" You shall obliterate ... Amalek"

" You shall obliterate the remembrance of Amalek"

(Deuteronomy 25:19)

Elul 8, 5780/August 28, 2020

"You shall remember what Amalek did to you on the way, when you went out of Egypt... " (Deuteronomy 25:17)

This week's Torah reading, Ki Teitzei, concludes with a recap of the unprovoked, malicious attack by Amalek, who, without warning, ambushed the children of Israel just days after they left Egypt, and just days after taking her first steps as a nation - a people forged by G-d in the furnace of Egyptian bondage and liberated by G-d to become His people, forever.

That the war against Amalek was not over, not by a long shot, even though the battle had ended for the moment, was made clear even in the original account of Amalek's vicious ambush of Israel, which included these words:

"HaShem said to Moshe, Inscribe this as a memorial in the book, and recite it into Yehoshua's ears, that I will surely obliterate the remembrance of Amalek from beneath the heavens. Then Moshe built an altar, and he named it HaShem is my miracle And he said, For there is a hand on the throne of the Eternal, that there shall be a war for HaShem against Amalek from generation to generation." (Exodus 17:14-16)

The recall of the war against Amalek in Ki Teitzei reiterates and reinforces the cataclysmic nature of Israel's perpetual war against Amalek, with these words that leave no room for doubt:

"Therefore, it will be, when HaShem your G-d grants you respite from all your enemies around you in the land which HaShem, your G-d, gives to you as an inheritance to possess, that you shall obliterate the remembrance of Amalek from beneath the heavens. You shall not forget!" (Deut. 25:19)

The war is on, and it won't be over till the evil Amalek has been crushed forever, as made clear by the heathen Bilaam's earlier prophecy: 

"When he saw Amalek, he took up his parable and said, "Amalek was the first of the nations, and his fate shall be everlasting destruction." (Numbers 24:20)

The nation that started up with G-d's children for no apparent reason, in fact, was motivated by a very real and very specific reason, as revealed here in Ki Teitzei: "how he happened upon you on the way and cut off all the stragglers at your rear, when you were faint and weary, and he did not fear G-d." (Deut. 25:18) "He did not fear G-d." That's the entire reason. The ever trans-mutating, ever re-emerging, and never ending hostility and hatred that Amalek, throughout all the generations, displays toward the nation of Israel, is the result of this simple fact: He did not (and does not) fear G-d.

People that do not fear G-d will fear people that do fear G-d. And fear, unrestrained by a fear of G-d, quickly metastasizes into unfettered, deadly hatred. Whether this hatred shape-shifts into a malignant nation or into a malevolent mob, it takes on a life of its own, consuming all that stands in its path. We see this clearly today in the unbridled mob violence that has been let loose and has been wreaking havoc in cities throughout the United States and elsewhere. Whatever their stated targets are, the angry Amalekites, consumed by their own red hot rage, are, whether or not they know it, waging a war against G-d. The idea of a Creator who has shaped our world and Who calls upon humanity to honor His creation and enter into a relationship with Him, in an incendiary threat to all who have lost their fear of G-d, their love of G-d. In every evil nation, in every outraged mob or raving mad individual being propelled by the creed of Amalek, the hatred of G-d becomes manifest in the hatred of G-d's people, Israel. This is the litmus test for Amalek. The Amalekites' litany of grievances may be long, but it will always end and begin with Israel.

And so it was that Amalek was the first nation to take on G-d's children and will be the last to wage war against Israel. The antithesis of Amalek and the antidote to Amalek are one and the same: "And My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations." (Isaiah 56:7) A United Nations of love for G-d, of fear of G-d. A united humanity infused with the knowledge that we are all the children of Adam, formed by G-d and invested with life by the breath of G-d. The post-Amalek reality is drawing nearer and nearer, and this itself is the cause of Amalek's murderous reemergence. And this is the meaning of Ki Teitzei's closing words, both a warning and a promise: "Therefore, it will be, when HaShem your G-d grants you respite from all your enemies around you in the land which HaShem, your G-d, gives to you as an inheritance to possess, that you shall obliterate the remembrance of Amalek from beneath the heavens. You shall not forget!" We are forewarned to be vigilant, with the promise that victory, in G-d's name, shall be ours. Do not forget!

IS CORONA A CURSE?

 IS CORONA A CURSE?

By Roy S. Neuberger 

I recently received an email which referred to the current worldwide plague as a curse: “We [will] get together when this [cursed] business is over.”

Is Corona a curse? 

I would like to examine the situation more closely. We owe it to ourselves to make every effort to view current events through a Torah lens.

Corona is clearly a makka, a worldwide plague. 

The seminal event in Jewish history is Yetzias Mitzraim, the Exodus, which was initiated with ten plagues which destroyed Egypt. It was necessary that Egypt be destroyed because that idolatrous country was ensnaring our ancestors and the time had come for us to be liberated so that we could accept the Torah. 

The entire world was created in order that Am Yisroel should accept the Torah; either we had to be liberated from Ancient Egypt or the world would have ceased to exist.

My friends, what is happening today is a replay of those ancient events.

It is not an accident and it is not a curse; it is the Hand of Hashem. The entire world today has become the New Egypt, submerged in an empty culture which rejects Hashem. By definition, such a culture is also anti-Jewish, since the very existence of Am Yisroel is based upon acceptance of the sovereignty of Hashem. The current worldwide culture and the Nation of Israel are inherently incompatible. This is why anti-Semitism is mushrooming. It is all coming to a climax.

And now the time is near, as in Ancient Egypt, for Hashem to take His People out and proclaim the Age of Moshiach, the Era of the Final Redemption. This worldwide plague is part of the collapse of the current idolatrous culture which will make way for the Age of Moshiach, at which time it will be clear that “Hashem Echad ushmo Echad … Hashem is One and His Name is One.”

I am aware that these are shocking statements (although you have heard this from me before). It is not easy to discuss the collapse of the culture in which we have all grown up and which surrounds us on every side, but that just indicates the similar nature of the massive events which took place in Ancient Egypt and why they were so challenging for our ancestors. We needed a Moshe Rabbeinu to lead us to that Redemption, and we need Moshiach ben Dovid to lead us to the coming Redemption.

We are now in Chodesh Elul, a time for teshuva in preparation for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. My friends, could we have contemplated last Rosh Hashanah the magnitude of the changes which would transpire in 5780? Could we have imagined Corona and the new American “revolution?” The world is in shock, and it’s not going away.

“On Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and Yom Kippur will be sealed how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created, who will live and who will die, who will die at his predestined time and who before his time, who by water and who by fire, who by sword, who by beast, who by famine, who by thirst, who by storm , who by plague ….”

We contemplate our mortality at this time, and prepare for Hashem’s judgment.

That is why, during the month of Elul, we examine our lives with great honesty, refining our thoughts and actions according to the standards of the Torah. Then we endeavor to diminish the bad and build up the good.

We should not be afraid of what is going on in the world. As the Torah says in last week’s Parsha, “Tamim ti’ye im Hashem Elokecha … be wholehearted with Hashem,”[1] which Rashi tells us means, “Look ahead to Him …. Walk with Him with wholeheartedness …. [and] whatever comes upon you, accept with wholeheartedness ….”

 Just as we are preparing for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, so Hashem is preparing for the Age of Redemption. “Do not fear, for you will not be shamed. Do not feel humiliated for you will not be mortified …. For the mountains may be moved and the hills may falter, but My kindness shall not be removed from you and My covenant of peace shall not falter, says Hashem, the One Who shows you mercy.”[2]

---

[1] Dvarim 18:13

[2] Haftaras Ki Seitzei, Yeshiah 54:4ff

Rabbi Winston: Parashas Ki Seitzei – ta’ava—desire, “yafas toar”

 If you go out to war against your enemies, and God, your God, will deliver him into your hands, and you take his captives… (Devarim 21:10)

RECENTLY I NOTICED someone who lost weight, and asked him about it. I knew that he had tried to diet many times in the past, unsuccessfully. I thought he might have had a stomach operation, which isn’t so uncommon these days. “Nope,” he told me. “I have lost weight by dieting only.”

“It’s not the first time you have tried,” I reminded him. “What worked this time?”

“You’re right,” he said, and then began to mention all kinds of tips about dieting that he had taken for granted in the past. “One of them,” he said, “a really important one, is actually in the Torah itself.”

“Where?” 

“In Parashas Ki Seitzei,” he told me, “right at the beginning in the mitzvah of the Yafas Toar.”

The mitzvah of the Yafas Toar is the Torah’s response to a Jewish soldier’s “fatal” attraction to a gentile captive. There is a Torah mitzvah to not marry outside the faith. But as has happened so many times throughout Jewish history, especially during wartime when people are emotionally vulnerable, the soldier’s attraction to a beautiful enemy interfered with the keeping of that mitzvah. The wartime circumstance requires a separate mitzvah that basically is “damage control.”

That’s just the way life is these days. Once upon a time, the entire Jewish nation lived on one land, in Eretz Yisroel, and there was no need to be exposed to foreign nations in any intimate way. It made avoiding intermarriage easier, and the mitzvah of Yafas Toar, irrelevant.

But we do not yet live in the Messianic Era, and that has meant many wars. Even worse, we have been exiled from our land and deposited among the nations. Though very often THEY did not want to fraternize with the Jews, it often happened. Unwittingly, relationships developed between Jews and non-Jews, and this became religiously dangerous. This is why the rabbis, fully aware of the risks of such relationships, made laws to limit such interaction.

If this was true while Jews still adhered to Torah law, how much more so has it been true with Jews who aren’t even familiar with the source of such laws, the Torah. Hence, one of the main things Ezra had to do after the story of Purim, was examine many of the marriages that had occurred during exile. He had to determine their halachic outcome. Moshiach, we can see, will have to do the same.

The parsha, however, is talking about a Torah Jew who lost himself during war. Overcome with infatuation, he has set his mind on a female captive with a plan to marry her. Telling him no at that point, the Torah says, will be fruitless, and therefore a different tact becomes necessary.

So the Torah, instead, says yes, with conditions. First, hold off for a month before marrying her. Give her some time to mourn over her disconnect from her family and past, which means letting her appearance worsen. If at the end of the month, the Torah says, he still wants to marry this woman, then she has to halachically convert before becoming his wife.

It is psychological warfare against the man’s yetzer hara. Passion for the wrong thing is most intense at the moment, and can surprisingly dissipate with time. It is the plan of the Torah to give this man’s yetzer hara the impression that it has won, so that it will back down somewhat. The Torah is in fact giving the man’s yetzer tov some time, by stretching out the moment of passion until it weakens and possibly fades.

Rav Shlomo Brevda, zt”l, once gave a talk to my Bais Midrash back around 1982. He was making a similar point, and brought a real-life example to show its power. Years earlier, he had given a shiur to some young men about Yosef’s resistance to the advances of Potiphar’s wife in Parashas Vayaishev. He told them how Yosef withstood his incredible test by repeating to himself, “Just one more second, one more portion in the World-to-Come!” He didn’t stop until his moment of passion passed, at which time he fled for his spiritual life.

Some time after that talk, Rav Brevda related that he received a long distance phone call from one of the students who had been in that shiur. “Your words saved my life,” the student told his rebi, who then proceeded to tell his own Yosef-life story of test and resistance.

This “bochur” had been flying back to America to visit his family during one of the yeshivah breaks. Though he must have looked the part of a religious Jew, still one of the stewardesses took a liking to him. She even asked about his plans once they landed. Apparently he struggled to do what he knew was the Torah’s only viable course of action, and felt overwhelmed.

That’s when he remembered the story of Yosef, and began to employ Yosef’s strategy. “Just one more moment,” he quietly told himself, “one more portion in the World-to-Come.” He also repeated this mantra until his passion passed, and he was able to refuse the stewardess’ advances. Eventually he was able to deplane with a clear conscious…and a lot more of the World-to-Come.

Today many call this “mindfulness,” which basically amounts to bypassing your initial automatic response to situations and using a more thoughtful one. A person’s initial and automatic response is usually instinctual, and can be inappropriate for the situation. The brain is quick, but not always accurate without some kind of thought process preceding its decision.

It takes but a couple of moments to examine a situation and assess whether to go with the auto response or to act differently. Then a person can avoid a catastrophe that would have probably resulted from a costly mistaken response. In many cases, a few more seconds would have avoided the undoing of countless years of success.

This approach to ta’ava—desire, my dieting friend told me, was what was making the difference on his current diet. In the past when he was overcome with a desire to eat something, even if it was healthy or at least “not that fattening,” he succumbed. Of course, he would regret it afterwards, promising that he would exercise it off, and eat less later. 

Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t. All he knew was that he either gained weight or didn’t lose it. You can fool yourself most of the time, but you cannot fool the scale any of the time. “I would convince myself that I was compensating for my capitulation, but then I would go onto the scale and it would yell at me, ‘LIAR!’”

“I even convinced myself for a while,” he explained, “that it wasn’t me, but my metabolism. I would tell myself (and others who told me to diet) that my metabolism had slowed down with age, and that I was no longer able to burn off calories as I once had done, even with exercise.”

“But since I got honest with myself and my scale,” he said with a knowing smile on his face, “I saw that my metabolism, though slower with age, was still working just fine, thank God…if I didn’t burden it with unnecessarily calories to burn off. I was like someone who sinned and then told someone else to fix it for me!”

On one level, what my friend told me wasn’t new. The Torah is quite clear, and the Talmud makes its strategy even clearer. But sometimes it takes a good personal success story to drive the point home emotionally as well. That’s when it becomes real to a person, like it did to the bochur in Rav Brevda’s story. I heard that story almost 40 years ago, but I can still see and hear Rav Brevda telling it.

Everyone has a “yafas toar” in their life at some time or another, in one way or another. It’s what everyone’s yetzer hara does best. Therefore, the Torah’s strategy is not just for the soldier of physical war. It is for the “soldier” of every spiritual war, and that applies to anyone trying to live a moral life.

Bible Codes: Soros, Amalek, Erev Rav, שמאל-Left

TORAH CODES REVEAL: SOROS USES PALESTINIANS TO SERVE AS ANGEL OF DARKNESS AGAINST ISRAEL

H/t Meir-Ivri Anochi

breakingnews  A new Torah codes video reveals the dark Biblical roots of George Soros, the billionaire funding the left-wing and the evil anti-Israel movement.

Rabbi Matityahu Glazerson, an expert in Bible codes, prepared a video, responding to requests for an explanation concerning billionaire investor George Soros. 

 “Unfortunately, many people really want to see if there is something in the Torah that is an indication to the person who is called George Soros,” Rabbi Glazerson said. “But the Hebrew name is Schwartz.”

“He is Jewish,” the rabbi noted. “Unfortunately he is far away from real Judaism, not keeping Torah. Unfortunately he is even joining forces which are against Torah. In fact, Amalekites are known to be those who disturb Israel from settling. They were the first ones who tried to stop us from entering the land of Israel. They started fighting with them. So definitely, anyone who helps the Palestinians and wants to get Jews to leave settlements has joined with these forces.”

The rabbi noted that Soros gives huge amounts of money to causes that oppose President Trump.  As of February 2018, George Soros had a net worth of $8 billion, having donated more than $32 billion to the Open Society Foundations. Domestically, the OSF is a strong supporter of the left-wing and the Democratic Party, especially through its support of Priorities USA Action, the Democratic Party’s largest super PAC. 

Soros funded millions of dollars into the Black Lives Matter movement via his Open Society Foundation, the Washington Times reported.

The OSF funds a number of anti-Israel organizationsthat deny the legitimacy of Israel and Jewish sovereignty, and are involved in demonization campaigns. Soros has compared Israel to Nazi Germany.

Riots in the cities and radical muslims are also supported by Soros,” Rabbi Glazerson noted. 

Rabbi Glazerson used special software to find hidden clues in equidistant letters in the Torah referring to Goerge Soros, using his birth name of George Schwartz. Surprisingly, the rabbi found clues lopcated in the Book of Genesis for both George Soros (גורג סורוס) as well as Schwartz (שורצ) all in close proximity to each other. In the center of the three names was the word Amalek (עמלק). Perhaps most significant that these clues were conatinaed in the section of the Torah dealing with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorah. 

“The story is dealing with homosexuality,” Rabbi Glazerson noted. “Because of this, the story is a symbol of corruption that leads to destruction.”

The rabbi noted that homosexuality and same sex marriage is included in the liberal agenda supported by Soros. The rabbi suggested that some of the harsh judgements in the form of natural catastrophes may have been the result of the immoral poitical agenda. 

“Soros, like the Amalekites, is trying to stop the Jews from settling the land properly,” Rabbi Glazerson said. “Amalek opposed Israel because he wanted to promote immorality and Jews were a reminder that Hashem (God) was still acting in the world.” 

But the most surprising aspect of the chart was that in the very center, next to Amalek and surrounded by George Soros’s name was the word ‘Obama’. It is interesting to note that his entrance into the arena of presidential election was a $1 million donation to Obama’s campaign in 2012. 

Interwoven into Obama’s name was the name ‘Hillary’ (הילרי). Soros donated over $5 million to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. 

Underlining the entire graph was the word for left; ‘Hasmole’ (הסמאל). This indicated the political wing that all the elements had in common but the Hebrew word can also be pronounced HaSamael, the angel of darkness. 

This shows that evil forces are really behind these things,” Rabbi Glazerson said. In an earlier interview, Rabbi Glazerson explained the connection between the left-wing and the angel of darkness. 

“It is not by chance that the left-wing is named as they are,” Rabbi Glazerson said to Breaking Israel News. “In Kabbalistic (mystical) terms, the left signifies din (judgment), which is characterized by limitation, or contraction.”

The word smole (left) has a hidden connotation in Hebrew connecting it to ‘Samael’, the main archangel of death. The rabbi explained that in Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), the letters sin (ש) and samech (ס) are interchangeable. This exchange of letters makes the word smole (שמאל) (‘left’) identical to the name Samael(סמאל).

Rabbi Glazerson said that the left-wing combines the forces of Samael with Amalek.

“Samael is the angel of Amalek. The gematria (Hebrew numerology) of Samael, 131, plus the gematria of Amalek, 240, totals 371,” Rabbi Glazerson pointed out. “This precisely equals the gematria of smole (left). The left takes its strength from both Samael and from Amalek.”

“Anything that lessens life in the world is against Torah and against Moshiach as per the contractive nature of the left side of din,” Rabbi Glazerson said. “The left-wing promotes these things, like abortion, homosexuality, and euthanasia. They condemn the IDF in its battle against groups that openly call for death. The left claims they are doing it out of love and caring, but it is really because they draw their essence from the left side.”

“This attachment to lifelessness has to be overcome for the Moshiach to come,” Rabbi Glazerson said. “The Moshiach will bring t’chiyat ha’matim, (resurrection of the dead), a miraculous increase of life.”

The rabbi noted that the chart ended in the section of the Torah describing how Sarah ordered Abraham to drive Hagar and her son, Ishmael, away. The rabbi noted that Ishmael was the forefather of the Arabs, who are allied with teh left-wing against Israel.

 Amazing Bible Code on Hurricane Laura

 

Storm Chasing Hurricane Laura – Very Vivid Videos

 

 

 Last big wind damage, then damage shots inside calm eye of Hurricane Laura in Carlyss, LA All footage shot in/near Carlyss, LA during early morning hour darkness on August 27, 2020 by Meteorologist Simon Brewer Shot Description 1-2. last of high winds rip sheet metal off building before eye of Laura moves over in Carlyss, LA 3 & 4. row of huge utility lines down on highway with refinery fires lighting misty air inside eye of Hurricane Laura 5-16. various shots of semi truck tipped over, and widespread damage in/near Carlyss, LA during eye of storm 17. high winds on backside of Hurricane Laura hit SID: Simon Brewer

 

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Temple Mount Faithful Reacts: Kushner ISLAMIZES THE HOLY JEWISH TEMPLE MOUNT

תנועת נאמני הר-הבית וארץ ישראל

TEMPLE MOUNT & LAND OF ISRAEL FAITHFUL MOVEMENT

P.O. Box 18325, 8 Aliash Street, Jerusalem, Israel

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            B'esrat HaShem

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      With the Help of G-D

A NEWSLETTER TO LOVERS OF ZION AND ISRAEL IN THE WORLD

THE ADVISER OF PRESIDENT TRUMP, JARED KUSHNER, ISLAMIZES THE HOLY JEWISH TEMPLE MOUNT… AND DECLARES:

“THE QUESTION OF THE TEMPLE MOUNT IS SOLVED.  THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN ISRAEL AND THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES WILL OPEN THE DOOR FOR MILLIONS OF MUSLIMS FROM THE ENTIRE WORLD TO COME TO THE HOLY TEMPLE MOUNT IN JERUSALEM AND WORSHIP THERE!!!...”

THE TEMPLE MOUNT FAITHFUL AND ISRAEL: “NEVER EVER!!!  HOW DARE YOU MAKE THE HOLY TEMPLE MOUNT OF THE G-D AND PEOPLE OF ISRAEL AN INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC SITE?!”

On August 18th, 2020, the chief advisor of President Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, stated to journalists in Washington: “The question of the Temple Mount is solved.  According to the ‘Deal of the Century’, the agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates will open the door for millions of Muslims from the entire world to come to the Holy Temple Mount and worship there!!!”

The Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement sent an open declaration to Jared Kushner and to President Donald Trump in the name of the G-D and people of Israel and the Faithful Movement:  “Your words will never ever come to pass!  How dare you Islamize and convert the Holy Hill of the Temple Mount, the Holy Mountain of the G-D of Israel, where He chose to dwell among His people Israel and to put His Name forever, the location of the First and Second and Third Temple, soon to be built, as you have stated, to a mosque that will become open, after the agreement with the Arab Emirates, to millions of Muslims from the entire world?!  The meaning of your statement is that the Holy Jewish Temple Mount will become just an Islamic site, no longer the site of the Holy Jewish Temple.  More than this, Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the G-D and people of Israel, will become flooded by millions and millions of Muslims and the Holy Land of Israel, the Land of the Bible, and the kingdom of Israel will be covered by tens of millions of Muslims.  The clear meaning of this is: the dream of the Islamic world, that they never gave up, to eliminate Israel from the map of the world, will come to pass.  Mr. Kushner, how dare you and how do you have the chutzpah, primarily as a Jew, to take the place of the G-D of Israel, to cancel and change His Word and His promise to Israel?!  How dare you make the Holy Temple Mount where the G-D of Israel chose to dwell among His people Israel an Islamic site?  Who gave you the permission and the authority to do this anti-godly and anti-Israel evil act?!  Along the passage of history, countless foreigners tried to destroy the Holy Temple and the Holy Temple Mount and make it a foreign site.  All of them disappeared from the stage of history and so it will be with your shameful evil plan.  Soon, very soon, it will be thrown into the garbage bin of history forever.”

The Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement

P.O. Box 18325, 8 Aliash Street, Jerusalem 91182, Israel

Telephone: +972.2.581.5308 

www.templemountfaithful.org      

Email: salomon.salomon69@gmail.com

MONSTER CAT 4 – Unsurvivable Storm Surge – Landfall in Louisiana

 

GET OUT NOW! Monster Cat 4 Hurricane Laura To Hit Texas, Louisiana with 'Unsurvivable Storm Surge’

 

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 8/26/2020 -- Hurricane Laura Update + Earthquake activity spreads from W. Pacific to West Coast USA

THE HORSESHOE CRAB

(BBC from wikipedia)

Vaccines Rely on Horseshoe Crab’s Blue Blood for Purity

Every spring, 500,000 Atlantic Horseshoe Crabs are collected by four biopharmaceutical companies as they crawl to the mid-Atlantic beaches to lay their eggs.  The helmet-shaped arthropods are placed upside down on a rack, and a sterile needle is inserted near the heart to collect about 30 percent of their blood.1 2  The crabs are returned to the ocean and their blood, often referred to as “blue gold” due to it’s color and worth of $60,000 per gallon in a global industry valued at $50 million per year, is used to purify vaccines, injectable drugs and other sterile pharmaceuticals.3 4

Unique Horseshoe Crab Blood Reacts to Endotoxins

Commonly referred to as a “living fossil,” horseshoe crabs have an open circulatory system with no adaptive immune response.  Instead, they have survived unchanged for an estimated 200 million years through an innate immunity based on granular amebocytes in their blood.5 These amebocytes contain the proteins of its blood clotting system, which are released when they come in contact with unwanted organisms like Gram negative bacteria.6 Endotoxin is a lipopolysaccharide found on the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria (such as E. coli, Salmonella, Shigella, Neisseria, Haemophilus influenza, and Bordatella pertussis)7, and when it contaminates vaccines and other injectable pharmaceutical products it can cause fever, shock, organ failure and death.8 The coagulation proteins extracted from horseshoe crab blood, called lysates, produce an instantaneous, visible reaction to endotoxins, which has driven commercial demand from pharmaceutical and biomedical companies to confirm drug and medical device safety.9

Even an iota of endotoxin can prove to be fatal.10 John Dubczak, General Manager at Charles River Laboratories, which manufactures and globally distributes lysate products, reports, “Detection is down to one part per trillion, but we can take it down to a tenth of a trillion, and further orders of magnitude more sensitive.”11

Synthetic Alternative Not Available

From the 1940s to the 1970s, rabbits were used to screen pharmaceutical products for endotoxins.  In 1956 medical researchers Fred Bang and Jack Levin observed that horseshoe crab blood clotted and formed a solid mass in the presence of endotoxin, leading to the development of an endotoxin assay known as the Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL) assay, which was approved for use by the FDA in 1977.12 13 In Asia, there is a similar test called TAL (Tachypleus amebocyte lysate) which takes its name from an Asian species of crab, Tachypleus tridentatus.

In response to concerns about dwindling populations of horseshoe crabs, the time required to catch and harvest blood from crabs, and variability that occurs with pooled batches of harvested animals, new endotoxin tests using synthetically produced recombinant Factor C (rFC) were developed to relieve pressures of a growing demand for the LAL assay.14 Although this synthetic rFC alternative was approved for use in Europe in 2016, the American Pharmacopeia, which sets the scientific standards for drugs and other products in the U.S., on June 1, 2020 declined to place rFC on equal footing with crab lysate, claiming that its safety is still unproven.15

Horseshoe Crabs An Endangered Species

Horseshoe Crabs can take ten to twelve years to reach maturity, and only three out of 100,000 survive their first year of life.  Once they reach adulthood, the crabs have few non-human predators and are expected to live ten or more additional years.  It is only once they reach maturity that they begin their spring migration from the shelter of deeper waters to their spawning beaches.  In the U.S., mortality of horseshoe crabs due to LAL production is estimated to be relatively low—8 to 15 percent.  However, in Asia, mortality is 100 percent because after bleeding, the crabs are sold to secondary markets for food and chitin production.16

As a result of overharvesting for use as food, bait and biomedical testing, and because of habitat loss, the American horseshoe crab is listed as Vulnerable to extinction and the Asian tri-spine horseshoe crab is classified as Endangered on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.  The two additional Asian horseshoe crab species will soon be listed on the IUCN Red List.17

In 1990 biologists estimated 1.24 million American horseshoe crabs spawned in Delaware Bay, a main egg-laying spot and prime collection point for companies.  By 2002 that number had dropped to 333,500, and have remained at that level.18  Throughout the 1980s and 1990s biomedical harvesting seemed sustainable, and the pharmaceutical industry claimed that only three percent of the crabs they bled died.  However, by the 2000s, annual horseshoe crab counts during spawning season revealed smaller numbers and a 2010 study found that as many as 30 percent of the bled crabs ultimately died—ten times as many as first estimated.19

The depletion of horseshoe crabs can become a weak link in the food chain that reverberates with potentially disastrous consequences for species that rely on horseshoe crab eggs as vital food sources, such as diamondback terrapins, striped bass and flounder, and many migratory birds.

Global Demand for Vaccines and Medical Devices Rising

Demand for lysate assays to test biomedical devices and vaccines is likely to rise significantly in the next two decades due to population growth and aging, and medical advancements to improve or prolong life.  Any product or device that comes in contact with blood, lymph, spinal fluids or mucus membranes that do not pass through the body by an oral pathway must be tested for the presence of endotoxins.

Although vaccines are a small segment of the global pharmaceutical market, they represent the fastest growing segment of this industry and are heavily reliant upon endotoxin detection.20 This growth of consumer demand places pressure on the diminishing horseshoe crab resource needed for endotoxin detection.

“All pharmaceutical companies around the world rely on these crabs.  When you think about it, your mind is boggled by the reliance that we have on this primitive creature,” says Barbara Brummer, state director for The Nature Conservancy in New Jersey.21

Article and References: NVIC

(Here’s how we’ll know when a COVID-19 vaccine is ready.)

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ARTICLE

Horseshoe crab blood is key to making a COVID-19 vaccine—but the ecosystem may suffer. Conservationists worry the animals, which are vital food sources for many species along the U.S. East Coast, will decline in number. nat'lgeographic

Each spring, guided by the full moon, hundreds of thousands of horseshoe crabs clamber onto beaches across the U.S. mid-Atlantic to lay their eggs. For hungry birds, it’s a cornucopia. For drug companies, it’s a crucial resource for making human medicines safe.

That’s because these animals’ milky-blue blood provides the only known natural source of limulus amebocyte lysate, a substance that detects a contaminant called endotoxin. If even tiny amounts of endotoxin—a type of bacterial toxin—make their way into vaccines, injectable drugs, or other sterile pharmaceuticals such as artificial knees and hips, the results can be deadly.

“All pharmaceutical companies around the world rely on these crabs. When you think about it, your mind is boggled by the reliance that we have on this primitive creature,” says Barbara Brummer, state director for The Nature Conservancy in New Jersey.

Every year, pharmaceutical companies round up half a million Atlantic horseshoe crabs, bleed them, and return them to the ocean— after which many will die. This practice, combined with overharvesting of the crabs for fishing bait, has caused a decline in the species in the region in the past few decades.

In 1990, biologists estimated 1.24 million crabs spawned in Delaware Bay, a main egg-laying spot and prime collection point for the companies. By 2002, that number had dropped to 333,500. In recent years, numbers of Delaware Bay spawning crabs have hovered around the same amount, with the 2019 survey estimating about 335,211. (The pandemic canceled the 2020 crab count.)

Catching crabs and harvesting their blood is time-consuming, and the resulting lysate costs $60,000 per gallon. In 2016, a synthetic alternative to crab lysate, recombinant factor C (rFC), was approved as an alternative in Europe, and a handful of U.S. drug companies also began using it.

But on June 1, 2020, the American Pharmacopeia, which sets the scientific standards for drugs and other products in the U.S., declined to place rFC on equal footing with crab lysate, claiming that its safety is still unproven.

Starting in July, Swiss-based Lonza will begin manufacturing a COVID-19 vaccine for human clinical trials—and they’ll have to use lysate in the vaccine if they plan to sell it in the U.S. (Here’s how we’ll know when a COVID-19 vaccine is ready.)

Human health and safety, especially for something as high stakes as the coronavirus vaccine, is paramount, says Brummer. But she and other conservationists fear that without rFC or other alternatives available, the ongoing burden on horseshoe crab blood for COVID-19 vaccines and related therapeutics may imperil the crabs and the marine ecosystems that depend on them.

A written statement from Lonza says that testing the company’s COVID-19 vaccine will not require more than a day’s worth of lysate production from the three U.S. manufacturers.

________________________________

Lysate: a preparation containing the products of lysis of cells [a substance that detects a contaminant called endotoxin]

Lysis: Lysis is the breaking down of the membrane of a cell, often by viral, enzymic, or osmotic mechanisms that compromise its integrity. A fluid containing the contents of lysed cells is called a lysate. Wikipedia

Endotoxin: What are the effects of endotoxins?

Control of cell product contamination with endotoxins during the manufacturing is important for two reasons. First, endotoxins are dangerous when entering the blood, causing fever and a wide range of other possible effects including aseptic shock and death.

Heated ‘Discussions’ Over Rosh HaShana Restrictions

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Wednesday will hold a special meeting to discuss the plan for operating synagogues during the coronavirus crisis. 

[This comes after Gamzu threatened to quit unless .... The Haredi Parties are fighting for the Mispallelim. Shuls range in size from gigantic to very small. These details must be driving the Israelis crazy. What could be the spiritual meaning to all this? All CV restrictions are bringing the non-religious into the inner workings of the religious world. Are they going to be judged for their attitudes and cooperation? This is bringing the non-religious into the halachos that we live by that they also are responsible for. Will this awaken anything in their neshomos?]

The meeting comes at at the request of the Knesset's haredi parties, and will also include discussion on travel to Uman, Ukraine, for Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year). 

 Housing Minister Yakov Litzman (UTJ), Interior Minister Aryeh Deri (Shas), and coronavirus czar Professor Ronni Gamzu will participate in the meeting. 

Gamzu's plan for opening synagogues was put together by former IDF Central Command Commander Roni Numa. Under it, the number of worshipers allowed in a synagogue is dependent on the number of entrances the synagogue has, the number of cells (capsules), and the city's rating according to the "traffic light plan." It also limits the number of worshipers to one person per four square meters (43 square feet), up to a maximum of 1,000 people. 

According to News 12, Gamzu has agreed that each of a synagogue's exit can serve up to two capsules, but the haredi ministers are insisting on allowing three capsules per exit. 

The sides also disagree on what constitutes a "red" city under the traffic light plan. Gamzu wants one of the parameters to be the percentage of new cases from the total number of *new cases, so that people will not be afraid to get tested. 

However, the ministers want the parameter to be the percentage of new cases out of the city's entire population. Under the plan, prayers will be permitted during the holiday season under the open sky, regardless of a city's rating. 

These prayer gatherings will be limited to 250 people, who will be in groups of 20. Prayers will be held sitting down, with marked seats. 

Holding prayer sessions with over 250 people will require the approval of the local authority and the district health office. 

In the Western Wall plaza, prayer capsules in areas which allow for sitting down will contain 50 people each, and there will be an empty chair separating members of different households. 

Where there is standing room only, prayer will be limited to groups of up to 30, with a two-meter distance between worshipers.

______________________

*the ‘testing methodology’ should be extremely scrutinized for its authenticity and accuracy by an “independent” medical laboratory not connected to any governmental scrutiny or international body.

The “Law of Return” is Meant to Bring Jews to Israel, not “The ‘Grandson’s Clause’ for Non-Jews

UPDATE: 'The Law of Return was only intended to bring Jews to Israel' MK Smotrich defends his proposed amendment to the Law of Return, pushing back on criticism from Yisrael Beytenu.  Read the vitriol from Liberman arutzsheva 

MK Smotrich Touches Third Rail of Israeli Politics: Amending Law of Return 

JPress  On Wednesday, MK Bezalel Smotrich will submit to the Knesset plenum a bill to repeal the grandson clause of the Law of Return.

In January 1970, in the wake of the “Who is a Jew” dispute in Israel, an IDF officer named Benjamin Shalit who married a non-Jew petitioned the High Court of Justice and demanded that the Interior Ministry register his children as Jews.  The petition was accepted by a majority of five judges against four, the High Court ruled that the child of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother is considered a Jew.

The National Religious Party (which begot Habayit Hayehudi which begot Yamina) demanded an amendment to the Law of Return and to prevent the recognition of anyone who is not a Jew according to Jewish law as a Jew.

In response, then Justice Minister Yaakov Shimshon Shapira proposed a compromise according to which only the son of a Jewish mother or a convert will be considered a Jew, but the Law of Return will also apply to the spouse and children of a Jew, thus downgrading the value of Jewish law in deciding who may become a citizen of the Jewish State.

Following the proposal of MK Moshe Kol (Independent Liberals which disappeared a short while later), Shapira’s proposal also added recognition as a Jews of an individual whose grandfather was a Jew, or whose spouse is the grandson of a Jew.

The reason for the amendment regarding the grandson stems from the popularly held principle behind the Law of Return: to recognize as a Jew anyone whom the Nazis, in the Nuremberg Racial Laws of 1936, denounced as a Jew.

The Nuremberg Laws define as a Jew, among other things, a person who is descended from at least three grandparents who are complete Jews by race; or a mixed race citizen of the Reich who is descended from two completely Jewish grandparents.

Someone apparently intended to exceed the Nazi “demand” and recognize as a Jew even those against whom Nazi law would not discriminate as Jews – those who had only one Jewish grandfather. The amended law was finally passed in the Knesset on March 10, 1970.

MK Smotrich claimed this week: “The ‘grandson’s clause’ that was included in the Law of Return in the 1970 amendment was not in reference to the Nuremberg Laws. Look in all the annals of the Knesset, the committees and the plenum, and you will not find a trace of it. Even in many rulings of the High Court that discussed the rationale of this law, you will not find a trace of it.”

“Where did this story pop up from?” Smotrich asked and answered: “This is simply an invention of Amnon Rubinstein, who served as an MK at the time of the legislation, and decided that this is the reason…”

[Note: I personally have many gripes against Amnon Rubinstein, who also served as a Supreme Court justice – but I find it hard to believe that he proposed an amendment to the law which he pulled out of his feverish brain.] (I’m not sure if this is the writer of the article or actually by Smotrich)

Smotrich continued: “In the 1990s, with the welcomed waves of immigration from the Soviet Union, and to justify the immigration of hundreds of thousands of non-Jews, along with the million Jews who immigrated to Israel, the rationale of the Nazi racial laws was pulled up and fixed in the national consciousness. Just so no one would feels comfortable enough to appeal it. From there, the road to demagogic arguments was very short…”

Smotrich added: “We have a responsibility for the future of the Jewish people. For the future of its existence. That’s the story. No less. The State of Israel cannot afford huge assimilation rates as there are in the United States and Europe. There are already more than three hundred thousand non-Jewish immigrants in Israel. Unfortunately most of them do not convert. The continued importing to Israel of non-Jews who have no affiliation with Judaism, under the auspices of the grandson clause, may in future generations produce severe assimilation, jeopardize the continuity of the Jewish people, and abolish the Jewish majority and character of the state.” 

“In the early 1990s, with the fall of the Iron Curtain and the immigration of Soviet Jews to Israel, it was still possible to somehow justify the grandson clause,” Smotrich suggested. “Descendants of Jews who were assimilated under duress from the communist regime that persecuted Judaism virulently – and those descendants felt a real affinity for the Jewish people and their country and were part of the first waves of aliyah and were received here with great love and with open arms.”

“It is also very important to make an effort to convert them today, to complete the process, and for them to become Jews according to Halacha in order to prevent assimilation.

“But today, thirty years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, it can be determined with a high degree of certainty that anyone who felt a real affinity for the Jewish people and their state and sought to immigrate for Zionist motives had already done so. Today it is already migration for economic reasons that has almost nothing to do with Judaism and Zionism.”

And here the MK from the Yamina party landed a glove on the main opponent of his amendment: “Those for whom Judaism amounts to nothing more than cultural folklore, for whom assimilation in the halachic sense is just fine, can see the potential of the grandson clause to import Knesset mandates for his political party which is dripping hatred for the state’s Judaism. This is what the Israel Beiteinu party has done for many, many years in the Absorption Ministry.”

Israel Beiteinu controlled the Absorption Ministry for many terms, and in the opinion of many, including yours truly, has done a good job in absorbing many immigrants from all over the world – not just from Russia.

Israel Beiteinu Chairman Avigdor Liberman wrote an angry response to Smotrich’s proposed amendment: “I was shocked to find out that on Wednesday a bill by MK Bezalel Smotrich to repeal the Law of Return comes up in the Knesset. The exact same law that in the 15th Knesset was submitted by Rabbi Chaim Druckman (NRP).”

Liberman is obviously exaggerating: Smotrich is not trying to repeal the Law of Return, only amend it to correct an obvious problem. But politics is not the art of the accurate.

“There is no greater folly than raising this legislation at the present time, which will only add to the agitation and division among the citizens of Israel,” Liberman wrote. “Therefore, I call on MKs Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked to demand that Bezalel Smotrich remove his divisive initiative from the Knesset agenda immediately.”

[me:  could the timing of this be pertinent to the effort of the “New Regulations Created in the Corona Era” to quell the immigration of religious Jews, and “too many immigrants in general” affecting the “corona economy”?? This is such a ball of wax, as they say, that it’s difficult to know really what they mean. See also: World Jewry in Jeopardy and Welcome Home Foreigners…  ]

It’s hard to disagree with Liberman on the timing of the Smotrich amendment, even while agreeing in principle with Smotrich on the need for the correction.

More than that, it is hard to imagine a move that would be more harmful to the Yamina party’s success story over the past month, when it appears to be siphoning more than ten seats from disappointed Likud voters. An attempt to keep potential immigrants out before the next election could erase the gleaming coating given by chairman Naftali Bennett to Yamina, which today is being portrayed as a sane right-wing party whose desire is to act effectively for the benefit of all the citizens who are struggling with the epidemic and the economic crisis.

But, of course, if anyone in Israeli politics can shoot himself in the foot inside his own tent, it is the heirs of the NRP on the right.

“The complications of the long and cursed exile certainly produce complexities and borderline cases,” Smotrich declared. “These are addressed in the first generation and in the possibility of subsequent generations to convert and immigrate to Israel as Jews. They justified, perhaps, a temporary extension of the right of return, with whose challenges we are required to face today with extensive efforts to convert. But it in no way justifies irresponsibility for the future of the Jewish people.”

Perhaps the Jewish people would agree to hold their worries about the future for a few months?