The Purpose Driven Rabbi

Posted on October 27, 2022 by Luke Ford

If you wanted an example of a great congregational rabbi, you couldn’t do any better than Rabbi Elazar Muskin of Young Israel of Century City (YICC). Forty years into his job, he still exudes purpose, passion and astonishing IQ. He’d be the ideal Jew to write a Judaic version of Rick Warren’s classic, The Purpose Driven Church: Every Church Is Big in God’s Eyes. Warren’s books have shaped how many rabbis, including Orthodox rabbis, run their congregations.

Even though I haven’t seen the rabbi in years, if he entered my vision, I would immediately straighten up and fly straight. For example, I’d be ashamed to walk past him on Shabbos not wearing a suit. I couldn’t tell a dirty joke for at least an hour afterward. Everybody transmits a force field, but Rabbi Muskin’s force field pulses at 50,000 watts. He lives in LA, but you might feel him in Chico at night if there aren’t too many clouds.

If R. Muskin hadn’t become a rabbi like his father and grandfather, he may have ended up as a professor of history or literature.

As he wraps up one chapter of his life (rabbi of YICC), I wonder what he’ll do next?

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The Balfour Declaration

Posted on October 27, 2022 by Luke Ford

Wikipedia says: “The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British government in 1917 during the First World War announcing its support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population. The declaration was contained in a letter dated 2 November 1917 from the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland.”

So who was this Lord Balfour? Obviously, a man of high integrity and stern moral principle.

Simon Kuper writes in his superb 2022 book Chums: How A Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over The UK:

Lord Curzon (Eton and Oxford, where he was president of the Union) [critiqued] Arthur Balfour (Eton and Cambridge), Britain’s foreign secretary after 1916. Curzon describes “the lamentable ignorance, indifference and levity of [Balfour’s] regime. He never studied his papers, he never knew the facts, at the Cabinet he had seldom read the morning’s Foreign Office telegrams, and he never looked ahead. He trusted to his unequalled powers of improvisation to take him through any trouble and enable him to leap lightly from one crisis to another.”

Curzon (chancellor of Oxford University when he wrote this, and Balfour’s future successor as foreign secretary) is also, of course, describing Boris Johnson.

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We Choose Our Wage & Crime Rates (10-26-22)

Posted on October 26, 2022 by Luke Ford

00:50 John Fetterman stumbles through his debate with Dr Oz
15:00 We can set wage rates by dialing back immigration
22:00 We can choose our crime rates
26:00 Why was Elon Musk so threatening?
45:50 Alex Jones
55:50 Alex Jones complained Glenn Beck stole his shtick
57:00 Conservative media will always take your side
58:00 Conservative media supported Nick Fuentes, presented him as a guileless kid
1:01:45 Richard Spencer cares more about his dog than the Palestinians
1:05:00 Richard Spencer wants to become the anti-Christ
1:10:30 Power, Privilege, Parties: the shaping of modern Britain

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The Right To Sex (10-25-22)

Posted on October 25, 2022 by Luke Ford

00:45 Tucker Carlson on extremist ideologies
08:00 Hillary Clinton calls Donald Trump an illegitimate president
10:30 Why are only Democrats allowed to deny election results?
20:20 WP: A ‘right to sex’ is not the cure for what ails so many men
24:20 Sam Vaknin on the psychology of victimhood movements
36:00 Diversity, Debate, Decline | Amy Wax & Richard Hanania
49:30 Jennifer Rubin: There is no compromise with election deniers
55:00 Rep. Jamies Raskin declares holy war on Russia
1:01:00 PBS: LIES, POLITICS AND DEMOCRACY

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Kanye West vs the Jews (10-24-22)

Posted on October 24, 2022 by Luke Ford

02:00 Tucker Carlson on American crime
13:00 Richard Spencer looks forward to the apocalypse
15:00 Examining the posture and grace of political leaders
45:00 Hasidic School to Pay $8 Million After Admitting to Widespread Fraud
49:00 Report: Banner saying ‘Kanye is right about the Jews,’ hung over the 405 Freeway in Los Angeles
52:00 Dooovid joins
1:04:15 Ricardo joins to talk Kanye West
1:32:00 Liberals urge Biden to rethink Ukraine strategy

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