Chareidi Thought Police - "adaptation" is a dangerous word

The following indignant letter was published by Binah (Between) Magazine (February 25). Not sure which was worse - the letter demanding the avoidance of the word "adaptation" because it implies Evolution chas v'shalom - or the apologetic tone of the editor promising to be more careful in the future. 

Dear Binah Between,

I was surprised and disappointed when I read the following sentence, found in issue 317's Binah Between, regarding tropical rainforests, "lt's pretty shady down here, so plants adapt by growing long leaves to snatch whatever sunlight filters through..." Using the word "adapt'' in this manner connotes a concept contrary to that of ma'aseh bereishis, when all plant life was fashioned in the precise form necessary to support optimal existence by the Borei Olom Himself.

I think that I represent the majority, if not all, of your varied readership when I kindly request that you take more care to present our children with reading material which will benefit not only their minds, but their neshamos as well.

Thank you !
Sora Rivkah Daina
Modiin lllit, lsrael

Editors response:

Dear Mrs. Daina,
Of course during ma'aseh bereishis everything was created for optimal existence; the word adapt in this instance is merely indicating that during ma'aseh bereishis, the plant was created in a way that it would be able to adapt to whatever sunlight it was exposed to, at different times. There was no intention of minimizing Hashem's Creations, chas v'sholom.

We will be more careful with our wording in the future.

========================

Update: The fact is that biological adaptation is an accepted fact in the gemora

Shabbos (31a):Our Rabbis taught: A man should always be gentle like Hillel, and not impatient like Shammai. It once happened that two men made a wager with each other, saying, He who goes and makes Hillel angry shall receive four hundred zuz. Said one, ‘I will go and incense him.’ That day was the Sabbath eve, and Hillel was washing his head. He went, passed by the door of his house, and called out, ‘Is Hillel here, is Hillel here?’ Thereupon he robed and went out to him, saying, ‘My son, what do you require?’ ‘I have a question to ask,’ said he. ‘Ask, my son,’ he prompted. Thereupon he asked: ‘Why are the heads of the Babylonians round? ‘My son, you have asked a great question,’ replied he: ‘because they have no skillful midwives.’ He departed, tarried a while, returned, and called out, ‘Is Hillel here; is Hillel here?’ He robed and went out to him, saying, ‘My son, what do you require?’ ‘I have a question to ask,’ said he. ‘Ask, my son,’ he prompted. Thereupon he asked: ‘Why are the eyes of the Palmyreans bleared?’ ‘My son, you have asked a great question, replied he: ‘because they live in sandy places.’ He departed, tarried a while, returned, and called out, ‘Is Hillel here; is Hillel here?’ He robed and went out to him, saying, ‘My son, what do you require?’ ‘I have a question to ask,’ said he. ‘Ask, my son,’ he prompted. He asked, ‘Why are the feet of the Africans [negroes] wide?’ ‘My son, you have asked a great question,’ said he; ‘because they live in watery marshes.’ ‘I have many questions to ask,’ said he, ‘but fear that you may become angry.’ Thereupon he robed, sat before him and said, ‘Ask all the questions you have to ask,’ ‘Are you the Hillel who is called the nasi of Israel?’ ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘If that is you,’ he retorted, may there not be many like you in Israel. ‘ ‘ Why, my son?’ queried he. ‘Because I have lost four hundred zuz through you,’ complained he. ‘Be careful of your moods,’ he answered. ‘Hillel is worth it that you should lose four hundred zuz and yet another four hundred zuz through him, yet Hillel shall not lose his temper.’

Nursing home refuses to do CPR on sick residents

Plague of 30 million Locusts hits Egypt

YNet   A plague of locusts descended Saturday on agricultural farms in Giza and on Cairo. Egyptian Agricultural Minister Salah Abad Almoman said the swarm is comprised of an estimated 30 million insects and was causing great damage.  n Cairo, residents burned tires to create a black fog to keep the locusts from settling in the city. Swarms were also reported to have reached Egypt's Red Sea city of Zafarana, some 200 kilometers (124 miles) from Cairo, and then the Upper Egyptian city of Qena where locusts appeared in at least three major villages.

Boro Park: Man attempts to grab 10 year old girl

NY Post   A man was arrested for trying to lure a 10-year-old girl into his car in Brooklyn, cops said today.

Chaim Fried, 53, had parked his car at the corner of East Second Street and 18 Avenue in Borough Park at about 8:30 a.m. Thursday when he grabbed the girl's arm and told her, "Come with me!" sources said.

The girl pushed him off and broke free.

He tried the same trick on Friday morning at the same location. But this time, police were waiting and put him under arrest.

Fried was charged yesterday with attempted kidnapping, attempted unlawful imprisonment and reckless endangerment of a child.

Family of judge suspected of child abuse says accusations a lie

YNet    The family of the judge accused of alleged child abuse commented on the allegations for the first time Saturday, saying that the accusations were "a lie."

In a statement released by the family's media advisor, they said: "We were shocked to see and hear that someone has pronounced the judge's verdict without having a shred of information on the case and while leaning on warped, harmful and inaccurate information."  

They stressed that the judge was never ordered to undergo counseling or treatment for violence, that Social Services never visited his home and that he sought counseling on his own accord.

The judge's media advisor claimed in his statement that "His children are presently supporting him and want what is best for him," and that since the children have been under joint custody, "They have never refused to visit their father's home. The opposite is true. The children want and asked to go to their father's home even more than what was stipulated as the visitation hours, and so it was."

Last week and nearly three years after the complaint in the matter was filed,  Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein ruled that the police investigate the suspected judge. The decision was made following a long delay and solely as a result of public criticism. [...]

Beitar - Parents reported abuse & son has no school

Kikar Shabbat

לפני כעשרה ימים עצרה המשטרה את ישראל מלאכי בניאס, מלמד בעיר החרדית בית"ר עילית, בחשד שלכאורה התעלל ותקף באכזריות מספר רב של ילדים בכיתה בה לימד בשנים האחרונות.

בין המתלוננים נמצאים הורים לילד חרדי בן 9, שעל פי החשד גם הוא עבר מסכת התעללות קשה על ידי בניאס, לדברי ההורים, בעקבות התלונה במשטרה שהגישו, עברו מסע התנכלויות בקהילה. 

בראיון לעופר חדד בחדשות 2 שיחזרו ההורים את הרגע בו גילו שהילד עבר את המתקפה הקשה: "הילד התחיל לקשקש על הידיים, לעשות דברים מוזרים, ואני פשוט לקחתי אותו לחדר ודובבתי אותו. אמרתי לו- אתה מכיר 'מלמד' בשם ישראל מלאכי?, אז הוא אמר לי 'אמא, הוא רשע', אמרתי לו- מה הוא עשה לך?, הוא אמר לי- הוא לקח אותי...", בשלב זה האמא לא הצליחה להמשיך לדבר ופרצה בבכי.

מסכת היסורים הקשה שעבר הילד ומשפחתו לא מסתיימת בזה, לדבריהם: "ידענו את המפקח ואת המנהל, התגובה שלו הייתה מאוד חריפה, 'מה פתאום תיקחו טיפולים לילד?', 'תלכו לרבנים, הרבנים יטפלו"'.

• עשו לייק לעמוד הפייסבוק של 'כיכר השבת' ותישארו מעודכנים

"הילד הולך לתלמוד תורה וחוזר, ואחרי זה יומיים הוא בבית סיפרה האם וטענה שהילד עבר מסע התנכלויות. "מה עכשיו? 'לא היה לי מחברת', 'לא היה לי מחק'" תירץ הילד את ההיעדרות מבית הספר.

לדברי האבא: "מנהל אגף החינוך בעיר אמר מפורש 'בגלל שהלכתם למשטרה אז אנחנו לא נטפל בילד הזה, תמודדו איתו לבד', הוא אומר 'איך אתם רוצים, איזה מנהל יקבל אותו?, הרי יש לו כתם, יש לו בעייה'".

Get given because of embarrassment is Get Me'usa

The UN vs. Israel: Is Israel the worst country in the world?

ORA to hold protest against Aharon Friedman in Washington

Stern is unfortunately misrepresenting the halacha as well as the facts in justifying another public demonstration against Aharon Friedman. His claim that Aharon Friedman's motivation is sadism is totally disgusting and simply a lie. I received an email request from the Roll Call reporter to present the other side. But she sent the email to me after it was Shabbos in Israel and she said she had to have an answer within a few hours to meet her deadline.
 Click this link [psak from dayanim of the beis din of Rav  Korelitz]
A Get given because of embarrassment of ORA's demonstrations is invalid - Get Me'usa 

 =====================

JPost   “We are rallying now to continue our efforts to convince Aharon Friedman to give Tamar Epstein a get,” Rabbi Jeremy Stern, the executive director of the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot, in charge of the demonstration, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

“His sadistic refusal to do so is in clear violation of Jewish Law and constitutes domestic abuse. He is an embarrassment to the Jewish community, and it is therefore incumbent upon us to stand together and state clearly that we will not tolerate this abuse in our midst.”

“[Friedman’s] recalcitrance is a form of domestic abuse,” Stern said.

Roll Call Rabbi Jeremy Stern, executive director for the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot, the organizer of Thursday’s protest, said get refusals are a form of abuse to Jewish women by their ex-husbands, who are usually seeking to extort alimony or pressure them into giving up custody of children.

Stern added that Thursday’s protest on Capitol Hill is ORA’s fourth against Friedman — previous protests were held at Friedman’s Silver Spring apartment in December 2010 and 2011, as well as at a conference Friedman spoke at in February 2012.

“Aharon Freidman is a pariah and not welcome in any of the synagogues in the area,” Stern said. “How he can call himself a religious Jew is beyond me. He is an embarrassment, we feel, for the Jewish community.”

Numerous reports attribute the dispute to a custody battle between Friedman and Epstein. Epstein moved with the couple’s daughter to Philadelphia following their separation, and a court denied Friedman’s request to have their daughter moved back to Maryland, where the couple lived while they were married and where Friedman still resides.

Although many prominent rabbis have come out against Friedman on the issue, the rabbinical court Shar Hamishpot issued an opinion in June 2012 siding with Friedman, saying Epstein “had no right to unilaterally relocate their daughter” to Philadelphia.

Importance of Praying that Weberman does Teshuva

Guest post by fordaas Torah

“Why is it important to pray that Nechemia Tzi ben Dina does a complete Teshuvah”

The Talmud teaches that Adam before he sinned spanned from the heavens to the earth and from one end of the world to the other.  This means that on some very real level this world is actually made up of one “Adam” that encompasses the entire world.

This "one-Adam-world" was given a job to do which is really very complicated.  And unfortunately he failed; he ate from the “Tree of Knowledge” while G-d explicitly told him not to.  So Hashem developed this plan where He split Adam's job into billions upon billions of pieces, assigning it to billions upon billions of people coming down into this universe at different intervals of history, each with their own sliver of this “huge cosmic task."

Thus, while we all should be fully invested in working on our own unique mission, we must also remember that in the end we each are dependent on one another to reach our final destination.  In order for redemption to occur every piece of the cosmic puzzle must become fully actualized, so that Adam’s original task gets completed.

I believe that molestation and incest are among the more difficult issues that we need to solve as a community.   We need to work through this stuff, clean it up, and discover the underlying decay in our universe that enables such wickedness. (And perhaps even find some disguised Jewels hiding in this filth, waiting to be rediscovered, cleaned up and rectified.  Perhaps as a nation there are important lessons we can extract from these horrors that can help us get some clarity about what true Kedusha needs to look like.)

Making sure that people stop supporting this evil, support victims instead, and doing whatever we can to ensure the safety of ALL children, are very important first steps.   Then, of course, we must ensure that victims get the help they need to heal from this horrifying trauma, and perhaps even find some meaning to their suffering.

In addition though, a total soul-cleansing teshuvah by the perpetrators seems vital if we are to fully clean this thing up as a “one-Adam-world.”  There is a level of deep-core-knowing about the utter, total wrongness of these actions that must somehow be embodied in our universe.  And who can better accomplish this then a perpetrator turned Baal Teshuvah?  One can only imagine the healing that can come to our “cosmic-Adam-universe” when a perpetrator is able to fully face the despicableness of his actions, the depths of the damage caused to the victim, to himself and the entire universe, and then have the strength to live with this awareness, and have that awareness inform his day to day life.

We all know that Mr. Weberman isn't the only molester around, unfortunately.  Yet Mr. Weberman has become a "public-figure” regarding these issues.  The fundraiser and the intimidation of witnesses drew lots of attention to his trial and probably indirectly caused his steep sentence.  (Yet this is the way of the universe; actions have repercussions.  Getting people to give money for your defense because they believe you are innocent, when in fact you know that you are guilty, comes with a steep price.

Now given that all this unfortunate stuff has happened, and Mr. Weberman will probably be spending the remainder of his life in prison, wouldn’t it be such a waste of suffering if he doesn’t achieve a full teshuvah? Prison indeed is a place where people are forced, in some sense, to face who they have become as a result of their wrong choices. Yet sadly, by definition, most perpetrators suffer from extreme narcissism, which surely makes teshuvah so much more difficult for them.

But as we contemplate the fact that Mr. Weberman too is a part of our greater whole, shouldn’t we seek to do whatever we can to ensure the most mileage out of this horrible saga for our “collective-cosmic-Adam”?  I believe there are two steps we must take as a community to help move Mr. Weberman along towards this goal.

Firstly, we must stop this nonsense of insisting that he is innocent.  Teshuvah is in part the ability to see the truth for what it is, regardless of how unappealing that reality might be.  Crying “anti-Semitism”, “ community being on trial”, or “kangaroo court”, just takes the focus off from the truth, and makes it all the more difficult for Mr. Weberman to face up to the truth about himself.

And secondly, may I suggest that we each take a couple of moments every day to beseech Hashem to grant Mr. Weberman the courage and honesty he needs to enable him to move onto the path of teshuvah.  May each day bring with it for him more enlightenment about the greatness of Hashem, the utter holiness of every Jewish body and soul, specifically those of his victims.  May he realize more and more how molestation is akin to soul murder, and how accountable we each are for our actions, regardless of whether  we can hide them from the public or not.  And perhaps his teshuvah can be the catalyst to awaken our community, so that we no longer are willing to exchange real Kedusha for the appearance of Holiness.

Perhaps deeply integrating the above truths can serve towards a soul-cleansing teshuvah for Nechemia Tzvi ben Dina.
=====================
Postscript by fordaas Torah: Perhaps one reason we struggle with accepting the realities of molestation is because we struggle to accept that someone we know personally can be such a monster.  Our habit of “black or white thinking” makes it very difficult for us to dismiss someone that we know personally as an evil individual who doesn’t deserve any sympathy whatsoever.

Also, incest by definition involves a family member, someone the victim might have strong feelings for.   So here too, the question arises for the victim; “how do I orient my feelings towards the perpetrator who has acted like a monster, yet is still my close relative?”

The answer to this dilemma might be to totally condemn the perpetrator’s actions, while still viewing him as a human being, i.e. as someone who has purpose and can contribute to our world.

I believe praying for them to do teshuvah is the way to accomplish this.  On the one hand it doesn’t minimize how horrific these actions are, while it still leaves space for us to interact with the perpetrator as a human being. 

I understand that the “teshuvah” concept is often grossly misused when dealing with these issues.  I.e. people often claim the perpetrator has done teshuvah without having any proof to believe that.  Thus the victim is then urged to stop complaining and let bygones be bygones, when the truth is that if a real teshuvah was done the perpetrator would understand that it is his responsibility to be מפייס the victim, and no way does the victim need to curb their righteous indignation in order to make the life of the perpetrator easier.

However I am advocating here for us to pray for the perpetrator to do teshuvah, not to decide that the perpetrator has done teshuvah.   I believe we can pray for this while still holding on to the truth of how difficult it is for a proper teshuvah to be done when it comes to these matters.

12 Good Reasons Why Secular Israelis Reject Haredim

Jewish Press      In an article titled "Maybe the Secular Are Right?" that was published this winter in the Haredi Kikar Hashabbat, Rabbi Bloch asks: "Why is it so common for Haredi pundits and public figures to pin the motives for secular hatred against Haredim only on the formers' bad qualities, their emptiness, anti-Semitism and the ignorant man's hatred for the scholar? And another question we should ask ourselves is whether, in some cases, the value benefits from this conduct or another are worth the consequent heavy price of hilul Hashem (desecration of the Holy Name).

Rabbi Bloch then poses 12 questions which he encourages his Haredi readers to ponder.

    1. We've chosen, for understandable educational reasons, to withdraw and live in exclusively Haredi cities and neighborhoods, avoiding as much as possible any social contact with the secular.

    This is legitimate and understandable, but as a result they don't really know us, amd so they naturally view us as bizarre, in our manner of dress, our behavior, and our language. This creates aversion and alienation. Why, then, we are angry at them for treating us this way?

    2. We chose, for educational reasons—although some of us really believe it—to teach our children that all secular Israelis are sinners, vacuous, with no values, and corrupt.

    This could possibly be a legitimate view, but, then, why are we shocked when the secular, in return, teach their own children that the Haredim are all primitive, with outdated and despicable values?

    3. We have chosen, for the sake of the preservation of Torah in Israel, to prevent our sons from participating in carrying the heavy burden of security, and instead tasked them with learning Torah.

    Of course we could not give that up, but why are we outraged and offended when the secular, who do not recognize nor understand this need—or rather most of them are familiar with the issue, but argue that there should be quotas—see us as immoral, and some despise us as a result?

    4. We chose for our sons who do not belong, by their personal inclination or learning skills to the group of Torah scholars (Yeshiva bums and worse), to also evade enlistment—including into perfectly kosher army units. And when it comes to the individuals who have joined the Haredi Nahal, we do not praise them, but despise them instead, and we certainly show them no gratitude, while the Haredi press ignores them—in the best case.

    Why, then, are we outraged when the secular don't believe our argument, that the purpose of keeping yeshiva students from enlisting, is to maintain Torah study and not simply the Haredim's unwillingness to bear the burden?

    5. We chose to teach our children not to work for a living, and to devote all their time to Torah study. Clear enough, but, then, why are we shocked when the secular—who do not consider Torah study an all encompassing value—feel that we are an economic burden on their necks, as a mere 38% of us take part in the labor force, and they hate us for it.

    6. We chose not to teach our children any labor skills, and we condemn those who do pursue a profession. As a result our kolelim include all of those who do not belong among the scholars and still prefer not to work for a living.

    Why, then, do we complain when the secular feel, and say so with an increasing volume, that we are parasites, living off of their efforts?

    7. We chose (for educational considerations?) not to educate our children to show gratitude to the soldiers who risked their lives and were killed or injured for our sake, too. So we do not mention them in any way by any special day or prayer or special Mishna learning that's dedicated to their memory. Moreover, not a single Mashgiach or Rosh Yeshiva ever talks about it in a Mussar Schmooze, and you'll find no mention of it in the Haredi press.

    Why, then, are we surprised that the secular feel that we are ungrateful and despicable, and that the reason for our not enlisting is simply because we are parasites, living off the sacrifices of others in society?

    8. When extremist, delusional groups behave in ways that besmirch the name of God—e.g. the spitting in Beit Shemesh, dancing during the memorial siren, burning the national flag—our rabbis chose not to condemn them, clearly and consistently ( except for a few faint statements here and there). Why, then, are we explaining away the fact that the secular believe we all support those terrible acts? Why do we insist that their hostility stems from their hatred of the scholars?

    9. We've opted to allow our public officials and pundits to curse out all the secular all the time. Why, then, when the secular media treat us the same way, are we offended and cry out that they're persecuting us?

    10. The Haredi press will never offer any praise of or express support for secular Israelis who perform good deeds. Why, then, do we jump up and down when we are rewarded equally? And, in fact, while Haredi spokespersons rarely point anything positive about secular society, the secular media often gives positive coverage to Haredi organizations like Yad Sara, Hatzala, Zaka, etc.

    11. We would not agree, under any condition, that secular Israelis turn up in our schools to teach our children heresy, and we would have kept them from putting up stands with books of heresy in our areas. Why, then, do we not understand when the secular do not agree that we seduce her children into denying their parents' heresy?

    12. We do not agree—in my view, rightfully so—that secular people move into Haredi neighborhoods. So where do we get the arrogance and audacity to call anti-Semites those secular who don't agree that Haredim move near their homes, in secular neighborhoods?

Israeli psychotherapists: Dismissed trauma of Holocaust

Haaretz   [...] Recent research by historian Rakefet Zalashik on the history of psychiatry in Palestine during the Mandate period and following the founding of the state [...]. Indeed, she claims in her 2008 book, "Ad Nefesh: Refugees, Immigrants, Newcomers and the Israeli Psychiatric Establishment" (Hakibbutz Hameuchad; in Hebrew), that the eugenics-based concept of "social engineering" was part of the psychiatric mainstream here from the 1930s through the 1950s. [...]

Eugenics wasn't the only dubious theory the German-Jewish psychiatrists brought with them, Zalashik adds: They also adopted German psychiatry's conception of trauma and its method of treating victims of emotional shock. 

Many psychiatrists in the young state believed that the psyche of Jews was more resilient due to the persecution they endured throughout history. In 1957, Fishel Shneorson published an article in the journal Niv Harofeh, about the emotional fortitude of Holocaust survivors. He argued that there was a lower rate of mental illness among survivors who immigrated to Palestine/Israel than among those who settled elsewhere. 

The theory, widely accepted by psychiatrists here at the time, was that the conditions in this country - the absence of anti-Semitism, combined with the survivors' participation in fighting for and building the nation - had a salutary effect on their mental health. Because of this, psychiatrists tended to attribute a large portion of Holocaust survivors' complaints to immigration difficulties and inter-familial issues, rather than to diagnose them as emotional problems and treat them accordingly. 

The dismissive attitude toward the effect of the Holocaust experience is evident in the case of one Romanian-born Jew, who was admitted in 1955 to Jerusalem's Talbieh Psychiatric Hospital to see whether he was suffering from a psychiatric problem. He was described as "possessing borderline intelligence, very weak social understanding and an infantile personality," and diagnosed as suffering from depression, anxiety, insecurity and aggression. 

Zalashik: "The therapists devoted three whole pages to the patient's life history, from his childhood up to his hospitalization, but this was all they had to say about his wartime experience: 'In 1941, during the war, the patient was taken to the labor camps and was separated from his family. In the camps he did not suffer from any illnesses. After his release from the concentration camps in 1945, he returned to Romania and learned that his entire family had been wiped out.'" 

'Compensation neurosis'

The psychiatrists' attitude toward the survivors' trauma took on added significance in 1952, with the signing of the reparations agreement between Germany and Israel. According to the law in Germany, survivors were entitled to seek compensation for damages caused them by the Nazi persecution. Israeli psychiatrists were asked to write professional opinions about the demands for compensation. Survivors who were not former citizens of Germany, or were not part of the German cultural milieu, were entitled to seek a disability pension from the Israeli Finance Ministry and from the National Insurance Institute, and medical opinions were required for this as well. 

Zalashik concludes that instead of using this opportunity to take a closer look at the survivors' psyches and recognize their mental anguish, the psychiatrists primarily saw themselves as the guardians of the state coffers, and were disinclined to acknowledge the psychological harm wrought by the Nazis. And when they did recognize it, they tended to assign the person in question a minimal level of disability. 

Psychiatrist Kurt Blumenthal went so far as to claim that many survivors were just pretending to have mental problems, when he wrote in 1953 about "compensation neurosis" or "purposeful neurosis," which was ostensibly characterized by an attempt to portray oneself as having suffered great damage in order to increase compensation one would receive. Psychiatrist Julius Baumetz, director of a Jerusalem mental health station, implored his colleagues to do their utmost to put an immediate end to such allegedly neurosis-driven demands, lest survivors' conditions deteriorate to a state of "infantile dependence." 

"The Israeli psychiatrists betrayed their role when they decided to worry more about the state coffers than about their patients," says Zalashik. "When people came to them complaining about nightmares, they told them they were making it up. One German psychiatrist I interviewed said that he was horrified by the opinions he received from Israeli therapists. He said they were so outdated and non-specific that they were harmful to the patients. The theories upon which they were based - i.e., that trauma does not cause any long-term change in personality - were already considered outmoded in Germany in those years." 

Zalashik says this atmosphere made it easier for the Health Ministry to decide that mentally ill Holocaust survivors should be treated in private psychiatric institutions instead of by the public health care system. Survivors were kept in these institutions for decades. Eventually, these facilities became hostels; to this day, they are home to about 700 Holocaust survivors.

Chaim Gravitzer - just reprinted

For an insiders view of the chassidish and litvishe world - this novel is highly recommended. Despite being written as fiction it provides a very accurate and sophisticated understanding. It has been out of print for many years and has just been reprinted. Just before it was reprinted a used copy went for $500! The following is the advertisement from the publisher.

Yiddish volume I downloadable as free pdf 
Vol II Spielberg digitalization
      volume II 

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"שבע יפול צדיק וקם" – פתח הרבי ופירש מיד כל מילה ומילה – שבע פעמים נופל הצדיק וחוזר וקם מנפילתו...כל עלייה של נשמה יש בה ממילא אפשרות של נפילה, אלא שכל נפילה ונפילה היא בשורה מאוימת לעלייה העתידה לבוא. שכן נפילה וקימה – זהו התוך והמהות של העבודה האמיתית, התנועה רצוא-ושוב של הנשמה, המתעלה מעלה-מעלה.

חיים גראביצר הוא חסיד חב"ד שנועד לגדולות. עם זאת הוא מסרב בכל תוקף לרבנות ודבק במלאכת המלמד, בזכותה הוא רואה עצמו כמשה רבנו המביא נשמות רכות למעמד הר סיני. אין דומה לו, לגראביצר, בקולו הרועם, במזגו הסוער וביושר לבו, שאינו מתכופף בפני איש.

אולם אסון נורא שומט את הקרקע מתחת רגליו, וגראביצר נקרע מחייו, מעולמו ומאמונותיו, כגרם שמים שניתק ממסלולו ונותר משוטט בחלל. הוא "נופל" ומתגלגל במסע מלא תעוזה ומתח בין עולמות רוחניים תרבותיים וחברתיים שונים: מחסידות חב"ד לחסידות פולין, משם לישיבת וולוז'ין ולעולמם של המתנגדים ולתנועת ההשכלה ועד לגורלם הטראגי של הקנטוניסטים.

חיים גראביצר – סיפורו של נופל הוא ספר ייחודי ומרתק שנכתב ביידיש בשנות העשרים של המאה העשרים וראה אור לראשונה בעברית בשנת 1939, בתרגומו הנפלא ומלא החיים של הסופר והמשורר אברהם שלונסקי. הספר מקים לתחייה את העולם היהודי של העיירות בפולין במאה התשע-עשרה, ומתאר נאמנה את חיי היהודים באירופה שלפני מלחמות העולם.

פרופ' יהושע פישל שניאורסון (1958-1888) נולד למשפחת רבנים ואדמו"רי חסידות חב"ד, למד בישיבות והוסמך לרבנות, ולאחר מכן למד רפואה ופסיכיאטריה בברלין. בשנת 1936 עלה לארץ ישראל והקים בתל אביב מרכז אבחון וטיפול פסיכולוגי. לצד לימודיו ועבודתו הקלינית, חיבר שניאורסון סיפורת ייחודית מודרנית, אשר נתנה ביטוי מרתק לאישיותו ולשאלות שהתחבט בהן בחייו. הספר חיים גראביצר הוא גולת הכותרת של יצירתו הספרותית.

הוצאת ידיעות ספרים גאה להשיב אל קוראי העברית אוצר תרבותי וספרותי שכמעט ונשכח בארון הספרים היהודי. הספר רואה אור כעת במהדורה מחודשת, מעודכנת ומוערת.

Watchful Waiting' Best for Ear Infections, Pediatricians Say

ABC News   In an effort to rein in antibiotic use, the American Academy of Pediatrics has issued stricter guidelines on diagnosing and treating ear infections in kids.

The updated guidelines, published in the March issue of the journal Pediatrics, also added a recommendation against prophylactic antibiotic use in kids with recurrent ear infections. 

The 2013 guidelines are specifically for uncomplicated acute otitis media at ages 6 months to 12 years in otherwise healthy children without tympanostomy tubes, anatomic abnormalities such as cleft palate or Down syndrome, immune deficiencies or cochlear implants.