Dr. Asher Lipner in Child & Domestic Abuse Volume I

page 143

Importance of disclosing abuse

While there are understandable reasons for the withholding of disclosure of abuse, it usually exacerbates the difficulty of the trauma both because silence can allow the abuse to occur repeatedly, and because it does not allow for the emotional wounds to heal.  

Loneliness, abandonment and neglect are feelings that a victim of abuse often has about others in his or her environment who did not intervene to rescue them from their abuse.  Children are often more angry at the non offending parent for not protecting them then at the one who actually perpetrated the abuse.  Partially, this is because they expect more from the “healthier parent” and partially because it feels and sometimes is safer for them to focus their angry and hurt feelings at the parent who is more likely to care and to react positively and not punish them.  Victims of rabbinic abuse or abuse by a teacher, often have more anger at the organization for protecting and enabling their molester and abandoning the protection of the students.

This reaction is not uncommon in other survivors of interpersonal violence as well.  An off duty policeman who was savagely assaulted by a gang on a subway and suffered permanent neurological damage, told me that in his nightmares and flashbacks the only thing he remembers seeing at the time of the attack are the twenty or so people who were watching and did not come to his assistance.  Many Holocaust survivors report feeling more distressed by the apparent lack of concern about them by the whole world than by almost any other aspect of their trauma.  This is why in clinical work it is important to view all sexual abuse as involving three parties: the abuser, the abused and the bystander.    Trauma in general has come to be viewed by psychologists as a phenomenon that cannot be fully described and understood in and of itself, but needs to be seen as an experience that takes place in a social context that both creates the environment in which it occurs as well as the environment in which the survivor continues to live. [...]

Epilepsy’s Big, Fat Miracle: Food as medicine

NYTimes

Once every three or four months my son, Sam, grabs a cookie or a piece of candy and, wide-eyed, holds it inches from his mouth, ready to devour it. He knows he's not allowed to eat these things, but like any 9-year-old, he hopes that somehow, this once, my wife, Evelyn, or I will make an exception.

We never make exceptions when it comes to Sam and food, though, which means that when temptation takes hold of Sam and he is denied, things can get pretty hairy. Confronted with a gingerbread house at a friend's party last December, he went scorched earth, grabbing parts of the structure and smashing it to bits. Reason rarely works. Usually one of us has to pry the food out of his hands. Sometimes he ends up in tears. [...]

Dispute Over Dead Sea Scrolls Leads to a Jail Sentence

NYTimes

A man convicted of impersonating a New York University scholar in a debate over the Dead Sea Scrolls was sentenced on Thursday to six months in jail and five years’ probation.

The man, Raphael Haim Golb, was taken from a courtroom in State Supreme Court in Manhattan in handcuffs, after which one of his lawyers headed to the appellate division to ask that he be allowed to remain free pending appeal.[...]

One who makes a sincere mistaken interpretations of Torah - is not a heretic

Radvaz (4:187): A reason for not punishing preachers who distort the meaning of verses or medrashim is that their mistaken interpretations are the result of their faulty study of the texts. They are no worse than those who err concerning one of the fundamental principles of faith because of their misunderstanding of texts and yet are not considered heretics. For example, we find that the great man Hillel II erred in one of the principles of faith when he said Moshiach was not coming because of the events in the time of Chezkiyahu. Nevertheless, this error did not make him a heretic — G﷓d forbid. If he had been a heretic, how could the Talmud quote him? It is clear that since his improper statement was the result of sincere study, it was considered as inadvertent and thus he was not a heretic.

Should Sex Abuse Justify a Vigilante Attack?

Time Magazine

It is a dark story with an even darker twist: William Lynch, 44, was arrested last month for going into a northern California nursing home, luring an elderly priest into the lobby and beating him bloody. Lynch insists that when he was 7 years old the priest, Jerold Lindner, 65, had sexually molested him.

After Lynch was arrested, the blogosphere lit up with messages of support — and protests that he was being charged for a beating that many regarded as well-deserved payback. When Lynch was arraigned in a courtroom in San Jose, Calif., last week on suspicion of assault, his backers marched with signs attacking the Catholic Church's handling of sexual abuse in its ranks and proclaiming "Free Willy."

Lynch has vowed to fight the assault charge against him and to make Lindner — who has denied abusing him or anyone else — the issue. "Somebody needs to be a face for this abuse, and I'm prepared to put myself on the line," he told the Associated Press. [...]

"My father is Li Gang": China’s Censors Misfire in Abuse of Power Case:

NYTimes

 One night in late October, a college student named Chen Xiaofeng was in-line skating with a friend on the grounds of Hebei University in central China. They were gliding past the campus grocery when a Volkswagen sedan raced down a narrow lane and struck them head-on.

The impact sent Ms. Chen flying and broke the other woman's leg. The 22-year-old driver, who was intoxicated, tried to speed away. Security guards intercepted him, but he was undeterred. He warned them: "My father is Li Gang!"

Learning from a heretic is prohibited - even though R' Meir did it

Shach (Yoreh Deah 246:8): … Chagiga (15b) states that the reason why R’ Meir learned Torah from a heretic — despite the requirement that a teacher be like an angel — is because that prohibition applies only to those who will be influenced by the teacher. R’ Meir and others who are capable of withstanding the influence are in fact permitted to learn from a heretic… The question is why didn’t the Rambam note this distinction that the gemora makes between adult and child—between those mature enough not to be influenced and those who might be influenced? It is possible that the Rambam agrees with Tosfos (Chagiga 15b) who notes that in Moed Koton (17a) R’ Yehuda excommunicated a certain scholar because he had a bad reputation. Tosfos explains that the reason that no differentiation was made by R’ Yehuda is that he felt all the students would be influenced. Thus, we see that even in Talmudic times the older students were considered as susceptible to bad influence and had to be protected. So surely, in our days, everyone is considered as susceptible to bad influence and thus the distinction of the gemora is not relevant for actual Halacha. An alternative explanation is that most poskim do not accept this distinction because it was only held by R’ Meir and not the majority of our Sages.

When beis din arbitrates a deal which secular laws says is illegal

Haaretz

Had they not been so greedy, the ultra-Orthodox real estate developers Aharon Eisenberg and Avraham Tzeinwirt could quite possibly have been benefiting today - one from a large sum of money promised in return for withdrawing his bid on a parcel of land at the last minute, the other from the building he could have constructed on that land for a sizable profit. The parcel in question, located in downtown Jerusalem, was sold by the Jewish Agency.

But Tzeinwirt, the winner of the tender, reneged on the shady deal he'd signed with Eisenberg and refused to pay him the sum he'd promised in return for the latter's withdrawal from the tender.

Throughout the three years that have elapsed since then, the two men have continued to fight over the money. They first applied for arbitration to an ultra-Orthodox rabbinical court (known in Hebrew as a "Badatz" ), which ruled that Tzeinwirt had to pay. But Tzeinwirt refused and in an unusual step applied to the Tel Aviv District Court, which then reversed the arbitration ruling. Now the entire deal is liable to be canceled. [...]

Lying for Peace - The Halachic Caveats

Five Towns Jewish Times - Rabbi Yair Hoffman

“Of course, I did my homework, Mom..”

“No, honey, that donut wrapper belonged to a co-worker to whom I gave a ride.”

“Yes, I will go on the treadmill this afternoon as soon as I come home while you are shopping.”

“No, dear, that dress does not make you look fat.”

We have all heard the expression before – mutar leshanos mipnei HaShalom – one is permitted to, well, “change” or obscure the truth in order to maintain the peace.  And lately, it seems that we hear it more and more.

A number of questions arise about this concept.  Is it still something that we should avoid doing – or is it possibly a Mitzvah?  Is it an across the board heter?  Do people have complete carte blanche in these areas?  Or are there, perhaps, some caveats? [...]

Bison vs. Bear goes viral:Changing role of public media

KTVQ

BILLINGS - It is the little story that just won't quit. It's the number one story of all time on this very website. Millions of people have seen these pictures-and that number is still growing.  It has reached well into all 50 states and has been shared in 136 countries. And to think, it kind of all started right here. Fifteen days ago, we first reported on a picture that caught our eye on Facebook. Once we uncovered the details behind the story, a tidal wave of sorts ensued. It's now known as "bison versus bear".

Some don't get healthier from exercise

NYTimes

Recently, researchers in Finland made the discovery that some people’s bodies do not respond as expected to weight training, others don’t respond to endurance exercise and, in some lamentable cases, some don’t respond to either. In other words, there are those who just do not become fitter or stronger, no matter what exercise they undertake. To reach this conclusion, the researchers enrolled 175 sedentary adults in a 21-week exercise program. Some lifted weights twice a week. Others jogged or walked. Some did both. Before and after the program, the volunteers’ fitness and muscular strength were assessed. At the end of the 21 weeks, the results, published earlier this year in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, were mixed. In the combined strength-and-endurance-exercise program, the volunteers’ physiological improvement ranged from a negative 8 percent (meaning they became 8 percent less fit) to a positive 42 percent. The results were similar in the groups that undertook only strength or only endurance training. Some improved their strength enormously, some not at all. Others became aerobically fitter but not stronger, while still others showed no improvements in either area. Only a fortunate few became both fitter and more buff. As the researchers from the University of Jyvaskyla wrote with some understatement, “large individual differences” exist “in the responses to both endurance and strength training.” [...]

Rav Moshe Chagiz - concerning authorship of Zohar

משנת חכמים (ס' של"ב): ובגדר אהבת החברים ומעלתה נקבלה האמת ממי שאמרו. כי האמת יורה דרכו דמסדר ומחבר ספר הזוהר הקדוש, דודאי אדם גדול היה דבאו לידו הקונטריסים, ומן השמים זכו אותו להוציא לאור תעלומות חכמה רמה ונעלמה והא סדרי הקונטרסים על סדר הפרשיות. אך לא חלילה רשב"י, או רבי אבא, עשו סדר זו הנמצא בידינו. כי זה טעות ושטות מפורסם, כעין אותם הסוברים שאנו מאמינים דבר שאינו. שהתלמוד כמו שהוא מסודר אצלינו, היה אצל אברהם אבינו דבר שלא עלה במחשבה אצל עם ה' נושא משך הזרע, ואנו תל"י יודעין שלשלת ספר יוחסין של כל התורה שבע"פ איך ומה נשתלשלה ובא לידינו מיד לפה אל פה, עד משה מפי הגבורה.

משנת חכמים (ס' של"ג): ומה שתמצא לרז"ל שאמרו דאברהם אבינו קיים כל התורה אפילו עירובי תבשילין אינו אלא על האופן שכתבתי בהקדמתי הראשונה לספר אלה המצות. שהכל נתגלה לאברהם אבינו כמרז"ל על פסוק וה' אמר הכסה ני מאברהם עי"ש. כדי לסתום את פיהם של המקנטרין שחושבים אותנו לשוטים ולפתי מאמין לכל דבר, וחלילה לעם חכם ונבון להבין הא דאמרו על פסוק ואתנ' לך לוחות, אלו עשרת הדברים תורה, זה מקרא והמצוה זה משנה אשר כתבי אלו נביאים וכתובים, להורותם זה גמרא שכולם נתנו לשמה בסיני. דר"ל כך כמו שהוא אצלינו במכתב דזה שקר מפורסם. דהרי קודם רבינו הקדוש כל דברי התורה שבע"פ לא היה רשאי להעלותם בכתב, א"כ נתינה זו שנתן למשה אינו אלא דפה לפה גילה לו הקב"ה דור דור ודורשיו. וכל מה שתלמיד ותיק עתיד לחדש, ורוב כל אותה קבלה היא מה שנשארה ומצויה אצלינו מאומתת ומאושרת ומקויימת אשר אין לנו במה להסתפק עליה הכל כמו שכתבתי שם בהקדמה הנזכר.

משנת חכמים (ס' שלד): אף הכי בחבור נורא זה מספר הזוהר אין להסתפק בעיקרן של דברים כהוויתן שיצאו מפי רשב"י וחבריו, ולכן המהרהר אחריו כמהרהר אחר השכינה, אך המסדר  עשה התקשרות הדרים כאשר עליו ובאו לידו על נכון כדחזי במאמר שהבאתי לעיל בסעיף שכ"ט.

The Animators of Life:Molecular animation

NYTimes

Pachad Yitzchak - Definition of faith

Pachad Yitzchak (Emuna): Faith is that which is necessary to believe in order not to be called a heretic.

---

פחד יצחק ד"ה אמונה. אמונה היא דבר שצריך להאמין כדי שלא להקרא כופר

Child & Domestic Abuse book - Buying in Europe or Israel

My plan of shipping copies to Israel - is simply not practical. It isabout the same price for shipping whether I send bulk quantities fromCreateSpace or whether you pay for shipping directly from Amazon. Consequently those outside of America who want the book should order directly from Amazon. It is cheaper per volume if two books are ordered at a time.

This Is Your Brain on Metaphors

NYTimes

Despite rumors to the contrary, there are many ways in which the human brain isn’t all that fancy. Let’s compare it to the nervous system of a fruit fly. Both are made up of cells, of course, with neurons playing particularly important roles. Now one might expect that a neuron from a human will differ dramatically from one from a fly. Maybe the human’s will have especially ornate ways of communicating with other neurons, making use of unique “neurotransmitter” messengers. Maybe compared to the lowly fly neuron, human neurons are bigger, more complex, in some way can run faster and jump higher.

But no. Look at neurons from the two species under a microscope and they look the same. They have the same electrical properties, many of the same neurotransmitters, the same protein channels that allow ions to flow in and out, as well as a remarkably high number of genes in common. Neurons are the same basic building blocks in both species.

So where’s the difference? It’s numbers — humans have roughly one million neurons for each one in a fly. And out of a human’s 100 billion neurons emerge some pretty remarkable things. With enough quantity, you generate quality. [...]

The Infamous Shabbetai Tzvi

The Infamous Shabbetai Tzvi by Rabbi Dovid Rossoff

Jewish history has its list of heroes and villains. Many of the latter have been forgotten over the course of time, perhaps for the betterment of all. However, one of the most treacherous culprits of the last thousand years to have aspired to stand up against God was a man by the name of Shabbetai Tzvi. Unfortunately, his name has been enamoured with a false mystique of some esoteric righteousness hidden behind acts of blatant sacrilege. There is no doubt, however, that he caused one of the greatest uproars within the Jewish rank and file. And it is sadly true that he caused large numbers of fellow Jews to apostatize and thereby forfeit all the eternal gifts awaiting every faithful Jew in the world to come.

This is not the place to unravel the complex historical and ethical parameters concerning Shabbetai Tzvi as a false messiah. Instead, we shall take a brief look and what brought him to the road of disaster. [...]

Brooklyn Rabbi Is Convicted of Extortion Attempt

NYTimes

NYTimes

A prominent Orthodox rabbi who founded a respected Jewish day school in Brooklyn was convicted on Wednesday of trying to extort millions of dollars from a giant hedge fund

Man Who Claimed to Have Dybbuk Now Admits it Was All a Bluff

Matzav

The fellow who claimed to have been possessed by a dybbuk and garnered the attention of the Jewish community worldwide last year has now come forth and admitted that it was all a hoax. The man, a resident of the Jewish community in Brazil, has apologized for his shenanigans and says that it was all one big show.

He has also expressed his regret that Rav Dovid Batzri, the noted mekubal, was asked to attempt to chase the dybbuk twice, including once via video conference. [...]

8000 people from Falash Mura community to make Aliya

JPost

Almost 8,000 people from the Falash Mura community in Ethiopia will make aliya to Israel in the next four years, according to a decision that was confirmed in the Knesset on Sunday.

"There are approximately 8,000 men, women and children who live under very difficult humanitarian conditions, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said during a government meeting.

The prime minister went on to say that "the Government of Israel seeks to resolve this problem because there is indeed a complex humanitarian crisis there and so as to avoid the creation of additional refugee camps in Ethiopia."[...]

Rav Sternbuch: What does not accepting lashon harah mean

רב משה שטרנבוך (תשובות והנהגות יורה דעה א:תקנה): שאלה : באיסור קבלת לשון הרע וגדרה.

הקדוש בעל "חפץ חיים" זצ"ל בהלכות לשון הרע (כלל ו' סעיף י') פוסק שאסור לקבל לשה"ר ששמע רע על תבירו רק יש העמידו על הזקתו שאין בו עולה, ומ"מ למיחש מיהת בעי לברר וליזהר, אבל אין לו עוד אפילו ספק בלבבו כל זמן שיש חזקה.

ודבריו תמוהין מאד, אטו בני אדם מלאכי השרת הם, וכששומע מאדם מהימן שאינו שונאו וחושש בלבו, היאך נימא שזהו איסור קבלת לשון הרע, ונהי דאי אפשר לו לנגוע בחבירו כמלא נימא על סמך שמועה, מ"מ בלבו מסתפק שמא השמועה נכונה, וקשה אפילו לצייר שחושש רק כדי לברר אבל באמת אין אצלו אפילו חשש, והלוא מדין חזקה גופא נשאר ספק רק הלכה לנהוג כמקודם, ומעולם לא נפסק בחזקה שגם בלב אסור להסתפק כלל, ועכ"פ יש כאן ספק במציאות והחזקת כשרות לא מכרעת על זה.

וכן ראיתי בספר "פאת שדך" (מהגר"ש מונק זצ"ל) ס" כ"ט מביא ששאל מהחזו"א זצ"ל והשיב "מי יכול לעמוד כזה אין זה אלא לומדות" וכוונתו כנ"ל שהרי אי אפשר לעמוד בזה ולא ניתנה תורה למלאכי השרת. ולכן נראה בכוונת הח"ח דכששומע לשה"ר הלוא טבע האדם הוא להאמין למספר ובפרט אם הוא אדם נאמן, ונעשה לו עכ"פ ספק גמור, ולזה דעת הקדוש החפץ חיים שצריך לידע שדין התורה הוא להעמיד כל אחד בחזקתו והרי הוא בחזקת כשרות, ורק הלכה היא שמותר לחשוש וכחששא לענין זהירות מדבר שעלול ליגרם לו נזק אם השמועה היתה נכונה, ומלבד זהירות זה . האיסור בתורת ודאי לספר לאחרים או לצערו וכדומה, וחששא זו שהותר בזה היא שלעצמו חושש שלא כדין חזקת כשרות, אלא כאילו כן האמת, אבל בלבו צריך לידע ברור שחזקתו בכשרות, ולכן סיפור הלשה"ר הוא שקר, ולא ניתנה התורה למלאכי השרת. וככל אופן מצווים אנו "בצדק תשפוט עמיתך" ללמד זכות כפי האפשר ואין גבול עד כמה אפשר ללמד זכות, וגם לצדד שההוא לא ראה בדקדוק או את כל הפרטים ולא סיפר או יודע כל הנסיבות וכו'.

ועיקר איסור קבלת לשק הרע הוא לאחר השמיעה - שלא ישתנה אצלו היחס לחבירו כלל, וליהוי כאילו לא שמע, שלגבי חבירו אינו חושש כלל, אף אם לעצמו אינו כמלאכי השרת שברור לו, וכמ"ש.

The "Dybuk from Brazil" admits it was a fraud

B'Chedrei Chareidim

הדיבוק מתקלף: "הכל היה בלוף אחד גדול
"

חודשים לאחר שטלטל את הארץ, מודה ה'דיבוק' ממקום מגוריו בברזיל: "הכל היה בלוף אחד גדול. למדתי שפות זרות בכדי להיראות אמין" • כעת הוא מבקש סליחה

Germany debates role of Muslims in society

NY Times

THIS quiet, orderly man, who lives in a quiet, orderly house, in a very quiet tree-lined neighborhood has caused a huge public stir here with his volatile book arguing that Muslim immigrants in Germany are socially, culturally and intellectually inferior to most everyone else.

With the certainty of an accountant adding up rows of numbers, Thilo Sarrazin has delivered his conclusion in a book that has sold over one million copies, forced him to quit his job at the German central bank, may get him kicked out of his political party and for the first time since World War II made it socially acceptable in Germany to single out a particular minority for criticism. [...]

Arab-Americans: Detroit's Unlikely Saviors

Time Magazine

To disprove the charge that Detroit is in terminal decline, Nafa Khalaf offers himself as Exhibit A. In 1999, when he co-founded his business, which builds water systems and other public works, "people were saying the city was dying," Khalaf recalls. "They said, 'You shouldn't be doing business here.'" But since then, his firm, Detroit Contracting, has thrived and expanded. Employing 23 people, the company brings in more than $20 million a year in revenue. "And 90% of my business is in Detroit," he says triumphantly. "Does that sound like a dying city to you?"

When I remind Khalaf that his optimism flies in the face of the city's litany of problems — a shrinking population, chronic unemployment and overstretched services — my skepticism only encourages him to press on. What others see as an urban disaster zone, Khalaf views as a land of opportunity. The Motor City, he says, gave him chances that would have been inconceivable in his native Iraq. Khalaf went to Detroit's Wayne State University in 1986 to study engineering and was so impressed with the city that he never returned to his homeland. "You want to know if Detroit has a future? Ask us Arabs," Khalaf says. "We believe in this place." [...]

America provided self haven for Nazis & kept report on subject secret

NYTimes

A secret history of the United States government’s Nazi-hunting operation concludes that American intelligence officials created a “safe haven” in the United States for Nazis and their collaborators after World War II, and it details decades of clashes, often hidden, with other nations over war criminals here and abroad.

The 600-page report, which the Justice Department has tried to keep secret for four years, provides new evidence about more than two dozen of the most notorious Nazi cases of the last three decades. [...]

Dr. Oliver Sacks:Resiliency & compensation

NYTimes

Those whose familiarity with Oliver Sacks extends only to his vivid book titles — “The Island of the Color­blind,” “An Anthropologist on Mars,” “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” — may picture his writing as a gallery of grotesques, a parade of the exotically impaired. Sacks, a practicing neurologist, does specialize in case studies of highly unusual patients. But even as he entertains and diverts with his dramatic tales, Sacks has always been up to something else: he is gently educating us about the frailties and flaws — and the strengths and capacities — of “normal” people, those whose afflictions are of the most ordinary sort. You may never have confused your spouse for an item of outerwear, but have you ever failed to recognize the face of an acquaintance? Fumbled for a word that eluded your grasp? Read a sentence three times and still didn’t get it?

Such familiar slips, and how we handle them, are the stealth subjects of Sacks’ latest book. “The Mind’s Eye” is a collection of essays — some of which have already appeared in The New Yorker — but it has a remarkably graceful coherence of theme, tone and approach. Once again, Sacks explores our shared condition through a series of vivid characters: the woman who couldn’t talk, the man who couldn’t read, the “prosopagnosic” who couldn’t identify her own face in a photograph. (For those who wonder just how Sacks locates such people, it soon becomes clear that many of his patients find him, after recognizing themselves in his writing. They enter his care through the pages of his books, and in turn become characters in his next round of stories.) [...]

Leader should avoid justifying views with logical proofs or reasons

Meiri (Pesachim 66a): Whoever is appointed, as community leader should strive with all this strength to lead properly according to the position which has been given to him. If he is appointed to be the religious leader of his generation concerning Torah and divine issues, it is necessary that he be complete and erudite in all matters related to deciding halacha and that he knows how to reply to everyone who comes to challenge religion. However, if he recognizes in himself that he doesn’t have the abilities in these areas, it is praiseworthy that he should not be embarrassed to let go of his status and to give the position to one who is competent. … . However, even though a person is knowledgeable and can reply to every challenge, it is best not to rely entirely on logical proofs but rather on commonsense or tradition. That is because everything which is based simply on logical proofs provides an opening to refutation… Thus, the Yerushalmi says that even though Hillel spent the entire day providing logical derivations of the Halacha, his views were only accepted and he was appointed leader when he said that the Halacha was a tradition that he had learned from his teachers Shemaya and Avtalyon… Furthermore even though the leader is an expert and knows how to respond to all challenges and is accepted as the authority, he should not answer in a confrontational manner and act in a domineering way but should speak pleasantly and humbly. If he does act arrogantly, he will be punished and debased because of it.

A Careless Man: What the Bush Memoir Reveals

Time Magazine

Early on in his newly released memoir, George W. Bush writes with great credibility, and a welcome absence of histrionics, about his slow-motion turn toward faith. There was no fiery epiphany. There was a growing comfort with the calming release of prayer, a gradual appreciation of the moral truths contained in the Bible. There were doubts too. "If you haven't doubted, you probably haven't thought very hard about what you believe," he writes. And that principle is very much in evidence when he makes the first major decision of his presidency, in favor of federal funding for research on existing stem-cell lines but not for raiding frozen embryos — potential lives, he believes — to harvest their cells. To reach that decision, Bush conducted a White House seminar that included talks with advocates, brilliant ones, on all sides of the issue. "The conversations fascinated me," he writes. "The more I learned, the more questions I had." Whatever you think of his policy, the process was impeccable.

I mention this not only because it reveals Bush at his best but because it was so much at variance with the rest of his presidency. [...]

Rav Sternbuch's view on calling police

Consulting rabbi before calling social services or police

Excerpt of Synopsis read & corrected by Rav Sternbuch - as printed in Child & Domestic Abuse Vol I pages page 109-100

Despite the fact that the halacha is clear that a child molester should be reported to the police and in fact it is often required by secular law - the poskim generally state that a rabbi should be consulted first. It is obvious of course that if waiting to consult a rabbi results in danger or harm to the child - that the police should be informed without consulting a rabbi. In the normal case where there is time, however, why should it be necessary to consult a rabbi? Rav Sternbuch commented that where there are serious consequences of making a mistake - it is required that a rabbi be consulted for the sake of objectivity. Even if there is little chance of making a mistake, he said that a rabbi needs to be consulted “so the world should not be hefker (without structure and authority).”

In addition in this area besides the danger of misunderstanding information, there is also the possibility of false accusations. Students who want to settle a score with teachers or divorcing couples whose lawyers advise them to make false accusations to gain custody are a danger which a rabbi can help prevent. In most cases there is no danger to a child by consulting a rav first and if there is concern that there will be then the police should be contacted. It is always best to consult a rabbi who has a lot of experience in these matters and especially once who has close relations with mental health professions and government social agencies and the police. Even after consulting a psychologist or lawyer, a rabbi should still be consulted before going to the police. Not just because of the reasons already discussed, but also as protection against those who mistakenly consider all informing the police as being prohibited. These elements can not only harass those who go to the police but they can cause severe damage to them by their slander and criticism of the entire family.

Rejecting a rabbis psak when he says not to go to the police

One frequently encountered problem is when there is clear evidence of child abuse and yet the rabbi consulted says not to go to the police. He might say that the molester promised never to do it again or that the molester’s family or community or yeshiva might suffer significant financial losses or embarrassment. In other words if the rabbi is saying to sacrifice children for the sake of money or embarrassment or the disgrace to the community, it is clear however that this view has no basis in Jewish law. We don’t sacrifice innocent people for the sake of negative consequences to others. Rav Moshe Sternbuch commented that that any rav who would say such a thing is not practicing as a rav. A rabbi has an obligation to provide protection to the victim. By definition it seems it is an unjust ruling. Any rabbi who makes such a ruling may be ignorant of either the halacha or he doesn’t understand what the molesting or wife abuse causes. Therefore if there is time - another rabbi should be consulted.

However an alternative reason that a rabbi might say not to report the molester is that he feels he can guarantee protection for children against the molester. For example he might threaten the molester with a severe beating or provides supervision or he claims the molester has repented and won’t abuse again. He might also claim he can provide therapy equal or better to a psychologist. While these seem to be logically equivalent to the police, the likelihood that they will be effective is not very high. Therefore one should find a competent rabbi who agrees that the police should be informed in the case of actual abuse. Rav Sternbuch commented that only a known talmid chachom posek can posken these problems.

Rav Sternbuch: Part of his comments & corrections (printed in Volume I)

Proficiency of Black Students Is Found to Be Far Lower Than Expected

New York Times

An achievement gap separating black from white students has long been documented — a social divide extremely vexing to policy makers and the target of one blast of school reform after another.

But a new report focusing on black males suggests that the picture is even bleaker than generally known.

Only 12 percent of black fourth-grade boys are proficient in reading, compared with 38 percent of white boys, and only 12 percent of black eighth-grade boys are proficient in math, compared with 44 percent of white boys.

Poverty alone does not seem to explain the differences: poor white boys do just as well as African-American boys who do not live in poverty, measured by whether they qualify for subsidized school lunches. [...]

Choosing a nice death

NYTimes

THERE is some confusion about the cause of the liver disease that has given Fred Kress a short time to live. The 46-year-old handyman and house painter, who lives outside of Baltimore, had had hepatitis C, which causes liver damage, for several years. Doctors at one point suggested that alcohol abuse may have been a contributing factor, which makes no sense, Mr. Kress and his family say, because he was never much of a drinker. The real culprit, he now believes, was chemical: he didn’t wear the right mask when he was painting houses, and when he did his craft projects, making alien masks out of fiberglass resin, he worked in a small, windowless room, ignoring all the warning labels on the supplies he used.

“It said ‘will’ — not ‘can’ — cause liver and kidney damage,” Mr. Kress said. “My liver was completely fried.”

Even before he became sick, however, his life was no bed of roses. He had had a 20-year love-hate relationship with a girlfriend and was living, at the time of his diagnosis, with his widowed mother. His 17-year-old daughter has Rett syndrome, an autismlike disease that has left her unable to speak. And the day last February when his doctors told him he had no more than a year to live, his girlfriend and his best friend hooked up. [...]

Rav Sternbuch: Bringing up twins

A Positive Force: Mishpacha Magazine

Rationalist Judaism

[...] Beneath the black hat, Mishpachah is part of a revolution in charedi society. They print articles from Jonathan Rosenblum about how the Gedolim are manipulated by kanna'im to do harmful things, and about how the desire to have young men supported in kollel has led to money being the most important factor in shidduchim. They feature interviews with all kinds of people who would never be profiled in Yated or HaModia (although I'm not expecting them to feature me ever again!) The Hebrew edition of Mishpachah recently discussed, very positively, all the new programs to help charedim enter the workforce. Furious condemnations from the Gedolim followed, after which Mishpachah offered a profuse apology. But a wise friend of mine reckoned that they knew in advance that they would have to do this, but felt that it was worthwhile in order to get the information out there.[...]

Rapper Finds Order in Orthodox Judaism in Israel

NYTimes

The tall man in the velvet fedora and knee-length black jacket with ritual fringes peeking out takes long, swift strides toward the Western Wall. It’s late in the day, and he does not want to miss afternoon prayers at Judaism’s holiest site.

“We have to get there before the sun goes down,” he says, his stare fixed behind a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses, the first clue that this is no ordinary Jerusalem man of God. It’s the rapper Shyne, the Sean Combs protégé who served almost nine years in New York prisons for opening fire in a nightclub in 1999 during an evening out with Mr. Combs and his girlfriend at the time, Jennifer Lopez. [...]

Pledge to Give Away half of fortunes Stirs Debate

NYTimes

WITHOUT a doubt, the biggest event in philanthropy this year was the Giving Pledge, a commitment by 40 of the wealthiest Americans to give away at least half of their fortunes, about $600 billion.

The goals of the pledge, which was organized by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren E. Buffett, were to stimulate discussion about philanthropy among the ultrawealthy and unleash a wave of me-tooism among others that would bring about “the Second Great Wave of Philanthropy,” in the words of Sean Stannard-Stockton, a blogger and philanthropic consultant.

Now, about three months later, the pledge has not yet visibly inspired new major gifts or attracted additional signatures — Mr. Buffett said he expected more soon — but has surely created discussion and debate, about the wealthy, their giving and what it says about our society. [...]

PTSD - playing Tetris might protect against stress syndrome

CNN

The rapid-fire visual puzzles that make Tetris so engrossing may also make the video game a promising treatment for post-traumatic stress, a new study suggests.

Recurring, intrusive thoughts of a traumatic event (or events) are one of the hallmark symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a type of anxiety disorder. According to the study, which appears in the journal PLoS ONE, playing Tetris soon after a traumatic experience appears to protect against these flashbacks, by distracting the brain from the event and short-circuiting how upsetting memories and images are stored.

Not just any video game will do. Notably, the study found that games that rely on trivia or language skills don't appear to have the same therapeutic effect as stacking Tetris blocks, probably because they activate different areas of the brain.[...]

American "Terrorist" in Peru

Time Magazine

Lori Berenson, the American woman arrested on terrorism charges in Peru 15 years ago, should be happy. A judge accepted her petition for parole late last week and she was released from prison early Monday evening. She is living in a rented apartment in Miraflores, an upscale apartment in Lima, Peru's capital, has her 18-month-old son, Salvador, by her side, and her mother is in town from New York to help her settle in.[...]

Hush: A new young-adult novel tackles sexual abuse in the ultra-Orthodox world

Tablet

Hush, a young adult novel by the pseudonymous Eishes Chayil (the pen name is a Yiddish-inflected version of eishet chayil, which means “a woman of valor”), received starred reviews from the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books and the notoriously hard-to-please Kirkus Reviews. Booklist called it a “stunning debut” and “powerful stuff.” School Library Journal called it “thoughtful, disturbing and insightful.”

So, why hadn’t I heard of it?

A librarian who reads Tablet Magazine alerted me to its existence, saying she hadn’t seen anything about it in the Jewish press. Indeed, a Google search finds only a snotty thread (based on Amazon’s description rather than on the book itself) on an ultra-Orthodox-run discussion board called Hashkafah, and a rave review on the blog The Velveteen Rabbi (written by a female rabbinical student in the Jewish Renewal tradition). That’s it.[...]

Buy Child & Domestic Abuse Volume I & II directly from Amazon

Buy Child & Domestic Abuse book directly from Amazon

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Teacher evaluation controversy

New York Times

Colleagues of Rigoberto Ruelas were alarmed when he failed to show up for work one day in September. They described him as a devoted teacher who tutored students before school, stayed with them after and, on weekends, took students from his South Los Angeles elementary school to the beach.

When his body was found in a ravine in the Angeles National Forest, and the coroner ruled it a suicide, Mr. Ruelas’s death became a flash point, drawing the city’s largest newspaper into the middle of the debate over reforming the nation’s second-largest school district.
a
When The Los Angeles Times released a database of “value-added analysis” of every teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District in August, Mr. Ruelas was rated “less effective than average.” Colleagues said he became noticeably depressed, and family members have guessed that the rating contributed to his death.

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Daas Torah Blog

R' Shmuely Boteach claims: Chabad is Judaism

JPost

[...] WITNESSING THE fulfillment of that promise at the conference was an awakening. Chabad is no longer merely a Jewish movement. It is Judaism. I find it astonishing that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu flew in to attend the Jewish federations’ annual General Assembly but bypassed the Chabad conference. If an Israeli prime minister wants to be part of the unfolding of modern Jewish history, he has to address Chabad. No other organization even comes close to its global reach or grassroots impact. And it is growing exponentially.[...]

Outrageous revisionism:UN declares Rachel's Tomb - a mosque

JPost

On October 21, UNESCO (the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) declared that Rachel’s Tomb near Jerusalem is the Bilal ibn Rabah mosque – endorsing a Palestinian claim that first surfaced only in 1996 and which ignores centuries of Muslim tradition.

In a series of decisions condemning Israel, the UNESCO board called upon the government to rescind its decision in February to include Rachel’s Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron on Israel’s official list of national heritage sites. The sharp protests by Ambassador to UNESCO Nimrod Barkan to the UN body’s decision were expunged from the record by the chairman of the session, the Russian representative, on the pretext that they were too aggressive.

A scrupulous examination of testimonies and historical sources demonstrates that defining Rachel’s Tomb as a mosque does an injustice to facts and traditions anchored in both Muslim documents and Jewish sources, and constitutes distortion, bias and deception. As opposed to the Temple Mount and the Cave of the Patriarchs, which also serve as the location of mosques, Rachel’s Tomb never served as a mosque for the Muslims. The Muslim connection to the site derives from its relation to Rachel and has no connection to Bilal ibn Rabah, Muhammad’s first muezzin.

Kindness of a Stranger That Still Resonates

New York Times

The event was a reunion for people who were never supposed to meet, commemorating an act of charity that succeeded because it happened in secret.

Helen Palm sat in her wheelchair on the stage of the Palace Theater and read her plea for help, the one she wrote in the depths of the Great Depression to an anonymous stranger who called himself B. Virdot.

“I am writing this because I need clothing,” Ms. Palm, 90, read aloud on Friday evening. “And sometimes we run out of food.”

Ms. Palm was one of hundreds who responded to an advertisement that appeared Dec. 17, 1933, in The Canton Repository newspaper. A donor using the pseudonym B. Virdot offered modest cash gifts to families in need. His only request: Letters from the struggling people describing their financial troubles and how they hoped to spend the money. The donor promised to keep letter writers’ identities secret “until the very end.” [...]

Gender identity:New crises on college campus

CNN

When Kevin Murphy entered as a freshman at Mount Holyoke, a Massachusetts women's college, in 2003, he was female. By the time he received his diploma, he was male.

Phillip Hudson, who attended Morehouse, an all-male historically black college in Georgia, calls himself androgynous, meaning he doesn't identify with masculine or feminine identity norms.
The two men represent a debate that is brewing at some of the nation's same-sex colleges. For these colleges, which have historically defied boundaries and challenged the status quo, a new test of tolerance has surfaced: How are they handling gender identity?

Defining gender on same-sex campuses has become murky as some students say they fall outside the conventional male-female gender binary. More schools are encountering complicated cases where not all students at men's colleges identify as male and not all students at women's colleges identify as female. [...]

Afghanistan:Suicide is escape from abuse

New York Times

Even the poorest families in Afghanistan have matches and cooking fuel. The combination usually sustains life. But it also can be the makings of a horrifying escape: from poverty, from forced marriages, from the abuse and despondency that can be the fate of Afghan women.

The night before she burned herself, Gul Zada took her children to her sister’s for a family party. All seemed well. Later it emerged that she had not brought a present, and a relative had chided her for it, said her son Juma Gul. [...]

Israel facing a crisis with African illegal immigrants

YNET

As masses of refugees continue to make there way to Israel via the Egyptian border, Knesset Member Yaakov Katz (National Union) warned Monday that within a few years there would be over 100,000 African immigrants in the Jewish state.

Speaking at a foreign worker analysis committee meeting, Katz added that "the number of infiltrators will only rise, just as we said it would last year. The thousands of residences needed to house the infiltrators must be added to the already problematic real estate shortage. [...]

Child & Domestic Abuse book: So who needs it?

  Moshe wrote:


Can you please tell me what your book is about. I mean we all know that these thing are not allowed. Anything other than 'normal' is frowned upon. Will you be giving heterim? or expanding on the issur. Is it really necessary for men (or women) to know about all these things that they exist. And if they know already what will your book be teaching them. Will someone who already 'indulges' in these practices be likely to read your book? Surely the frum world whom you are trying to sell it to through their bookstores have no need of it!

Online classes - the future of education?

New York Times

Like most other undergraduates, Anish Patel likes to sleep in. Even though his Principles of Microeconomics class at 9:35 a.m. is just a five-minute stroll from his dorm, he would rather flip open his laptop in his room to watch the lecture, streamed live over the campus network.

On a recent morning, as Mr. Patel’s two roommates slept with covers pulled tightly over their heads, he sat at his desk taking notes on Prof. Mark Rush’s explanation of the term “perfect competition.” A camera zoomed in for a close-up of the blackboard, where Dr. Rush scribbled in chalk, “lots of firms and lots of buyers.” [...]

Child & Domestic Abuse - Amazon availability

It will take between a day to two weeks for my books to appear on
Amazon. When they do then free 5-8 business day shipping will also be
available from Amazon. They are available now on the Amazon company
Createspace links that I have provided.