IDF - Brainwashing or Jewish Education?

Haaretz reports:

The Chief Military Rabbinate has recently expanded its educational activities in IDF combat units, and in doing so has entered areas previously served only by the Education Corps. Many commanders accept offers of such programs since the rabbinate pays for these activities, while the units must foot the bill for events run by the Education Corps.

The Chief Military Rabbinate's behavior "harms the delicate fabric of relations between the nonreligious and religious in the IDF," a senior officer told Haaretz. "In a number of cases it is religious brainwashing and, indirectly, also political [brainwashing]," said the officer.

IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, ordered an investigation of the matter this week and requested to redraw the "borders" between the rabbinate and Education Corps.

The Military Rabbinate has been conducting such programs for years but has greatly stepped up its activities during the past year. One of the main reasons is economic: Non-profit organizations and religious citizens have been contributing money via Libi - The Fund for Strengthening Israel's Defense. The contributions are earmarked for specific purposes, in this case the rabbinate's educational activities. The sums are significant, and give the rabbinate an advantage over the Education Corps.

Most of the controversial activities are organized by the "Jewish Awareness Department" in the Military Rabbinate, headed by Lt. Col. Zadok (Duki) Ben-Artzi, a former Air Force navigator who became religiously observant. The unit was established in the days of former IDF Chief Rabbi, Brig. Gen. Yisrael Weiss, and was called the "Combat Values branch." However, after Haaretz reported on the activities of the unit in 2001, its name was changed to Jewish Awareness and the IDF announced it would supervise the unit's activities more closely.

Now, it turns out, that its programs have expanded greatly under the command of the present IDF Chief Rabbi, Brig. Gen. Rabbi Avichai Ronski, who assumed his position in 2006. The slogan for the programs is "Jewish awareness for a victorious IDF." Ben-Artzi describes his goal as "strengthening the combat spirit and [sense of] mission in military service."

Ben-Artzi operates a telephone call center for units and offers services that are clearly under the purview of the Education Corps, such as programs and information on historic battles of the IDF and learning about the land of Israel. The unit offers to organize activities and programs "based on biblical sources, appropriate for all soldiers and commanders, also for those who do not come from a religious background," states one of its brochures. "The Jewish Awareness unit specializes in organizing the activities from start to finish," it states.

The unit circulates a number of publications, including a booklet for "commanders from a Jewish viewpoint," and one for combat soldiers "to strengthen their spirit before battle." The unit also offers advice and help in writing and updating materials for courses, including integrating programs and materials on Jewish awareness in the courses. It also offers seminars and conferences all over the country.

In particular, it hosts IDF units weekends and, the jewel in the crown, a Shabbat in Jerusalem. The free weekend is something which the Education Corps cannot compete with.

It operates these weekends in close coordination with the right wing Elad non-profit organization, which works to expand Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem and, in particular, in the village of Silwan.

A senior officer told Haaretz: "The temptation on the part of a battalion commander is great. From his point of view, he is getting a weekend for forging group spirit for the battalion, at the price of only a few hours of discussion with the rabbi. Every commander wants to strengthen values, and some of the commanders are religious and, in any case, agree with the Chief Military Rabbi. Few are aware of the nuances, or are aware that religious and nationalistic preaching is entering through the backdoor. This is a gross invasion of the Education Corps area, which does not approve the content and the exploitation of soldiers, who are a captive audience, coming for the Sabbath under orders. Ronski and his subordinates are breaking the status quo operating in the IDF from the days of Ben-Gurion," said the officer. [...]

Matchmaking & formerly religious singles

YNet reports:

Following the varying initiatives to solve the singles problem amongst young religious-Zionists, there is a demand for matchmakers amongst the formerly religious. The Rosh Yehudi (Jewish mindset) Center in Tel Aviv will hold its first-ever singles seminar next month which is intended for young people who left the religion. The seminar will also include rabbis and marriage counselors.

In an announcement published recently by the movement, young people were called upon to sign up for the seminar which will take place on the Saturday of the Noah Torah portion at the West Bank settlement of Maale Hever in south Mount Hebron.

“This is an untreated sector for which no one takes responsibility,” said one of the organizers. “We have no intention of bringing them back to the religion.”

The advertisement insisted that people inform their friends; formerly religious people who do not go to synagogue and who do not see these announcements.

On the agenda: Lectures and seminars with rabbis and marriage counselors. The most prominent speaker there will be Safed's Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu. In a conversation with Ynet, Rabbi Eliyahu explained that the main goal is to give off a positive feeling towards those who left the religion.“Sometimes, there is a feeling that they are outsiders, and that’s not true,” claimed the rabbi.

“If a semi-unbeliever will find a complete non-believer that’s good too,” said Zeira.

Obama - Orthodox vs - non-Orthodox split

JPost reports:

Orthodox Jews - a category that encompasses Modern Orthodox and haredi respondents, Cohen said - were the likeliest to support McCain, with 73% indicating support for the Republican over just 27% for Obama.

Support for McCain was highest - 90% - among Orthodox Jews who said they socialized exclusively with other Jews, while only 60% of Orthodox respondents who said they had non-Jewish friends planned to vote for McCain. [...]

At the time of the survey, slightly more than half of all Jewish voters - 51% - favored Obama, while just 25% favored McCain and 24% were still undecided.

Obama - Conservative critique

The blog HotAir presents:

Who are we:

Allow us to put our cards on the table at the outset: We are two young conservative journalists—both in our 20s. Unlike many of our peers, we are not swept up in Obamamania and would prefer John McCain to win the election. We’ve teamed up with seasoned blogger extraordinaire, Ed Morrissey, whose careful and thoughtful pursuit of the truth—even when it benefits his political opponents—is respected across the blogosphere. In that spirit, we are not at all interested in perpetuating lies, rumors, and innuendo about Barack Obama. Promoting such information does America a disservice, allows Obama’s supporters to justifiably cry “smear,” and damages our own credibility.

What follows is by no means comprehensive, but it does shed some much-needed light on a number of Obama’s positions, statements, and associations about which he has been less than honest. We’ve attempted to boil each issue down to a succinct explanation with an accompanying, brief video clip—often starring Barack Obama in his own words. Before pulling the lever for someone who hopes voters will ignore his paper-thin resume, unsavory associations, and hard-left voting record, each citizen has a duty to do his due diligence.

In short, we hope this “closing argument” is compelling and clear, and we encourage you to share this essay with undecided or wavering family members, friends, and co-workers.[...]

Summation:

All three of us have written many, many times on all of these issues. Taken individually, most of them would create doubt about the readiness and honesty of any political candidate. Put together as a narrative, we believe this paints the picture of a man who has few real credentials for the office he seeks beyond the Constitutional minimum, and a politician who has succeeded in obfuscating his hard-Left ideology.

Perhaps if Barack Obama had taken more time to build his resumé –especially with executive experience – he might have made a more compelling candidate, and might have demonstrated at least a little ofthe moderation he has claimed. Instead, Democrats want America to support at once the most radical and least qualified candidate for President in at least a century. They have tried to conceal this with the complicity of a pom-pom-waving national media that has shown much more interest in the political background of a plumber from Ohio than in a major-party candidate for President.

America deserves better than that. Voters deserve the truth from the press, not vague cheers of “hope” and “change” while willfully ignoring or air-brushing Obama’s record. We hope to set that record straight with our essay.

Secular hatred of religious Jews

YNet reports:

A 10-year-old new immigrant from France was forced to leave the soccer team for which he was registered since according to him, the other children refused to play with him because he wears a yarmulke.

Y., a fifth grade student at the Netiv Zvulun School in Modiin, signed up for the extracurricular activity at the youth cultural center at the city's Yovel School. “Getting to the club at the other school was easier for my wife,” said the boy’s father. “I thought that it would be nice for the boy if he met new friends even if they were not religious and that he could play with them.”

After the second soccer practice, the boy came home crying and agitated. “He said that he refuses to go back there as the children would not play with him because he is religious. He was really hurt and did not understand what he did,” said the father. “Some of the children pulled each new kid aside and told them, ‘Don’t play with him and don’t pass him the ball during practice because he wears a yarmulke and prays. We don’t want religious people in our group,’” recalled Y.

The boy also said that he tried going to their instructor but that he wouldn’t listen to him during practice and that the next lesson began right away. [...]

Airport - Don't do favors for chareidim!

Hasidic leader Rabbi Simcha Ashlag will return this weekend to the partial detention he and his personal assistant received in February, in which the two are forbidden to leave Paris. The reason: 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of drugs found in their suitcases. [...]

The rabbi is the grandson of the famous Yehuda Leib Ha-Levi Ashlag, otherwise known as Baal Ha-Sulam (Author of the Ladder) and the only interpreter of the Zohar (the mystical commentary on the Torah). In February, before leaving Israel, an ultra-Orthodox man who presented himself as a clothing manufacturer from Turkey approached Ashlag. The man claimed that he heard that prior to his trip to the United States the rabbi was expected to fly to Turkey and therefore requested that he take four suitcases packed with clothing with him to his needy family in the United States.

“We would like to emphasize that the public needs to know that a small favor they ask from someone may cause them to pay the price of a heavy and unnecessary legal case,” said Osbicher.

The Hassidic leader agreed but when the local customs official at the Paris airport asked him and his assistant to open their luggage, it turned out that aside from clothing, there were 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of drugs hidden and folded at the bottom. [...]

Hispanic Christians as Jews in Israel?

Orlando Sentinel reported: [sent by Jersey Girl]

Growing up in the Dominican Republic, Wendy Canelones wondered about the custom of her grandmother and great-grandmother, lighting candles on Friday afternoon. She assumed it was just a habit. It wasn't until adulthood that she learned they were carrying on the Jewish tradition of welcoming the Sabbath with candles. Eventually she discovered she was of Jewish heritage — and came to understand her early fascination with that culture and religion.

"The blood of Abraham is in us," said Canelones, 37. "It calls us." She now works with Aliyah Sepharad International, a Sanford-based group for Hispanics of Jewish ancestry. Its ultimate purpose: to go live in Israel. [...] Many of their descendants therefore grew up not knowing their heritage. This is changing.

"There is a phenomenon with what we call returning Jews," said religion professor Nathan Katz of Florida International University, in Miami. "They make up a significant percentage of synagogues."

Gary Fernandez, who heads Aliyah Sepharad International, said his organization is the only one in the United States that works to help Sephardic Jews return to Israel. "God promised the Negev [southern Israel] to the people of Sepharad," said Fernandez, citing the biblical book of Obadiah. He said he discussed his plans with the manager of the city of Negev. But Fernandez, a native of Puerto Rico who grew up Christian, will first have to overcome a few hurdles.

Before allowing anyone to move to Israel under the Law of Return, Israel requires evidence that at least one grandparent was a practicing Jew. Descending from Jews alone is not enough, Katz said.

The alternative is to convert to Judaism. But because they also believe in Jesus, this could complicate matters. "Most authorities in Israel would argue that the religion they practice is not Judaism," Katz said.

Fernandez understands what he's up against. "Someone has to start somewhere," he said. "If it is going to take years to navigate this process, we'll do it."

Cohen II - marrying a baalas teshuva

Just received this email. I am posting it to remind/inform people of the problems that exist. This is obviously a problem for a major posek - not a blog. I will see if I can get clarification of this issue. There might be a solution - but they truly need a major posek - not only to make the decision but so that the decision is accepted.

Dear Rabbi.

A baal teshuvah dated a cohen 11 years ago. She thought a cohen could only not marry a divorcee or convert. The cohen did not ask the girl about her past because he had heard not to ask a baal teshuvah about past history. After the couple was engaged she was approached by a religious neighbor seeking to know if she had been married or dated a goy. The girl was distraught and told the fiancee that she was told not to marry him. The cohen and the girl went to a Sephardic rabbi ... The couple was married by heter with this rabbi. Now the wife told her husband that she was not honest with the rabbi about the details of her past sexual history.... The man and woman are afraid that they will now be forced to divorce under Jewish law once they go to the rabbi who married them. The wife is distraught crying every day and the couple has two children. Is there anyway they can stay together? And if they are forced to divorce can they postpone the divorce until the children are older, etc?

Please advise.

ויקרא (כא:ז): אשה זנה וחללה לא יקחו ואשה גרושה מאישה לא יקחו כי קדש הוא לאלהיו:

שולחן ערוך (אבן העזר ו:ח): אי זו היא זונה, כל שאינה בת ישראל, או בת ישראל שנבעלה לאדם שהיא אסורה לינשא לו איסור השוה לכל, או שנבעלה לחלל אף על פי שהיא מותרת לינשא לו. לפיכך הנרבעת לבהמה, אע"פ שהיא בסקילה, לא נעשית זונה ולא נפסלה לכהונה, שהרי לא נבעלה לאדם. והבא על הנדה, אע"פ שהיא בכרת, לא נעשית זונה ולא נפסלה לכהונה, שהרי אינה אסורה לינשא לו. וכן הבא על הפנויה, אפי' היתה קדשה שהפקירה עצמה שהיא במלקות, לא נעשית זונה ולא נפסלה מכהונה, שהרי אינה אסורה לינשא לו. אבל הנבעלת לאחד מאיסורי לאוין השוין בכל ואינה מיוחדת בכהנים או מאיסורי עשה, וא"צ לומר למי שהיא אסורה לו משום ערוה, או לעובד כוכבים ועבד, הואיל והיא אסורה לינשא לו הרי זו זונה. וכן הגיורת והמשוחררת, אפילו נתגיירה ונשתחררה פחותה מבת שלש שנים, הואיל ואינה בת ישראל הרי זו זונה ואסורה לכהן. וכן יבמה שבא עליה זר, עשאה זונה. וי"א שהבא על חייבי עשה או על חייבי לאוין, אפילו חייבי לאוין דשאר, לא עשאה זונה, חוץ מהבא על היבמה.

Kabbala is beyond understanding?

mekubal 's comment to "Agada & Kabbala - learning things beyond comprehen...":

With all due respect to the great Tzadik R' Brody, his explanation is quite simplistic. To say that we are learning basics only for use in the world to come, in many ways is contrary to the initial pledge of the Jewish people, Na'aseh and Nishma. Even in Kabbalah this has been the shita taught to me by luminaries such as R' Kaduri Z"L, R' Shalom Shmueli Shlita and R' Beniyahu Shlita.

There is a level of doing and action, starting in the Kavanot of Tefila. Then extending into the various Tikunim, that coupled with Teshuva and observance of the mitzvot allow us to become proper vessels for the supernal light.

Finally there is the attainment of Ruah HaKodesh, which the sages still tell us is available in every generation, and even in these last generations we have seen such luminaries as R' Sharabi, the Baba Sali and R' Kaduri who attained these lofty heights, and they are the ones who are revealed to the masses. Concealed within the Kabbalistic academies there are many who have also achieved such heights buy hide from public view. People whom I have seen great Gedolim such as R' Yosef or R' Eliashiv come to seek counsel and blessing from.

Obviously these luminaries have a level of understanding of Kabbalistic concepts and workings that baffle the mind. In my studies I ran into a difficulty in the Kavanot of Sephirat HaOmer, excluding the details, I explained my difficulty to one of these Rabbanim and asked for a Teretz(when performing the kavanot these small details can make a world of difference). When I agreed to answer me I broke out my MP3 recorder and notebook. He said, "Its quite simple..." 45min later and with ample notes, I went back to review what he said, to gain the understanding for myself. It took me two weeks to comprehend what he told me, and in all honesty I don't think I managed to internalize it and really understand it, until well after Shavuot.

So there is definitely a level of understanding that is possible even today. In Shaare Kedusha, Helek 2, Shaar2 or 3(sorry I don't remember the exact reference), R' Haim Vital first quotes sources stating that the study of all of Pardes is a Torah injunction. Then he states that on the fateful day of judgment when the heavenly court asked us what did you learn, they will not simply state "what did you learn," rather they will ask, "what did you learn from P'shat, from Remez, from Drash, and most importantly from Sod?" He then states that it will not be the material that we can recount that will be to our benefit and save us from the wrath of angels and reincarnation, but rather it will be what we understood.

Thus if understanding more than elementary concepts is only possible in the days of Mashiah, R' Vital has made it impossible for us to live. There is no hope for us. Rather we must say that in truth, understanding can be achieve, even on rather exulted levels, but as with all Torah, full understanding will only be achieved in the days of Mashiah.

Much as our Rabbis of blessed memory told us concerning Moshe Rabbeinu. In Pirkei Avot, it states Moshe Kibel Torah M'Sinai. The commentators ask why Kibel? The overall answer was he was given all that he was capable of receiving and understanding, but he was not given all the Torah. Even Moshe Rabbeinu, on such a high and exalted level was not capable of understanding it all, even for him that that will have to wait for the days of Mashiah. Is that to say that Moshe Rabbeinu did not understand Torah ChV"Sh? Not at all! It simply tells us that until the days of Mashiah, there is always another level ahead of us.

In fact the Ari Z"L states in Shaar Ruah HaKodesh, Drush 1, that in the last generations before the revelation of Mashiah, many people will achieve a level so close to Moshe Rabbeinu, that it will be nearly indistinguishable.

So then it seems to me that we must in fact say that understanding is possible, and that we can in fact understand a great portion of Sod, far more than the elementals.

Marriage - Halachic Difficulties for a posek

mekubal's comment to "Problem - Cohen wants to marry Giyorus":

All other possibilities aside, Shadchanim are not Rabbis, let alone Rabbis who are able to deal with such complicated issues.

For instance in the Shulchan Aruch it in Even HaEzer, Siman 6 it lists many disqualifications for those who can marry a Kohen. Also typically, l'chatchila, if a woman is Ossur to marry a Kohen so is her daughter. For instance you will find in that Siman that a woman who had relations with a Goy is ossur to a Kohen, but so is her daughter, even if her daughter has no other disqualifications. You will also find that a convert, and the daughter of a convert are ossur to a Kohen. In all seriousness how many Shaddchainim know all of this, or even think to ask it? How many say to a young girl, "So did your mother have relations with a Goy before she married your father?" Also even if her grand-mother were a valid convert would that help l'chatchila? I am no expert but I know that at least in some circles that would still be a problem.

Really all of this is an issue for a Gadol. I ran into a problem much like this in my own life. I married my wife, whose father was not Jewish. We were both frum, and the local Beit Din did not object. We come to Israel, and it finally comes out in a Yeshiva that I was in, about my wife's parentage, and the Rosh Yeshiva goes through the roof. He winds up fighting with my Rosh Yeshiva in the US. R' Eliashiv and R'Yosef both my psakim that the marriage is Kosher, B'dieved(we trusted the Rabbanim and the Beit Din at the time how were we to know there was a problem), but Kosher. The Rosh Yeshiva of the Israeli Yeshiva rejected their opinions and asked me to leave the Yeshiva. So before you judge people, and their motives, understand that there is an uninformed public out there as well as an uniformed Rabbinate.

Anusim II - Demand recognition and acceptance

While I obviously don't agree with the following comment, but at least it clearly expresses what the issue is. Are the Anusim - not Jews unless they can satisfy the conditions of halacha or are they Jews even though they haven't been recognized according to the halacha? Since you insist that the discussion until now is not acceptable - would you please tell us what you think is the acceptable way for the Jewish community to deal with it? In other words are you saying anything more than the Jewish community has no right to pass judgment on your Jewish status?
=========================
drew's comment to "Anusim - Demand recognition and acceptance":

(quote from a previous post)...His family traditions do not constitute proof. Thus he is not a Jew but can't prove it. He is simply not a Jew until he proves it.

As another person in this situation, I will make this very brief. Debating this very serious issue will do us no good if its done in this way. You can't judge us because you are not in our place. You can't say people like us aren't Jews. I assure you, we go through our own doubts without your help. It is total pain. (don't try and use what I just said as leverage to say I myself don't know who or what I am, because again, you are not in this place.) The fact is, its not that we aren't Jews, its that "halachically we can't be recognized as Jews". That's it.

I understand what this means and the suffering it entails, and if anyone else in this situation doesn't understand it, they need as well. However, those of you who are blessed in the way that your Jewishness is "halachically" valid, in that it is halachically revealed, need to understand this. you can't just say "you are not a Jew". living like this is our golus. we suffer enough. This all leads to something much bigger than we all can see right now.

Good Moed
concealed...still...but trusting in HaShem...still.
==================
2nd comment
drew's comment to "Anusim IV - Customs are proof of being Jewish?":

Even,
i just read that you already formally converted. you're still here though making comments about your past. i stand by you...sorta.

unfortunately you won't find the compassion you are looking for but its because you need to look soley to HaShem. you could say "my great grandfather wrote a Torah scroll and mezzuot"...and the reality is...you'll most likely hear that he was a muslim who could have been selling forgeries. i've been through it all myself. its so amazing how people look at the glass half empty instead of saying "wow, HaShem kept/brought this soul here in this way, through all this disaster, this soul is here, this spark is rising".

as jersey girl said, muslims bury nails....but guess what...so do jews. youre told prior to conversion "you are not a jew". fact is...prior to conversion, "halachically", you could not be recognized as a jew, otherwise we throw out the system of halacha and there goes all the order...G-d forbid.

hard advice is, dont look for help, compassion, or understanding from anyone on this except for HaShem. use the pain to make you daven with exceptional kavanah.

you ended up converting...there is no question now, your soul was at sinai....you were right all along.

Good Moed

==============================
3rd comment
drew's comment to "Rabbi Vinas' reply - discussed and rejected I":

out of curiosity....doesnt anyone have faith in the fact that this redemption will be tremendous and that HaShem will return all the sparks that have been lost? thats what bothers me the most about all this. a terrible thing you dont see how great HaShem is. maybe we just dont understand how HaShem is working. if you have all the answers...then be Moshiach and return us to our King cause its torture living like this. realize that we are scattered all over the place and we need HaShem to deliver us. instead of saying we aren't jewish...pray to HaShem to return all that are and be sensitive to us and those trying to help us. its nice and easy with papers saying youre a jew...all doors are open. you have no clue what this is like. i pray HaShem helps you cause at the end of it all, its not paper that makes us jewish, but the neshama that is not bound by the limitations of this world. aren't we supposed to be as numerous as the stars??...the people in this situation are such a small number...people act like every person in the world is saying this. why don't we look at commitment to Torah. regardless of barrier, we are here.

Infertility - Jewish egg market

Haaretz reports
A small but growing number of Jewish Israeli women are traveling to the United States to donate their eggs to infertile Jewish couples undergoing in vitro fertilization - a trend that some say strengthens Jewish continuity but also raises serious moral questions about the
commercialization of fertility.

There are at least three egg donor companies operating in the United States that deal primarily or entirely with Jewish Israeli donors. These companies offer applications and donor information in Hebrew. They also provide staff in America and Israel who are proficient in Hebrew and claim a familiarity with, and sensitivity to, Jewish law.

"When you have your basic right to reproduce taken away from you, you are always going to want to find the thing closest to you," said Judy Weiss, a registered nurse who is the founder of A Jewish Blessing, a New Jersey-based agency that deals exclusively with Jewish donors and recipients. "It's not really about religion. It's about a genetic group, a family. We have a shared history of suffering, a bond. We are part of the same club."

But while demand for Jewish donors' eggs is growing, infertility doctors say that few American Jewish women are willing to go through the process of donating eggs. There are grueling forms to fill out and weeks of psychological and physical screening, and then there's nearly a month of daily hormone injections and close medical supervision. Finally, there's the egg retrieval - a procedure done under anesthesia in which a needle is inserted into the donor's ovaries to pluck the ripe eggs. These eggs, combined with the sperm of the recipient's partner, produce embryos that are inserted back into the uterus of the recipient or inside a gestational carrier.

"I want to help my people grow," a woman who is an egg donor said in an interview with the Forward. (She and five other egg donors interviewed asked to remain anonymous.) But this is more than an altruistic act: While the sale of eggs is forbidden, "compensation" is allowed. Compensation in New York is about $8,000 for a single cycle, during which the donor takes hormone injections and eggs are extracted. The recipient couple or their insurance pays for the medical costs, including the drugs.

"There's definitely a specialty market for Jewish eggs," notes Debora Spar, the new president of Barnard College and the author of the 2006 book "The Baby Business," which is about the political, economic and social issues surrounding reproductive technology. "This is a market that's growing rapidly, partly because it's becoming more acceptable to use donors' eggs - and because it can be a very good solution for women above a certain age."

Spar is troubled by this new intersection between young Israeli donors and older American Jewish women trying to conceive. "There's a moral hazard that if women do increasingly believe they could put off child bearing for longer, they might choose to do so just because it's medically possible," she said.

Others see the relationship in more spiritual terms. "My mission is to explain that donors are women who are giving the most wonderful thing there is to give, and are doing it from the bottom of their hearts," said Ruth Tavor, who opened NY LifeSpring seven years ago to recruit Israeli egg donors after her own long but eventually successful fertility treatment. She now has 203 Israeli donors on file. [...]

Succos - Women banned from celebrations

Bartley Kulp asked :

Can somebody please explain to me the point of all of this? At first I thought that it was just Meah Shearim, but now this.

Jpost: Chabad bans women from Succot event

Responding to haredi pressure, Chabad blocked the participation of women in its Succot celebrations in Jerusalem's Shikun Chabad neighborhood Tuesday night.

Chabad's rabbinical leadership acquiesced to a call by heads of the most important hassidic sects - Ger, Belz, Sanz, Sadigora and Viznitz - to restrict the music and dancing to indoors, effectively preventing women from participating.

Last year Chabad ignored a call by the Lithuanian rabbinic leadership to tone down its festivities.

However, this year for the first time hassidic leaders joined the call.

Chabad, a hassidic sect that is known for its outreach work with assimilated or unaffiliated Jews all over the world, traditionally celebrates outdoor concerts and dancing that targets the wider Jewish population.

Chabad's last rabbinic leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson - who passed away in 1994 - vigorously encouraged holding Succot festivities outdoors in the most visible locations possible.

Rabbi Menachem Brod, spokesman for Chabad in Israel, said that Schneerson, known as "the rebbe," directed his followers to "take the Torah from the study halls to streets" on Succot.

"We will continue to follow the rebbe's orders in all locations except Jerusalem, where the local public specifically requested that we respect their sensitivities," he said.

Chabad events at other venues during the holiday will take place outdoors. Both men and women, separated by partitions, will be allowed to participate.

Rabbi Mordechai Bloi, a senior member of the Guardians of Sanctity and Education, an organization based in Bnei Brak that enforces what it sees as normative haredi behavior, praised Chabad.

"The rebbe of Chabad told his hassidim to spread the joy in the streets, but he was not talking about haredi areas," said Bloi. "Let them do what they want in secular areas.

"The Talmud teaches that even in the time of Temple men and women were strictly separated and this was called 'the big tikkun.' I am happy that this year we will have this tikkun in Jerusalem."

Brod said that Chabad respected the call by the rabbis to maintain strict codes of modesty. However, he added that the increasingly stringent demands by haredi rabbis that have effectively brought about a total ban of outdoor concerts might be counterproductive.

"If haredim are not given a kosher option for musical entertainment they might end up turning to non-kosher options," he said. "As a result of the changes we made this year in Jerusalem, women who came to our annual event in the past will be forced to stay home.

"Only time will tell whether or not this is the best policy to adopt," he said. [...]

Why How Matters - Thomas Friedman

New York Times:

I have a friend who regularly reminds me that if you jump off the top of an 80-story building, for 79 stories you can actually think you’re flying. It’s the sudden stop at the end that always gets you.

When I think of the financial-services boom, bubble and bust that America has just gone through, I often think about that image. Wethought we were flying. Well, we just met the sudden stop at the end.The laws of gravity, it turns out, still apply. You cannot tell tens of thousands of people that they can have the American dream — a home, for no money down and nothing to pay for two years — without that eventually catching up to you. The Puritan ethic of hard work and saving still matters. I just hate the idea that such an ethic is more alive today in China than in America.

Our financial bubble, like all bubbles, has many complex strands feeding into it — called derivatives and credit-default swaps — but at heart, it is really very simple. We got away from the basics — from the fundamentals of prudent lending and borrowing, where the lender and borrower maintain some kind of personal responsibility for, and personal interest in, whether the person receiving the money can actually pay it back. Instead, we fell into what some people call Y.B.G. and I.B.G. lending: “you’ll be gone and I’ll be gone” before the bill comes due.

Yes, this bubble is about us — not all of us, many Americans were way too poor to play. But it is about enough of us to say it is about America. And we will not get out of this without going back to some basics, which is why I find myself re-reading a valuable book that I wrote about once before, called, “How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything in Business (and in Life).” Its author, Dov Seidman, is the C.E.O. of LRN, which helps companies build ethical corporate cultures.

Seidman basically argues that in our hyperconnected and transparent world, how you do things matters more than ever, because so many more people can now see how you do things, be affected by how you do things and tell others how you do things on the Internet anytime, for no cost and without restraint.

“In a connected world,” Seidman said to me, “countries, governments and companies also have character, and their character — how they do what they do, how they keep promises, how they make decisions, how things really happen inside, how they connect and collaborate, how they engender trust, how they relate to their customers, to the environment and to the communities in which they operate — is now their fate.”

We got away from these hows. We became more connected than ever in recent years, but the connections were actually very loose. That is, we went away from a world in which, if you wanted a mortgage to buy a home, you needed to show real income and a credit record into a world where a banker could sell you a mortgage and make gobs of money upfront and then offload your mortgage to a bundler who put a whole bunch together, chopped them into bonds and sold some to banks as far afield as Iceland.[...]