CYHSB Weekly 11/3/23

Volume 18, Issue 6

November 3, 2023

CYHSB WEEKLY Cooper Yeshiva High School for Boys

Volume 18, Issue 6 🏀 The CYHS Invitational: Back And Better Than Ever🏀 Page 3 CYHS Tournament bracket update Page 4

Governor Lee (le ) and Congressman Kusto (right) stand with CYHSB School.Presidents. Photo: J.J. Stein

Sefer Bereishis: The Purpose of Creation Page 5

Opportunity of a Lifetime: Visit from Tennessee Leaders Nadav Lowell (25’) In an extraordinary display of unity and bipartisanship, The U.S. The House of Representatives passed House Resolution 771 expressing unwavering solidarity with Israel as it grapples with the threat of terrorist attacks by Hamas and other extremist groups.

The resolution received an overwhelmingly positive response: 412 votes in favor, a mere 16 against, and the remaining Rep.s either present or not represented, underlining a collective stance against terrorism and solidifying a national commitment to supporting Israel.

The resolution, titled "Standing with Israel as it defends itself

Cooper Clicks Page 6 Scintillating Speaker Saga: The House in Shambles Page 7

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against the barbaric war launched

by Hamas and other terrorists," was passionately championed by Tennessee Rep. David Frank Kustoff, an esteemed alumnus of the Margolin Hebrew Academy.

Rep. Kustoff's dedication to this cause became apparent when he, alongside Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, visited the MHA-FYOS, showing their staunch solidarity with Israel and the local community.

Our Governor and Rep. were graced with a heartfelt welcome from Rabbi Weiner, who extended gratitude to all those involved in making this significant gathering possible. Jessica Baum followed, introducing Rep. Kustoff and

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Cont. from last page: stop evil, but you best not look the reinforcing Tennessee's solidarity underscoring the urgency of other way." with the people of Israel. standing by Israel in the face of In an interview, Lee shared his Rep. Kustoff echoed the rising anti-Semitism. administration's commitment to sentiment, describing the House Rep. Kustoff in his speech shared enhancing safety and fostering Resolution as a rallying cry for the his concerns about the global acceptance for Jewish citizens in State of Israel. He noted that it was complacency that had taken root and Tennessee, along with increasing the House of Rep.s’ first legislation emphasized the necessity to reassess funding for school security. under Speaker Mike Johnson and he the security situation in the Middle Governor Lee emphasized the was optimistic about continued East. He articulated the United potential for collaboration between support for Israel under the new States' obligation to stand shouldermajor cities in Tennessee and his leadership. Kustoff further delivered to-shoulder with its ally, a message to Jewish Israel. He also schools in the state, highlighted his role in emphasizing the crafting legislation aimed importance of informing at preventing aid or relief students about the funds from falling into brutality of Hamas and the hands of Hamas the media's portrayal of terrorists. events. He urged parents Kustoff further to be cautious in their expounded on his approach to discussing contribution to securing these complex topics with security grants for the their children. school and his The robust bipartisan collaboration with support for House Executive Director Resolution 771 and the Brandy Flack, especially deeply moving gathering in their work with the at the Margolin Hebrew National Security Grant Academy underscores the Program (NSGP). This collective condemnation collaboration allowed for of terrorism and resolute the implementation of support for Israel within enhanced security the House of Rep.s. This systems and the reinforces America's deployment of armed steadfast commitment to guards, assuring the its Middle Eastern ally in safety of the school and these challenging times. its occupants.

As students, we Le to right: Jesicca Baum, Brandy Flack, Rabbi Weiner, Gov. Bi Lee, Following Rep. always hear of the Kustoff's compelling TN Rep. David Koustuf politics on the news or address, Mrs. Flack whatever trickles in over introduced Tennessee the Shabbat table, but to Governor Bill Lee, who witness our governmental was lauded for the state's representatives come to the future work with Mayor-elect Paul unwavering support. Governor Lee school and speak to us is a true Young. reiterated the importance of "raising opportunity to feel connected to the After the program, both visitors voices" for Israel during these trying system that determines the fate of made comments to the press; times, highlighting the allocation of our homeland.

We hope to have this Governor Lee, while addressing a $200,000 grant toward safety and chance again in the future and thank questions about aid, expressed his security for houses of worship. He all our school administrators and determination to ensure that United stressed the immediate contact his members of the community who States funds will not inadvertently agency had with state synagogues to made the event possible. support terrorist activities. He express support following the affirmed Israel's right to enter its attacks, emphasizing that "you can't territory and protect its citizens, 2

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November 3, 2023

The Memphis Invitational: Back And Better Than Ever

Raanan VanderWalde (25’) and Ethan Vanderwalde; Sophomores The Cooper Yeshiva High School Jack Kampf and Benny Frieden; and National Invitational Tournament is freshmen Jonah Siegel, Eli Wiesfogel, back for the first time since 2019. We Ilan Lennon, and Daniel Kahane. sadly missed it in the past few years due to COVID-19, and all of Type to enter text Memphis is excited for the tournament to return. The basketball tournament hosts 16 teams from yeshiva high schools all around the country.

Running from Thursday, November 2nd until Sunday, November 5th, this year’s Invitational will be hosted at the Memphis Sports and Event Center.

We encourage everyone to attend the games and cheer on our Cooper Macs.

The basketball tournament is structured as a tiered bracket. The first round of games will decide whether the team will be placed in Tier 1 or Tier 2.

From there, all teams will be competing for their tier’s first-place spot. Before the tournament began, Type to enter text all 16 teams were seeded based on a variety of factors that determined their rank amongst the other teams.

Coaching the team will be MHA The top 4 are North Shore, Valley Athletics Director Kobi Pinto and Last Week’s Solution Torah, Magen David, and Rochelle Assistant Coach David Winestone.

Zell. Our Cooper Macs are ranked The team has spent countless weeks 14th. Many players and fans entered practicing and preparing for this the Invitational’s bracket challenge in tournament. All the players are an attempt to predict the outcome and definitely ready. Coach Pinto said: win prizes.

“This tournament is not only an Making up this year’s Cooper excellent opportunity for our players Macs are seniors Yosef Vanderwalde, to showcase their skills but also a Adam Felsher, Avi Becker, and chance for them to come together as a Yitchak Rubin; Juniors Rafi Goldkin team.”

Round One’s games began on Thursday with all 16 teams playing the team seeded opposite them. Our Cooper Macs played the third-seeded Magen David Warriors. Games continued throughout Friday and will continue Saturday night and Sunday, when the final games, including the championship game, will be played.

Make sure to come watch these games, especially the Macs.

Admission is free.

The Invitational also hosts exciting Shabbos programming for the 300 high schoolers attending. The players, including those on the Cooper Macs, are staying at the Hampton Inn & Suites Hotel and will be davening Friday night at the Young Israel of Memphis. They will be eating Friday night meals at many homes around the community that were generous enough to host the boys. From there all players will head towards the Cooper Yeshiva High School for an oneg and a performance from comedic hypnotist Ronnie Baras. Shabbos day will feature davening in the Irby and Bernice Cooper Beit Midrash, followed by lunch at the school.

The highly anticipated weekend that all of Memphis has been waiting for is finally here. 16 teams from around the country have traveled to compete in one of the largest and most competitive basketball events of the year. Everyone should go watch and root for the Cooper Macs as they play their last two games over the next two days at the Memphis Sports and Events Center.

Radical Riddles What is so fragile that saying its name breaks it?

Whoever sends the correct answer in to Amit Zalman at amit.zalman@mhafyos.org first will CYHSB Weekly win an extra special prize.

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CYHS Invitational Bracket (47-24) (50-30) (73-66)

(73-31) (60-38) (45-30)

(48-46) (50-39) Last Week’s Solution (75-36)

(73-66)

(60-56)

(92-47)

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Sefer Bereishis: The Purpose of Creation Avi Becker (24’) Within ancient literature, two narratives clash, forcing a stark contrast between sight and hearing.

Judaism and Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex," emerge as compelling embodiments of this relationship.

Judaism places a particularly special emphasis on the sanctity of hearing and the resounding voice that spoken word can conjure, presenting a paradigm in which encounters with the Divine can transcend natural and visual limitations. The heavily juxtaposed, Greek drama, “Oedipus Rex” sets forth a narrative laced with motifs of sight and blindness, utilized as profound metaphors for knowledge and ignorance. Both narratives, despite their distinct differences, reveal incredible novelties about humanity’s never-ending quest for comprehension. Judaism champions the cause for the sanctity of language, whereas Oedipus Rex elucidates for the reader, the troubling consequences of sight denuded of true understanding.

As early as we hear of man’s quest for understanding in the Torah, we see an emphasis on not just hearing, but specifically hearing bereft of vision. As it says “Then God spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no image; there was only a Voice . . . Be very careful since you did not see any image on the day that God spoke to you out of the fire at Horeb.” God intentionally mentions images. This forced lack of omission places a unique attention on vision, asking for us to 4

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Cont. from last page: choreograph our own. Those who stray from it. The resonance of came before us may have danced their spoken word, thereby, becomes the dance, but we are to dance ours. This primary vessel by which the divine is is in stark contrast to ancient Greek understood. thought. Judaism hosts a reverence Sophocles’ interjects.

There, his titular character, possessing physical sight, is paradoxically blind to his own fate and the truths of his city and circumstances. He doesn’t journey using the sight he needs: that of knowledge, instead, he uses his physical sight, leading him to a harrowing realization of the truths, the ones that only exist due to his own actions, only occurring at the end of his story, when he not so coincidentally Free wi is an important concept in Judaisism. Source: sacrifices his physical sight. The blind seer, uncommonfaith.com Tiresias, serves as the poignant contrast in the for free will but does not deny it. At Last Week’s Solution story—a figure devoid of physical the heart of Judaism’s theological sight, yet possessing a profound debate lies a spectrum in which one insight that pierces his veil of must find the balance between Divine ignorance. “You have eyes to see intervention and human agency. Rav with, but you do not see yourself, you Dessler writes in Michtav M'Eliyahu, do not see the horror shadowing that the reason, possibly, that many every step of your life, the blind today are attracted to deterministic shame in which you live, you do not doctrines that deny free will is that see where you live and who lives with they have so little personal experience you, lives always at your side.....But of overcoming their desires. Despite the curse of your mother, the curse of being a quite morbid possibility, it your father will whip you, whip you seems to find some reality in our again and again, wherever you turn, it world. In Judaism, we do not need will whip you out of Thebes forever, that physical sight to determine what your clear eyes flooded with we can do. Interestingly, similar to darkness” he shouts in a quiet tone. A Greek mythology, we found ourselves subtle message, delivering a notable looking for metaphorical sight concept: a foreshadowing of events to allowing us to choose our own come. A hint to the inevitability of the actions. However, in Judaism, we are prophecies. No matter how much he not bound by God. may try, they are inescapable. This Rav Saadiah Gaon notes that the eventually leads Oedipus to gouge his Torah would not make sense without eyes out; "past present and future are this free will. Why even announce in not made clear to mortal eyes" only to such a dramatic way all the the gods are they known. commandments if we have no choice Judaism denounces this idea. How whether to do them? The Ramchal can one not be in control of his own answers that the entire Creation is an fate? Judaism both composes a dance act of beneficence for the one thing of words, but also allows us to Hashem could be described as

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“lacking” — the opportunity to give to another. That is the meaning of the verse, “ki olam chesed yibaneh — the world is founded on chesed.” This points out that possibly we are here to find our path to bring good to the world.

Ramban, however, attempts to note that the purpose of Creation was for Hashem’s glory, as cited in Pirkei Avos (6:11), citing the verse, “All that is called by My Name and for My glory, I created it, formed it, also I made it” (Yeshayahu 43:7).

While the two perspectives appear to be far removed from each other, Rabbi Wiederblank, in his book “Illuminating Jewish Thought” offers reconciliation. “Hashem created the world in order to shower His benevolence on man, as the Ramchal writes. That is the Divine perspective. But from our perspective, our purpose is to glorify Hashem in this world and to acknowledge His handiwork in all of Creation, as the Ramban writes.

Hashem does not “need” or “desire” our praises or even our mitzvos. The multiplicity of praises in our davening, for instance, are for our good, not His.” Weaving this back into our original topic, we can find that the main way we sanctify his name is through our words, through davening, and through speaking. Why? Why this rather than images? Merely due to the fact that this voice creates a resounding sound that lasts through eternity.

Together they weave a tapestry of necessity, one that proves the requirement for both sight and hearing for a full understanding of the universe, yet allowing for a lack if it can be made up for using its metaphorical counterpart.

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Cooper Clicks Top Right: Amazement of the oating basketball found at the cooper tournament. Top Left: Rabbi Gersten Davens for the Cooer Macs VICTORY. Bottom Left: Congress man Kusto is extremely excited to meet the president.

Bottom Middle: Presidents of the CYHSB VS the nal boss. Bottom Right: Benny freidan attempts to use a basketball to y away from the hand monster.

Photos: JJ Stein

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Volume 18, Issue 6

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Scintillating Speaker Saga: The House in Shambles Davi Baum (27’) In a surprising turn of events, Kevin McCarthy became the first ever Speaker of the House to be ousted from office three weeks ago. The Speaker of the House is responsible for maintaining order, managing the house’s proceedings, and governing the administration of business. It plays a pivotal role in American politics. The government was in crisis during the 21-day period it took to elect a new speaker, but the House of Representatives has now allowed Mike Johnson to take the stand.

But why was former Speaker and Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy ousted in the first place?

Most believe the decision to remove him reflects discontentment of the far-right members of the Republican GOP who were dissatisfied with how McCarthy worked with Democrats to avoid a government shutdown. McCarthy pushed for the Senate's 88 to 9 vote for the Stopgap bill, legislation allowing for funding for millions of federal workers as well as pulling funding from Ukrainian aid.

This decision displeased several GOP votes resulting in McCarthy's eventual ousting from the House.

Mike Johnson has been a republican member of Congress since 2017, representing Louisiana. The Christian nationalist served as deputy whip for the GOP and has leadership experience as the vice chairman for the republican conference. In an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Johnson stated: “What does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun?’ Go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it. That’s my worldview. That’s what I believe.”

Jonson is anti-abortion, condemns LGBTQ marriage, questions climate science, and has opposed clean energy efforts. Johnson also led congressional actions to overturn the 2020 election. Further information regarding Johnsonian CYHSB Weekly

Mike Johnson, the newly elected Speaker of the House. Source: house.gov policy can be found on his podcast; Truth Be Told with Mike and Kelly Johnson where Johnson discusses hot topic issues “from the church perspective”.

As the house speaker under the Presidential Succession Act, he is third in the line for presidential succession, right behind the vice president. The speaker controls the legislation agenda and committee assignments, meaning he controls the legislation that will be considered and permitted to come before the House of Representatives for consideration and decides who is assigned to various committees.

The speaker of the house also gets to govern what bills are considered on the floor of the house. These rules reflect the tremendous power this position holds in our government.

Though Mike Johnson is a rightwing conservative, he still strives to find common ground across the aisle. This is regarded in his address to Minority Leader Democrat Hakeem Jeffries. "I know we see things from very different points of view. But I know that in your heart you love and care about this country and you want to do what's right and so we're going to find common ground." Johnson hit the ground running, saying at a press

conference: "We're going to dispense with all the usual ceremonies and celebrations that traditionally follow a new speakership because we have no time for either one." Johnson gave a further statement following the vote: "The American people's business is too urgent at this moment. The hour is late. The crisis is great."

The unexpected change in House leadership and the ascension of Mike Johnson to the role of Speaker of the House exemplify the intricate dynamics of American politics. The power shift not only highlights the influence of the Speaker's position but also signifies the ongoing tension within the GOP and the delicate balance required in today's political landscape. Johnson's rapid transition into the role reflects the pressing need of the nation to address critical issues.

His commitment to seeking common ground while maintaining conservative values will be closely watched as the nation grapples with complex challenges. The speaker of the house remains a pivotal figure in American governing, tasked with steering the nation's legislative body during a time of urgency and peacetime alike.

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This weekʼs issue is in honor of Josh Kahane for his generosity in coordinating the CYHS tournament.

Contact Nadav Lowell at nadav.lowell@mhafyos.org if you would like to sponsor an issue. This could be to honor a loved one, or to simply get your word our to our

CYHSB Weekly Staff Editor-in-Chief Ezra Davidovics | ezra.davidovics@mhafyos.org Associate Editor-in-Chief Nadav Lowell | nadav.lowell@mhafyos.org Managing Editor Raanan Vanderwalde | raanan.vanderwalde@mhafyos.org Head of Torah Affairs Avi Becker | avi.becker@mhafyos.org Layout Editors Amit Zalman | amit.zalman@mhafyos.org Ra Davidovics | rafael.davidovics@mhafyos.org News Editor Akiva Levine | akiva.levine@mhafyos.org Yitzy Ryp | yitzchak.ryp@mhafyos.org Photographers and Complaint Managers J.J. Stein | jacob.stein@mhafyos.org Jack Kampf | jack.kampf@mhafyos.org CYHSB Weekly Staff Jojo Ardestani | jonathan.ardestani@mhafyos.org Ra Goldkin | rafael.goldkin@mhafyos.org Benny Freiden | benjamin.freiden@mhafyos.org Ilan Lennon | ilan.lennon@mhafyos.org Jonah Siegel | jonah.siegel@mhafyos.org Omer Zalman | omer.zalman@mhafyos.org Avigdor Zweihorn | avigdor.zweihorn@mhafyos.org Davi Baum | david.baum@mhafyos.org Administrative Advisors Mrs. Ashley Brown Rabbi Dov Rossman

From the Editor: Shows of solidarity with Israel and lobbying our local and national governments for their help in Israel are some of the most important actions we can take right now. This we week we had an terri c opportunity for both of these things with the Governor and a Congressman coming to our school. Lets continue to show our support in this Invitational tournament.

- Ezra Davidovics

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