Mrs. Pearl Engleman responds to Ami Magazine's Train Wreck Journalism dealing with child abuse

Ami Magazine (May 29, 2014) recently published an article "How to turn a Journalism Discussion into a train wreck" - dealing with a forum on child abuse at John Jay College. Its focus and theme was to show that journalists dealing with child abuse as well as child abuse activists - are more concerned with bashing the chareidi community than dealing with the reality of abuse. Ironically the reporter who was attacking alleged distortions of truth by journalists -  instead of acknowleding the true dynamics of abuse, suppression of reporting and dealing properly with the issue in our community - pointed out the abuse and coverups in the military and colleges. Furthermore he asserted that contrary to the views of the journalists and advocates - abuse coverups are often done by the families of the victim because of concern for shidduchim- rather than rabbis or community leaders. (A deceptive statement which ignores the primary role of rabbis and community leaders in this matter.) Instead of  acknowledging the postive changes that have occured only because of the actions of journalists and advocates, he attacked reporters for making false or ignorant statements about the chareidi community. In short this was another example of Ami Magazine's greater concern with damage control for the chareidi community - by trying to kill the messenger -  rather than providing constructive reporting about what is going on. [update; See previous article in Ami 2011 by Pinny Taub] Here are some excerpts from the article.

 I looked at the names of the panelists. More disturbing than Winston’s inclusion was the inclusion of Ben Hirsch of the group Survivors for Justice on the list of panelists. An advocate with an axe to grind against the community, Hirsch wouldn’t be an expert on the techniques of journalism or investigating; he’d be there to tell over the crimes and misdemeanors of the community. I checked my calendar. I had time for an outrage. p76

In fact, reporting and congressional investigations that have gone on this year about abuse in the US military and on college campuses across the country, including at the most prestigious Ivy League colleges, has shown that horrific coverups of abuse go on in those institutions to a level no rational observer believes is happening in the Jewish community. p77  [DT - this is not child abuse]

 Yet the vilification of the community still continues, and the narrative that the chareidim are a sinister, “insular” group that as a whole evilly victimizes victims is still one that reporters have a  hard time letting go of. p77

 Mark Appel, the head of the group The Voice of Justice (a rival group to Hirsch’s Survivors for Justice), oozed into the seat behind me. p77

The lineup of panel members had been changed a bit. Ben Hirsch wasn’t coming, but he’d sent another member of his organization, NYPD captain Daniel Sosnowik, a frum Jew. Then there was Hella Winston, as moderator; Julia Dahl, the author of the fiction book being promoted, who reports for CBSNews.com; Reuven Blau, a frum Jew and reporter for the Daily News; and Jennifer Molinari, a retired NYPD detective who specialized in abuse crimes. The discussion, supposedly about reporting and investigating, quickly turned into a recital of the community’s supposed crimes.  p77

Two of the audience members subtly undermined the general tenor of the discussion. One young woman discussed her sister’s abuse by a neighbor; a young man discussed his own abuse. Both of them said that worries about shidduchim, either for their own family members or for the family members of the abuser, were why their parents didn’t go to the police. p78

Those turned out to be bad decisions with tragic consequences, because they left the abusers free to prey on other children. But these stories had a different narrative from the one that the panel had been promoting. Instead of evil rabbis engaging in backroom machinations—the image that one would have gotten from much of the panel’s discussion—these speakers were pointing out, perhaps unintentionally, more subtle factors that exist in many cases. Yet in the context of the entire discussion, that point was probably lost on most listeners. p78

As the panel discussion had made clear, the issue of abuse is one that can inspire a wholesale assault on the community, and it is fertile ground for manipulation by activists with an agenda to, in the eloquent words of Mark Appel, put the community in its “deathbed.” It’s entirely possible that some of the journalists, as Winston and Blau told me after the discussion, aren’t interested in sinking the community. They may simply be out to write a good story and find the community a good subject. But activists, who create a narrative of villainous rabbis and nefarious communal organizations, certainly use that to their own ends. And that is an outrage. [page 79]

The following is Mrs. Pearl Engleman's response to the article

My purpose in writing the essay was twofold.  1) not letting Ami get away with denigrating victims and advocates - there's been way too much of that already and   2) challenging them to take the initiative in bringing about a healing process for the victims/survivors (and their families).

In the 6 years I've been involved as an advocate for victims/survivors I myself can't believe the degree to which molestation has affected our children. 

In a group of 5 Yingeleit, 3 of them said they were molested.  Many, many young adults admit to being molested as young boys, but see it as a rite of passage r'l!  There are so many dysfunctional husbands and fathers - way out of proportion to normal standards.  It begs the question of why - what happened in their lives to turn them into ogres - frightening their wives and children?

Truly it is a matter of great urgency to do something to rectify the situation.

With appreciation,

P Engelman

============================

“…….And That is an Outrage”

(Last sentence in Ami Magazine,

article 5/28/14, in reference to

activists against CSA using

community bashing as a

means to their own agenda!)

6/8/14

Really? What shall we call the following?

It is now exactly 6 years since our son Yoely courageously revealed to the world the story of his childhood molestation by his principal in his Talmud Torah when Yoely was 8 years old. Sharing with the world his account of anguish and suffering was actually not his original plan nor was it our plan. The original plan was to have his former principal, now rebbi (not to be confused with Rebbe) of the same age boys, remove himself from the classroom in an honorable way – not his honor so much as the honor of his large innocent family. To achieve this, my husband hand delivered a letter to him before Pesach ’08 asking him not to come back to teaching children after Yom Tov. In the letter we explained the terrible reasons for this request and also said if he would leave quietly, we too would keep quiet. (How naive we were!) Yoely’s and our main objective was to protect young boys from this pedophile; we also mentioned that if he would not comply we’d have no choice but to take this further – and he would risk great shame and agony for his family.

Within a day of delivering the letter, the entire apparatus of the Talmud Torah was harnessed to cover-up and protect the rebbi and deny all allegations. Of course it didn’t happen in one sentence. The massive, horrible betrayal of Yoely began at first with the Talmud Torah pretending to be sooo concerned, talking to Yoely, explaining their attitude of zero tolerance, going so far as to give the rebbi a lie detector test. When he failed the test they promised Yoely that the rebbi would have no more employment with them, neither in the Talmud Torah nor in their summer Bungalow Colony, where he’d been both principal and rebbi, and they did not allow the rebbi to return to the classroom after Pesach (April) ’08.

Two months later, on June 24th Yoely turned 23. This is the age where a victim can no longer legally pursue a molester. To our shock and horror, one week later, on July 1st , the Talmud Torah rehired the rebbi at their Bungalow Colony! Two months later, at the beginning of the school term in September ’08, he was reinstated as rebbi again for 8-9 year old boys.

The enormous, heartless betrayal of Yoely was the beginning of a huge tsunami of relentless negative media attention of our community’s handling of child molesters. Sadly, much of it well deserved. And even more sadly, much of it preventable.

When the rebbi was rehired and I saw the terrible pain and anguish and torment Yoely was going through I knew (because Yoely told me) what was coming. I, together with one other Askan desperately tried to head off the impending tsunami. I contacted Moshe Dovid Niederman of UJO, I contact Rabbonim in Boro Park, I contacted the 3 Dayanim in the Bungalow Colony – telling them the whole sad story and frantically trying to explain to them that a Chilul Hashem of the greatest magnitude was going to befall us and it was up to them to prevent it from happening. Nothing….. No reaction from anyone, only a deafening silence.

The Talmud Torah believed Yoely when he gave them the details of his molestation. How could they not, after the rebbi failed their polygraph? Additionally, they heard from other parents whose children were molested by the same rebbi. And in the summer of ’08, Assemblyman Dov Hikind publicly announced that a father of another child molested by the same rebbi came to talk to him about it. Where was their responsibility to the children? Didn’t they have a conscience……

Shockingly, one of the ‘advisors’ to the Talmud Torah I met in late August ’08 told me when I asked how they could re-hire this rebbi “Let me ask you Mrs Engelman, on a scale of 1 to 10 how bad was the molestation? There was no skin to skin contact, it was through clothing, it was maybe a 2 or a 3? Therefore it was decided to re-hire him!” Never mind that in New York State it is a felony crime to molest a child under 11 through clothing! Never mind that on a scale of 1 to 10 the aftereffects for Yoely were off the charts. Never mind that they rehired a molester by their own standards!

And you, dear writer at Ami Magazine dare to complain about the “vilification of the community”?

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Here’s another one:

In 2011 the Williamsburg Vaad Hatznius were well aware of an Avreich preying on young Bochurim (male teenagers) and they were closing in on him. In one memorable occasion, after finding him with a young bochur in his own apartment during the time his wife was recuperating at her mother’s home after giving birth to her baby, they gave him a good beating! Then, in a ludicrously misguided attempt at protecting Williamsburg children, the Vaad Hatzniyus printed a flyer for distribution to all Mikvas. The flyer advised all those in charge of Mikvas to be warned not to allow ‘so and so’ into the Mikvas and they included a photo of him!

Lest we get carried away with admiration for the Vaad Hatznius, please note: The Vaad Hatznius of Williamsburg consisted of responsible individuals, individuals who were perfectly aware of his criminality. They should have immediately turned him over to the proper authorities! THE LIVES OF CHILDREN WERE IN DEADLY DANGER FROM THIS PEDOPHILE. WHAT MEASURE DID THE VAAD USE TO WEIGH A PEDOPHILE’S WORTH AGAINST THE LIVES OF CHILDREN? Instead they took matters into their own hands and as a result ‘so and so’ was protected, covered-up for, and allowed to continue to strut the streets of Williamsburg, Boro Park, etc. free to go after more victims.

When the Avreich molested a young Bochur in a Beis Hamedrish in Williamsburg the week of March 26 - April 2, AND MADE HIM SIGN A CONSENT FORM - the Vaad Hatznius went ballistic! They put up a letter in (only) 2 Shuls (not mikvas this time) warning people about him! And they also pressured his family to send him to Israel for treatment! What treatment? When treatment? Some time later he was seen at different venues in Israel with young bochurim surrounding him and following him…..

And you, dear writer at Ami Magazine dare to complain about the “vilification of the community”?

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How about this one:

I get a call from a mother in Monsey whose 6 year old little boy is in one of the large Chassidish Moisdes in Monsey. The child’s rebbi put his hands down the little boy’s pants and fondled him. In a fury the mother runs to the Cheider and lets the principals have it – demanding they fire the rebbi! No! they tell her, they will not dismiss the rebbi and if she says one word to anyone, all of her other sons in different classes will be expelled and she will have to find new yeshivas for all of them…… For those of us who are Chassidish we know this is practically an impossibility – to which other Chassidus can she send her children? Who will accept them? Besides, she will be branded as a troublemaker and no one will touch her or her children with a ten foot pole. So the poor lady keeps quiet and surreptitiously calls people like me to vent her despair and helplessness and dare I say it – outrage…..

And you, dear writer at Ami Magazine dare to complain about the “vilification of the community”?

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To quote your article again “the issue of abuse is one that can inspire a wholesale assault on the community”. Is it any wonder? Why must we, with our inexcusable behavior supply them with material? And irony of ironies – do we really need the help of an agency such as OJPAC, with a mission statement of helping “enhance the standing of the Orthodox Jewish community in the media and in the eyes of the general public”?

Nothing is of greater benefit to “enhance our standing” than this: We need only to behave as the Torah teaches us: “Sur Mairuh, V’Asai Tov”. If we as a community have covered up for the pedophiles amongst us and in doing so have shunned, shamed, ostracized and excluded their victims, it is required of us to admit it! And to right the wrongs we have done to these precious Neshamos! With the exception of that one courageous Tzaddik in Passaic, Rabbi Yitzchok Eisenman, who gave survivors a life affirming boost by giving them a platform in his wonderful Kehilla, NOT ONE OTHER group of Yidden has followed suit and given survivors the time of day, let alone any show of support.

And almost nothing is of greater benefit to “enhance our standing” in the eyes of our mushrooming OTD population - who are so finely attuned to sniffing out hypocrisy - than in our being paragons of sincerity and Emes in these situations.

You, Ami Magazine, are in a unique position to change the situation. It behooves you to spearhead a movement to end the vilification of the Orthodox Jewish Community; to restore our luster and our light, and not by bashing activists, victims and survivors, but by showing the world that we Chareidim are honest enough to admit we were wrong, strong enough to institute changes, and humble enough to make amends with those we have sadly let down.

Pearl Engelman

Israel rejects African infiltrators' request to convert to Judaism

YNet    Dozens of Eritrean and Sudanese infiltrators residing in Israel illegally have requested to convert to Judaism in the past year in a bid to receive a residence permit and perhaps even an Israeli citizenship, Ynet has learned.  

Their requests were rejected out of hand by the Conversion Authority for failing to meet preconditions. 

According to figures compiled by the Ministry of Religious of Services, dozens of Africans tried to begin a conversion process, and most requests were made when the infiltrators' problem was at the center of the public and media's attention. [...]

According to Jeselsohn, until a few years ago there were no precondition for conversion, so that "everyone who was deported or banned entry to Israel would immediately knock on the door, and we had to summon them for an interview and start a process.

"This has been stopped," he added, and now foreign nationals are required to fill out a form requesting a conversion, which is discussed together with Justice Ministry representatives. If the request is filed by an illegal resident, it will be denied immediately.
Yet religious sources have expressed their fear that the state will regularize the status of African infiltrators in the future and allow them to reside in Israel. In such a case, they will have the legal right to convert, despite the fact that they have no halachic affiliation to the Jewish people.
"The stories we hear from the religious courts, that they allegedly abuse converts, will pale in comparison to what we are expected to see with the Africans," a Conversion Authority source told Ynet.
"Today we are still talking about immigrants from the former Soviet Union, who in the worst case are assimilators of Jewish descent, and so we are still lenient with them. But here we are talking about tens of thousands who want to assimilate into us and have no connection to Judaism." [...]

Focus on the intellectual knowlege about G-d results from the loss of the intimate experience of G-d

One of the important issues for a religious Jew is the disappearance of a direct sense of G-d and its replacement with an intellectual knowledge about G-d or focus on a strong text based understanding of halacha. This is described in the selection cited below from Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik's essay "Rupture and Reconstruction".  However this is not just a recent phenomena but in fact is something that has kept reappearing throughout Jewish history.

רב קוק (שמונה קבצים א:תסג): האנשים הטבעיים שאינם מלומדים, יש להם יתרון בהרבה דברים על המלומדים, בזה שלא נתטשטש אצלם השכל הטבעי והמוסר העצמי ע"י השגיאות העולות מהלימודים וע"י חלישות הכחות וההתקצפות הבאה ע"י העול הלימודי, ומ"מ הם צריכים לקבל הדרכה בפרטי החחים מהמלומדים. והמלומדים צריכים תמיד לסגל לעצמם, כפי האפשרי להם, את הכשרון הטבעי של עמי הארץ, בין בהשקפת החיים בין בהכרת המוסר מצד טבעיותו, ואז יתעלו הם בפיתוח שכלם יותר ויותר, וכן הדבר נוהג אפילו בצדיקים ורשעים שישנם רשעים כאלה, שהחלק הטוב שנשאר אצלם הוא מבונה בכח טבעי עצמי וטהור כ"כ, עד שצדיקים במעלתם העליונה, וכן הדבר נוהג גם בכלל האומות ביחש כל אחת מהם לחבירתה, וביחוד בין אוה"ע לישראל.


רב קוק (שמונה קבצים (א:עה): אסור ליראת שמים שתדחק את המוסר הטבעי של האדם, כי אז אינה עוד יראת שמים טהורה. סימן ליראת שמים טהורה הוא כשהמוסר הטבעי הנטוע בטבע הישר של האדם, הולך ועולה על פיה במעלות יותר בגוהות ממה שהוא עומד מבלעדה. אבל אם חצוייר יראת שמים בתכונה כזאת שבלא השפעתה על החיים היו החיים יותר נוטים לפעול טוב, ולהוציא על הפועל דברים מועילים לפרט ולכלל וע"פ השפעתה מתמעט כח הפועל ההוא יראת שמים כזאת היא יראה פסולה.

The story of Choni HaMaagel [Taanis 23a - Maharsha] is a good illustration in which someone who lived during the period of the First Temple - characterised by a direct experience of G-d - fell asleep and woke in the Second Temple period. That period was characterised by an intellectualized abstract religion and focus on texts. He was unable to deal with this change as he prayed, "Either companionship or death" and he died.

When I lived in Far Rockaway, there was a wise tzadekes - Mrs. Pauline Gingold - about 100 years old that I used to visit on a regular basis. We studied Tzenah U'Renah and Menoras HaMeor together. Rabbi Friefeld and his family also visited her and he knew her well. He told me, "Pay attention to the way she speaks about G-d. She talks to G-d as a real being - as one would speak to his father. That is the way they spoke in Europe - but it is very rare today."

Rabbi Friefeld confided that he was jealous of the bachur who davened next to him in the yeshiva. "When he davens he cries." That ability for tears is typically lost as one becomes more learned and develops a sophisticated theology.

Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik(Rupture and Reconstruction- Tradition Summer 1994): I have discussed the disappearance of a way of life and the mimetic tradition. I believe, however, the transformations in the religious enclave, including the haredi sector, go much deeper and affect fundamental beliefs. Assessments of other peoples' inner convictions an always conjectural and, perhaps, should be attempted only in a language in which the subjunctive mood is still in vigorous use. I can best convey my impression — and I emphasize that it is no more than an impression — by sharing a personal experience.

In 1959, I came to Israel before the High Holidays. Having grown up in Boston and never having had an opportunity to pray in a haredi yeshivah, I spent the entire High Holiday period—from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur—at a famous yeshiva in Bnei Brak. The prayer there was long, intense, and uplifting, certainly far more powerful than anything I had previously experienced. And yet, there was something missing, something that I had experienced before, something, perhaps, I had taken for granted. Upon reflection, I realized that there was introspection, self-ascent, even moments of self-transcendence, but there was no fear in the thronged student body, most of whom were Israeli born. Nor was that experience a solitary one. Over the subsequent thirty-five years, I have passed the High holidays generally in the United States or Israel, and occasionally in England, attending services in haredi and non-haredi communities alike. I have yet to find that fear present, to any significant degree, among the native born in either circle. The ten-day period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are now Holy Days, but they are not Yamim Noraim—Days of Awe or, more accurately Days of Dread –as they have been traditionally called.

I grew up in a Jewishly non-observant community, and prayed in a synagogue where most of the older congregants neither observed the Sabbath nor even ate kosher. They all hailed from Eastern Europe, largely from shtetlach, like Shepetovka and Shnipishok. Most of their religious observance, however, had been washed away in the sea-change, and the little left had further eroded in the "new country." Indeed, the only time the synagogue was ever full was during the High Holidays. Even then the service was hardly edifying. Most didn't know what they were saying, and bored, wandered in and out. Yet, at the closing service of Yom Kippur, the Ne'ilah, the synagogue filled and a hush set in upon the crowd. The tension was palpable and tears were shed.

What had been instilled in these people in their earliest childhood, and which they never quite shook off, was that every person was judged on Yom Kippur, and, as the sun was setting, the final decision was being rendered (in the words of the famous prayer) “who for life, who for death, / who for tranquility, who for unrest.” These people did not cry from religiosity but from self- interest, from an instinctive fear for their lives. Their tears were courtroom tears, with whatever degree of sincerity such tears have. What was absent among the thronged students in Bnei Brak and in their contemporary services and, lest I be thought to be exempting myself from this assessment, absent in my own religious life too - was that primal fear of Divine judgment, simple and direct.

To what extent God was palpably present on Yom Kippur among the different generations of congregants in Boston and Bnei Brak is a matter of personal impression, and, moreover, it is one bout which opinions might readily and vigorously differ. The pivotal question, however, is not God's sensed presence on Yom Kippur or on the Yamim Noraim, the ten holiest days of the year, but on the 355 other—commonplace—days of the year: To what extent is there an ongoing experience of His natural involvement in the mundane and of everyday affairs? Put differently, the issue is not the accuracy of my youthful assessment, but whether the cosmology of Bnei Brak and Borough Park differs from that of the shtetl, and if so, whether such a shift has engendered a change in the sensed intimacy with God and the felt immediacy of His presence? Allow me to explain.

We regularly see events that have no visible cause: we breathe, we sneeze, stones fall downward and fire rises upward. Around the age of two or three, the child realizes that these events do not happen of themselves, but that they are made to happen, they are, to use adult terms, 'caused.' He also realizes that often the forces that make things happen cannot be seen, but that older people, with more experience of the world, know what they are. So begins the incessant questioning: "Why does . . .?” The child may be told that the invisible forces behind breathing, sickness and falling are "reflex actions," "germs" and "gravitation." Or he may be told that they are the workings of the "soul," of God's wrath" and of "the attractions of like to like" (which is why earthly things, as stones, fall downward, while heavenly things, as fire, rise upward). These causal notions imbibed from the home, are then re-enforced by the street and refined by school. That these forces are real, the child, by now an adult, has no doubt, for he incessantly experiences their potent effects. That these unseen forces are indeed the true cause of events, seems equally certain, for all authorities, indeed, all people are in agreement on the matter. When a medieval man said that his sickness is the result of the wish of God, he was no more affirming a religious posture than is a modern man adopting a scientific one when he says that he has a virus. Each is simply repeating, if you wish, subscribing to the explanatory system instilled in him in earliest childhood, and which alone makes sense of the world as he knows it. Though we have never actually seen a germ or a gravitational field, it is true only in a limited sense to say that we "believe" in them. Their existence to us is simply a given, and we would think it

Similarly, one doesn't "believe" in God, in the other explanatory system, one simply takes His direct involvement in human affairs for granted. One may, of course, superimpose a belief in God, even a passionate and all-consuming one, upon another causal framework, such as gravity or DNA. However, a God "believed" over and above an explanatory system, functioning through it as indirect cause, in brief, a God in a natural cosmology, is a God "believed" in a different sense than way we now "believe" in gravitation or the way people once "believed" in God in a religious cosmology, a God whose wrath and favor were the explanatory system itself.

God's palpable presence and direct, natural involvement in daily life—and I emphasize both "direct" and "daily"—, His immediate responsibility for everyday events, was a fact of life in the East European shtetl, so late as several generations ago. Let us remember Tevye's conversations with God portrayed by Sholom Aleichem. There is, of course, humor in the colloquial intimacy and in the precise way the most minute annoyances of daily life are laid, package-like, at God's doorstep. The humor, however, is that of parody, the exaggeration of the commonly known. The author's assumption is that his readers themselves share, after some fashion, Tevye's sense of God's responsibility for man's quotidian fate. If they didn't, Tevye would not be humorous, he would be crazy. Tevye's outlook was not unique to the shtetl, or to Jews in Eastern Europe; it was simply one variation of an age-old cosmology that dominated Europe for millennia, which saw the universe as directly governed by a Divine Sovereign. If regularity exists in the world, it is simply because the Sovereign's will is constant, as one expects the will of a great sovereign to be. He could, of course, at any moment change His mind, and things contrary to our expectations would then occur, what we call "miracles." However, the recurrent and the "miraculous" alike are, to the same degree, the direct and unmediated consequence of His wish. The difference between them is not of kind but rather of frequency. Frequency, of course, is a very great practical difference, and it well merits, indeed demands of daily language, a difference in terms. However, this verbal distinction never obscures for a moment their underlying identity.

As all that occurs is an immediate consequence of His will, events have a purpose and occur because of that purpose. Rationality, or, as they would have had it, wisdom, does not consist in detecting unvarying sequences in ever more accurately observed events and seeing in the first occurrence the "cause" of the second. Wisdom, rather, consists in discovering His intent in these happenings, for that intent is their cause, and only by grasping their cause could events be anticipated and controlled. The universe is a moral order reflecting God's purposes and physically responsive to any breaches in His norms. In the workings of such a world, God is not an ultimate cause; He is a direct, natural force, and safety lies in contact with that force. Prayer has then a physical efficacy, and sin is "a fearful imprudence." Not that one thinks much about sin in the bustle of daily life, but when a day of reckoning does come around, only the foolhardy are without fear.

Such a Divine force can be distant and inscrutable, as in some strains of Protestantism, or it can be intimate and familial, as in certain forms of Catholicism. In Eastern Europe it tended toward intimacy, whether in the strong Marian strain of Polish Catholicism in the much-supplicated household icon, the center of family piety the Greek Orthodox devotion. And much of the traditional literature of the Jews, especially as it filtered into common consciousness through the Commentaries of Rashi and the Tzenah Re'enah, contained a humanization of the deity that invited intimacy. God visits Abraham on his sickbed; He consoles Isaac upon the death of his father. He is swayed by the arguments of Elijah or the matriarchs, indeed by any heartfelt prayer, and decisions on the destiny of nations and the fate of individuals, the length of the day and the size of the moon, are made and unmade by apt supplications at the opportune moment. The humor of Sholom Aleichem lay not in the dialogues with God, but in having a "dairyman" rather than the Baal Shem Tov conduct them. The parody lay not in the remonstrances but in their subject matter.

The world to which the uprooted came, and in which their children were raised, was that of modern science, which had reduced nature to "an irreversible series of equations," to an immutable nexus of cause and effect, which suffices on its own to explain the workings of the world. Not that most, or even any, had so much as a glimmer of these equations, but the formulas of the "new country" had created a technology which they saw, with their own eyes, transforming their lives beyond all dreams. And it is hard to deny the reality of the hand that brings new gifts with startling regularity.  There are, understandably, few Tevyes today, even in haredi circles. To be sure, there are seasons of the year, moments of crest in the religious cycle, when God's guiding hand may be tangibly felt by some and invoked by many, and there are certainly occasions in the lives of most when the reversals are so sudden, or the stakes so high and the contingencies so many, that the unbeliever prays for luck, and the believer, more readily and more often, calls for His help. Such moments are only too real, but they are not the stuff of daily life. And while there are always those whose spirituality is one apart from that of their time, nevertheless I think it safe to say that the perception of God as a daily, natural force is no longer present to a significant degree in any sector of modern Jewry, even the most religious.

Indeed, I would go so far as to suggest that individual Divine Providence, though passionately believed as a theological principle—and I do not for a moment question the depth of that conviction—is no longer experienced as a simple reality. With the shrinkage of God's palpable hand in human affairs has come a marked loss of His immediate presence, with its primal fear and nurturing comfort. With this distancing, the religious world has been irrevocably separated from the spirituality of its fathers, indeed, from the religious mood of intimate anthropomorphism that had cut across all the religious

divides of the Old World.

It is this rupture in the traditional religious sensibilities that underlies much of the transformation of contemporary Orthodoxy. Zealous to continue traditional Judaism unimpaired, religious Jews seek to ground their new emerging spirituality less on a now unattainable intimacy with Him, than on an intimacy with His Will, avidly eliciting Its intricate demands and saturating their daily lives with Its exactions. Having lost the touch of His presence, they seek now solace in the pressure of His yoke.

דיינים: אין שום איסור להתלונן למשרד החינוך

BHOL

שערוריית "מכתב ההפחדה" של הרב וולף שנתלה בסמינר אור החיים ממשיכה להכות גלים • הגר"י גליקסברג רבה של גבעתיים, והגר"א אלחרר רב העיר מודיעין בפסיקה חד משמעית: "אין בתלונה למשרד החינוך או הכלכלה משום פניה לערכאות" • מחלוקת בין הגרי"ש אלישיב והגר"נ קרליץ האם מותר לעתור לבי"ד לעבודה • הרב וולף: "לא מגיב לאתרים" • כל הפרטים

נושא מורות סמינר 'אור החיים' בבני ברק, שאוימו על ידי מנהל איגוד הסמינרים של בית יעקב, הרב זאב וולף, כי במידה ויתלוננו "לערכאות ולרשויות שונות כגון בית הדין לעבודה, משרד החינוך משרד הכלכלה וכדומה, הן יפוטרו בגין עיכוב משכורותיהן במשך חמשה חודשים, ממשיך להסעיר את הציבור.

משיחת בירור שערך 'בחדרי חרדים' עם מספר רבנים אודות הפן ההלכתי של העניין, עולה תמונה שונה בהקשר לאיסור הגורף שהטיל הרב וולף וכריכת 'בית הדין לעבודה' בנשימה אחת עם 'משרדי החינוך והכלכלה'.[...]

Fasting triggers stem cell regeneration of damaged, old immune system

University of Southern California   In the first evidence of a natural intervention triggering stem cell-based regeneration of an organ or system, a study in the June 5 issue of the Cell Stem Cell shows that cycles of prolonged fasting not only protect against immune system damage — a major side effect of chemotherapy — but also induce immune system regeneration, shifting stem cells from a dormant state to a state of self-renewal.

In both mice and a Phase 1 human clinical trial, long periods of not eating significantly lowered white blood cell counts. In mice, fasting cycles then “flipped a regenerative switch,” changing the signaling pathways for hematopoietic stem cells, which are responsible for the generation of blood and immune systems, the research showed.

The study has major implications for healthier aging, in which immune system decline contributes to increased susceptibility to disease as people age. By outlining how prolonged fasting cycles — periods of no food for two to four days at a time over the course of six months — kill older and damaged immune cells and generate new ones, the research also has implications for chemotherapy tolerance and for those with a wide range of immune system deficiencies, including autoimmunity disorders.[...]

“When you starve, the system tries to save energy, and one of the things it can do to save energy is to recycle a lot of the immune cells that are not needed, especially those that may be damaged,” Longo said. “What we started noticing in both our human work and animal work is that the white blood cell count goes down with prolonged fasting. Then when you re-feed, the blood cells come back. So we started thinking, well, where does it come from?”

Living on purpose: Very robust predictor of health and wellness

NY Times      My late father had a longtime friend, a retired kosher butcher, who lived down the hall in their South Jersey apartment building. Past 90, Manny was older and frailer than my father; he leaned on a cane and could barely see well enough to recognize faces. But every morning, and again in late afternoon, he walked through my dad’s unlocked front door to be sure he was all right and to kibitz a bit.

Manny made the rounds, also looking in on several other aged residents in their so-called N.O.R.C. (naturally occurring retirement community). Unless he was ill himself, he never missed a day.

Manny’s regular reconnaissance missions come to mind when I read about purpose, which is one of those things we recognize without quite knowing how to define. To psychologists, “purpose reflects a commitment to broader life goals that helps organize your day to day activities,” Patrick Hill, a psychologist at Carleton University in Ottawa, told me in an interview.[...]

It turns out that purpose is, on many counts, a good thing to have, long associated with satisfaction and happiness, better physical functioning, even better sleep. “It’s a very robust predictor of health and wellness in old age,” said Patricia Boyle, a neuropsychologist at the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center in Chicago. [...]