DOVBEAR

Ten DovBear dollars to whoever is first to add me to this list.

NYC is the Big Apple, NOLA is the Big Easy, and Beitar Illite is the "Torah City of the Judean Hills." No joke. Or rather it wasn't a joke until this happened:

A 14-year-old girl from Beitar Illite was taken to the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem after an unknown person spilled acid on her face, legs and stomach, causing light burn wounds. The act has been attributed to a representative of the so-called 'modesty guard' in this town where religious and secular residents are increasingly at bitter odds.[Source: Ynet]

Our crack Beitar Illite correspondent says there's even a sign at the city gate which reads "Ir HaTorah b'Orai Yehuda." If so, I hope its torn down and used to stuff the private orfices of the self-rightuous thug that did this.

HT Amshi

A guest post by TikunOlam

My eldest is currently considering becoming a vegetarian. He is concerned about "animal cruelty" and thinks this might be the right thing for him to do. He hasn't made any decisions yet but has been eating only vegetarian food for the past week as he thinks this through.

One of his major concerns is that if he goes the veggie route he may miss some of his favorite foods such as General Tso Chicken. Today he explained that he thought there might be a remedy to his conflict. Apparently someone (probably a member of "Living Legacy" - a Chabad group that also runs the Matzah Factory at his school) at some point came to speak at his school about Shechita. He remembers the guest saying that chickens feel no pain when they are killed via a shochet. Now, I know nothing about shechita. And I certainly never heard this before. Can anyone help me with this?

From today's keepsake, frame-worthy, Times:

Senator Barack Obama claimed the Democratic presidential nomination on Tuesday night, prevailing through an epic battle with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in a primary campaign that inspired millions of voters from every corner of America to demand change in Washington.

“You chose to listen not to your doubts or your fears, but to your greatest hopes and highest aspirations,” Mr. Obama told supporters at a rally in St. Paul. “Tonight, we mark the end of one historic journey with the beginning of another — a journey that will bring a new and better day to America. Because of you, tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States.”

I can understand if you're not impressed with the man's politics, or his vision. I can even understand (sort of) if you want the old, angry, anti-abortion, Haggee-hugger to win in November. But this is a great moment in American history, a moment to celebrate how far we've come. If you lack the capacity to join that celebration, at least for today, I wonder about your humanity and your sense of history.

A side worry: After the Republicans steal this one (and they will, if not via the Supreme Court than via dirty tricks, or appeals to fear) its going to be a million years before another black man gets nominated. The Dems will beat themselves up saying stuff like "what were we *thinking* nominating a black man in this deeply racist country?"

Last night one of the local rabbinical figures made some rabbinical remarks about shavuos. It wasn't bad, as far as these things go, which is to say I was only partially bored. His theme, or topic, was this "How do you handle the age-old [sic] problem [sic] of preparing meat and dairy when you have only one oven." I suppose this is a serious concern, at shavuos time, for those who bake their own cheese cake, but the ins and outs of the discussion didn't hold my attention.

Then he said this: "If you want, you can satisfy the mitzvha deoyraysa (biblical obligation) to give your wife a holiday gift, and buy her a new oven."

Now, I'm sure the Rabbi didn't expect us all to stop at Sears on the way home. I'm sure he was just being funny. But the comment raised a question in my mind, and over time the question gradually morphed into a challenge.

The idea that we men are supposed to present our wives with holiday gifts is enshrined in biblical law, a law that dates to a time when you could made certain reliable presumptions about men and women and marriages. In 9999 out of 10,000 marriages, the man was Mister Outside, responsible for finding food, earning money, genuflecting before the local tough guys, etc. The woman was Mrs. Inside. Her job included baking bread, and brewing beer, and raising children. (and, let's face it, serving as an outlet for the man's sexual energy.) She never had any of her own money to spend, and because holiday time meant feasting, it also meant a lot of extra work for her. So the guy who wanted to demonstrate his appreciation, and to ensure that she would continue to serve as said outlet brought home a present. The gift was a "tribute" just as surely as the goat he presented his local chieftain was a tribute, a way of making sure he stayed on the other person's good side.

[It may have originally been as simple as that, though later the rabbis offered another set of assumptions. They reasoned like this: We are all supposed to be happy at holiday time. Men are made happy with meat and wine, so we hereby decree that men must eat meat and wine on the holiday. Women are made happy with shiny baubles, so we hereby decree that women be presented with sparkly toys. The fallacy of this reasoning is addressed over here] [Note to crybabies: On the original post I misspelled the name of the Shaagas Aryeh. All of you caught it, and some of you made noble attempts to make me feel bad about it, attempts that ultimately failed. The original misspelling remains intact, so those of you who think whining about spelling is productive use of your time are free to pick up where you left off.]

But how many of those old assumptions about the roles of men and women still adhere? Today women work, earn their own money, and are perfectly capable of marching into the local jewelry store and making a purchase. Men nowadays have more "inside" responsibilities. They cook, and clean, and have become excruciatingly aware that women have plenty of sexual urgings of their own, thank you very much. So doesn't the idea of a holiday gift as tribute seem more than a bit outdated?

Yet it remains enshrined in biblical law... though the presumptions that, thousands of years ago, made it a sensible idea no longer adhere... and... here we are again....

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A Guest Post by Rafi G.

It looks like the wonderful commenters over at Yeshiva World did not hear Rav Steinman's mussar shmooze in Ponevezsh Yeshiva yesterday...

They are frothing at the mouth again and this time over the Salute Israel parade...

June 3, 2008: The day nothing got done. Let's just try again tomorrow.

DovBear: Oh, Artscroll.

A guest post by TikunOlam

I was asked a couple of posts ago by "I Know TO" why (and I am paraphrasing), if I could just do whatever I want, since I don't believe there is some ultimate divinely perscribed morality or truth, would I act ethically and morally.

Fedup linked this article by Steven Pinker entitled, "The Moral Instinct," which is well worth the read and may explain some things for those who have trouble understanding how anyone could develop a sense of morality without religion as a guide. And if you haven't visited his blog yet, there's some other interesting stuff worth checking out.

I need to write a post about why I didn't go to the Israeli Day Parade despite loving Israel as much as anyone; but its just not coming.

Part of me supposes that I am finding the post impossible to write because I really don't care about Israel. That stings a little. In my imagination I care about Israel as much as anyone, but maybe I don't, not really, or at least not in the way that the marchers care about Israel. I don't think I am ready to admit that to anyone, though, including myself. And anyway what does it mean not to care about Israel?

I'd be sad if it disappeared. Horrified, in fact. I don't want Jews to die. (There is something a little vulgar about how I feel required to say this, as if the matter would be in doubt, if I left this unsaid. But its true: If I don't say it outright, some people will pretend and/or presume that I want Jews to die. A little sick, that.) I know many thousands of Jews are alive today because of Israel.

So why can't I demonstrate that this is what I think and feel by marching? Is something wrong with me? Am I too lazy to get to the parade? Am I selfish?

But isn't everyone selfish in that we all just do the things that make us feel good? Don't all of us, at bottom, structure our lives in ways that provide us with the most pleasure and the least pain?

So why doesn't going to the parade make me feel good? Why isn't participating in the parade a source of pleasure? Is it because - let's face it - parades are sort of boring? In fact, the whole idea of a parade - we all agree; we all think alike; we're a monolith of support; rah rah rah - sort of makes me recoil.

A thought: I've noticed that pro-Israel psychos and anti-Israel psychos disturb me in the exact same way. And the way that both kind of psychos disturb me is fundementally similar to the way that Charedi-ism disturbs me, which at bottom, is how all "isms" disturb me, which - aha! - is the thing about parades that makes me recoil. Smugness. Certainty. Us against Them. So is my ambivilance about Israel related to my general distaste for ideologies? Is that why I distance myself from Israel? Because I can't seperate Israel from the unreflective head-nodding of some of its supporters?

But, hold the phone. Israel is more than the sum of its supporters, isn't it? And its not like every supporter of Israel is the sort of psycho I've described. TO isn't. Jameel isn't. Anyway, neyond what those multivarious supporters say and do, Israel serves a purpose, doesn't it? And its a purpose, I am supposed to support. There are living, breathing Jews in Israel, who belong to any number of different ideologies themselves, and all of them would be endangered if Israel were to vanish.

Lots of Jews are better off now because of Israel. Perhaps all of us are. But is Israel still a sanctuary and a safe haven for Jews?

I am not so sure. Anyone with a cursory understanding of risk management knows that it isn't a good idea for all the Jews to be in one place. Makes it too easy for one nut with a big bomb to knock us all off. As father Jacob's behavior showed us, sometimes its wise to divide the camps. And how many Jewish communities are still huddling in fear under the rule of an anti-Semite? Not many. And even in places like Iran, where the few remaining Jews are living pinched and danger-filled lives, how many of them are really and truly trapped? Wouldn't the mullahs be glad to see them leave?

And, along with the expiration, or, if you prefer, fulfilment of Israel's original purpose, I find that even the idea of "Israel" has become wrapped up, in my mind at least, with so much effed-up nonsense, and worse, all of this nonesense becomes kosher, depending with whom you speak, under the heading of "This is what God wants" or "He gave US this land" or "Those Arabs are so much worse" or "Those Arabs started"

In my faulty perception, talking to a certain type of Zionist is exactly like talking to a certain type if charedi. Some charedim attempt to shuts down any debate or conversation about how to make Judaism better by insisting that everything Charedim do is ipso fact the correct and authentic way for Jews to do things. I grew up with Zionosts who offered similar justifications for everything Israel did: Israel was always right, because nothing Israel did could ever be wrong. The media was always wrong, because the media was a monolith that, down to the last man, hated Israel. Same for the Arabs who were always capital E evil. Any attempt by me to bring nuance or new facts to the conversation was taken as proof that I hated Israel, that something was wrong with me for seeing things no one else wanted to notice.

So maybe I just gave up? Maybe I said to hell with it, and backed off leaving the Zionists to their Zionism, as I wish I could leave the Charedim to the Charedism?

Sometimes, I just want to wash my hands of Zionism, in the same way that I sometimes want to wash my hands of charedi nonsense. Sometimes I see the Zionists like I see the Charedim, in that both groups are certain they're right, indifferent to nuance, and convinced that any attempt to disagree, is a demonstration of your own defectivness. (Do I need to say the this is a generalization that doesn't apply to every Charedi or every Zionist? Ok. Said it.)

And Im not sure how much or how little sense this makes, but let's make a post out of it.

Click

Sure looks that way.

Shudder

(A consolation: J-blogosphere historians will remember that in late 2005 GH also gave up, took down his blog, and pretended to retire. That surrender was celebrated in fundementalist corners yet, in the end, GH was back in about 6 seconds. Let's hope Pravda Ne'eman returns even more quickly.)

A Guest Post by Rafi G.
(cross posted from LII)

Tommy Lapid has died this morning. Yosef Tommy Lapid was a person whose obituary I was not going to write. I was not even going to mention it. People die all the time, and Lapid was no longer in the public eye (he was no longer in Knesset - he was director of Yad VaShem the past few years but has kept a low profile). You can get all the obits and eulogies in the regular news.

Lapid founded the Shinui party and his whole being was dedicated to fighting the Haredim and Haredi parties. People called him anti-semitic, but I never thought of him like that. I thought he was anti-Haredi and perhaps anti-religious (that was less clear), but not anti-semitic.

So why am I mentioning it?

Because the various Haredi Members of Knesset, and former MKs have all been speaking about Lapid today, on the radio, in the printed news, etc. Because Lapid was such a bitter opponent, and devoted all his energy in Knesset to fighting the Haredim, I was surprised to hear what I heard today. And don't think it was a one-way street. With all the name calling and mud slinging coming from lapid toward the Haredim, the Haredim gave back as good as they got.

I would have expected to hear them saying how he hurt Haredi Judaism, he damaged the stipends, hurt the yeshivas, he is no loss to anybody, etc.

I was surprised to hear them speak of him fondly and even praise him. Eichler explained he never knew anything about Judaism - the first time he had seen a pair of tefillin was when he was 17 when he was in the army, and he suspected the person donning them of being a spy using comm devices. He was a Holocaust Jew and all he knew about Judaism was the holocaust. He did not fight against the Haredim, but fought for secularism.

Aryeh Deri said Lapid was straight. He had other pleasant words to say abotu him as well.

Zvulun Orlev (NRP, not Haredi party) said Lapid, despite their differences in opinion, fought for democracy.

and more.

When it comes down to it, the battles between people and parties in Knesset are really just politics, and not personal. They each fought for what they believed in and they were on opposite sides of the battle.

But when it comes down to it, it was not personal. Each side respected the other, and saw the good in the other as well.

I wish we did not have to wait for a death to see that, but could see it while people are alive. A fight over ideaology does not need to become personal and destroy relations between people. People fighting for what they believe in can still respect each other in life, and not just after death.

click

Akiva:

See, you have to make up your mind. Either the government can set standards, or it can't. If it can't, NAMBLA is ok, sibling relationships are ok, mixed-species is ok, multiple-relationships are ok, how about slavery? Basically whatever anyone consents to, right? Oh, and who decides what the "age of consent" is? Why not...12, or 8. Does the ability to be able to function sexually indicate ability to consent? (Why not?)Oh I'm being silly, one of those "slippery slope" people, and that's just silly. But so is every argument for SSM. If the gender of the people don't matter, why does the number, or age, or familial relationship (or species)?

This might be the dumbest thing I've ever heard. The reason why SSMs don't lead inevitably to NAMBLA is because legalizing SSMs doesn't also legalize child abuse. Just because we've said that the sate can't deny homosexuals the respect, dignity and financial benefits of "marriage", doesn't mean it also can't protect the safety of children! And how exactly does permitting marriage also permit slavery? The two things are categorically different. When someone is made into a slave, he is harmed in material ways. Unless you've got quite a dim view of matrimony, you can't say that making someone your wife is in any way the same.