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Rabbi Hershel Shachter on Modern Halachic Attitudes Toward Women

1/7/23 – Shiur 402 – Women’s role in society – Has our Halachic attitude towards women shifted over the years?

4 days ago

Making a Bas Mitzvah
Women giving Shiurim and writing articles in Halacha and Hashkafa
Women giving Hadracha and Paskening Shailos – Yoetzet Halacha
Women going to college and joining the workforce
Women’s Hatzalah

with Rabbi Hershel Schachter – Rosh Yeshiva of YU, Poseik of the OU – 24:51
with Rebbetzin Chana Henkin – Dean of Nishmat – 50:25

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From Headlines in Halacha, here.

Understand the Moral Hazard of Psychological Disability Welfare

How To Retire At Age 27

A doctor’s primary responsibility is to heal, and all of our efforts and resources should be devoted to that goal.  At times, it is impossible to restore a patient to perfect health and he or she must unfortunately deal with some degree of chronic disability.  Still other times, though, the line between “perfect health” and “disability” is blurred, and nowhere (in my opinion) is this more problematic than in psychiatry.

To illustrate, consider the following example from my practice:

Keisha (not her real name), a 27 year-old resident of a particularly impoverished and crime-ridden section of a large city, came to my office for a psychiatric intake appointment.  I reviewed her intake questionnaire; under the question “Why are you seeking help at this time?” she wrote: “bipolar schizophrenia depression mood swings bad anxiety ADHD panic attacks.”  Under “past medications,” she listed six different psychiatric drugs (from several different categories).  She had never been hospitalized.

When I first saw her, she appeared overweight but otherwise in no distress.  An interview revealed no obvious thought disorder, no evidence of hallucinations or delusions, nor did she complain of significant mood symptoms.  During the interview, she told me, “I just got my SSDI so I’m retired now.”  I asked her to elaborate.  “I’m retired now,” she said.  “I get my check every month, I just have to keep seeing a doctor.”  When I asked why she’s on disability, she replied, “I don’t know, whatever they wrote, bipolar, mood swings, panic attacks, stuff like that.”  She had been off medications for over two months (with no apparent symptoms); she said she really “didn’t notice” any effect of the drugs, except the Valium 20 mg per day, which “helped me settle down and relax.”

Keisha is a generally healthy 27 year-old.  She graduated high school (something rare in this community, actually) and took some nursing-assistant classes at a local vocational school.  She dropped out, however, because “I got stressed out.”  She tried looking for other work but then found out from a family member that she could “apply for disability.”  She applied and was denied, but then called a lawyer who specialized in disability appeals and, after about a year of resubmissions, received the good news that she can get Social Security Disability, ensuring a monthly check.

How is Keisha “disabled”?  She’s disabled because she went to see a doctor and, presumably, told that doctor that she can’t work because of “stress.”  That doctor probably asked her a series of questions like “are you unable to work because of your depressed mood?”, “Do you find it hard to deal in social situations because of your mood swings?” etc., and she answered them in the affirmative.  I’ve seen dozens—if not hundreds—of disability questionnaires, which ask the same questions.

I have no doubt that Keisha lives a stressful life.  I’ve driven through her part of town.  I’ve read about the turf wars being waged by the gangs there.  I know that her city has one of the highest murder rates in America, unemployment is high, schools are bad, and drug abuse and criminal activity are widespread.  I would be surprised if anyone from her neighborhood was not anxious, depressed, moody, irritable, or paranoid.

But I am not convinced that Keisha has a mental illness.

Lest you think that I don’t care about Keisha’s plight, I do.  Keisha may very well be struggling, but whether this is “major depression,” a true “anxiety disorder,” or simply a reaction to her stressful situation is unclear.  Unfortunately, psychiatry uses simple questions to arrive at a diagnosis—and there are no objective tests for mental illness—so a careless (or unscrupulous) provider can easily apply a label, designating Keisha’s situation as a legitimate medical problem.  When combined with the law firms eager to help people get “the government money they deserve,” and the very real fact that money and housing actually do help people like Keisha, we’ve created the illusion that mental illness is a direct consequence of poverty, and the way to treat it is to give out monthly checks.

As a physician, I see this as counter-therapeutic for a number of reasons.  With patients like Keisha, I often wonder, what exactly am I “treating”?  What constitutes success?  An improvement in symptoms?  (What symptoms?)  Or successfully getting her on the government dole?  And when a patient comes to me, already on disability after receiving a diagnosis of MDD (296.34) or panic disorder (300.21) from some other doctor or clinic, I can’t just say, “I’m sorry about your situation, but let’s see what we can do to overcome it together,” because there’s no incentive to overcome it.  (This is from someone who dealt with severe 307.51 for sixteen years, but who also had the promise of a bright future to help overcome it.)

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From Thought Broadcast, here.

Galus Chassid Complains Israel Is ‘Too Hot’…

Hot-Tikva – Parshat Vayeishev Chanuka Edition 2022 5783

Insights and Inspiration from the Holy Land

from Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz

“Your friend in Karmiel”

December 16th 2022 -Volume 12 Issue 9 22nd of Kislev 5783

Thursday, December 15, 2022

Parshat Vayeishev Chanuka I

Hot-Tikva

(What a great title!)

We were in the car having one of those typical Rabbi Schwartz you-really-should- move- to Israel discussions. They were Chasidim. They really loved Israel, or Eretz Yisrael as they preferred to call it. I was in one of my moods as it was the end of a full summer of touring and I wasn’t polite about it anymore. The politically correct Rabbi Schwartz had exited a few weeks before. I was annoyed at people just not getting the fact that it was really that time in history when everyone should be coming home already. There really is nothing left in America to stick around for besides… concentration camps at worst, but certainly expulsion, persecution and decrees are around the corner. The writing was on the wall. What were they hanging around there for? I was just frustrated, that they didn’t see it.

Yoily, then tells me that he really wanted to move to Israel. He loves it here. He said last time he was here even a few years ago, he even came very close to buying an apartment here. But at the end he backed it out. “It’s tzee heisss” in Eretz Yisrael. It’s too hot for him and his wife here. The temperature is too high and its very humid. It’s nisht far meer. It wasn’t for him. It was at that point that I lost it.

I told him that I had a young man a few months ago that was raised frum, but his father told me that he was having trouble with him. It seems his son decided that he didn’t want to wear tzitzis anymore. It’s too hot, he complained. There’s no obligation in fact to wear tzitzis. It’s only an obligation if one is wearing a four cornered garment. But there’s no obligation to wear one in the first place. I asked Yoily if I should tell the young boy that he was correct. Tzee heis is a good excuse. After-all living in Eretz Yisrael according to many is not an obligation. You “just” get a mitzva if you live here, kind of like when you wear tzitzis (although settling the land is probably a lot more comprehensive and central of a mitzva-as the Torah repeatedly tells us it is the essence of all the mitzvos that can only properly be fulfilled here).

On the other hand, I could tell him how a little shvitz for a mitzva is good. I could remind him of the gemara that tells us about eventually the goyim will complain that they never had any opporotunities to do mitzvos and Hashem give them the chance to fufill the mitzva of sukkos. When they step in it though Hashem yanks out the sun and they start to shivtz and run out and say in their goyisheh Yiddish “It’s tzee heis!”. And then a I ratch it up a notch.

I ask them if they know why they are wearing those big long hot caftans and frocks and wool tzitzis. After-all there is certainly clothing like my shorts and T- Shirt which is a lot more comfortable. The answer I explained was that when their Zadyies and Bubbies came to America or the New World, or even perhaps centuries before in Europe, the great Chasidic leaders felt that it was important that the Chasidim wear these clothing so that they feel that they stand out. That they will always remember that they are not like the goyim around them. So that they won’t easily forget who they are and assimilate. That they will remember that the country that they are in, isn’t really where they are supposed to be or feel comfortable. It’s not their home. It’s not their people. We’re in galus and only there temporarily.

The problem though, I rudely pointed out, is that they are more comfortable in their shtreimal and beketcheh in the Diamond district in 5th Avenue or even in the halls of congress than they are when they come home to the land that is the inheritance of our forefathers. The land Hashem told us He gave us to live in. The land that is unquestionably the best, most natural and only place where we should ever feel at home. The land that should never feel tzu heiss… and even if it is, who moves out of their home when the air conditioning is busted? Out of their father’s home? Out of our Father in heaven’s home. I suggested that it would be much better if they tool off their shtreimal and beketcheh and put on a short sleeve shirt, shorts and even cotton tzitizis and it will be much cooler for them here. After-all I don’t think anyone will wear argue that living in Eretz Yisrael is less of a mitzva then the shtreimal, then the black hat and jacket? I think they made Aliyah since then… they certainly never said tzi heiss in my car.

As I read back what I just wrote, I realize that my mother will probably yell at me. I don’t usually pull punches in this E-Mail. I feel it’s why some of you still come here and read it each week and haven’t unsubscribed. You can handle my never really humble opinion, even though you may disagree with me. Or maybe it’s just the jokes at the end. But this time I think I got a bit carried away. I got aggressive. Obnoxious, perhaps. Certainly annoyingly Israeli-holier-than-thou because I live in Israel and you don’t attitude, that’s just a turn-off. But I just got frustrated that they don’t see the contradiction. You’re wearing a hot woolen pair of tzitzis, a lonf wool frock, a black fur hat… and your complaining that Israel is too hot. Really? Are you that blind? I just don’t get it.

Continue reading…

From Holyland Insights and Inspiration, here.

Stop Drugs: Close Public Schools!

How To Win the War on Drugs

By 

January 15, 2001

Conservatives are unwilling to give up the war on drugs. They are convinced that there is a war of drug lords on innocent victims, beginning with teenage children, and they are uninterested in arguments for de-criminalization.

Conservatives want the State to spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually on prisons to house convicted drug pushers — after the fact. Liberals want the State to spend at least an equal amount on treatment and rehabilitation — after the fact.

I’m interested in shutting down the market for illegal drugs. I say that it takes two to tango — buyers and sellers — and I’m for shutting down the tango floor.

We know where it is. There’s one in your town. There are probably more than one. These are dark places of the soul. The users come, desperate to buy a new high or maybe only a way to keep from getting the shakes. The sellers come, greedy for income from the sale of their destructive wares, despite the misery they sow.

And then there are the innocents — children who have money in their pockets and time on their hands. They come in droves, looking for new thrills in a boring, meaningless environment.

What we need is a clean sweep. We need to send local police, DEA officers, and the news media into these hell-holes and shut them down once and for all.

I’m talking about the public schools.

Every day, your local government sends out dozens or hundreds of yellow buses to round up the next generation of addicts. These psychologically weakened, carefully targeted victims are brought to the drug cartel’s central emporium, where sellers can make their initial, price-competitive offer — “The first one’s free!” — and their subversive incantation, “Try it; you’ll like it!” Only the Vice Principal stands between the users and the retail source of their addiction.

Sellers go where the money is, and the people with the money are concentrated for seven hours a day in one convenient, rent-free location.

Users and prospective users are herded into rooms where they must sit for hours in hard, wooden seats, to be lectured at by indoctrinators, whose job, by federal law, is to persuade these children that life can be meaningful and full of hope without the following: (1) the idea that God has any place in the classroom, the voting booth, or the public square; (2) the idea that there will be a final judgment (except for Adolph Hitler) that produces eternal consequences; (3) the idea that mankind is the work of God rather than purposeless, random forces of impersonal nature; (4) the idea that man was placed on earth by God to exercise dominion over the creation, rather than being merely a primate species with the unique competitive edge of opposable thumbs; (5) the idea that individuals are legally and morally responsible for their actions, including their obligation to save for their retirement years and to pay for their medical care; (6) the idea that there are final answers to divisive moral questions (except regarding Hitler); and (7) the idea that a relevant, foundational education for all of life can be successfully imparted in an institution that doesn’t employ full-time coaches. (Technically, point #7 is not mandated by federal law; rather, it is mandated by local voters who will pressure the school board to fire the principal if the football team goes 2-9 again this season.)

Educators know that life cannot be lived strictly in terms of negatives. There are also positive issues dealt with inside the public school classroom, including: (1) the right to get free abortion counseling from school-approved professionals without consulting with parents; (2) the right of every sexual lifestyle to gets its position — intellectual, I mean — discussed in the classroom as one legitimate choice among many; (3) the right of every known minority group (except Nazis) to get at least one positive paragraph in the social studies textbook; (4) the right of every student to gain a sense of self-esteem, except on sports teams; and (5) the right of students to inform any teacher regarding their parents’ attitudes on matters of social or psychological relevance to the school district.

Then, in between classes, students meet to discuss the implications of all this for their lives. “The first one’s free. Try it; you’ll like it.”

When was the last time you saw a local TV news report on a drug bust at a local private high school?

When was the last time you read a newspaper article on a student who overdosed on heroin at a local private high school?

Moving slightly afield, when was the last time the police had to be sent in to break up a gang riot at a local private high school? (I can imagine the newspaper report. “The fight broke out when a group of Catholics allegedly began chanting, ‘infused grace, infused grace,’ during the compulsory morning chapel period. Baptists allegedly retaliated with cries of ‘imputed grace, imputed grace.’ ‘It kept getting louder and louder,’ said Mr. Brubaker, who teaches calculus and is also the school’s headmaster. ‘We finally had to call the police when the Methodists began shouting, ‘prevenient grace.’ It was just terrible. But I can assure the public that we are taking steps to deal with these issues.’”)

Conclusion

What we need is an all-out drug war that targets the primary recruiting centers used by drug-pushers, the retail outlets of choice for the Colombian drug cartel: America’s tax-supported high schools.

If I ever hear of members of Congress calling for this kind of bipartisan war on drugs, I’ll take them much more seriously. When I hear one of them stand up on the floor of either house of Congress and say the following, I’ll be impressed. “As part of the war on drugs, I am today introducing legislation to stop all federal funding of education.” Then his colleague from across the aisle stands up and says, “I am ready to support this bill if the distinguished gentleman from Texas is ready to support my bill to remove all educational institutions from the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board.”

When the demand for illegal drugs is at long last analyzed in terms of the categories that the demand for prescription-only painkillers is analyzed — the chemical relief of pain — then we shall begin to come to grips with America’s continuing drug problem. The war on drugs should begin with a systematic program to eliminate the tax-supported sources of the initial users’ pain, institutions that are also the primary marketplaces for the sale of the painkillers of choice. Until this is done, I don’t think the war on drugs has much of a chance at reducing the level of addiction.

Until then, every time you see a yellow public school bus on the highway, think to yourself, “Free transportation to cocaine central.” On the back of every school bus in America, these words should be plainly visible: “Medellin-Approved.”

January 15, 2001

From LRC, here.