8:39 PM
Gil Student
The Pesach 5770/Spring 2010 issue of The Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society has been published:
- Celiac: A Guide to Mitzvah Observance by R. Dovid Cohen -- Great article that goes through the annual cycle, laws of blessings and other areas, discussing the relevant halakhic problems and solutions for sufferers of celiac disease.
- Making Sushi on Shabbat by R. Ari Zahtz -- A discussion of when and why making sushi is forbidden on Shabbos. Strong on concepts but very light on recent authorities. I briefly looked around but couldn't find anything relevant. Can it really be that there is nothing on even a related subject? Maybe.
- May a Convert be a Member of a Rabbinical Court for Conversion? by R. Michael J. Broyde -- Short answer: according to many, no, so it isn't fair to the convert to do it. See this post, which is a preliminary version of the article: link.
- Vaccination in Jewish Law by R. Alfred Cohen -- Addresses whether a parent is obligated to vaccinate a child (it depends on the situation and the history of the vaccine), including a host of related topics such as the obligations of individuals towards the community, relying on miracles and whether sickness is from Heaven. Interestingly, on page 104, the author (who is the editor of the journal) cites without alternate views the Chinukh (no. 546) who says that the world runs according to the laws of nature and only sometimes God intervenes.
- Letters - Dr. Neil W. Schluger and Drs. Raymond and Sammy Sultan discuss some of the drawbacks of Shomer Shabbos residencies; R. Boruch Oberlander offers some corrections regarding an article about reading someone else's e-mail; R. Eli Turkel, R. Yosef Wagner and R. Binyamin Silver discuss whether R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik allowed people people to return food from the refrigerator onto a blech on Shabbos if they had been on the blech when Shabbos began.
