Kaminetsky-Greenblatt Heter: "Sabbah I learned not to speak lashon harah. Even if a goniv was in my house I won't tell the police." The perils of a Chareidi education

I was recently having a conversation with one of my precocious five year old grandchildren about what he had learned in Cheder. He proudly told me that he learned not to speak lashon harah. "Even if a thief was in the house I won't tell the police."

While the Dark Ages of cover-ups in the Chareidi world is behind us, it is clear that the control and censoring of thought and information is still alive and well. In fact it is still a central pillar  of our society and learning what not to think about and what not to know about - starts at an early age.

I am now rereading Dr. Marc Shapiro's book, "Changing the Immutable", and was reminded of Rav Schwab's comment regarding censoring Jewish history to exclude unpleasant information about gedolim and only leave that which is inspirational.

Rabbi Shimon Schwab(Selected Writings (Lakewood, 1988) page 233-234)

There is a vast difference between history and storytelling. History must be truthful, otherwise it does not deserve its name. A book of history must report the bad with the good, the ugly with the beautiful, the difficulties and the victories, the guilt and the virtue. Since it is supposed to be truthful, it cannot spare the righteous if he fails, and it cannot skip the virtues of the villain. For such is truth, all is told the way it happened. Only a נביא mandated by his Divine calling has the ability to report history as it really happened, unbiased and without praise. 

Suppose one of us today would want to write a history of Orthodox Jewish life in pre-holocaust Germany. There is much to report but not everything is complimentary. Not all of the important people were flawless as one would like to believe and not all the mores and lifestyles of this bygone generation were beyond criticism. A historian has not right to take sides. He must report the stark truth and nothing but the truth. Now, if an historian would report truthfully what he witnessed, it would make a lot of people rightfully angry.  He would violate the prohibition against spreading Loshon Horah which does not only apply to the living, but also to those who sleep in the dust and cannot defend themselves any more. 

What ethical purpose is served by preserving a realistic historic picture? Nothing but the satisfaction of curiosity. We should tell ourselves and our children the good memories of the good people, their unshakable faith, their staunch defense of tradition, their life of truth, their impeccable honesty, their boundless charity and their great reverence for Torah and Torah sages. What is gained by pointing out their inadequacies and their contradictions? We want to be inspired by their example and learn from their experience. 

When Noach became intoxicated, his two sons Shem and Japhet, took a blanket and walked into his tent backwards to cover the nakedness of their father. Their desire was to always remember their father as the Tzaddik Tomim in spite of his momentary weakness. Rather than write the history of our forebears, every generation has to put a veil over the human failings of its elders and glorify all the rest which is great and beautiful. That means we have to do without a real history book. We can do without. We do not need realism, we need inspiration from our forefathers in order to pass it on to posterity."

Of course we have more recent examples of removing unpleasant information from discussion. That of course is that deafening silence about the Kaminetsky-Greenblatt heter which is currently causing a couple to be transgressing the horrific sin of adultery. 

We also need not to forget the immortal words of Rav Aaron Feldman, that if he had known that his emails about the perverted heter would become public - he would not have written anything about it. After all he claimed, the degradation of a gadol (resulting from that public discussion) is significantly worse than the crime of adultery which the heter produced.

Translation of Rav Feldman's letter against the Heter

Rav Feldman's regret for sending emails about the Heter

Rav Malinowitz rejects Rav Feldman's statement

Committee to save the Jewish people - correspondence with Rav Feldman

Baltimore Beis Din's revised letter against the Heter

Torah Revolutionaries by Professor Cyril Domb F.R.S.

  Torah Revolutionaries 

Zero Tolerance: The Unintended consequences of taking a hard line on school discipline

NY Times

It did not take long for school safety agents in New York to find their first gun of the new school year. Day 1 had barely begun at a Brooklyn high school last month when the officers stopped a 15-year-old student who had stowed a loaded .22-caliber pistol in his backpack and thought he could pass it through a metal scanner.

In short order, the boy was led away by the police. Also in short order, the city’s Department of Education issued a statement invoking a two-word phrase that has virtually been holy writ in classrooms around the country for the past quarter of a century: “There is zero tolerance for weapons of any kind in schools.”

It is hard to imagine many law-abiding citizens disagreeing that the acceptance level for students carrying guns, knives, drugs or other harmful items should be nonexistent. But the concept of zero tolerance has come to encompass such a broad range of disruptive actions that roughly three million schoolchildren are suspended each year, and several hundred thousand are arrested or given criminal citations. Many students are hauled off to police station houses for antisocial behavior that, a generation or two ago, would have sent them no farther than the principal’s office.

Have get-tough policies gone too far? Predictably, opinions are divided. Nonetheless, as the accompanying video shows, the pendulum in some jurisdictions is swinging away from hard-nosed book-’em certitudes toward softer let’s-try-to-reason-with-’em approaches.

It is a shift that was encouraged by Eric H. Holder Jr. toward the end of his tenure as attorney general. He figures prominently in a new offering from Retro Report, a series of video documentaries examining major news stories of the past and their lasting consequences. This report was prepared in collaboration with the Center for Public Integrity, an investigative news organization based in Washington that has written a series of articles on harsh school discipline.

A central figure in the video is Joe Clark, who built a national reputation in the 1980s as the no-nonsense principal of violence-plagued Eastside High School in Paterson, N.J. (Some people may know him better for having been played by Morgan Freeman in the 1989 film “Lean on Me.”) Patrolling the hallways with bullhorn and baseball bat in hand, Mr. Clark cast himself as the scourge of troublemakers, a Rambo making classrooms safe for pursuits like the works of Rimbaud.

In 1982, his first year, he expelled a reported 300 failing students, some of them well beyond normal school age, and went on to ban dozens more whom he described as “leeches, miscreants and hoodlums.”

On his watch, test scores did improve. The gains were hardly breathtaking, though. Mr. Clark also ran afoul of the school board, which accused him of usurping its authority over expulsions. But many defended Mr. Clark for getting rid of disruptive students, among them a veteran teacher at Eastside who says in the video that “you can’t educate unless you have order in your school.”

As the 1980s yielded to the high-crime early ’90s, “zero tolerance” became a mantra in school districts across the United States. “There was a real concern,” Mr. Holder acknowledged to Retro Report, “that we were just losing control as a society.”

It was an era of near-panic over violence by young people. Fears gave rise to the notion of a generation of “superpredators,” a word that has resurfaced in the current political season, including last week’s presidential debate. It was invoked in the ’90s by, among others, Hillary Clinton, who now renounces its use.

And so, back then, suspensions and arrests began to soar. Local authorities were emboldened by the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994, a federal law that required states receiving federal education money to expel for at least a year any student found bringing a weapon to class.

But the zero-tolerance net came to be thrown ever wider, ensnaring far more than gun toters, knife wielders and drug dealers. Infractions once deemed the province of school disciplinarians — tardiness, say, or mouthing off to a teacher — often made their way to police blotters. There were eyebrow-arching moments like the arrest of a 12-year-old girl for doodling on her desk with a green marker, of an autistic child who had kicked a trash can, of teenagers who got into fistfights (as teenagers have done probably since Neanderthal days).

To some degree, school administrators were like generals who go to battle relying on tactics from the last war. Zero tolerance kicked into high gear, and stayed there, after youth violence had already entered what would become a steep decline. Homicides involving juvenile offenders, for instance, peaked in 1994, Justice Department figures show. By 2014, their numbers had fallen by two-thirds. Even occasional mass murders in schools, horrifying as they are, have not materially altered the overall pattern of reduced mayhem.

It is not lost on researchers that students expelled, suspended or arrested on charges like disorderly conduct are disproportionately black and Latino, or disabled mentally or physically. In kindergarten to 12th grade, blacks were 3.8 times as likely as whites to receive out-of-school suspensions, according to the United States Department of Education. Youngsters in those grades with disabilities were more than twice as likely as others to be suspended.

Researchers talk about a “school-to-prison pipeline” that runs like this: Young people are suspended from classes for long stretches, or are handed over to the police. As a result, they become prime candidates for quitting school entirely. Dropping out, in turn, makes them less likely to find jobs and more likely to become part of the criminal class.

Perhaps not surprisingly, a sense that school systems and police departments went overboard has begun to take root. An outspoken critic is Steven C. Teske, the chief judge of juvenile court in Clayton County, Ga., just south of Atlanta. Teenagers, Judge Teske has cautioned, will be teenagers.

“Zero tolerance as a philosophy and approach is contrary to the nature of adolescent cognition,” he told a Senate subcommittee in 2012. For all the arrests, suspensions and expulsions that he had observed, “school safety did not improve,” he said. If anything, “the juvenile crime rate in the community significantly increased.”

“These kids lost one of the greatest protective buffers against delinquency — school connectedness,” the judge said.

To foster that connectedness, some schools are shunning harsh punishment in favor of talking things through with rule breakers. They are places like Furr High School in Houston. Its principal, Bertie Simmons, prefers consequences that are “academic,” as with two students who forged a permission slip. Rather than being suspended or put on detention, they were required to write a paper about their offense.

“If you just treat people with kindness, it’s far better than being so punitive,” Ms. Simmons told Retro Report.

No public school system in the country is bigger than New York City’s, with 1.1 million students. It, too, has moved away from harsh discipline as an automatic response. Suspensions in the second half of 2015 were down by one-third from the same period the year before.

At the same time, safety improved. Major crimes — like rape, felony assault, burglary and robbery — were reported at their lowest level since the police started tracking them in 1998.

For many months, the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio has even raised the possibility of removing metal detectors from some of the scores of school buildings where they are fixtures. Many students regard them as “intrusive and denigrating,” a mayoral panel concluded last year.[...]

New generation of Israeli ultra-Orthodox challenge old guard

Times of Israel

“We are looking into the future, what will become of the next generation,” said Avigayil Karlinsky, a 28-year-old social activist. “I am part of the larger Israel and I want my voice to be heard.”

She said the ultra-Orthodox leadership’s aversion to progress and integration is mostly about maintaining political power rather than serving their constituents. Until recently, such open criticism was unheard of, but it is gaining traction as people like Karlinsky try to change their world from within.

Experts have long warned that the ultra-Orthodox community’s high birthrate and poverty levels, along with low rates of employment and education, could doom Israel’s economic prospects.

Many ultra-Orthodox acknowledge this, but they reject any outside effort to enforce changes and insist the process has to happen at its own pace.

Critics inside and outside the community say a more comprehensive reform is needed, including greater emphasis on teaching children math, English and computer literacy. There also are growing calls for outreach to Israel’s secular majority.[...]

Gilad Malach, a researcher who specializes in the community, said reform was already underway. He said a majority of haredi men now work, compared to just a third in 2003. Women continue to be the primary breadwinners, and their employment rates of close to 75% are comparable to the general public, he said.

The number of ultra-Orthodox joining the military and pursuing degrees has also quietly grown, but “modern” haredim like Karlinsky still only make up about 10% of the community, he said. He says the leadership hopes it stays that way.

“Their approach is ‘nothing has changed,'” said Malach. “But regular people are more sophisticated than that. Every mainstream haredi knows he has to make adjustments.”

The state offers specialized training programs, study grants and other incentives to haredim, but they have to be handled with care so as not to come off as patronizing. While leading rabbis and their representatives in parliament have given their blessing to some projects, they have offered none of their own.

“There is no vision. That’s the real problem,” said Malach. “They don’t have any plans and it would be best if the push came from them.”[...]

In Elad, a central Israeli city of 50,000 mostly haredi residents, the ultra-Orthodox are seeking a happy medium. It boasts the highest rates of employment, salaries and high school matriculation of all haredi communities in Israel. It also prides itself in having clean streets, close ties to neighboring secular and Arab towns, and ample public services like libraries, theaters and community centers.

Mayor Yisrael Porush, a 35-year-old father of six and scion of a prominent haredi family, said his main objective was to develop the city and provide opportunities for residents.

“I’m opening the door for them and it doesn’t come at the expense of study,” he said. “The world is moving forward and everyone wants to feel equal.”

He deferred larger questions about haredi society to the rulings of the great rabbis, but clearly reveled in the companies and colleges that had opened branches in his city and accommodated haredi needs, such as separate working spaces for men and women, and flexible hours for working mothers. He said such an approach would be much more effective than open confrontation.

“Everyone understands that you have to provide for your family,” he said. “But if you come at us with a gun, or with a whip, or threats, we have a problem.”

A case of wife- beating - Is a 5 year jail sentence an appropriate punishment?

The following is an actual case that happened in Israel - reported by Justice Menachem Elon's book (page 196)– The Status of Women Facts:

Case: An appeal concerning the guilt and punishment of a husband who admitted beating his wife intentionally and had been sentenced to five years imprisonment out of a maximum of 20 years . In the appeal the husband acknowledged that he had beaten his wife for years on many occasions. In general he beat her when he came home drunk.  The last episode was when he returned home drunk at 11:30 at night and they got into an argument concerning his drinking. During the argument he punched her in the face and she fell down bleeding badly. The husband then locked the door of the apartment to prevent her from leaving to get treatment the entire night. When she was finally treated the next day she had broken bones in her face and under one eye as well as a bruised face and she needed to be hospitalized for treatment.

Discussion  – the appeal of guilt was simply tossed out as having no basis. The main discussion revolved around the punishment. His attorney pointed out that he was genuinely regretful for hurting his wife and that the punishment was causing significant harm to the family.  He pointed out that the wife was in fact being punished by the sentence and that she had accepted that he was sincere and wanted him to be allowed to return home. She would now have a significant burden of supporting herself and their 3 children without his income as well as having to raise the children herself for the next 5 years. He said it was clear that he had learned his lesson and that the relationship could be repaired and improved without a jail sentence. On the other hand aside from beating his wife he had also sexually abused his daughter.

Conclusion: The court said that while there was no question that the wife wanted her husband home and that she believed his promises to reform – there was no way to ascertain or guarantee that he would in fact reform. It was equally likely that she – as many battered women – are always hopeful that this time it will be different – despite the fact that they are typically disappointed. Taking everything together the court ruled that the sentenced was justified.

When is he taking his foot out of his mouth? Donald Trump claims that veterans who get PTSD are not strong

CBS News

Donald Trump is drawing scorn from veterans’ groups and Vice President Joe Biden after he suggested that soldiers who suffer from mental health issues might not be as strong as those who don’t.

Trump was speaking at an event organized by the Retired American Warriors political action committee Monday when he was asked about his commitment to faith-based programs aimed at preventing suicides and helping soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury and other issues.

“When you talk about the mental health problems - when people come back from war and combat, and they see things that maybe a lot of the folks in this room have seen many times over, and you’re strong and you can handle it. But a lot of people can’t handle it,” he said.

“And they see horror stories. They see events that you couldn’t see in a movie, nobody would believe it,” he added.

Trump then addressed the rash of veteran suicides and said “we’re going to address that very strongly.”

The GOP candidate continued: “The whole mental health issue is going to be a very important issue when I take over, and the VA is going to be fixed in so many ways, but that’s gonna be one of the ways we’re gonna help. And that’s in many respects going to be the number one thing we have to do because I think it’s really been left behind.”

While Trump appeared to be sympathetic to the issue, his initial comment linking strength and people being able to “handle it” has drawn condemnation from critics as well as veterans’ groups that have been working for years to reduce the stigma associated with mental health issues in an effort to encourage soldiers to seek treatment.

While Trump’s campaign insists his remarks on PTSD were not negative and were taken out of context, they have been picked up by Democrats supporting Hillary Clinton’s campaign, most notably Biden.

The vice president was in Sarasota, Florida, campaigning for Clinton on Monday when he brought up Trump’s comments, saying, “Where in the hell is he from.”

Biden talked about his late son, the Iraq veteran Beau Biden, who was awarded a Bronze Star for bravery in Iraq, and passionately denounced the notion that veterans with mental health issues are weak. The vice president told a story about a soldier who was awarded a Silver Star.

“When I went to pin it on him in front of the entire brigade he stood and looked at me and said, ‘Sir I don’t want the medal. I don’t want the medal.’ You know why? He said he died. ‘He died, Mr. Vice President, I don’t want the medal,’” said Biden, before yelling, “How many nights does that kid go to sleep seeing that image in his head, dealing with it?”

Biden then talked about the duty of America to care for its wounded veterans.

“What are the chances Trump honors commitment to those who are wounded?” Biden said. “It’s not just that he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t want to find out.” [...]

Head of Lamb / "Rosh Keves" by Rabbi Shlomo Pollak

guest post by Rabbi Shlomo Pollak

MAJOR highlight... Kids really looking forward...

Very easy, and simchas Yom Tov in the "old fashioned"/ "good tasting meat" way too.

$13.99 Worth every penny.

https://youtu.be/5iD4LniFGYI

New Suspect Arrested in 2014 Murder of Florida Professor Dan Merkel

ABC News

A woman who Tallahassee police allege was the facilitator of a murder-for-hire plot targeting prominent Florida State University law professor Dan Markel was arrested Saturday afternoon on a warrant for first-degree murder.[...]

Markel, a nationally renowned criminal justice scholar, was killed in July 2014, shot twice in the head while sitting in his car in his garage. Police have alleged that the motive for the murder was the bitter divorce between Markel and ex-wife Wendi Adelson, and her family's "desperate desire" to have Wendi and her two children move closer to them in south Florida, where the family runs a lucrative dental practice. Markel had successfully fought in court his ex-wife's attempt to relocate with the children.[...]

In May of this year, police arrested Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera, two south Florida men with criminal histories, and charged them in Markel's murder. Both are facing the death penalty if convicted. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Magbanua is suspected of being the link between the two alleged hit men and Wendi Adelson's family. In a probable cause affidavit police allege that Garcia and Rivera were "enlisted to commit this egregious act." Authorities contend Garcia and Rivera traveled from Miami to Tallahassee two days before the murder in a rented green Toyota Prius, shot Markel in broad daylight, and then drove back to Miami immediately following the murder.

The first person Garcia called after the murder, police say, was Magbanua.

She is the mother of Garcia's two children and has also had a romantic relationship with Wendi Adelson's brother, Charlie, a well-to-do periodontist in south Florida.

At the time of the arrests of Garcia and Rivera, police also sought charges against Magbanua and Charlie Adelson, but prosecutors declined at the time to proceed against anyone other than the two alleged hit men.[...]

Kaminetsky-Greenblatt Heter: Netziv - When gedolim pervert the Torah from love of G-d and their fellow man - not in accord with the Torah - because of shochad

This was written by the Netziv as a criticism of the Chassidic movement in which people justified deviations from halacha because they felt it brought them closer to G-d.  He notes that this understanding of shochad of gedolei Torah applies in any situation where a gadol deviates from the Will of G-d because it make him feel more spiritual. It applies also when prohibitions such as adultery are ignored because the gadol feels sorry for the poor couple who couldn't obtain a Get and he feels justified in producing a heter against the Torah.

העמק דבר (ויקרא ט:ו): זה הדבר אשר צוה ה' תעשו וירא אליכם כבוד ה'. זה הפסוק אומר דרשוני שהרי כבר עשו מה שעליהם והביאו הכל אל פני אוהל מועד ומה להם לעשות עוד. ודרשו חז"ל בת"כ אמר להם משה לישראל אותו יצה"ר העבירו מלבכם. ותהיו כלכם ביראה אחת ובעבודה אחת לשרת לפני המקום. כשם שוא יחידי בעולם כך תהא עבודתכם מיוחדת לפני שנא' ומלתם את ערלת לבבכם מפני מה כי אני ה' אלהיכם הוא אלהי האלהים ואדוני האדונים עשיתם כן וירא אליכם כבוד ה'. זה הדרוש צריך עוד יותר ביאור מגוף המקרא. וגם מה שייך לכאן המקרא כי ה' אלהיכם וגו'. והענין דכבר היה בימי משה כתות בישראל שהיו להוטים אחר אהבת ה' אבל לא ע"י גבולים שהגבילה תורה. וכאשר יבואר באורך בפ' קרח שזה היה עיקר החטא של ר"ן אנשים שהיו צדיקים גמורים וחטאו בנפשותם במה שמסרו עצמם למיתה ע"י תשוקה קדושה זו להשיג אהבת ה' ע"י הקטרת אע"ג שלא יהיה לרצון כפי דרך התורה שרק אהרן ובניו יקטירו. והנה כבר ידע משה רבינו שכתות כאלה מתנוצצות אלא שלא הגיע עדיין השעה להתפרץ. ע"כ בבוא יום התראות גלוי שכינה שלזה היה תכלית תשוקתם וכדאי' בשה"ש רבה א' עה"פ משכני אריב"ל להוטים היו ישראל אחרי שכינה ע"ש באורך. אלא שהבין שמה דמכ"מ יש בלב כמה אנשים על מה שהגיע הענין ע"י פרטי אופנים אלו. מה שא"א להגיע אליו אלא בעת שנצטוו ע"ז. בשביל זה אמר משה לישראל כי לא כן הדבר. אלא אותו יצה"ר העבירו מלבכם שגם זה התשוקה אע"ג שהיא להשיג אהבת ה' בקדושה מכ"מ אם היא לא בדרך שעלה על רצונו ית' אינו אלא דרך יצה"ר להטעות ולהתעות דעת גדולי ישראל בזו התשוקה. ואמר להם משה טעם לדבר ותהיו כולכם ביראה אחת ובעצה אחת לשרת לפני המקום. פי' אם תשימו דעתכם לדרך התורה תלכו הכל בדרך אחד ובעצה אחת משא"כ אם נבקש אהבת ה' שלא בדרך התורה. ותהי' תורת כל א' בידו ויהיו אגודות אגודות בעבודתם הוא נגד רצון ה' וכבודו ית'. וזה שמסיים כשם שהוא יחידי בעולם כך רצונו וכבודו שתהא     עבודתכם מיוחדת לפניו. והביא הת"כ יסוד לזה הדרוש מהא דכתיב כי ה' אלהיכם וגו' וסיפיה דקרא אשר לא ישא פנים ולא יקח שחד. וא"א לפרש שוחד ממון או דברים לפני הקב"ה או אפי' הרבה מע"ט שזה אינו בכלל שוחד דכל מה שביד האדם לעשות לטוב ה"ז מחויב וא"כ אינו שוחד. אלא ע"כ מסירת נפש ודביקות נעלה באופן שנאמר יקר בעיני ה' המותה לחסידיו. כמו שאמרו בחגיגה פ"ב על בן עזאי. מ"מ אם הוא שלא ע"פ התורה אינו עולה לרצון כ"כ ויהי נענש ע"ז כמו שביארנו בפ' קרח בענין הר"ן איש שהיו חשובים לפני ה' גם אחר שנשרפו מ"מ הרי לא נקו מעונש. ובזה שיך לומר שלא יקח שוחד היינו שנותן נפשו על אהבת ה' ועל כבודו ית' באופן שאינו מחויב בזה ואין לך שוחד גדול מזה ובא משה רבינו בשעה המוכשרת לכך להגיד לאדם שירו אשר רק זה הדבר אשר צוה ה' תעשו וירא אליכם כבוד ה' ולא ע"י דרכים אחרים איש כפי רעיון לבב. וכ"ז ביארנו מאמר חז"ל בת"כ על המקרא הנפלא הלז (והנה בגמ' יומא ד"ה אי' מנין שאף מקרא פרשה מעכב ת"ל זה הדבר. הרי פירשו חז"ל זה הדבר. הדיבור והפ' כאשר היא. וא"כ לא נתבאר המשך המקרא לפי זה אשר צוה ה' תעשו. איזה עשיה יש בזה. והמשך הסיום וירא אליכם כבוד ה'. ונראה עוד ע"פ שפירשנו בס' דברים כ"פ משמעות עשיה גבי דברים הוא תיקון הבנת המקרא והפ' בדקדוק כח קוץ וקוץ לדרוש ולבאר. זה מיקרי עשי' כמו ויעש אלהים את הרקיע. דפירושו שתקנו והעמידו על מתכונתו כמש"כ שם. וכן בס' שמות ל"ב ל"ה בביאור המקרא על אשר עשו את העגל אשר עשה אהרן יע"ש. והכי שייך תיקן הפ' במה שמדקדקים ומעמידים על ביאורה. וכלשון הגמ' לענין הלכות בריש פסחים שוינן האי שמעתא כגדי מסנקן. שפירושו במה שביאר השמעתא שהיתה עמומה בדם. כך עשיית דברים משמעו להעמיד דקדוק דבר ה' על ביאורם. וכך הזהיר משה בס' דברים ל"ב מ"ו לשמור לעשות את כל דברי התורה הזאת. וכמו שביארנו שם ולהלן י"ח ה'. ובשעה שראה משה רבינו שישראל להוטים לקיים עבודת הקרבנות שצוה אותם ועומדים צפופין ומקוים לראות זה הענין הנפלא של התגלות השכינה. אמר לישראל אם זה הדבר אשר צוה ה' תעשו. היינו שתדקדקו הרבה בדבר ה' עד שתעמידו דבר ה' על מתכונתו כמו שניתנה מסיני. אז וירא אליכם כבוד ה'. גם בלי הכנה זו של הקרבנות. וכדאי' בברכות ספ"ב מתא מחסיא אבירי לב נינהו דחזו יקרא דאוריי' תרי זימני בשתא. וכ' התוס' בשם גאון שהיה עמוד של אש יורד מן השמים ביומי דכלה. ובירושלמי חגיגה והובא בתוס' שם די"ז שבהיות ר"א ור"י יושבים וחורזים בד"ת ממקרא לנביאים כו' היתה האש מלהטת סביבם באשר שהיו שמחים כנתינתן מסיני. והיינו דבר משה בשעתו:):

Curing Anorexia as a model for doing teshuva: Viewing sins as bad habits that can be stopped - rather than as psychological needs or lack of self-control

Scientific American

Disrupting the Habits of Anorexia

How a patient learned to escape the rigid routines of an eating disorder

Every day on the dot of noon, Jane* would eat her 150-calorie lunch: nonfat yogurt and a handful of berries. To eat earlier, she felt, would be “gluttonous.” To eat later would disrupt the dinner ritual. Jane's eating initially became more restrictive in adolescence, when she worried about the changes her body was undergoing in the natural course of puberty. When she first settled on her lunchtime foods and routine—using a child-size spoon to “make the yogurt last” and sipping water between each bite—she felt accomplished. Jane enjoyed her friends' compliments about her “incredible willpower.” In behavioral science terms, her actions were goal-directed, motivated by achieving a particular outcome. In relatively short order, she got the result she really wanted: weight loss.

Years later Jane, now in her 30s and a newspaper reporter, continued to eat the same lunch in the same way. Huddled over her desk in the newsroom, she tried to avoid unwanted attention and feared anything that might interfere with the routine. She no longer felt proud of her behavior. Her friends stopped complimenting her “self-control” years ago, when her weight plummeted perilously low. So low that she has had to be hospitalized on more than one occasion.

The longed-for weight loss did not make her feel better about herself or her appearance. Jane's curly hair, once shiny and thick, dulled and thinned; her skin and eyes lost their brightness. There were other costs as well—to her relationships, to her career. Instead of dreaming about a great romance, Jane would dream of the cupcakes she could not let herself have at her niece's birthday party. Instead of thinking about the best lead for her next story, she obsessed over calories and exercise.

Jane's ritualized and restrictive approach to food, her obsession with calories and her painfully low body weight are common symptoms of anorexia nervosa, a dangerous eating disorder that affects roughly one in 200 American women. Anorexia has a high relapse rate and ranks among the deadliest of all psychiatric conditions. Individuals with the disorder, about 10 percent of whom are men, enter a state of starvation that can cause numerous medical complications, including heart ailments, anemia, bone loss, infertility, and more. A young woman with this illness faces six times the average risk of death for someone her age, according to a 2011 meta-analysis of 36 studies, and mortality rises by 5 percent for every decade of illness.

Anorexia nervosa is often misunderstood by a public that tends to glorify thinness and view rule-ridden eating as an act of enviable self-control. This is nothing new. In the Middle Ages, a handful of religious figures, including Saint Catherine of Siena, were admired for engaging in extreme self-starvation—a condition termed “holy anorexia.” Today we see self-starvation in the name of a culturally sanctioned pursuit of thinness. But there is nothing glorious about this disease, nor does it provide any actual measure of true control. Rigid, behavioral routines gradually close in on the afflicted individual until life becomes entirely about numbers on a food label, or a scale, or a clothing tag.

A new line of research suggests that the core of Jane's condition—her low weight—is not simply a matter of self-control. Rather her routines now occur almost automatically without regard for the outcome. Jane weighs herself each morning before she showers and again before she leaves for work. At each meal, she reads and rereads food labels for their nutritional breakdown. She cuts food into tiny pieces without thinking. In behavioral science terms, her mind has been overtaken by habit.

Habits can be incredibly useful. They allow the mind to multitask and in so doing enable efficiency. Behaviors get linked together into a routine, and once the chain of action is initiated, the rest follows with little mental effort. Yet sometimes habits take hold when they are not useful. We and others in the field are learning that this may occur with anorexia nervosa.

The habit-based model of the disorder offers a compelling explanation for why patients such as Jane struggle for years through chapters of outpatient and inpatient treatment without finding lasting recovery. If her illness is even partially explained by hijacked habit learning, it suggests that habit-busting techniques could be part of the solution. Habit-reversal therapy, for example, is well supported for conditions such as trichotillomania (hair-pulling disorder) and tic disorders. This type of treatment helps people become more aware of the cues that set their habits in motion and develop competing responses. For example, those with an urge to pull hair might be instructed to occupy their hands by imagining they are squeezing a lemon. We have adapted this approach for patients with anorexia in an intervention called REACH (regulating emotions and changing habits).

Jane worked with us in the REACH framework. The habit hypothesis made sense to her and helped her to feel better about why she had been stuck in routines that she knew were not healthy. We shared with her results from a brain-imaging study, published last year in Nature Neuroscience, that one of us (Steinglass) co-authored. It showed that when people with anorexia nervosa make decisions about what to eat, they use a different part of the brain—the dorsal striatum—than those without eating disorders. Studies in both animals and humans have shown that this deep-brain structure is involved with many aspects of behavior, one of which is habitual behavior.

In individual psychotherapy sessions, we helped Jane identify a number of habits that served the eating disorder better than they served her. At home and work she kept track of these routines and paid attention to their earliest cues. For example, Jane noticed that her mealtime rituals began with washing her hands. In therapy, she identified another action to try when faced with this cue. She began to bypass the sink, altering her route to the dining table. This small change made a difference in the subsequent chain of behaviors. Jane practiced moving her water glass out of arm's reach at the start of a meal; with improved awareness, it became easier to resist taking sips between each bite. Behaviorists refer to this as stimulus control: altering the environment to encourage an alternative behavior. In other instances, Jane developed competing responses—simple, motor-based counteractions—that made it harder to act out of habit. For example, she practiced picking up her utensils with her nondominant hand to help her take bigger and less “perfect” bites.

As new behaviors helped her break old habits, Jane tackled other routines of illness. For years she had kept a written record of what she ate at every meal. Jane decided to switch the location of her food journal, putting it out of her line of sight after meals. Instead of reaching for the journal, she turned to friends and family after eating—by phone or e-mail or in person if possible—which also provided an element of distraction. Nevertheless, this change provoked anxiety. To manage it, her therapist taught her a muscle-relaxation exercise—tensing one muscle at a time and then letting it go.

Most important, Jane learned that reversing or replacing old habits brought good outcomes. This was an essential element because behaviors that are associated with reinforcement grow stronger over time. During meals, Jane felt more present, and she found, to her pleasure, that she could participate more fully in conversation during and after eating. As she spent less time logging calories in her journal, she could focus instead on reading for work and leisure. Breaking these routines felt frightening at first, but loosening the grip of old preoccupations also brought an unanticipated element of relief. Jane's weight slowly improved, and although this change felt scary, she described feeling more motivated and able to maintain her new behaviors because they led to clearly positive rewards.[...]

Sanhedria Murchevet Satanic abuse hoax is it related to 'Killer Clowns': Inside the Terrifying Hoax Sweeping America?

Does the failure of the collective American police to find a single "killer clown" mean that all of the American police forces are in collusion with clowns? Does the failure of the Israeli police force to find a single member of the Satanic ring mean that they are in collusion with the Satanic ring?

Rolling Stone

Arriving home from work one day, a mother is greeted by her son who's been anxiously waiting to tell her about the clowns he heard whispering in the woods near their apartment complex. Initially she assumes his mind is running wild in the summer heat, until her eldest son confirms the report, saying he heard chains rattling and banging on the front door.

Unfortunately, this isn't an installment of Are Your Afraid of the Dark? but part of our new reality, as creepy clown sightings are cropping up across the country without explanation. On August 21st, reports of clown sightings surfaced near the Fleetwood Manor apartment complex in Greenville County, South Carolina. Officials took the strange reports seriously but were unable to uncover any real evidence or suspicious persons. The reports stretched beyond children hearing noises and seeing people with clown face paint: One resident said she saw a clown with a blinking nose standing beside a dumpster at 2:30 a.m. Other children came forward claiming clowns attempted to lure them into the woods with money and that the clowns "live in a house by a pond deep in the woods." After hearing gunshots, police learned two residents fired in the direction of the wooded area where the sightings had supposedly taken place. A week later, more reports surfaced of clowns simply staring at Greenville residents near laundromats and, again, next to the woods.

Yet still, police couldn't locate a single clown to question, leaving people to wonder whether this was a hoax, a marketing ploy, or simply child's play.

But if it is all an elaborate ruse, roughly a dozen other cities are in on it – and some officials are worried there will be a violent end to the clown sightings. And in the five weeks since clowns popped up in Greenville, the pandemic has spread.

Last week, in what quickly became a viral Facebook post, a video of a clown lurking in the brush along a dirt road was taken by a person named Caden Parmelee in Marion County, Florida. The car Parmelee was in paused to film a person with white, sinister face paint, but the video cuts out as the clown begins to move and someone in the car is cut off saying "Let’s get the hell out of…" We can assume the final word of that was "here," based on Parmelee's comment to police that he wasn’t looking to die that day. Another Florida resident, Kelly Reynolds of Palm Bay, took up running last weekend when she saw two clowns while she was walking her dog. Reynolds reported to Florida Today, "I never run but I turned and ran back to my home as fast as I can." Florida, a hotbed for weird ..., also had reports of creepy clown sightings in Pensacola and Gainesville.

The clowns crept up into North Carolina, littering the state with the grim face paint and costumes. A machete-wielding clown tried to lure a woman into a wooded area in Forsyth County. Winston-Salem increased police presence in certain areas after two children claimed they were offered candy by a clown if they'd follow it into the woods. In both Henrico and Augusta counties, parents and their children reported clowns "leering" at them from cars or on the edge of a forest. While the Augusta clown may still be wandering the forest, a local woman, Holly Brown, reported that the creepy clown was, in fact, her son Angus, a 12-year-old with autism, who donned his Halloween costume a month early. She stated her son was simply excited about the holiday and meant no harm. Given the clown-hysteria, he will only wear the costume on October 31st.....

The Phantom Clowns, as they were dubbed by cryptozoologist Loren Coleman given their allusive nature, spread to Kansas City, Denver, Omaha, and Pennsylvania. Since the 1980s, clowns have made appearances across the country, usually in the weeks and months leading up to Halloween.

Coleman's phantom clown theory is rooted in the "primal dread that so many children experience in their presence." The first notable instance of a creepy clown is when serial killer John Wayne Gacy was captured in 1979. His alter ego Pogo the Clown frequented children's parties, so his capture drew a connection between a killer and a clown. Three years later came Poltergeist, in which a sinister clown doll lives underneath the bed. Stephen King doubled down and only increased the public's fear of clowns – his 1987 novel It, featuring Pennywise the clown, was made into a horrifying film in 1990. (People still love to fear clowns – Poltergeist was rebooted last year, and a remake of It is set to arrive next fall.)

Yet despite the recent arrests – and despite some state laws banning anyone over the age of 16 from wearing a mask or hood with the intent of intimidation or harassment – a solution to the phantom clown resurgence remains unknown. But more than stopping the phenomena, officials are concerned with the terrified people who may have a conceal-carry permit for a gun, or for vigilantes actively seeking to end the clown problem on their own. Child psychiatrist Dr. Steven Schlozman of Harvard University spoke to the New York Times about the power this problem has to "grab you emotionally before it grabs you cognitively." It's what caused videos and claims of clowns to go viral – whether it's real or a hoax – and what leads to the horrifying outcomes our fears bring to pass.

What the country is facing now is not the fear of clowns, but the aftermath that's likely to ensue. In Dr. Schlozman's view, “It never ends well.”

Invalidating a conversion that was not sincere – A contradiction to the view of Rav Moshe Feinstein?

The following incident was raised as a contradiction to Rav Moshe Feinstein’s view that when it is obvious (anan sahadi) that the convert did not sincerely accept doing mitzvos that the conversion is null and void. It is not necessarily a contradiction. (The details were taken from Dr. Menachem Finkelstein’s Conversion Halacha and Practice page 621-626)

In Cairo 1908,  a 22 year old Muslim desperately wanted to marry a certain beautiful Jewish woman . She refused unless he converted first. He gave a request in writing to the beis din. There was hatafas dam bris, and mikve as well as acceptance of doing mitzvos.

However immediately after the conversion he lived as a complete Muslim. Shortly after the conversion the couple married - with people upset since no one was aware of the conversion. The man then published an article in the paper stating.

since there are those who suspect that he converted and became a Jew and as such married a Jewess... but this is unthinkable and he would never do such a thing. He is a Muslim from birth and that each retained their religion when they married.

Immediately afterwards the following was established:

1) He had used a false name in his application to beis din

2) .His supporting document that he submitted to the beis din was forged and his references were not aware of what was stated in the document

3) He had revealed to two Jews that he was going through the conversion “to satisfy his desires with this beautiful women who had driven him mad” These two Jews had remained silent because they had been bribed.

4) After the wedding he continued to live amongst the Moslems as one of them. The couple had a son who he refused to allow to be circumcised and he was given the name of Muhammed. At this point the couple separated and the woman fled from her husband.

Two Egyptians rabbis who were consulted thought it possible to permit the woman to remarry without a get on the grounds that the conversion was worthless and thus there was no marriage. Rabbi Mas’ud Ben Shimon said, “If he had come in good faith at the time of the acceptance of the conversion without any deception, stratagems, and falsity then if he had reverted back to his previous religion he would still be considered a true convert. But since this was not the case since all was falsehood and deceit. Rabbi Aaron Cohen agreed with his reasoning that there was no conversion and thus no marriage and thus no need for a divorce.

While these two were waiting for approval by higher level rabbis, the husband was ordered by the kadi to divorce his wife in accordance with Islamic law and the government ordered him to pay his wife her kesubah.

The husband approached Rabbi Ben Shimon for help in avoiding paying the money. The rabbi told him to authorize him to give his wife a Get which Rabbi Ben Shimon and Rabbi Cohen promptly did.

The next question was the woman wanted to remarry and asked for a divorce certificate. The two rabbis were in a quandary because of the many doubts regarding this Get “ the likes of which might never have been” Therefore they decided to ask Rav Kook what to do. They sent him their rulings stating that the woman could remarry without a Get as well as a description of the Get they had given.

Rav Kook agreed to the appropriateness of asking for a Get. However he disagreed that the conversion was null due to fraud. He said that the acceptance of mitzvos was done properly. It didn’t matter what the man was thinking. Furthermore he saw no evidence that the man had intended to deceive or that he did not sincerely want to be a Jew. Rav Kook said the only problematic issue in the case was solely that he had converted for the sake of marriage - however bedieved the conversion was valid. Thus Rav Kook ruled that the conversion was good and the man had subsequently become a backsliding convert and that the Get was good.

The woman remarried on the basis of the Get and the conversion was not declared null and void – contrary to the written views of the first two rabbis. It seems that the first two wrote their views when they determined that the man would not give his wife a Get. In contrast Rav Kook wrote his views after the Get had been given.

It seems that there are three views in the literature. 1) Poskim who say that anyone who goes through the ceremony and declares before beis din that he will do the mitzvos, and has mila and tevila – even if subsequently he doesn’t keep anything is still a Jew. 2) There are others who say if it is obvious from the actions and statements that he never intended to be a religious Jew and was clearly insincere the conversion was never valid. 3) Finally there is a view that conversion is conditional on subsequently observing the mitzvos. If this condition is not met then the conversion is invalid.

Obama criticized by US miltary and veterans regarding terrorism, women in combat and veteran's hospitals

Washington Post

Military personnel and veterans challenged President Obama, often aggressively, on his refusal to use the phrase “Islamic terrorism,” his decision to open combat jobs up to women and the performance of the Department of Veterans Affairs at a town hall meeting here Wednesday.

Obama was at this Army base near Richmond to take part in a military-focused special that aired Wednesday night on CNN. The cable network selected questioners who were respectful but who reflected a military population that is more conservative than the population as a whole and generally skeptical of the president’s performance as commander in chief over the past eight years.[...]

A mother whose 19-year-old son was killed in Baghdad in 2007 pressed Obama more directly on the subject, asking him, “Why do you still refuse to use the term ‘Islamic terrorism’?” Obama countered that he did not want to conflate murderous terrorists with “the billion Muslims . . . who are peaceful, who are responsible, who in this country are our fellow troops.”

An active-duty Marine officer challenged the president’s decision to open combat jobs to women, saying that studies conducted by the Marine Corps showed that such units performed “notably worse” and that women “suffered staggeringly higher rates of injury.”

“Why were these tangible, negative consequences disregarded?” she asked.

Obama said that he had not acted out of political correctness and noted that women have been fighting at great risk in Iraq and Afghanistan for more than a decade. “I want to make sure our starting assumption is that if you can do the job, you should be able to get the job,” he said.[...]

Among the toughest questions he fielded was one from a woman who said her husband had waited a year for an appointment from VA. When he finally saw a doctor, his cancer was misdiagnosed and not treated.

“First of all, my heart goes out to you,” Obama said. He then said that he had increased the VA budget by 85 percent over the course of his presidency but that there was more work to do

Torah Scroll Honors Memories of Slain Dallas Police Officers

Chabad

A Torah is on its way for use in Austin, Texas, dedicated to five police officers who were killed in the line of duty this summer. Here, representatives of the New York City Police Department participate in a ceremony in memory of the fallen officers. Third from left is Bentzion Chanowitz, who runs the daily operations of the Beis Yisroel Torah Gemach. (Photo: Alex Bodnar)

A Torah is on its way for use in Austin, Texas, dedicated to five police officers who were killed in the line of duty this summer. Here, representatives of the New York City Police Department participate in a ceremony in memory of the fallen officers. Third from left is Bentzion Chanowitz, who runs the daily operations of the Beis Yisroel Torah Gemach. (Photo: Alex Bodnar)

When Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown on Sunday, Oct. 2, members of Chabad of South Austin/Young Jewish Professionals will hold their first minyan since last Yom Kippur. Together, they will celebrate not only the start of the Jewish New Year, but the welcoming of a new Sefer Torah.

“We just heard we would be getting a new Torah,” said Rabbi Mendy Levertov, co-director of the Chabad center with his wife, Mussy. “It’s so exciting for our congregation. This is difference between having weekly service and not having one because without the Torah, we can’t read the weekly portion together. This Torah will help us be able to grow and build a weekly minyan.”

Adding to the significance is that the Torah is dedicated to five slain Dallas police officers who lost their lives this summer in the line of duty.

“I work closely with the Austin Police Department and have a good relationship with them. For us, it is very important to recognize the protection that the police give us and the service they provide to the community,” explains Levertov. “We are proud to have a Torah that ties together Jew and non-Jew, law enforcement and our community, and enforces that strong connection during the High Holidays.”[...]

Bentzion Chanowitz, who runs the daily operations of the Torah Gemach, noted that other refurbished scrolls have been dedicated in memory of security forces—in this case, for the officers shot down on July 8; and in the past, in memory of fallen soldiers and or terror victims in Israel.

“We just read the weekly Torah portion about the need for shoftim with shoftrim—appoint judges and police officers—and I felt for the Jewish community, this would be a nice kiddush Hashem, the sanctification of G‑d’s name.”

Rabbi Yochanan Marsow of Bais Menachem Mendel in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, who serves as a rabbinic adviser to the Torah Gemach, thought “it was a great idea,” says Chanowitz. “He said in many times throughout history, the Jewish community honored the government.”[...]