Avodah Mailing List

Volume 05 : Number 025

Saturday, April 22 2000

• The Golan
• smoking
• Re: Avodah V5 #24
• Re: Israel
• RE: RW Revisionism
• Re: Aniyei Ircha Kodmim

Shalom,

I am researching the issue of the Golan for the upcoming referendum.

Please let me know (preferably off list, but use your own discretion) why 
Israel should or should not give away the Golan in exchange for a peace 
treaty with Syria.

Thank you.

Moshe
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>On Fri, 4 Feb 2000, Daniel Levine wrote:

>Why can't we just acknowledge that many in the frum
>community are just plain igmorant, unsophisticated
>and/or uncaring when it comes to MODERN medical
>knowledge and concerns.
>
>Look, I can guarantee you that there are more morbidly
>obese men and heavy smokers in some of the small botei
>midrash/minyanim that I frequent than in my entire
>firm of several hundred attorneys.
>

>Shoshanah M. & Yosef G. Bechhofer responded:
It is precisely because I do not agree with such prejudicial statemts. 
Substitute the word "black" for "frum" in your note and read it back to 
yourself.>>

There is a tremendous difference and you know it. A person can criticise his 
own people and even certain segments of his own people with much nastier 
language than can an outsider. Blacks often refer to each other by the most 
deragatory of names - and that is accepted but a white person who would 
refer to a black in such a manner would be considered a recist - deservedly.

If you diagree with David's point than address that but using innuendo to 
refer to him as a racist is an ad hominem attack and improper.
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Just an apology for any bafflement and/or befuddlement anyone may have 
experienced upon reading my post entitled "Israel". It was a very old post 
and I did not mean to resend it today.

I was organizing my email and apparently I accidentally sent this post. I 
hope that I have no more surprises awaiting me when I receive the next 
digest - hopefully the "Israel" post was my only error.

Wishing a Chag Sameach to all,

Moshe

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As the typesetter of the book, I'd recommend people who are interested to
buy it now. The book is, and has been for some time, out of print. There is
no intention to reprint the book.

Gut Moed,

Akiva



A reality check a day keeps
the delusions at bay (Gila Atwood)

===========================
Akiva Atwood, POB 27515
Jerusalem, Israel 91274




> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-avodah@aishdas.org [mailto:owner-avodah@aishdas.org]On
> Behalf Of David Glasner
> Sent: 14 March 2000 18:51
> To: Areivim@majordomo1.host4u.net; Avodah General Discussion Area
> Subject: Re: RW Revisionism
>
>
> As long as we're on this topic, I thought that it might be of
> interest to report that on a recent trip to Baltimore I saw in
> two Jewish book stores (names provided on request) copies
> of the infamous "My Uncle the Netziv" displayed prominently
> among other ArtScroll publications.  A quick check
> revealed that these copies were printed in 1988, so that
> they seem to have somehow miraculously been freed
> from captivity.  I leave it to others to decide whether
> a birkhat ha-gomeil is in order.
>
> David Glasner
> dglasner@ftc.gov
>

In message , Carl M. Sherer <cmsherer@ssgslaw.co.il> writes
>Apropos our recent discussions about aniyei ircha and about Israeli 
> politics, I was reading through some old Avodah files I have been  
>trying to get to for months, and found a shmooze of Rav  
>Nebenzahl's that was posted by RYGB back in October. The  
>shmooze included the following paragraph that strikes me as  
>relevant to our recent discussion. 
>
><color><param>7F00,0000,0000</param>> Other people may not care about animals, 
>but will channel their 
>
>> love to other nations rather than their own.  If, G-d forbid, an Arab 
>> refugee is suffering they will run to his aid.  Would they have the 
>>same response for their fellow Jew?  This does not only apply to the
>>left-wing among us, but even within the religious camp.  There are
>>those whose first priority is to draw in those further away, rather
>>than befriending those close to us.  Our first priority is to take
>>care of those on our side.  We may not affiliate with the same
>>political party, but we believe in the same Torah and study the same
>>Gemara.  Our affinity must be first and foremost for those who study
>>the Torah, only then can we be concerned with the needs of those
>>further away. 

I think is has to be a question of balance and on which side of the
golden mean one is erring. Everybody knows (or knows of) people who
ignore the legitimate needs of their supposedly nearest and dearest,
because they are so busy out there saving the world to treat them
decently.  Those indeed need to hear Rav Nebenzahl's mussar. One has
responsibilities to those that are closest to oneself, beginning with
one's immediate family and moving outwards from there.  

However the other extreme is equally a problem.  The gemorra in Chullin
63a queries why the stork is called chassida - and answers that it is
because osah chasidut im chavrotecha (and Rashi comments, there and on
the posuk in Shmini,  that she divides her mezonot).

And yet the chasida is a treif bird, it is listed as one of the treif
birds in the Torah, and the Ramban al haTorah explains there in Shmini
that the essence of the birds listed as treif is that they are
inherently cruel, and it is this cruelty that HaShem does not want us to
ingest.

So why is it that the chasida is treif if she does so much chesed that
she is even named after the trait? 

The common explanation (which I have heard quoted in various names, but
which clearly sources itself in the language of the gemorra), is that
the problem with the chassida is that she does chesed only to her own
kind "with her friend" she divides her food, but not with those more
distant from her.  And thus, dispite this trait of chesed, that makes
her as treif as all the others.

Moed tov

Chana




>Carl M. Sherer, Adv.

-- 
Chana/Heather Luntz

********************


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