Rav Steinman: A fixed learning session before candle lighting is an act of cruelty to his wife

Kikar Shabbat    באחד מכוללי "שישי שבת", העלו יוזמה להוסיף סדר לימוד בערב שבת, לפני הדלקת הנרות, בעקבות קריאת גדולי לחיזוק הלימוד בימי שישי ושבת.

בטרם הוציאו את היוזמה אל הפועל, עלו מנהלי הכולל למעונו של מרן הגראי"ל שטיינמן, כדי לשמוע את דעתו באשר לקביעת סדר הלימוד לפני הדלקת הנרות.

להפתעתם, ראש הישיבה הורה בנחרצות לא יעשו כן בשום פנים ואופן.

את הוראתו נימק הגראי"ל בכך שהזמן שטרם הדלקת הנרות הוא הזמן "הלחוץ ביותר בבית במשך השבוע וזו אכזריות להשאיר כך את האישה לבד".

ראש הישיבה הוסיף ואמר כי "מי שרוצה ללמוד ואשתו רוצה שהוא ילמד - תבוא עליו ברכה. אבל לקבוע סדר לזה בשום אופן לא".

"מי שבכל זאת רוצה", הוסיף ראש הישיבה לסיום, "שיחשוב בלימוד".

Orthodox Judaism flourishes more with oppression and poverty than with freedom and wealth

In response to some critical comments about RaP's latest post. There is no question that spirituality is greater when Jews are in an environment of anti-Semitism and are poor and unemployed and therefore Torah is their only option for activity.  The rabbis of the 17th and 18th century were fully aware of this and that is why they resisted emancipation from the ghetto and equal rights. The problem is this goes against modern western thought that assumes that freedom and democracy are inherently good.

In general the Rabbis  preferred the isolation and victim hood that had been imposed on the Jews since the Black Death in the 1300's rather than the freedom and opportunities that existed before this. Of course too much oppression such as Nazi Germany or Communist Russia - is also a problem. Rav S. R. Hirsch was one of the few rabbis of the 18oo's who welcomed emancipation and free access to the world. I think few of us would voluntarily turn back the clock and want to live in a  17th century European ghetto. However that doesn't mean it didn't have benefits and even advantages to our present situation.

This is part of the fight that is going on between the Chareidim and Lapid over the benefits of secular education and sharing the burden. It is interesting to note that the most difficult issue for Mendelssohn to deal with was the separation of Church and State. Emancipation requires that no once can tell you how to think while Torah requires imposing sanctions for deviant religious thoughts and actions deemed offensive by religious authority - even though they are not judged as such by secular society.. How could he advocate participation in a society which requires relinquishing the sanctions that the religious community requires to be imposed on those who fail to conform. Mendelssohn was encouraged to convert to Christianity in order to resolve this problem

=============
 Berachos (32a): R. Eleazar also said: Moses spoke insolently towards heaven, as it says, And Moses prayed unto the Lord. Read not el [unto] the Lord, but ‘al [upon] the Lord, for so in the school of R. Eliezer alefs were pronounced like ‘ayins and ‘ayins like alefs. The school of R. Jannai learnt it from here: And Di-Zahab. What is ‘ And Di-Zahab’? They said in the school of R. Jannai: Thus spoke Moses before the Holy One, blessed be He: Sovereign of the Universe, the silver and gold [zahab] which Thou didst shower on Israel until they said, Enough [dai], that it was which led to their making the Calf. They said in the school of R. Jannai: A lion does not roar over a basket of straw but over a basket of flesh. R. Oshaia said: It is like the case of a man who had a lean but large-limbed cow. He gave it lupines to eat and it commenced to kick him. He said to it: What led you to kick me except the lupines that I fed you with? R. Hiyya b. Abba said: It is like the case of a man who had a son; he bathed him and anointed him and gave him plenty to eat and drink and hung a purse round his neck and set him down at the door of a bawdy house. How could the boy help sinning? R. Aha the son of R. Huna said in the name of R. Shesheth: This bears out the popular saying: A full stomach is a bad sort, as It says, When they were fed they became full, they were filled and their heart was exalted; therefore they have forgotten Me. R. Nahman learnt it from here: Then thy heart be lifted up and thou forget the Lord. The Rabbis from here: And they shall have eaten their fill and waxen fat, and turned unto other gods. Or, if you prefer, I can say from here. But Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked. R. Samuel b. Nahmani said in the name of R. Jonathan. Whence do we know that the Holy One, blessed be He, in the end gave Moses right? Because it says, And multiplied unto her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.

Chofetz Chaim. The Chofetz Chaim taught that each neshama is asked before it is born in a human being whether it wants to be rich or poor.[Nidah (16b)].  The students said that they didn't understand this because so many people are poor and they obviously don't want to be! The Chofetz Chaim replied that from this we see that the neshama is well aware that the test of being poor is less than that of being rich and that is why it is chosen.

 Dayan Gruenfeld (Introduction to Hirsch, Judaism Eternal vol I pp 26-27). If anything had been forced on the Jew, it was not his adher­ence to, but his exclusion from, general culture and education. When at the beginning of the nineteenth century the Jews  again found their way into the world of science and general  education they came in reality back to their own. For the  estrangement was not organic but superimposed. It had by no  means arisen from the essential character of Judaism. Just the contrary was true, as the golden eras of Jewish history in  Babylonia and Spain had shown. In those eras the highest Talmudic and general scientific efficiency were combined. Apart from the enormous support which the study of Torah, Mish­nah, and Talmud receives from secular knowledge, the whole task of the Jew as a servant of God in this world depends on his insight into the natural historical and social conditions around him.

Rabbi Moshe Dovid Tendler (Kol HaMaser interview 2010): The difficulties of Jewish life in that period [of the first immigrants on the Lower East Side] are perhaps best appreciated by examining what followed the initial “settling in.” Once upon a time, I gave a lecture in my shul in which I said that we fell victim to the three A’s –“affluence,” “acceptance,” and “assimilation” – but, unlike the AAA, these A’s did not protect us. Nowadays, after being in Yeshiva all these years and watching what is happening, I have added an I for “irreverence.” There is nothing that is (sacred), nothing that is out of bounds for discussion.

Chabad.org Chabad historiographical tradition espouses a similar attitude towards libertarian France. Accordingly, autocratic oppression under the Russian Tsars was deemed preferable to the comforts to be gained under the government of a more liberal regime. This sentiment is succinctly expressed in a statement attributed to Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, founder of the Chabad school: “If Bonaparte will be victorious, Jewish wealth will increase, and the prestige of the Jewish people will be raised; but their hearts will become separated and distanced from their Father in Heaven. But if Alexander will be victorious, although Israel’s poverty will increase and their prestige will be lowered, their hearts will be joined, bound and unified with their Father in Heaven.”6

Being politically correct: Meretz wants gender removed from Israeli IDs because it upsets the transgendered.

YNet   Knesset Member Tamar Zandberg (Meretz) is seeking to remove the sex clause from Israeli identity cards and has submitted a bill to the Knesset Secretariat with the backing of hee fellow party members as well as MK Merav Michaeli (Labor).

Circumcision device using rubber bands approved by WHO

times of Israel   The World Health Organization approved an Israeli-developed non-surgical circumcision device that could soon be used throughout Africa to help control AIDS. PrePex, a disposable and easy-to-use device made of rubber bands that obviates the need for anesthesia, stitches or a sterile setting, received WHO approval on Friday, The New York Times reported.  

The foreskin dies from a lack of oxygen and either falls off on its own or is easily cut off, according to reports.

20% off my Child & Domestic Abuse vol 1, 2 and 3 - only for month of June

volume 1 Using code JZ9DHZ22 on the links below

Discussion of the unique problems of abuse as well as the halachic issues (with synopsis approved by Rav Moshe  Sternbuch.) In addition there are 25 Essays by 16 experts on important topics.

https://www.createspace.com/3493035

volume 2

500 page Hebrew and English Source Book

https://www.createspace.com/3493457

Volume 3

 Compact summary of basic issues from volume I together with some important sources from volume II

https://www.createspace.com/3609875

For the month of June only, there will be a discount of 20% when purchasing any of the 3 volumes of Child and Domestic Abuse.      click this link for a brief description of the books

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**However this is only when  purchsed through my Create Space eStore -  Using code JZ9DHZ22    using links  above.    There is no discount when purchased through Amazon or in the stores.

Make sure that the discounted price appears before checking out of the eStore.

China suddenly is aware of sexual abuse of its children

LA Times  In China's southern Hainan province, a school principal and a housing authority official were arrested after they allegedly took six girls ages 11 to 13 out to sing karaoke, got them drunk and spent the night with them in a hotel. 

A principal in Anhui province was arrested on suspicion of molesting nine girls, and a 50-year-old math teacher in the same province was charged with raping a 7-year-old girl. A kindergarten security guard was arrested, accused of molesting children.

All these incidents took place in the last three weeks, an unusual spate of sexual abuse cases in a country where such matters are seldom discussed and too-infrequently prosecuted.

Despite the government's role in publicizing the cases and promise to crack down on child abusers, the incidents are inspiring protests — on the streets and on the Internet — and accusations of a ham-handed coverup attempt as parents were forbidden to retain lawyers. [...]

In China, sexual abuse of children has not been the high-profile issue that it is in the United States, or more recently Britain.

That changed on a dime last month. Within the last three weeks, there have been nine major cases of sexual abuse in schools around the country, with more than 30 children involved.

The common denominator in the cases is that those accused of abuse have been people with power, such as principals or teachers, and their alleged victims often children of migrant workers or farmers. Millions of working parents must leave their children with grandparents or at boarding schools, where the young people don't always receive adequate supervision.

Most cases of sexual abuse "happen to the children of people who don't have money and don't have power," said Li Yinhe, a Beijing-based sociologist who writes frequently about sex. She also blamed limited sex education in the Chinese school system.

"Children here have zero sex education. They have no sense that there are some parts of their bodies that other people aren't allowed to touch, and it is very easy for them to be abused by people they trust, like a principal or teacher," she said.

The sudden proliferation of sexual abuse cases appears to be the result of rising awareness and a decision by the government to allow reporting on the subject. [...]

' Thank you ' Yair Lapid and Yesh Atid !: You Have Paradoxically United the Charedi Torah World Like Never Before In Recent Memory !

Guest Post by RaP   Charedi life in Israel is very complicated and competitive and disunited. Degel HaTorah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degel_HaTorah , the Israeli Litvish Charedi political party was founded in 1988 after Rav Elazar Shach z"l finally consolidated his break with the Chasidish-dominated Agudas Yisroel party. Along the way, in 1984, Rav Shach partnered with Rav Ovadia Yosef to launch Shas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shas the political party of Charedi Israeli Sefardim.

Since then, from 1984 until 2013, for a period of almost three decades, these three Charedi political blocks were in competition with each other for positions in government alliances and national, regional and local rabbinates, allocation of government funds and for general political influence. At times the Ashkenazim of Degel HaTorah and Agudah united for elections to form Yahadut HaTorah (United Torah Judaism [UTJ]) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Torah_Judaism formed in 1992, and competed head to head with the Sefardi Shas party. At other times, the Shas party joined the government and UTJ sat it out. But there was little overall unity as each set of Gedolim and rabbis went their own way fighting for their own slices of the big pie in and out of government to fund various yeshivas, schools, programs and getting help for its people from the Israeli socialistic welfare state in myriads of ways.

No more! With the rise of Yair Lapid and his activist progressive Yesh Atid party, founded in 2012 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yesh_Atid , becoming a key partner in the latest Israeli government coalition whereby they insisted that "no Charedi" party be in the government coalition -- the Charedim of  Israel have been thrown out of government and are now forced to be united in the face of the common threats against them.

What they could not do on their own, Yair Lapid and his Yesh Atid party and  agenda have done for and to them. Like when the Maskilim and Zionists of old  became emboldened, the Misnagdim and Chasidim closed ranks and united against the common threat against them that is part of the history of the rise of the Agudah movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Agudath_Israel : This phenomenon sounds familiar (from Wikipedia): "World Agudath Israel was established at a conference held at Kattowitz (Katowice) in 1912 after the Tenth World Zionist Congress had defeated a motion by the Torah Nationalists Mizrachi movement for funding religious schools."

Precisely one hundred years later, it looks like we are back to square one! There have now been a series of anti-Charedi proposals and actions that have been emanating from the new Israeli government that is "free of Charedim" with raw insults emanating of "parasites" and worse -- while of course every ruling clique must have it's "court Jew" and Yesh Atid has ensured that it has a modern progressive American Charedi in its ranks as well, namely Rabbi Dov Lipman who has been a lightning-rod for much criticism from his own circles in America and Israel.

The main thrust and weapon of the new coalition is encapsulated in a grand new slogan of "shivyon banetel" ("sharing in [the] burden") whereby Charedim are being threatened with criminal prosecution and jail-time if they don't sign up for and then join the Israeli army. There is even a political czar or commissar who is fittingly a former head of the vaunted Shin Bet security services Yakov Peri who heads a Knesset commission to plan and implement all of this.

This is furthermore backed up with threats of financial blackmail towards the oldest bastions of Torah, the yeshivas that have been the backbone of the Jewish people for over 2,000 years, and their roshei yeshiva, who will face cutbacks and penalties or criminal charges unless they deliver their talmidim to the army. Suddenly the secular Yesh Atid party is an expert concerning the most complex core of the Jewish people as a Torah nation.

It does not stop there. The Israeli tax authorities, under the guidance of both Yair Lapid as Finance Minister and his political partner "Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor" Naftali Bennett from the new Bayit Yehudi party http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jewish_Home founded in 2008, have agents investigating and prosecuting all sorts of Charedi-owned and run businesses and operations that are unique to Israel and the frum world. Even regular Israeli politicians are saying this is just obviously a Charedi "witch hunt"! Minister Lapid has been noticeably absent from important economic panels, forums and international meetings with all sorts of excuses. While he does not hide the fact that he does not have a background in economics, in fact his education did not go beyond high school, here is what Wikipedia says about Lapid's "education" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yair_Lapid#Education : "As a teenager, Lapid struggled with learning disabilities, and dropped out of high school, and never earned a bagrut (high school matriculation certificate)..." yet this is the "expert" on economics who now wants to tell all the Charedi "Gemora Kups" how to run "Yiddisha Gesheften" ! And in spite of the fact that General Moshe Yaalon, the current Israeli Defense Minister OPPOSES the forced mass conscription of Charedim, yet Minister Lapid threatens to bring down the government if he does not get his way.

It gets worse. Latest reports are that the Israeli tax authorities are demanding that Charedi families who have made weddings and simchas show proof of how they paid, where the money came from and who it was paid to. This is a new level of obnoxious intrusiveness that has started to alienate many prospective Olim and, well, what can one say, it is just downright crazy if not plain evil!

So what has all this produced besides all the headlines and recriminations back and forth? One BIG thing! The Charedi world is now united as never before! Now that Shas and UTJ are in the opposition in the Israeli Knesset, they have united in the face of the common threats they face.

Rav Shteinman sounds like Rav Yosef who sounds like the Chasidic Rebbes who sound like all the other Gedolim in the Charedi Torah world. It's not just the rise of a united political front, as symbolized by the fact that the Litvish Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Degel HaTorah and the Chasidish Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Agudah have recently met JOINTLY for the first time since
1988, bringing Litvaks and Chasidim together, but also Charedi Sefardim have united with the Charedi Ashkenazim and Rav Yosef comes to dance with the Belzer Rebbe who it appears is emerging as a key mastermind in the Charedi struggle against the Yesh Atid onslaught against the Israeli Charedi world.

Even more, in one fell swoop, Yair Lapid and Yesh Atid have STRENGTHENED Torah learning. Now all the Gedolim from all the spectrums are calling for more intense Torah learning. Even New yeshivas are being set up, such as by Rav Moshe Shternbuch. A recent letter from Rav Shteinman says that perhaps these challenges against the Torah world are coming about precisely because there has been a slackening of Torah study. But this message is coming from ALL the Charedi rabbis of all walks, and it is all thanks, paradoxically of course, to the loud and clear and unambiguous threats emanating from Yair Lapid and his Yesh Atid colleagues.

So if one wanted to know how Charedim are thinking in the face of all the threats, what would be a typical "lesson" to point out? There is a famous Chazal and it's worth repeating here because it seems that so many enemies of the Charedi Torah world just do not grasp just who they are dealing with:

" (From: Rabbi Akiva's Teachings
http://www.jewishmag.com/123mag/rabbi_akiva/rabbi_akiva.htm ): ...Amongst Rabbi Akiva's teachings was that a person should accept suffering with humility and be prepared to give his life for G-d and His Torah. Rabbi Akiva practiced in life what he taught. When the wicked Roman government decreed that study of the Torah was forbidden on penalty of death, Rabbi Akiba continued to study and teach Torah. When he was asked by Pappus ben Yehudah whether he feared the government and its decrees, he replied with a parable of a fox who was walking along a stream and saw some fishes gathering together. The fox asked the fishes why are they gathering at this point, the fish replied that they were hiding from the fishermen's nets. The fox said to them that they should
come up on the dry land and dwell together with the fox. The fish answered that if in the water which is their natural habit they are in danger, how much more so if they leave it and try to dwell in a place with no water!

'So it is with me,' Rabbi Akiva explained, 'If while we study Torah we are in danger, how much more so if we neglect it!'

A few days later Rabbi Akiba was arrested and imprisoned. Pappus ben Yehudah was also placed in the prison with him. Rabbi Akiba asked him for what reason is he imprisoned, Pappus replied, 'Happy for you Rabbi Akiba that you have been imprisoned for learning Torah; woe unto me who has been imprisoned for vain things.'

When Rabbi Akiba was taken out to be killed his flesh was raked with iron combs to increase his suffering. As he recited the Shema Israel for the last time, his face had a beautiful smile of pleasure. His torturer called to him to explain his pleasure. He replied that all his life he wanted to fulfill the edict of the Torah that one should '…love G-d with all of one's heart, and of one's soul and all of one's might' He said he had been saddened to think that he knew not how he could love Him with all of his soul (life). However now that he was giving his life at the time of saying Shema, how can he not be pleased..."

So, thank you Yair Lapid and Yesh Atid for bringing the Charedi Torah world to such similarly high levels of mesiras nefesh (self-sacrifice) because the Torah world will now PARADOXICALLY become much stronger and better because of you and your "proposals"!

Convicted pedophile is legally raising adopted surrogate daughter

YNet   A sex offender convicted of sex crimes against young children who were under his supervision took advantage of a legal loophole and became the father of a girl through an overseas surrogacy arrangement.

The story was brought to the attention of the National Council for the Child by a woman who learned of the man's past convictions. "She told us of the screening tests candidates for adoption must undergo in Israel, and inquired why those seeking to adopt children abroad are not subjected to the same rigorous procedures," NCC Executive Director Dr. Yitzhak Kadman told Yedioth Ahronoth.

The NCC notified the welfare authorities, the educational institution where the daughter, four, is enrolled, as well as police. "We learned that none of the bodies was aware the man was a pedophile who is raising a surrogate daughter on his own," Kadman said. 

 They also learned there was no legal possibility to take the girl from the father, as the surrogacy procedures were intact. However, the father's relationship with his daughter is being carefully monitored by the welfare authorities, and he was made to attend special psychological guidance. [...]

Rav Triebitz: Challenges of Modernity and Rav S. R Hirsch

This Thursday night at 8:45 Rav Triebitz will continue the discussion about the dealing with modernity - with a discussion of the Seridei Aish's article on Hirsch. Meeting will take place at his home at 6/16 Katzenellenbogen in Har Nof.

Please contact me if you are planning on attending

Did the Gra strongly oppose the Maskilim as he did Chassidim

In Yale Professor Eliyahu Stern's recently published book on the Vilna Gaon - inserted below - asserts that he didn't publicly oppose maskilim such as Mendelssohn. 

In contrast in Rabbi Dovid Eliach's 3 volume work on the Gra - he cites letters which clearly indicate that the Gra was active in opposing the Haskala.

Prof Etkes in his biography of the Gra cites  the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe claim that the Gra was very pleased with Mendelssohn's translation and encouraged its distribution. Etkes rejects it as baseless. Any thoughts?

Update Prof Stern's Review of R' Eliach's book:MODERN RABBINIC HISTORIOGRAPHY
AND THE LEGACY OF ELIJAH OF VILNA:A REVIEW ESSAY (Modern Judaism 24 (1 )2004

Nowhere is the modern-day significance of the GRA highlighted more than in Dov Eliach’s The Gaon: The Story of His Life and an Explanation of the Teachings of Our Teacher and Rabbi the GRA. Upon opening his work, the author informs us of his cultural biases (though, of course, never calling them such). Eliach wastes little time publicizing that his unique and groundbreaking book has been blessed by his rabbi, Chaim Kanievsky, a leading figure in Haredi circles—a man who seldom if ever gives his blessings to such books. For our purposes, this blessing is mixed. On one hand, it signals an immediate red light to the critical reader. On the other hand, it also notifies the reader just how important and relevant this book is in present-day Haredi society. [...]

In volume 2 of The Gaon the strength and uniqueness of Eliach’s work emerge. Here, he offers one of the most comprehensive overviews of the GRA’s relationship to Torah study and secular knowledge. As is the case with every subject touched on by Eliach in this 1,300-page tome, it is obvious that he read through every book, manuscript, and document (though not all are cited) relating to the GRA’s stance toward knowledge not normally identified with Torah. [...]

However, the main novelty in Eliach’s analysis is his employment of the GRA as a historical marker. Specifically, Eliach uses the GRA as a figure through which he paskens (decides the religious status) on abroad range of different issues and figures identified with modern intellectual Jewish history. A paradigmatic example of Eliach’s historiography is his analysis of Maskillim such as the Av Beit-Din of Berlin, Tzvi Hirsch Levin, and Nafatali Hertz Wesseley. The GRA had little, if any, contact with these Berlin rabbinic figures. Yet Levin’s involvement in writing the only approbation for Mendelssohn’s controversial German translation of the Bible, coupled with Levin’s close ties to many individuals in the GRA’s inner circle, compels Eliach to ask how present-day Haredi culture should perceive these Berlin Jews’ religious identity. Unlike modern historians, such as Jacob Katz, who would have sought to verify whether or not someone such as Rabbi Levin was a Mendelssohnian modern, a Rabbinic apologist, or a Traditionalist, Eliach has concerns that are different but no less descriptive. Namely, he attempts to discern whether Levin or Wesseley should be termed “friend or a foe” of the GRA’s world and, by extension, modern-day Haredi culture. In Eliach’s narrative, historical categories are replaced with subjective sociotheological modes of definition. On some levels, this shift is only semantic. What the historian labels as modern is what Eliach calls “foe,” and what Eliach calls “friend” is what the historian might call traditionalist. However, in other respects this shift marks profound differences. Whereas the intellectual center for most modern Jewish historians is Western Europe and the universe and language of Moses Mendelssohn, Eliach makes the Vilna Gaon and the language and categories of the Eastern European rabbinic elite the basis from which to understand modern Jewish intellectual history. Eliach’s privileging of an Eastern European and rabbinic historiographic paradigm offers him the material to connect modern Jewish history to present-day Haredi society. This connection champions the claim of almost every leading Haredi rabbinic figure: namely, that Haredi yeshivot and social institutions are carbon copies of those thatexisted in pre–World War II Eastern Europe.[...]

Nonetheless, Eliach’s historiographic choices come with a heavy price. His attempt to make the GRA into a general in a war against the Haskalah is historically impossible. Ironically, in describing the GRA’ s relationship to the Haskalah Eliach employs a military trope. Somehow for Eliach the GRA goes from being the frail Talmudic Sage described in volume 1—a man who speaks glowingly about a diet consisting of bread and salt—to a powerful “warrior” “fighting” against the Haskalah described in volume 2. Nonetheless, the stark structuralist lines and oppositions that Eliach draws between the GRA’s Lithuanian community and Mendelssohn’s Berlin world simply could not have existed during either of their lifetimes. It was only after the GRA’s death that a demarcation between these two communities could be seen. As Edward Breuer and others have pointed out, during the GRA’s lifetime these two communities shared a great deal of intellectual currency and did not perceive each other in a hostile manner.

A review of Masoras Moshe by Rabbi Yair Hoffman

 [see my previous post on this subject Mesores Moshe - What is it?

update: see my recent post  Get Me'usa an apparent contradiction between Igros Moshe and Mesoras Moshe

Five Towns Jewish Times   [...] R. Mordechai Tendler, who had kept notebooks and letters of his saintly grandfather’s rulings in his 18 years as serving as his grandfather’s Gabbai, has just printed a new book of Rav Moshe Feinstein’s oral rulings.  The rulings number well over one thousand, and most of the them are quite fascinating.

The book has approbations from both of Rav Moshe’s sons, Rav Dovid Feinstein Shlita, and Rav Reuvain Feinstein Shlita, as well as Rav Shmuel Fuerst from Chicago and Rav Dovid Cohen from Brooklyn, both leading and well-respected Poskim in the United States.  Rav Chaim Kanievsky Shlita, of Bnei Brak, appended his signature as well to Rav Dovid Cohen’s approbation. [Rav Dovid Cohen and Rav Chaim Kanievsky are very close]. [...]

It is interesting to note that a similar but much thinner volume of rulings from Rav Moshe Feinstein zt”l was published approximately two years ago by Rabbi Aharon Felder from Philadelphia.  Indeed, the Rav Felder volume contains rulings that were significantly more controversial than this more recent volume.  Certainly, R. Tendler was aware of these rulings as well, yet either he or, more likely, the editors of this volume chose to exclude them.  Of course there have been rulings emanating from Rav Feinstein that appear neither in this most current volume nor in the Rav Felder volume. [...]

In this author’s opinion, the vast majority of Rav Moshe’s rulings that entered into general acceptance when he was alive still remain generally accepted.  There are some rulings, however, where the trend has been to look elsewhere.  For example, Rav Moshe permitted the use of rebar to prevent cement from cracking when pouring cement for a mikvah.  [Rebar is short for reinforcing bar which helps reinforce or compress concrete through either a bar or wires made of carbon steel]. He held that the metal was batel to the cement.  The tendency for the past number of years of Mikvah builders is to stay away from rebar.  Perhaps this can be explained by the development of greater proficiency in pouring, but conversations with Mikvah builders indicate that there is a halachic trend at play here. In a similar vein, numerous Bnei Torah now look at the U shaped insertable Cholent pot as a problem of Hatmana – insulating, relying on the view of Rav Elyashiv and Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach.  This is a position that was summarily rejected by Rav Moshe.

Perhaps only time will tell, but the question of how the arrival of this new volume will affect current halachic rulings of contemporary Poskim is certainly an interesting one.  Finally, family members have confirmed that there will be a total of eighteen volumes to be published. The Sefer is available at all major Jewish bookstores.

Jerusalem Formula: Jewish solution oriented therapy by Dr. Shulem

  Jerusalem Formula Introduction

This is the introduction to Dr Shulem's new book. It deals with how to do sucessful solution-oriented psychotherapy while being consistent with Torah values. Focus is on the precise use of language to cause cognitive shifts and reframing. Dr. Shulem has successfully used this approach and taught it to hundreds of students over the years. On the one hand it seems simple - but it does require proper practice and guidance to be done properly. It clearly demonstrates that good therapy doesn't have to be long or focused on the past.

Why Lapid is strengthening radical Chareidim or How not to draft the ultra-Orthodox

Times of Israel   by Rachel Azaria  a Jerusalem councilwoman representing the Yerushalmim Party

The government’s Peri Committee is offering a solution to the unequal burden of military service that is far from ideal. Why? Because it won’t result in the ultra-Orthodox joining the army, at least not for the next four years. If so, why are Yair Lapid and Yesh Atid determined to pass the law? Ah… It’s simple: they live in Tel Aviv. In other words, they have never actually met the ultra-Orthodox. 

Over the last decade, Jerusalem residents have witnessed a lengthy, difficult struggle over the character of our city. We have succeeded on a number of fronts: the fight against excluding women from the public sphere, retaining the pluralistic character of neighborhoods, and so much more.

We have succeeded because we became acquainted with the ultra-Orthodox community and we realized one key fact: the ultra-Orthodox community is undergoing significant changes, with two distinct undercurrents pulling in opposite directions. The first trend is an increasing interest in being part of Israeli society. These are people who feel Israeli and value the State of Israel. The other group is increasingly disinterested in joining society at large.

The ultra-Orthodox who wish to integrate into society face two main challenges. One is that they don’t know how to join society, so many don’t. But given the chance, they will gladly find their place. The second challenge is pressure from their more radical peers, who deny their religious devotion, threaten to not accept their children to schools, and other such sanctions. [...]

What we’ve learned in Jerusalem is to encourage the moderate voices in the ultra-Orthodox community, those who wish to join the Israeli and Jerusalemite public sphere and to resist the zealots.

The problem is that the Peri Committee does exactly the opposite. According to its plan, it will continue to exempt the entire ultra-Orthodox community from service. And in four years, anyone who doesn’t join the army – will go to jail.

This precisely empowers the more radical voices, who are waiting for a chance to prove that the secular want only to harass the ultra-Orthodox. Of course they’ll fight the Committee’s plan. It is clear that being jailed will be equated with “martyrdom for the sake of G-d,” playing right into the hands of the more radical groups [...]

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