רב
יצחק הרצוג (תחוקה לישראל על פי התורה ג:283): א. על ערך המשפט בישראל. כל הרוצה לעמוד על ערך המשפט
בישראל יפתח את ספר טור חושן המשפט ויקרא את הסימן הראשון. אפשר להוסיף על דבריו, אפשר
לכתוב ספר שלם על נושא זה על יסוד של כה"ק וספרות התורה שבעל פה, אבל מדברי רבינו
בעל הטורים אין לגרוע. כל הסימן הוא מחרוזת של פנינים יקרים מלוקטים ממאמרי רז"ל.
לא זו בלבד שהמשפט הוא חלק כ"כ גדול בכמות ובאיכות של התורה שמן השמים, לא זו
בלבד שהוא, כדברי המשנה [אבות א:יח], אחד משלשת עמודי העולם, אלא שהוא מהווה דבר יסודי
בעצם מושג האלהות של היהדות. הקב"ה הוא שופט כל הארץ. כביכול, השופט העליון, שהשופטים
הם בבחינת שלוחיו, ואברהם אבינו מתמה "השופט כל הארץ לא יעשה משפט"? הקב"ה הוא אלהי המשפט, והשופטים נקראים אלהים, ובית הדין נקרא
עדת [אל]. בפרשת משפטים מכונים השופטים אלהים לפי מסורת רז"ל [סנהדרין ב:] , ללמדך
שהמשפט לאלהים הוא, וכאזהרת המלך האדון יהושפט לשופטים שבימיו [דברי הימים ב יט:ו]
. וכשבא מיכה והעמיד את כל התרי"ג מצוות שנתן משה לישראל על שלשה עיקרים מנה את
המשפט ביניהם - כי אם עשות משפט ואהבת חסד וגו' [מיכה ו:ח מכות כד.] על עיוות המשפט
צועקים מרה כל נביאי ישראל וכולם עומדים ומכריזים שבגללה נגזרה גזירת חורבן על הארץ
וגזירת גלות על העם.
Monday, September 29, 2014
New college sex assault rule: Rape is now absence of agreement - not use of force
BBC California has become the
first state to require students on state-funded campuses to receive
clear, active consent before all sexual activity.
Governor Jerry Brown signed the "yes means yes" bill, which advocates say will change the perception of rape.
The legislation stipulates that voluntary agreement, rather than lack of resistance, defines consent.[...]
The rule defines consent as "an affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity."
Lawmakers say, however, that consent can be non-verbal, if it is unambiguous.[...]
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Schlesinger Twins: Beth's Rosh Hashanna Prayer for her sons
My precious little boys Sammy and Benji,
While
other families prepare for the New Year, we are once again separated. I
cannot be with you on the holiest day of the year, cannot buy you new
clothes and shoes for shul like other mothers or even kiss you good Yom
Tov. I won't be able to hold you in my arms again and bless you until
after Rosh Hashonnah by which time our fate for the coming year will
already have been decided. While everyone fills the river with their
sins, we could flood it with our tears.
Luckily,
there is another court, a higher court than the one here on earth that
has caused us so much unnecessary hurt and pain. On Rosh Hashonnah,
Hashem, the real judge will sit in Court and the angels will help Him
decide what will happen in the coming year. Surely we have been tested
enough and better times lie ahead.
There is
not a day, an hour or a moment that goes by when I am not thinking about
you both and willing all my motherly love and positive energy towards
you, hoping and praying that you feel me there beside you, reaching out
and holding your soft warm hands. You are never alone.
On
Rosh Hashonnah, I will daven for you all the more. I wish so much that
you will finally be able to enjoy your childhood and be allowed to grow
up peacefully, healthily and most of all, feeling loved and secure.
I, your Mama, am here for you. I will never ever desert you and I will never be far away.
Shana tova umetukah my darling baby boys. I love you so so much.
With you always in spirit even if you cannot see me.
Your Mummy forever
xxx
Schlesinger Twins: The Lubavitcher Rebbe held strongly that the mother should get custody
I just received the following letter from a well known Lubavitcher posek who wishes to remain anonymous. It is obviously very significant. I would suggest emailing this to Rabbi Biderman and other members of the Vienna Chabad community. Rabbi Jacob Bideman
BHI am not getting involved in the details, but I think it would be appropriate to post the following, it's an answer from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, where the Rebbe writes that the benefit of the child is that the child should stay with the mother [...]
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Objecting to the term "Filipino" being used to refer to nannies or personal care aides
I received the following email and received permission to post it anonymously. In Israel the term Filipino is widely used to refer to someone who is an aide or personal care-worker - because in fact most people employed in this capacity are from the Philippines.
However I have not heard it used as a pejorative term but simply as a fact that when one needs help with an elderly parent, handicapped or retarded child as well as domestic help - one needs a fillipino.
However it clearly has irritated my correspondent - who does not want to get into an on line discussion. Do careworkers from the Phillipines resent the term "fillipino"? What would be the preferred alternative?
However it clearly has irritated my correspondent - who does not want to get into an on line discussion. Do careworkers from the Phillipines resent the term "fillipino"? What would be the preferred alternative?
The following is a list of ethnic slurs (ethnophaulisms) that are, or have been, used as insinuations or allegations about members of a given ethnicity or to refer to them in a derogatory (critical or disrespectful), pejorative (disapproving or contemptuous), or insulting manner in the English-speaking world. For the purposes of this list, an ethnic slur is a term designed to insult others on the basis of race, ethnicity, or nationality. Each term is listed followed by its country or region of usage, a definition, and a reference to that term.
However the complexity of the issue of the listing and usage of such terms needs to be noted. For instance, many of the terms listed below (such as "Gringo", "Yank", etc.) are used by large numbers of human beings in many parts of the world as part of their ordinary speech or thinking without any intention of causing offence, and with little or no evidence that such usage does in fact cause much or indeed any offence, while the implicit or explicit labeling of such large numbers of people as racists (or similar terms such as prejudiced, bigoted, ethnophobic, xenophobic, etc.), simply because they use some words on the list below, can itself be deeply unfair and insensitive and can thus cause deep offence.
===========================================
Hello,
I read your blog post about your twins this morning and feel for your situation.
That being said, I wanted to flag a section of your post referring to 'the Filipinos'. If your children's nannies are from the Philippines, does this one fact lead you to label them with contempt or indifference? Surely you would not want to be to referred to as 'the Jew' if someone left their child on their care? You may not have meant any offence to this, but of you replace 'the x' with any race, gender or religion, then you may realise you are subtly commenting on a group of people that are not at fault in your predicament.
Kind regards,
Monday, September 22, 2014
Public media campaigns to obtain a Get have zero success rate - so why do they exist?
The following is an embarrassing example of what is purported to be investigative reporting - when it is simply an example of the prostitution of the news media to get readership rather than provide cogent analysis as to what is happening. The reporter has not the slightest clue as to what the halachic issues are and clearly has simply relied on the claims of the women for determining what the facts are. While he did solicit a counter response from Yoel Weiss - he didn't bother trying to understand what Yoel was saying.
Inadvertently though he has succeeded in showing that despite huge international campaigns - none of these women have gotten a get one second sooner if at all - and the compromises they needed to make were no different than what they were being asked - before the campaign.
So if the campaigns are useless regarding the goal of obtaining a Get - then why do these women parade the most intimate details of their marriage in public? Why do they insist on creating an incredible chillul hashem - if it never succeeds in ending their marriage?
The answer is simple - and was expressed by Shira Dicker the publicist behind these campaigns. It is an attack on Torah laws and halacha in the name of feminism, individual freedom, and progress. It is a rejection of the traditional Jewish concept of marriage.
=========================
Tablet Magazine The coordinated use of publicists, Facebook,
Twitter, donation sites, and rallies is becoming common for women like
Rivky Stein who seek religious divorces from their husbands. Many Jews
give little thought to the get, but in traditional Judaism only
men can grant a divorce. Without one, a woman cannot date or remarry
without carrying and passing onto her children what is widely considered
in the Orthodox world to be a tremendous stigma. So, with few options
in Jewish law, more agunot—Hebrew for “chained wives”—are embracing contemporary and high-tech tools to publicly shame men.
“People say, ‘This is a disgrace, you’re washing our dirty linen in public,’ ” said Susan Aranoff, an economics professor who has been an agunah activist for 30 years. “But I understand the women who are doing it, because what else are they to do?”
In late 2010, hundreds of protesters
flocked to the Silver Spring, Md., home of Aharon Friedman, a tax
counsel for the House Ways and Means Committee, who denied his wife,
Tamar Epstein, a get. The rally was carefully planned, with
activists distributing flyers and fact sheets while a Facebook event was
shared with over 1,600 people.
Three years later Gital Dodelson, who was struggling to receive a get from her ex-husband, Avrohom Meir Weiss, worked with a publicist to set up the website setgitalfree.com. She eventually landed a front page tell-all in the New York Post and a segment on the public-radio show This American Life.
Just a few months ago protesters holding signs reading “Stop the
Abuse!” and “Bigamist” gathered at the wedding of Meir Kin, who was remarrying despite his refusal to give his ex-wife, Lonna Kin, a religious divorce. He claimed that he had secured a heter meah rabbonim, the antiquated and seldom-used document, based on a technicality in Jewish law, that permits a man to remarry without a get if he can get permission from 100 rabbis.[...]
So, in her fight for a get, Stein
needed help. In recent months, she has assembled up an impressive team.
She hired Shira Dicker, the publicist who worked for Gital Dodelson.
They set up the website redeemrivky.com as well as a Facebook page that has nearly 9,000 likes. A 7-minute YouTube video called “Rivky Speaks,” in the style of a close-up sit-down interview, has garnered about 125,000 views. Her donation page aims to raise $36,000, although she expects all of it to go to lawyer and PR fees. Media like the Daily News were invited to the beit din,
which is used to resolve disputes including contested divorces. (Dicker
told Tablet that “half” the work she did for Stein was pro bono and
“the compensation was extremely modest.”)
[...]
And the track record for Stein’s social
media-savvy successors isn’t completely encouraging. Publicity
ultimately worked for Dodelson, who received a get three months after her story ran in the New York Post
(and after she paid her ex-husband a six-figure sum, according to one
knowledgeable source). While it was widely reported that Tamar Epstein
was “free” three years after the protest against her husband, it seems
that she never received her get, instead having her marriage annulled by a sympathetic rabbi or beit din. And after seven years of being civilly divorced, Kin has no get and is still vilified by blogs. [...]
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Confusion regarding Chabad-Lubavitch & Chabad UK following drug bust involving the latter
Jewish News UK Outreach organisation Chabad-Lubavitch
this week took legal action to publicly distance itself from an
unrelated group called Chabad UK, following a drugs bust involving the
latter in Stamford Hill.
Police said two men were arrested after
a dawn raid on Monday “on suspicion of money laundering, fraud and
supplying misleading/false information to the Commission (Charities Act
2011)”. They have been bailed to appear in January.
One of the three addresses raided was
Oldhill Street in Hackney, from where Chabad UK is run by 62-year-old
Rabbi Chaim Yitzchok Cohen, director of the Beis Moshiach/Beis Menachem
Community Centre.
Police confirmed this week that the two
men arrested were aged 62 and 34 years. They were widely reported to be
Cohen and his son Dudi, although these reports could not be
substantiated and Chabad UK could not be reached for comment. [...]
Schlesinger Twins: Chabad finally dip their toe into the Schlesinger case
I was amazed to read the "ask the Rabbi" column in "The Jewish News" this week:
http://www.jewishnews.co.uk/ (to read the full newspaper, click on the right-hand column)
Finally, we see UK Chabad dipping their toe into the water. It should be no surprise to anyone familiar with Chabad culture that they have arrived late (there has already been public endorsements from Chief Rabbi Mirvis, Manchester Beth Din, etc...) but nevertheless it is very noteworthy.
Rabbi Schochet is a highly influential spokesperson within Chabad circles, and his unprompted passing reference to the Schlesinger case is more significant than it first seems. He brings Beth Alexander as a reference point, as if to recognize that her case in Vienna is an example of a clear injustice that is beyond debate.
I sincerely hope, now that there is public acknowledgement from senior and respected Chabad hierarchy, that a proper and thorough representation will be made to Biderman, and that the twins will soon be reunited with their mother once again.
------
Finally, we see UK Chabad dipping their toe into the water. It should be no surprise to anyone familiar with Chabad culture that they have arrived late (there has already been public endorsements from Chief Rabbi Mirvis, Manchester Beth Din, etc...) but nevertheless it is very noteworthy.
Rabbi Schochet is a highly influential spokesperson within Chabad circles, and his unprompted passing reference to the Schlesinger case is more significant than it first seems. He brings Beth Alexander as a reference point, as if to recognize that her case in Vienna is an example of a clear injustice that is beyond debate.
I sincerely hope, now that there is public acknowledgement from senior and respected Chabad hierarchy, that a proper and thorough representation will be made to Biderman, and that the twins will soon be reunited with their mother once again.
------
Dear Rabbi,
I'm involved in a nasty custody battle with my ex-husband. He has the majority custody of the children until the finances are sorted and the divorce is final. Is there a halachic position on this? Does Judaism acknowledge the rights of one parent over another?
- Name Withheld
Dear 'NW',
Judaism sanctions common sense and what is in the best interest of the children. With the exception of extenuating circumstances, it is obvious it is the best interest of the children to enjoy shared love from both parents, which can be experienced only when there is shared access.
Once case which has made headlines in the national press is that of Beth Alexander in Vienna. I don't know the circumstances that led to a judge denying her the basic rights as a mother, or the thinking of a court that doesn't sanction the husband for constantly cancelling the already-sporadic visitation rights granted to her. But notwithstanding the courts, I would have thought the husband would want the best for his children and all responsible parents must surely want their children to experience the love that only a mother can give.
Tell your ex-husband he should park his spite and bury his hate and not use your kids as battering rams against you. If he loves them and wants them to have a stable future and be able to form loving and lasting relationships in their own lives, he should do the right thing and grant equal access.
Attachments area
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Friday, September 19, 2014
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Rabbi Pinto Agrees to Plea Bargain Agreement in Police Bribery case
Arutz 7 Rabbi Yosef Yoshiyahu Pinto, head of the 'Shuvu Yisrael' sect,
signed a plea bargain agreement on Wednesday that attributes to him
crimes of bribery, attempted bribery and disruption of proceedings.
The State Attorney's Office is expected to demand a one year prison sentence against the controversial rabbi.
As part of the plea agreement Rabbi Pinto would serve as a state
witness against former police Maj. Gen. Menashe Arbiv, who is to be
investigated on suspicion of receiving benefits.
Earlier this year, the Attorney General's Office stated it would file an indictment against
Rabbi Pinto for allegedly attempting to bribe senior police officer
Ephraim Bracha with $200,000 for information about a pending police
investigation into the Hazon Yeshaya charity organization, which Pinto
headed.
Bracha immediately reported the incident to his superiors, prompting a separate investigation against Rabbi Pinto himself.
That investigation revealed that Rabbi Pinto allegedly tried to bribe
several other officers for information about the case against Hazon
Yeshaya. The charity, which was supposed to have provided millions of
dollars to Holocaust survivors and ran a popular soup kitchen and
volunteer network in Jerusalem, closed in 2012 under allegations of
fraud. [...]
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