Why the RCA conversion system is best by Rabbi Mark Dratch

Times of Israel    In a recent JTA Op-Ed, Rabbis Marc Angel and Avi Weiss made a number of claims about the Rabbinical Council of America’s conversion system. While some of their arguments have merit, they paint only a partial picture of what we’re doing in the North American modern Orthodox community. And some of their arguments are just wrong

“The Israeli government recently moved to decentralize the conversion system by allowing local courts to convert individuals on their own.”

Yes and no. Conversion authority was extended only to courts run by municipal rabbis. Most rabbis in Israel still are not authorized to perform conversions. In fact, the new system is an Israeli version of the RCA’s current structure.

“The RCA accredits only those conversions conducted under RCA’s batei din, or rabbinical courts, using the GPS process.”

Individual rabbis are not barred from conducting conversions, and those who do still perform their own conversions find that they are accepted in their communities and by those who respect their conversions (no different than the model advocated by Rabbis Angel and Weiss). If the halachic standards of those conversions are accepted by the RCA’s Beth Din of America, then even those privately conducted conversions will be widely accepted. The advantage of the RCA’s system, known as GPS (for Geirus Policies and Standards), is that conversions performed by its rabbinic tribunals are guaranteed to receive the support of the Beth Din of America.

Centralization is dangerous.

Yes, centralization has the potential for corruption and abuse. That is why there were checks and balances built into the GPS system, why we do our best to ensure our batei din are comprised of people of integrity, and why – in light of the lacunae identified in the Rabbi Barry Freundel case – we are reviewing the entire system with a commitment to improve it.

But a decentralized system is also subject to corruption and abuse – even more so. Who supervises the individual rabbi and protects the conversion candidate from the same possible abuses that Rabbis Angel and Weiss are concerned about? Who protects that rabbi from undue political and financial pressures that may compromise his judgment? Who protects converts and their descendants from rabbis who “sell” conversions or whose conversions are not widely accepted? [...]

Halacha versus Middos:Understanding Eliezer's process of identifying Yitzhok's future wife

I have been spending a lot of time trying to understanding the distinction between halacha and middos.  Dr. Benny Brown's article  has been very helpful.

With this context I noticed what seems to be a discrepancy between the Torah description of G-d's designating or chosing Rivka as Yitzchok's future wife - and Rashi's explanation that she was fit to be because of her midos.  [Of course this is also tied up with the issue of whether Eliezer was praying for G-d's assistance or whether he was using prohibited divination.]

==============================
The language of the Torah is that the woman who gives water to Eliezer and his camels it הֹכַחְתָּ; which means to prove, to appoint, to admonish, to instruct, chose, selected, indicated. All of which indicates something similar to psak - there is one correct answer. Thus there is no inherent relationship between the process Eliezer chose and the results. This is why Chullin 95b says that Eliezer was using Divination to find a wife for Yitzchok. An omen which is not after the form pronounced by Eliezer, Abraham's servant, or by Jonathan the son of Saul, is not considered a divination

Bereishis (24:14) says  And let it come to pass, that the girl to whom I shall say, Let down your water jar, I beg you, that I may drink; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give your camels drink also; let the same be she whom you have appointed (or designated) for your servant Isaac; and thereby shall I know that You have shown kindness to my master.

ספר בראשית פרק כד

(יד) וְהָיָה הַנַּעֲרָ אֲשֶׁר אֹמַר אֵלֶיהָ הַטִּי נָא כַדֵּךְ וְאֶשְׁתֶּה וְאָמְרָה שְׁתֵה וְגַם גְּמַלֶּיךָ אַשְׁקֶה אֹתָהּ הֹכַחְתָּ לְעַבְדְּךָ לְיִצְחָק וּבָהּ אֵדַע כִּי עָשִׂיתָ חֶסֶד עִם אֲדֹנִי:
======================================

In contrast Rashi says [Rav Chavell's translation ] . HER THOU HAST APPOINTED FOR THY SERVANT, EVEN FOR ISAAC. Rashi comments: "She is fit for him since she is charitable and worthy of admission into the house of Abraham."

According to Rashi the process is inherently related to the results. She has to show the proper midos of chesed and kindness. Rashi uses a different term "fitting" or "appropriate". then the Torah and he asserts that the Torah is saying that if she passes this test of midos it will show that G-d will approve of her.

רש"י על בראשית פרק כד פסוק יד
(יד) אותה הוכחת - ראויה היא לו שתהא גומלת חסדים וכדאי ליכנס בביתו של אברהם ולשון הוכחת ביררת אפרוביש"ט בלע"ז (דו האסט בעשיעדען):

In sum, Torah expresses that the test or sign that Eliezer is using will determine the woman that G-d has already designated for Yitzhok. There is only one correct answer. On the other hand Rashi is clearly saying that the critical concern is that she have the midos (values) that make her fitting for Yitzchok and therefore he will test her middos. Even if she passes the midos test it is a necessary but not sufficient condition to be Yitzhok's wife. There are many women who can pass the test. She also has to be from Avraham's family and he hopes that G-d will help out by having a family member take and pass the test. Thus Rashi is best understood as praying for assistance from G-d in a process which is rational and task related. It is is not divination at all.

Only 1/8 of reported sexual offenses lead to indictments

YNET    Only one in eight sex crime cases made it to court in 2013, according to a report from the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel which will be presented to the Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality on Monday. 

According to the report, which is based on data from the state prosecution, 5,238 sex crime cases were handled by the prosecution last year. Out of that, only in 594 cases indictments were filed. In most cases, 71.4 percent, the cases were closed due to the lack of evidence.  [...]

The statistics showed that only 15 percent of cases that reached crisis centers were reported to the police. Seventy-eight percent involved offenses against women, and 13 percent involved male victims. [...]

A village where people with severe dementia live happy lives

The Guardian   Dementia is widely acknowledged to be one of the most pressing problems facing health and social care systems. A report published this year by the World Health Organisation predicted that a continually ageing population in the developed world would mean the number of people with the condition was likely to double, to more than 65 million, by 2030, and treble 20 years later. [...]

Over the past few months, experts from around the world – Germany, the US, Australia, soon Britain – have been flocking to the unassuming small Dutch town of Weesp, half an hour south-east of Amsterdam, to see how one pioneering institution is dealing with that challenge. Hogewey, where Jo Verhoeff lives, has developed an innovative, humane and apparently affordable way of caring for people with dementia.

"What happened," says Isabel van Zuthem, Hogewey's information officer, sitting at a cafe table on the home's wide and welcoming piazza, an ornamental fountain playing behind her, "is that back in 1992, when this was still a traditional nursing home for people with dementia – you know: six storeys, anonymous wards, locked doors, crowded dayrooms, non-stop TV, central kitchen, nurses in white coats, heavy medication – two of the staff who worked here unexpectedly lost their mothers.

"Each said to the other: Well, at least it happened quickly, and they didn't end up here; this place is so horrible. Then they realised what they'd just said, and started to think: what kind of home would we like for a relative with dementia? Where might we want to live, maybe, one day? How would we like our life to be; what would we hope to experience?" [...]

The answer turns out to be this smart, low, brick-built complex, completed in early 2010. A compact, self-contained model village on a four-acre site on the outskirts of town, half of it is open space: wide boulevards, cosy side-streets, squares, sheltered courtyards, well-tended gardens with ponds, reeds and a profusion of wild flowers. The rest is neat, two-storey, brick-built houses, as well as a cafe, restaurant, theatre, minimarket and hairdressing salon. [...]

Difficulty in defining/protecting against rape and sexual abuse in college

NY Times     by Jed Rubenfeld is a professor of criminal law at Yale Law School

OUR strategy for dealing with rape on college campuses has failed abysmally. Female students are raped in appalling numbers, and their rapists almost invariably go free. Forced by the federal government, colleges have now gotten into the business of conducting rape trials, but they are not competent to handle this job. They are simultaneously failing to punish rapists adequately and branding students sexual assailants when no sexual assault occurred.

We have to transform our approach to campus rape to get at the root problems, which the new college processes ignore and arguably even exacerbate.

How many rapes occur on our campuses is disputed. The best, most carefully controlled study was conducted for the Department of Justice in 2007; it found that about one in 10 undergraduate women had been raped at college.

But because of low arrest and conviction rates, lack of confidentiality, and fear they won’t be believed, only a minuscule percentage of college women who are raped — perhaps only 5 percent or less — report the assault to the police. Research suggests that more than 90 percent of campus rapes are committed by a relatively small percentage of college men — possibly as few as 4 percent — who rape repeatedly, averaging six victims each. Yet these serial rapists overwhelmingly remain at large, escaping serious punishment.[...]

At Columbia University and Barnard College, more than 20 students have filed complaints against the school for mishandling and rejecting their sexual assault claims. But at Vassar College, Duke University, The University of Michigan and elsewhere, male students who claim innocence have sued because they were found guilty. Mistaken findings of guilt are a real possibility because the federal government is forcing schools to use a lowered evidentiary standard — the “more likely than not” standard, which is much less exacting than criminal law’s “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” requirement — at their rape trials. At Harvard, 28 law professors recently condemned the university’s new sexual assault procedures for lacking “the most basic elements of fairness and due process” and for being “overwhelmingly stacked against the accused.” [...]

Consider the illogical message many schools are sending their students about drinking and having sex: that intercourse with someone “under the influence” of alcohol is always rape. Typical is this warning on a joint Hampshire, Mount Holyoke and Smith website: “Agreement given while under the influence of alcohol or other drugs is not considered consent”; “if you have not consented to sexual intercourse, it is rape.”[...]

According to an idealized concept of sexual autonomy, which has substantial traction on college campuses today, sex is truly and freely chosen only when an individual unambiguously desires it under conditions free of coercive pressures, intoxication and power imbalances. In the most extreme version of this view, many acts of seemingly consensual sex are actually rape. Catherine A. MacKinnon took this position in 1983 when she argued that rape and ordinary sexual intercourse were “difficult to distinguish” under conditions of “male dominance.” [...]

Under this definition, a person who voluntarily gets undressed, gets into bed and has sex with someone, without clearly communicating either yes or no, can later say — correctly — that he or she was raped. This is not a law school hypothetical. The unambiguous consent standard requires this conclusion. [...]

High Court orders annulment of cherem issued by Elad rabbinic court

Jerusalem Post    The High Court of Justice issued a court order demanding that a private rabbinical court in the ultra-Orthodox city of Elad explain why they issued a writ of social exclusion, which is illegal, against a woman who filed a law suit in a civil court instead of a rabbinic one.[...]

The writ was issued by the Central Rabbinical Court of Justice of Elad for Property against the woman, referred to as H.K. to protect her identity, because she filed a complaint with a civil court against a neighbor who was illegally building a porch above her apartment.

In 2013, the attorney-general issued a directive allowing for the criminal prosecution of anyone involved in imposing such decrees.

On Wednesday, the High Court made an injunction against the defendants asking them to explain why the court should not declare that they had acted in contravention of the law in issuing and publicizing the social exclusion order. [...]

The defendants have to submit their response to the High Court by December 31.

“According to the best of our knowledge, Rabbi Malka’s name did not appear on the writ, although this does not negate the responsibility that it [the writ] was issued in the name of the rabbinical court which is run by Rabbi Malka,” the Chief Rabbinate has said regarding the case.

“Rabbi Malka wished to clarify that his position in terms of Jewish law is that writs of social exclusion should not be used at all, and he will investigate how and why his directives were violated.” 

How Fake Fossils Pervert Paleontology

Scientific American     A hotly anticipated press conference was held by National Geographic magazine in Washington DC on 15 October 1999. With much fanfare, they announced the discovery of a new feathered fossil from China that was a chimera with a fascinating mix of characters. A team of paleontologists, enthusiastic amateurs and editorial staff were behind the naming and description of the species, dubbed Archaeoraptor liaoningensis. It was to be unveiled in the November issue of the magazine. [....]

The team behind the announcement had no idea on that fateful October day, but within just a few months Archaeoraptor liaoningensis would be revealed as one of the biggest fossil hoaxes in history, and the chance discovery of another fossil by Chinese Professor Xu Xing was the key to uncovering the deception. Archaeoraptor was soon dubbed the ‘Piltdown bird’ and the ‘Piltdown chicken’ by the press, in reference to the biggest fossil hoax of all time, in which faked remains of putative early hominids were dug up from Piltdown in England in 1912. For National Geographic – a bastion of publishing usually beyond reproach – this embarrassment would be one of the greatest blunders in its 125-year history. 

The problem of faked fossils in China is serious and growing. It is exacerbated by the fact that most of the fossils are pulled from the ground by desperately poor farmers and then sold on to dealers and museums rather than being found by paleontologists on fossil digs, which is how specimens are discovered in most other parts of the world.
Liaoning, an impoverished and heavily industrialized province of northeastern China, has been a center for paleontological activity since the early 1990s, when many early bird fossils were found there. When Sinosauropyteryx – the first known feathered dinosaur – was discovered there in 1996, it spurred a fossil hunting gold rush the likes of which had never been seen before.[...]

Another much more serious problem, however, is posed by forged, faked and manipulated specimens – such as National Geographic’s Archaeoraptor – which are becoming increasingly common. Farmers who dig for fossils do so to supplement their meagre incomes and are well aware that complete and spectacular specimens are worth far more than the fragmentary remains. Some don’t even realize they are faking specimens and combine pieces of different fossils found at the same locale. In the most extreme cases, this manipulation is intentional, involving fossils found at disparate locations. It sounds crude, but even the experts have to look carefully to detect the trickery when master forgers have been at work. [...]

Subsequent detailed CT scans by Rowe ultimately revealed that Archaeoraptor was glued together from 88 different pieces of a number of different fossils. Significantly, two of those were species unknown to science, making the specimens important in their own right. The tail was from Microraptor, then the smallest dinosaur ever discovered (see chapter 7), while the front half was a primitive bird that subsequently named Yanornis in a 2002 Nature paper entitled ‘Archaeoraptor’s better half’.

Luis Chiappe says it’s puzzling how the description of Archaeoraptor ended up in print in National Geographic, as ‘the red flag for that one should have been raised long before it got to that point’. With hindsight it seemed obvious that the animal was a chimera of bird and dinosaur features, he says, but it was put together with great skill. [...]

China’s new fossil industry has appeared in the blink of an eye and its paleontological community is still finding its feet, but if Chinese authorities and museums are going to maintain their credibility, they will have to tackle the problem of faked fossils and the trafficking of fossils overseas. A remarkable series of finds has given us a window into a weird and unexpected world, but the trade in faked, manipulated and illegally obtained fossils has tainted what are otherwise spectacular collections.

Electrical Scalp Device Can Slow Progression of Deadly Brain Tumors

NY Times    An electrical device glued to the scalp can slow cancer growth and prolong survival in people with the deadliest type of brain tumor, researchers reported on Saturday.

The device is not a cure and, on average, adds only a few months of life when used along with the standard regimen of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Some doctors have questioned its usefulness. But scientists conducting a new study said the device was the first therapy in a decade to extend life in people with glioblastomas, brain tumors in which median survival is 15 months even with the best treatment. [....]

Patients who wore the device fared better than those who did not: Their median survival was 19.6 months, compared with 16.6 months in those on standard treatment alone. Among those with the device, 43 percent survived two years, compared with 29 percent among those receiving only standard therapy.

“It was a surprise, and better than we would have expected,” Dr. Stupp said in an interview. [...]

Maureen Piekanski, 59, a glioblastoma patient and study participant from Throop, Pa., learned about the device from her daughter, a nurse, who had combed the Internet for glioblastoma studies. [...]

She has been wearing the device since August 2011 — more than three years. Her tumor is gone, and the disease has not returned. She has M.R.I. scans every two months.[...]

15 Are Charged With Defrauding Banks and Other Lenders of $20 Million

F.B.I. Press release

Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and George Venizelos, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), and Carl E. DuBois, the Sheriff of Orange County, today announced the unsealing of an Indictment (the “Indictment”) charging 15 defendants, including 14 defendants with conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud in connection with mortgages and other loans secured by properties in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Monroe in Orange County, New York. The defendants include several related members of a family, the Rubins, as well as a real estate attorney and a real estate appraiser.

NY Times     Many of the defendants were on Medicaid and were receiving food stamps. One couple even claimed they were homeless.

Yet, according to the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, they secured 25 mortgage loans totaling $20 million for residential properties in Brooklyn, Harlem and Monroe, N.Y., by vastly overstating their income, net worth and the amounts in their bank accounts. A majority of the loans, the authorities said, went into default and were never repaid.

Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, on Thursday charged 15 men and women, 12 of them members of an extended family, with defrauding banks and other lending institutions out of the $20 million over a period of 10 years by lying about their assets and debts. Among banks said to have been defrauded were Bank of America and Credit Suisse First Boston.

“They played the part of prince or pauper, depending on what scam was being perpetrated,” Mr. Bharara said at a news conference at the federal courthouse here. “People claimed to be millionaires when it suited them and claimed to be homeless when it suited them better.”[...]

A central figure in the scheme, the indictment said, was Irving Rubin, 58, of Brooklyn, who, it said, considered himself a real estate developer. Also indicted were his wife, Desiree, 57; his sons Yehuda, 29, of Monroe, and Joel, 33, of Brooklyn; and his brothers Abraham, 51, Jacob, 41, and Samuel, 59, all of Brooklyn. [...]

One of the $1 million bails was for Abraham Rubin, who the judge noted had served a four-month sentence for trying to bribe a “victim witness” with $500,000 in an unrelated investigation — the case against Nechemya Weberman, an unlicensed therapist in Brooklyn’s Satmar Hasidic community. Mr. Weberman was found guilty of sexually abusing a young client starting when she was 12. [...]

Fraud in government programs in New York is not excusable but it is not unusual see the following

DNA Information

 An internationally known pianist hid records of his $1 million Hamptons home to swindle the federal government out of thousands of dollars in housing subsidies to pay for a TriBeCa apartment, DNAinfo has learned.

Antonio Fermin, who has performed at Carnegie Hall and worked as a piano teacher, was arrested and pleaded guilty last Thurs., April 5, to illegally receiving $17,815 in Section 8 housing funds from July 2004 to September 2009, after failing to disclose he owned a three-bedroom, 2,700-square-foot hideaway on wooded Ranch Court in Sagaponack, court records showed.

 New York Times 2012

An influential Brooklyn rabbi and onetime chaplain in New York City’s jails who drew notoriety several years ago for arranging a lavish jailhouse bar mitzvah for an inmate’s son pleaded guilty on Tuesday to making false statements in connection with a federal housing fraud scheme.

NY Post

A longtime welfare fraud investigator for city government was fired after pleading guilty to committing housing fraud against the federal government, The Post has learned.

Anti-fraud prober Sylvia Battle-Black, a 17-year veteran of the Human Resources Administration, admitted lying about her income to obtain $62,376 in government-subsidized housing benefits from 2006 to 2011, prosecutors said.

Incredibly, Black for six years didn’t disclose on her applications for Section 8 housing that she was employed as a HRA fraud investigator since 1996. 

NY Sun

A New York City teacher was arrested yesterday and faces charges that she stole almost $40,000 in illegal housing subsidies.

Monique Ellis, 39, is a special education teacher at P.S. 180 in Brooklyn. According to the city's Department of Investigation, she lied about her annual income between 2003 and 2007, allowing her to steal $39,968 from the New York City Housing Development Corp.

Sobering lessons learned by veteran teacher after 2 days shadowing students

Grant Wiggins  The following account comes from a veteran HS teacher who just became a Coach in her building. Because her experience is so vivid and sobering I have kept her identity anonymous. But nothing she describes is any different than my own experience in sitting in HS classes for long periods of time. And this report of course accords fully with the results of our student surveys. 

I have made a terrible mistake.

I waited fourteen years to do something that I should have done my first year of teaching: shadow a student for a day. It was so eye-opening that I wish I could go back to every class of students I ever had right now and change a minimum of ten things – the layout, the lesson plan, the checks for understanding. Most of it!

This is the first year I am working in a school but not teaching my own classes; I am the High School Learning Coach, a new position for the school this year. My job is to work with teachers and admins. to improve student learning outcomes.

As part of getting my feet wet, my principal suggested I “be” a student for two days: I was to shadow and complete all the work of a 10^th grade student on one day and to do the same for a 12^th grade student on another day. My task was to do everything the student was supposed to do: if there was lecture or notes on the board, I copied them as fast I could into my notebook. If there was a Chemistry lab, I did it with my host student. If there was a test, I took it (I passed the Spanish one, but I am certain I failed the business one).

Key Takeaway #1
Students sit all day, and sitting is exhausting. [....]

Key Takeaway #2
High School students are sitting passively and listening during approximately 90% of their classes.[...]

Key takeaway #3
You feel a little bit like a nuisance all day long. [....] 

click the above link for the full article - it is worth reading.Read the followup comments also

Lynching Survivor Thanks Israeli Arab who rescued him

Arutz 7     Moshe German, 47, who survived a lynching attempt on the Taibe bridge Sunday night, met the man who saved him from the mob on Monday, in a heartwarming gesture of gratitude. 

Majdi Baloum, 37, pulled Moshe from his vehicle after an Arab mob began pelting it with rocks, eventually setting it alight. 

Moshe, who recounted his experience in previous interviews to the media, related that he had been hiding under his seat; if Baloum had not pulled him from the vehicle, he likely would have died in the blaze. 

Moshe revisited Taibe, meeting Baloum at the Hydraulic Institute where he works, to thank him.

"You don't understand how moving this is," German told Yediot Aharonot. "I went here via the same road where I was almost killed yesterday. I saw the remains of my car, now just ashes. Images of what happened just flash in front of me all the time. They threw rocks at me, concrete blocks and fireworks. I was terrified." 

"I thought about my wife, Eina, and my sons Roey (16) and Eitan, who is two and-a-half," he continued. "I thought my family would lose me." 

"I tried to hide in my Toyota, but the crowd continued to attack me, and in a moment [Baloum] came up to me yelling, 'come, come!'. I tried to figure out who is calling me, and you pulled me out of your car and into your Jeep. You saved me," Moshe recounted. "I found it hard to comprehend what is happening, but I realized that you were afraid for my life. Even though they threw blocks at your Jeep, you just went faster." 

"Did you understand that you were saving my life?" he asked. [...]

בית דין חרדי באולטימטום למקובל המתחזה: תפרוש מעולם הקבלה או שההקלטה תפורסם

Rotter Forum
Comments on Shtieble report these rumors as untrue. People claim Rabbi Zilberstein denying any such court decision. 

ליאור עמרן

פורסם נובמבר 11, 2014 ב 10:15 AM

היה חשוב לי לשתף
התקשרתי לבית הדין של הרב זילברשיין בחולון, והם שאלו את הרב זילברשיין ואמרו שכבוד הרב לא הוציא פסק שכזה מעולם נגד החלבן, ושהדברים שנאמרו בשמו הם שקר וכזב.
הטלפון של בית הדין של הרב זילברשיין הוא
03-5015809
על כן האמירה הבאה באתר היא מזוייפת:
הפוסק החרדי הרב יצחק זילברשטיין נכנס לעובי הקורה בשבוע האחרון, בית הדין החרדי התכנס והחליט האיש חייב להיות מוקא מהציבור החרדי :”ובערת הרע מקרבך”

Consequently I have removed the item until this is clarified.
==================================================================

background information about the mekubal
Jewish Press
vosizneias
Daas Torah Blog
Yeshiva World News

Rabbi Elimelech Goldberg: Helping kids kick the pain and fear out of cancer

Editor's note: Rabbi Elimelech Goldberg has been named a 2014 Top 10 CNN Hero. Voting for CNN Hero of the Year continues through Sunday, Nov. 16). All of this year's Top 10 CNN Heroes will be honored during CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute" -- Sunday, December 7 (8pm ET) on the global networks on CNN.

For 12 years, Rabbi Elimelech Goldberg worked at a camp for children battling cancer.

He often witnessed the pain and discomfort many of them endured while undergoing medical procedures.

"It's really indescribable, what it's like ... to watch a child go through so much pain," said Goldberg, who served as the director of Camp Simcha in New York. "The child looks at you for help and then you end up having to hold them down."

One day, he tried to soothe a young camper who was screaming in pain during treatment. Goldberg, a black belt in Choi Kwang-Do, offered to teach the 5-year-old boy some of the craft.

"In martial arts, you learn that pain is a message that you don't have to listen to," he said. "That lesson is so unbelievably effective."

Goldberg taught the boy some breathing techniques. When the nurse removed the needle after chemotherapy, he said the boy had hardly noticed.

Goldberg realized he was on to something.

"When we are able to breathe through pain and imagine the pain lowering," he said, "the brain has an amazing capacity to put us into a different place."

In 1999, Goldberg founded Kids Kicking Cancer. The program provides free martial arts classes focused on breathing techniques and meditation for children battling serious illnesses. [...]

Complaints against R Barry Freundel were silenced by the label of lashon harah

Washington Post   [....]    About 2000, divisions at Kesher over the rabbi’s behavior became more severe. Some complaints were fairly mundane — that his style was too brusque and that he wasn’t making pastoral visits. A few people alleged that Freundel was diverting money donated for the synagogue to his effort to build a mikvah. Epstein, a past synagogue president, recalled that the conflict was resolved after the board appointed a committee to decide how to spend the money.

At one point, there were enough people bad-mouthing Freundel that some board members drafted a document calling for an end to criticism of the rabbi. The document uses the term “lashon hara,” meaning slanderous, negative talk, which is considered sinful in Judaism.

“We propose to bind ourselves and invite others to do the same . . . to cease to participate in any Lashon Hara, to stop listening to insinuations and attacks, to disassociate ourselves from them, and finally to respond forcefully in opposition to Lashon Hara” against the rabbi, the document stated.

“The majority of the congregation supported him, and the continued sniping was not consistent with the mores of the congregation,” said Epstein, who drafted the letter. People’s criticisms over the years “had no foresight approximating anything like what has happened.”[...]