HaMavdil

Rise of the Mega-Yeshivos- the Coup de Grâce of Chasidification

2012-01-16T15:08:00.007-05:00

Just over a month ago I posted Part I in which I claimed a certain dispassionate journalistic detachment. I concede that from this point on I am editorializing:

I have never been really comfortable with the academic historical narrative about the origins of the Khasidic movement. Received wisdom always talks about the voids being addressed by the movement. The Rabbis grew remote and out-of-touch from the people. Common folk felt disenfranchised and hopeless etc. etc. Yet the fact that the movement captured the hearts and minds of such intellectual and spiritual giants as the Alteh Rebbe, the Hafloah, the Kotzker, the Rim, the Divrei Chaim, the Sfas Emes, the Bnei Yissoskhor, the Lubliner Kohen, the Khelkas Yoav, the Kozhiklover, Rav Meir Shapiro and Rav Menachem Ziemba to name but a few, belies the conventional wisdom that Besh"tian Khasidus was a grass roots movement meant to serve the unlettered and unwashed masses.

Nevertheless Khasidus did, in fact, address the spiritual needs and helped actualize the spiritual potential, or at least the religious yearnings, of masses of adherents and it continues to do so. Yeshivas traditionally gained cache and traction by virtue of the quality of the lamdonim who were their alumni. Few Yeshivaleit today know if Slabodka Mir and Telshe on the eve of World War II had 200, 400 or 4000 students. Nor can they say with any accuracy exactly how many branches comprised the Novardhoker Yeshiva Network. The reason? No one really cares, the number of students enrolled is beside the point of these legendary Yeshivos historical significance. OTOH Khasidus, at least over the last century, gained historical significance mostly by dint of large numbers. With a few notable exceptions the Khasidic groups who were major players over that time were the ones that boasted thousands of Khasidim. Satmar, Lubavitch, Ger, Belz, Vishnitz all have thousands of adherents, many Moisdos and concomitant political clout and influence.

By definition elitist institutions raise the requirement bar for membership in good standing higher than mass movements do. The skill-set mix needed to have "made-it" in historical Slabodka, Mir, Brisk, Chachmei Lublin or even the Lakewood of RAK included exemplary critical and abstract thinking, diligence (hasmoda), attention to detail, attention/concentration surplus disorder, creativity and, very often, asceticism, a high pain threshold and the ability to endure poverty and privation stoically . To lead such institutions required all of the above plus a mind of genius, great administrative and rhetorical talents, pedagogical virtuosity and , quite often, the kind of "publish-or-perish" pressures one associates with secular academia (though in the case of Brisk it was more like "perish-and-then-publish").

In contradistinction to this membership in good standing in the diverse khasidic movements required a whole different skill set and, arguably, one that is easier, less demanding and more commonly found among great numbers of people. These include self-abnegation to the Leader, an obscurantist sensibility, a suspension of disbelief in the miraculous and in the Masters capacity to work same, a tendency towards group-think, the wearing of a uniform, a willingness to travel and spend quality time away from wife and family and a religious sensibility predicated more on heart than on head. To lead such tribes was very often, nothing more than an accident of birth. Preferably, in order to maintain or build up the following, Khasidic leadership required a great and empathic heart, a passionate approach to the staples of daily Jewish life like davening, Shabbos and Yom Tov, formulating a cause or a leitmotif that proffered the khasidim a distinct sense of identity (some might call this the narcissism of small differences) and a sharp piqkhus . Even this last quality is intellectual without being academic. Most would associate piqkhus more with street smarts than with book smarts.

Today there exist two Mega-Yeshivas. Mir in Jerusalem boasts an enrollment of 6000+ while BMG in Lakewood, New Jersey may be up over 7000. The rise of these gigantic Yeshivas and the concomitant marginalization of almost all other Yeshivas for talmidim who are 23+ represents a sea change in the very institution and , in a way far more telling than uniform l'vush, their Chasidification.

Historically Torah Observant Jews in eastern Europe managed to lead lives of observance and commitment with a mere Kheder schooling. An amkha yid might not have been capable of self-study of Gemara but was a member of Khevra Mishnayos, Shas or Ein Yaakov. Kashrus and other basic halakhos were absorbed through observing parental and communal behaviors. The great Yeshivos Gedolos were reserved for a tiny intellectual elite. Jews receiving the equivalent of an eighth grade education and/or, in the case of the women, no formal schooling at all managed to stay ehrlich and live halakhically until the day they died.

But all this began changing in the inter-war period of revolutionary and nationalistic ferment and was accelerated by the War and the post-war American melting pot and the Israeli gallop towards Westernization. Now, without the inoculation against the winds of change provided by in-depth Torah study for many years ones Jewish identity and fealty to Halakha becomes suspect. And so Yeshivas adapted and evolved/devolved to the point that they have become open-admission and long term institutions.

But converting from elitist academies to mass cities of refuge against the rising tide of heresy and materialism comes at a price. Academic standards fall. Fidelity to a particular ideology replaced intellectual acuity as the currency of admission and acceptance. A student body too unwieldy to manage as individuals must be integrated through the glue of group-think. Those who think alike begin to dress alike and books of peoples inner-lives are judged by their covers. Self-delusions of scholarly grandeur persist only so long and values other than great academic achievement in determining ones self-worth begin to creep in.

I have long held these beliefs to be fairly self-evident but I was particularly struck by the encomiums I heard about the late great Mirrer Rosh HaYeshiva Rav Noson Tzvi Finkel OBM at his shloshim. His love and support for each and every student were praised. Speakers were in awe of his self-sacrifice in particularly on behalf of the spiritual growth of others. He was lauded as a great fund-raiser and institution builder. He was extolled as one who did, and in the afterlife would continue, storming the gates of heaven to advocate on behalf of his students and on behalf of all Jews. Anecdotes of scrupulous observance without compromise in the face of great pain and extraordinary challenges were heard.

I closed my eyes for a moment and wondered; "Are these hespedim for the Mirrer Rosh HaYeshiva... or for Reb Shloimeleh, the Bobover Rebbe ZYA???" Almost every praise about RNTF that I heard were those one normally associates with a Khasidic Master rather than with a Lithaninan Rosh HaYeshiva. Conspicuously absent were any mentions of Geonus, Iluyis, profundity, bekius, power of Horoah, originality in approach or novelty in khidushim. How incredibly different these hespedim were from those of the prior Mirrer Roshei Yeshiva Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz OBM and Rav Nokhum Trackaier OBM a generation earlier or even from those of Rav Berel Shvartzman OBM, who headed up a mid-size, decidedly non mega-Yeshiva a mere week before.

As gauged by that which is deemed praiseworthy an entire cultures value system had changed in my lifetime. ( See Rabenu Yonah where he explains Mishlei 27:21). IMO the mega-Yeshiva is the Coup de Grâce of Chasidification of the rest of us. All the other external trappings of the Chasidification are merely external symptoms of this inner shift in core values.
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

On the Fine Art of Taking...and Giving

2012-01-06T10:40:00.002-05:00

A beautiful article.

Elegant prose that is evocative, tenderly sympathetic, brutally honest and ambivalent as only Jews can be.
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

What's Next?

2011-12-22T13:07:00.003-05:00

Nuns lighting Shabbos Candles?

Feel free to submit your captions though it's going to be hard to beat this billboard which seem to be either a real or spoof treatment of the recent Israeli Government ad campaign to convince yordim to return to Israel.

Sad Sign of the Times

2011-12-22T12:59:00.003-05:00

Seen in a Manhattan Chinese Restaurant

Apparently Howard Greenbergs Mother married her own Uncle

2011-12-22T11:35:00.003-05:00

Click.

I'd say more luridly that Howard Greenbergs father married his own Aunt except that would've made him a Mamzer...O wait....He is a Mamzer. Though far from ממזר קלוג

PSA

2011-12-19T13:06:00.003-05:00

Click

Please daven for the refuah Shlaimah of יעקב מאיר בן בונא a young boy critically injured in a tragic accident.

Not that it makes any difference but insiders told me the accident occurred while operating a cherry-picker not a forklift and that the injuries were to the neck and jaw, that he suffered a collapsed lung and that he was resuscitated from cardiac arrest.

Defending "The Chasidification"

2011-12-18T19:13:00.005-05:00

Thanks to links and cross postings provided by Mega-J-Bloggers R' Harry Maryles, Hirschel Tzig and Rafi of "Life in Israel" my last post actually garnered quite a number of intelligent comments. I'd like to respond to many of the criticisms raised in a general way.

1. What is a Chumra? Quite a few commenters were irked by my characterization of Cholov Yisroel and Glatt Flaish as Khumros. I was not trying to opine as a big maven in Halakha nor trying to be a קל fobbing off baseline Halakha as some wild-eyed-fanatical-stringency. I was merely relating my sociological observations. IMO most Jews currently refraining from Cholov Stam do not do so because RMF z"l wrote that לבעל נפש ראוי להחמיר but because of the Chasidisha emphasis on it treating cholov stam as absolute cholov chazir.

2. Whence Anti-Zionism? Many a commenter said that this prevailing attitude was sourced in the Hashqofos of the Brisker Rov rather than in those of Satmar-Munkatch. I am incredulous of this interpretation for a number of reasons:
A. The Hashqofos of the Brisker Rov are תורה שבעל פה while those of Satmar Ruv are printed for everyone to see in manifestos such as ויואל משה וקונטרס על הגאולה ועל התמורה as well as suffusing many of his other prolific writings.
B. In Brisk anti-Zionism is a plank in a larger platform, in Satmar it IS the platform
C. Up until the early 70s only a minority of US Litvisha Yeshiva-leit ever went to learn in Israeli Yeshivos yet the American Yeshiva velt was thoroughly Anti-Zionist by then. I find it much more plausible that the major cultural influence for this was the US based Satmar Ruv and the already colossal and agressive following that he had forged rather than the influence of the Brisker Rov
D. from the mid 60s to the mid 70s there were still a large number of US Litvisha Yeshiva-leit heading for Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz, Rav Nochum Pertzovitz, Rav Shmuel Rozovksky, Rav Michel Feinstein, Rav Abba Berman, Khevron, Rav Moshe Shapira and Rav Moshe Shmuel Shapira rather than Rav Berel and Rav Dovid Soloveichik. The current zeitgeist of "Brisk or bust" certainly did not exist yet. I realize that many of the Geonim mentioned were Brisker talmidim and/or influenced but... many were not. Some were positively moderate and "soft" on Zionism.
E. Brisk at that time, and to a certain extent even today, was an elitist movement targeting(relatively) small numbers of true Metzuyonim. I am incredulous of the pan-frum anti-Zionist sentiment spreading so far and wide would emanate from an elitist movement targeting a tiny slice of the population. There are thousands of Jews today who use eruvin (which Briskers don't) and are strict about all fast days (which Briskers are not) who are virulently Anti-Zionist.

3. Is Tekheles about Archeology or Eschatology? I will accept the critique of those more familiar with the ways and mores of Modern Orthodoxy than me who claim that the popularity of tekheles is due to a fascination with Archeology and Chemistry validating Halakha. But I'd like to ask them to think about this: Absent Rav Gershon Henokh (The Radzyner Rebbes)'s life work would anyone even be bothering to look and care about fossilized Tekheles? Furthermore beneath the Radzyners many dry halakhic/ scientific appeals for the restoration of Tekheles there was always a strong undercurrent of anticipating the Messianic era and the restoration of ALL lost Mitzvos. Without him do you really think that there would be people reproducing כלי המקדש and בגדי כהונה ? People trying to raise a kohen in a bubble to process a Parah Adumah? People trying to reinstate the Sanhedrin? Or, most recently, Rav Chaim Kanievsky ZGZ signing up to be one of the M'nuyim on a Qorbon Pesakh? I'm still convinced that it was he who got the ball rolling on these and other similar projects and that as both a Gaon and a Rebbe, his imagination was fired by the Messianic Raison d'etre of the entire Beshtian Khasidic enterprise אימתי קאתי מר? לכשיפוצו מעינתיך חוצה

4. Poor writng: "Dovy" over on R' Harrys blog commented: interesting post with much truth I'm afraid.. Just wish it was written a little better. All I can say is that Dovy is obviously not a maven on fine writing. ;-)

5. Cheek -by-Jowl Cultural Osmosis: "Chareidi" says that I falsified history. I challenge him to provide us with some examples of the kind of geographical proximity in interbellum Eastern Europe that is the norm in large Frum communities today. I'm not unconscious of such facts as e.g. many Novardhoker Yeshivas in the Polish Chasidic heartland, Slonim, Lubavitch and Karlin, to name a few, existing in the Litvisha-Misnagdisha heartland or the Agudas Yisroel movement introducing many rank and file Jews to gedolim from lands unlike their own. But the kind of forced modus vivendi that existed in the immediate post-war era has no parallel in pre-war Europe. You didn't have Yekisha, Litvisha and Gerrer girls all attending the same Bais Yaakovs as they did in New York, Bnei Braq and Yerushalayim as they did from the early 50s through the mid 70s.

6. Magyarization or Chasidification? Look... I was all over the field. The Chasidic world is no monolith (although the march towards tyrannical conformity gallops apace in both Chasidisha and Yeshivisha Kreizen) and I cited influences from Radzyn, Chabad, Satmar, Ger, Breslov as well as generic, pan-Chasidisha ideas and attitudes. So IMO this critique is a nitpick.

"Kovner"... click here. You were being gently ribbed
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

On the Chasidification of the Rest of Jewry- A Ya"T Kislev Rumination

2011-12-15T13:16:00.007-05:00

Today is the 19th of Kislev. It is a day celebrated by Chasidim in general as the Yuhrzeit of the Mezritcher Magid and by Chabad Chasidim in particular as the day that the Alter Rebbe (AKA the Rav and the Ba'al HaTanya) was liberated from his first incarceration in Czarist Prison and referred to as ראש השנה לחסידות . As such it got me, a non-Khusid, thinking about how Chasidish we have all become.

In pre-war Eastern Europe the various Jewish regions were basically culturally secluded from others. The Litvaks, Byelorussians and Latvians were, by and large, Misnagdim. The Germans, mostly Reform and, if observant, Hirschian. While great swaths of Poland, Galitzia, Hungary, Rumania and Ruthenia were Chasidish each region had it's own flavor of Chasidus and idiom of Yiddish.

Not so in the post war era. In almost every large Jewish population center around the world Holo-survivors of all of the aforementioned groups and their descendants began living cheek-by-jowl with one another along with indigenous frum populations that were there before the war and, at least in the immediate post-war years, attending the same schools and "intermarrying".

And so, cultural osmosis was inevitable. Yet it's clear that the Chasidim have had the far greater influence on the rest of us, in particular on the Yeshivisha velt than vice versa. Below I present a partial list of ways and mores that were once associated exclusively with Chasidim that have made great inroads among "the rest of us" (in no particular order):

Chumras in Kashrus: Cholov Yisroel and Glatt Flaisch although TBF if memory serves, Yoshon and heightened bug/ cychapod/ Toloim awareness began in Yeshivisha Kraizen.

Taareevos / Qedusha /Tznius: Mekhitzas Mekhitzas everywhere, weddings, simchas, dinners, kiddushim, buses, and they keep getting higher and more opaque. No pictures of even Tzanua women in print. No sitting in the same sections of buses. No mention of kallahs names in engagement announcements. Shortened courtship in shidduchim. Greater pre-first date screening / vetting in shiduchim. Fewer kallahs coming to the mens side during כיצד מרקדים . A shaitel being an anathema in certain quarters (primarily Chardal and Chavakuks. Although TBF I don't know f this is sourced in Chasidisha or Sfardisha influences). Suffice it to say that a generation or two ago none of this existed in Yeshivish, Yekkish and MO circles.

Levush/ Grooming: No color, lots of black and white even among the females. The doffing of ties and cuff-links. Long gatkes and no cuff shirts. Near universal peyos and many a pre-wedding beard. Khalakas-Upsherins for the three year olds. Near universal Shaitels / hair covering (yes Virginia, a generation or two ago very few MO women covered their hair at all, not to mention some other coverables, and even quite a few prominent Litvisha Rebitzens went bareheaded and smoked to boot!). RAK forbade Shtreimels in BMG. RMF allowed the use of certain electric razors. RYYR ejected bokhrim who grew beards from NIRC משום יוהרא (IINM this obtained in Telshe as well). There was nary a gartel to be seen in any Yeshiva or Young Israel. Straw hats in the summer were the norm, even among Roshei Yeshiva including some Panama Hats.

Tekheiles used to unheard of outside Radzyner survivors and a few pockets of Breslovers. While the Tekheiles that is all the rage in MO circles today is Rav Herzogs and not Rav Gershon Henikhs, it is an undeniable historical fact that it was he who began the Renaissance of this long forgotten mitzvah, and in a certain sense the whole, let's-do-mitzvos-we-haven't-done-in-decades/centuries/ millenia movement so popular today (Shiluach hakan, Yoshon, Pidyon peter khamor, Zroya V'lkhoayim wearing Tefilin the live-long day and donning them at home then walking to Shul...to name a few)

Anti-Zionism; Munkatcher/ Satmar ideology on the topic is triumphant and near universal in the Yeshivisha velt. Even among Khardals there has been some serious re-examination of the cornerstones of their Religious-Zionist ideology in the wake of the Gush Qatif evacuation. This is apocryphal but I've heard tell that in 1949 in Chevron Yeshiva they said Hallel on Yom HaAtzmaut. That Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach said that going to IDF military cemeteries is visiting kivrei Tzadikim and that Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz opined that the IDF casualties were like famous martyrs in the time of the Khurban. Let's see them try and get away with that now.

Hostility to Secular Education: A generation ago at least in American Yeshiva High Schools, students received a quality secular education and more than 40-50% went on to receive University degrees. Today in boys Yeshivas secular studies are an open joke, Hanholos compete for Khashivus at least in part by how successfully they can marginalize the secular studies. Today Litvisha High School graduates are mostly functional illiterates and speak a pidgin English like their Chasidisha counterparts. Albeit with less of an accent .

Kiruv and Missionary-like desire to spread the faith. אימתי קאתי מר was once an exclusively Chasidic anthem and ethos. While it's true that Novardhok did have a missionary proselytizing zeal even before the war they have melted away into history. Any fair historian must connect the dots of all Litvisha Kiruv Yeshivas and organizations back to Chabad. The fact that young khinukh couples will occasionally move to the boonies and that "Kiruv rabbi" has now joined the list of respected Qlei Qodesh, joining Mohalim, Shokhtim, Sofrim, Rabonim, Melamdim and Roshei Yeshiva represents a sea-change in mainstream Judaisms thinking compared to 40 years ago.

Segulos: Chai Rotel Mashkeh, Amuka, Pigeons-to-cure-hepatitis, Kupat HaIr and Vaad HaRabonim marketing. Enough said

Hagiographies: as was always the norm among Khasidim non-kasidisha Gedolim must now also be Qedoshim M'Rekhem Eemom. If they had pasts...best to hide it. If they had growing pains... best to dissemble about it.

Kivrei Tzadikim: Always a big inyan by Chasidim it has gained much cache among the rest of us in the past few decades. From Carlebach fans flocking to Shlomos kever on Har Hamenukhos, to Chasidim rediscovering RJJ as a Tzadik, to invading Arab territory for Yosef Hatzadik, to Rav Pesach Krone led Heritage tours of Eastern Europe, to all the non-Chasidim on the Charter flights to Berditcehv and Lizhensk, Kever hopping has gone mainstream.

Especially universal is the Uman experience. You could roll all the mainstream and Looney-Tune sub-sects of Breslov into one, triple it and there would still be no accounting for the enormous RH crowds in Uman. It seems as though everyone is entitled to love their own stripe of Judaism....and Breslov too!

Leadership: the kind of sense of infallibility, un-challenge-ability, ability to intercede in prayer, efficacy of granting brachos, expertise in fields that they were not trained in once attributed only to Chasidic Masters is now the norm in relating to Litvisha gedolim. Ironically IMO todays Yeshivaleit have out-chasidished the Chasidim in these departments and whereas many contemporary Chasidim, especially in those Hoifen that have been riven by internal infighting and schisms, display a "healthy" skepticism towards their own leaders the average Yeshivaman is totally mevatel himself and independent thought to Daas Torah. Are their more sought after Brakhos granters or eitzeh gaibers in the world today than Rav Chaim Kaniefski ZGZ and his shver?

Ancillary to this is another originally Chasidish dimension of leadership. Goyim have celebrities who are otherwise talent free but "famous for being famous", Chasidim have almost always had some Masters who were "Leader because they led". They were not famous for Geonos or even necessarily tzidkus or for their ability to work miracles. This is especially true since dynasties became almost exclusively hereditary rather than moving from Master to Disciple. This brings me to a current event that really sparked this post. But as this post is too long for anyone to read already I'll save it for a part two. Stay tuned.

The only serious question left is: With this much הפצת המעינות why does Moshiach continue to tarry?

UPDATE AS OF 8:30 PM EST SUNDAY NIGHT. CLICK HERE to see the new post in which I address many of the critiques in the thread on this post.
UPDATE AS OF 3:00 PM EST January 16, 2012 CLICK HERE for part II
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

Ode to a Departed Beard

2011-12-15T12:34:00.003-05:00

By loyal reader and commenter JS

Ah, what a wond'rous beard
Upon my face one day appeared
Long, lustrous, lovely to behold
But a bit too long if truth be told
I know exactly what I must do
A trim, only an inch or two
Scissors in hand I begin to prune
I revel in the clippings strewn
But looking up, what do I see?
I was too hasty in my cutting spree
My beard is gone, it has been shorn
And so my folly, bare faced, I mourn

More on Matisyahus AWOL beard from Tzigs blog

Remembering a Fallen Giant II

2011-12-14T12:56:00.006-05:00

Part I

Then the MC, Mr. Rechnitz, introduced Rav EllaBer Vakhtfoigel, Rosh HaYeshiva of South Fallsburg.

Rav Vakhtfoigel emphasized how devalued through inflation and overuse the term mesiras nefesh has become but how RNTF embodied true and superhuman mesiras nefesh. He opined that in the field of mesiras nefesh RNTF was a throwback and would have been superlative in earlier generations as well but having lived in our own he indicts the rest of us for our own shortcomings in the mesiras nefesh department.

In an oblique swipe at Artscroll hagiographies he emphasized how RNTF was an American boy ("like the rest of us", he said, though IMHuO one can hardly compare growing up in the home of the Lakewood Mashgiakh and the near monastic infant BMG community to graduating from Skokie/ the Ida Crown Academy, I daresay that RNTF had decidedly different challenges to his shtaiging than did Rav EllaBer Vakhtfoigel) who overcame every impediment to shtaiging and emerged ah groiser mentsch. (a term he repeated countless times in reference to RNTF).

Quoting his father he explained the posuk וַיִּהְיוּ הַמֵּתִים, אֲשֶׁר הֵמִית בְּמוֹתוֹ, רַבִּים, מֵאֲשֶׁר הֵמִית בְּחַיָּיו as not a mere quantitative contest to "pad" Shimshon HaGibors statistics, but rather a way of explaining the quality of Gevura; to wit that,paradoxically, one's true strength emerges when they are at there weakest and most powerless. It was no kunst for to slay Plishtim when he was endowed with supernatural strength, but to do so when his strength had left him to strengthen himself one last timeוַיִּקְרָא שִׁמְשׁוֹן אֶל-יְהוָה, וַיֹּאמַר: אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה זָכְרֵנִי נָא וְחַזְּקֵנִי נָא אַךְ הַפַּעַם הַזֶּה, that was true Gevura. RNTF was peerless in Gevura as decades after normal human strength had left him he strengthened himself "one last time" hundreds of times.

The next speaker was Rav Yisroel Reisman, he of the Motzi Shabbos Navi Shiur fame. He averred that the main characteristic that distinguishes the Israeli Torah Velt from her American counterpart is the latters lack of Mesiras Nefesh.

he quoted a School Principle (no doubt from a Bais Yaakov) who told him that the students were asked to do the following assignment: Take a blank piece of paper. On side A write 10 points of Mesiras Nefesh that you observed by your Grandparents and great Grandparents and on the other side write 10 points of Mesiras Nefesh of your own. Side A's of the assignments were chock full of tales of Mitzvah performance in Nazi Ghettos and bouncing from job to job on the Lower East Side at the turn of the Century but side B's were blank. Let's face it, the Mir may be in Jerusalem but the lions share of the students are American. RNTF was sent to us AMERICANS by a benevolent Providence to teach us Mesiras Nefesh.

Rav Resiman described the repeating cycle of the Mirs student population growth followed by the erection of new buildings, and how RNTF nurtured this expansion. He related an anecdote first appearing here in a comment by the Blogger known as Reb Chaim HaQoton. Rav Avrohom Yehoshua Soloveitchick ZGZ met a yeshiva bokhur at Kikar Shabbos who asked him for directions to the Mir and Rav AJ said that he should just wait there, the Mir will be there in another 10 or fifteen years. Rav Reisman said over this story as if RAYS was admiring the Mirs expansion. As I opined here and WADR to Rav Reisman I believe that RAYS was being dismissive and sarcastic.

I must say that those who organized this event have a lot of marketing savvy. In the post cards and emails I received they headlined the new Rosh HaYeshiva - Rav Lazer Yudel Finkel ZGZ who, in all honesty , was the man that I really came to hear. Don't get me wrong. I found all the speakers I heard intriguing and even inspiring, but I would not have altered my plans for the evening to come and hear them. Curiosity compelled me to see and hear Rav Lazer Yudel ZGZ . While all I got to hear of him was his davening Maariv I will say that he is and extremely handsome and aristocratic looking young man who exudes loads of personal charisma. Maybe it's the Slabodka genes coming through. In any event headlining him in the print and electronic ads brought the crowds. Holding him back till the end of the program kept the crowds there.

While @ the Shloshim I received a 2 disc set of 120! MP3 Hespedim of RNTF. That's an average of four hespedim per day during the entire Shloshim including Shabosos! The outpouring of admiration and affection for this man was, apparently, universal יהי זכרו ברוך !

I was only there long enough to hear three speakers. For more video footage of the speakers I have synopsized as well as the others on the program click here
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

Hair Today Gone Tomorrow

2011-12-13T17:45:00.007-05:00

Before

The Israeli Ministry of the Interior has Yordim= Emigrants, Olim= Immigrants and Noshrim= immigrants who couldn't cope or adjust and became emigrants. In Frum Society we have Shona U'peerishniks= Those who grew up frum and chucked the lifestyle, BTs= those who grew up Frai and then adopted the lifestyle and???? What do we call BTs who become Shona U'peerishniks?

It is tragic whenever someone loses their allegiance to Halakha. More tragic still for the BT who sacrificed much to gain their allegiance to Halakha. Most tragic of all was someone who gained their allegiance to Halakha in a very high-profile way that brought attention to Torah Judaism and got people thinking and talking about the relative merits of a Torah-Observant lifestyle.

And so tonight I mourn the loss of Matisyahu's beard. From the tweets he sent to his fans it sounds like he cut off his beard to spite his faith.

After

"At the break of day I look for you at sunrise When the tide comes in I lose my disguise," he tweeted.

From his website:
"Sorry folks, all you get is me ... no alias, When I started becoming religious 10 years ago it was a very natural and organic process. It was my choice. My journey to discover my roots and explore Jewish spirituality -- not through books but through real life. At a certain point I felt the need to submit to a higher level of religiosity ... to move away from my intuition and to accept an ultimate truth. I felt that in order to become a good person I needed rules -- lots of them -- or else I would somehow fall apart. I am reclaiming myself. Trusting my goodness and my divine mission".

As a master lyricist his latest act inspires me to fit new teeth on an old saw.חסידיו מדקדקים עם הקב"ה בחוט השערה . Or, as Billy Joel might say: "Facial nudity, it's hardly ever beard but mostly what I need from you"

Way Before

Poor Matisyahu. All I can say is that the next time he feels ambivalent about his Yiddishkeit and gets the urge to cut that he try rhinoplasty.

Here's my "tweet":
"At the end of the of day I look for you at sunset, When the tide goes out hope you're not devoured by regret"

Remembering a Fallen Giant

2011-12-13T12:09:00.008-05:00

Last night I had the great privilege of attending part of the Program marking the end of Shloshim for Mir Rosh HaYeshiva Rav Noson Tzvi Finkel OBM at the Palace in Brooklyn. A scheduling conflict compelled me to leave after the first three speakers but even the small portion of the program that I was present for was uplifting and inspiring.

The huge crowd of a very wide variety of Jews from many stripes (I'm not great at these things but I'd guesstimate that it was 2000+) gave me a sense of the enormity of the person being mourned and of the institution being celebrated. Swept along by the collective emotions that are always augmented by herd-like numbers, even a misanthropic, hyper-critical curmudgeon like me could not avoid being moved to affection for both the Rosh HaYeshiva, the B'nei HaYeshiva and the Tomkhei HaYeshiva.

I am an alumnus of two Yeshivas one of which was Mir Yerushalayim. Despite having been a mediocre student during my time there, I was bursting my buttons last night for at least having once been a part of what can only be described as the Yeshiva of K'lal Yisrael. Even had I never studied there I believe that Gene Fowler's quote re the City of San Francisco, " Every man should be allowed to love two cities, his own and San Francisco", should be retooled as follows: " Every man should be allowed to love two Yeshivas, his own and The Mir".

Here are a few salient points of the talks that I was privileged to hear:

Mr. Shlomo Yehuda Rechnitz emphasized the Rosh HaYeshivas greatness in terms of having an awareness of everything happening in so massive an operation, somewhat like the CEO of a major corporation. (It takes one to know one!). He added that not only did the Rosh HaYeshiva have the tests and trials of the rich man but of the poor man and an inverted Yosef HaTzadik (the surcease of pain from Parkinsons rather than the pursuit of pleasure) as well. As is fast becoming the stuff of legend, the Rosh HaYeshiva passed these tests with flying colors and exhibited superhuman strength in the process.

He also spoke of the palpable love and affection that he had for every Yeshiva Mahn, every Jew. Once the Rosh HaYeshiva was squeezed into the back seat of a car on the way back from Bnei Braq with a bokhur from Brisk who was the drivers cousin. The driver stopped at the Central Bus Station and asked his cousin to leave the car so that the Rosh HaYeshiva would have a bit more room on the ride back. At that point the Rosh HaYeshiva locked arms with the bokhur and told the driver "He can't leave". When the driver asked "why not?" the Rosh HaYeshiva smiled and said "because he's stuck". And, concluded Mr. Rechnitz, so were we all.

His closing words were extremely powerful. Noting the Rosh HaYeshivas capacity to aggressively fund-raise like a tiger in spite of his otherwise retiring, humility-suffused gentleness he styled him "ah gitteh beiter". "People don't change. As he was on earth so shall he be in heaven. He won't be shy and retiring and hiding in the back rows. he will go before the כסא הכבוד and advocate aggressively on behalf of his yungeleit, bokhrim family and all the Jewish People.

He urged the oilem to the Mir give until it hurts to . As he himself is reported to have cut a check for a cool five million to the Yeshiva (and then ponying up 2.6 mil to save the Bayis Sheni in Westwood from foreclosure!) not only is he a נאה דורש but a נאה מקיים as well!
PART II TO FOLLOW
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

Today I Am a Belzer

2011-12-12T12:21:00.005-05:00

Guest post by Korakh the Blogger
(read this first)

I recently saw a vort from Rav Yisshukher Ber, the Belzer Roof* that really resonated with me. He was commenting on the famous Midrash about Rivkas rough pregnancy. You know, the one about Esav trying to exit the womb as she passed Houses of Pagan Worship and Yaakov trying to exit the womb as she passed Houses of Torah Study.

Now Amramowitz the Younger tradition teaches that the pre-natal womb is the ultimate House of Torah Study. בהילו נרו עלי ראשי alludes to in-utero primordial infinite vision and Torah Study when the fetus absorbs the entire Torah taught by an Angel. Accordingly, the Belzer Roof asks a striking question: Why would Yaakov ever want to leave this rarefied academic environment? How could the Yeshivos of Shem and Ever be anything other than a comedown for one currently studying from an actual angel?

He answers that if your fellow student is Esav then it's worthwhile studying from an inferior Rebbe in order to escape Esav's corrupt society.

Today I am a Belzer! This is exactly the ethos that inspired my movement. Even if we posit for a moment that Amramowitz the Younger was my intellectual superior (a dubious proposition indeed, you'll never hear any of that tiresome and transparently fake humility from me!) I urged my followers to flee from the "Rav comparable to an Angel of the L-rd of hosts" to escape the corrupt society that surrounded them, a society built on cronyism, elitism and tyrannical conformity. As our in-utero Patriarch taught us, I split because I decided that if I had to share a Khavrusaschaft with an Ahron and the other it's -who-you-know cronies then it was no longer worthwhile studying from a Moshe.

As for those of you living in 5772 reading this I'd like you to consider this: In your youth were you גולה למקום תורה ? Well maybe now it's time to be גולה ממקום תורה . Think about it; sure your current community is a bastion of Torah. It is chock full of Shiurim, Yeshivas and learned and erudite Magidei Shiur and poskim. But perhaps the ethics there are less than pristine. Maybe a lot of shenanigans and chicanery occur there that would not play well in the Jewish out-of-town hinterlands that, admittedly, can't compete in terms of Torah scholarship. But...so what? To disassociate from contemporary Esavs it's worthwhile to leave the nurturing womb of the big Torah communities.

Even before seeing this vort from the Belzer Roof I always considered Yaakov my role model. He was never one to accept the status quo (especially about the Kehuna). He never meekly submitted to authority openly defying or cleverly circumventing his father, older brother, brother-in-law, men and angels.
בא קרח והעמידן על אחת...כי כל העדה כולם קדושים
Those who cannot tolerate equality would have all their "inferiors" be their slaves
______________________________
*(not the current one who bears, and I do mean bears, his name)

A Word About the New Masthead Quote

2011-12-09T00:04:00.001-05:00

Old Masthead Quotes Here

Here is a fuller quote:

My religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when it may overtake me. ... That is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave.

Now a Yiddisha Kopf might amend the last sentence to read and then all would be equally G-d-fearing/ pure. בכל עת יהיו בגדיך לבנים ושמן על ראשך אל יחסר

Question: Is this an example of חכמה בגויים תאמין or of תורה בגויים אל תאמין??? Hmmm???

A Yiddisha Kopf might also respond to the opening (new masthead) line: IOW not safe at all. As I once heard an old Gerrer Khusid say "Every Khusid considers his bed his worst enemy"
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

עולם הפוך ראיתי

2011-12-08T14:30:00.003-05:00

Here's a man with an out-of-the-box perspective!

Click
What's up with this? I once heard that due to a shortage of seforim during WW II some of the Shanghai Mirrers learned to read this way. Maybe the same was true in Yemen.

Anyone have a good caption?

Big Bug

2011-12-05T13:41:00.004-05:00

click

Two Different Worlds

2011-11-25T00:02:00.003-05:00

I recently heard this anecdote from a friend of mine living in Jerusalem:

Rav Avrohom Yehoshua Soloveitchick ZGZ once remarked to להבדיל בין חיים לחיים the late great Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel OBM "Why don't you just erect a roof over the entire neighborhood of Bais Yisroel and declare the whole thing Yeshivas Mir" to which the latter responded: אמן !"
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

If you're Breaking for Mincha

2011-11-24T15:29:00.001-05:00

before the 4:15 EST game you can skip Takhnun if there is a Lion or Cowboy in the room

On the Rambam's own true signature - a post from a guest called S.

2011-11-24T11:24:00.013-05:00

S. blogs at onthemainline.blogspot.com. He is also known as Mississippi Fred MacDowell. He is a retired delta blues singer, who put down his bottleneck slide and now dabbles in seforim. This is his first guest post at HaMavdil. S. would like to thank his host for this opportunity and remind all that for all our innate differences we have much in common.

I would wager that most of us are familiar, or vaguely familiar with, a sample of the Rambam's handwriting. Numerous fragments in his own hand were recovered from the Cairo Genizah (see here for many). In it's own way, the Nesher Hagadol's own handwriting is famous just like his alleged visage (on his portrait, see here and here).

Here is said sample:

Now, this particular piece is very special. It says "Corrected from my copy. I, Moses ben Rabbi Maimon z"l (at least z"l is what it may say - some assume it says zatza"l and others zaqa"l; I read it almost certainly as a tzade). This is found at the very end of the Huntington Manuscript 80 (Ms. Hunt. 80) owned by the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

There is now an entire website dedicated to displaying this precious manuscript which was personally reviewed by Maimonides. (link).

And here is another sample, of many, from the Genizah:

In Jews in Many Lands (1905) Elkan Nathan Adler (himself no Genizah neophyte) writes that

"Four or five autograph letters of [Maimonides] have been found in the Fostat Genizah. One is a genuine twelfth century שו"ת, i.e., "question and answer."

We have come a long way in 105 years!

A few years earlier (1898) an article in a peculiar Christian journal called A Peculiar People wrote, quite correctly, that before the Genizah there was only one example of Maimonides' writing (available to the general public, as will see):

Needless to say, there are things we take for granted. How fortunate are we that we can sit in our own home, with a bowl of Cheerios at our side, and look over something as mind blowing as this! Interesting times - which is not necessarily a curse.

It really was not so long ago where most people did not have access to such things, and even the people who did have access, only had access to the things in their own grasp. To see a snippet of writing by the Rambam? This was a rare, almost impossible sight. I will describe when and how and why this changed below.

The Hebrew collection in the Bodleian Library was in reality so awesome, that legends and rumors arose about it. For example, Solomon Schechter writes in The Hebrew Collection of the British Museum (Studies in Judaism, First Series) that

"The Hebrew collection in the British Museum forms one of the greatest centres of Jewish thought. It is only surpassed by the treasures which are contained in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The fame of these magnificent collections has spread far and wide. It has penetrated into the remotest countries, and even the Bachurim (alumni) of some obscure place in Poland, who otherwise neither care nor know anything about British civilisation, have a dim notion of the nature of these mines of Jewish learning.

All sorts of legends circulate amongst them about the "millions" of books which belong to the " Queen of England." They speak mysteriously of an autograph copy of the Book of Proverbs, presented to the Queen of Sheba on the occasion of her visit to Jerusalem, and brought by the English troops as a trophy from their visit to Abyssinia, which is still ruled by the descendants of that famous lady. They also talk of a copy of the Talmud of Jerusalem which once belonged to Titus, afterwards to a Pope, was presented by the latter to a Russian Czar, and taken away from him by the English in the Crimean war; of a manuscript of the book Light is Sown} which is so large that no shelf can hold it, and which therefore hangs on iron chains. How they long to have a glance at these precious things! Would not a man get wiser only by looking at the autograph of the wisest of men?

But even the students of Germany and Austria, who are inaccessible to such fables, and by the aid of Zedner's, Steinschneider's, and Neubauer's catalogues have a fair notion of our libraries, cherish the belief that they would gain in scholarship and wisdom by examining these grand collections. How often have I been asked by Jewish students abroad: "Have you really been to the British Museum? Have you really seen this or that rare book or manuscript? Had you not great difficulties in seeing them? Is not the place where these heaps of jewels are treasured up always crowded by students and visitors?"

Although it already had a Hebrew collection since the days of Sir Thomas Bodley in the early 17th century, it was not until 1829 that its collection went from good to astounding. In that year the library acquired the Oppenheimer Collection, named after it's collector, the av beis din of Prague, Rabbi David Oppenheim (1664-1736). The library itself describes this collection as "thought to be the most important and magnificent Hebraica collection ever accumulated." It consisted of "780 manuscripts and 4,220 printed books in Hebrew, Yiddish and Aramaic, many of which are the only surviving copies." Rabbi David was not only a proficient collector, but a man of wealth and taste. Thus, many of his books were special orders, printings on colored paper or vellum (that is, klaf). You can read the original catalog prepared for the sale, Kohelet David - Collection Davidis (Hamburg 1826), here. If I recall correctly, this collection remained unsold (but available) for 70 years (or was it 90?). When the Bodleian finally acquired it, they got it for a song. I once calculated how much it was in today's dollars, and I think it came out to less than $1 million. (My memory is blurry; part of me seems to remember that it was only about $250,000, but in all likelihood that was pounds, not dollars.)

However, the Bodleian was already in possession of Hebrew treasures. Two such treasures were Rambam manuscripts acquired by Sir Robert Huntington in Aleppo, Syria in the late 17th century. One is a manuscript of the Perush Ha-mishnayot written by Maimonides himself! (In Arabic, so it's the Kitab as-Siraj) The other is a very special codex containing Sefer Madda and Ahavah of the Mishneh Torah. This is Ms. Hunt. 80, and it contains the Rambam's own seal of approval. Apparently these were sold to Huntington by the Rambam's own descendents.

The manuscript's existence was a national treasure, but it had not been a national secret. At least one rabbinic authority refers to it several times in his responsa. Here is one such place in the teshuvot of the Radbaz:

As you can see, he writes that he "searched in the correct manuscripts which were checked according to the book checked with the Rabbi's own book, that is in Aleppo." Thus it sounds like even in Egypt, where he lived, there were copies circulating which was checked from this very manuscript, known to have been approved by the Rambam himself.

Who brought this signature to the attention of the world? The answer lies in a great book published in 1851 called Ginzei Oxford - Treasures of Oxford. This work was a joint effort of two great scholars, Leopold Dukes and Hirsch Edelmann, who described the treasures of Oxford. The book was written in Hebrew by them, and translated to English by Marcus Heinrich Bresslau, and thus the book contains a Hebrew and English section. The introduction is by Edelmann. Here is what he writes:

Note: he says that Huntington acquired it in Cairo. This is, I believe, a mistake. In any case, here is the fac-simile that is given for the first time ever, in the Hebrew section.

As you could see above, Edelmann explained that he noticed the signature and asked Bresslau to request from the librarian Bandinell that they be allowed to make a facsimile (presumably Edelmann didn't speak English).

The rest of the facsimile is of a few lines in the same handwriting, thus also written by the Rambam, in the beginning of the manuscript. It is a tribute to the owner, evidently a deceased student of the Rambam's, named R. Elazar ben Perachiah. It is hard to read, so for this we need a transcription. Since the Hebrew section includes a transcription, here it is:

The translation is pretty faithful, but not exact. Since I am always going on about the ס"ט acronym, note that the Rambam doesn't merely mention "Rabbi Elazar of blessed memory, the son of Perachjah." He writes "מ' אלעזר ז"ל ול"ת בר פרחיה ס"ט."

While Ginze Oxford was published in 1851, apparently Edelmann had not kept it a secret, for already in the April 22, 1850 issue of the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums there is an article about it. In a footnote, the editor hopefully asks "Koennte nicht dieses autograph lithographirt werden? Wie Diesen waere dies eine willkommne Gabe!/ Might not this autograph be lithographed? That would be a welcome gift!" So Edelmann obliged.

It didn't take very long before this signature became a desirable thing to reproduce in works by the Rambam. Thus, in the 1861 Kovetz Teshuvos (ed. by Abraham Lichtenberg) we see this:

Actually, this particular signature, as produced in this sefer, even became used as a source in a certain valuable book on names for gittin, but I won't get into that since that is for another post in the works.

And a beautiful fold-out facsimile in the 1864 Vienna edition of the Moreh Nevukhim (with German translation, called Moreh Nebochim, ed. Max Emanuel Stern):

The same volume is available on Google Books, but look what it has:

A frustrating example of how Google Books messes up - too frequently - with no evident plans to correct these errors.

Here's a luxury, deluxe, full-service example from the periodical Achiasaf:

I thought it was from volume 12 (1904) but now I'm not sure. It includes a snippet of text from his Moreh Nevukhim, and it post-dates the Cairo Genizah.

And here's one from a book from 1918. It just uses the image from the Jewish Encyclopedia:

Rather than go on and on and on in this vein, I will supply one more example. Rabbis Moses Hyamson and Chaim Brecher produced a fantastic edition of Sefer Madda and Ahavah, based on this manuscript. It consists of the Hebrew text and translation. They were careful to print and translate this manuscript, and thus they even included the poems and asides, such as the signature certification. The translation of the Rambam's signature is on the bottom:

Finally, to bring things back full circle - how amazing it is that the Bodleian spent effort, time and money to place this invaluable manuscript online for the entire world to use at leisure? Here is an advertisement on the very last page of Yeshurun 3 (1997) for a facsimile edition of this precious manuscript, in a limited run of 300 copies:

It would still be nice to own it, but it is no longer necessary. Viva democracia digital!

Turkey-Day re-run

2011-11-24T00:05:00.002-05:00

How can I possibly improve on the all-time perfect Thanksgiving Post with all the trimmins'?

first appearance 22 comments
second appearance 109 comments
Todays offering??? The sky's the limit!

One often hears the constant refrain of the USA being a מדינה של חסד= a Country of Loving-kindness and that our Gilded Golus in this sanctuary of Church-State separation has been a Golden Age Diaspora unparalleled in Jewish History. And while it's undeniable that there is much to be grateful for, everything from penicillin to kosher sushi, there are many unprecedented ways in which the United States of America has been "bad for the Jews". Below I submit a heartfelt, but by no means comprehensive, list:

We offer no thanks to a country and culture- that has served as an enabler for the most rampant intermarriage rate in Jewish History.

We offer no thanks to a country and culture- that has caused more Jews to assimilate and at a rapider pace than at any other time in Jewish History.

We offer no thanks to a country and culture- that has provided the most fertile soil in which so-called Jewish movements (Reconstructionist and Humanist Judaism to name a few) antithetical to Torah Judaism have taken root and flourished.

We offer no thanks to a country and culture-that is so sex-saturated that people have been reduced to walking, talking libidos and where the sexualization of children rages unabated. This causes overcompensation among Shlomei Emunah manifesting itself in increased actual and cultural ghettoization and onerous and absurd chumras.

We offer no thanks to a country and culture-that so glorifies conspicuous consumption that the culture, including Jewish subculture, grows ever more selfish, narcissistic, tasteless, showy and grotesque.

We offer no thanks to a country and culture-that is more secular than a supermarket . Whose intellectual elite broadcasts explicit and implicit messages that ALL deists of any stripe are, by definition, abject, ignorant morons unfit to partake in society or in dialogues that concern public policy

We offer no thanks to a country and culture-that lionizes and aggrandizes empty-headed and soulless entertainers, mafiosi and sports figures and marginalizes teachers, Doctors and soldiers.

We offer no thanks to a country and culture-that eats drinks and abuses drugs way too much and that has created legions of the obese and the addicted while draining the resources of third world countries, over-fished and treated food-source animals inhumanely in the process.

We offer no thanks to a country and culture- that is addicted to fossil fuels and stubbornly refuses to develop alternative energy sources thus strengthening the hands of Israel's worst enemies.

We offer no thanks to a country and culture- that has created a culture of entitlement providing social welfare programs that rob our youth of initiative and industry and that tempts them with lives of indolence and fraud .

We offer no thanks to a country and culture- who's credo is "You are what you owe" and who's easy access to credit coupled with the above mentioned conspicuous consumerism has contributed mightily to a generation of Jews saddled with crushing debt and faced with the sad dilemma of deciding whether it is nobler to be פושט יד= schnorring for handouts or פושט רגל= absconding from fiscal responsibility by declaring bankrupcty.
and finally...

We offer no thanks to a country and culture-that insists on having the perennially awful Detroit Lions be one of the two permanent host teams for it's Turkey Day NFL Football offerings. The games are NEVER competitive and this is bad for the football fans, Jewish and non-Jewish alike! (Note for 2011:I readily admit that this complaint is dated and that the Packers-Lions game today figures to be a good one)

While I am no Reverend Wright shouting an angry "G-d D**n America" I think it is high-time that we reassess this land and it's culture as an unmixed, unmitigated blessing. While it is a land and culture abounding in eclectic blessings it is our historical job as Jews to make holy havdala and distill the pure good from the bad dross currently mixed into it.

Of course the USA is an undeniable מדינה של חסד= a Country of Loving-kindness, but maybe it's time for us to recognize another level of meaning and translation of the word " חסד= as in the following passage:
יז וְאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר-יִקַּח אֶת-אֲחֹתוֹ בַּת-אָבִיו אוֹ בַת-אִמּוֹ וְרָאָה אֶת-עֶרְוָתָהּ וְהִיא-תִרְאֶה אֶת-עֶרְוָתוֹ, חֶסֶד הוּא--וְנִכְרְתוּ, לְעֵינֵי בְּנֵי עַמָּם; עֶרְוַת אֲחֹתוֹ גִּלָּה, עֲו‍ֹנוֹ יִשָּׂא." And if a man shall take his sister, his father's daughter, or his mother's daughter, and see her nakedness, and she see his nakedness: it is a shameful thing; and they shall be cut off in the sight of the children of their people: he hath uncovered his sister's nakedness; he shall bear his iniquity. "

Sometimes love and kindness misdirected to targets one is too closely related to can have disastrous results. The resulting children are afflicted with an Appalachian imbecility. Odd that this nation that is so tolerant and embracing of it's Jews has produced the most illiterate, imbecilic, havdala/qedusha oblivious Jewry of all time.
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

Coming Attractions

2011-11-23T12:03:00.003-05:00

I have it on good authority that a post from team member the illustrious Mississippi Fred of "On the Main Line" will be appearing within the next several millennia...err days...folks...days.

I also have an idea for a post on a Hashqafic question that's troubling me but A. As blogging has, again, been impinging on my real life and B. Because attention starved narcissist that I am I'd rather not waste so good a post on the doldrums and reduced readership of the Thanksgiving Legalday. Look for it @ the beginning of next week.

Was Aqedas Yishmael Originally a Jewish Idea?

2011-11-22T00:04:00.024-05:00

A few recent posts on DovBear probing X-tian borrowing of Aqeda themes got me thinking about Islamic borrowing of Aqeda themes.

Based on the Quran rather than the Torah, the predominant Islamic belief is that while an Aqeda indeed took place there never was an Aqedas Yitzchok. Instead, it was Avrahams older son, Yishmael, who was bound up and nearly slaughtered as a burnt offering. Here are the salient points from the Wikipedia article on the topic:

The Qur'an states that Abraham was commanded to sacrifice his son. The son is not however named in the Qur'an (e.g., 37:99–113). In early Islam, there was a dispute over the identity of the son. However, [later] Muslim scholars came to endorse the belief that it was Ishmael, not Isaac. The argument of those early scholars who believed it was Isaac rather than Ishmael (notably Ibn Kutyaba and al-Tabari) was that "God's perfecting his mercy on Abraham and Isaac" (12:6) referred to his making Abraham his friend and saving him from the burning bush, and to his rescuing Isaac. The other parties held that the promise to Sarah was of a son, Isaac, and a grandson, Jacob (11:71–74), excluded the possibility of a premature death of Isaac. The early dispute was more concerned with Persian rather than Jewish rivalry with Arabs, since the Persians claimed to be of descendants of Isaac. Al-Masudi, for example, reports a Persian poet (902 C.E.) who claimed superiority over Arabs through descent from Isaac.

The submission of Abraham and his son is celebrated and commemorated by Muslims on the days of Eid al-Adha Sacrifice festival. During the festival, those who can afford and the ones in the pilgrimage sacrifice a ram, cow, sheep or a camel. Part of the sacrifice meat is eaten by the household and remaining is distributed to the neighbors and the needy. The festival happens in the pilgrimage hajj season. The well-known site of Marwah may be identified with the biblical Moriah (Hebrew מוריה) in Gn 22:2. Marwah being the mount just outside the perimeter of the Kaaba.

The Quranic account of Abraham being saved from the burning bush sounds like an amalgam of Moshe at the Sneh and Avraham tried by fire by Nimrod in Ur Qasdim . I find it fascinating that the Persian-Arab rivalry is not merely a theological one but an ethnic/ racial one as the Persians hold Yitzchok to be a nobler ancestor than Yishmael! I wonder if in the contemporary Sunni and Shia branches of Islam the prevailing opinions over which son Abraham bound and nearly slaughtered breaks along the lines of "Rov" Islamic scholars vs. Ibn-Kutaba. It is also interesting and telling that the Quran shifts the location of the Aqeda from Jerusalem to Mecca. While we associate Aqedas Yitzchok with a fast day, they associate Aqedas Yishmael with a Feast day.

Some other twists of the Quranic narrative:

Hagar is taken by Avraham to Arabia and dumped there (with ample supplies) by direct command of G-d, not by command of Sarah.

A miraculous well is not merely seen by Hagar but "kicked" into existence by either Yishmael or the Angel Gavriel (anticipating Moshe Rabenus Mei Meriva?).

Yishmael is a little baby at this time not a 16 year old boy.(???)

Elsewhere it seems to imply that Aqedas "Yishmael" happens when Yishmael is 13. When then, per the Quran, did his circumcision take place? As I don't read Arabic, don't know how to search online Qurans and am unclear on this point form the various Wikipedia articles I presume that he was circumcised as a baby.

Claiming Yishmael was 13 at the time of "his" Aqeda seems to be a clever exercise in Islamic apologetics in response to our own Midrashic conversation between the sons of Avraham. In this conversation Yitzchak clearly wins the spitting contest. According to some (see Rashi Bereshis 22:1) the דברים האלה that served as the prelude to Aqedas Yitzchak went as follows: First Yishmael bragged to Yitzchok about his willing cooperation in his own circumcision in spite of his advanced age (13). Then Yitzchok responded "You're so proud about the sacrifice of one limb/organ? If G-d asked me to sacrifice my very life I would not hesitate to do so" . In the Quranic-Islamic narrative it is their patriarch Yishmael who, of his own volition, is willing to sacrifice life and not merely limb!

In the Quran there is no באר לחי רואי in southern Israel-Negev desert. Instead Hagar and Yishmael are saved by the Zamzam well in the Arabian desert. The Zamzam well is located approximately 20 m (66 ft) east of the Kaaba paralleling Judaisms Shiloakh stream that flowed through the courtyard of the Bais HaMiqdash in Jerusalem.

In the Torah a death, Sarahs, is associated with the Aqeda. In the Quran it is the annunciation of a birth, Yitzchoks, that is associated with the Aqeda. How convenient. Yitzchok could not possibly have been the son who was bound and sacrificed as he wasn't yet born at the time of this great trial! I wonder how Ibn Kutyaba and al-Tabari explain that Quranic passage.

Loyal Maimonidian that I am, I dismiss all of these distortions, lies and Chinese-menu-one-from-column-A-and-one-from-column-B narratives as yet another proof of their authors inveterate prevaricating and mental instability. But when Jewish sources claim that there was an Aqedas Yishmael, I sit up and take notice.

I am not referring to the essay by Professor Uriel Simon, a latter day academic , drawing conclusions from the juxtaposition of the parshiyos of Yishmaels expulsion and Yitzchaks Aqeda and from the internal parallels between Avrahams near-loss through near-death of Yitzchak and actual loss and near-death of Yishmael. Intriguing as his essay is for all I know Dr. Simon may be afflicted with the Havdala Obliviousness that is pandemic in Academia. No, I am talking about the parshanus of the revered אור החיים הקדוש.

The problem in Bereshis 21:14

יד וַיַּשְׁכֵּם אַבְרָהָם בַּבֹּקֶר וַיִּקַּח-לֶחֶם וְחֵמַת מַיִם וַיִּתֵּן אֶל-הָגָר שָׂם עַל-שִׁכְמָהּ, וְאֶת-הַיֶּלֶד

is readily apparent; why is it necessary to put the child on her shoulder? We aren't talking about an infant or toddler but about a (presumably strapping) 16 year old adolescent. Couldn't he have walked away under his own power? Rashi handles this issue by explaining that Yishmael was feverish as a result of Sarah's ayin hora. But the אור החיים הקדוש takes a different approach:

על שכמה ואת הילד. פי׳ גס אותו שם על שכמה להיות שלא היה רוצה לצאת מבית אביו לזה עקדו כילד ושמו על שכמה

He (IE Yishmael) was also placed upon her shoulders. He did not want to leave his fathers house (and had to be compelled, dragged screaming and kicking as it were) Consequently he bound him like a little boy and placed him upon her shoulders.

Some will opine that Yishmael had to be expelled forcibly because he liked his cushy life as the scion of a rich and important man. I prefer to see his resistance in a more positive light. As cavalier an attitude that Yishmael might have affected towards his own holiness, he still retained enough Qedusha consciousness that when he felt the imminent threat of being cut off from Qedusha forever... he fought like mad. [Per the Kohen, Yishmael retained enough in common with Avraham that it required דוקה Sara, who was totally antithetical to Yishamel (Gevura of Qedusha vs. Khesed of the Sitra Akhra) to banish him from Avrahams legacy.]

But whatever the cause of his resistance the fact of his resistance was remedied by an Aqeda. As was to be the case with the only, beloved son... Yitzchak, Avrahams final act before losing his elder son was to hog-tie / bind him. THAT is Judaisms Aqedas Yishmael.

It is remarkable that so many of the foundation myths, motifs, symbolism, observances and holy places of both X-tianity and Islam are ripped off from Judaisms seminal event, Aqedas Yitzchak.
UPDATE cross posted here on November 28th 2011
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

Zionist Attempts at Speciescide Fails

2011-11-20T12:21:00.012-05:00

click
In spite of their best malevolent efforts, the ציונים הארורים failed to eradicate a species of frog from G-ds green earth.

The path to Hell on Earth is paved with good intentions and it has always been the ציונים הארורים 's credo that nothing ought to stand in the way of progress and modernization. Least of all a traditional habitat and way of life. And so, in keeping with the founding fathers myth-making of draining the swamps and making the deserts bloom, the ציונים הארורים drained most the Hula valley's lakes and marshes in the 50s in efforts to eradicate malaria transmitting mosquitoes and to make the land arable. In so doing they destroyed the natural habitat of the Discoglossus nigriventer, the Hula Valley Painted Frog, AKA the Israel Painted Frog and the Palestinian Painted Frog.

One of the greatest ironies of this classic example of "we-know-what's-best" Zionist hubris is that species such as the painted frog feed on the very mosquitoes that carry malaria!

Little is known about Discoglossus nigriventer history because few specimens have been found by scientists. Two adults and two tadpoles were collected in 1940 and a single specimen was found in 1955. This would prove to be the last record of this species until November 16th 2011 when a routine patrol at Ha'Hula lake found an unknown frog, and scientists have confirmed that it is one of this rare species. An ecologist with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, credited the rehydration of the area for the frog sighting.

The IUCN has classified this species as extinct since 1996 but the Zionist Entity in Palestine continued to list it as merely an endangered species in the slim hope that a relict population may be found in the Golan Heights.

As a non-Scientist I'd be most appreciative if any of the 4 readers here could provide me with a clue of how these frogs survived 50 plus years of near extinction.

Were they breeding numerous generations of small families in remaining Hula Lake puddles hidden in plain sight from the prying eyes of Galil Kibutzniks who sought to water-them-dry and thus exterminate them?

Like some amphibious Conversos, did they move underground and say their פרק שירה in "Lake Hula of the Cellars" all the while changing their spots to avoid discovery of their true endangered species identities whenever they ventured out in the open? (Who knows? Maybe further research will reveal that this species is endowed with chameleon like chromatophores)

Did they move to refugee camp swamps in Lebanon and Syria to avoid Zionist genocidal designs only to exercise their right of return as part of the larger Arab Spring?

Did some mad scientist clone them from extant DNA stolen with חיטוטי שכבי from the cadavers of the last known specimens collected over a Yovel ago?

Did they spontaneously generate from sweat just to spite Rabbi Slifkin?

No matter how these painted frogs survived to make their triumphant reappearance this past Wednesday we congratulate them, wish them Mazal Tov and hope that they make like the sherotzim that they are from here on out. And while we continue to mourn the apparently successful speciescide of the cyprinid fish Acanthobrama hulensis and cichlid fish Tristramella intermedia at the hands of the ציונים הארורים , the phoenix-like ascent of the Palestine Painted Frog fills us with hope, התקוה שנות חמישים , that we will live to see the day when once again these species of Fishalakh miraculously rematerialize and fulfill the יעודים of וידגו לרב בקרב הארץ and ושבו דגים לגבולם .

And whether we are talking about the indigenous Ishmaelite or Alteh Yishuv People of Historical Palestine there are two major take-way lessons here for the Hubris-blinded, hellbent-on-speciescide Zionists:

A) At times it is precisely the growth and flourishing of the species and genus that you wish to eradicate that will help solve the problem at hand.

B) In spite of your best misguided efforts at driving them to extinction the indigenous species and genus of Palestine will always make a comeback. Just when you think that they have disappeared from histories stage, there they are again!
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

Gut Gezugt!

2011-11-18T11:30:00.000-05:00

click

ואלה המשחקים אשר תשים לפני חילונים

2011-11-18T08:59:00.002-05:00

ו...ולא לפני המאמינים, כשאויבנו מאמינים זהו עדות לעילוי יראתם
והמבינים יבינו

Top Bansha"k Claims MOs Want Sainthood for Anti-Zionist Rebbe

2011-11-16T15:46:00.013-05:00

A Dream Scenario...what if we could have intra-Jewish Ecumenism??? (SIGH)

All triple dots and words in purple are my insertions or deletions. In this parody I employ both real and fictitious names. Original article here.

The Eidah HaCharedis new chief liaison to Modern Orthodox Jewry met mixed reviews during his debut visit to the United States, thanks in part to statements on the pending naming of a new building at Yeshiva University the Teitelbaum Center for Math and Science after the Satmar Rebbe Rav Yoel Teitelbaum ZY"A.

In what turned out to be a bumpy start, Rav Menachem Nochum Veisfish angered some RCA and Union of Orthodoxy leaders when he told an audience at Congregation Bnei Yeshurun, in Teaneck, N.J. that many Modern Orthodox Jews approve of the hagiographical treatment of the Satmar rebbe in a recent biography.

Veisfish added that the long-demanded opening of the Satmar Holocaust-era archives — which many historians believe will help resolve allegations that Teitelbaum abandoned his followers and cowardly fled on the Kasztner Train and did not do enough to protect fellow Jews — would shed no more light on the question.

Earlier in the day, members of this intrafaith audience were among hundreds who gathered at Bnei Yeshurun to hear the בנש"ק deliver the 18th annual Oesterreicher Memorial Lecture titled, “Theological Questions and Perspectives in Modern Orthodox-Kharedi Dialogue.”

Rabbi Steve Bil"u, director of intrafaith affairs for the Anti-Triumphalism League, said the בנש"ק s opinions raised issues that demonstrate “the continuing challenges facing Caveman-Contemporary relations.”

Bil"u said the בנש"ק s views on the Satmar Rebbe were of particular concern because they “espoused the viewpoint of Satmar Rebbe apologists, rather than the majority of noted Modern Orthodox and Poalei Agudah scholars.”

Veisfish said some Young Israel members have told the Raava"d of the Eidah, Rav Moshe Shternbuch “don’t avoid lionization of this Gitteh Yid.”

“We have other MOs who come and say, ‘declare this Rebbe as one of the 36 hidden Tzadikim,’” Veisfish said, referring to the ...title bestowed on ostensibly salt-of-the-earth-Jews who save humanity in each and every generation... .

The ATL’s Bil"u said he was concerned that the Rebisha kindt “cites opinions of solitary or fringe MO and Khavakuknik voices to validate perspectives on these issues, giving them the same weight as mainstream MO positions, which disagree.”

Bil"u found other statements made by Veisfish troubling. “What does Veisfish mean that there is only ‘one אמת'ן דרך המקובל לנו מאבותנו מדורי דורות’ and not ‘multiple authentic paths to the truth?’” Bil"u said. “Why does he choose to describe MOs and Kharedim as ‘thorns’ in one another’s ‘sides?’ This is the language of the Catholic Antisemitism.”

...

This past July, Rav Veisfish came into conflict with both the Askenazic and Sephardic Israeli chief rabbis..., when he wrote in Der Blatt, official organ of the Ahroni Satmars, that the flag of the Zionist Entity is “the permanent and universal Tisha B'Av” and a symbol of "the primary cause of the Holocaust."

Rabbis Metzger and Amar responded in a subsequent edition of Der Blatt , “If the terms of the discussion are those of pointing MOs to the way of the Date-Palm Tree, it is not clear why there should be dialogue.” The Chief Rabbis response was also reported in Ivrit on the Blogsite HaMavdil.

Similar tensions involving language and sacred Yiddish arose in New Jersey during the hour-long question-and-answer session on October 30, which was organized by the Council of Centers on Caveman-Contemporary Relations.

The בנש"ק answered questions slowly and deliberately. But his English was shaky and there was a palpable sense of frustration as the בנש"ק gave either shrill or rambling responses. At one point, he was pressed a couple of times on the question of whether the Eidah believed that Jews could be saved without utterly rejecting every iteration of Zionism, without becoming literate in Yiddish and without eliminating secular education entirely. He offered a long and winding reply that appeared vague until an aide, Reb Mohn Katzenelenboigen clarified that all Jews would ultimately be “safe,” though just how would only be known in “אחרית הימים.”

Shortly before the question-and-answer session, Devoirah Schvartzyuhr, president of the International Council of YCT and YU Alumni (ICYCTYUA), said one of the major problems of Caveman-Contemporary dialogue is that certain words familiar to both groups have totally different pronunciations and connotations. “It is precisely because we share so many of the same terms and use them in such different ways that it creates difficulties. We are two tribes divided by a common religion” Schvartzyuhr said.

When Veisfish was asked about his statement regarding the Israeli flag as the eternal Tisha B'Av and it's connotation to Modern Orthodox Jews as a symbol of National Liberation and Messianic Aspirations, he said, “I know the history what Zionists have made with the כחול ולבן and I think that it is our duty to show that the כחול ולבן isn’t a motive for love of the land and its liberation. In the Kharedi view the כחול ולבן is an invitation to a rejection of G-d and His Torah and I can’t understand why Modern-Orthodox Jews can’t be repelled and disgusted by this invitation.”

After the talk, Rabbah Sara Hurwitz, former president of the ICYCTYUA, said the Rebisha kindt failed to answer questions “fully” and sometimes appeared to skirt them altogether.

“I don’t think he’s quite on a par with his predecessor,” Hurwitz said, referring to Rav Simcha Binim Sonenfeld, who left the post in 2010 and who possessed rudimentary skills in conversational Ivrit and English.

During the discussion, Rav Veisfish frequently quoted the work of Ben Hecht. Hecht, a prolific screenwriter and Irgun-Zionist, is a favorite of The Raava"d.

But audience members protested that Hechts history is not as highly regarded outside the Eidah as it is within.

Hurwitz, a founding member of the board of Orthodox Female rabbis, interrupted one of theבנש"ק 's answers in which he was quoting Hecht. “I hate to say it,” Hurwitz said, “but you are barking up the wrong Date-Palm tree.”

After the session, Alan Brilliant, chair of MO-Kharedi Studies at Lander College, said he found the בנש"ק “Tzeegeluhzen” and “open for future confrontations.”

“I think on many things he gave us very black and white vilifications,” Brilliant said, “but we hope to dispatch him to a reeducation camp in future to have him compromise more.”

Brilliant added: “This is his first public appearance. Ask me when he has been in the post a year because having seen בנש"ק s in the past, they sell-out while on the job.”

All triple dots and words in purple are my insertions or deletions. original article here.

Invitation Declined

2011-11-14T12:06:00.013-05:00

The cross is “the permanent and universal Yom Kippur” and... Jews can look upon the cross as “a symbol of reconciliation”... In the Christian view the cross is an invitation of reconciliation and I can’t understand because Jews can’t be content with this invitation.”

-Cardinal Kurt Koch, the Vatican’s new chief liaison to world Jewry.

First a brief primer to those Jewish readers unfamiliar with some rudiments of X-tianity in which I will attempt to explain some of the premises of Cardinal Kochs "invitation":

Per X-tian belief their founders "passion" and death on the cross provides complete absolution from sin, AKA salvation, for humanity. On one condition; that the sinner accept X-tianities founder as their Lord and Savior. Hence "permanent" inasmuch as it is not limited to one day a year and "universal" as, unlike Judaisms, X-tianities Yom Kippur and, in particular, the scapegoat service on Yom Kippur, it is not a parochial atonement limited to one people but open and available to all of mankind.

Now for the benefit of the stray Cardinal who may chance upon this blog I'd like to explain why at least one Jew (me) is a malcontent vis a vis this "gracious" invitation.

We Jews have this quaint and antiquated belief that when we abuse various means for absolution by transforming them them into enablers for sinning then those means for absolution lose their power to absolve and reconcile man with G-d.

"האומר אחטא ואשוב אחטא ואשוב אין מספיקין [מאפשרים] בידו לעשות תשובה אחטא ויום הכפורים מכפר אין יום הכפורים מכפר"

משנה מסכת יומא פרק ח משנה ט

One who says "I will sin and repent, sin and repent" Providence doesn't allow him/her the wherewithal to repent. "I will sin and Yom Kippur will atone for me!" then Yom Kippur will not atone for him/her

While the Mishna doesn't explicate it, it seems pretty clear that if one were to say this about any of the various means of atonement (e.g. my suffering, the death of the righteous, my animal sacrifice et al) that the same would hold true. As such, although the X-tian belief in their founders power to absolve others is basically a corrupted, on-steroids, ripoff of the Jewish concept of "the death of Tzadikim atones" run amok, in the Jewish view, even if we were to entertain for a fleeting nanosecond that the founder of Xtianity was a Tzadik, (he was SR"Y, anything but), the fact that his suffering and death has been abused by sinners from the faiths infancy to this very moment as the ultimate enabler for lives of wickedness, debauchery and incessant sinning have robbed the cross of any Yom Kippur symbolism for us. Far from being a permanent and Universal Yom Kippur it was and is a permanent and universal shorthand for אחטא ואשוב אחטא אחטא ואשוב אחטא ואשוב .

We have another belief that a Mitzvah that comes about by way of a transgression is no Mitzvah at all. Applied here this would mean that Teshuva= repentance, achieved through idolatry is no Teshuva at all. And since the invitation to partake of the cross as the universal Yom Kippur comes with the steep cover charge of accepting he who died on that cross as a deity it is more of a bait and switch than an invitation. BTW cardinal, instead of being stymied at Jews unwillingness to accept this "invitation" maybe you'd be wise to examine why your fellow X-tians, the Mormons and the Witnesses declined the invitation as well.

Lastly and most importantly we Jews recognize that even beloved symbols and practices can become despised through abuse and cooptation by the forces of evil. We call this m'eekorah ahuva v'hashtah senuah that is why e.g although the patriarchs offered animal sacrifices when and wherever the spirit moved them to do so, once pagan idolaters began worshiping their seirim and other false deities in this manner of spontaneous-wherever animal sacrifice, we Jews stopped the practice of spontaneous, wherever sacrifice in favor of sacrifices at one exclusive location, the Temple in Jerusalem. Seeing as the cross has been used as justification for inflicting death and unspeakable barbaric suffering on millions of people throughout the history of X-tianity far from wondering why Jews refuse to accept the invitation perhaps Catholics and other X-tians would be well advised to retire it and come up with a new religious symbol. I know of quite a few Jewish Graphic Design firms in Boro Park and Lakewood that could help the Church of Rome come up with a great new logo

To bring this last point home could the good Cardinal grasp why Jews would not be content with the invitation of the swastika as a symbol of"reconciliation"? After all the swastika is a cross that antedates X-tianity. The cross becomes a particularly off-putting and galling invitation when one considers that, per Cross embracers beliefs, had Eichmann confessed and accepted Yoizel SR"Y as his Lord and Savior prior to Israel hanging him by the neck until dead he would be "saved" and headed straight for heaven. OTOH his hundreds of thousands of innocent Jewish victims, some of whom were truly saintly people and the majority of whom suffered prior to their gruesome deaths in ways that would make the passion of Yoizel SR"Y seem like a day in the spa, would be headed to "eternal damnation" by dint of their declining the cross' "invitation". On second thought, a Cardinal who thinks that Jews want to ‘declare this Pope ( Pope Pius XII) as "Righteous among the Nations,’” probably wouldn't get it

The Arsonist as Fireman

2011-11-10T11:31:00.008-05:00

The spirit of Ecumenism is rooted in Havdala Obliviousness.

Havdala conscious Jews are comfortable with the inevitable gulf that divides them from the balance of humanity and remains satisfied with the comparatively modest modus vivendi of a limited amount of ferries and bridges that provide the barest minimum of two way traffic across the gulf.

Not so progressive Jews. Intensely uncomfortable in their own Jewish skins and in their roles as the eternal "other" they seek a modus vivendi of geologically cataclysmic proportions. They want nothing less than the merging of continents. Trouble is that the pieces of this jigsaw puzzle were never meant to dovetail and fit neatly together and so they are invariably disappointed to the point of fury when this truth that is self-evident to the Havdala Conscious is made clear to them.

Witness the reactions to the recent pronouncements by the Vaticans newest ambassador to the Jews. As reported in the Forward the standard bearers of ecumenism were shocked, SHOCKED to learn that, once again, they'd gotten it backwards.

As any Jew with a sense of history and grounded in reality knows sending a Vatican Representative to patch up Jewish- X-tian relations is like sending an arsonist to douse the flames of a three-alarmer. Among Cardinal Kochs most inflammatory doozies:

* many Jews approve the potential canonization of ... Pope Pius XII...We have other Jews who come and say, ‘declare this Pope as Righteous among the Nations,’”

* the cross is “the permanent and universal Yom Kippur” and... Jews can look upon the cross as “a symbol of reconciliation”... In the Christian view the cross is an invitation of reconciliation and I can’t understand because Jews can’t be content with this invitation.”

* there is only ‘one people of God’ and not ‘two peoples of God?’”

*" Jews and Christians as ‘thorns’ in one another’s ‘sides"

The great irony here is that the ecumenists fail to realize that the Vatican is one of the great bastions of Fundamentalism and that Fundies of all religions take the traditional teachings of their religions very seriously and literally. It just so happens that they are as passionate about their absolute falsehoods as we are about our absolute truth. Furthermore, as these teachings are revealed Divine truths they are not subject to compromise without dilution or parsing without dissolution. Even for the noble cause of making nice to post-Holocaust Jews. A devout Catholic cannot excise the planks in his/her religious platform that deeply offend and wound Jews, OFTM Muslims, without essentially losing their faith entirely.

During one of his answers at the conference Cardinal Koch quoted Jacob Neusner. Rev. John Pawlikowski interrupted him saying “I hate to say it, but you are barking up the wrong tree.” WADR to Rev. Pawlikowskiit is not the cardinal but the Havdala oblivious ecumenists who are barking up the wrong tree by seeking rapprochement with the Vatican. They ought to seek out like-minded X-tians, those who share their own breezy, dismissive and elastic attitude towards their own faiths fundamental truths. Try a Unitarian or left-wing Episcopalian on for size. What they are doing is roughly equivalent to an ecumenical X-tian seeking out the Satmar Rebbe as a peace partner. Truly a spectacle from the Theater of the Absurd.
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha".

On the Premature Reports of the Death of Innocence and Innocents

2011-11-09T11:32:00.011-05:00

The old saw goes that "only the good die young" and this certainly applies to the latest Qorbonos Dani King and Eli Schonbron Aleihem Hasholom who were only 15 and 16 respectively, had their whole lives ahead of them and who, by all accounts, were doing well in Yeshiva with tremendous upside potential.

Oliver Herford cynically inverted the old saw by saying that "only the young die good". IOW that given enough time we are all corrupted, that maturity is concomitant with cynicism and venality and that innocence dies with age. But the recent petirah of the Mirrer Roshashiva Rav Noson Tzvi Finkel z"l belies this crooked aphorism of one who knew the price of everything but the value of nothing, least of all the human soul.

Though hardly a zoqen muflag no one could describe his petirah @ age 69 as dying "young". Yet, if anything "Natie Finkel" got better, nay "gooder" with age. If ever there breathed a living model of the ability of לימוד התורה בעמלות and יסורים to grow, ennoble and purify a person it was he. His incredible synthesis of hard-driving institutional ambition and personal self-effacement, softness, empathy and eidelkeit are the kinds of antithetical traits that can only be reconciled in the realm of the spiritual.

I for one am happy to see various blogs publishing the entry from his high school yearbook because it helps belie the canard of Gedolim being born and not made. The Mirrer Roshashiva did not have to die young to die good. He seemed like a dashing, nice, talented young fellow in High School who, far from losing his youthful goodness only got better, far from losing his youthful innocence only had that guiltlesness validated in the crucible of lifes trials and tribulations.I'll be very pleasantly surprised if any of the mainstream Kharedi publications carry his high school pictures in their inevitable hagiographical obituaries.

Many a young bokhur who was / is a late bloomer and did not meet with immediate success in todays Yeshivos has surrendered their tremendous potential for goodness, purity and qedusha on the altar of despair over early non-success and/ or setbacks. I think that the very founding of the Waterbury Yeshiva was meant to battle this potential-wasting canard.

I don't know if the Rav Noson Tzvi z"l yearbook shot comes from the Academy or the Chicago Yesihveh (AKA Skokie for the last 45 years or so) but I like to think that if a bochur such as he were around and searching for a Yeshiva today that he'd probably end up in Waterbury.

כולי האי ואולי

2011-11-08T00:05:00.001-05:00

or How Not to Free the New Agunos

In recent issues of kharedi periodicals (forward to page 17) there is a full page ad announcing a "Game Changing Shidduch Plan". While the plan is well-intentioned and something must be tried to alleviate the suffering of the new agunos and their families I have my doubts that this will significantly change anything much less the "game" (an unfortunate turn of phrase revealing a certain callousness to the suffering of the new agunos). In no particular order here they are:

1. How can you claim transparency and accountability without publicizing your own names and the names of the Rabbonim endorsing it. Minds more skeptical than my own will immediately suspect a scam and clutch their hard-earned money even tighter.

2. Why is the money being demanded from the girls and their families. Why aren't philanthropists of means putting up the necessary funds? Generally it's not the women who are too rich or too thin who are the new Agunos but those coming from families of constrained financial means. By demanding cash up front, before a successful shiduch is even achieved the financial pressures and anxieties of the Aguna and her family are only compounded. What happens to the hyper-inflated Shadchonus money if the engagement is broken off?

3. The implication of the entire program is that the reason, or at least one of the reasons for the new agunos is a certain lack of alacrity and enthusiasm on the part of shadchonim to redt them shuduchim or bring their "skill-set" to bear on closing the shidduch. The plan implies that this institutional laziness can be cured with a financial incentive. Is this not an ugly canard against pro-Shadchonim? Is it their unwillingness to move with greater alacrity and zeal the reason for the new agunos?אלא מאי the program is directed to amateurs and/or shidduch dilettantes to provide them with an incentive to "get into the game" to this I say how can the work of some greedy amateurs solve a crisis so huge? Besides I think that Shadchonim are like secretaries a good one won't necessarily make your businedd flourish but a bad one can drive it into the ground.

4. What's up with this magical "list"? Don't all the pro shadchanim worth their salt already have the names of hundreds of older singles? Don't the parents of older singles badger same in the hopes of saving their kids from marginalization and loneliness?

5. Rav Yisroel Salanter famously said that "One can destroy the whole world running to do a Mitzvah". Where was the sensitivity of those who placed this ad? Halevai I should be totally wrong with each of my critiques and that as a result of this new plan the game really does change and hundreds of older couples get married in the months and years ahead. But in the meantime...Haven't you heaped yet another humiliating indignation on the long-suffering agunos? How are they supposed top feel when they see themselves treated as a commodity and a commodity so worthless that only massive infusions of money could even convince a shadchan to get involved? If they weren't feeling worthless enough already this ad should do the trick.

On second thought maybe I do know the answer to the first question. Why would anyone want to affix their name to a plan that may or may not help some agunos in the long run but that is definitely breaking their spirits in the short run?

Can this Segulah be Saved?!? II

2011-11-07T12:47:00.020-05:00

Part I here.

One of the bitterest of all Tzuris, exacting a terrible toll physically, financially and emotionally on those afflicted, is the tzurah of infertility. Above and beyond all natural, instinctual desires for having children Jewish law and Lore compounded by societal norms conspire to drive infertile couples to extreme lengths to address their problems. Those familiar with A-Time and Bonei Olam will tell you that when infertile couples are not blessed with a healthy baby those same societal norms can drive them to madness and suicide attempts. Still, those not afflicted might surmise that there is a limit as to how far some would go to gain a yeshua (as the current parlance for the efficacy of a segulah goes)... Or maybe not.

Here is an apparently foolproof segulah to cure infertility that I discovered in the commentary of the Ohr HaChaim HaQodosh on this past weeks Parsha. In spite of it being apparently foolproof it would scare off all but the boldest with a devil-may-care attitude towards wagging-tongues and scandal mongers. Succinctly put this is the segulah:

If you want a baby, give 'em something to talk about.

Allow me to explain. The Torah itself promises fertility and/or easier and more gratifying birthing to the innocent Sotah, she who was suspected of marital infidelity and survived the supernatural trial:
וְאִם-לֹא נִטְמְאָה הָאִשָּׁה, וּטְהֹרָה הִוא--וְנִקְּתָה, וְנִזְרְעָה זָרַע.= "And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be cleared, and shall conceive seed." To which Khaza"l amplify

מלמד שאם היתה עקרה נפקדת ...שאם היתה יולדת בצער יולדת בריוח קצרים יולדת ארוכים שחורים יולדת לבנים אחד יולדת שנים

This teaches us that if she was infertile, she will have a live birth...if her labor was very painful she will now give birth "broadly", if her offspring were short they will now be tall, if they were swarthy they will now have lighter complexions, if she had single births she will now have multiple births.

The Ohr Hachaim, 12:13 citing a Psikta Rabbosi and Brakhos 31B says that Khannah, in her famous prayer for having a son, asked G-d to "see" her suffering and that, if He wouldn't on His own, that she would then כביכול force his hand by becoming an innocent Sotah! Similarly, even without the actual Sotah process Avraham Oveenu "manipulated" G-d into ending the infertility of both he and his wife by subjecting his wife to abduction by and suspicion of adultery with Pharaoh and Avimelekh. Per the Ohr HaChaim the synergy of these two scandals were, indeed, what brought about the conception and live birth of Yitzchok Oveenu!!!

To infertile couples / women I still say: don't try this segulah at home kids. And I offer this unsolicited advice even if you don't mind being perceived as a wanton woman, are married to a man who doesn't mind the appearance of being cuckolded and can find a good Samaritan willing to appear to be your paramour. Even if all three of you have the courage to flout societal morality and exhibit the APPEARANCE of impropriety, don't do it. Why? Because upon closer examination this segulah is not foolproof.

Even though a quick reading of Rashi ad locum seems to imply that the segulah will cure the infertility of the infertile and ease the birthing of the fertile, the truth is that the precise salutary effects of the Sotah Waters for innocent women is disputed. The opinions of those who hold that the segulah will cure the infertility of the infertile OR ease the birthing of the fertile are mutually exclusive. The Sotah waters cannot do both. (I cheated when quoting the Gemara above by inserting three dots to separate the disputants and make it seem that everyone agreed that the Sotah Waters do all things for all women).

Depending on whether you go with Brokhos 31 B or Sotah 26 A it is either Rebee Akiva or Rebee Yishmael who are incredulous that Sotah Waters could cure infertility:אמר לו ר' ישמעאל אם כן
יסתרו כל העקרות ויפקדו וזו הואיל ולא נסתרה הפסידה Rebee Yishamel said to Rebee Akiva, If so (if innocent women passing the Sotah trial were a foolproof cure for infertility) then all barren women would go into S'teerah (the Yikhud of the suspected adulteress with her alleged paramour. IOW they would try this segulah!) and the one who wouldn't (presumably due to her innate sense of Tznius, propriety and shame) would lose? (IOW why should crime, or at least criminal Segulah activity, pay? Why should those who play by the rules lose??? We as a society certainly don't want infertile couples seeking a solution by having married women secluding themselves with men other than their own husbands).

So in answer to the question posed in the title of this post; in all likelihood this segulah cannot be saved. However as to the question of how far some would go to gain a yeshua for infertility the Ohr HaChaim seems to answer: There are no limits. If this segulah were indeed foolproof people would pursue it even at the risk of their own reputation and the reputation of the children born of this segulah. Apparently when it comes to curing infertility nothing is out of bounds .

The take-away lesson from this Ohr HaChaim is the depths of the human desire to bear children and the desperate anguish to which even the greatest of humans is driven when that need goes unfulfilled. I hope someone over at A-TIME and/or Bonei Olam reads this post and includes it in future fund-raising appeals.

Lightning Strikes Twice BD"E

2011-11-07T11:08:00.005-05:00

Tisha B'Av has come early to the Frum Communities of Flatbush and Waterbury as a Van carrying 11 High School Bochrim back to Yeshiva on the I84 crashed early this morning killing two and seriously injuring another. Both of the boys who were fatally injured were Flatbush Residents.

For a young Yeshiva (Yeshiva Ateres Shmuel of Waterbury was founded a mere 11 years ago) the Yeshiva has experienced more than its fair share of tragedy. The lightning of fatal MVAs has struck twice. In March of 2003, Shaya Twersky ע"ה, a student from Los Angeles, was killed in a car accident as well.

May HaShem grant comfort and strength to the families, the Yeshiva community and all the friends and relatives ומי שאמר לעולמו די יאמר לצרתנו די

Armchair Psychoanalysis

2011-11-04T08:03:00.008-04:00

Yesterday over on the blog that banned me I did rhetorical battle with one Yitzchok Pinkesz. A drop-out from organized Khasidus who, according to his autobiographical info had been educated in Bobov, Stolin and Vien. During our virtual conversation Yitzchak explained the reason that he had ceased wearing Tzitzis:

I wear as little clothing as I can. Not in principle, but simply because of comfort. I get hot very fast (I wear short sleeves in 30F), and am extremely uncomfortable when I am hot. Tzitzis is that one extra, unnecessary, layer. If you want to wear it, go ahead. I don't.

To which I say: balderdash.

IMO the subconscious motivation for dropping Tzitzis is this: He grew up in a society that made ALL levush sacrosanct, i.e. you were as much "out of uniform" if you didn't wear a bieber hit or a razhvoolkeh as if you had davened without a Talis. He then rebelled against this society and, to his mind, its OCD obsession over clothing and uniform and so, to him, dropping a talis qoton was as easy as dropping the black vest that partially covers them.

I hate to admit it but here, he may have a point.

Rishonim point out (or it might be the Gemora itself...I can't recall clearly now) that the reason that every taqona or gezera d'rabonon is not a transgression of בל תוסיף is because it is clear which is of Torah origin and which is of Rabbinic origin. But if someone were to desist e.g. from horseback riding on Shabbos claiming that it was forbidden by Torah law that indeed would run into a problem of בל תוסיף .

While going beyond the letter of the law is the very root of true Chasidus ואיזהו חסיד... המתחסד עם קונו through the accretion of added hidurim and khumros of many generations the lines between D'oraysa, D'rabonon, Khumrah, Minhag and mere social convention have become blurred and everything has been raised to the level of baseline compliance with HaShems' will. In an atmosphere of a zero sum game all or nothing choices proliferate.

IMO this is one of the root causes of the OTD crisis in kharedi communities in general. There is not enough nuance and emphasis on the gradations of religious requirements. Of course Khasidisha and Yeshivisha parents would like their offspring to be "100% with the program" with all the pitchifkes. But if a child absorbs the lessons with his/her mothers milk that only Shekotzim and Shiksehs daven without a hat or wear brightly colored skirts then once one has made the decision to daven without a hat or wear brightly colored skirts it isn't much of a jump to become a true Shaigatz who ceases to daven altogether or to wear skirts that expose the thigh.

We often forget that both Khasidus and Yeshivas were religious movements intended for a intellectual and spiritual elite. (Well perhaps it's debatable whether or not Khasidus started that way but it has certainly morphed into that.) When one foists lofty standards intended for a small minority on the masses bad things happen. When setting communal standards for baseline compliance perhaps we need to be more cognizant of Khaza"ls wisdom when they taught:
אין גוזרין גזירה על הציבור אלא אם כן רובם יכולין לעמוד בה .

Once upon a time poshuta amkha yidden managed to make it through life as ehrlikha yidden with a 6th-8th grade kheder education and without wearing the שמונה בגדים. Nowadays if someone spends fewer than 5 years in Kollel or wears the "wrong" glasses frames they are at once marginalized and suspected of moral turpitude. How did we get here from there?
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

The New Agunos

2011-11-03T10:34:00.021-04:00

cross-posted here

How something is worded can make a world of difference in how it is perceived. E.g. the two sides in the abortion debate describe themselves as pro-choice and pro-life. No party in the debate wants to be called anti-choice, anti-life, pro-coercion or even pro-abortion.

So let's call a spade a spade.

A catchphrase that has found a home in Frum Society is "the Shidduch Crisis". But such terminology does not begin to capture the severity of the situation. I've heard that a few years ago a Bais Yaakov Dean who made it his business to keep up with his alumni approached the Novominsker Rebbe claiming that he knew of hundreds of older single girls in his community and that, at first, the Rebbe was incredulous. The dean returned with notebooks documenting around 300 of his alumni over the age of 25 and more than 150 over the age of 30. As the Rebbe turned the pages of these notebooks he began weeping and after about a half hour looked up and whispered "It's another Holocaust!"

If I ever came to power my politically correct term for what's happening today would be the advent of "the new Agunah". Historically an Agunah referred to a woman whose husband had disappeared and/or whose death could not be ascertained to the credibility levels required by Halakha. More recently it has come to mean women who know the whereabouts and health of their husbands desiring divorces to free them from failed marriages but who cannot remarry due to their husbands' intransigence in granting a Get.

But a quick perusal of Jewish Law and Lore reveals that Igun is not limited to an inability to marry due to the unresolved dissolution of a prior marriage.

Naomi told her daughters-in-law to return to their Moabite Nation lest they become Agunos awaiting the Levirate marriage (Yivum):( הֲלָהֵן תְּשַׂבֵּרְנָה עַד אֲשֶׁר יִגְדָּלוּ הֲלָהֵן תֵּעָגֵנָה לְבִלְתִּי הֱיוֹת לְאִישׁ" (רות א' י"ג .

The owners of the halakhic mischling known as the חצי עבד חצי בן חורין =half-slave, half-freeman are enjoined to liberate him completely to end the limbo state of no marital or non-marital outlet for his reproductive, intimate and companionship needs that he currently finds himself in. The Mishna cites the reason for this forced emancipation as being מפני תקון העולם = for the repair of the world (Tiqun Olam)/for the betterment of society.

There are sugyos and Teshuvos about Igun due to soldiers going off to war, women refusing to accept Khalitza, widows of Holocaust, Titanic and 9.11 victims and many other permutations. I've heard it explained that the motivation of the Heter Meah Rabbonim was to reduce igun among men since two planks of Rabenu Gershoms Kherem were to forbid polygamy and coercive gittin against the woman will. As such, absent a mechanism to marry again in cases of a wife unwilling or unable to accept a get, the husbands of such women would become Agunim.

The common denominator among all of these things is that anything at all which prevents people from achieving reproductive potential, intimacy and companionship is an issue of igun.

The word Agunah is fraught and loaded. On the one hand the compassion and concern of Khazal and Poskim to resolve the isolation and marginalization of Agunos, both female and male, is palpable. On the other hand it is true that the vast majority of Igun cases over the millenia concerned otherwise married woman-those who, incorrectly licensed to remarry, would transgress the most serious of aveiros and possibly bring irredeemable mamzerim into the world. As such only the boldest and greatest of Poskim, those with the proverbial ברייטע פלייצע'ס = "broad shoulders" were willing to tackle Agunah questions. When it came to Heter Agunos...there has never been any margin for error.

There is something limp-wristed and lacking in urgency about calling the current state of affairs a mere shidduch crisis. It almost makes it sound as though the problem is that not enough vorts/ tenoim are being celebrated. The problem is not too many 30 year old "girls" (and how offensive it must be for an accomplished professional woman to hear herself referred to as a "girl" at the age of 30). The issue is nothing less than a pan-societal Agunah explosion.

It makes little difference if the cause of massive pan-societal igun is due to seafaring merchants whose fate is unknown, Halakhic mischlings, soldiers who are MIA, recalcitrant husbands or a new Jewish society whose values are such that females who are not from rich families or who wear dresses larger than size 4, or males who are not cut out for decades long full time post-marital learning, need not apply for marriage within the confines of polite Frum Society. The bottom line is that today K'lal Yisroel is suffering from more Igun than it ever did in the all the years when tracing a missing persons whereabouts or convincing a stubborn Get-witholder to play ball was difficult or impossible.

And while the Novominskers description of the problem in Holocaust terms addresses all the Jewish children left unborn due to marriages that never took place and families that were never built humble me thinks that if we began referring to it as "the New Igun", with all the loneliness, marginalization, injustice, unhealthy intimacy needs left unfulfilled and isolation that the loaded word implies maybe the laity would be shaken out of our doldrums and the Gedolei haPoskim would be moved to flex the legislative muscles of their broad shoulders. WADR to the Rebbe, the term "Holocaust" has been so overused, abused, misapplied and co-opted in recent decades that it has almost lost the ability to shock anymore. Igun OTOH has deeper historicsl roots and retains the ability to send a shiver up ones spine. Igun??? Agunah??? Thems fightin' words.

It is one thing for a parent or ones neighbor to have an older single living at home when all of their friends are married with four plus kids. It is quite another thing for a parent or ones neighbor to have an Ogun or an Agunah living under their roofs.

I have a dream that one day I will live in a Kharedistan where hundreds of Agunos are liberated not by the writing of an innovative and brilliant responsum of one trailblazing Rabbi but by the writing of hundreds of new Kesubos by scores of Rabbis.
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

Not a Violent Crime- A Semantical Misunderstanding!

2011-10-28T11:58:00.004-04:00

Click

Reminiscent of the famous aphorism of the Chazon Ish: וואס זיי רופען ליבע... רופען מיר כרת = "What's referred to by them as love we call korais" . Except that in this case even those who normally refer to korais as love would agree that this is criminal/sinful!
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

Between Man and Beast Part II

2011-10-26T12:55:00.004-04:00

Part I

I know this is hardly current events anymore and I'd initially planned on posting this in the end of July. But I'm trying to do some housekeeping and finally finish and post some of my drafts.

How degrading and perverse a spectacle it is when Havdala Oblivious human beans (NOT a Typo) begin to consider animals not only their servants and entertainers but their peers and companions.

In only the latest of a series of large posthumous bequests to pets, wildly successful fashion designer Alexander McQueen, who had hung himself, left the equivalent of $82,000 to his dogs.

Presumably this member of the jet set had access to depraved societies upper crust and, no doubt, had many lovers. Still, other than a few family members and servants, he apparently found no redeeming human companionship capable of saving him from self-destruction or worthy of bequeathing his estate to. His dogs weren't just his best friends they were his only friends. How canine must a man make himself to feel that the only ones who truly loved him were his dogs? How simian must a woman feel to share her bed, bath and beyond with a Chimpanzee?

Of the four charities named in the will two were also dedicated to animals; the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home and the Blue Cross Animal Welfare Charity. Why leave money to dogs and cats when there are so many suffering boys and girls? I believe that he must have felt that animals are not only humans equals but their superiors, that dogs and cats are more worthy of compassion and kindness than are human beings. If this was the case maybe I am judging him too harshly. Maybe he did have a Havdala Consciousness after all, one in which homo sapiens were separated from and inferior to canines and felines.

While McQueens posthumous pet gift based on a warped assessment of animals may be the most recent it is hardly the largest or the most egregious.

Heiress Leona Helmsley left her dog Trouble, who recently passed away, $12 million (a sum that was later reduced to just $2 million). Heiress Gail Posner did the same, leaving her multimillion-dollar home and trust to her dogs.

British actress Beryl Reid reportedly left her only companions, a few stray cats, her entire $1.8 million estate. Publisher Miles Blackwell is said to have left his hen, Gigoo, over $16 million. Tina and Kate, two collie crosses, were give more than $738,000 by “reclusive spinster” Nora Harwell, according to the Telegraph.

Then there’s Gunther IV, a German Shepherd who inherited about $70 million from his father, Gunther III. He was owned by Countess Karlotta Liebenstein, according to the Daily Mail.

But it makes me wonder what synergy of personal trauma and cultural brainwashing convinces a person of such mishigas and folly?

I don't think that I'm going out on a limb here to predict that the day will come when some dysfunctional entertainment star or trust-fund baby wills their money to a houseplant that they are fond of or, at the very least, to some particularly inspirational flower or tree. From there, it's a short hop skip and a jump to leaving your condo to your townhouse or your microwave to your toaster.
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

The Emperor Has NO Clothes

2011-10-25T17:02:00.000-04:00

והמבין יבין

על חטא שחטאנו לפניך בזלזול בנים ובנות

2011-10-25T12:35:00.006-04:00

Before the recently come and gone Yom HaQodosh I spent some time scanning the Meforshim in the Otzar HaTefilos Siddur on Vidui. There, I came across a succinct comment on על חטא שחטאנו לפניך בזלזול הורים ומורים to the effect that this particular sin is the root of ALL sin. (Sorry, no link @ HebrewBooks.org and can't remember which Pirush said it without the sefer handy).

It's pretty easy to understand that if one does not properly esteem temporal authorities and guides who have bestowed much manifest good, guides who are flesh-and-blood-sensory-perceivable, who reprove and offer direct instructions (or at least easily decipherable passive-aggressive instructions) again and again and who are only too happy to connect the dots connecting crime and punishment, then one hardly stands a chance of properly esteeming an unseen and mostly inscrutable G-d whose goodness and kindness are not always readily apparent and who oftentimes leaves no good deed unpunished. In the absence of G-d esteem evil will run rampant. So...I get it.

Still, if improperly relating to ones parents is the sin with the deepest roots it seems to me that improperly relating to ones children is the sin with the broadest branches and the farthest flung ripple effects. Think of it. If I am a bad child to my parents I have hurt two people but probably not dramatically altered their own behavior, lifestyle or Avodas HaShem. OTOH if If I am a bad parent to my children I may have hurt many more than two people immediately and/ or altered their own behavior, lifestyle or Avodas HaShem in the short run. In the long run one has probably damaged their future interpersonal relationships, especially with their own spouses and children, and thus impacted negatively on ALL of ones descendants עד סוף כל הדורות !

I'm not even talking about egregious parenting crimes such as alcoholism or physical, sexual or consistent verbal abuse. In the old days when folks were made of sterner stuff those may have been the entire gamut of parenting crimes. But in our shavkha doros when some overripe bananas have stiffer spines than many human beings, it doesn't take much to have a ruinous effect on ones offsprings psycho-spiritual well-being.

Being a "Do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do" role model or, perhaps worse yet, being a do-as-I-do role model for bad middos and behaviors, is the most ubiquitous of parenting sins. But it is hardly the only one. The catalog of thought, speech and behaviors that one can engage in and negatively impact on the kids form a veritable aleph to taf spectrum. Here are just a few (in no particular order, certainly not alphabetical):

Indulging the kids to the point that they become spoiled, incapable of gratification-deferment and precious.

Over disciplining the kids to the point that they feel deprived and persecuted.

Inconsistent treatment of various siblings or overt favoritism.

Lack of confidence and being high-strung and testy leading to insecurity, nervousness and low self esteem in the children.

Being a lousy provider that can impact everything from the kids feeling impoverished below community norms to the inability to provide them with the education or extra-curricular enrichment that would/ could maximize their human potential.

"Not-getting-it" in terms of communication, peer group and khopping the unique challenges and opportunities of your childrens generation.

Siding too much or too little with the Yeshiva/ Bais Yaakov Rebbeim Teachers and Moros when things are not going smoothly at school.

Mismanaging the shiddukh process due to, among other baggage, trying to live vicariously through the kids.

ועל כולם IMHuO making, in an, ahem, "moment of candor" the one cutting remark that destroys self-esteem and/ or trust forever. This could happen e.g. during such ostensibly "innocent" and routine activities as homework with a seven year old or a pre or post-date debriefing with a 22 year old.

A crusty world-weary gentleman I know once related a deliciously scatological Yiddish aphorism that went : פון איין פארץ ווערט מען נישט דערשטיקט = "One does not get asphyxiated by one episode of flatulence" in other words people are resilient and have the capacity to bounce back from a variety of traumas. Perhaps that was true for "The Greatest Generation" of which said gentleman was a card-carrying member. But for todays generations of parents and children??? I'm not so sure. Especially when the skunk/s doing the spraying is/ are the same one/s who changed our own diapers and with whom with live cheek by jowl for the first two to three formative decades of our lives.

Raising children is the ultimate high-risk high return investment and reciprocating loss of principal is a distinct possibility. It is not for the inflexible, dimwitted nor the faint of heart. Yet the ranks of parents are peopled by many who are inflexible, dimwitted and faint of heart.

This past Yom HaQodosh I shed more tears over the unlisted sin of על חטא שחטאנו לפניך בזלזול בנים ובנות= "for the sin that we sinned before you by degrading our sons and our daughters" than for any of the many listed in the Makhzor, Khayei Odom, Tefilas Zaqa et al. I think that our former First Lady had it right when she said: "If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do well matters very much. "

Slow Re-Acclimation

2011-10-24T12:40:00.004-04:00

Well another blessed set of Yomim Tovim have been gained and now it's back to the darkness of the mundane. As I begin my latest descent deeper into the hell of J-Blogging I'm wondering whether or not to start on a downer.

I have to check my drafts and listen to / read about current events for post ideas but the only one that comes to mind immediately was an idea I had for a viduy post before Yom Kippur. If I make a post of this it will be decidedly depressing. Question is: Now that Yom Kippur has come and gone is it עבר זמנה בטלה מצוותה ? What do the three of YOU think?

Reprising in Lieu of Repenting II

2011-10-05T10:45:00.000-04:00

First Appearance

My Problems with Tefilas Zaqah

Like Athletes doing their pre-game stretching Tefilas Zaqah= The Prayer of Innocence/Purity is a beautiful prayer and confessional that warms Jewish Penitents up for Yom HaQadosh. Yet I find it's central passage unsettling and troubling.

Arguably the most vital part of this prayer (it is indicated as such in many Makhzorim) is the passage wherein we forgive all those who have sinned against us interpersonally and pray that G-d intervene so that we find favor in the eyes of all those against whom WE have sinned so that THEY forgive us as well. Vital, because the Day of Atonement's powers are impotent in the face of unsettled interpersonal grudges and gripes even after monetary restitution has been made. Troubling, for the types of forgiveness it includes, excludes and for the motivation that informs it.

The prayer issues a blanket pardon and forgiveness to "all who've sinned against me physically or monetarily (presumably emotionally and spiritually as well although this is nowhere explicated) except money that I intend to sue for and except for one who sinned against me using '(s)he will forgive me anyway' as a rationalization for giving offense."

I understand the exceptions. There is no reason why a person should suffer a monetary loss in order to extend forgiveness, or necessarily, even to gain forgiveness. As for the part about: "except for one who sinned against me using '(s)he will forgive me anyway' as a rationalization" this parallels the limitations HaShem Himself placed on T'shuva for sins between ourselves and Him. As Khaza"l teach us: האומר אחטא ואשוב אחטא ואשוב אין מספיקין בידו לעשות תשובה = "One who says; 'I will sin and repent, sin and repent' Providence arranges that
(s)he lack the time/wherewithal to do T'shuva". In other words we need not be more compassionate or forgiving than G-d Himself. If G-d does not forgive in a particular scenario neither need we.

Or maybe not...The prayer DOES demand that we extend forgiveness to people who have not even apologized. Does HaShem do this? I think not. כל מי שהוא אומר שהקב"ה וותרן הוא יתוותרון בני מעוהי, אלא. מאריך רוחיה וגבי דיליה= "Anyone who says that the Holy Blessed One is a 'forfeit-er' has, in fact , forfeited his own viscera. Rather He is slow to anger (lit: lengthens His spirit) but collects his debts" . In other words though G-d's patience and capacity to forgive is infinite where there is no T'shuva on the part of the sinner there is no "forgiveness". Why must we then, as it were, be holier and more forgiving than G-d?

Similarly the passage regarding forgiving Lashon Hara speakers that says "or who has gossiped about me or even slandered me" implies a human capacity for forgiveness that exceeds the Divine. Because slander AKA מוציא שם רע =untrue malicious gossip in interpersonal sins correlates to חלול השם=desecrating HaShems name in the category of בין אדם למקום= sins between man and G-d . And our Sages taught that such sins cannot be forgiven through T'shuva, The Day of Atonement or even suffering, only the proverbial "Day of Death" can atone for the sin of defamation of HaShems Name. Why then must we be more forgiving than HaShem especially, at the risk of being redundant, in light of the fact that those who defamed us haven't even owned to their offenses or begged our pardon?

Finally I'm unsettled by the overt, self-serving quid -pro-quo. Let's face it. Tefilas Zaqah is a shortcut. The poskim have provided us with "how-to"-techniques and the limits of our obligations in asking forgiveness from those whom we've sinned against. The problem is not that we lack the ways and means for interpersonal T'shuva but that we lack the courage and ego-abnegation necessary to employ those ways and means. And so we take the cowards way out. Instead of investing the time for introspection to discern our interpersonal sins and then mustering the courage required to say to another "I wronged you" we weep under our Talesim or into our hankies for a few minutes before Kol Nidre and hope and pray for Divine intervention. And, in truth, we could really care less about the atonement for those who've wronged US. It's OUR atonement for having wronged OTHERS that we are after*.

Contemporary Kharedism has been criticized in some quarters , sometimes accurately, for it's proclivity for "horsetrading" with G-d, especially vis-a-vis Segulos. The trend today seems to be more and more towards things like: "If I say this many kapitlakh of Tehilim, read the Qetores from a Q'laf, contribute to Chai Rotel Mashkeh, say Perek Shira, visit Amuqa et al, then HaShem will do X,Y,Z for me." I hate to say it but this famous and heartrending passage may be the grandaddy of all Divine "hondeling": If I just say that I forgive others I will secure for myself the grandest of prizes...forgiveness.
Have you had YOUR Qedusha-Havdala today??? Hmm???

*ADDENDUM @ 5:23 EST : I've often wondered about the rule of our sages : המתפלל בעד חברו והוא צריך לאותו דבר...הוא נענה תחילה ="One who prays on another's behalf and shares the same need will be answered (i.e. G-d will fulfill his need) first". Does this work under all circumstances or only when it is not self-conscious. By this I mean does it only work if the petitioner on behalf of the other is unaware of the rule or unaware of the shared need e.g. Ruven prays that G-d should cure Shimon of his cancer and, t the time, Ruven has undiagnosed cancer or the very smallest of unnoticed tumors. Because if the one praying on behalf anf another IS aware of both his own similar need and the rule can it really be said that one is praying on behalf of another??? It seems to me that he is, somewhat cynically , praying on his own behalf with hopes for even speedier positive results. Similarly in Tefilas Zaqah are we really forgiving others at all or merely trying to "manipulate" kavayokhol G-d, into having THEM forgive US.

Reprising in Lieu of Repenting

2011-10-04T17:05:00.002-04:00

First Appearance

A Tale of Two Fast Days

"It was the worst of fasts...it was the best of fasts. "

Yom HaKippurim (henceforth YK) and Tisha B'Av (henceforth 9Av) share much in common and yet are decidedly different from one another. Both fast days are unique and separate from all other Jewish fast days in terms of length (sundown to star-sighting) and all 5 inuyim (ascetic abstinences) vs. only eating and drinking, being prohibited. Both have long, some might say excruciatingly long, prayer services. Both feature a prominent piyut describing the ten holy martyrs. YK is the culmination of a long 40 day period that begins with Rosh Khodesh Elul and 9Av is the nadir of a three week period that begins with the 17th of Tamuz. As such both have dots connecting them to the sin of the Golden Calf. Both are followed by joyous days on the 15th of their respective months. Both concentrate on bein ahdahm l'khaveiro =interpersonal, rather than ritual, sins (YK to apologize and make amends 9Av as a cause for the tragedies). Of more recent vintage, both have had Holocaust passages inserted into the liturgy.

And yet they are sooooooooo different.

YK- standing is prominent. Poskim bring a minhag to stand all of ones waking hours on YK. It's all part of the "be angelic" theme of the day.
9Av-sitting , as in sitting shiva, is the order of the day.
I find it interesting that both positions preclude movement.

9Av-we are forlorn, miserable and somewhat dehumanized
YK-we are angelic. something more than human

YK- tears of regret but with an emphasis on the future.
9Av-tears of mourning with an obsession over the past.

9Av-the Temple is destroyed, we are exiled from Israel. We lose access to sanctified space.
YK- The Kohen Gadol=High Priest our שליח צבור= Communal Agent/representative accesses the inner sanctum...the most consecrated place on earth

YK- we are close to G-d לפני ה' תטהרו and to one another (the ketores is ground even finer for YK and is symbolic of a "better mix" of the disparate elements of the Jewish People per Eretz Tzvi)
9Av-we are alienated from one another and expelled from G-d's kavayokhol home.

9Av-We wail, we contemplate our navels we??? What are kinnos anyways? Much more akin to poetry readings (dark depressing poetry, but poetry readings nonetheless) than to conventional prayer.
YK- We pray...and how. Think Ne-ilah. Per the Rambam this may just as easily be called the last of the עשרת ימי תפלה as it is called the last of the עשרת ימי תשובה

YK- The day the שטן=D.A. of the heavenly Court is off duty
9Av- The day the שטן triumphs...totally

9Av -has an overt agenda of mourning but a covert yearning for Teshuva. As megilas eikah concludes: כא הֲשִׁיבֵנוּ יְהוָה אֵלֶיךָ ונשוב (וְנָשׁוּבָה), חַדֵּשׁ יָמֵינוּ כְּקֶדֶם= "Turn Thou us unto Thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old". Also per the Rambam in Hilkhos Ta'anis...ALL fast days are Teshuva days
YK- is overtly about Teshuva yet has a strong subtext of mourning, loss and exile e.g. the 10 martyrs, Yizkor ומפני חטאתנו and וקרב פזורנו

I don't know what גידין are. I have seen the word translated variously as sinews, cartilage and nerve endings. Where is Rav Aryeh Kaplan z"l when you need him? In any event It is no accident that our tradition teaches that the human body comprises 365 גידין and that the Solar Year comprises 365 days. Each day thus corresponding to another sinew and per the S'fas Emes...

YK- corresponds to the גיד המילה=the mitzvah of circumcision and it's covenant
9Av- corresponds to the גיד הנשה= Judaisms answer to an Achilles heel

9Av- features the flimsiest of Jewish prayer books. Until very recently when all the goldmine-for-the-publisher annotated editions arrived the 9Av Eikhah -Kinnos were traditionally printed as cover-less paperbacks. I've seen in many seforim that there was a common custom among חסידים ואנשי מעשה to deposit their kinnos in the shaimos bin on their way out of Shul Motzi 9Av.
YK- features the thickest, most venerated and treasured of Jewish prayer books

finally....

9Av- we shed tears of pain and cry over the wages of sin
YK- we shed tears of remorse and cry over our sins themselves which paradoxically brings us back to yet another common root for both the best and worst of fast days. After all as Elbert Hubbard said “We are punished by our sins, not for them.” Or as our sages put it a millennium or so earlier ושכר עבירה...עבירה .

I hope that this will serve both as something to provoke though before and on the fast Day and as a useful primer in Havdala 101. before we can discern subcutaneous differences it is essential to establish many layers of superficial similarity. I wish all of K'lal Yisrael an easy fast.

magically cogitated by The Bray of Fundie

Honey Dipped Days

2011-09-26T17:41:00.004-04:00

Honey is often pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable....right?

For the New Year my blessing to those of you,
who love protein that used to moo,
may all your beef burgers be bun-free
and may all your days be dipped in honey

If you're the sort who is intrepid,
eschewing all that's weak and tepid.
may all your moves be gutsy,
and may all your days be dipped in honey,

To the passionate pursuers of the truth,
iconoclasts from their youngest youth,
may this year see the end of baloney,
and may all your days be dipped in honey,

Some folks are nervous and high-strung,
they wear their feelings on their lungs,
even if you like to scream like a banshee,
may all your days be dipped in honey,

Career students delay getting married,
with their majors away they get carried,
May this be the year that you earn your degree,
and may all your days be dipped in honey,

Connoisseurs of the fruit of the vine,
introduced the rest of us to the joys of dry wine,
be it Cabs, Merlots or light Chablis,
so may all your days be dipped in (dry) honey,

caffeine addicts need their buzz,
whatever they do... they overdoes,
your double-shot espressos fuel the economy,
so may all your days be dipped in honey,

TKs keep the world upright,
Scoffing the scoffers and fighting the Good Fight,
May you flower like the Date-Palm tree,
and may all your days be dipped in honey,

Progressives fiddle with the siddur,
My posts can't get them to reconsider,
Still, your hearts are where they're supposed to be,
so may all your days be dipped in honey,

But for those who are stubbornly Havdala Oblivious,
Though it may not make you indecently lascivious,
To G-d and His People unconscious and fickle,
skip the honey-dipped apple and chew on a sour pickel,

You'll never taste the difference.

Call Hatzalah...

2011-09-21T13:58:00.001-04:00

...my blog is dying. Wednesday is now 14 hours old and I've gotten a total of 8 unique visitors.

Bottoms Up, Heads Down

2011-09-19T15:50:00.007-04:00

after watching this I think that this Leil Rosh HaShanah I will invert my Fish Head in headstand fashion before ingesting it. Maybe even spin it like a draidel...

For Those of You Who Find P'tcha Gross...

2011-09-16T10:40:00.008-04:00

...make your שלא עשני גוי more fervently.

Some Goyim eat something called headcheese. It is a primordial spam that can't decide if it's jello, halva or a roast. It is neither Milchig nor particularly brainy:

Questions:

1. Is it more or less ikhy than Gahleh ritteh ?
2. Is it an example of Gentile Poverty Cuisine? (I recently discovered that in the 18th century Lobster, now considered a great delicacy with a price per lb to match, was considered poor mans food and that the clawed crustaceans were so copious that one could wade ankle deep off the rocky coasts of Maine and Nova Scotia bend over and khop one up out of the water with ones bare hands!)
3. Were it kosher (it probably could be replicated using kosher ingredients) would it be an acceptable substitute for a Rams head as a symbolic food on the evening of Rosh HaShanah? Some might opine that it actually has a lower grossness quotient than boiled Carp or Whitefish heads (especially with hanging fahrglihverteh fish yoikh) and/or roast Lambs jaws with the gingivitis afflicted teeth still visible. I wouldn't. But then, there's no accounting for taste.

Some Vegetarian Alternatives

2011-09-16T01:47:00.005-04:00

For the Head Siman the night of Rosh HaShanah

לכאורה all of these must be as acceptable as the Poskims allowance for
ע"כ אם אין לו ראש כבש יאכל ראש (של דבר) אחר

as this:

Bizarre!!!

2011-09-15T00:02:00.002-04:00

I got and email yesterday that had this: No Membership Required as the senders name/ address and this: Have You Ever Eaten Sheep Brain on Rosh Hashanah?

Needless to say I did NOT open this email as I suspect it carries a virus. Did any of you receive it? Did you open it? What's it all about? If it's not spam or a gag the subject line is incredibly poor taste. Bizarre!!!

In answer to the subject box's query: No, I have not. Nor have I even tasted lamb cheek then or at any other time of the year.

Not having protektzia with the local butcher I've had to settle with Whitefish or Carp heads as my symbolic food for the evening of Rosh HaShanah.

Question: In terms of the inyanim of the siman of שנהיה לראש ולא לזנב is it preferable to ingest a morsel from a whole fish head or from a fragmented lambs jaw where, although the teeth may be partially intact, there is nothing else indicative of it belonging to a head?

Whom, Genoi, Did the Voters Repudiate?

2011-09-14T12:35:00.019-04:00

Well political history was made yesterday. In the bluest of Congressional districts in the most heaven-hued of states Bob Turner, a Catholic Republican defeated David Weprin an , ahem, Orthodox Jewish Democrat to fill the seat in Congress vacated by the scandalized assimilationist Anthony Weiner.

I'd like to think that this unlikely outcome is the result of the fruma yidden in this gerrymandered district punishing Weprin for voting in favor of NY States Marriage Equality Bill. The paranoid Village Voice seems to think so and I imagine that, in next weeks editions, Charedi Periodicals, who've made triumphalism a bad habit, will take credit for Weprins loss (not for Turners victory, a potato could've been running against Weprin and would still have drawn the frum vote).

But realistically speaking it's unlikely that the fruma were either monolithically united against Weprin or that they have the numerical clout in this particular district to turn the tide of an election. A much more likely scenario is that the voters were turning against the President and repudiating his failed "Change We Can Believe In" policies. As Andrea Tantaros opines in todays Daily News:

"But it's more than New York Democrats who are saying oy vey. The surprising loss of the Weiner seat is an indication of what's to come on the national stage, and why it's looking more likely that Republicans will retain control of the House, with the possibility of the Senate switching back to GOP hands also within reach ...

Obama has given his party little to campaign on with his largely unpopular record, specifically when it comes to jobs. ... Democrats who run for office in 2012 will have no choice but to run away from the toxic President, even in what they may once have considered safely Democratic districts. They will exhaust their coffers either painting themselves as "independent" or ignoring Obama's agenda altogether, with incumbents doing everything they can to highlight key differences between their record and Obama's."

My four readers here know how deeply opposed to the Marriage Equality Bill I was and how I viewed it as a sign of the coming Apocalypse. That said, I was ambivalent about the movement to punish Weprin for voting in its favor. I really see the point of the oifgekerter J-Bloggers who claim that it's smarter for Jewish interests not to mix our religious values with matters of state and political calculations. We have prospered in this country and built beautiful centers for Torah and Chasidus davka because of the "live-and-let-live" atmosphere in the USA engendered by the very solid wall separating Church and State.

Last week a Kol Koreh circulated in my neighborhood prior to the election calling for Weprins defeat. However I noticed some conspicuously absent signatories among the most senior Rabbonim and Roshei Yeshiva. While Rav Avigdor Miller z"l would almost certainly have disagreed perhaps they, too, opine that high profile political slug-fests versus the LGBT community is not the smartest realpolitik tactic for the frum community to pursue.

And while it's true that back on July 12th I posted this: "Such legislation puts all residents of the societal entity that passes such legislation at risk. Not at risk of becoming a homosexual but at risk of becoming a corpse. Maybe the Gedolim did not go far enough when they said that passage of the bill will make it impossible for a Jew to live in New York State. Perhaps it will make it untenable for anyone to live in this state. While I deny that I am homophobic I will concede that I am homo-legislation-phobic ". That was then, when the Bill itself had a chance of defeat. This is now, בדיעבד and there seems to be no chance of repealing the legislation now that it has become the law of the state. Perhaps the whole fruma anti-Weprin backlash is a day late and a dollar short.

When Life Steamrolls Art

2011-08-19T09:39:00.004-04:00

re: my sporadic posting

I am not suffering from writers block. I've got at least six draft ideas, mostly on Havdala themes (surprise surprise!), saved at the moment. In spite of recent Orthopedic issues I'm not even suffering from writer’s cramp. I'd love to be able to announce here and now that the dearth of new posts indicates that I have gotten over my obsessive narcissistic need for attention but... that would be a lie.

The real reason that you've been hearing less from me lately is that real life has been encroaching on my Walter-Mitty-esque virtual life. Day-job, bills, paperwork, Doctors appointments et al are encroaching on my fantasy as a self-styled widely-read and influential pundit pontificating sagely from the august platform of the NY Times Op-Ed Pages. You see I am in the thrall of a mirage in which my blog gets 10,000 hits a day instead of the fewer than 50 on a typical day that my stat-counter honestly, but mercilessly, records.

I'm hoping that like a stock market correction or a pre-Al Gore hot summer, this is only cyclical and that the halcyon days of prolific e-publishing will return again in due course. In the meantime I may have to do a few re-treads.

בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha.

Gimme Shelter from the Storm

2011-08-15T12:08:00.020-04:00

I really shouldn't complain as the recent Mabul in the tri-state Metropolitan area left my basement dry and unscathed but I'm here today to bellyache about one of the banes of rainy windy weather, the common umbrella.

When the prognosticators of climate predicted that a hard rain was gonna fall, the Divine Rainmaker made good on their promises. Big deal. You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. But for those of us venturing into the great outdoors, or at least from our not-so-great indoors to our cars and vice versa, and eschewing the perversely named ShayneCoat ® except for Shabbos, we had only our umbrellas to turn to for shelter from the storm. If your umbrella is anything like mine then it is a promise maker but not a promise keeper. One רוח מצויה weaker than a four year old blowing out the candles on his birthday cake is sufficient to contort, distort and otherwise bend my parasol to the breaking point. By the time I have untangled it and bent it back into shape it is generally too late as I find myself soggier than hour-old-in-the-milk Cap'n Crunch.

Worse yet, umbrellas combine all the worst attributes of both the קנה and the ארז. While one might think that prostrating themselves like Muslims at prayer during the storm would be a good survival strategy for umbrellas, they manage to break while bending. Like a fragile student whose self-esteem can be shattered for life by one sharp-tongued rebuke, my umbrellas seldom seem to recover from there initial losing confrontation with the breeze. I am not a chiropractor and so I lack the necessary knowledge for umbrella spine realignment. The spines never make it back to their nice, even oval factory settings and invariably end up as crooked as a Ponzi schemer and as asymmetrical as contemporary warfare. Undaunted by my lack of Orthopedic education when I do try to bend the spines back into something approximating their original shape the little joints stitched into the umbrellas fabric invariably lose their grip on the spine, tear away from their moorings in the fabric, or both. Then, once the spines are bent, they can't maintain the tautness required to keep themselves anchored into those little "sockets" at their far ends.

Next these wounded inanimate pretenders-to-portable-shelter-from-the-elements take on near organic characteristics. As disconnected spine panels flail about like a blind and punch-drunk boxer behind on points with each subsequent wind burst the defect seems to spread like an infectious disease from spine to spine. And while all spines unanimously agree that bending out of shape is good form when confronted with any wind above 5 MPH none can agree on the proper angle. In due time the open umbrella ends up with one eighth or one tenth the taut panel coverage that it was supposed to provide. Next to sicken and die are the buttons for opening the contraption and/or the compressibility mechanism of those teeny fold up umbrellas. Offended by the owners overuse in attempting to straighten the bent spines they give up their ghosts and, in a fit of impotent but well-irrigated rage, the unwieldy device is finally relegated by it's erstwhile refugee from the elements to the dust bin of history.

It's been often repeated that while everyone talks about the weather no one ever does anything about it. And while it's true that in terms of weather making השמים שמים לה' ע it seems self-evident that הארץ נתן לבני אדם to do something about dealing with the weather hands that G-d deals us.

It's not that no one has ever built a better umbrella. They have. Still, soggy, amphibious humans have yet to swim a path to these inventors doors in any great numbers as the cost of their cutting-edge, rip-the-whirlwind devices is prohibitive. For low to middle income tadpoles like me when umbrellas break their spines and our hearts the default setting is to just amble over to the 99 cent store and, resigned to their third-world-backwater-like infant mortality rate, plunk down another couple of bucks on another frail and brittle umbrella. They may as well market them as disposable and sell them in six packs like contact lenses. The thing is, gripped by Einstiens definition of insanity, we always expect the next umbrella we purchase to be the last.

Maybe we ought to do what the Rebbes and old Chinese women do and use our umbrellas on scorching windless days to shelter us from the out-of-it's-nartik sun. My luck and the shadows my umbrellas cast would leave my head and torso exposed to the rays.

Hope This Isn't Too Strident

2011-08-10T15:39:00.011-04:00

Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky expresses his outrage, in muted and respectful tones of course, about the Halakhic Universes subjugation and oppression of women.Click

Here is the passage I find most objectionable with my objections interspersed.

I believe fervently that Orthodoxy has yet to grapple fully or satisfactorily with the dignity of womankind.

I believe fervently that knee-jerk egalitarianism has yet to grapple fully or satisfactorily with the dignity of the Halakhic-process.

We know and understand, like no generation before us has known and understood, that women are men’s intellectual and spiritual equals.

A simple smell test (see below) yields a malodorous stench of hubris reeking from this sentence. Other than on his own bald assertion how does Rabbi Kanefsky "know" that women are mens spiritual equals? Does he understand better than those Poskim who opine that שלא עשני אשה is the correct formulation for the brakha? Does he know that their opinions would be altered by being aware of the existence of female astronauts, neurosurgeons and Secretaries of State? Rav Moshe Feinstein OBM and zuhl zein vait upgesheit Rav Eliayshiv WERE/ARE aware of such females yet seem unperturbed by the current liturgy? Does he "know and understand" better than they do/did?

Did the AriZa"l and Rav Shimon bar Yokhai consider the genders to be completely equal? Does he bring better credentials of knowledge and understanding to the nature of human spirituality than they did? Does Rabbi Kanefsky know and understand that while נשים דעתן קלות and נשים עיניהם צרה באורחים still בינה יתירה נתנה לנשים , סבתא בביתא סימא בביתא and נשים מחבבות את הארץ ? How does he have the audacity to posit equality? Perhaps men are womens spiritual inferiors? Does Rabbi Kanefsky know and understand with any depth or certainly that Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education even got it right from a Halakhic and Torah Theological viewpoint when they declared that separate IS unequal?

Our society has accordingly decided to treat both genders with equal dignity, and has opened all professional, political and communal endeavors to both genders equally.

Whose society is "our society"? If he means the dominant non-Jewish culture why should we be taking any cues from them? Our society also treats same and opposite sex marriages with equal dignity. Should Orthodox Jews follow suit? Should Orthodox Rabbis and Rabbahs perform same-sex-marriages?

I believe that our community however, falls short of this goal in many ways.

Who declared it a goal? Rabbi Kanefsky ? Rabbi Avi Weiss? Who appointed them Manhigei HaDor to formulate and assess goals?

We are, of course, committed to operating within the framework and rules of halacha. But it is not hard to construct a halachik universe in which women’s physical space in shul and intellectual space in day schools and Study Halls are not lesser, but equal.

Constructing such a "halachik universe" is takeh easy, one already exists in the windmills of Rabbi Kanevskys mind. Constructing such a Shul and yeshiva is another story entirely.

It is not hard to imagine a halachik universe in which virtually all positions of leadership are available to all.

So easy that Korakh came up with the idea 3830 years ago. That his imagination did not alter the Halakhic Universe is, no doubt, further proof of the glacial pace of Halakhic change.

And we must create a halachik universe in which the extortion of women by their ex-husbands as the Bet Din stands helplessly by, is simply unfathomable. It’s not halacha’s fault that we are lagging. It’s our fault.

Maybe it's neither our fault nor Halakhas. Maybe it's the Reshoim husbands fault. Hundreds of of years of Halakhic Responsa dealt with Agunah questions based on disappearing husbands or inadequate proof of death. the Agunah-on-account-of-extortive-yet-living-and location-known-husband is of very recent vintage. This argument sounds similar to saying that nuclear families need revamping since some parents are abusive to their kids.

I know of course, that “You have not made me a woman” can be understood in many different ways. But by its plain meaning, and by the simple smell test...

Ah hah. So now Rabbi Kanefsky wants us to not only accept him as a Godol HaDor who sets goals and policies that represent major shifts from tradition but that we should do so based not on his erudition but on his gut feelings...on his olfactory acuity. Sounds like a Messianic Complex to me: וַהֲרִיחוֹ, בְּיִרְאַת יְהוָה; וְלֹא-לְמַרְאֵה עֵינָיו יִשְׁפּוֹט, וְלֹא-לְמִשְׁמַע אָזְנָיו יוֹכִיחַ.

it has the effect today of justifying our lack of progress, and of affirming for us that women do not possess the spiritual dignity than men do.

What he calls progress I call regress.
.בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha

Why I Want Moshiach NOW!!!

2011-08-04T00:01:00.013-04:00

I am fond of Nigunei Nichoach but otherwise am not in any way, shape or form a Lubavitcher Khosid. Still, I want Moshiach NOW...more than ever. There's nothing like the Nine Days to reawaken ones צפיה לישועה = yearning for the salvation.

In honor of these Nine Days I present to all three of you my top Nine list for desiring the Messianic era and the fulfillment of various planks in the Torah Eschatological platform. I will בלי נדר attempt to be honest and forthright and keep them in an order that reflects my own desires as they stand today... if not necessarily what Khaz"l had in mind when they advised us to yearn for the salvation:

9. I long for the empowerment, justification and exaltation of the Nation of Israel that will be the result of the ingathering of the exiles to our natural habitat, our Garden of Eden take-two. I want all negative anti-Jewish stereotypes debunked and relegated to the dust-bin of history. I want Jewish fiscal and spiritual poverty to end. I long to see how ישראל על אדמתם will solve the crises of Shiduchim, Assimilation, Intermarriage,Pedophilia, Financial Chicanery, Ignorance, Right and left Extremism, One-Size-Fits-All Education, Kashrus et al. I yearn to see more Jews than Indians and Chinese combined. I want to see Israel as numerous and as luminous as the stars. I want to see Israel as numerous and as resistant to the waves as the sands of the seashore. I want to see Israel as numerous and as fertile and productive as the dust of the earth .

8. I want Torah Law re-instituted in a one world government. I want whichever Havdolos still pertain in this תורתו של משיח (if any) to be manifestly just, fair and kind. No head-scratching. No sense of inequity borne of inequality. Thus will our anguish and groaning be eliminated once and for all.

7. I long for a liege and a leader who is THE GREAT Philosopher King. A Prince of Peace. A Consoler and Restorer of my soul. A champion of the underdog. A radical revolutionary who turns this world of lies upside down. A Robin-Hood-like figure who brings comfort to the oppressed, insecurity to the secure and discomfort to the comfortable. A ruler who is just, benevolent and has a weltschmerz that bleeds and bleeds until the last of the suffering have been made pain free. A ruler whose heart is my own, and everyone elses as well. A unifier of Israel and of humanity. A pedagogue who teaches the Truth and it's beauty, who ends the era of שקר החן והבל היופי . A Leader who improves all his subjects and is a giver and not a taker. A King whose Reign somehow reflects the Divine King and unifies and integrates all and everyone in G-d's Oneness and Uniqueness. A king who rules over a Kingdom of Heaven. A Governor and Government in Israel that we can glory in instead of one that we must sometimes hide our heads in shame over.

6. I yearn for a world in which the Wise Men of Israel are held in the highest esteem. Not just by our own co-religionists but by consensus of all the nations of the world and their wisest men. כי היא חכמתכם ובינתכם . I yearn for a world in which all of Israel is held in the highest esteem for their wisdom morality and unique Havdala-Qedusha informed G-d relationship. אשר ישמעון, את כל-החוקים האלה, ואמרו רק עם-חכם ונבון, הגוי הגדול הזה. כי מי-גוי גדול, אשר-לו אלוקים קרובים אליו, כה' אלוקינו, בכל-קוראנו אליו. ומי גוי גדול, אשר-לו חוקים ומשפטים צדיקים, ככל התורה הזאת, אשר אנוכי נותן לפניכם היום.

5. I would love to see Jerusalem as the capital of the world not as the flashpoint of geopolitical instability. I'm not satisfied with the current rebuilt ruins of Jerusalem. I want it to have the synergy of all the very best of the aesthetic, spiritual, artistic, architectural, academic, scientific, medical, financial etc. elements of the current world capitals rolled into one... and then some! I want her to reclaim her rightful legacy of 90% of the worlds beauty.

Rebuilt Jerusalem should Bnei Beraq, Lakewood, New York, Rome, Venice, Lourdes, Mecca, Uman, Tokyo, Kathmandu, Tahiti, the Alps, Vale, London, Buenos Aires, Silicone Valley and the Riviera. It should be Wall Street, Fleet Street, Madison Avenue, Saville Row and Main Street. It should be Paris, Peoria and the Farm. It should be THE destination for all people to come to learn , work, play, get healthy, and grow. It should have the tallest buildings, the most brilliant scholars, the vastest Libraries the most exquisite music, art, dance and poetry, the greatest housing the cleanest and swiftest transportation, the tastiest food and drink, the smartest urban planning, the highest technology and the deepest mystery and mystique. The liveliest yet safest streets. In short, it should be the most fitting seat for G-d's Kingdom on earth. It should be a Jewish and world capital that we can all be proud of. It should fulfill בני ציון יגילו במלכם...ובעירם בירתם .

4. I long for Elijah the Prophet . Not just as precursor of the Messianic era (not quite sure why the Messiah needs to be introduced and announced anyway ) but as solver of all insoluble dilemmas. To me these are more than just sugyos in the Gemara that culminate in תיקו but also philosophical conundrums like predestination versus free will, אלו ואלו דברי אלוקים חיים and the questions of the skeptics from the empirical sciences that stymie us believers. Elijah will be the ultimate Frum blogger that will wipe the floor not only with the likes of XGH but with Stephen Hawking et al as well. I pray hard for this on the Days of Awe when I say ופתחון פה למיחלים לך and ועולתה תקפץ פיה . I want the nattering nabobs of Qefira and skepticism silenced once and for all. Case in point; the forces of Gay Pride. Homosexuality used to be "the Love that Dared not speak it's name" now it's "the Love that just can't shut it's Trap". There is so much in our current world that my Havdala sensibilities tell me is the insanity, madness and evil of false equations that steamroll Havdala and Qedusha into monotonous desanctified flatness. When Elijah comes it won't be limited to a gut feeling. Elijah will provide the knowledge and wisdom to win the debates and eliminate ambiguity and ambivalence.

3. I don't know the exact sequence of events (בעת שיעלה לרצון מאת הבורא יתברך שמו) but the Resurrection of the Dead is also a plank in the Torah Eschatological platform. I yearn for this not just because of my personal existential angst and terror of death but for many other reasons as well. Assuming (overly optimistically perhaps) that I will be among those to merit the resurrection, I want to know which of the many bodies my transmigrated soul formerly occupied will it be reunited with in a deathless marriage or if it will be some kind of Frankenstien -like crazy-quilt of all of them. I want to plumb the depths of a light suffusing anatomy that can completely resist the souls departure. I want a new consciousness to grasp that death is dead and that life= eternity and to conceive of existence without evil or impurity. I want to understand how serving G-d will be possible (and what it will mean to be human as something distinct from the Angelic) absent the free will made possible by the existence of the unholy trinity of the Yetzer HaRah-Satan-Angel of Death.

I want to be reunited with my dead parents, relatives friends and Rebbeim whom I loved and who loved me and whom I miss terribly. As a G2 I want to meet , for the first time, the Grandparents, Uncles, Aunts and cousins that Hitler robbed me of. As a dabbler in seforim and very amateur historian I want to meet and thank, for the first time, the great figures in Jewish History whose lives and works inspired me, fired my imagination and turned my preconceived notions on their heads.

2. To solve any and all challenges to Theodicy. I yearn for the day when I can understand why apparent innocents suffer, how transmigration of souls and the dispersal of Israel among the Nations was not throwing good money after bad and how the Holocaust was not only just... but kindness concealed under cover deeper than that provided by any witness protection program. I yearn for a new mind that can wrap itself around these truths. I yearn for the day when the prophecy of "When G-d returns the returnees of Zion we will have been as dreamers (of nightmares)" will be fulfilled.

1. To make sense / success out of my inscrutable / failed life. Somehow I have this deep seated feeling that the atmosphere in the Messianic era will clarify to me both why I failed and that, on some deep and currently unknown level, that I succeeded. Maybe it's that I learned that Prophets had the power to look at a person and tell them what their specific role in life was and that I associate the Messianic era with the return of prophecy. Maybe it's that in some vague Izhbitzian way I hope that just as the "mystery" of Divine "Evil" (unjust punishment, Theodicy) is not merely solved...(see number two) but exposed as a sham, smoke and mirrors wielded by the Yetzer Harah, so much stuff and nonsense, so too will the mystery of Human Evil, of not enough love that equates to too much cruelty, of squandered talent, of blown opportunities, of roads not taken (including and especially my own) be exposed as a mirage.
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha". .
CROSS-POSTED / LINKED HERE

Cursed is the Ground for Thy Sake

2011-08-02T15:15:00.003-04:00

click

The auctioneer can make any distinctions he wants between what he is doing and selling AK-47s in Rwanda but all I can say is feh FEH FEHHHHHHHH. This is no business for a nice Jewish Boy.

הרחק מן הכיעור ומן הדומה לו

עבירה גוררת עבירה

2011-07-29T09:52:00.008-04:00

While New York City and the Jewish world at large still reels from the horrific murder of Leiby Kletzky z"l we now receive word that there has been another case of Frum Jew on Frum Jew homicide. This time both perpetrator and victim were adults. Insane! Who would ever have nightmared that we'd live to see the day of a second such murder before we even got to the shloshim of the first victim???

Up until now I thought that the baseless hatred that destroyed the second Miqdash was the sin keeping the third from being built. Now we seem to be regressing to the "halcyon days" of the end of the first Miqdash era marked by the three cardinal sins of homicide, adultery and idolatry.

May HaShem have mercy on His poor and beleaguered People and extricate us from this seemingly interminable and corrupting exile before there is truly no havdala at all between us and the nations of the earth.

Between Man and Beast

2011-07-28T13:25:00.007-04:00

! גוט מארגען קאזע was a delicious Yiddish expression that my parents OBM would say, usually accompanied by rolling eyes or a deep sigh, when their lumpy-headed son would finally, at long last, observe/discover the obvious and self-apparent.

This was the expression that immediately sprung to mind when reading an Op-Ed piece/ Book-Review entitled Birds Do It, Bees Do It in this past Sunday edition NY Post. The author, Maureen Callahan, reviewed the Coffee-Table Book "The Exultant Ark: A Pictorial Tour of Animal Pleasure" which illustrates not only animal pleasure but such noble animal experiences as "feelings", emotion, funeral rites, care for the less fortunate and suffering. Ms. Callahan sees these as proof of an essentially flawed notion of Havdala between humans and animals and comes to this boneheaded, myopic and shallow conclusion:

If crustaceans can suffer, elephants mourn and dogs feel happy, what are the ramifications? ... but we are also forced to reconsider just what it means to be human. At the very least, it seems we’re not so special after all, not in the slightest.

Really now? Not special in the slightest? The human capacity to reason? Human speech? Human thumbs capable of both opposition and apposition? The human capacity to behave in ways that run counter to both nature and nurture. These are empirically observable distinguishing characteristics that don't depend on a framework of faith.

Those of us who are members of faith communities have more than a theology= theories about G-d, but (to coin a term) a humanology= theories about man, as well. Among other things we we believe that humans are uniquely endowed with free will. As such, only they are dogged by an inclination to evil that makes them uniquely susceptible to depression, nihilism and suicidal tendencies. That they are endowed with a soul that is a scintilla of the living G-d that existed prior to it's interface with it's physical mate, (the astounding, spectacularly complex human body, structured to reflect the Torah's 613 commandments) outlives it's separation from the body and that ultimately, after living a disembodied afterlife, will be reunited with a regenerated but qualitatively different body. That humans are G-d's shining creation, His masterpiece of self-portraiture superior not only to the inert, plant-life and animals that G-d created but even to the Angels. That they are a microcosm of the great macrocosm.

The point that מדות -defined here as emotional based character traits- is something that humans share in common with animals, is well taken but hardly news. Millenia ago our sages taught(Eruvin 100B):

אמר רבי יוחנן אילמלא לא ניתנה תורה היינו למידין צניעות מחתול וגזל מנמלה ועריות מיונה דרך ארץ מתרנגול

My humbles adaptation:

Rabbi Yokhanan taught: Had the Torah never been revealed humans could still have learned moral/ethical lessons in proper emotional driven behaviors from the animal kingdom. E. g. we'd conceal ourselves when voiding bodily wastes as felines do, we'd respect the property of others as ants do, we'd be monogamous as doves are and we'd be tender in lovemaking as roosters and chickens are.

The fact that humans are susceptible to animalistic emotion-based drives, both the kind and the antisocial, derives from mans identity as a microcosm incorporating all the creatures that preceded human creation. So while man is capable of the doves monogamy and the ants industry s/he is equally capable of the sloths laziness, the tigers ferocity and the tomcats promiscuity. Not to mention the territoriality-based hostility that is the root of most wars and mass murders.

Seforim HaQedoshim teach that the human capacity to ennoble and refine their emotions/character traits derives from the Divine mandate and blessing to the first humans to dominate, domesticate and control the earth and all of the lower species:

וַיְבָרֶךְ אֹתָם, אֱלֹהִים, וַיֹּאמֶר לָהֶם אֱלֹהִים פְּרוּ וּרְבוּ וּמִלְאוּ אֶת-הָאָרֶץ, וְכִבְשֻׁהָ; וּרְדוּ בִּדְגַת הַיָּם, וּבְעוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם, וּבְכָל-חַיָּה, הָרֹמֶשֶׂת עַל-הָאָרֶץ.

And God blessed them; and God said unto them: 'Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth.'

i.e. that just as in the macrocosm humans are charged with ruling over, directing and controlling animals so too in the microcosm the uniquely human aspect of man (reason) is charged with ruling over, directing and controlling the shared-in-common-with-animal part of man(emotions).

Seforim HaQedoshim also teach that just as animals were created en masse, species by species, so too our emotions are empowered and intensified by being joined together with like-emotioned people. Whereas humans were not created as a species but as a single individual. Reflective of this, our uniquely human reason and cognitive processes are empowered and intensified when we are solitary and alone.

So while I'd like to point out that Ms. Callahan conveniently glosses over the antisocial, violent and sociopathic emotion-based behaviors that animals are capable of ("It's a jungle out there", "It's a dog eat dog world", "Aren't you tired of the rat-race", "Isn't she being catty" etc.) I would like to extend a congratulatory eye-roll to her for her close reading of a glossy coffee-table book that speaks in beautiful pictures more eloquently than thousands of words. This book allowed her to discover, at long last, that animals are endowed with positive empathic and noble natures. Thank G-d, she finally gets itגוט מארגען קאזע! .
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha". .

A Marriage Equality Bill only a Mavdil Could Love

2011-07-27T21:54:00.003-04:00

we get email:

Press Release: Marriage Vote in NY State

NEW YORK - In an unusual display of unity, leaders of five Chasidic groups today issued a joint statement in support of proposed state legislation to allow same-sects marriages.

The groups represented were Belz, Pupa, Satmar, Bobov, and Lubavitch.

"Of course we want same-sects marriages," said Rabbi Wurzma Shtreimel, head of the Belz movement. "A Belzer should marry only a Belzer. That makes perfect sense."

The other rabbis agreed.

"If a Satmar weds a Bobover, woe to their offspring," proclaimed Rabbi Praymita Gartel of Satmar. "What would their children be—Satovers? That's totally unheard of."

The rabbis shared concerns about the dilution of their individual groups through inter-sect marriages.

"The Tanya warns us," said Rabbi Mendy Pantz of Lubavitch, "If a Lubavitcher marries outside his sect, his children lose half their heritage. His son is not Lubavitch, just Vitch. And his grandson becomes a son of a Vitch."

Rabbi Lieb Larva of the Pupa sect expressed particular concern that inter-sects marriage might bring the Pupa out of their sheltered cocoons and expose them to the outside world. "They might, G-d forbid, become social butterflies."

At a separate news conference, Chasidic women expressed similar concerns. "It's less confusing when our kind marry their own kind," said Rebbetzin Donna Kittel, founder of a Pupa women's group, The Mamas in the Pupas.

To prevent inter-sect marriages, Belz rebbetzin Gitta Kapotah announced the formation of a new community matchmaking service, Wedding Belz. "We must protect our Belz," she said. "They're our family jewels."

Contacted by Mr. Richard Feder of Ft. Lee, N.J., Rebbetzin Emily Littella of Bobov asked: "What's all this I hear about same-sox marriage? Only our men wear long white sox--not our women. When the Rebbe hears about it, there'll be a big hubbub at the Bobov."

א ביטערע געלעכטער

The Divine Comedy

2011-07-25T13:26:00.006-04:00

Not that any further proof is needed but here's a personal illustration of how Divine Justice is not only poetic but comic as well.

No sooner did I post about everyone whining about the heat than the Ribono shel Oilem gave me something to kvetch about.

We received a call from Con Edison on Erev Shabbos that because of the unprecedented demand in order to avoid brownouts and blackouts power to our neighborhood was being cut by 5-8%. That's what they admitted to. But if you ask me it felt more like a 30-45% cut in juice.

The room AC units in my home were on the fritz all Shabbos long. The dining room Freitig tzu nakht was intolerable and our bedroom uninhabitable. There was no rhyme or reason as to which units worked with regular cooling efficiency and which groaned and collapsed. Some older and larger units worked better than newer or smaller ones. Anecdotally , a neighbor having a Sholom Zokhor, the Shul and a relative with central air all had a comfortably cool Oneg Shabbos. I didn't even feel a 5% reduction by them! I'm convinced that the Hashgokha Elyona singled me out for limited heat abuse as comeuppance for my critique of others whining about the torrid heat and humidity.

Old timers here know how poorly I tolerate heat. The Aibershter has a sense of humor.

Global Whining

2011-07-22T09:04:00.007-04:00

The Tri-State Metropolitan area is in the grips of a heat-wave of historical proportions. Since Wednesday New York has been pelted by solar rays that have turned the Big Apple to the Baked Apple to the Cajun Blackened Apple (ain't it ungla-more-ays). Yesterday Newark airport reported temperatures of 106 degrees Fahrenheit and today many locales in NYC are supposed to experience highs over 100. Couple that with some stifling humidity and no relief from any pop-up thunderstorms and you've got a truly uncomfortable and even dangerous situation.

I'll leave it to esteemed climatologists such as Al Gore or Michael Moore to determine whether this is reflective of normal cyclical ups and downs or of an alarming pattern of Global Climate Change brought about by human misbehavior. (Reportedly it has not been this hot on July 22nd since 1951). But I do feel qualified to weigh in on an apparent change in human nature. Whether or not the weather is significantly and/or permanently more brutal now than it was when we were kids we certainly complain, moan and kvetch about it more now than we did then.

I could hardly believe my ears listening to the radio on my morning commute. Nary a word about the debt-ceiling crisis or any details on the Levy Aaron prosecution but incessant, obsessive coverage about the hot weather. Interviews with Con Edison and LIPA executives to see if the power grid is equal to the imminent AC Armageddon, man-in-the-street interviews to make the astounding discovery that people are uncomfortable and would rather be someplace cooler (why not just replay last heat waves man-in-the-street interviews ?) and incessant repetitions about the existence of "Cooling Centers" and the need to stay hydrated dominated the airwaves. One would have thought that the weather was what was happening in the city rather than the mere stage and backdrop for what was happening in the city. I felt offended and diminished as a New Yorker and thought I was back in some Kansas hamlet where Church Bake-Sales and cats caught up in trees are deemed newsworthy.

When I was young weather reports took about 30 seconds. One heard the highs the lows and whether or not it would rain. Now we obsess over wind-chill factors and it's summertime alter-ego, real-feel temperatures, barometric pressure, Canadian Air Masses, storm "systems", "pop-up" storms and Nor'easters et al. Whatever the weather happens to be on any given day, it is consistently kevtch-worthy.

The spike in whining, moaning, obsessing and kvetching is probably due to the perfect-storm like confluence of an aging population, the easy availability of prescription and over-the-counter pain-killers, the increasing ubiquitousness of central air-conditioning, and a hedonistic culture in which Comfort is King and Pleasure is Prince. Any notions of stoicism or ennobling suffering have long since been jettisoned. This seems to be a permanent Sociological change and not something cyclical so I hope that you'll forgive me the nostalgia and sentimentality that I'm about to indulge in.

Give me Tom Brokaws "Greatest Generation". To beat the heat in 1951 they would have stripped down to their refugee T-Shirts, slept in parks or on fire escapes and sat in front of a block of ice backed by an electric fan with metal blades. Most fetching of all, they would've gone about their business and kept their mouths shut about how hot it is.

Havdala Zeros

2011-07-20T22:43:00.009-04:00

While some Havdala Heroes have decided to resign rather than be a party to the Havdala Obliterating and Oblivious rebellion against G-d and Nature known as the Marriage Equality Bill, others have decided they just can't wait to aid and abet the outrage.

Unable to forbear the anguish and suffering of the LGBTers even 21 hours longer, the powers that be in Greenburgh, New York have decided to voluntarily open@ noon on Sunday for the same-sex marriage business when the bill becomes law (July 24th) rather than wait until Monday morning at nine. To add to the historic occasion , representatives from the LOFT — a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community center in White Plains — are planning special festivities at Town Hall to commemorate the event.

Also, Antun's of Westchester, an Elmsford catering service, is expected to donate food for those waiting in line, Town Supervisor Paul Feiner said.

"We were on the forefront of the issue over 10 years ago, because we were the second community in Westchester to allow for domestic partnerships," Feiner said Tuesday. [Apparently Feiner is hell-bent, and I do mean hell bent, on a first place finish this time]

"We want this to highlight our support for the legislation ... by providing couples who want to get married to get married on a historic day."

Well the day is certainly historic. Historic like the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Sinking of the Titanic or the destruction of the World Trade Center were. June 24th 2011 will join these on the list of re-letter days that will live in infamy. Greenburgh Town Clerk Judith Beville may have been prophesying unconsciously (ניבא ולא ידע מה ניבא) when she predicted : "I anticipate an overflow into Greenburgh,". Hell ya. An overflow such as the Deluge that inundated the world in the times of Noah!

To the esteemed progressive, Havdala Oblivious Municipal Government of Greenburgh, to the LOFT and to Antun's of Westchester I say: a pox on all your houses. You will go down in history as the first ones to have made the misstep that slips down the slope towards the coming apocalypse. Or to paraphrase the Mayor of the far more egalitarian Munchkinland:

"You'll be HISS , You'll be HISS, You'll be HISS-TORY,
and we will horrify your name,
for your breach of trust
in the suburban sprawl of shame"
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha".

At Leibys Door

2011-07-19T16:04:00.021-04:00

I made an attempt at paying a shiva call to the grieving Kletzky family at about 10:30 this morning. I use the phrase "paying a shiva call" advisedly as, absent one gifted with the ability to resurrect the dead, I don't see how nikhum aveilim is possible in a case such as this. In any event I was unsuccessful in accomplishing what I set out to do. For the benefit of my readers who lack the proximity or the inclination to pay a shiva call I will share the scene with you.

The Kletzkys live on the sixth floor of a semi-shabby brick building at the corner of 15th Avenue and 57th street. While it features one of those elevators that have an exterior door that must be opened manually when the car arrives at your floor, the edifice has the look and feel of a walk-up. Were it situated in any other Brooklyn neighborhood but a Kharedi one it would be occupied by the poverty-struck and the recent immigrant.

Before entering the building I observed at least three News Vans, a gaggle of reporters, photographers and beat-cops plus police brass. I had the sense that a VIP even bigger than Lipa was ensconced within.

Everything that you've heard about the demands for discretion is true. There were English-Yiddish bilingual signs warning visitors not to dare discuss the details of the horrific crime with the mourners posted on the exterior double glass doors, the lobby doors, the elevator and the apartment door. What is it about the cold-blooded murder of Jewish Youth that evokes signage redundancy? I recall that until about three years ago there were at least 15 signs of various shapes and sizes (but all in brilliant blue and white) on the Ari Halberstam Memorial ramp (connecting the southbound FDR Drive to the Brooklyn Bridge) indicating that it was, in fact, the Ari Halberstam Memorial ramp. In recent years I think it's been toned down to a modest six or seven signs. Another sign on the elevator read that no more than five people should use it at the same time. We complied.

When we alighted on the sixth floor about twelve women and seven men were lining the hall leading to the Kletzkys apartment waiting to get in through the brown framed door inlaid with chipping beige paint. Misaskim had provided folding chairs for those waiting on line to pay their respects. Most just stood. All had concerned and downcast looks on their faces. Yet another sign on the door announced that all menakhmim keep their visits short and that they should vacate the apartment as soon as it begins to get crowded.

Although the others and I standing in the semi-dark hot, humid, close and claustrophobic corridor attempted our shiva calls at a time prescribed by Misaskim in their HaModia newspaper announcements, we were denied access. A gatekeeper appeared and declared that the Kings County Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes was paying his respects and that no one would be allowed in while the VIP was there. He couldn't say of we'd have to wait another two minutes or another hour. He beseeched us to show sensitivity to the floors other residents by not crowding about the Kletzkys door and to move our line back past the elevator. Just as most of us complied the elevator disgorged about 6-8 new Shiva visitors who, being closer to the apartment door than those of us who'd just moved behind the elevator and convinced that rules are for little people, brushed right past the gatekeeper and gained access. The only other folks who gained entry while I was there was a woman who said that she was a social worker, a fellow who looked like a Ruv and a few who slipped through as the DA, some of his office brass and a few Boro Park Community Council looking types exited.

The gatekeeper was still adamant. No one is going in. "The Aveilim are not out in the public area" he explained "they are meeting with their Rov". Again he could not say if we'd be allowed in to the Kletzkys in five minutes or in 45 minutes. Although I like to think that I do have a heart I felt like the Tin-Man halted at the Gates of Oz being told "No one sees the WIZARD!!!! Come back tomorrow". The gatekeepers claim was corroborated by one of the guys who had slipped in during the DAs exit who emerged frustrated saying that, indeed, the Kletzky parents and sisters were secluded behind closed doors.

I waited a few more minutes and then , pressured by a combination of claustrophobia and the need to get the young Brayette over to the Orthopedists office to mend what turned out to be a possible broken bone, I turned to leave.

Heading to the landing I noticed every identical brown-beige door on the floor had a very large Mezuah affixed to the Halakhically mandated spot. Most had olive-wood or etched mirrored Hebrew name plates disclosing the identities of families that dwelled within. This was an all-frum, most likely all-Khasidish building. I wondered about the neighbors on the floor and in the building. How were they taking all of this? Did they too have school age kids and were those kids Leibys schoolmates or playmates? Staring down their own hall they were constantly confronted by that sign-encrusted door. There at the end of their hall lay not just a neighbors portal, temporarily surrounded by an imaginary velvet rope and manned by a a rolly-polly Kharedi bouncer, but the threshold that Laiby never crossed on that fateful day, a triumphant "big boy" who'd navigated halfway home all alone. As they stare at it, do the neighbor parents or grandparents wonder at the randomness of it all and whisper reverential thanks to HaShem that their own sheyfelehs were not the ones who were lost, killed and dismembered last Tuesday?

I took the stairs down and as I exited the building DA Hynes and his entourage were besieged by reporters. I tried sticking my head in to hear what it was he was telling them. I heard whirring and clicking as, for a few moments, I stood directly behind Mr. Hynes. Who knows? If you look closely at tonight's news, today's internet clips or tomorrows newspapers , you may actually behold the miserable visage of Chaim Grossfrestant, third Bray of Fundie.

The only words that I snatched were (I paraphrase) "I've prosecuted many high-profile cases in the past and you know my track record for being forthright with you. There will definitely be more details forthcoming about this case". I was struck by the contrast between the 24-hour-news-cycle-pressured reporters insatiable need to know ever more minute, albeit gruesome, details and the families psycho-spiritual quest to remain ignorant of same.

I left only mildly frustrated. After all Nachman Kletzky and I have never met before and there are no words of wisdom or consolation that I could possibly have said to him or his family to ease their pain. Still I think a yunga vaibel conversing with her friend and waiting on line the same time as I did put it best when she said "I think that when they see how many other people are broken up by this imglick, when they see how many of us care it will give them Khizuk"

As being menakhem the Kletzkys is beyond the human ken I will close with a prayer to the בעל הישועות ובעל הנחמות that the Kletzky family should be zokheh to מן השמים תנוחמו ומן השמים תתחזקו