I wrote this article on the RMIT blog. Does it apply to those who are teaching Torah? I think so.
The attack on Bris Milah and Halacha (Part 2)
In a previous post, I presented my views on the Metziza B’Feh controversy. I see that the Rabbinic Council of America (RCA) have just issued a statement. I couldn’t agree more with their statement, and it entirely reflects my views.
“Many Jewish legal authorities have ruled that direct oral suction is not an integral part of the circumcision ritual, and therefore advocate the use of a sterile tube to preclude any risk of infection. The RCA has gone on record as accepting the position of those authorities. Nevertheless, the RCA respects the convictions and sensitivities of those in the Orthodox Jewish community who disagree with this ruling and joins in their deep concern about government regulation of religious practices. The RCA urges these groups to voluntarily develop procedures to effectively prevent the unintended spread of infection.
“The RCA supports the recent call of the Agudath Israel of America to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the New York Health Department that, instead of unilaterally imposing regulations, they collaborate with Orthodox Jewish leadership to develop protocols to address health concerns.
“Rabbi Shmuel Goldin, the RCA President, summarized his organization’s position. ‘The act of circumcision is a precious and cherished ritual for the Jewish community, one which initiates our sons into the religious covenant. The RCA maintains that parents should use methods, in strict conformity with Jewish law, which enable them to hand down our religious legacy to a new generation safely and appropriately.’”
What is a “Posek HaDor”?
The article below, is from the brilliant Rabbi Nathan Lopez-Cardozo. My take on his article is that he is expressing exasperation that some who were recently “crowned” with the mantle of Posek HaDor were lacking in their interaction with society and as such were compromised in some decision-making. In addition, those Poskim responded to questions from Askanim and others on matters that were perhaps not halachic. Although I understand where Rabbi Cardozo is coming from, I don’t agree with the need to somehow define the characteristics of a Posek HaDor as it can overly paint Rabonim today in a negative light.
It would be more important to define the Dor, the generation that this Posek is addressing. If one does that, it is clear to me that some more recent Poskei HaDor, who were Halachic geniuses, utterly righteous and as close as humanly possible to spiritual perfection, never saw themselves as paskening for the wider Dor. The wider Dor includes those in Chutz La’aretz, let alone communities in Israel who are not aligned with that Posek’s political Weltanschauung.
Two outstanding Poskim, who in my estimation were Poskei HaDor were R’ Moshe Feinstein ז’ל and R’ Shlomo Zalman Auerbach ז’ל. The latter used to answer questions from well outside his Sha’arei Chesed and Kol Torah spheres of influence. R’ Aharon Lichtenstein, a son-in-law of the Rav, a PhD in English Literature and Rosh Yeshivah of a Hesder Yeshivah, considered R’ Shlomo Zalman as the Posek he consulted for his own Sheylos. R’ Aharon came to him. R’ Shlomo Zalman didn’t seek questioners, let alone Rabbonim like R’ Aharon, who are themselves conversant with Kol HaTorah and spend every spare moment learning Torah and teaching.
R’ Telsner told me that he knew R’ Aharon in the USA, and while R’ Aharon was studying his PhD in English Literature at Harvard, he never spent less than eight hours a day, every day, deep in learning Torah. R’ Telsner said that he was known as an incredible Masmid. Yet, R’ Aharon went to R’ Shlomo Zalman like a Talmid Lifnei Rabo. The same is true of R’ Avigdor Nevenzahl (immediate past Rabbi of the Old City of Jerusalem) and others.
Why did this happen? I believe it happened because they satisfied the criteria of R’ Lopez-Cardozo, but not necessarily using the experiential techniques that R’ Lopez-Cardozo advocates. Both R’ Shlomo Zalman and R’ Moshe knew about the pain of the widow and Aguna, as well as the abused child. Their Neshomos were special and sensitised to the plight of others. They also understood their audience. Many times, R’ Shlomo Zalman would refer the questioner to their own Rav or Rosh Yeshivah. Their greatness has been shown time and time again, without the need to resort to Artscroll-style hagiography. Yet, while both were considered Poskei HaDor, it was not uniform. Satmar, for example, attacked R’ Moshe unceasingly and the Eda Charedis never considered R’ Shlomo Zalman to be their Posek, as he was too much of a “Zionist”. Ironically, both R’ Moshe and R’ Shlomo Zalman often referred questioners from outside of their countries of residence to the “Great Rabonim of Israel” or the “Great Rabonim of the USA”. They had no tickets on themselves.
Rabbi Lopez-Cardozo’s article follows below.
Nothing is more difficult than being a “Posek HaDor,” the foremost leading halachic arbiter of the Jewish people, in our complicated and troublesome days. The Posek HaDor is the man whose halachic knowledge is greater than anyone else’s, and furthermore, is considered to have “da’as Torah,” divine inspiration. Consequently he has to decide on issues of life and death, literally and figuratively. He is seen as someone who can make judgments about political matters, both local and international, especially in and concerning the Land of Israel. Such a person must have a kind of wisdom surpassing anything that ordinary mortals could ever dream of. He is asked to singlehandedly decide matters which will affect hundreds of thousands of orthodox Jews, and by extension, millions of secular Jews. What are the conditions under which a person is able to fulfill such a task? And does Judaism truly want one person to have such a task?
Never has the Posek HaDor been confronted with so many challenges. It was the establishment of the State of Israel that threw all Jews around the globe into a new world-order and created a need for unprecedented religious leadership. Social and economic conditions have changed radically, creating major upheavals in Jewish life. Unprecedented opportunities have arisen that need to be translated in reality. Will the Posek HaDor grasp those opportunities and turn them into major victories, and inspire his people? Or will he close himself up and live in denial and continue as if nothing has changed? Will he be aware that he needs to lead religious Jewry in and through a new world-order? That his views will not only affect Jews but even gentiles, as his voice will be heard far beyond the Jewish community, transmitted via the Internet? Will he realize that he may have to give guidance to an often extremely secular and troubled world which is in great need of hearing the words of a Jewish sage? Will he realize that his decisions must reflect the fact that Jews are asked to be a light unto the nations—a light which must shine everywhere? Or will he only focus on the often narrow world of orthodoxy, and look down on or ignore the gentile or secular world?
Most Jews today are no longer observant and are not inspired by Judaism. To them, Judaism has become irrelevant and outdated. The reasons for this tragedy are many, but no doubt the failure to convey halacha as something exciting and ennobling like the music of Mozart or Beethoven is a large component. Only when a Jew is taught why it is that halacha offers him the musical notes with which he is able to play his soul’s sonata will he be able to hear its magnificent music. Just as great scientists are fascinated when they investigate the properties of DNA or the habits of a tiny insect under a microscope, so should even a secular Jew be moved to his depths when he encounters the colors and fine subtleties of the world of halacha. But does the posek realize this himself, and does he convey that message when he deals with halachic inquiries?
Are not many orthodox Jews nearsighted and in dire need of a wider vision? Is making sure that a chicken is kosher all that there is to kashrut? Or are the laws of kashrut just one element of a grand Weltanschauung which defines the mission of the people of Israel; a mission whose importance surpasses by far the single question of a chicken’s kashrut? Should such inquiries not be one small component of larger questions concerning the plague of consumerism and mankind’s obsessive pursuit of ever-increasing comfort? Should the posek who is asked about the kashrut of somebody’s tefillin not ask the questioner: And what about the kashrut of your much-too-expensive and ostentatious car? Is he not first of all an educator? Or does he still believe that only hard-line rulings will do the job and create the future for a deeply religious Judaism?
Is it not the first requirement of the posek to live in radical amazement, and to see God’s fingers in every dimension of human existence, whether it is the Torah, Talmud, science, technology and, above all, in the constant changing of history which may quite well mean that God demands different decisions than those of the past? Today’s halachic living is being deeply disrupted by observance becoming mere habit. Outward compliance with externalities has taken the place of the engagement of the whole person with God. The jewel has got lost in the setting. Over the years this problem has become exacerbated because everything in Judaism is now turned into a halachic issue. It is the task of the posek to make sure that Judaism does not get identified only with legalism. There is a whole religious world beyond halacha. One of aggadah, philosophy, deep emotional experiences, devotion and often un-finalized beliefs. Should these not enter in the very process of how halacha is to be applied? The task of halacha was to ensure that Judaism did not evaporate into an utopian reverie; some kind of superficial spiritualism. But what happened on the ground? Did not Judaism develop into something different because this delicate balance was lost; a kind of sacred behaviorism? Judaism was never supposed to become a religion that is paralyzed in its awe of rigid tradition. Halacha is supposed to be the practical upshot of un-finalized beliefs. Judaism is a fluid liquid that must be transformed into a solid substance. It needs to chill the heated steel of exalted ideas and turn them into pragmatic deeds without allowing the inner heat to be cooled off entirely.
Should halacha not be a midwife which gives birth not only to answers, but also to profound spiritual questions created by that very halacha? If so, shouldn’t we make sure not to turn the Posek HaDor into somebody who needs to give on the spot answers as if one presses a button?
Would it not be wise, for example, for a group of women, and above all, the wife of the posek, to be deeply involved in certain halachic decisions when they touch upon emotions and social conditions that they may understand better than the posek/husband? Why do we almost never hear about the spouse of the Posek HaDor, of her wisdom, and above all the sacrifice entailed in being married to such a great man, who is needed by so many and often has so little time for his own family?
Is it possible to be a Posek HaDor if one is absolutely sure of the truth of one’s religion but not informed or aware of the many challenges today’s world presents to religious faith and Judaism? How could such a person be able to understand the many issues of people who live in doubt? Will he understand the sincere troubles of the confused teenager; the Jewish Ethiopian; the bereaved parent; the struggling religious homosexual; the child of a mixed marriage with only a Jewish father; even the Christian or Buddhist who has an affinity for Judaism and asks for guidance? Is there anybody in this world who has all the qualities necessary to singlehandedly rule on these matters? Is it not highly unfair and extremely dangerous to ask one human being, however pious and wise, to adequately respond to all these issues? Would this not require teamwork with fellow poskim who may not be as learned in halacha but are much more familiar with many of the problems of which the Posek HaDor may not be aware? Should the Posek HaDor not be advised by a team of highly experienced professionals, such as psychologists, social workers and scientists, before giving a ruling, so as to prevent major pitfalls? Is halacha not to be decided by consensus, instead of by one person, even when he is the greatest?
Should poskim not encourage new Torah ideas and shun the denunciation of books which try to bring religion and science into harmony, instead of banning them, as the Vatican used to do in bygone times? Is it not a tragedy and a Chilul Hashem, a desecration of God’s name, that such bans appear in secular newspapers, and are then ridiculed, since they so often prove the total lack of scientific knowledge on the part of those who sign the bans? Would it not be better that some of the greatest rabbis themselves offer scientific and philosophical solutions to possible conflicts between Torah and science, as has always been done throughout Jewish history, instead of simply calling something heresy? Inquisitions have no place in Judaism.
Should the Posek HaDor not have broad enough shoulders to be able to appreciate different worldviews, including Zionist, non-Zionist, ultra-orthodox and modern-orthodox and make sure that all these denominations feel that the posek is impartial, making space for their varied ideologies? Could he not even have an open ear for Reform and Conservative Judaism and realize that many of their adherents are serious about their Judaism, even though he will not agree with these movements? Could he explain to them adequately why he disagrees?
A real Posek should go down to women’s shelters, speak personally with abused children, perhaps deny himself food and drink so that he feels the real terror of poverty. Unless he is a very sensitive soul, should he not get himself “hospitalized” and spend time observing the lives of sick people? They are in the hands of doctors and nurses who do not always deal with their patients in an adequate way, whether through lack of time, insensitivity, or some other reason.
Before dealing with the question of agunot and the refusal of husbands to give a get, a writ of divorce, to their wives, would it not be a good idea to leave one’s wife (with her consent) for a long period and live in total loneliness, to understand what it means to live in utter silence and having no life partner?
Is the Posek HaDor not responsible for narrowing the serious gap between the ultra-orthodox and the rest of Israeli society, and coming up with creative halachic solutions which will boggle the minds of all sections of Jewry?
The new Posek HaDor must be somebody who will propose unprecedented solutions for dealing with the status of the tens of thousands of non-Jews of Jewish descent living in the State of Israel. He needs to make sure that courses on Judaism are so attractive that halacha becomes irresistible. He should instruct his students to welcome these people with open arms, knowing quite well that otherwise we will be confronted with a huge problem of intermarriage in the State of Israel. This is now a halachic problem which can no longer be solved on an individual level and threatens the very existence of the Jewish State. His prophetic and long term view must ensure that debacles such as the present one concerning the exemption of yeshiva students from army service, which is now exploding in front of our eyes, will never take place again.
For nearly two thousand years, Jewish Law has been developed into a “waiting mode” in which it became the great “preserver” of the precepts. It was protective and defensive, and mainly committed to conformity, so as to make sure that Judaism and Jews would survive while surrounded by a non-Jewish society which was hostile most of the time. It became a “galut halacha”— an exilic code — in which the Torah sometimes became too stultified. It may have worked in the Diaspora, but can no longer give sufficient guidance in today’s world.
Who, after all, will deny that Jews today live in utterly different circumstances despite all the anti-Semitism? The State of Israel is the great catalyst for this new situation, a situation which we had not experienced during the past two thousand years. Are we not therefore in dire need of a new kind of prophetic halacha, in which is presented not only the strict rules of halacha but also the perspectives of our prophets, speaking of burning social and ethical issues from the perspective of a deep religiosity? Has the time not come to leave the final codification of Jewish law behind us; to unfreeze halacha and start reading between the lines of the Talmud to recapture halacha’s authentic nature?
To be an arbitrator of Jewish law is to be the conductor of an orchestra. It is not coercion but persuasion which makes it possible for the other to hear the beauty of the music, and to accept a halachic decision as one would listen, willingly, to the final interpretation of a conductor—because one is deeply inspired.
To be a posek means to be a person of unprecedented courage. A person willing to initiate a spiritual storm which will shake up the whole of the Jewish community. A storm which will prove that conventional/codified halacha has freed itself from the sandbank in which it has been stuck. In a completely unprecedented shift, poskim should lead the ship of Torah with full sails right into the heart of the Jewish nation, creating such a shock that it will take days, weeks, or months before it is able to get back on its feet. With their knives between their teeth, just like the prophets of biblical days, these great halachic arbiters, with their impeccable and uncompromising conduct, should create a moral-religious uproar which will scare the moral wits out of both secular and religious Jews and weigh heavily on their souls.
Poskim should not be “honored,” “valued,” or “well respected,” as they are now, but—as men of truth—they should be both feared and deeply loved.
Jews of all backgrounds should be shivering in their shoes at the thought of meeting them, but simultaneously incapable of staying away from their towering, fascinating and warm personalities.
Halachic decision making is a great art. The posek should never forget that he is the soil on which the halacha is to grow, while God is the sun and the Torah is the seed.**
Above all, it is the task of the Jewish people to greatly revere this person, but never to extol him to the extent that this reverence touches on idol worship.
Let us pray that we will soon meet this personality and make sure that once more Judaism and the Torah will be the great love of all Jews and even of mankind.
****
* With thanks to my friend M.M. van Zuiden.
** See Samuel H. Dresner, Heschel, Hasidism, and Halakha, Fordham University Press 2002, p. 108
Inspirational Jews
He has no idea I am posting about him. I’ve seen him at Elwood Shule for many years, but have known little about him. He sits in the back of the Shule, about ten rows behind us. His name is Mordechai (Mark) Oyberman. A Russian Jew who immigrated to Australia from the Soviet Gulag, Mordechai was forced to add the surname “Borisovich” to identify him with his father. Mordechai and the Oyberman family are committed to Judaism. He attends Elwood Shule for Shachris, Mincha+Ma’ariv each and every day. He is one of the last, if not the last to leave the Shule.
For many Russian Jews, reading Hebrew is a hurdle especially given that they weren’t lucky enough to attend a Jewish School, like Mount Scopus or similar. If you are middle-aged when you are finally exposed to the brand of free Judaism in our democratic Australia, the task is that much harder.
Mordechai doesn’t cut corners. With a Russian/Hebrew Siddur perched on his paunch, he assumes a slow and determined sideways swagger, otherwise known as “shockling”. Each word is pronounced lovingly and slowly; but not without difficulty. Mordechai cares enough to ascertain whether at all times he is saying the correct prayer for that time of the year.
Yesterday, on Parshas Ki Tavo, Mordechai blew me away. I assume it was the anniversary of his Bar Mitzvah Parsha. I also assume that he never enjoyed a formal Bar Mitzvah in the way we know, and it was unlikely that at 13 years of age, he recited Maftir+Haftorah in a Shule. I do not know if Mordechai has done this before, but yesterday, he was called up for Maftir. I was taken aback. Sadly, there are not many at Elwood who can navigate the Haftorah at will. This task is usually rotated amongst Rabbis Gutnick, Karnowsky, Aron and myself.
Mordechai acquitted himself with great aplomb. Confident, and with no apparent reticence despite the larger than usual attendance, he sang at “the top of his voice” faultlessly and meticulously reciting the Haftorah. The scene certainly moved me, and in his sermon, Rabbi Gutnick felt likewise to the extent that he mentioned it explicitly.
This might seem like a trivial observation, but it is not. He and his wife’s determination and fealty to our religion, translates not only in deeds, but in tackling a hurdle that a Jewishly educated Bar Mitzvah spends almost one year perfecting. This was a humbling experience. Many of us fought hard to free soviet jews. When liberated the toxicity of freedom adumbrates into assimilation. When someone grapples to hang onto each vestige of our religion, we should exult.
In the month of Elul, preparing for the long day of Judgement, this was a perfect lead in, a segue if you will, into the High Holidays.
Hats off to you, so to speak.
The attack on Bris Milah and Halacha
There are numerous reports in the press (see here) and on the internet describing Governmental and Human Rights Advocates opposing the practice of ברית מילה ,חס ושלום. This is a disturbing phenomenon and is something I’d like to see a world conference of leaders, yes even including Reform and Conservative, address. My view is that there needs to be representation across every group so that a consistent, cogent, well-argued, statistically supported and sensitive protocol of responses developed. The arguments need to be generic, and should be as accessible to the Aguda advocate, the Israel Rabbinate, the RCA, et al as well as the Reform advocate. This is a matter of extreme importance, and כלל ישראל assuming its loosest definition needs to unite and defend with vigour, professionalism, not to mention localised quiet diplomacy (at least at first).
This is an issue where most Yidden can unite, and I’d hope that the Eybishter would feel positively that we defend this attack on a most fundamental element of our identity. There are scholars, for example, who contend that the real reason for the Bar Kochba revolt against the Roman emperor Publius Aelius Hadrianus, was due to the ban on ברית מילה.
There is a “side-issue”, however. That side-issue is Metzitza B-Feh מציצה בפה (immediate post oral suctioning after the cut). Look at the disgraceful description of this process here, for example. I call it a side issue not because I am taking sides and declaring oral suctioning unimportant or irrelevant to the Halachic process. I’m calling it a side issue because by over-focussing on this aspect, many un-diplomatic and emotive outbursts are now finding voice and providing uninvited fodder. These comments are not part of an over-arching considered, diplomatically crafted and complete strategy, as I’ve advocated above. Certainly it is an aspect of a ברית that will be used by those with a genuine concern about the methodology, and those who are against Milah, with or without oral suctioning. It’s important to remember that. There are even grossly distasteful “Jewish” blogs, that sound triumphant every time there is even a distant piece of uncorroborated information that suggests oral suctioning causes illness, or even death. Balanced individuals do ascribe genuine concern. However, anyone who emerges from the quagmire of those loshon-hora laden and defamatory blogs, knows that a quick shower followed by immersion in a mikvah is needed to remove the shmutz therein as a sanity starting point. ה ירחם
My own views:
Both my sons’ Brissen involved מציצה בפה (as did my grandsons). I didn’t ask questions at that time nor was it uppermost in my mind. On an halachic scale, I consider the oral practice as sufficient but not necessary. Doing so via a tube, is more in keeping with how I see the issue from a halachic point of view. It’s terrible though, that both sides of the מציצה argument (which is as old as the hills) are now again into name calling and delegitimisation. It is not helpful to say that it is forbidden by the Torah not to have מציצה בפה. In the same way, it is not helpful to say that it is forbidden to do so. There are very healthy (sic) and weighty halachic giants on both sides of the argument.
There is a tendency for each side to publicly belittle and malign the other’s valid halachic position. Above all, however, if there are sound and health-related concerns which are beyond statistical dispute and which may well be due to changing circumstances and new realities, such that the practice ought to now be forbidden using direct oral suctioning because this can be shown to be a direct or event contributory cause towards danger to the infant, then and only then, should there be a meeting of all Orthodox Rabonim, from around the world to re-examine the issue and indeed ban it across the board in favour of a tube.
My fear is that, at the minute, discussion of this is on a public world-stage and it only fuels those נכרים and נדחים who are impurely motivated against מילה in the first place.
I do hear the argument that in the current world climate, or at least in some countries, אפילו לשנויי ערקתא דמסאנא, we even resist even dicta to wear particular types of shoe laces (see סנהדרין עד) and, accordingly, as above, unless there is a genuine health issue, even those who are opposed to the need for oral suctioning without a tube, should get behind those who contend that such oral suctioning is an integral part of מילה. We are facing, in my estimation, new attacks. שחיטה is another.
In keeping with my view, I would argue that even those who are halachically or non halachically vegetarian, should cease that practice and insist on now eating meat (as opposed to the view expressed here), since there is a חשש that the אומות העולם are acting in a manner which is questionable and which threatens our rights and freedom to practice כללי הדת.
Meir Rabi’s latest attention seeking news bite
One side of me said to stay silent and not blog since blogging would serve his purpose. The other side said to blog but only in order to encourage people NOT to get involved in facebook and other forums where the human headline will purvey his latest feather salvo. Don’t engage him in discourse; you waste your time.
Just forget about it and remember
ורם לבביך ושכחת את ה אלוקיך
is a real syndrome.
Don’t react and don’t provide fodder for next week’s ‘screaming headline’ in the AJN.
The light of the Havdala Candle (Part 2)
In my previous post, I mentioned the question of the nature of the ברכה of בורא מאורי האש. There are two candidate that can be used to categorise this ברכה. It is either a member of the family of
- ברכת הנהנין where we benefit from something in this world and before we benefit we make a ברכה. For example: before we eat a strawberry, we either make a על האדמה or העץ (depending on which ברכה your Rabbi/Posek applies to strawberries.
- ברכת השבח where we witness something which shows God’s majesty, so to speak, after witnessing this manifestation of God’s majesty, we praise God and make a ברכה. For example, in Nisan (in Israel) when one sees the flowers sprouting forth for the first time, one makes ברכת אילנות as described in או’’ח סימן רכ”ו. ָAnother example, is Benching Gomel. Again, we do that after we have experienced something.
Where does the Bracha on the candles/torch/flame at Havdala fit in? If it’s a ברכת הנהנין then first we would make a ברכה and then benefit from the light (using the מנהג to bring one’s nails close to the flame so that the flame bring a benefit via its light (and is sufficient to differentiate between two coins). If, however, it is a ברכת השבח then we would make the ברכה after we have symbolically benefitted from the flame and praised Hashem for (re)creating light on Motzei Shabbos (as that was when this light was created).
If you watch carefully, you can see some people who seem to do it at the same time that they are flashing their fingernails against the flame. I’m not sure that this practice makes much sense. It seems to try and deliberately be vague on what type of ברכה it is, and have a bet each way. The problem with this approach is that it doesn’t appear to satisfy either category. I’m certainly not here to advise anyone how to order the ברכה and the act. Remember all my posts are not להלכה and not למעשה. They are just פיטפוטים.
The Mishna in Brachos at the beginning of the eighth chapter, according to the plain reading which states
אין מברכין אל האור עד שיאותו לאורו
We don’t make the Bracha until we have benefitted from the light.
appears to be clearly saying that first one benefits from the light and only then makes the Bracha. This implies that it is a ברכה השבח. Indeed, the Rishonim claim that it couldn’t possibly be a ברכת הנהנין because then we would need to make a ברכה every day when we “created” a new light and benefitted from it (just before benefitting from the light). The ערוך השלחן who was the major posek for non Chassidic Ashkenzi Jewry, suggests that we could still consider the ברכה to be a ברכת הנהנין however we would not have to make a new ברכה since we make a bracha everyday יוצר אור ובורא חושך. Other counter that it doesn’t make sense. We should have to make it many times during the day before we benefit from (new) light. One could also argue that as long as a person isn’t מסיח דעת—forgets about the ברכה they had made––then one ברכה per day would suffice.
The consensus is not like the ערוך השלחן and that the ברכה on the Havdala flame is a ברכה השבח and therefore first one reflects the light on one’s nails (and/or palms) with that wristy twist and only after then would you make the ברכה of בורא מאורי האש.
There is some confusion as to whether you use your right hand to do this, and transfer the כוס to your left hand, and then return the כוס to your right hand and make the ברכה, or you just use your left hand and leave the כוס in your right hand. Ask your Rabbi/Posek.
Interestingly, in the additions to the שולחן ערוך הרב in the שער הכולל, Rav Yehuda Herzl Henkin points out that the implication is that מנהג חב’’ד is to make the ברכה first and then to reflect the nails on the flame (as in a classical ברכת הנהנין). The source for this practice is quoted as being in the name of the Maharil. A problem is that there is no such Maharil. On the contrary, the Maharil in Hilchos Tisha B’Av explicitly says that on Tisha B’Av that is on מוצאי שבת (as it was this year) first you shine the light on your nails and only then do you make the ברכה.
I read that R’ Aharon Lichtenstein performs the finger nail movement both before and after the Bracha.
Should certain people not join the army of the State of Israel
We have all been reading with interest about the expiration of the Tal Law, which had afforded “Kollel Yungerleit” the opportunity to avoid military service in the State of Israel on account of their extended and continued full time study of Torah. We have also heard many Gedolim say that this is a situation of יהרג ועל יעבור … that people should give up their lives rather than join the army.
Parshas Shoftim describes the process whereby the Cohen, משוח מלחמה explains the procedures before warfare. First he encourages the troops and tells them that they only should fear Hashem and not the enemy, then he describes the categories of soldier (male soldiers, of course) who are exempt from battle (anyone is engaged but yet to marry a woman, anyone who has built a house but did not move in, anyone who has planted a vineyard but has yet to reap a harvest, and anyone who feels afraid). The Shotrim (policemen/miitary staff) then repeat this to groups of soldiers, according to Rashi.
There are two broad categories of war: the Milchemes Mitzvah (loosely described as a war where one defends the very existence/populace) and a Milchemes Reshus (a type of warfare which is waged for other reasons). A Milchemes Mitzvah is obviously a more serious, life threatening situation, and so we fine that the Mishne in Sotah (8:7) states that the aforementioned exemptions do not apply to a Milchemes Mitzvah. In other words, when it comes to defending the very existence of the people/State, it’s “all hands on the deck”.
Strangely, the Rambam at the beginning of the seventh chapter of Hilchos Melachim, states that the Cohen also announces these exemptions for a Milchemes Mitzvah. How can the Rambam contradict a clear Mishna? One explanation I read from Rav Schachter in the name of the Rav is that there is a dual obligation when anyone goes to war. One obligation is a national obligation. The person is part of the כלל and in the sense that the כלל is threatened in a Milchemes Mitzvah, the Torah does not provide an opportunity for exemption. There is also an individual obligation, the obligation of the פרט, the potential soldier who signs up for military service or considers doing so. In a Milchemes Reshus, the Cohen explains that someone who is in one of the aforementioned categories is strongly urged to stay home. They aren’t needed, and furthermore it could be argued that they may even damage morale by virtue of their preponderant thoughts.
According to the Rav, the Rambam is saying that even in a Milchemes Mitzvah, the Cohen explains the laws of the פרט being absolved from joining the armed forces before they defend the nation. It is necessary to explain the difference, and stress that this is only an exemption in as much as they are private individuals, however, since they are about to embark on a life and death battle for the defence of the people and the State, the aspect of the כלל affords them no exemption.
Of course, there are other explanations. Reflecting on this on Parshas Shoftim, I have great difficulty understanding how those who ostensibly don’t feel politically part of the State, give themselves the right to also not feel existentially part of the כלל.
Certainly, as I sit in Melbourne, Australia, I’m not exactly entitled to criticise the life and death decisions taken by those who live in Eretz HaKodesh. I am, however, entitled, I believe to ask for an explanation in light of the above.
Is “Modern” Orthodoxy comfortable with this?
See this article
Viewing ourselves and our mentors realistically
[Hat tip to R’ Micha]
This is a sobering letter from R’ Yitzchak Hutner ז’ל. He was a very interesting, non-standard, Charedi Rosh Yeshivah, who considered Rav Kook ז’ל as his Rav HaMuvhak for many years; R’ Kook’s picture used to hang prominently in his Succah. The Rayatz of Lubavitch ז’ל arranged for him to have a personal Chavrusa in Chassidus with the last Rebbe ז’ל before he became Rebbe. He was Rosh Yeshivah of Chaim Berlin, and Rabbi Groner ז’ל was also influenced by him and spoke about him. He is best known for his Sefer Pachad Yitzchak, something that’s on my “need to learn properly” list; a list that seems to be getting longer and longer. A generally fiery and charismatic character who some considered to be almost Rebbe like given the Tishes he used to host, R’ Hutner wrote a letter (no. 128) to presumably a Talmid. This letter was translated and published in the Jewish Observer in December 1981.
Unfortunately, as we all know, the Artscrolls and HaModias of the Charedi world tend to never portray the full picture of Gedolim, making them all appear perfect in every possible way. This is of course an exercise in Sheker and a great shame. Furthermore, it can put unrealistic pressure on the ordinary person. Our task is to clone ourselves, but that cloning is to the Middos of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, through adherence to Halacha. We know that we cannot reach that level of perfection. We strive and struggle, but should be under no illusions that we can achieve the type of perfection described by Charedi Hagiography. A dose of realism never hurt anyonw.
Given that we are in Ellul, it’s also a fortuitous moment to re-publish the excerpt below.
…A failing many of us suffer from is, that when we consider the
aspects of perfection of our sages, we focus on the ultimate level of
their attainments… while omitting mention of the inner struggles
that had previously raged within them. A listener would get the
impression that these individuals came out of the hand of their
Creator in full-blown form.Everyone is awed at the purity of speech of the Chofetz Chaim,
z.t.l., considering it a miraculous phenomenon. But who knows of the
battles, struggles and obstacles, the slumps and regressions that
the Chofetz Chaim encountered in his war with the yetzer horo (evil
inclination)? There are many such examples, to which a discerning
individual such as yourself can certainly apply the rule.The result of this failing is that when an ambitious young man
of spirit and enthusiasm meets obstacles, falls and slumps, he
imagines himself as unworthy of being ‘planted in the house of
Hashem.’ According to this young man’s fancy, flourishing in the house
of Hashem means to repose with calm spirit on ‘lush meadows’ beside
‘tranquil waters’ (Tehilim-Psalm 23) delighting in the yetzer hatov
[good inclination], in the manner of the righteous delighting in the
reflection of the Shechina [Divine Presence], with crowns on their
heads, gathered in Gan Eden [Garden of Eden]. And at the same time,
untroubled by the agitation of the yetzer hora….Know, however, my dear friend, that your soul is rooted not in
the TRANQUILITY of the yetzer tov, but rather in the BATTLE of the
yetzer tov. And your precious warm-hearted letter ‘testifies as one
hundred witnesses’ that you are a worthy warrior in the battalion
of the yetzer tov. The English expression, ‘Lose a battle and win
a war’ applies. Certainly you have stumbled, and will tumble again
(a self-fulfilling prophecy is not intended) and in many battles
you will fall lame. I promise you, though, that after those losing
campaigns you will emerge from the war with the laurels of victory
upon your head…. Lose battles but win wars.
Working with נכרים
Last Friday, I met up for coffee with an alumnus of mine. She is also the Head tutor for a subject I teach. Even though she has spoken to me hundreds of times, she had never raised these issues on her mind, even though we are in close contact. She already knew that I only eat Kosher (we had coffee at Glicks) and she knew that I was uncontactable on Friday afternoons until Motzei Shabbos, and lots more. I’ve had dinner with her and her boy friend, mother and grandmother, and yet, she hadn’t raised these issues about Judaism until now. I’ve known her for about ten years, and vividly recall giving her a scholarship in New Delhi, many moons ago.
One evening, we spent an hour planning the tutorial sessions she was going to run, and I drove her home on my way home from University. Suddenly, she opened up with a few issues that had been playing on her mind.
- Why is it that when Jews eat with us at a function or restaurant and they order their own food, that they sit at a different table, or at a distance from the rest of us.
I wasn’t sure what the circumstances were, but I noted that there was no reason that I could think of precluding a Jew eating at the table with everyone else. I explained that sometimes it was a little embarassing when one’s food arrived in a double-sealed container that was messy to remove, but other than this, I was mystified.More to the point (and I didn’t relay this thought) such behaviour creates an uunecessary enmity between the Jew and נכרי. They might think we are elitist. חז”ל certainly didn’t encourage social fraternising, as witnessed by Halachos such as סתם יינם, בישול עכו”ם and more, however, if one is in a work environment and such interaction is important, well … you’re either there and behave like a mench, or change jobs! Presumably, if the Jew had already agreed to eat special meals, the issue of מראית עין was not extant, especially according to contemporary Poskim. If their Rov had paskened that they should eat separately, it would seem that any benefit keeping כשרות is counterbalanced by unecessary enmity. It isn’t always possible to miss important lunches, and I’d urge people to carefully consider the ramifications of their behaviour.
- She knew that I always left early on a Friday and so did this fellow-employee. She asked why her fellow Jewish workmate was seen having a drink on a Friday afternoon when he should have been home for Sabbath. I explained that it was probably summer time when Sabbath comes in later.
Now, although there is an איסור to teach Torah to נכרים, I think it’s a good idea to explain to fellow employees (let alone one’s boss) the mechanics of when Shabbos starts. Like many of us, I am in a mad rush, especially in Winter, to finish work and jump inתו the shower just before Shabbos. My fellow workmates know all about me leaving for Shabbos, and in Summer, they will often say when passing my office, “don’t you have to be leaving now.” They even correct themselves and note that sunset is later in Summer. It’s important not to be too precious about our rules. Explain them, adhere to them, and people will respect you. Take the time to do so. If you do, questions like the above will not arise.
- Once the Jewish employee received their Kosher meal without eating implements. This can happen and is embarassing. It’s probably happened to most of us. Thankfully, for me, Unger’s Catering (shameless plug) always provide implements, and metal ones at that. The employee was lucky as there was an IGA across the road and they ducked out and bought plastic knives and forks. The non-Jews were bemused, however, because he was drinking Coke from a glass. They asked him why he used the glass and didn’t use a knife and fork. He apparently mumbled that he was a Rabbi and had special rules.
Again, it’s not too difficult to explain the difference. People can understand absorption. Unfortunately, rather than doing so, the Jew advised his fellow work mates that he had special strict rules. This only made matters worse. My alumnus countered that she was a Priest (Brahman), and she also had rules (vegetarian) but what made him different to other religious Jews. They started asking him which Temple he presided over, and it became uncomfortable. They felt he was a strange fraud.
There is no need to obfuscate. Be clear, precise, and do your best to explain. They even scoffed at his Rabbinic claim by stating (presumably because he had told them) that he had studied laws which may have been unrelated to his behaviour.
- On birthdays, the company had the nice practice of buying a cake and celebrating an employees special day. This is quite common. When such a celebration happens in my workplace, I come to the “round table” event where they sing Happy Birthday, but I don’t eat the cake. These days, my fellow work mates say “Have some cake, and then correct themselves with “Oh yeah, you only eat Kosher cake”, and sometimes they ask, “what can be non-kosher in a cake”. There are even nice side effects. I regularly inform one staff member who is lactose intolerant about products which are pareve.
Unfortunately, this Jew not only organised a Kosher cake for his birthday (which is, of course, perfectly reasonable) he asked everyone how it compared, and they responded “it tastes nice”. He then approached the person responsible for overall cake purchases in the company and asked whether perhaps they could always buy Kosher cakes. I certainly wouldn’t do that, however, it got worse. He noted that he could get a “good deal” for the company because it was his relative who actually made the cake, and she was also able to cater in-house for all manner of event. This left a very bad taste. He didn’t realise it at the time, but other employees heard about this shameless pursuit of business for one of his family members and were unimpressed/span>;;;
The end result is that many of us are also looked upon as being somewhat strange(r) and worse, opportunistic. Before you counter that there is always at least one person who will “muck up” and there’s not much we can do about it, I know the person involved in this case. He’s no fool. He is quite capable of explaining and able to act in a proper and Mentchlich manner. I would rather not have to defend the rest of us and say that this person acted beyond the pale of normal decency.
My appeal, therefore, is to please be careful. We attract enough attention when we are visibly Jewish and observant. This is something חז”ל intended. At the same time, when we do so, it should be an opportunity to act in a manner which promotes the true essence of our religion and its moral standards.
We need to all try harder, me included, to remember that we are a דוגמא and how we conduct ourselves can be קידוש שם שמים, or חס ושלום the opposite.
And no, I’m not inviting others to tell me more horror stories, let alone name anyone.
When has a purpose been served?
An event is advertised as follows:
What: On July 8 2011, Jewel Topsfield wrote a story naming prominent Community leader, Manny Waks as a victim of sexual abuse at a Melbourne Jewish school. The report gave a name and a face to the victims of the abuse, and was instrumental in enabling other victims to come forward with their stories. Inevitably the coverage also ignited debate about the way the Jewish Community handles sexual abuse and about Manny’s decision to take his story to the press.Shira is pleased to be hosting a forum with Manny Waks and Jewel Topsfield where they will explain their roles in the breaking of the story and issues surrounding the treatment of child sexual abuse in the Jewish Community and the media. The session will be facilitated by Ashley Browne.When: Lunch will be held following the conclusion of Services at 12pm and the forum will begin at 12:30pm.—-
Manny Waks was born in Israel but raised mostly in Melbourne, Australia. He is the second oldest of 17 children in a Chabad family. Manny voluntarily served in an elite unit in the Israel Defence Forces and subsequently returned to Australia where he obtained a degree in international relations. In 2006 he was appointed Executive Officer at the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission. He commenced his current position in the Australian Government’s Office of Transport Security in 2009.Manny is Immediate Past President of the Canberra Jewish Community, former Vice President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and former Governor of the New South Wales Jewish Communal Appeal Board of Governors. Manny is the Founder and President of the Capital Jewish Forum and a Director of the Online Hate Prevention Institute. He is also a member of the PresenTense 2012 Global Institute Committee, He is a public campaigner against child sexual abuse within the ultra-Orthodox community. Manny is married and has three children.Jewel Topsfield is the education editor at The Age. She has been a journalist at The Age since 2004, reporting on education, immigration, the environment and Indigenous affairs. She also spent three years in the Press Gallery in Canberra reporting on federal politics. Prior to The Age, Jewel worked as a journalist for Australian Associated Press, the Melbourne Times and various publications in South Australia.Ashley Browne has worked as a journalist and editor in newspapers, online media, books and magazines for more than twenty years. He was national editor of the Australian Jewish News from March 2007 until August 2009. Ashley is now a senior writer with AFL Media and is a teaching associate at the journalism school at Monash University’s Caulfield campus.
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Now, I have some credibility on the issue of Jewish Abuse. Manny certainly is aware of my work behind the scenes in attempting to make sure that
All those points aside, my opinion is simply just that; an opinion. You can take it or leave it, as always. I am confident that our community has reached a cross-road. When I say, our community, I refer to all groups with the possible exception of two related Charedi sub-groups, in the sense that they have not yet been able to face the demons created by the despicable Malka Laufer. The word on the street is that the police are very much pursuing this woman, and one would hope that she is brought to justice soon(er).
I have witnessed incredible change within the Yeshivah Centre. Here I am not referring to issues of formal apologies and the disenfranchisement of people/families. Those issues are complex and most certainly will not be addressed or helped by such forums. As important as those issues are, my number one concern is that Schools, all schools, now have proper procedures in place, and that they educate and re-educate all their staff and students about dangers of potential child molestation. Having personally been privy to programs put in place by Rabbi Smukler, for example, I am confident that a new broom has been inaugurated, and as a parent (and soon grandparent) of children attending those Schools, a repeat of the type of incident currently before the courts is most unlikely to recur.
It’s important that we focus on the main issue. It isn’t just an issue with one perpetrator, as heinous as his alleged crimes would indicate. It’s about the future, and ensuring that those accused who have not been brought to justice, face their demons. Sadly, in the case before the courts, and of which Manny is one of the victims, the alleged perpetrator still lives in a fool’s paradise and still doesn’t realise the gravity of the allegations. His poor parents and wider family unnecessarily suffer because of his single-minded Akshanus. I’m no expert, but I wonder whether this is also part of his illness. The first step towards dealing with one’s sins is being able to give voice, formal voice, to the wrongs one has done. That is embodied in Hilchos T’Shuva in the Rambam, and as we have started blowing Shofar today on Rosh Chodesh Ellul, it is particularly timely and germane.
To be fair, there is a purpose to airing dirty linen. The purpose should be, in my view, to allow the aforementioned bullet points become a reality. When abuse remains hidden, many of those bullet points cannot adequately be addressed. Of course, it’s certainly not a “feature” of one group alone.
What about other types of dirty linen?
How many mothers and fathers have had extra-marital affairs which have resulted in the children of such marriages suffering for the rest of their lives because those marriages have decomposed? Will these forums also highlight the grave and current problem we have dealing with one of the ten commandments? I’m decidedly not saying that indirect abuse is the same as direct abuse, but such sexual encounters
Will we see forums which encourage children whose lives have been subject to upheaval because one or both of their parents succumbed to moments of weakness resulting in the destruction of their previously safe, happy and nurturing family life? Will a set of men and women who have perpetrated such sins be named? Will their dirty linen be aired? I think not. Furthermore, I don’t think it would serve any positive purpose. Note: that’s not to say all forums don’t have a purpose, a useful purpose. I’m just asking whether in this particular instance, whether that purpose has been served many times over, in the press and on radio. In a different way, I do not think forums like this, especially given the state of where we are at, will serve the most useful outcome. Education, education and more education: I mean formal programs. These are the challenges that we must now confront. Each School, each Shule, each youth movement, and of course each home must ensure that educators, children and leaders are empowered to “do the right thing” and if and when God forbid, some low life attempts to do harm, we have a well-oiled mechanism created by educational programs which will deal with the issue quickly and fairly.
Groups such as the Jewish Taskforce against Violence to Women (whose job encompasses education as a major mantra) are fantastic, and they should be praised for their hard and thankless work. It is these groups, and others like them, that ought to be our focus. Join them. Donate to them. Support them.
Our dirty linen has been aired. We now await justice. Justice from the courts will have an enormous impact, and our linen will be aired once more as a side effect.
FInally, be warned if you comment on this issue. I am unlikely to allow names to be mentioned. Be respectful.
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Talk about a self-hating Jew
What is it about us? First we find out that Gaddafi the monster was a Jew, with relatives in Israel. Now, one of the members of a Hungarian anti-semitic political group has found out he is really Jewish. Read about it here.
The light of the Havdala candle
There are a number of interesting issues about this candle. In this post, I’ll focus on one. In a future post, I’ll discuss another aspect: whether it is a Birchas HaShvach or Bircas HaNehenin as described in ברכות נ’’א.
How much light is considered “enough”? Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim רצח:ז advises that the light should be sufficient to allow us to differentiate between two coins of equal size, but who differ only in the design on their face. I’ve heard some people claim “so that you can see the difference between a nickel and a dime”, but that doesn’t seem correct because those coins have different size and less light would easily show the difference.
We don’t actually use coins per se, and another rule of thumb (pardon the pun) is to differentiate between the nail portion of a finger and the membrane supporting the nail bed. There are kabbalistic hints regarding the use of the nail, but that is parenthetical to the qualitative issue at hand. The Vilna Gaon in his ביאור הג”א in רצ”ה mentions that the use of the nails is part of the fulfillment of כל עצמותי תאמרנה (together with פריה and מליקה) as a purpose for the creation of nails. In terms of definition, though, it is the quality of light (lumens) that permits one to differentiate two coins which are almost identical except for the design on their face. The light of Havdalah is not for כבוד as in say לויית המת or as used in a סיום ספר תורה or חופה. It’s use is להאיר, which by implication connotes a certain quality of light. Two coins mentioned are the סלע and פונדיון and one examination of these (by R’ Schachter at a Museum) show that they are indeed identical except that one has a horse motif and the other has the same horse motif but with “antlers”. The סלע weighed more than a פונדיון, and I imagine that the designs changed, so I’m not sure about that.
Fluorescent lights, LED lights and even incandescent globes which are frosted and do not permit seeing a visible filament, are not acceptable according to most/all? Poskim. Many Poskim allow standard incandescent globes, however, לכתחילה we use the standard method of creating an אבוקה (a decent flame). R’ Chaim Ozer Grodzenski ז’ל, the famous Dayan of Vilna, was one of the first who was positive about electrical light bulbs with a filament. The required אבוקה (torch-like flame) is often achieved by using a special candle which had intertwined/multiple wicks and thereby increased the amount of light. Technically, one can minimally have two candles next to each other and use those. Although some say that it is necessary to bring the two wicks together, R’ Schachter proves from the gloss of R’ Akiva Eiger in Hilchos Shechitah יו”ד י”א at night (where אבוקה is defined by the רמ”א) , that it is not necessary for the definition of an אבוקה for the wicks of those two candles to be conjoined, so to speak, by bending the candles into each other (and causing a good old mess with the melted wax). In fact, those who seek to do so on Motzei Shabbos leading to Yom Tov may unwittingly cause one or both of the candles to be extinguished by the flowing wax, and that certainly is not permitted! I am aware that some אחרונים do suggest bringing the two wicks together also on account of the language of the Bracha which is plural as in מוארי האש.
At any rate, whether you have a nice Havdala candle, or you use two candles bent towards each other, or just use two candles which are next to each other, how much light should they emit? This question is further complicated by the fact that in many/most shules/homes there are lights on in the house/shule. If so, the candle/s may not physically contribute very much light wise! If so, is one making a ברכה on the electrical lights unintentionally? Many Shules have fluorescent lights, and this further complicates matters for those who are יוצא at Shule, let alone the person making the הבדלה at Shule.
Perhaps the best thing to do then is
- Turn off the electric lights
- Ensure that the candle(s) are lowered to just below eye level as the ברכה is being made (usually the מנהג is for an unmarried female to hold it up high corresponding to the height of her future חתן 🙂
- Ensure that the flame is visible (sometimes it is surrounded by a wax form over time while the candle burns over time but the outer wax membrane stays in place as in the picture below.
- Get close enough (or even pass it around)
At our home, over the last two years or so, we have changed our practice, and now purposefully turn off the lights just prior to making the בורא מאורי האש.
What do you do?
Fraudulent Collector (Part 2)
Dear all,
I have been reliably informed that this gentleman
About whom I previously posted, is in Melbourne and davened at the 7am Minyan at Ohel Dvorah.
Attached is another letter regarding him.
One of the Mispallelim, wrote to me as follows:
I questioned him quite strongly, he was being very evasive, took me ages to get his last name out of him, and that he was from Milwaukee.
He told us a convoluted story about a kollel for children and elderly in S. Petersburg and in US. Overall he appeared to be a very strange guy.
Make up your own mind. Indications are that
- He is a Kofer B’Ikar
- A fraud
As we no longer have the once excellent Chesed service, can I suggest that readers pass this blog post around?
Real or imagined?
I got this story from yeshivah world news. See below. My questions are:
Don’t misread me. I’m not suggesting that people shouldn’t have their Tefillin checked based on the advice of their Rav regarding how often to do so. I’m also not suggesting that Hakadosh Baruch Hu acts in strange and mysterious ways. I’m just trying to get my head around the concept of tragedy manifest on children due to a Sofer error in the Tefillin of the father.
The following story is circulating in the chareidi media throughout Eretz Yisrael.
A well-known Yerushalayim talmid chacham bought a pair of tefillin 18 years ago. After 12 years, after one of his sons-in-law lost his own tefillin the rav gave his pair to him (the son-in-law) and he used them for six years.
The talmid chacham used the tefillin for 12 years, during which time he lost two sons, one 6 and the second 12. While the son-in-law used the tefillin he experienced a number of “incidents” involving a son, which almost ended in disaster. One of the “incidents” involved the son being badly burned.
This week, the tefillin were checked by the sofer and then sent to מכון פער to check for additional or missing letters/words and they discovered that in the second parsha of the של ראש the posuk וכל בכור… was missing the word בני.
The computer checking lab, מכון פער, asked to have the story circulated as widely as possible in the hope of encouraging people to have their tefillin check, by a sofer and by computer.
Mezuza: should it be viewed as a quasi amulet?
In his typically brilliant style, Rav S.R. Hirsch explains the meaning of a Mezuza as mentioned in this weeks Parshas Ekev, Devarim 6:9
The mezuzah is not an amulet; in and of itself, it does not protect the
house. Only insofar as they shape their lives in accordance with the mezuzah’s
content can the people within the house expect help and protection
from God, the “All-Sovereign and All-Sufficing,” in all the vicissitudes
of domestic life. With this intent it is our custom to adorn the
outside of the mezuzah with the Name shin-daled-yud.
Neutered correctness gone mad?
Am I getting old(er) to the extent that I simply cannot fathom the sentiments expressed in this article?
I have been working at University for over two decades. I have seen all manner of extremism, exhibitionism, sexism, racism … you name it, I’ve seen it. One expects this at a University where there is (or at least there ought to be) a license for free thought, wrapped up in a veritable cornucopia of wildly differing personalities amongst both the student and staff body.
Nonetheless, this quote floored me:
Men were also continuously and unnecessarily sexist, waiting for me to walk through doors and leave the elevator before them.”
I looked up the term sexism to refresh my understanding, and found:
1. Discrimination based on gender, especially discrimination against women.
2. Attitudes, conditions, or behaviors that promote stereotyping of social roles based on gender.
I think there are three key terms here:
Now, discrimination on its own isn’t a pejorative term. It connotes difference. I’d argue that if the difference leads to an act or comment which implies that women are promoted as inferior in any way, then it is wrong. In this instance, surely an act of chivalry or good manners need not be interpreted as an expression of inferiority, weakness or the like?
I understand that stereotyping is a dangerous weapon in the mouth of someone consciously or subconsciously motivated to demean, demote or demography the “role” of a woman in society. Again, I have difficulty understanding how a gesture which could also be understood as consciously or subconsciously honouring and elevating the stature of the feminine gender, should solely be interpreted as an act of sexism.
I’m unconvinced why such an act need also be interpreted as ascribing an inferior feminine position.
Of course, I wasn’t there. It’s possible that she was sufficiently riled by other incidents to the extent that she had become over-sensitised by her feminine identity.
If a man (or woman) suggested that an older person enter or leave a lift first, or opened the door for that older person, would this also be seen as ageism?
Students commonly suggest I enter a lift first, or wait for me to leave a door. My response is either to say “thank you” or “please, there is no need, after you”.
Surely a better approach than to criticise this type of “etiquette” is to say
“Thanks, but there is no need. I’m quite comfortable not being treated differently to males.
Your thoughts?
A respectable hechsher doesn’t need misleading approbations
Fraudulent collector
Alexandr Shteyn was recently in Cleveland. He was mistakenly allowed to stay in the Hachnosis Orchim for two days and then asked to leave. He claimed to be collecting for his wife’s medical bills, but it was believed he was collecting for what he claimed to be Chabad/Lubavitch of MilwaukeeWisconsin. He was not authorized to collect on behalf of Chabad/Lubavitch of MilwaukeeWisconsin.
He carries Certificate No. 212231 from the Vaad Harabonim Shlit”a of Florida valid from 6/13 – 6/27/2012. Interestingly, this certificate bears the declaration, “This is not an endorsement of any person, organization or cause” but rather bears a personal declaration signed by Alexandr Shteyn that he is collecting for his wife’s medical bills. He is also carrying a Permission to Collect Funds from the Va’ad HaRabanim of Greater Seattle valid from 12/12 – 12/19/2011 also for his wife’s medical treatments.
To all Shluchim and friends of Chabad Lubavitch,
It has come to my
attention that Alexander (Sasha) Milschtein – who is an “elokist”, rachamana litzlan, and who “celebrates” Tisha B’av with a public barbeque (complete with an announcement r”l in his published calendar) – has been traveling all over the world, fraudulently presenting himself as an affiliate of Chabad Lubavitch of Milwaukee/Wisconsin.
He and his representatives, Yevgeny (Shlomo) Seskutov and Aleksander Shteyn, appeal to people in your community and are being supported by unsuspecting, rachamonim bnei rachamonim.
It is my unpleasant duty, as a Jew and a Shaliach, to bring this to your attention in order to prevent you from supporting a fraudulent and a r”l… operation. Needless to say, it is an absolute prohibition, an isur chomur, to say the least, to offer any support to anyone of his camp. It is every Jew’s duty to prevent his constituency and acquaintances from R”L supporting the above, per these letters by Vaad Rabonei Anashand Beis Din of Crown Heights:
Letter by Vaad Rabonei Anash concerning Milschtein
Letter by Beth Din of Crown Heights about Milschtein
[I call your attention below to r”l similar letters from rabbonim.]
May the Al-mighty cause them to do teshuvah immediately.
Sincerely,
Rabbi Yisroel Shmotkin
Director, Lubavitch of Wisconsin
Cohen marrying a “divorcee”
We say that everything happens through Hasghacha Pratis. Today is the Yohr Tzeit of HaRav Yosef Eliyahu Henkin z”l, who was universally accepted as the most important Posek in the USA prior to R’ Moshe. While Rav Henkin was still alive, the veneration of R’ Moshe towards R’ Henkin was palpable and reflected in his Tshuvos in Igros Moshe. It was not uncommon to find R’ Moshe write a long T’shuva wherein it is clear that R’ Moshe’s opinion is to be lenient. At the conclusion of the Tshuva, R’ Moshe will write that “since Rav Henkin does not agree, one should follow R’ Henkin’s opinion.” There were a number of issues, however, where R’ Moshe stood his ground, so to speak, and Paskened differently to R’ Henkin.
One of the main issues, perhaps even the main issue was the question of the status of a Reform or Civil marriage. Was such a marriage binding in the sense that it concluded and was considered an act of Kiddushin? R’ Moshe was lenient. He held, and I believe that this is the widely held view today, that for a number of reasons, such as the fact that there were no Kosher witnesses, we should not consider such ceremonies as connoting a formal kiddushin/marriage. R’ Henkin on the other hand, basically held that if it looks like a fish, smells like a fish and tastes like a fish, it is a fish. Since the said couple had a ceremony and are known to be cohabiting, then it must be a marriage in the sense that if one or both subsequently sought a divorce, they would be required to obtain a formal Get. In addition, one ramification of R’ Henkin’s view was that if the woman in such a civil or reform marriage didn’t obtain a Get, and bore a child with another man, that child would be considered a Mamzer.
This was a critical Machlokes between the two, and in their and our day, it is just as important.
I was interested then in this article published in Yediot on R’ Henkin’s Yohr Tzeit, which described an alleged sham civil marriage in which the couple lived together for 4 months for the purposes of a Visa. The Rabbanut paskened that since there was no real marriage, as per R’ Moshe’s Psak, above, the lady would not require a Get and could therefore now marry a Cohen (a Cohen is forbiidden to marry a divorcee).
It is difficult to extrapolate whether R’ Henkin would agree that in this case there was no formal marriage either. Perhaps even R’ Henkin would agree that there was no marriage L’Chatchila and therefore no Get was required, thereby permitting the lady to marry a Cohen?
R’ Nochem Zalman Gurewicz ז’ל
This last Shabbos, I was in two minds concerning which Shule to attend. Generally, I daven at Elwood Shule every second week, and the main Chabad Yeshivah Shule in Melbourne on the other week. Recently, I have davened at Elwood more often, feeling the need to show support.
The plan was to daven at Elwood, and like many, follow davening with an in-house Kiddush, Mincha, and eventually to a late lunch leading into the Taanis. After reading Emmanuel Althaus’s excellent e-mail of community events, it was apparent that Shabbos was R’ Nochem’s Yohr Tzeit on Tisha B’Av, and that a Kiddush/Farbrengen would be held at Yeshivah after davening given that the fast was moved to Sunday. R’ Nochem was one of my teachers; I had to attend the Kiddush.
R’ Nochem left an indelible mark on me (and others, of course). In what way does a teacher of year 11 and year 12 do that? Was it just because he was a good teacher? Why indelible? Let me be up front. R’ Nochem was not a Geonic teacher who dazzled the class with exquisitely crafted Pilpulim on the Gemora. He’d usually sit at the front of the class, stroking his beard, while uttering an elongated “Yeh”. We knew that during this time he was dealing with the Pshat in the Gemora or the Pshat in a Tosfos. We saw him struggle with these at times. That’s not to say that he had any unnatural difficulty learning. Rather, what we witnessed was an honest and open interaction between R’ Nochem and the Gemora. He hadn’t spent hours in preparation.
How was this helpful? Surely a student ought to see their teacher in absolute control of their material? Teaching a new subject this semester at University, one of the things terrifying me is not being in “complete” control of the material. Will a student ask a question for which there is no apparent response? Will I become tongue-tied at one of my bullet points because a mental blank clouds the ability to convey meaning and intention adequately? It’s not merely an egotistical fear; subconsciously, as a University professor, we are expected to know what we are talking about. It need not be that way, however. R’ Nochem had no such tickets on himself. His was an exercise: a journey of educational engagement. It was as if he was saying
I’m learning the Gemora and Tosfos, and you will learn it with me. We will make mistakes together, but we will learn and eventually come to an understanding.
Pedagogically, there is nothing second-rate about this mode of learning and teaching. Indeed, provided that a student is mature, some would consider it superior. There was more, however, to R” Nochem’s classes than Gemora and Tosfos.
R’ Nochem came across, primarily, as an ordinary human being; a Tomim (simple and humble personage). Whether he did so consciously, I’ll never know, but his stories entranced and regaled. In a moment, we were transported from a difficult piece of Talmudic logic into the world of a Jewish soldier in the Soviet communist army. Pursued by the NKVD or “EnKaVehDeh” as he pronounced it, we were at once in Soviet Russia feeling his challenges, his pain and his hunger. R’ Nochem didn’t talk about himself exclusively by any stretch of the imagination. There were a wide array of personalities that somehow, almost star trek like, entered the door of that simple class room at 92 Hotham Street in Melbourne, Australia.
R’ Nochem’s Lubavitch was somewhat different to the one many of us are exposed to today. His was not a pastuerised and homogenised existence. Like Rabbi Groner ז’ל there was a keen reverence for Rebbes and Tzadikim of other groups. We heard stories about R’ Meir Premishlaner and R’ Zushe extending to contemporaries about whom he conjured an almost personal interaction. He showed great joy when expounding a good vort, even if it wasn’t derived from traditional Lubavitch sources. Yet, he was also a real Chosid. He knew his personal faults and never hid them. He was self-effacing and paradoxically charming at the same time. This contradictory infusion only increased a charismatic magnetism, discussion of which he would find most embarrassing.
As youngsters, we knew he “schnorred” for the Yeshivah. He had worked in knitwear earlier. He mixed with the Smorgons and other paragons of the community. Yet, that job description connoted a pariah-like existence to young teenagers and was considered derogatory. Today, employees are known by the more professional and acceptable title of “fund-raisers”.
R’ Nochem toiled as a worker. Rising well before the crack of dawn, he seemed to be davening in every minyan: from the first through to the last. No word in the siddur escaped his attention, and each was lovingly given due reverence. In R’ Nochem’s “spare” time, and this included his infamous vehicular conveyancing, an undercurrent of Tehillim was murmured in that idiosyncratic tone. Every time his car was fixed by the panel beater, we placed bets on how long it would be before it once more looked like he’d been in a serious accident. Without exaggeration, if you were “lucky” enough to hitch a ride with R’ Nochem, benching Gomel, B’Sheim U’Malchus was assuredly advised.
I remember once when in early high school, he called for volunteers to help on a mission to Carlton. I put my hand up. It was certainly a better proposition than the boring three R’s. The ride took an eternity. R’ Nochem meandered through many wrong turns. Finally we arrived outside an old Edwardian half-house in a quiet Carlton side street. We wondered what our task was to be. The deceased had apparently left his “estate” to the Yeshivah, and our job was to assist in loading a clapped out panel van with anything that appeared to be of value. I don’t remember many things impressing us as being any real value, although we did enjoy an interesting time rummaging through draws, finding ancient writing implements and the like. Of course, we also shlepped. We made it back in one piece, but it wasn’t always clear on that return journey that this would indeed be the case.
R’ Nochem was the “pinchy man”. He adored children, and the level of this adoration extended to an often painful pinch of the cheek. Ironically, in our more enlightened society, he would probably have been charged with harassment and battery, but what would they know about genuine affection. At least one of my children, Tzvi Yehuda, experienced this form of “love” and I’m glad he did!
R’ Nochem was spotless. This was a man whose suits, shirts, shoes and ubiquitous beige cardigan were at all times salubrious. His beard was always “clean”, his breath never unpleasant. We took these things for granted but when one looks around today and sees people in respected positions, with their shirts out, tzitzis dangling wildly in unkempt and gay abandon, jackets barely able to enclose an extended girth, pockets filled with the days takings, squished, dusty, off-colour fedoras and more, one comes to appreciate that N’Kiyus, cleanliness, is not anathema to a Chosid. I should add, that both R’ Zalman, R’ Isser and others were also immaculately groomed at all times.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing. At times, R’ Nochem would blow up unceremoniously at a recalcitrant Talmid. These were not “ordinary” Talmidim. They were children of holocaust survivors whose parents essentially “deposited” their sons and daughters at the doors of the Yeshivah, praying that an educational experience be imparted. These parents worked 24/7 and mostly had neither the time, patience or Menuchas HaNefesh to cope or deal with children in a new country, let alone in a more modern era. One colourful character, whose name will remain anonymous, had a tendency to incessantly disturb the pervasively calm class ambience. Enraged, R’ Nochem grabbed his black umbrella hurling it towards the back of the class and almost impaling the said Talmid. Well, it was funny at the time, but yes, we know it could have ended badly. With R’ Nochem, you saw what you got and you got what you saw.
I was rebellious but not in the sense that I didn’t want to learn. Rather, I became somewhat estranged from the curriculum on Fridays. I didn’t have the presence of mind or a mature appreciation of Friday’s chassidic sicha. I used to slink off to the back of the class and learn basic Chumash/Rashi together with a little Sefer written in the style of “Itturei Torah” whose ditties on psukim I quite enjoyed. Determined to “do my own thing”, I put my black bag (“techke”) on the desk in front of me, effectively cutting myself off from what others were learning. Okay, okay, I hear your pseudo-psychological assessment of my behaviour and your assertion that not much has changed since then …. this article isn’t about me, though. R’ Nochem in his wisdom, accepted my position. He said:
As long as you are learning, it’s okay with me
How many teachers, including myself would tolerate such insolence? These days, when I lecture and see a student seemingly not paying attention because they are peering at an open laptop, I gravitate towards their seat and say
If you are looking at my overheads, they are in front of you on the screen, so please close your laptop or you will miss important information
In a word, R’ Nochem was tolerant. He had a clear sense of mission. His mission was simply to build the organisation. He worked tirelessly. He didn’t live in a grandiose setting and was humble until his last days in our world. R’ Nochem was always the first person at someone else’s Minyan when there was a Shivah. He was a source of comfort to so many people. I recall going to his flat in Alexandra Road when he was sitting Shivah—I don’t remember for whom. I was struck by the absolute simplicity of his flat. There were no trappings. This was a humble existence. He wasn’t “Rabbi” Nochem Zalman. Alas, I didn’t know his Rebbetzin. I firmly believe, though, that behind every good man, there is an even better woman.
His son, Mulik, otherwise known as Mr G, in keeping with the education imparted by both of his parents began his delivery at the kiddush by speaking not about his father, but about the other co-sponsor of the Kiddush, who also had a Yohr Tzeit. This struck me at the time as consonant with the example set by his parents. Somebody else always came first. Mulik mentioned (and I’ve heard this from him many times) that his father was very frum and a big medakdek b’mitzvos. I surmise that one of the reasons why Mulik refuses to be called “Rabbi” is because he couldn’t possibly see himself as being seen to be “more” than his father.
In the words of one of R’ Nochem’s grandchildren, as relayed to me yesterday
They don’t make them like that anymore
יהי זכרו ברוך
Brushing teeth on Tisha B’Av
I know that most Poskim forbid it. If my hands are dirty, then I am permitted to remove the dirt with water and soap if necessary, preferably up to the knuckles if possible.
Now that we know that our teeth are actually dirty with plaque.
From Wikipedia
Components of plaque
Plaque consists of microorganisms and extracellular matrix.
The microorganisms that form the biofilm are mainly Streptococcus mutans and anaerobes, with the composition varying by location in the mouth. Examples of such anaerobes include fusobacterium and actinobacteria.
The extracellular matrix contains proteins, long chain polysaccharides and lipids.
The microorganisms present in dental plaque are all naturally present in the oral cavity, and are normally harmless. However, failure to remove plaque by regular tooth brushing means that they are allowed to build up in a thick layer. Those microorganisms nearest the tooth surface convert to anaerobic respiration; it is in this state that they start to produce acids.
Acids released from dental plaque lead to demineralization of the adjacent tooth surface, and consequently to dental caries. Saliva is also unable to penetrate the build-up of plaque and thus cannot act to neutralize the acid produced by the bacteria and remineralize the tooth surface.
They also cause irritation of the gums around the teeth that could lead to gingivitis, periodontal disease and tooth loss.
Plaque build up can also become mineralized and form calculus (tartar).
I understand that on Yom Kippur we have an additional issue of Inuy, afflicting oneself.
ילמדינו רבינו
Why isn’t plaque considered like “dirt” that may be removed?
It could be argued that nobody, even a dog, would swallow tooth paste let alone listerine.
Why not allow brushing with a half a cupful of listerine or similar?
They did not understand Rav Elyashiv
Yitzy Sprung referred to this nice article in context of my earlier article.
Rav Elyashiv retired from the Rabbanut, as mentioned. He had only one interest after that: to learn Torah. As R Schachter explains, when you are a Dayan for the State, your context is as wide as your constituency. You will necessarily consider certain leniencies in keeping with the audience of your opinion. The decisions back then are published by Heichal Shlomo.
Once he retired, he didn’t put out an advertisement which said “Psaks-R-us” or seek a new appointment. Rather, because of his reputable erudition, people gravitated to him. His home became a magnet over time for major questions, and eventually the not so major. His audience was now very different and the strictness in his approach consistent with that.
In that context it made absolutely no sense to appoint a “successor”
He knew there were other Poskim that people could and did turn to. He chose not to impose a successor.
I would argue that this might have been one of the most profound Psak/legacy that he left us!
To meat or meet?
What would or should you do?
You are one of a bunch of madrichim/counsellors at an American style summer camp for young primary age kids, many of whom have limited exposure to Judaism.
To show their gratitude and hospitality, the parents of one child, who keep a kosher home, invited the counsellors to dinner, during the nine days.
Unfortunately, they didn’t consider the need for milchigs, and a nice meat meal was served.
Do you politely decline, and all claim to be vegetarians?
Can attending a Siyum after the event help?
Should you consider that embarrassing the hostess is worse than keeping one part of Minhag Aveylus?
I’m aware that there are leniencies when one encounters royalty and the like during the nine days; does this count?
I hear some of you quoting the “fifth” chelek of Shulchan Aruch which encourages you to be a mensch at all times.
I haven’t looked into this. Any insights?
Petira of Rav Elyashiv צ״ל
It was a sad day, indeed, when I read about this event. I had two occasions where I turned to him to answer Shaylos that I had. Both times my letters were passed on by Rav Yossi Efrati, who is a tremendous and fiery Gaon, and who delivered a Thursday night Halacha Shiur to ‘Chutznikim’ at Kerem B’Yavneh. In both cases, I received detailed answers with sources.
This occurred well before he became the leader of Lithuanian style Charedim in Israel.
There is no Rabbi or human being who has not had their share of controversy. Rav Elyashiv famously split from the Rabbanut as a senior Dayan, when he vigorously opposed Rav Goren’s solution to the Langer case. Ironically, it would seem that Rav Elyashiv, or at least his minions also engaged in attempts to anul some conversions; eg. The view of Rav Avraham Sherman.
He also paskened that where there was a reasonable suspicion of abuse one should go directly to the authorities. Aguda twisted his words, and sadly in the last ten years many of his words were twisted and he was drip fed information by ‘Askanim’.
He didn’t write much, sadly, although I do have his Kovetz Tshuvos at home.
I don’t think he will be remembered in the same light as Reb Moshe or Reb Shlomo Zalman or Rav Waldenburg, however, If there is one thing that we can inspirationally derive from his life, it would have to be his incredible continuous learning of Torah. He could be described as a conservative Posek. Im not familiar with all his Psakim of course, but i cant recall a big noted Heter. Whether it was 16 hours a day or slightly different is immaterial. What is known is that he simply learned almost all day, and lived a humble life in a tiny apartment in Meah Shearim. It is said that he knew all four sections of shulchan aruch with all the commentaries, by heart.
He was an admirer of his shadchan, Rav Kook ז״ל and was not afraid to defend Rav Kook. See here for example.
יהי זכרו ברוך
Most Brooklyn Abuse Cases Involve Kin
[Hat tip to Dad]
The following is by Paul Berger of the forward.
Recent media accounts of child sexual abuse in Brooklyn’s Orthodox community have highlighted the threat victims face from teachers, rabbis and yeshiva staff as perpetrators, and the special pressures — even intimidation — they face from community leaders not to report such cases to secular law enforcement.
But a list of child sexual abuse cases in that community suggests that another source of pressure, even closer to home, may be at least as important.
The list, released by Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes earlier this year, describes 97 abuse cases that Hynes says he prosecuted over the last three years. According to the data, 20% of these cases involved family members — usually fathers, brothers or uncles — and another 37% involved a perpetrator who was a friend or acquaintance.
By contrast, only about 12% of the cases appeared to involve rabbis, bar mitzvah tutors, counselors or yeshiva employees, including janitors and security guards. The next largest group of perpetrators consisted of strangers, who accounted for about 17% of Hynes’s Orthodox-related prosecutions.
The information from Hynes’s list must be treated with caution for a number of reasons. Some cases — Hynes’s office won’t say which — include adult victims while others involved non-Jewish perpetrators or victims. But according to Rhonnie Jaus, the head of Hynes’s sex crimes division, the “vast majority” of cases described are those of Orthodox children.
Hynes has also refused to release the names of the perpetrators, making an assessment of the professional positions of those described as family members impossible. Also, rabbis and other authority figures may make up a larger proportion of offenders than the list indicates, but not be present on it simply because people are too scared to report them.
Nevertheless, according to specialists in the field of child abuse, the data are consistent with what is known about such abuse more broadly. Cases involving ultra-Orthodox authority figures dominate headlines, as do those involving clergy members, football coaches and schoolteachers, because they often tend to have large numbers of victims. In terms of victims per perpetrator, such figures constitute concentrated sources of threat to children. But Hynes’s chart indicates that the general threat from family members cannot be ignored.
“You tend to expect that the majority of offenders are not people in a high-profile position,” said David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. “They are brothers and uncles, fathers and neighbors.”
Just as secular victims often struggle to bring charges against people close to them, ultra-Orthodox families also grapple with the implications of accusing friends and relatives, these experts say.
“The family doesn’t want the breadwinner to be jailed and the income cut off,” Finkelhor said of secular victims’ families. “They don’t want the rest of the family turning against them because the kid’s fingered the grandparent.”
While the incidence of child sexual abuse within the circle of family and close acquaintances may be no greater than in secular society, ultra-Orthodox families do face special issues when wrestling with the challenge of reporting such people to the police.
Judy Braun, an author who was raised in the ultra-Orthodox community, said the distinction between family and non-family cases may be only partially useful when examining the ultra-Orthodox community. Braun, whose recent novel, “Hush,” is based on her experience of witnessing a friend being abused by a family member, said that because the community is like an extended family, there is often little perceived difference between family members and non-family members. “The [perpetrator] is a third cousin, or a friend of the family, or a son-in-law of a [family member],” Braun said. “It’s like a spider web.”
Further, even without direct and explicit interference from rabbinic authorities or the pressure of ruining a relative’s life, Braun said, parents are under intense pressure not to risk their children being tarnished as impure. “The attitude is a bit like Muslims,” Braun said. “It’s a stain on the [victims] themselves.”
Mesirah — a religious prohibition against informing on a fellow Jew to the secular authorities — is often blamed for dissuading victims from reporting abusers to the police. But there is anecdotal evidence that even in cases where the perpetrator is a non-Jew, ultra-Orthodox families struggle to go to police.
According to Jaus, in one recent case two ultra-Orthodox girls were separately abducted and sexually assaulted. A DNA sample linked a non-Jewish man to the crimes. But both families refused to cooperate, in part, said Jaus, because they feared that an investigation could tarnish the girls’ marriage chances as well as their siblings’ ability to get into school and get married. (Law enforcement sources confirmed that an indictment has finally been filed after one of the families agreed to cooperate.)
Such cases stand or fall on fears of stigma and shame, rather than intimidation. Marci Hamilton, a law professor at Yeshiva University, said victims who cooperate with police risk their future on the hope that they will not be identified. “I’ve heard a number of victims who told me that their lives are literally destroyed, ruined,” Hamilton said. “They will never marry if anyone finds out they were assaulted.”
Even in cases not involving rabbis or other respected community figures, leaders within Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox community still often pressure families, according to Jaus. “It’s not just well respected rabbis or someone from school” acting as a perpetrator that sparks community pressure, she said.
Teresa Huizar, executive director of the National Children’s Alliance, said such concerns are typical of conservative religious communities. “The shame created around abuse ought to be exclusively carried on the shoulders of the abuser,” Huizar said. Instead, shame is displaced onto victims and their families, representing “a shifting of moral responsibility and weight from the offender to the victim.”
Hannah Rubin contributed reporting for this story.
After 28 Years in Tulkarm, Dina Is Rescued With Her Children
A good news story from matzav.
She was born 48 years ago to a traditional Jewish family in Lod, a poor city near Tel Aviv where Jews and Arabs mix easily. Severe emotional distress led her to sever ties with her family and, at the age of 20, to make a hasty decision that condemned her to a life of severe abuse and unbearable suffering.
For the past 28 years, Dina bat Leah lived in an Arab village on the outskirts of Tulkarm, a Palestinian city located in northern Samaria. In Israel, she was listed as “missing.” At one point, her parents were summoned to the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute to identify what was believed to be her body. They were of course unable to do so and the mystery surrounding their daughter’s whereabouts continued.
Three weeks ago, in a stunning development, Dina contacted a relative in Israel. It was the first sign of life from her in 28 years. The relative called Yad L’Achim’s hotline and provided operators with Dina’s phone number and whatever information she had gleaned from her conversation with her.
Yad L’Achim wasted no time in setting up a team to plan her rescue. The sense of urgency, and emotion, was particularly strong in light of this poor woman’s name: Dina bat Leah, whose biblical namesake had been held captive by Arabs in Shechem (Nablus), and who was ultimately rescued by her two brothers Shimon and Levi.
The team gathered evidence that shook even veteran social workers who had seen it all. Dina was being subjected to horrific abuse, to the point where, recently, her husband tied her to a tree for 13 hours, during which he forbade anyone from offering her even a glass of water.
“Everyone should see what will happen to you if you dare leave again without permission,” he spat at her.
Yad L’Achim succeeded in contacting her directly, and heard a desperate plea help. “I can’t take it anymore,” she cried. “Please rescue me from this place. I beg of you: Return me to my people.”
Yad L’Achim completed its rescue plan for Dina and her two young children, an eight-year-old son and a 10-year-old daughter. Her older children would have to remain behind, for now. Contact was made with a senior official in the office of the IDF’s Coordinator of Government Activities in Yehudah and Shomron, who agreed to issue Dina and her children a special visa to enter Israel. Soldiers at the border crossing were given instructions to open the gates to the rescue car.
The opportunity for rescue came this week, on Monday morning. The night before, Dina received a valuable gift from her Arab husband: NIS 12, to be used to take with her two children by cab to Tulkarm for a doctor’s visit (Yad L’Achim had instructed her to use the doctor visit as a pretext for leaving).
Acting according to the plan drawn up by Yad L’Achim, Dina boarded the cab with her children and left the village. Two minutes later, long before she reached Tulkarm, she ordered the cab to stop and got out. After he drove away, she boarded a rescue car driven by a “collaborator” that was waiting for her on the side of the road. The car sped off toward the border crossing, for a trip that seemed to take an eternity.
In keeping with a tradition begun by Yad L’Achim’s legendary founder, Hagaon Harav Shalom Dovber Lifschitz, zt”l, the moment Dina called to say she was in the rescue car, all of Yad L’Achim activists stopped what they were doing to recite Tehillim on behalf of Dina bat Leah and her two children, who were in desperate need of a yeshuah (salvation).
When the call came from the soldiers at the border crossing – “We see her with the children!” – a weight was lifted from the shoulders of those manning the command room at Yad L’Achim.
After the car crossed into Israel and came to a stop, Dina emerged with her children. She burst into tears at the realization that her nightmare of 28 years was finally over. She and her children were home and could begin the journey back to their people.
They were welcomed at the checkpoint by social workers from Yad L’Achim, headed by S, who was Dina’s liaison in the weeks prior to the rescue. The two maintained ties under the nose of the hostile Arab husband.
Dina related that during their drive in the rescue car, when she revealed to her children that they were on a one-way trip to Israel, the children, who had themselves suffered from their father’s abuse, shouted in excitement: “Promise us that we won’t ever go back there!”
At the checkpoint, while they sipped from glasses of cold water and calmed down from their stress of recent weeks, Dina removed her jalabiya and scarf and asked a Yad L’Achim staffer to “thrown it in the garbage.”
In that moment, she shed her Arab dress and took on the appearance of a Jewish woman taking her first steps back to her people and birthplace. There wasn’t a dry eye at the checkpoint; even hardened soldiers cried unashamedly.
Dina was taken to the police to file a complaint against her abusive Arab husband. The Israel Police sent the information to the Tulkarm Police, not in the expectation that the Palestinian police would act on it, but because an official report would make it possible for them to arrest him if he infiltrated into Israel in pursuit of his wife and children.
Dina and her children are now living in a safe house in the center of Israel. “Our professionals have a long way to go before Dina bat Leah and her children are on the road to success,” a Yad L’Achim official said this week. “Meanwhile, we are giving them lots of love and providing them with everything they need to live. We’re helping them make their way back to Am Yisrael gradually.”
Yad L’Achim hailed the efforts of Interior Minister Rabbi Eli Yishai who got involved and cut through the bureaucracy to help facilitate the rescue.
“This week’s emotional rescue is a reminder that there are thousands of Jewish girls who are at this very moment being held captive in Arab villages and who are desperate to be rescued,” said one Yad L’Achim official. “We will continue to use all the tools at our disposal to redeem them. At the same time, we will continue with our PR campaign to educate the public and uproot the phenomenon.”
Is this how respected Poskim decide Halacha
In the comments section on a rather bizarre post on another blog, Rabbi Meir Rabi made the following statement:
I suspect that erudition is important, but not as important as the Posek’s mental posture, the landscape he sees himself operating in. If the Posek has already made up his mind about the style of Pesak that he is inclined to follow, the erudition will select those perspectives that suit and block out those that do not. It is the Talmid Chacham’s Placebo effect.”
All I can add is that if Rabbi Rabi paskens according to his self-declared “placebo effect”, he certainly need not explain his decisions to anybody.
I wonder if he’d pass this theory of Psak to the great Poskim of our generation for their הסכמה.
The latest chumra for Shidduchim
[Hat tip to my ex-room mate at Kerem B’Yavneh]
There will be other developments, no doubt, which include an opaque perspex divider when these seats become part of the norm in parks and gardens. There will also be super bus terminals built around this design in certain neighbourhoods, where the Yetzer Hora is too powerful. I’d insert a smiley in this post, except that it might be misplaced.
A clear Psak requiring Reporting is needed to stop Abuse
I am reblogging this one from Daas Torah, as it’s important, and yet another tragic story.
I just finished a long trans-Atlantic call with an American rav whose grandson was recently abused in a shul in Europe during davening. He was distressed by a number of developments besides the fact that his grandson had been abused. 1) the community rav who had been consulted said that the perpetrator had suffered enough embarrassment already and thus nothing more should be done. The rav stated clearly that the matter should be dropped and if the police were involved it would be mesira. He was clearly ignorant of the rulings of Rav Eliashiv and other gedolim on the matter. 2) Despite this the parents reported the abuse the police – but they didn’t seem interested in getting involved either. 3) To make the matter more distressing the family has been informed that the alleged abuser has been observed in the past – touching kids inappropriately in the mikveh – but nothing was done. 4) The parents of the child are now being harassed and threatened by the community as trouble makers and informants.
This American rav is well aware of the halachic and psychological issues and suggested something which is very simple – but should be very effective in changing the dynamics of the situation. Most people would have no problem of reporting if they witnessed a child being raped or severely beaten. In fact they probably would physically intervene to stop the abuse. The events of Penn State have hopefully taught us that good people don’t act unless they know that they must act and are informed in advance what constitutes abuse. Similarly most rabbonim today acknowledge the importance of reporting abuse – to the local rabbi or police – but they would not necessarily recognize that inappropriate touching or fondling is abuse
Therefore the American rav suggested that the community needs that important poskim publicly proclaim in a written declaration what actions constitute abuse that we need to report. The proclamation must state clearly and unambiguously that abuse is wrong – even if it doesn’t involve rape. It must list the halachic requirements to prevent harm by reporting. And finally it needs a clear and unambiguous list of specific actions that constitute abuse that need to be reported.
Here is a tentative text regarding what is abuse:
You must report the following to your rav and/or police department. If you see a child being touched inappropriately in the mikveh, playground, summer camp or school or neighbor’s home. Not only must you report inappropriate adult fondling of a child – but also such actions between children – even if they are the same age. You must report not only what you yourself observe but also when you hear rumors or your children tell you – it needs to be reported in order to verify and stop it. In sum – all awareness of abuse that you know about – must be reported to someone. However it is not enough to just report that you witnessed or heard about abuse. If the person you report to doesn’t follow through – whether it is a parent, teacher, principal, rav or police – you must persist either with that authority or find someone else who will listen and act. It is clear that a child’s well being is not to be sacrificed to avoid chilul hashem, financial loss to a yeshiva or synagogue, or the embarrassment to the family of the abuser or even a prison sentence for the perpetrator. There is no prohibition of lashon harah to report these issues, nor is there a prohibition of mesira. A Rav or community leader is obligated to listen to any and all alleged incidents of abuse. Every member of the community is obligated to make sure that children are protected and that perpetrators are stopped.
ה’ ירחם
Sad turn of events
This person, used to have a grocery shop in Carlisle Street, Melbourne. Always seemed an affable and likeable person. Money is a Tayva that’s difficult to control, even for the best of us.
Guest counsellor in Melbourne
The Australian Jewish News included an advertisement from Kollel Beth HaTalmud featuring Rabbi Dovid Goldwasser. Rabbi Goldwasser is described as an expert in matters of addiction and is widely respected as a counsellor. I do not know if Rabbi Goldwasser has any formal qualifications. Certainly in Australia, you can be an accountant, and advertise and perform the role of counsellor and not have your advice or counsel subject to any peer review or peer oversight. My view is that all counsellors should not only have formal training, but that they should be answerable to a counselling peer body if there are complaints about their para-professional counsel. A psychologist can lose their registration if they are found to be guilty of breaching the standards expected of their peer body. It seems that counsellors, for some reason, are not bound by peer based standards because they do not need formal qualifications.
I guess it’s buyer beware. There is advice, and there is counselling. They are two different things. Rabbonim have long given advice. Some of them are also incredibly good counsellors and possess the “wisdom of Solomon” by virtue of their acumen and life experience, laced with the values of Halacha. Rabbis Chaim Gutnick ז’ל and Yitzchok Dovid Groner ז’ל were both revered as advisers and counsellors in Melbourne, and rightly so.
A Rabbi with requisite wisdom will also know when something is outside their range of expertise and refer a congregant to professionals when that appears to be warranted.
This is not to cast any aspersions on Rabbi Dovid Goldwasser. He is highly visible on the internet, and would seem to have a very good reputation achieving lots of good.
That being said, he is also someone who was issued with a Ksav Siruv by Chabad on account of allegations that he wilfully mistranslated the memoirs of an elderly paragon of Russian Jewry by omitting all and every reference to Chabad! I’m not breaking any new story here. The issue is well documented here and here
Thank God, apart from my addiction to Herring, Tzibbeles, and Bromfen on Shabbos, I have no need to see the good Rabbi; although if he can tell me how to lose some of my tummy I’d be obliged. If someone does attend, it might be interesting to ask why he chose not to appear before Rav Osdoba to answer the complaints directed against him about the book.
Why is this alleged child abuser running free?
We live in a strange world. Sometimes, stupid laws get in the way of good sense. Here we have a so-called “Rabbi” and “Dr” who has been shown to be a fraud, and is accused of the heinous crime of sodomising children and young adults, and he lives in Nachlaot, Jerusalem, as if nothing has every happened, and he has nothing to account for. Nachlaot is not a religious bastion. It is overwhelmingly secular. This episode is a scar on the pursuit of Justice. The story appears here
If there’s any story inside the Jewish community that closely parallels the sexual abuse cover-up inside the Catholic Church, it’s the story of Avrohom Mondrowitz. Posing as both a rabbi and a therapist, Mondrowitz was accused of molesting several boys in his Brooklyn neighborhood in the mid-1980’s. The listed victims were all non-Jewish, mostly because Mondrowitz’s alleged Jewish victims, estimated to be between 100-300 never came forward. Mondrowitz was charged with eight counts of child abuse and five counts of sodomy. Hours before he was arrested he fled the country, first to Canada and then to Israel. He was rumored to have been tipped off about his pending arrests by local rabbis. He was not extradited since homosexual rape, strangely, was not an extraditable offense in Israel. When the extradition treaty was altered, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that too much time had elapsed for Mondrowitz to receive a fair trial. The New York Times, in a series of articles on the Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes’ cozy relationship with the Haredi establishment in his district, last week published the results of a FOIL request by activist Michael Lesher. Lesher has been attempting to find out what happened in the intervening years and whether Hynes did everything in his power to bring Mondrowitz to justice. The answer, according to the Times, seems to be, No. “There isn’t a single e-mail, a single letter, a single memo, either originating from the D.A.’s office or addressed to it, that so much as mentions any attempt by the D.A. to seek a change in the extradition treaty,” Lesher told the Times. “It’s just inconceivable that such important negotiation on such a detailed issue could have taken place and not left a trace in the documentary record.” Jerry Schmetterer, a spokesperson for the Brooklyn DA, told the Jewish Press: “Over all these years, we worked tirelessly with the US Department of Justice and the Israeli Ministry of Justice to get Mondrowitz extradited back to Brooklyn. We were prepared to prosecute him and it was only a decision by the Israeli Supreme Court which ordered that he would not be extradited.” Rhonnie Jaus, chief of the DA’s sex crime unit, claims that there are more documents that show the DA’s efforts, though the Times says that those were “mainly internal agency documents.” Schmetterer also acknowledged the 300 documents that were not turned over to Lesher. “It was always in the front of our minds and we made many many phone calls to the State Department about it,” he told the Jewish Press. “A local prosecutor does not have the power to get a treaty changed.” It is clear by now that Mondrowitz will not be brought to justice in the U.S. . In the last few years he was even involved in teaching children-at-risk. He lives in the Nachlaot neighborhood in Jerusalem and davens in a posh shul. Reportedly, his neighbors like him and are unaware or deny the allegations about his past. Despite some up-coming high profile cases inside the Haredi community, such as the arrest of four Haredi menfor allegedly offering a $500,000 bribe to a sexually abused teenager to get her to drop charges against a popular community counselor, or the case of Nechemya Weberman, a Haredi rabbi charged with molesting a 12-year old girl over three years, the legacy of the 77-year-old Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes will be one of enabling the tendency of some Haredim to blame the victim in sexual abuse cases, and failing, in the end, to bring Avrohom Mondrowitz to justice.
Save the holy herring
There are some things that are above politics. Tree huggers and gun toters are able to unite in a communion for the sake of mankind. The sustenance of the Messianic Leviathan is at stake here. Thankfully, at times like these, when the good oil, the Omega 3, is in danger, humanity has arisen from its slumber and exclaimed “enough is enough”
What would Shabbos be without Eyeh Kichel and Bromfen, suitably set off by that salubrious, smelly, soul of the sea, species?
Read on and rejoice. Salvation is near.
Science only strengthens belief
The world is abuzz with the implications of supersymmetry and Physics. Scientists continually seek to model the observable so that they can predict the observed. The uneducated or challenged see Science and Physics as a big bad rodent that diminishes belief in God. It is to be avoided at all costs, and only Sifrei Kodesh are relevant to the Jew. If and when Science fails to predict or fails to model faithfully, then the triumphalists claim that this is proof that Hashem exists. I’ve never seen it this way. I’ve always viewed such proofs as dangerous because they raise the pedestal of man, by according man with an axiomatic ability to actually fathom such issues. Judaism teaches us that Man is limited. That is the axiom. Watching man struggle to understand Creation is not a cause célèbre.
Man has done a pretty good job to date. The world we live in has been advanced incredibly by the imperfect models put forward by Science. Religion has benefited, as has one’s ability to keep Torah and Mitzvos! Your roof didn’t fall on you last night, and the addition of a second to the time, only caused momentary chaos on the internet. Life goes on.
Those who were blessed with the type of mind that is suited to the Scientific pursuit, have been blessed by God himself. They should not abandon such a blessing anymore that R’ Chaim Brisker should have abandoned his delicious categorical modelling of Halachic concepts.
For the religious Jew, Science brings him or her closer to Hashem through a deeper understanding of His majesty and impenetrable divinity.
In January of 1936, a young girl named Phyllis wrote to Albert Einstein on behalf of her Sunday school class, and asked, “Do scientists pray?” Her letter, and Einstein’s reply, can be read below. (Source: Dear Professor Einstein; via Letters of Note)
The Riverside Church
January 19, 1936
My Dear Dr. Einstein,
We have brought up the question: Do scientists pray? in our Sunday school class. It began by asking whether we could believe in both science and religion. We are writing to scientists and other important men, to try and have our own question answered. We will feel greatly honored if you will answer our question: Do scientists pray, and what do they pray for?
We are in the sixth grade, Miss Ellis’s class.
Respectfully yours, Phyllis
Einstein replied:
January 24, 1936
Dear Phyllis, I will attempt to reply to your question as simply as I can. Here is my answer: Scientists believe that every occurrence, including the affairs of human beings, is due to the laws of nature. Therefore a scientist cannot be inclined to believe that the course of events can be influenced by prayer, that is, by a supernaturally manifested wish.
However, we must concede that our actual knowledge of these forces is imperfect, so that in the end the belief in the existence of a final, ultimate spirit rests on a kind of faith. Such belief remains widespread even with the current achievements in science. But also, everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that some spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe, one that is vastly superior to that of man. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is surely quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.
With cordial greetings,
yours A. Einstein
Uniforms are everything (part 2)
[Sheitel tip to the anonymous one]
This is too funny not to post. Enjoy!
and the obligatory response
Uniforms are everything
See this article.
I’m waiting for a Chassidic Machon for Textile Research where clothes are crafted in a way to provide a cooling experience, like an ice vest and thereby preserve the look, but not the feel, of the mandated uniform.
As time goes by, and we over-focus on form, content seems to suffer. When I was a boy, R’ Zalman Serebryanski ז’ל used to wear a mid-grey Kapoteh. Yes, it wasn’t black. His hat had a very short upturned brim. But then, again, he was a Chassid in content and seemingly less troubled by form.
It’s interesting to note that during the weekdays, other Chassidim, such as Ger, often don a standard fedora. Unless I’m mistaken, in the days of yore, they wore a Poilishe Hittel-one of those Donny Osmond style caps. I’m also skeptical whether the standard Chosid always wore a white shirt during the week. Did they?
Curiously, the Sefardim (at least those of them that don’t try to emulate Ashkenazim) didn’t have a dress code that required them to either all dress the same, or wear something akin to the Chacham.
And finally, we did change our names, clothes and language after we left Mitzrayim. Maybe that’s the answer: let’s go back to what Moshe Rabbenu wore?
Staying grounded in Halacha
I’m a big fan of Professor Marc Shapiro. I have some of his books, and enjoy his online Torah in Motion lectures, as well as his semi-regular posts on the Seforim blog. Marc’s erudition and clear thinking are exemplary. He is a controversial figure, to be sure. Some consider him to be on the left of the Modern Orthodox continuum. His first claim to fame was his PhD thesis on the famed R’ Yechiel Ya’akov Weinberg ז’ל, the Sridei Aish, which was subsequently published as a book.
In a recent post on the Seforim blog where he discusses “The Future of Israeli Haredi Society”, he states:
On p. 406 Adler tells us that one cannot sell or rent an apartment in a religious neighborhood to a non-religious person. Will the author then complain when the non-religious don’t want to sell or rent to haredim (especially if they think that these haredim might hold the same views as Adler)? If it is OK for haredim not to want to live together with secular Jews because of the “atmosphere” the latter bring, why have the haredi Knesset members cried racism when secular residents don’t want an influx of haredim for exactly the same reason? In a democracy one can’t have it both ways.Adler is part of a growing trend in haredi writings not to see the secularists as tinok she-nishbah, with all the halakhic implications this entails. While Adler acknowledges the existence of tinok she-nishbah as a category, note what he puts in brackets which pretty much empties the category of any meaning (p. 31):ולענין הלכה, מכיון שאין בנו כח להכריע, במחלוקות אלו, וגם אין כל הענינים שוים, מתי נקרא בשם “תנוק שנשבה” ומתי לא, ובפרט קשה ההכרעה המציאותית של “שיעור ידיעת כל אחד ואחד” בזמנינו, לכן, בכל הנוגע לדיני תורה, יש להחמיר ולנהוג כלפי מחלל שבת בפרהסיא [שלא ידוע ככופר] ככל דיני “אחיך”, כגון לענין דיני גמילות חסד, לבקרו בחוליו, לתת לו צדקה, להלוות לו, להשיא לו עצה טובה. וכן יש להצילו ולהחיותו.But when it comes to Shabbat, Adler states that it is absolutely forbidden to violate the Sabbath to save a non-religious person, even if he is a tinok she-nishbah! (p. 556).I realize that, with only some exceptions, Adler hasn’t made up any of the material in his book, and even the most extreme rulings can be found in earlier traditional sources. So what does it say about so much of contemporary Orthodoxy, be it haredi, Habad, or Modern Orthodox, that its adherents would never dream of relating to the non-Orthodox the way Adler prescribes?[Emphasis below is from me]The reason they wouldn’t dream of relating to the non-Orthodox this way is not because they can point to other halakhic sources that disagree with the ones Adler cites (although the scholars among them can indeed point to these sources). There is something much more basic at work, namely, the moral intuition of people which even when it comes into conflict with what appears in halakhic texts does not agree to simply be pushed aside. Most Orthodox Jews of all stripes refuse to believe that what Adler is advocating is what God wants. It is impossible for them to accept that the Judaism they know and cherish, which has been taught to them by great figures, would have such a negative outlook, and all the halakhic texts in the world won’t be able to change their minds.
While I have sympathy for the attitude underpinning these statements, it troubles me that there can be something other than the vehicle of Halacha that dictates “what God wants”. It troubles me that there can be something more “basic” possessing a “moral intuition” that seemingly orients direction.
It comes down to this, and herein I believe is the essential difference between the left and right-wing among modern orthodoxy.
- The more left-wing variety have a view and they seek to buttress that view with Halachic sources. At times, when their view cannot be reconciled with credible Halachic sources, they submit to Halacha.
- The more right-wing variety begin with halachic sources and not some “moral intuition”. They will, however, include the realities of the modern world as a vital halachic ingredient in coming to their eventual conclusion. In the end, however, they recognise that they may become the lonely man of faith, possibly at odds with their moral intuition.
A novel approach to shadchanus
On Wednesday nights, the Rav ז’ל used to give a Chumash Shiur. How did this Shiur originate? R’ Ari Kahn relates that one evening the Rav looked around his apartment and asked his Shamoshim (an entourage who assisted the Rav with his needs) why they were there: didn’t they have families, and if they didn’t why weren’t they looking. Some of the Shamoshim responded that life was not easy. They didn’t feel at ease interacting with the Shadchanim industry; equally, they were loath to “hang out” in the front of the Stern College for Women as if they were “on the prowl”.
The Rav responded that he would begin a Shiur for both young ladies and young men. He, the Rav, would make sure that the young ladies would attend; he’d leave the rest up to them. With that, the new Shiur commenced.
Of course, the right-wing would only see a “mixed” Shiur, so to speak, and condemn.
A new challenge to Reform?
Many things that materialise in the USA eventually find their way into Australia years later. I hope and pray that this phenomenon does not. The Australian Jewish News has had a number of letters from Reform/Progressive apologists claiming that their communities enjoy the largest affiliated numbers. If affiliation is anything like the description below, then God help us. [Hat tip Reuven]
But in a growing number of intentional interfaith communities, parents are raising children who are deeply engaged with religion. Let me describe our family’s Jewish engagement, which strikes me as anything but “weak.” We always host a Passover Seder, light Hanukkah candles, go to High Holy Day services. We also light Shabbat candles, and celebrate other holidays like Purim and Sukkot. My children learned Hebrew, recited the blessings over the Torah when they turned 13, and know and use essential Jewish prayers. They have a warm and personal relationship with more than one rabbi. They are quick to identify themselves as Jewish when they encounter anti-Semitism. Oh, and we have shlepped our children to Jewish Museums on more than one continent (visiting Jewish museums is one of the forms of Jewish engagement measured in the New York study).
But we also embrace our entire family tree. We celebrate Christian holidays, go to church with extended family. And we put our children through nine years of study about both Judaism and Christianity — about the common ground and the essential differences and the points of historical connection.
It is true that my family feels alienated from the state of Israel, since none of us would be legally accepted as Jews there, and there is a troubling correlation between religious identity and civil rights in Israel. And Birthright will not take my children on a free trip to Israel unless they sign away their right to interfaith identity.
And it is true that our family would score low on connections to institutional Judaism. My children aren’t accepted as Jews by many of those institutions, and that, frankly, decreases our desire to belong to them. Our insistence that our children be educated about Christianity, our openness to the possibility that our children will get spiritual sustenance from Christian traditions, and that they have the right to choose a Christian (or for that matter Buddhist or Hindu) identity someday, is wholly unacceptable to most Jewish institutions. Interfaith families that seek to educate their children in more than one religion are expressly barred, by policy, from most synagogue classrooms.
Nonetheless, I am cautiously optimistic that this new acknowledgement of our existence represents progress towards understanding that many interfaith children both want to stay connected to Judaism and also want access to learning about both of their ancestral religions. I am hopeful that researchers will now seek to understand all that is positive about interfaith education for interfaith families. We engage the whole child, the whole family, and embrace our bothness. We don’t mind being called unconventional. We embrace that label, too.
Is Milk Kosher in Melbourne?
A number of years ago, while listening to one of R’ Schachter’s Shiurim, I came away with the distinct impression that he had a serious issue in regards the Kashrus of any Milk in the USA because of the prevalence of Halachically damaged milk cows aka Treyf cows.
I discussed the issue with Rabbi Mordechai Gutnick of Kosher Australia and he advised me that the veterinary procedures extant in the USA were not germane here in the same way on account of the different feeding practices which obviated the potentially Treyf inducing condition common in the USA.
I also asked Rabbi Tzvi Telsner Dayan of of the Chabad Yeshivah Shule in Melbourne whether in light of Rav Schachter’s views, there was a problem with Chalav Yisrael in the USA. Rabbi Telsner claimed that the conditions in Chalav Yisrael production in the USA were much better than the general USA dairy industry and did not have this problem.
To understand this issue, please see the following article
[hat tip Moshe]
An outrageous Dvar Torah on Korach
Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz is the editor of Yated Neeman, a mouth piece for the Aguda. He is the Rabbi of Kehal Ahavas HaTorah in Monsey, and authors a blog in which he publishes weekly “Divrei Torah”.
This week’s Dvar Torah on Korach. It’s been a while since I read a facile piece which uses the Machlokes of Korach to silence alternate views. This is yet another such piece. It insults one’s intelligence to try and sell the line that:
- Korach was a bad man because he questioned Daas Torah (Moshe)
- Korach was motivated by jealousy
- Issue X is contentious but since my Daas Torah says Y on issue X and you don’t agree, then you are a modern incarnation of Korach
So, what are issues X and the Daas Torah views Y in this week’s regurgitation of this illogical fallacy?
Issue X is:
- Metzitza B’Peh
- Not trusting Rabonim on Abuse issues
The Aguda response as enunciated by Rabbi Lipschutz is
- If you oppose Metzitza you are from Korach
- If you don’t put your hands into Rabonim on abuse matters you are from Korach
Metzitza is a Halachic matter. It rises above petty Agudist politics. It is an old issue. There are many respected halachic opinions that contend that Metzitza B’Peh is absolutely forbidden. Do they not have a right to those views? Are they motivated only by anti-Agudist/Orthodox motives?
Do we not have enough evidence to suggest that Rabonim are not the best address when it comes to ascertaining whether there is a prima facie case of Abuse that should be referred to the Police? The implication here being that the RCA are like Korach?
I really dislike it when the Torah is abused and misused in this way to push a barrow that discredits the right to an opinion that is different even though it had a solid basis.
Anyway, you judge for yourself. Here is the Dvar Torah.
We learn this week’s parsha and are struck by how odd it seems that someone would challenge Moshe after all he had done for the Bnei Yisroel altruistically. This is compounded by the number of times Hashem defended Moshe. How could someone as smart as Korach do something so foolish and how could so many people be taken in by him and join the rebellion?
Miriam spoke against Moshe Rabbeinu and was promptly punished. The meraglim doubted the veracity of Moshe Rabbeinu’s promise and, again, their punishment was swift and harsh. In this week’s parsha, we are again presented with an account of rebellion against Moshe Rabbeinu.
Korach is Exhibit A in the teaching of Chazal that “hakinah, hataavah vehakavod motziim es ho’odom min ho’olam.” His ambition and lust fueled him in a way that totally altered his perception of reality and truth.
Rashi tells us that Korach fooled himself. His thirst for power and drive for recognition toxically combined with his ego to convince him that he was right. His ulterior motives tripped him up. Because of his negiah he thought that Moshe had appointed his brother Aharon to a high position and ignored the better candidate. Though Moshe had repeatedly proven that he was following the command of Hashem, Korach, like people who haven’t subjected their jealousy and bad middos, had lost his ability to think clearly.
Ambition is good. All around us are good people who have risen to leadership positions as a result of hard work and determination. However, in the dog-eat-dog world where everything goes and the ends justify the means, people think that by trampling over others, by lying, and by playing on people’s emotions instead of by targeting their intellect, they can become popular and powerful. However, such achievement is short-lived and flames out rather quickly.
Korach ran a quick and easy campaign, because hate spreads like a fire. “Did you know that…? Have you heard the truth? I’ll tell you the real story.” He used the same successful tactics, grievances and claims as today’s hate-mongers. All throughout history people have been susceptible to the machinations of demagogues.
Korach deluded himself into thinking that he would be different than those who previously had made the same mistake as he and doubting the Ish Elokim. He was operating from a position brought on by negius, and thus his view was altered and his thinking fatally flawed.
The Chazon Ish writes that a gadol baTorah does not make decisions based on negius and has no personal interest. Korach couldn’t face this fact. He refused to accept the reality that a true gadol doesn’t have an agenda.
Rav Elazar Shach zt”l explained the concept of daas Torah as such. When a great person who has no personal negiah and is totally absorbed with his Torah study is asked a question, it is as if the Torah itself is responding to the query.
Moshe Rabbeinu, the consummate humble person, the one who delivered them from slavery, virtually the only leader the Jews had known, and the man whose every word was Torah, was the person who Korach and his group accused of malfeasance.
The Mishnah in Avos states that a machlokes lesheim Shomayim is sofo lehiskayeim, while a machlokes shelo lesheim Shomayim has no kiyum.
The Mishnah tells us that the disputes between Hillel and Shamai were lesheim Shomayim, while the quarrel of Korach va’adaso was the quintessential machlokes shelo lesheim Shomayim, an argument that is sustained purely to serve a personal agenda.
A machlokes lesheim Shomayim is fueled by the desire of both antagonists to determine the truth. Hillel and Shammai shared the same goal, but they had differing methods of interpreting and understanding the words and concepts of the Torah to determine the will of the Ribbono Shel Olam. Hillel and Shammai are so much a part of our everyday life, because by studying their drashos and sevaros, and by understanding their discussions, we are able to arrive at a more illuminated understanding of Torah. Their teachings and words endure – sofo lehiskayeim.
When the machlokes is lo lesheim Shomayim, the other side is not interested in the truth. They are only interested in winning. There is nothing to be learned by dissecting their arguments, for they are illogical and obviously false.
A story is told about two friends who were talmidim in the great Volozhiner Yeshiva. Meir was exceptional, brilliant and driven, and had been considered one of the yeshiva’s most accomplished students. That was before he began reading and then becoming increasingly influenced by Haskalah literature which robbed our people of thousands of promising people such as Meir. The poisoned pens of the Maskilim which mocked and disdained the holy traditions and Torah leaders succeeded and Meir found himself unable to apply himself to learning and davening.
Chaim had been his chavrusah and best friend, but as Meir fell under the spell of Haskalah, their friendship fell apart. However, Meir was determined to take Chaim along with him. He sought to take his simple, unsophisticated friend by the hand and lead him into the great, big world beyond the walls of the Volozhiner Yeshiva. Chaim refused to hear his friend’s arguments, explaining that he derived all the intellectual and emotional stimulation he needed from the pages of the Gemara.
Meir didn’t give up and continued hammering at Chaim with the arguments he picked up in the beautifully poetic pamphlets of the Maskilim, who used their creative gifts to carefully compose tracts that brilliantly mocked everything and everyone holy.
Meir turned to Chaim and asked, “How can you learn Gemara all day and delve into the words of the Tannaim and Amoraim if you have no idea who they were and what they were all about? First you have to learn some history and connect with their era. Familiarize yourself with the geography of the great cities and yeshivos in which they learned, and then you will be able to begin a proper analysis of their words and teachings.”
It was to be Meir’s final argument. Chaim looked at him with pity and turned to head back in to the bais medrash. “You know Meir’l,” he said as he walked off, “you may know where Abaye and Rava died, but I know where they live.”
To paraphrase the Volozhiner bochur, Hillel and Shammai are alive and well in every bais medrash in the world. Moshe’s Torah is as fresh as the day it was given at Sinai, while Korach and his group are buried deep down in a wayward desert, crying out to be heard.
Hillel and Shammai pursued truth, not the argument. Their disputes were a means to arrive at the truth.
Those who engage in Korach-type debates and disputes are not interested in the truth. There is nothing to be gained by debating them or studying their arguments. They are simply baalei machlokes, heirs to Korach va’adaso.
Moshe Rabbeinu didn’t arrive at his leadership position by way of hubris, coup, terrorism, or taking advantage of people by forcing them to go along with him. In fact, he was the most humble person. He got there because Hashem put him there. He rose to the highest levels possible for a human. He led the Bnei Yisroel out of Mitzrayim, delivered the Torah to them, adjudicated their disputes, brought them close to Hashem, and gave them everything they needed, yet that wasn’t good enough for Korach, the members of the Sanhedrin, and the masses who followed him. It seems shocking, yet too often, today, we can hear the echoes of Korach’s cry.
Bnei Korach lo meisu.
Sinas am ha’aretz towards talmidei chachomim is all around us. Where there are Jews, there are rabble-rousers who covet positions of power and scheme to destroy the humble talmidei chachomim and leaders who spent decades of their lives in obscurity getting closer to Hashem while working on their middos and growing in Torah and everything that is important. They are people who don’t necessarily occupy official positions, yet they become recognized by Klal Yisroel for their gadlus. And there are people who mock and fight them.
It seems incompressible, but if you look back at our recent history, you see that there were people who fought against the Chofetz Chaim and called him a baal machlokes and troublemaker. Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzensky, who was not only one of the most brilliant minds the Jewish people ever saw, but also possessed the kindest and most gentle nature, was vilified by people who wanted his position. He was the rabbon shel kol bnei hagolah, father and mother of yeshivos, of the poor and forlorn, and of the almanos and yesomim, yet there were people in Vilna who fought him and ran an election to usurp his position.
Though Chazal warn, “Hizaharu begachaloson,” there are always those who become overcome with envy and jealousy and delude themselves into thinking that they are more worthy for the position. They rally other malcontents to their side and do what Korach did.
Today, we see people battling against time-honored practices such a metzizah and quietly encourage the government to intervene and interfere with our religion. They stoop to lies, pseudo-science and fabrications to portray us as baby killers. The media gobbles it up without a second thought. The people who care most about life are portrayed as inconsiderate of the lives of infants and more concerned about some ancient ritual. Such stories are permitted to fester, and only one or two among us has the courage to rise up from the machaneh and say, “Enough with the lies. We have suffered enough from being portrayed as people who don’t care about the lives of children. Tens of thousands of our brothers and sisters were murdered because of the lie that we are baby killers.”
The lie is permitted to gain hold and none of the proud Jewish spokesmen protest.
The same goes for the new focus on abuse. Rabbis who spend their days ministering to their flocks and delving into the eternal words of the Torah are portrayed as callously concerned strictly with maintaining their positions. The oft-repeated canard is that they care not about the sanctity of life. People who spend their lives caring for people are said to turn a blind eye to children who are abused.
It is high time we rose up and said that we have heard that sorry song enough times. Of course every responsible rabbi agrees that predators should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Of course religious Jews maintain that monsters should not be permitted to walk the streets and destroy lives.
No one who harms a child, in any way, with any type of abuse, should be coddled. Rabbis have been saying that for thousands of years, yet we are portrayed as being a group who doesn’t hear the cries of the victims. The nation that has spawned the greatest proliferation of chessed organizations, which the rest of the world never even attempts to emulate, is portrayed as uncaring and no one says anything. How can that be?
When the nations of the world were still offering up their children as sacrifices to pagan gods, the Torah was concerned about ensuring that our children remain safe and healthy.
Molesters are classified halachically as rodfim and are treated as such when they are caught and their reprehensible actions are proven. Yes, sometimes unfortunately, these evil people are not sufficiently punished, and those exceptions should be addressed, but how can we permit the minority to impugn the character of every rov, rosh yeshiva and frum Jew?
All around us, we see the koach of Korach va’adaso taking hold, pulling people in their direction, creating doubt in the hearts of many. Their target, as always, is still Moshe Rabbeinu and those who follow his teachings.
Therefore, four times a week, we rise to our feet and point towards the Sefer Torah and call out, “Vezos haTorah asher som Moshe lifnei Bnei Yisroel al pi Hashem beyad Moshe.” We proclaim our allegiance to the Torah, which guides our every step and shapes our opinions. We restate that we received it from Moshe.
We point at the Torah and say, “This is timeless. This is enduring. This is real and lasting. It is the honest truth.” We received it from Moshe Rabbeinu, the humblest and greatest leader, and in every generation, the Moshes of the dor transmit the heritage to us as they lead us to grow in the lives the Torah demands of us.
This Shabbos is the 30th yahrtzeit of the great Lakewood rosh yeshiva, Rav Shnuer Kotler zt”l. His father, Rav Aharon zt”l, breathed life into dry bones, creating a European-style yeshiva in a place no one thought it possible, working with superhuman energy and dedication, experiencing extraordinary siyata diShmaya.
When Rav Aharon passed away, it was feared that his many accomplishments and the yeshiva he had established would be lost. Yet, providentially, Rav Shneur led Lakewood into its glory era, increasing the numbers and the breadth of limudim, and leading the kollel movement in its spread across America.
Rav Aharon’s talmidim spread out across America and around the world, imparting his message and adding legions to the forces of Torah. Their success and his in transmitting Torah, yiras Shomayim and ahavas Yisroel to the succeeding generations are proof that Toras Moshe never grows old or stale. It remains relevant and vibrant wherever Hashgachah guides Jews.
And so it was with many of the Holocaust-era Chassidic and yeshiva leaders who arrived here, penniless. They had lost their families, friends and students, but they were not alone. They clung to the Toras Moshe and it sustained them. It was their oxygen and lifesaver and they were buffeted about in strange, choppy seas. They never despaired or wavered. Today we harvest the fruits of their labors. Every week, there are more people pointing to the Sefer Torah and proclaiming, “Vezos haTorah.”
Those who follow Moshe Rabbeinu and his successors are growing and tipping the population scales. A just completed survey of New York’s Jews showed, once again, that intermarriage is on the rise. The Conservative and Reform, who a few decades ago thought they had the Orthodox beat, continue to lose adherents despite all the games they have played, from patrilineal descent to counting anyone who claims to be a Jew as a Jew.
The media is surprised. The entrenched liberal power brokers are fearful. New York’s organizational leaders are worried about their future. They fret over the calamitous future predicted by the finding that 64% of New York’s Jewish children are Orthodox.
The only group that is experiencing growth is the one that adheres to Toras Moshe and whose offspring is educated in the Torah way. The only guarantee for our future is provided by learning and observing the Torah. Yet, they refuse to accept that bare fact and instead engage in desperate battles against us.
As they and the other modern-day Korachs use emotion, hyperbole and every tool at their disposal to get our attention and detour us from the path which led from Sinai to Yerushalayim, Yavneh, Pumpedisah, Gerona, Sefard, Ashkenaz, Volozhin, Warsaw, Slabodka, Vilna, Liadi, Berditchev, Morocco, Brisk, and so many other stations until it led to us, we need to stay focused on the truth of Moshe Rabbeinu and his modern-day successors. We dare not fall for gimmicks, charlatans and those who would lead us down the path of oblivion.
We are approaching the twelve-month mark of last summer’s terrible tekufah, the weeks when we sustained blow after crippling blow. As their yahrtzeits arrive, we should focus on whom we lost and what sort of people walked amongst us in Rav Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz, Rav Yitzchok Dov Koppelman, Rav Chaim Stein and Rav Elazar Abuchatzeirah, zichronam livracha, among others. When we think about them and the lives they led, and the giants whom we merit having among us, we will be reminded even in our day that the Torah is as vibrant as ever, al pi Hashem beyad Moshe.
May this summer be one of happiness and brocha, as we asked this past Shabbos in Rosh Chodesh bentching for a month of “chaim shetehei bonu ahavas Torah veyiras Shomayim,” coupled with shemuos tovos and besoros tovos for everyone, everywhere.
When Chassidim became religious zionists
The following is a nice article from Ha’aretz of all places, by Mordechai I. Twersky. [hat tip Moshe]
Could Yochanan Twersky, had he chosen to follow the footsteps of his rabbinic-Hasidic forefathers, have transformed, or at least bridged, between modern-day Hasidism and religious Zionism in Israel as we know it?
He was my distant relative, and the thought still occupies my mind, two months after Twersky – scion-turned-Israeli underground member, IDF soldier, and Israeli Trade Ministry official – died in Jerusalem at the age of 87 following a protracted illness.
“You simply have to meet him,” my brother Yitzchock – the meticulous researcher of the Twersky family genealogy for nearly 25 years — urged me back in 1999, after I made aliyah from New York. “You’ll see. He is one of a kind.”
He was a bearded man with a rabbinic countenance, and he was affectionately known as “Yochanan.” He was not a close relative of ours; a glance at the Twersky family tree shows that four long generations ago, his paternal great-grandfather and namesake, Rabbi Yochanan of Rachmastrivka (1816-1895), and my paternal grandfather, Rabbi Aaron of Chernobyl (1770-1837), were brothers.
But I was irresistibly drawn to this warm, affable man and his repository of age-old stories. Over time it became very clear: I was in the presence of our family’s last witness to a union now rendered extinct, if not totally unfathomable.
“My father was a Hasidic rabbi,” Yochanan told me during our first meeting at his Jerusalem apartment 13 years ago, in his deep, distinctive baritone voice and his British-Austrian English. He pointed to a wall where framed pictures of bearded Hasidic men hung alongside an image of Theodor Herzl. “And he was a Zionist.”
Yochanan’s father, Jacob Joseph Twersky, was a fervent Zionist among a small cadre of Austrian Hasidic rabbis influenced by Herzl and Laurence Oliphant, the British author and diplomat. Twersky led Vienna’s religious-Zionist Mizrachi movement and aided Israel’s early pioneers, among them the father of Israeli Supreme Court, Justice Yaacov Bazak, as they set sail for the Land of Israel from the Italian port of Trieste.
“We constantly had chaluztim in our home,” recalled Yochanan, using the Hebrew word for pioneers. “There was never enough room. They slept four across in my bed, and my mother cooked. I slept in the bathtub.”
Yochanan’s father bought shares in Bnai Zion, a turn-of-the-century company that purchased tracts of land near Hebron for Jewish farming and cultivation. At the annual Zionist march in Vienna, Rabbi Twersky walked with other Hasidic rabbis, waving an Israeli flag.
“My father wore his best holiday clothing when he visited Herzl’s grave in Vienna,” Yochanan, who bore a striking resemblance to his great-grandfather, told me.
In a long line of rabbis, a sudden twist
His grandfather, Nachum, was the first Hasidic Grand Rabbi to settle in Palestine, in 1924. Jacob Joseph visited him briefly that year and even considered settling there, before his poor health forced him to return to Vienna.
One can only wonder what would have become of Jacob Joseph’s variety of Hasidic-religious-Zionism had he settled in Palestine – and had Yochanan, his only son after three marriages, succeeded him.
In 1931, when Yochanan was 6 years old, his father collapsed and died while praying. Seven years later, during Kristallnacht – the Nazi pogrom known as the “Night of Broken Glass” — the Nazis broke into the Twersky home, ransacking it and dragging 13-year-old Yochanan from his bed.
“They ordered me to tear up our holy books and they beat me,” Yochanan told me. He said that he watched in horror from his window as the Nazis forced Jews to clean the streets with their beards.
In the aftermath of that atrocity, he salvaged one scorched volume from the flames, which he would later bring to Israel. He pleaded with his mother, Miriam Frieda, to abandon the family’s sole source of income — her late husband’s pension — and flee via an illegal transport to Belgium, and then to England.
“We just wanted to get to Palestine, but we couldn’t get a certificate from the British to enter Palestine,” said Yochanan. In a 1999 interview about the rise of Austria’s extremist politician, Jorg Haider, Yochanan recalled his childhood memory of the annexation of Vienna on March, 15, 1938, and the Austrians’ enthusiastic welcome of the Nazis.
In an unpublished family memoir, “Life’s Incarnations,” which he co-authored in Hebrew with his wife of 58 years, Ruchama, Yochanan described how Vienna’s Jews were pelted with stones and rotten fruit for years during its annual Rosh Hashana Tashlich ritual on the banks of the River Danube. The attacks only ceased after a group of 200 of Vienna’s local Betar Youth organization fought back, “beating the anti-Semites with bats and clubs so severely that they had to be hospitalized.”
Yeshiva student by day, revolutionary by night
In England, Yochanan studied at a yeshiva in Manchester and later earned his matriculation from the University of London before obtaining work as a diamond cutter. Stunned by continued reports of atrocities against Jews, and eager pry open the doors of immigration to Palestine, Yochanan joined a local branch of the LEHI — the underground Zionist movement founded in Palestine by Avraham (“Yair”) Stern.
“It’s a pity I wasn’t there [in Palestine], but at least I could do something in London,” recalled Yochanan, who under the code name, “Yehuda,” kept a stash of weapons and explosives beneath the floor of his London apartment. “I made some contacts, secretly, and I joined the LEHI. There I did what I could. I did all kinds of activities against the British, and we succeeded.”
In 1949, he and his mother set sail for Israel on the vessel “Negba.”
For his underground and IDF service, Yochanan later earned two medals. He was offered a senior rabbinic position in the Israeli Air Force, but declined.
“I came to Israel to be a soldier just like everyone else and to defend the land,” said Yochanan, who served in the Imports Department of Israel’s Ministry of Industry and Trade for 38 years. “I didn’t want the rabbinate.”
Yochanan wasn’t ordained. But as a learned man with charisma and compassion he could have been a contender of the Hasidic variety. Instead, he did things his way. He decided to forgo the Hasidic garb of his father, opting instead for a knitted yarmulke and placing himself firmly in the religious-Zionist camp. “My father most certainly would have led the religious-Zionists, had he made it to Israel,” Yochanan told me in an interview a year before his death.
“Might you have, too?” I asked.
“I wasn’t worthy,” he said after a deep sigh, recalling that at the time of his father’s death he was given a black fur hat and told to sit in his father’s synagogue chair. He only 6 years old at the time. “They tried, they pushed me. But it wasn’t for me,” he said.
Yochanan was modest, but he was also a pragmatist. Arriving as a refugee in the new-born state of Israel at the age of 24, he knew he had a life to build. In 1949, his Haredi uncle and Grand Rabbi was already cementing the family’s 25-year-old Hasidic court – although he was also concerned about his children’s future leanings.
“Thank God my children are not members of [the anti-Zionist] Neturei Karta, and they’re not Communists,” Yochanan’s uncle, Rabbi Dovid of Rachmastrivka, once confided to him. “But I fear my grandchildren will one day become [religious] zealots.”
“It was quite an eye-opener for my Haredi relatives that a member of their family walked around in an Israeli uniform, wore a knitted yarmulke, and placed an Israeli flag outside his home on Israel Independence Day,” Yochanan once told me. “But they didn’t dare say anything.”
Are trousers holier than soldiers?
Though he enjoyed praying in the synagogues of Israel’s diverse ethnic congregations, Yochanan refused to daven at a synagogue that omitted the prayer for the State of Israel and the welfare of its soldiers. “It’s a defamation, an ingratitude, not to say it,” he once told me. “If you can praise God for a new pair of pants, you can bless Him for Israel’s rebirth.”
Asked in 1999 to discuss Haredi draft exemptions from the IDF, Yochanan preferred instead to recall an era when the majority of Israel’s right-wing underground members were religious. But in his last interview more than a decade later, Yochanan would not conceal his feelings toward draft-dodgers.
“I am embarrassed that there are Jews of this kind,” he said.
I pressed Yochanan further, and went back to the issue of succession. Did he feel a sense of guilt over severing the family’s rabbinic line?
“I have 21 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren, and all of them are religious-Zionists who performed their army and national service,” said Yochanan, ever the straight-shooter. “I, too, felt I am continuing the path of my father. I have nothing to be ashamed about. I have no regrets.”
He remained optimistic that Jews would one day “overcome their differences and unite,” citing a number of examples when Jews came together “in the face of real danger.” But he tempered his statement with realism, adding: “I’m sure that even when the Messiah arrives there will be Jews who won’t accept him.”
In one of his last recorded statements, Yochanan acknowledged that Israel “needed some miracles.” But he remained ever hopeful.
“If we look at our past, it gives us hope that we can succeed again. We can have peace and success in all of our efforts,” he told me.
Last year, when I asked Yochanan whether his brand of religious-Zionism had, in essence, replaced his father’s class of Hasidic Zionism, he didn’t miss a beat.
“It didn’t replace it,” he said. “It renewed it.”
More violence in Beit Shemesh
The latest bout of disgraceful violence in Beit Shemesh sickens me and defies desensitisation. Read it here
The animals who did this should be locked up for a few years. They could have killed the unsuspecting and innocent mother of those twins.
The so called holy life style they lead is a sham. It is as close to Har Sinai as a pig is to Tahara. What do their teachers and Roshei Yeshiva say? What are they doing to disarm these low lives?
Zu Torah?
You couldn’t profane God’s name any worse if you tried.
Beautiful Story
I once played at a wedding where the Groom was seriously ill. The Bride refused to untie their love and insisted that she wanted the marriage to go ahead. The wedding took place, and I recall it vividly. It was at the Hilton Hotel. Each time the Groom passed or was lifted near the band stand, a lump entered my throat. The speeches were uplifting.
Alas, after a few years, and a child, I learned that the Groom had passed away. I attended one of the minyanim. The pure and clear vision of this special Bride and Groom left a mark on me.
Fast forward to a similar story here. If your Ivrit isn’t wonderful, you might try the translation here.
The part I have most difficulty with is the need to go to a Beis Din. When you are faced with such a righteous girl, with exemplary Midos, why would you go to a Beis Din and try and force the issue? Rav Wosner recognised this and thankfully put the issue into perspective.
Burning Mosques must be condemned
Holding onto all of Israel is important, however, in a democracy, one simply must accept the reality. The reality is that certain outposts and mini-towns will become political footballs. It’s tragic. But this, is just not on. It is an outrage.
What makes a pedophile tick?
See this.
Hellish Education?
[Hat tip Ezra]
I understand I’m exposed. I understand that I am secularly educated. I understand that I’m not cloistered in Lakewood. I understand that there is more than one nuanced path in Judaism. Alas, I do not understand what the following approach to “encouraging” Tzniyus amongst the girls in a Lakewood Girls School can possibly achieve. To be sure, this approach focusses more on fear than love, but surely this is just too extreme?
Read the article here
Just how bad is child abuse in Chassidic circles?
The following is from Harry’s blog:
I had a hard time falling asleep last night. I received an e-mail from a friend who is intimately familiar with the Chasidic world of hard-core Chasidus like Satmar, Ger and Sqvere. This letter came from the heart. This fellow is no spreader of LaShon Hara. He is a modest and gentle person; responsible and intelligent; a loving and caring Charedi Jew of impeccable integrity. He is as straight as they come.
He has always been reluctant to tell his story – the story of rampant sex abuse in the Chasidic world. But I guess keeping all that inside has gotten to him. So in a moment of extreme candor he spoke out in an e-mail.After reading his letter, I was speechless. I found it impossible to believe. And yet he practically swears to me that it is so. If what he says is true, there is an incredible level of cruelty and inhumanity shown by Chasidic leaders who either allow or perhaps even encourage the intimidation of victims while tolerating abusers in their midst.Apparently the rate of abuse among Chasidim is horrible beyond words. According to some of the mental health professionals who deal with them – estimates of child sex abuse and molestation among the hard-core Chasidim is as high as 33%!I can only imagine the kind of “torture” used against the poor families who come forward. Why do they torture them? I guess because they feel they have no choice since all Hell will break loose if the truth comes out. There would be many hundreds of arrests.Lest anyone think this description of their behavior is not true, I remind you of the case of accused serial molester Avreimal Mondrowitz. He is a Gerrer Chasid. His extradition from Israel to stand trial in the United States was successfully fought by the Ger Chasidic community there. I would also remind you that nothing like this is ever done without the approval of the Gerrer Rebbe himself. He either explicitly or implicitly approved of it. Mondrowitz currently roams the streets of Israel freely.Just to give an example of another “Mondrowitz”- this one in Skvere. I have been told that a top Chasid of the Rebbe molested and raped hundreds and hundreds of children in 3 generations. And everyone there knew about it! He too has fled to Israel.And then there is what is currently going on in the case of accused molester Rabbi Nechemia Weberman. The trial keeps being postponed because of witness intimidation according to my sources.That intimidation tactics exist is not even a question. I direct you to the words of the Brooklyn DA, a man who has been accused of enabling abuse by being unduly influenced by this very same community:“I haven’t seen this kind of intimidation in organized-crime cases or police-corruption cases”
In other words, they are worse than the Mafia!
See the rest here
pitputim 
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