Rabbinic authority

Come to think of it, R. Yakov Emden was fighting the influence of the Eybeshitzer Rebbe. The famous Shaagas Aryeh, from Vilno, went wandering through European towns, exercising the power of speech that Shulchan Aruch gives to anyone who is learned in Torah. In one city, he listened to a rabbi's Fri. night speech, commenting "hevel vshtuss," prompting the speaker to call Shaagas Aryeh an am haaretz. Shaagas Aryeh replied with the Mishna that says that an am haaretz precedes a kohen; the head of the community admitted that Shaagas Aryeh is great enough to dine at his house. Visiting another city, Shaagas Aryeh was so critical of the city's minhagim and halacho practice that the community exercised the right to ask him to leave. They escorted him to the city's limits, as befitting a talmud chacham's stature. He turned around, looked at the city, and said that the city was great to visit. The heads of the community told him that this was the first nice comment they heard from him. Shaagas Aryeh answered that the city was good, because the they, the heads of the community, were no longer in it.

It's exciting to learn what cool, democratic(?) liberties are granted by Shulchan Aruch.
(in resposne to a friend sending
Rabbinic authority Berel Wein, THE JERUSALEM POST, Mar. 14, 2007)

Real rabbis please stand up

A more ethics-oriented answer to the fanaticism (The anti-whig, The Beit Shemesh Burka: Extreme Tznius (modesty) phenomena would (and should) be based on Jewish ethics teachings. They are mostly ignored by the stricture-obsessed amateurs. They ignorance is exacerbated by the lack of continuous contact with a real rabbi. Most amateurs satisfy their spiritual needs through listening to rhetorical, moving speeches by rabbis who are not really teaching Jewish ethics to families members. Most of Jewish inspirational philosophies and lectures gravitate towards preaching-to-the-choir topics like critique or admiration of the Israeli government, disdain for the Diaspora, and loose-ended, interpret-for-yourself quotes from Talmud.

Chofetz Chaim, R. Moshe Feinstein, R. Grodzinsky, R. Shlomo Zalman Oyerbach, R. Neuwirth, the real gdoilim, have always taught ethics over externalities. Hazon Ish, so frequently stereotyped as the source of strict rulings, was in reality a real practicing ben toyra. During his early years in the Land of Israel he did not look as stereotypically religious as the rest of the locals, who actually asked him if he learned at all. (He answered in our most beloved mama loshn language , "Ven Ich hob tzeit, lern sich," "When I have time, I learn.")

The solutions, however, would never come from Jewish leaders, columnists, media darlings and rabbis who use the terminology of "pulpit", "sermon". etc. The solution is sticking to the close, organic, classic reltionship of rabbis and their immediate surroundings, and steering away from the new and fashionable lecture circuits, rabbinical radio shows, adn political rallies spiced with provoking thoughts from Talmud.

(in response to a friend's sending me To tell or not to tell, that is the question
Stewart Weiss , THE JERUSALEM POST
Mar. 30, 2008)

It's the season for Orthodox scandal. From New York to
Jerusalem, from Beit Shemesh to Melbourne, shocking
tales of adultery and child abuse, infidelity and
incest within the Jewish world are making front-page
headlines. The latest incidents - a well-known cantor
caught in the act of adultery; a mother of eight
beating her two youngest to the point of
hospitalization, with no recovery predicted for the
toddler; a mother of 12, practicer and preacher of an
extreme form of female modesty, allegedly whipping and
humiliating her children, several of whom admitted to
incestuous relationships; the principal of a
prestigious Orthodox Melbourne school dismissed for
sexual molestation - remind us once again that the
Orthodox community is not immune to the plagues of the
larger one.

Is it right and proper - constructive or destructive -
to air this dirty linen in public, to name names, to
splash the story for all to see?...

Temple honesty

Regarding whether we are serious or are we just pretending, voting for Obama, or we really want the Temple back, in '08:
I was a teenager when I came to the US from one of the last shtetls in Ukraine. My family was easily attracted to a magnificent Reform shul nearby. I was the one that had to ask several cloying questions - why do they wear scarves instead of tallis? why do they say strange things instead Jewish-related passages?

The answer was that because the Jews who long ago came from the utter poverty in Eastern Europe have become free to take control of their own lives to live in a great country, and we can modernize our beliefs accordingly. If I didn't like it at that shul, we could try a Temple not far away, because it may provide additional element of fun, by dedicating each week to honoring each of many nations of the world. Why, I asked? We Jews need to learn to appreciate other people.

Somehow I found myself in a Conservative shul. I remember a rabbi's, or a community director's speech during a Yom Kippur service, after a series of funny jokes: "And now we must be really grateful for this opportunity to sit here, together, free of fears and worries, enjoying this pelasant atmosphere, and maybe we can just devote a moment to contemplate on those who are really fasting today, because they don't have anything to eat. THIS IS the REAL YOM KIPPUR!"

That was the last straw. After college, after having even exposed there to the supermarket-like circus of ideologies, which included all variations of Christianity, New Age and Jewish Reconstructionism, Humanism and Neo-Neoisms, I still kept the memories of the soundbites from my Reform and Conservative experiences. Naturally, I steered myself to an Orthodox shul. Tehre I realized how dishonest I would have been to my late grandparents, who prayed for the Moshiach, and for the real Temple, had I graduated from a pathetic shtibl-shul of unpainted wood, to an airy edifice of concrete and stained glass, and to empower myself to edit the ultimate object of my grandparents' prayers.

Through communist prosecutions, accusations of being fanatical parasites, they kept on believing. I had no right to let the sensation of having become an enlightened, successful Jew, to actually disobey the commandments we have kept for thousands and so years.

We are the ones who are serious, who do not snicker behind our boss's back at his seemingly funny commands, and we proudly keep transmitting the words, the ideas, and practices we were asked for our boss. My and your grandparents told us about Abraham, where he might have thought about G-d's most incredible, challenging, inhuman to our gentle, modern senses request - to sacrifice your own son. He, being intellectually honest, believed - seriously, without fooling himself, and really wanted to obey his Boss. He built his own altar. And that is why we believe that we will do whatever he asked us. Through thick and thin, with eyes wide open, we know that there is no overriding authority above him. Yes, we will build our own altar.

Proud to be an Ashkenozi

I have my own terutz for eating kitniyot. But, the pro-eating argument in the decision is still significantly connected to the concept of projecting a message, "to show that you're from Israel." It sounds antiquated, or unpopular, but there is no halachic task upon us to "show" that we are from a certain locale.

The only "show" task we have is to dress differently so as to look differently from gentiles. Maybe another task is to look decent, and not ostentatious. I can't think of other tasks like that.

But the rationale of appearing as someone from Israel, besides reminding me of Machon Meir mentality, reminds me of Reform synagogue, unfortunately. I remember when my dad and I drove around on Shabbos looking for a shul, the only one we found easily was a huge building of a reform shul. Therewe saw a lot of strange things. So when my dad and I asked the people why the tallis were small, why they prayed like Christians, why they prayed in English ("you're Jewish, right?"), why the women sat with men, why the American flag, why A, B, C, they answered that to know, to show that this is modern times, we are in USA and the religion must reflect the surroundings.

So the answer to the Kitniyot decision is that they are too sure that kitniyot-eating is specific to Israel. Most of Israeli population now, unfortunately, is eating a mixture of chametz with token matza. Religious Sephardim are eating kitniyot. But the Machon Meir thought gets caught up in assumption that Sephardim are the Israeli-specific thing.

The way we can examine Yemenite and Ashkenazi culture, we can also strongly suggest that Ashkenazim and Teymanim are probably from the same region of Israel, prior to the Destruction of the Temple, and why should we Ashkenazim suddenly mix our identities? Protecting the minhagim of the family, clan, and place of roginin is a very serious concept in Halachah. When discussing the Teymanim people usually go gaga and say "how cute" the Teymani minhagim are. Nobody suggest that they change their minhagim. So by the same token, why should Ashkenazim? At Machonn Meir they didn't see the conenction of this logic, " mah kesher?"

Another strong reason for abstaining from kitniyot is the way it is written is Shulchan Aruch, sif 453. Rama reminds that many authorities tried to literally cancel the minhag, but "nichshalu", as I understand, they "ran into problems," if not "failed," andrealized that the authority of the rabbis that insituted the abstention has been ever so wise.

My own terutz, which is also connected to appearance, to eat kitniyot, is that many arrogant shkenazim offhandedly say that because Sephardim eat kitniyot, "they eat chametz. " Since we are concerned with "maaris ayin," and we don't go into McDonald's to drink a cup of water, we don't eat fish blood (though it's permitted) -- so that a Jew, arrogant, judgmental, uninformed, or whatever - will not come to a wrong conclusion.
I think we should eat kitniyot to erase the possibility of creating such a false impression about a group of Jews. As long as the kitniyot have a Badatz rating, which they can easily have.

I have seen though, sunflower seeds, corn, shelled peanuts, being leniently and arbitrarily consumed, wherein I personally thought of these foods having been kept from before Pesach by the person.

I spoke to a guy from a kibbutz up north and he said that corn, sunflower seeds, and things that grow above ground are harvested by the same combine that harvests wheat. They just change the front attachment. He strongly believes in abstaining from kitniyot. He reminded me that as far as canola, which is grown in Canada and US, since on fields it is often rotated with wheat and rye, for purposes of enriching the soil as well, it is enough for one stalk of stray wheat to render an acre of canola crop unfit for Pesach.

on non-Google DIY thinking

Though right about Google, they thought they had the answers from a Jewish egomaniac some 2,000 years ago.

What I have learned from my rabbis is that according to Dvorim 30: 1-12 and on, we are told that a Jew has Torah on the tip of his tongue, and he needs to use this tip-of-the tongue educated intuition to practically use Torah and Holocho. Shulkhon Oruch is for evry one of us to try and at least kn ow instinctively, versus going to a favorite rabbi-magician-mekubal to tell us in a dramatically Biblical way. The same verses say, "it's not high above heavens, or beyond the sea", and in the same spirit, far away, or in the mountains. I have been taught that we must think and analyze Torah and Holocho on our feet.

There is a cocnept of hassidus, which is separate from Hasidut (as a spiritual, charismatic movement). Hassidus is a type of religious behavior that is overly demonstrative, excessive, and/or based on unnecessarily and arbitrarily-sought out strictness. It also includes fanatical pilgrimage and visits to great rabbis, living or dead, often to ask them for easily explainable halochic clarification, or to receive a personal advice. Most of these activities are actually willingly divulged. Again, in line with what I have said in the above paragraph, a Jew who is in touch with holocho, and his rabbi, and reads (regularly) to learn will not find himself doing this Hassidus, and have more free time for that learning, and working out relationships with people in his everyday life - a boss, an employee, students, an grumpy neighbor, a business partner.

In the Shmonay Esrey blessings havdolo we also invoke our ability to distinguish between different degrees of holiness, i.e., an inspiration, a source, a mishnah, a sugya, a rishon, an acharon, a holocho. At the risk of sounding trite, I would say that we are smarter than we think.

Ethics, Rhetorics and Exponents

Within the damp, dusty and peeling walls there is a breath of the inspiring air:

Moishe F. is a source of inspiration for me. Moishe hereinbelow poses for a well-travelled, worn-out, and dropped into the dust of the Judean Desert point-and-shoot film camera, with fellow scions of Eastern Europe, Yuri, a dedicated high school teacher, and Itzik, a Toro genius and iluy, who belonged in the Mir or the Hebron Yeshiva.


And this is where many a boraissa and and holocho was scrutinized and expounded and glanced and glossed and unfathomed. Yoav, center, and Daniel Lev, behind him have succeeded in absorbing both the the learning and the ethics from Sinai, I must proudly say:


Sure, the Boraissa from Ketubos is correct, so is another statement that whoever takes 3 steps upon the Holy Land is a Tzaddik, and on and on. One simple thing is important to keep in mind is that we don't poskin by individual excerpts from Gemoro. We have the Great Gemoro Authority comprising of the 3 Torah greats (Rif, Ron, Rambam) that voiced their opinions in no uncertain terms, and the Great Codifier and that is who we go with. Shulkhan Oruch never issues a psak against anyone who seems to fall into an intuitively deduced wrong side with either of the dramatic passages from Gemoro.

Statmenets like these are used nowadays out of context, and, sadly, as a gruesome , or dramatic, at best, rhetoric. Rhetoric is an effective, persuasive form of speech, but most of the time it is incorrect, often intellectually dishonest. It persuades people to nod along.

Tha is, until someone come up with a question. The rhetorically dramatic passages from Gemoro rule over the silent and easily impressed, but they need to know the Ultimate Source of Facts, the Toro, which, significantly different from the arbitrarily judgmental thrust of the rhetorical passages, never uses the Holy Land as an atonement for a rapist, a murderer, an adulterer, a killer, a witch and a warlock, a false prophet, a practicing homosexual - they all are judged, in black and white, in easy-to-read verses, and the Holy Land is never even mildly mentioned as a saving atonement. On the contrary, Toro never recognizes or compromises with these sinners, and explicitly says that nothing of their sort should be found in the land, and in many cases, killed (suffocated), burned (fed molten lead), or stoned (pushed off a cliff unto jagged rocks).

As a silent countercharge to the users of the Boraissos, we would never issue a damning , iddol-worshiiping accusiastion against the Toro Gedoilim who lived outside the Holy Land and yet their decisions serve as the ultimate holocho - rabbis Moshe Feinstein, Chofetz Chaim, Ben Ish Hai, Rashash, Palazzi, Chido. The great posek that did live here, R. Shloimo Zalman Oyerbach, never issued a negative psak regarding of the Diaspora residents. R. Eliashiv, has never done that, either.

They issued psak that dealt with the practical side of Toro. That is what Toro is about. However, the Great Kiryat Moishe University of Rhetorical Hashkofos, whose proud graduates are you and I, seems to de-emphasize the essence of learning, of the relating to one of the hardest things to do - to relate to a fellow Jew on the street, at workplace, in the cafeteria of the University, and in many other small but very important scenarios. The University, though not alone in this, lets the everyday Israeli mentality influence the course of the arbitrary interpretation of the rhetorical hashkofo.

Ignoring my personal experiences that puzzled me there, where crude, arrogant, and even disdainful attitude towards search for better observance ("you don't need to study all that marriage mitzvo details all day long, that's for haredim"), where the beautiful, and equally important statement of utmost rhetorical strength - "Darkey Noam", Toro's Ways are pleasant (who can argue against this?)- are ignored, and the young men discovering themselves in Toro do not grow in pleasant ways, but deepen their scowling, glowering stares, and loud, pushing mannerisms. I would rather use, and always use the example and the experience of a fellow Israeli who was the only example a successful, total self-improvement work at the yeshiva, to the point where he had realized that he does not belong there, and now he lives near me, an exemplary Hassidishe man, a true, Gentle Man, or Mensch of a Jewish gentleman, who impresses me with his patience and common sense in relating to everyday curve balls that life throws at us. I do not have to prompt him to remind me how great it feels to learn Toro without quotes from Toro made of muddled rhetoric.

Sad it is, when the mantras of walking and living on the Holy Land go to the cerebellum of a hyper-idealistic man, and all other ethics go down the drain. No wonder Toro does not recommned women to wear Tzitsis, or men to wear tefillin all day. It is not for some magical reason, but to prevent yihuro. It is one thing for the Diaspora to behave unethically, but it is a glaring, screeching Hillul Hashem for a Holy Land Walking Yihuro specialist to badmouth, backstab and humiliate his fellow coworkers, cheat his employees, and exploit his yarmulko as a passport to get to even higher state of yihuro at his synagogue.

Right now the challenge is not the Jews in Diaspora, the challenge is being nice to them when they come to the Shuk and move slowly in the way of the locals. Remember, the Toiro is about NOT pushing and shoving and glowering and scowling. Gemoro brings another wide-ranging, powerful statement - whoever gets angry is as if worships idols. What other Boraissas do we need?

Shave, Shawarma, Shalom and Shimon

The 10 of Av is here and it is OK to have one’s facial growth shorn. Since the 17^th of Tammuz the bristles have been a fertile ground for all kinds of microorganisms and microinsects, demanding an extra daily treatment with a fruity liquid soap, or a body wash. One come to mind, and that is Fa. The memories of life among the silken landscape of America, or Europe. The landscape here is pseudo-Goth: the orthodox women prefer to dress in New York evening gowns, black and concealing, and grotesque en ensemble with church-lady-like shoes and a gait of a clumsy farm wench. And this is my community.

The date also permits eating meat, which is a subject of multitudinous complaints. Shawarma is not the Greek gyro, it is a mixture of unknown turkey cuts and unidentified kosher meat, sheep fat, diluted with an unknown kosher oil, melted generously all over. I think I’ll stay vegetarian. What would be the name for abstaining from meat, while still eating meat flavored foods and sauces? Though beef jerky is nowhere to be found in Israel, even among the Ishmaelites.

And I don’t think if Jews give more land to these tribesmen, or whatever else tangible for a promise of Salam (because the word means "take it from them using the salami tactic" in Arabic) written on the back of an old goat from Beit Jallah (the Jewish Beit Gillo, or Gillo, the town of King David’s father-in-law).

The Fast of 9th of Av

The of Av has just passed and the whole world has not even blinked. If the nation only knew that the real peace might be available through the Temple, rebuilt, on the Temple Mount, accessible by anyone front these nations of the world. They would be fasting, too, if they knew how much they need it. After all, they do need it, to go up to Jerusalem and ask a Jew to come to the Temple of G-d and pray together (for the Feast of Tabernacles, see the Pentateuch, Leviticus)

The trick to fasting for me was to conserve energy, to walk up to the Avrichim Kolel minyan, which is air-conditioned, to sleep till 6:40 pm, and pray the Afternoon and Evening service at the Great Beit Knesset.

Meanwhile, Peres, the new figurehead of the State of Israel, has made a lasting impression on everyone by casting himself again, as a national sage. As if the state could not otherwise survive without him.

“I always look ahead,” he said. “The (Israeli) people must be taught…” or something to that effect. We are going to witness the resurgence of Shimon Says websites.

Something is definitely going on, because the gunship choppers and jets have been roaring in the sky all day long.

Potemkin's Light Rail

The hilariousness of the light rail construction in Al-Quds is more than laughable. Someone else would say, "sad." I find it entertaining. Even to a person totally unfamiliar from civic engineering, watching the whole project would suggest that it is run either by nincompoops, or by a cohort of corrupt contractors.

Nobody can even guess why the Al-Quds Municipality totally ignored the possibility of using electric trolley buses. Instead, they went for a bare-bones light rail line running a pathetic fleet of Alstom's sleek, sexy Eurodesign short trains.

The Herzl Avenue that is already suffering from the fate of continuous excavation (for the ever-incomplete sewer, main, and cable rework), the circus on the supposed terminus of the line at the Mount Herzl can be described as a dig-pour cement-pour another layer-drill and insert rail fasteners-install rail track-uninstall-scrape the top layer of cement-wait procedure.

The continuous traffic jams are exacerbated by the construction of the Calatrava Bridge, which seems to be tinkered with by another team of contractors, that could have been the Keystone Cops moonlighting as construction company. They found a hugest crane in Israel, had it hoist the pieces of the curved bridge, paint it all white, only to cut it with blowtorches in places different from where the original pieces were welded. This whole construction show can teach an ignoramus how not to build bridges and railroads.

Maybe all of this is caused by a government bureaucrat driving around in car bought for him with the 120% new car tax, and due to his MS Outlook being full of X-rated, interoffice PowerPoint slideshows.

On top of it all, the municipality is all huffed up and proud of the pygmy rail line propelling the Al-Quds into the futuristic vision of socialist-dreamed up 22nd century.

I will wear a wide-brimmed hat while walking to Beit Hakerem, 15 minutes or so, along the route of this dog-and-pony show. Helicopter are buzzing, F-15 are roaring.