Yay! We're finally getting REAL Shabbos company. i.e. people who want to experience a full Shabbos, not just one meal after which they drive home. It's amazing how many people are afraid to have that kind of experience...
Should be interesting. I'll let you know what happens.
Mark Steyn does it again with this piece on Saeb Erekat, the "senior Palestinian negotiator".
There are some columnists who I admire because they write what I think. Mark is this with another level. He says what I wish I thought of.
One paragraph that is is not original in style, using an old "Coffee Talk" shtick, but makes a great point, is the following one:
Edward Heath, in his time as Lord Privy Seal, was once addressed by some foreign dignitary as "Lord Heath" and famously responded that he was neither a lord nor a privy nor a seal. The "senior Palestinian negotiator" is not "senior", speaks for no viable faction within either the dignified (Arafatist) or efficient (Hamas) parts of the Palestinian Authority, and hasn’t negotiated anything in a decade.
I think of Gerald Ford and Joe Clark in the same breath. When they try to insert their views into their public culture, people need to remember that they are losers.
So thanks Joe, for your comments here. You're a real help. Right Honourable my foot.
How government can realistically shrink
So often in Western politics, the idea that government could actually be shrunk significantly is ridiculed. It isn't so much that people disagree in principle. For many people, it's a matter of despair. That is to say, they see the problem as too bloated to fix. Well, this link at the top of the blog outlines a case of a Western nation that actually accomplished almost everything the free-market philosophers dream of.
From first-hand observation and many second hand reports, I can conclude that vegetarianism and veganism are considered acceptable alternative diet philosophies in the Orthodox world. One of my most active congregants is a die-hard vegan. He offers all sorts of justifications for this philosophy. The current world-guru for orthodox vegetarianism/veganism is Richard Schwartz.
However he doesn't limit his views to Orthodoxy. He tries to convince Conservatives and they should be vegan and Buddhists and Episcopalians etc. based on their scriptures. This belies his true intentions. It shows me that to him, veganism is the true value. The Orthodox sources are post-facto justifications for conclusions already reached.
Anyway, this is how he phrases his six frum reasons to be a vegetarian:
1. While Judaism mandates that people should be very careful about preserving
their health and their lives, numerous scientific studies have linked animal-based diets directly to heart disease, stroke, many forms of cancer, and other chronic degenerative diseases.
2. While Judaism forbids tsa'ar ba'alei chayim, inflicting unnecessary pain on
animals, most farm animals -- including those raised for kosher consumers --
are raised on "factory farms" where they live in cramped, confined spaces, and
are often drugged, mutilated, and denied fresh air, sunlight, exercise, and
any enjoyment of life, before they are slaughtered and eaten.
3. While Judaism teaches that "the earth is the Lord’s" (Psalm 24:1) and that
we are to be God's partners and co-workers in preserving the world, modern
intensive livestock agriculture contributes substantially to soil erosion and
depletion, air and water pollution, overuse of chemical fertilizers and
pesticides, the destruction of tropical rain forests and other habitats, global climate change, and other environmental damage.
4. While Judaism mandates bal tashchit, that we are not to waste or
unnecessarily destroy anything of value, and that we are not to use more than is needed to accomplish a purpose, animal agriculture requires the wasteful use of land, water, fuel, grain, and other resources.
5. While Judaism stresses that we are to assist the poor and share our bread
with hungry people, over 70% of the grain grown in the United States is fed to
animals destined for slaughter (it takes up to 16 pounds of grain to produce
one pound of edible beef), while an estimated 20 million people worldwide die
because of hunger and its effects each year.
6. While Judaism teaches that we must seek and pursue peace and that violence
results from unjust conditions, animal-centered diets, by wasting valuable
resources, help to perpetuate the widespread hunger and poverty that eventually lead to instability and war.
I will deal with these six justifications at a later date.
It is sadly AMAZING to see and read how clueless ladies are when it comes to tznius. I don't mean rebellious: Those who dress like street walkers and know exactly what they're doing and why.
I refer to those girls who say things like: "What's wrong with lipstick? Like, guys are gonna stare at my lips?"
Or, this more recent fashion of girls wearing shirts that only cover their torso when their arms are flat against their hips. Lift the arms ever so slightly and hello umbilical cord.
There is a real tragedy out there. Rush Limbaugh jokes that feminism was created so as to allow ugly women to gain entrance into mainstream society. He is so wrong. What has happened in the last few years is that girls, and I mean girls, as young as 8 years old, are being raised to look like
whores. What I mean by that is not a mere insult.
I mean quite literally, that they are raised with the message that they should dress and make themselves up in such a way so as to totally ruin any chance that a man with a healthy libido will respond in anything but a sexual context, even if unspoken. So as to totally ruin the chance that a man will relate to her in a way that respects her mind and soul. People who attend Conservative synagogues see it. I've heard reports from people here in Yehupitz who attend the Conservative temple. Thirteen year old girls who go up for their Bat-Mitzvah aliyah in a sleeveless top and mini-skirt. A fifteen year old, six-foot tall girl who attends her great-aunt's funeral in a black, low-cut, sleeveless again, micro mini.
One thing I've come across over and over again in the rabbinate is that Jews, as far away as they are from mitzvah observance as they may be, appreciate the psychological insight that goes into the halachos of mourning. I wish all those modern orthodox to everything else Jews would aprpeciate the insight that went into the Halachos of Tznius. All you ladies who think you're exerting your independence when you wear skirts that don't cover your knees or shirts that don't cover the elbow, or when you wear tight-fitting clothing: You don't realize that those old fogie rabbis knew what they were talking about and that your wardrobe has not liberated you. It has turned you into an object. Millions of women and men, myself included, simply do not, cannot take you as seriously without a sexual context that I wish wasn't so blatantly there.
It's not that tznius rules are there to protect dirty men from certain thoughts. Tznius is there to protect relationships.
This is not as positive as I would like. If I was sharing this to a live group, I would phrase it more positively. But somewhere it has to phrased this way too.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term Yehupitz, it is a Jewish colloquialism which means a place in the middle of nowhere from a Jewish point of view.
New York is not a Yehupitz city.
Baltimore isn't either. Unless you live in New York.
Boise Idaho and Kirkutzk Siberia are.
I am the Orthodox rabbi in Yehupitz. Things happen that I feel are worth mentioning and sharing. This blog is my forum for doing so until I write my memoirs.
Private correspondence should be e-mailed to yehupitzer.rov@juno.com. If anyone knows how to turn that e-mail address into a "mail to" link, please let me know.
Enjoy.
Impressed with the content features of the baliblogs family, I have decided to move my blog to baltiblogs, though the hamlet of Yehupitz is quite a distance from Baltimore.
Greetings to all. we'll have the old material uploaded shortly.