The belief in man’s elevation over the animals is under assault in the West. Denial of free will – and with it the possibility of morality – is central to that attack. If man does not possess the freedom to choose, he is no more morally culpable for his actions than a lion for eating its prey. At the end of the day, he is just another animal whose actions are determined by his instincts.

Writing recently in The New York Times, Dennis Overbye takes off from his inability to resist molten chocolate cakes on the dessert menu to consider a “bevy of experiments in recent years suggest-[ing] that the conscious mind is like a monkey riding a tiger of subconscious decisions. . . frantically making up stories about being in control.”

Mark Hallett, a neurological researcher, informs Overbye that free will is nothing more than an illusion, a sense that people have. Philosophy professor Michael Silberstein points out that all physical systems that have been investigated turn out to be either deterministic or random. Either alternative is inconsistent with free will.

Hallett is right that no one consistently experiences life as lacking all choice – even Overbye … Read More >>

by Rabbi Harvey Belovski

The astonishing capacity of Judaism to welcome disagreement, tolerate and even validate a range of views (albeit within the system) on almost every issue is, in my opinion, one of its greatest strengths. Yet it is, perhaps, the most sophisticated aspect of real Torah thought; the Talmud (Chagigah 3b) acknowledges that it takes tremendous wisdom and effort to think this way, yet it is vital to learn to do so.

It is fascinating to note then when an outstanding attribute is native to the Jewish people, even outsiders can recognise it. A year ago, I read a fascinating book called ‘The trouble with Islam today’, by the controversial author Irshad Manji, which contains a number of really thought-provoking observations. In a chapter provocatively called ‘Seventy virgins?’ she considers the subject of herd mentality:

What I knew was that believers in the historically ‘reformed’ religions don’t operate on a herd mentality nearly as much as Muslims do. Christian leaders are aware of the intellectual diversity within their ranks. While each can deny the validity of other interpretations – and many do – none can deny that a plethora of interpretations exists. As for Jews, … Read More >>

For those in Jerualem or for those who have friends who can get to Jerusalem this Sunday, Jan. 28 (9b’Shvat). I described the launching of a most unusual Holocaust project in my Jerusalem Post article Thursday 6 b’Shvat (25 Jan) titled The Day the Rabbi Ate Grass,

I describe a new collection of Holocaust memoirs that give us an unmediated glimpse into the world of rabbinic scholars who wrote about their experiences during the Hurban. These autobiographies appear not qua autobiography in the traditional sense, but in prefaces to the scholars’ rabbinic works.

I wrote:

Whereas a rabbinic scholar will write in a more guarded manner in the body of a work, in the preface he can “let his hair down.”
Take for example the preface to an important book by Rabbi Yitzhak Yaakov Weiss, who was well known after the war as a fierce opponent of Zionism. When he comes to write the preface, he drops his political persona.

There is not even a whisper of politics in what he writes here.

This treasure trove was ignored by Holocaust historians because the actual books, in contrast to the prefaces, often have nothing to do … Read More >>

Readers of Commentary know Joshua Muravchik as a regular and astute observer of political and security affairs for that periodical. That’s why an article by Muravchik, who is also a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, in the January issue is all the more surprising in its naivete, on which more later.

In a departure from his usual writing interests, Muravchik takes up the cultural implications of a current hit comedy film featuring British comic actor Sacha Baron Cohen as a Kazakh reporter whose travels through America . . . well, if you want the lowdown on the plot, read the article (notice how I assume that for readers of these words, such will be their sole source of information on the film — talk about naivete!).

Muravchik catalogues the various criticisms that have been leveled against the film, finally arriving at the one that is of particular relevance to Jews. He writes:

This raises another subject of concern to the critics. In ridiculing [Kazakh] sensibilities and practices, Baron Cohen makes relentless use of the rhetoric of anti-Semitism. The character Borat is deliriously frightened of Jews, and of the menace they supposedly portend. They are never far from his mind, … Read More >>

Some weeks seem to have a theme; everything that happens revolves around the same idea. Last week was one of those weeks. The organizing insight: Too many of our young people lack the type of close connection to an adult role model that is crucial if they are to flourish and reach their full potential.

This suddenly hit me while speaking to the rosh yeshiva of a yeshiva ketana (in Israel, a yeshiva for boys of high school age). Because his yeshiva ketana is relatively new and outside the major chareidi population centers he has much smaller class sizes than in major population centers (where a class size of fifty is by no means unusual). Despite the small size, he mentioned that he had recently hired an educator with thirty years experience for the express purpose of talking to the boys and developing a close relationship with them. The younger rebbes provide the enthusiasm in learning. But only a veteran mechanech can fully appreciate the power to build a young man that lies in an encouraging word.

He also told me that he is wary of sending even his best students to one of the larger yeshivah gedolahs, in … Read More >>

Jonathan Rosenblum’s craft is to inspire thought, so it shouldn’t be surprising that his recent piece on deception prompted some off-line questions concerning the permissibility of tzedaka collectors altering the facts. Is it ever permitted to make an otherwise legitimate need even more appealing to donors by playing fast and loose with the facts?

Although rumors to the contrary persist, the bottom line, I believe, is no.

The question itself would seem preposterous, were it not for a passage in the Gemara (Arachin 6B) concerning Rav Yanai (who would borrow tzedakah funds and pay back, so that in the interim he would be able to approach donors with the plea that the tzedakah cupboard was bare) and a purported decision of the Chasam Sofer. Different versions of the latter persist. (Thanks go to an anonymous reader and to my son Peysi in the Philadelphia Community Kollel for gathering some of them.) In general, they claim that the Chasam Sofer permitted the plight of an extraordinary talmid chacham (Torah scholar) he knew to be treated specially, based on passages in Chazal that liken a Torah scholar to a king, or to a bride adorned with the … Read More >>

Shmuley Boteach raises a serious issue in a recent Jerusalem Post column (“Keep an eye on our children,” January 7): the supervision of post-high-school-age American students studying in yeshivot and seminaries in Israel. The issue has already been widely discussed in the Orthodox press.

Boteach’s criticism of various institutions, however, betrays a serious lack of understanding of the phenomena he purports to be discussing. Part of the confusion results from the fact that the term “yeshiva” is used today to describe a spectrum of institutions almost as broad as the spectrum of individuals calling themselves “rabbi.” These “yeshivot” range from institutions for public school students to those for students who have been in Orthodox institutions their entire lives.

In some of these institutions, the first order of business is to turn the students, many of whom arrive with serious substance abuse issues, into functioning human beings, then into good Jews, and finally into students of Talmud. With respect to such institutions, it is ridiculous to compare the standards of student behavior to those that prevail in yeshivot patterned on the classic Lithuanian model, or to what Boteach remembers from his days learning in yeshiva in Israel.

BOTEACH IS … Read More >>

National Review’s Jonah Goldberg is no advocate for giving in to gay demands for greater legal protection of their life style. He recently assessed the future of a proposed state constitution amendment in Virginia that would explicitly disallow offering gays the advantages of marriage through arrangements by a different name, like civil unions. “It’s very difficult to make the lynchpin of your opposition to gay marriage ‘the children’ when gays have been allowed to either adopt, have, or otherwise maintain custody of children for a long time now. We are currently in a weird situation in that gay couples get kids all the time without the benefit of being ‘married’ while gay marriage opponents claim that gay couples shouldn’t get married because it would be bad for kids. That horse left the barn.”

Among other things, this points out the prescience of my good friend (and fellow Cross-Currents contributor) Rabbi Avi Shafran. A number of years ago, I did a short CBS News interview on those who opposed recognition of gay marriage. Anticipating some of the questions, I bounced some of my intended answers off Rabbi Shafran. He threw in some ideas I had not … Read More >>

Outreach has come of age.

Sorting through the variegated sense-impressions I was left with after two days at the Association of Jewish Outreach Programs (AJOP) Convention, this conclusion is the clearest. There are now over seven hundred organizations, not counting the ones run by Israelis. A few years ago, the total annual budget for all of them was about $100 million; now, there is about $50 million in Wolfson funding directed at American programs in Israel alone. The last letter in AJOP used to stand for “professionals.” The field has become so large that the meaning of the acronym had to change. Indeed, the convention had in effect three separate tracks (besides a full women’s program) to accommodate all those – administrators, donors, lay support people, community kollel members – who are not outreach professionals, but invest heavily of themselves in structured, ongoing programs to share the gifts of Torah with as many Jews as will listen.

Kiruv (outreach) has changed. I was a Board member of AJOP for many years in the early years of the organization. I had not attended a convention for about eight years. I could have used a road … Read More >>

Recently a young man claiming to be a poor chasan appeared at our door shortly before the onset of Shabbos. I gave him a good-sized contribution. A few minutes later, I went to take out the garbage, and spotted a member of a comedically incompetent group of con-men that has been plaguing our building on Erev Shabbos on the stairs.

On the way to the garbage can, I noticed the con-men’s regular car down the street. I waited under the building, and the “poor chasan” and his accomplice came out of the elevator together, joking and smiling. I approached the “chasan” and demanded that he give me back the money or I would call the police. The two insisted that they had nothing to do with one another, and had only met by chance in the elevator. But the “chasan” grudgingly returned my contribution.

Rather than feeling good about having retrieved my misdirected tzedakah, however, I felt violated. I had wanted to help a poor yeshiva bochur get married. And now I was deprived of my mitzvah.

This incident got me thinking about the corrosive power of lying and cheating. As a consequence of this group’s antics, we are … Read More >>

Many have written – mostly recently our own Yaakov Menken on Cross-Currents on Jan 11 – to the effect that it is unfair to associate Charedim with NK. While indeed extremely unfortunate, this association in the public mind is, in my view, not unfair.

Every societal group must bear responsibility for the natural outcome of its own values. Accordingly, while Charedim may be within their rights to join those who label Boruch Goldstein and Yigal Amir as natural by-products of what is to them a misguided religious zionist movement, Charedim cannot simultaneously attempt to distance themselves from the natural by-products of their own movement. As orthodox Jews charged with carrying out their affairs to the highest possible degree of authenticity and probity, Religious Zionists and Charedim each must honestly acknowledge and attempt to root out their respective problem areas. Failure to even attempt to do so, on either side of the aisle, gives the clearest indication of values truly held, not merely espoused.

On the Charedi side of the ledger the following contrast is interesting, though not necessarily dispositive: In Monsey last year a local citizen was publicized as a brazen seller of non-kosher chickens purposely labeled as kosher in outrageous disregard to … Read More >>