GOOD LUCK! I WISH YOU ALL THE BEST.

I thought about what you said about parenting, and you might be right. I have to consciously fight various things my parents said. Right now I know I have a strong influence on my children, but they’re very young (the oldest isn’t five yet). I assumed that was the main reason they listen to me. Maybe I was wrong - I’ll know more as they get older.

Here are the rest of his lectures and videos (all free):
http://www.aish.com/search/article_search_results.asp?article_author=Rabbi+Noah+Weinberg&title_text=&date_amount=&date_option=year

http://www.classicsinai.com/

You DO MATTER A GREAT DEAL, and what you’re teaching your children is that NOTHING THEY DO MATTERS A GREAT DEAL.–that’s why you don’t perceive any STRONG INFLUENCE. What do you expect, with such an ambivalent attitude on your part!

I will look up the Aish.com site to find Rabbi Noach Weinberg’s lectures on the “48 Ways to Wisdom,” which he gives to all Baalei Teshuva who come into his Yeshiva Aish HaTorah, just across from the Kosel HaMaaRovi–The Wailing Wall, in Jerusalem.

You can probably find it yourself, now that I have specified it for you.

I will close with this gem from the legendary New York Yankees pitcher Yogi Berra, who was also a great raconteur:

“If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never get there.”

I think we’ll need to agree to disagree about parental influence for now. I’ll keep trying to raise my kids as best I can, but it would take a lot of evidence to show me that I matter a great deal.

As for proof of the validity of tradition, can you show me where on http://www.aish.com it is? I saw a lot of history material there by Rabbi Ken Spiro - is that what you meant?

I still say you’re copping-out. A parent’s influence on bis children– by word and deed–is profound, and it follows him thoughout his life.

As my Rebbe, Rav Avigdor Miller ZT”L, used to say: “Propaganda works!”

As for proof of the validity of your trdition, it exists, if you truly want to know it. Rav Weinberg has traced the path of our Torah tradition from Sinai very clearly and authoritatively at http://www.aish.com

As an Orthodox Jew, you believe that there are only two right paths, sanctioned by G-d: being an Orthodox Jew and being a righteous Noahide. Of those two paths, only one would be open to your children. Therefore, you have a clear idea how to guide them.

I don’t have this certainty. I don’t know which path G-d wants me or my children to take. Various people told me what G-d wants, but none of them could provide proof - and a lot of them contradict each other.

Nor do I get a clear idea from observing people on various paths. Most of the peers I grew up with are Atheists. Some seem to be leading good, ethical lives. Others’ lives appear empty. The same, as far as I can tell, can be said for people on other paths.

The second matter is my ability to plan things for my children. Your food analogy is appropriate. Can you tell your children what to eat while they are at home with you? Sure. Can you explain to them which foods are good for them and why? Sure.

Can you plan what they’ll typically eat five years after they get married? Not really. It will depend on them, what they want, and how they were brought up. It will also depend on their future spouses.

I am guiding my children. I just don’t believe my guidance is the sole or main factor in their future decisions.

What a cop-out! Shirking your responsibility to give your children the guidance they are entitled to from parents who have real practical life experience. Forcing them to jump into uncharted watrers on their own, with the ever-present danger of drowning.

It’s your job to give your children a head-start in life. As an intelligent parent, you wouldn’t dream of giving your children the choice of trans-fat-laden hamburgers and french fries, topped off by saturated-fat-laden ice cream and caffeine-sugar-phosphate-laden Coke.

So, why do you give them the choice of crashing and burning spiritually?

Ori: As a blanket rule, saying it’s always bad, yes - racist. As a general recommendation, no. All other things being equal, it is easier when you marry somebody from the same background. People who marry people from other backgrounds should expect they’ll have more difficulties. This doesn’t just apply to Jews and Gentiles BTW. It would also apply to an Orthodox Jew marrying a Reform/Conservative Jew or an Israeli marrying an American.

Having said that, all other things are never equal - a spouse is a person, not a car you can customize.

Also, anybody who expects their marriage to be difficulty free is probably too immature to get married. You have difficulties, and you handle them because you love your spouse. That’s true in all cases.

Good for you. It takes moral courage to paddle your own canoe.

Feldman is essentially asking for an individual choice he made to have no collective impact at all. If he really studied Torah for 12 years then he should have learned that we are a collective religion. That of course is the essence of Jewish community - that much envied property. But if I say that I am responsible for me and for him, then why can’t I also say that I reject his choice?

It seems to me to be proof of the proposition that one can be clever and still be a fool.

My grandmother’s parents were frum, and probably expected their children to follow in their footsteps. None of them (and there were more than four who survived the holocaust) did. My parents were staunch Zionists (mother still is, father is dead). Two out of their three children chose to live in the US. I lack the arrogance to believe that I can tell my children which path to follow when they grow up.

HILLEL: Why don’t you just keep it simple, and convince your evidently-spiritually-oriented wife to convert and legitimize the whole thing!

Ori: Things work a lot better when I just let her do what she wants and stay out of the way (or encourage her). She’s the one who decided we’ll start restricting our electricity use on Shabbat. She’s the one who suggested we’ll join the Conservative synagogue when she saw me becoming more observant. The worst thing I could do is make her feel pressured.

Our marriage is probably atypical, but this arrangement works best for us.

R’ Meir Kahane, as I’ve pointed out on another forum, would take your argument a step further, and say that rejecting intermarriage for any reasons other than halacha is racist. Would you agree?

You’re TOO CLEVER by a half!

According to Murphy’s law (a law that never goes wrong), whatever can go wrong will go wrong.

In order for your scenario to work, everyone has to do everything just right–FAT CHANCE!

Why don’t you just keep it simple, and convince your evidently-spiritually-oriented wife to convert and legitimize the whole thing!

Ori: Yetzer hara can manifest itself as a desire for a particular marriage, or as a desire for social acceptance. Your guide would be Halacha - the yetzer hara direction is the one that’s opposed to it. Noam Feldman obviously rejects Halacha, so he doesn’t know. He would be perfectly rational in believing that rejecting the marriage would have been the yetzer hara direction.

Nachum: Well, then, you are a breath of fresh air in this crazy world. Like I wrote, I’m not sure Mr. Feldman is.

Ori: Thank you. It’s an attitude I learned from my wife. She’s not a New York liberal, but a Rural Texas conservative.

Nachum: As to “wimpy”: No one is talking about community. Mr. Feldman violated halacha with his marriage (as, no offense, did you), not some “community” standard. I myself ended up not marrying someone I’d very much have liked to because of halacha. (I am a kohen.) Am I a “wimp”?

Ori: No. You did it because you honestly believe that Halacha, dictated by G-d Himself, told you not to get married to her. Noam Feldman obviously does not believe in the divine origin of Halacha. He does not discuss Halacha, but community acceptance - an insufficient reason to avoid a marriage in my book.

Of course, no offense taken. I know I violated Halacha. I’ll violate it again tomorrow when I use the car to take the kids to the (Conservative) synagogue. To be Heterodox, at the basis, is to reject Halacha.

Well, then, you are a breath of fresh air in this crazy world. Like I wrote, I’m not sure Mr. Feldman is.

As to “wimpy”: No one is talking about community. Mr. Feldman violated halacha with his marriage (as, no offense, did you), not some “community” standard. I myself ended up not marrying someone I’d very much have liked to because of halacha. (I am a kohen.) Am I a “wimp”?

Ori: I agree. As a heterodox Jew I expect to be tolerated here (and indeed, you make me feel very much at home - thank you). I do not expect, nor do I have any right to expect, for you to accept my behavior.

Ori: I did not explain myself properly. It is entirely proper for somebody to avoid a marriage because of a belief in the Torah and Halacha. That is doing something for the right reason, because that’s what G-d wants.

Concentrating about the community’s views rather than the ideal spouse for you when you get married is different. People move, people change communities, but marriage is supposed to last for a lifetime. You should find the best possible spouse for you, not the most socially acceptable one.

For example, imagine a community that is predominately Ashkenazik and somewhat racist about it (I’m not saying that such communities are common or even exist, this is merely a hypothetical example). Somebody from this community (let’s call him Yenkel) meets a Sepharadic woman (let’s call her Yael). They are compatible, they want the same things in life, they believe in the same goals and they have the same aspirations. Despite the separation that Halacha mandates during the dating process, they feel themselves falling in love with each other.

For Yenkel to say: “Yael, I really want to marry you, I know we’d build a good holy house together - but my neighbors back home wouldn’t want me to marry a Sepharadic wife, so let’s look for other partners” would mean that Yenkel is too wimpy to get married.

HILLEL: Every intermarried couple represents our failure as a community to communicate whay it is important to remain a Jew.

Ori: In my case, it way more that Judaism was taken for granted and then used as a club to beat Zionism into my head (you’re Jewish, so you have to live in Israel, give up your freedom for a few years of military service, pay the high taxes, etc - otherwise a Hitler will come and kill you). In result was that I resented both Israel and Judaism.

It took a long time, a new belief in G-d (influenced by my wife, BTW) and a lot of reading Project Genesis to change my mind about Judaism. I seriously doubt I’ll change my mind about the state of Israel.

I am not apologizing for marrying the most wonderful woman I’ve ever met. Marrying her was the best decision of my life. I am merely explaining myself in case it’s relevant to somebody’s kiruv efforts.

HILLEL: I’m truly surprised that you don’r realize the difficulties you are creating for your children—real or potential—by creating such an ambiguous situation.

Ori: Four very real children, see here. Converted in a Conservative ceremony a few month ago. When they are older, I’ll teach them that Orthodox Jews do not see them as Jews. I’ll also teach them that if they want to be accepted as Jews by the Orthodox they’ll need to go through an Orthodox conversion and accept Halacha.

But in this instance, beyond intermarriage, Prof. Feldman chose to malign the MO who he implies are every bit as sectarian and bigoted as their charedi brethren. I found some of that he wrote, that I suspect he knew was misleading, as more damming than his intermarriage; malicious half-truths about all strands of orthodoxy.

I have a hard time considering intermarriage as the beginning of a slippery slope; often, it appears to be closer to bottom of the hill. Intermarriage aside, the article is far down into the valley, well beneath contempt. One can only hope that his interactions with many in discussion will bring him closer to his people.

Having read one editorial, I see that they are not looking in the mirror.

Garnel, in the circles in which Mr. Feldman travels, “tolerance” is not enough. Homosexual activists, for example, are renowned for rejecting “tolerance” and insisting on “acceptance.” You and I may find this stupid, but I’m not sure Mr. Feldman does.

Too wimpy to get married? Is it really “wimpy” to be concerned with the Torah’s (G-d’s) halachic imperatives and with the effect of one’s actions on one’s standing in the community of the faithful? Are the rejection of Torah mandates and the utter disregard for community views marks of the strong? And is the choice of a life mate nothing other than an issue of unbridled personal autonomy?