THE TWIN BRIEF
Upgrading your tzitzit (the right way), Ukraine says its missiles are stuck in a Pentagon inbox, Japan launches a trip to a potato-shaped moon, oil climbs again, the Rays punch a World Series ticket, and tonight is McDavid vs. Kaprizov plus NBA Opening Night.
Dvar Torah
The tzitzit glow-up
Late in this week’s parasha, Hashem gives Avram an upgrade: “Your name will no longer be Avram — your name will be Avraham” (Bereshit 17:5). Same guy, one extra letter, a whole new level. So here’s a fitting question from the Ben Ish Chai’s Year One halachot for Lech Lecha: can you upgrade your tzitzit?
Short answer: yes. He says you’re allowed to take the strings off a tallit (big or small) to put on newer, nicer ones, because making a mitzvah look beautiful (hiddur mitzvah) is a good reason. That’s true even though the old strings get retired respectfully and don’t go onto another garment. And if one corner’s string snaps and you want all four corners to match, you may redo all four so the set looks even. He also says that if your windings were counted to match Hashem’s Name, untying them isn’t like erasing the Name.
One catch: untie, don’t snip. If untying is a pain, some say you may just cut the old strings off, but others forbid it, and he says to take the strict view seriously. Rely on cutting only when it’s really hard and you truly need to.
Teen takeaway: a glow-up is great when it’s for the right reason, and the method matters. Nicer tzitzit for the mitzvah? Go for it. Just take the extra two minutes and untie them instead of grabbing the scissors. Avraham got a new letter, not a new person. Upgrades build on what you already have.
Source: Ben Ish Chai, Halachot 1st Year, Parashat Lech Lecha (on replacing tzitzit for hiddur mitzvah, redoing all four corners to match, untying windings counted to Hashem’s Name, and cutting vs. untying old strings; Hebrew text checked on Sefaria); Bereshit 17:5 (Sefaria). Teen reference, not a personal ruling. Ask your rav for your own practice.
World
Ukraine’s missiles on hold · Hormuz heats up again · Houthis aim at Saudi oil
- Ukraine: A Russian missile and drone attack killed at least seven people in Ukraine, including children, as Zelenskyy went to Norway looking for more help from Europe. U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff also landed in Oslo on Tuesday. Zelenskyy told U.S. senators the Pentagon is deliberately holding up interceptor missiles that European countries already paid for, and says the shipment is waiting on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s signature. A White House official says the U.S. is still playing a “constructive role” (AP, The Guardian).
- Strait of Hormuz: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard claimed Tuesday that it shot down another U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone and that two tankers using a U.S.-backed route hit Iranian sea mines and caught fire. None of that is independently confirmed. Iran says its offer to reopen the strait still stands, but only if the U.S. lifts its blockade and eases sanctions first (CBS News).
- Saudi Arabia: Yemen’s Houthis claimed six attacks over two days on Saudi targets, including Aramco oil sites and Riyadh’s main airport. Saudi Arabia hasn’t confirmed them, and Reuters couldn’t verify them, but Riyadh did postpone its big yearly investment conference (Xinhua, Business Recorder).
- Europe: The fuel, food and housing protests that started in France are spreading across the continent (AP).
Tech
Next stop: a potato moon · DeepSeek banned from U.S. agencies · A 1992 speed hack
- Mars moon mission: Japan’s space agency launched MMX Monday. It’s headed for Phobos, Mars’s lumpy, potato-shaped moon, which is only about 14 miles wide. The plan: arrive in August 2027, drop a small French-German rover, land twice to scoop at least 10 grams of dirt, and bring it to Australia in 2031. That would be the first sample ever returned from the Mars system. The big question it’s trying to answer is whether Mars’s moons broke off Mars in a giant crash or are captured asteroids (Space.com, ESA). Russia tried this in 2011, and that spacecraft never made it out of Earth orbit.
- DeepSeek: The Department of Homeland Security ordered all federal civilian agencies to stop using the Chinese AI company’s products and remove them, warning DeepSeek could send sensitive data about government workers to China (CuratedAI briefing).
- Old trick, new speed: Anthropic says its Claude Code tool now responds up to about 3× faster, and a big part of it was turning on gzip, a file-squishing standard from 1992. Lesson: sometimes the fix isn’t new tech, it’s using the boring tool you already had (The Primary Source).
Money
A Monday bounce · Oil near a five-month high · Earnings night
- Monday’s close: S&P 500 7,690.73 (+0.41%), Nasdaq 26,430.89 (+1.11%), Dow 51,966.03 (−0.07%). Tech won back some of last week’s losses as worries about AI companies’ debt cooled off. Treasury yields rose, though, as bond traders got ready for a possible Fed rate hike because energy prices keep pushing inflation up (WSJ).
- This morning: Nasdaq futures were down about 0.5% early. Brent crude was up 1.7% to around $111 a barrel, near a five-month high, because of the Houthi and Gulf attacks. A South Korean AI company, Elice Group, dropped almost 30% on its first day of trading (Reuters via Investing.com).
- Report cards: GM reports before the bell, then SpaceX and Netflix after the close today. Meta and Tesla report Wednesday.
Sports
McDavid vs. Kaprizov tonight · Rays win the pennant · 49ers 6-0 · NBA tips off
- Oilers (6-1-1) vs. Wild (6-2-1), tonight 9:00 PM ET: A five-game homestand starts at Rogers Place, and both teams have 13 points. McDavid leads the NHL with 23 points, Edmonton leads the league at 4.63 goals per game, and Minnesota counters with Kirill Kaprizov (10 goals) and one of the stingiest defenses around at about 2.33 goals against per game (NHL.com, ESPN, Inside The Rink). Next: Carolina on Thursday.
- MLB: The Rays beat Cleveland 7–3 in Game 6 to win the ALCS 4–2. Yandy Díaz guaranteed a win on Sunday and then backed it up with a two-run homer, Junior Caminero hit his first career playoff homer, and series MVP Freddy Peralta went 5⅓ innings. It’s Rays vs. Brewers in the World Series, and neither team has ever won one. Game 1 is Friday night in Milwaukee, which is Shabbat, so the highlights will be waiting after Havdalah (AP).
- NFL: On Monday night the 49ers almost blew a 23–3 lead but held on to beat Washington 23–17 with a sack on the final play. San Francisco is 6-0 (AP, ESPN).
- NBA Opening Night (all NBC/Peacock): Celtics at Pistons 3 PM ET · 76ers at Knicks 7 PM ET, after the Knicks raise their championship banner at the Garden around 6:30 · Thunder at Spurs 9:30 PM ET, a rematch of last spring’s West finals (NBA.com, CBS New York).
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