Jewish Billionaire sues Prominent US Rabbi

Arutz Sheva

(IsraelNN.com) Energy industrialist and billionaire Guma Aguiar has filed a suit in the Jerusalem Rabbinical Court against prominent U.S. Rabbi Leib Tropper claiming that he misallocated funds intended for institutions and poor people in Israel. Rabbi Tropper's American attorney, Glenn Waldman, told Israel National News that his client categorically denies the charges. [...]

R' Haskel Lookstein's critque of conversions

The Jewish Week - Interview

The Jewish Week - Corrections to interview

False sex-abuse charges dropped by judge

LoHud.com

NEW CITY — Prosecutors this morning dropped all charges against a Monsey man and a fired Ramapo police officer who had been accused of sexually abusing a Rockland woman.

Rockland prosecutor James Mellion told acting Supreme Court Justice Catherine Bartlett that the charges against former office Andrew Dale and Monsey resident Zalman Silber were being dropped "in the interest of justice."[...]

The Anxious Mind - innate temperament

NYTimes

Jerome Kagan's "Aha!" moment came with Baby 19. It was 1989, and Kagan, a professor of psychology at Harvard, had just begun a major longitudinal study of temperament and its effects. Temperament is a complex, multilayered thing, and for the sake of clarity, Kagan was tracking it along a single dimension: whether babies were easily upset when exposed to new things. He chose this characteristic both because it could be measured and because it seemed to explain much of normal human variation. He suspected, extrapolating from a study he had just completed on toddlers, that the most edgy infants were more likely to grow up to be inhibited, shy and anxious. Eager to take a peek at the early results, he grabbed the videotapes of the first babies in the study, looking for the irritable behavior he would later call high-reactive.

No high-reactors among the first 18. They gazed calmly at things that were unfamiliar. But the 19th baby was different. She was distressed by novelty — new sounds, new voices, new toys, new smells — and showed it by flailing her legs, arching her back and crying. Here was what Kagan was looking for but was not sure he would find: a baby who essentially fell apart when exposed to anything new.

Baby 19 grew up true to her temperament. This past summer, Kagan showed me a video of her from 2004, when she was 15. We sat in a screening room in Harvard's William James Hall — a building named, coincidentally, for the 19th-century psychologist who described his own struggles with anxiety as "a horrible dread at the pit of my stomach ... a sense of the insecurity of life." Kagan is elfin and spry, balding and bespectacled. He neither looks nor acts his age, which is 80. He is one of the most influential developmental psychologists of the 20th century.[...]

Death & psychotherapy - Learning & teaching

NYTimes

Some years ago I was consulted by a psychologist, a man in his 60s who wanted help with relationships and in thinking about his life, which was threatened by heart disease. At the time I was in my 70s, and his condition had special resonance for me: my father had died of congestive heart failure, and I have feared I will die in the same way.

"Do I want to work with a man who may die, and who may be closer to death than I am?" I reflected. If we have a good relationship, I will have to experience grief. If I do not come to care about him, the therapy will not be helpful. On the other hand, I might not outlive him, and losing a therapist is painful. Should he be subjected to that loss too?

But I liked the new patient and thought that in his situation, I would want someone to have the courage to be with me. So we began meeting from time to time.[...]

What Psychologists don't know

Newsweek

Today, I recommend checking out the British Psychological Society's Research Digest. BPS asked over 20 of the world's leading psychologists to confess (in 150 words or less) to one nagging thing they still don't understand about themselves.

Witty, charming, and by definition insightful, the psychologists' answers are well-worth reading. Richard Wiseman's piece wondering where comedy comes from made me chuckle; Robert Plomin's thoughts on parenting and genetic influence reminded me how much Po and I want to delve into this work – and how many questions are still left unanswered.

But, read the essays as a group, and I think the scholars' replies offer an even broader insight. [...]

Poisonous meat: The E Coli problem

NYTimes

Stephanie Smith, a children's dance instructor, thought she had a stomach virus. The aches and cramping were tolerable that first day, and she finished her classes.

Then her diarrhea turned bloody. Her kidneys shut down. Seizures knocked her unconscious. The convulsions grew so relentless that doctors had to put her in a coma for nine weeks. When she emerged, she could no longer walk. The affliction had ravaged her nervous system and left her paralyzed.

Ms. Smith, 22, was found to have a severe form of food-borne illness caused by E. coli, which Minnesota officials traced to the hamburger that her mother had grilled for their Sunday dinner in early fall 2007. [...]

Rabbi Tropper and the halachic process

I am moving this topic from the comments of "Eternal Jewish Family rescues women captives with ...": to its own post Please reference the comments on the original posting.

Roni wrote:

REb Yid, after a simple question, you refer me to what?

The question is:

a) where does it say that Bais Din Kavua from Jupiter can force someone from MArs to appear in front of them when in MArs there is another beis din kavua?

b) And bichlal, what is going on here? This is not about a *din torah* between two parties where all the halachos of choshem mishpat apply; we are dealing with an issue of issur veheter, where one Rabbi follows his rabbonim and where does it say *anywhere* in any of the sources you wrote that "bais din kavua" has got *anything* to do with this?

You wrote a lot of mareh mekomoss which i am not privy to them. If you produce them online we will benefir to see if they relate to any of the two above questions!

So far, the source of Shulchan Oruch that is clear for me to check HAS GOT NOTHING (but nothing) to do with the two questions raised above.

I'll quote them for the benefit of the onlookers:

Then there is what is meforash in the Shulchan Aruch Ch"M 7:6.

מי שתובעין אותו לדון לפני דיין שקטן ממנו, אין הדיין יכול לכופו לילך לפניו, אלא מכנפי מאן דאיכא התם מחכימי ח ט) ומעיינים בינייהו.

a) Where does he talk a- beis din kavua versus beis din kavua?

b) and it does not apply at all to issur beheter pssokim!

Roni wrote:

Let me rephrase the whole matter of bais din kavua in three questions:

1) does Bais din Kavua of one place have a power in a different continent?

2) Especially, if at the different there is another Bais Din KAvua?

3) And most important than all questions: Where does it begin to say that "bais din kavua" has *any* relevance regarding questionspertaining to "issur veheter" (yoreh deah) as opposed to diney torah of choshen mishpat?

Any reference would be apprecited if the text can be linked!

The Choshen Mishpat 7:6 reference does not BEGIN to deal with any of the above!

Mekubal wrote

Issur V'Heter was actually a sefer that extracted from the Shulchan Aruch only the laws of Kashrut(food). Thus the laws of Kashrut found within Yorah Deah have colloquially begun to be called Issur V'Heter.

As far as the issues that a B"D has the right to rule on See Siman 1 of Choshen Mishpat. There you will find it explicitly spelled out, that marriages, divorces and conversions are within their purview.

R' Tropper is from the US, there is no B"D kavua in the US as has been stated in the iggros Moshe, Iggros Moshe Choshen Mishpat Vol iI end of siman 3).

The reference that I pointed you to in the Shulchan Aruch dealt with whether a Talmid Chochom, has the right to refuse a summons to appear before a B"D. If you had bothered to read the meforshim, especially the SM"A, you would have found that he does not even if he must travel a great distance.

What I find with you Roni is that whenever you begin to lose an argument halachically you begin to do two things. First is that you start to make personal attacks. Secondly you start an elaborate smoke and mirror show.

Sorry but I do not have digitized copies of these texts, and I have no intention to taking the time to type them in.

In the end R' Tropper is faced with a letter from a B"D telling him to cease and desist until such time as he can provide haskamot. This means two things.

1)First that his conversions are not universally accepted as any group that is part of the Eida, i.e. Satmar, Toldot Aharon, Bratslav, Belz and a few others, will see that this is geirut done in direct contradiction to the ruling of their B"D, and thus invalid.

2) It puts R' Tropper into an unenviable position of appearing to ignore a summons by a B"D. Which in itself considering that he is a Rosh Yeshiva ect. creates a Chillul HaShem and a serious issue of Marit Ayin as certainly people will come to think that if he pays no heed to the B"D neither do they need to.

Abuse: Senior Baltimore rabbi

Women tell of abuse by rabbi

Baltimore Sun (Hat Tip) -Joel Katz

For more than half a century, Rabbi Jacob A. Max was a dominant figure in Baltimore's Jewish community, founder of one of its most important synagogues, an influential leader who officiated at countless cycle-of-life rituals of the faith. A man, it seemed from afar, above reproach. • But Max's reputation disintegrated earlier this year after he was convicted of sexually molesting a woman half his age in a Reisterstown funeral home.

It marked the only time a woman had sought a legal remedy against the rabbi, even though murmurs had long rippled through Moses Montefiore Anshe Emunah Hebrew Congregation that his behavior toward some of the females in his flock was anything but appropriate.

The hushed accusations of Max's penchant for groping and fondling - which some women say he accompanied with a smirk and an excuse about his being a "bad rabbi" - appear to have been tolerated without inquiry for decades because of his standing and authority in the tightly knit religious community. Girls who complained to their mothers about his conduct say they were ignored.

On April 13, three days before his 85th birthday, Max was found guilty of second-degree assault and a fourth-degree sex offense after a brief bench trial in Baltimore County District Court. Max, who has been married for 25 years, was sentenced to a suspended one-year prison term and one year of unsupervised probation. He will not appeal, his lawyer said. [...]

Eternal Jewish Family's updated web site

Aes Int

Eternal Jewish Family Aids Universally Recognized Conversion with Enhanced Web Site

To accomplish their mission of education, the Eternal Jewish Family (EJF) has significantly updated the web site at www.eternaljewishfamily.org. This includes adding the Eternal Jewish Family e-News with regular updates on developments within the organization and geirus (conversion to Judaism). It is part of the first phase of a new comprehensive Web site that will be a comprehensive guide to universally accepted conversions in intermarriage.

Eternal Jewish Family

With the next phase, the site will become a resource center for rabbonim and others involved in geirus. It will also include highlights of previous conferences and seminars, articles, a listing of Botei Din affiliated 00004000 with EJF, and will highlight news relating to Eternal Jewish Family. [...]

Passaic Conference on Abuse - audio file?

Somebody [who asked not to be publicized] just sent me a link to download the audio of the recent conference regarding child abuse

Hashgocha Protis - reconcilation with Chazal

Guest Post

Hi,

I followed your post and comments on hashgacha pratis the other day (http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2009/09/g-d-reason-for-abuse-and-rape.html). This is a subject that I've been coming back to from various perspectives for nearly thirty years, so your post got me thinking once again. This time around, I'm having trouble with those rishonim and acharonim who are presented as believing in a virtually random, unguided fate for most people. For instance, you quote R' Dessler:

...all non-Jews and most Jews—except for some exception—they are without a doubt under the control of natural laws… This is no different than the animals whose Providence is not for the individual but only for the species—because it as a species they fulfill G-d’s will.

How would this fit the gemara in Brachos

כשם שמברכים על הטוב כך מברכים על הרעה?

Isn't the bracha an acknowledgement that all the good and bad things that happen to us are orchestrated directly by G-d. One look in Shulchan Aruch will tell us that this halacha relates equally to all Jews.

And how about

בארבעה פרקים העולם נידון בפסח על התבואה בעצרת על פירות האילן בר"ה כל באי
עולם עוברין לפניו כבני מרון?

According to the Ramban in Shar Hagemul this wasn't necessary a judgment over life and death, but over the general quality of life in the coming year – and it covered all strata of human life, not just tzadikim. I would imagine it would require a great deal of hashgacha to engineer precisely the good and bad events for each individual...

It's one thing to see a machlokus rishonim or acharonim, but who can argue with an explicit chazal? Perhaps there are other forces at play in the world besides hashgacha...maybe something like the “bracha” discussed by the Chofetz Chaim in Ahavas Chesed.

With best regards,

Boruch Clinton

Rav Sternbuch: Simcha of Succos

D43 Wednesday 093009 Divrei Hisorerus

Justice - Harvard Prof Michael Sandel #1