updatefrom Rav Spira

Shalom Aleikhem Ha-Rav ha-Ga'on R. Daniel Eidensohn, shlit"a,
Many thanks to Kevod Torato ha-Rav for the update today on Reb Aharon Friedman's situation. In my most recent publication at <http://www.scribd.com/doc/264957339/Sherbrooke-Street-Eruv>, I mention in footnote 30 that Ms. Epstein is still halakhically married to her first husband. Also worthy of highlight in the same essay is footnote 4, which cites an e-mail from R. Yisrael A. Knopfler disqualifying the RCA Vice-President (Northeast region) R. Michael Whitman (be-mechilat Kevod Torato) from adjudicating questions in Hilkhot Gittin. I will send Kevod Torato ha-Rav a copy of the original letter of R. Knopfler at a future date, so as to be mezakeh et ha-rabbim.
Gratefully,
Shalom C. Spira
Montreal, Canada 

update

Todah rabbah and ye'yasher kochakha, R. Eidensohn, shlit"a, for the publicizing today (23 Sivan, 5778) footnote 30 of this student's Sherbrooke Street Eruv essay. Interestingly, the very same day (23 Sivan, 5778), Ha-Ma'or  journal from Shvat-Adar 5776 was published online, which contains a letter by R. Shmuel Tsarch which seems to confirm my footnote. See here:

http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=57182&st=&pgnum=35&hilite=

I cautiously emphasize "seems to confirm," because R. Tsarch congratulates R. Landesman, despite the paradoxical fact that R. Landesman is himself (be-mechilat Kevod Torato) encouraged by the Emet Kneh pamphlet to perform teshuvah regarding the heter me'ah Rabbanim granted to R. Aryeh M. Kotler [itself mentioned in footnote 30 of my essay]. Okay, I am not here to criticize talmidei chakhamim, chas ve-chalilah. Obviously, ve-amekh kulam tzaddikim, and my only goal is to clarify the Halakhah and to perform the mitzvah of restoring shelom bayit between husband and wife, as I already wrote at http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2017/02/greenblatt-kaminetsky-heter-is-tamar.html .

Be-virkat kol tuv selah,

Shalom

Rav Shmeul's phony heter has paid off

http://www.phillykollel.com/Office%20Area/Dinner%202016-17/DN16-17%20Master%20Journal%20Combined.pdf

The Kollel would like to thank those who opened up their homes for Kollel shiurim and events during the past year. In the zechus of their hospitality and support, may their homes be blessed with health, happiness, and peace. We apologize for any omissions. Ilana Baltuch Karen Berkowitz Sara Bleier Diane Braid Galitte Den Amy Erlbaum Tamar Fleischer Stacey Goldman Gilya Hodos Susan Hullman Amanda Israel Cindy Kosloff Amy Kratchman Dana Kupfer Shelly Melman Paige Nochenson Dahlia Ocken Chava Paris Michie Pasternak Kristy Schulman Kineret Shakow Julia Strassman Lisa Stein Adina Spiller Mindy Zaslow Shayna Malka Zeffre

presumably, the Kollel would not sponsor a shiur in the home of a couple, in which the wife was also still married  to another man.  The fact that the Kollel sponsored a shiur in Adam and Tamar's home, and publicly, on the Internet, is thanking them for doing so is surely an endorsement of the annulment and remarriage.

Philadephia's Orthodox community is small and Rabbi Kamanetsky is closely associated with the Kollel.  The Kollel would not be endorsing the annulment and remarriage without Rabbi Kamenetsky's active approval.

Clinic Claims Success In Making Babies With 3 Parents' DNA

npr

In a clinic on a side street in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, doctors are doing something that, as far as is publicly known, is being done nowhere else in the world: using DNA from three different people to create babies for women who are infertile.

"If you can help these families to achieve their own babies, why it must be forbidden?" Valery Zukin, director of the Nadiya Clinic, asks as he peers over his glasses. "It is a dream to want to have a genetic connection with a baby."

I traveled to Ukraine because Zukin promised unusual access to his private fertility clinic, including the first demonstration for a U.S. journalist of how scientists create "three-parent" babies — a procedure prohibited by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Zukin also arranged the first-ever interview with a mother of a 15-month-old boy who is one of the four children he says he has produced this way.

Three more of his patients are pregnant, Zukin says, including a woman from Sweden. Women from several other countries including Britain, Brazil and Israel are going through the process, he says.

Leading ethicists and genetics researchers criticize the clinic for rushing ahead to use this method for infertility. No one knows whether children produced this way will be healthy, they say. And some worry the procedure may open the door to "designer babies."

kaminetsky-Greenblatt heter gains - GROUNDBREAKING RULING IN RABBINICAL COURT FREES 23-YEAR 'CHAINED WOMAN'

jpost
dr sprerberv applies heter of kaminetsy-greenblatt
arutz7
In a groundbreaking development for divorce rights in Israel, Tzviya Gorodetsky, who has sought a divorce from her husband for 23 years, has been freed from her marriage by a private, ad hoc Orthodox rabbinical court headed by respected Orthodox rabbi and talmudist Rabbi Daniel Sperber.

The ruling could pave the way for more such women to avail themselves of private rabbinical courts, if they believe that they have no chance of ever escaping their failed marriages. It follows other attempts to bypass established religious institutions in such realms as conversion, kashrut and marriage.

Agudath Israel of America Statement on Supreme Court Ruling in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission

matzav

Agudath Israel of America today issued the following response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 7-2 decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which involved the rights of a Christian baker who was punished by the State of Colorado for refusing on religious grounds to bake and design a wedding cake for the “marriage” of two men.

The Agudah, a national Orthodox Jewish organization, had urged the Supreme Court in its amicus curiae brief to uphold the religious rights of Mr. Jack Phillips, the Colorado baker who was asked to use his creative talents to bake a cake in celebration of a same-sex marriage, an event that contravenes his sincerely held religious beliefs. While the Supreme Court’s decision requires close review, it is unfortunate that the ruling does not reach or provide clarity on the substantive question of whether Mr. Phillips and other such proprietors faced with similar conflicts will find free exercise protection within the First Amendment.

Nonetheless, the Court’s ruling is gratifying in that it emphasizes that religious freedom concerns must be given a full and deserving measure of consideration, even within the context of local and state anti-discrimination law. It affirms the principle that state agencies may not presume religious rights to be of lesser value or deserving of lesser protection, and they may in no way exhibit hostility toward sincerely held religious beliefs. We are also heartened by the fact that this posture was adopted by the Justices by a wide 7-2 margin. We are also pleased that the Court has explicitly affirmed the right of members of the clergy to be able to refuse to participate in ceremonies to which they object for religious reasons.

THE TOY THAT’S WREAKING HAVOC ON THE SOUTH

Up until recently, kites were a symbol of joy, innocence and beauty for residents of Kibbutz Kfar Aza. That was until March, when some of their neighbors across the border in Gaza began using kites as a weapon, sending dozens into their community, scorching their crops and causing serious damage to their agriculture.

“For us, the kite is very symbolic,” Kfar Aza resident Ayelet Shachar-Epstein told The Jerusalem Post over coffee just outside the kibbutz on Monday. She explained that every Rosh Hashana (the Jewish new year), “when the weather is beautiful and there are strong winds coming from the west, we have a kite event. Each family builds their own kites, we put them up in the air and it’s one of the most beautiful occasions... of peace and appreciation of life. It’s a community event – we have a very strong community.”

Saying Kaddish for Hamas

arutz\On May 16, about 50 Jewish activists gathered in London’s Parliament Square and, in a public display of phoney grief, davened Kaddish.

This gathering was less about a genuine empathy for dead Palestinians. It was more an exhibition of Jew hatred for the Jewish state.

How do we know that? Well, these people proved they are not equal opportunity grievers. They did not gather to mourn the 1242 Israelis killed by Palestinian terrorists since the year 2000. Instead, they collected together to publicly show their support for Palestinian terror. Of course, these useful idiots would protest vehemently at such a suggestion but what other conclusion can we reach when it was announced, from the Palestinian side, that at least 53 of the 58 rioters shot by IDF soldiers were, in fact, either members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

So, in mid-May, we had the spectacle of Jews meeting in the heart of British democracy to pray for the souls of those that were prevented by Jewish soldiers from slaughtering Jews

An American 13-Year-Old, Pregnant and Married to Her Rapist

ny times

Dawn Tyree was 11 years old when a family friend began to molest her. A bit more than a year later, she became pregnant from these rapes, and her parents found out what had been going on. But they didn’t go to the police; instead, they found another solution.“It was decided for me that I would marry him,” Tyree recalled.

So Tyree, then 13, was married to her rapist, then age 32. She became one of the thousands of underage American girls who are married each year, often sacrificing their futures to reduce embarrassment to their parents. Statutory rape is thus sanctioned by the state as marriage, and the abuser ends up not in handcuffs but showered with wedding gifts.

Our State Department protests child marriage in Africa and Asia (worldwide, a girl 14 or younger is married every 11 seconds, according to Save the Children), but every state in America allowed child marriages. That has finally changed. Last month Delaware became the first state to ban all child marriages, without exception.

Rav Shlomo Fisher - Maharal's explanations are not part of Mesorah but he created them

otzar forum

Why Rich Kids Are So Good at the Marshmallow Test

atlantic
Affluence—not willpower—seems to be what’s behind some kids' capacity to delay gratification.

The marshmallow test is one of the most famous pieces of social-science research: Put a marshmallow in front of a child, tell her that she can have a second one if she can go 15 minutes without eating the first one, and then leave the room. Whether she’s patient enough to double her payout is supposedly indicative of a willpower that will pay dividends down the line, at school and eventually at work. Passing the test is, to many, a promising signal of future success.

But a new study, published last week, has cast the whole concept into doubt. The researchers—NYU’s Tyler Watts and UC Irvine’s Greg Duncan and Hoanan Quan—restaged the classic marshmallow test, which was developed by the Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel in the 1960s. Mischel and his colleagues administered the test and then tracked how children went on to fare later in life. They described the results in a 1990 study, which suggested that delayed gratification had huge benefits, including on such measures as standardized test scores.

Einstein's letter to mournlng father

Dear Mr. Marcus:

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe", a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish the delusion but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.

With my best wishes, 
sincerely yours, 

Albert Einstein. 

Mr. Robert S.Marcus
World Jewish Congress
1834 Broadway
New York 23,N.Y.

marriage substitute - therapists

 Aside from cases where therapists give bad advice or continue therapy longer than needed there are cases where therapist gets sexually involved this is also true for rabbinical therapists but there are other issues

I saw man of 35 asked him why he wanted therapy he responded that he had a number of problems and been seeing a therapist in America so thought he should continue in Israel

me "How long have you had therapy?"

patient 10 years!

"That seems a bit long

patient But she said I needed it

Did you see any improvement?

patient No but she said I should keep trying

If you don’t see significant improvement – usually wthin 2 sessions you should try another therapist

But what is your goal from therapy?

patient To get married

But it is obvious your therapist was a substitute for marriage.  no more therapy

Several weeks later he got engaged

I was told a similar story by another therapist. There was a woman of 35 who was depressesd over weight didn’t care about her appearance or life. But once a week for over 10 years she got dressed up and put on makeup – for her weekly therapy session

ן ואילך, ככל הנראה בעקבות ו' ר בכרך, אבר מוצאים את השימוש בניסוי ת תרדה' בתפוצה הולכת וגדלה בקרב בעלי ההלכה. למשל, חרא נמצא מספר פעמים אולר' יעקב וישר בעל 'שברת יעקב', 197 וכעברו מספר דרדרת חרא ורוח למדי אצל מספר ם חשובים בירתו I שתשרברתיד,ם הגיעו לקהילות רבות, כגרן ו' יעקב עמדן 1 198 ו' ל לבוא, בעל ה'נרדע ביד"דה', 199 ותלמידו ו' אליעזר פלקלס, בעל שר"ת 'תשרנה בסור.בה'. 200 במאה ו.תשע עשרה כבד ניתן למצאו אצל בלשון הרבנית כמסבע לשרן שגרד ו ככועס אצל כל הפרסקים ו.גחלים, בייחוד בספורת השאלות רד.תשובות.

בכל ה בבית מדרשו ל ה'נרדע ביד,רדה' נשתגד ד,ביסרי 'דעתי דעת תרדה' אר ו ת תרדה'. אמנם גם ציחף ה לא חרוש שם, והוא כבד ,.,פיע זעיר פה זעיר שם ' הביניים 201 ראחדיד,ם, אך חסה כי תפוצתו במאות השנים הללו במרבה מארד. ה'נרדע ניזזדה' עצמו השתמש בר פעמים ספרדרת, 202 רגם אצל החת"ם סרפד ,.,א נדיר למדי, 203 י בעיקר בלשונות פנייה בבקשת תשרנה לשאלה הלכתית, כאשד המבקש פונה אל ר.נורםק במסדה לשמוע 'ועתר ת תרדה' )בגרף שני אר שלישי!(, אך אצל בן אוצר ו' ה אסאד, א נעשית שכיחה יותר וגרבו השימוש בנוסחה זר בגרף ראשון )'דעתי - ת תרדה'(. 204 בכל המקומרת הללו אין ה אלא שימוש לשרן שבר נרמז כי המשיב מבסא

Dr Brown regarding marriage and Ger

Kedushah: The Sexual Abstinence of Married Men in Gur, Slonim and Toldos Ahron
Kedushah
 Gur: The Ordinances of R. Israel Alter, the Beys Yisroel
Gur Hasidism is a historical offspring of the hasidic groups of Pshiskhe[Przysucha] and Kotsk. Even though Kotsk had its own ideal of abstinence,

there is no indication that this was fostered by Gur until after the Holocaust and certainly not as a norm for the entire community. It was the fourth Gerer Rebbe, Israel Alter (1895–1977), known in Ashkenazi Hebrew as the BeysYisroel (after the title of his collection of homilies, the Beit Yisra’el who brought about the change when he re-established Gur Hasidism in the newly founded state of Israel. Shortly after his nomination as Rebbe in 1948, he inaugurated the Ordinances on Holiness, known in short as the takanot

, and commonly pronounced takunes

They have never been published nor, in all probability, ever formulated systematically. He communicated them to some of his senior hasidim , who later became the community’s first marriage guides (madrikhim ), and they passed them on to the community as “oral law.”The ordinances are known to many, even outside Gur, and, as I was able to verify in conversation with a number of Gerer hasidim , they consist of the following:

•

The couple shall have sexual intercourse only once a month, on leil tevilah (the night after the wife’s immersion in the mikveh at the end of her halakhically prescribed menstrual period).

•

The couple shall refrain from sexual intercourse from as early as the seventh month of pregnancy.

•

After the wife has given birth, the couple shall refrain from sexual inter-course for a further period of six months.

•

During intercourse, the couple shall aim to minimize physical contact. The husband shall wear some of his clothes, including his tsitsit (considered a segulah

—supernatural remedy—against the sexual drive) and will not hug or kiss his wife or engage in any behavior that is not required for the performance of the act of intercourse itself.

•

The husband shall direct his thoughts as far away as possible from the sexual act.