Sheba Hospital study: 2nd vaccine dose extremely effective and Herd Immunity Or Herd Insanity? By Rabbi Chananya Weissman and in response to this article Living Halachically, And Mathematically, During This Pandemic By Rabbi Gil Student and U of Haifa Researchers, Discover Earliest Grinding Tool Made by Humanoids and - Singing In The Rain (Gene Kelly) and FEATURED ARTIST OF THE WEEK SAUL BELLOW-- Writer and Nahariya four of four

View in browser Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement. Love Yehuda Lave Join my blog by sending me an email to YehudaLave@gmail.com Naharyia Beach 122020 four of four I fell in love with the little town of Nahariya on our trip on the 13th during Chanukah. I know something good when I see it and this was our second trip back staying over in a cute little Zimmer for $35 a night. Sheba Hospital study: 2nd vaccine dose extremely effective Antibody tests for people who received the second vaccine dose show they develop more antibodies than people with severe cases of COVID. People who received both doses of the coronavirus vaccine produce between six to twenty times as many antibodies a week after receiving the second dose, the communication and information division at Sheba Tel Hashomer Medical Center reported Monday. The announcement was based on the results of 102 people who had received the full vaccine. The antibody levels were also found to be higher than the levels recorded in people recovering from severe cases of coronavirus. The survey also shows that only two of those tested have developed low antibody levels, which stand at between one and four times as many as before. Prof. Gili Regev-Yohai, director of the Infection Prevention and Control Unit at Sheba Medical Center and editor of the survey, explained that these are people who have a suppressed immune system. As part of the vaccination campaign at Sheba Medical Center, 7,106 people received the first dose and 4,484 have received the second dose so far. Prof. Gili Regev-Yohai stated: "The results of the survey are in line with Pfizer's experiment and even better than expected. I expect that the survey results of the other people who participated will be similar. There is certainly reason for optimism." The Three Musketeers at the Kotel Herd Immunity Or Herd Insanity? By Rabbi Chananya Weissman Not too long ago, a daredevil was someone who climbed Mount Everest or jumped out of planes. That's all changed. Right now, I'm the bravest person in the room. I'm willing to shake hands. This past Shabbos, I made it known that I was willing to shake anyone's hand at my minyan. People responded with bewilderment, amazement, and maybe a touch of admiration. But there were no takers. They didn't want to die. Praying outside on a windy, frigid Shabbos was an acceptable risk, but shaking my hand was asking for it. The benefits were too small, the risk simply not worth it. I read the Torah on Shabbos, as I do almost every week. Those given an aliyah endangered their lives to stand closer to me than usual, but it was only for a few moments and worth the risk. Despite the added danger, however, none of them saw fit to bentch Gomel. Interesting. None of the men kissed the Torah. One man touched it with the end of this tallis, then brought the tallis up to his mask for a pretend kiss. Apparently, touching the outside of your mask with invisible death is safe enough and in line with current Health Ministry guidelines. I made a point of touching the Torah, then kissing my fingers, and announced that I was not afraid it would be the kiss of death. The other men looked at me with astonishment and nervous smiles, unsure if I was crazy, heroic, or the only sane one. That's what the fear and confusion have reduced us to. A Jew is not supposed to be like this. We have been reduced to a community of paranoid hypochondriacs, afraid that every breath will kill us, that the most basic human contact is an unreasonable roll of the dice, that everything we once considered normal and even obligatory must be off-limits indefinitely – in some cases even forever. This is insane. This is against everything the Torah teaches us. I am not denying that Covid-19 is real and should be taken seriously. At the same time, I am denying that the angel of death is roaming among us, felling people left and right. This is not a Biblical plague. There are a million ways we can die, and Covid-19 is just another one. I don't want to get it, and I don't want to give it to anyone else, but the terror that we have been living with for the last year is unjustified. Because of this terror, one-third of Israel is currently living in poverty, with many others barely hanging on. Drug and alcohol abuse is up, domestic abuse is up, suicides are up, social workers are overwhelmed, elderly people are dying from loneliness, children are traumatized, parents are falling apart, thousands of businesses have closed forever, and so much more. They tell us if it saves one life it's worth it. That is a ridiculous bit of propaganda. We are not saving any lives. We are destroying our society and everyone in it – except for a very privileged and powerful few. Worst of all, we are losing our minds, losing our spirits, losing our very humanity. Chazal teaches us that an impoverished person is like a dead person. The government has no moral right to impoverish millions of people, destroying their lives and their families, because it may conceivably protect other people's lives. They have no right to decide whose livelihood is essential nor whose life is more essential. Those who "lockdown" their populations should instead be locked up. If we know someone has Covid, we should not share the air they breathe. However, it is not the Jewish way to live in terror that everyone around us is infected and that every object is carrying a deadly virus. It is forbidden to think like this, and it is forbidden to live like this. It is forbidden to distance yourself from loved ones, friends, and strangers because you are afraid their breath or touch will kill you, or that yours will kill them when you have no concrete reason to believe anyone is infected. There is no precedent in our history for Jews to live this way, even during the worst of plagues. For a short time, maybe. Even so, it was never like this. The sick were quarantined, and those who were afraid to be near them were absolved from doing so. But it was never imposed on everyone; it was never claimed to be a Torah obligation that blotted out the rest of our existence. Indeed, gedolim and tzaddikim would often tend to the sick when others were afraid to go near them. Some of them eventually became sick themselves and died; many did not. That is part of life, and sometimes that is how life ends. If it was someone's time to go, at least it was through helping another person and truly living. Otherwise, it would have happened a different way. The notion that we must live in terror, our entire focus devoted to maximizing our chances for survival at the expense of actually living, was never entertained. That's not the Jewish way. It's insane. A Jew who is paranoid, who lives in fear of unseen, entirely speculative dangers is presumed to be a sinner (Berachos 60a). A Jew is supposed to fear sin – but he is not supposed to redefine normal human behavior as a sin so that he can justify being afraid. A Jew is supposed to fear G-d – but he is not supposed to claim God wants him to live in fear of everyone and everything simply to prolong his existence in this world. The Mishna (Shabbos 2:5) teaches that one may extinguish a candle on Shabbos for one of several reasons, including ruach ra'ah, an evil spirit. Rashi explains that the Mishnah is talking about someone who is tormented by what he sees around him, and when he is in darkness, he is more comfortable. The Rambam elaborates that some people are tormented by normal human behavior and social company, and extinguishing the light gives them relief. It is such a serious condition that one may violate Shabbos for them. My fellow Jews, this is the condition that has overtaken almost all of us. We are tormented by normal human behavior and social company, terrified that every breath or touch might kill us. This is not an appropriate reaction to a virus, even to a severe virus. It is a mental illness, and it is destroying us. It is indeed remotely possible that shaking hands, kissing a Torah, going to work, opening a business, riding a bus, and other such basic human behaviors will indirectly be the cause of our death. However, according to the Torah, we are not allowed to worry about such things – even when there is a virus going around. It is plausible that if we refrain from such normal behaviors, extinguish the candles, and live in darkness that we will prolong our lives. However, we must recognize that those who live like this are mentally ill. It is forbidden to impose mental illness on others. It is forbidden to declare that we must live with paranoia and hysteria for the sake of life. What life? The vast majority of us have thankfully survived the last year. But something inside most people is dead. May G-d help us wake up and bring the dead back to life. Living Halachically, And Mathematically, During This Pandemic By Rabbi Gil Student I usually enjoy Rabbi Chananya Weissman's opinion pieces, whether I agree with him or not. His latest article, however – "Herd Immunity or Herd Insanity?" (op-ed, January 1) – sadly misfires. Rabbi Weissman claims that if you don't shake hands with others and kiss the Torah in an outdoors minyan, you are a paranoid hypochondriac. He calls avoiding such behaviors insane. He doesn't deny that Covid-19 is real and dangerous. But he says there are many ways one can die, so why worry about the virus? This argument, however – as well as some of the other arguments he makes – runs counter to halacha, logic, wise public policy, and mathematics. During an epidemic we must act differently than during normal times. The Gemara (Bava Kamma 60b) says when a plague comes to a city, one should stay indoors. Later authorities, including the Rema (Yoreh De'ah 116:5), Maharshal (Bava Kamma 6:26), and Maharsha (Bava Kamma 60b), say you should flee a plague initially but if you can't, you should stay indoors once the plague takes hold. A Jew is supposed to act carefully and remain in safe places – or as safe places as possible – during an epidemic. We find such health advice in other areas of halacha as well. For example, poskim discuss whether a person may endanger himself to fulfill the mitzvah of visiting the sick (bikur cholim) if the ill person is highly contagious. The author of Bikur Cholim BeHalachah UveAggadah (ch. 10, n. 18) posed this question to Rav Nissim Karelitz and Rav Chaim Kanievsky, both of whom responded that it's forbidden (see also Tzitz Eliezer 9:17 ch. 5:4.) Rav Nissim Karelitz points out – as did Rabbi Weissman – that tzadikim in the past have cared for people with contagious diseases, but he says you may only follow their example if you have a special promise from a tzaddik that you won't be harmed. Otherwise, it's forbidden. Similarly, contemporary poskim rule that one shouldn't visit someone who's sick with Covid-19. Instead, reach out to him or her by phone or electronically (Rav Asher Weiss, Minchas Asher on Corona, vol. 3 no. 6; Rav Dr. Avraham Steinberg, The Coronavirus Pandemic 2019-20: Historical, Medical and Halakhic Perspectives, section 4; both available at KolCorona.com/halachot). In terms of logic and public policy, Rabbi Weissman confusingly discusses precautions and lockdowns as if they were one and the same. Precautions include wearing a mask, maintaining one's distance from others, avoiding closed areas with limited air circulation, washing one's hands with soap, etc. These don't directly cause economic hardship. Stores, restaurants, schools, and shuls can remain open with these precautions in place. People can maintain a distance from the ba'al keri'ah. Students can wear masks. In contrast to precautions, lockdowns forces businesses to close, and extended lockdowns cause tremendous economic hardship. They also lead to loneliness and depression – and other medical and psychological issues – especially among the most vulnerable. There are real costs to lockdowns, which we don't see discussed enough by the politicians and doctors making public policy. But you can oppose lockdowns while supporting precautions such as mask-wearing and social-distancing. To criticize people who choose not to kiss a Sefer Torah by claiming it causes economic hardship is to engage in faulty logic. Furthermore, incorrectly connecting precautions and lockdowns – or linking unrelated precautions – can lead people to adopt a dangerous all-or-nothing attitude. Encouraging such an attitude is bad public policy and also bad math. When I speak of bad math, I mean that it unwisely combines risks and causes false confidence. All of us live our lives as normally as possible while minimizing risks. We don't throw caution to the wind and say that since you can theoretically get a cancer diagnosis tomorrow, you might as well run into incoming traffic. At the same time, we don't allow life's risks to paralyze us with fear. Instead, we intuitively think mathematically in order to minimize our risk while going about our normal lives. During a pandemic, though, we must rebalance our behavior to account for the additional risks. If you engage in one behavior that carries a 10 percent risk, your chance of being safe is 90 percent. That seems pretty good. But if you engage in two independent behaviors – each of which carries a 10 percent risk – you are down to a safety level of 81 percent. Three such behaviors bring you down to 72 percent, and so on and so forth. I don't know that we can quantify the risk of everything we do, and many actions have a much lower risk factor than 10 percent, but we can still use this kind of thinking to inform our actions. Every independent risk we take increases our chance of infection, so we must minimize our risk to keep our chances of remaining healthy high. If your children attend yeshiva – as mine do – you have a big risk in your life. In order to achieve some sort of balance, I reduce my risk in other areas as much as possible by, for example, avoiding crowds and unnecessary interaction. Some people need more personal interaction. They should look elsewhere for ways to reduce their risk. Everyone has to find his or her own balance based on his or her unique needs while recognizing that risks that are even only somewhat independent combine quickly. However, most actions in shul are not independent, and that raises the possibility of false confidence. If nobody with Covid-19 is in shul, everyone in theory can shake hands and do whatever they want without concern. And most of the time, that's the case. However, if we cut corners on this or that precaution and nothing bad happens, we gain false confidence. Eventually we cut all the corners and observe almost no precautions at all. Even then, most of the time, we will be fine. Until that one time when someone with Covid-19 unwittingly comes to shul and there is an outbreak. I have personally seen this happen. I have seen fine people put out of commission for weeks because they cut corners, gained false confidence, and ultimately caught the virus. It's a mistake to be concerned only with the mortality rate of Covid-19. Every death is tragic but more common than dying from the virus is contracting it and feeling too sick to function for one or more weeks. A person in this situation is classified as a choleh she'ein bo sakanah, someone sick but not deathly ill, for whom we may violate rabbinic prohibitions on Shabbos. Because of the possibility of the person's condition deteriorating, we may even sometimes violate biblical prohibitions depending on the circumstances (ask your rabbi). The possibility that young healthy people who contract Covid-19 will become sick and bedridden for days or weeks is very real. We must therefore take basic precautions to avoid this outcome. The illness is highly contagious, but it's also preventable. While so many things could have gone wrong in the development and testing of Covid-19 vaccines, Hashem has blessed us with two successful vaccines and more coming soon. The pandemic is almost over. The Gemara (Sanhedrin 92b) relates that some members of the tribe of Ephraim attempted to leave Egypt 30 years before the time of the Exodus. Their impatience led to their deaths. Those of us who don't have antibodies and are still unvaccinated must remain cautious. If we avoid the impatience of some of the tribe of Ephraim, we will with Hashem's help remain healthy and productive throughout the remainder of this dangerous time period and then share simchos together once again as we did in times past. Singing In The Rain - Singing In The Rain (Gene Kelly) U of Haifa Researchers Discover Earliest Grinding Tool Made by Humanoids A new study published in the prestigious Journal of Human Evolution by researchers from the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa (A Middle Pleistocene abrading tool from Tabun Cave, Israel: A search for the roots of abrading technology in human evolution) identifies the earliest tool to date which was used for the erosion of various materials about 350,000 years ago, even before the appearance of Homo sapiens. The tool, a rounded dolomite pebble with microscopic abrasion marks on it, was discovered in the Tabun Cave, an excavated site located at Nahal Me'arot Nature Reserve on Mount Carmel, Israel, and has been recognized for almost a century as a key site for the study of human evolution. The cave was occupied intermittently during the Lower and Middle Paleolithic eras and bears evidence of a sequence of archaeological strata that indicate hominin activity in the last half-million years. The pebble in question is about 150,000 years older than any other vessel in the world that bears evidence of intentional erosion. Advertisement "The extraordinary discovery from Tabun Cave shows that hominins processed various materials through their erosion about 350,000 years ago, meaning that already at such an early stage a very significant technology was added to their 'toolbox' which teaches us that they could and wanted to process different materials in a variety of ways to improve and maximize the ways in which they utilized environmental resources," the researchers said. The unique find was unveiled as part of a new project led by Dr. Ron Schimmelmitz, Dr. Iris Gruman-Yaroslavsky, Prof. Mina Weinstein-Evron, and Prof. Danny Rosenberg with other partners in Israel and around the world. The study was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Garda Henkel Foundation, and the Dan David Foundation. While scanning the findings unearthed in excavations conducted in the cave by Prof. Arthur Jelinek of the University of Arizona in the late 1960s that have not yet been investigated and published, Dr. Schimmelmitz noticed clear abrasion marks on one of the pebbles, which are typical of much later stone vessels, but not from vessels dated hundreds of thousands of years old. A careful study of the item in the laboratories of the Zinman Institute of Archeology allowed for a systematic distinguishing between the weather erosion and the signs of use on its surface. The study, which was conducted together with Prof. Danny Rosenberg, head of the Laboratory for the Study of Stone Vessels and Ancient Food Processing Technologies, and Dr. Iris Grumman-Yaroslavsky, head of the Laboratory for the study of signs of use, focused on the microscopic analysis of the pebble. The results of the study showed that the pebble does, indeed, bear characteristic signs indicating that the ancient vessel was operated in a horizontal motion – from side to side, i.e. in a motion of grinding. To understand and interpret the patterns they identified under a microscope, the researchers conducted a series of controlled abrasion experiments using dolomite pebbles collected on the Carmel which were similar in their characteristics to the pebbles from the Tabun Cave. In these experiments, different materials were worn over different periods using the pebbles, which were immediately subjected to a microscopic examination in which the erosion models created in the experiments were documented. "While the results did not show a perfect match between the wear patterns documented on the unique pebble and those we documented in the experimental study we conducted, we found many similarities to the signs of wear and tear obtained as a result of processing animal skins and from this, we have concluded that the ancient pebble was used for the grinding of soft materials, although we do not yet know exactly which ones," said Dr. Grumman-Yaroslavsky. "While the tool is seemingly 'simple,' its early appearance and the fact that it has no parallel at such an early stage of human evolution give it global importance," the researchers said. According to them, the early emergence of erosion technology demonstrates the depth and complexity of the chain of technological innovations associated with human evolution. When did hominins start to erode food and other substances? Where did it happen, and why? These are some of the questions that concern the researchers of human evolution. "In fact, the evolution of the next technology reflected in stone tools directly reflects the models of change in the abilities of the ancient hominins to shape their environment," said Dr. Schimmelmitz, adding, "The period of 200-400 thousand years ago is a period of important technological innovations and significant changes in human behavior. For example, the use of fire becomes part of the day-to-day routine, and the use of base sites from which they go out for various activities becomes a way of life. In this way, erosion technology does not appear by its own but is intertwined with an array of broader changes that to some extent foreshadow the complex behavior familiar to us from later hominins – the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens." As mentioned above, the next evidence of tools being used for erosion is found only about 150,000 years later. Was this ability lost until it was "found" again after so many years? "Although we were not able to tie the food processing item with certainty, there is a high probability that it was used this way," Prof. Rosenberg concluded, adding, "Be that as it may, to us, who are engaged in the archaeology of food and its methods of processing in the various periods, from prehistory to the present day, the small pebble is of great importance because it allows us to trace the earliest sources of the abrasion action. and how cognitive and motor abilities that have evolved over the course of human evolution have finally evolved into important phenomena in human culture to this day, and whose origins involved the erosion and development of techniques for food production, such as moving to a permanent settlement, agriculture, storage, and later to an increase in social and economic complexity." FEATURED ARTIST OF THE WEAK SAUL BELLOW-- Writer 2 min 23 sec UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ARCHIVES Novels and novellas Dangling Man (1944) The Victim (1947) The Adventures of Augie March (1953), National Book Award for Fiction Seize the Day (1956) Henderson the Rain King (1959) Herzog (1964), National Book Award Mr. Sammler's Planet (1970), National Book Award Humboldt's Gift (1975), winner of the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction The Dean's December (1982) More Die of Heartbreak (1987) A Theft (1989) The Bellarosa Connection (1989) The Actual (1997) Ravelstein (2000) Short story collections Mosby's Memoirs and Other Stories (1968) Him with His Foot in His Mouth and Other Stories (1984) Something to Remember Me By: Three Tales (1991) Collected Stories (2001) Plays The Last Analysis (1965) Bellarosa Connection, The Actual, Ravelstein (2014) Translations "Gimpel the Fool"' (1945), short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer (translated by Bellow in 1953) Non-fiction To Jerusalem and Back (1976), memoir It All Adds Up (1994), essay collection Saul Bellow: Letters, edited by Benjamin Taylor (2010), correspondence There Is Simply Too Much To Think About (Viking, 2015), collection of shorter non-fiction pieces See you tomorrow bli neder End this crazy Lockdown allready We need Moshiach now! Love Yehuda Lave Yehuda Lave, Spirtiual Advisor and Counselor Jerusalem, Jerusalem  Israel 972-585043210 YehudaLave@gmail.com You received this email because you signed up on our website or made a purchase from us. Unsubscribe