Modernity impacts halacha when 1)government intervenes 2) people rely on their own judgment

Dr. Jacob Katz (Changing Position and Outlook of Halakhists in Early Modernity) The beginnings of modernity, as we all know, can be dated in relation to the phenonmenon the history of which we wish to trace. The attempt to fix time when the position of the rabbis, the official bearers of halakhic authority, changed, eliciting as a result an alteration in their outlook as well, may well be facilitated by observation of two corresponding proceses. One of these was the growing intervention of the respective governments in the  affairs of the Jewish communities, undermining the autonomy upon which the authority of the rabbis depended. The other was the emergence of a group of people within the communities who, relying on their own judgment contested the prerogative of the rabbis to control the religious conduct of  their congregants. The two phenomena are not independent of each other.  The tendency of the modern state to appropriate functions formerly the domain of religious institutions and the endeavor of individuals to exempt themselves from religious authority are both an expression of the expanding spirit of rationalism in the course of the eighteenth century.

Children of refugee's welcomed by Sweden - riot & hate Sweden - why?

NY Times    In Stockholm and other towns and cities last week, bands made up mostly of young immigrants set buildings and cars ablaze in a spasm of destructive rage rarely seen in a country proud of its normally tranquil, law-abiding ways. 

The disturbances, with echoes of urban eruptions in France in 2005 and Britain in 2011, have pushed Sweden to the center of a heated debate across Europe about immigration and the tensions it causes in a time of deep economic malaise. 

The riots, now subsiding, have produced less damage than the earlier ones in Paris and London, which also involved mostly immigrants. But the unrest has shaken Sweden, which has a reputation for welcoming immigrants and asylum seekers, including those fleeing violence in countries like Iraq, Somalia and Syria, and regularly ranks in surveys as one of the world’s happiest places. 

“I don’t know why anybody would want to burn our school,” Ms. Bromster said. “I can’t understand it. Maybe they are not so happy with life.” 

Peri Commision on drafting Chareidi deadlocked over penalties

Times of Israel   A committee meeting tasked with passing new rules for drafting youth into the army — particularly ultra-Orthodox — ended in argument early Monday morning as sides failed to agree on punishment terms for draft dodgers. The termination of the Peri Committee meeting followed several hours in which the panel found broad consensus and approved several points from a recent draft proposal. 

The main bone of contention arose between Science and Technology Minister Yaakov Peri, who heads the eponymous group drafting the new rules, and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon. The two agreed to meet in an attempt to hash out their differences later on Monday.

Ya’alon said before the vote that he would oppose any measure that automatically criminalized ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers. However, Peri and his Yesh Atid faction consider sanctions a central part of the plan, which is intended to integrate the ultra-Orthodox into military or national service. [...]

During the meeting, which lasted past 1 a.m. Monday, the panel agreed on most of the draft proposal’s measures, including allowing top Torah scholars to be exempted from service and not extending the new rules to Arab youths along with the ultra-Orthodox.

The panel also agreed to lengthen service for those in the religious hesder serve/study program by a month, and not by eight months, as was originally proposed.

Hesder students currently spend 16 months in service and several more years in yeshiva study.

Super computers match fragments of Cairo Geniza

NY Times   The idea is to harness technology to help reassemble more than 100,000 document fragments collected across 1,000 years that reveal details of Jewish life along the Mediterranean, including marriage, medicine and mysticism. For decades, scholars relied mainly on memory to match up pieces of the Cairo genizah, a treasure trove of papers that include works by the rabbinical scholar Maimonides, parts of Torah scrolls and prayer books, reams of poetry and personal letters, contracts, and court documents, even recipes (there is a particularly vile one for honey-wine). 

Now, for the first time, a sophisticated artificial intelligence program running on a powerful computer network is conducting 4.5 trillion calculations per second to vastly narrow down the possibilities. 

“In one hour, the computer can compare 10 million pairs — 10 million pairs is something a human being cannot do in a lifetime,” said Roni Shweka, who has advanced degrees in both computers and Talmud and is helping lead the effort. “It’s going to be a very powerful tool for every researcher today that’s going to work on one fragment. In a few seconds, he’ll be able to find the other fragments, like finding the needle in the hay.” 

The genizah project is part of a growing movement to unleash advanced technology on the humanities. In recent years, geeks and poets have been collaborating on databases and digital mapping that are transforming the study of history, literature, music and more.[...]

The 320,000 pages and parts of pages — in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Judeo-Arabic (Arabic transliterated into Hebrew letters) — were scattered in 67 libraries and private collections around the world, only a fraction of them collated and cataloged. More than 200 volumes and thousands of academic papers have been published based on the material, most focused on a single fragment or a few. Perhaps 4,000 have been pieced together through a painstaking, expensive, exclusive process that relied a lot on luck.  [...]

ORA Post removed - Rabbi Jeremy Stern said item was unauthorized

I removed the recent posting regarding Ora. Rabbi Stern said that the item posted on his web site  had not been approved for posting. It has in fact been removed from the ORA website

Peri Committee recommendations for drafting Chareidim & severely limiting exemptions

Times of Israel   Jewish Home party officials late Thursday hailed a government committee’s recommendations for a revolutionary universal conscription bill that would severely limit the number of ultra-Orthodox Israelis exempt from the draft.

Sources within the national religious party, headed by Naftali Bennett, called the Peri Committee’s plan a “historic compromise,” and credited Bennett’s alliance with Yesh Atid chief Yair Lapid.

Jewish Home party officials late Thursday hailed a government committee’s recommendations for a revolutionary universal conscription bill that would severely limit the number of ultra-Orthodox Israelis exempt from the draft.

Sources within the national religious party, headed by Naftali Bennett, called the Peri Committee’s plan a “historic compromise,” and credited Bennett’s alliance with Yesh Atid chief Yair Lapid.

Problem of silence and coverups of coach abuse of young athletes

NY Times   A woman who was sexually abused as a teenager in the 1980s by a Hall of Fame swimming coach used the occasion of his sentencing Thursday to demand the departure of three leaders in USA Swimming who she said knew about the coach’s misconduct and failed to act.

For five years beginning when she was 13, the woman, Kelley Davies Currin, was sexually abused by Rick Curl, her coach on a suburban Washington team that he founded. On Thursday in Montgomery County Circuit Court in Maryland, Curl, 63, was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of child sexual abuse in February.

With her case against Curl concluded after three decades, Currin, 43, called for further investigation into actions that helped “create a culture that protects predator coaches and vilifies young victims.”

The issue of sexual misconduct by coaches has been percolating in the sport since at least the 1960s, but it rocketed to the surface in 2010. In a highly publicized case that year, Andrew King, then 62, was sentenced to 40 years in prison after pleading no contest to charges of molesting a 14-year-old girl who swam for him in San Jose, Calif., and two women he coached on other teams in the 1980s and 1990s. He was accused of molesting more than a dozen swimmers.[...]

Should new couples be given genetic tests for adult on-set diseases?

Haaretz    A panel of experts is considering adding tests for diseases that develop in adulthood to the standard genetic tests given to young couples when they are starting a family. Currently, these tests only cover diseases that develop in childhood. [...]

The National Bioethics Council, which advises the Health Ministry, set up the panel in response to a proposal to add one specific test, for a mutation of the GNE gene that is common among Jews of Persian origin and causes HIBM, a neuromuscular disease for which there is currently no treatment. HIBM begins with muscle weakness, usually when the patient is in his thirties, and ends in total paralysis.

The National Bioethics Council, which advises the Health Ministry, set up the panel in response to a proposal to add one specific test, for a mutation of the GNE gene that is common among Jews of Persian origin and causes HIBM, a neuromuscular disease for which there is currently no treatment. HIBM begins with muscle weakness, usually when the patient is in his thirties, and ends in total paralysis.

The National Bioethics Council, which advises the Health Ministry, set up the panel in response to a proposal to add one specific test, for a mutation of the GNE gene that is common among Jews of Persian origin and causes HIBM, a neuromuscular disease for which there is currently no treatment. HIBM begins with muscle weakness, usually when the patient is in his thirties, and ends in total paralysis.a

Because the current tests relate only to diseases that develop in childhood, this counseling only addresses the possible implications for the couple’s children, while ignoring the implications for the parents. Yet a genetic mutation can affect the parent even if he hasn’t developed the disease it causes. For instance, a mutation of the FMR-1 gene can cause autism or developmental delays in children, but women who carry this mutation face an increased risk of early menopause and of developing neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s later in life.[...]       

Rav Sternbuch: Written psak to report Kolko to police

Cautionary note: Even though in the case addressed in the letter there was a confession, Rav Sternbuch has told me that is not a necessary condition to require going to the police. I did not post this as a teshuva - since Rav Sternbuch did not write it to explicate the parameters for reporting. For those interested his views are discussed in details in my books on abuse as well as various postings that can be found by searching for "police" on this blog. THE REASON I POSTED IT IS TO SHOW THAT THERE ARE GEDOLIM WHO REQUIRE GOING TO THE POLICE -  contrary to what one would conclude who has been following the  pronouncements of the Lakewood establishment and Rav Belsky concerning child abuse.

Update 5/ 23/ 13: A rough translation is:

Concerning your question regarding someone who is suspected of the disgusting and serious crime [of pedophilia], And there are those who claim he confessed and a high level rav verified that there seems to be a solid basis to the suspicions and it is also well known that this disease [pedophilia] is difficult [for the pedophile to stop abusing children]. Therefore we are obligated to report him because he is a danger to the community. In addition someone who interferes with reporting him can possibly be causing additional harm to the community. In particular in our days where pedophilia has become widespread - we are obligated to report him. See the Taz Yoreh Deah, #154.

ט"ז יורה דעה סימן קנז

(ח) חייב מיתה כשבע בן בכרי. - נראה דלהכי נקטיה כשבע בן בכרי דאע"פ דבדין תורה לא היה חייב מיתה אלא מצד חוק המלכות שמרד בדוד מ"מ מוסרין אותו אם יחדוהו ומינה אף בזמנינו מי שפושע ומורד במלכות שלו מוסרין אותו וה"ה בשאר עבירות שאחד מוחזק בהם כגון עוסק בזיופי' או שאר דברים שיש בהם סכנה פשיטא שמוסרין אותו ומן הראוי למסור אותו אפי' אם לא יחדוהו כיון שהוא כמו רודף לשאר ישראל ע"י מעשיו הרעים שעושה בפשיעה כן נראה לי בזה ועוד נראה לי דבמקום שאין מוסרין אותו אין חילוק בין מסירה למיתה או לשאר יסורים או אפילו לממון דלענין יסורים פשיטא שהם גרועים ממיתה כדאמרינן באלו נערות (דף ל"ג) אלמלא נגדוהו לחנניא מישאל ועזריה הוה פלחו לצלמא ויליף מזה דיסורים קשים ממיתה ויליף דמלקות חמור ממיתה וראיה דהא בירושלמי לא קאמר תבעיתיה מלכא להריגה אלא סתם תבעיתיה אפשר ליסורין לחוד (ואין) [ויש] לנו להחמיר מספק ואפי' לממון מצינו בפרק הגוזל בתרא דקאמר על זה קרא כתוא מכמר כיון שנפל בידי עובדי כוכבים שוב אין מרחמין עליו כן נראה לע"ד

[translation from my Child and Domestic Abuse volume II page 99]

Taz (Y.D. 157:8): If he is liable to the death penalty like Sheva ben Bichri. It would appear that the reason why Sheva ben Bichri is used as an example is that even though he was not liable to the death penalty according to the law of the Torah but rather according to the law of kings in that he had rebelled against Dovid – nevertheless he was handed over since he was singled out. We learn from this that even today that someone committed a transgression and rebelled against his secular government – he is to be handed over to the government. This is true for other sins that are inherently a danger to the community such as counterfeiting – they are handed over to the government. They are to be given over even if the government did not specify that particular person since he is like a rodef (pursuer) that is endanger the rest of the Jews by his bad deeds that are transgressions of the law. This is my opinion

:

Are physical attacks on innocent people by religious Jews - terrorism? by Rabbi Yair Hoffman

Five Towns Jewish Times   How very horrifying it was to see video footage of the Tsarnaev brothers gleefully place down a bomb that murdered four and injured dozens.  It is not just the callous banality of their deeds, it was the smirk on one of their faces.  It was their joy in their involvement that sickens and repels us.

But are we really so different?  As of this writing there are protests going on in Israel concerning the government’s decision to draft Yeshiva students.  The draft and its protest is not the issue.  The issue is how can we not condemn the horrifying actions of religious Jewish men pushing and shoving huge metallic garbage bins into a large crowd of people?

Let us just do a double take here.  Did we really see this?  There is no question that unleashing such a large, massive, metallic object into a crowd of people can cause both serious injury and or death.  How is this so substantially different than the sickening actions of the Tsarnaev brothers?

One difference is that perhaps the victims hit by the massive garbage bin have a greater chance of getting out of the way.  But what if they can’t?  What if they get stuck, or fall and trip?  It is deeply grieving that our brethren could even contemplate this, much less actually do it.    The combination of the mass and velocity here could very easily create deadly force.

One of the fundamental principles of the Mussar movement is that learning the relevant sections of halacha to a particular sin, raises our awareness to that Aveirah.  With this in mind, let us briefly review what the Shulchan Aruch Choshan Mishpat section has to say about such behavior.

The general prohibition of trying to hurt another person is found in Choshain Mishpat 420:1.  There, the Shulchan Aruch writes that the Torah is concerned that additional injury not be caused to someone receiving a punishment – all the more so in regard to innocent people in a crowd. [...]

Kolko debacle: How to look up to rabbis who support a confessed pedophile?

Dear Rabbi Eidensohn, 

Can you please help me?

I went to a Rabbi for guidance about how to deal with my own anger against how the Kolko affair was handled by Lakewood rabbis. My anger stems from the fact that I want to look up to these Rabbis as leaders I can trust. So I feel betrayed in a personal way. He said, without any indifference to molestation or opposition to police involvement, that I have no way of knowing what the facts really are.  Therefore I could not assume the rabbis acted stupidly or insensitively.

You can't discuss your anger about X by being questioned whether X happened.  I therefore didn't get what I was looking for.

Would you dispute the premise that I cannot know what happened?  if not, how should I relate personally to the issue? What is your response to this?  

With your permission I would like to show your response to the Rabbi.

thank you

p.s.

do I have the right  to assume they have done wrong, or only that they have failed to explain what they did?
=============update 5 24 2013
2nd letter

Dear Rabbi Eidensohn,

My previous letter to you was unclear, resulting in confusion among readers.  I would like to set the record straight about my interaction with a Rabbi.  This Rabbi is

1. very sensitive to the issue of molestation, and has thought about it deeply,

believing it is the major cause of people leaving Judaism

2. totally supports going to the police when evidence is present

3. knew nothing of and had read nothing about this case but based his on-the-spot response on my flawed oral report

4. was sincerely agnostic, not biased in Lakewood's favor.  He never said I should assume their innocence.

  Thus, the Rabbi was dealing not with abuse per se but with the question of what facts can one know from media. 

A lesson from this story is that there is limit to what Rabbis can do when talmidim want quick answers to personal problems.