Rat studies, New Hope for Spine Injuries

NYTimes   Rats with a spinal cord injury that left their hind legs completely paralyzed learned to walk again on their own after an intensive training course that included electrical stimulation of the brain and the spine, scientists reported on Thursday. 

The report, published online on Thursday in the journal Science, provides a striking demonstration of what until recently few scientists thought possible: complete rehabilitation after a disabling blow to the spinal cord. After weeks of training, many of the rats could walk as well as before the injury, and some could run. 

The findings do not apply to all spinal injuries. The animals’ spinal columns were cut without being completely severed; there were still some nerve connections that extended intact through the injured area. But this is also the case for a substantial proportion — perhaps a quarter to a third — of people whose injuries are severe enough to confine them to a wheelchair.

Using unfiltered internet invalidates witness

http://www.inn.co.il/News/News.aspx/238796

אפקט הכנס ההיסטורי בקווינס? אחד מרבני מונסי שבניו יורק פסל אמש לעדות בחופה אדם המשתמש באינטרנט לא מסונן.

המדובר באב"ד סאטמר במונסי, הרב אברהם צבי וואזנר, שטען במהלך חופה שערך ובו שימש כמסדר הקידושין, כי בעקבות אמירתו של סבו לפיו משתמשי אינטרנט לא מסונן פסולים לעדות, יש לנהוג כך הלכה למעשה.

על פי הדיווח, האב"ד בירר בקרב משפחת הצדדים לגבי העדים, ומששמע כי הם מחזיקים בטלפון לא "כשרים" ובעלי אינטרנט לא מסונן, ביקש להביא עדים אחרים תחתיהם למעמד הח

Curtain falls on yy's saga

On 5/31/2012 1:21 PM,  --- wrote:

Your blog is thought provoking, and I’ve been following it for some time.  I was moved by yy’s story -- just about ready to post another comment -- and was surprised to see that the whole thing was removed.  Then I saw your tweet about “yy’s saga” which seemed to judge the author negatively, and that disturbed me.  Later I went back to the tweet and found that its content had been removed also.  I'm wondering what's going on.  Thanks.

Yes yy story was moving and well written and is a good example of a marriage collapsing. However despite posting anonymously - he did not want to be judged or criticized based on the personal details he wrote about himself - but only wanted to stimulate discussion of a general nature and in his words "get sympathy & empathy". I felt it was counterproductive for him to reveal his personal details of his life to the public as well as his judgments of his wife - and then to get irritated if readers didn't view events as he did and judged him harshly. He disagreed and got hurt and became angry with me for not taking his side - so the post was removed. My purpose in publishing was to encourage awareness and communication about an all too common problem. I felt that he was in fact benefiting from the feedback he got as well as in communicating the problem and thus it was a win-win situation. He clearly disagreed and asked that I remove his post which I did. I had written a more detailed description of events and but decided to remove it. 

Rav Wosner: Clarification of internet prohibition

BCHOL כמחחצית השעה לפני כניסת חג השבועות בארה"ב וחמשה ימים לאחר הכנס נגד 'פגעי הטכנולגיה' - נתלתה ברחבי ניו-יורק מודעה בחתימת ידו של הגר"ש וואזנר, בה הוא חוזר בו מדברים שאמר בכנס, בשידור חי מביתו בבני-ברק.

כזכור בעת הכנס, הופיע הגר"ש וואזנר בעל ה'שבט הלוי' ושידר דברים בשידור-חי לבאי הכנס. הגר"ש וואזנר התבטא כי הינו מעניק שורת הלכות שרק אם יאומצו יהיה הכנס ראוי לשמו.

בין היתר אמר הרב וואזנר, כי אסור להכניס מחשב הביתה, גם לצורכי עבודה, כי אין להיכנס לבית שיש בו אינטרנט לא מסונן. הוא הדגיש כי דבריו הינן מעיקר ההלכה והוסיף כי על מוסדות הלימוד לסלק משורותיהן ילד החשוף בביתו לאינטרנט.

בשל לחץ כבד של עסקנים ושל אחד מאדמו"רי ארה"ב, אשר התנגד לסילוק ילדים ממוסדות החינוך, חזר בו הגר"ש מפסקיו ופרסם מודעה עם פסקי הלכה מתונים יחסית.

במודעה החדשה אין איסור גמור על שימוש בבית במחשב לצורכי עבודה, ואת סילוק הילדים ממוסדות החינוך מחליפה חובה להצבת סייגים וגדרים.

Do "child safety zones" stop abuse?

NYTimes    Orange County finds itself at the enter of a new wave of laws restricting the movement of sex offenders. The county government and a dozen cities here have banned sex offenders from even setting foot in public parks, on beaches and at harbors, rendering almost half the parks in Orange County closed to them. Ten more cities are considering similar legislation. 

And Orange County is far from alone. In recent years, communities around the country have gone beyond regulating where sex offenders can live and begun banning them outright from a growing list of public places.[...]

The proliferation of such restrictions reflects the continued concerns of parents and lawmakers about potential recidivism among sex offenders. But it has also increasingly raised questions about their effectiveness, as well as their fairness. 

Opponents have dismissed “child safety zones” as unenforceable, saying they are designed to make politicians look tough on crime and drive sex offenders from the area, not make children safer.

R' Slifkin: Unsung heroes of Daf Yomi

Rabbi N. Slifkin   But who are the guests of honor at the grand Siyumim? Who performs the siyum, who makes the speeches, who gets the glory? Not the Daf Yomi participants and not even the maggidei shiurim. Instead, it's the roshei yeshivah.  [...]

With the glory being given to the exponents of Daas Torah, it provides them with a platform to use the event for the politics of Daas Torah. The last Siyum HaShas took place during the peak of the controversial ban on three of my books. One yeshivah figurehead took advantage of the opportunity to strengthen the ideology of Daas Torah, and capitalized on the martyrs of the Holocaust, in whose memories the Siyum HaShas is dedicated. Rav Mattisyahu Solomon spoke about how the martyrs demand us to reject the "makeshift answers" to conflicts between the Gemara and science that are offered by the "midgets of our generation." Aside from the question of whether approaches to the Gemara offered by countless Geonim and Rishonim and Acharonim can be called "makeshift," and the question of whether the victims of the Holocaust really did die for this belief, one has to wonder why a siyum on Daf Yomi is being used to further such an agenda. It's a siyum haShas, not an Agudas Yisroel convention! 

Orthodox Jewish society is made up of many different important people and institutions. We need baalei battim and teachers and schools and lay leaders and yeshivos and roshei yeshivah and universities and academics and shuls and community rabbis and mohelim and shochtim. And there are differences of opinion about whether leadership should be held by lay leaders, community rabbis or roshei yeshivah. But Daf Yomi is not about any of those three groups. They have plenty of opportunities to receive glory, at dinners and Internet Asifas and Agudas Yisroel conventions. Daf Yomi is about the ordinary man who takes his ArtScroll Gemara on the train with him every morning on the way to work. He is the hero of the Siyum HaShas. Let's grant him his well-deserved honor!

The Digital Divide is in wasting time

NYTimes    In the 1990s, the term “digital divide” emerged to describe technology’s haves and have-nots. It inspired many efforts to get the latest computing tools into the hands of all Americans, particularly low-income families. [...]

As access to devices has spread, children in poorer families are spending considerably more time than children from more well-off families using their television and gadgets to watch shows and videos, play games and connect on social networking sites, studies show.  [...]

“Despite the educational potential of computers, the reality is that their use for education or meaningful content creation is minuscule compared to their use for pure entertainment,” said Vicky Rideout, author of the decade-long Kaiser study. “Instead of closing the achievement gap, they’re widening the time-wasting gap.”[...]

ORA still wants a Get Me'usa

Why "Liberal" Jews are Turning Against Israel

 Guest post: by Eliezer Abrahamson   Olive Seedlings

I recently came across an article by a Rabbi Brian Walt, titled "Affirming a Judaism and Jewish identity without Zionism." Rabbi Walt obviously comes from a fundamentally different religious and theological perspective than I. That being so, I usually wouldn't even bother writing about such an article. However, I believe that Rabbi Walt's article expresses views that are, amazingly enough, at conflict with my own at an even more basic level than theology (which shouldn't even be possible). The differences touch upon the most basic issues of all, the role of rationality in human life and arguably even the basic nature of reality. Moreover, I believe that the kind of thinking underlying Rabbi Walt's article is becoming increasingly common, even in (perhaps even especially in) those circles that ostensibly celebrate rationality. 

The article is a near-perfect illustration of the superficial romanticism that underlies much of what goes by the name "liberalism" nowadays, and helps explain why "liberal" Jews are increasingly finding themselves feeling like they have to chose between their identity as "liberals" and their support for Israel. By "superficial romanticism", I am referring to a worldview in which one's "feelings" have absolute moral authority. I am not addressing the various political and ideological positions commonly associated with liberalism (of any stripe), nor am I addressing the the fact that our emotions inevitably color our moral judgments. I am addressing the increasing tendency to see  superficial feelings, i.e. one's immediate gut reaction to an idea, image, or story, as having sufficient moral authority to render any further thought irrelevant. While such thinking certainly exists in all circles, my observation has been that this kind of thinking is increasingly seen in ostensibly "liberal" circles as not only respectable but as "deep" and "profound", and that much of what passes for "liberalism" today is simply advocacy for and celebration of such a worldview. [...]  click for full article Olive Seedlings

Marrying a Divorcee or Widow

Pesachim(112a): Do not cook in a pot that your fellow used for cooking. What is that referring to? – Do not marry a divorce during her first husband’s lifetime. As the Master said: A divorced man who marries a divorced woman – there are four entities present in the bed. Alternatively this advice also applies to not marrying a widow because not all fingers are equal [i.e., sex organs and she will think that sexual relations with her new husband are not as good as with the first and she will come to disparage him – Rashi].

Wife divorced against her will - status bedieved?

One of the important changes in divorce law resulted from the decree of Rabbeinu Gershom that a woman can not be divorced against her will - despite the fact that she can be divorced against her will according to Torah law. Therefore in modern times if a woman refuses to accept a get - her husband can not remarry unless he gets a Heter Meah Rabbonim which indicates that decree of Rabbeinu Gershom does not apply in his case. The HMR isn't a divorce but an allowance for bigamy. There are also questions as to whether this decree was made for a limited time- and therefore is not applicable anymore and also that it was not universally accepted.

As we have been discussing the question of what happens if the halacha is violated and the husband is forced to give a get - is this get totally invalid or only on the rabbinic level - there is a similar question regarding forcing a get on a woman. Is the Get good bedieved or is the get invalidated? This is discussed at length in the Sdei Chemed.

The significance of this question is obvious. If a husband is fed up with his wife's extortion or use of secular courts - what would happen if he simply forced her to accept a get? Or alternatively if the husband uses the threat of a forced get to extort better terms from his wife - is it a genuine threat? What if he remarried after a forced get without a Heter Meah Rabbonim? Even more more problematic - what if she remarried after receiving a forced get? Would her children be mamzerim? Would she be forced to leave that marriage?

Shulchan Aruch (E.H. 119:6): A woman can be divorced against her will. REMA: Even if he doesn't have sufficient funds to pay her kesuba or dowry - that does not prevent the divorce from working. He should divorce her and then she should take him to beis din to collect what is owed her. All of this is according to the law of the Torah. However Rabbeinu Gershom decreed that a man can not divorce his wife unless she agrees and if he does he transgresses the religious law...So even if he want to give her her kesuba - he can not divorce her today against her will. If he transgresses this prohibition of Rabbeinu Gershom in modern times and then remarries he can no longer be called a sinner

Rav Kook: Yeshiva as hospital - women aren't sick

Rav Kook expands on his views on the difference between men and women - that he stated regarding voting rights - regarding Torah learning and yeshiva. click here. He asserts that textual learning is only needed by men who have been contaminated by the outside culture. The cure is a constant dose of text based study. He likens the yeshiva to a hospital where this cure is applied. Women on the other hand have been sheltered in the home from the outside culture and are not contaminated. In addition because they have extra binah - they don't need textual studies as an antidote as men do. In fact textual studies are harmful to their spirituality. He cites the Rambam who notes that teaching women the Oral Torah is teaching them immorality. The following excerpt is from Dr. Avinoam Rozenak's on Rav Kook (pages 251-252) This letter which had never before been published was written by Rav Kook to his son and his older daughter Freida Chana (20^th of Shevat 5667). The translation is entirely mine including the parenthetical notes of Dr. Rosenak.

The fundamental distinction, my precious daughter, between the soul of woman and the soul of man is only in relation to the necessity of intellectual study. Book are not in themselves natural sustenance for the spirit of man. [...] In fact the best of books [...] are only medicine to cure a man who has been sick for years. [In contrast]  the healthy inner emotions which are produced from a pure nature by means of a chinuch (training) which is not destructive – are all that is needed to instruct a man as to that which is sufficient. [Cultural education, book learning and intellectualism are all consequences of sin and degradation – A Rosenak]

Man today has become seriously degraded and his actions are perverted and life in general is debased. [The ills of the material culture have struck man and therefore it is difficult for him to conduct his life properly and therefore he seeks] doctors and cures that are produced from studies of books. [In fact we have descended] to the unfortunate condition that we are forced to imprison our beloved children who are still fresh with the dew of their childhood – for many hours every day in the school room and to bind them to books and to text. This is comparable to requiring a sick person to be hospitalized and confined to bed in a hospital room. The child  is carefully detained with strict supervision in order to provide him with the cure of study.

G‑d acted justly with the world in that He gave women a greater measure of understanding (binah) than He gave men. This is manifest in the fact that her basic intuitions are much deeper than a man. This is so even though they don’t seem to be from how they are expressed.[A woman exists in a different plane of realןtiy than a man. She has no need for the artificial framework of study and intellectual striving which supports the man A. Rosenak]. There is no absolutely no benefit for the woman of valor to be involved in the workings of the world leaders and kings or their cruel wars – which also add many chapters in books. [Involvement in this world of man can only lead to her destruction and degradation A. Rosenak] And it in no small measure injects in their lives the filth of murder and hatred of others that causes the light of life to be darkened. That is why the woman of valor is exempt from this catastrophe. She was created to look after the running of her house and to offer aid to the poor and indigent as well as to make sure her household was properly taken care of. [...] These tasks she fulfills are beautiful and pleasant and sweet smelling to those with understanding as well as inherently holy - and they are natural and wholesome in every aspect.

[In this idealized image, a woman could theoretically develop her full potential without any formal education at all. However with the degradation of the generations a woman has increasing needs for formal education. Nevertheless it is prohibited for a woman to exchange her world for that of a man A. Rosenak]. G‑d forbid for a refined Jewish girl who is destined to be a true woman of valor and even more so to be a daughter of Israel. [...] to exchange her living world for the artificial world of books and her wholesome food for medicinal chemicals The catastrophe of Europe which also imprisoned its daughters in a prison known as school [...] was the cause of producing generations of women who were weak in spirituality.

[These circumstances are the cause that women] have forgotten their true value. [Her parents for various reasons] seek only book learning in a fixed framework and to have her bound to a school room – to a hospital. And it is equivalent to teaching her what Chazal describe as immorality (tiflos). [Just as there is a chasm between Jews and the nations of the world there is also a significant difference between women and men. In these two cases, the distinction is inherent. Not everything in the nations of the world is positive. However in the end, the world must act in according with the Torah. Everything depends on the degree of connection that Jews have to their sources in the Torah and their implementation in the land of Israel. A. Rosenak]

D.A. Hynes creates Task Force & warns Rabbis

CBS    Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes spoke out Wednesday on the controversy over his handling of child sex abuses cases in Hasidic and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities.

Under the suggestion of former Mayor Ed Koch, Hynes is putting together a task force Friday to address witness intimidation issues in sex crime cases in the communities. However, Hynes warned the task force will come up against the challenges of this insular community.

“When someone is intimidated to the point where they will not proceed with a criminal case, it’s always almost unlikely that they’ll ever help us with an intimidation case,” Hynes said.

Hynes also backed away from the tacit support he had given to the demand by Hasidic leaders that allegations of sexual abuse first be reported to a rabbi, warning a major rabbinical leader of possible consequences.

“What you’re doing is putting rabbis at risk, because one or more of them are going to make the mistake of committing a crime by intimidating witnesses and they could end up in handcuffs,” Hynes said.

R' Horowitz: Why abuse victims protest

Rabbi Yakov Horowitz    About five years ago, as awareness in our community about the matter of child abuse began to rise, many of the long-suffering victims began to hope against hope that things would finally change. People would finally "get it" they believed, and they would once again feel welcome and nurtured instead of being treated as pariahs who ruined the sterling reputations of their abusers. Who knows, they might even get their Level 2 security back again. 

Then they pick up a charedi publication one weekend and see a picture of a group of distinguished rabbis visiting a monster in a Virginia jail cell, who was serving a 31-year prison sentence for raping his daughter in three continents over a period of many years. More than 10 survivors contacted me as soon as that picture ran in the paper. "How could they do that to us?" they asked me. "Don't they know that supporting the perpetrator they are stabbing us in the heart?" they cried. Well, they are. They really are. 

And what in the world should survivors in our community think when they see a huge fundraiser for someone accused of molesting a child? Many of them viewed the very public nature of this effort as clear warning of what is in store for anyone who might dare report a predator to the authorities.

For many of the survivors, though, the final straw was the Internet Asifa. Why were they so upset? Let me count the ways for them. 

To begin with, the kids in the street know the truth -- that the Internet is a firecracker compared to the atom bomb of abuse as far as going off the derech is concerned. Just ask any of them -- or any of the adults in our community who work with the at-risk teen population, what the main reason is for children leaving Yiddishkeit.

Moreover, many of these kids credit the connectivity of the Internet for finally raising awareness of abuse in our community, and as we all know, there is more than a kernel of truth there. "Why are the people running the Asifa blaming the Internet for causing children to go off the derech and saying nothing about the matter of child safety?" they wonder. 

Bottom line, there are hundreds and hundreds of abuse victims and survivors who were once part of our kehilos. Some left completely while others exist on the fringes – misunderstood, marginalized, and hurting.