Halachasizing of lashon harah: Mussar principles versus halachic rules:

The following post on Hirhurim has a link to Dr. Benny Brown's paper regarding the transformation of lashon harah - but it applies also to other matters. As affirmation of his basic thesis - my son told me that the Rosh Yeshiva of Slobodka Yeshiva in Bnei Brak told him that the Chazon Ish had said, "Lashon Harah is not a complicated topic. All one needed to remember was not to use speech to hurt others."

 This is also reflected in Rav Sternbuch's teshuva regarding a principal's refusal to listen to lashon harah regarding child abuse as well as the Rav Chaim Ozer's refusal to sign the Chofetz Chaim's pledge never to speak lashon harah.


Hirhurim

Audio Roundup CXXXIX
March 31, 2011

by Joel Rich

Dr. Benny Brown’s paper (pdf link fixed) concerning the Chofetz Chaim’s “halachasizing” approach to lashon hara resonated with some of my lay person’s musings on the subject. My Hirhurim comment prior to reading the paper was “llimud v’lo lmaaseh I always go back to the same question – why was there no real compendium on lashon hara rules until the C”C?

Increased awareness of sexual abuse amongst Orthodox women

Haaretz

Last Wednesday, the day after former President Moshe Katsav was sentenced, Tirza Frenkel, vice-principal of Tehilla, a state-religious girls' high school in Jerusalem, was planning to discuss the case in her 12th-grade civics class. But even earlier, she says, students stopped her in the hall and asked her to address the matter.

Frenkel has a reputation at the school for devoting a lot of attention to sexual abuse, in general, and to the Moshe Katsav affair in particular. The issue preoccupied students throughout the trial (which began in the summer of 2009 ), she says, and discussions were held in classrooms at high points in the proceedings, such as after the verdict.

"I used the case in civics classes to describe court proceedings, to explain what a plea bargain is and why Katsav turned it down - and to discuss sexual abuse," Frenkel says. "In Orthodox parlance, we talk about how every woman was created in the divine image, and therefore has a right to her body and must not be violated."

She told her students that "the personal message to all of you is that you has the right to safeguard your body and to do with it as you see fit, and nobody has the right to demand anything else." [...]

Paying for dialysis when it doesn't prolong life?

NYTimes

Of all the terrible chronic diseases, only one — end-stage kidney disease — gets special treatment by the federal government. A law passed by Congress 39 years ago provides nearly free care to almost all patients whose kidneys have failed, regardless of their age or ability to pay.

But the law has had unintended consequences, kidney experts say. It was meant to keep young and middle-aged people alive and productive. Instead, many of the patients who take advantage of the law are old and have other medical problems, often suffering through dialysis as a replacement for their failed kidneys but not living long because the other chronic diseases kill them.

Kidney specialists are pushing doctors to be more forthright with elderly people who have other serious medical conditions, to tell the patients that even though they are entitled to dialysis, they may want to decline such treatment and enter a hospice instead. In the end, it is always the patient’s choice.

One idea, promoted by leading specialists, is to change the way doctors refer to the decision to forgo dialysis. Instead of saying that a patient is withdrawing from dialysis or agreeing not to start it, these specialists say the patient has chosen “medical management without dialysis.” [...]

Does major change always require causing a stink?

Just had a discussion regarding the tactics to use in bringing about change in a community. Can one act with derech eretz and a concern with truth or is the only effective way to be rude and abrasive and to have a blatant disregard of truth? The point of contention are the views of Saul Alinsky.


NYTimes

Saul Alinsky, the Chicago activist and writer whose street-smart tactics influenced generations of community organizers, most famously the current president, could not have been more clear about which side he was on. In his 1971 text, “Rules for Radicals,” Mr. Alinsky, who died in 1972, explains his purpose: “What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. ‘The Prince’ was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. ‘Rules for Radicals’ is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.” [...]

Make yourself look as big and scary as possible:

For an elementary illustration of tactics, take parts of your face as the point of reference; your eyes, your ears, and your nose. First the eyes; if you have organized a vast, mass-based people’s organization, you can parade it visibly before the enemy and openly show your power. Second the ears; if your organization is small in numbers, then do what Gideon did: conceal the members in the dark but raise a din and clamor that will make the listener believe that your organization numbers many more than it does. Third, the nose; if your organization is too tiny even for noise, stink up the place.

Abuse: Yosef Kolko case - Should beis din's social worker have to testify?

APP

A former yeshiva teacher and camp counselor spoke in detail about sexual abuse accusations against him to a social worker hired by a rabbinical council months before the case was brought to law enforcement, according to testimony in Superior Court Wednesday.

Now, an assistant prosecutor wants the social worker to be able to testify against the teacher, Yosef Kolko, at upcoming criminal proceedings regarding accusations that he molested a boy he met while a camp counselor.

Kolko's attorney, Michael E. Wilbert, argues that his client, as a patient, is entitled to confidentiality.

Sexual abuse case sheds light on Emmanuel’s ethnic tensions

JPost

A sexual abuse case recently made public is shedding some new light on the development of the ethnic tensions that exploded in Emmanuel last year.

Channel 2 reported on Monday that the principal of Emmanuel's Ashkenazi elementary school for boys, Rabbi Moshe Nussboim, is currently on trial behind closed doors in the Kfar Saba Magistrate's Court on suspicion of sexually abusing three boys from Sephardi families in his school between the years 2002-2008.

The Emmanuel affair took off in 2007, when a partition was erected in the middle of the local Beit Ya'acov girls' school building to separate between girls in a "hassidic track," composed of primarily Slonimer Hassidim, and the rest of the girls.

A High Court petition by Yoav Laloum and his Noar Kahalacha NGO charging ethnic discrimination led to the court ordering that the wall be taken down, and the Independent Education Center, which runs the school, obeyed.[....]

4 Palestinians falsely accused of raping 11-year-old

YNET

Police released four Palestinians residing illegally in Israel, who were arrested Tuesday on suspicion that they had raped an 11-year old Israeli boy, when it turned out the latter had been lying.

The four men denied the allegations from the first, prompting police investigators to question the boy again before a scheduled lineup. During the second round of questioning, the boy admitted that some of the claims he had made were false, and also supplied a different description of the men