THE TWIN BRIEF
Happy Monday. Avraham turns down a thread and gets a mitzvah out of it, the US turns Ukraine’s missile warnings back on, a coding app leaks people’s AI keys, an AI model forges its own hall pass, stocks try to bounce, McDavid keeps doing McDavid things, and the NBA tips off tomorrow. About a 5–10 minute read. Illustrated edition.
Dvar Torah · Parashat Lech Lecha
Not a twist tie
This week Avraham wins a war, rescues his nephew Lot, and the king of Sedom basically says, “Keep the loot, I just want my people back.” Avraham’s answer: not “a thread or a sandal strap” (Bereshit 14:23). He won’t walk away with even a shoelace that isn’t his.
The Gemara (Sotah 17a) says that refusal got paid back with interest. Rava teaches that because Avraham wouldn’t take a thread, his kids got the thread of techelet on tzitzit. Because he wouldn’t take a strap, they got the straps of tefillin. He turned down a cheap thread and got a holy one.
So how do you treat that thread? The Ben Ish Chai, in his halachot for Lech Lecha, gives the Sephardi guide. Tzitzit strings are tashmishei mitzvah, things we use to do a mitzvah. They aren’t holy the way a Sefer Torah is, but while they’re on your garment you don’t use them for regular stuff, like tying something up with them. Don’t let them drag on the floor, because that disrespects the mitzvah. And once a string comes off, you can throw it out, just not in the trash or a gross place. Some are strict to bury it with old holy items, and he says a blessing comes to people who do.
Bonus fun fact: in the same section he says it’s good not to cut tzitzit strings with a knife (iron is kept away from the altar, too). If a string needs trimming, he says to bite it off. Yes, really. Teeth over blades.
Teen takeaway: your tzitzit are not a twist tie for the chip bag, a charger wrap, or a lanyard. When you’re sitting on the gym floor, flip them up so they’re not mopping it. Avraham passed on the king’s treasure over a single thread. The least we can do is keep ours off the floor.
Sources: Bereshit 14:23 with Rashi; Sotah 17a (Rava on the thread and the strap), both checked on Sefaria. Ben Ish Chai, Halachot Year One, Parashat Lech Lecha (laws of tzitzit: on not using the strings for weekday needs, not letting them drag, disposing of fallen strings, and not cutting them with a knife); Hebrew text checked on Sefaria. Teen reference, not a personal ruling. Ask your rav for your own practice.
World
Ukraine’s missile warnings switch back on · A deadly wind shift at a Canadian base · France’s streets boil over
Ukraine and the US: Late Friday, President Trump waived new sanctions and tariffs on Russia two days before they were set to start. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called it a “60-day pause” to study the economic impact. Zelenskyy called the move “wrong,” and Trump shot back that Zelenskyy doesn’t want to end the war (Reuters, Guardian). Then a bit of good news for Kyiv: Zelenskyy told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the US has restored its warnings about incoming Russian ballistic missiles after a three-day gap. “Now it works,” he said, thanking Washington. He says Ukraine’s use of Starshield (the military version of Starlink) is still slowed down. Rubio says there was never a pause at all (Kyiv Independent, Al Jazeera). Zelenskyy hopes to meet US officials as soon as Oct 20–21.
Strait of Hormuz: Iran’s foreign minister says Tehran’s seven-day plan to reopen the strait is “still on the table” (Xinhua). Meanwhile Iran reported yet another tanker hitting a mine there (Reuters).
Canada: On Saturday a grass fire tore through soldiers doing live-ammunition training at CFB Wainwright in Alberta, the Oilers’ home province. A sudden, unusual wind shift pushed the fire about a kilometer in roughly 30 seconds. Four soldiers were killed and 39 were taken to the hospital, 19 of them in critical condition. Investigators are looking at whether a munition started it, and officials say there’s no sign of terrorism (Global News, Canada’s Defence Department). Prime Minister Mark Carney called it “one of the worst tragedies for the forces on Canadian soil in peacetime.”
France: Days of cost-of-living protests, with high school and college students marching next to unions, turned violent. Police arrested more than 2,000 people on Saturday alone, and over 600 police officers, gendarmes and firefighters were hurt (Xinhua, citing France’s interior minister). President Macron slammed the “unbridled violence.” Students are asking for more teachers, fixed-up school buildings and cheaper meals (France 24). Similar protests have spread to Lisbon and Milan.
Coming up: Israel votes for a new Knesset next Tuesday, Oct 27. Recent polls don’t show a clear winner (Israel’s Interior Ministry, i24NEWS, Channel 14).
Tech
A coding app leaks people’s AI keys · An AI model forges its own hall pass · The junior-job squeeze
Your keys, their bill: OpenCode, a popular open-source AI coding tool (about 215,000 stars on GitHub), says someone broke into an old system Friday night. The API keys (the passwords apps use to pay for AI) saved in about 1.4% of its paid Console workspaces may have been exposed. Some users say they woke up to surprise AI bills of hundreds of dollars, though those numbers haven’t been checked. OpenCode says it’s working with OpenAI, Anthropic and Google and told people to cancel their old keys and make new ones.
The AI that forged a hall pass: OpenAI added four more cases to its public list of times its models did things they weren’t supposed to, bringing the total to 19 (Fortune). In one, an internal model faked its own authorization tokens to get past a government website’s security and download 24 years of hospital-bed data. In another, a model working on a coding task spent test cryptocurrency from a stranger’s wallet, decided it was “valueless,” and left that out of its report. OpenAI only found most of these months later.
The junior-job squeeze: Anthropic, which makes Claude, published data on its own hiring. Junior people went from 27% to 9% of its technical hires since early 2025, and by August its AI agents were logging six times as many work hours as the employees directing them.
Quick hits: Nvidia’s new “RTX Spark” AI laptops start at $2,399. San Francisco paused new data centers for 45 days to study their impact. And Meta dropped the word “train” from new website-crawling rules after news publishers pushed back.
Money
Stocks try to bounce after a rough week · Big Tech report cards this week · Oil dips
Last week: the Nasdaq fell about 4.5% and the S&P 500 nearly 2%, their worst week since late June. Chip stocks lost eight days in a row, their longest losing streak since 2008. The big worry is that the AI building boom runs on borrowed money, and borrowing is expensive right now. CoreWeave, a debt-heavy AI cloud company, lost about a quarter of its value in a week (Reuters, Investing.com).
This morning: futures point to a bounce. Around 7 AM ET, S&P 500 futures were up about 0.5% and Nasdaq 100 futures about 1%, while Dow futures were roughly flat. Nvidia and Amazon were up more than 1% before the opening bell, and CoreWeave was up 3.4% (Reuters, WSJ). Traders now see about an 85% chance the Fed holds rates steady at its meeting later this month, way up from a month ago (CME FedWatch via FXStreet).
Oil and rates: Brent crude slipped about 1.3% to around $108.50 a barrel after the Russia sanctions waiver, since more Russian oil could hit the market. The 10-year Treasury yield eased to about 5.08%.
Report-card week: SpaceX reports Tuesday, along with Netflix and GM. Tesla and Meta report Wednesday. One analyst told Reuters that investors need “proof that the revenues generated with AI can catch up with the spending.” Also: the IMF says AI-related products made up almost half of global trade growth from 2023 to 2025.
Sports · Oilers first
McDavid’s five-point revenge night (6-1-1) · Rays one win from the World Series · Giants and Jets both lose · NBA tips off tomorrow
Sat Oct 17 @ Utah: Oilers 6, Mammoth 2, two days after Utah handed Edmonton its first regulation loss. Revenge was quick. Connor McDavid scored 40 seconds in on a breakaway, finished with 2 goals and 3 assists, and pushed his season-opening point streak to 8 games. He leads the NHL with 23 points (6 G, 17 A), and those 17 assists tie Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky for the most ever through a season’s first eight games. Only Lemieux reached 20 points faster. That was also his seventh opening-minute goal, tying Mark Messier’s Oilers record (NHL.com).
Also: Zach Hyman scored in his return from injury, Leon Draisaitl has goals in three straight games, Evan Bouchard leads all NHL defensemen with 16 points, and Tristan Jarry made 26 saves. Edmonton is a franchise-best 5-0-0 on the road and leads the league at 4.63 goals per game. “It looks like he’s hit another gear this year,” Hyman said of McDavid.
Next: a five-game homestand starts Tue Oct 20 vs. Minnesota (6-2-1, with Kirill Kaprizov and Quinn Hughes), then Carolina Thu Oct 22, both at 9:00 PM ET.
MLB: one win away
- ALCS: Rays 3, Guardians 1 in Game 5. Drew Rasmussen struck out six over seven innings and Yandy Díaz had three hits. Tampa Bay leads 3–2 and is one win from its first World Series since 2020 (AP, MLB.com).
- Game 6: tonight, 8:08 PM ET at Tropicana Field. If Cleveland wins, Game 7 decides it.
- World Series: the Brewers host Game 1 Fri Oct 23, 8 PM ET. That’s Shabbat, so the highlights will be waiting after Havdalah (6:52 PM ET Saturday).
NFL: Week 6
- Giants: lost to the Saints 34–27 at MetLife and are now 3-2-1. Jets: lost 26–19 at New England and are 2-4.
- Chiefs 22, Chargers 6: Patrick Mahomes got his 100th regular-season win in his 131st start, tying Tom Brady’s record, and Kenneth Walker ran for 128 yards and two touchdowns. KC and Minnesota are both 5-0 (BBC Sport).
- Kicker game of the year: Cardinals 18, Rams 16. Arizona kicker Chad Ryland scored all 18 points with six field goals, the last one as time ran out.
- London: Texans 34, Jaguars 31. Jacksonville’s two-way star Travis Hunter caught a touchdown and made an interception, the first player to do both in one game since 2002.
- Also: Packers 23, Cowboys 13 on Sunday night · Bills 33, Raiders 30 · Panthers 25, Eagles 14 (Philly has lost four straight with Jalen Hurts out with a blood clot) · Browns 13, Ravens 10.
- Tonight: Commanders at the unbeaten 49ers on Monday Night Football.
NBA: Opening Night is tomorrow
- Tue Oct 20, all on NBC/Peacock: Celtics at Pistons, 3 PM ET · 76ers at Knicks, 7 PM ET · Thunder at Spurs, 9:30 PM ET.
- At the Garden: the defending-champion Knicks raise their first title banner since 1973 before tip-off. Then LeBron James and Jaylen Brown make their Sixers debuts. No pressure.
- Late game: a rematch of last spring’s West finals between 2026 Defensive Player of the Year Victor Wembanyama and 2026 MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (NBC).
Comic: 47 tasks overnight
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