Year: 2019

Politics Can Wait – FIRST Go to the Beis Medrash!

Parshas Veyeilech we just read begins:

וילך משה וידבר את הדברים האלה אל כל ישראל.

Pseudo-Yonasan:

ואזל משה למשכן בית אולפנא ומליל ית פתגמיא האלין עם כל ישראל.

We know they would gather by Ohel Mo’ed. But first Moshe went to study Torah.

Do Seatbelt Laws Kill More People in Total? Maybe Not, but They Do Kill More BYSTANDERS!

I (and the enraged Yehuda Segal) have written elsewhere against seatbelt laws, blindly amplified by various poskim. As it turns out, they likely do not kill more Jews in absolute numbers, but they do still redistribute risk unto innocent pedestrians. This is otherwise known as Moral Hazard.

A fine example of moral hazard, funnily-painfully enough, is this very act of  paskening, complete with Da’as Torah papacy (our rabbis are never wrong), social conformity enforced in the name of pseudo-halacha, vapid intuition, as opposed to Talmudic proof, on the part of modern decisors, כי רבים חללים הפילה — and in Nefashos, to boot, the mind-rotting negation of ואל תאמר קבלו דעתי, שהן רשאין ולא אתה and Chulin 6b מקום הניחו לי אבותי וכולי, and contempt of hard data in halacha (exceptions notwithstanding).

In short, we have ourselves the perverse multiplication of moral hazard by (1) third-party rabbis (2) relying on the interventionist state, father of manifold moral hazards, which, in turn, (3) ignores drivers’ moral hazard…

Here is Wikipedia’s update of the research (abbreviated):

The reduction of predicted benefit from regulations that intend to increase safety is sometimes referred to as the Peltzman effect in recognition of Sam Peltzman, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, who published “The Effects of Automobile Safety Regulation” in the Journal of Political Economy in 1975 in which he controversially suggested that “offsets (due to risk compensation) are virtually complete, so that regulation has not decreased highway deaths”. A reanalysis of his original data found numerous errors and his model failed to predict fatality rates before regulation (Robertson 1977).

… But “Peltzman’s theory does not predict the magnitude of risk compensatory behavior.” Substantial further empirical work has found that the effect exists in many contexts but generally offsets less than half of the direct effect. In the U.S., motor vehicle fatalities per population declined by more than half from the beginning of regulation in the 1960s through 2012. Vehicle safety standards accounted for most of the reduction augmented by seat belt use laws, changes in the minimum drinking age, and reductions in teen driving (Robertson 2015).

The Peltzman effect can also result in a redistributing effect where the consequences of risky behavior are increasingly felt by innocent parties (see moral hazard). By way of example, if a risk-tolerant driver responds to driver-safety interventions, such as compulsory seat belts, crumple zones, ABS, etc. by driving faster with less attention, then this can result in increases in injuries and deaths to pedestrians.

Tosafos Bava Kama 27b s.v. H.G. Amai:

ה”ג אמאי פטור איבעי ליה לעיוני, אבל הך לא פריך אמאי חייב בנזקו כשהוזק איבעי ליה לעיוני כדפירשתי לעיל (דף כג. ד”ה ולחייב) דיותר יש לו לשמור שלא יזיק משלא יוזק ולא שייך כאן כל המשנה ובא אחר ושינה בו פטור (לעיל כ. כד:) דגבי אדם לא אמר הכי והא דאמר (לעיל דף כב.) הניח חנוני נרו מבחוץ בעל הגמל פטור ולא אמר איבעי ליה לעיוני וי”ל דדוקא במקום הליכתו אמרינן איבעי ליה לעיוני וקצת קשה הא דאמר רבא לעיל כי אית לך רשות לסגויי הא בהמה נמי איבעי לה לעיוני כדמוכח בהפרה (לקמן דף נב:) דשור פקח ביום פטור וליכא למימר בממלא רה”ר שאינה יכולה לעבור אלא דרך עליה דא”כ לבעוטי נמי אית לה רשותא.

קדושת ציון גליון #46 – תשרי

דרישת ציון על טהרת הקודש ◆ דעת תורה בנושאי ארץ הקודש ת”ו

שלום רב וגמר חתימה טובה לכל החברים,

אנו שמחים בזאת להגיש בפניכם את גליון חודש תשרי של שנת התש”פ, וזאת אחר מאמצים רבים ועצומים מצד חברים רבים באגודה להוציא לאור את הגליון על-אף הלחץ הרב בו היינו שרויים, אחר שבחודש אלול העלון יצא רק בחציו השני של החודש. בגליון זה תמצאו מאמרים מאלפים בעניינים שונים – הן בענייני דיומא והן בנושאים העומדים במהלך כל השנה במרכז סדר היום של עם ישראל בכלל ויראי ה’ בפרט.

אנו מודים לכל מי שהצטרף למבצע המנויים ולכל שאר התורמים, המאפשרים את הופעתו הסדירה של העלון. אמנם, לאור הביקוש ההולך וגובר והפעילות הנצרכת בעקבותיו – הן ביחס לעלון עצמו והן ביחס לשאר פעולות האגודה – מחובתנו להגביר את ההכנסות בהתאם. בגליון זה מופיעה קריאה של אחד הקוראים, אשר תשודר אליכם גם בקובץ שמע בימים הקרובים, ובו בקשה שקשה לסרב לה – שכל אחד יתרום סכום מזערי, אשר יתחזק את העלון מדי חודש, מבלי שיורגש כלל על-ידו. כמובן, שמי שידו משגת מוזמן לתרום על-פי יכולתו, ואנו מצדנו מתחייבים, שתהיה תמורה מלאה לתרומתו בהגברת הפעילות בכל התחומים. אנא מכם, בפתח השנה החדשה – שכל אחד יעשה כפי יכולתו וישתתף במפעל חשוב זה, ויבורך מפי עליון!

בברכת שנה טובה ומתוקה וגמר חתימה טובה לכל הקוראים הנאמנים,

יהודה אפשטיין.

אגודת ‘קדושת ציון’.

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Reprinted with permission.

ניתן לתרום לאגודה ולהוצאת העלון באחת מהדרכים הבאות –

העברה בנקאית:

שם בעל החשבון: עמותת קדושת ציון
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בכרטיס אשראי דרך הקישור הבא: נדרים פלוס

Make out US charitable tax-deductible (checks) to:

Central Fund of Israel

c/o Marcus Brothers Textiles

980 6th Ave

New York   NY  10018

Attn:  Arthur Marcus

Include a note that it is for Kedushas Tzion.

Or for Israeli residents:

Jay Marcus

13 Hagoel St.

Efrat , 90435

Eretz Yisrael – A Privilege, Not a Burden!

Eretz Chemdah: An Inside View – Ratzon HaShem

Ratzon HaShem

I came to learn in Eretz Yisroel after three years in Beis Medrash (post high school). I grew up in Lakewood, New Jersey, and, like most of my friends, when I came to learn in Eretz Yisroel I had no long-term intentions. I came to do the two-year Eretz Yisroel experience. Like most bochurim, this obviously included Shabbos seudos at the homes of many different types of people.

At one of those Shabbos meals, the question was posed: “How can people live in chutz la’Aretz if there is a mitzvah to live in Eretz Yisroel?”

I was put on the spot because honestly, I had never thought of it. I was indeed aware there is a mitzvah according to the majority of opinions, but somehow that all was theoretical knowledge. I totally ignored the step of applying my knowledge to my actions—I just honestly never thought about it.

After that Shabbos seudah, I decided to research the topic a little bit, until I discovered that Reb Moshe Feinstein ztz”l wrote a teshuva that there is no obligation to live in Eretz Yisroel, rather it is a mitzvah kiyumis—a mitzvah that one gets sechar for doing—but is not an absolute chiyuv to do.

I was happy. As far as I was concerned the “issue” was resolved. There is a legitimate opinion that there is no chiyuv to live in Eretz Yisroel, therefore I could live happily ever after in Lakewood. Case closed.

Sometime after that I had a conversation about this with a talmid chacham I knew. He told me something that changed my life. He asked me if, as a Yid, I saw mitzvos as a burden, or am I happy to be part of the Am Hanivchar (Chosen Nation) excited to do ratzon HaShem even if it isn’t the easiest thing. Without too much thought, I knew that the answer was the latter—a Yid has to be happy with his mitzvos and not look at it as if it is a burden.

He told me, even if we accept Reb Moshe’s view (which I understood not to be the pashtus), why does that give you the security to live in chutz la’Aretz? You have a mitzvah that is definitely ratzon HaShem to live in Eretz Yisroel, so even if it is not a chiyuv, shouldn’t you want to try to do it? He added, you don’t think it is easy? Many mitzvos aren’t easy and that just increases the sechar, as the Mishna in Avos says, “l’fum tza’ara agra.”

This talmid chacham continued to note that the many maalos of living in Eretz Yisroel mentioned throughout the Torah and chaza”l such as, “Eretz asher Einei HaShem…” meaning HaShem’s special Hashgacha Pratis in this Land or the famous gemara (Kesuvos 110b) stating the difference between one who is living in Eretz Yisroel and one who is living in chutz la’Aretz, concerning their relationship with HaShem. I once again was aware of these maalos, but somehow, I never thought about trying to apply them to my life. He asked me to forget about if it is a chiyuv or not, am I not interested in all these maalos?

I thought about this for a while and took it to heart. The reason a Yid is in this world is to do ratzon HaShem, not to look for loopholes in it. The ratzon HaShem in this case is very clear—HaShem wants Yidden to live in Eretz Yisroel.

I was just a bochur at the time, but when I started shidduchim my condition was clear. I went back to the States for shidduchim like the norm, but I knew that for the long term, I needed to live in Eretz Yisroel. My parents thought I wasn’t being rational, but they agreed I can “try” my condition for a year, and to rethink it if I still don’t find my bashert by then. A year passed and I started getting nervous, but then HaShem sent me my bashert, and B”H she agreed with my condition eagerly.

We got married B”H and started off in Yerushalayim, which was the normal place chutznikim my age lived. I continued learning in the same yeshiva I did as a bochur. My wife B”H found work for an American company through the computer. Neither my parents or my in-laws were financially supporting our stay in Eretz Yisroel, but we had Siyata Dishmaya and my wife had decent work. After a little less than a year, however, we realized that we barely could afford our budget, and this was without the added expenses that come with children. It was a hard but obvious decision: We knew we had to move out of the mainstream Yerushalayim to somewhere where the expenses were much cheaper.

After looking at the various options and spending a Shabbos here and there, we moved to the community we thought made the most sense.

B”H we are very happy, and I thank HaShem daily for letting me live my dream in Eretz Yisroel, as the gemara says, “duchta deMoshe v’Aharon lo zachu lah…” a place where even Moshe and Aharon did not merit….

 

Adjusting

For me, adjusting to our new community outside Yerushalayim wasn’t such a big deal. I continued learning in the same yeshiva in Yerushalayim, taking a bus every day.

For my wife, it was more challenging. We moved from a mostly English-speaking community to a building where almost nobody knew English. It took time, but eventually, she got connected to the English-speaking community there and also learned to make friends with our Israeli neighbors.

The chutznik community gave us a lot of chizuk. It wasn’t a group of people of which most were moving back after 2-3 years. It was an oylam of people doing the same thing we were doing.

– Yekusiel A., Gush Etzion

This article is part of Matzav.com’s Eretz Chemdah series featuring English speakers, living in, settling, and building up Eretz Yisroel. For more info please contact info@naavakodesh.org or visit naavakodesh.org/eretz-chemdah

Reprinted with permission from Naava Kodesh.