Rav Sternbuch: Keep the Torah Inside & Out

Spiritual & political leaders sometimes fail

Vayikra Rabba(37:4): …Yiftach made a request from G‑d in an improper way and he was answered improperly. Yiftach said that if he were victorious that whatever came out of his house he would offer as a sacrifice (Shoftim 11:31). G‑d said if a camel or donkey or dog had come out would he have offered it as a sacrifice? Therefore G‑d answered improperly and caused Yiftach’s daughter to come first out the door. Shoftim (11:35), And when Yiftach saw his daughter he ripped his clothes. But why didn’t Yiftach have his oath annulled by going to Pinchas? That is because Yiftach felt that since he were the king that Pinchas should come to him. So why didn’t Pinchas go to Yiftach? That is because Pinchas felt that since he was the High Priest and the son of a High Priest it was not proper for him to go to an ignorant man. Therefore between the two of them an unfortunate maiden perished and both bore the responsibility for her death. Pinchas was punished by the loss of his holy spirit (ruach hakodesh). Yiftach was punished in that his limbs fell off and they were buried separately…

Shabbos Elevators issues hopefully resolved

I have been informed that the recent turmoil about Shabbos elevators had no basis in fact and that as the result of a recent meeting of rabbonim there will be an official return to the view accepted for 25 years. Please note that this is not to be relied upon as official psak but it is just a notification that if you had concerns or doubts about Shabbos elevators - ask your rabbi again what is the current view..

Curious lives of surrogate mothers

Newsweek

Jennifer Cantor, a 34-year-old surgical nurse from Huntsville, Ala., loves being pregnant. Not having children, necessarily—she has one, an 8-year-old daughter named Dahlia, and has no plans for another—but just the experience of growing a human being beneath her heart. She was fascinated with the idea of it when she was a child, spending an entire two-week vacation, at the age of 11, with a pillow stuffed under her shirt. She's built perfectly for it: six feet tall, fit and slender but broad-hipped. Which is why she found herself two weeks ago in a birthing room in a hospital in Huntsville, swollen with two six-pound boys she had been carrying for eight months. Also in the room was Kerry Smith and his wife, Lisa, running her hands over the little lumps beneath the taut skin of Cantor's belly. "That's an elbow," said Cantor, who knew how the babies were lying in her womb. "Here's a foot." Lisa smiled proudly at her husband. She is, after all, the twins' mother.

It is an act of love, but also a financial transaction, that brings people together like this. For Kerry and for Lisa—who had a hysterectomy at the age of 20 and could never bear her own children—the benefits are obvious: Ethan and Jonathan, healthy six-pound, 12-ounce boys born by C-section on March 20. But what about Cantor? She was paid, of course; the Smiths declined to discuss the exact amount, but typically, surrogacy agreements in the United States involve payments of $20,000 to $25,000 to the woman who bears the child. She enjoyed the somewhat naughty pleasure of telling strangers who asked about her pregnancy, "Oh, they aren't mine," which invariably invoked the question, "Did you have sex with the father?" (In case anyone is wondering, Lisa's eggs were fertilized in vitro with Kerry's sperm before they were implanted on about day five.) [...]

Armistice or Veterans Day /RaP

RaP wrote

The war that began on 9 Av in 1914 in which Jews by the millions were members in all the armies, from Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, Britain, America, Russia killing each other finally stopped 91 years ago, at 11 AM Paris time, on the 11th day of the 11th month, November, 1918, World War One came to an official end: See Armistice Day also known as Remembrance Day and Veterans Day or the Armistice with Germany (Compiègne)

Wikipedia:

The armistice treaty between the Allies and Germany was signed in a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest on 11 November 1918, and marked the end of the First World War on the Western Front...The Armistice was agreed at 5 AM on 11 November, to come into effect at 11 AM Paris time (that is 10 AM GMT), for which reason the occasion is sometimes referred to as "the eleventh (hour) of the eleventh (day) of the eleventh (month)". It was the result of a hurried and desperate process...The peace between the Allies and Germany would subsequently be settled in 1919, by the Paris Peace Conference, and the Treaty of Versailles that same year..." See the full page from the NY Times announcing the armistice:

But sadly, World War one would lead to World War Two and the Holocaust, 1939-1945.

R' Bachye Curative/Destructive Power of language

DNA used to search family trees

CNN

Here's a fun exercise: Compare the DNA profiles of random individuals who reside in different regions of the world, have little in common and don't much resemble one another.

If you could do this, you'd find close DNA matches once in a while.

About three months ago Kevin Shepherdson, a Eurasian in Singapore, discovered that his DNA matches strongly with Thomas Kurowski, a man of Polish descent living in Rhode Island.

The men have never met, and they were unaware of each other.

Both of them research their family history as a hobby, but finding each other through traditional methods (such as sifting through census, marriage or property records) would have been unlikely if not impossible.

And yet their DNA profiles match so closely that they can be certain of sharing a common ancestor within the past six generations. It took scientific sleuthing for the two men to make a connection.

P.C. - Warning signs ignored about murderer

Time Magazine

As officials continue to investigate the alleged Fort Hood killer, it is looking increasingly likely that the Army missed several red flags in Major Nidal Malik Hasan's behavior. Many observers say it wouldn't be surprising if such signals had been missed, given that Hasan was a psychiatrist whom the Army desperately needed to help tend to the mental wounds of two wars.

But at the same time, some members of the military are quietly discussing the more troubling possibility that the Army looked the other way precisely because Hasan was Muslim. (See pictures of the Fort Hood shootings.)

Army officials strongly deny any suggestion that Hasan's religion resulted in his being given special treatment. But one officer who attended the Pentagon's medical school with Hasan disagrees. "He was very vocal about being a Muslim first and holding Shari'a law above the Constitution," this officer recalls. When fellow students asked, "How can you be an officer and hold to the Constitution?," the officer says, Hasan would "get visibly upset — sweaty and nervous — and had no good answers." This medical doctor would speak only anonymously because his commanders have ordered him not to talk about Hasan, he says.[...]

Child Porn downloaded by PC Virus?

FOX News

Of all the sinister things that Internet viruses do, this might be the worst: They can make you an unsuspecting collector of child pornography.

Heinous pictures and videos can be deposited on computers by viruses — the malicious programs better known for swiping your credit card numbers. In this twist, it's your reputation that's stolen.

Pedophiles can exploit virus-infected PCs to remotely store and view their stash without fear they'll get caught. Pranksters or someone trying to frame you can tap viruses to make it appear that you surf illegal Web sites.

Whatever the motivation, you get child porn on your computer — and might not realize it until police knock at your door.[...]

Ft Hood Massacre: Denial of Muslim terrorism

NYTIMES

We're all born late. We're born into history that is well under way. We're born into cultures, nations and languages that we didn't choose. On top of that, we're born with certain brain chemicals and genetic predispositions that we can't control. We're thrust into social conditions that we detest. Often, we react in ways we regret even while we're doing them.

But unlike the other animals, people do have a drive to seek coherence and meaning. We have a need to tell ourselves stories that explain it all. We use these stories to supply the metaphysics, without which life seems pointless and empty.

Among all the things we don't control, we do have some control over our stories. We do have a conscious say in selecting the narrative we will use to make sense of the world. Individual responsibility is contained in the act of selecting and constantly revising the master narrative we tell about ourselves.[...]

Academic indentity theft & Dead Sea Scrolls

NYTIMES

Early one morning in March, the law banged on the door of an apartment on Thompson Street in Greenwich Village. Investigators had a warrant to arrest Raphael Haim Golb and seize his computer. He was caught red-handed.

Mr. Golb is, or was, a guerrilla fighter in a cyberbrawl over the Dead Sea Scrolls, a war about the origins of 2,000-year-old documents that has consumed the energy of academics around the globe.

He was being arrested for fighting dirty.

Mr. Golb is 49 years old and had 50 e-mail aliases. He used pseudonyms to post on blogs. Under the name of a professor he was trying to undermine, prosecutors charged, Mr. Golb wrote a quasi confession to plagiarism and circulated it among students and officials at New York University.[...]

Seth Farber:Double life of converts

Jerusalem Post

Ilana has been living a double life in Israel. Though her first visit was as a Catholic, she ultimately decided to convert to Judaism, and following her conversion in Italy in 2006, she moved to Israel. Incredibly, despite the fact that the (Orthodox) Chief Rabbinate certifies her conversion, the civil organs of the State of Israel continue to deny her basic rights as a citizen.

Scandalously, Ilana lives without medical insurance, is unable to work, and has been waiting for more than two years for her case for citizenship to make it to the Supreme Court. In every other Jewish community in the world, Ilana is Jewish. Not here. This is because the Interior Ministry has taken it upon itself to review conversions that were performed worldwide in terms of its own bureaucratic criteria.

THE AUTHORS of this article have little in common. One is an Orthodox rabbi who directs ITIM, a nonprofit organization that helps Israelis and new immigrants navigate Israel's rabbinic bureaucracy. The other is a social historian and ordained Reform rabbi who directs AJC Jerusalem, the local office of the American Jewish Committee, which seeks to strengthen the Israel-Diaspora connection. What binds the two of us together is a passion for the Jewish people. Today, together, we are issuing a call to the Diaspora Jewish community to speak up on behalf of a vulnerable group among us - converts to the Jewish people.[...]

EJF: Kiruv or Geirus?/ RaP

RaP:wrote:

EJF is now going all out in its alliances with Kiruv organizations as is evident from its scheduled events from November 2009 to May 2010, (as of Nov 10, 2009). The point to note is that almost all these events are being set up and run on a normal basis by the kiruv organizations themselves who do this constantly as part of their programming and scheduling of events to "reach out" to new students and educate them in Yiddishkeit as they try to mekarev them to full Torah observance. But this cannot explain or excuse EJF from sticking out like a sore thumb and a black sheep because EJF is NOT and has NEVER been a kiruv organization. It has always trumpeted its goal of helping couples get conversions for gentiles where one partner is hitched to a gentile and help the gentile partner become an EJF-style ultra charedi convert to Judaism under Rabbi Tropper's authority and supervision forevermore. In this regard EJF has always had a controversial proselytizing agenda by reaching out to GENTILES that is in a direct conflict of interest with pure kiruv where the agenda is to reach out to JEWS and make them more Torah observant. Obviously something has gone horribly wrong as EJF has managed to penetrate kiruv organizations and compromise them at a time when they need hard cash to keep going something that Tropper can provide through the good graces of Tom Kaplan but which creates more problems than it solves in the long run. Simply put: WHO LEADS THIS ENTIRE EFFORT, EJF WITH ITS UNABASHED PROSELYTIZING AGENDA OR THE OUTREACH ORGANIZATIONS WITH THEIR PURE KIRUV AGENDA?:

For November 2009:http://www.eternaljewishfamily.org/site/events/
For December 2009:http://www.eternaljewishfamily.org/site/events/2009/12/
For January 2010: http://www.eternaljewishfamily.org/site/events/2010/01/
For February 2010:http://www.eternaljewishfamily.org/site/events/2010/02/
For March 2010:http://www.eternaljewishfamily.org/site/events/2010/03/
For April 2010:http://www.eternaljewishfamily.org/site/events/2010/04/

Rav Reuven Feinstein: Haskama to EJF

Mekubal wrote:

A translation:

I have come to review the primacy and to boldly clarify endorsement according to my acquaintance all halackhot of the organization according to halacha as expounded according to Poskei HaDor ZפL and to be destinguished for a good life Poskim of our time Shlita. The organization Eternal Jewish Family which I support and stand as the head of the Vaעad Halacha composed of Talmidei Chachamim Yirat Shamayim, which their desirable intention and deeds. You managed Eternal Jewish family they are the minority of the minority which heed the instruction of the Gedolim of our time Shlita and correct what they need to correct and are prepared to listen to and to receive instruction of the Gedolei Yisrael Shlita.

The semminars for mixed couples they are conducted according to guidance and instruction and rulings of my master father teacher and Rav ZפL and according to the Poskei HaDor Shlita, Maran HaGaon R Yosef Shalom Eliashiv and HaGaon Rav Vozner and Maran HaGaon Rav Yitzchak Yosef.

You should continue to sanctify the name of heaven and to lift up the glory of heaven until the coming of our righteous redeemer.

What is very obviously present. That EJF has been in need of correction and that they have(to a certain degree) taken it.

What is very obviously missing, approbation for their outreach. He endorses how the seminars are run, he does not endorse how people are brought to be there.

More importantly someone should contact R' Reuven and determine two things:

1) That this letter actually originates from him. I have four reasons to doubt that it does:

A) The grammar demonstrated here in his writing is on a considerably lower level than that of the his voice recording. It is very rare for a person to be able to speak better than they can write.
B) Even on the EJF website the image degradation(as this is a fax0 is not consistent. That is typically one of the fingerprints of Photoshop(as someone who professionally works with Adobe products).
C) The language is odd, it goes from speaking to a person to speaking about an organization to speaking about a person with very jarring shifts.
D) We have seen forged letters from the above mentioned organization before.

2) If this letter is indeed authentic a clarification should be sought between his recorded message and this. He is quite obviously contradicting himself. Those contradictions need to be reconciled.