I got this in an e-mail. It may or may not be legitimate. URGENT MEDIA STATEMENT FROM UNITED ORTHODOX COMMUNITIES OF NEW YORK Re: NETUREI KARTA Further to our public announcement dated 21 April 2002 , we hereby reiterate and declare that Charedi/ Chassidic/ Orthodox Jews everywhere absolutely reject the treacherous and contemptible conduct of that insignificant and irrelevant group of misfits and Mechalelei Hashem , who have again...
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R. Shlomo Aviner makes an important statement about how Jewish men should respond in the unfortunate case of a divorce: Jewish divorce is not a system of monetary extortion. It is a way of separating when there is no choice, so that each partner can build a new home. Therefore, if you have already made up your mind that you are getting divorced, please give your wife her “get” that same day. You can...
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Reb Lazer lists 10 qualities to look for in choosing a personal spiritual guide. Here are the criteria that I’ve used in the past in choosing a rabbi to whom to address my questions: 1. Is he fluent in the entire Talmud, Shulhan Arukh and standard commentaries? 2. Does he have good manners and treat everyone with respect? 3. Does he let me argue with him? 4. Is he smarter than me? 1. If...
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I once heard R. Mayer Twersky say the following: “The only thing worse than being inconsistent is being consistently wrong.” Beautifully said! (Note that he is not condoning inconsistency; he is denouncing it. But he is pointing out that human frailty is not an excuse to go totally off the right path. It is best to be entirely right. Next to that, it is better to be partially right than totally wrong.)
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POLITICAL DIGRESSION: All the Jews I know seem to be relishing the prospect of Arafat’s death. I dread it. The obituaries for this Nobel Peace Prize winner are likely to be so frustratingly full of lies and misinformation. I doubt that any major newspaper will mention his net worth and from where he obtained it. Get ready for some overtime.
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There is famous Magen Avraham (263:12) in which he cites R. Yehoshua Falk in his Derishah who quotes his mother as an halakhic source. The question is whether one should light holiday candles after reciting the blessing or before. His mother said that the blessing comes first and then the candle lighting. The Magen Avraham disagrees with this and subsequent commentators debate the subject at length. This is a most fascinating example of the...
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Torah U-Mada is one of those terms that means different things to different people. Dr. Lamm, in his classic book of that name, offers a number of different models for Torah U-Mada. One model that does not get much respect is that of Torah and popular culture. What can be valuable in popular culture? After all, it is just shmutz, noise and distortions of all that is sacred (Britney Spears being exhibit #1). I...
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Steven I. Weiss, in his latest blog The Canonist, directs readers to a website named ChillulHashem.com that has pictures depicting just how tough it is to be a Jewish leader. The subject of the signs in the picture to the left is none other than R. Aharon Leib Shteinman, great talmudic scholar from Bnei Brak and heir to R. Elazar Schach.
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Marvin Schick: I care not about what titles or offices they hold. Those who in veiled and sometimes not so veiled language say that Israel’s Prime Minister can be killed because he wants to withdraw from Gaza or other territory should be arrested and put on trial.
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R. Shalom Carmy in “The Manufacture of Sulphurous Acid: Of Wisdom as a Catalyst in Torah Study” in Wisdom From All My Teachers, pp. 79-80: Psalm 145 (widely known as “Ashrei” after the verses that preface it in liturgical usage) is an alphabetical acrostic. The verse corresponding to the letter nun is missing. The simple explanation is that the acrostic scheme is sometimes adhered to irregularly. R. Yohanan (Berakhot 4b), however, proposed that...
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When I was in yeshiva, there was a particularly crass youg man running for student government president who was garnering the menuval vote. The evening before the election, the mashgi’ah went into the beis medrash and gave a short speech. Without endorsing any candidate (which would have been inappropriate for a faculty member), he simply reminded students that if they do not vote then they have no right to complain about the results of...
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One is not allowed, at least ab initio, to wait a long time between washing for bread and eating the bread. Nor is one allowed to leave one building and enter another even if done quickly. (See Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayim 161 and commentators.) This leads to a familiar dilemma at weddings where the washing station is frequently across the hall from one’s table. The same is the case in many restaurants. Similarly, this...
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My synagogue rents a room in a local yeshiva (elementary school), right near the building’s catering hall. This week there was a bar mitzvah in the catering hall. On Thursday night, the father of the bar mitzvah called up my rabbi asking for help. It seems that his father, the grandfather of the bar mitzvah boy, has great difficulty walking and usually uses a wheelchair. He wanted to be able to have the Gentile...
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R. Mayer Twersky preaches against praying for or desiring the death of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Recently, there have been reports in the press of individuals wishing for the death of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. By no means am I assuming the veracity of such reports. (Moreover, even these reports attribute such malevolent wishes to an isolated few.) Thus I am commenting on the issue, not on any specific persons or alleged remarks....
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