People Behaving Badly, Leaders Behaving Badly, State Behaving Badly

The news coming out of Israel over the past few months has been downright depressing. It seems to be a place where the rule of law no longer applies. Instead, several extremist groups are trying to assert the principle of kol d'alim g'var (whoever is stronger prevails) with respect to public policy.

It seems that they've succeeded with regard to Ohr Chaim book store in Jerusalem, where, after months of intimidation, they finally wore the owner of the store down to the point where he agreed with most (all?) of their demands. Other vendors have also been harassed to the point of being forced to alter their store policies.

The fight is still being fought in other spheres -- including gender-segregation on buses and public streets. The latest flash point for this fight is in the city of Beit Shemesh, where goons and thugs have been verbally, emotionally and physically assaulting young girls as young as six.

I find it very interesting that the majority of these battles are over gender-related issues. While I do believe that there may be some interesting observations that can be gleaned from that little factoid, I don't think gender is the real issue here.

The issues at hand here are not gender, the dress of young schoolgirls, the selling of books that might or might not be heretical or different sections of buses. The real issues here are power. The power to force your way of life on others, the power to extort money from businesses, and the power to control people's actions in the public sphere.*

It's often been said that rape is not a crime about sex, but a crime about power. I believe the same principle applies here as well. Various groups of chareidi thugs are attempting to build a power base through intimidation and violence. Just as a rapist uses sex as the vehicle for exerting power over another human being, these thugs are using Torah and halacha (or, rather, their warped version of it) as the vehicle for exerting their power over other people. In their attempt to exert that power, they feel perfectly justified in engaging in mafia-like tactics, physical violence against women and shouting words such as prutza (slut) and zonah (whore) at little girls. While any rational person can see that such things are not normal behavior by any civilized person, their desire for power blinds them to this.

Fortunately, these attitudes and actions seem to be restricted to a small group of thugs. For example, I am told that in Beit Shemesh, "modern" Orthodox Jews and chareidim have lived together in peace for years before the troublemakers came to the area. It has been said that good portions (if not most?) of the chareidi population are embarrassed and sickened by the conduct of these thugs.

However, there seems to be a vast silence when it comes to the chareidi rabbinic leadership when it comes to this conduct. The news reported today that the Belzer Rebbe has condemned the violent behavior of the thugs. However, this is the first such condemnation that I am aware of. The chareidi leadership on the whole, however, has been silent.

The argument has been put forth that the thugs won't listen to the rabbinic leadership. There may be some truth to that argument -- if the root of the problem is based on power and turf-wars, then perhaps they won't listen to the rabbis. But that does not absolve the rabbis of the responsibility to speak out. By failing to speak out, they give the impression that they endorse the violence -- either tacitly or expressly. If they are truly believe that the violent actions of the thugs are wrong, they should speak out against them publicly. If the thugs refuse to listen to their gedolim after that, then they will have been exposed as simple, plain thugs who are interested in power and terror rather than the Torah.

It should be pointed out that there is plenty of blame to be laid at the State here as well. The State, in allowing this to happen, is being neglectful of their responsibility to protect the property and well-being of it's citizens. The fact that the thugs were able to force the owner of the Ohr Chaim bookstore to accede to their demands and that the police could or would not protect the store owner from these mafia-type thugs is simply disgraceful. The fact that the police cannot or will not protect little girls from being pelted with produce and verbal assault is likewise disgraceful and embarrassing.

The first and foremost responsibility of any decent state is to protect it's citizens. The State needs to take that responsibility and take the actions necessary to protect it's citizens from thugs and extortionists.

The first and foremost responsibility of rabbinic leaders is to stand up and proclaim right from wrong. The rabbinic leaders of the communities from which these thugs emerge need to stand up and state unequivocally that certain behaviors and actions are unacceptable and against the Torah and halacha.

The first responsibility an individual is to do right and not do wrong -- and if he or she is not certain what is right or wrong, then s/he must do everything they can to find out.

All three groups have failed in their responsibilities. All three groups need to own up to their responsibilities. The consequences for not doing so are just too great to contemplate.

The Wolf

* And in the private sphere too. It's just that the thugs haven't figured out a way to invade the privacy of people's homes yet. But I have absolutely no doubt that if they could, they would.

How Can They Say Science Is Wrong?

As many of you are aware, there are various statements made by Chazal that are at odds with current scientific understanding.  These include statements regarding the physiology of some extant animals, the existence of animals that are now considered to be fanciful, the age and nature of the universe, the movements of the heavenly bodies and other subjects.  Natan Slifkin, in a recent post, described the approach that various critics of his take towards reconciling these differences.  One such approach, taken by Rabbi Moshe Shapiro, is characterized by Rabbi Slifkin as follows:

Anyone with the slightest grasp of Chazal will realize that they were not speaking about the physical biology of bats. In the world of pnimiyus, the bat actually does lay eggs.

Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro, of Far Rockaway (is he related to R. Moshe Shapiro?) takes a similar approach.  He writes:

In general, whenever Chazal make a scientific statement, they are not talking about the observable universe but rather the "real" universe. What we - and the scientists - see is only a graphic user interface, so to speak. The real world - the real sun, real moon, real earth - is not observable by current scientific means. Chazal were talking about the real world when they spoke. I'd recommend this Shiur for a full treatment.

Therefore, the Jewish sages were talking about the "real" universe, which indeed behaves exactly as the Chachmei Yisroel described. The non-Jewish scholars were arguing with limited information, i.e. with what their scientists could see on the "outside," GUI world. We agree that on the outside, it would appear the way they say. But the Chachmei Yisroel saw deeper, they saw into the real world and there, their description is correct.

Of course, they'd never believe the source of our information, which was the Torah's insight into the world, and it is likely assur to explain it to them anyway. So we couldn't really win this argument. But we were right. 

I find this particular approach to be totally incomprehensible.  Set aside, for the moment, that there is little, if any, indication that Chazal were not talking about the actual physical universe.  The real difficulty with adopting this approach is the fact that you cannot then use any of Chazal's statements as a basis for arguing with modern science.  You cannot say that science is wrong regarding bats laying eggs and, at the same time, use Chazal's statements regarding bats and eggs as proof that science is wrong.

Rabbi Yaakov's argument ends with the statement that we're right and the scientists are wrong.  But he's really fighting a phantom.  He says that when Chazal make statements about our world, they are talking about some "reality" that is not observable through our senses or experimentation.  The scientific community, on the other hand, makes no such claim.  They deal in the observable universe.  They make no such claim regarding any behind-the-scenes metaphysical universe that the Rabbis Shapiro claim that Chazal speak of.

In short, by adopting this approach, the Rabbis Shapiro have ceded the argument to the scientists vis-a-vis the  observable universe.  Science says bats don't lay eggs?  Not a problem -- since Chazal weren't talking about physical bats, we can say that science (which concerns itself with physical, observable bats) is correct (regardless of whether Chazal are right or wrong about metaphysical bats) in it's statement that bats do not lay eggs.  Spontaneous generation (such as with mud-mice or lice)?  Also not a problem -- science is right because it deals with physical, observable animals, not metaphysical ones.  The same can be applied to the age of the universe, and just about any other area of argument regarding science and Torah.  In short, by making the claim that Chazal were talking about some unobservable meta-physical reality, they have lost the ability to use Chazal's statements as a basis for saying that science is wrong about anything.

The Wolf

Photos: Colorful Water Drops

Canon XSi, 100mm macro lens, f/2.8, 1/320 second, ISO 200

Lately, I've been experimenting with various water drop pictures.  Here's one that I did that involved using some color.

Comments, criticisms and critiques are welcomed, appreciated and encouraged.

The Wolf

"Even An Eight Year Old Draws My Eyes..."

As many of you are probably aware, there has been a battle going on surrounding the Orot school for girls in Beit Shemesh.  The short version of the story is as follows:

The town of Beit Shemesh had been planning a new girls' religious-Zionist school for several years.  Eventually, they were given a parcel of land and began building.  Before the building could be completed, a new chareidi neighborhood opened up in Beit Shemesh adjacent to the parcel of land where the school was being built.  By the time the school was ready to open this past September, the chareidi neighborhood was flourishing.

Various elements within the chareidi community did not want the school located adjacent to their community.  They decided that the girls' manner of dress, while in strict accordance with halacha, did not meet their standards.  After trying to bring political pressure to bear, they attempted to occupy the building before the school year started.  When that failed, they began daily protests outside the school, shouting insults such as "whore" at the girls, who are aged 6-12.

I hadn't heard anything about this after the Yomim Tovim and (perhaps naively) assumed that the battle had ended.  Apparently, I was wrong.  An article appeared yesterday in The Guardian, indicating that this is still going on.  The extreme elements within the chareidi community are still protesting and yelling at the girls, as well as otherwise making trouble in Beit Shemesh.

I detect a certain amount of hypocrisy in the position of the extremist chareidi mindset.  They demand that others be sensitive to their customs and mores.  For example, they ask that if women come through their neighborhoods, they do so dressed modestly.  Personally, I don't have too much of  a problem with such a request.  "When in Rome..." the saying goes, "... do as the Romans do."  A visitor should be sensitive to the cultural norms of the places where s/he visits.

But yet, the chareidim can't or won't respect the cultural norms of others.  They move into an established community and then begin protesting if the established residents don't meet their standards of behavior.  It doesn't matter to them that the school was planned for that spot long before they arrived.... they're there now and that's all that matters to them.  In short, their attitude it "when we're here first, live by our rules.  When you're here first, live by our rules."   Interestingly enough, in Judaism, we have a name for that sort of attitude.  The Mishna in Avos puts it very succinctly:  [One who says] what's yours is mine and what's mine is mine [indicates the] type of behavior of S'dom.

Interestingly enough, there may well be another S'dom connection here.  One of the reasons brought down for the punishment of S'dom was sexual abnormality.  It seems we have that here too.  When Rabbi Dov Lipman, a community activist, asked one of the protesters why he was protesting the manner in which a little girl dresses, he responded that "even an eight-year old draws my eyes."

There is a word for people who think about eight year-olds in a sexual manner.  Deviant and pervert are two of the milder ones that come to mind.  I think that it is obvious that there are deviant and perverted people among the protesters, and that perhaps the chareidi community should look within itself to weed these people out.

The Wolf

Is There Even A Point To This?

A friend of mine spotted the following flier hanging in Brooklyn.  In short, it states that there are a limited number of openings for the opportunity to do the mitzvah of shiluach hakein -- the sending away of the mother bird.  For a "nominal fee*" the person behind the flier will presumably take you to the bird and nest and allow you to perform the mitzvah. 

Furthermore, the flier continues, you should not miss out on this opportunity since aside from Torah's promise of "Prosperous Days and Longevity," you are also guaranteed (emphasis mine) a slew of other benefits, including the conceiving of children, finding a spouse, purchasing a house, etc.

Personally, I have several problems with this particular flier and with others like it.  The first issue I have (with this flier in particular) is the use of the word "guaranteed."  How can the rabbi behind this offer (whoever he is) possibly make such a guarantee?  Even the promises made by Hashem Himself in the Torah aren't absolute promises -- consider the story that is told about Elisha ben Avuyah (a.k.a. Acher) who saw a young boy die while trying to fulfill this mitzvah and the mitzvah of honoring one's father.  That being the case, how can this rabbi make such a guarantee?  Will he personally grant a child to a childless couple if they fail to conceive despite his promise?  Will he pay the medical bills of someone who *is* hurt while traveling?

This is, of course, a part of the general trend nowadays of selling yeshuous (salivations) and promises of miracles.  The only difference here is that instead of the money going to a yeshiva, charity or some other organization, this rabbi is using it as a part-time business opportunity.  I don't begrudge him the opportunity, but I must say that if I find the selling of Divine promises of salvation distasteful in charitable endeavors, I find it all the more so in a private enterprise.

But there's also a deeper, more troubling problem with this offer.  Shiluach hakein strikes me as an "opportunity" mitzvah.  If you find yourself in a position of wanting eggs, and you find that the eggs you want are in a nest being protected by a mother bird, then have to send the mother away.  But what if you don't really want the eggs?  Suppose you're traveling on the road (as the case is described in the Torah) and you spot a tree with a bird, nest and eggs, but you have no desire for the eggs.  Is there any mitzvah to climb the tree and shoo away the mother bird?  Clearly the answer is no -- you don't have to do so and (to my understanding) doing so for no reason may even amount to a measure of tza'ar ba'alei chaim (causing pain/distress to animals).

That being said, what is the purpose of this whole exercise?  I doubt that anyone who responds to this rabbi's offer has any real desire for pigeon eggs (or whatever other bird it is that he's using)**. Even if he's using chicken eggs, why would anyone go all the way to him when eggs can be had in the local grocery much more easily?  So, the whole thing is just an artificial and contrived set up to perform a mitzvah that is just not required.  What next?  Should I charge people $5 for the opportunity to find my wallet in a side room after I leave it there so that they can perform the mitzvah of returning a lost object?  Is that really fulfilling the mitzvah?  The entire exercise sounds (to me) so contrived and artificial and completely out of sync with how the mitzvah should actually be performed.

The Wolf




* I don't begrudge the rabbi the "nominal fee" (assuming, of course, that it is, indeed, nominal).  He certainly spends his time (and possibly money) to arrange this and deserves to be compensated.


** This is leaving aside the question of whether or not the rabbi would even let the person take the eggs away, as this would either prevent him from giving the opportunity to the next person or require him to find a new nest with eggs for each opportunity.


(h/t for the photo on request)

Photos: Tiger

I recently took a trip to the Bronx Zoo and, of course, I took my trusty camera along.  I managed to get a number of good tiger shots.  Here's one:

Canon XSi, 75-300mm lens at 300mm, f/5.6, 1/400 second, ISO 400.

Comments, critiques and criticisms are welcome, encouraged and appreciated.

The Wolf

Photos: Fly

As long-time readers of this blog know, I happen to enjoy photography.  One particular type of photography that I enjoy is macro photography, otherwise known as "close up" photography. 

I own two macro lenses which I use for my macro photography.  One is a Canon 100mm macro lens (the older, non-L lens, for you photo geeks).  This is a great lens which provides up to life size (1:1 magnification) pictures.  This is also a nice portrait lens.  Despite the name, it can be used for non-macro work as well and is my favorite lens among the ones that I own.

Canon, however, also makes a specialty macro lens, called the MP-E 65.  It's a 65mm lens that is exclusively a macro lens.  It cannot focus on anything more than a few centimeters away.  This lens, however, is capable of providing up to 5x magnification.   This lens, however, has some unique challenges, such as the lack of an auto-focus feature.  It's all manual focus and the only way to get your subject in focus is to manually move the camera (or your subject) back or forth until the focus is right.  In addition, the higher the magnification you chose, the more challenging the shots become.  As a result, I find myself most often using it at 2-3x. 

I like to shoot insects with my macro lens.  Or, rather, I should say, I like to *try* to shoot insects.  The little buggies, however, rarely stand still long enough for me to set up with my manual-focus macro lens.  Needless to say, taking such pictures, while fun, is sometimes quite challenging and when I do end up with a nice, clear image, I like to consider it a victory.

Which brings us to this picture.  I set up a plate on my back porch with a piece of apple and some honey, hoping to attract some bees or wasps.  All I got was a very young fly.  As it turns out, that was a blessing for me.  Since the fly was young, he(?) hadn't yet learned to be overly fearful.  As a result, he was willing to sit on the apple and pose while my camera lens got thisclose to him.  The result:

Canon XSi, MP-E 65mm lens at 3x, f/8, 1/20 second, ISO 800

As always, comments, critiques and criticisms are welcome, encouraged and appreciated.

The Wolf

Whatever Happened to Civility and Basic Respect?

This past Tisha B'Av, a group of Chassidim (I believe they were Neturai Karta, but I could be wrong about that) protested in New York against Rav Shteinman and his support of the Tal Law in Israel which allows for a chareidi army unit.  In the course of the protest, at least one of them loudly proclaims that Rav Aharon Leib Shteinman is a "Rusha M'Rusha" (extremely wicked person) and says "Y'mach Sh'mo" (may his name be erased) after his name. 

Long time readers of my blog know that I do not ascribe to the doctrine of rabbinic infallibility.  I believe that it is possible for gedolim, including Rav Shteinman to be in error*.  So, if you believe that Rav Shteinman is wrong,  I have no problem with someone marshaling forth their arguments and making their case, even forcefully.

But there's a very clear and distinct line between forceful, civil disagreement and outright disrespect and outright demonization --- and the people in this video completely blew past that line.  To call someone who is generally acknowledged to be one of the greatest living sages extremely wicked and to use the epithet "y'mach sh'mo" -- an epithet reserved for only the most reviled people in history is, in my humble opinion, completely and utterly beyond the pale. 

I can't help but think that their version of "shivim panim laTorah" (that there are seventy facets to the Torah) is similar to Henry Ford's idea of choice of color for the Model-T -- the customer can "have any color so long as it's black."  It's one thing to believe that your path is legitimate.  It's quite something else to believe that only your own narrow ideology is correct and that anyone even slightly outside it is not just wrong, but a wicked person whose name deserved to be wiped out. 

Interestingly enough, I see the same thing happening in other places as well.  For example, in a recent thread on the YWN Coffeeroom, a discussion cropped up about the recent earthquake and Hurricane Irene both hitting the northeastern United States in such close proximity.  Some posters felt that there was a Divine message there.  One poster (ronrsr) stated that it was mere coincidence.  Another poster decided to attack that position by saying:

sorry, ronrsr, to call this a coincidence is pure apikorsus

Let's leave aside the fact that that ronrsr's respondent clearly doesn't know what constitutes apikorsus.  What disturbs me far more than his ignorance is the fact that the respondent sees no possible middle ground between his own opinion and heresy.  In his eyes, it seems, it's not possible to simply be wrong (let alone have an alternate, legitimate opinion).   Instead of being incorrect, his disputant has to be labelled as an apikorus -- possibly the worst designation you can give to a Jew. 

Whatever happened to the idea of respectful disagreement?  Whatever happened to the idea that someone could be wrong but they don't have to be demonized?  In short, what ever happened to common civility? 


The Wolf


*  I personally don't know enough about the issue to say whether Rav Shteinman is right or wrong on the issue.  The issue here is not whether Rav Shteinman is right or wrong, just that it is within the realm of possibility that he is wrong.

Emotionally Manipulative Fraudulent Tripe

A new letter is beginning to make the rounds on the internet and, possibly, other media.   The letter is about the recent murder of Leiby Kletzky, purported to be from "Moshela," a handicapped child.  I'm not going to post the entire letter -- it can be read online here or here.

Before we comment on the content of the letter itself, I will start out by saying that I am certain that the letter is a fraud.  There is no way that a child, handicapped or not, wrote this letter.  It's just not the way that a child writes or speaks.  In that respect, it reminds me somewhat of the famous letter of Revital Avraham, which, like this letter, tries to emotionally use a person's death (although, in that case, it was a fictional person's death) to manipulate people emotionally.

The letter basically tries to make the case that Orthodox American Jews are bad Jews.  An entire litany of sins (real and imagined) are laid out for us -- everything from talking during davening to eating sushi and pizza.  Yes, of course, tznius is mentioned as well (has there ever been a tragedy in the past twenty years that wasn't chalked up to a supposed lack of tznius standards?), as well as laxity in kashrus, too much gashmius (materialism) and other items.  He concludes by prophesying about terrible things coming in the next few months and that we must all repent our sins.

The kicker, of course, is that it isn't the killer who is responsible for Leiby Kletzky's death, but us.  As "Moishela" puts it:

Q: Why is it a Kiddush Hashem if he was killed by a Yid?
A: Because it does not matter who killed him. It was the Goyishkeit in ourselves that killed him so that makes it a Kiddush Hashem. A true Yid would never kill a child as this man did, only if he is totally deranged. And even so, a real Yiddishah Neshomah could never be guilty of such cruelty; therefore he died Al Kiddush Hashem. The Goyishkeit in us is what killed him.

Personally, reading letters like this make me sick.   It's one thing to try to advance your own agenda, but it's another thing to use a child's death to do so.  If you want to make the case that Jews need to change their conduct in certain areas, then by all means, make the case for it.  But don't tell me that Lieby Kletzky died because I ate a slice of pizza. There's only so much manipulative tripe I can take, and this letter went well beyond that.  That's not to say that "Moishela" doesn't have some valid points.  I think most of us can agree, for example, that talking and texting during davening is wrong and disrespectful.  He may have some valid point in other parts of his letter as well.  But when he wraps the whole thing up in an emotionally manipulative letter that blames everyone and everything except the actual killer (and lies about the authorship of the letter to boot), then I lose interest in the entire message he's trying to convey.

The Wolf

My Good Old Siddur

There is a small maroon softcover siddur that I keep in my tallis bag and which I use every day.  I bought the siddur from a seforim store back in 1984 or 1985.   The design on the cover and the lettering on the spine have long since faded away.  Some of the pages are a bit faded and a number of the page corners are dog-eared or missing entirely.  The edges of the pages have long since lost their bright white glow and turned a dingy, dull gray.

I have sometimes been asked why I use such an old siddur.  Most people would retire a run-down, well-worn siddur after twenty-five years, especially when the siddur wasn't an inheritance or gift from a special relative, rebbe, friend, etc.  After all, siddurim are not particularly expensive.

As it turns out, there is a reason why I keep this particular siddur and use it daily.  The reason for it can be best explained after you've seen a scan of two pages.

There are eleven pages in the siddur that have scribbles on them in the same red ink.  These scribbles were made by Walter about sixteen years ago when he got a hold of my siddur and a red pen one day when I wasn't looking.  I remember, at the time, being somewhat upset about it, since I had already been using the siddur for a number of years and I happened to like it.

But in the years that have followed, the siddur has grown on me, precisely because my young son scribbled on eleven of the pages.  Those pages have come to have special meaning and significance for me over the years.  I've learned to understand that when I see those pages, I now have something to pray for -- my children.  I see the pages and I'm reminded that I have to pray for their welfare -- their physical welfare, their emotional and spiritual welfare, their social welfare and probably a dozen other welfares as well.  You'd think that a person shouldn't need a reminder to pray for something, but sometimes we show up for davening in the morning bleary-eyed and half-asleep and just "go through the motions" without taking the time to reflect upon what it is that we are asking our Creator for and why we are asking it of Him.  But I have something to help me focus on what's important.  I have some red scribbles on the opening pages of my siddur that has, for the past sixteen years, reminded me of why I need to entreat my Creator.

I may have been upset at the time, but, in retrospect, I realize that I owe a great deal of gratitude to my then-toddler son.  By taking a red pen to my siddur, he has given me a reminder everyday to focus my prayers on the important things in life.

The Wolf