Uncategorized
How Abraham Learned to Walk with God
A Torah scroll. Photo: RabbiSacks.org.
On a warm Sunday afternoon — July 7, 1946 — the world’s richest man almost killed himself trying to outfly the laws of physics. Howard Hughes — movie mogul, aviation pioneer, and eccentric genius — was testing his new reconnaissance aircraft, the XF-11, over Beverly Hills.
Although his engineers warned that the aircraft was not ready, Hughes took off alone from his private airport in Culver City, California, for what was supposed to be a short test flight.
After about an hour in the air, the XF-11 developed a hydraulic leak that caused the right engine’s rear propeller to reverse pitch. Instead of shutting down that engine, Hughes tried to balance the drag by cutting power on the left engine and keeping the right engine at full power. But this only made things worse, and Hughes lost control.
The plane veered wildly over the Los Angeles Country Club, clipped the rooftops of several homes on the 800 block of North Linden Drive, and finally crashed into 808 North Whittier Drive — right in the heart of Beverly Hills. The impact ignited a fireball that engulfed the house, tore through the street, and left Hughes trapped in twisted metal and flames.
Miraculously, Hughes survived — but barely. He was pulled from the wreckage with third-degree burns, cracked ribs, a punctured lung, and a shattered collarbone, and countless cuts and bruises. Witnesses said the crash site looked like something out of an apocalypse.
Later, Hughes summed it up with characteristic flippant bravado: “I was flying fine until I wasn’t.”
The crash was both a literal and symbolic explosion of human hubris. For all his intellectual brilliance and skill as a pilot, Hughes was undone by the same quality that made him extraordinary — the conviction that he could master every element of the world.
The accident epitomized the defining trait of the modern era: the belief that technology, wealth, and intellect can conquer nature, eliminate risk, and even outwit mortality itself. But there’s a moment when ambition crosses into arrogance — when pushing boundaries morphs into believing you’re above them. Cross that line — and the fall is fast, fiery, and usually self-inflicted.
That same fatal overconfidence lies at the heart of one of the most haunting episodes in Parshat Vayera — the story of Sodom and its fiery destruction. Like Hughes, Sodom was fueled by prosperity and innovation. It was dazzlingly prosperous, the most modern, successful city of its day. Its citizens had everything: fertile land, abundant water, thriving commerce.
By any measure, it was the Silicon Valley of the ancient world. Yet, just as Hughes’ brilliance led to disaster, Sodom’s intoxication with success turned inward — becoming the very embodiment of arrogance, which soon curdled into selfishness and cruelty.
The prophet Ezekiel spells it out bluntly (Ez. 16:49): “Only this was the sin of your sister Sodom: arrogance! She and her daughters had plenty of bread and untroubled tranquility; yet she did not support the poor and the needy.”
Sodom’s sin was not mere depravity — it was hubris. They believed their superiority exempted them from moral responsibility and shielded them from consequences. They legislated selfishness, convinced that the laws binding others did not apply to them.
The Midrash tells us that hospitality was outlawed in Sodom, and generosity mocked. When the two angels sent by God came to visit Lot, the townspeople surrounded his house — not out of curiosity, but to rid the city of these unwanted outsiders. Sodom’s creed was simple: “We invent reality and owe nothing to anyone.”
Just as Hughes believed he was exempt from rules and could do as he pleased, Sodom considered itself above the norms of ordinary human existence. Its citizens imagined that success canceled obligation — that wealth and achievement freed them from the standards governing everyone else. But the Torah reminds us: such hubris always ends the same way — and so it was with Sodom.
And then, against this backdrop of self-worship, the Torah showcases Abraham — the antithesis of Sodom. Like the people of Sodom, Abraham was wealthy, bright, and powerful; he was also the patriarch of a growing clan, respected by kings and blessed by God.
But unlike Sodom, his instinct was not self-indulgence but service. This contrast becomes clear when three dusty travelers appeared on the horizon: Abraham ran to greet them. The Torah slows down the moment, describing every gesture — the water, the bread, the shade, the choice cuts of meat. Every act of hospitality is detailed, as if to remind us that true greatness shines brightest in the smallest deeds, particularly when done by a great man.
Later, when God informs Abraham that Sodom is about to be destroyed, he doesn’t shrug and move on. He stands before God and pleads: “Will You destroy the righteous with the wicked?”
It is one of the most astonishing conversations in all of human history — a man challenging God, not for his own benefit, but to intercede for others with whom he has no personal connection and who stand for all he opposes. This is greatness in its purest form.
And when God denies his plea, Abraham is not defeated. He accepts that however exalted he may be, only God is the true master.
And there’s another revealing contrast between the two stories. When the angels arrive in Sodom, they find a city obsessed with protecting its privileges. But when they arrive at Avraham’s tent, they find a home open on all sides — a man running to serve strangers.
One culture is built on taking, whatever the cost; the other on giving, no matter the effort. One collapses in fire; the other becomes the foundation of a nation destined to bless all others.
It’s not hard to see echoes of this today. We live in an age that revels in self-indulgence and worships those who “push boundaries,” yet rarely stops to ask what those boundaries are for. Against this backdrop, we are surrounded by technologies that promise to transcend every human limit — to manipulate biology, redefine morality, and even simulate consciousness.
In such a world, the temptation to believe we can do anything is powerful. Yet the Torah’s warning in Sodom’s downfall is clear: not everything we can do is worth doing, and the ultimate price of hubris is self-destruction.
Howard Hughes lived long enough to see his brilliance consume him — but more importantly, he became a living lesson in the destructive power of hubris. After surviving the crash, he withdrew into paranoia and isolation — a man imprisoned by the very perfectionism that had once made him great. He died in 1976, unrecognizable, emaciated, and alone.
The story of Sodom ends no better: a city reduced to ash, remembered only for its cruelty.
Abraham may not have invented machines or built empires, but his achievement was infinitely greater. He taught that whatever power we possess must never be self-serving; that prosperity demands compassion; and that moral aspiration is not a weakness, but the very thing that keeps humanity close to God.
There’s an old saying: “When man tries to play God, he ends up playing with fire.” Sodom’s downfall etched that warning into our earliest history, and Hughes’ crash was a modern echo of the same truth. Both remind us that the higher we climb without humility, the harder the fall.
Sodom believed it had conquered the heavens. Howard Hughes tried to own the heavens. But Abraham — kind, caring Abraham — understood how to connect with the heavens, and walk with God.
The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.
Uncategorized
A craven attempt to undermine the IDF — from one of Netanyahu’s top allies
For your weekly reminder of what is wrong in Israel, consider the bizarre spectacle that unfolded this weekend as Defense Minister Israel Katz announced during a Sunday television interview that he was replacing Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, commander of the IDF’s Central Command, which in effect controls the combustible West Bank.
What was remarkable is: Katz does not have the authority to fire Bluth. The government can fire the military chief, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, but he appoints his senior staff, including Bluth.
Zamir immediately said he had not been consulted and that no such decision had been made. Within hours, the Israel Defense Forces issued an extraordinary statement confirming that Bluth was not, in fact, being replaced, and reminding the defense minister that he has no authority to replace him in the manner he had described. Zamir later added that no senior generals would be replaced until 2027, after the October election.
It was an embarrassing spectacle. And it affirmed that, amid an escalating crisis in the West Bank and fears among Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition of defeat in forthcoming elections, the Israeli government is flailing.
Katz is running in the imminent Likud Party primary, hoping to secure a good shot at a Knesset seat in the Oct. 27 election. Bluth is unpopular in the party for being perceived as even mildly critical of Jewish terrorists in the West Bank. Bluth said recently that violent settlers, in addition to doing “damage to Israel’s good name and legitimacy,” are also harming “our fundamental mission, which is thwarting terror and protecting residents.”
Katz, in claiming to be firing Bluth, told Channel 14 — which functions primarily as an echo chamber for the governing coalition — that Bluth had acted contrary to his “explicit policy” regarding a particular violent Jewish settler. His real message was to coalition voters, a suggestion that he will fight for settlers in the West Bank to have even more impunity than they already do.
After all, no one familiar with the situation in the West Bank would accuse the Israeli military of conducting an especially vigorous campaign against Jewish extremist violence there. If anything, the opposite criticism has dominated for years.
Especially since the latest Netanyahu government took office, in late 2022, attacks by radical settlers against Palestinian civilians and their property have risen sharply.
Palestinian civilians have died at the hands of extremist settlers during this period, while many more have suffered injuries, intimidation and repeated attacks on their livelihoods. At least 18 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank so far this year — more than the entire number killed in all of 2025. Entire communities have abandoned grazing areas and farmland after years of relentless harassment.
Villages have been assaulted; homes and vehicles torched; olive groves destroyed; and livestock stolen or killed. No settlers have been convicted in the deaths. The overwhelming majority of investigations are quietly closed. Whatever one thinks about the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and even factoring in the continued reality of Palestinian terrorism, this is a profound failure of the rule of law that weakens Israel’s moral standing and hands its enemies an endless supply of propaganda.
Despite Bluth’s recent criticism, the army has clearly failed to intervene decisively when attacks unfold before its soldiers. It’s allowed civilian lawlessness to become normalized in the occupied areas. Whatever operational constraints commanders may face, the cumulative impression has been one of insufficient urgency and insufficient enforcement. It is therefore difficult to argue that the IDF has somehow been excessively harsh toward violent settlers.
Unless you’re a Likud voter.
Katz’s behavior is a reflection of the fact that the party’s activist base has changed profoundly over the past decade. Now, political advancement within the party depends not upon demonstrating administrative competence or strategic judgment, but rather upon proving one’s willingness to confront the institutions that many on the Israeli right now regard as enemies from within.
Those include the courts, civil service gatekeepers, the media, the Shin Bet and, increasingly, the senior command of the IDF, all of which the Israeli right has recast as components of an entrenched liberal establishment supposedly working to frustrate the “will of the people” and the political fortunes of Netanyahu.
That’s an extraordinary transformation, aligned with the rise of the anti-establishment populist right in the United States and Europe. Former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Likud’s founder, spent decades battling institutions he believed had treated him unjustly, yet once in office he displayed a reverential respect for the state’s legal and constitutional framework. This, apparently, is a thing of the past.
The post A craven attempt to undermine the IDF — from one of Netanyahu’s top allies appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Archaeologists uncover treasures of Vilnius’ Great Synagogue as Jews dispute its future
(JTA) — VILNIUS, Lithuania — Archaeologists have uncovered the full floor of Lithuania’s historic Great Synagogue, revealing treasures nearly erased by Nazi and Soviet occupations — and exposing rifts between Lithuanian Jews over how to preserve and interpret what survived.
Locals walking through the center of Vilnius now pass a hole in the ground, a portal to the rich Jewish past of a city once called the “Jerusalem of the North.” For the first time since 1940, they can see the polished, colorful floor and entire prayer platform of the Great Synagogue of Vilna, built in the 17th century, which became one the most important religious, cultural and intellectual hubs for Diaspora Jews.
In Lithuania’s small remaining Jewish community, who number less than 3,000, there is no debate that the site must be preserved. But discussions about how to protect the past — and what to build over it — have triggered pain over one of the last pillars of identity left standing for Lithuanian Jews.
The community’s main representative body plans to build a new Jewish community center over the excavation, where visitors could view the Great Synagogue floor through a glass layer or a basement-level exhibit. Above, the center would celebrate current-day Jewish life through cultural, social and educational events.
Some Orthodox Jews and their supporters oppose that project, saying the synagogue should be rebuilt as a house of worship or preserved as a purely archaeological exhibit. Other residents say the mission of a new building should be broadened beyond Lithuanian Jews, offering a center that promotes tolerance, human rights and understanding of Jewish history among all Lithuanians.
On the eve of World War II, the massive Great Synagogue stood among more than 100 synagogues and Jewish prayer houses in Vilnius, where about 40% of people were Jewish. Over 90% of Lithuanian Jews were killed in the Holocaust, and from 1944 until 1990, Vilnius was remade as the capital of the Soviet Lithuanian Republic. The synagogue was burned and largely destroyed by the Nazis, then razed by the Soviets to build a school in its place.
“This is the place that half the population would have identified their city with,” Jon Seligman, the archaeologist leading the excavation, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “So this city at the moment is missing half its identity, and because it’s such a long time since it happened, they don’t even know they’re missing half their identity.”
The excavation is over a decade in the making. Seligman, an Israel-based archaeologist whose Jewish grandparents lived in Lithuania before World War II, first proposed unearthing the synagogue’s remains in 2013 after a visit to discover his family roots. His team of archaeologists have worked there since 2015, and last year, the former Soviet school building over the site was demolished.
In an accident of history, the synagogue’s main floor was constructed below ground and spared from total erasure.
“When the building was built in the 17th century, part of the restrictions that were placed on the Jewish community was that they were not allowed to build their synagogue higher than any of the churches in the surroundings,” said Seligman. “So to create the internal majesty, if you don’t want to have a low, two-story building, what you do is you drop the floor level one story below ground surface — and that’s what they did.”
The latest installment of Seligman’s project, completed in July, fully exposed this main hall and the bimah, or prayer platform, covered in red, white, green and black geometric designs. Archaeologists also found traces of the Shulhoyf, a busy complex that formed the heartbeat of Jewish life.
Vilnius was a major center of Jewish thought, famed for both its religious tradition and modern secular Jewish culture. It was home to the 18th-century Vilna Gaon, one of the most influential Jewish sages — and also the birthplace of the Jewish Labour Bund, a secular, socialist and anti-Zionist organization. Schools taught literature and the sciences in Yiddish and Hebrew, and Zionists shared ideas alongside anti-Zionists.
Before World War II, the Shulhoyf hosted 12 prayer houses, a bathhouse, kosher butcher stalls, the first public toilets in Vilnius, the prestigious Strashun Library and the first headquarters of the Yiddish Scientific Institute, or YIVO. That institute, now in New York City, continues to preserve the Yiddish language and cultural heritage of Eastern European Jews.
Faina Kukliansky, who has since 2013 chaired the umbrella organization known as the Lithuanian Jewish Community, spearheaded the initiative to construct a community center over the synagogue.
Kukliansky grew up as the child of Holocaust survivors in Lithuania under the Soviets. She said the new space will replace the community’s current headquarters, hosted in a nearby building that is more than a century old and struggles with heating and water system issues.
Kukliansky said the new center will honor both the past and the present of Lithuanian Jews, featuring a YIVO exhibition alongside concerts, social clubs and Jewish learning events. After the Holocaust and decades of Soviet restrictions on Jewish life, those who remain are mostly secular and distant from Jewish traditions. Kukliansky said the center’s construction over the remains of the Great Synagogue will inspire Jews to trace the threads of their heritage.
“It’s very meaningful that in the place where the synagogue rose, Jewish life will be intensive because our Jewish community center is there,” said Kukliansky.
But Kukliansky’s plans have met sharp opponents from other corners of Lithuania’s Jewish world. Among the most vocal is Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky, an emissary for the Chabad-Lubavitch Orthodox movement who was born in Boston and has lived in Vilnius since 1994.
Krinsky said that according to Jewish tradition, the Great Synagogue site should not be covered by a building for secular cultural activities, but remain a “living Jewish religious center that continues the learning and the prayer.”
“If a site was used as a synagogue — for centuries, in this case — the holiness retains its holiness, and it’s proper to respect that holiness,” said Krinsky. “A Jewish community center might be nice, but it certainly doesn’t represent the holiness of that site.”
Krinsky has for years demanded more money for Chabad projects, which he says would be used for religious services, Jewish education and social welfare programs. He accuses Kukliansky of monopolizing funds granted to Jews by the Lithuanian government as compensation for property stolen during the Holocaust. The Good Will Foundation, an international body created through the World Jewish Restitution Organization and the Lithuanian Jewish Community, has been authorized to distribute this restitution money.
Since legislation passed by the Lithuanian parliament in 2022, the Good Will Foundation has disbursed about $9 million to compensate individual Holocaust survivors and their heirs for private property claims. Given that most Jewish property was left without any heirs, another $40 million is being allocated to support Jewish communal life — including projects like the new community center.
Krinsky said these funds have not been sufficiently used to nourish religious life. Kukliansky countered that her organization supports the Choral Synagogue, the only synagogue still active in Lithuania, where Krinsky leads the small group of Jews who usually scrape together a minyan — the minimum of 10 people required for public prayers. Compared with other Eastern European communities, Chabad’s footprint is small in Vilnius, where the Vilna Gaon led a tradition of opposing Hasidism that became central to the identity of many Lithuanian Jews.
Kukliansky also claims that Krinsky has refused to provide her with financial reports. His wife, Nechama Dina Krinsky, was indicted for tax fraud in 2023.
Kukliansky faces further criticism from Dovid Katz, an American-born, Vilnius-based scholar of Yiddish and the Holocaust. Katz advocated for rebuilding the Great Synagogue or preserving its remnants as a religious site, which he said would draw Orthodox pilgrims from around the world.
“A synagogue is a religious place, and religious leaders today — and everyday religious Jews — need to be consulted on what’s going to replace the Great Synagogue,” said Katz. “It is a place either for a replacement synagogue or for archeological remains.”
Still other critics say the Jewish representative body has split the site from a broader mission that would attract non-Jewish Lithuanians and Jews from around the world. Anna Avidan, who founded a nonprofit called Jerusalem of the North to celebrate Jewish history in Lithuania, led a conference in 2017 that invited historians, architects and students to discuss the future of a space commemorating the Great Synagogue.
Fragments of a gefilte fish dish and a Passover plate that were found at the Great Synagogue excavation site. (Shira Li Bartov)
Avidan said attendees proposed a cultural center that would host forums about tolerance, drawing international visitors and educating Lithuanians about the Jewish past of their country. She argued it would be “selfish” to build a center exclusively for the Lithuanian Jewish community, since such spaces are closed to the public, partly for security reasons. The proposals emerging from Avidan’s conference were shut down after Kukliansky’s opposition.
“We are still working on how to include Jewish history in Lithuanian history,” said Avidan. “Approaching the site as a site of Lithuanian history, that would promote this harmony and understanding.”
At the excavation site, Seligman’s team has dug up pieces of life in the synagogue, which seated about 500 people, with some 500 more squeezing in for High Holidays. The latest artifacts to emerge from the ground include a Passover plate, a dish for gefilte fish, a plaque engraved with the Ten Commandments and several seating plaques with the names of people who donated to the synagogue, assuring their spots inside.
These name plaques left clues about families who vanished from Vilnius. One marked a seat for Gitel Klachek, identified as the “wife of the late Yechezkel, Shamash d’Mata” — the city sexton. Their wealthy, influential family owned several businesses around the Great Synagogue.
On the uncovered synagogue floor and the surrounding Jewish neighborhoods, there walked people who disputed religion, Jewish identity, Zionism and other ideas. “There would have been a large contingent who would have been ultra-Orthodox. There also would have been a large contingent who were completely secular,” said Seligman. “So the city was very, very much a very mixed community.”
The fights over the memory of these ghosts — and over Lithuania’s Jewish identity — echo the disagreements that animated the Jews who once thrived there.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Archaeologists uncover treasures of Vilnius’ Great Synagogue as Jews dispute its future appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
AIPAC-backed Wesley Bell defeats Cori Bush in Missouri Democratic primary
(JTA) — Missouri incumbent Rep. Wesley Bell registered a resounding victory in Tuesday’s Democratic primary against Cori Bush, a prominent Democratic socialist and ardent critic of Israel.
The Associated Press called the race just an hour after polls closed, at 8:02pm local time. By the time 99% of the vote was counted, Bell had garnered 59.2% to Bush’s 36.9%.
The primary is a déjà vu moment for St. Louis. The same pair of candidates vied just two years ago to represent the state’s 1st Congressional District.
Bell prevailed in 2024 to oust Bush in a clash that was largely defined by a $9 million influx of AIPAC cash in support of Bell. In this rematch, Bush made the American Israel Public Affairs Committee a central issue in her campaign, similar to other Democratic Socialists of America candidates.
“AIPAC has become yet another way for MAGA-donors to divide the Democratic base by meddling in primaries,” Bush told JTA in a written statement prior to the primary. “In St. Louis and across the country, people know that our fight against antisemitism means fighting against the far-right’s effort to divide us.”
Federal Election Commission records show that this time around, AIPAC has invested far less in the race. Through its United Democracy Project super PAC, the pro-Israel lobby has spent in the neighborhood of $3 million on the rematch, with the vast majority targeted at opposing Bush.
In response to Bell’s decisive win on Tuesday, AIPAC posted its congratulations on X: “Our community was proud to support a strong, principled Democratic leader,” the lobby stated.
The Washington, D.C.-based Jewish Democratic Council of America, which had mobilized networks of voters to make phone calls in support of Bell, added their congratulations to the congressman following his victory.
“Rep. Bell is a leader in taking on Trump’s corruption,” the group posted on X. “We look forward to seeing him continue to fight for our Jewish and Democratic values.”
Aside from their conflicting perspectives on Israel, Bell and Bush have much in common. Born in Missouri in the mid-1970s, they are both Black progressive Democrats who entered politics after the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown in the city of Ferguson.
Amid protests across Ferguson for police reforms, Bell won a seat on the city council and focused on passing such changes. He went on to become St. Louis County prosecutor in 2018, defeating a 27-year incumbent who had failed to prosecute the officer who had killed Brown.
Bush, meanwhile, became involved in politics by participating in the Ferguson protests. She lost Democratic primaries for the U.S. Senate and House in 2016 and 2018, but then won congressional races in 2020 and 2022. In 2024, however, she lost to Bell by more than 5 percentage points.
The candidates have similar stances on most political issues, prioritizing concerns like reproductive rights, gun violence prevention and the dismantling of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as lowering costs of housing, utilities, healthcare and prescriptions. But they have sharp differences when it comes to Israel, with Bush’s campaign pledging to “stand for justice in Palestine.” Bell, in contrast, has stood steadfast in his support of Israel.
The post AIPAC-backed Wesley Bell defeats Cori Bush in Missouri Democratic primary appeared first on The Forward.
