Thursday, January 2, 2014
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Camille Paglia: A Feminist Defense of Masculine Virtues
Wall Street Journal What you're seeing is how a civilization
commits suicide," says
Camille Paglia.
This self-described "notorious Amazon feminist" isn't telling
anyone to Lean In or asking Why Women Still Can't Have It All. No, her
indictment may be as surprising as it is wide-ranging: The military is
out of fashion, Americans undervalue manual labor, schools neuter male
students, opinion makers deny the biological differences between men and
women, and sexiness is dead. And that's just 20 minutes of our
three-hour conversation.
When Ms.
Paglia, now 66, burst onto the national stage in 1990 with the
publishing of "Sexual Personae," she immediately established herself as a
feminist who was the scourge of the movement's establishment, a heretic
to its orthodoxy. Pick up the 700-page tome, subtitled "Art and
Decadence From Nefertiti to
Emily Dickinson,
" and it's easy to see why. "If civilization had been left in
female hands," she wrote, "we would still be living in grass huts." [...]
But no subject gets her going more than when
I ask if she really sees a connection between society's attempts to
paper over the biological distinction between men and women and the
collapse of Western civilization.
She
starts by pointing to the diminished status of military service. "The
entire elite class now, in finance, in politics and so on, none of them
have military service—hardly anyone, there are a few. But there is no
prestige attached to it anymore. That is a recipe for disaster," she
says. "These people don't think in military ways, so there's this
illusion out there that people are basically nice, people are basically
kind, if we're just nice and benevolent to everyone they'll be nice too.
They literally don't have any sense of evil or criminality."
The
results, she says, can be seen in everything from the dysfunction in
Washington (where politicians "lack practical skills of analysis and
construction") to what women wear. "So many women don't realize how
vulnerable they are by what they're doing on the street," she says,
referring to women who wear sexy clothes. [...]
Get refuser alleged to be pedophile - extradited from US for first time
ynet [see Arutz 7] A man who fled to the United States without granting his wife a divorce has been extradited to Israel
by the American authorities.
This is the first time an Israeli citizen is extradited over
denial of a "get" (a religious divorce under Jewish Law), which is not
considered a criminal offense – using other offenses he is suspected of.
Israel's rabbinical courts hope this will serve as a precedent which
will significantly help fight the phenomenon of "agunot"
(Jewish women "chained" to their marriage).
The couple, who are
members of the ultra-Orthodox sector from central Israel, were married
several years ago and had a boy and a girl. In 2010 the woman filed for
divorce, claiming that her husband was treating her with disrespect and
contempt, and had invested huge sums of money from their joint account
in failed businesses without her knowledge.[...]
Rabbi Eliyahu Maimon,
head of the Agunot Department, asked the Justice Ministry's Department
for International Agreements to work to extradite the man, who he said
posed a risk to public safety as a suspected pedophile. The department,
which does not usually ask for extradition over suspicions which have
yet to be looked into, decided to proceed with the request due to the
get denial and launched negotiations with the American authorities,
which bore fruit last week.
[...]
המשטרה: להעמיד לדין את אב בית הדין בירושלים
INN
יחידת להב 433 של המשטרה סיימה את חקירתה בפרשת הרב חיים יהודה רבינוביץ', אב בית הדין הרבני ירושלים.
בין היתר, עסקה החקירה בחשד לפעילות מרמה וגניבה שיטתית מצד קרובת
משפחתו עורכת דין לענייני משפחה בהקשר לאותם תיקים ולתיקים אחרים בהם
טיפלה.
החקירה החלה בהמשך לבקשת פרקליט המדינה, ובאישור היועץ המשפטי לממשלה,
בעקבות תלונה שהוגשה לנציבות התלונות נגד שופטים ולהנהלת בתי הדין הרבניים.
מהתלונה עלה חשד להתנהלות פסולה של הרב רבינוביץ ולביצוע עבירות הפרת אמונים ושימוש לרעה בכוח המשרה, בכול הקשור לניהול חלק מתיקי הגירושין שדן בהם.
ממהלך החקירה עלה כי החשוד דן בתיקי גירושין, שבמהלך הרגיל לא היו
אמורים להידון בפניו, תוך שהוא מנצל את סמכויותיו להשפיע על ההליך ועל
הצדדים בתיק ולקבל החלטות שלא על פי כללי הדין ושיש בהן ניגוד עניינים,
מתוך כוונה לקדם את ענייניהם של קרובי משפחתו ובעיקר של עורכת הדין לענייני
משפחה, אשר ייצגה את אחד הצדדים בתיקים אלה.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Italy court overturns paedophile conviction because 11-year-old girl 'in love'
ndtv Italy's highest court has overturned the conviction of a
60-year-old man for having sex with an 11-year-old girl, because the
verdict failed to take into account their "amorous relationship".
Pietro Lamberti, a social services worker in Catanzaro in southern Italy, was convicted in February 2011 and sentenced to five years in prison for sexual acts with a minor. The verdict was later upheld by an appeals court. But Italy's supreme court ruled that the verdict did not sufficiently consider "the 'consensus', the existence of an amorous relationship, the absence of physical force, the girl's feelings of love". [...]
Pietro Lamberti, a social services worker in Catanzaro in southern Italy, was convicted in February 2011 and sentenced to five years in prison for sexual acts with a minor. The verdict was later upheld by an appeals court. But Italy's supreme court ruled that the verdict did not sufficiently consider "the 'consensus', the existence of an amorous relationship, the absence of physical force, the girl's feelings of love". [...]
Monday, December 30, 2013
Lying for Shalom – the Sake of Peace by Rabbi Yair Hoffman
5 Towns Jewish Times “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?
Firstly, let’s look at the source. The Talmud (Yevamos 65b) cites
Rabbi Eelaah in the name of Rabbi Elazar the son of Rabbi Shimon. Rabbi
Elazar derives this principle – that one may “change” to maintain the
peace from the fact that the brothers told Yoseph that Yaakov their
father had instructed them to tell Yoseph to forgive their sin against
him. In fact, Yaakov did not leave any such instruction. Rav Nosson
even goes further – it is not just that permission is granted – it is
even a Mitzvah! How do we know this? Because Hashem instructed Shmuel
the prophet to lie to Shaul the king by telling him that he was bringing
something to slaughter to Hashem. In fact, Shmuel was going to anoint
Dovid as king in his stead. [...]
Perhaps the real reason why the Poskim who rule like Rabbi Nosson and
yet do not use the language of “Mitzvah” is so that one not get
accustomed to lying as a way of life. Let’s not forget as well that in
the first three illustrations above, the lying is, in fact, very
counterproductive. In illustration number one the mother wants the son
to do well in school. In illustrations two and three the wife is
concerned for her hsuband’s well-being. It seems pretty clear that the
permission to “change”was never granted to lead a decadent lifestyle.
When it says that one can change to maintain peace it never meant just
to avoid arguments when the other person is, in fact, correct. Such
uses of this Gemorah undermine the true meaning of Torah and are an
abuse and mischaracterization of the very ideals espoused in this ruling
of halacha. The conclusion is that the only recommended use of the
leniency is for illustration number four. And yes, there is no doubt
that this is a Mitzvah.
Should the wife be sacrificed for the marriage or the marriage sacrificed for the wife's happiness?- there is a third way!
Michelob says:
" If a woman says she's done, very rarely will you be able to hold a gun to her head and live happily ever after. ... If she is not into it, and is dragged to the therapist kicking and screaming, you are both wasting your time and energy.
Michelob; Your words are very rational, BUT ONLY TO A CERTAIN POINT.
The fellow here does indeed seem to be faced with two very unpalatable choices:
A. Be over and done with it.
B. Fight for fairness, family integrity, reputation, the fact that someone so close to him is waging a smear campaign & using tools that clearly include some extremely serious Halachic & Hashkafic transgressions.
But in actuality, I think that there's actually a THIRD option, too:
To understand the third option, we need to "back up" a bit, and we need to ponder:
What's REALLY behind the current epidemic of broken homes. We read comment after comment of hair-raising מעשה רשעות. How can it be?
Men & women that have lived & built lives together for decades, been through so many joys and sorrows... to have everything disintegrate before their very eyes.... the men here grapple to understand the sudden change - in reality & feel understandable wrath & frustration...
These women [usually] weren't evil when these men married them. What did someone surreptitiously put into their woman's drinks? What changed these women into veritable WITCHES? The man knows that he WASN'T abusive, and if he was, nobody's interested in telling him where he went wrong, and how he should fix it...
I posit that behind this phenomena there is usually ONE simple motivator:
THE WOMAN IS SEARCHING FOR HAPPINESS, OR AT LEAST SEARCHING TO ESCAPE HER OWN EMOTIONAL TURMOIL, whether depression, anxiety, etc, etc.
She cried out & expressed her pain to others; perhaps relatives, perhaps strangers ... and those "helpers" connected her with "professionals", and those "professionals" based on their own inflated egos, personal vendettas, political agendas, etc. KNEW the source of the woman's pain.
The "professional" instinctively knew whom to blame:
THEY BLAMED THE WOMAN'S PAIN SQUARELY ... ON THE HUSBAND.
These "professionals", trained in the art of influencing others, succeeded in changing the woman's world-view. The woman's friends, influenced by popular writings, easily concurred... empathized with her... offered her "resources" in her "plight"....
But they forget to hear the husband's side of the story..... So self assured were they in their world-view, that it wasn't necessary to hear his side.
But everything I've written thus far isn't really my main point, because even if they HAD attempted to mediate between the two... even if the woman HAD gone to therapy ... chances are that it would be too late - as the damage had already been done.
And this leads me to what I believe is the REAL solution....
Please read on...
Concerning men & women that have lived & built lives together for decades, been through so many joys and sorrows … & the woman was convinced that it’s time to go…. I posited that …
THE WOMAN IS SEARCHING FOR HAPPINESS, OR AT LEAST SEARCHING TO ESCAPE HER OWN EMOTIONAL TURMOIL, whether depression, anxiety, etc, etc. … and that her pain is being blamed on HER HUSBAND.
The woman’s mindset seems to be that “happiness” is something she needs to receive from the outside - her husband, or “someone” needs to “give” it to her, and that she “deserves” to receive it… Once the marriage is irrevocably broken, perhaps she feels that her husband CAN’T and / or surely doesn’t want to give it…..
Might she be mistaken?
Could it perhaps be that…?
… The only AUTHENTIC happiness she’ll ever have is the type she’ll find INSIDE HERSELF. Perhaps someone can convince her to stop looking OUTSIDE for something missing INSIDE?
Perhaps she’s looking for the wrong KIND of happiness… and the RIGHT kind is actually free for the taking?
Here are the 5 types of happiness, according to Martin Seligman (I’m cheating a bit, because he talks about well-being, while I’m calling them happiness).
Perhaps she should stop looking for types 1 & 3, and start looking for types 2, 4 & 5?
In fact, maybe they can still … look…. Together?!
1- Positive emotion: pleasure, rapture, ecstasy, warmth, comfort, and the like. A life lived with these aims; he calls the “pleasant life.”
2- Engagement: is about flow - being one with the music, time stopping, and the loss of self-consciousness during an absorbing activity. Engagement is different, even opposite, from positive emotion; for if you ask people who are in flow what they are thinking and feeling, they usually say, “nothing.” A life lived with these aims; he calls the “engaged life.”
3- Relationships: He doesn’t explain it here, but I think it seems self-explanatory.
4- Meaning and purpose: belonging to and serving something that you believe is bigger than the self. Humanity creates all the positive institutions to allow this: religion, political party, being Green, the Boy Scouts, or the family. A life lived with these aims; he calls the “meaningful life.”
5- Accomplishment: success and mastery. People try to achieve just for winning’s own sake
THE WOMAN IS SEARCHING FOR HAPPINESS, OR AT LEAST SEARCHING TO ESCAPE HER OWN EMOTIONAL TURMOIL, whether depression, anxiety, etc, etc. … and that her pain is being blamed on HER HUSBAND.
The woman’s mindset seems to be that “happiness” is something she needs to receive from the outside - her husband, or “someone” needs to “give” it to her, and that she “deserves” to receive it… Once the marriage is irrevocably broken, perhaps she feels that her husband CAN’T and / or surely doesn’t want to give it…..
Might she be mistaken?
Could it perhaps be that…?
… The only AUTHENTIC happiness she’ll ever have is the type she’ll find INSIDE HERSELF. Perhaps someone can convince her to stop looking OUTSIDE for something missing INSIDE?
Perhaps she’s looking for the wrong KIND of happiness… and the RIGHT kind is actually free for the taking?
Here are the 5 types of happiness, according to Martin Seligman (I’m cheating a bit, because he talks about well-being, while I’m calling them happiness).
Perhaps she should stop looking for types 1 & 3, and start looking for types 2, 4 & 5?
In fact, maybe they can still … look…. Together?!
1- Positive emotion: pleasure, rapture, ecstasy, warmth, comfort, and the like. A life lived with these aims; he calls the “pleasant life.”
2- Engagement: is about flow - being one with the music, time stopping, and the loss of self-consciousness during an absorbing activity. Engagement is different, even opposite, from positive emotion; for if you ask people who are in flow what they are thinking and feeling, they usually say, “nothing.” A life lived with these aims; he calls the “engaged life.”
3- Relationships: He doesn’t explain it here, but I think it seems self-explanatory.
4- Meaning and purpose: belonging to and serving something that you believe is bigger than the self. Humanity creates all the positive institutions to allow this: religion, political party, being Green, the Boy Scouts, or the family. A life lived with these aims; he calls the “meaningful life.”
5- Accomplishment: success and mastery. People try to achieve just for winning’s own sake
===============
DT. An example a couple came to me seriously considering divorce. The husband though a brilliant and successful talmid chachom and businessman was very focused on the lack of respect he got from his wife and children. He had become very controlling - insisting for example that the whole family sit attentively for a half an hour drasha every Friday night. His wife took the children's side when they got bored in the middle and left the table. The wife objected to the control he insisted over every aspect of her life and that of the children. At the same time he had become very hurt by her criticism and claims that he was unreasonable and out of touch with normal human feelings. In short the husband and wife blamed each other for their unhappiness and that of the children. The obvious solution was they should get divorced after 20 years of marriage. But they couldn't do that because several of the children were either looking for a shidduch or would soon start.
Solution. I suggested that the husband was too focused on getting respectful for his genuine spirituality from his family in a manner which was inappropriate. I suggested he spend more time with genuinely spiritual people that would appreciate his insights and analysis. That he did and his need to control and demand respect eased up. At the same time he became more sensitive to his family and realized that he was not presenting appropriate material and issues for them to be able to appreciate. This backing off actually produced the respect he had been craving all along.
At the same time both the husband and wife felt that the other would let lose an emotional attack at inappropriate moments - such as at the Shabbos table or at a time when they didn't feel up to defending themselves. The normal response was to yell back which only escalated the conflict. I suggest a simple technique. No matter how strong their upset - they could not lecture their spouse if the spouse raised up an index finger to signal now was not the time - but later. Surprisingly that was really all that they needed to create a sense of control and respect and the yelling and screaming disappeared.
In sum, this family of genuinely loving and generous people - who were imbued with deep spiritual feelings - was self-destructing because their spiritual and psychological needs were not being fulfilled through each other. A rather minor adjustment from 2 sessions created the proper conditions for mutual growth and appreciation. It didn't solve everything - but it did enable them to get nachas from each other and for the children to regain respect for their parents.
A.D.H.D. Experts Re-evaluate Study’s Zeal for Drugs
NY Times
Twenty years ago, more than a dozen leaders in child psychiatry received $11 million from the National Institute of Mental Health
to study an important question facing families with children with
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: Is the best long-term
treatment medication, behavioral therapy or both?
The widely publicized result was not only that medication like Ritalin
or Adderall trounced behavioral therapy, but also that combining the two
did little beyond what medication could do alone. The finding has
become a pillar of pharmaceutical companies’ campaigns to market
A.D.H.D. drugs, and is used by insurance companies and school systems to
argue against therapies that are usually more expensive than pills.
But in retrospect, even some authors of the study — widely considered
the most influential study ever on A.D.H.D. — worry that the results
oversold the benefits of drugs, discouraging important home- and
school-focused therapy and ultimately distorting the debate over the
most effective (and cost-effective) treatments.
The study was structured to emphasize the reduction of impulsivity and
inattention symptoms, for which medication is designed to deliver quick
results, several of the researchers said in recent interviews. Less
emphasis was placed on improving children’s longer-term academic and
social skills, which behavioral therapy addresses by teaching children,
parents and teachers to create less distracting and more organized
learning environments.
Recent papers have also cast doubt on whether medication’s benefits last as long as those from therapy. [...]
Medication helps a person be receptive to learning new skills and
behaviors,” said Ruth Hughes, a psychologist and the chief executive of
the advocacy group Children and Adults With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. “But those skills and behaviors don’t magically appear. They have to be taught.”[...]
A subsequent paper by one of those, Keith Conners, a psychologist and
professor emeritus at Duke University, showed that using only one
all-inclusive measurement — “treating the child as a whole,” he said —
revealed that combination therapy was significantly better than
medication alone. Behavioral therapy emerged as a viable alternative to
medication as well. But his paper has received little attention. [...]
Most recently, a paper from the study said flatly that using any
treatment “does not predict functioning six to eight years later,”
leaving the study’s original question — which treatment does the most
good long-term? — largely unanswered.
“My belief based on the science is that symptom reduction is a good thing, but adding skill-building is a better thing,” said Stephen Hinshaw,
a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and one of
the study researchers. “If you don’t provide skills-based training,
you’re doing the kid a disservice. I wish we had had a fairer test.”
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Withholding A Get: Between Leverage And Extortion
Jewish Week
All too commonly, we read about a man who refuses to grant his wife a Jewish writ of divorce (a “get”). We are told her story, culminating in her demand for a get
and a plea to help pressure the recalcitrant husband to grant it. As
for the man’s version of events – they do not matter; according to the
approach promoted by the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot (“agunah” refers to a woman chained to a failed marriage by a husband unable or unwilling to grant her a get) and numerous others, it is never justified for a man to withhold a get as leverage during the divorce settlement.
The zero-tolerance attitude toward get-withholding is an
adaptation of Jewish law to a relatively new social reality. This in
itself does not make it wrong; on the contrary, new circumstances demand
that the application of halachic norms be reconsidered. Yet this
attitude implicitly adopts certain core attitudes toward marriage and
divorce that are largely alien to Jewish tradition. It behooves us to
consider whether it is possible to retain the traditional system but
tweaking it to prevent abuse, instead of adopting the regnant divorce
paradigms relegating the get to a mere religious technicality. [...]
Mutual consent implies, by definition, the ability to withhold consent,
which is inherently a form of leverage within divorce negotiation. This
sort of leverage is present in many negotiations and works against the
party most eager to reach an agreement; a thirsty man is willing to pay a
higher price for a bottle of Coca Cola. Of course, there is a point at
which leverage becomes extortion, and that point must be defined, but we
must take care not to treat leverage as though it is extortion.
The mutual-consent paradigm seems reasonable in principle, but in
practice the traditional system of Jewish divorce has become
unacceptable. Despite the best efforts of the medieval rabbis, the
playing field is not really level. The deck is stacked against women in
several ways. This imbalance has become a central issue as awareness of
it has grown and demands for an equality in divorce have become almost
universal.
Another reason for the turn against traditional norms of Jewish divorce
is the adoption of a unilateral divorce paradigm. This has shifted
perceptions about the nature of marriage and the process of its
dissolution. The marriage is deemed over once one spouse deems the
differences between the spouses unbridgeable. Under this paradigm,
withholding a divorce is perceived as a denial of one’s basic rights and
freedoms, and if the purpose is withholding is to negotiate a more
favorable division of the marital pie, it becomes extortion. The same
act that is a legitimate tool of negotiation under the mutual-consent
paradigm is a weapon under the unilateral paradigm. [...]
Saturday, December 28, 2013
Schlesinger Twins: Debate in House of Commons?
Jewish Telegraph Graham Stringer MP is to ask Foreign Office minister David Liddington to make representations to Austria about the case of Manchester tug-of-love mother Beth Alexander.
He will also seek a debate in parliament when the Commons returns in January. Mother of four-year-old twins, Beth, who is estranged from her Viennese husband, has access to the children for only six hours a week and on alternate Sundays.
Now, a leading Australian educationist has joined in the calls to right the injustice many feel she has suffered at the hands of the Austrian courts. Rabbi James Kennard, who was head of Manchester's King David High School Yavneh, has hit out at Vienna Chabad which forbids Beth to see her children at their kindergarten, or even to be kept abreast of their progress - or lack of it, as she insists.[...]
Why secular Israeli's don't care about Chareidi poverty
NY Times In mid-December, a report by the National Insurance Institute and the
Central Bureau of Statistics reported that Israel’s poverty rate was
shamefully high: 23.5 percent. It found that one-fifth of families — and
one-fifth of retirees — in Israel are officially poor, as well as
one-third of children.
Israel’s income gap is one of the highest in the world (following Chile,
Mexico, Turkey and the United States). Israel, as O.E.C.D. reports have
already indicated more than once, somehow manages to be a “start-up
nation,” with high economic growth; yet, at the same time, it remains a
backward nation with many extremely poor families. [...]
Israelis already know the numbers, and most have already formed opinions
on this topic. Many middle-class Israelis are convinced that the poor
themselves are at fault — and unless they do something about it, there’s
not much that the state can do for them.
Two segments of Israel’s population stand out as the poorest of the
poor: “ultra-Orthodox Jews” and “Muslim-Arabs.” Unemployment rates for
ultra-Orthodox Jews (mostly ultra-Orthodox men) and Arabs (mostly Arab
women) are very high. So are birth rates. The result: 59 percent of the
ultra-Orthodox (also known as Haredim) are poor. Similarly, 58 percent
of Arab Israelis are poor. Other groups with notably high rates of
poverty are the elderly and new immigrants — but the numbers for these
two groups are much lower, 23 percent and 17 percent, respectively.[...]
For middle-class Israelis to care, the message from the state should be
quite different — one that could be called compassionate cruelty. The
state should be telling its citizens: We don’t much care if the
poor-by-choice get even poorer and get even less from the state. We
don’t much care about poverty rates that take everybody into account
without much consideration of personal and communal decisions and their
consequences. But we will ensure that those willing to work and pay
their dues are properly assisted, and the government will make sure that
they are the only ones to be raised above poverty level on the
government’s dime
הח"כ החרדי שגרם ליהודי אנגליה להזיל דמעה
Maariv
ליפמן דיבר על כל הנושאים הבוערים בישראל, והציג עמדה מורכבת ומתקדמת
בענייני דת ומדינה ובנושאים שבין דתיים לחילונים. כשדיבר על ברית הזוגיות
השיב להומוסקסואל שישב בקהל ש"התורה מתייחסת למעשה בחומרה, אך היא אינה
אומרת שצריך להתנהג לאנשים כאלה בצורה לא נאותה"; כשתמך בהפעלת תחבורה
ציבורית בשבת אמר ח"כ ליפמן שהוא רגיל לכך שיש תחבורת ציבורית בשבת, ו"זה
לא מפריע לי ברמה האישית"; על לימודי הליבה הוא אמר ש"אם בארה"ב גדולי
הרבנים החרדים מעודדים לימודים של מתמטיקה ואנגלית - למה לא בישראל?"
חבר הכנסת הדהים השבוע את יהודי הממלכה כשעמד בלבוש חרדי על בימת כנס 'לימוד' ונשא דברים בעד ברית הזוגיות, אוטובוסים בשבת ולימודי ליבה. "סוף-סוף מישהו שבא לאחד", הגיבו בקהל, "זו ישראל שכולנו רוצים להאמין בה
כשמאות מיהודי בריטניה נכנסו לאולם ההרצאות באוניברסיטת ווריק שבעיר קובנטרי הם היו פסימיים. הם באו לשמוע הרצאה של "חבר הכנסת החרדי ממפלגת יש עתיד", הרב דב ליפמן, וכבר הכינו את השאלות הנוקבות על נושאי דת ומדינה, גיור, 'נשות הכותל', ברית הזוגיות ועוד. אך שום דבר לא הכין אותם לכך שליפמן יסכים איתם בכל אחד מהנושאים, ויותר מכך - יגרום להם להתרגש ואפילו להזיל דמעה כשדיבר על נושאי דת ומדינה אקטואליים ברוח שהייתה שונה מאוד ממה שהמאזינים ציפו לו.
ליפמן דיבר על כל הנושאים הבוערים בישראל, והציג עמדה מורכבת ומתקדמת
בענייני דת ומדינה ובנושאים שבין דתיים לחילונים. כשדיבר על ברית הזוגיות
השיב להומוסקסואל שישב בקהל ש"התורה מתייחסת למעשה בחומרה, אך היא אינה
אומרת שצריך להתנהג לאנשים כאלה בצורה לא נאותה"; כשתמך בהפעלת תחבורה
ציבורית בשבת אמר ח"כ ליפמן שהוא רגיל לכך שיש תחבורת ציבורית בשבת, ו"זה
לא מפריע לי ברמה האישית"; על לימודי הליבה הוא אמר ש"אם בארה"ב גדולי
הרבנים החרדים מעודדים לימודים של מתמטיקה ואנגלית - למה לא בישראל?"
במהלך הנאום הצדיק ליפמן את זכותן של נשים להתפלל בכותל, הסביר את
הבעיה הגדולה של השתלטות החרדים על שכונות עירו, בית-שמש, וסיפר על חוויית
העלייה המרגשת שלו. "אני אמנם אופטימי מאוד, אבל לא נאיבי", אמר ליפמן
כשנשאל אם טרם למד את חוקי המשחק בכנסת ישראל. עם תום נאומו עמדו הנוכחים
בקהל על רגליהם ומחאו כפיים במשך דקות ארוכות.
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update December 30, 2013 - Ploni added important clarifications that I put in the comments section