Torah always right in conflicts with perceived Reality

from Daas Torah - translation copyrighted

Rav Shalom Shwadron (Daas Torah Orech Chaim - Shoneh Halachos page 8): If witnesses come and testify that someone had been killed and there are other witnesses who contradict them the two pairs of witnesses cancel each other’s testimony. Even if the two contradict the testimony of thousands of witnesses – the testimony of the opposing sides is canceled because two witnesses are as valid as 100 or 1000 witnesses. However the case is different if the purported murder victim shows up alive. In fact this is just the opposite of the previous case. Because even if 1000 witnesses had testified that he was dead, it is obvious that what they said is false and therefore their testimony is completely invalidated. So why is it in the first case that 2 witnesses can invalidate thousands of witnesses while in the second case thousands of witnesses are simply ignored? The answer is simple and clear. Testimony has no significance except when there is a doubt that needs clarifying. However testimony is irrelevant when it contradicts reality which needs witnesses to establish it. Now we should understand that we in our incompetence think that the events of the world are reality and the words of Torah constitute testimony, therefore when we come across events in our lives where Torah is at variance to what we perceive as reality our heart becomes filled with all sorts of rationalizations and explanation that enable us to explain the words of Torah to be consistent with what we consider to be reality. This is because we feel that what we hear from the Torah cannot be of greater validity than what we see with our eyes….However the pious Torah scholars know the real truth which is that there is no reality in the world except for the holy Torah. And all the phenomena of the world are insignificant in comparison to even the point of a letter “yud” in the Torah. Therefore if you find anything in the world which the Torah contradicts then we are forced to say that we did not perceive the world correctly and therefore the testimony from the world is totally null and void in relationship to the reality of the Torah.

The Unrealistic Optimism of Cancer Patients

NYTimes

For almost four decades, researchers and patient advocates have debated the ethics of informed consent in early-phase clinical trials, studies that test only toxicity and dosing and offer little, if any, therapeutic benefit to those enrolled. A major part of the debate has focused on the motivations of patients who participate. Some research on patient motivations has had disturbing ethical implications, indicating that patients may never fully understand the purpose of trials, despite explanations by the researchers. Others have been more reassuring, noting that patients are driven by a sense of altruism and a desire to help others who may one day suffer from the same disease.

More recently, a few studies have offered what appears to be the happiest of hypotheses. Patients may simply be optimistic and have strong needs to express hope. And because optimism has long been considered an effective coping mechanism for patients with terminal diseases, other researchers have also then assumed that optimism in this context poses few ethical issues.

Now one group of ethicists has just published a study challenging that assumption. It turns out that when it comes to being hopeful, not all optimism is created equal. [...]

Supreme Court rules for anti-gay protesters at military funerals

NYTimes

The case arose from a protest at the funeral of a Marine who had died in Iraq, Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder. As they had at hundreds of other funerals, members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., appeared with signs bearing messages like “America is Doomed” and “God Hates Fags.”

The church contends that God is punishing the United States for its tolerance of homosexuality.

The father of the fallen Marine, Albert Snyder, sued the protesters for, among other things, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and won a substantial jury award that was later overturned by an appeals court.

Supreme Court: Can police interview "abused" child without consent of parents?

Fox News

The facts of the case are fairly straightforward. In 2003, an investigator for the Oregon Department of Social Services had reason to believe that Nimrod Greene may have sexually abused his daughters. That investigator and a sheriff's deputy went to the school of the nine year old girl, described in court documents as S.G., and pulled her out of class to ask if she'd been harmed.

The young girl denied abuse for most of the interview but later said she changed her story in an effort to end the inquiry. Greene was indicted on several counts of felony sexual assault but those charges were dismissed after a jury couldn't reach a verdict. The father eventually pleaded guilty to another unrelated incident of sexual abuse.

The mother filed a lawsuit saying the investigator and deputy had no right to pull her daughter out of class without approval from her or a court. [...]

U.K. Court: Anti-Gay Couple Can't Be Foster Parents

Fox News

A British court has ruled that a Christian couple can no longer care for foster children because of their opposition to homosexuality.

Eunice and Owen Johns provided foster care for nearly two dozen children in the 1990s — but after Great Britain instituted equality laws, they were banned from the program in 2007.

Social workers red-flagged the couple during an interview when they explained that they did not approve of homosexuality because of their Pentecostal faith.

The Associated Press reported that judges at London’s Royal Courts of Justice determined that laws protecting homosexuals from discrimination take precedence over the couple’s religious beliefs.[...]

Ethiopians as Jews - 2 letters of Rav Moshe Feinstein

Concerning the status of Ethiopians as Jews - there is a teshuva printed in the Igros Moshe which refers to a previous letter on the subject. This other letter was not published in the Igros Moshe but was published in HaPardes (59:1) in 1984. There are clear differences between the two letters and it seems strange that the second letter was not included in the Igros Moshe - especially since it was addressed to Mordechai Tendler who was involved in editiing the Igros Moshe. I am publishing them both here.   HaPardes is available at Hebrew Books

Violence in Chareidi schools

BCHOL

אלימות מזעזעת ב'חיידר' אשדודי: ילד דקר את חברו בראשו • מחריד
האלימות הגואה ברחוב הישראלי הגיעה גם לכיתות ה'חיידרים': ילד כבן 13, תלמיד 'חיידר' אשדודי ידוע, שלף במהלך קטטה מברג מכיסו, ודקר את חבירו בראשו • הרב חיים ולדר ל'בחדרי חרדים' בעקבות האירוע: "האלימות המילולית בציבור החרדי מפחידה אותי הרבה יותר" • ויש תמונות מהזוועה

Chabad Seminar: identifying, reporting and preventing child indecent abuse

Collive

As part of a series on protecting children, an educational seminar to take place March 8th, 2011, at 8:00 PM, at Bais Rivka, 310 Crown Street, Brooklyn, is going to revolve around identifying, reporting and preventing child indecent abuse - a largely unaddressed issue in our community.

Noted lecturer and Chabad.org columnist Mrs. Bronya Shaffer is coordinating the event and believes it should be mandatory given the necessity to address child indecent abuse issues.

(As of now, participating schools include Bais Rivka High School, Bnos Menachem, Darchei Menachem, Bnos Yisroel, Beis Chaya Mushka, Oholei Torah, Lubavitch Yeshiva and is being endorsed by Igud Hamenahalim.)

In an article titled Creating a Sane Environment: Protecting the Innocence of Children, Rabbi Manis Friedman chillingly surmises that close to half the people he has met were abused.

That is a staggering figure from someone who has been working in our educational system for decades and certainly reflects national survey averages of a 25% rate of childhood indecent abuse (this is an average of slightly varying statistics from different agencies and includes both men and women).

The panel will consist of Dr. David Pelcovitz, Rabbi Shloime Sternberg, Professor Gavriel Fagin and Assistant District Attorney Henna White. Mrs. Shaffer will emcee.

Union Education,What Wisconsin reveals about public workers & political power.

Wall Street Journal

It's important to understand how revolutionary this change was. For decades as the private union movement rose in power, even left-of-center politicians resisted collective bargaining for public unions. We've previously mentioned FDR and Fiorello La Guardia. But George Meany, the legendary AFL-CIO president during the Cold War, also opposed the right to bargain collectively with the government.

Why? Because unlike in the private economy, a public union has a natural monopoly over government services. An industrial union will fight for a greater share of corporate profits, but it also knows that a business must make profits or it will move or shut down. The union chief for teachers, transit workers or firemen knows that the city is not going to close the schools, buses or firehouses.

This monopoly power, in turn, gives public unions inordinate sway over elected officials. The money they collect from member dues helps to elect politicians who are then supposed to represent the taxpayers during the next round of collective bargaining. In effect union representatives sit on both sides of the bargaining table, with no one sitting in for taxpayers. In 2006 in New Jersey, this led to the preposterous episode in which Governor Jon Corzine addressed a Trenton rally of thousands of public workers and shouted, "We will fight for a fair contract." He was promising to fight himself.[...]

child abuser Elior Chen defended by misguided individuals

YNET
    

"הרב המתעלל" שעינה שני אחים קטנים חויב לפצות את המשפחה ב-700 אלף שקלים. השופט: "מעשי ההתעללות הם אכזריים, מחרידים ומזעזעים". התובע: העונש הולם את מעשיו. אביו של חן: "השופט כתב את מה שהתקשורת הכתיבה לו". נציג העדה החרדית: "זה משפט דרייפוס". הסנגור הבטיח לערער לעליון

Techeles rediscovered?

NYTimes

The scholar, Zvi C. Koren, a professor specializing in the analytical chemistry of ancient colorants, says he has identified the first known physical sample of tekhelet in a tiny, 2,000-year-old patch of dyed fabric recovered from Masada, King Herod’s Judean Desert fortress, later the site of a mass suicide by Jewish zealots after a long standoff against the Romans. [...]