העורך Editor

The ‘Minhag’ to Evade Mourning the Churban

The Nit’ei Gavriel on the laws of Bein Hametzarim, 5747 New York p. 87 footnote 30 quotes Rabbi David Sperber’s responsa “Afarkasta De’anya” 154:3 who claims the Ruzhiner Rebbe instructed (ציוה) his Chassidim to complete Mishnayos and make a siyum during the week of Tish’a Be’av in order to eat meat. He then cites Shut “Beis Avi” II chapter 52 saying he has witnessed good and worthy Jews, who don’t crave meat, and generally avoid prohibitions do so, as well.

The Jewish People’s Origins Are NOT Impersonal

Devarim 32:6:

הליהוה תגמלו זאת עם נבל ולא חכם הלוא הוא אביך קנך הוא עשך ויכננך.

Seforno:

הלא הוא אביך קנך, לא אב טבעי הנותן מציאות מה במקרה אבל הוא אב רצוניי שנתן לך מציאות למען תהיה קנינו מוכן להשיג בך חפצו וסגולתו וזה כי הוא עשך לגוי כי לא היית גוי נחשב כלל.

That’s right, we’re chauvinists.

‘ונוהגים שבשבת מאחרין יותר לבא לבהכ”נ מבחול’

מצאתי מאמר בקובץ תורני כלשהו בענין הרמ”א בסימן רפ”א שכתב להתפלל מאוחר בשבת מבחול.

וז”ל הרמ”א שם, ונוהגים שבשבת מאחרין יותר לבא לבהכ”נ מבחול, משום דבתמיד של ימות החול נאמר בבקר (במדבר כ”ח ד’) ואצל שבת נאמר וביום השבת (במדבר כ”ח ט’) דמשמע איחור (מרדכי פרק כ”ב), עכ”ל.

(תחילת המאמר פותחת לעיין מגילה כ”ג א’ וברש”י.)

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How to Respond to an Inability to Perform a Mitzvah

The Joy of a Mitzvah

The two brothers, the famed Rabbi Elimelech of Lizensk and Rabbi Zushe of Anipoli, often wandered about together, posing as simple beggars. They would mingle with the masses, listening, teaching, speaking, helping and guiding whomever and whenever they could.

Once, while they were traveling with a group of vagabonds, members of the group were accused of being thieves, resulting in the entire bunch being thrown into jail. Confident of their innocence and eventual release, the two brothers sat quietly. As the afternoon progressed, Rabbi Elimelech stood up to prepare himself to pray the afternoon service.

“What are you doing?” his brother asked.

“I’m getting ready for minchah,” replied Rabbi Elimelech.

“The same G‑d who commanded you to pray commanded you not to pray in a room unfit for prayer!” “Dear brother,” advised Rabbi Zushe, “it is forbidden to pray in this cell, because there is a pail that serves as a toilet nearby, making the room unfit for prayer.”

Dejected, the holy Rabbi Elimelech sat down.

Soon after, Rabbi Elimelech began to cry. “Why are you crying?” said Rabbi Zushe. “Is it because you are unable to pray?” Reb Elimelech answered affirmatively.

“But why weep?” continued Rabbi Zushe. “Don’t you know that the same G‑d who commanded you to pray, also commanded you not to pray when the room is unfit for prayer? By not praying in this room, you have achieved a connection with G‑d. True, it is not the connection that you had sought. Yet, if you truly want the divine connection, you would be happy that G‑d has afforded you the opportunity to obey His law at this time, no matter what it is.”

“You are right, my brother!” exclaimed Rabbi Elimelech, suddenly smiling. The feelings of dejection banished from his heart and mind, Rabbi Elimelech took his brother’s arm and began to dance from joy as a result of performing the mitzvah of not praying in an inappropriate place.

The guards heard the commotion and came running. Witnessing the two brothers dancing—with their long beards and flowing tzitzit—the guards asked the other prisoners what had happened. “We have no idea!” they answered, mystified. “Those two Jews were discussing the pail in the corner when all of a sudden they came to some happy conclusion and began to dance.”

“Is that right?” sneered the guards. “They’re happy because of the pail, are they? We’ll show them!” They promptly removed the pail from the cell.

The holy brothers then prayed minchah undisturbed . . .

From Chabad.org, here.

Yes, the Humanities Department Is Conspiring to Steal Your Children

As Richard Rorty admitted in an introductory essay titled “Universality and Truth” in”Rorty and his Critics”, (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), p. 21:

It seems to me that the regulative idea that we heirs of the Enlightenment, we Socratists, most frequently use to criticize the conduct of various conversational partners is that of ‘needing education in order to outgrow their primitive fear, hatreds, and superstitions’ […]

It is a concept which I, like most Americans who teach humanities or social science in colleges and universities, invoke when we try to arrange things so that students who enter as bigoted, homophobic, religious fundamentalists will leave college with views more like our own

[…] The fundamentalist parents of our fundamentalist students think that the entire ‘American liberal establishment’ is engaged in a conspiracy. Had they read Habermas, these people would say that the typical communication situation in American college classrooms is no more herrschaftsfrei than that in the Hitler Youth Camps.

The parents have a point. Their point is that we liberal teachers no more feel in a symmetrical communication situation when we talk with bigots than do kindergarten teachers talking with their students. […]

When we American college teachers encounter religious fundamentalists, we do not consider the possibility of reformulating our own practices of justification so as to give more weight to the authority of the Christian scriptures. Instead, we do our best to convince these students of the benefits of secularization. We assign first-person accounts of growing up homosexual to our homophobic students for the same reasons that German schoolteachers in the postwar period assigned The Diary of Anne Frank. The racist or fundamentalist parents of our students[…] will protest that these books are being jammed down their children’s throats. I cannot see how to reply to their charges without saying something like “There are credentials for admission to our democratic society […].

You have to be educated in order to be … a participant in our conversation … So we are going to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable. We are not so inclusivist as to tolerate intolerance such as yours.”

[…] I don’t see anything herrschaftsfrei about my handling of my fundamentalist students. Rather, I think those students are lucky to find themselves under the benevolent Herrschaft of people like me and to have escaped the grip of their frightening, vicious, dangerous parents … I am just as provincial and contextualist as the Nazi teachers who made their students read Der Sturmer; the only difference is that I serve a better cause.