Meiri's variant text:Kesubos 17a

The Meiri in Nedarim (20a) states: "There is one exception to the blanket prohibition of looking at married women. It is permitted to look at the face of a bride for the first seven days of marriage in order to endear her to her husband." While in Kesubos (17a) he states, It is a mitzva to cause the chasan and kallah to rejoice in order that they beome more attached to each other...  The greatest of scholars used to carry the bride on their shoulders. However this activity is not permitted except to one who has no improper thoughts. For anyone else it is prohibted even to look at the bride’s face in order to make her beloved to her husband. It is only permitted for someone who knows himself very well.

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The problem is that our text of Kesubos 17a states:  Rav Yochanon said that it is permitted to stare at the face intently at the face of a bride for the first seven days after marriage in order to make her beloved to her husband. But that is not accepted as halacha.

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Below is part of a manuscript available on line from Hebrew University from the Vatican Library. It states clearly that it is in fact the halacha that it is permitted to look at a kallah's face for the first 7 days of marriage. Which agrees with the Meiri - as well as Rambam in his commentary to the Mishna Sanhedrin 7:4. [use Explorer or Chrome - Firefox seems to have problems view the Hebrew University site.]

The other interesting change is that we have the text ): Rav Acha placed the bride on his shoulder and danced with her. The Rabbis asked him, May we do this also? He replied, If they are perceived by you as a beam [that arouses no sexual thoughts – Rashi] then it is all right and if not you may not.

The text below says it was Rav Ada Bar Ahava who used to dance with the kalla on his shoulder. This is apparently the same Rav Ada bar Ahava who ripped the red cloak off of a woman because it wasn't modest dress! 

 

Yam Shel Shlomo: Prohibition of looking at women

Yam Shel Shlomo(Kesubos 2:3): R’ Yosse [Kesubos 17a] asserts, “It is permitted to stare intently at the face of the bride for the first 7 days in order that she become beloved to her husband” - but that is not the halacha. And even the first day of marriage it is prohibited so he should instead stare at her clothing or jewelry but not at her face at all. In contrast all of this is absolutely prohibited for other married women. It seems that this is only in reference to staring in a manner that it is prohibited to stare at a rainbow which is in a manner of examination and staring – but simply in a manner of glancing it is permitted. Glancing is also permitted in regard to all married women. Even though from the Rosh (2.3) it appears that even glancing at her face is prohibited but that doesn’t make sense because then no one would be able to know whether a particular woman was single or married that they could testify concerning her. It is specifically talmidei chachomim that Bava Basra 168a say normally do not pay attention to a woman’s appearance. This implies that glancing is permitted even for a talmid chachom, while the average person generally pays attention even to recognize a woman. And the gemora there concludes that when a talmid chachom pays attention to the appearance of a woman he is fully aware of what she looks like. Thus this indicates that looking at a woman is not prohibited but it is only the minhag not to. Therefore we can conclude that there is no actual prohibition at looking at women but there is for staring and carefully examining her image. Staring would also be prohibited even to examining her clothing as we see in Avoda Zara (20b). This is also the view of the Ramban, It is prohibited to stare at the beauty of a woman – even at her little finger with the intent to derive pleasure... This seems to be in agreement with what I explained. Nevertheless one who can be cautious and to add restrictions and safeguards and he is pious and it is known that he is not doing it for pride and to show off – he is called a holy man and he is blessed.

Campaign to get Epstein a 'get' heats up

Washington Jewish Week    

Update from previous post

Rabbi Chaim Herzel Kranz confirmed that Friedman had prayed there "for a few days," but he noted there is "a condemnation on him not ostracism. He has the right to come to synagogue. You do not block that."

He urged everyone to think about the couple's young child and work for a solution rather than cementing further polarization.

"It's very tenuous. There is no trust and a lot of anger" on both sides, he said.

"People have feelings. You've got to deal with people's feelings. You try 100 times. It doesn't work. You try 101.

You don't look for who is a winner, who is a loser," Kranz said, adding he is striving to "handle it."

Also hoping to come up with an amicable way for Epstein to obtain a get is Rabbi David Eidensohn of Monsey, N.Y. He, along with Rabbi Kranz, stressed that a coerced get is not valid

"If you force a divorce, the wife remains married. You have to be very careful," Kranz said. And Eidensohn agreed, explaining he called Friedman and advised him not to give a coerced get.

Restaurant limits use of waitresses for kashrus certification

Haaretz

A Haredi-owned Jerusalem restaurant will be restricting the working hours of waitresses in order to receive the strict mehadrin kashrut certificate. 

The veteran eatery, Heimische Essen, in Rehavia, will cease employing waitresses on Thursday nights, a favorite time for yeshiva boys to patronize the eatery. 

Waitresses at the restaurant, which serves Eastern European specialties to a variety of people, are modestly dressed, although some of them are not Orthodox.

Church Puts Legal Pressure on Abuse Victims’ Group

NYTimes

Turning the tables on an advocacy group that has long supported victims of pedophile priests, lawyers for the Roman Catholic Church and priests accused of sexual abuse in two Missouri cases have gone to court to compel the group to disclose more than two decades of e-mails that could include correspondence with victims, lawyers, whistle-blowers, witnesses, the police, prosecutors and journalists. 

The group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, is neither a plaintiff nor a defendant in the litigation. But the group has been subpoenaed five times in recent months in Kansas City and St. Louis, and its national director, David Clohessy, was questioned by a battery of lawyers for more than six hours this year. A judge in Kansas City ruled that the network must comply because it “almost certainly” had information relevant to the case.

Doctor jailed for distributing pedophiliac images

haaretz

The Haifa Magistrate's Court on Sunday sentenced a pediatrician who distributed pedophiliac images on the Internet to an 18-month jail term. 

Both the prosecution and the defense were surprised by the harshness of the sentence handed down by Judge Zaid Falah against Dr. Avraham Barkai, who works for the Meuhedet health maintenance organization. The defense immediately announced that it planned to appeal the ruling.

Secular gender provocation on Israeli bus:The other side

A Bochur in the Mir writes:

The provocatzia hasn't ended?

Tonight I had the unfortunate but enlightening experience to watch an unwarranted provocation on a bus to Yerushalaim. I was returning from a Chasunah in Bnei Brak on an Egged 402.  I got on the bus by the exit of Bnei Brak at around 11:30pm. I was tired from the wedding and was looking forward to a quiet ride home. That was not to be. As soon as the bus turned onto the highway a few young women in the back of the bus started to act up. It started as giggles then it turn to singing then to plain shouting of profanities. The bus driver pulled over, on the highway and requested that they quiet down or he will call the police. He spoke to them again, to no avail. He then tried idling for a few minutes hoping they would quiet down, quiet wasn't forthcoming.  As a last resort he called the police. Naturally they weren't fast enough. So he decided to drive the bus to the police station. As soon as they realized where he was going the 4 of them marched to the front of the bus, (poking the men on the way) demanding a refund and to get off the bus. Both are against egged policy and getting off on the highway is rather dangerous.  They then started pushing his buttons. I mean the real ones, the lights the doors all while screaming singing and cursing everyone on the bus. Did I forget to mention the bus was moving while they were trying to open the doors. They were waving their hands in front of him, one of them even light up a cigarette. After one fine Chossid offered to pay them to alight they upped the ante to 100shek a person, not the 15 they paid to get on.
 

Finally after a slow drive to the police station, we arrived. Now they were really scared so out came the accusations. The bus driver touched us inappropriately, the Chareidim called us whores. And a dozen other complete fabrications of their perverted minds. Luckily the bus driver said the truth and the 4 of them were escorted off.

Now why am I telling you this story? The reason is because like many of you I am a skeptic. When I heard of the story of Rabbi Fuchs and the female soldier, I wondered. As I was taught growing up that to every story their are the two sides and the truth. Now after tonights incident I think to myself how it could have ended differently.  Someone's life may have been destroyed and people would have been almost completely indifferent. People would have said "yeah it's a shame but there must be more to the story".   THERE IS NO MORE TO THE STORY!! Boruch Hashem the police weren't in the mood (and they aren't under the command of Nisso Shacham) and they annoyed the driver too.

I'm sure this story will not make it to Haaretz or any of the other wonderful news sources but at least YOU should read it and know what's really going on.

My dear friends next time you read one of these sensational "harassment" stories, keep mine in mind. 

Does effort in observing tznius guarantee parnasa?

 Rabbi Eliyahu Falk writes in the supplement to his book on Modesy page 38.

It should be noted that in the merit of mesiras nefesh for Tznius the community at large is blessed with sustenance and parnasa. See Berachos (20a) where the Gemora presents a question: "Why is it that as soon as Rav Yehuda removes a shoe  (as he prepares to pray for rain) it starts raining right away, whilst we pray and pray for rain with no response?" To this the Gemara answers: ... The earlier ones were moser nefesh for the sanctification of Hashem's name. For example, Rav Yehuda took the courageous step of ripping off a woman an outrageous cloak she was wearing ( which could have brought him dire trouble from her husband and family) in order to eliminate the scourge of pritzus from amongst the Jewish people. They therefore merited to have their tefillos for sustenance answered. We, however, have not shown mesiras nefesh on behalf of Tznius."

It is spelled out  clearly in this statement that rain, one of the most elementary substances needed for the preservation of human life, is guaranteed when people are moser nefesh for Tznius. Accordingly, women who change their inadequate clothes for adequate ones in spite of the enormous bother and expense involved are to be envied for in their merit Klal Yisrael is blessed with ample food and parnassa (provided they pray for it).

I am having great difficulties in understanding how Rabbi Falk derives his conclusion from this gemora. The gemora - which I have cited in full below - says that prayers are not answered for contemporary generations - despite their much greater knowledge of Torah because they don't have the mesiras nefesh of previous generations. The example of mesiras nefesh the gemora gives is that Rav Adda ripped off a garment from a woman that he considered immodest. But the gemora notes that the woman was not Jewish and that because he embarrassed her by uncovering her hair (which was against the modesty of goyim at that time) he was fined 400 zuz. 1) There is no promise of paransa mentioned for wearing modest clothes, 2) The act of mesira nefesh described in the gemora of a man forcibly removing a woman's red garment - is obviously not something that Rav Falk would recommend. 3) Rav Adda was in fact punished for this by being fined 400 zuz. So how was this act commendable? Also this is not the halacha.

שולחן ערוך (יורה דעה הלכות נידוי וחרם סימן שלד:מח

אם נידו לאדם אחד על שעבר עבירה, וגזר השר עונש על מי שיחזיק הנידוי, חייבים ליכנס בספק עונש כדי להחזיק דתנו. אבל אם נידוהו על דברים שבינו לחבירו, כגון שהוליכו לערכאות של עובדי כוכבים, אין אנו חייבים ליכנס בסכנת העונש. הגה: וע"ל סי' רכ"ח גם סעיף מ"ז וגם בסימן רל"ב סעיף י"ב. אף על פי שחייב אדם למחות בעוברי עבירה, וכל מי שאינו מוחה, ובידו למחות, נתפס באותו עון,  מכל מקום אין אדם חייב להוציא ממונו על זה. ולכן נהגו להקל מלמחות בעוברי עבירה, שיש לחוש שיהיו עומדין על גופנו ומאודנו (מהרי"ו סימן קנ"ז).

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Berachos(20a): Said R. Papa to Abaye: How is it that for the former generations miracles were performed and for us miracles are not performed? It cannot be because of their [superiority in] study, because in the years of Rab Judah the whole of their studies was confined to Nezikin, and we study all six Orders, and when Rab Judah came in [the tractate] ‘Ukzin [to the law], ‘If a woman presses vegetables in a pot’ (or, according to others, ‘olives pressed with their leaves are clean’), he used to say, I see all the difficulties of Rab and Samuel here and we have thirteen versions of Ukzin. And yet when Rab Judah drew off one shoe, rain used to come, whereas we torment ourselves and cry loudly, and no notice is taken of us!He replied: The former generations used to be ready to sacrifice their lives for the sanctity of [God's] name; we do not sacrifice our lives for the sanctity of [God's] name. There was the case of R. Adda b. Ahaba who saw a heathen woman wearing a red head-dress in the street, and thinking that she was an Israelite woman, he rose and tore it from her. It turned out that she was a heathen woman, and they fined him four hundred zuz. He said to her: What is your name. She replied: Mathun. Mathun, he said to her: that makes four hundred zuz.

Lev Tahor: Haaretz's view of controversial group

Haaretz

Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans is trying to get me to repent and become religious. To this end, for the past four months he has been spending hours with me on the phone from Canada. He believes I have a good Jewish soul that somehow got lost, and insists he can, and must, show it the way back. I disagree with him about the soul, the Jewish thing and the path, but do find many other interesting subjects to discuss with him.

Rabbi Helbrans is a bit disappointed that I haven’t become religious yet, but he’s not giving up. He keeps trying at every opportunity. He maintains that discussion of God should not be relegated to the realm of fate, but rather that it is an absolute and provable truth. Therefore, before he would consent to be interviewed, he insisted that I devote 10 hours to listening to him present his proofs. Helbrans declared that if I came to him with an honest desire to explore the truth, I would no longer be able to deny God and his Torah, as given to the Jewish people at Sinai. [....]

'Anonymous' takes down 40+ pedophiles sites

Time

Anonymous has turned its attentions from corporations to pedophiles with the news that the hacktivist group has taken down multiple child pornography sites, including one of the largest known, with account details of its 1589 users being posted online as evidence.

The incident was just part of something Anonymous is calling “Operation Darknet,” a move by the group to eliminate child pornography on the Tor network. Tor, which was originally developed as a way of protecting government communications by the U.S. Navy, now describes itself as “a network of virtual tunnels that allows people and groups to improve their privacy and security on the Internet.” But the privacy and anonymity it offers has been abused by child pornographers, something that Anonymous aims to correct with its new campaign.

Benizri's lying to parole board prompts calls for reform of system

Haaretz

The Israel Prison Service plans to test a treatment program for prisoners convicted of political corruption, according to the head of the Prisoner Rehabilitation Authority, the statutory body that helps set standards for prisoner releases.

The PRA requested that such a program be instituted following the statements made by former Shas minister Shlomo Benizri after his early release from prison last week.

Benizri had expressed remorse to a parole board for the bribery, breach of trust, conspiracy and obstruction of justice he committed while labor and social affairs minister, and was thus marked for early release after serving only two-and-a-half years of his four-year sentence. Immediately after his release, however, he retracted his statement of regret and proclaimed that he'd been framed and was innocent.

Update: Baby’s Death Renews Debate Over a Circumcision Ritual

NYTimes 

Updating this post

Prosecutors are investigating the death of a newborn boy who died in September after contracting herpes through a controversial practice of ritual circumcision, reviving a debate in New York over safety and religious freedom. 

The Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, confirmed on Wednesday that the investigation was continuing, but declined to comment further. 

The cause of death of the 2-week-old boy, who died at Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn on Sept. 28, was Type 1 herpes, caused by “ritual circumcision with oral suction,” according to the medical examiner’s office.[...]

Rav Kook: Connection of Purim & Amalek to Geirus

  PURIM61.htm 

Rav Kook then quoted the Talmudic statement in Sanhedrin 99b that Timna wanted to marry into the family of Abraham but was not accepted. In the end, she became the concubine of Esau's eldest son. "Better to be a maidservant to this people," Timna reasoned, "than a princess of another people." As punishment for rejecting Timna, the Jewish people were cursed with the eternal enmity of Timna's son - Amalek.

This of course is the connection to the story of Purim, for Haman, the enemy of the Jews, was a descendant of Amalek. Haman's hatred of the Jews and his decree to destroy them in fact originated in the failure to convert his great-grandmother Timna. But this error was redressed in the time of Mordechai and Esther, when "Many of the peoples of the land became Jews" (Esther 8:17).

Moldova votes to require castration for pedophiles

USA Today

 Foreigners convicted of sexually abusing children in Moldova will be mandatorily castrated, according to new legislation introduced Tuesday.

Parliament approved the law by a majority after lawmakers said the impoverished nation was attracting pedophiles from the West. It will become effective July 1.

The new law states foreign and Moldovan nationals found guilty of pedophilia will be chemically castrated, while courts will rule separately on those found guilty of rape.

The move was immediately criticized by the Council of Europe, the pan-European human rights group, which said chemical castration should involve consent, and offenders should be properly informed about procedure while the law should have been preceded by a public debate. [...]