The question that asks “Is it right to force a teenager to observe Shabbat or the Dietary Laws?” may best be answered by slightly rephrasing as 'is it wiseto force a teenager,' because in truth, “force” doesn’t belong in this answer altogether. And if force allows itself in, the effect takes us to undesirable ends. The parents' training will be against the child’s will, and against its nature and character. Alongside the information or the essence that the would-be instructor will transmit with it to the student will be a real grudge and resentment. So the force will cause one to have, at best, a body of knowledge that has an inner antagonism and inner bitterness, and will thereby lead the child to seek to overthrow its learning at the first opportunity.
Fortunately, the Bible provides many pleasant alternatives to the use of force in educating and rearing the Jewish child. The Book of Proverbs (22:6) taught us “Educate the child ‘al pi darko;’ according to its way; gam ki yazkin lo yasur mimenu, such that when one becomes older, one will not stray from it.” Whatever the verse means to us, it certainly does not mean anything like “force” the child. “According to its way” can mean fast or slow, the hard part before the easy part, watching as the pupil takes it according to your tempo of understanding or not. Proverbs teaches us that all of these are available to us, but allows nothing by force or compulsion.
There may seem to be a contradiction here. After all, central to the Ten Commandments is the precept to “Honor thy father and thy mother,” which apparently imposes some sort of coercion upon the child by the parents, coercion to transmit the contents of the Torah, willy nilly. But no, there is no contradiction. The ideals of the Commandments are held up as standards for the child to reach up to. But the wise parent knows that the correct way to ensure that the child will strive for these standards is by avoiding the artificial and the resented, by leading by example, and by guiding the child "al pi darko."
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Question: I want to convert to Judaism, but I am married to a Christian, Is this at all possible. We have been married for the last twenty years, we have three children ages 14,11 & 4 and there is no crisis.
May one be converted to Judaism if the other spouse does not? The question has a straightforward answer: Yes, providing the proper circumstances accompany the response.
One should not undertake a conversion if one spouse thereby destroys the sh’lom bayit, the “domestic tranquility,” of the other. If one causes the other to break up the family relationship, the conversion comes with sinful consequences in what follows.
Furthermore, the supposition accompanying a conversion is that he or she undertook acceptance of the mitzvot and the practices of Judaism. Can one spouse undertake these halakhic requirements, and this lifestyle, without the spouse agreeing to them as husband and wife?
And what follows for the children and their parents? Along with whatever else the convert agrees to, there is the commandment to teach Torah to our children. Will the conversion be valid if that precept is flatly ignored on the face of it?
There is a positive answer for this question, provided that the surrounding circumstances contribute to enable its success.
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Question: The rules on what constitutes Passover chametz vary according to Ashkenazic and Sephardic traditions. Since we are all Jews, what really prevents those of Ashkenazi descent from eating foods such as rice or legumes during Passover? [What is the basis for following the tradition, custom, or minhag that one was brought up in, and when, if ever, may one properly change it?]
A reasonable theory to explain the mystery of the kitnityot question is – surprisingly – an economic idea.
Why do the Ashkenazic practice preclude eating corn and rice and little legumes on Passover, while Sefardic culture
has no such history and no such practice?
A plausible explanation is as follows: When Jews hit hard economic times in regard to their elemental need
of bread, they turned to the use of maize, or corn bread, to take the place of real bread. The maize, and related
foods, served their purpose for what the situation required, and the Ashkenazic Jews got quite accustomed to
their substituted use. For Passover, both the actual bread, and its inferior replacements, were forbidden.
When the poverty for real bread was no longer the reality, the Jewish authorities
taught their people that the custom of banning the substitutes should continue to be honored.
The use of the kitniyot thus maintained its prohibition as a remembrance and even as symbolic ritual.
From its beginning, the Ashkenazic ban on kitniyot was equalled to its legal prohibitions
of chametz . While the Sefardim, needing no substitute bread and its accompanying
little legumes, did not have this practice at all. However, it was also known that the Ashkenazimjjj separated between the real
thing and the lookalikes. They imposed the full halakhic implications upon the one as upon
the other -- bread and its leavened items were seriously excluded from use, or even from contact, on the
Passover. But the imitation foodstuffs, while in fact excluded from consumption, were not also excluded
from accidental contact. .
The illustrious Rabbi Chaim Brisker, one might add, taught that forbearance from use of kitniyot, when in great need,
should not be allowed to reach the severity of a biblical injunction against “Do not add … bal tosif ..”
This “remembered” practice is respected and maintained throughout the Festival, not as a rabbinic
prohibition but as a strong, enduring rabbinic custom
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Question: What options does traditional Judaism provide to solve the Agunah (chained woman) problem? Why are these not more broadly applied? Is there a chance to solve this issue once and for all?
There are many ways whereby the “Agunah problem” would be relieved, if not solved. The problem itself derives from the fact that the Torah ordains ”v’chatav lah sefer k’ritut,” (Deuteronomy 24:1) that the husband “shall write her a bill of divorce.” Taking that literally, the husband must accomplish the writing, and, especially in historic polygamy, greater authority is given to him than to her; when she does not agree, the divorce is not yet valid.
But the impasse of the “chained woman” can be unchained in several ways:
1) Social pressure could be exerted upon the husband to write the Get, when he desires it but she does not. That social pressure would begin from the husband’s moral duty to do what is right, and even goes from there so far to include his husband’s imprisonment -- in Israel, where the civil law allows it. Or, to announce or to publish in newspapers the “seiruv”, or refusal, to accommodate the husband. That refusal involves the exclusion by the Synagogue of aliyot to the Torah, or of other rights and privileges in the Synagogue or the community. Such social pressure may hasten to bring about relief.
2) Legal pressure, where that is possible. That begins with the Talmudic judgment (Yevamot 88a) that mishum igguna akilu bei Rabbanan, “for the relief of iggun, the Rabbis took the lenient side.” It has been pointed out that TaZ, the Turei Zahav of the 17th century’s legal commentary, has written that unchaining the agunah is so important that even minority opinions may be relied upon to help that happen. The Sh’vut Ya’akov of Rabbi Yaakov Abulafia, a generation later, ruled that a beit din could even meet on Shabbat if that meant freeing an agunah. Maimonides himself (Mishneh Torah 13:29) allowed that one witness, not two, to suffice, again in order to help bring this about. In our days, Rabbi Emanuel Rackman (d. 2008) was bold in seeking leniencies for this end.
3) Practical pressure. Partly with this goal in mind, Rabbis have been instituting
documents known as the Prenuptial Agreements, or more simply Prenups, alongside their plans for marriage , recommended in greater frequency. These embody the agreed-upon rules upon potential mates, which include penalties for a change in plans. A recently created unit, known as the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot, uses these Prenups effectively. Their beit din can then litigate to establish financial fines to be paid, on an ongoing basis, by a recalcitrant husband, so that the suffering of the “chained wife” is reduced or withdrawn entirely. A notable rate of success has already been registered by the ORA in the small span of their six years of existence.
May the accelerating pace of compassionate efforts to find this relief grow further in the record of success.
Rabbi David M. Feldman
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Question: Some members of Temple Beth Ahm Yisrael in Springfield, N.J., are not happy that their former synagogue building was sold to the Islamic Center of Union County. Are there any reasons a former Jewish house of worship shouldn't be turned into a different religion's house of worship, or for that matter, anything else?
The sanctity of a synagogue, as opposed to that of the Temple in Jerusalem, has a temporary status, valid only
while the synagogue is assigned for that purpose. After that point, the decision to sell the synagogue for another purpose is governed by its probable new use. Factors such as the size and the stature of the congregation relinquishing ownership on the one hand, and the respectability or lack of same of the potential new use, are relevant considerations.
There are more pointed considerations if the new use is to be as a place of worship. Since idolatry is
forbidden to Jews and non-Jews as well, we may not only not join in idolatrous practices, we may not even participate in providing a home for them.
Though it might seem surprising, the religion of Islam, notwithstanding its political facets, is generally not regarded as idolatrous. Maimonides himself ruled that Islam is identified with monotheism (Responsa No. 448); hence, a former synagogue’s use for a mosque would not be proscribed.
As to Christian churches, there is a difference of opinion. Tosafot (Avodah Zarah 2a) appear to regard Christianity as free of idolatry (by the non-Jewish standard), and thus would likely allow church usage, again for their use but not for Jewish practice. The medieval authority, R. Menachem Ha Me’iri (d. 1315), is emphatic that enlightened Christianity is non-idolatrous, as also ruled R. Moses Isserles (d. 1572), and as did the late Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog. That liberal point of view was, however, rejected by known contemporary authorities, such as R. Eliezer Waldenberg and R. Moses Feinstein.
To sell or lease a synagogue, then, does ask us to make some effort in advance of the sale to determine that the new occupant would not desecrate our values, religious and personal.
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