kvetch \KVECH\, intransitive verb: To complain habitually. noun: 1. A complaint 2. A habitual complainer.

For a tenth man for your minyan, is it better to free a slave or build a golem?

When you are in the Dark Light, you simply ignore so much of the strange buzz flying around the edges of the superstitious and silly haredi communal mindset. Only later does it become clear that this absolute fundamentalist nonsense is coming from the top. As Shmarya likes to quote that old Yiddish saying, “The fish stinks from the head.”

Anyway, never mind what I think. Clearly the Talmud is always true and absolutely literal. Let’s take a look at this week’s Talmudic lesson from Dark Light, on the choice between getting your 10th man for a minyan from a slave you free, or through making a golem.

Rabbi Weinbach, the “dean” of Ohr Somayach, writes,

There were only nine Jews in the synagogue without a tenth man in sight to complete the minyan-quorum necessary for communal prayers. Rabbi Eliezer deemed the situation an emergency and liberated his Canaanite slave to complete the minyan.

How could he do so, asks the gemara, when it is forbidden to liberate such a slave, in accordance with the Torah command “You shall enslave them forever” (Vayikra 25:46)? The answer given in our gemara is that this ban does not apply when the slave is liberated for the sake of fulfilling a mitzvah. (In Mesechta Berachot 47b this answer is challenged on the grounds that you cannot fulfill a mitzvah through the committing of a sin, and the response is that a mitzvah of communal nature has a special status.)

The question has been raised as to why it was necessary for Rabbi Eliezer to come into conflict with the ban on liberating slaves in order to complete his minyan if he could simply have created a tenth man? The Talmudic sages certainly had the power to do so as is evident from the incident described in Mesechta Sanhedrin (65b). The Sage Rava created a man by using the mystical formula in “Sefer Hayetzira” and sent his creation to his colleague Rabbi Zeira. When the latter spoke to this creature and received no response he realized that this was a man-made man with no soul and the power of speech that goes with it. He therefore ordered it to return to its dust.

If Rabbi Eliezer preferred liberating his slave to making a man, it would seem that this is proof that a man-made man is not considered a Jew who can complete a minyan. What is interesting, however, is that the question of whether such a creature (commonly referred to as a “golem”) is eligible for inclusion in a minyan was actually dealt with some three centuries ago by Rabbi Tzvi Ashkenazi in his Responsa of Chacham Tzvi (93). He concludes that even though there is an argument to be made that since the creations of tzaddikim are considered as their offspring and therefore the golem should be considered a Jew, the aforementioned incident of Rabbi Zeira consigning Rava’s golem to the dust bin proves that such a creature cannot be included in a minyan. His reasoning is that Rabbi Zeira decided that the speechless creature had no value and if he was capable of completing a minyan he would not have so readily disposed of him.

Rabbi Mendel Weinbach is unreal, and so is the haredi world he recruits for. And they become so infuriated when you say they have a “medieval” mentality.

If this is “Torah true Judaism,” we don’t want any.

While I do not believe there is any particularly good reason at this time in history for a Diaspora Jew to feel obligated to pack up and relocate to Israel…never the less, I think it is a good thing that Nefesh B’ Nefesh is there to help them if that’s what they want. I think any organization that helps nice young people like Danielle (and even not so nice and not so young people like Aussie Dave!) achieve their dreams is doing a good thing.

Even for only a “half-hearted defense of AptriProcessors,” this is absurd.

Tamar Fox writes that,

We should also not forget ways in which the Rubashkins have been generous in the past. This includes donating kosher meat to various Jewish institutions, and exporting members of their small community to even smaller communities that otherwise wouldn’t have had a minyan for the High Holidays.

With all due respect, WHO CARES?!? If they would export their minyan back to Russia (for good) then the American Jewish community should be grateful.

Rubashkin — just another post-war haredi success story.

The Gedoylim Offer Salvation!

One of the many things not taught either in liberal Judaism or Modern “Orthodoxy” (Remember! A little Torah is sometimes worse than no Torah!) is to trust the Great Ones to protect you from spiritually damaging information. This is a popular concept in right-wing ultra-Orthodoxy. So popular, in fact, that a post on this very subject is touted as the most popular editorial ever online for the haredi Dei’ah V’ Dibur, which has strong ties apparently to the Israeli Yated Ne’eman.

In “Why We Censor,” DVD notes,

Yet the spirit of the Western world, in its media, in its science, in its art, in its politics, is a challenge to the authentic Torah spirit from the floor to the rafters.

Learn this. It says it all. This is the Harediban mentality.

What is their solution?

FOLLOW THE GEDOYLIM!

Whoever wants to, is free to go it alone. He or she can plunge in to the treacherous waters of the modern world alone, and try to reach the truth heroically alone. It is a big task for an individual.

The rest of us will take shelter under the banner of gedolei Yisroel. As in the generation of Chanukah, so too in our generation — the gedolei veziknei hador cry out to us all: Mi laSheim eilai!

Whoever wants to reach Hashem should join them!

When even the staid AP newswire starts making quips at Big Aish’s expense, well, you know their inappropriate behavior is pretty blatant.

The AP writes about Big Aish’s “café” that,

AishCafe’s flashy Web presence makes it look more like a gambling site than the religious experience it is.

There are interactive animations, clickable icons and even a mock iPhone to lure in Jewish college students. And, like gambling, it could pay to play.

Check out the British woman speaking on the site as well.

These people are in the wrong business.

It isn’t anything we don’t already know, but, the NY Times reports,

Roubini argues that most of the losses from this bad debt have yet to be written off, and the toll from bad commercial real estate loans alone may help send hundreds of local banks into the arms of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. “A good third of the regional banks won’t make it,” he predicted. In turn, these bailouts will add hundreds of billions of dollars to an already gargantuan federal debt, and someone, somewhere, is going to have to finance that debt, along with all the other debt accumulated by consumers and corporations. “Our biggest financiers are China, Russia and the gulf states,” Roubini noted. “These are rivals, not allies.”

The United States, Roubini went on, will likely muddle through the crisis but will emerge from it a different nation, with a different place in the world. “Once you run current-account deficits, you depend on the kindness of strangers,” he said, pausing to let out a resigned sigh. “This might be the beginning of the end of the American empire.”

Isn’t it only a matter of time before we face at least galloping inflation from the conditions we have created? When we talk about impeaching Bush, Republicans roll their eyes like we are far-Leftists. But one day they will wish they had done just that. They will wish they had removed this maniac while he was still in office, in order to escape being tarnished by the horrific damage he did to this country for decades to come.

A Chassidic man and six other men are facing indictments for beating the shit out of a woman and threatening to kill her for refusing to move out of the community after leaving ultra-Orthodoxy, and for talking to men.

While the right-wing ultra-Orthodox ban careers and secular education, apparently, Baruch HaGedoylim, there is money to be made in brutalizing women. The ringleader of this modesty vigilante was apparently paid $2,000 for his role in this vicious beating.

What neighborhood does this modesty vigilante group feel comfortable attacking woman and threatening her to leave?

Maalot Dafna. Home of the Dark Light.

All the haredi leaders in the vicinity connected in any way to these Harediban criminals should be asked to publicly condemn the violence that took place. If they do not, all institutions they are connected to should be asked to disassociate from these rabbis. If the institutions refuse, then the yeshivas, synagogues and day schools they are connected to should be bulldozed.

Hat tip: NCG

Hopefully, management will take control of these crazed penguins, but the truth is, you know you are hitting home when the frummies start violating Godwin’s Law. I suspect a lot of them are Chabadniks, because, 1) The Rubashkins of Agriprocessors are a Chabad affiliated and supported business, and 2) Chabadniks are notoriously thin-skinned when it comes to criticism. Big Aish and of course, OU types simply don’t behave this way unless they are very young. Even Dark Light type fundies don’t act like this. They just scream about how Evolution is a scam and we can’t understand the reasoning behind some stupid, stupid new Gedolylim ban because WE AREN’T ON THEIR MEDREGAH!!!! Idiots. Anyway, I wrote the following:

Listen up, penguins. Some of us came here way before you people, when you were still shlugging kaparos (oh, right, you still do that, sorry) and cursing the “treife medinah.” And OUR ancestors fought hard for workers rights and conditions, so if you think we are going to shut up because you call us “Nazis,” well, you are in for a rude shock.

We will gladly end the supply of kashrut rather than allow these shenanigans to continue in the name of kashrut. Got it?

So why not just clean up your act?

For those of you confused by all the commotion, it’s pretty simple. I got upset about the disproportionate frum presence at the upcoming Heimesh B’ Heimesh Blogger Convention, and it was picked up by others, and Haaretz wrote about it. Then all hell broke loose.

Aussie Dave felt that Failed Messiah should not have been invited because he is an “anti-Judaism blogger.”

After defending the choice to exclude those outside of this narrow band of frum, Aussie Dave insists no such exclusion took place in any way, and insisted that the fact that “Anyone can register” is proof that the convention is ecumenical. But…there were no claims that people couldn’t register if they weren’t Kookniks…anyone can register for the Agudah convention on Thanksgiving weekend also…but that doesn’t make it a general Jewish convention, now, does it?

ck of Jewlicious is trying to heal the warring camps, but peace is so not happening. Frankly, the Left-wing Modern Orthodox should just move out of the way and let these white hats reveal how exclusive and arrogant they truly are.

The Muqata, who judging by his anger, perhaps misinterpreted my constructive comments about his dork graphic takes some obvious shots, writing,

There are blogs that harp almost exclusively on many issues that plague the Jewish and Israeli world. Be it bashing Rubashkins, exposing dangers to the Jewish community from within, or kvetching in general.

In case you missed it, let’s try one more oh-so-subtle-dig (you know how subtle the frum are),

To build a readership one needs a lot more than negativity. To interact with the JBlogosphere, no one wants to see a mega-kvetcher.

Of course this dude is friends with Ezzie and is going to the Beyond BT shabbaton.

Looking forward to seeing you at the JBlogger Convention next week (you can view it via the web as well), or at the SerandEz/BeyondBT melaveh malka on Motzei Shabbat in Queens.

You know, why don’t they just call the Beyond BT shabbaton The First International Jewish Weekend Ever since it’s pretty much the same as the Nefesh to Nefesh convention?

To clarify what should be obvious but what Ezzie’s pack of heimeshes fail to comprehend, I am not upset I wasn’t invited to be a panelist. Shmarya isn’t upset he wasn’t invited to be a panelist. We are upset that you chose a very ecumenical name when you are catering (pandering?) to a predominantly religious-Zionist based community. That is the issue. Address it, or shut your traps. No one actually cares about the content of this lame-o excuse for a blogger convention. The only thing that is of interest is how you misrepresented it. This is much more interesting than anything else that will come out of it.

…that Shamrya and I were cited in the New Vilna Review in the article, “Is There an Orthodox War Against Modern Orthodoxy?.”

This is a Boston-based publication, and I suspect the name is in part a deferential reference to the Vilna Shul in Boston as much as the “Jerusalem of Lithuania.”