Jewish History with Rabbi Dr. Dovid Katz

What mistakes has Israel made recently? How can they be fixed?

Their crying over it was not simply a matter of petulance!

The Left has tried to assimilate Jews, the Right to exterminate (because in their eyes assimilation does not work)

The Talmudic metaphor of מַפְתֵּחוֹת בְּיָדָיו שֶׁל הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא and its culinary application in 18th century Hasidic Practice

Some ideas for your seder

The passionate speeches of the נוֹדַע בִּיהוּדָה and his son against the theft of their intellectual property

In Israel right now, people are praying the enemy missiles should "pass over"!

Some thoughts on בַּל יֵרָאֶה עַל בְּלִיעוֹת וְחָמֵץ הַטַּל בְּשִׁשִּׁים. Plus, plagiarism in rabbinic literature, eradicating bad traits, and other matters.

Why were the Jews told to lie to the Egyptians? Isn't that the ultimate חילול השם? "Jews are all about money!"

The poisonous rhetoric of both men. But the Ford Antisemitism called-forth an eloquent protest from America's leading non-Jews. R Katz reads this public letter on this episode.

The קָרְבָּנוֹת offered on the בָּמוֹת were (Maimonidean) concessions to popular superstitions OTOH the קָרְבָּנוֹת offered in the בֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ were sublime in nature and were (Nachmanidean) constituent-elements in the metaphysical universe

Will תְּחִיַּת הַמֵּתִים occur for the benefit of the Dead, or the benefit of the Living?

It is NOT about the affliction, it is about the hope for the messianic redemption in the near future. This is Abarbanel speaking to the battered Sephardim in 1496!

Can "Christian Zionism" flourish in the aftermath of the Cold War? Or is it a phenomenon confined to older Americans?

Trump joked about the Pearl Harbor Attack of 1941. Actually, this resulted in Hitler stupidly declaring war on the USA (thus sealing his own doom) , PLUS providing the Americans with an insight into his thinking, thanks to the blabbermouth Japanese Ambassador in Berlin Baron Oshima

Man-made idols do not offer moral criticism!

Looks? Bucks? Yichus? Higher salary? Higher job position? Class? Equal Partner in the Marriage?

For the first year after the original Passover, there were basically no korbanos (with a few exceptions) in Judaism

Israel agreed not to "out" ex-Nazis in the West German Government. A grateful Germany bankrolled Israel's secret nuclear project. An previously unknown detail of the relationship between Ben Gurion and Konrad Adenauer

What did the Jews imagine was going to happen when they were told God would "pass over" their houses that night?

The German food crisis of 1942 as a cause of the setting-up of industrial genocide centers in Occupied Poland in 1942

High- Office will have the power to tempt the powerful to be corrupt even in the Messianic Era!

Shabbos - God the Creator of literally everything, hence beyond transcendent Mishkan- God something that has a "presence" (שְׁכִינָה), hence somehow immanent

Abarbanel burns with indignation at the falsehoods to which the Jews had been subject at the Disputation of Tortosa (1413) and the hostile misrepresentations of Aggadah in Raymond Martini's infamous 'Pugio Fidei" cynically hurled at them

That which becomes impure can be made pure again; a nation that becomes homeless can regain their home