An Economic Commentary on One Verse

We say in Eishes Chayil (at the end of Mishlei):

סדין עשתה ותמכר וחגור נתנה לכנעני

(The last word, “kena’ani” means merchant.)

Why does the Balabusta (or: Eishes Chayil) sell robes from home to customers herself wholesale, while giving the belts to a salesman for retail?

The marginal cost for distribution is higher for bulkier items, such as robes than for belts.

And there is a side point here about womanly modesty: she doesn’t travel around herself.

There’s another angle on this over here.

Surrender of the Temple Mount Incites War

Israel’s Beating Heart

January 26, 2017 | Moshe Feiglin, Chairman of Zehut

The Temple Mount is the most holy place on earth. It is the place chosen by the

G-d of Israel from which to rest His Divine Presence throughout the world. This is the place that connects the physical with the metaphysical; the place where Adam was created and Isaac was bound. It is the place where life and the Nation of Israel were fashioned, the place where our First and Second Temples stood. Just as most of the prophecies about the Return to Zion have already miraculously been fulfilled, so the rest of them will be realized. When the time comes, our Third Temple will dwell on the Temple Mount for eternity.

The Temple Mount is the beating heart of the Land of Israel. Famous Israeli poet Uri Tzvi Greenberg accurately described the Temple Mount as the yardstick of Israeli sovereignty in the entire Land. When we lose our hold on the Mount, the heart becomes ill; circulation weakens and the organs suffer. When Israel transfers control of the Mount to the Jordanian wakf, Jerusalem becomes divided once again and Israel’s cities become the target of missiles – a scenario that nobody would have imagined just a few years ago. There is a direct connection between the abandonment of the Temple Mount and the deterioration of the legitimacy for the very existence of a Jewish State anywhere in the Land of Israel. This approach has reared its head in the most respected and enlightened states

When with our actions we declare that we have no connection to the Temple Mount, the world says the same at UNESCO. And when the world says it, the legitimacy of our hold on the Land is lost. When we lose the legitimacy of our hold on the Land, it becomes legitimate to attack us and illegitimate for Israel to defend herself. Surrender of the Temple Mount does not prevent war; it incites it.

The “strategy” of Israeli administrations since the Six Day War has been to evade the actualization of Israeli sovereignty on the Mount and to pass on the “problem” to future generations. This “strategy” has brought about a continued depreciation in Jerusalem’s status, to its essential re-division and to the transfer of most of the sovereignty at the heart Israel’s capital – on the Temple Mount – to the Jordanian wakf. Today, places in East Jerusalem where Jewish children used to play safely are now void of Jews; it is impossible to build a home in Jerusalem without the personal authorization of the Prime Minister and UNESCO is turning Israel’s practical policy into a principled international decision, determining that there is no connection between Israel and the Temple Mount.

The decision to give the keys to the Mount to the Moslems immediately upon its liberation was cited as diplomatic insight and the “realpolitik” acumen of Six Day War Defense Minister Moshe Dayan. But the truth is that Dayan’s actions were not born of necessity; it was his strategy. Prior to that, in the War of Independence, a planned strategy brought about the fall of the Jewish Quarter and the loss of an opportunity to liberate the Temple Mount and Judea and Samaria. Before the Six Day War, Dayan (and the minsters of the National Religious Party) were against liberating the Old City. Even Paratrooper Division Commander Mota Gur, who conquered the Temple Mount, was sure that it would shortly return to Jordan.

Israeli-ness did not want the “whole Vatican” – in the words of Moshe Dayan. Religious-ness also didn’t want the Mount, which returns the Torah from the personal-religion dimension of the Exile to the national-culture dimension. This is the deep reason for today’s ultra-Orthodox opposition to the return of Jews to the Temple Mount. There is nothing more anti-“religious” and anti-exile than the Temple and the Temple Mount.

Jerusalem is a reflection of the identity conflict raging within Israeli society. It is the conflict between Israeli identity and Jewish identity. The Mount was abandoned by Israel and Jerusalem is being divided because the Israeli/Religious identity is fleeing the return to the Jewish/cultural identities. The return to the Mount is the connection between those cultures.

The Arabs are not the reason; they are simply the means in this internal conflict. Jerusalem does not appear even once in the Koran. When the Moslems are on the Mount, they bow southward to Mecca and turn their backsides to the Dome of the Rock and the site of the Holy of Holies.

Israel sanctifies the Mount to the Moslems so that it can run away from itself. The result is the loss of the bedrock foundation for the justification of our existence in the entire Land of Israel – and the turning of humanity against us. By sanctifying the Mount for the Moslems, Israel brings war upon itself.

From Zehut International, here.

Non-Jewish Music? No Such Thing!

Secular Music

When asked to support their position, opponents of secular music invariably cite the Sha’ar Hatziyun, who writes as follows:

כבר הזהיר השל”ה ושארי ספרי מוסר שלא לזמר שירי עגבים לתינוק שזה מוליד לו טבע רע. ובלא”ה נמי איכא איסורא בשירי עגבים ודברי נבלות דקא מגרי יצה”ר בנפשיה ושׁוֹמֵר נַפְשׁוֹ יִרְחַק מזה ויזהיר לבני ביתו על זה [מאמר מרדכי].

The Shlah and other mussar books have already warned not to sing songs of passion to a child for this develops a bad nature within him. And without this there is also a prohibition with songs of passion and foul language for they cultivate the evil inclination in one’s soul, and he who guards his soul will distance himself from this and warn the members of his household about it (Ma’amar Mordechai).[1]

Let’s analyze this. The key term here is שירי עגבים, which I have translated “songs of passion.” In truth I think this is too ambiguous. From the juxtaposition of these שירי עגבים to דברי נבלות, foul language, it seems clear that these songs he is referring to are unequivocally “songs of lust.” What is certain though, is that he isn’t saying anything against secular music per se, but against שירי עגבים.

Often, these opponents come at it from a different angle. Music is a reflection of a person’s soul, they say, and music that comes from the soul of someone who is not an observant Jew is not kosher, just as food cooked in a non-kosher pot becomes loses its kosher status. These people generally have an aversion to any and all “non-Jewish music.” If we look through the early traditional halachic literature however, as far as I know we find no mention of such a concept. On the contrary, the Mishna Berura – the author of that same Sha’ar Hatziyun these people like to cite – indicates that there is no such issue. In discussing who is eligible to lead services for the congregation, Rema writes as follows:

וש”צ המנבל פיו או שמנגן בשירי הנכרים ממחין בידו שלא לעשות כן, ואם אינו שומע מעבירין אותו.

A leader of the congregation who fouls his mouth or who sings songs of the gentiles; we protest in order that he discontinue doing so, and if he does not listen we remove him from his post.[2]

The Mishna Berura qualifies:

ר”ל בניגון שמנגנים בו הנכרים לעבודת גילולים שלהם. וב”ח בתשובה סי’ קכ”ז כתב דוקא בניגון שמיוחד לזה.

He means the songs which the gentiles sing to their idols. And Bach[3] writes that this is only with a song that is specifically designated for this.[4]

Similarly, the Chida writes:

בספר מעשה רקח פ”ח מהל’ תפילה נשאל על המשוררים קדיש או קדושה לחן שירי נכרים והאריך לאסור, ובכלל הביא דברי מהרם די לונזאנו בס’ שתי ידות דף ק’ שכתב בשם ס’ חסידים, ויזהר מי שקולו נעים שלא יזמר ניגונים ניגונים נכרים, ודקדק שלא כתב שירים נכרים דזה פשיטא דאסור אלא ניגונים נכרים כלומר אף דהשיר הוא קדוש הניגון נכרי יפסידהו וכו’ ע”ש. ונעלם ממנו דברי מהר”ם די לונזאנו עצמו שם בספר שתי ידות דף קמ”ב שכתב וז”ל וזאת היתה לי סיבה גורמת לחבר רוב שירי על ניגוני הישמעאלים וכו’, וראיתי קצת חכמים כמתאוננים רע על המחברים שירות ותשבחות לשי”ת על ניגונים אשר לא מבני ישראל המה ואין הדין עמהם כי אין בכך כלום עכ”ל. וע”ש מ”ש הרב מהר”ם ד”ל בענין זה ומה שהשיב על מהר”י נאגרה בשירותיו.

In the book Ma’aseh Rokeach he is asked regarding those who sing Kaddish or Kedusha to tunes of the gentiles, and he goes at length to forbid it. He included the words of the Maharam de Lonzano in the book Shetei Yados on page 100 who writes in the name of the Sefer Chasidim “and one whose voice is pleasant should be careful not to sing tunes of the gentiles.” He notes that the Sefer Chasidim did not write “songs of the gentiles” because that is obviously forbidden; he rather wrote “tunes of the gentiles” – meaning that even though the song (i.e. the lyrical content) is holy, the tune which is from the gentiles ruins it. But he missed the words of the Maharam de Lonzano himself there on page 152 where he writes in these words; “…and this was the motivation that caused me to write most of my songs to tunes of the Ishmaelites… and I saw some wise ones seemingly complaining badly about writers of songs and praises to God to tunes of those who are not of the Children of Israel, but the law is not with them, for there is nothing to this.”[5]

It seems quite clear that there is nothing inherently unkosher about tunes composed by non-Jews, inasmuch as there is nothing inherently unkosher about a kosher piece of meat that was grilled by a non-Jew (bishul akum notwithstanding).

Continue reading…

From The Beis Medrash Blog, here.