Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir addressed the fatal ramming that occurred Tuesday night on Route 3533 at the entrance to Komemiyus, vowing firm enforcement and backing police action following the death of a Satmar yeshiva bochur.
The victim, identified as Naftali Zvi Kramer, a talmid of the Satmar Yeshiva, was killed in the incident. In a video message, Ben Gvir offered condolences to the Kramer family while delivering what he described as an unequivocal deterrent message regarding the safety of the chareidi public.
“I send my condolences to the dear Kramer family and I back the Israel Police for arresting the driver who committed this horrific act,” the minister said. “The blood of our chareidi brothers will not be treated as free.”
In an earlier statement, Ben Gvir wrote: “My heart is with the dear Kramer family in this difficult hour, and I send my deepest condolences over the heavy tragedy in which their son, Zvi Kramer, of blessed memory, lost his life. There are no words that can comfort such pain; the people of Israel embrace you.”
He added: “I fully back the Israel Police, who acted decisively to locate and arrest the driver who carried out the ramming. Anyone who chose to drive recklessly in a manner that resulted in the taking of a human life must be punished with the full severity of the law. I trust the police to carry out their work to the end.”
Concluding his remarks, Ben Gvir stressed: “And from here, a clear message to my chareidi brothers and sisters: your blood is not free. We will not allow such cases to pass in silence, and we will ensure that these severe incidents are handled firmly, decisively, and without compromise.”
Meanwhile, questions surrounding the circumstances of Kramer’s death continue to mount, bolstered by disturbing footage and eyewitness accounts from the scene.
Central to the investigation is a video recorded from inside the bus involved in the incident. In the footage, passengers can be heard reacting in alarm as the driver accelerates toward a group of yeshiva students standing on the roadway.
“What is he doing? He’s crazy… those are yeshiva students, stop! What did he do, idiot!” one passenger is heard shouting in the moments before the fatal impact.
Investigators say the fact that passengers noticed the driver’s abnormal conduct prior to the collision strengthens suspicions that the driver acted with, at minimum, a disregard for human life. The case remains under investigation by the Israel Police.
{Matzav.com}By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
We learn in this week’s parsha about the makkah of choshech, a darkness so thick that it paralyzed an entire civilization. Mitzrayim was plunged into a suffocating blackness that immobilized its people, leaving them unable to move, see, or function. Yet, amid that oppressive gloom, the Jewish people walked with light wherever they went. Two worlds existed side by side: one blinded and frozen, the other illuminated and alive; one enveloped by darkness and one enjoying bright light.
Chazal teach that only one-fifth of the Jewish people merited leaving Mitzrayim. The rest, tragically, did not survive. They lacked the inner strength of faith, the resolve to cling to Hashem and to the mesorah handed down through the generations. They perished quietly, concealed by the darkness itself, their loss unnoticed by a world that could no longer see.
The Rishonim and Acharonim regularly remind us that Jewish history does not merely repeat itself. It reveals itself. Maaseh avos siman labonim. What happened to our forefathers is a map for their children. The descent into, and emergence from, Mitzrayim foreshadows our own journey toward redemption. The Jewish people, scattered across continents and cultures, will face confusion, hardship, and suffering until the destined moment arrives.
We live today in ikvesa deMeshicha, the final footsteps before Moshiach. And just as the road out of Mitzrayim passed through choshech, so too our era is cloaked in darkness. It presses in from all sides, blurring truth, distorting values, and numbing sensitivity.
Those who cleave to Torah and mitzvos possess light, as the posuk states, “Ki ner mitzvah v’Torah ohr.” Torah illuminates when the world grows dim. It provides clarity, direction, and stability when everything feels uncertain. Those who abandon it, especially under pressure, often find themselves without anchors, sinking into moral confusion, greed, anxiety, and despair.
We confront a relentlessly shifting society, one eroded by fading morals and relentless temptation. New challenges arise daily. To merit Moshiach, we must work to preserve what makes us who we are. We must remember why we were created and what our mission is. Every decision we make requires us to consider whether this action brings the geulah closer or pushes it further away. If it adds light to the world, it deserves pursuit. If it deepens the darkness, it must be resisted.
The rise of tumah blinds many to what should be self-evident. The challenges and tests are severe. Emunah and bitachon are stretched. Tzaros multiply. The righteous suffer, the vulnerable falter, and Jews everywhere look ahead with apprehension.
We can only imagine the anguish during the darkest days of avdus in Mitzrayim, as multitudes of Yaakov Avinu’s descendants lost hope. Mitzrayim’s decadent culture beckoned them.
Then choshech descended, not as a sudden blow, but as a creeping presence, quiet and consuming. It did not announce itself with thunder or terror. It slipped in gently, disguising itself as progress, sophistication, and freedom. Those caught within it believed that they were moving forward, stepping into light, even as their vision dimmed and their footing faltered. The darkness was not merely the absence of light. It was a distortion of reality itself.
For those who mistook illusion for enlightenment, the darkness felt reassuring at first. Then the choshech thickened. It immobilized. It silenced. It erased. Those who had loosened their grip on emunah found that there was nothing left to hold them upright when the world went dark. Their disappearance was almost imperceptible, concealed beneath the shroud of night. No cries echoed. No monuments were raised. They simply slipped away, casualties not of persecution, but of confusion.
This was the strongest aspect of the makkah. The darkness did not destroy indiscriminately. It revealed who possessed inner light and who had extinguished it. The geulah was clearly unfolding just as Hakadosh Boruch Hu told them it would, but not everyone could see it, and not everyone could endure its demands. The promise of freedom passed over those who had freed themselves from the truth.
This is the enduring danger: What looks like light may, in truth, be darkness.
That danger did not end in Mitzrayim. It follows us into our daily lives — quieter now, more polished, more seductive. Choshech rarely announces itself as evil. It arrives cloaked in confidence, wrapped in slogans of self-expression, progress, and enlightenment. It promises ease, validation, and belonging. And like the darkness of Mitzrayim, it dulls our vision just enough that we stop noticing what we are losing.
In our world, false light abounds. Ideas that erode morality are marketed as compassion. Self-indulgence is rebranded as authenticity. The abandonment of limits is celebrated as freedom. Values once considered corrosive are elevated as virtues. While it all shines brightly, beneath the surface lies decay.
The test now is not whether we can recognize obvious evil, but whether we can distinguish truth from its clever imitations. Not everything that feels good is good. Not everything that is popular is right. Not everything that glows leads forward. Choshech today is the confusion that convinces a person to trade depth for comfort, meaning for acceptance, and eternity for immediacy.
Pursuing truth demands courage, because truth often resists convenience. When the world urges us to loosen our grip on principle in exchange for applause or ease, we must remember how quickly false light turns into immobilizing darkness.
In a world skilled at disguising corruption, the pursuit of truth becomes an act of quiet defiance. It is how we ensure that when darkness descends, we are not among those who vanish unnoticed, but among those who still shine, steady, enduring, and real.
In our world, darkness can masquerade as light, cloaked in language that sounds faithful to our mesorah but is, in truth, opposed to the sacred values and traditions handed down through the generations. It arrives gradually, through a steady drip of foreign ideas, methods, and attitudes, smoothly packaged in familiar words and comforting concepts. Disguised in this way, they slip past our defenses, quietly take root, and begin to reshape our thinking from within.
We must remain vigilant and steadfastly devoted to the mesorah of our rabbeim and parents, not allowing ourselves to be diverted from the path of growth, excellence in learning, and living as true Torah Jews. Our strength lies in constancy, in loyalty to the values that have guided our people through every golus and every challenge.
Just as a flashlight pierces the darkness of a night journey, so does the Torah illuminate our way. When a blackout descends, people do not surrender to the dark. They switch on lanterns to restore vision and allow life to continue. The Torah, as transmitted to us by our rabbeim, who are likened to malochim, is that lantern. As the world grows dim, gray, and confused, the Torah provides clarity, direction, and warmth.
At a time that cries out for illumination, each of us must add sparks. We must expose falsehood, clarify reality, and prepare ourselves and the world for Moshiach. So much is plainly evident, yet we watch as the world’s media, culture, and institutions twist facts to advance their agendas. In the broader world, darkness often prevails. Truth is optional, and falsehood carries little consequence.
Just as the Jews in Mitzrayim were subjugated by a hypocritical ruler and a duplicitous society, hypocrisy defines our age, increasingly so in its treatment of Jews. Nations with blood-soaked pasts lecture Israel for defending itself against terrorists bent on its destruction. Mass slaughter in Africa is met with silence, while Israel’s fight for survival sparks outrage and fixation. Iranians risk their lives in the streets demanding freedom, yet those who loudly chanted for a “Free Palestine” show no concern for them. Russia levels cities and commits atrocities, and it is met with weary acceptance. The spotlight remains fixed, relentlessly, on the lone Jewish state.
Meanwhile, Jews who once lived peacefully in Europe, the United States, and Canada now confront levels of anti-Semitism unseen in generations. From elementary schools to universities, hostility is not only tolerated but, in many cases, taught. Ancient libels, long thought buried, have been exhumed and repackaged as accepted truth. Modern media has given a megaphone to lunatics spewing disjointed hatred, allowing them to amass millions of followers eager to absorb the lies and once again fixate on the eternal scapegoat: the Jews.
The State of Israel was founded on the hope that sovereignty would end Jew-hatred and secure acceptance among the nations. History has delivered a harsher verdict.
Many are bewildered. Why the hatred? Why the double standards?
Those rooted in Torah are not perplexed. They know the answer articulated by the Ramban at the close of this week’s parsha.
Hashem brought the makkos to demonstrate that He created the world and governs it entirely. When He wills, nature proceeds as usual. When He wills otherwise, it bends instantly to His command. Nothing is random. Nothing is autonomous.
The Torah commands every generation to teach the next one about Yetzias Mitzrayim and its miracles. Doing so reminds us that Hashem orchestrates all events and that nothing “just happens.” There is meaning even when we do not grasp it. Hashem watches over each of us with care. Reward and consequence are real. We are never abandoned, and events do not unfold because of human moods, tyrants, rivals, or chance. They occur because Hashem wills them to, for reasons often beyond our understanding.
This is why so many mitzvos are zeicher l’Yetzias Mitzrayim. Remembering the makkos and the geulah from that sad situation reinforces that Hashem created, sustains, and directs everything in the world and in our lives.
As forces of falsehood and darkness contend for dominance, we must fortify our emunah and bitachon and live in a way that finds favor in Hashem’s eyes. We remain a nation of truth, morality, dignity, and integrity. We are not shaken by mockery, nor derailed by hypocrites, buffoons, or megaphone moralists.
Following the First World War, the Belzer Rebbe was forced to leave Belz due to hostilities and sought refuge in Hungary. As he began returning home, word spread that he would be stopping in the city of Holoshitz for Shabbos. Thousands of people from surrounding towns and cities made their way there, hoping for the rare opportunity to spend Shabbos in the presence of the great rebbe. Among them was Rabbi Naftoli Tzvi Ungar, who brought along his ten-year-old son. Many families did the same, unsure if they would ever have another chance to see the rebbe.
At the Friday night tish, however, the crowd was overwhelming. The young boy, eager to see the rebbe, was shoved and smacked by others pressing forward, all trying to catch a glimpse of the tzaddik. Terrified of being smacked again, the boy refused to accompany his father on Shabbos day, staying away from the rebbe’s tishen despite his yearning to be close.
At seudah shlishis, the rebbe asked Rabbi Ungar about his son’s whereabouts. Amazed that the rebbe had noticed that the boy was present at the Friday evening tish and then absent throughout Shabbos, Rabbi Ungar explained what had happened and that his son was afraid to return, lest he be smacked again.
The rebbe responded that Rabbi Ungar should tell his son, “Ah Yid tur nit dershreken ven her chapt ah gutteh klop — A Jew mustn’t be afraid when he gets a good smack.”
The rebbe was teaching that life is filled with moments that are uncomfortable, challenging, or even frightening. We encounter obstacles, slights, setbacks, and tests that shake our comfort and confidence. Yet, just as the “good smack” was not meant to harm the boy, so are the difficulties in our lives guided by Hashem’s hand. Nothing happens by accident, nothing is meaningless, and even what appears unpleasant can have purpose.
This lesson resonates profoundly when we consider the choshech of our own times. Just as Mitzrayim was shrouded in a darkness that paralyzed an entire nation, so does our modern world present illusions of light — values, ideas, and trends that glitter but are morally dim, that dazzle but corrupt. The darkness can be subtle, persuasive, and relentless. It challenges our vision, tests our faith, and tempts us to abandon what we know is true and sacred.
The Belzer Rebbe’s wisdom teaches that even in the face of such darkness, we need not fear. We may be jostled, misled, or even harmed by the pressures and smacks of life, yet Hashem’s guiding hand is always present. Just as the boy was reassured about the smack he had received, so must we trust that our emunah, bitachon, and perseverance are our light in the darkness. Torah and mitzvos are our lanterns, steady and reliable even when the world grows gray and black.
Illumination is not always gentle or easy. Sometimes the path forward requires courage, discipline, and steadfastness. Even when the world surges with hatred toward the Jewish people, even when false lights threaten to blind us, we hold fast to what we know is right, true, and eternal.
In a world of moral ambiguity, deception, and hostility, we must do our best to generate sparks of light. We must cultivate clarity, learn Torah on a deeper level, strengthen our emunah, be more careful in our kiyum hamitzvos, and shine by example. We should not shrink in the face of the dark, be deceived by illusions of brightness, or lose sight of the Divine guidance that watches over every Jew.
Torah and mitzvos are the enduring beacons of light, piercing the choshech that defines our time and carving a passage through the shadows. May they continue to illuminate our path, banish the darkness, and lead us swiftly to the coming of Moshiach.
{Matzav.com}
Vice President JD Vance will visit Minneapolis today to deliver remarks focused on “restoring law and order” in Minnesota and hold a roundtable with local leaders and community members, the White House said.
Vance’s visit comes as tensions have escalated in Minneapolis this month over Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations and investigations into alleged fraud involving the city’s Somali community.
Protests erupted in Minneapolis following two shootings involving federal law enforcement.
On Jan. 7, Renee Good, 37, was shot and killed as her vehicle struck an ICE officer, federal authorities said.
A week later, a federal officer shot an illegal alien in the leg during a traffic stop after officials said the man and others attacked the agent with a shovel and broom handle.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino, and other federal officials have visited Minnesota since Good’s death.
On Sunday, a number of anti-ICE protesters disrupted services at Cities Church in St. Paul. One of the church’s pastors, David Easterwood, allegedly leads the local ICE field office overseeing operations involving the arrest of illegal aliens.
The Department of Justice said it’s investigating the incident.
Vance last visited Minneapolis in September in the wake of the deadly shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church. He and second lady Usha Vance visited a memorial outside the church and held private meetings with families affected by the shooting.
{Matzav.com}
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U.S. President Donald Trump warned on Wednesday that Hamas would face swift destruction if it fails to lay down its arms, delivering the remarks during a broad address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
“We have peace in the Middle East,” he said.
Trump maintained that Hamas had agreed to disarm, despite public statements by the Palestinian terror group rejecting such a move.
“There are some little situations like Hamas, and Hamas has agreed to give up their weapons,” he asserted.
Acknowledging the difficulty of the demand, Trump added that Hamas’s long-standing reliance on armed violence complicates the process.
“They were born with a weapon in their hand, so it’s not easy to do,” Trump said.
Still, the president said he expects clarity soon on whether the group will comply. “That’s what they’ve agreed to, they’re going to do it,” he said. “And we’re going to know over the next two-three days, certainly the next three weeks, whether or not they’re going to do it.”
He followed with a blunt warning. “If they don’t do it, they’ll be blown away very quickly,” he said.
Trump also repeated his claim that dozens of countries are prepared to participate in a future International Stabilization Force for Gaza, emphasizing that many are eager to confront Hamas directly.
He said the “59 countries” interested in joining the force “want to come in and take out Hamas. They want to do whatever they can.”
Later, speaking to reporters at the start of his meeting with Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi in Davos, Trump doubled down on the threat. “If they don’t get rid of the guns, they’ll be very unhappy people. [They’re] going to have no choice. They will be eliminated,” he said.
The United States has faced difficulty persuading countries to commit troops to the proposed force, particularly amid uncertainty over whether Hamas would actually disarm and whether the Israel Defense Forces would continue withdrawing from Gaza. One country previously cited by Washington, Azerbaijan, announced earlier this month that it would not take part.
However, U.S. officials briefing reporters last week said sufficient commitments have now been secured and indicated that a formal announcement could come within roughly two weeks.
One of those briefings also appeared to confirm earlier reporting by The Times of Israel that the mission of the stabilization force has been narrowed, focusing on border security and humanitarian assistance rather than active military operations to disarm Hamas.
Under Trump’s Gaza peace framework, whose first phase took effect in October, the stabilization force is intended to assume responsibility for security in the Strip while the IDF gradually reduces its presence, which currently covers 53% of the territory.
{Matzav.com}
