in this still image taken from video, Aug. 25, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
The international humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders has publicly acknowledged that armed individuals — many of them masked — were present inside the large compound of Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, citing intimidation of patients, arbitrary arrests, and suspected weapons movement as reasons for halting some of its work there.
The admission, buried in a rarely referenced FAQ page on the group’s website published last month, lends factual support to claims long asserted by Israeli authorities about the use of medical facilities by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists during the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which is French for Doctors Without Borders, said it has suspended all “non-critical medical operations” at Nasser Hospital as of Jan. 20, 2026, citing “concerns regarding the management of the structure, the safeguarding of its neutrality, and security breaches.”
MSF’s admission was first reported by independent analyst Salo Aizenberg.
In describing those “security breaches,” MSF stated that patients and its own personnel observed “armed men, some masked, in different areas of the large hospital compound … not in areas where MSF has activities.” It added that since the most recent ceasefire in Gaza, teams have reported a “pattern of unacceptable acts,” including the presence of armed men, intimidation, arbitrary arrests of patients, and “a recent situation of suspicion of movement of weapons.” The group said such conditions posed “serious security threats to our teams and patients.”
The hospital in Khan Younis — one of Gaza’s largest and, until recently, few functioning referral centers in the densely populated territory — has been a flashpoint in the Israel-Hamas war since early 2024. After intense battles and an Israeli military operation that searched for hostages inside the complex, the hospital was rendered non-functional and later reopened.
For months, the Israeli government and military have claimed that Hamas and other armed groups used hospitals — including Nasser — as shelter and operational bases, allegations that Palestinian authorities and many humanitarian organizations have rejected. In February 2024, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Spokesman Daniel Hagari said the military had “credible intelligence” that Hamas held Israeli hostages at Nasser Hospital at one point and that there may have been bodies of hostages currently hidden there.
The Algemeiner has previously documented claims acknowledged by the Palestinian Authority that Hamas summoned Gazans to the Nasser compound for interrogations and that militants threatened hospital staff.
Terrorists from both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an allied group in Gaza, have confessed that they took over hospitals across the enclave, using the medical facilities to hide military activities, launch attacks, and hold hostages kidnapped during their Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
In the FAQ disclosure, MSF did not explicitly identify the armed men or link them to specific groups. But by reporting the presence of masked fighters, intimidation of civilians, and suspicion of weapons movement within the hospital compound, MSF’s account aligns with Israeli officials’ long-standing narrative that medical facilities have not been strictly neutral zones.
MSF said it formally expressed concern to “relevant authorities” and stressed that hospitals “must remain neutral, civilian spaces, free from military presence or activity” to ensure the safe delivery of care.
The new disclosure comes amid broader tensions between MSF and the Israeli government over registration and operations in Gaza, including Israel’s decision to bar dozens of aid groups, including MSF, from registering to operate in the territory after March 2026.
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Ireland Confirms It Will Face Israel in Nations League After Calling for Ban From UEFA
Soccer Football – UEFA Nations League Draw – Brussels Expo, Brussels, Belgium – Feb. 12, 2026, General view during the draw. Photo: REUTERS/Benoit Tessier
Ireland has agreed to play against Israel this fall in the UEFA Nations League mere months after pushing for the Jewish state to be banned from international soccer competitions because of its war against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip.
The UEFA announced on Thursday in Brussels all the matchups for the 2026-27 Nations League, and Ireland was drawn to go head-to-head against Israel, as well as Austria and Kosovo, in Group B3. Ireland is set to play its away game against the Jewish state on Sept. 27 and will then host Israel in Dublin on Oct. 4.
The Israel Football Association said it hopes to host the Sept. 27 match in Israel, but a formal decision will reportedly be made in June. Israel has not hosted UEFA matches since October 2023 because of the war in Gaza with Hamas.
After the fixtures were announced on Thursday, the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) confirmed in a released statement that the Irish men’s national team will indeed compete against Israel in both matches because they risk “potential disqualification” if they do not. The statement also addressed the motion the FAI approved in November 2025 to have Israel banned from UEFA competitions because of the country’s war in Gaza. The motions were ultimately rejected.
“In 2025, a motion was proposed by members of the FAI General Assembly to vote on issuing a formal request to the UEFA executive committee for the immediate suspension of the Israel Football Association from UEFA competitions for a breach of UEFA statutes,” the FAI said. “Members then voted in favor to submit the motion to UEFA, which the association did in November 2025. While consultation has taken place with UEFA officials, the association does recognize that UEFA regulations outline that if an association refuses to play a match then that fixture will be forfeited and further disciplinary measures may follow — including potential disqualification from the competition.”
FIFA President Gianni Infantino previously announced that no action will be taken against Israel and that FIFA “should actually never ban any country” from playing soccer “because of the acts of their political leaders.”
In October 2025, Republic of Ireland manager Heimir Hallgrimsson called on Israel to be banned from international competition just like Russia was after its invasion of Ukraine. “I don’t see a difference between FIFA and UEFA banning Russia and not Israel. I don’t see the difference,” Hallgrimssson said at the time. “I am not speaking on behalf of the FAI – I just don’t see the difference.”
He said on Thursday he stands by those comments and will respect any player’s decision not to compete against Israel in the Nations League.
“It’s obviously every player’s decision to play for the national team or not. So, it’s going to be whatever reason that is. It’s every player’s decision if they want to play for the national team or not,” he said, as quoted by the Irish Mirror. “But it’s not my decision if you play or not against them or what decision is taken on a higher level. I am the head coach. I need to focus on the football thing. I hope when we play them, the supporters will support Ireland and support us to do good when we play against them.”
Joanna Byrne, chairperson of Ireland’s soccer club Drogheda United, criticized the FAI for agreeing to play against Israel in the Nations League.
“In November, the FAI voted to submit a motion to UEFA to ban Israel from its European club and international competitions. That was the correct moral and principled position to take,” she said, as reported by the Irish Mirror. “Therefore, I am extremely angry and dismayed that the FAI have confirmed they will play against Israel.”
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Trump Tells Soldiers ‘Fear’ Is Powerful Motivator in Iran Talks as US Moves Second Carrier to Middle East
US President Donald Trump speaks during a visit at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, US, Feb. 13, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
President Donald Trump told US troops on Friday that Iran has been “difficult” in nuclear negotiations and suggested that instilling fear in Tehran may be necessary to resolve the standoff peacefully.
“They’ve been difficult to make a deal,” Trump said of the Iranians before an audience of active-duty soldiers at Fort Bragg Army base in North Carolina after US officials said they were sending a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East.
“Sometimes you have to have fear. That’s the only thing that really will get the situation taken care of.”
During his address Trump also referenced the US bombing of Iran‘s nuclear sites last June.
Earlier, he said the deployment of the Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, the United States’ newest and the world’s largest, was being made so “we’ll have it ready” should negotiations with Iran fail.
Oman facilitated talks between Iran and the US last week, which a spokesperson for Iran‘s foreign ministry said had allowed Tehran to gauge Washington’s seriousness and showed enough consensus for diplomacy to continue. The date and venue of the next round of US-Iran talks have yet to be announced.
The president traveled to Fort Bragg to meet special forces troops involved in the audacious Jan. 3 operation to seize Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Maduro, who faces narco-terrorism and drug trafficking charges in US court, denies wrongdoing and maintains he is the rightful leader of Venezuela. In the weeks since the Venezuelan leader’s capture, Trump has worked with Maduro’s interim successor Delcy Rodriguez and sought broad control over the country’s oil industry.
Fort Bragg is home to some 50,000 active-duty soldiers. It also sits in one of the country’s more competitive political states.
Trump’s comments came as the Pentagon moved to send an aircraft carrier from the Caribbean to the Middle East, US officials said on Friday, a move that will put two carriers in the region as tensions soar between the United States and Iran.
The Gerald R. Ford carrier has been operating in the Caribbean with its escort ships and took part in the operations in Venezuela earlier this year.
Asked why a second aircraft carrier was headed to the Middle East, Trump said: “In case we don’t make a deal, we’ll need it … if we need it, we’ll have it ready.”
One of the officials, who was speaking on condition of anonymity, said the carrier would take at least a week to reach the Middle East.
The Gerald R. Ford will join the Abraham Lincoln carrier, several guided-missile destroyers, fighter jets, and surveillance aircraft that have been moved to the Middle East in recent weeks.
The United States most recently had two aircraft carriers in the area last year, when it carried out strikes against Iranian nuclear sites in June.
With only 11 aircraft carriers in the US military’s arsenal, they are a scarce resource and their schedules are usually set well in advance.
In a statement, US Southern Command, which oversees US military operations in Latin America, said it would continue to stay focused on countering “illicit activities and malign actors in the Western Hemisphere.”
Trump had said this week he was considering sending a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East if a deal is not reached with Iran.
On Friday he told reporters he thought that talks with Iran would be successful but warned that “if they’re not, it’s going to be a bad day for Iran.”
The Ford has essentially been at sea since June 2025. It was supposed to be operating in Europe before it was abruptly moved to the Caribbean in November.
While deployments for carriers usually last nine months, it is not uncommon for them to be extended during periods of increased US military activity.
Navy officials have long warned that long deployments at sea can damage morale on ships.
Officials said the administration had looked at sending a separate carrier, the Bush, to the Middle East, but it was undergoing certification and would take over a month to reach the Middle East.
The Ford, which has a nuclear reactor on board, can hold more than 75 military aircraft, including fighter aircraft like the F-18 Super Hornet jets and the E-2 Hawkeye, which can act as an early warning system.
The Ford also includes sophisticated radar that can help control air traffic and navigation.
The supporting ships, such as the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser Normandy, Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers Thomas Hudner, Ramage, Carney, and Roosevelt, include surface-to-air, surface-to-surface and anti-submarine warfare capabilities.