Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Dads aren't invited to discussion on children's welfare
Knesset Committee for Children's Rights holds meeting on alienation of children - and invites only women's organizations.
JWC ANNOUNCEMENT CONVICTED CHILD ABUSER RELEASED FROM JAILTO LIVE IN MIDWOOD
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Consent - by minor considered rape?HALACHIC SOURCES
Yes
Aruch HaShuchan[1](E.H. 178:27): The Beis
Yosef writes in 178:3 “a child who has been married by her father and she
commits adultery willingly – there are those who say that she is prohibited to
her husband…. Others say that she is not prohibited to her husband unless he is
a cohen.” That is because the seduction of a child is considered rape. The
first opinion that she is prohibited to her husband is that of the Rambam
(Hilchos Sotah 2) and Rambam(Hilchos
Issurei Biah 3) who doesn’t agree that sedution of a child is considered rape.
However all the poskim reject his words….
Beis Shmuel[2](E.H.
178:3): The view of most poskim
as well as Tosfos is that seduction of a
child is rape and therefore a wife who is a minor is permitted to her husband
when she is seduced if she is not married to a Cohen….
Ravad[3](Hilchos
Issurei Bi’ah 3:2): I don’t know why the
Rambam says that a seduced child-wife is prohibited to her husband since our
Sages say that seduction of a child is considered rape.
Shulchan Aruch[4](E.H. 178:3): A child who
was married to another by her father and she committed adultery willingly –
there are those who say that she is prohibited to her husband… However there
are others who say she is not prohibited to her husband except if she is a
cohen. Rema If an adult committed adultery by mistake because she
thought he was her husband, she is permitted to her husband (Rambam Hilchos
Ishus 24). However if she committed adultery because she thought that adultery
was permitted – this is considered a deliberate act and she is prohibited to
her husband. If a woman is in seclusion with men on the road and then she says
that she was secluded and was raped – some say that she is believed with a migo
because if she was lying she could have denied have intercourse. However others
say that she lost her migo since she was secluded against the halacha.
Yerushalmi(Sotah 1:2):[[child has no free will
Yevamos[5](33b):The
seduction of a minor is in fact rape
No
Aruch HaShuchan[6](E.H. 178:27): The Beis
Yosef writes in 178:3 “a child who has been married by her father and she
commits adultery willingly – there are those who say that she is prohibited to
her husband…. Others say that she is not prohibited to her husband unless he is
a cohen.” That is because the seduction of a child is considered rape. The
first opinion that she is prohibited to her husband is that of the Rambam
(Hilchos Sotah 2) and Rambam (Hilchos
Issurei Biah 3:2) who doesn’t agree that sedution of a child is considered
rape. However all the poskim reject his words….
Aruch HaShulchan[7](E.H. 177:23):[[
Aruch HaShulchan[8](E.H. 177:5):[[
Meshech Chochma[9](Vayikra 20:15-16):[[male
child considered ratzon
Rambam[10](Hilchos Issurei Bi’ah
3:2):[[No
Rambam[11](Hilchos Sotah 2:2):[[
Rambam[12](Hilchos Sotah 2:4):[[
Shulchan Aruch[13](E.H. 178:3): A child
who was married to another by her father and she committed adultery willingly –
there are those who say that she is prohibited to her husband… However there
are others who say she is not prohibited to her husband except if she is a
cohen. Rema If an adult committed adultery by mistake because she
thought he was her husband, she is permitted to her husband (Rambam Hilchos
Ishus 24). However if she committed adultery because she thought that adultery
was permitted – this is considered a deliberate act and she is prohibited to
her husband. If a woman is in seclusion with men on the road and then she says
that she was secluded and was raped – some say that she is believed with a migo
because if she was lying she could have denied have intercourse. However others
say that she lost her migo since she was secluded against the halacha.
Sources
Ravad (Hilchos Sotah 2:4):[[
Tosfos(Kesubos 9a):[[
Tosfos(Kesubos 40b):[[
Mishne LeMelech(Hilchos Ishus 11:8):[[
Radvaz (1:63):[[seduced child payment as onas – even Rambam
agrees
HaFla’ah (Kesubos 40b):[[
R’ Akiva Eiger (Kesubos 42a):[[
[1] ערוך השולחן (אבן העזר קעח:כז): כתב רבינו
הב"י בסעיף ג' קטנה שהשיאה אביה וזינתה לרצונה יש מי שאומר שאסורה לבעלה
לפיכך מקנין לה כדי להפסידה כתובתה ויש מי שאומר שאינה נאסרת על בעלה אא"כ
הוא כהן עכ"ל דפיתוי קטנה אונס הוא ודיעה ראשונה היא דעת הרמב"ם
בפ"ב דסוטה ובפ"ג מאיסורי ביאה דלית ליה האי סברא וכל הפוסקים דחו דבריו
ואנחנו בררנו כוונתו בס"ד בסי' ס"ח סעיף ח' ובסי' ו' סעיף ל' ע"ש:
[2] בית שמואל (קעח:ג): יש
מי שאומר שאסורה לבעלה. היינו דעת הרמב"ם וס"ל כשהשיאה אמה ואחיה אז לא
הוי קידושין מדאורייתא וכאלו זנתה כשהיא פנויה ומותרת אפילו לכהן משא"כ
כשאביה השיאה אז הוי נשואי' דאורייתא ואסורה לבעלה ישראל, ויש מי שאומר השני כן
ס"ל לרוב הפוסקים וכן הוא דעת תוס' וס"ל פיתוי דקטנה הוי כאונס ומותרת
לבעלה ישראל ואסורה לבעלה כהן ואם בא עליה באונס והבועל הוא ישראל ובעלה כהן עיין
בסי' י"א מ"ש ועיין סימן קצ"ט:
[3] רמב"ם (הלכות איסורי ביאה ג:ב): הבא על הקטנה אשת הגדול אם קידשה אביה הרי זה בחנק והיא פטורה מכלום
ונאסרה על בעלה כמו שביארנו בהלכות סוטה, ואם היא בת מיאון מכין אותו מכת מרדות
והיא מותרת לבעלה, ואפילו היה כהן. +/השגת הראב"ד/ ונאסרה על בעלה. כתב
הראב"ד ז"ל /א"א/ לא ידעתי למה נאסרת על בעלה ישראל שהרי אמרו
פיתוי קטנה אונס הוא עכ"ל.+
[4] שולחן ערוך (אבן העזר קעח:ג): קטנה שהשיאה אביה
וזינתה לרצונה, יש מי שאומר שאסורה לבעלה. לפיכך מקנאין לה, כדי להפסידה כתובתה.
ויש מי שאומר שאינו נאסרת על בעלה, אלא אם כן הוא כהן. הגה: גדולה שזנתה בשוגג,
שסברה שבעלה הוא, והוא אחר, מותרת לבעלה ישראל (הרמב"ם פכ"ד דאישות).
אבל זנתה שסברה שמותר לזנות, הוי כמזידה ואסורה לבעלה ישראל (מהרי"ק שורש קסז).
אשה שנתייחדה עם אנשים בדרך, ובאה ואמרה: נתייחדתי ונאנסתי, י"א דנאמנת, במגו
דאמרה: לא נבעלתי, וי"א דאבדה מגו
שלה, הואיל ונתייחדה שלא כדין (שני הדעות במרדכי פרק שני דכתובות):
[6] ערוך השולחן (אבן העזר קעח:כז): כתב רבינו הב"י בסעיף ג' קטנה שהשיאה
אביה וזינתה לרצונה יש מי שאומר שאסורה לבעלה לפיכך מקנין לה כדי להפסידה כתובתה
ויש מי שאומר שאינה נאסרת על בעלה אא"כ הוא כהן עכ"ל דפיתוי קטנה אונס
הוא ודיעה ראשונה היא דעת הרמב"ם בפ"ב דסוטה ובפ"ג מאיסורי ביאה
דלית ליה האי סברא וכל הפוסקים דחו דבריו ואנחנו בררנו כוונתו בס"ד בסי'
ס"ח סעיף ח' ובסי' ו' סעיף ל' ע"ש:
[7] ערוך השולחן (אבן העזר קעז:כג): ג' דברים של מפתה וארבעה של אונס הכל לאב
שכל שבח נעורים לאביה ועוד שהרי בידו למוסרה לקדושין למנוול ומוכה שחין ויהיה לה
בשת ופגם וצער ולכן אע"פ שבתורה אינו מבואר רק שהקנס הוא של האב מ"מ גם
שארי הדברים שייכים להאב ואם לה אין אב שייך לעצמה ובכל מקום ששייך לעצמה אינו
שייך במפותה שהרי מחלה אך כשהיא קטנה י"ל דמחילת קטנה אינו כלום והתוס' כתבו
כן (מ"ב.) ומהרמב"ם לא משמע כן כמבואר ממ"ש בפ"א דין ט'
במגורשת מאירוסין שהקנס לעצמה דמפותה אין לה קנס ולא חילק בין קטנה לנערה ע"ש
וצ"ע (עי' מל"מ פ"ב הי"ג) ועוד דבקטנה לא שייך פיתוי דפיתוי
קטנה אונס הוא אך הרמב"ם ז"ל הולך לשיטתו דלא ס"ל כן כמ"ש
בסעיף ה':
[8] ערוך השולחן (אבן העזר קעז:ה): והנה לפי דעת הרמב"ם והטור נראה
דבקטנה לא משכחת לה כלל ברצון דפיתוי קטנה אונס הוא אך הרמב"ם לית ליה האי
סברא כמבואר דבריו בפ"ב מסוטה ובפ"ג מאיסורי ביאה וכבר בארנו טעמו בסי'
ס"ח ולכן לא הזכיר זה אבל על הטור קשה למה לא הזכיר זה:
[9] משך חכמה (ויקרא כ:טו - טז): ואיש אשר יתן שכבתו בבהמה מות יומת ואת הבהמה
תהרוגו. ואשה אשר תקרב (אל כל בהמה לרבעה אותה) והרגת את האשה ואת הבהמה. לפי מה
שחידש רבינו הגר"א באליהו רבא למסכת נדה, באשה קטנה הנרבעת, אין הבהמה נסקלת
על ידה, דפיתוי קטנה אונס וליכא תקלה על ידה. אבל בקטן הבא על הבהמה נסקלת הבהמה
על ידו, דאין קישוי אלא לדעת, ורצון גמור הוא ובר קטלא, רק רחמנא חס עליה, והוי
תקלה גמורה ונסקלת הבהמה. לפי זה אתי שפיר הא דבאשה כתיב "והרגת את האשה ואת
הבהמה" - היינו היכא דהיא בת עונשים נסקלת בהמה על ידה. אבל באיש כתוב באנפי
נפשיה "מות יומת האיש, ואת הבהמה תהרוגו" - היינו אף אם השוכב אינו איש,
שהוא קטן, גם כן "הבהמה תהרוגו". ואתי שפיר מה שתניא בפרק ארבע מיתות
(סנהדרין נד, סוף עמוד ב) (תניא כוותיה דרב): זכר בן תשע שנים ויום אחד (הבא על
הבהמה בין כדרכה בין שלא כדרכה) והאשה המביאה את הבהמה (עליה בין כדרכה בין שלא
כדרכה, חייב). ולא תני שלוש שנים באשה, דבקטנה אין הבהמה נסקלת על ידה. אבל מהא
דמייתי סייעתא לרב משמע דדייק דבנשכב זכר מיירי, מדלא תני באשה בת שלוש, מוכח
דבאשה לכל עריות כן לא תני, ורק בזכר בנשכב בן תשע הוי רבותא, יעויין ברש"י.
סוף דבר, הדבר נכון בלשון הכתוב ובברייתא בסייעתא דשמיא. ועיין שם בדברי
הגר"א.
או יש לומר, דמשום שהעושה אותן עושה בצנעה שלא תשורנו
עין, ולכן כתוב באיש מיתתו בפני עצמו, לרמז למה שאמרו (סנהדרין ט, ב) "רבעתי
שורו של פלוני" דנהרג על פיו, משום דאין אדם משים עצמו רשע, והוי כמו שאמר
פלוני רבע שורו של פלוני, והוא עם אחר מצטרפים להרגו. לכן הוא אינו במיתה והבהמה
נהרגת. אבל באשה, דלאו בת עדות היא, אם כן אם יש עדים, מצוי שהתרו גם בה, ונהרגים
שניהם.
ויתכן עוד לשיטת רמב"ם, דאונסים אותו לבוא על
הערוה חייב מיתה, דאין קישוי אלא לדעת, מיירי הכא אף באונסין אותו. ולכן אינו דומה
לבהמה, ופרטו בפני עצמו "מות יומת". אבל באשה הנרבעת, אם באונס - לא
עבדא כלום, ופטורה אף במביאתו עליה, כמו מי שעבד עבודה זרה באונס. ורק ברצון מיירי
קרא, אם כן נכללת עם הבהמה, דדומה לה בכל דבר.
[10] רמב"ם (הלכות איסורי ביאה ג:ב): הבא על הקטנה אשת הגדול אם קידשה
אביה הרי זה בחנק והיא פטורה מכלום ונאסרה על בעלה כמו שביארנו בהלכות סוטה, ואם
היא בת מיאון מכין אותו מכת מרדות והיא מותרת לבעלה, ואפילו היה כהן. +/השגת
הראב"ד/ ונאסרה על בעלה. כתב הראב"ד ז"ל /א"א/ לא ידעתי למה
נאסרת על בעלה ישראל שהרי אמרו פיתוי קטנה אונס הוא עכ"ל.+
[11] רמב"ם (הלכות סוטה ב:ב): ואלו הן הנשים שאינן ראויות לשתות אע"פ
שהיא רוצה לשתות ובעלה רוצה להשקותה אלא יוצאות בלא כתובה משיבואו עידי סתירה אחר
עידי קינוי ויאסרו על בעליהן לעולם, וחמש עשרה נשים הן, ואלו הן: ארוסה, ושומרת
יבם, וקטנה אשת הגדול, וגדולה אשת הקטן, ואשת אנדרוגינוס, ואשת הסומא, או החגר, או
האלם, או מי שאינו שומע, או שהוא כרות יד, וכן החגרת, והאלמת, והסומה, וכרותת כף,
ושאינה שומעת, כל אחת מאלו אינה ראויה לשתות.
[12] רמב"ם (הלכות סוטה ב:ד): קטנה שהשיאה אביה אם זינת ברצונה נאסרה על
בעלה לפיכך מקנין לה, לא להשקותה אלא לפוסלה מכתובתה כמו שאמרנו, אבל קטנה בת
מיאון אין מקנין לה שאין לה רצון להאסר על בעלה ואפילו היה כהן לא נאסרה עליו.
+/השגת הראב"ד/ קטנה שהשיאה אביה אם זינתה ברצונה אסורה על בעלה. א"א
והלא אמרו (יבמות לג) פיתוי קטנה אונס הוא ועוד התראה לקטנה אינה התראה שאין לה
דעת אלא אם זינתה ודאי אסורה לבעלה כהן ולא מצאתי הפרש בין קטנה לקטנה לענין פיתוי
לומר קטנה בת מיאון אין לה רצון ויתן את הצער כמו אנוסה אלא כולן שוות להתפתות
בקלות הדעת.+
[13] שולחן ערוך (אבן העזר קעח:ג): קטנה שהשיאה אביה
וזינתה לרצונה, יש מי שאומר שאסורה לבעלה. לפיכך מקנאין לה, כדי להפסידה כתובתה.
ויש מי שאומר שאינו נאסרת על בעלה, אלא אם כן הוא כהן. הגה: גדולה שזנתה בשוגג,
שסברה שבעלה הוא, והוא אחר, מותרת לבעלה ישראל (הרמב"ם פכ"ד דאישות).
אבל זנתה שסברה שמותר לזנות, הוי כמזידה ואסורה לבעלה ישראל (מהרי"ק שורש
קסז). אשה שנתייחדה עם אנשים בדרך, ובאה ואמרה: נתייחדתי ונאנסתי, י"א
דנאמנת, במגו דאמרה: לא נבעלתי, וי"א
דאבדה מגו שלה, הואיל ונתייחדה שלא כדין (שני הדעות במרדכי פרק שני דכתובות):
Good Vegan, Bad Vegan
nytimes
I he no argument with people who adopt a vegetarian or vegan diet for health, religious, environmental or ethical reasons. But I object vehemently to proselytizers who distort science or the support for dietary advice offered to the more than 90 percent of us who choose to consume animal foods, including poultry and red meat, in reasonable amounts.
Such is the case with a recently released Netflix documentary called “What the Health” that several well-meaning, health-conscious young friends have urged me to watch. And I did try, until I became so infuriated by misstatements – like eating an egg a day is as bad as smoking five cigarettes, or that a daily serving of processed meat raises the risk of diabetes 51 percent — that I had to quit for the sake of my health. While the film may have laudable goals, getting the science wrong simply confuses the issues and infuriates those who might otherwise be supportive.
Please understand: I do not endorse inhumane treatment of farm animals or wanton pollution of the environment with animal wastes and misused antibiotics and pesticides. Agricultural research has long shown better ways to assure the nation of an adequate food supply if only regulators would force commercial operations to adopt them.
Nor do I endorse careless adoption of vegetarian or vegan diets for their name’s sake. A vegan who consumes no animal products can be just as unhealthy living on inappropriately selected plant foods as an omnivore who dines heavily on burgers and chicken nuggets. A vegan diet laden with refined grains like white rice and bread; juices and sweetened drinks; cookies, chips and crackers; and dairy-free ice cream is hardly a healthful way to eat.
Current dietary guidelines from responsible, well-informed sources already recommend that, for health’s sake, we should all adopt a plant-based diet rich in foods that originate in the ground. These can be “fleshed out” with low-fat protein sources from animals or combinations of beans and grains. However, here too, careless food and beverage selections can result in an unhealthful plant-based diet.
Continue reading the main story
A very large study recently published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology is a case in point. The study, by a team from Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, examined the relationship between plant-based diets of varying quality and the risk of developing coronary heart disease among more than 200,000 health professionals. The participants, who started the study free of chronic disease, were followed for more than two decades, submitting their dietary patterns to the researchers every two years.
Based on their responses on food-frequency questionnaires, the participants’ diets were characterized by the team as an overall plant-based diet that emphasized plant foods over animal foods; a healthful plant-based diet emphasizing healthful plant foods; or an unhealthful plant-based diet. Any of the diets could have included various amounts of animal products.
Healthful plant foods like whole grains, fruits and vegetables, nuts and legumes, as well as vegetable oils, coffee and tea, received a positive score, while less-healthful plant foods like juices, sweetened beverages, refined grains, potatoes and fries, and sweets along with animal foods were assigned a negative rating.
The more closely the participants adhered to a healthful plant-based diet, the less likely they were to develop heart disease in the course of the study. Those with the least healthful plant-based diet were, on average, 32 percent more likely to be given diagnoses of heart disease. In a prior study, the researchers found a similar reduction in the risk of Type 2 diabetes of a healthful plant-based diet.
The team, led by Ambika Satija of Harvard’s Department of Nutrition, concluded that “not all plant foods are necessarily beneficial for health.”
Interestingly, the Harvard finding was nearly identical to one from an 11-year European study that found a 32 percent lower risk of coronary heart disease among vegetarians than among nonvegetarians, although no health-based rating was given to the quality of the participants’ vegetarian diets.
The more detailed Harvard study, which examined gradations of adherence to a plant-based diet, found that “even a slightly lower intake of animal foods combined with a higher intake of healthy plant foods” was associated with a lower risk of developing heart disease.
In other words, you don’t have to become a strict vegetarian to protect your heart. Simply reducing your dependence on animal foods, and especially avoiding those high in fat, is helpful. In fact, “a diet that emphasized both healthy plant and healthy animal foods” was associated with a coronary risk only slightly higher than a diet based almost entirely on healthy plant foods, the researchers found.
On the other hand, overdoing “less healthy plant foods” and less healthy animal foods like red and processed meats, the study showed, significantly increased the risk of developing heart disease.
The Harvard findings lend further support to the most recently released Dietary Guidelines for Americans that urge people to consume large amounts of “high-quality plant foods,” the researchers noted. They added that the recommended diet “would also be environmentally sustainable” because plant-based food systems require fewer resources than those that rely heavily on animal foods.
Thus, the more plant foods and the fewer animal foods you eat, the lower your carbon footprint and the less you would contribute to animal suffering. But to be truly beneficial, the plant foods you choose must be rich in nutrients.
Although most Americans rely heavily on animal foods for needed protein, it’s not difficult to get quality protein on a vegetarian diet that contains dairy foods and eggs. Pescatarians, who add fish to such a diet, get a nutritious bonus of healthful omega-3 fatty acids along with high-quality protein from fish and shellfish.
Those choosing a strict vegan diet — one devoid of all foods from animals — face a greater challenge because the protein in plants is not complete and must be balanced by consuming complementary sources, like beans and grains. A sandwich of almond butter or peanut butter on whole-grain bread is totally vegan and an excellent example of balanced protein in a high-quality plant-based diet. Vegans also must supplement their diet with vitamin B-12.
Short of becoming a vegan, you can improve your diet, protect your health and add variety to your meals by a few simple dietary adjustments. For example, as Dr. Hena Patel and Dr. Kim Allan Williams Sr., cardiologists at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, suggested in a commentary on the Harvard study, you might choose one day a week to be meatless and gradually add more meatless days while adding one or more new plant-based recipes each week.
I he no argument with people who adopt a vegetarian or vegan diet for health, religious, environmental or ethical reasons. But I object vehemently to proselytizers who distort science or the support for dietary advice offered to the more than 90 percent of us who choose to consume animal foods, including poultry and red meat, in reasonable amounts.
Such is the case with a recently released Netflix documentary called “What the Health” that several well-meaning, health-conscious young friends have urged me to watch. And I did try, until I became so infuriated by misstatements – like eating an egg a day is as bad as smoking five cigarettes, or that a daily serving of processed meat raises the risk of diabetes 51 percent — that I had to quit for the sake of my health. While the film may have laudable goals, getting the science wrong simply confuses the issues and infuriates those who might otherwise be supportive.
Please understand: I do not endorse inhumane treatment of farm animals or wanton pollution of the environment with animal wastes and misused antibiotics and pesticides. Agricultural research has long shown better ways to assure the nation of an adequate food supply if only regulators would force commercial operations to adopt them.
Nor do I endorse careless adoption of vegetarian or vegan diets for their name’s sake. A vegan who consumes no animal products can be just as unhealthy living on inappropriately selected plant foods as an omnivore who dines heavily on burgers and chicken nuggets. A vegan diet laden with refined grains like white rice and bread; juices and sweetened drinks; cookies, chips and crackers; and dairy-free ice cream is hardly a healthful way to eat.
Current dietary guidelines from responsible, well-informed sources already recommend that, for health’s sake, we should all adopt a plant-based diet rich in foods that originate in the ground. These can be “fleshed out” with low-fat protein sources from animals or combinations of beans and grains. However, here too, careless food and beverage selections can result in an unhealthful plant-based diet.
Continue reading the main story
A very large study recently published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology is a case in point. The study, by a team from Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, examined the relationship between plant-based diets of varying quality and the risk of developing coronary heart disease among more than 200,000 health professionals. The participants, who started the study free of chronic disease, were followed for more than two decades, submitting their dietary patterns to the researchers every two years.
Based on their responses on food-frequency questionnaires, the participants’ diets were characterized by the team as an overall plant-based diet that emphasized plant foods over animal foods; a healthful plant-based diet emphasizing healthful plant foods; or an unhealthful plant-based diet. Any of the diets could have included various amounts of animal products.
Healthful plant foods like whole grains, fruits and vegetables, nuts and legumes, as well as vegetable oils, coffee and tea, received a positive score, while less-healthful plant foods like juices, sweetened beverages, refined grains, potatoes and fries, and sweets along with animal foods were assigned a negative rating.
The more closely the participants adhered to a healthful plant-based diet, the less likely they were to develop heart disease in the course of the study. Those with the least healthful plant-based diet were, on average, 32 percent more likely to be given diagnoses of heart disease. In a prior study, the researchers found a similar reduction in the risk of Type 2 diabetes of a healthful plant-based diet.
The team, led by Ambika Satija of Harvard’s Department of Nutrition, concluded that “not all plant foods are necessarily beneficial for health.”
Interestingly, the Harvard finding was nearly identical to one from an 11-year European study that found a 32 percent lower risk of coronary heart disease among vegetarians than among nonvegetarians, although no health-based rating was given to the quality of the participants’ vegetarian diets.
The more detailed Harvard study, which examined gradations of adherence to a plant-based diet, found that “even a slightly lower intake of animal foods combined with a higher intake of healthy plant foods” was associated with a lower risk of developing heart disease.
In other words, you don’t have to become a strict vegetarian to protect your heart. Simply reducing your dependence on animal foods, and especially avoiding those high in fat, is helpful. In fact, “a diet that emphasized both healthy plant and healthy animal foods” was associated with a coronary risk only slightly higher than a diet based almost entirely on healthy plant foods, the researchers found.
On the other hand, overdoing “less healthy plant foods” and less healthy animal foods like red and processed meats, the study showed, significantly increased the risk of developing heart disease.
The Harvard findings lend further support to the most recently released Dietary Guidelines for Americans that urge people to consume large amounts of “high-quality plant foods,” the researchers noted. They added that the recommended diet “would also be environmentally sustainable” because plant-based food systems require fewer resources than those that rely heavily on animal foods.
Thus, the more plant foods and the fewer animal foods you eat, the lower your carbon footprint and the less you would contribute to animal suffering. But to be truly beneficial, the plant foods you choose must be rich in nutrients.
Although most Americans rely heavily on animal foods for needed protein, it’s not difficult to get quality protein on a vegetarian diet that contains dairy foods and eggs. Pescatarians, who add fish to such a diet, get a nutritious bonus of healthful omega-3 fatty acids along with high-quality protein from fish and shellfish.
Those choosing a strict vegan diet — one devoid of all foods from animals — face a greater challenge because the protein in plants is not complete and must be balanced by consuming complementary sources, like beans and grains. A sandwich of almond butter or peanut butter on whole-grain bread is totally vegan and an excellent example of balanced protein in a high-quality plant-based diet. Vegans also must supplement their diet with vitamin B-12.
Short of becoming a vegan, you can improve your diet, protect your health and add variety to your meals by a few simple dietary adjustments. For example, as Dr. Hena Patel and Dr. Kim Allan Williams Sr., cardiologists at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, suggested in a commentary on the Harvard study, you might choose one day a week to be meatless and gradually add more meatless days while adding one or more new plant-based recipes each week.
Whatever Happened to Just Being Type A?
nytimes
A few years ago, Gretchen Rubin, the best-selling self-help author, pivoted from the happiness racket into the habit business with her seventh book, “Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives.” Embedded in it was a personality typing system of her own invention she called the Four Tendencies: a homage to Freud’s “fateful tendencies.”
She’d had an insight, Ms. Rubin wrote in a typical flurry of italics, as seismic as Archimedes’s eureka moment in the bath: how does a person respond to an expectation? The answer to this question, she averred, revealed a fundamental law of human nature, a linchpin of personality, a Sorting Hat — Ms. Rubin is a J. K. Rowling fan — for the drives that motivate us.
Whether you chafe at or thrill to outer expectations like deadlines or speed limits, or inner ones like New Year’s resolutions or fitness goals, you might find yourself to be an Obliger or an Upholder (that is, a people pleaser or a hard-working Hermione type), a Rebel or a Questioner; Tendencies that are perhaps self-explanatory. (Ms. Rubin has a Swiftian fondness for capital letters.)
Rubinettes everywhere were captivated, as Ms. Rubin explained her framework on her weekly podcast, “Happier With Gretchen Rubin,” which she hosts with her sister, Elizabeth Craft; on her website; and at speaking gigs. One reader sent a series of light bulb jokes based on the Tendencies. (“How do you get a Rebel to change a light bulb? Answer: Do it yourself.”)
Ms. Rubin devised an online quiz and, last summer, introduced an app, Better, a digital hub for women — and the occasional man — eager to join accountability groups, tweak their organizing, exercise and networking practices and debate the finer points of the Four Tendencies. The other day, an Obliger wondered how birth order may affect the Four Tendencies; a Questioner wanted to talk tattoos. “Do all tendencies have them?” she wrote.
Meanwhile, Ms. Rubin gestated her eighth book.
“The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People’s Lives Better, Too),” out last month, is already a best seller. By mid-September, over one million people had taken Ms. Rubin’s online quiz, making her the queen of personality typing.
A colleague of mine took it and learned she is an Obliger, “which is totally messing up my career,” she said. She thinks I’m a Rebel because I’m squirrelly about deadlines, but the quiz deemed me an Upholder when I first took the test, and then a Questioner the second time around; a couple of days ago, I took the test again and came up an Obliger.
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Can an 11-Year-Old Girl Consent to Sex?
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Can an 11-Year-Old Girl Consent to Sex?
By VALENTINE FAURE
October 5, 2017
Alex Majoli/Magnum Photos
PARIS — Last Tuesday, France woke up to news reports that a 28-year-old man and an 11-year-old girl had had “consensual” sex.
The events, first reported by the website Mediapart, took place on April 24 in the Paris suburb of Montmagny. That afternoon, the child followed a man, who had already approached her twice in the previous days, telling her he “could teach her how to kiss and more.” They went to his building, where she performed oral sex in the hallway. Then she followed him to his apartment, where they had sexual intercourse. Afterward, he told her not to talk to anybody about it, kissed her on the forehead and asked to see her again.
On her way back home, the girl called her mother in a state of panic, realizing what had just happened. “Papa is going to think I’m a slut,” she said. The mother immediately called the police and pressed charges for rape. But citing Article 227-25 of the French criminal code, the public prosecutor stated that “there had been no violence, no coercion, no threat, no surprise,” and therefore, the man would be charged only with “sexual infraction.” That offense is punishable by five years in prison, while rape entails 20 years of imprisonment when the victim is under 15.
The trial was supposed to start last Tuesday, but it was postponed to February. Meantime, the story caught fire across the country. The widespread outrage put me in mind of the Jacqueline Sauvage case, in which a battered woman who shot her husband in the back in 2012 ended up getting 10 years of prison (a harsh sentence for France). The verdict prompted wrathful comments from pundits, politicians and the public about the French justice system failing to deliver justice to society’s most vulnerable. (Ms. Sauvage was pardoned and released last year.)
What shocked many French people most of all was not the encounter itself, but that there was a legal possibility of labeling it anything other than rape. If legal norms reflect a society’s mores, what does this say about France? Petitions started circulating, and politicians would soon echo them: The law must change.
Most European countries have, over the past two decades, set age limits under which a minor simply cannot consent. In Belgium, any sexual intercourse with a child below the age of 14 is rape, punishable up to 20 years, or up to 30 years for victims under 10. In Britain, the age of consent is 16, but specific legal protection exists for children under 13: They cannot legally give their consent to any form of sexual activity. There is a maximum sentence of life imprisonment for “rape, assault by penetration, and causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.”
But in France, as long as “violence, coercion, threat or surprise” is not proven, sexual intercourse with a minor — even one under 15 — is considered an “atteinte sexuelle,” which is an infraction and not a crime. The trial takes place in a “tribunal correctionnel,” which handles infractions, and not at a “cour d’assises,” which is for the most serious crimes like murder or rape.
In 2005, the Cour de Cassation, France’s highest criminal court, stipulated that coercion is presumed for children at a “very young age.” That’s an outrageously blurry formulation that in practice has largely been applied to children under 6. This leaves children above 6 potentially considered not raped when violence cannot be established. It also allows the state of paralyzed shock experienced by many victims — and all the more so children — to equal consent.
In 2010, a new law introduced the question of age difference between the victim and the perpetrator from which “moral coercion” could result, expanding the notion of force beyond physical violence. But once again, the difference in age was not precisely qualified. In February 2015, the Constitutional Council reasserted that French law “does not set an age of discernment in regards to sexual relations: It is for the courts to determine whether the minor was capable of consenting to the sexual relationship in question.”
France doesn’t exactly have a sterling record when it comes to labeling sexual criminality. It took two centuries for sexual crimes against children to be considered so by the law. The penal code of 1810, established by Napoleon, did not say much about sexual behavior, “as if sexuality were not to fall under the law,” the philosopher Michel Foucault said in 1978. He deplored the growing “weight” of the laws “controlling” sexuality during the 19th and 20th century.
Foucault was writing a year after the cream of the French intelligentsia published an open letter in Le Monde defending three men charged with having sexual relations with children under the age of 15. The list of signatories included Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Gilles Deleuze, Roland Barthes, Philippe Sollers, André Glucksmann and Louis Aragon. “We consider that there is an incongruity,” the letter read, “between the outdated nature of the law and the everyday reality of a society which tends to recognize the existence of a sexual life in children and adolescents (if a 13-year-old girl has the right to be on the pill, what is it for?).”
Interdiction, the thinking went, belonged to the old moral order, and it was considered an honor to children to acknowledge that they had desires.
Fortunately, the mainstream culture has turned away from this pedophile-chic ethos. But if France has continued to be reluctant to define a firm age of consent, it probably has to do with the lingering vestiges of idealized sexual freedom.
And linger it does. When the Roman Polanski case resurfaced in 2009, I remember an outraged Alain Finkielkraut, one of the most visible public intellectuals in France, saying on the radio that Mr. Polanski’s 13-year-old victim, Samantha Geimer (nee Gailey), “wasn’t a little girl” because she had agreed to be photographed topless, expressing the all too common belief (and likely hope) that girls and boys can indeed be sexual at a young age.
I grew up in Paris, a very free little girl playing in the streets and riding the Metro. By the time I was 15, I had been exposed to more flashers than I care to remember, a few “frotteurs” (men who take advantage of the crowded trains to rub up against their prey), and one man who followed me into my building to have a conversation about my sexual habits when I was about 8. When I was only dreaming about boys my age, I already was very familiar with the chilling effect of adults inserting themselves into my intimate life.
This was how city kids grew up in the aftermath of sexual “liberation”: navigating these uncomfortable interactions, unaware we maybe were escaping something worse.
Today, I can’t look through the window into a classroom other than my daughter’s without being called to order by the headmistress. Still, what horrifies us as a society and seems to belong to common sense — that every instance of sexual intercourse with a child is, by definition, violent — has been left by the law to be examined case by case. The assault in Montmagny must serve as a moral wake-up call for France.
Valentine Faure is writing a book about the Jacqueline Sauvage case.
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.
Can an 11-Year-Old Girl Consent to Sex?
By VALENTINE FAURE
October 5, 2017
Alex Majoli/Magnum Photos
PARIS — Last Tuesday, France woke up to news reports that a 28-year-old man and an 11-year-old girl had had “consensual” sex.
The events, first reported by the website Mediapart, took place on April 24 in the Paris suburb of Montmagny. That afternoon, the child followed a man, who had already approached her twice in the previous days, telling her he “could teach her how to kiss and more.” They went to his building, where she performed oral sex in the hallway. Then she followed him to his apartment, where they had sexual intercourse. Afterward, he told her not to talk to anybody about it, kissed her on the forehead and asked to see her again.
On her way back home, the girl called her mother in a state of panic, realizing what had just happened. “Papa is going to think I’m a slut,” she said. The mother immediately called the police and pressed charges for rape. But citing Article 227-25 of the French criminal code, the public prosecutor stated that “there had been no violence, no coercion, no threat, no surprise,” and therefore, the man would be charged only with “sexual infraction.” That offense is punishable by five years in prison, while rape entails 20 years of imprisonment when the victim is under 15.
The trial was supposed to start last Tuesday, but it was postponed to February. Meantime, the story caught fire across the country. The widespread outrage put me in mind of the Jacqueline Sauvage case, in which a battered woman who shot her husband in the back in 2012 ended up getting 10 years of prison (a harsh sentence for France). The verdict prompted wrathful comments from pundits, politicians and the public about the French justice system failing to deliver justice to society’s most vulnerable. (Ms. Sauvage was pardoned and released last year.)
What shocked many French people most of all was not the encounter itself, but that there was a legal possibility of labeling it anything other than rape. If legal norms reflect a society’s mores, what does this say about France? Petitions started circulating, and politicians would soon echo them: The law must change.
Most European countries have, over the past two decades, set age limits under which a minor simply cannot consent. In Belgium, any sexual intercourse with a child below the age of 14 is rape, punishable up to 20 years, or up to 30 years for victims under 10. In Britain, the age of consent is 16, but specific legal protection exists for children under 13: They cannot legally give their consent to any form of sexual activity. There is a maximum sentence of life imprisonment for “rape, assault by penetration, and causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.”
But in France, as long as “violence, coercion, threat or surprise” is not proven, sexual intercourse with a minor — even one under 15 — is considered an “atteinte sexuelle,” which is an infraction and not a crime. The trial takes place in a “tribunal correctionnel,” which handles infractions, and not at a “cour d’assises,” which is for the most serious crimes like murder or rape.
In 2005, the Cour de Cassation, France’s highest criminal court, stipulated that coercion is presumed for children at a “very young age.” That’s an outrageously blurry formulation that in practice has largely been applied to children under 6. This leaves children above 6 potentially considered not raped when violence cannot be established. It also allows the state of paralyzed shock experienced by many victims — and all the more so children — to equal consent.
In 2010, a new law introduced the question of age difference between the victim and the perpetrator from which “moral coercion” could result, expanding the notion of force beyond physical violence. But once again, the difference in age was not precisely qualified. In February 2015, the Constitutional Council reasserted that French law “does not set an age of discernment in regards to sexual relations: It is for the courts to determine whether the minor was capable of consenting to the sexual relationship in question.”
France doesn’t exactly have a sterling record when it comes to labeling sexual criminality. It took two centuries for sexual crimes against children to be considered so by the law. The penal code of 1810, established by Napoleon, did not say much about sexual behavior, “as if sexuality were not to fall under the law,” the philosopher Michel Foucault said in 1978. He deplored the growing “weight” of the laws “controlling” sexuality during the 19th and 20th century.
Foucault was writing a year after the cream of the French intelligentsia published an open letter in Le Monde defending three men charged with having sexual relations with children under the age of 15. The list of signatories included Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Gilles Deleuze, Roland Barthes, Philippe Sollers, André Glucksmann and Louis Aragon. “We consider that there is an incongruity,” the letter read, “between the outdated nature of the law and the everyday reality of a society which tends to recognize the existence of a sexual life in children and adolescents (if a 13-year-old girl has the right to be on the pill, what is it for?).”
Interdiction, the thinking went, belonged to the old moral order, and it was considered an honor to children to acknowledge that they had desires.
Fortunately, the mainstream culture has turned away from this pedophile-chic ethos. But if France has continued to be reluctant to define a firm age of consent, it probably has to do with the lingering vestiges of idealized sexual freedom.
And linger it does. When the Roman Polanski case resurfaced in 2009, I remember an outraged Alain Finkielkraut, one of the most visible public intellectuals in France, saying on the radio that Mr. Polanski’s 13-year-old victim, Samantha Geimer (nee Gailey), “wasn’t a little girl” because she had agreed to be photographed topless, expressing the all too common belief (and likely hope) that girls and boys can indeed be sexual at a young age.
I grew up in Paris, a very free little girl playing in the streets and riding the Metro. By the time I was 15, I had been exposed to more flashers than I care to remember, a few “frotteurs” (men who take advantage of the crowded trains to rub up against their prey), and one man who followed me into my building to have a conversation about my sexual habits when I was about 8. When I was only dreaming about boys my age, I already was very familiar with the chilling effect of adults inserting themselves into my intimate life.
This was how city kids grew up in the aftermath of sexual “liberation”: navigating these uncomfortable interactions, unaware we maybe were escaping something worse.
Today, I can’t look through the window into a classroom other than my daughter’s without being called to order by the headmistress. Still, what horrifies us as a society and seems to belong to common sense — that every instance of sexual intercourse with a child is, by definition, violent — has been left by the law to be examined case by case. The assault in Montmagny must serve as a moral wake-up call for France.
Valentine Faure is writing a book about the Jacqueline Sauvage case.
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.
Wednesday, October 4, 2017
Why Do Smart People Do Foolish Things?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-smart-people-do-foolish-things/
What punishment does rav Shmuel deserve
What punishment does rav Shmuel deserve
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