Rabbi Paul Moses Strasko - Sinai Sermon - 17th August 2019 - Vaetchanan 5779

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Or should I say, “Vive La Jerusalem!”? As it turns out, although I am studying tons of Hebrew, the survival language I am being forced to use is French. It seems that in someone’s infinite wisdom, I have been placed in a dorm of 100% native French speakers, (er, um, with an average age of 19—use your imagination regarding chaos levels) and when I say that my spoken French is better than their spoken English, that is not actually saying anything good about my French. Let’s just say that if I was an RA responsible for this floor, I would have probably already quit. But enough of that—who really needs to study or sleep? Lots of Miscellaneous Thoughts . . . So we have a fragile cease fire, and for this I and many others are saying “Baruch HaShem.” The general feeling here seems to be one of collective “we’ll see,” and the Israeli saying of “Better a critical editorial than a praiseworthy obituary” contains much truth and perspective. How does anyone weigh defense...
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