So I noticed a news item in the latest Forward reporting that the important-sounding Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, whose job it is, apparently, to plan policy for all the Jews, has relented to the “intense pressure from Jewish communal leaders” to include more women on its board, after the Institute excluded women entirely from a brainstorming meeting of leaders of major Jewish organizations.

Institute leaders said the addition of the female board members is “meant to signal a dedication to eliminating gender imbalance within its ranks.” Notice that the move was but a “signal” of “dedication to eliminate” gender imbalance. Read: this was a desperate attempt to get enraged feminists off their backs for the time being and hopefully buy the ole boys’ network a few more years of cigar-smoking and off-color jokes in relative (and now less so) comfort in the organizational lockerroom.

All of this goes to show, for those who didn’t yet know, that the secular Jewish bigwigs are every bit as misogynistic as the Orthos supposedly are. The only difference between the two being that getting the former to buckle is as easy as having 55 influential leaders — read: zillionaires –send letters, whereas those stubborn Orthos, acting on their silly principles, just never give in (which infuriates the others, which is why whenever there’s a perceived crack in the wall of principle, the secular Jewish media trumpets it to the heavens, even if they have to contrive the crack, as in the case of the “breakthrough” woman “Orthodox rabbi” at “halachic” Cong. Orach Noam Eliezer.)

As for what the agitators are really demanding, the article quotes Shifra B., an organizational consultant who “led the charge” to add female members, as calling the additions “tremendous progress,” but added that “women become completely integrated into a group once they comprise a full third of its makeup.” The reporter goes on to soberly note that, with the new distaff staff, four of the sixteen board members are women, “short of the one-third threshhold” that the oracle had deigned Ms. B. had described. So, if you happen to see a news item describing a woman in thirds (and a similarly fractional man nearby), with no perpetrator in sight and the cops confounded, at least you’ll know who dunnit: the feminists!

One of the most important revolutions in the American Torah world over the past three decades has been the explosion of post-high school learning programs in Israel. Thirty years ago there were two or three post-high school seminaries for girls and a handful of yeshivos, other than Mir, Ponevezh, and Brisk for American bochurim. Today there are dozens of each.

Young men and women for whom Orthodoxy was, at best, a series of rules to be followed, but whose values and aspirations were formed by the larger secular world – “Ortho-pracs,” in the terminology of one astute critic — returned home transformed by a year or two in Israel. Their observance was no longer a matter of “that’s the way we do things in our family” but part of an earnest effort to connect with the Ribbono shel Olam. Those returning from Eretz Yisrael began to exercise a profound effect on the communities in which they grew up and the institutions in which they studied.

Such a positive development could not proceed without the Satan fighting back. Not everyone was thrilled with the change of tone in the American Orthodox community. Already 15 years ago, articles started to appear warning parents of the danger of their children returning home “too frum.”

The rosh yeshiva of one post-high school yeshiva told me how a father threatened to take out a full-page ad in the New York Times labeling the yeshiva a “cult” if his son insisted on returning to Israel rather than taking his place in the freshman class of the father’s Ivy League alma mater. Never mind that the boy’s older brother, who had gone to the same college, was no longer observant.

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 could resist the chocolate cake if the reward were great enough or the punishment immediate enough. Many, however, find it convenient from time to time to use the compulsion defense to avoid the moral censure of their own conscience or of others. (”The heart wants what it wants,” said Woody Allen of his affair with his lover’s 17-year-old adopted daughter.)

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, they’re way ahead of the crowd. Jews actually publicise disagreements by surrounding their scriptures with commentaries and incorporating debates into Talmud itself. By contrast, most Muslims treat the Quran as a document to imitate rather than interpret, suffocating our capacity to think for ourselves.

A recent report from Jenin got me thinking.

Residents of the West Bank city have hung a large picture of Saddam Hussein in the refugee-quarter’s central square. A local commander of the Fatah-aligned Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades explained that the display was intended to show Palestinian appreciation of the late and (at least in the civilized world) unlamented Iraqi dictator. He pledged that Palestinians “will continue to honor his memory as a symbol of resistance until the American and Israeli occupation is driven out.”

Much is revealed about a person by whom he considers worthy of honor. And much is similarly revealed about a people or a society. One’s heroes reflect one’s aspirations. And so the Jenin example, intended to draw eyes and hearts toward a depiction of someone for whom words like “ruthless,” “cruel” and “murderous” fall pitifully short of the mark, is both telling and depressing, not to mention something vital for would-be international peacemakers to ponder.

It is also, though, nutritious food for broader thought. Who, we might well consider, are our own heroes? To whose examples do we aspire? While no sane and civilized person would ever respond with the names of bloodthirsty tyrants, more than a few of us might still come up with those of writers, entertainers, sports figures or other public personalities, people whose accomplishments, while noteworthy and in some cases perhaps even noble, reflect our limited horizons of hope for ourselves.

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.

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, and his store of knowledge about them includes every possible anti-Semitic canard. These he articulates with no special venom, merely as the received wisdom of one who has grown up in a village where, we are told, the big annual event is the “running of the Jew.”

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 which the entering class can reach 150, for fear that they will be lost in the shuffle. At that point in the conversation, his brother, who is a rebbe in a yeshiva gedolah for formerly “at-risk” youth who are now returning to serious learning, added something a respected avreich had mentioned to him recently.

Even a serious boy, who is learning well, can often fall through the cracks in a large yeshiva gedolah, if he is not the kind to talk a lot in shiur or to actively seek a relationship with the maggid shiur. Such a boy can go for years in yeshiva without ever hearing a positive word, or even being taken note of by any of the respected authority figures. That lack of connection can eat away slowly at some bochurim.

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 24 ornaments of books of the Tanach.

It is difficult (if not impossible) to draw appropriate halachic conclusions from anecdotes that are missing full context and explanation, like that of the Chasam Sofer. Rav Wosner, shlit”a, says as much in Shevet HaLevi (vol. 2, Yoreh Deah #219). He concludes that deception is never permitted for the “good cause” of increasing charitable donation. (To me, it seems that all the Chasam Sofer provided was reason for the overseers of a charitable trust who exclusively channeled their funds to needy brides to make a single exception for a remarkable talmid chacham. He showed them that if they used their discretionary powers of gabbaim, they would not be so far off their usual track, since the talmid chacham could be seen as a bride. Such thinking, however, was merely the icing on the cake. They didn’t need it in order to legally use the funds for a different mitzvah.)

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 outraged that a certain seminary refused to adopt a “zero-tolerance” policy toward a girl who spent the evening with a group of boys and girls who were drinking heavily. (She was not drunk.) But he does not ask any of the questions that the heads of that particular seminary no doubt asked themselves: First and most important, is this young woman having a negative influence on other girls? Is she growing religiously, or declining? Is she contrite about the particular incident in question?

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 thought of, and strongly cautioned against using the boilerplate argument that everyone else was using: the danger to the American family. He considered it an unlikely argument to prevail (which on the evening news is more important than whether it is objectively true or not) for the very reason that Goldberg points to. Surely having two loving adoptive parents – albeit of the same gender – is better than having none at all! I used a different angle, and never regretted it.

What’s the alternative to providing half-baked solutions when you are on the spot and simply don’t have anything more to provide? I have found one that I use often. It is easy to remember, consisting of only three words: “I don’t know.”

I use them often. I have never found their use to get in the way of forceful advocacy for a Torah life-style, neither in the classroom with teens, or working with bright adults. To the contrary, I have gotten much positive feedback from people who are suspicious of simplistic solutions to complex issues, and are relieved to hear that seasoned veterans also don’t claim to have all the answers. They appreciate companionship in their intuition that there are complexities in life that are not well addressed by platitudes.

In an unintentionally amusing video being e-mailed around, a large-boned, jowly man with a droopy mustache and hair parted down the middle sits at a desk and reveals a secret scam that Jews have been levying on unsuspecting Gentiles for years. Behind him hang an American flag and a banner featuring a large swastika.

The short “program” is billed as “White Nationalist News” and our trusty correspondent is identified as “Mich Bubba.” Heavy metal guitar introduces and ends the spot; the refrain of the tune (so to speak) is “Tricky, Tricky Yid”.

The conspiracy Mr. Bubba proudly exposes is the “Jewish tax” that hides in plain sight from unsuspecting non-Jews in secret code on food packaging. Long familiar to Hebrews of traditional bent, the various kosher symbols (the popular “u” inscribed in an “o” that is a trademark of the Orthodox Union – which Bubba calls the “United Rabbinical Council” – as well as myriad graphic riffs on the letter “k”) are indications that the product so marked was produced under the supervision of a rabbi expert in the intricacies of both kosher law and food science. Bubba hews to the belief that such foods are simply “blessed by a rabbi” and identifies one product as carrying a second sinister rabbinical group’s certification – “parve” – which he pronounces “parVEY” (French rabbis, probably).

In his essential point, of course, Bubba’s right. Companies do indeed pay for kosher certification.

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 map. Almost none of my old chevra were there, save for a few who were brought in, like myself, to give sessions and talks in areas where a few decades of experience might do some good. I had no trouble recognizing the music – impressed by some brilliant passages, and stung by some discordant notes – but knew almost none of the players. The experience is too fresh to form the Global Theory of Outreach, but I will share the observations, in no apparent order.

Not only have the individuals changed, but so have their backgrounds. There seemed to have been a greater proportion of pulpit rabbis in the old AJOP, representing the aspirations of rabbis in far-flung communities to leave a large mark. They seem to have been replaced by the community kollelim that are ubiquitously sprouting B”H, reaching places many of us couldn’t properly pronounce. (And I didn’t quite figure out why Philadelphia, of all places – home to a great community kollel of which one of my sons is a member – also has a Kollel just for Russians.) The kollel seemed to be the modal entry portal to the kiruv universe. Word is out in the yeshivos that a whole ‘nuther area of Torah-oriented livelihood is available, and there is no apparent shortage of people to fill all the new positions.

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 giving differently. New collectors come under a cloud of suspicion, however fleeting, that was never there before. Hopefully, they receive no less than before, but something has been lost.

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 the community’s sensitivities. In Monsey a few months later a local citizen was publicized as a leader of the NK effort to brazenly embrace Iranian leadership while purposely dancing on the ashes of our exterminated grandparents and further endangering 5 million Jews in Israel in outrageous disregard to the community’s sensitivities. The chicken seller was run out of town, mainly by Charedim. For some reason the Iran-kisser is happily ensconced at home. This is not a call for action, but merely a vignette which understandably could be interpreted by the public as an indication of the values truly held.

I was quietly studying chapter 1 of the prophet Isaiah when from the holy text there leaped headlines from the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, Maariv, Yediot, as well as the major newspapers of the West: Your leaders have become plunderers, associates of thieves, lovers of bribery, pursuers of payoffs… (1:23)

The rest of the chapter, as they say, was commentary: How has she become like a harlot, the city of faithfulness. Once it was filled with justice and righteousness, but now - murderers…

One often turns to the Bible for solace and comfort, but in this instance, the only consolation was in the knowledge that we today did not invent corruption. Greed and selfishness are part of the human condition. This is precisely one of the major purposes of Judaism: to help man transcend his natural inclinations and to become a mentsch and not remain an animal.

That this is an ongoing struggle is evident from the endless string of scandals and sheer incompetence in Israeli public life. When 85% of the Israeli public believes its government is corrupt, it is time to ask: Have we become just another Levantine state on the shores of the Mediterranean, whose officials are always on the take, and where bribery and cronyism are an accepted way of life? Does Israel now embody the fear of the prophets that some day we would be truly become kechol haGoyim, “like all the nations,” instead of an ohr laGoyim, “a light to the nations”?

When I was much younger than today, my world was divided between the “children of light” and the “children of darkness.” I never doubted that my left-wing friends (i.e. everybody I knew) and I belonged to the former camp, and the troglodytes at the other end of the political spectrum to the children of darkness. Every once in a while an uncomfortable observation would intrude. I noticed, for instance, that the bumper sticker “Don’t blame me, I’m from Massachusetts” (the only state to go for anti-Vietnam War candidate George McGovern in 1972) did not guarantee more civil behavior on the roads. And a college friend from rural Illinois shared many stories of the basic decency of his small-town, politically conservative neighbors.

In a similar vein, Wilfred M. McClay, in the December 22 Wall Street Journal, relates his own youthful experience managing a political campaign for an energetic, liberal Democrat. After canvassing the district for weeks, the candidate remarked one day to a horrified McClay, “If I’m ever hit by a car, I sure as hell hope that the next guy to come along will be conservative.” Pressed for an explanation, he said, “Simple. A liberal will blame the unsafe conditions on the highways, blame budget cuts and keep driving. A conservative will get out of his car and help.”

My youthful equation of liberal politics and good character has long since been consigned to the dustbin. When the tax return of Al Gore Jr., multimillionaire avatar of the common man, revealed an annual charitable contribution of $250, I was not surprised. Every poor kollel student I know gives many times that to tzedaka in a year. Indeed I would bet dollars to doughnuts that the average charitable contributions of kollel students exceed those of our enlightened Supreme Court justices, despite the latter’s vastly greater wealth.

THOSE SUSPICIONS find confirmation in a recent book by Syracuse University Prof. Albert Brooks, Who Really Gives: America’s Charity Divide. Brooks set out expecting to confirm the “children of light” hypothesis, and came away after 10 years of research proving the opposite. For example, 24 of the 25 states with above average rates of charitable giving were red states in 2004. In states in which President George W. Bush won more than 60 percent of the vote in 2004, the average family gave 3.5% of its income to charity; in states where John Kerry took more than 60% of the vote, the comparable figure was 1.9%.

I read about the current “Oprah controversy” with a mixture of concern and curiosity.

For those who are not familiar with the story, the basic facts are as follows:

Oprah Winfrey has spent the last 5 years — and $40 million — building a school for elite 12-13 year old girls in South Africa. The academy is comprised of 28 buildings spread over 22 acres of land. Only 4% of the more than 3,500 girls who applied were accepted in the hope that this unique experience will enable the best and brightest of South Africa to one day become leaders and transform the country.

The largesse and vision of Ms. Winfrey is clearly worthy of admiration and yet, not all are happy. Apparently, some local leaders are upset that Ms. Winfrey chose to spend her money in South Africa and not here in America.

This past week’s Baltimore Jewish Times sported the second editorial, just since December, on the Neturei Karta. Notably, the editors chose “Haredi Hang-Ups” as the title, although the article was not about charedim, but about the tiny Neturei Karta group. As Jonathan Rosenblum wrote last month, “we as a community have no choice but to make clear to the broader public that the entire spectrum of chareidi Jewry spits out this tiny sect, numbering little more than 25 tortured souls.” The BJT makes it clear that we have not yet succeeded.

Why call this an op-ed about “Haredi” Hang-Ups when it’s about the Neturei Karta? It is an unfortunate fact that 25 people are enough to tar a much larger group. Violent anti-globalization protesters are enough to provoke anti-riot police, and (further) diminish public opinion of the “anti-globalization” movement. A few crazed and violent bombers are, similarly, enough to tar the anti-abortion movement. So while there are many cases where the stereotypes of charedim are so outlandish as to reflect pre-existing media bias, this isn’t one of those times. Indeed, editor Neil Rubin was careful to point out that “these Haredim –– sometimes known as ‘ultra-Orthodox Jews’ –– are a minority within the Haredi community,” and that “Haredi groups such as Agudath Israel, the Satmar and Edah Charedis strongly condemned the Neturei Karta for even showing up at this den of anti-Semitic iniquity [the Holocaust Revisionism/Denial conference in Teheran].”

So we cannot cry bias, and claim that it is the media’s responsibility to divorce the Neturei Karta from charedi Judaism. It is not their responsibility, but ours. So the question then becomes, how do we make clear that Neturei Karta, due to its abandonment of the guidance of Chochmei Yisrael [Torah Sages], cannot be termed a “charedi” group at all?

We will all confront the shidduchim process at least once in life as participants, and hopefully again as parents of those “in shidduchim.” So it was no surprise that a recent column on the “Singles Crisis” elicited an unusually large number of responses. Most of those who wrote disagreed with my focus on demographics, and pointed to other societal factors that have made shidduchim such a harrowing experience. At least some of our pain, they argue, is self-inflicted.

Already a half century ago, the Chazon Ish felt that the most important question was too often left out of shidduchim investigations. Someone once came to the Chazon Ish to sing the praises of a particular shidduch that had been proposed for his daughter. The young man in question was considered an outstanding learner and came from a distinguished and well-to-do family. “I couldn’t ask for anything better,” the man told the Chazon Ish, and asked for his blessing that the shidduch proceed successfully.

But the Chazon Ish still had one question: “Did you ask if he would make a good husband? If that quality is lacking, it is not a good match, no matter how many other positive qualities he possesses.” (As related by Rabbi Shlomo Lorincz in his memoirs B’Mechitzasam.)

PEOPLE START SHIDDUCHIM WITH A CHECKLIST, and they are makpid on every item on that checklist kala k’b'chamurah. If the girl has the wrong color hair or the boy’s maternal grandmother the wrong ethnicity, there is nothing more to talk about. Moreover, those checklists tend to be societally generated rather than tailored to the needs of the particular individual seeking a life partner. We worry not just about finding someone with whom our children will be happy, but about what the neighbors will say, or the boy’s friends in yeshiva.

Asked about just how stringent one should be in certain areas, Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky zt”l would often apply the same formula. “Men darf zein normahl (One has to be….normal!)” I imagine that his conception of normality was deeply influenced by the Slobodka mussar school’s conception of gadlus ha-adam – the greatness of Man. Man’s instincts are not all dark urges. Some are tools for the celebration of a wonderful life Hashem mapped out for us; the Torah Jew can rely on those instincts to keep in check the otherwise limitless demands of greater precision in the performance of mitzvos.

One hopes that the recent Bais Yaakov edicts will not have a spillover effect upon American shores, further eroding the legacy of Rav Yaakov that has come under increased attack. It is not a good bet, however. Like fashion trends moving from Paris to New York, there is a tendency in Torah matters (lehavdil) for Bene Brak to call the shots even when they do not intend to.

This is not the way it always was. Some people think that it is one of the most unhealthy developments in Torah life in our times. While Rav Moshe and Rav Yaakov were both alive, American haredim turned primarily to them for leadership. People did not regard this as a slight to Torah luminaries in Israel. Rather, they recognized that not only did Torah leaders in America have a better grasp of local realities, but that HKBH Himself had different plans for, and different expectations of, communities in Israel and America. Forcing square pegs into round spiritual holes was not going to get people very far.

The existence of different Torah communities, each different and each legitimate, is perhaps adumbrated by the Gemara Sanhedrin 97A. Speaking of the prelude to the messianic age, the Gemara invokes Yeshaya: “The truth will be absent (nederes).” The Gemara proceeds to explain that truth will form different groups, or flocks (adarim), and go off on their own.

20 bTevet

R. Avraham Ibn Ezra complained in a poem (all translations below are mine, SLS):

“If I were a candle maker, the sun would never leave the sky.
If I were a shroud maker, not a single person would die.”

He concluded his poem in resignation:

(1) Charles Hall and Lawrence Kaplan asked in response to my early post “A Torah Revolution in Need of Troops” whether Ayelet HaShachar would accept volunteers from the national religious world to learn by phone with non-religious Israelis. The answer is yes, and they will even give priority to volunteers from that community in matching with new study partners.

The one condition is that any mentor has to be someone who can convey the feeling that the Torah has within it the power to transform one’s life and home. They must have a certain passion — though that passion need not be outwardly expressed. There is no good way to measure passion for Torah, but a minimal requirement of both chareidi and non-chareidi volunteers is that they not have a TV in their home and do not allow their children Internet access. While these may be very rough measures of the sanctity of a particular home, it is important to have some criteria. Unlike other Ayelet HaShachar programs in which those employed work with constant contact and supervision, once the telephone pairing is made, there is little opportunity for supervision, and so there must be criteria for who can become a mentor (there is no blanket acceptance of every chareidi volunteer who contacts the organization either).

(2) I still have not fully investigated the rabbinic edict against some of the continuing education courses offered by the Bais Yaakov seminaries in Israel, either to assess the anticipated impact or the reasons behind the ban. But one thing is for sure, the edict will do little to lessen the trend towards young women obtaining some form of post-high school advanced training. The reason is simple: the economic situation of the chareidi community. At present, that economy is predicated on the assumption that the wife will contribute significantly to the family’s total budget. And there are simply too few jobs within the community that are sufficiently remunerative that do not require some form of academic training. If anything, one of the unintended consequences of the ban may be to drive young women from the two-year post-high school programs in the Bais Yaakov Seminary. Though those programs are styled as teacher-training programs, the actual percentage of graduates who obtain teaching jobs in the main population centers is relatively small. The seminaries are also meant to serve as a protective environment. In recognition of these facts, the seminaries have in recent years begun offering training is fields like computers and accounting. If they can no longer do so (a big if at this point), there will inevitably spring up new training programs catering to the chareidi population in these fields. The big blow, then, would be to the seminaries.

(3) Who won the El Al showdown continues to be a subject of dispute. The front-page of yesterday’s English HaModia claimed an impressive victory for the unified stand of the chareidi community. Yated’s response has been relatively muted — no triumphant editorials. Meanwhile articles in Globes (Israel’s leading economic newspaper) and Maariv claimed a victoryfor El Al. According to the latter, El Al made no commitment, in the event of future Shabbos flights, to waive the cancellation fee for chareidi travellers who cancel their tickets with El Al. The only disincentive to El Al flying again on Shabbos (other than the subsequent loss of chareidi business) is that it may become liable to make a contribution to a fund to supplying medicines not covered by Israel’s health basket. And even that is not certain. Apparently the contribution would be made by wealthy chareidi businessmen from New York, who would then somehow have a right to sue El Al for the amount donated.

Saddam Hussein’s death by hanging came too late to provide much satisfaction - too late for the hundreds of thousands of human beings killed on his orders - hundreds at his own hands. The taking of his miserable life can neither bring back the lives he so callously snuffed out nor compensate for them.

Still, there was rejoicing at the sight of Saddam on the gallows, though personally I would have been far happier had he fallen into one of the meat grinders into which he, and his equally sadistic sons Uday and Qusai, dropped so many of his subjects.

My satisfaction has nothing to do with bloodlust. I would not have been one of the thousands of Iraqis vying for the post of Saddam’s executioner. Rather it derives from being witness to the turning of the wheels of Divine Justice. The Midrash states that the Divine throne only became firmly established in the world when the Jewish people sang God’s praises at the Sea. Their joyous song was a consequence of watching the precision with which the suffering of each drowning Egyptian was meted out: The Egyptians either died instantaneously or slowly and painfully, according to the degree with which they had afflicted the Jews in Egypt.

Divine vengeance, then, is the righting of an imbalance in the world, and refers equally to the punishment of the wicked and the reward of the righteous. When we merit witnessing the enactment of justice, our belief that there is both Justice and a Judge is strengthened.

With the resurfacing of public anti-Semitism in much of the world, how careful do we have to be in America to avoid the old charge of dual loyalty? A week ago, that question became a very real one for me, but more of that later.

We tend to underestimate the difficulty of what Yaakov asked Yosef to do in guaranteeing that he, Yaakov, would be buried in Israel. Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik z”l once illuminated the difficulty of Yaakov’s request with a bit of modern history:

Edmund de Rothschild died during Israel’s War of Independence, and could therefore not be buried there, as he had wished. After the war, his family sought to move his remains to the new State. The family was puzzled by the red tape they encountered. Probing further, they discovered that Charles de Gaulle himself was behind it. They contacted him. He told them, “I always regarded your father as a Frenchman first. A Frenchman is born in France, dies in France, and is buried in France.” He gave permission for the reburial, but was cool to the family thereafter.

Yosef was a foreigner in a xenophobic country, who nonetheless tenaciously held power. (Many centuries later, Rav Shmuel HaNagid would rise to a similar position in medieval Spain. A few days ago, the ninth of Teves, was the yahrzeit of his son and successor, who was murdered by a mob which had had enough of a foreigner wielding such power.) Insisting that his father not be buried in Egypt would be seen by some as politically incorrect, and by others as treachery.