Avodah Mailing List
Volume 04 : Number 413
Sunday, March 5 2000
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2000 01:28:36 IST
From: "moshe rudner" <mosherudner@hotmail.com>
Subject: Leda SheYesh Sham Elokah
<<The reason for not counting "anochi" is also found in the Ramban. How can
one accept a tzivui without presupposing a Commander?>>
Rambam sees this commandment to mean that we must investigate G-d's
existence from a scientific perspective until we KNOW that He exists. The
way that he phrases the Mitzvah is in the subject heading and the first
Halacha of the MT says "Leda Sheyesh Sham Mutzui Rishon...".
Moshe
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Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2000 01:44:28 IST
From: "moshe rudner" <mosherudner@hotmail.com>
Subject: [none]
OOPS! I meant 15 (Ad DiLo Yada!)
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2000 01:21:50 IST
From: "moshe rudner" <mosherudner@hotmail.com>
Subject: Aseret HaDivorim
<<This touches on the biggest difference. We have 10 devarim/dibros, not 10
of the mitzvos. There isn't supposed to be a one-to-one mapping between
dibrah and "commandment".>>
Using the count of the Rambam the "Ten Commandments" yield 13 Mitzvot (this
includes "Lo TiTaveh" from VaEthchanan).
Shavua Tov,
Moshe
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Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2000 17:21:55 PST
From: "aviva fee" <aviva613@hotmail.com>
Subject: Honest people don't smoke - WAS: Smoking and Halakha
I have come to the conclusion that erliche [rough trans: honest] people do
not smoke.
How is that?
In the United States, if you buy a pack of cigarettes, you get a notice
telling you that the item you are about to inhale causes lung cancer, heart
disease and death.
Now there are plenty of people who are spooked and won’t even say the word
cancer. They will say Yena Machlah [Yiddish for ‘that disease’]. Yet these
same people have:
- no qualms about smoking
- will find lomdishe reasons to permit smoking
- etc….
Which leads me to my conclusion:
An erliche Jew does not smoke.
/af
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Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2000 22:43:00 -0500
From: Gershon Dubin <gershon.dubin@juno.com>
Subject: cloning
Can anyone point me towards an article on cloning in halacha? Online
sources would be great; off line is also fine.
Gershon Dubin
gershon.dubin@juno.com
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Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2000 22:49:47 EST
From: DFinchPC@aol.com
Subject: Re: cloning
In a message dated 3/4/00 9:41:03 PM US Central Standard Time,
gershon.dubin@juno.com writes:
<< Can anyone point me towards an article on cloning in halacha? >>
I understand Micha Berger made several copies of one.
David Finch
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Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2000 19:49:52 -0800 (PST)
From: Harry Weiss <hjweiss@netcom.com>
Subject: MiSheberach for Cholim
>
> Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2000 13:42:20 -0600
> From: Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org>
> Subject: Re: T'hillim
>
> On Fri, Mar 03, 2000 at 02:16:11PM -0500, Joelirich@aol.com wrote:
> :> And is there value to the choleh, when all the person saying tehillim knows
> :> is a name? I mean, he'd be saying the same capitl whether or not the 21st
> :> name was on his list, he doesn't share in the choleh's tza'ar, I don't
> :> get it.
>
> : What about communal misheberachs on shabbos?
>
> Yes, I've asked the same question about those. Three observations I've made
> elsewhere (the first is your question):
>
> 1) R' YB Soloveitchik explained the concept of the "Mi shebeirach" as a means
> of changing the personal problem into a communal one. Saying "mi shebeirach"
> without sharing the person's pain would therefore have limited value.
>
> 2) I noticed to that the dynamic of Mi Shebeirach changed. It used to be a means
> for a minyan to express their worry about someone close to them. Now, with
> the advance of communications, it's more about the unity of the Jewish people.
> I don't think this shift is necessarily a bad thing, but it is a real change
> in what Mi Shebeirach means to us.
>
> 3) One idea that may whittle down the list to the point where people might
> actually stay quiet. One is not permitted to make requests in Shabbos davening,
> which is why we don't say the middle 13 b'rachos of the normal Amidah on
> Shabbos. R' YB Soloveitchik explains that Mi Shebeirach is except from this
> rule ONLY if the sick person is in a life-threatening situation.
>
> So, before you give the gabbai that name, think to yourself: Would I drive
> this person to a hospital to get immediate help? If the answer is "No", RYBS
> wouldn't permit a Mi Shebeirach either.
>
> - -mi
There are unfortunately many cholim, with life threatening chornic
illnesses who at many times do not need to be rushed to the hospital.
Their illness is still life threatening. AFAIK, this still justifies a
misheberach.
Also, most gabbaim do not have separate lists for Shabbos
and weekdays.
While, I can see intellectualy see what say if the person hearing is
really not having tzaar, I believe what I hear from people like Carl and
from own feeling that our Misheberachs are working for others on our lists.
I would compare it to a different issue. It is approrpiate on weekdays
to have special kavonos duirng refainu, shma koleinu etc for special
bakashos. Only the person doing those bakasahos, knows what they are,
but by saying them while daving in minyan does give them the benefit of
tefillah betzibur. that would be the same for the misheberachs. The
question I would have is for the mishebrach that someone called in to the
Rabbi who gave it to the Gabbai. The Rabbi may have davened in a
different minyan and there is no one at the minyan who actually knows the
choleh.
Go to top.
Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2000 23:03:06 -0500
From: Gershon Dubin <gershon.dubin@juno.com>
Subject: Ten Commandments
> Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2000 13:40:05 -0500
> From: "David Glasner" <DGLASNER@ftc.gov>
> Subject: Re: Ten Commandments
<<Just to quibble slightly, I don't think that when the Torah SheBe'al
Peh
tells us that Lo Tignov means not to kindnap it comes to exclude other
forms of stealing for which one would not be subject to the death penalty
from the category of geneiva.>>
I'm not sure what you mean here. Stealing money, property, etc. is
ossur, and is learned from the posuk lo tignovu. The interpretation of
lo tignov in the aseres hadibros as kidnaping because of the rule of
dovor halomeid me'inyano doesn't mean that other forms of stealing are
permitted, only that they are not learned from this posuk. Please
explain.
<<Similarly when the Torah she-ba'al peh tells us that Shemini Atzeret is
a regel bifneit atzmah, it cannot possibly mean that it is not also part
of the general holiday of sukkot, otherwise the Biblical name would have
made no sense at all.>>
Why not? After all the korbonos of the 2nd day, 3rd day, etc it
tells us what to do on the eighth. Counting it as the eighth from the
first day of sukkos doesn't make it part of sukkos. OTOH, the Mishna
does call it yom tov acharon shel chag.
Gershon Dubin
gershon.dubin@juno.com
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Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2000 23:43:57 -0500
From: "Ari Z. Zivotofsky - FAM" <azz@lsr.nei.nih.gov>
Subject: Re: cloning
Rabbi Michael Broyde has an article that has appeared in:
Journal of Halacha and Contempoarry Society about 3 years ago, Connectocut
law journal, about twp years ago, Jewisgh Spectator, and in Hebrew in
HaDarom.
I believe I once found it online, but don't remember where.
Ari Zivotofsky
On Sat, 4 Mar 2000, Gershon Dubin wrote:
> Can anyone point me towards an article on cloning in halacha? Online
> sources would be great; off line is also fine.
>
> Gershon Dubin
> gershon.dubin@juno.com
>
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Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2000 00:22:11 -0500
From: sambo@charm.net
Subject: Re: T'hillim
Steve Katz wrote:
> Questions:
> 1. Would their time not be spent more profitably learning?
> 2. Is there value to read these t'hillim without understanding?
A very simple answer to both questions:
They're learning to read, well.
Kids do the whole sefer Shabbat nights, why shouldn't bochurim read a
few "kapitl"?
---sam
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Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2000 08:03:35 +0200
From: "Carl and Adina Sherer" <sherer@actcom.co.il>
Subject: Re[2]: Just what is Torah uMada
> Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2000 09:44:06 -0500
> From: richard_wolpoe@ibi.com
> Subject: Re[2]: Just what is Torah uMada
>
> ______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________
> Subject: Re: Just what is Torah uMada
> Author: Gershon Dubin <gershon.dubin@juno.com> at tcpgate
> Date: 3/1/2000 11:51 PM
>
>
> On Wed, 1 Mar 2000 09:07:35 -0500 <richard_wolpoe@ibi.com>
writes:
>
> <<Here is what Torah UMada means to me:
>
> 2) (this is also TIDE). when my frum dentist gives me an
antibiotic and
> I ask can I take this on tisha b'av; he immediately consults his
rav and
> asks him a sh'eiloh.>>
>
> Neither of these, IMHO, have a thing to do with TuM.
>
> ===> accodring to torah only is a frum person ALLOWED to
beocme a dentist?
I'm not sure it's a question of "allowed." I think it's considered
b'dieved and to be discouraged. But I don't think "Torah only" would
consider someone who became a dentist to be oiver an issur.
> << 6) Believing that Torah is strong enough to hold its own and that
> learning secular culture will not necessarily cause one to run away from
> Torah and to become Reform.>>
>
> For all people in all situations? Or are there people/groups of people
> who are perhaps more susceptible to running away and becoming
> Reform and should therefore not be exposed to secular culture (on which,
> BTW, you owe us a definition.)
>
> ===> disclaimer I have always maintainted that TuM is NOT for everybody, and all
> I am saying is that Torah only should not think of itself as THE exclusive drech
> either...
Does TuM consider itself as something for the masses? I'm not
asking now if they consider their derech the best (they obviously
do) or the only (you have already said they do not). I'm asking if
TuM sells itself as a derech that the masses can and should adopt.
> << 8)That Gedolim NEED to be conversant in the entire spectrum of the
> universe to arrive at valid conclusions.>>
>
> How does this affect the curriculum for all of us? Do we give all of
> our children massive exposure to "secular culture" (see note above in
> (6)) in order to prepare them for Gadlus? Might massive exposure to
> Torah only be better preparation for Gadlus?
>
> ===> TuM is for CERTAIN personality types etc. not for all chanoch
> lanaar al pi darko
I hear you saying here (and that's what was implied in my previous
question) that TuM is elitist. If that's the case, then no one should
be surprised that TIDE and Torah only, both of which market
themselves to the masses, are the best sellers of our generation. If
that is not the case, how would TuM suggest that Amcha should
conduct itself? This sounds almost Desslerian, but with a different
focus.
-- Carl
Please daven and learn for a Refuah Shleima for our son,
Baruch Yosef ben Adina Batya among the sick of Israel.
Thank you very much.
Carl and Adina Sherer
mailto:sherer@actcom.co.il
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Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2000 08:03:35 +0200
From: "Carl and Adina Sherer" <sherer@actcom.co.il>
Subject: TIDE v. TuM - I Think I Got it
> Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2000 10:04:15 -0500
> From: richard_wolpoe@ibi.com
> Subject: TIDE v. TuM - I Think I Got it
>
> TIDE'niks I know consider any thing of cultrue as SUBJECT to Torah, and can be
> scrutinized with the lense of Torah and thereby be made subject to it.
>
> It is not a lechatchilo vs. bedieved, it is FIRST knowing Torah and then using
> that ahskofo to view things such as Schiller or opera, etc.
>
> TUM and synthesis is similar. It is also taking Torah principles and then also
> learning secular principles and doing one's best to make sense out of both.
I had the impression that TuM is more learning the Torah and the
Mada at the same time almost as equivalents, while TIDE says
learn more of the Torah with less of the Mada, and only get
seriously into Mada after you are much further along in Torah. That
TuM would say "learn the kodesh and chol together from the
beginning" and TIDE would say, "sit and learn exclusively for (five -
I'm just throwing out a number) years after high school and then if
you see that you are not cut out to spend your life in the Beis
HaMedrash, go out and learn Mada.
> E.G. (disclaimer I am not a lawyer just astudent of history)
Well, get a lawyer to help you out :-)
> Torah teaches us respect for tradition.
>
> Common law teaches us respect for precedent.
>
> A TuM philophy of psak might evolve that we should not look to lomuds to
> legislate law but to existing Shut to based psak upon precedent.
>
> Hirsch would NOT like this because he saw Torah as being validated internally
> only.
Huh? What are shu"t if not internal validation of Torah?
> Here and now, we hae a much more frioednly regime (a medinah of chessed said R.
> S. Schwab) and much more asimlation to address. If TIDE and both Berlin and
> Frankfort were more Western than the yeshivos only a few hundred miles to the
> East, it makes sense that in the the USA we would take it a step further.
You've left out one important fact - the Yeshivos of one country are
not isolated from others to the extent that they were 150 years
ago. If in the pre-war period it was yechidei sgula who went from
America to learn in Europe or in Eretz Yisrael, today it is nearly
everyone. Each is influenced by the other and cannot cut itself off
from the other. To say that an American derech in learning
develops independently of what goes on elsewhere in the world is
to stick your head in the sand. Ha ra'aya - the Torah only hashkafa
was a rarity in the States as recently as twenty years ago, and yet
all I keep hearing from all of you is how there are so many
yungerleit who are staying in learning indefinitely.
> if you want to remain free of Gentile cutlure than aliyo makes the most senses
> to me.
Can I quote you on that? :-)
> As far as TIDE goes, that's ok, but in an open society does AUSTRITT really make
> sense? I think that it DID make sens in Farnkfort in many ways, but the USA is
> not Frankfort. I think Austritt is not a good idea, and is a real bedieved in
> our society.
I'm not sure about this one. Certainly there is much in Conservative
and Reform culture that some of our weaker links might find
attractive. Why expose them to it?
-- Carl
Please daven and learn for a Refuah Shleima for our son,
Baruch Yosef ben Adina Batya among the sick of Israel.
Thank you very much.
Carl and Adina Sherer
mailto:sherer@actcom.co.il
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Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2000 08:03:36 +0200
From: "Carl and Adina Sherer" <sherer@actcom.co.il>
Subject: T'hillim
> Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2000 13:42:20 -0600
> From: Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org>
> Subject: Re: T'hillim
> 3) One idea that may whittle down the list to the point where people might
> actually stay quiet. One is not permitted to make requests in Shabbos davening,
> which is why we don't say the middle 13 b'rachos of the normal Amidah on
> Shabbos. R' YB Soloveitchik explains that Mi Shebeirach is except from this
> rule ONLY if the sick person is in a life-threatening situation.
See Mishna Brura 288:28, Shaarei Tshuva 288:13 and Mkoros
cited there.
The following comes from a post I did on Mail Jewish in September
(no one answered the question at the end):
Shulchan Aruch OH 288:10 (in the Rema) says that one is
permitted to bless on Shabbos one who is "mesukan l'bo bayom"
(someone who is in danger that day). However the Mishna Brura
there in S"K 28 writes specifically that one may make a Mi
Sheberach for one who is NOT in danger (Choleh she'Ain Bo
Sakana) if one adds the words "Shabbos Hi MiLizok u'Refua Krova
Lavo" (we do not cry out on Shabbos and healing will soon arrive).
If the Rav zt"l disagreed with that Mishna Brura, could someone
please post a source? The only place I saw Mi Sheberach's
discussed in Nefesh HaRav was on Page 143, and that is
connected to a different matter (which has been discussed on this
list before).
-- Carl
Please daven and learn for a Refuah Shleima for our son,
Baruch Yosef ben Adina Batya among the sick of Israel.
Thank you very much.
Carl and Adina Sherer
mailto:sherer@actcom.co.il
Go to top.
Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2000 08:03:34 +0200
From: "Carl and Adina Sherer" <sherer@actcom.co.il>
Subject: Re: Rav Ovadia Yosef and halachic status of the Golan
> Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2000 07:09:49 -0600
> From: Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org>
> Subject: Re: Rav Ovadia Yosef and halachic status of the Golan
> Is it an issue of only Bayis Sheini being possibly kudshah lisha'ata vikushah
> li'asid lavo, and we didn't hold the Golan during Bayis Sheini?
I believe that is correct.
-- Carl
Please daven and learn for a Refuah Shleima for our son,
Baruch Yosef ben Adina Batya among the sick of Israel.
Thank you very much.
Carl and Adina Sherer
mailto:sherer@actcom.co.il
Go to top.
Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2000 08:35:52 +0200 (IST)
From: <millerr@mail.biu.ac.il>
Subject: Re: Avodah V4 #409
> (including, alas, Israel), the freer I feel in America. Anyhow, I *like*
> hangingaround cheesy bars with pitchers of beer and half-drunk Irishmen,
> Poles, Italians, Slovaks, and Slovenes. These guys make up most of my hockey
> team. They know I won't play on Shabbos, and that I won't eat the pepperoni
> pizza they order after we play a game. I don't think they care. We're a team;
> we all give each other a break, just as most Americans do when you come right
> down to it. And the beer is good.
>
> David Finch
Sounds familiar...
Read some very recent history of germany and the Jews in the 20s-30s
and David, don't turn your back on any of your "teammates"
Reuven Miller (previously of the East Bronx)
Yerusalayim Israel
Go to top.
Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2000 18:38:35 +1100
From: SBA <sba@blaze.net.au>
Subject: Dat U'Medina
From Shlomo B Abeles <sba@blaze.net.au>
Shoshana L. Boublil wrote:
Subject: Dat U'Medina
>>>....I've read in recent posts... that Israel should become
fully democratic and separate religion from statesmanship. This cry
is usually heard by either Chiloniim or from extreme Chareidim here in
Israel. Both sides don't want a jewish state....
The others are those who live in exile and don't understand what a Jewish State is....
... the blessing of finally after aprox. 2000 years we finally have a Jewish Medina,....<<<<
To balance this, as well as Carl Sherer's recent patriotic postings,
I present you with the following article from Friday's Jerusalem Post
(and let you ponder on the general reaction if the Chief Justice
of the US Supreme Court behaved similarly).
THINK AGAIN: Appearances do count
By Jonathan Rosenblum
(March 2) Those who fail to recognize the need to be
above any hint of bias have lost the right to serve as
the arbitors of the basic values of Israeli society
Last winter, at the height of the Clinton impeachment trial,
I went to hear a lecture at the Israel Academy of Arts and
Sciences on public officials' right to privacy, by one of my
favorite law school professors.
All that remains in my memory from that speech is that
one of America's leading legal minds used the phrase "I
would maintain," or variants thereof, a hundred times in
less than an hour.
How different, I thought, from Talmudic learning: In
Talmudic debate one must prove a point, not just assert
it, no matter how smart one is.
More clearly remembered is Chief Justice Aharon
Barak's introduction of the speaker. Justice Barak
described at length a case concerning the right to picket in
front of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's home in a residential
neighborhood. The court was forced to balance, he said,
the right of picketers to have their message heard by their
intended target versus the right of Yosef's neighbors to
peace and quiet.
At one point, said Barak, we considered a compromise:
Let them picket instead at the Israel Academy of Arts
and Sciences, which was not far from Yosef's residence
at the time. Then came the punch line: "But we asked
ourselves: What possible connection is there between
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and the Israel Academy of Arts and
Sciences?"
The audience, most of whom looked naked without
sherry glasses in hand, tittered appreciatively at the court
president's bon mot.
Barak's precious anecdote had nothing to do either the
speech or speaker to follow. His only point was to share
a joke at Yosef's expense, and point out what an ignorant
boob the rabbi is.
I was recently reminded of Barak's remarks when the
Supreme Court took up the question of whether Yosef
should be prosecuted for insulting the justices of the
Supreme Court. However offensive Yosef's jibes about
the justices' lack of mitzva observance may have been, it
is inconceivable that they should be criminalized in any
country that purports to value free speech.
Barak's jest did far more to lower the stature of the
Supreme Court than anything Yosef could have said. His
words undermined societal trust in the impartiality of the
highest levels of the judicial system. And while Barak is
not likely to appear as a litigant in Yosef's beit din
anytime in the near future, whereas issues of vital concern
to Yosef are the subject of Supreme Court suits on an
almost daily basis.
Nor was the subtle contempt for religious leaders
manifest in Barak's story an isolated incident.
Last year he was present when Beersheba Magistrate's
Court President Oded Elyagon publicly likened haredim
to "huge lice." At that moment, Barak was in the same
position as Hillary Clinton had been when Suha Arafat
accused Israel in her presence of poisoning Palestinian
children. And he showed even less recognition of the
implications of what he had heard. He neither repudiated
Elyagon's remarks nor reprimanded him. Just the
opposite: Speaking after Elyagon, he praised the speech.
Only weeks later, after a storm of protest, did Barak
issue the mildest of censures. Remarkably, Elyagon
continues to sit on the bench. (Compare the manner in
which a 20-year-old junior officer was recently cashiered
from the army in a day for impolitic comments about
heterodox Jewish movements.)
UNFORTUNATELY, the court often reinforces the
impression of many religious Jews that they cannot
receive a fair hearing.
During the height of the Rehov Bar-Ilan controversy,
Justice Dalia Dorner granted a police request for pre-trial
incarceration, without bail, for a 13-year-old charged
with throwing stones. The boy in question denied the
charge and had no previous record. At the same time, the
police did not even request pre-trial detention of a
17-year-old charged with assaulting yeshiva students,
who had a previous conviction for assault with a deadly
weapon.
Recently another justice took judicial notice of the "fact"
that haredim and non-religious Jews cannot live together,
even though the suit arose in Rehovot, where they have
done so for a century.
Snobbery at best, and outright bias against certain social
groups at worst, increasingly appear to permeate the legal
system. One of Prof. Ruth Gavison's most shocking
accusations in her November 12 interview in Ha'aretz
was that something other than purely professional
considerations govern the resources devoted to particular
criminal investigations and the way they are prosecuted.
"What is bothersome," she observed, "is the feeling that
an element of persecution is present in the system. The
system denies this, but the denial is no longer convincing
because the accumulation of cases is too great. It arouses
suspicion . . . .
"When the impression is formed that the rotten apples
have become so much a part of the system that even the
heads of the system no longer see them, then the feeling
grows that the system is deeply flawed at its roots."
US Justice Benjamin Cardozo famously pronounced the
standard for those entrusted by the public: "not honesty
alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive. . ."
He recognized that anything less than the appearance of
scrupulous honesty and impartiality destroys the
legitimacy of the entire system.
Our legal officers, however, in their high arrogance, could
care less about appearance of bias. Just this week,
Justice Theodore Or refused to excuse himself from a
case in which both counsel for the appellant and a key
witness in the lower court proceedings are close friends
of his and served with him on the Or Commission on
court reorganization. Or thereby declared the Code of
Ethics for Judges to be not binding on him.
Those who fail to recognize the need to be above any hint
of bias, whether with regard to individual citizens or entire
classes of citizens, have lost any right to serve as the
arbiters of the basic values of Israeli society.
And BTW - JR heads the Am Echad office in Israel. BH American religious Jews don't need
such an organisation to defend them...
Go to top.
Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2000 11:46:26 +0200
From: "Carl M. Sherer" <cmsherer@ssgslaw.co.il>
Subject: Re: Dat U'Medina
On 5 Mar 00, at 18:38, SBA wrote:
> >From Shlomo B Abeles <sba@blaze.net.au>
>
> Shoshana L. Boublil wrote:
> Subject: Dat U'Medina
>
> >>>....I've read in recent posts... that Israel should become
> fully democratic and separate religion from statesmanship. This cry
> is usually heard by either Chiloniim or from extreme Chareidim here in
> Israel. Both sides don't want a jewish state.... The others are those
> who live in exile and don't understand what a Jewish State is.... ...
> the blessing of finally after aprox. 2000 years we finally have a
> Jewish Medina,....<<<<
>
> To balance this, as well as Carl Sherer's recent patriotic postings, I
> present you with the following article from Friday's Jerusalem Post
> (and let you ponder on the general reaction if the Chief Justice of
> the US Supreme Court behaved similarly).
I think it is only fair to start this by saying that Carl Sherer is a big
fan of Yonasson Rosenblum. Unfortunately, nearly all of the
incidents Yonasson describes were widely reported in the media
here. It is no secret that the Supreme Court here is anti-religious.
All of you heard of the demonstration that took place here last
year, which I proudly attended.
I, however, was not speaking in terms of official government policy
(to the extent that the Supreme Court reflects government policy
and not the view of the elitist snobs who sit on it) in the posts that
RSBA describes as "patriotic." I was speaking in terms of metzius.
And the metzius is - without any shadow of a doubt, that it is much
easier to be a fruhmmer yid in Israel than it is in the United States
of America or in any other country in the Galus. If you think I'm
wrong, ask Yonasson Rosenblum.
When I speak of the need for Israel to be a Jewish state, I look
upon the current state of affairs as nothing more than a way
station. To me, a Jewish state is a halachic state. To me, Choshen
Mishpat 25:1 prohibits going to a secular Israeli court just like it
prohibits going to a secular court in any other country. To me, it's a
tragedy that the issur has to apply, but there is no doubt in my
mind that it does apply. For the record, although I am an attorney, I
do not litigate in Israel.
> And BTW - JR heads the Am Echad office in Israel. BH American
> religious Jews don't need such an organisation to defend them...
Could you please explain to me how someone with an Australian
address suddenly becomes an expert on what American religious
Jews do or do not need? And if there is no need for such
organizations in the United States, why does the Aguda maintain a
legal department, what is COLPA and why do organizations like
the American Jewish Congress (who, say what you will about
them, have a fruhm general counsel who knows how to learn quite
well) exist?
I lived in America for 34 years, practiced law there for seven, and
have been back on business (and for vacations) ten times since I
made aliya (six in the last two years), so I think I have some idea
of what goes on in America. On what basis do you consider
yourself an expert?
-- Carl
Carl M. Sherer, Adv.
Silber, Schottenfels, Gerber & Sherer
Telephone 972-2-625-7751
Fax 972-2-625-0461
mailto:cmsherer@ssgslaw.co.il
mailto:sherer@actcom.co.il
Please daven and learn for a Refuah Shleima for my son,
Baruch Yosef ben Adina Batya among the sick of Israel.
Thank you very much.
Go to top.
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