First – 507 respondents is not statistically relevant. Though I’d imagine the required 1500+ figure would show up a similar result.

Second – The Lockes and the Humes of political science developed the question: should a government act according to what the people WANT (Democrats – Clinton), or according to what they NEED (Republican – Bush), even if unpopular?

This is a tricky question. If law is determined by what people want, then if they are more comfortable with the idea that the Earth is flat then it will be flat – truth be darned. But if law goes by what they need, who exactly does the determining? How do they know what the people need?

Authentic Judaism (rare these days) has a hybrid mentality, unquestioningly determining what the people NEED, while understanding that what the people want affects what they need, and should be taken into account.

I’m with Simon, if I understand him correctly. Democracy is the best of awful forms of government. R’ Adin Steinsaltz’s Sanhedrin needs to become POPULAR to be an alternative to this nightmare in Israel. If it were populated by the kinds of persons more interested in welcoming wannabe Jews and pro-women, understanding of homosexuality and so on, plus some good marketing, we’d be on the right track.

Unfortunately, when our religious leaders are not busy running around in circles inspecting your plate to see if you’re eating mehadrin min hamehadrin min hamehadrin, they’re occupied with how high their own stockings are. We need to assur: “chadash min hatorah – assur”

The debate since Columbine has been whether music, video games, movies and even the news reports encourage actions, beliefs or tendencies within a population. I think they do. I don’t think the majority of people who consume such forms of entertainment end up killing people, but those on the edge of the bell curve might. The rebuttal is that these people would act violently anyway. I don’t buy that. Actions are not foregone conclusions and it’s foolhardy to set policy in expectation of such a scenario, instead of setting policy which will do everything possible to avoid that scenario. It’s like saying ‘I’m going to die eventually, so I may as well cross the street when cars are coming’. It’s one thing to put out messages to citizenry that murder is bad, and it’s quite plainly another to tell them on one hand that it’s bad while on the other allow them to play out games as the worst kinds of sadistic criminals and terrorists out there. There’s a difference between playing as a Taliban gunman and as a US soldier. Even with violence such as headshots and blood and guts and realism. If you gun down an innocent as the soldier, you should get booted from the game and lose all points. Teach with media, even as you entertain. 

Judaism teaches that to save one life is to save the entire universe. Why wouldn’t we take every reasonable step to encourage good actions in the real world?

I don’t understand R’ Schechter:
He respects R’ Druckman, then questions his ability to give pesak halacha? If you have ‘rabbi’ as a title, you may not like to do it, and may not be expert in every area of it-but you’d better be prepared to render pesak. A rabbi’s just for sermons? Dan Lechaf Zechut? Druckman led where noone else did. I DID a course AT YU showing tshuvot where our sages bent over backwards to avoid creating mamzers-yet mod orthodoxy condones a haredi path to make MORE?

While I appreciate this man’s position suggesting New York can afford to wait to build the proposed Islamic centre/mosque near ground zero until the time “dhimmis” (i.e. Jews and Christians as second class citizens in Muslim lands) are able to build their places of worship in countries like Saudi Arabia, this static snap to the Reuter’s video link I stumbled across recently does not present your average person that would suggest building a synagogue in Mecca. And while we’re on topic – apparently the ‘mosque’ at the Pentagon is actually an interdenominational chapel that switches around multiple times a day to handle different prayer services -if so, those on the left rabidly, mindlessly, and insensitively bowing to the god of unconditional freedom and tolerance cannot use that to say it’s been done. Further, I’d welcome any bikie mates of this guy that wants to hold up an additional placard clarifying that we’d like to be able to build said places of worship above ground and/or taller than any nearby mosque if we so desire, as this too is one of the restrictions typically placed on dhimmis.

Examples of Islam that apply such restrictions have a serious inferiority complex. Or do they?

In Judaism there are restrictions placed on certain non-Jewish members of society in terms of their rights. An idol worshipper does not have the same religious freedoms as a Jew. Would this extend today to Muslims and Christians? For more, see Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm’s talk on www.YUtorah.org on how Halacha views Islam and Christianity. Of great interest is how Maimonides viewed the two also. In short, of the three elements of faith from which his 13 are derived (1: belief in one infinite G-d, 2: belief in mesorah/tradition/Torah from G-d to Moses to us being accurate, and 3: resurrection/Messiah etc) one is deemed to have screwed up #1, and the other, #2. I’ll let you guess which one’s which.

Do we, too, have an inferiority complex? What would we have to fear? Certainly there is the great concern that the pagan practices that were so abhorrent to G-d would be committed by Jews and make them worthy of expulsion. Any such practices were to be eradicated from our midst (in Israel). If so, it makes sense to deny pagans/polytheists from running around doing their thing in Israel because it would be detrimental to the integrity of a monotheistic society. What qualifies? Where is the line drawn between acceptable non-Jewish practice in a Torah-ideal Israel (whatever that is) and that which is not?

No harmful pesticides or chemicals is top of the list, and if they want no-GM products then fine. I don’t personally see it as a problem as long as sufficient testing and research has gone into the impact of the modification.

Routine soil testing  at multiple points around the crops – essentially test near the borders separating any other crops that do use pesticides etc, as well as one test in the centre of the crop. And a sufficient soil depth dependent on type of crop needs to be tested to ensure that water run-off doesn’t affect any otherwise directly organic crops.

After all, one can hardly call one’s crop ‘organic’ no matter how pure the water you water it with – if next door’s toxic water is nourishing the crop from below.

Seems fairly basic to me. CSIRO involvement, maybe?

In this fascinating piece, here reprinted in full from YNetnews.com, witness at last someone who is willing to speak up to a world that has a rewritten, perverted narrative about the Arabs of “Balestine” so far up its nether-regions its lips are starting to have trouble differentiating its P’s and B’s.

I want someone like that in public office. But as I look at the difference between a Benjamin Nitay that wipes the floor clean with his Arab interlocutor with cogent arguments, author Benjamin Netanyahu that writes books that clearly delineate threats to Western society and PM Bibi Netanyahu who seems to have had the ability to connect that part of his brain to any possible expression by his lips severed – I’m not so sure.

Experts: No legal basis for Palestinian refugee demands

Law professors Ruth Gavison, Yaffa Zilbershatz present PM with position paper claiming must not recognize right of return ‘even as symbolic gesture’. Had this been a legal right, it would have already been discussed at international court, documents says

Ariela Ringel Hoffman

// “International law does not recognize the right of the Palestinian refugees and their descendents to return to their homes,” according to a first-of-its-kind position paper recently submitted to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials.

“Any recognition of this right may tie Israel’s hands and lead to mass lawsuits that will effectively mean the end of the Jewish state,” prominent jurists Prof. Ruth Gavison and Prof. Yaffa Zilbershatz wrote in the document.

“Israel must continue to vehemently oppose the broad implementation of the Palestinian refugees’ return to its territory and must not be tempted to recognize the right of return even as a symbolic gesture,” they claim.

According to the jurists, the return of Palestinian refugees will “undermine the Jews’ ability to realize their right to self-determination in a Jewish and democratic country, and therefore Israel’s legal opposition regarding this issue is justified. (Recognizing the right of return) may perpetuate the (Israeli-Arab) conflict.”

Asked whether the recognition of the right of return may advance a peace agreement that would be acceptable to the Palestinians, Zilbershatz says, “The fact that the Palestinians are talking about the right of return places the idea above any negotiation – because you can’t argue with rights.

“We also do not believe in the statement, ‘You recognize the right and we’ll make sure it is not implemented’. Even the most western, modern philosophy adheres to the notion that economic interests are not the only ones that drive people. You can offer someone a huge financial reward and he or she will still want to return home,” she says.

Do you believe such a position paper or any other legal document can overcome the Palestinian narrative?

‘I’m not naïve. But I think decision-makers and the general public should be made aware of this issue. This is what we are trying to do with this paper. It is also important to mention that there is no connection between this Palestinian demand, which relates to the 1948 refugees, and the conquest in 1967,” says the professor.

“Had this been a legal right and not a question of morals or politics, it would have already been discussed at the international court.”

Zilbershatz, who has been mentioned as a possible candidate to succeed Gabriela Shalev as Israel’s ambassador to the UN, is considered an expert in international law.

Gavison is the president of the Metzilah Center, which was founded in 2005 to address the “growing tendency among Israelis and Jews worldwide to question the legitimacy of Jewish nationalism and its compatibility with universal values.”

According to Zilbershatz, a thorough examination of laws pertaining to refugees found that the Palestinian demand has no legal basis.

“The opposite is true,” she says, “In 1948, when the refugee problem was created, returning (to Israel) was not an option, and the trend was to separate the sides, sometimes forcefully by population transfer.

“The interesting thing is that this approach is currently gaining more and more support in the UN. The international community’s position that it is preferable to fully settle disputes than to recognize refugees’ right of return supported by a recent ruling by the European Court of Human Rights. The court debated the right of the Greek refugees who were expelled from northern Cyprus in 1974, and five months ago it ruled that due to the time that has passed, it would be wrong to rectify the situation by allowing them to return to their homes and expelling those who currently live in the area.

“The court determined that an arrangement for the refugees must be found in the framework of a political solution to the conflict,” says Zilbershatz, adding that allowing Palestinian refugees to return would jeopardize the two-state solution.

According to the professor, UNRWA differentiates between Palestinian refugees and other refugees around the world. She says the organization recognizes the right of the descendants of Palestinian refugees to return to Israel and also considers Palestinians who hold Jordanian citizenship as refugees.

“To make matters worse, UNRWA also upholds the refugee status of terrorists and people who committed crimes against humanity. According to the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, such people do not fit the definition of refugees. This document shows how throughout the years UNRWA has made it impossible for refugees to become independent people who lead independent lives,” she says.

Gavison adds, “Even if there is an agreement between governments, the grandchildren or great-grandchildren of the signatories may one day rise up, demand that their rights be restored and determine that the conflict is not over.”

According to Zilbershatz, the solution proposed by right-wing elements and some leftists – one state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea – will not resolve the Palestinian refugee problem.

“Such a state would require the return of refugees because the Palestinians would have no other alternative, no other state in which they would be able to realize their desire for self-determination. In light of the projected numbers, such a state would certainly not be Jewish and democratic,” she says.

In other words, you propose two states for two peoples based on ethnicity, including the evacuation of settlers from the West Bank.

“I didn’t say that and it isn’t necessary. A future Palestinian state must have an ethnic majority. There are currently 1.5 million Arabs in the West Bank and only 200,000 Jews, so the Arab majority is very clear. If we allow refugees to return, it will become even clearer,” Zilbershatz claims.

“We are in favor of establishing a Palestinian state. There is nothing that should prevent Jews from living in it as well.”

Professor Gavison says the discussion on the refugees’ status also “diverts attention from the fact that in 1947 the Arabs rejected the Partition Plan.”

Asked whether the position paper serves the interests of the Right, Gavison says, “Meretz also believes the solution involves two states for two peoples and not the return of refugees. It is the Right which is refusing to respond to the claim that a bi-national state would not fulfill the Palestinians’ nationalistic aspirations and would not give them the opportunity to live in a country they identify with.”

The jurists say those who support the right of return ask why Jews have a right to return to their homeland after 2,000 years while the Palestinians’ right to do the same is disputed after only 60 years.

“The answer is that Israel’s Law of Return upholds the Jews’ rights in this respect. When a Palestinian state is established, it will be able to pass a law that protects the rights of the Palestinians,” Gavison says.

From Vos Is Neias.com. Click on the pic to read how the orthodox discuss it amongst themselves

I don’t agree with everything Hirsch says here, but the gist is true enough.

I don’t agree that the Badatz is not kosher because of its ties to the crowd that act and react in a way that shames G-d and His firstborn people. People may want to reconsider buying Badatz simply because the money makes its way back to people that support the unsupportable. But we have to be smart and make sure to not say a product is not kosher because of actions unrelated to kashrut. There may be a suspicion that if they are not meticulous with the basic moral underpinnings of Judaism, their interest in kashrut would be questionable, but it’s a stretch, in the same way that a hechsher tzedek relating to the treatment of kosher animals in life has no direct bearing on the kashrut status in death.

The biggest problem about the Haredi segment is that while the vast majority include wonderful people, a great number of whom I personally know and love very dearly, they do not stand up against the dangerous elements within the segment. They are silent, and in some cases condone the outlook, if not the resulting actions based on that outlook.

With reform and conservative and devastating numbers of secular Jews assimilating out of existence, we are heading back to what we always were – just… Jews. Jews who are faithful to Judaism, its 613 guides to a good life and the rest. 

Or are we? The Haredi, largely reactionary segment of observant Jews are also past their use-by date, yet pass themselves off as authentic Jews when they bear little resemblance. They reacted against reform, they reacted against conservative in America in banning microphones on shabbat and such very possibly acceptable practices (that’s not how you give psak!), they reacted against unspeakable oppression at the hands of their not-so-gentle Gentile neighbours.

But then they went too far, and reacted to modernity by banning it, stifling the brilliant Jewish mind by providing it a meaningless outlet - by giving a child a spade and shovel for a sandpit while taking away his blackboard and pens and paper. Moving sand from one spot to another through brilliant deductive and inductive reasoning is using all the G-d-given talent you have for nought, with often dangerous and corrosive outcomes. It’s time the religious zionist Jews take their Haredi brothers and sisters by the hand and come up with a better idea all around. Somewhere in between the following: not all modernity is good, but all modernity is not bad. Let’s talk it out.

For more on why Haredi Judaism is not real Judaism, check out www.merkaz.com and download the following:

Joseph Mosseri

“Torah – Ancient Relic or Living Law: A Sephardic Rabbinical” – 4/2/03

Rabbi Marc Angel

Rambam and the Philosophers: What Reason Can and Cannot Attain – 12/22/07

Prof. Marc Shapiro

Rabbi Obadia Yosef and the Revival of Sephardic Halakha – 12/9/06

Prof. Marc Shapiro

Sephardic and Ashkenazic Approaches to Halakhah – 12/9/06

Prof. Mervin Verbit

Shift to the Right: Reasons and Results – 4/12/05

The decline and fall of haredi Judaism

By MICHAEL HIRSCH
06/27/2010 22:32

While many may look at the state of Judaism here at the moment in very positive terms – largest concentration of Jews in any country, more yeshivot and more boys studying in those institutions than at any time in history, etc. – I am afraid they are viewing matters through rose-colored glasses.

For as I survey the situation, I see a movement that has lost its way, forgotten its mission; most disturbing of all, the branch of Judaism which should be steering us in the right direction, the Orthodox (of which I myself am a member), is the one leading us astray.

SIMPLY READING the daily newspapers or listening to the news on the broadcast media leaves one to wonder – whatever happened to Jewish religious/ethical principles?

A few examples:

• Religious parties – To my way of thinking, a religious political party is what the Talmud refers to as s’tira mi’nehu bei (a contradiction from within itself), or an oxymoron.

The Ethics of the Fathers warns us, “You shall despise authority.” Commentators note that, in some form or other, currying favor with those in power (joining the coalition??) will inevitably lead to one having to sacrifice religious principles. The same text counsels, “Do not turn your religion/learning into a spade”; i.e., do not use your religiosity as a tool for financial gain (ministries, perks, financial grants). And as secular Jews observe the antics of these parties, how many are drawn towards the religion and how many are driven away?

• The Tal Law – Halacha is crystal clear on this matter.

When Israel is fighting an offensive war (milchemet reshut), the Levites (those responsible for maintaining religious observance and study) are exempt from serving in the army; when the nation is engaged in a defensive battle, no one is exempt. I am sorry, but however one attempts to twist the facts, at present the nation is in a state of siege. Surrounded as we are by those who seek our extinction – Iran, Syria, and their proxies (Hizbullah, Hamas) – we are clearly fighting a defensive battle, fighting for our very existence. Everyone is to serve in the army, period. Again, when secular Jews see their sons’ blood being spilled in defense of our country, while their religious counterparts sit ensconced in halls of learning, how many are drawn closer to Judaism and how many are driven away?

• Eda Haredit – “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck” might be true, but as we watch the despicable antics of the Mea She’arim goons, we are hardpressed to equate that axiom to “If one walks like a hassid and dresses like a hassid, one is a hassid.”

Throwing dirty diapers and stones at police officers on Shabbat? Calling members of the riot squad Nazis? Setting public facilities on fire? What warped sense of Judaism allows one to desecrate the Sabbath in order to protect the sanctity of the Sabbath? How does one who knowingly injures a fellow Jew acquire the moniker “haredi”? I seriously believe those who are careful in their adherence to the kashrut laws should question the validity of kashrut supervision provided by an organization (Badatz) which condones and implicitly supports such anti-religious behavior.

• Conversions – The Torah is blanketed with demonstrations concerning how we are to treat converts. We are to welcome them with open arms; we are warned against making their lives difficult; we are commanded to include them in our religious festivals; we are forbidden to throw up their past in their face. “Do not oppress the convert/strangers, for you were strangers in Egypt.”

So, can someone please explain to me upon what basis do religious judges/courts discard all these indelible precepts and retroactively void hundreds and thousands of conversions performed by a fellow religious authority? And why did the Supreme Rabbinical Court, whose members I am sure are familiar with the prohibition of shaming a fellow Jew in public (lest one loses one’s share in the world to come), feel it necessary in voiding the conversions of the Conversion Authority under the aegis of Rabbi Haim Druckman to point out that the first letter in Haim’s Hebrew name (het) is the same as the first letter in the Hebrew word for sin (heit)? I would be most interested in your response, Rabbi Avraham Sherman.

• Emmanuel – Unfortunately, the public at large has been subjected to this most unseemly display of action antithetical to the foundation stones of the Jewish religion.

Perhaps the Slonim Hassidim were too busy creating dividing barriers in their schools to keep Sephardi schoolgirls away from their daughters to have found the time to reflect upon “and you shall love thy neighbor as thyself.” Or “every Jew is responsible for every other Jew.” Or “do not create divisions.”

I have heard all the gossamer-thin excuses posed in this matter – some Sephardi customs were not to their liking; some did not keep Shabbat, etc., etc., ad nauseam.

As the expression goes: not worth the paper they are written on. By the same litmus test, how many secular Jews are drawn closer to the religion by such abhorrent behavior, and how many are driven away? THE LIST goes on and on – Selma, Alabama-like city buses, redacted issues of the Talmud with all mention of Jesus deleted, ordering special kosher meals on our national airline El Al (when all meals served are kosher), etc.– but by now the point should be clear.

Haredi Judaism has lost its way. The hard-line, “just say no” position taken by a large segment of the religious public and its rabbinic decisors (to the exclusion, for the most part, of the religious Zionist movement) is one which has been summarily rejected by the Jewish populace throughout the ages.

In the time of the Talmud, there was Beit Hillel, which generally followed a liberal, accommodative course, against which stood Beit Shammai, which proposed a very strict posture on all matters. Yet throughout the 26 tractates, the law follows Beit Hillel, in all but eight instances. The Talmud teaches us that if we are to be a light unto the nations, if we are truly the chosen people, if we are to draw fellow Jews closer to the religion instead of driving them further away, we must just say no to “just say no.”

In closing, let me suggest the following to all my fellow Orthodox Jews. Each morning, before you begin your daily regimen, recite the following: “Hillel says you should make yourself into one of the students of Aaron [the high priest]. A lover of peace, one who runs after peace, one who loves all fellow creatures [not only those born Jewish], and brings them closer to the Torah.”

The writer is a professional portfolio manager for both highnet-worth individuals and institutions. He resides in Kochav Yair.

www.thetwentypercent.wordpress.com

Classic!

I mean, the original link from www.failedmessiah.com was pretty crude but made a point. The usual point, I suppose, that the members of societies flavoured by ultra Haredi perversions of Judaism don’t deserve to be saved. I disagree. The poor child who grows up never knowing anything else deserves as much saving as anyone else. But what that saving entails and who should be doing it I’m not going to touch.

I did like this though, one of the comments:

Apologies to Devo:

Lay that tefillin
Give the boy a thrillin’
Listen to your rebbe
Things are gettin’ heavy

When halacha comes along
You must whip it
And if the minhag is too strong
You must whip it
If they circumsized you schlong
You must whip it

chorus:
Now whip it
Be frum
Shape it up
Get it done
Schuckle forward
Move ahead
Try to daven
It’s not too late
To whip it
Whip it good

When a Sephardi comes around
You must whip him
Elyashiv will wear a frown
Unless you whip it
He always gets it done
Until they whip it

I say, whip it
Whip it, nu
I say, whip it
Whip it, nu

[Instrumental Interlude]

Lay that tefillin
Show us that you’re willin’
It’s like S&M
Except it’s for the frum

When a reporter comes along
You must whip him
Before the story’s out too long
You must whip him
When something’s goin’ wrong
You must blame him

chorus.

As I said – classic!

As Shavuot approaches, why not focus on the fundamentals of Judaism? Recommended:

* Rabbi Benjamin Blech on www.aishaudio.com – 13 principles; why bad things happen to good people

* Rabbi Ken Spiro and Dr. David Luchins on www.aishaudio.com

Justice Thomas on Rights, Law School and Tough Cases

Supreme Court justice touched on familiar themes of responsibility and self-reliance in speech to students

It’s very interesting that this is said, and very important, and it should make headlines but never would.

Put simply, and to paraphrase/touch on one element noted by Rabbi Akiva Tatz who discusses the difference at length in one of his shiurim, a “bill of rights’ has the impact on the human psyche to which it is afforded – a sense of unconditional entitlement. He therefore wants because it is his right to have, not because he deserves based on who he is and what he does.

Contrasted to a ‘bill of obligations’ – this is not just semantics – the person (and indeed, each individual) is compelled to act in a certain way, encourages being proactive to cause positive effects on others and avoid negaitve effects, and not reactive – responding to effects on them.

The Torah contains both: in its written form, it has a truncated list of responsibilities which one must endeavour to accomplish. In its oral form, these obligations are explicated, and the Gemarah does also concern itself with rights due to an individual.

The difference, as is obvious, is the emphasis. The potential impact on the human psyche if the right emphasis is made – priceless. For example, the Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza are constantly complaining about violations of their rights and the Israeli obligations towards them, but not once will you hear them humbly listing their basic obligations (not just obligations according to whichever ‘peace’ proposal is making headlines – I mean basic logical responsibilities to their fellow man) such as stopping terrorists or incitement to hatred and murder.

Human Rights? Let’s hear more about Human Obligations. That’s yet another innovation in thinking that the Jewish nation brought to the Western world.