By Yaakov Menken, on March 31st, 2007 Fighting web comment spam continues to be a major issue with popular blogs. We installed the ‘akismet’ tool for WordPress on January 2, 2006, and by July 14 it had trapped over 10,000 spams. Today? Over 80,000 trapped spams, and barely a dozen false positives. If not for Akismet, comments would be almost impossible to maintain.
We use a site-recommender tool for our “Spread the Word” links, and on Friday we discovered (the hard way, of course) that it, too, could be misused by an innovative spammer. The spammer included links to other sites in the “message” segment. So I wrote a short code snippet that traps links to sites (href) and images (img) and included it in our code.
I then forwarded it to the creators of the SiteRecommender. Tonight’s email included a note back from them that they’ve incorporated my code and issued a version upgrade of the recommender.
Isn’t Open Source great? Of course it is — the Talmud was the first Open Source document. You knew there was a Jewish hook in here somewhere…
By Avi Shafran, on March 30th, 2007 The half-ton squid caught in waters south of New Zealand in February – 33 feet long and weighing 1089 pounds – isn’t kosher, but it can still serve as food for Jewish thought.
Such sea-creatures – this one a representative of the species Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni – were long thought to be the products of overactive imaginations.
Until 1873, there were only claims, but no hard evidence, that monstrously-sized squids existed. That year, though, a fisherman off the coast of Newfoundland struck a large sea-creature with a hook and then hacked off one of its tentacles. The appendage was later measured to be nineteen feet long. Over subsequent decades, intact carcasses of such giant squids (a smaller species than the “colossal squid” of the recent catch) were discovered washed ashore on various beaches. Thus ended the centuries over which the animal was assumed to be fictional.
Only a few years earlier, though, Arthur Mangin, a celebrated French zoologist, dismissed sailors’ claims that they had seen the animal, urging that:
“the wise, and especially the man of science, not admit into the catalogue those stories which mention extraordinary creatures… the existence of which would be… a contradiction of the great laws of harmony … Read More >>
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on March 30th, 2007 A sefer I had not turned to till this year yielded one of the most delectable thoughts on the Hagaddah I’ve seen this season. I happily share it with our readers.
The Baal HaHagaddah makes a point of underscoring the relationship between Moshe’s mateh (staff) – with which he would later bring the Ten Plagues – and the osos, the signs earlier performed for Paroh.
“As in the days when you left the land of Egypt I will show it wonders (Micha 7:15).” This verse establishes an identity between the events of the original Exodus and those of the final redemption. The rest is a translation of the words of the author:
We were privileged in our times to great salvation – to the Six Day War, and to the very establishment of the State, after we were beaten down to dust to be trampled by animals in the form of humans. These were just the osos preceding the mofsim [much greater] wonders that will follow, doubling and tripling their impact, just as the water turning to blood before Paroh served as …a sign that all the waters of Egypt would [later] turn to blood. Fortunate is the person who … Read More >>
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on March 30th, 2007 The battle between fans of hand shmurah and machine continues unabated, having changed very little since the opening rounds in the early nineteenth century. Some people point to the halachic difficulty in incorporating kavanah lishmah into a mechanized operation; others are equally passionate in pointing out the many opportunities for real kashrus problems to arise in the manual baking of matzos. No one is going to end this dispute in the near future.
Solutions to some of the kashrus problems have been proposed over the years, and were ignored because of the profit motive. Mishpacha recently reported an “innovation” that many consumers always assumed: that the workers be observant, motivated Jews who had an interest in insuring a product made to the highest standards, which is part of the reason that people are paying small fortunes for their matzah. In fact, many of the American bakeries until recently employed non-observant immigrant laborers who had to be browbeaten into compliance with strange regulations they had no interest – other than keeping their jobs – in complying with. Meanwhile, Lakewood residents were warned today that their might be a supply shortfall, and that the prudent would buy matzos … Read More >>
By Eytan Kobre, on March 28th, 2007 As the title indicates, this will be (or, given my track record, might be) the first of several posts focusing on recent developments in the Conservative movement. I therefore want to preface these posts by pointing out something interesting.
When, in the past, this site has featured posts on the goings-on in the heterodox denominational world, some commenters have criticized the posters for excessive negativity, fighting irrelevant, old battles, triumphalism, etc.
How interesting, then: In the several months since Conservatism’s Committee on Law and Standards issued its long-awaited ruling on homosexual ordination and ceremonies, which was the biggest news in that movement in a long time and which frummies like us would have been expected to use as a cudgel with which to bash that movement, and the sundry other Judaisms for good measure, the number of C-C posts on the topic has been precisely . . . zero.
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on March 28th, 2007 A recent stint as a scholar-in-residence in Baltimore drove home a point that I first learned the hard way decades ago. Shteibelization is not a panacea for unhappy shul-goers.
I had not been out of Kollel long enough to have lost my exuberant brashness, so the opportunity many years ago to debate Rabbi Maurice Lamm, then the rabbi of Beverly Hills’ Beth Jacob Congregation seemed inviting enough. The topic was shteibelization – the trend to bolt the larger shuls and join much smaller places of worship where everyone knew everyone else, and each individual had a much better chance of being needed and appreciated. This was where the “frum” community was headed, leaving the cathedral synagogues to the impious modernists. Clearly, G-d was on my side, and I would blow away my far more experienced opponent.
G-d chose otherwise. While I did not do so poorly, I walked out definitely bloodied. Rabbi Lamm deftly maneuvered me into a corner, and had me concede both the drawbacks of shteibelization and the abiding advantages of membership in a very large congregation such as Beth Jacob. The drawbacks (which I would have realized had I not been so … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on March 25th, 2007 Daniel Gordis is perhaps the most eloquent writer from a traditional Zionist perspective in English today. Yet even he admits in a recent essay, “A Place Called Hope” , that Zionism has demonstrably failed to deliver on either of its two great promises: the first that a Jewish state would provide increased security for Jews; the second that it would result in the normalization of the Jewish people.
With respect to security, only a UN Security Council cease-fire resolution brought a cessation of 34 days of Hizbullah shelling of Israel’s North last summer, after the IDF failed to do so.
Soon over half the world’s Jewish children may well find themselves in “the crosshairs of a nuclear Iran.” Bottom line: “It is now more dangerous to be a Jew in Israel than any other place in the world.” Still worse, Israel’s existence today makes life more dangerous for Jews around the world.
Nor is Gordis more sanguine with respect to normalization. As a journalist covering the Dreyfus trial, Theodor Herzl concluded that Jews could never be assimilated as individuals in European society. But he thought that a Jewish state could assimilate among the nations of the world.
That … Read More >>
By Guest Contributor, on March 23rd, 2007 by Rabbi Harvey Belovski
Much has been written about the predicament of mature singles in our communities, their frustration, sense of helplessness and feeling of exclusion from mainstream Jewish life. However, the religious fallout of long-term single-hood is less frequently addressed: singles commonly suffer from a lack of inspiration and religious burn-out. I would like to address one aspect of this troublesome phenomenon.
Many men and women use Shabbosos as opportunities to attend singles’ events geared to helping them find their life partner. These occasions are often professionally run and claim a good number of successes. While in principle they are a ‘good thing’, singles who attend them regularly are in danger of turning Shabbos into a means, rather than an end.
The purpose of Shabbos is no more than Shabbos itself: affirming one’s belief that God created the universe and building a joyful relationship with Him through the observance of the Shabbos laws. This tremendous experience is an end in itself, yet for many on the singles circuit, Shabbos has become a means to finding a mate, no longer an opportunity for spiritual enrichment. Shabbos is the cornerstone of Jewish observance and of the Jew’s rapport … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on March 23rd, 2007 Over the course of his distinguished military career, it is unlikely that General Peter Pace ever encountered a barrage as unrelenting as the one lately lobbed by the media and punditsphere after he expressed his personal feelings about the practice of homosexuality. The offensive (in both the word’s senses) weapons aimed at him were only words, but they were duly destructive all the same.
What General Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, dared to voice was his conviction that homosexual acts – not inclination, not orientation – are immoral. Needless to say, anyone can choose to disagree; the general was opining, not seeking to impose his views on others. But some who disagree with him seem to feel that his point of view simply has no place in civilized discourse. That should trouble us all.
The volleys lobbed at General Pace included widespread characterizations of his remarks as evidence of odious prejudice. The New York Times called the general’s beliefs “bigoted” and averred that he was “wrong in every way, and out of step.” The New York Daily News headline about the matter read, simply: “General Bigot”.
Similarly, several years ago, The … Read More >>
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on March 22nd, 2007 Several readers of my recent post on interfaith conversations raised the issue of reciprocity. If we find that people are ready to listen to us when we share our Torah values and perspectives, is it not inevitable that they will want to do the same, and invite us in to their religious lives? For many if not most people, such religious voyeurism would run afoul of accepted halachic norms. There would be no good choices. Accepting the invitation for reciprocity would be unacceptable; declining it would appear rude, small-minded, and arrogant.
There is a third way. We politely explain that we have halachic barriers that forbid us any amount of involvement with other religious belief systems. My experience – at least with people who take their own religions seriously – is that it works.
Isn’t this infuriatingly self-centered for a religion? What do we think we have – a monopoly on the truth?
Actually, we are in good company. They all make the same claim. Every revealed religion claims to be, in some form or another, the only real act in town. Which is why other people are not so … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on March 22nd, 2007 Regular readers of this column know that there are fewer bigger believers than I in the power of warmth and positive reinforcement to help our children realize their full potential. That does not mean, however, that constant praise is the way to do so. Last week, we discussed why all praise is not equal – i.e., praising children for effort yields very different results from praising them for their native intelligence. This week we will discuss the dangers of too much praise. (Again we are drawing on the research summarized in a February 19 New York Magazine article entitled “How Not to Talk to Your Kids.”)
The publication of Nathaniel Braden’s The Psychology of Self-Esteem in 1969 ushered in the self-esteem movement in the United States. Self-esteem was proclaimed the key to every aspect of life. The precepts of the movement dovetailed nicely with the needs of parents with increasingly little time to spend with their children. Parents convinced themselves that they could compensate for their absence with heavy doses of generalized praise of the “you’re the greatest” variety.
Recent studies, however – some by … Read More >>
By Shira Schmidt, on March 22nd, 2007 3 bNissan
I heard this question this week at all-day conference at Bar Ilan University on “Tefillat Nashim” – issues realted to women’s prayer. There were over a dozen lectures and workshops, many of them discussing the history and halakha of the relationship of women to prayer and how this changed over the centuries. For example, several lecturers cited material that seems to show that centuries ago European Jewish women were the sondaks or godmothers at the brit mila circumcision ceremonies held in synagogues,but that the Maharam of Rotenberg ruled to discontinue this practice this because of the problems arising in mixing men and women. Others discussed how synagogue architecture and design reflect how women have sometimes been less welcomed and other times more welcomed in public prayer as there were fluctuations in the halakha and planning of women’s sections, Ezrat nashim. During the question period, one woman stood up and asked, “Why do the men hate us so much?” I was taken aback. It seems to me that the main reason for separating men and women in prayer is that the men like women so much!
I … Read More >>
By Dovid Gottlieb, on March 21st, 2007 In my previous Cross-Currents post I made reference to the frightening and tragic “culture of death” that has engulfed large parts of the Palestinian population. In the comments section, a number of contributors went back and forth about the accuracy and fairness of this description (starting with #4).
As I read some of these comments I must admit that I found it hard to believe that anyone, regardless of background or affiliation, could deny this reality. One would have to be either willfully blind or dishonest not to acknowledge what is patently obvious.
As I noted in the original piece, the examples of this phenomenon – especially when surveying the broader world of radical Islam – are in fact too numerous to catalogue. But I am particularly struck by the depraved attitude that many Palestinian and Arab parents have taken towards the welfare of their children. This was what I was alluding to in my reference to the story of Mariam Farhat.
Particularly relevant – albeit unsurprising – is the recent transcript from MEMRI of the interview on Al-Aqsa TV (the Hamas channel) of two small children of a suicide bomber. If this is what they … Read More >>
By Yaakov Menken, on March 20th, 2007 The folks at Synagogue 3000 are at it again. Last year, Pastor Rick Warren was invited to LA’s Sinai Temple following a “ground-breaking meeting with Synagogue 3000.” This year, the headline says it all…
JEWISH WORSHIP LEADER CRAIG TAUBMAN BRINGS MEGA-CHURCH STYLE PRAYER EXPERIENCES TO ATLANTA IN BID TO INVIGORATE SYNAGOGUE LIFE: Synagogue 3000’s Atlanta Initiative presents composer/recording artist Taubman and local clergy leading services in aim to pack the pews March 23rd and 24th 2007
In order to “invigorate” synagogue life, Synagogue 3000 tells us, we should turn to churches. What a revolutionary idea! Except, of course, that it isn’t new at all. Nearly 200 years ago, a new synagogue was built in Seesen Germany. The founders decided that prayer in most synagogues was “unseemly” by comparison with that in churches, and therefore they revised the service “in the direction of beautifying it and rendering it more orderly.” The new synagogue featured German-language songs and prayers, ecclesiastical robes, a mixed choir, and an organ — all of which were common to German Protestant churches and all of which were previously foreign to Jewish congregations. And thus the Reform movement was born.
When Synagogue 3000 was trading clergy between Sinai Temple … Read More >>
By Yaakov Menken, on March 19th, 2007 A week ago, Agudath Israel proudly announced that Scholastic Library Publishing was recalling and reprinting an educational book for middle-grade children. “Enchantment of the World” is a series on “a country’s history, people and languages, economy, government, culture, natural resources, climate, religions, and much more.” Its volume on Israel, however, contained this passage: “But some ultra-Orthodox Jews want to limit the definition of who actually qualifies [for automatic citizenship as a Jew, under the country’s 'Law of Return']. They believe that Reform and Conservative Jews are not really Jews at all because they are not strict in their observance of all the religious laws.” As the Agudah press release put it:
In a straightforward letter to Scholastic, Agudath Israel director of public affairs [and Cross-Currents writer] Rabbi Avi Shafran characterized the contention that Orthodox Jews reject other Jews’ Jewishness because of their less-strict level, or even complete lack, of observance as “utterly untrue.”
“This, I am sure you realize, is no minor matter,” Rabbi Shafran wrote. “Texts like ‘Enchantment of the World’ are not only expected to be accurate but help mold attitudes in young minds. The assertion that Orthodox Jews somehow question the Jewishness of other Jews … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on March 17th, 2007 While writing last week’s column on “progressive” Jewish intellectuals who call openly for the destruction of the Israel, a thought crossed my mind (hopefully not for the first time): Why am I writing in Yated Ne’eman as if being anti-Israel were the greatest possible betrayal of one’s Jewishness? After all, wasn’t Agudath Israel once labeled an “anti-Zionist” party? And did not most gedolei Yisrael oppose the creation of a non-Torah state in Eretz Yisrael?
In his Ba’ayot Hazeman, which remains the classic exposition of the halachic parameters of participation in the Israeli government, Rav Reuven Grozovsky, zt”l, begins by describing the baseline position that “participation in the government is forbidden.” And even if various practical considerations necessitate participation, he writes, participation remains “in the nature of a transgression for the sake of Heaven,” [and] must be done without giving more respect to [anti-Torah leaders] than necessary.”
Many of the Jewish “progressives” quoted in Alvin Rosenfeld’s “‘Progressive’ Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism” claim that Israel represents a betrayal of Jewish values. And the chareidi world also frequently criticizes the state for its many deviations from Torah values. So why did I shower contempt on the “progressives,” as if it quoting their … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on March 16th, 2007 Long ago the prophet foretold, “Your ruiners and destroyers will go out from you” (Yeshaya 49:14). In recent years, that prophecy has been most frequently fulfilled by Jewish intellectuals and professors.
The 1961 Commentary symposium,”Jewishness and the Younger Intellectuals,” is a good starting point for a consideration of this trend. In those days, the still young state of Israel had captured the imagination not only of the vast majority of America’s Jews, but of much of the Western world. The story of the creation of a Jewish national state, against all odds, so soon after the Holocaust was the stuff of Hollywood.
Yet even at that early date, the overwhelming majority of the prominent younger intellectuals who contributed to the Commentary symposium professed little interest in Israel. If they confessed to rooting for Israel in its wars, they did so with more than a measure of embarrassment. More commonly, however, they fretted about the fledgling state’s bellicosity, its mistreatment of Arabs.
But even their criticisms were muted. Their lack of interest in Israel paralleled a similar lack of interest in their own Judaism. One articulate contributor compared lapsed Catholics to her fellow Jews who observe nothing of Jewish religion. The … Read More >>
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on March 16th, 2007 R’ Meir Soloveichik, always a source of food for thought, offers some gourmet nibbles in the current issue of Commentary (subscription only; not online). In what is ostensibly a book review, Soloveitchik offers some plain and compelling talk about interreligious dialogue, an expose of the non-orthodox thought of some nominally Orthodox figures, and yet another glimpse into the wisdom of his grandfather’s brother. zt”l.
The book is the work of Maria Johnson, an Oxford-trained Catholic theologian at University of Scranton, who becomes close with some of the fervently Orthodox families in her neighborhood. Strangers and Neighbors: What I Have Learned About Christianity by Living Among Orthodox Jews represents to Soloveichik a better alternative to two older views on the encounter of Judaism with other faiths.
One of these demands that Christians elide parts of their belief and Scripture that grate on the sensitivities of others. In response to the 2003 Pontifical Biblical Commission (headed by Cardinal Ratziger, since elevated to the papacy), Rabbi James Rudin of the American Jewish Committee suggested that Christians should declare that “the messiah’s identity remains unknown, and Jesus, whom Christians believe to be the messiah, is not waiting at the end of days … Read More >>
By Yaakov Menken, on March 15th, 2007 Today’s mail included a cylindrical package from the Forward. In addition to a commemorative poster, said package contained the following “Dear Friends” invitation to advertise in their upcoming commemorative issue:
As you are undoubtedly aware, the Forward is a legendary name in journalism and a revered institution in American Jewish life. [Frankly, I wasn't aware that the Forward was revered, but that's not what prompted this post. Project Genesis should learn to write PR materials from these people. --YM] Launched as a Yiddish-language daily on April 22, 1897, the Forward helped safeguard the “American Dream” of Jewish immigrants for generations. The paper has been a force in world Jewry ever since.
We are proud of our legacy and we invite you to help us celebrate this significant occasion. Please consider placing an ad — either commercial or congratulatory — in a commemorative issue to be published on April 6, 2007. We are offering a substantially discounted rate for participating in this special issue.
I suspect that by this point, the writers of the above letter lost about 90% of their advertisers. If you’re commemorating a launch on April 22, then why are you doing it on April 6? True, it’s now … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on March 15th, 2007 “Nothing can stand before the ratzon (will),” is a saying our children (or at least our sons) are likely to hear many times in the course of their education. That piece of wisdom is neither rabbinic in origin nor is it literally true. Yet a number of recent studies in educational psychology demonstrate that it contains a crucial educational message.
A February 14 piece in New York Magazine, “How Not to Talk to Your Kids” by Po Bronson, describes the work of Stanford professor Carol Dweck, who has spent the last ten years investigating the impact of different educational messages on children. Dweck and her colleague Lisa Blackwell tried various educational interventions with 700 low-achieving minority students. Each group was given an eight-session course on study habits. But one group also received a 50 minute unit built around the theme that intelligence is not innate, and the brain is a muscle – the more one uses it the stronger it becomes.
Teachers in the school were not told which students were in which group, but they had no trouble picking out those who had been taught that intelligence can be developed. Their grades and study habits showed significant … Read More >>
|
|
