1. Jewish tradition strongly discourages cremation and burial in an above-ground mausoleum. In order to preserve Jewish “tradition,” here used in the sense of the popular religious culture that serves as Jewish law’s protective outer armor, some Orthodox rabbis have offered an ideological  Narrative, in Hebrew, Aggadah or theology,  that talks to and tries to persuade the soul of the living, pulsating culture on the  Orthodox street. The Chabad web site reports:

2. Rabbi Hoffmann’s exquisitely nuanced responsum first outlines what Jewish law actually and objectively requires in its canonical, juridical  iteration:
   1. Biblical law requires that those executed by the court are nevertheless given the respect of same day burial, that they be buried the same day as their execution.[13]
   2. R. Hoffmann astutely observes that the Oral Torah rabbis, acting as Torah authorized legislators rather than as Biblical exegetes, applied this passage to require burial in the ground.
   3. But by reducing the body remains to ash, it may be argued that no sanctity attaches to those ash remains.  The ash is Carbon and, in this state is no longer an organic substance. Impurity attaches to the human body only after it is no longer alive.[14]   But when that body is reduced to ash, the remains are [a] no longer impure and by implication [b] would no longer a substance that requires burial.
   4. On these grounds, it may be argued that cremation ash ought not to be buried because Jewish tradition does not require burial and disrespect was shown to that Jewish Tradition by the decedent. This protocol is, however, a matter of policy, not pure law.

1. There is an obligation to dispose of Jewish human remains by interment.
2. Cremation improperly destroys the remains that the Oral Torah mandates be interred.
3. The Torah passage qavor tiqberenu, is taken to refer to burying the whole person.
4. Cremation also delays the burial of the ash remains.
5. Cremation additionally violates the respect protocol that the Torah affords the dead, in Hebrew, nivvul ha-met.[16]

3. R. Hoffmann was a world class, intellectually urbane, German modern Orthodox rabbi. Like R. Feinstein, he shares a cultural antipathy to an act that violates both the letter of holy law as well as historically conditioned Jewish values and sensibilities.  But unlike R. Feinstein, R. Hoffmann clearly distinguishes between Jewish law and communal policy. R. Feinstein, who hailed from Roman Catholic Pruzhan, Poland, considers cremation to be a denial of Torah because, to his mind, it expresses a denial of the resurrection of the dead, the doctrine that promises accountability for Halakhic compliance. Catholics also disapprove of cremation for similar reasons,[17] but only because cremation might be taken to be evidence of apostasy.  However, according to Jewish Law, non-observant Jews are also eligible for Jewish burial.  Jews non-compliant with the family purity rules receive Jewish burial without question, and this violation is far more grave than the act of cremation.[18] Being a sinner, or for that matter, a questioner of religious of faith, does not disqualify someone from Jewish burial. In  R. Feinstein’s Eastern European culture, time horizon, and socially conditioned sensibilities, non-attention to those who opt for cremation does make ideological sense; cremation in this “world” was an act of a spiteful sinner [le-hach’is] who by so doing renounces one’s Torah-defined identity. But R. Hoffmann was dealing with populations of compliant Orthodox Jews, dissident Reform Jews, and an assimilation driven environment. Hence R. Hoffmann’s practical policy reflects [a] the letter of the Torah law, [b] the social reality to which this Torah law is to be applied, and [c] the actual rather than imputed opinions of the people who turn to him for guidance. Both positions are legitimate because Torah law requires an assessment of the social reality variables to which the constant Torah norms are to be applied. The rabbi must make these assessments with human, rabbinic eyes.[19]
4. To conclude:
   1. Normative Jewish law requires same day burial in the ground out of respect for the dead with a dispensation delay being allowed only for mourners to arrive, again to show respect for the dead.
   2. Because cremation [a] prevents observing the requirement of prompt burial and [b] if done incompletely, also delays burial  in the ground of those remains.
   3. Since Jewish Tradition mandates interment, which  means “in the ground,” and above-ground “burial” does not satisfy this mandate because the Torah obligation of “in ground”  burial has not taken place.
   4. The argument that Jewish law requires interment [“to the dust you shall return”] is merely homiletical, because no Torah laws that are binding on the Jewish people  are found in Genesis, the Oral law did not make this claim, and the Genesis passage’s plain sense syntax is descriptive of nature’s course and not a command that requires compliance.
   5. All contemporary Orthodox rabbis will require interment and not participate either in cremation or mausoleum funerals. Some Orthodox rabbis will, like R. Feinstein, regard these deflections from Jewish protocol to be acts of willful Torah renunciation, and treat violators as persona non grata, while other Orthodox rabbis, like R. Hoffmann, will see such acts as highly improper, while not rejecting the people who engage in these acts.
   6. Modern/Open Orthodox rabbis do not violate Jewish law’s legal letter, but embrace, support, and address the pastoral needs and requests of non-observant, inconsistently committed, or otherwise non-compliant Jews. Therefore, this Orthodox stream envisages  circumstances whereby the discrete burial of cremation ash,  which is not explicitly prohibited by Jewish law, in order to  stretch a welcoming hand to Jews on the religious margin.  Neither position is “fanatic” or “liberal.” They both reflect serious reflection and the instinctive intuition to issue accurate, responsible, and appropriate rulings.
       

To report or not to report?  There is no question!
 
THE CASE:
 
Because we publicly spoke out against Rabbi Freundel, and supported the allegations against him, we have been made to feel unwelcome in our Orthodox synagogue. The rabbi specifically told us not to speak about the allegations against Freundel, which he considered to be lashon hara. http://www.myjewishlearning.com/blog/the-torch/author/emmashulevitz/
 
THE QUESTION:
 
A person believes that she or he has been touched sexually in an  unwanted, unsolicited, halakhically forbidden, and therefore abusive fashion.

 

The Orthodox rabbinic institutional establishment argues
 
1.   it is forbidden to  inform the Gentiles of the bad acts of a Jew.  It is proper to suffer in silence.
2.   Even if you really were sexually abused, how can you and how dare you shame the Orthodox community by airing dirty laundry in public.  Your complaint makes our crowd look bad. Do the right thing and do not foul our communal nest.
3.   Great rabbis have ruled that we consult them and not to the police when there are complaints of sexual abuse. You cannot know the consequences of your going outside the community in order to find satisfaction for your complaint.  Are you prepared to compare your simple-minded, naive reading of the Torah  to those great rabbis who forbid your going to the police with your complaint.
4. Worse than being sexually abused in private is shaming the entire Orthodox community and its rabbinic leadership in public. Since a sincerely Orthodox would not shame the community, we as an Orthodox community will shun you socially for bringing us, your friends, neighbors, and holy rabbis, to shame—and to account.
 
 ONE MODERN ORTHODOX ANSWER
 
1.   According to normative Orthodox Jewish Civil Law, Hoshen Mishpat 425:1, instances of sexual abuse are supposed to reported to the civil authorities.   Deuteronomy 13:1-6 reminds Jewry that Torah law is absolute, i.e. not allowing for change on the part of false dreamers, prophets, or, for that matter, institutionally affiliating Orthodox rabbis who are so great that they  get to cherrypick the quotes that justify their special situation. 
2.   When the law of pursuer, i.e.  the case of an endangering, threatening person, conflicts with the law of the informer, i.e. a person tattling to the Gentile authorities regarding the misdeeds of a Jew, the law of the pursuer, that requires that the threatening offender be stopped at all cost, prevails. In Judaism, innocent people have rights, too.  
3.   Core Jewish law really is humane, logical, and reasonable. But this Core Jewish law has been superseded, suppressed , and for those reasons, un-discussed. 
4.   Judaism is about “doing the right and the good.” [Deuteronomy6:18]. Looking good while acting badly looks bad in God’s eyes. We are required to pursue justice  [Deuteronomy 16:20], not each other. An Orthodox community that forbids mixed dancing while tolerating mixed groping is unorthodox in, and of, the extreme.  Before throwing our first stones, we should be in God’s grace without sin. An Orthodox community that wants to be free of shame will take the steps, and its risks, to shame its shameful offenders.
5.   An informed, observant Jew will follow the divine Law, not the mindless herd. Let's learn this Core Jewish law together.   It has been asked, “is it possible that all Jewry really be wrong, when our pious rabbis tell us not to tattle to the authorities and rattle our communal cage?”  Not only does the Hoshen Mishpat 425:1 say that we all may be wrong, the Bible at Lamentations 5:7 and Leviticus 4:13 say so as well.  So let us protect the innocent, comply with Hoshen Mishpat 425:1, and obey God.
6. If we do not want to have our dirty little—and large—misdeeds discussed in public, we would do well not to do those deeds even in private.
 
 

 

1. An onen  a person who is obliged to mourn, i.e. a close relative of a deceased, after death but before burial.
2. An avel is a person is obliged to mourn after burial, i.e. “the closing of the stone” or the covering of the grave.
3. Qaddish is that prayer that concludes the formal prayer servuce and the practice evolved that the final Qaddish was reserved for the orphan, i.e. one whose parent [i.e. not including offspring or sibling] had died.  The saying of Qaddish has evolved over time into a universally accepted custom; this universality renders its recitation as a virtual rabbinic law called minhag Yisrael, a universal Jewish practice.
4. Post-Talmudic folklore maintains that the Qaddish as we have it and the way it is recited possesses the power to raise the dead from Hell, angels do not understand Aramaic and will be unable to critique the soul of the deceased if the prayer were recited in Hebrew. According to normative rather than folkloristic Jewish doctrine, the saying of Qaddish is a matter of sanctifying God’s name and it is not a mantic formula which convinces God to be easy on an otherwise unworthy person. See Deuteronomy 32:4, which upon reflection would render the folk religion doctrine unorthodox. The Aramaic text more likely testifies to the fact that at the time Jews composed the Qaddish, they seem to have been speaking Aramaic.
5. The  prayer leader—and not the mourner—says the Qaddish when the practice to say it arose. [Soferim 21:5]  R. Ovadia Yosef [Yehavveh Daat 5:59]  reports that the Qaddish recitation the purpose of which is to raise the soul of the dead [a] first appears in medieval Ashkenaz and [b] its source is in the people’s practice, and the people are “prophetic offspring.” A brilliantly subtle writer with his own encoded vocabulary, R. Yosef is both patronizing his simple reader for whom folk piety is important and, at the same time,  informing his sophisticated reader who is being reminded that [a] Qaddish is a popular practice, not a mandated law, [b]  that should be honored and observed nevertheless [supra., 2:71]. Here, R. Yosef says, when dealing with folkways of which approves that being “prophetic offspring” carries legal valence. In “official religion” Orthodox Judaism,” this doctrine does not carry normative valence.  His idiom, appearing elsewhere,  that a practice’s roots are found on  “holy mountains”  serves the same purpose, of legitimating a popular practice by apodictically declaring it to be so, without a legal argument. The practices so defined have their sources of popular usage and not formal Halakhic norm.

1. The onen is not permitted to pray.  Therefore the onen does not say Qaddish.
2. There is however a positive commandment to bury the deceased as soon as possible [Deuteronomy 21:23, Sanhedrin 46b]
3. Delaying burial for scientific research on the deceased’s remains has never been normative Halakhic behavior.  Usually, delay of burial for immediate medical life-saving information may be required.
4. While saying the Qaddish for a relative is a relatively late addition to normative Jewish practice, it has become a wide spread and popular practice.
5. The requirement of prompt burial has biblical roots, where the “mourner’s” Qaddish is grounded in folkways, folklore, and folk religion.
6. Nevertheless, if a rabbi believes that a questioner is unable, unwilling, or unready to hear the correct answer, the rabbi at his discretion has  the pastoral discretionary authority to withhold information from the questioner lest that person sin intentionally rather than in error.  Betsa 30a reports this discretionary principle regarding the by law clapping and dancing on the Sabbath and Holy  done in modern times by otherwise Orthodox Jews. The Tosafists [ad. loc.] tried, apparently successfully, to abolish this restriction.  Very few Orthodox Jews, or for that matter, rabbis, are aware of this discretionary principle or the fact that dancing and clapping are forbidden on the Sabbath and Festivals, including Simchat Torah.

1. When partially committed Jews wish to “plug in”  to Jewish law, they should be accepted as they are, and encouraged to grow, probe, and experience Judaism, as fully as they are able.
2. While explaining that the delay in burial is problematic, their desire to say Qaddish is nevertheless commendable.
3. Jewish law maintains that mourning  begins when either burial is compete or the survivors turn from he deceased.
4. Therefore, once the deceased’s remains are put in the hands of the medical researchers’ possession, whether or not that act is proper, the survivors pass from aninut, being an onen, for whom prayers, including Qaddish, are inappropriate, to avelut, being an avel, a mourner, for whom prayer is required and Qaddish is appropriate.

1. The Orthodox Jewish perspective defines the contours of Jewish authenticity according to the norms of the Written and Oral Torah.  The Jewish family alone did not insure the continuity of the Jewish people.  The Jewish table, the kosher laws, or the way we turn our act of eating into a sacred as well as a biological act, the Jewish  calendar, i.e. the temples we create in time, join together in tandem to infuse a relationship of those who live by these rules with meaning, mission, and a menu of pre-programmed expectations.  Therefore, the wedding meal, like the wedding ceremony, is a sacred, proper, and kosher occasion.
2. It is very important to have a Jewish wedding, that is of a Jewish woman and man, in a fashion that is Jewishly authentic.   At a wedding, the very first blessing recited is over wine. Wine makes people happy. [Ps. 104:15]  The second blessing appears as the binary opposite of the first. After saying the blessing that permits the wine to be ingested and enjoyed, the couple does not immediately taste the wine. Instead, the blessing for  the wine and its tasting is interrupted by a blessing of restraint, that when engaged, a couple is bound to each other but may not yet enjoy the pleasure of physical contact with each other. This blessing of restraint, of boundaries, and of definition reminds the couple that their love is a Jewish love, with guideposts, road markers, restraints, expectations, and respect. The kosher table should be the ideal at the wedding, even if the couple is not yet committed to a kosher table at their home. 
3. Being Jewish is about both family and faith.  The “children of Israel” in Genesis appears as a large, awkward, and often dysfunctional family. In Exodus, that same idiom refers to a people. The Jewish people have, for Orthodox adherents, commandments of a commanding  God; Kashrut is a religious and moral obligation for the Orthodox.  But for non-Orthodox Jews, for the most part, do not really believe in a God Who Authored the Torah and Who commanded the commandments. For Reform Judaism, according to Rabbi Walter Jacob, all ritual is custom and may be considered to be appropriate; for Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan and Conservative and Reconstructionist opinion, God is the force or idea that makes for salvation, but not an actual Commander, the Biblical commandments are folkways, i.e. “the way we were.” These rites carry a sense of the sacred called “sancta.” At a Jewish happy event, we gladden the bride and groom, we do not argue about theology.  Those liberal Jews who believe in pluralism, often still respect ancestral ways, customs and ceremonies.  The Kashrut rules are mandatory for Orthodoxy and not forbidden for the other streams.  Therefore, a kosher wedding meal is a statement of extended family loyalties and national Jewish solidarity. Even if we do not share the Covenant of Sinai, we all share a Covenant of identity, direction, and destiny.
4. And there is a trade-off to be made when Orthodox Jews make requests of the non-Orthodox.  When Orthodox rabbis service  non-Orthodox couples,  families, and rabbinic colleagues, they would do well to remember that human dignity, kevod ha-beriyyot, must be also be maintained. The wedding ceremony and meal must be kosher; other additions and subtractions may be considered to be situationally appropriate. For example, Jewish law does not really a bride need not walk around the groom seven times.  This ritual may be omitted.  Some Orthodox rabbis claim that Jewish law forbids double ring ceremonies because this innovative rite might wrongly give the marriage nullifying impression that the bride rejects the ring given to her by her husband.   There are two problems with this interpretation. First, it is not true; second, the “problem” is easily averted.  Many Orthodox rabbis view “Tradition” as the religious civilization of Jewry’s yesteryear.  The “past” must be conserved as a culture reflex. Other Orthodox rabbis view “Tradition” as no less  and no more than the  Torah that God wrote, which commands, forbids, and when silent, really does permit.  In my view, the opposition to double ring wedding ceremonies is an anti-innovation, anti-egalitarian anti-feminist reflex. What the normative Tradition, at Even ha-Ezer 38:34, teaches is that once the groom places the ring in the bride’s accepting hand, the marriage takes irrevocable effect. Therefore, if the bride,now married irrevocably to her husband, gives a gift to her Jewish husband, the canonical Tradition remains in tact.  I have seen this practice observed  by some American and Israeli modern Orthodox Zohar rabbis.  In order to forbid what is really forbidden, Orthodoxy must permit what by Jewish law is really permitted.  In my view, a kosher wedding meal is worth a double ring ceremony.
5. Jewish weddings unite two people, and these weddings should also be personal.  On one hand, the wedding of a Jewish couple is rooted in the past.  God gave us the wedding template by making Adam and Eve happy when they were first introduced to each other, and we try to make a faithful household in Israel happy at their nuptials.  But this new household requires support and space. Support is given with presents and presence; and space for individuality, creativity, individualism, and autonomy must also be allowed. A religious Jewish household is made up of ethical people who make good choices, not culture robots for whom rituals are religious recipes for scoring points with God.  The Jewish marriage is a sacred and empowering beginning; by reminding  the couple of the constraints of required restraint, the Torah gives the Jewish parent the creativity, possibility, to give birth to Mashiach Yisrael

 

The setting of Ezra is filled with the Presence of God, who with Cyrus, replaced Ahashuerus. It in a world that God moves people, people are moved to put God in the world.  God appears in the world when humans let God enter the social construction of ethical reality that is humankind’s to make. In the Esther Scroll, paganism does not allow for religious discourse so God’s name is unmentionable. The Esther Scroll is a commission to the Jewish people to allow God-talk to be part of our spiritual conversation. 

 

Respect for Ancestors and Its Limits

 

QUESTION:  Is there a Jewish point of view about respect for ancestors? Is there a name for it? How about all the dead, including non-Jews?

 

ANSWER:     There are really several questions here, all answered by Maimonides. Judaism, in its Orthodox Oral Torah version, is very concerned with respect, including self-respect.  Therefore, respect for the “other” ends when the “other” demands deference, where one is commanded to deny one’s own self-respect.

 

A.   The Respect due the parent

 

The norms of respecting parents are found in Mamrim 5, which deal with the rules of authority of Jewish society’s ethical and political institutions. By requiring stoning for the person who curses the parent [5:1], traditionally the most severe of capital punishment [when certain conditions, here not relevant, are met], reserved for crimes of treason, insurrection, and threatening the fabric of the Jewish social order, Judaism sees the Fifth Commandment [5:12] as a pillar of the socio-political order.

 

Cursing one’s grandparents, while a crime, does not rise [or fall] to the same level of depravity [5:3].  By assigning this moral valence, Jewish law structures a divinely ordained hierarchy that privileges parents as God’s agent in creation.

 

Less severe is the striking of a living parent that draws blood/causes a wound. [5:5]  The punishment for this offense is choking which while as lethal as stoning, considered by halakhah to be less ignominious.

 

If the parent is a wicked person [5:12],  they still may not be cursed or struck by their children.    If the wicked parent is being led to their execution, the Torah accords them respect.  Killing the condemned parent does not generate the death penalty on the progeny, but shaming the condemned remains a human dignity issue  [see b’Arachin 7b].   Progeny should make all efforts not to be commissioned by the Jewish courts to restrain or arrest a parent. [5:13-4]  By applying this law to all offenses except incitement to  do a pagan act, the Torah ideology of Torah is manifest.  God commands respect for parents; when parents deny God, the source of the respect that parents are due, they forfeit their claim to filial respect.

 

The doctrine of honoring parents has two dimensions.  Progeny are expected to care for their parents in old age—as parents cared for their children in early childhood—doing as does God. [6:1]  While honoring parents is expressed physically,  revering parents is expressed socially, i.e. not contradicting them, not sitting in their seat, standing in their place, or even evaluating, as if superior to them, their words. Also disallowed is calling a parent by name, even after the parent’s demise. [6:3] This rule parallels the prohibition of calling God the name that may not be pronounced  [bSan 90a, 101b,  bAvoda Zara 18a].  In a case where the father is the Torah student of the son, and hence required to show respect to his Torah teacher, the son’s biological tie here overrides protocol [6:4].  And this protocol applies after the parent’s demise.   One refers to his male parent not as “father,” but “my father my master.” [6:5] In the first year after a father’s  death, the son says “may his grave be his atonement” [see Deuteronomy 32:43] and after a year express confidence that his father has merited eternal life in the world to come. Even if a parent wrongly shames or squanders the estate of the child, that child has no license to speak without respect or to strike the parent. [6:7] The parent is nonetheless admonished not to be a stickler for honor or to press the son for the honor the father feels is his due,  lest the son break down and violate the required protocol. [6:8] Therefore Jewish law, in stark contrast to Roman society that kills its young [http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/300867?uid=3738240&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21101607544581] , Jewish law forbids the striking of adult offspring by an irate parent, so that adult progeny not be pushed beyond the breaking point and strike back. [6:10]   When a parent suffers from dementia, the parent must be serviced gently and patiently; if the child is unable to do, a surrogate caregiver must be provided. [6:10]

 

Even a wicked parent deserves respect.  If the parent violates Jewish law, the child does not confront the parent directly, but asks “is not such and such written in the Torah.” [6:11]  If however the parent tells the child to violate the law, God’s honor, which is the source of the parent’s honor, takes precedence. [6:12] 

 

B.   The Respect due the Torah teacher

 

The rules regarding respect for parents are paralleled by the rules regarding respect for Torah teachers.  [Laws of Torah Study, 5:1] Just as God gets first claim on respect, one’s Torah master gets respect before the parent; the parent gives the child this finite life, while  the teacher brings the child into the eternal world to come.

 

 

 

 

 

This is a policy question and not a halakhic question.  I therefore will speak for myself, representing me alone,  as a [a] thinking human being who [b] who is committed to Torah in its entirety, [c] who inhabits the mental space/time called “modern,” and [d] whose thinking usually is personal and idiosyncratic.

1. My in-laws are Holocaust survivors  and as personal victims, want justice. Israel’s great poet,  H.N Bialik, asked Heaven to reveal justice immediately or else justice delayed is justice denied.  Justice is an important value but it is not the only relevant value.
2. Alternatively, I believe that there is a Judge and there is a judgment [bSan., Chapter 10 28:4] and the accounting of the Ultimate Auditor need not happen in this world [bHullin 142a].  This means that we do not get so fixed on justice when there are other competing values that clamor for and claim our attention.
3. Therefore, I believe that as nature takes its necessary course, and surviving Nazis  in 2012 are in any case not long for this world, and since  Judaisim sanctifes  the present because, like Aristotle’s sea  battle, we cannot undo the past, and the Death, as horrific as it was, 70 years ago, cannot  inspire a next generation to live as Jews, I would allocate our finite declining Jewish resources to

• Provide ordable and universal Jewish education, which includes Torah, Hebrew and History.
• Provisions for the poor, infirmed, and out of work.
• Enriching Jewish culture for the real and present Jewish security.
• Funding projects and bonding with Israel.
• Fostering Jewish Unity and inclusivity
• Advancing Jewoish concerns through political and social advocacy.

 

1. First a word regarding legal  Torah method.  We summarize the material  recorded in the canonical Dual  Torah trove, as did the classical medieval rabbis, distilling from this sacred material the legal norms encoded therein.   Once in possession of the evidence, we offer a reasonable reading and application of Dual Torah/canonically as opposed to culturally Orthodox Judaism. Some accept the decisions of earlier sages; but these decisions were conditioned by situation, time, and place.  Since both the Asheri  and Maimonides prefer to confront the classical canon, what Orthodox Jews believe to be the divine will in human voice, we look to the words and values of Judaism’s classical canon in search of a rendering appropriate to our time.
2. Exodus 20:11 and Deuteronomy 5:15 command Israel to honor/treat with weight/take seriously one’s father and mother.
3. The  idiomatic word used, kabbed, also appears in Proverbs 3:9, where we are to honor God with our hon/substance, or weight/valence/value.  See also bBaba Mezia 33a.
4. pQeddushin 1:7 requires that in old age parents receive children their requisite material support, even if the children  must  beg alms on the street in order to provide that support. The parents who gave sustaining support at  the beginning of their children’s lives have a right to expect reciprocity at the end of their own lives. See also Safra Qedoshim 1.
5. The reasons given for honoring one’s parents include that one will have long life and because God said so.
6. Mechilta de-Rabbi Yishmael Exodus/Yitro 8, a legal and therefore normatively binding Midrash, requires that we obey our parents’ orders, i.e., we hear/complete their requests.  
7. pPeah 1:5 associates the reward for  obeying God with the reward for honoring/obeying parents, i.e., long or eternal life. See Maimonides, Repentance  8:4 or the classical explanation of this idiom “long life.” 
8. bQeddushin 30b teaches that a woman who is married and without her own material resources is exempt from providing material and substance and honor to her parents.  Here the Torah teaches that only requests that are possible to fullfll are obligatory to fulfill.  The Torah was given to normal people, not super people. Radically inappropriate requests, like ordering a child to marry a specific person or to take a parent’s side in a dispute, may also be ignored, as we shall see…..
9. Leviticus 19:3 juxtaposes the holding  of one’s parents in awe with Shabbat observance, which for bYevamot 6a indicates that the legal [as opposed to social, rational, or ethical] reason that we  respect and provide for our parents is that God’s order creates a divine order.  Therefore, parents are not authorized to tell the child to disobey the Torah, so when parental and Torah mandates conflict, Torah trumps.
10. In conclusion,
    1. Children are required to fulfill their parents’ wishes and requests. Last wishes are wishes that are laden with extra anxiety.  Torah law nevertheless applies.
    2. This includes material support, as long as that support is possible  to provide.  The child may be reduced to penury while providing support  but is not obliged to give what one does not possess.
    3. The parent may advise but may not command  or dictate a child’s marital choice, following patriarchal Biblical precedent.
    4. The parent may not order the child to disregard what the Torah sees as a divine order. Therefore, a parental order to cremate may be disregarded by children. If there is a formal, legal will that may not be disregarded, then those who do not object to the cremation should attend to it; children have consciences, too.  Although my view is contested, it seems  reasonable to me that cremains should be buried so as to observe Deuteronomy 21:23, which requires burial even of legally executed and condemned  sinners, without exception.

 

1. Leviticus 18:19 teaches that one may not approach a woman, i.e., his wife, sexually until she properly immerses in the miqvah.

2. Maimonides, Laws of Forbidden Intercourse, 2:1-2 views: a. Sexual intercourse with a women who had her menses but did not immerse in a miqvah to be a karet, or extreme sin called “cutting off” from the religious polity of Israel. b. Sexual contact up to but not including intercourse, which is performed derech ta’avah, is also forbidden by Torah law and is punished by Torah ordained lashes, but not kareit.. c. Improper suggestive non-contact gestures, including wanton glances, i.e., oogling, is also forbidden, even though there is no contact taking place. d. Now, not forbidden by religious norm or statute are innocent, i.e., non-libidnal contact between strangers. Rabbi Acha danced with a woman on his shoulders, bKetubbot 17a, Jacob kissed Rachel, Genesis 29:11 [note that since Jacob was first given Leah as a wife and since he could not tell by touch that Leah was not Rachel, once Rachel became Jacob’s intended, he did not have any physical contact with her!], and if the intergender activity is innocent [le-Shem shamayim] [bQeddushim 81b-82a] At E.H. 2:14, Rabbi Moses Feinstein allows the non-erotic contact of commuters using the NYC subway.

3. Therefore, monthly immersion must take place for the marriage to be viable and intimacy permissable. a. The woman may immerse in the ocean or sea if there is no oil at that location that would keep the water from reaching the women’s flesh, using her husband as the watcher to insure her total immersion. There are leniencies for wool bathing suits to be used if the entire body gets wet from the immersion. b. It may now be necessary to make a monthly trip to other cities/locations in order to immerse properly. Bathtubs do not count unless they are specially and expertly constructed under competent Orthodox rabbinic direction. I stress, in order to avoid confusion, that these particular rules are among the Torah’s thirty-six most serious and important laws. [mKereitot 1:1] c. In a dire emergency, and with the approval of a competent sage, a pit may be filled with snow, which is not disqualified drawn water, melted into water that is not drawn and therefore fit for being a miqva, and this permanent pit will touch/kiss and render fit a second pit of previously drawn water. See mMiqvaot 7:1 and Maimonides, Miqva’ot 7:3 d. Under no circumstance may physical relations between wife and husband resume until after the immersion has been completed. 

 

1. Jewish law is what is legislated in Oral Law canonical documents.

 

2. According to bShabbat 21b the menorah is placed at the door on the outside. If one resides in a floor above ground, the menorah is placed in that window facing the public access thoroughfare. If there is danger, one observes the command on the table.

 

3. At bBaba Qama 82b we learn that we should perform the Hanukkah candle lite in a public setting and if placed above twenty amot is invalid for observing the commandment.

 

4. This public menorah serves a social and political function but by canonical Jewish law and

 

a. Is not a commandment as it is not a residence

 

b. Does not generate a commandment blessing

 

c. The popular religion of the Jewish street is not always canonical or correct

 

d. The very high menorahs in public do not generate a blessing as they are not commandments, over and above the issue regarding religion in the larger American public square.

 

5. In conclusion,

 

a. Public menorahs are not required according to Jewish law

 

b. As long as no blessing is made, as the rite is not required as a command, there are no formal rules that must be observed including tablecloth placement

 

c. Orthodox Judaism is a system of rules and values; the zealous Hanukkah blessings have been justified by some within the Orthodox social franchise, but their propriety should be questioned.

 

 

1. Judaism, the religion of the Written and Oral Torah, does and does not change over time. In geometry, we have a formula that states C = 2pr. As the value of “r” changes, so too does the value of C. The formula in Euclid’s plane geometry is eternal.
2. Polygamy is tolerated by the Torah and is not mandated by the Torah. In a world where women without husbands did not eat, polygamy may be understood if not accepted.
3. The male homosexual act is explicitly forbidden by Torah law. See Leviticus 20:13. There is zero debate on this matter in either the Written or Oral Torah regarding this rule.
4. The act is called toeva, seen by some as error, bNedarim 51a, and whatever an abomination actually means [derived sarcastically from wa’ab, the ancient Egyptian word for purity], the term applies to eating non-kosher food, [Dt 14:3], a woman who remarries a first husband after being married to a second husband, [Dt 24:4], bringing a disqualified offering to the altar, [Dt 17:1], and perhaps to the pernicious disposition of envy, as well. [Pr 3:32]
5. The Jewish marriage may take place between Jewish man who takes a Jewish woman in marriage. [Dt 22:13 and bQeddushin 2a] bQeddushin 82a reports that in Talmudic times, Jewry was not suspected of homosexual tendencies; in order to avoid rather than give license to sin, Rabbi Karo in Even ha-Ezer 24:1suggests that the assumption perhaps no longer applies and that men must be watched for sin as well.
6. Judaism always responds to the times, sometimes approvingly and sometimes not. Judaism has a discrete ethic which creates a sacred community and while aware of the outside world, sometimes rejects that world. At the “seder” of Plato’s aristocrats only by innovation Symposium, Socrates rejects the homosexual advances of Alcibiades, where “love” is discussed [and disgust!], whereas at the Jewish seder the poor are welcome, the behavior is chaste, and the topic for discussion is “redemption.”
7. In the condition of modernity, we can accept sinners but not sin. There are 613 commandments and not only one;   therefore communities may tolerate the sinner who does not upset public morality with provocative behavior. When asked to condemn homosexual behavior, Rabbi Ahron Soloveitchik is said to have said when asked about homosexuality, “it is almost as bad as cheating in business.”
8. As a religious minority, we advocate minority rights for others. We likely cannot change the homosexual community so we do not need to create animosity from it. We should better make our lifestyles more compellingly attractive. Monogamous heterosexual families seem to bond best, creating a more ethical culture on the whole. The promiscuity of our age is ultimately even more threatening. In an age of pluralism the homosexual community must also realize that there are those who view ethics differently than do they.
9. In conclusion, Judaism is opposed to the male homosexual marriage and defines marriage as [a] a man [b] initiating/taking a woman in marriage.

Is there anything we can learn from high-profile Jews caught in scandals? If you were going to reference Anthony Weiner who is a prominent Jew, what may be said?

 

I. The Facts:

 

Anthony Weiner was a brash New York Congressman who did lewd things on technological tools. He lusted in his heart; he got busted in his career.

 

Weiner believed in a god; the god in whom Weiner believer he met in his mirror.

 

Weiner was a knight. On one hand, was, like Lancelot of the Arthur legend and David of the Bible, he saw humself as a crusader for good. On the other hand, he assumed that the perks of his power give him license to lust. What Weiner did was despicable; John Edwards, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, and Arnold the Govornator Schwartzenegger crossed a very different lines, but to differing degrees they all carry the stain of shame on their names.

 

Why did Weiner do what he did? He had power and could talk his way out of anything. So he thought--and he thought wrong.

 

 

II. The Faith:

 

a. Rashi to Numbers 12:12 tells that we act as Weiner acted when a spirit of foolishness enters us. When this “spirit of foolishness” enters us, we act with folly and we fool “around.” This euphemism is not to be taken literally. If we allow our pants to fall to the ground, like fools, our plans go up in smoke with our dreams. We are responsible for our actions.

 

b. Abot 1:16 teaches that Rabbi Simon b. Gamaliel taught that there is nothing as fine and good for the body as silence. Weiner talked too much, and he was seduced by his own words, and now he is shamed.

 

c. Abot 2:1 finds the head of the Jewish polity, Rabbi Judah the Prince, telling us to think and see with the mind’s eye, three things that we cannot feel or see with our senses, that there is a God above us who is a seeing eye, a hearing ear, and what we say and do is recorded by the world’s Ultimate Auditor. Today’s Jews do not like to think this way. We act “as if” God is deaf and dumb; the eternal Keeper of Israel “neither slumbers nor sleeps.” Psalms 121:4. Weiner acted as if there is no one above him, no one seeing, no one to hold him to account. His character became calloused, his risks, more risqué, and he acted as a fool.

 

d. Abot 2:6 reports that Hillel saw a skull floating and observed that because that skull was a person that drowned others, it was drowned and those who drowned the person whose skull floats in the water will themselves be drowned. There is judge and there is a judgment, [Genesis Rabbah 26:6] Weiner believed that the laws of causality are not his concern; he felt invulnerable and this confidence is a curse as is the pride that came before the fall. Proverbs 16:17-18.

 

e. Abot 2:11 finds a little man with a great character, Rabbi Joshua, teach that the evil eye, the lustful heart, and hatred of others cause people to leave this world before their time. Did Weiner like people? He wanted to be liked but was not likable; he sought love and was outed by those who did not love him back.

 

f. Abot 3:8 presents the teaching of R. Hanina b. Dosa, who argued that when one’s piety is greater than one’s wisdom, the wisdom endures; when one’s wisdom is greater than one’s piety, the wisdom does not endure. Weiner was too smart for his own or anyone else’s good. Smart people whose moral compass does not work are fools.

 

 

 

III. The Future: The six lessons we are to learn from Anthony Weiner:

 

a. We have moments when we snap, when we do foolish things. Foolish people ruin their lives. When we think of Anthony Weiner, we should be smart enough not to be fools.

 

b. Watch what you say, silence is goiden. People who are silent and do not text do not write or say foolish things.

 

c. There is a judge and there is a judgment. A good God is watching us hoping we are good. Ask yourself every day, “did I act correctly today?” I suspect Anthony Weiner did not often ask himself that question.

 

d. No one is above the law. If Moses can get caught for wrongdoing, why not Anthony Weiner? If we set in motion cycles of bad behavior, we become the victims of our own vices.

 

e. If we care about God, we must also care about others who embody the image of God; if we care about ourselves and our passion without compassion for others, we are beasts who use the brain to satisfy brawn. God has better, wiser, and moral plans for people.

 

f. Anthony Weiner lived his life to date with the rule “it is good to be smart.” From the fall of smart, handsome and charismatic Jewish “beautiful people, we learn God’s point of view, “it is smart to be good!”

 

 

 

 

A.  After conceivably the most powerful man in the world,  the President of the United States, Barack Obama,  called for Israel to withdraw to pre-1967 lines on national television,

 

B. The next day on national television in front of the world, the Prime Minister of Israel, Binyamin Netanyahu, sitting next to Obama, was able to say, returning back to the pre-1967 borders was a risk that Israel simply

 

C.  As an American Jew, how do I reconcile my support for Israel's security while also supporting our President’s vision for peace in the Middle East.

 

1. The very question assumes  that our loyalty to our country must be fascistic, that we support our country right or wrong because might  employed for self-interest can never be wrong. In America, “we conquer we mustwhen our cause is just.” Our President correctly proclaims “elections do have consequences.”  An election is a referendum regarding government policy.  We are as Americans empowered to vote our conscience, to advance our  interests, and to impact the electoral process by trying to persuade.

 

2. What are we committing ourselves to do act, say and vote when we

 

First, our allegiance is to the flag and not a party, the Republic and not to either the Republicans or Democrats, which are partisan parties.  In America, parties are controlled by the Republic and its laws; in tyrannies, parties reflect the ideologies that are the social instruments of anti-social elites.  Our loyaty is not to the party in power  and our dedication is not to the President or his policies. Elections in this country are legal, dissenting political speech is both acceptable and not treasonous,   and dissent is not anti-patriotic.

 

Second, what unites Americans is the rule of law.  The Bill of Rights, which memorializes our freedom to disagree, affirms that we do not have an official ideology regarding exactly what is just.

 

Third, our nation is indivisible because it legalizes liberty--freedom—and justice—fair and equal treatment, for all.   I do have the right to think that you  are wrong, even if you are the President.

 

Fourth, there are two un-American ills that we do have to confront.  We have a right to complain and cajole, and critique and correct errors;  when we demean others we become  mean ourselves.  Those who question the Obama Administration’s policies are not by dint of disagreement evil, selfish, narrow minded, or non-patriotic.  It is not the job of either party to declare what is politically correct; it is  the job of those who vote on Election Day  to make that determination.  Those who claim that non-support for the Administration’s policies are unpatriotic and deficient Americans must be asked, “when your adversary party was in power, were you loyal to its policies, silent in your dissent, and collegial in your differences?”

 

Recall the Republican Nixon White House:

i.        the power of state was used against  partisan  political enemies.

ii.       Disapproval of a war that was based on a lie was  proclaimed to be un-American and un-patriotic

iii.      Denying the right to dissent is un-patriotic and un-American.

 

Therefore, 

i.       I do believe that Israel  ought to make compromises and to take risks for peace, as per the Obama Administration’s initiative.

ii.      The President of the United States should not have challenged the Prime Minister of Israel in public to return to 1967 borders. Having made the challenge, the Presdent hoped that Mr. Netanyahu would defer to the President’s station and office. The President hardly looked presidential by using the stage and the moment to coerce a Head of an allied Head of State.

iii.      But I also believe that the same, identical pressure to compromise and take risks be placed on Mr. Abbas of the PA to change the anti- Israel indoctrination in the Palestinian schools, that terrorists not be  valorized and treated as heroes,  and that salaries not be paid to Arab prisoners in Israeli jails for crimes committed against the Jewish state,

iv.      The American Administration must demand that the PA prepare its people for peace, to change its maps that make no place for Israel, on either side of a Green line, which should be America’s Red line.

v.       Since the pre-1967 border was rejected the Arabs, and Israel  was prepared to make peace,  and since neither Hamas nor the PA will accept Israel as a national homeland of the Jews, a bayit le’umi.As Amecans—and there are Democrats as well as Republicans who agree with this assessment,  we want to know why the American Administration is astounded  when Mr. Netanyahu does not obey Mr. Obama like a loyal vassal.

vi.       Was Senator Lieberman, a pro-Israel liberal, out of order when he said that Obama's speech was “an unhelpful and surprising set of remarks about Israel and the Palestinians that will not advance the peace process and in fact is likely to set it back. ...Unilateral statements of this sort do nothing to bring the two parties back to the negotiating table and in fact make it harder for them to do so. They also damage the relationship of trust that is critical to peacemaking?”

vii.       Application of pressure must be just, demands must be fair, respectful,  and loyalty recognized and not punished according to the pledge we make  to that flag that  requires that we ask for “liberty and justice for all.”  

 

  

The Kashrut of Kosher Certifications

 

1.           Can you explain the value behind various Kosher certifications?

2.            Do all of them take the same things into consideration?

3.            If so - why so many?

4.            How did a commandment get politicized?

5.            And if there are other than religious considerations, what are they?

 

 Response:

 

1.   There is but one Torah in Israel but there are  many Jews and many  Jewish opinions.  Each Jew has his or her opinion, some of which are inforned and some are not informed.  And God’s never changing law has to be applied correctly as well as appropriately to ever changing realities, conditions, and sadly, the politics of the human condition.

 

2. The short answer, asking do rabbis take the same concerns into consideration, is “no.” The long anwer is a tad more complex.  Uri L’Zedek social justice Orthodoxy adds ethical considerations to the canon of Jewish law; by insisting upon only glatt meat [which is not the official Ashkenazi view], Jewish milk, extra sharp slaughtering knives, only unzerer/our kind of holy man ritual slaughterer, disallowing peanut oil and kosher for Passover matsa meal on Passover, and labeling soy milk as full fledged dairy even though it is usable for the lactose intolerant client, because it was produced on dairy equiptment, Kashrut is less about Orthodoxy, or correct doctrine regarding obeying God, and much more about secular social self-definition and how we present ourselves to others in everday life.  The way we add to the Torah tells us whom we like and whom we are like. 

 

According to Jewish law, an observant Jewish taster may taste the soy milk produced on dairy equiptment in order to  determine if there is a noticeable taste of cow milk.   This permissable practice  is halakhically correct yet politically incorrect.

 

3. Kashrut is both  a commandment and a business. We want to obey God; since we are told to be loyal to God, we are also told to be loyal  to God’s spokespeople. So following opinion X is a social and political gesture; she or he who keeps insider strictures is seen socially as a member of a self-selecting elect sect and is therefore a “really” good Jew.  We ask not what is written in the Holy Book; we ask how we acquire the socially acceptable, piety identifiable, and religiously presentable holy look.

 

When sects add to the law and make kashrut harder, and  when leaders of those sects refuse to eat  of food prepared by  those who, while oobeying the letter of God’s unchanging law, are not sanctified by their particular, peculiar, and canonically unattested add-ons which assume the status of canonical Torah, I do not use their food because they separate themselves from the community and change the unchanging Torah, a really serious sin.

 

4. When religion becomes political, “piety” becomes  a code word for subordination, submission, and mindless silliness. Official religion Judaism is about sanctifying the self  by honoring God, by being good to the image of God that inheres in the “other,” whom we are to love as ouseleves; extra strict gestures that do not keep one from sinning but show disrepect for others violate kevod ha-beriyyot, human dignity, and reconstruct the Torah from  a template of refinement into a cult of conformity.  Torah’s holiness means “be different.” Political correctness is not necessarily theologically correct.

 

5.            The considerations that are brought to bear in determining kosher policies are:

      i.                            the kosher laws of the Written and Oral Torah are

               sacred

ii.                         when there is no emergency or special circumstance, communal bylaws/customs should be honored

iii.                     Observant Jews must be trusted

iv.                     Kashrut is about sanctifying the table and not about pseudo heroic strictures.  Do what is right in a way that is right so that your Jewish human condition will be all right.

 

1.Deuteronomy 23:24 [Written Torah] teaches that what we say we must fulfill, and vows are sacred commitments., or vows.

 

2.Deuteronomy 2323 tells us that failing to fulfill the vow is a sin, a mistake, a wrongdoing.

 

3.Ecclesiastes 5:3 maintains that not fulfilling a vow angers God, will implicitly result in punishment, and is therefore a foolish act to do.

 

4.The notion tn act performed three times is not consistent with the Judaism of the Dual [Written and Oral Torah] and is a value upheld by some Jews, but the value is not mandated by Judaism. What counts in Judaism are spoken words.

 

5.In the writings of the ancient Near East, an oral statement provides a potential reality.

 

6.b Nedarim 22a [Oral Torah] takes the Torah statement cited above to be religious law.

 

7.bBaba Mezia 48b proclaims a curse [mi she-para] on those who fail to fulfill their oral commitments.

 

 

 

1.We are obliged to say what we mean and mean what we say.

 

2.Our character is crated by our words and the sincerity of our intentions

 

3.It is wise to not make commitments that one cannot or will not keep

 

4.Breaking one’s word is a breach of social trust and religious integrity

 

5.Among those to whom we must be truthful is ourselves.

 

6.The Oral Torah says that we should say little and do much, being real rather than being boastful. nAvot 1:15.

 

 

The question of Ecology
 

1.  Jewish law requires that humankind preserve nature and the natural world. Deuteronomy 20:19. But humankind is authorized to exploit nature.  Genesis 1:26 finds humankind, created in the Divine image, may rule/exploit the fish of the sea.

2.  There are in real life very few if any absolutes. We  also require a measure of humility in order to judge between competing and worthy truth claims without using ideology to blindly reach an extreme position by ignoring contrary views.

3.  Judaism in practice is one of dialectic,

a.  of taking all the facts that can be garnered,

b.  accessing the relevant Jewish value norms,

c.   considering alternatives respectfully while thinking independently, and coming to a reasoned conclusion.

4.  It is improper to make a moral decision by imposing a strong Left—nature must be preserved even if there is suffering==or Right—we want profit now and we do not want to wait, bias, because this mindset is not consistent with Judaism. This mindset is called Dualism or Gnosticism, pitting Right/light against Wrong/dark and confuses the individual by impairing the propensity to examine all points of view. Judaism rejects this mindset.

5.  It seems to me that

a.  We restrict ourselves to what is legal

b.  We then consider legitimate self-interest

c.   We finally make the most ecologically correct decision within the limits of legitimate and legal self-interest.

 

1. review the official religion Orthodox understanding of Jewish law,
2. answer the question asked, the Jewish view of entrapment and privacy,
3. explain what official religion Orthodox Judaism says about “modesty,” and
4. what Jews should do when the ethic of the human constructed Jewish street conflicts with the eternal ethic of God’s law

The head of the household viewed children as old age insurance; children were expected to care for the mother in old age. Life insurance fills this social need. The marriage document is at its core a life insurance policy which the wife collects at her husband’s demise or at her divorce, i.e., the demise of the marriage.

 

For Hebrew culture, love requires tangible expression. This expression includes giving financial and emotional security for those who depend upon us.

 

                        The New Year of the Tree

 

1.           The legacy

 

There is nothing at all in the Bible about the new year for or of the tree.  The Mishnah [RH 1:1]  assigns the new year of the tree to the 10^th month, Shevat. But here we have a dispute between the Schools of Hillel and Shammai.  For the former point of view, the 15^th of the month  is the new year, while for the latter’s perspective, the first of the month of Shevat is the first day of the Arbor year.  Zionist Israel made a big deal about the day in order to connect the nation of Israel with the land of Israel.

 

Orthodox Diaspora Israel Jewry sees the day as a pre-Purim event so as to make the otherwise humdrum month of Shevat  meaningful. But it is an invented holiday with no sanctifying commandment or precept attached to it.

 

2.           The lore

 

A close reading of the Mishnah [RH 1:2] indicates that Israel is not judged on the New Year of the tree on or during month Shevat.  The judgment day of the tree is Shavuot, the Jewish Pentacost. 

 

This day can be seen as a happy or sad day.

Hillel’s school maintains that the new year of the tree falls on Shevat 15^th [a] when the moon is full, the night is light,   and the Passover and Sukkot festivals begin.  Therefore, the Hillel school associates the day as a happy and holiday  moment. This is the same Hillel for whom the Hanukka candles are kindled in crescendo, in ascending order, from one to eight candles as the days unfold.

 

Shammai’s school assigns the new year of the tree  to [b]the first day of Shevat, the new moon of the lunar month, when the moonlight is absent in the sky.   Recall that Shammai’s Hanukka practice was  to begin with eight candles and to conclude with one, mimicking the descending order  of the Tabernacles’s cult offerings.

 

III. The Lesson

 

Although Shammai’s  school’s position has Biblical precedent if not warrant, Hillel’s attitude of gratitude won the day.

 

The non-canonical mystical folk tradition, known as Kabbalah, assigned to the dark new moon a sense of foreboding and judgment. The decreasing number of Hanukka lights mandated by the Shammaitic position can lead to despair.

 

Shammai’s Judaism looked to the past, the good old days, the irretreviably lost glory years of ancient Israel. Hillel’s Judaism maintained that we add to and do not diminish our  spiritual opportunities, as per bMenahot 99b.

 

While Jewry  does not add to or diminish from the number of commandments   [Deuteronomy 13:1] , we may adjust  our customs, modify our mores, and respond appropriately to the times.  When Rabbi Moses Sofer proclaimed that innovation is forbidden by Jewish law, he was responding to what he believed was the need of his moment, to his point of view.  Nowhere in the Orthodox canonical library

is innovation forbidden as a prohibition.

 

Conclusions:

 

1.           Tu Bishvat is an old innovation, but it is an innovation nonetheless.

2.           The historical Tradition viewed the day as a happy  moment, like but not identical to Torah ordained 15^th of the month major festivals.

3.           The Psalmist’s imperative, at 100:2, is that we serve the Lord with joy. Tu Bishvat as it is practiced reflects this value concept.

This question must be considered historically, theologically, and contextually.   A close reading  of Acts of the Apostles  and Paul’s letter to the Galatians indicate that there were diverse  Christianities in the 1^st Century, CE including Marcionites, who believed that Jesus was all god, the Ebionites, who believed that Jesus was all human, and the proto-Orthodox Church that believed that Jesus was both human and divine.  The Second Century saw the advent of Gnostic Christianity, which believed that Jesus had secret teachings that were needed for salvation. 

 

The Ebionites, or evyonim, were likely observant Jews who maintained the [Jewishly] un-Orthodox position that Jesus was the anticipated Jewish Messiah.  These people were likely the target of Paul’s attack in Galatians on the Judaism of those who insisted that according to the religion of Jesus, no one can come to Jesus except through Judaism.  Mark’s Gospel reports that Jesus insisted that he undergo baptism in order to fulfill all righteousness,  to accept the conventions of 1^st Century Judaism.

 

By accepting Jesus as “the” Messiah of  Israel, each of these early Christian groups broke with the consensus Judaism of that age.  When Peter converted the Gentile Cornelius, he as well as Paul saw the unchanging word of the Old Covenant compact to be changed by what they took to  be their  own inspired religious intuition. 

 

Theologically, all surviving Churches, with the exception of Unitarianism, accept the the divinity of Jesus. bHullin 40a maintains that praying, even to angels, let alone Jesus, is rank idolatry.   If these Messianic Jews pray to Jesus as a god, they are idolaters who do  not count in the minyan, or prayer quorum.  Christianity wants to spread its “good news.”  The claim that they do not [overtly] wish to make converts is therefore dubious.   Other than the Halakhic Sabbath, Gentiles may practice Jewish rites.  We should guide them to realize that the One God does not create people to be sinners and then to condemn them if they do not buy into this or that salvific Christology; God has better things to do than to debate dogmas of human definition and formulation, or to condemn to perdition those who in good conscience identify with what others take to be bad theology.

 

The above being said, Jewry contextually believes that Christianity is an error and not evil, a mistake but not a menace. The Oral Torah requires that we study other religions “to understand and to teach.” [bAvoda Zara 43b]  We need reciprocal  respect in order to exploit the teachable moment that increases understanding.

 

Before judging others, when there is doubt, the “other” gets the benefit of that doubt. mAbot 2:4

1. I too was once a affiliating Conservative Jew. At that time I asked my wife to wear a head covering because Jewish law required the practice.   While this orientation was present in the Conservatvie Movement 30 yars ago,  I do not see it in Conservative Judaism today.
2. No serious Conservative Jew  would consider oneself to be “traditional lite” but rather, “Total Torah right.”  When a student at the Jewish Theological Seminary, I saw that there were some women who observed this practice. A Conservative Movement that is committed to pluralism  and tolerance should consider this choice a legitimate option.
3. Jewish law does not forbid women  to wear pants; Jewish law forbids cross dressing. It is true that Rabbi Isaac Wcicz of Israel’s Edah ha-haredit  Ultra Orthodox community viewed women’s pants as bigdei shahats, this is an aesthetic and not religious claim.
4. The questioner should ask herself whether her choices are theological—to do what God wants her to do—or social—where one’s dress and ritual choices are determined by identifying with people who share that discipline and whose approval one solicits.  Rabbis Ovadia Yosef and Joseph Soloveitchik endorsed women’s head coverings but outlawed wigs. [bShabbat 64b] Most Orthodox women—and even rabbis—are unaware of this legal fact.  Some women [and men] observe ritual in oirder to belon and not because they believe.
5. There is now a body of literature that  argues that women’s head covering may no longer be binding. See Michael Broyde, Tradition 42:3 (Fall 2009).  See also Mayim Hayyim 2:110.  The passage that calls  women’s head covering a Torah obligation, bKetubbot 72a-b,—appears to be a post-Talmudic gloss, which explains why Maimonides does not call the requirement “Torah based.”
6. Because the questioner associates women’s skirts and head covering together, I also suspect that she is re-affiliating socially and ideologically.  Her template is “not what the canon commands” but what “do Orthodox Jews do.”
7. Whatever decision is made, it should be made honestly, with modesty of mind, and with respect.

 

1. The Jewish attitude to drunkenness

 

2. The obligation to aid another person

 

3. the appropriate strategies for intervention

 

 

 

1. Maimonides, Nezirut 1:12 , sees the drunkenness state as being out of rational control and a default of one’s humanity. See also Erubin 65a.

 

2. Jews are morally bound to help others and not stand idly by when others are in need. Leviticus 19:16 and Sanhedrin 73a. The Talmudic precedent refers to saving a drowning person; therefore we are even required to undergo risk in order to perform effective intervention.

 

3. It would be proper to get professional help so that intervention is successful. Therefore, medical and social work settings must be sought.

 

Rabbi Alan J. Yuter

 

 

Judaism  deals with acts and not dispositions.  We must act carefully and responsibly, while  realizing that until Islam polices its rogues, feelings of uneasy concern are grounded in news, not race, and these feelings are not based on pre-judging, but unfortunate conditioning.