Religious observance vs. campus temptations

JPost wrote:

They're young, intelligent, good-looking and single - and their libidos are at a peak. They meet others like themselves on campus, in class, in the cafeteria and during activities held by the students' unions. Sometimes the result is just flirtation, but sometimes it goes farther.

Life on the campuses of the nation's colleges and universities is not just about scholarship and book-knowledge. For some secular-minded students, free sex is a rite of passage, a phase in one's development. But for an increasing number of religious youths, the encounter with the secular world results in culture shock that can totally undermine a religious world-view still in its formative stages.

"My rabbis warned me before I went to learn in university," said one religious female student. "They told me that the lecturers and professor there teach apostasy and ideas that contradict religious faith.

"I've been at university for two years and have never been taught ideas subversive to my faith. Nevertheless, my [level of observance] has plummeted. The danger is not in the classroom; it is during the breaks, around campus, on the lawn, in the coffee shop. The atmosphere here is very secular. And it is very tempting."

This religious student's testimony is one of several quoted by Yona Goodman, a veteran religious Zionist educator, in a controversial article entitled "Culture Shock." The article, which appeared in the recent edition of Tzohar, an influential periodical written by and for religious Zionist rabbis, has aroused a flurry of interest and controversy in modern Orthodox circles.[...]

R' Tendler & Temple Mount

Lashon HaRah - saves life /Tzitz Eliezer

Tzitz Eliezer(15:13.1): Question: A doctor discovered that his patient has defective vision which can cause him to have auto accidents when driving under certain circumstances – such as under the conditions of his job or at night….The patient doesn’t want to stop driving or to change his job. Is the doctor obligated to keep this confidential or is he obligated to notify the appropriate agency (whether governmental or his employer) concerning this matter? It is likely that this information will cause his patient economic damage or his interaction with society. What if the patient asks him to keep this confidential and he promises to stop from driving under the dangerous circumstances – but the doctor is not convinced that he can be believed to stop driving? Answer: There is no question that the doctor is obligated to notify the appropriate governmental agency or employer so that they can have the patient drive within his limitation. Even if the patient requests the doctor to keep his illness a secret and promises to stop driving… As long as the doctor is not convinced that he will do so – he is obligated to notify the agencies. It is also not only obvious that if the doctor is summoned to testify concerning this that he must go and testify. [Furthermore his oath as a doctor to keep medical information secret does not apply to these cases nor does a private oath to the patient. That is because it would mean that he is taking an oath to nullify a mitzva and thus it is simply invalid. His oath as a doctor shouldn’t apply to information which if it is withheld would constitute a crime. (All this is discussed in greater detail in Tzitz Eliezer 3:81 part 2 and 3.)]. But even if he was not summoned he is still obligated to take the initiative to inform the appropriate agencies because otherwise the patient might be a danger to the lives of others. If the doctor refrains from notifying the agencies than he has transgressed the Torah command of “not standing by the blood of your fellow.” Therefore the doctor should not take into consideration that his act of informing might cause economic or social damage. That is because nothing stands in the way of saving life (pikuach nefesh). I want to add to this what I found in the Pischei Teshuva (O.C. 156): “And I want to comment on the issue that all the mussar books make a big deal about speaking lashon harah, but I want to make a big deal about the opposite. That is the greater and more common sin of refraining from speaking lashon harah when it is needed to save a person from harm …” These words express much clearer and forcefully what I have been saying. The Pischei Teshuva notes that a person’s intent should not be to harm the person he is speaking about but rather for the benefit of the person he is telling and others that he is saving from harm. Because by focusing on helping he fulfills a great inestimable mitzva. I also found a similar case in the Chelkas Yaakov (3:136) concerning a young man who the doctor found had cancer. The young man and his family didn’t know about it at all. The man was engaged to marry a young woman. His question was whether the doctor was obligated to reveal the sickness to his fiancée as well as well as the fact that he only had at most one or two years to live. It was obvious that if she found out this information she would not marry him. The Chelkas Yaakov replied that the doctor was obligated to inform the fiancée because the main halacha issue is that the doctor should not violate the mitzva of “not standing by the blood of your fellow.” He based his psak on the Rambam (Hilchos Rotzeach 1:14) and Shulchan Aruch (C.M. 426)…. So surely this is true in our case where the matter might cause actual danger to the lives of others. So there is absolutely no question that if the doctor does not reveal the information to the appropriate agencies now, he will be transgressing by this withholding - of the prohibition of “not standing by the blood of your fellow.” Therefore it is absolutely permitted for the doctor and also is clearly obligatory for him to notify the appropriate government agency or employer concerning the limitation of his patients vision.

Abuse - Molesters and jail time

David Mandel (Director of Ohel) in the September 2007 Jewish Observer

That most perpetrators do not go to jail is not a Jewish phenomenon. Former Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro was noted for her aggressive pursuit of pedophiles. In six years of sting operations, 1999-2005, she succeeded in the arrests of 111 men with a 100% conviction rate. The overwhelming majority received probation with only eight perpetrators sentenced to jail (New York Times, 10.13.06).

However that New York Times article noted that Pirro's conviction rate was inflated by plea bargaining which minimizes the likelihood of going to jail. Other district attorneys had a higher rate of prison sentences

While Ms. Pirro’s press releases repeatedly pointed out that the crimes were felonies punishable by up to four years in state prison for each count, a review of the cases shows that the overwhelming majority of people received sentences that let them avoid extensive jail time.

In most nearby counties, prosecutors have had a higher rate of felony convictions in similar cases, because Ms. Pirro allowed nearly one in five defendants to plead down from felonies to misdemeanors, according to prosecutors’ statistics.

Only eight of the men prosecuted by Ms. Pirro were given outright prison sentences by judges, according to records from the district attorney’s office. The rest, 93 percent, received some form of probation. “In many cases, we asked for jail time and didn’t get it,” Ms. Pirro said.

According to Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for the current Westchester district attorney, Janet DiFiore, who has continued the sting program, 54 people indicted in the operation under Ms. Pirro received only probation, generally of five years. Mr. Chalfen said 46 others received so-called shock probation, which called for weekends behind bars.

Two cases went to trial. Both defendants were convicted, but one conviction was overturned on appeal, and the other will be appealed on similar grounds.[...]

Other district attorneys’ offices in counties of comparable size, like Nassau, as well as in larger ones, like Manhattan and Brooklyn, that have prosecuted Internet sex crimes involving the same statute that Ms. Pirro’s office used — attempting to disseminate indecent material to a minor — seem more resistant to bargaining with defendants.

The Nassau County district attorney, Kathleen Rice, said that of the 40 individuals charged by her office since 2001 for trying to sexually entice minors over the Internet, 34 pleaded guilty to the initial felony charge and only one pleaded to a lesser count, harassment. Of the others, one was found guilty, one died and three cases are pending.

“When we have someone arrested on the top count, my general position is, absolutely no pleas,” Ms. Rice said.

Of the 49 people indicted on the felony charge of attempting to disseminate indecent material to a minor in Manhattan between July 1999 and the end of 2005, all but three were convicted on that charge, said Barbara Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau. [...]

Rav Moshe Sternbuch, Economic crisis

Published in Yated Ne'eman

No greater happiness than resolving uncertainty

NYTimes

Seventy-six years ago, Franklin Delano Roosevelt took to the inaugural dais and reminded a nation that its recent troubles “concern, thank God, only material things.” In the midst of the Depression, he urged Americans to remember that “happiness lies not in the mere possession of money” and to recognize “the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success.”

“The only thing we have to fear,” he claimed, “is fear itself.”

As it turned out, Americans had a great deal more to fear than that, and their innocent belief that money buys happiness was entirely correct. Psychologists and economists now know that although the very rich are no happier than the merely rich, for the other 99 percent of us, happiness is greatly enhanced by a few quaint assets, like shelter, sustenance and security. Those who think the material is immaterial have probably never stood in a breadline. [...]

Our national gloom is real enough, but it isn’t a matter of insufficient funds. It’s a matter of insufficient certainty. Americans have been perfectly happy with far less wealth than most of us have now, and we could quickly become those Americans again — if only we knew we had to.

Deprogramming terrorists

Haaretz

Professor Arie Kruglanski, co-director of the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism at the University of Maryland, has interviewed Islamic fundamentalist terrorists in jails in the Philippines and Singapore, among them prisoners who had planned attacks on Israeli embassies. "It's not enough to lock them up in order to punish them," he says. "One should, and can, persuade them to rehabilitate."

Kruglanski, a cognitive social psychologist, has been working with several other researchers from the University of Maryland on a new study financed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The research is aimed to help the administration cope with Muslim detainees who have adhered to the global Jihad ideology; Homeland Security has earmarked $12 million for the project.

The researchers interviewed terrorists of the Abu Sayyaf group and the Moro Liberation Front, both based in the Philippines, as well as the Southeast Asian group Jamaa Islamiya, but have not been allowed to meet the Al-Qaida and Afghani detainees held in Guantanamo - the prison the new U.S. administration is seeking to shut down.

"We are trying to understand," says Kruglanski, "what would persuade detained terrorists to desist from returning to violence." He says initial results indicate at least two primary motives that might cause what is called 'de-radicalization.' One group of motives is intellectual-cognitive and the other is emotional. "On the intellectual-cognitive level, we try to present theological arguments that they might accept. We try to convince them Islam is a religion that forbids harming innocent people. This approach is more effective when you speak with terrorist leaders who possess religious authority. However, in order to persuade them, you have to bring in senior religious personalities whose authority they will accept. You can call it a theological battle of the minds."

This method proved itself, especially in Egypt. Over the past decade, the Egyptian authorities succeeded in convincing Muslim militant groups such as Jamaa Islamiya and the Jihadists to abandon the armed struggle. Those authorities managed to do so with the help of distinguished religious leaders from the Al-Azhar University, who held long meetings with senior leaders from those two terror organizations. After the terrorist leaders were convinced - through the help of theological arguments - they published articles, books and manifests, calling upon their followers to cease terror and violence, and concentrate on political activity and religious studies only.

The second method used to rehabilitate terrorists has been appealing to their emotions. "Terrorists tire in jails," says Kruglanski, "and this opens the door to offer them an alternative. For that you need, of course, to treat their families fairly, and teach them [the reformed terrorists] a profession with which they could make a living and be absorbed into society once they are released from jail."  [...]