Sefer Shoftim News Today

From the blog of Mordechai Soskil at The Times of Israel

From the blog of Chava Wulwick at The Times of Israel

From the blog of Mordechai Silverstein at The Times of Israel

This week’s haftarah is taken from the second perek in Sefer Yehoshua which, interestingly, relates events that took place before those found in the first chapter.

A large Religious Zionist congregation in North America slightly amends the standard text of the blessing for the State of Israel authored by Rav Yitzchak Herzog and Rav Ben Zion Hai Uzziel, the chief rabbis of Medinat Yisrael at the time of its founding in 1948. Instead of describing Medinat Yisrael as “reishit tzemichat geulateinu” (the beginning of the flowering of our redemption), it adds the word “shetehei” (that it should become) reishit tzemichat geulateinu.

From the blog of Arie E. Pelta at The Times of Israel

Parshat Naso During my days in yeshiva, or perhaps sometime after that, there was a joke that made its rounds within the yeshiva world and beyond. “Do you know who Shimshon’s father was?” “Of course! His was the husband of Eshet Mano’ach (Mano’ach’s wife)!” The joke is not repeated because of its humor but because of the underlying difficulty that it reflects, a difficulty that puzzles the serious students of Tanach. When analyzing the story of Shimshon’s birth in Sefer Shofti...