Free Download of the Soncino Talmud in English Online at Halakhah.com: 25,000+ satisfied customers a month

The Soncino Babylonian Talmud English translation is online - at a site that is not anti-Semitic or polemical.

Download the Talmud in English free at http://www.halakhah.com/ - 25,000+ downloads each month! 300,000+ each year.

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH WITH NOTES, GLOSSARY AND INDICES UNDER THE EDITORSHIP OF RABBI DR. I. EPSTEIN B.A., Ph.D., D. Lit. FOREWORD BY THE VERY REV. THE LATE CHIEF RABBI DR. J. H. HERTZ. INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR. THE SONCINO PRESS, LONDON.

Contains the Sedarim (orders, or major divisions) and tractates (books) of the Babylonian Talmud, as translated and organized for publication by the Soncino Press in 1935 - 1948.

The site has the entire Soncino Talmud edition in PDF format and  about 8050 pages on line in browser compatible HTML format, comprising 1460 files — of the Soncino Talmud.

Please add a link to the site http://www.halakhah.com on your web site or blog.

Highlights:

• A newly formatted 2-column PDF version of the Soncino Talmud at Halakhah.com.
• A Kindle edition of the Soncino Talmud available from Amazon.com: The Kindle Soncino Talmud in English

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Selichot are Not Outcries

My teacher, Rav Soloveitchik taught that the selichot prayers are an outcry to God, a form of prayer that is out loud and hence a blatant public event. Outcry prayers he says, are different from more ordinary request prayers, more dramatic and more emotional.

The obvious repetition in those liturgies makes sense to the Rav because outbursts expressing needs and drama and emotion are repeated.

I disagree. Outcries ordinarily are one-time events. Only in utter desperation are they repeated. We who recite this prayer are not in utter desperation.

The repetitions of Selichot are way too numerous to make sense to me as outcries. And the label of "outcry" or "outburst" is hardly a category bearing significant cognitive meaning, deep theological content or any distinctive personality.

So no,  it is not correct to read the selichot as outcries. What then are the selichot?

Selichot are quiet and personal and above all, meditations seeking compassion.

Repetition is a hallmark of meditation. And compassion is a central end goal of the High Holiday season, central in particular to the Yom Kippur liturgy.

In his wonderful book, "Before Hashem You Shall Be Purified : Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik on the Days of Awe," by Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Arnold Lustiger, Lustiger says, "On Rosh Hashanh, Hashem moves from the throne of justice to the throne of mercy (p. 35)." Call it mercy or or call it compassion, I agree that movement takes place in the prayers for these holidays.

Through this season our prayers call on us to alternate between a definite certainty of the Kingship of God and a great uncertainty of the worthiness of our actions. We vacillate, we move at times into the personality of the brave public celebrity who is sure that we are number one and our God is number one.

Then we move into the personality of the insecure meditator, who seeks through meditative introspection a confirmation of the worthiness of his meager life. In one part of our service we crown God our King. And in another we meditate and seek the king's compassion so that we may live another day.

We start out this dramatic up and down High Holiday season as meditators seeking the compassion of God in the repetitions of the selichot prayers. Next we will go on to proclaim the Kingship of God on Rosh Hashanah. Then on Yom Kippur we will return and focus on our complicated quest for compassion with many quiet and personal selichot meditations -- persistently seeking compassion.

Whence and Wherefore | God's Favorite Prayers

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Is Google NOW incredible or creepy? Is NOW kosher?

There sometimes is a fine line between incredible and creepy.The Times hints at this in a review of phone app technology that seems to know what you are thinking, especially Google NOW.

Case in point. Yesterday I had to go from Teaneck, NJ to Forest Hills Queens, NY to attend the funeral for my sister's father-in-law. Knowing the possible traffic situations I figured on leaving my house an hour earlier, at Noon. I actually left about 12:15.

The event time and location were in my Google Calendar. And so,  I was on the GWB I got an alert from Google NOW at about 12:30 - telling me I had better leave now to get to the funeral on time.

First I thought, this is incredible. Then I thought, this is creepy. Finally I thought, NOW is not a New Yorker and does not have a clue about the time you need for getting around the city, especially for potential parking time.

The Times observes:

Already, an app called Google Now is an important part of Google’s Internet-connected glasses. As a Glass wearer walks through the airport, her hands full of luggage, it could show her an alert that her flight is delayed.

Google Now is “kind of blowing my mind right now,” said Danny Sullivan, a founding editor of Search Engine Land who has been studying search for two decades. “I mean, I’m pretty jaded, right? I’ve seen all types of things that were supposed to revolutionize search, but pretty much they haven’t. Google Now is doing that.”

The Times mentions some of the other amazing feats that NOW can offer - once you give up your privacy entirely to Google. I have it on my phone and I've been kept apprised by NOW of package deliveries, (Google's imagined) travel time to home and work and other meetings, stock prices, nearby restaurant recommendations and more.

Bottom line? Let me say I certify that NOW is kosher. You will have to judge for yourself whether it is incredible or creepy.

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Is Israel's National bird the Hoopoe - Duchifat - Hud Hud Kosher?

No, in fact Israel's National bird, the Hoopoe - Duchifat - Hud Hud, is not kosher. It is "an unclean animal that may not be eaten."

The Times had an editorial in June 2008 that talked about the newly designated Israeli National bird, the Hoopoe - Duchifat (Hebrew) - Hud Hud (Arabic). The writer proposed that this decision on the bird would help Israel achieve peace with its neighbors.

In June 2008 Stephen Colbert quipped caustically that the bird is not a valiant eagle, "May you (Israel) emulate the noble long-billed hoopoe by squirting fecal matter at intruders."

The Colbert Report
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Here is the Times op-ed from 2008.

Will Peace Take Flight?
By JONATHAN ROSEN

LATE last month, Israel announced that it had named the hoopoe as its national bird. The long-billed hoopoe, which has a punky orange crest tipped black, is barely mentioned in the Bible (as an unclean animal that may not be eaten) but it plays a role in rabbinic literature and in Islamic lore as well. It is celebrated, among other things, as the messenger that shuttles between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. It is in other words well suited to the symbolic burden the country has placed on it.

The idea that birds can be emissaries to a battered world — like the dove and raven sent out by Noah — motivated Israel’s decision to adopt a national bird as part of its commemoration of 60 years of statehood. In Hebrew the name of the bird is duchifat. In Arabic it is hud hud. And in English hoopoe is a word that sounds, as Emily Dickinson noted about all feathered creatures, strangely like hope.

The news was announced at the official residence of the president of Israel, Shimon Peres, who in the late 1940s changed his name from Persky to Peres because he saw a giant lammergeier, or bearded vulture (in Hebrew, a “peres”), circling overhead. Legend has it that the lammergeier, which no longer breeds in Israel, killed the Greek tragedian Aeschylus by dropping a tortoise on his head. Birds can be dangerous, which is precisely why the United States chose the bald eagle, though Benjamin Franklin complained, in a letter to his daughter, that the eagle was a cowardly bully while the turkey was nobler and feistier and therefore a more apt symbol for America.

In Franklin’s time, a young democracy wanted a warrior bird; in the 21st century other considerations carry the day. The cross-section of Israelis who did the voting to choose a national bird — including schoolchildren, soldiers, academics and Knesset members — rejected the possibility of a raptor (specifically, the much-loved, and endangered, griffon vulture) as sending the wrong signal for the country. They also rejected the night owl, which Arabs believe to be an evil omen.

I first saw a hoopoe in 2000, the year the Oslo Accords officially fell apart. I had known about the bird since childhood, when I learned that King Solomon — who, with his storied ability to understand the speech of animals is the Dr. Doolittle of Judaism — had sought out the hoopoe in order to build the Temple. It had not occurred to me, until I began bird-watching, that the bird was real.

But there I was, in a small bird observatory in Jerusalem, with a soldier whose job it was to net migrating birds, weigh them and then toss them back into the air. “Filthy birds,” he said, pointing out one that was heading for a hole in a wall and then adding that they reeked of excrement. So much for the bird who helped the king build a house for God. It was, however, a lesson worthy of Solomon, seeing this lofty bird that smells of mortality. It is the nature of birds to embody multiple elements, shuttling as they do between earth and sky, between ancient and modern, between wild and tame. They are emblems of our heavenly aspirations and yet they are the closest living relatives to the dinosaurs.

The search for a national bird was organized by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel and led by an Israeli ornithologist, Yossi Leshem. Dr. Leshem has created the International Center for Bird Migration in Latrun, the site of some very bloody battles in Israel’s War of Independence and home to a vast war memorial. The center’s hopeful slogan, printed in Hebrew, Arabic and English, is “Migrating birds know no boundaries,” in contrast to the people on the ground, for whom boundaries are everything. This gives birdlife an added poignancy in Israel.

Israel is a surprisingly good place for bird-watching (half a billion birds fly through the country during migration, converging from Africa, Asia and Europe). Jeremiah noted that “the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times” and she still does — every year, 85 percent of the world’s white stork population migrates over Israel, despite the general upheaval of the world below.

A hoopoe is the hero of the Persian poet Farid al-Din Attar’s “Conference of the Birds,” a medieval allegory in which a group of birds sets out to find the king of the birds. The hoopoe is their leader, artfully persuading all the reluctant birds to come on the quest. In the end, they manage to find the king of the birds, who turns out to be God. The birds that have made it into the bird king’s presence are filled with radiant insight but they are consumed — they discover they are part of God and they are obliterated in the divine effulgence. This is a happy ending if you are a mystic but it is chilling if you are not.

Attar, a Sufi, believed that all religions are a path to God. It is part of the endless irony of history that the place where Attar once lived (and that in fact expelled him for heresy) today threatens with obliteration those nations, most especially the Jewish state, that it deems an abomination. Whether even the wisdom of King Solomon, and his magical avian emissary, can devise an answer to this threat is one of the great challenges of the coming days.

Jonathan Rosen, the editorial director of Nextbook, is the author, most recently, of “The Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature.”

/reposts from 2008/

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JStandard: My Dear Rabbi Talmudic Advice Column for August

Published in the Jewish Standard, Dear Rabbi: Your Talmudic advice column

Dear Rabbi,

My son, his wife and children have decided to make aliyah to Israel. My husband and I understand their practical and idealistic motivations for this decision. We applaud what they are doing and feel pride in their Judaic and Zionist ardor. We plan to visit them in Israel periodically, but we have no plans to move there.

At times we both admit to ourselves that we worry about them and that we will sorely miss them. What advice can you give us to help us cope with this bittersweet situation that we face?

Stuck in Bergen County
New Milford

Dear Stuck,

First, know that you are not alone. In our area, a good number of Modern Orthodox families with young children make aliyah. An underlying motive for this uprooting is the financial burden of local day school tuition. That concern combines with years of sincere devotion to the Zionist dream. Modern Orthodox education encourages pride in the miracle of the State of Israel. And many Jews simply feel a mystical attachment to the Land of Israel.

When younger couples and single college age children decide to make aliyah, that move is logistically less complex. But it also leaves parents with long distance communications challenges and airplane trips to see their offspring.

Many of our area families boast three generations of dedicated Zionists. I recall the excitement in our family when I was a young child and my grandparents announced they were making aliyah. That event took place way before such moves became more common among American Jews, when living in Israel meant making sacrifices and accepting a lower standard of living, even hardships.

Based on what I know from experience and from friends and what I sense in your inquiry, I don’t entertain the notion that you try to dissuade your children from going. Yet there are several ways to reduce the anxiety and loneliness that you fear.

First, do the travel. It’s been said for decades about the situation of American Jews, “There is no galut if you commute.” You are not fully in the exile if you make enough periodic visits to Israel. And you will feel close to your children and grandchildren as you see them progress and grow at intervals.

Next, use the technology. When my grandparents went to live in Israel, plain old telephones were a rarity and long distance calls were expensive and low-quality. Nowadays, even with the time differential, you can vividly see and interact with your Israeli family via Internet video applications such as Skype and FaceTime. Voice phone calls cost little or nothing.

Third, try to form informal social support mechanisms. You can make efforts to connect to other nearby parents and grandparents whose children have made aliyah to share concerns and, of course, to keep abreast of the best airfares and apps to use for the suggestions above.

Last, you can heed your children, when they inevitably suggest to you that you join them in their adventures, and you can make aliyah yourselves.

Dear Rabbi,

After many years of regular worship I started to pay more attention to the Alenu prayer that we recite at the end of every service. I do not understand why we say this so frequently and at the end of each synagogue session. Also, I have become uncomfortable with what I feel is the confrontational tone of the prayer and its proclamation that we are the only true faith and all other gods are worthless and powerless.

Can you help me find renewed relevant meaning in this regular recitation?

Pluralistic, not Pugilistic
Teaneck

Dear Pluralistic,

Your question draws attention to one of the great complexities of our prayer book – the different moods and motivations that flow throughout our services. One of those distinct philosophies, succinctly expressed in the Alenu, is that we are in constant competition with other faiths, that there will be an end to the contest of history, and that there will be only one winner – us.

In religious terms we refer to the “last minutes of the game” as the messianic age, the time at which we will emerge from the battles of the ages and the all the world will recognize us as the worthy people who worship the one true God.

In the services in the synagogue this theme comes to the forefront at particular times. The Alenu is famously one of the crucial liturgies in the Musaf additional service of Rosh Hashanah in the section of the Amidah that we call Malchiyot – kingship. We enthrone God on the New Year as our sovereign and we initiate our declarations of that with the Alenu.

The prayer concludes, “And the Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall the Lord be One, and his name One.”

Most of the rest of the year, and throughout our prayers, we allow other themes to dominate at the core of our services. I suspect with reasonable certainty that we are not yet at the end of time. But permit me to offer this metaphor to help explain why it makes sense to me that we conclude every service before we leave the synagogue with the not-really-inclusive, and actually somewhat combative, Alenu prayer.

I see our synagogue as our team’s locker room where we gather together at our half-time breaks. We share our diverse team talk there for a while. And when we are done, right before we go outside onto the field to resume the contest and competition in the arena of our communities, we engage in a spirited spiritual pep-talk.

We say team-like things: that we are number-one, that our God is number one, and that we will crush our opponents! In the theological language of our prayer that comes out: “We therefore hope in you, O Lord our God, that we may speedily behold the glory of your might, when you will remove the abominations from the earth, and the idols will be utterly cut off, when the world will be perfected under the kingdom of the Almighty, and all the children of flesh will call upon your name…”

Whether you see yourself as an active team player or as an avid spectator, you should be able to root heartily for your team, the Jewish People, and do so with the Alenu prayer.

Dear Rabbi,

What does it mean when you say you offer in your column “Talmudic Advice”?

Seeking answers
Fort Lee

Dear Seeking,

By saying I supply Talmudic advice I mean that I offer in my column advice only, and not halakhic rulings or decisions. And I also mean that in Talmudic fashion I try to see more than one dimension of an issue and encourage the questioner to find his or her own best solution.

The Dear Rabbi column offers timely advice based on timeless Talmudic wisdom. It aspires to be equally respectful and meaningful to all varieties and denominations of Judaism. You can find it here on the first Friday of the month. Send your questions to DearRabbi@jewishmediagroup.com

Groove with God's Favorite Prayers

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The Incredible Pebble Watch and the Free Caddie Golf App and the Pebble Bike App

I play golf, I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 android smartphone. I started to use the Free Caddie app for determining distance to the green.

The problem was that the phone is hard to see in the bright sunlight and it is awkward to keep pulling out your phone to see the distance to green.

Then I discovered that the new Pebble smart watch can connect via bluetooth to the golf app. So I bought one at Best Buy. And I opened it and played a round of golf with it. Yes - it is awesome. It works.

I love the watch and the app. The watch also receives your email and your texts and can control your music. It is shiny and red and cool.

And I discovered now that it's a bike computer too. The free Pebble Bike app works great - tracking your biking mileage and speed, average speed, altitude, ascent, ascent rate and slope (beta) - even when your phone is in the zipper bag under the seat! Nothing more to buy. Wow.

They are rare. Get one right away here at Amazon or Ebay. Or try to Get one from Best Buy.

Experience God's Favorite Prayers

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Is Ice Hockey Jewish?

I never thought of ice hockey as a Jewish sport, even when I played it as a kid in rented ice rinks at midnight or on those rare frozen winter days in central park. There simply were no Jewish professional hockey players that I knew of.

But now my friend Sharon has provided indisputable evidence that yes ice hockey is a Jewish sport (on an amateur level) with her brilliant photos from the Maccabiah in Israel.

Please purchase God's Favorite Prayers

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Caroline Kennedy: the Daring Swimmer

The Times profiled Caroline Kennedy on the occasion of her nomination as ambassador to Japan, "Caroline Kennedy, Catching the Torch".

In the article we read about a surprising facet of her life. She is an avid open water swimmer.

...A few years ago, Mr. Hughes made an offhand comment that he and his partner, Dr. Richard Friedman, a psychiatrist who directs the psychopharmacology clinic at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital, made a ritual of competing in Swim for Life, a 1.25-mile event in Provincetown, Mass, that raises money for AIDS and women's health charities. "She said, 'Oh, I'd really like to do that,' " Mr. Hughes said.

And so, Ms. Kennedy did. "She just showed up and changed in a gas station and came out and did the race," Mr. Hughes said. "It was pretty choppy, and she did a terrific job. I'm happy to say I beat her. But just barely."

Last year, Mrs. Kennedy and her daughters Tatiana and Rose joined Mr. Hughes and Mr. Friedman in Turkey for another swim, this time a 3 1/2-mile race across the Hellespont, which takes entrants from Europe to Asia.  "Lord Byron went in with a disabled leg and came in with a much faster time than we did," Mr. Hughes said. "But it was extraordinary. It was one of the most terrifying things I've ever done."

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New Yorker Cartoon: The Origin of Midrash

Hat tip to Barak.

Experience God's Favorite Prayers

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NYC Triathlon Swim: My Hudson River Diary

New York City Triathlon, July 14, 2013, 6:45 AM

Minute Zero: Coming down the ramp onto the race-start-barge in the Hudson River at 99th Street.

Goggles, check; swim cap, check; stopwatch on zero, check. Interview with the race announcer over the public address, I’m Tzvee from Teaneck, New Jersey. Yes, it’s my first triathlon; yes, I’m on a relay team.

Line up, look into the river. Fourteen other swimmers in my wave and many of them sit down on the barge and jump in at the tone. So do I. It’s four feet from the barge to the water.

Minute One: I’m in the Hudson. It’s dark. I go in much deeper than I thought I would. It’s dark all around me. This was a mistake. I need to get out.

Wow, I now finally understand the psalm, “Out of the depths I cry out to you O Lord.” I do not like this at all. I’m back to the surface. It’s choppy. My heart is racing. My chest is tight. I’m not swimming. I need to swim. But where am I? Not sure. Start to do the breast stroke. Others around me are swimming. It’s cold. What a bad idea this was.

Minute Two: Still not swimming the crawl. Wetsuit. Should have worn one. Would float better. Another real dumb decision. Still doing the breast stroke and my breathing is too shallow. Realize that I am in full panic. Adrenalin starting to pump.

I’m not gonna make it. I see tomorrow’s obituary, “Teaneck Rabbi Drowns in Hudson… He always loved swimming, family recalls.”

I pray, “Shema Yisrael.” “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.”

Okay, so how do I get out of here? I am dizzy and disoriented. Just in case, I pray some variations, “Our father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.” Oh heck, “Hail Mary full of grace.” Hey, you never know. Oh, cover those bases, “Allahu akhbar.”

Minute Three: Still floundering. Tell myself to take deeper breaths. Urge myself to start to do the crawl. You can do this! No I can’t. I will swim over to that kayak and hop on board.

“Put your head down and swim!” That tight chest feeling is just panic. Not a heart attack. You wimp, you have six stents in your coronary arteries. You will be okay. Breathe, just breathe. Stroke, just stroke.

Minute Four: I’m coming back to grips with my reality. Ha! I muse that I will call out to the lifeguard on the surfboard, “I made a pledge to the United Jewish Appeal and haven’t paid it yet.” Old joke. The UJA definitely will make sure I get out alive.

I’m swimming now but going sideways. A guy in another kayak is pointing and waving at me to go in another direction. I am zigging and zagging. I’ve been swimming nearly every day for thirty years but boy, am I sucking at this swim.

Minute Five: I’m starting to get awareness for where I am and where are the other swimmers. “How long O Lord?” I sure haven’t made much progress. A long, long way to go.

Guess I really don’t like open water swimming in the Hudson. A little late to think about that now. Okay. Just stroke, breathe, stroke, breathe.

Minute Six to the Exit: Okay wow, we are doing this. Holy moly, it is far. No turning every 25 meters at the end of the pool. Can’t see any lane markers on the bottom of the river. No plastic lane dividers to gauge the direction. I am still veering right and left. There are currents and wakes. Salty I don’t mind. But feh. It’s dirty water.

Starting to bump into other swimmers. That’s good. Seems like a very long time. Stroke, breathe. Heart is strong. Breathing is better. Panic is easing.

Seems now like forever. Finally see the exit ramp ahead at 79th Street and a crowd of swimmers in front of it. A New York moment. Traffic jam is slowing us down at the Henry Hudson River off ramp.

Get to the ramp, a strong hand grips my hand and pulls me up. I’m out! Alive. But oh crap, I never started the stop watch. And double crap, now I have to run barefoot on asphalt to the bike transition. It’s long, it’s annoying. I reluctantly jog over half a mile. Hey, I am getting happier anyway.

I give my chip to my teammate, our rally team biker. He rides off.

I am done.

Check off that one.

Halleluyah.

Rabbi Dr. Tzvee Zahavy, who lives in Teaneck and writes the monthly Dear Rabbi column for the Jewish Standard, was inspired by his triathlete son Yitzhak, who did the entire NYC triathlon and raised money to help victims of terror through Team One Family. Tzvee did the NYC Tri swim leg with help from his two Team One Family teammates, Harvey Lederman and Leiba Rimler, who did the biking and running legs.

Donate here to help the families.

Published in the Jewish Standard, July 26, 2013.

Read God's Favorite Prayers

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Trayvon and the Talmud

According to the Nation of Islam web site www.FinalCall.com you ought to blame the tragic killing of Trayvon Martin on the Jews and the Talmud. The NOI is the organization of the Hon. Elijah Muhammad, Hon. Minister Louis Farrakhan, Jabril Muhammad and Mother Tynnetta Muhammad, all known for their lifelong anti-Semitism and racism.

It is not a surprise that in the article "Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, the American Legal System and The Jewish Talmud," the "NOI Research Group" published racist anti-Jewish and anti-Talmudic assertions of the NOI.  I cite specifically these offensive anti-Talmudic statements:

In Our Saviour Has Arrived, Mr. Muhammad further identified the society to which we all belong as “the Jew’s civilization,” using the possessive form—meaning that this civilization (its culture, science, industry, and government) belongs to the Jews. So if this is “the Jew’s civilization,” then we are, in fact, under Jewish Law—which comprises the codes and statutes found in the holy book of the Jewish religion, the Talmud...

And ONLY under the Jewish Law found in their Talmud does Trayvon’s murder and George Zimmerman’s acquittal start to make perfect sense....

But Black people should take the hardest look at this book, because the very origin of race hatred and race-based slavery entered the Western mindset by way of the Jewish Talmud...

The Talmudic mentality lives in Florida and in the hearts and minds of its people and their laws...

I sent this feedback to the NOI:

I am deeply sorry about the tragedy of the violent killing of a young boy. But the Talmud had nothing to do with Zimmerman or Trayvon. Your anti-Talmudic and anti-Semitic article offends me. I urge you for the benefit of your own souls to repudiate your baseless racism and to abandon your irrational hatred of the Jews.

You can tell the NOI that you disagree with their opinions by sending feedback to them.

To end hatred and bigotry, we must never practice and spread more hatred and bigotry. We must respond with compassion, with legislation and with justice.

Talmudic Books
Kindle Talmud in English

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Is Basketball Without Yarmulkas Kosher?

In a post called, "Chief Rabbis, Basketball and Tolerance," blogger Andrew Griffel in Ops and Blogs in  The Times of Israel argues as follows.

Once upon a time long long ago Rabbi Soloveitchik told MTA orthodox high school students that they could play in Madison Square Garden with or without wearing their yarmulkas and tsitsis. It was up to them.

The chief rabbis in Israel are not as tolerant as Rabbi Soloveitchik. Therefore the chief rabbinate ought to be abolished.

We agree with the conclusion, if not with the non-linear logic of the post. And now that the office of chief rabbi has turned 100% nepotistic, the end of the institution is just around the corner. See Israel elects new chief rabbis.

Finally, consider this remarkable video of orthodox couples who are marrying in Israel outside of the regulation of the rabbinate - חתונה בלי הרבנות - הוויה - טקס ישראלי‬‎.

כתבה ביומן בערוץ 1 ביום שישי, על זוגות שמעצבים את טקס החתונה בעצמם בלי הרבנות

עוד על חתונה יהודית בלי הרבנות באתר הוויה

www.havaya.info

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Times' Frank Bruni on the Tragic Yeshiva University Sex-Abuse Scandals

There's not much I can add to this op-ed except for this. When Bruni asked Yeshiva University Rabbis Hershel Schachter and Norman Lamm for comments, he reports, "Schachter, ...didn’t respond to my request Monday for comment. Neither did Rabbi Lamm."

Both of these men continue to claim "true character" and "true leadership." Schachter likes to be called a Gadol - a great man. And yet how sad that given a chance to show character and leadership, neither of them had anything at all to say to the Times about these tragic matters.

The Faithful’s Failings
By FRANK BRUNI

The men were spiritual leaders, held up before the children around them as wise and righteous and right. So they had special access to those kids. Special sway.

And when they exploited it by sexually abusing the children, according to civil and criminal cases from different places and periods, they were protected by their lofty stations and by the caretakers of their faith. The children’s accusations were met with skepticism. The community of the faithful either couldn’t believe what had happened or didn’t want it exposed to public view: why give outsiders a fresh cause to be critical? So the unpleasantness was hushed up.

This is not a column about the Catholic Church.

This is a column about Orthodox Jews, who have recently had similar misdeeds exposed, similar cover-ups revealed.

And I’m writing it, yes, because the Catholic Church over the last two decades has absorbed the bulk of journalistic attention, my own included, in terms of child sexual abuse. There are compelling reasons that’s been so: Catholicism has more than one billion nominal adherents worldwide; endows its clerics with a degree of mysticism that many other denominations don’t; and is just centralized enough for scattered cover-ups to coalesce into something more like a conspiracy. The pattern of criminality and evasion has been staggering.

But some of the same dynamics that fed the crisis in Catholicism — an aloof patriarchy, an insularity verging on superiority, a disinclination to get secular officials involved — exist elsewhere. And the way they’ve played out in Orthodox Judaism illustrates anew that religion isn’t always the higher ground and safer harbor it purports to be. It can also be a self-preserving haven for wrongdoing.

Early this month, 19 former students of the Yeshiva University High School for Boys in Manhattan filed a lawsuit alleging sexual abuse by two rabbis in the 1970s and 1980s who continued to work there even after molestation complaints. The rabbis were also allowed to move on to new employment without ever being held accountable. School administrators, the lawsuit alleges, elected not to report anything to the police.

Rabbi Norman Lamm, the president of Yeshiva at the time, admitted as much in an interview with The Jewish Daily Forward. He said that when accusations against a faculty member were “an open-and-shut case,” he’d let the accused person “go quietly.”

Back then there was less alarm about, and understanding of, child molestation, he said. Back then he was also steering Yeshiva through grave financial hardship. A sex-abuse scandal wouldn’t have been a great fund-raising tool.

“The school made the conscious and craven decision to protect its reputation,” Kevin Mulhearn, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs, told me Monday.

Is such a defensive mind-set really a relic of a less enlightened past? Earlier this year a prominent scholar at Yeshiva University, Rabbi Hershel Schachter, was caught on audiotape at a conference in London telling Orthodox leaders that Jewish communities should set up their own review boards to evaluate any complaints of child sexual abuse and determine whether to bother with the police. This contradicts state laws on mandatory reporting for teachers, counselors, physicians and such.

Schachter further discouraged police involvement by warning that accused abusers could wind up “in a cell together with a shvartze, in a cell with a Muslim, a black Muslim who wants to kill all the Jews.” Shvartze is a harshly derogatory racial term. Yeshiva University condemned the remarks but seemingly didn’t discipline Schachter, who didn’t respond to my request Monday for comment. Neither did Rabbi Lamm.

Rabbi Schachter’s aversion to law enforcement isn’t isolated. The ultra-Orthodox group Agudath Israel of America has taken the position that observant Jews should get a green light from a rabbi before notifying police about suspected molestation. It’s precisely this sort of internal policing that the Catholic Church did so disastrously, leaving abusers unpunished and children in harm’s way.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews in particular have prioritized their image and independence over justice. They have shunned Jews who took accusations outside their communities; in fact, Charles Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney, has cited that as a reason for minimizing publicity around child sexual abuse cases among Orthodox Jews. But over the weekend he changed tacks and gave The New York Post the names of some 40 convicted people.

Community intimidation is why 17 of the 19 plaintiffs in the Yeshiva case are identified only as John Doe, said Mulhearn, their lawyer, who mentioned another insidious wrinkle reminiscent of Catholic cases.

One of the abusers, he said, used religion itself to muffle a few abused boys. The rabbi allegedly invoked the Holocaust, which their parents had survived, telling the boys not to cause mom or dad any more suffering with a public stink.

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Is the Chief Rabbi of Israel Kosher?

No, the chief rabbi of Israel is not kosher.

Increasingly Israelis are growing tired of their failed institution of the Chief Rabbi. The Times reports on the chief rabbi selection process -- regarding David Stav "currently the rabbi of Shoham" -- "Promising ‘Real Revolution,’ Israeli Jolts Race for Chief Rabbi" that the nuclear option is on the table - namely the dissolution of the institution of chief rabbi.

...All of which has made many here question the very need for the chief rabbinate, an institution with roots in the 17th-century Ottoman era that was formalized by the British in 1921. Once revered as a platform for intellectual and spiritual leadership, the $5.6 million operation, whose chiefs are paid $100,000 a year, has lately been dismissed as an anachronistic patronage farm rife with corruption.

Judaism is famously nonhierarchical, with individual rabbis worldwide having authority to interpret Jewish law for their congregations or communities, but the rabbinate and its religious courts are the only legal authorities here on family law and kosher food.

As many as one-third of Israeli couples marry abroad or live together without marrying rather than follow the rabbinate’s strictures. Jewish law requires that the husband agree to divorce, and about 3,400 women a year are denied dissolution of their marriages. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis, mostly Russian immigrants and their children, are barred from marriage and adoption because they cannot adequately prove their Jew identity; only conversions conducted by rabbinate-authorized rabbis are accepted.

“This institution has to be abolished for the sake of religion, and for the sake of the state,” said Moshe Halbertal, a professor of Jewish philosophy at Hebrew University. “Israel’s identity as a Jewish state has other much more essential components than legislating Judaism.”

We concur and observe that the crooked cannot be made straight -- the Israeli chief rabbinate is not kosher -- it should be dissolved.

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Is the Dot-Kosher Internet Domain Extension Kosher?

Some rabbis say yes; other rabbis say no.

Here's a both ironic and Talmudic kosher story to end your week from Bloomberg ("It’s Rabbi Versus Rabbi in $17 Billion Dot-Kosher Battle"). "The Internet’s organizing body, called Icann, is meeting this week in the South African port city of Durban to begin a major expansion of domain names. That may include a decision on who can operate and license “dot-kosher” as a suffix for Web addresses, the same way “dot-com” and “dot-net” are used."

When rabbis engage in a dispute like this one, well that's Talmudic:

Five organizations have banded together to oppose the sole applicant for dot-kosher, Kosher Marketing Assets, saying it seeks to profit from a sacred tradition that shouldn’t be over-commercialized. The two sides, which both are in the business of certifying food as kosher, are at odds over how Internet users will find such products in the future.

And when rabbis say obviously silly things, well that's ironic:

“We think that if the term ‘kosher,’ which has important meaning in the Jewish religion, is commercialized, it will do a disservice to how religion in general should be treated and will harm the kosher public specifically,” said Harvey Blitz, the Kashruth Commission chairman of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, one of the five groups. The New York-based organization oversees OU Kosher, the world’s largest certification agency.

Ironic here because there is no question that Kosher certification agencies have already commercialized kosher supervision.

We sure hope these rabbis work this domain dispute out.

Kosher Marketing Assets is a unit of OK Kosher Certification, a Brooklyn, New York-based competitor to OU Kosher. Rabbi Don Yoel Levy, OK Kosher’s CEO, said he never intended to control the potential domain name unilaterally and said he was open to working with the five groups -- the Orthodox Union, STAR-K Kosher Certification Inc., Chicago Rabbinical Council Inc., the Kashruth Council of Canada, and Kosher Supervision Service Inc., better known as the KOF-K.

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Times: Lap Swimming in the NYC Outdoor Public Pools

From The New York Times: "The Water's Fine, and So Is the Competition - Lasker Pool is part of the city's Lap Swim program, where outdoor swimmers can compete."

...It’s no secret that New York has outdoor public pools that are open throughout the five boroughs in July and August. What you generally find are parents and young children, and teenagers horsing around. Lesser known is the Lap Swim program, open from 7 to 8:30, a.m. and p.m. for Early Bird and Night Owl sessions. It’s a quiet, orderly affair, where adults swim laps in roped-off lanes in otherwise empty pools...

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Are personal lubricants kosher?

The Guardian reported ("Kosher lube puts oral sex on the menu for Orthodox Jews") that yes, now some personal lubricants are kosher.

The US-made Wet range of lubes now has eight lines that have been given a religious stamp of approval, including its "Ecstasy" product. This means that rabbis from the Rabbinical Council of California have inspected Wet's 52,000 sq ft production plant and researched the origins of every ingredient to check none comes from items prohibited by kosher rules...

For hundreds of years the Jewish religious establishment has been divided on whether oral sex is allowed as part of a bedroom repertoire; it's still pretty taboo for public discourse – and the rabbis who have approved the lubes haven't spelled out whom their certification will benefit. ...this is the first rabbinic innovation to help kosher oral sex. In eight flavours.

Don't know where the Guardian gets its "divided" information. Maybe from British rabbis.

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Rabbi Abraham Rosenfeld's Nachem Prayer for Tisha B'Av

Rabbi Abraham Rosenfeld's Nachem Prayer for Tisha B'Av inserted in the Amidah for Minhah.

From “The Authorised Kinot for the Ninth of Av,” London, 1979. I believe that Artscroll censored out this version in their reprinted edition. This liturgy in our view is more authentic to historical reality.

Click to expand.

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Free Kinnos Kinnot Lamentations Elucidations for Tisha B'Av

Reuven Brauner wrote to us from Raanana, Israel about his publication on the lamentations (Hebrew: kinnot or kinnos) for Tisha B'Av, "Key Notes for Kinnos." The work is available in PDF format for free downloading at http://www.halakhah.com/:

The Tisha B'Av poems of lament, the Kinnos, like all our Piyyutim and Selichos, were written in a poetic language and style containing hinted references to verses in Tanach, stories in the Talmud and Midrashim, and other historical incidents like the Crusades. They are difficult to comprehend and appreciate by even the most knowledgeable modern speaker or student of Hebrew, not to mention those who are not fluent in the Holy Tongue.

What chance is there for most of us to fully understand the depths of their messages of sadness and despair, prayer and hope?

In a modest attempt to rectify a part of this problem, I have selected a few key words and phrases from each Kinnoh and provided a flash of information regarding their definitions and references in hope that the reader will be able obtain a measure of meaning from and appreciation for what he or she is reading during the services of this day of fasting and repentance.

This work I call A Few Key Notes on Kinnos. It has been designed to be used as a sort of quick reference guide and companion volume in conjunction with a proper Sefer Kinnos.

I have also added some brief prefatory remarks regarding the authors of the various Kinnos, and some other background material of interest.

The information in this monograph is based primarily on the work on the Kinnos of the great liturgical researcher and scholar, the late Dr. Daniel Goldschmidt, his footnotes and comments, which was published by Mossad Harav Kook and which I highly recommend.

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The Parable of the Rabbi Who Thinks He's a Cop

New York Magazine has and article that seems to me to be a perfect parable (Beware the Bipolar Rabbi Trying to Pull Over City Drivers by Delia Paunescu).

Actual news story that serves as a parable:

It seems impersonating a police officer isn’t just a recent problem in Queens. As the Associated Press discovered, it’s been a busy summer for Alfredo Borodowski, a city rabbi who’s suspected of trying to pull over other drivers who raise his ire by cutting him off or generally driving too slowly. Though Borodowski has only been arrested once for using a “Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority Officer 1338” badge — one authorities have called “totally fake” and which you can see in action here — the rabbi may have been behind at least two other cases around New York City going as far back as April.

PR consultant Peter Moses recognized the rabbi on the local news and realized he’d had a similar interaction with Borodowski between Scarsdale and White Plains:
"He's shouting, 'I'm a police officer, pull over' and he's got this little badge that he's waving at us. I told my wife, 'That's not a police officer.’ Then he's out of his car and he's screaming, 'I can arrest you! I can have you arrested!' I said, 'Fine, call the police,' then he storms back to his car and drives off."

While Borodowski was reportedly fired from his position at Manhattan’s Temple Emanu-El, he remains on staff at Congregation Sulam Yaakov in Larchmont, which said of their rabbi, "No comment. That's his personal life."

Moses added that he and his wife, who was present during the attempted pull-over back in May, want “the rabbi to get the emotional help he so obviously needs.” On that note, Borodowski’s lawyer acknowledged the rabbi's "manic" behavior, for which he has previously been hospitalized, saying that his client suffers from bipolar disorder and is expected to plead not guilty in court this week.

Interpretation:

Lately we've noticed that more than one rabbi thinks he's a cop. In fact, as we all know, Rabbis are supposed to be teachers, not cops. Moses' response to the manic rabbi is emblematic of how a person should respond to any rabbi who steps out of his proper professional role.

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Team One Family Triathlon Special: Free Kindle Book: God's Favorite Prayers

I swam in the Hudson on a rally team with Team One Family in the NYC Tri this Sunday. Yitz did the whole tri.

So here is my Triathlon Offer: God's Favorite Prayers
Free Kindle Book from now until Sunday Night July 14.

Make a contribution to Team One Family to sponsor Yitz to help victims of terror.

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Dear Rabbi Swims in Hudson River on a Triathlon Relay Team

It happened on Sunday, July 14! We did it!

And believe me - it was tough!

Update: Yitz's dad (that's me) swam 1500 meters in the Hudson as part of a relay for Team One with teammates Harvey (bike) and Leiba (run).

Yitz completed all three legs of the tri in excellent time.

Yitzhak Zahavy's Team One Family Fundraising Triathlon Event. Help Celebrate Three Lives with Three Sports.

Yitz Tells What Happened
On October 27, 2002 my platoon in the IDF was attacked by a hamas suicide bomber outside the city of Ariel. Three soldiers, Amihud Hasid, Tamir Masad and Matan Zagron, where killed saving my life and the lives of my fellow soldiers. The One Family Fund is helping their families cope with the difficulties of life without their loved ones.



New York City Triathlon July 14
To celebrate the lives of the three brave Israeli soldiers who saved my life, I will compete in the NYC Triathlon. I will swim, bike and run to raise money for their families and for other families who lost their loved ones to acts of terror.
Helping Out
Please help support victims of terror and their families by donating as much as your can. Please donate.
Check out the story about my fundraising efforts  in the Jewish Standard.
My Goal
This year my goal is to raise $3600, that is $1200 for each man who saved my life.
The One Family Fund
The One Family Fund is at the side of Israel's terror victims – be they civilians or soldiers- from the moment of an attack through the many years of recovery. OneFamily provides victims and their families with the emotional, financial, legal and material assistance they need to rebuild their shattered lives. Through hospital visits, camps, retreats, holiday programs and one-on-one assistance, OneFamily is helping more than 2400 families.

Pledge / Donate

Thank you for your generous help.

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The Tie Rule is Bad and the Jacket Rule is More Nonsensical

We stirred up quite a controversy with our "Dear Rabbi" column where we offered advice regarding a rule requiring the wearing of a necktie in a local synagogue on the Sabbath in order to receive an aliyah - a Torah honor.

A local synagogue which has such a rule took this as a direct criticism and published an odd rebuttal letter in its bulletin, sent out to all its members. (Yediot Yeshurun, see the scans to the right.)

The synagogue action was strange because (a) they did not publish the original question and my answer, just the rebuttal; (b) they did not mention my name as author of the column; and (c) they did not identify by name the newspaper in which it appeared.

The shul bulletin called me "the columnist" and referred to a "local Jewish newspaper". As I understand the rules and norms of civility, the distributors of a communal bulletin are obliged by professional standards and by common courtesy and fairness to publish in their synagogue bulletin my original article under my name as the original author (Rabbi Dr Tzvee Zahavy) and to list the place of original publication, the Jewish Standard. It is clear that the synagogue has different norms.

The necktie controversy continues this week with this letter from a Rabbi Dr. Wallace Greene to the Jewish Standard.

The mark of a competent rabbinic authority is his/her capacity to seek the advice of another rabbinic authority in cases where the law may not be black and white since it is impossible to master the entire corpus of halakhic literature and keep up with all the responsa (“Dear Rabbi,” June 7). The current brouhaha over wearing ties on Shabbat ought not to be flippantly dismissed. Nor should a synagogue’s right to maintain certain standards be cavalierly denigrated. In fact, synagogue ordinances regarding how Jews ought to dress have a distinguished literary history. In addition, the spring 2013 issue of the “Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society” contains a detailed essay called “Casual Saturday? Dressing Down for Shabbat,” which makes the case, based on clear halachic guidelines, for wearing a jacket and tie on Shabbat.

Rabbi Dr. Wallace Greene
Fair Lawn

Greene misstates and wrongly characterizes the following.

My "Talmudic Advice" column does not purport to be a halakhic decision column. There is no "brouhaha over wearing ties on Shabbat." The question under discussion was addressed to a rule requiring a man to wear a tie to receive an aliyah. There was no flippant dismissal or cavalier denigration of synagogue standards or ordinances. There was no intent to review the "distinguished literary history" (whatever that means) of dress ordinances.

So again this Q and A was not about generally "wearing a jacket and tie on Shabbat." It was about a mean-spirited shul constantly denying without exception a Torah honor over a period of many years to one member who does not ever wear a tie.

Distorting and re-framing my question to "rebut" it and to cast aspersions on me because he does not agree with my advice is not Talmudic -- and well that surely is not the mark of "a competent halakhic authority." It's a rhetorical dirty trick. I am quite disappointed in Rabbi Dr. Greene for doing just that.

It is a shame that nonsensical petty rules in shuls are used under the guise of "halakhah" to "flippantly dismiss" and "cavalierly denigrate" the sensibilities and preferences of honorable and respectable members of a community and that there is so little empathy for that in our local rabbinic community.

But wait. One more thing. That reference by Rabbi Dr. Greene to "a detailed essay" should read as follows, because he wrote the article that he cites:

In addition, in the spring 2013 issue of the “Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society” I published a detailed essay called “Casual Saturday? Dressing Down for Shabbat,” in which I make the case, based on clear halachic guidelines, for wearing a jacket and tie on Shabbat.

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Former Students File $380 Million Sex Abuse Lawsuit against Yeshiva University

This is a sad story about the school that I attended for eleven years, from high school through rabbinical school.

An attorney in New York has filed suit against Yeshiva University on behalf of a group of students who were sexually abused while attending the school.

The Forward newspaper reported on this legal filing, "Former Y.U. High School Students File $380M Suit Claiming Sex Abuse Cover-Up".

The 148 page legal filing is detailed and graphic and, as I read it, quite compelling. It can be read below.

Lawsuit filed by former Yeshiva University High School Students against Y.U.

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