By Avi Shafran, on June 29th, 2007 In the end, despite pleas to spare Judaism’s holiest city the shame of a spectacle celebrating the rejection of Judaism’s moral code, the “Gay Pride” parade took place as planned in Jerusalem.
Had hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Jews from Jerusalem and across the country flowed into the Holy City’s streets, the event — which drew a mere 2000 participants — would have been quickly overwhelmed. The 7000 policemen assigned to keep order would not have had an easy time.
The Orthodox numbers, readiness and sense of outrage were certainly there. Tel Aviv has regularly played sponsor to such spectacles mocking the Torah, but Jerusalem is the focal point of Jewish prayers, and its population is heavily Orthodox to boot. Indeed, the Holy City was purposefully targeted by the parade organizers in order to assert their belief that no place on earth should be free from the promotion of licentiousness. [Well, almost no place; last year, one of the event’s organizers was asked by a reporter why the parade would not enter Christian or Muslim areas of the city and explained “We don’t want to offend them.”]
So, in the face of such an unmistakable provocation, all it would … Read More >>
By Emanuel Feldman, on June 28th, 2007 If a Jewish Rip Van Winkle (Rip van Finkle?) were to awaken today and read the papers, he would wonder if he had ever really been asleep. Names that were in the headlines when he dozed off years ago — Peres, Olmert, Barak — are still in the headlines. Despite their many errors and miscalculations, they remain in power. Nothing has changed.
Not so in other countries. In England, politicians who make serious mistakes resign from office. In the US, if the mistake is really bad, they apologize and go into re-hab. In Japan, they commit harakiri.
We are not advocating the Japanese way of expressing regret, but the British have a long history of parliamentary government, and their example should be of some guidance. If you fail in government, you resign and go home. But when Israeli politicians fail, they blame not themselves but everyone else around them, and — unfailingly — they manage to cling to office. Ours is a tradition of non-accountability. Our leaders never admit mistakes. They never apologize.
Instead, they run for office again, get elected again, or get appointed to high office. Being an Israeli politician means never having to say you’re sorry.
Despite their major misjudgments and … Read More >>
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on June 28th, 2007 The savagery and brutality of the Hamas takeover of Gaza took some of us by surprise. We like to believe that even our bitter enemies are still human, and that in time, those benighted souls will be struck by the rays of enlightenment, and come to think like you and I. Alas, we are sometimes wrong.
Decades ago, Nobel laureate V S Naipaul cautioned the West about its naiveté in believing that all people were essentially the same. He spoke about cultures so different – inferior is what he was really driving at – that they did not sit on the same continuum as those that we value. Parts of the Arab world particularly provoked his ire. Since Edward Said despised him, Naipaul could not have been toם far off. (His analysis was adumbrated by the Rambam. In the Moreh, the Rambam speaks of beings who are called “demons” by Chazal. He explains that they have the intellectual ability of humans, but live completely outside the norms of civilization. They have the destructiveness of dangerous animals, and the human capacity of planning and strategizing their evil. Hence, they are fully demonic.)
Some … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on June 27th, 2007 Last week we spoke about the steps we can take to avoid becoming prisoners of our bodies as we grow older. This week I’d like to examine the bright side of the inevitable physical decline that goes with age.
I’m still young enough to remember looking at older people — i.e., anyone over thirty — with a certain amount of pity, and imagining that they must be envious of my relative youth. Yet as I’ve reached each one of those milestones that I could only think about with dread when I was twenty, I’ve found myself reflecting on the satisfactions of advancing years rather than lamenting my lost youth.
Youth, it must be granted, has its particular charm: the sense of boundless potential. “The charm and insolence of youth is that it is everything in potentiality and nothing in actuality,” wrote the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset. It is characteristic of young people to hesitate in the face of the seemingly infinite possibilities before them; they know that walking through any door will foreclose others and signal the end of their infinite potential.
Far more satisfying than preserving that sense of infinite possibility, however, is having made some … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on June 26th, 2007 A recent posting “Who is Really to Blame?” attracted a lot of comment, much of it concerning the late Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren and his actions in the Langer case. Before responding to those comments I wanted to reexamine the case, including listening to the shiur of Dr. Aaron Rakefet on the case. I have now done so.
After doing so, I regret describing Langer’s first husband, a Polish convert, as a shomer Torah u’mitzvos. I wouldn’t bet my last dollar on that proposition. On the other hand, I found no reason to prefer the psak of Rabbi Goren to that of at least four batei din that considered the mamzerus of the Langer brother and sister and/or Borokovsky’s status as a Jew, and whose members included some of the greatest poskim of the generation, including Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv.
In his lecture, for instance, Rakefet triumphantly holds aloft the report of a Tel Aviv social worker in which the social worker describes Borokovsky as a “goy,” and claims that this report is credible because the social worker was masiach lefi tumo. To me that makes no sense. Whether he was a “goy” or not is a halachic … Read More >>
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on June 24th, 2007 If you think you are having trouble with Daf Yomi these days, read what happened when both Henry VIII and the Pope tried to support their positions with citations from rabbinic treatment of yibum. Which shows, I suppose, that neither Neturei Karta nor the far-left Orthodox invented the art of mangling Torah sources. (What follows is excerpted from a weekly mailing by the Mir- and Cambridge-trained, often very independent-thinking British rabbi and educator, Rabbi Jeremy Rosen.)
Marriages between royal families were matters of alliances and balance of power! Katharine of Aragon was the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, the nasty fanatics who expelled the Jews. At the age of three, she was betrothed to Prince Arthur, the elder son of Henry VII of England. He became king after a long, divisive Civil War and needed to consolidate his position in a world dominated, at the time, by Spain. In 1501, shortly before her sixteenth birthday, Katharine married Arthur. But after less than six months he died. Henry needed to keep the alliance alive. So Katharine was then betrothed to Arthur’s younger brother, Prince Henry. When he became king in 1509, at the age … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on June 22nd, 2007 Much in our world desecrates the name of G-d – in Hebrew, that is called “chilul Hashem.” Whether murder and mayhem in the name of religion or misbehavior on the part of religious individuals, actions that push holiness away from a world that so direly needs it are considered by Judaism to constitute a singular sin.
Recently, though, a quite literal desecration of G-d’s name unexpectedly came to my attention. A cataloger at a law school library, Mrs. Elisheva Schwartz, called with a disturbing discovery. She had come across an online vendor seeking to make a few dollars off the marketing of clothing and kitsch bearing the holiest Hebrew name of G-d.
The Tetragrammaton, to use its Greek appellation, is a four-character word (tetra means four; grammat, letter) that Judaism considers so holy it is forbidden today to pronounce or ever to treat in anything but a deeply honorable manner. According to Jewish law, a piece of parchment, paper, cloth or pottery bearing the Name must be carefully preserved or solemnly buried. Religious Jews refer to the word simply as “the specified Name” and when it occurs in the Torah reading or prayer service, it is not … Read More >>
By Eytan Kobre, on June 21st, 2007 How does one cope with the pain, sitting here in New York, while at this moment, thousands of miles away, our beautifully pure, and purely beautiful, Yerushalayim is being traumatized?
Yerushalayim, whose streets and alleyways — including Rechov HaMelech Dovid – have known the footsteps of prophets, kings, high priests, countless millions of spiritual heroes, known and unknown.
Yerushalayim, within whose embrace sits ge’on uzeinu, Rav Yosef Sholom Elyashiv, shlit”a, who, at this moment, is undoubtedly sitting and singing a melody over a sefer as he has for the last eighty uninterrupted years of toil in Torah, and who tends a flock of thousands and thousands of toilers in Torah and their families.
Could it really be that within those same boundaries unfolds a spectacle in which others — Jews! — exalt into a parade, a philosophy, a movement . . . what? What is it they pay homage to thus? What great truth, what powerful ideal must lie thereunder? At root, under the layers of repackaging and posturing, only the pettiest and basest of fleeting, animalistic urges.
But then, seeking some slight comfort from the pain, I recall a wonderful article by a rebbe of mine, Rav Yechiel Perr, entitled Experiences in … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on June 20th, 2007 Many years ago, my rosh yeshiva remarked of avid joggers: They are running in order to live longer. But they have no idea what they are living for.
In the secular world, we see many people who act as if swallowing sufficient Omega-3, eating a high fiber diet, and consuming lots of brightly colored vegetables will help them live forever.
Devoting all one’s energy to the Sisyphusean quest for immortality is draining.
That’s why the people one meets in health food stores tend to be a grim-looking lot, wrinkled and prunish in appearance. The guy slicing pastrami in the local deli is much more likely to sport a beaming countenance.
Our world, on the other hand, too often suffers from the opposite malady: an apparent unconcern with all matters pertaining to health. Health and exercise, if they are treated at all, are invariably consigned to the women’s pages of our magazines. Wives are expected to still fit into their wedding gowns, no matter how many children they have had, even as their husbands proudly sport another inch around the waist for each child.
I once asked a member of a large charedi community, “Why is everybody here so … Read More >>
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on June 20th, 2007 Let it be a matter of record. Responsible leadership took steps to prevent violence and chilul Hashem (desecration of G-d’s Name) associated with the protests of Thursday’s scheduled Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem. Degel HaTorah told yeshiva students not to take part in the protests. Their contribution should be through prayer and Torah study in the beis medrash. One can only wish that this attitude were adopted by all sectors of the community.
If the Supreme Court does not intervene on Wednesday, the eyes of much of the world will be riveted on the city holy to three monotheistic faiths. The organizers of the parade have long made it clear why they want a parade specifically in Jerusalem. Their march is a declaration that they have triumphed over the old strictures and an archaic morality. The values of personal autonomy and choice, the celebration of alternative sexualities and alternative lifestyles have supplanted outmoded thinking based on myth and superstition. This can be countered only by reminding the world of the dignity and humanity of the world of religion, not by a show of force. The antidote to the preachers of … Read More >>
By Eytan Kobre, on June 19th, 2007 It sure seems like the Borei Olam has a wonderful sense of humor.
Just as Dick Dawkins and his fellow best-selling nihilists were riding high, selling books like hotcakes the better to worship their highest being, Mammon, with, along comes Newton’s Secrets, a new exhibit at Hebrew U. revealing Isaac Newton, whom many regard as the father of modern science, to be a wild-eyed fundamentalist not altogether different from your average Brisker, right down to studying Rambam’s Hilchos Avodas HaKorbanos.
No small exhibit, this; Newton’s theological writings, here on public display for the first time, number close to three million words. Here’s how the Associated Press describes their contents:
Three-century-old manuscripts by Isaac Newton calculating the exact date of the apocalypse, detailing the precise dimensions of the ancient temple in Jerusalem and interpreting passages of the Bible — exhibited this week for the first time — lay bare the little-known religious intensity of a man many consider history’s greatest scientist.
Newton, who died 280 years ago, is known for laying much of the groundwork for modern physics, astronomy, math and optics. But in a new Jerusalem exhibit, he appears as a scholar of deep faith who also found time to … Read More >>
By Yaakov Menken, on June 19th, 2007 A few weeks ago, a reporter for the Florida Times-Union called with a few questions about sheitels, the wigs worn by married Orthodox women to cover their natural hair. The result is this morning’s column in their ongoing series called “Dare to Ask,” and I am frankly impressed with how accurate and how friendly the coverage turned out to be.
From the title alone, “These wigs reflect code of modesty,” you see the reporter isn’t out to mock or degrade. It’s very easy to imagine how negatively this article could have gone, and which stereotypes could have been perpetuated. Instead, I and the others interviewed had the opportunity to rebut and dismantle those mistaken impressions, and thus paint a far more favorable picture of what, to the secular viewer, initially appears to be an arcane and even repressive practice.
Modesty, of course, isn’t about repression but moderation. Our community keeps private what others broadcast, and that was apparent in the article. Reporter Phil Milano posed challenging questions provided by his readers, such as the following from the accompanying podcast: “Yeah, but these wigs look so great nowadays that it almost defeats the purpose!” We then had the opportunity … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on June 17th, 2007 To judge from opinion polls, most Israelis would be hard-pressed to name one action of the Olmert government that they support. Well, I can: the appointment of Professor Daniel Friedmann as Justice Minister.
The appointment of Friedmann, a Israel Prize-winning jurist, to head the Justice Ministry hopefully sets a precedent for more cabinet ministers appointed on the basis of expertise. One of the great weaknesses of our coalition governments is that cabinet posts are divvied up as political spoils.
In addition to bringing real expertise to his position, Friedmann is on the side of the angels when it comes to defining the “rule of law” in Israel. On one side of the debate are those who equate the “rule of law” with maximizing the power of the Supreme Court. The enemy of the “rule of law,” in their view, is “politicization,” i.e., anything that confers power on the elected branches of government, both of which are inherently suspect.
The other camp would substitute for politicization the word democracy. In their view, the rule of law in a democracy means that the law-making power rests with the elected representatives, and the role of judges is to apply statutes enacted by the … Read More >>
By Guest Contributor, on June 16th, 2007 by Rabbi Elchonon Oberstien
Haaretz, the newspaper of Israel’s Ashkenazi elite, is worried about the future of Kibbutz Mizra. What is so special about Mizra? Kibbutz Mizra’s meat processing plant is famous for its high-quality pork products. Now, the future of pig raising in Israel is in doubt because Arcady Gaydamak, the Russian Jewish billionaire, has decided to purchase the Tiv Taam supermarket chain and make it Kosher. Tiv Taam owns 75% of Maadaney Mizra meat products. Thus, the kibbutz may no longer have an easy outlet to sell its pork products.
“I believe that in a Jewish State, in which there is a large Muslim minority, selling pork is a provocation,” the Russian-Israeli billionaire told Army Radio. To quote the article in the Haaretz Internet Edition entitled “Will Mizra still be able to bring home the bacon?” by Eli Ashkenazi:
Exactly 50 years ago, Kibbutz Mizra founded a meat processing plant. Over the years it became identified with high-quality pork products, although it produced other meats as well. For the secular public, Maadaney Mizra’s stores were the only place to buy non-kosher meat. For the religious, it became a symbol of impurity and the casting aside of … Read More >>
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on June 15th, 2007 What if the Palestinian lobby threw a party, and no one came?
They did, and that’s pretty much what happened. The fortieth anniversary of the Six-Day War was supposed to be marked last weekend by large protests in cities around the world. They were hoping for massive crowds. Instead, the scheduled mass hate-fest against Israel could better be described as a wake for serious Palestinian support.
The DC gathering – hyped for months in advance – was a complete bust. Reports from sources sympathetic to the pro-Palestinians claimed attendance at 5000, which would have been pitifully insignificant. People who were there (and some subsequent pro-Palestinian reports) claimed that the more accurate figure was below a thousand, which is risible. Photos and eyewitness reports support the smaller number. It looked like a high-school reunion for baby-boomers who were coping with early-onset senility by joining ANSWER, cheered on by the usual assortment of Communist and Socialist Party lifers.
The turnout in London, although higher, amounted to just a few thousand. The papers, not too many of which are exactly friendly to Israel, did not seem to mention it. If events scheduled … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on June 15th, 2007 [I was recently privileged to address the commencement ceremony of Bais Yaakov of Baltimore, an Orthodox girls school founded in 1942. Below is an edited version of my remarks to the more than 100 high school graduates, their families and friends.]
Back in the day – the day when I was in grade school, that is – we were taught the “3 R’s” – Reading, Writing and ‘Rithmetic (that’s math to you, and yes, we didn’t spell so good back then). Of course, you’ve all learned those things and more. And as students of a school like Bais Yaakov, you have also learned the really important things for meaningful life.
Among them, I think, are another “3 R’s.” At this special moment in your lives, please permit me to briefly review them.
The first one is Recognizing – specifically, recognizing the good, the precise translation of the Hebrew phrase hakarat hatov. Its simple sense – gratitude – is something you graduates surely feel this evening – toward your parents, your teachers and your classmates, for all that they have given you. But the term’s deeper meaning is to recognize – with a capital “R” – the good … Read More >>
By Eytan Kobre, on June 13th, 2007 Note: This post contains what some may regard as more than their minimum daily requirement of sarcasm. Personally, I regard this as healthy facetiousness towards deserving recipients. But if you are facetiousness-sensitive (or have any other relevant allergies), by all means, skip this post. I don’t get paid by the reader (or, come to think of it, any other way).
The April 27th edition of the Forward featured a story entitled “Al Jazeera Gathering Draws a Full Minyan To Heart of Arab World,” which appears below with minimal deletions of mine, including removal of the last names of the Jewish participants:
Doha, Qatar – Some participants at the third-annual forum of the Arab satellite network Al Jazeera were sorry they didn’t bring matzo with them — had they known how many fellow Jews were attending the media conference, they would have made a Passover Seder.
“We could have used the hotel wine to fill our cups,” Mark L. said only half-jokingly. A professor of Middle East studies at University of California in Irvine, L. was one of several Jewish participants who attended the invitation-only conference in Doha, organized by Al Jazeera.
Ethan Z., whose wife is a Reform rabbi, said that he had … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on June 13th, 2007 Barry Goldwater, famously declared in his acceptance speech at the 1964 Republican convention, “. . . [E]xtremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! . . . [M]oderation in hte pursuit of justice is no virtue! Widely pilloried at the time – I still remember a Bill Mauldin cartoon showing two bank robbers with guns aimed at the pursuing police and saying, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice” – those words have born the test of time.
Indeed Goldwater’s defense of extremism was preceded by the Chazon Ish. In Igros Chazon Ish (III, 61), the Chazon Ish identifies extremism as deriving from the quest for perfection, and writes that without extremism perfection is impossible. Those who are forever proclaiming their disdain for extremism, he writes, “will inevitably find themselves consorting with counterfeiters [of Torah] and the feeble-minded.”
The Chazon Ish goes on to castigate those groups who are always declaring their moderation and opposition to anything smacking of extremism, while insisting that their faith in Torah and the words of Torah is quite adequate. Of such claims, the Chazon Ish writes caustically, “Just as there is no such thing as a lover of wisdom who … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on June 13th, 2007 In general, I prefer not to write pieces in the form “see the difference between my son and the son of my father-in-law.” For one thing, what is sometimes known as Orthodox triumphalism seldom serves any purpose. A stance of superiority is rarely conducive to influencing the one whose behavior is being criticized or drawing him or her to our point of view. In addition, self-congratulation too often distracts us from the self-criticism that is necessary for our own spiritual growth.
Sometimes, however, the contrast provides important insight.
The egregious behavior of secular Israeli high schools students in Poland – long a source of embarrassment – has now reached such a crescendo as to threaten Polish-Israeli relations. The May 25 Jerusalem Post quoted the Polish ambassador to Israel, “[H]igh level relations are not in danger, but the image of Israel in Poland is.” And the Israeli ambassador to Poland went even further saying, “the relationship between Israel and Poland is in danger.”
The latest in a long-line of scandals involving the behavior of Israeli teenagers on visits to Poland was triggered by a report in the Polish paper Prezekroj accusing Israeli teens of tearing apart their hotel rooms, playing soccer … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on June 12th, 2007 Only once during my childhood did a television ever violate the sanctum of our family dining room. For the two weeks leading up to the Six Day War, a small TV stood on the buffet, and we all sat riveted during dinner listening to the U.N. debates. (Abba Eban’s speeches at the U.N. no doubt contributed to my lifelong fascination with the power of the well-spoken word.) The presence of a TV in that place from which it had heretofore been barred alerted my brothers and me to the tension in the air, like that of the Cuban Missile crisis six years earlier.
When my mother came into awaken us on the morning of June 5, she was crying. ” Israel is at war, and I’m taking all the money out of your bank accounts to buy Israel bonds,” she informed us. Our paltry savings were not likely to turn the tide, but the lesson was clear: All were expected to contribute to Israel’s survival.
That day in high school, I could not think about anything other than getting home to listen to the news. I debated asking my driving education instructor whether he would mind turning on the car … Read More >>
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