Habad Messianism

I think by now we are all familiar with the particular form of Habad messianism that holds the deceased Lubavitcher Rebbe, R. Menahem Mendel Schneerson, to be the messiah. There are some who believe that he is already the messiah and wait for his resurrection, some who even believe that he never died, some who believe that he will definitely be the messiah when he is resurrected and some who believe that he probably or might be the messiah after his resurrection. Some, from what I understand a minority, believe that their Rebbe can no longer become the messiah. These beliefs have been documented and addressed in two books: The Rebbe, the Messiah and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference is a history of and commentary on the subject and Can the Rebbe be Moshiach? is an analysis of the textual...

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Humrah Society

We are all familiar with the trend towards crazy humros and how some people are going out of control. However, they seem to me to be the extreme and do not represent the norm. I am not implying that the Orthodox community as a whole has not moved towards increased observance and stringency. Rather, I question whether this is a move towards humrah or towards the only halakhah that can be (textually) justified. Is it that people are looking for new ways to be strict (I know, some definitely are) or that they are doing their best to align all of their actions with halakhah? I think the latter. Some are misguided; some, particularly youngsters, are immature. But most "normal" people I know have a certain degree of yiras Hashem and do not want to do something that they and their rabbi cannot justify...

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Music on Yom Ha-Atzma'ut II

There is an excerpt posted online from a book by R. Shmuel Katz, author of the more popular Kedoshim Tihyu, about the first seventy years of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. The passage excerpted is regarding Yom ha-Atzma'ut and the official attitude of the Chief Rabbinate. R. Katz records that, at first, the Chief Rabbinate declared that Yom ha-Atzma'ut has the status of Lag ba-Omer and, therefore, shaving, weddings, etc. are permitted on the holiday. This was declared on 11 Nissan, 5709 (April 12, 1949) in an announcement in the newspaper Ha-Tzofeh. However, there was a subsequent meeting during the intermediary days of Pesah that year, on 18 Nissan, 5709 (April 19, 1949), in which it was decided that inter alia the regular sefirah prohibitions should be maintained and the issue should be...

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Women's Prayer Groups - R. Avi Weiss' Position

Introduction R. Avi Weiss is a very successful pulpit rabbi and Jewish activist. He has founded the organization Amcha that tries to stand up for the Jewish people in a number of venues. His efforts on behalf of the Jewish people and individual Jews in unfortunate situations demonstrate a caring heart and an effective organizational skill. However, in the area of talmudic scholarship he has shown that he is not an expert and, indeed, has made many mistakes and published sub-standard works. I am not writing this without reason. R. Weiss has tried to publish talmudic/halakhic scholarship to justify some of his feminist innovations and, by forcing himself into the arena of such scholarship, has portrayed himself as the scholar that he is not. It must be said that his works should not be taken...

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Sephardic Attitudes to Women's Prayer Groups

Jacob Katz asked: "Has Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, or any of the other sefardic halakhists of our time, written anything about Women's Prayer Groups?" I found the following prohibiting sources in Rabbis Aryeh and Dov Frimer's article Women's Prayer Services - Theory and Practice: R. Shalom Messas, Resp. Shemesh uMagen, II, sec. 28; R. Mordechai Eliyahu in an unpublished responsum, dated 19 Kislev 5750 (Dec. 17, 1989).I thought that R. Yitzhak Yosef addressed this issue in his Yalkut Yosef, perhaps in volume 2, but I did not find reference to it in the Frimer article or in my brief notes on the subject (but he does prohibit calling women to the Torah, a la R. Mendel Shapiro, in ch. 135 par. 4...

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Music on Yom Ha-Atzma'ut

I have heard R. Hershel Schachter say many times that R. Yosef Dov Soloveitchik was opposed to suspending any of the mourning observances of sefirah for the celebration of Yom ha-Atzma'ut, Israeli Independence Day. So, when a group at Yeshiva University would arrange to celebrate Yom ha-Atzma'ut and would invite R. Schachter to speak, he would gladly speak but would not stay for the inevitable live music. However, the logic for suspending the mourning customs is not difficult for me to understand. If one were to be personally saved from danger and designate a day during sefirah as a private Purim, I doubt that anyone would object to the suspension of mourning for that joyous day. Those who feel that Yom ha-Atzma'ut is the equivalent of, or even greater than, a personal Purim celebrate it...

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Guilt by Association

The Shulhan Arukh, Hoshen Mishpat 3:2 writes, "A scholar is prohibited from sitting down to a court case until he knows with whom he is sitting lest he sit with men who are unfit and becomes part of a rebellious group rather than a court." While this halakhah only technically applies to a religious court, it is important advice for life. Be careful with whom you affiliate because you may unwittingly advance your colleagues' causes and become perceived by the public as associated with those colleagues. And now, a story. Over ten years ago, R. Hershel Schachter was being driven to one of his weekly lectures in Queens (I think, or maybe Brooklyn) and, on the highway, the small group was car-jacked. Yes, the car was stolen at gunpoint and they were left stranded on the highway. Over the Shabbos...

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Coming Up On Hirhurim

Some topics that, time permitting, I hope to discuss in the near future: 1. Kol Ishah 2. Archaeology and the Bible 3. Who is a Talmid Hakham? 4. The Ordination of Women Remember that feedback is always welcome, whether in the comments section or via e-ma...

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Women's Prayer Groups - R. J. David Bleich's Position

R. J. David Bleich is, in my opinion, an unfortunately under-appreciated giant of our generation. He holds a PhD in Philosoephy, lectures on Hullin and other subjects to semihah students at Yeshiva University, is a co-head of a kollel for dayanus at YU, teaches at Yeshiva College and Cardozo Law School and is a world-renowned expert on bio-medical ethics. He is a walking encyclopedia of halakhah which, with his acerbic wit, makes him close to an Ashkenazic version of R. Ovadiah Yosef. Why he is not counted among the top posekim of this generation is beyond me. R. Bleich's regular column in the journal Tradition titled "Survey of Recent Halakhic Periodic Literature" demonstrates his breadth of knowledge and his depth of understanding. It also serves as the majority of his series of books Contemporary...

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Women's Prayer Groups - R. Eliezer Berkovits' Position

In his book, Jewish Women in Time and Torah, R. Eliezer Berkovits discusses many issues regarding contemporary women and has a short section on Women's Prayer Groups (pp. 74-83). R. Eliezer Berkovits studied in the Hildesheimer Institute in Berlin under the great scholar R. Yehiel Ya'akov Weinberg (author of Seridei Eish) and briefly served as a congregational rabbi in Nazi-dominated Berlin. After World War II, R. Berkovits found his way to Chicago where he taught philosophy at Hebrew Theological College. His main foray into halakhah was a thwarted attempt to introduce conditional marriages so as to avoid the problems of an agunah. This proposal was rightly opposed by leading scholars who demonstrated that this plan had been previously suggested (twice) and had been highly criticized by the...

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Religious Philosophy

In trying to explain the Medieval Ashkenazic community's self-image of piety, Dr. Haym Soloveitchik ("Religious Law and Change: The Medieval Ashkenazic Example" in AJS Review Fall 1987) lists as one source for this attitude their simplicity of beliefs. As an explanation of this, he writes (p. 213): [R]eligious philosophy is an act of justification. It seeks to make the beliefs and practices of a religion comprehensible in the terms of another system. Implicit in the act of translation is the assumption that the categories of the other system are the dominant ones. They are the notions which yield comprehension and bestow value. Otherwise why translate?One could respond that the act of translation itself provides an opportunity for greater clarification. When we have to restate our beliefs...

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The Historicity of Megillas Esther

An essay on the historicity of Megillas Esther, presumably in response to this essay. It clearly does not address all of the original essay's points, but it also clearly did not intend ...

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Women's Prayer Groups - R. Yehuda Henkin's Position II

Introduction I wrote in an earlier post in describing the writings of R. Yehuda Henkin: However, I do not believe that his responsa will ever become mainstream because his method of approaching a question is fairly unique and idiosyncratic.Let me once again clarify that I did not intend to insult R. Henkin with this comment. I was trying to offer an explanation of why I do not think that his responsa will be accepted by the mainstream Torah-studying public. My suggestion was that his derekh ha-limud -- the way he approaches a sugya and the sources he chooses to analyze -- is not widespread and is not what one would find in, say, the responsa of R. Moshe Shternbuch or R. Nosson Geshtetner. I'll add that I consider this to be the same reason that R. Ephraim Greenblatt's multi-volume Rivevos...

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Persia and the Talmud

As a Yeshiva University alumnus, I get quite a bit of mail from the school that I place directly into the garbage. Last week I received a copy of YU Today but did not immediately throw it out because a picture of R. Hershel Schachter on the cover caught my eye. I proceeded to read that article, which was entirely uninteresting, and then saw an article about Dr. Yaakov Elman that looked promising. And it lived up to its promise. (I just found the article online here.) Aside from providing a biography of Dr. Elman's interesting life, stories that I had heard piecemeal and never really believed, the article details his most recent intellectual endeavour. Dr. Elman has taken a profound interest in the Persian background of the Babylonian Talmud. What was the Persian legal and sociological context...

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Women's Prayer Groups - R. Yehuda Henkin's Position

The time has come to summarize and critique the writings of those who permit Women's Prayer Groups. The first in this series is R. Yehuda Henkin, although as we shall see he does not entirely fit into this group. R. Yehuda Henkin is the grandson of the renowned ga'on R. Yosef Eliyahu Henkin, who was a world-recognized posek in the mid-twentieth century. The younger R. Henkin is a rav in Israel and has written widely on modern subjects, particularly women's issues, as well as a three-volume work of responsa. He is not particularly famous or recognized -- I do not know anyone other than me who owns all three volumes of his responsa -- but he is a serious talmid hakham and one of the few who are willing to take seriously the halakhic questions raised by feminists. He is unquestionably Modern...

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Traffic Laws in Halakhah

Traffic laws in frum circles fall under the category of "lesser commandments which a person [sometimes] treads on with his heels" (Rashi, Devarim 7:12) except that they can really be among the hamuros and not just "lesser commandments" because reckless driving puts people's lives in danger. From Torah.org's Business Halacha class, written by R. Tzvi Shpitz and translated into English by R. Aaron Tendler: A. Traffic laws that are enacted to save human lives and property are obligatory according to the laws of the Torah on every person, at all times and everywhere in the world. It makes no difference what type of government enacted them. B. If a person knows of someone who drives recklessly and endangers people's lives, he must do everything within his power to prevent the reckless driver...

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Interfaith Dialogue III

R. Mayer Twersky enters the printed debate in this week's devar Torah from Torah Web: In general, psak halacha is exclusively reserved for talmidim she’higi’u l’hora’a, great torah sages. Chazal unequivocally condemn those who are not qualified to pasken, and yet do so. “He is a wicked, delusionary, and arrogant person.” “(such people) increase divisiveness, destroy the world, extinguish the lamp of Torah, and violate the vineyard of Hashem” (Ramabm Hil. Talmud Torah, Perek 5). Psak halacha in this context denotes adjudicating a new or unresolved question, or applying halacha in new situations. A rav need not consider himself a great Torah sage, however, to guide his ba’alei batim or talmidim regarding explicit halachos in Shulchan Aruch or matters and situations about which he has a tradition...

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Agudath Israel and the Internet

Also from this month's The Jewish Observer (table of contents page). In case anyone is interested, this is their internet policy: The Jewish Observer has devoted a great deal of space to the perils of the Internet and to the need for everyone to be extremely vigilant in its use. We have echoed the pleas of our gedolim that it should not be in use, unless it is an unavodiable necessity, and then only with all suitable safeguards. While its dangers must be recognized and controlled to every possible degree, our gedolim recognize that many people and businesses require its use, and therefore it has not been banned. This is why we accept advertisements listing website addresses, but in no way does this imply that the gedolim or The Jewish Observer condone casual use of the Internet.I don't think...

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Interfaith Dialogue II

Eschewing the path of totally ignoring the events in American society, The Jewish Observer boldly addressed the topic of Mel Gibson's The Passion in its Nissan 5764/April 2004 issue. Chosen to tackle the issue was the eloquent Yonason (AKA Jonathan) Rosenblum in the lead article titled "Passion, Prejudice, and Political Incorrectness." Predictably, although this time plausibly, taking the opposite stance of mainstream Jewry, Rosenblum criticized the tactics of the ADL and Amcha. After listing the mistakes of the mainstream Jewish establishment, Rosenblum set forth his proposal for how we should have dealt with the movie. This is where things start to get very interesting. [T]hat does not mean that the Jewish community was helpless in the face of the threat posed by the movie or without potential...

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Solving the Agunah Problem

Over my vacation, I had the opportunity to read through R. Michael J. Broyde's not-so-recent book Marriage, Divorce, and the Abandoned Wife in Jewish Law. He calls this book a conceptual analysis, and it is. He makes a number of excellent and insightful points by distinguishing between the concepts underlying different views of divorce. I. Concepts of Marriage The first insight of his that I found extremely helpful was in differentiating between divorce in Jewish law and in most other modern systems of law. In American law, for example, divorce is a part of public law in that the government creates and dissolves marriages. The government declares when two people are married and when they are not, e.g. "By the power vested in me by the state of Nevada I now pronounce you husband and wife."...

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I'm Back

Pesah is over and I'm back. I did some interesting reading over the holiday and have a lot about which to blog. But that will have to wait until I am more settled in to regular li...

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Masekhes Gittin

Hadran alakh Masekhes Gittin ve-hadrakh alan...

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Links

The following are websites/blogs that link to Hirhurim, initially determined via Google. If your website and/or blog links to Hirhurim and is not listed, please post your URL in the comments and it will be added to this post. Thank you.PLEASE NOTE that the blogger has not reviewed these websites and makes no claim about their content. This is just a list of website that link here.Judaism Onlinehttp://godolhador.blogspot.comhttp://w2.devarim.comhttp://failedmessiah.typepad.comhttp://lewyn.tripod.com/bloghttp://differentriver.comhttp://www.blissfulknowledge.comhttp://yutopia.yucs.orghttp://differentriver.comhttp://mayornot.comhttp://www.smontagu.org/blog/http://www.aliyahblog.comhttp://www.mowoman.comhttp://www.livejournal.com/users/onasamaya/http://www.israellycool.com/blog/http://hassagot...

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Homosexuality in Halakhah IV

Statement regarding Same-Sex Marriages issued on March 30, 2004 by the Rabbinical Council of America and the Orthodox Union: The Rabbinical Council of America and The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America reaffirm the following foundational principles and beliefs in unambiguous and unmistakable terms: · Homosexual behavior is, and has always been, absolutely forbidden by Jewish law and tradition. Any attempt to characterize Jewish law and tradition to the contrary must be rejected. · The only legitimate form of sexual behavior is that which takes place between adult men and women, within the sacred institution of marriage, as traditionally defined and permitted. · Under no circumstances can Jewish tradition or law countenance a notion of so-called “Same-Sex Marriage” rituals...

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Who Am I?

I asked before and I will ask again, please do not try to identify me in the comments section. Whether you are correct or not, I do not want guessing on this blog. If you have a comment to say to me that includes or is based on my real identity, e-mail me.Thank you for your cooperation.Important Upd...

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The Rise and Fall of Biblical Criticism

Two essays on the much heralded and perhaps exaggerated demise of the Documentary Hypothesis: R. Dr. Nathan T. Lopes Cardozo, "On Bible Criticism and Its Counterarguments" from Between Silence and Speech: Essays on Jewish Thought (Aronson: 1995). The essay is a decade old so it is missing the most recent developments. David Stern, "Recent Trends in Biblical Source Criticism: A Draft" I don't know who the author is and I only found this essay from a post to LookJed (and here), but it has excellent references from cutting-edge scholarsh...

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Women's Prayer Groups: Rav Soloveitchik's Position

The attitude of R. Yosef Dov Soloveitchik (AKA R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, R. Yoshe Ber Soloveitchik, "The Rav") towards Women's Prayer Groups (WPGs) is a matter of contention, indeed hot debate. His opinion is very important because the proponents of WPGs are exclusively Modern Orthodox and R. Soloveitchik was largely the guiding light of American Modern Orthodoxy during the mid-twentieth century. His students are generally the current leaders of American Modern Orthodoxy and his shadow still looms large over the community. R. Soloveitchik's opposition to any practice is a major obstacle for any scholar to overcome. The results of a major investigation into R. Soloveitchik's view was published by Rabbis Aryeh and Dov Frimer in their article "Women's Prayer Services - Theory and Practice"...

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