מעילה בהקדש

Some crimes still retain the ability to shock. In spite of our increasing desensitization through overexposure to sin and crime we still maintain some Havdala based perspectives that depend primarily, not on the crime itself, but on the victim. So while generic homicide is ho-hum patricide and infanticide still raises our eyebrows. While rape has grown commonplace if the victim is a child, a senior or a nun we read the news with righteous indignation. So even though financial chicanery and confidence/ affinity schemes have, sadly, become as predictable as the tides, yesterdays breaking news of a half million dollar plus embezzlement from the accounts of Congregation Aish Kodesh in Woodmere caused many a jaundiced jaw to drop.

I think that I would have been shocked no matter which Shul had been victimized to the tune of a cool 600K. But that it could have occurred at Aish Kodesh of all places truly boggles the mind. For this is a Miqdash Me'at that has earned a well deserved reputation as an island of searchers and growers drifting in an ocean of spiritual malaise and stagnation. Aish Kodesh' Rabbi Moshe Weinberger is among the most important figures in the Orthodox Neo-Chasidic movement and his congregation is one with an acute Qedusha-Havdala sensibility. Most of the congregants grew up as mainstream MO within sundry Young Israels and YI-type Shuls but joined this Shul to capture the Holy, fiery spirit which its name evokes.

Yet while aspiring to the fire and piety that characterizes Khasidus at its best they retained enough of the best of their old MO values to avoid Khasidus at it's worst. Aish Kodesh is not a place where cheating on taxes, partaking of undeserved social-welfare programs or generally sloppy or sleazy business ethics are winked at. I recall a taped shiur I once heard from Rabbi Weinberger where he said with palpable horror "kholila, to touch anothers property, kholila to touch a perutah that belongs to another....".

So even if a gonif fell in among the congregants and, in this case, the board, it beggars credulity that the embezzler would treat the funds of this sacred trust as if they were receipts of bank tellers, the commissions of a personal injury law firm or some other type of mundane income.

The Rambam waxes poetic when talking about the heinous nature of the sin of מעילה בהקדש and, apropos for Parshas Khukas connects the dots between that sin and the hyper-rational rejection of Khukim

“It behooves a person to contemplate the holy Torah’s laws and, as much as his faculties allow him, to know their ultimate purpose. (Still) a topic/concept for which he can find no reason nor any cause should not become lightly esteemed in his eyes. And he should not ‘violate the boundary’ to ascend to the Divine lest He (i.e. G-d) ‘break through’ to him. (An allusion to Shemos 19:24) and a person’s thoughts / intellectual approach to Torah ought not to be equivalent to his approach to other, mundane, matters.

Come and see how stringent the Torah was about the misappropriation of consecrated property: Once the name of the Master of the World (i.e. G-d) has been uttered over mere sticks and stones, dust and ashes, they become consecrated with mere words, yet anyone who treats them as he would the mundane (by deriving pleasure or benefit form them)… requires atonement. Certainly a mitzvah that the Holy Blessed One Himself legislated should not be rejected merely on the basis of not being able to discover it’s rationale. He should not accuse G-d of things that are untrue and his thoughts about them (Torah matters) should not be equivalent to his thoughts about mundane matters.”

Maimonides Laws of Me’ilah=Misappropriation of Consecrated Objects-Funds (8:8)

Now might be a good time to go beyond being shocked and outraged at the מעילה בהקדש sins of the Aish Kodesh Treasurer but to really introspect and achieve some shock of recognition of our own מעילה בהקדש transgressions. I don't mean that we grab change out of Tzedaka Pushkas or mug the collectors at our local minyan factory shteibel. But as the Rambam so clearly teaches the real sin of מעילה בהקדש is not one of financial impropriety at all but of a failure of Havdala-Qedusha consciousness. מעילה בהקדש is treating the holy as one would the mundane. So before luxuriating in our moral superiority over the Aish Kodesh Treasurer convinced that "I would never in a million years do a thing like that" consider:

When was the last time you kissed a sefer Torah with any real ardor?

Do you daven as mechanically as you brush your teeth?

Do you feel any sense of Awe at all when entering a Shul or a Yeshiva?

Do you leave seforim strewn about a Bais Medrash expecting others to "bus them" for you as you would finished dinner plates in a restaurant?

Do you feel at least as intimidated by the superior scholarship of a TK as you would be by that of a Neurosurgeon or a successful hedge-fund manager?

Most of all, outwardly or inwardly, do you write off Torah concepts that you do not understand as so much stuff and nonsense??
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

Havdala al-Naqba

On this past Friday night, June 24, at approximately 10:30 p.m. EDT New York State became the sixth and most populous state to legalize marriage for same-sex couples. They may as well have declared "Ois Shabbos" right then and there.

After a tense several days past the scheduled end of the legislative session, in which it was unclear if Republican leaders in the state Senate would even allow a marriage bill to come up for a vote, the Senate voted 33 to 29 in favor of the bill. Then the Governor, Cuomo the Second, promptly signed the bill into law.

For all those with even the slightest remaining residue of Havdala Consciousness, 6.24.11 (or perhaps 23 Sivan 5771) will go down as a day of infamy. This is the final straw. Not the one that broke the camels back but the one that declared the camels back hump-less and, basically, a mere horse with excellent MPG of water. After decades of relentless assaults on Havdala-between-the-genders the last refuge of Havdala , traditional marriage, the last institution requiring a clear difference between a man and a woman, has been stormed and taken by the forces of monotonous, monochromatic sameness.

It's not enough that we already have Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgendered of a variety of shades and permutations. It's not enough that we have anti-discrimination legislation and civil unions. It's not enough that we have un-closeted arts, entertainment, literature and fashion icons of the past and present. We now have marriage "equality". ARGHHH !@#$%^&*

Of what consequence is ones maleness if a woman may wed another woman as a husband? Of what significance is ones femaleness if a man may take another man to wife. What do these couples even mean when one dresses in a tux and another , of the same gender, in a wedding gown?

This is nothing less than Havdala al-Naqba.

Today a local NY Tabloid (raised to 75 cents, another Naqba) had this to say about yesterday Gay Pride parade in Manhattan:

More than a half-million people packed Fifth Avenue yesterday, turning the annual gay pride parade into a gigantic victory celebration and giving a rock-star reception to Gov. Cuomo -- who predicted the rest of the nation would soon follow New York's historic lead in legalizing same-sex marriages.

"I believe New York has sent a message to this nation loud and clear: It is time for marriage equality all across this country," Cuomo proclaimed to wild cheers.

"If New York can do it, it's OK for every other place."

With the mans outsize ego and bald presidential ambitions I fear that this will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Cuomo said the vote also helped to re-establish the role of a state government that had become a national joke.

“They’re not laughing at Albany,” he said. “We talked in January how Albany had become a punchline for national comedians. Now they’re talking about the great progressive work New York has done again.”

If progress means advancing headlong for a world-engulfing Tsunami then I guess NY State has indeed proven just how progressive it can be. I find it most apropos that the official symbol and coat of arms of the Toevah Community is a rainbow flag. While they chose it to represent diversity and inclusiveness IMO their Mazal subconsciously chose it to represent the covenant G-d cut with Noakh never again to erase humankind in a Great Deluge. With this Naqba upon us it is only that covenant that keeps us going. Absent any difference between man and woman, between Mashpia and Meqabel, (the giver/influencer and the receiver / nurturer) between Tzura and Khomer, (form and matter) there is nothing at all Tzura-dik about human beings left to keep the flood-waters of Khomer minus Tzura from engulfing and erasing us except for the covenant with Noakh.

What oblivious fools. This is not about tolerating differences but about erasing them. The Kinah I would compose to commemorate Friday Night's destruction of the Miqdash of "A man and a woman (in a harmonious marriage) the Shekhina dwells among them" would begin by putting new teeth on Paul Simons Lyrics:

And after it rains there's a rainbow
And all of the colors are white
It's not that the colors aren't there
It's just Havdala Consciousness they fight
Everything's the same back in my Empire State
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

Some Petardish Comeuppance

Guest post by Korakh the Blogger
(read this first)

Seems like Brays last message really resonated with the masses (*EYE ROLL*). Funny how my last post evinced 13 comments (a near record for this desolate, red-tent blog) while his attack on me went uncommented. The Holy Convocation can smell out frauds, propagandists, slanderous unfounded accusations without a shred of credibility and the the weak apologetics of Rabenuists, both ancient and contemporary, attempting to defend the indefensible.

Speaking of the indefensible here are some words by another outstanding Rabenuist, the Wholly (not a typo...you'll see why shortly) Ohr HaChaim (Devarim 4:4) which are so offensive and indefensible that they provide ample rope to hang him and his system without requiring any further editorializing, expostulation or snarky comment by me:

כללות הפרטי שכל אחד מהם היה כולו חי בלא אבר גרוע ע״ד מה שדרשו בחולין בפסוק מכל החי הבא
בהמה שחיים ראשי אבריה ואין בה מום כמו כן מה שלפנינו היו כולם תמימים בלא מום וכן ארז״ל שכל שעמדו על הר סיני לא היו בהם מומין דכתיכ וכל העם רואים וגו׳ ולא וכו׳ ע״כ הא למדת שלא היו בהם מומין ועמדו בחזקת׳ ונתכוון בין על מומי הגיף בין על מומי הנפש. וכבר העירותי שמום שבגוף יגיד על פגם הנפש כי אין מום שאין דמיונו בנפש ואשר ע״כ פסלו ה' לבעל מום מעל המזבח

translation:
The kulkhem referring to individuals implies that each and every one of them was completely "alive" with no substandard limbs. Similar to the drasha of khazal in Khulin: "(Noah was to bring into the ark) from all that 'lives' ...'bring (ye Noah) from animals whose digits are intact and that have no blemish'. " And Khaza"l taught that all who stood at the foot of Sinai had no blemish as it is written "And the entire nation saw the voices" if the entire nation saw then there were no blind ones among them. And the "kulkhem" refers both to physical and to spiritual wholesomeness. As I've already awakened you (to the concept) that a physical defect reveals and testifies to a spiritual flaw. For there exists no physical defect that does not have something (i.e. flaw/ imperfection) that corresponds to it in the soul. For this reason the L-rd invalidated the Ba'al Mum from upon the altar!

Talk about being hoisted on one owns petard!

And while the full ugliness, מום-riddled logic and moral-primitiveness of this attitude is self-evident I would merely point out some Rabenuist inconsistency that , though incredibly ironic, may escape the notice of the average Havdala-addled reader.

When cataloging mumin Another Moshe (Maimonides) rules in his Laws of Accessing the Temple 8:8 :

ח שלושה בשפתיים, ואלו הן: (א) מי ששפתו העליונה עודפת על התחתונה. (ב) מי ששפתו התחתונה עודפת על העליונה. (ג) מי שפיו רפוי ורירו יורד מפיו.

Well boys and girls, do I need to spell it out for you? What do you think Rabenu meant when he described himself as being "uncircumcised of lips" and "heavy of mouth and tongue"??? Hmmm??? Well take it from someone who had to sit through many of his stuttering, stammering, slobbering (please PLEASE say it...don't spray it) hours-long discourses. The man had lips that made those of his Qushite wife appear like mere pencil mustaches. ? That's right. By the rules of his own "Divine" Torah, Amramowitz the Younger was a Ba'al Mum himself! Yet that didn't stop him from serving as a the Rosh Sanhedrin permanently or as a Kohen-in-a-White-Cloak during the seven inaugural days... now did it??? I guess that in his case physical defects were NOT indicative of any spiritual blemishes. In Rabenuism rules are for little people. Just remember that in my classless egalitarianism there are no little or defective people.

One other thing: per the Wholly Ohr HaChaim the differently-abled are not just spiritually defective but even though they may live the proverbial six score, they are not quite fully alive. Just remember Rabenuism teaches that Treifacide is not a capital offense. So the next time you run over a paraplegic trying to scooter his way into his specially equipped van legally parked in the blue (tekheles inspired!) parking spot don't feel too bad. He was never completely alive in the first place.
בא קרח והעמידן על אחת...כי כל העדה כולם קדושים
Those who cannot tolerate equality would have all their "inferiors" be their slaves!

Hoisting Korakh With his Own Petard

Korakh (the Blogger) talks a really good game. His last, rather inflammatory post, really tugged at my heartstrings...for about 20 seconds. Then I remembered that he is the master of talking the talk without walking the walk.

When accusing Moshe Rabenu of self-aggrandizement he declared: " וּמַדּוּעַ תִּתְנַשְּׂאוּ, עַל-קְהַל ה' "= "Why then lift ye up yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?"

Now, as a graduate of the American Yeshiva system I am fairly innocent of the knowledge of Diqduq. Still, some things come through by osmosis. So I've heard a bit about בנין התפעל i.e. the
reflexive conjugation of verbs. In every reflexive verb one is both the subject and the object. YOU did something to yourselves. So on an overt level Korakh said תִּתְנַשְּׂאוּ to imply that YOU (Moshe and Ahron) promoted YOURSELVES. It was not HaShems idea at all, but your own. As in every reflexive verb conjugation, you were both the subject and the object of the activity of hisna'asus. YOU did something to yourselves.

However on a subconscious level Korakh's rather revealing Freudian slip was showing in this mornings laining. You see the Meforshim have pointed out that, at times, the בנין התפעל is employed to show not mere reflexiveness but an affectation, a pose. As in:

ז יֵשׁ מִתְעַשֵּׁר, וְאֵין כֹּל; מִתְרוֹשֵׁשׁ, וְהוֹן רָב.

accurately translated as "There is that pretendeth himself rich, yet hath nothing; there is that pretendeth himself poor, yet hath great wealth." IOW Korakh was admitting that whatever prestige positions of power Moshe and Ahron were occupying were mere affectations of haughtiness. Royal raiments concealing sackcloth, highly polished boots with no soles and postures of hisna'asus concealing a self-consciousness of unparalleled humility בבחינת ונחנו מה .

By contrast, Korakh and his schismatic cohorts talked the talk of egalitarianism while hatching schemes of a new elite exploiting the unwashed masses. Just as yesterday he wrote the post of compassion and kindness while shedding crocodile tears. If Korakh ever actually had come to power there's no way he'd ever allow the Ba'alei Mum, the Israelites-with-disabilities, into his adored and coveted Kehunah. OTC if Korakh were an Eskimo he'd probably put the disabled out on ice flows. If he had twentieth century technology the first thing he'd probably do would be to pass and enforce a euthanasia program for all less than perfect babies.
.בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

Equality for Ba'alei Mumin

עולם הפוך ראיתי

Guest post by Korakh the Blogger
(read this first)

Among the many great historical tragedies of me being ingested by an insatiable earth and Amramowitz the Elders staff blooming has been the ugly and ongoing disabilityphobic discrimination against the differently-abled.

It should hardly surprise anyone that a cabal that would deny their own tribesmen and kinsmen access to the Divine Service would discriminate against people who were, to their warped way of thinking, less than perfect.

But what is perfection? What is "normalcy"? Who's to say precisely how a human body ought to look? Can a perfect and omnipotent G-d create anything "defective"?

For the rabenuists it's not enough that you have to be born to the "right" parents it's that you have to be born the right "way". If a mamzers parents sin then, per the Amramowitz gang, he too has some spiritual defect though his body may manifest aesthetic and even halakhic perfection. No surprise at all that a system that "sees" unseen defects would conclude that perceivable physical defects somehow indicate unseen metaphysical ones. Is it any wonder that Rabenuist Jews to this day zealously hide any physical defects, genetic illnesses and family histories of mental "disorders"? That , overwhelmingly, they institutionalize their down-syndrome or autistic children rather than raising them at home hoping their neighbors will lose memory of these "defective products" in the mists of time? Despite all the ugly bumps protruding from beneath an ever more overcrowded rug the perfection junkies just keep on sweeping the less-than-perfect away.

Anyone who cannot connect the dots between the, ahem, Oral Torah' s (a fictitious accretion encrusting Moshe's Big Lie of TMS) fetishistic cataloging of 140 !!! different mumin and contemporary "Torah Observant" Jewries stultifying, tyrannical straitjacket of cookie-cutter conformity, one that utterly invalidates people, places and things that do not hew 100% to some ultra-narrowly defined norms of some abstract correctness or perfection, ought to be declared a Ba'al-Mum-through-blindness themselves!

In the 20th century another "Rabenu Moshe" (Feinstein) hesitated before green-lighting the surgical implantation of a pacemaker for his heart until he could determine halakhically that this would not render him a Ba'al Mum. After all, he wanted to be able to serve in the Messianically reinstated Sanhedrin. Surprise surprise! He ruled that it was OK. I've really got to hand it to the Rabenuists for their remarkable self-serving consistency. Funny how whenever there is a Rabenu advantage-to-be-gained, there's a Halakhic way! Wonder how he would have ruled had he received the pacemaker shaila from one of my 250 ראשי סנהדראות . Of course the point is moot because I did not and never would have discriminated against people based on their physical make-up. I recoil in horror from the mental image of the kind of intellectual contortionism this Posek HaDor had to practice to adore , explicate and defend a system that would deny him the right to serve any longer as a Halakhic decisor despite his manifest genius, thousands of responsa and self-abnegating dedication to the system all on account of the insertion of a life-saving pacemaker!!!

I want to thank G*3 for inspiring this post with his comment earlier this week over on DovBear:

>The Americans with disabilities act was good.

Really? But disabled kohanim are forbidden to perform the avodah in the Beis HaMikdash. Clearly, disabled people are by nature inferior, and should not be treated as equal to everyone else, let alone have laws requiring everyone else to make accommodations for their inferiority. Surely you can see that the Americans with disabilities act was responsible for eroding the Havdalah between the disabled and the rest of society, and is a threat to our Havdalah consciousness! Disabled American kohanim, raised in a society that made provisions for them, will chas v’shalom want to perform the avodah in the Beis Hamikdash!

Surely you agree, Bray.

To conclude: What a different world this might have been had my עדה and I prevailed or at least had the make-it-up-as-I-go-along Moshe "Rabenu" never dreamed up the concept of Mumin. Rabenuism loves to take credit for giving the world Monotheism, the Rule of Law and Social Justice et al. Even reform Rabenuists like to trumpet "Tikun Olam". Well had my brand of Egalitarianism prevailed perhaps we wouldn't have had so hopelessly broken a world in need of such radical repair. So it's high time Rabenuists took some blame and responsibility for the needless compounding of the suffering in the lives of the differently-abled from the non-Revelation at Sinai until today. Instead of all this הקריבהו נא לפחתיך malarkey imagine if we had exhibited some moral leadership and maintained open-admissions Temple Service. Imagine a Miqdash with paraplegics, quadriplegics, deaf, dumb and or blind priests soaring to the very pinnacles of Divine Service! What a great Qidush HaShem message that would have sent! Instead of "Physical defects perforce reflect spiritual ones" the message might have been the one received by my ainiklel who, when influenced by too much Rabenuism anti-Ba'al Mum propaganda looked at Yishai's seven Adonis-like sons (David OTOH was a short, squatand ruddy. A veritable borderline Ba'al Mum by comparison) and then heard the voice of G-d thundering : "But the L-RD said unto Samuel: 'Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have rejected him; for it is not as man seeth: for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the L-RD looketh on the heart.' "
(Did I mention that Shmuel HaNavee is my great grandson?)

Imagine there are no "defective" people
It's easy if you try,
No Ba'alei Mum below us,
Above us, ONLY the One-on-High

Imagine ALL the People,
Living life as One,

Some folks say that I'm a schemer,
but I'm not the only one ( 250 more at last count!)
I hope someday you'll break away with us
and the world will be as One!
בא קרח והעמידן על אחת...כי כל העדה כולם קדושים
Those who cannot tolerate equality would have all their "inferiors" be their slaves!

Reprising the Anti-Havdala Manifesto

A GOOD LIKENESS OF ONE OF MY GILGULIM

First Appearance
Some things just bear repetition. So if you expect me to repeat משה אמת ותורתו אמת ad infinitum and, to my way of thinking, ad nauseum, then it's only fair that this succinct synopsis of my Weltanschaung be repeated at least once a year. Here it is with minor alterations:

Guest post by Korakh the Blogger
(read this first)

It's really kind of odd that The Bray of Fundie asked me to join his team because I despise everything about Havdala. I'm all for egalitarianism and breaking down artificial barriers that separate people. What is so corrupt and corrupting about the Amramowitz boys is how their "Heavenly Torah" has made the hierarchical structure "The Law" of our People. Every where I look I see a hierarchical elitist structure and new boys trying to launch an 'ol boys network. Artificial legal-construct divisions between men and women, between various tribes, between firstborns and other siblings, between young and old. And, of course, at the very pinnacle of this hierarchical structure stand (surprise surprise) the very selfless and self-abnegating "King" Moshe and "High-Priest" Aaron Amramowitz. How convenient!

That's why I organized a protest march against this galloping Havdala. The uniform of my egalitarian army was the pure Tekheles serape. One color, no salient fringes. Equal comrades in equivalent monochromatic uniforms. The medium was the message. We are all equal. There are no innate differences (heck... there's barely an http://innate-differences.blogspot.com/) . Is one part of the Torah holier than another? Does a Torah warehouse need an ostentatious display of one outsatnding component part on the doorpost to provide protection? At Sinai we were all prophets and heard the voice of G-d as one man with one heart.

Moshe and Aaron would have some of us holier than others. He who would submit to Rabenuism hierarchy should harbor no childish illusions but bravely renounce his or her human potential because they must realize that they will always remain LESS holy than some. Yet the Amramowitz' pretend to be building a G-d centric society! Well, they may be OK at sophistry but their grasp of basic geometry is wanting. I say that in a circle all points are equidistant from the "center". If G-d sits at the center of our holiness then NONE of us are closer or further from Him. So you be the judge; who's really building a G-d centric society? The Amramowitz elitists...or me and my egalitarian comrades?

Some have called me a schismatic, a malcontent, a rabble-rouser, a subverter of the Exodus or even, worst of all, a J-Blogger. But if we are not all equal then the Exodus was for nothing. I say: “If there be a human being who is freer than I, then I shall necessarily become his slave. If I am freer than any other, then he will become my slave. Therefore equality is an absolutely necessary condition of freedom.” Well actually it was a 19th century Russian Anarchist who said it but I had the idea first. He did put it very eloquently and I have this relative who is in the prophecy business. Did I mention that Shmuel HaNavee is my great grandson?

בא קרח והעמידן על אחת...כי כל העדה כולם קדושים
Those who cannot tolerate equality would have all their "inferiors" be their slaves!

Very loosely based on a variety of Khazal and Sefforim HaQedoshim. Chiefly BeMidbar Rabbah 18:4 and Mei haShiloakh

Couldn't Have Put it Better Myself

Over on the Blog that Banned the Bray of Fundie
BXpansive wrote (11:50:29 PM Tuesday June20th)

Maybe, we should put all the bochurim (first-born) back in charge, the way it used to be in the good old days . . . only the Torah constantly finds the bochur wanting and gives the mission to someone else. Even the mamzer, if he is a talmud chacham, gets to be on top. Status only goes so far. Really, if all the havdala/status law hadn't been abused by * the one to whom the Torah gave social power, the havdala/status laws would not have given the revolutionaries so much ammunition.

*"the one to whom the Torah gave social power ", re Amramowitz the Younger.

Couldn't have put it any better myself!
בא קרח והעמידן על אחת...כי כל העדה כולם קדושים
Those who cannot tolerate equality would have all their "inferiors" be their slaves!

The Legislative Assault on Havdala

By the time this article posts the Marriage Equality Bill may have become law in the State of New York. Monday was the last scheduled day of the legislative session in New York, where the marriage equality bill, as of the writing of this post, remained one vote short of passage, awaits a vote in the Senate.

It is my hope and prayer that this bill did not become law and that if it did will be repealed or defeated in the courts. But either way the fact that it was thisclose to passage ought to send shivers up the spines of all but the most Havdala Oblivious.

Marriage is an institution predicated on inequality. It is the most ancient iteration of the separate being unequal codified in Brown Vs. Topeka Board of education. It is oxymoronic to speak of Marriage "Equality". The first marriage partner was wrought by the Divine Creator to provide antagonistic help to Adam. Khava complemented Adam. He was the Mashpia and she was the Meqabel and nurturer. He was convex and she was concave. She played yin to his yang. She took her name, Isha, from him and not vice versa. His sons, through Adam, were told to forsake their parents in favor of cleaving to their female spouses, Khava's daughters were not.

Nor are all marriages created equal. In Halakha a ben Noakh cannot initiate Qidushin but a Jew can. Pilagshim= concubines have a different status than do Nashim=full fledged wives, Qidushin initiated on behalf of underage orphans is merely valid on a Rabbinic level whereas Qidushin initiated on behalf of underage daughters by their fathers is valid on a Torah level. The diverse states of Erusin and Nisuin carry with them many Halakhic differences reflecting their conceptual diversity and inequality. In the post Rabenu Gershom world polygamy will earn it's practitioners excommunication in Ashkenazi communities. The relationship between a Yevama and a Yavam differs from the one between a husband and a wife and, in contemporary practice, is a union consigned to dissolution from the start.

Both halakha and the ACLU recognize slippery-slope syndrome. It is impossible to imagine such legislation even being up for vote had it not been preceded by decades of Women's liberation, Gay Rights legislation, Gay Pride marches, the social pandemic of divorces and adultery, the biological epidemics of HIV and AIDS, gender-reassignment medicine, defining-deviancy-down and a myriad of other movements and technologies that have stewed and seethed together in the second great American melting pot. And just as surely as the first one erased all old-world ethnic and national identities the current one blurs and effaces gender identities.

And while everything I've posted and will continue to post is, more-or-less, Torah-based (at least in my humble opinion) lets not forget that our USA civilization is supposed to be based on a Judeo-X-tian heritage. In the old days of the 50s-70's when, as Rabbi Frand puts it, "Men were men and (heavy-chrome encrusted muscle) cars were cars" even the most secularized individual in America would not have conceived of the definition of marriage expanding to include same sex unions.

TO BE CONTINUED
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

המבדיל בין אהבה לתאוה Distinguishing Love from Lust

Nice to see that the mental-health care community has finally considered a question dealt with by Meforshim and Baalei Mussar for ages.

In a recent book and article Dr. Judith Orloff makes many cogent observations in distinguishing love and lust. She provides a "Guide to the Perplexed" on how to determine what it is that you're feeling vis-a-vis the other person. She offers the self-evident yet sagely advice to avoid relationships predicated on lust alone and to pursue and embrace those based on love.

I have not read the book but in the article she does not seem to mention that even those relationships based on love ought to be avoided if they are immoral; i.e. if they are adulterous, incestuous or between members of the same gender. The impression I got when reading her thesis was that as long as

• You want to spend quality time together other than sex.
• You get lost in conversations and forget about the hours passing.
• You want to honestly listen to each other's feelings, make each other happy.
• He or she motivates you to be a better person.
• You want to get to meet his or her family and friends.

then their current marital status is beside the point. This once again reinforces the wry Havdalah pronouncement of the Chazon Ish all those years ago that וואס זיי רופען ליבע רופען מיר כרת = "What they refer to as love we call spiritual death/ disconnectedness"

The Baalei Mussar had a much more straightforward way of of making this Havdalah. Love is the effect of giving and being selfless whereas Lust is the cause of taking and being selfish. As Rav Dessler makes clear in his Qunteres HaKhesed it is giving that makes us love... and not the other way around.

The difference between love and lust is best illustrated by this anecdote (I originally heard it about Rav Chatzkel Levenshtein but have subsequently heard it in the name of other Gedolim):

The TK sees a Yeshiva Bokhur devouring a piece of Gefilteh Fish and asks "So you like fish?" The bokhur responds " Much more than like...I love fish. Fish is my favorite". "No you don't" says the TK, "You love yourself, your taste buds and your digestive tract. If you truly loved fish then rather than feasting on it you'd build the fish an aquarium, ascertain that the water temperature and Ph balance were right and make sure that the fish was eating it's favorite foods!"
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

Is it Something in the Canadian Air?

click

A very post-worthy Wiki article. For now let me pose a single question: How can circumvision possibly be illegal but what David Reimers parents and physicians did to him be legal?

Child Abuse by the Havdala Oblivious

Jazz (male) canoodling
Storm (wouldn't you like to know) Stocker

Breaking new ground in Genderly-confused Havdala-Obliviousness a Canadian couple Kathy Witterick and her husband,(if that's the appropriate word) David Stocker, have decided to raise their newborn baby, Storm, "genderless". The babies sex is known only by its (see how sensitive I am...I employ the gender neutral pronoun) parents and a close friend of theirs, siblings (boys *SHUDDER* Jazz 5 and Kio 2) and the midwives who delivered it. For the balance of humanity Storms gender will remain a mystery. That is, of course, until, if and when, it chooses to use a urinal.

In rationalizing (sic) their decision the spokesperson for the family, Storms mother, (if that's the appropriate word) explained "I, like many parents, have taught my children that some things are private matters, (some are, e.g. ones genitalia, one's gender identity clearly is not) and when you want to share them, you need to do so honestly with sensitivity and consideration.(Checking off MALE or FEMALE on a form requires "sensitivity" and "consideration"? How much "honesty", except for perhaps transvestites, hermaphrodites and pre-op transsexuals, must one muster before checking off the appropriate box?) If I had to convince my children not to share Storm's sex (which I don't because my children simply are not interested at this point) — I would teach them that someone else's genitals (correct) and sense of how they relate to their gender (absurd) is their private business, to be shared by them or in a context where safety, acceptance and sensitivity are paramount."

And so Witterick and Stocker have chosen to cast an identity-ambiguating burka over Strom's psyche. It's hard for me to comprehend the psycho-babbling gobbledygook that Ms. Witterick spouted but one thing is clear; if she and her partner-in-social-engineering-crime are allowed to raise it to adulthood they will have consigned Storm to a lifetime of stormy weather. Other children will mock it, other genders will be repulsed by it and it will be terminally odd and queer (if that's the appropriate word). Storm will spend a lifetime maladjusted and insecure in its own being and most basic self-definition. Storm will be the Sartre-ian "other", ignored and marginalized at best and oppressed and demonized at worst, by the rest of society. The only difference being that Sartre' opined "If the Jew did not exist, the anti-Semite would invent him." Wheras in Storm's case there will be no need for the haters to invent this new entity to hate, despise and scapegoat. Its parents will have taken care of the invention part.

The only possible rationalization for raising Storm Gender-Neutral would be if the four month old was, indeed, either a טומטום or an אנדרוגינוס (Talmudic terms connoting one born with a thick membrane covering their genitalia or one born with two sets of genitalia) . While I am no sleuth, reading between the lines I have discerned that: A. this is not the case with Storm B. It is probably male and C. That the decision was based more on Jazz' negative social experiences because of his love of bright colors (especially pink) , lots of fabric (especially dresses) and growing his hair long, than on any other single factor. This much seems clear. The grandparents did NOT raise the parents gender-neutral or they'd have been the ones making headlines 30-45 years ago.

IMO these "parents"(if that's the appropriate word) are abusing their child. In civilized countries Child Services have taken children away from parents on the grounds that the parents were merely too dumb or for feeding their children inappropriately. What this Toronto couple is doing to their baby is akin to a couple in New Square or l'havdil in Dutch-Mennonite communities deciding to raise their child Deism-neutral and denying it any religious education or acculturation. It's like an agrarian couple raising their baby in a barn so that when it came of age it would have an open mind to decide if it was a soul-endowed human or just another, albeit evil, weak and fur-less, animal. There are movements afoot to ban the practice of clitorectomies in developing countries and even to end circumcision in San Francisco and Santa Monica, all on the grounds of child-abuse through genital "mutilation". In both of these procedures only a portion of the reproductive anatomy is excised and yet they raise a hysterical hue and cry from progressives world-wide. Yet here we have "parents" psychologically excising their offspring's genitalia completely, leaving no trace, and they become the darlings and heroes of progressives worldwide.

Like the couple from Scotland Kathy Witterick and David Stocker are simply too dumb to raise children and if allowed to do so will do them a lifetime of irreparable harm. Not because they have low IQs or because they lack higher education. On the contrary, it was precisely the confluence of these two factors that produced so-called "adult" parents deaf, dumb and blind to the basic difference between the genders and the parental duty to facilitate their childrens healthy and natural assimilation of their genetically, and IMO Divinely, ordained gender identities.
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

Havdala Sensitivity from a Left-Wing Periodical?!?

Wonder of wonders! In an editorial in the current issue The Forward actually poses some questions acknowledging the possibility of innate gender-based differences. The answer to the rhetorical question at the end of the piece is, of course, "where it ends". Ignoring the anatomical and cultural there exist psycho-spiritual differences between male and females that cause the former to be the more polygamous and promiscuous of the two.
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

All This...for a Hunchback

Is it a figment of my imagination or were the seven circles of personal humiliation hell that Congressman Weiner now find himself roasting in on account of a hunchback?

If my eyes are not playing tricks on me דער אראבער האט א געזונט'ן הויקער that will only grow more mountainous with age.

Weiner Update

He tearfully admitted wrongdoing. No one can see into his heart but he said that he was deeply ashamed. If so he may have a cleaner soul than any of us. IIRC our sages teach that if one does something and is ashamed of it/ on account of it his/her sins are forgiven. OTOH he may just have been faking sincerity. Once you can do that and plan spontaneity then you have it made!

My only gripe is that he mentioned Huma as the one he hurt the most when in truth it is Huma who is hurting him the most. For his own good on a lot of levels I still hope that she dumps him.

Today is the last of the ימי הגבלה when the ancient directive to the Exodus generation was אל תגשו אל אשה . Perhaps Congressman Weiner should be makhmir and practice אל תגשו אל אשה the year round for a while.
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אח
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

Schadenfreude Over the Tzuris of the Havdala Oblivious

Please forgive me for indulging in a bit of schadenfreude at Representative Anthony Wieners expense today. I heard him speak in person once at a Yeshiva Dinner and he seemed to me the very incarnation of the glib, sleazy, tel-'em-what-they-wanna-hear politician. I took an immediate dislike to the man. Still, this is not why I rejoice at the predicament he finds himself in recently.

For those of you living in a cave the congressmen has been embroiled in a scandal the details of which I will not sully my family blog with. In the process he has lost credibility, arrested his seemingly inexorable rise to higher office and national prominence, become the butt of jokes on late-night TV and basically become a national laughing stock causing men to roll their eyes, women to titter and children to giggle guiltily as Kheder boys do when first studying the episode of Lot and his daughters. I am joining in the laughter as well, but not because I find anything funny (well, maybe a little of that as well).

Why, you may ask, would I rejoice at another Jews misfortune? Because the Havdala-Oblivious jerk intermarried. When Jews marry out bad things invariably happen. Still as most of us today give תנוקות שנשבו a pass for their Shabbos desecration, Tarfus ingestion and a host of other aveiros large and small why get my blood pressure up over yet another ignorant Jew marrying out? I'll tell you why: There are limits to a Tinok SheNisba's ability to plead innocence-through-ignorance. I would not poo-poo a homicide by a Tinok SheNisba on account of their never having attended a Torah U'Mesorah Day School. Similarly even though the taboo of intermarriage is long gone and by 1996-2001 the intermarriage rate had risen to 47% one still ought to know better than to marry a Muslim who had spent her formative years in Saudi Arabia. Certainly not a self-identifying Jew who always touts himself as a strong friend of Israel.

Would a Jew marry a Roman during the Second Temple destruction period? Would a Converso marry an Inquisitor? Would an enlightened German Jew in the mid-thirties marry a card-carrying NSDAP member? So how can a savvy Jewish politician in today's geopolitical climate marry a half-Pakistani, raised in Saudi Arabia, Muslim? I don't care how westernized they both are or how little regard and seriousness they accord their own faith communities. This is "sleeping with the enemy" quite literally. If I despise NK members for hugging Ahmanjinijad I am filled with disgust at the thought of a LITERAL marriage between a Jew and a Muslim Arab. WTH is wrong with Wiener? עס פעלט דען אויס שיקצע'ס פון אנדערע פעלקער אז ער האט געמוזט אויסקלויבען אן אראבער???

Anthony Weiner, shame on you. You ought to know better. I'm happy that you, and especially that your marriage, are laughing stocks today. You get absolutely no pass as a Tinok SheNisba. Truth is, you, or at least your Havdala-sensitive Neshumeh, should be happy too. If Huma Abedin has any pride at all she will dump you sooner rather than later. Maybe for zivig sheni you can find a nice JEWISH girl to bring home to Momma.

PS Speaking of laughing-stocks whose Purim-Shpiel idea was it to have Bill Clinton, he of Monica-gate, preside at this non-couples wedding? The farcical nature of the former chief serial-fornicator "consecrating" this "union" would be incredible and completely unbelievable were the principals involved not shameless Washingtonians of the genus homo politicus. Forget about the recent Weinergate, it's remarkable that any of the wedding guests were ever able to keep a straight face.

Nobel Havdala

One normally associates all the trite bromides and conventional orthodoxies of Politically Correct Havdala-Obliviousness with academia and especially with writers of belles-lettres. Many of the rampaging steamrollers of egalitarianism, en route to flatten all saliences and any Havdala-conscious opposition, first picked up heads of steam in the publication and popularity of high-brow novels and poems. Which is what makes the recent Havdala-sensitive pronouncements of the Nobel Prize for Literature Laureate V.S. Naipaul all the more astonishing.

Completely flouting political correctness and, no doubt, alienating slightly more than 50% of his core readership, Mr. Naipaul was mavdil between men and women. He opined that an innate difference, one that no amount of culture, education, talent and practice can overcome, distinguishes male and female writing. Among the money quotes:

"I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not. I think [it is] unequal to me." ...

"I don't think so.[i.e. that any woman is his literary equal]"

Of [Jane] Austen he said he "couldn't possibly share her sentimental ambitions, her sentimental sense of the world".

I'm not sure that I agree with Mr. Naipaul or even that I fully understand the terms of the Havdala that he is attempting to make. Me, I love the writing of Flannery O'Connor, but maybe that's reflects badly on my own Girlie-man diminished masculinity. But, the fact is, that here we have a man, recognized for his writing talent by the most august prize-awarding body in the world, with the temerity to voice his belief in an innate gender-based difference informing the talent that this body recognized that he possessed prodigiously and that he uses at his craft expertly. One would think that his opinions on writing would have some traction.

Instead of the firestorm of condemnation as a misogynist presently raining down on on his laurel-wreathed head, perhaps his assertions should give pause to people, motivate them to reconsider their preconceived notions and entertain the possibility, however remote, of the validity of these assertions.

I will acknowledge this to the world media. At least they are being consistent. This lonely post is probably the only place anywhere in either print or virtual media where you will NOT see Naipauls opinions being completely slammed, dismissed out of hand and demonized. The unified, universal hysterical (pardon me) reaction, the absolute condemnation and dismissiveness, could hardly have been more furious if an Imam or Orthodox Rabbi had voiced these opinions instead of a liberal, highly cultured, westernized Nobel-Prize winner.

Try to imagine for a moment if in the wake of the Rabba Sara Hurwitz controversy a recognized Kharedi Posek had said things like this:

"I read a shtikeleh of a Teshuva and within a siman or two I know whether it is by a דעתה קלה or not. I know [it is] unequal to me." ...

"I couldn't possibly share Blu Greenbergs sentimental ambitions, her sentimental sense of the world".

"And inevitably for a woman, she is not a complete Balibusta, so that comes over in her paskening too."

Man... would the J-Blogospheres fur be flying.

As for me, unfamiliar as I am with Mr. Naipauls oeuvre and with what he means to say about women being narrow, sentimental and non-masters of the house, I still think he might be making a valid point vis a vis women and Havdala Consciousness. After all it was a woman, Harper Lee, who penned To Kill a Mockingbird, the novel that basically became the sacred text for anti-Racist egalitarianism. Not coincidentally, in a poll conducted by the Museum, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) in Great Britain, her Pulitzer prize-winning classic was voted number one on a list of 30 books that every adult should read before they die. The King James Bible came in at number two. Last I checked none of Mr. Naipauls books made the list. At least five more books authored by women did.
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

A semi-Rational Segulah II

Part I

Today, Erev Rosh Khodesh Sivan we have another segulah that, on some basic level, seems quite rational. It is a prayer composed by the Shelah HaQodosh for the success of ones childrens, particularly in their Limud HaTorah, to be recited, in particular, today.

As Sivan is the non-coincidental month of Matan Torah ("בריך רחמנא דיהיב אוריין תליתאי לעמא תליתאי בירחא תליתאי ע"י תלתא" ) and as all prayer is theoretically efficacious, this segulah makes more sense than most. As to why today is the most propitious time to utter it rather than say, Shavuos itself, consult your local Orthodox Mequbal. If you are the very last Jew in the world who has not yet received these recently via email here are some links for the prayer: 1. 2. Also a dynamite prayer in a similar vein from the Chazon Ish ZY"A . Of related interest.

Shrewd...very Shrewd

Early last month I blogged about the relative affinity we ought or ought not to have with Muslims vs. Hindus.

Now, in a pithy and craftily worded statement of opposition against proposed legislation to circumscribe circumcision, Rabbi Avi Shafran of Agudath Israel of America has forged a rhetorical alliance between Orthodox Jews, heterodox Jews and Observant Muslims against the (running scared) X-tian and unaffiliated Majority. It reads, in part:

Circumcision... has been performed, at least among the Jewish people, for thousands of years. Jews of divergent religious affiliations, as well as Muslims and others, consider the act of circumcision to be a religious obligation.

This is a masterstroke. Let me enumerate the ways:

1. It creates an impression of affinity and unity between the various branches of Judaism

2. It belies the notion that Orthodox Jews, whose politics about the Palestinian Question are overwhelmingly Hawkish, hate all Arabs and disrespect Islam as a Faith Community

3. It allies Orthodox Jews with a minority group that evokes near-universal empathy and that is politically chic. In general Jews of all stripes are perceived by the left as part of the (Dead) White European (Male) Majority (cp. Judeo-X-tian Heritage) and, in particular, as the last of the great White Colonialists and Practitioners of Apartheid. Since the days that A. J. Heschel locked arms with MLK in the march on Selma there hasn't been as high profile a joint cause between Identifiable Jews and People of Color.

4. It allies Orthodox Jews with a minority group that evokes near-universal fear and terror. Here's the subliminal message to the powers-that-be in San Fran and Santa Monica: You may not mind antagonizing a bunch of girly-man Jewish CPAs and attorneys who, at worst, will litigate this thing to death for years, but you best be thinkin' twice before startin' up with homicidal (homocidal???) towel-heads Ahmed and Abdullah, who've been known to behead their antagonists over offensive cartoons. People are usually reticent about punching terrorists below the belt, in this case more literally than figuratively.

Maybe he should have specified that Squarer Khasidim also practice מילה בשמיני ;-)
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אח
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

אט דאס האט דער בעל שם טוב געמיינט