New 2nd Edition of Daas Torah will soon be in Seforim Stores

Possibly as of next week my new edition of Daas Torah will be in the
seforim stores in Brooklyn and elsewhere. It will still be available
through Amazon. List price will be $40.

Teachers rebel against becoming assistants to computer technology

NYTimes

This change is part of a broader shift that is creating tension — a tension that is especially visible in Idaho but is playing out across the country. Some teachers, even though they may embrace classroom technology, feel policy makers are thrusting computers into classrooms without their input or proper training. And some say they are opposed to shifting money to online classes and other teaching methods whose benefits remain unproved.

“Teachers don’t object to the use of technology,” said Sabrina Laine, vice president of the American Institutes for Research, which has studied the views of the nation’s teachers using grants from organizations like the Gates and Ford Foundations. “They object to being given a resource with strings attached, and without the needed support to use it effectively to improve student learning.”

In Idaho, teachers have been in open revolt. They marched on the capital last spring, when the legislation was under consideration. They complain that lawmakers listened less to them than to heavy lobbying by technology companies, including Intel and Apple. Teacher and parent groups gathered 75,000 verified signatures, more than was needed, to put a referendum on the ballot next November that could overturn the law.[...]

Religion and Sex in Israel: Street Clashes Over Defining a Jewish State

Time

Israel seems to be at war with itself. For two weeks the Hebrew media have been dominated by street clashes between Jews arguing viciously over such matters as sleeve length and bus seating, which in the Israel of the moment are markers for the kind of country people want: Religious, or secular, or what balance of the two? It’s a conflict that goes back at least to the founding of Israel six decades ago, and grows more and more potent with the dramatic population growth of the most piously observant.

The latest flashpoint speaks volumes about the state of the nation: An eight-year-old girl stopped going to school after neighborhood men spat on her and called her a prostitute because even in long sleeves and a skirt her dress was deemed “immodest.” The men were extremist members of the ultra-Orthodox, the fastest-growing segment of Israel’s Jewish population. Known in Hebrew as Haredim, which roughly translates as God-fearing, ultra-Orthodox men are easily recognized by their signature black clothes and headgear (either wide-brimmed black felt or brimless beaver skin) their side locks and their agitation at being seated near women. [...]

Open letter to Yossi Sarid by Rabbi Yair Hoffman

http://www.vosizneias.com/97948/2012/01/02/new-york-an-open-letter-to-yossi-sarid-by-rabbi-yair-hoffman

Dear Yossi Sarid, The horror that the overwhelming majority of Chareidi
Jews are feeling at the actions of the extremists is certainly deep. The
sickening demonstration of "cousins" of ours in holocaust garb is just
another illustration of how out of touch these Meah Shearim extremists
are with true Torah sensibilities. The Beit Shemesh extremists...

It is time to reclaim our inheritance from the extremists

Guest post by Sarah Yehudit Schneider

A Teaching based on R. Tsadok HaKohen

Tsidkat HaTsadik #231

R. Yanai was journeying on the road when a man approached him and, with great enthusiasm, invited R. Yannai to his home for a meal. R. Yannai accepted the invitation.  In the course of the meal R. Yannai probed the man’s literacy.  Was there knowledge of Talmud?  No. Medresh? No. Mishna? No. Scripture? No. As the meal concluded R. Yannai asked his host to recite the Grace after Meals for them.  The man declined and deferred to R. Yannai. R. Yannai then asked the man if he could repeat the words that R. Yannai would speak.  The man said he could and would. R. Yannai then (rudely) spoke the following sentence for him to repeat: “A dog has eaten of Yannai’s bread.”

The man grabbed R. Yannai by his collar and accused R. Yannai of theft: “You have stolen my inheritance, and are withholding it from me.” R. Yannai was shocked: “What inheritance is that,” he responded.  The man answered that he had once passed by a school where children were memorizing scripture and the verse they were reciting was: “Moshe conveyed the Torah to us—an inheritance to the congregation of Yaakov.”   The man challenged R. Yannai: “It does not say ‘congregation of Yannai’ but ‘congregation of Yaakov.’”

R. Yannai asked the man: “What earned you the merit of sharing a meal with me?” The man answered: “Never in my life have I repeated lashon hara, and never have I ever seen people quarrelling without making peace between them.”[Vayikra Rabba 9:3]

And so it is time to reclaim our inheritance from the extremists who are stealing it from us, distorting it beyond recognition, and using it as a club.  Who are unilaterally decreeing that whole branches of our rich, complex, and paradoxical tradition are no longer daas Torah. We need to speak up and repossess our inheritance from the zealots like the man in this story. “You are stealing our inheritance.  It is ours as much as yours…and WE are the (no longer silent) majority. It is ‘the inheritance of the entire congregation of Yaakov…NOT the congregation of zealots.’”

R. Tsadok uses this teaching to show how every Jew is a gadol in some area of Torah and an ignoramous in others. R. Yannai was a gadol in Talmud and an ignoramous is derekh eretz. His host, the opposite.

We cannot wait for leaders to speak up. We don’t have those kinds of leaders today. The people themselves have to take the lead, claim their truth, and speak it to the world. We cannot allow our precious inheritance to be hijacked and publicly degraded.

Thank you R. Eidensohn and R. Adlerstein for starting the process and providing the forum.

 
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New York Hasidic Women Want Separate EMT Unit

NPR

If you live in New York City, you will often see the Orthodox Jewish ambulance service known as Hatzolah on the street. Hatzolah has some 1,200 volunteers — all men — in New York City and is known for its quick response time.

Now, a group of Hasidic female EMTs wants to create a women's division within Hatzolah, to help deliver babies in emergencies.

Deeply religious Hasidic men and women do not touch each other, unless they are immediate family. They don't shake hands. They don't sit next to each other on buses or at weddings. But when it comes to emergency births, the babies are often are delivered by male volunteers with Hatzolah. [...]

Rav Eliashiv bans Mishpacha Magazine

bhol

"בל ייכנס לבתי היראים" • הגרי"ש אלישיב נגד 'משפחה' לראשונה: מכתב חריף, חתום בכתב ידו של הגרי"ש, פורסם ב'יתד נאמן' ו'המבשר' - נגד 'משפחה' • אוסר לסייע ל'משפחה', ומאשימו בסילוף 'השקפת התורה' • ולמה פורסם המכתב? 

Necessary Chareidi response to the chilul HaShem of the fanatics

Cross-currents by Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein

The Charedi Spring may have finally arrived. Eight year old Naama Margolese may do for Israel what a Tunisian street vendor did for the Arab world. The wave of revulsion for the behavior of the extremists, if sustained and channeled into focused police work, may release the Israeli public – both secular and charedi – from the tyranny of fanatics whose thuggery and primitivism ran unchecked in Meah Shearim for years.

The price we pay for it is a massive chilul Hashem, as hundreds of millions of people equate Torah with Taliban. The only partial antidote is for the genuine Orthodox world to do what Muslims do not do to their extremists. We must condemn with passion, conviction and without qualification. 

As the numbers of Meah Shearim-grown extremists increased, they sought space in other communities. (It was not only a matter of space. They were repudiated by many in their own neighborhood, including the Edah Charedis, which was still unable to rein them in.) Large numbers settled upon the Beit Shemesh area. Their growing enclave in RBS-Bet gradually spread out, to the point that they found themselves in close proximity to existing neighborhoods of dati Leumi and conventional charedim. Ongoing clashes came to a head with the opening of a frum girls’ school on land the extremists coveted in the dati Leumi neighborhood of Scheinfeld. While the dispute has been going on for months, and while violently imposing their requirements on local businesses has taken place for years, the issue exploded upon the national and international scene through a clip from Israel’s Channel Two that has gone viral. Listening to an Anglo girl dressed in long sleeves and a skirt speak about her fears in simply crossing the street and having to run a gauntlet of taunts, curses, and spittle from bearded adults has turned out to be the impetus to galvanize a country – including many charedim – into taking action. Contrasting her angelic demeanor with the ugly rhetoric of one of the tormentors who is particularly honest about their objectives to take over the entire contributed to the mood of resistance.

Orthodox Rabbinic Group Won’t Take Position On Reparative Therapy For Gays

Jewish Week

The Rabbinical Council of America said it will not take a position on so-called reparative therapy for gays.

In a statement released Monday, the RCA, the main umbrella group of centrist Orthodox rabbis, said it will neither “endorse nor reject any therapy or method that is intended to assist those ... struggling with same-sex attraction.” It further affirms that any therapy should be performed only by licensed practitioners.

RCA President Rabbi Schmuel Goldin told JTA that the statement did not represent a shift in the group's position.

Disgusting Chilul HaShem! Spitting on a 7 year old girl

NYTimes

The latest battleground in Israel’s struggle over religious extremism covers little more than a square mile of this Jewish city situated between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and it has the unexpected public face of a blond, bespectacled second-grade girl. 

She is Naama Margolese, 8, the daughter of American immigrants who are observant modern Orthodox Jews. An Israeli weekend television program told the story of how Naama had become terrified of walking to her elementary school here after ultra-Orthodox men spit on her, insulted her and called her a prostitute because her modest dress did not adhere exactly to their more rigorous dress code.  

The country was outraged. Naama’s picture has appeared on the front pages of all the major Israeli newspapers. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted Sunday that “Israel is a democratic, Western, liberal state” and pledged that “the public sphere in Israel will be open and safe for all,” there have been days of confrontation at focal points of friction here.

Preventing homosexual contact in schools & camps

An experienced educator raised the following concerns with me. Western society has experienced a radical change in attitude towards homosexuality in recent years. It is no longer viewed as a sign of mental illness or moral depravity but rather a legitimate sexual expression. The stigma and shame of engaging in homosexual activity has decreased drastically. Thus while it is true that such activity has happened in the past in dormitories or camps - either between a teenage boy and younger children or between peers who are exploring their sexuality - the frequency seems to be increasing or at least the awareness has sharply increased. At the same time - the Torah absolutely prohibits such behavior calling it an abomination.

His questions were 1) how to react if two boys are discovered to have willingly engaged in homosexual activity? 2)  Is there any way for the staff of a yeshiva or camp to identify boys who might be prone to such behavior or those who engage in it. 3) at what age does this type of activity stop being the result of  exploration of sexuality and instead indicate relatively stable sexual identity? 4)  When is it best to advise psychotherapy rather than silence? 5) under what circumstances should such boys either be refused admission to yeshiva/camp or be sent home and when should they be allowed to stay under watchful eyes and close supervision. 6) Is it better to provide some type of general educational program to explicitly warn  against such behavior or is it more beneficial to maintain the present approach of not to mentioning such activity so as to not arouse curiousity and attention? 7) Are there any differences between boys and girls in this matter? 8) Is there any proven way to discourage homosexual attractions and develop exclusive heterosexual interest?

2nd edition of Daas Torah available now for $35

The 2nd expanded edition is 822 page - English only. Approximately 200 new pages were added. There are additional chapters concerning the Satmar Rebbe's views on the 6 Day War, rabbinic authority, Daas Torah as well as Science and disagreeing with authorities. A portion of this new material has been posted on this blog, Most of the material from the first edition has been retained but has been reorganized. This edition is available only in paperback.


View first 52 pages including Table of Contents

Index to Daas Torah 2nd edition

My Amazon e Store - Purchase by clicking this link  - greater royalty for me from this option

or order directly from Amazon - with option of free shipping  

 volume II containing 460 pages of Hebrew sources just published - click link for more information

Many who have a good Jewish education in yeshiva or seminary regarding Jewish law and observance – often lack a deep and mature knowledge of Jewish Theology. Furthermore as a psychotherapist working in the Orthodox world – I often see clients whose problems are more issues of misunderstanding of Judaism rather than psychological issues per se. Knowledge of Jewish Theology is often restricted to a few platitudes such as “ You should love your fellow man” or “G-d runs the world” or mistaken ideas such as that Judaism doesn’t require any specific beliefs but only deeds. These concerns obviously apply even more to someone without a good Jewish education. In addition, teachers often expend hours looking for relevant material to explain a particular concept and students often need additional sources to get a clarify of subtle points.

This is a rich source book for those who would like to delve into the rich and nuanced discussions of classical Jewish theology. It is the work of over 10 years of compilation, translation and organizing. This work removes a number of hurdles 1) The original Hebrew has been translated into contemporary English 2) A wide variety of sources are quoted to avoid presented a biased and distorted view of a particular topic 3) There is no attempt to prove or force a particular view and thus contradictory views are presented 4) There is no censoring of material which might not be politically correct to current understandings but was acceptable for thousands of years.

As Rav Eliashiv told me, “You don’t avoid teaching Torah because it might cause confusion or questions. That is why a person has a teacher or rebbe.” As Rav Moshe Shapiro advised, “Let the sources speak for themselves.”

Ultra-Orthodox, Israel Police clash in Beit Shemesh; officer wounded

haaretz

Police arrest two after residents chase officers, hurl rocks, and burn trashcans to protest the removal of a sign that calls for the separation of men and women on a main street.

Har Nof Pedophile: Rav Sternbuch's Psak

Rav Sternbuch's gabbai sent me the following clarification:

The Rav told me to publicise in his name that he has not allowed any chillul Shabbos midaorayso, the Rav feels that if there is no issur Torah it is allowed what is absolutely necessary as this is a tzorah drabim, this does not include taking photos . The rav has never allowed going around with a telephone and camera on Shabbos, in special situations a rav must be consulted. 

Rafoel Rechnitzer

---------------------------------
I also confirmed with Rav Treibitz that he gave a heter [for those who had seem him] to call the police on Shabbos and to carry a camera on Shabbos to take his picture because the police said that if they knew what he looked like they would surely catch him. He told me that unfortunately there have been a number of victims already.