A very interesting upcoming event

On March 5th R' Feldman, R' Moshe Aharon Shechter, and R' Matisyahu Solomon, are going to be speaking in Teaneck on PERSPECTIVES ON TIMELESS ISSUES. I assume the Slifkin ban will be one of the topics of discussion. You can see the flyer here. I would really like to get a summary of this event so if anyone atends please let me know.

Iran and Moshiach

I usually don't like posting about these kinds of topics but today I am making an exception. Someone sent the following to me:

The gemara in Yoma 10a, states:

Rabbi Yochanan said in the name of Rabbi Yehuda in the name of Rabbi Ilai: In the time to come, Rome will fall at the hands of Persia.


The Yalkut Shimoni states:

Rabbi Yitzchak said: The year that Melech HaMoshiach will be revealed, all the kings (leaders) of the nations will be struggling against each other. The leader of Persia (Iran) will contest with an Arab leader and the Arab leader will go to Aram (the Western Superpowers) to get council from them.

The leader of Persia will respond and destroy the entire world. All the nations of the world will be trembling and shaking and falling on their faces. They will be seized by pains like labor pains.

The Jewish people will be trembling and quaking and saying: "Where can we go? Where can we go?" And [Moshiach] will say to them: my children, do not fear! Everything I did I did only for you! Why are you frightened? Don't be afraid--the days of your redemption have arrived!


Rabbi Yonasan Eibshetz, writes in his sefer Yaaros Dvash:

At certain moment the time will come when Moshiach should have already arrived but the redemption has not yet come. The Moshiach will ask how it could be that the time for redemption has arrived and he still undergoes sufferings? The response that he will receive is that he must wait for nine months. Why? In order to wait for the fall of Persia (Iran) at the hands of Edom (the Christian West), and then the final redemption will come.

When we look at what is happening today with Iran and the West the parallels are remarkable.

כפה עליהם הר כגיגית Why?

I mentioned this idea recently offhand in a previous post ( How did the חרטומים turn blood into water?) and I bleive that it bears repeating.

The gemara in Shabbos comments that כפה עליהם הר כגיגת by Matan Torah. The obvious question is didn't they say נעשה ונשמע, meaning that they excepted the Torah willingly? The Meshech Chochma answers that the gemara is meant to be taken allegorically. The revelation when Bnei Yisrael left Egypt, krias yam suf, and matan torah was so great that it was as if Hashem forced them to accept the Torah. The revelation was so great that they could not say no, Hashem's presence in the world and Torah's importance were self understood like the sun is shining. They understood that if they did not accept the Torah the world would be destroyed, not as a threat but as a fact, as reality. In other words, their free choice was taken away by the tremendous revelation.

Can the actions of a צדיק cause a mishap to occur?

The gemara in Kesubos 28b seems to say no. The gemara there is discussing testimony which allows a person to eat Teruma. The gemara brings a story with R' Elazar where he states that he gave testimony that allowed an עבד כנעני to be mistaken for a כהן. The gemara asks from the famous story in Chullin (7a-b) with R' Pinchas ben Yair that if Hashem doesn't let the animal of a צדיק cause a mishap קל וחומר a צדיק himself won't cause a mishap. Therefore the gemara corrects the story that the beis din was going to pasken that he was a כהן but didn't actually do so. We see from here that this principle applies in general to צדיקים.

However, Tosafos in a number of places in shas (Shabbos 12b, Gittin 7a and more) disagrees. Tosafos is bothered by a number of cases where we see that צדיקים did cause mishaps by their actions (for example in Shabbos 12b, R' Yishmael learned by the light of a candle and tilted the candle and violated an issur d'oraysa). Therefore R' Tam posits that this principle only applies to matters of food. Hashem will not cause the a צדיק to eat or violate an issur relating to food. However, this principle does not apply to other areas. R' Tam is therefore forced to change the girsa of the gemara in Kesubos and take out the line which refers to the principle. The Netziv suggests that the reason that this principle only applies to food is that non-kosher food is metamtem es halev.

The Ritva in Shabbos disagrees with R' Tam and answers the case in Shabbos by saying that R' Yishmael was punished for vioating the gezera d'rabbanan and the Ritva rejects R' Tam and claims that this principle applies in all cases.

In summary, there is a machlokes rishonim whether the principle that the actions of a צדיק do not cause a mishap applies to all cases and all kinds of mishaps or just to food related aveiras.

Standing up for the Aseres Hadibros

I posted about this ( Standing up for the Aseres Hadibros) a while back. What I wrote then is very relevant this week when we read the Aseres Hadibros in Parshas Yisro.

In the end a bit of unity

After months of bickering Degel Hatorah and Aguda agreed to run to together again. They expect to get 6 seats (1 more then last time) and they will rotate the 6th seat between Degal and Aguda. On a related front, the Dati Leumi parties also united and the NRP and the Ichud Haleumi will run together.

It will be interesting to see how things shake out. I believe that Olmert is starting to run into trouble with Amona, Hamas winning the PA election and his interview where he said that there will be more disengagements. I don't believe the polls and think that the election will be much closer then it appears now.

A common misconception about קריעת ים סוף

Most people picture the sea splitting and Bnei Yisrael going through to the other side. However, both Tosafos (ערכין ט"ו) and the Rambam (אבות ה,ד) state that Bnei Yisrael actually went in a semicircle and ended up on the same side that they started from. This makes the נס even bigger, because the shevet on the outside had to go much further then the innermost shevet and therefore Hashem had to make sure that the innermost מצרים were slowed down so that they would not emerge before the outermost Jews.

The cartoons that shook the world

Here are the cartoons that the Muslim world is rioting about judge for yourselves:




I don't really get this one.


I don't really get this one.


This one seems quite funny to me

How many people are learning fulltime in Israel? The official numbers: UPDATED

Here are the current numbers for people learning full time in Israel according to the government (these are people who get money from the government):

Yeshiva students: 44,186 with 8,232 from chutz laaretz
Avreichim in kollel: 50,972
Exemptions from the army (Toraso Umnaso): 40,680
Hesder Yeshiva students: 6,850

All the numbers are from last weeks Mishpacha.

Update

Haartez has an interesting article about the numbers. How did 20,000 yeshiva students disappear?

It is a mystery: In June 2001, approximately 81,000 students were enrolled in post-high school yeshivas and kollels. Four and a half years have passed since then. Between 20,000 and 25,000 new students have entered the yeshiva education system - more than 4,000 new students per year.

Nevertheless, the number of students enrolled in these yeshivas (for unmarried students age 18 and above) and kollels (which cater to avrechim, married students) now totals about 85,000, only 4,000 more than in mid-2001. Where did 20,000 yeshiva students go?
...
One of the explanations, of course, is that many fewer fictitious students are now listed in yeshiva rosters.

Some thoughts on Amona

It is clear to me that the timing of this was political. There are literaly thousands of illegal houses in Israel with orders of destruction, most of them built by Arabs. Yet, the government decided less then 2 months before the election to specifically destroy these houses in Amona. Olmert/Kadima thinks that this show of force will get them more votes especially from the left.

There is a tremendous campaign of vilification of the settlers by the left and the government. These are people who are motivated exclusively by a deep passion and love for Eretz Yisrael and who are willing to put their life on the line for it. The government is now making them out to be enemies of the state. This is the start of a war between the Jews and the Israelis.

I am against violence and do not justify the throwing of rocks, etc. at the police. In any case, throwing rocks harms the cause much then it helps. However, the violence used by the police was completely out of proportion and was out of control. It is 1 thing for 15 year olds to lose it and start throwing rocks. It is much worse when the police lose it and indiscriminately just beat everyone with the intention of causing injury.

The following illustrates the bankruptcy of the left in today's society. They are more worried about the horses getting hurt then 15 year old Jewish teenagers. 'Don't use horses for evacuation'

Tnu Lahayot Lihyot - Israel's main animal rights groups - protested against the use of horses in Amona's evacuation on Wednesday.

According to the organization, the horses that were recruited for the evacuation found themselves in a battlefield, susceptible to rocks being hurled at security forces by "dozens of law-violating settlers."

The group called upon Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz to remove the animals from public discourse, and to refrain from using them for purposes that effectively place their lives in danger.

When a society puts the rights of animals ahead of human beings it is big trouble.

The mitzva of Kiddush Hachodesh

In this week's parsha (בא) we have the mitzva of Kiddush Hachodesh. A while back I explained how this mitzva works nowadays in the following post:
How does the Jewish calendar work today?

The latest salvo in the Charedi culture wars - MP3 players

I just read in this past week's Mishpacha magazine that there was a
meeting of Roshei Yeshiva to discuss MP3 players. According to the
article these are very dangerous because they can hold tremendous
amounts of data, songs, etc. and who knows what kind of spiritually
dangerous material is on them.

The Charedi world is slowly turning into the Amish.

Hamas wins the parliamentary elections

Believe it or not I believe that this is good for the Jews and Israel. The Palestinian mask has finally been removed. Since Oslo in 1993, the US, the Left in Israel, the EU, many misguided Jews in the US, and others, have believed or pretended to believe that the Palestinians were interested in co-existence with Israel and recognized Israel's right to exist. Now the illusion is shattered. Hamas openly declares that Israel has no right to exist and that their goal is an Islamic state in all of Palestine. At least now the enemy has declared himself and we can openly fight with him. It is much better to face an enemy who declares his hatred for you then an enemy who pretends to be your friend.

Update

After reading some of the responses in the Israeli press and some of the responses by readers, I am amazed how blind and stupid the left is. There are still people saying, of course we will talk to Hamas, you make peace with enemies. I am sure that the Yossi Beilin's of the world would have wanted to talk peace with Hitler as well. Imagine, Hamas is saying we want to destroy you, you have no right to exist and yet these left wing idiots want to talk to them. What exactly do they think they are going to talk about? The flight arrangements back to Europe? Hamas means what it says, why is that so hard to understand? Professor Auman was so right , Peace Now is a very bad strategy to bring peace it brings war instead.

Peace Now actually brings war

Nobel Prize winner Professor Auman said the following

The Arabs always said they have time, and that they can wait 10, 20 or 50 years until we disappear. But our problem is that we don't have time; we're rushing. We want 'peace now,' and so we go and destroy beautiful blossoming productive communities. We destroy the lives of tens of thousands of people on the altar of 'we have to do something.' The very act of running crazedly after the longed-for peace is precisely that which distances it from us.

Professor Auman knows what he is talking about as his Nobel Prize was for "enhancing our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis."

How did the חרטומים turn blood into water?

The answer would seem to be that magic really worked in those days. Now the question becomes why did it stop working?

The answer is that to enable free choice Hashem has to create balance in the world. In a world where there is נבואה there needs to be a counterbalancing force, otherwise belief in Hashem would be coerced. Therefore, magic worked.

We find this idea expressed in a number of other places as well.

The gemara in Shabbos comments that כפה עליהם הר כגיגת by matan torah. The obvious question is didn't they say נעשה ונשמע, meaning that they excepted the Torah willingly? The Meshech Chochma answers that the gemara is meant to be taken allegorically. The revelation when Bnei Yisrael left Egypt, krias yam suf, and matan torah was so great that it was as if Hashem forced them to accept the Torah. The revelation was so great that they could not say no, Hashem's presence in the world and Torah's importance were self understood like the sun is shining. They understood that if they did not accept the Torah the world would be destroyed, not as a threat but as a fact, as reality. In other words, their free choice was taken away by the tremendous revelation.

The Anshei Knesses Hagedola asked Hashem to be mevatel the yetzer hara for avoda zara at the beginning of the second beis hamikdash and Hashem agreed. However, as a consequence, נבואה ended as well. נבואה can not exist in the world without a counterbalancing force.

Likewise, magic cannot exist without a counterbalancing force like נבואה and miracles. Since we don't have these magic doesn't work as well.

This idea also explains how/why Hashem hardened Pharoah's heart. The revelation of the makos took away his free choice, the hardening of his heart restored that balance.

The electoral system in Israel is broken ...

and needs to be scrapped. It just does not work for many reasons. Some of the things can be fixed but many cannot. Here are some of the problems:

1. No one actually represents you in the Knesset. There is no one MK the average person can turn to if they have a problem. MK's are chosen in various different ways, but unless you are active in party politics you have no representation.


2. The Knesset is based on a list based system. You vote for a party not for any specific people. Yet once in the Knesset an MK can do whatever he wants including taking his seat and creating a new party as Sharon and the Likud MK's did. That is a complete and utter perversion of the democratic process. None of them were elected, the Likud was elected and therefore the seat should not be theirs.


3. There are too many small parties. Since elections are on a national basis, anyone who can get 2.5% of the vote (and in the past it was even less) is in the Knesset. This makes every government unstable and at the mercy of extortion by small 1 issue parties.


4. MK's are chosen in various ways most of which are undemocratic. Kadima is clearly undemocratic, 1 man is deciding the list. But even the Labor party which has primaries is not really democratic for the following reasons:
   
   • Various people are protected, for example, the 6th spot is reserved for a woman, the 9th spot for this person etc.
   
   
   • A primary in which 90 people run and you have to pick among them is a bit silly. It is very hard for the average voter to rank 90 candidates, in fact to even know what all the 90 candidates stand for and therefore, the vote is not that relevant.

I believe that Israel needs to make a large percentage of the Knesset seats district based. Create 90 districts (3/4 of the Knesset) and have 1 MK represent a district (and impose a residency requirement). The other 30 seats would be allocated based on the current system but with a much higher threshold like 10%. This would allow the large parties to have their leaders protected and be able to devote themselves to the larger picture while still enabling every one to have a representative. Alternatively, adopt the British system where every seat is district based. The advantages of this plan are:

• Every person has a representative that they can turn to


• This would eliminate many of the smaller parties


• Anyone could run to be an MK from a district


• The MK's would need to be more responsive to the needs of people not from their group in society. Imagine a district with a sizable Charedi population (20%). Whoever would represnt that district would need to take the Charedim into account, their support could swing the election. We might actually get a chiloni represnting Charedi interests in the Knesset and vice versa. It would create a lot more understanding and a lot less posturing.

The other alternative is a Presidention system like the US. I am against that for 1 simple reason. if you look around the world, presidential regimes often turn into dictatorships, the President ends up being much more powerful then the legislature and dominates. On the other hand, there has never been a parliamentary democracy that become a dictatorship, it simply can't happen because the Prime Minister is just an MK.

The bottom line is that the system in Israel is utterly broken and needs to be changed. Unfortunately, there are many people with vested interests in the current system which will make it very difficult to change. Sharon could have pulled it off (and wanted to change the system), I don't know if anyone else has the power or even the will.

Freedom of Inquiry in Judaism

How free are we in our intellectual pursuits? Does the Torah limit us as to what we can study?

The UO world clearly holds yes, and therefore they ban books, internet, etc. Much of the MO world sets no limits. Interestingly enough this is a dispute between R' Parnes (when he wrote this he was at YU) and Drs. Lawrence Kaplan and Berger in the first 3 issues of the Torah Umadda Journal. They had a back and forth dispute where R' Parnes wrote an essay Torah Umadda and Freedom of Inquiry where he took the position that our inquiry must be limited and not touch on areas of kefira and minus. Dr's. Berger and Kaplan responded in an essay On Freedom of Inquiry in the Rambam and Today and disagreed. They stated To artificially limit serious fundamental inquiry where the person is properly prepared, even if such inquiry involves reading works of heresy is to stultify an individual's religious growth. R' Parnes summed up the dispute in Volume 3 Response and Closure [reply to Kaplan & Berger, and to Carmy]

R' Parnes expressed it best at the end of the article.

...Yet what is most important is that I have raised a halachick issue essentially no different then a a question in kashrut. In fact this is a question of kashrut in the sphere of intellectual activity. ... Of course there has been mention of the possibility that feedom of inquiry is not a halchic issue. ...Either way the matter cannot be swept under the carpet as a concession to the practicability and twetieth century living!

This is a genuine recurring unresolved issue that needs resolution ... If the matter is not dealt with in the classical manner of horaah Torah UMadda adherents may be left adrift in a sea of ambiguity and self doubt.

I have raised this critical issues to coax the advocates of Toprah Umadda to define it clearly to all of Jewry.

Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge R' Parnes's pleas has not been answered.

A visit to a gadol

I recently had the privilege of visiting one of the Gedolim in his house in Bnei Brak. The visit reminded me of a famous story about the Chofetz Chaim. A wealthy man once visited the Chafetz Chaim. He was shocked that the Chofetz Chaim had no furniture in his house. The Chafetz Chaim explained as follows. He asked the rich man where is your furniture? The man answered at home in my house, now I am just travleing. The Chafetz Chaim answered I am also just traveling through this world to get to the next world, therefore I have no furniture here.

I felt like I was reliving this story. We walked into a dingy old apartment that you and I would never live in (in fact, we would call it a dump). The only furniture was a table, some chairs, and bookcases full of sefarim. It is clear that the gadol doesn't see things the way we do and has no problem living in this kind of apartment. After all, he has a chair a table and a bed (I am being serious).

This was very inspiring to me. I realized that this man was so far above me and that all his life was torah and only torah and the material things in this world did not concern him 1 bit. However, it scared me as well. Will there be anyone in the next generation willing to live like that, or are we all too spoiled? Who in our generation is willing to sacrifice for Torah like that?

אני יוסף העוד אבי חי What was Yosef asking?

Yehuda just finishes telling Yosef the whole story including that his father is alive, so what exactly was Yosef's question. In addition, Rashi quotes the medrash that this was a great תוכחה. What exactly was the תוכחה?

The Beis Halevi explains as follows. Yosef told his brothers you claim that you are so concerned about your fathers health, yet, I am Yosef is my father still alive? Meaning, he asked them if you really cared for your father how could you put him through the pain of of my disappearance. He exposed the hypocrisy of Yehuda's claim through Yehuda's own actions. Now we also understand why this is called a תוכחה as well.

The Beis Halevi says that this is what will happen as well when a person goes up to שמים after 120. Whatever excuses he gives for not doing mitzvos or aveiros will be shown to be hypocritical by his own actions. I will give 1 simple example. A person doesn't go to minyan on Sunday mornings, he claims that while he understands the importance of davening with a minyan he is just so tired he needs to sleep late. In שמים they will show him that whenever he had some other important event on Sunday morning he always managed to get up and therefore goign to a minyan was really not that important to him.

Could Shlomo Hamelech have invented cars?

This sounds bizarre but this actually came up in a conversation.

Someone told me that his son came from home school and said that his Rebbe had told him the following. We shouldn't think that we are better nowadays because we have modern technology. In fact, the Rebbe said, Shlomo Hamelech was the wisest man who ever lived and he knew everything the scientists know and he could have created cars, phones, etc., anything that we have from modern technology. Why didn't he do it? He felt that a simple non-technological lifestyle was better.

I was stunned speechless. I could not respond. After this conversation I definately better understand the reaction to R' Slifkin's books and the Charedi attitude towards science and scientists.

Update

Rabbi Sander Goldberg in his defense of R' Slifkin (THE SLIFKIN AFFAIR – ISSUES AND PERSPECTIVES) wrote essentially the same thing:

...most certainly if Chazal wanted to invest the time into scientific research, after a generation or two, they could have invented an atomic bomb. But it didn’t happen. First, they spent their time plying the depths of Dvar Hashem, but second, they saw no net advantage to man. Just the opposite, although we communicate and travel more easily nowadays, and have better medicine and air-conditioned homes and have mechanical slaves to do back-breaking work, the very same technology has been abused and utilized to murder millions of people, caused a segment of mankind to live in misery and has freed up time for mankind to get into all kinds of mischief. Accordingly, perhaps Chazal, privately, were skeptical of some accepted scientific “facts and theories” of their times. However, perhaps they did not want to even hint that those facts and theories would eventually be discarded; they felt it was healthier for the world to remain in the dark and not to develop technology at too rapid a pace

This is basically the thesis that I quoted above. Chazal could have invented everything we have today, but they felt that the benefits of modern technology were outweighed by the bad that would be done with it.