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NEW YORK NEWS

 Daniel Christopher Hyden, a 44-year-old substance abuse counselor and author of The Sober Addict, was ordered held without bail after allegedly driving drunk with a suspended license and killing three people while injuring eight others at a Fourth of July celebration on the Lower East Side. Hyden, whose license had been suspended four times, attempted to evade sobriety tests by closing his eyes after the crash. He faces multiple counts of vehicular homicide and a potential 25-year prison sentence. The crash, which occurred after Hyden was refused entry to a bar for being too drunk, has sparked outrage, particularly from relatives of the victims, who include a disabled woman, her son, and another woman.

NEW YORK NEWS

 NYPD Officer Emilia Rennhack, 30, was among four people killed on Friday when an allegedly drunken driver, Steven Schwally, crashed his minivan into a Long Island nail salon.

In this week’s parshah, we are looking at the end of the 40 years of Klal Yisrael being in the desert. Klal Yisrael is now approaching Eretz Canaan (Yisrael) from the south.  The land of Edom was between them and Eretz Canaan. Hashem instructed Moshe Rabbeinu not to attack Edom, Klal Yisrael’s cousins, Eisav’s descendants. Moshe sends messengers to the king of Edom, requesting permission to take a shortcut through their land to reach Eretz Canaan faster. They would stay on the highway and even pay for food and drink. Edom refuses and threatens to attack. Klal Yisrael is forced to take the long route around, heading towards the east. 

Parshiyos B’Haaloscha, Sh’lach, Korach – these are all parshiyos where B’nei Yisrael had incredible nisyonos (challenges, tests). Even for the nation who lived with the Sh’chinah: Eating mann, drinking water from a rock, being surrounded by the Clouds of Glory (knowing that outside the clouds was a vast dangerous desert), and seeing the pillar of cloud/fire above the Mishkan – they had nisyonos on their level that we can’t even relate to. (However, we must realize that over a 40-year period, they had ten nisyonos in which they could’ve done better! We have, like, ten nisyonos over a 40-minute period that we could have done better!)

Recap: Jordie and Zevi have to leave the plane, since they recognize the known terrorist. Jordie tells the flight attendant that his friend is having a recurrence of Covid. Zevi keeps coughing. They get permission to leave the plane. Then they are told that they will be flying to England instead.

Recap: Jordie and Zevi are told not to go back to Zevi’s aunt. They are picked up by a cab and the driver says the code and hands them tickets for a flight to Israel. He drives them to the airport. They board the plane and then Zevi notices a woman seated across the aisle, wearing a black burka covering her face, and she has a mole on her forefinger.