Halacha L'Maaseh for Gosse

According to Gosse and his supporters, do human remains which are dated as older than 6000 years convey tuma'as meis? Since they were just created as remains and never lived, I would assume the answer is no. This has practical ramifications for Kohanim who wish to visit museums containing prehistoric human remains.

If they do in fact convey tuma'as meis, what about other hominid species such as neanderthals?


JD and MD

Yated MD: Paging Dr. Yechiel Sever

The Yated Ne'eman's Yechiel Sever reports that a Beit Shemesh community has recently "started operating a bilirubinometer," sparing parents the need to take their children to Jerusalem to have such testing performed.

According to ace reporter Sever:

"The test is performed on babies suspected of having hepatitis, which is relatively common among newborns."

Lest any people rely on the Yated for medical advice (and unfortunately, I do not doubt the existence of many such pious idiots), it should be reiterated that hepatitis is not common (relatively or otherwise) among newborns.

Yechiel Sever is presumably referring to neonatal jaundice, which in most newborns is decidedly unrelated to hepatitis.

In other infant news, according to a peer-reviewed article in Pediatrics, the following can actually cause neonatal herpes infections: metzitzah b'peh.

J."you don't need an MD to use Wikipedia" D.

Rabbi Oliver on the Infallibility of the Rebbe

A Chossid accepts the words of his Rebbe fully and unconditionally with pure emunas Tzadikim as emes la'amitoi (the absolute truth). If he is indeed a Chossid, he has not the slightest shadow of doubt that what he is told by his Rebbe is Shechina medaberes mi'toch grono of the Rebbe. Does he understand what his Rebbe says? Not necessarily. But his approach is not predicated upon intellect, but upon emunah.

Thus it is out of the question for him to "second-guess" his Rebbe, G-d forbid, and decide that he knows better in some case. Not that he can't try to understand why his Rebbe would have told him as he did; on the contrary, he can and he should. But even if he doesn't understand, he accepts and obeys regardless because of his pure emunah that Hashem is speaking to him through his Rebbe.

Comments, anyone?

Chabad's Trilemma

It is good to see that "Lord, Liar, Lunatic" is alive and well in Crown Heights.

Rabbi Yehoishophot Oliver writes as follows:

Think about it. A person comes to the Rebbe. It’s an emergency. Should he follow the doctor’s advice to operate on his child. Rebbe, I’m asking for your berocho. I’m relying on you.

Anyone who could even dare to open his mouth to answer this question is one of two things:

1. A megalomaniac, someone so power-hungry and giddy with excitement at the adulation that he receives that he can ignore the safety of the child that common sense says should be left in the doctor’s expert hands.

2. A truly holy person, one with intimate connections to deeper spiritual realities, who knows full well what responsibility he takes, and does so nevertheless because he is one hundred percent sure, according to the “connections” he has on High, that this is what is correct. To paraphrase Chaim Fogelman, “he saw it with his eyes.”

Even without the concept of emunah in Tzaddikim because Torah tells us so—just from a purely logical perspective—there is no third possibility. If the person is not aware of what he is doing, or imagines that he is aware when in fact he isn’t, then by definition he is a megalomaniac.

J.D.

Better Let Rabbi Falk Say It

Rabbi Falk on why his books should be burned:

"In general, it must be understood that there are very different standards of Yiddishkeit... Therefore, singular 'streamlined advice' that is disseminated to the wide Jewish public is likely to be badly flawed and must be treated with suspicion and misgiving."

(Choson and Kallah During Their Engagement, pp 117-118)

J.D.

Rabbi Falk: Check Lettuce for Bugs, Books for Illustrated Genitalia

From Rabbi Yehoshua Falk's Oz Vehadar Levushah (available free online here), via Josh Waxman's Parsha blog:



On Sundays, Rabbi Falk can be found ministering at the venerable parish of St. Loony up the Cream Bun and Jam.

J.D.

M.D. on Yechezkel Hirshman

Yechezkel Hirshman, defending the Chareidi thugs who beat Mrs. Miriam Shear for not sitting at the back of the bus, writes that Mrs. Shear is no Orthodox Rosa Parks. In an imaginary dialogue between God and Mrs. Shear upon her death and arrival at the Pearly Gates (!!!), Hirshman writes:

You have no idea what Rosa Parks felt. She was the victim of discrimination.

Rosa Parks was relegated to the back of the bus when any white woman could sit wherever she wants. Why should one woman be able to sit wherever she wants and another woman needs to sit in the back of the bus? But you were entitled to sit where any other woman was entitled to sit. In my eyes, all women are created equal. Nobody was discriminating against you. Any other woman would have been ushered to the back if she sat where you sat except that most of them do not need to be told.

M.D. comments:

This post is disgusting - I agree with anonymous, it oozes condescension and presumptuousness.

But to discuss a few specific points, let me paraphrase what you said.

An answer to Rosa Parks:

Why should one Jew be able to sit wherever she wants and another Jew needs to sit in the back of the bus? But you were entitled to sit where any other black person was entitled to sit. In my eyes, all blacks are created equal. Nobody was discriminating against you. Any other black would have been ushered to the back if she sat where you sat except that most of them do not need to be told.

More on Hirshman to come...

A Thoughtful and Mature Response: Pravda Ne'eman's Commentors Are Dumb Bitches

A Secular Jew addresses the esteemed Haloscan-dwellers of Pravda Ne'eman. Truly precious:

So what happened was I posted on Pravda Ne'eman's site under the guest post of my response that if there's one more dumb ass comment I am going to satirize these mother @*!#ers. Pravda Ne'eman's editors were *&%$es so my warning post did not make it past comment moderation.

Before I deal with ripping the commentors to shreds, it is helpful for you to actually read the comments at http://www.chareidi.com/2008/08/secular-jew-responds.html for the sake of providing context and thus a fuller understanding of my post.

The commentors to the thread with my guest post are as follows:

Sam = Moron. Does not understand highly common colloquial speech.

Doughboy = Moron. Mistakes highly common colloquial speech for actual serious accusations. Further, J.D.'s actions really was sleazy (the spelling as sleezy brings up 707,000 hits on Google).

R2D2 = he's a special case, probably a definitearticlephiliac. This guy is obsessed with the word "the." On the welcome mat of his house, it does not say "WELCOME;" it says, "THE." As a career, R2D2 is going to be the New York Times' "The" Detective who is going to bravely surf the internet to find instances of using the name New York Times with out the word "THE" and then boldly correcting the egregious error. Next, he is going to be the United States' ambassador to Russia where he will introduce the definite article into Russian grammar and then he will be hailed as a hero throughout the Russian Federation.

R2D2 is not going to stop there. R2D2 is going to want to be fair to the indefinite article, s0 he is going to go to middle eastern countries, both arab and the 1 jewish state, to demand that Arabic and Hebrew gives the indefinite article equal treatment. This commitment to the definite article and fairness to the indefinite article is going to make R2D2 a shining example for many generations to come to those who would plot unfairness throughout the world.

R2D2 (in reality) = Moron.

Then there is patrilineal jew who takes the most trivial spelling errors and turns them into cardinal sins. He'd be a great orthodox jew.

Second to last (at the time of this writing) is Freethinking Upstart. Freethinking Upstart is a whiny bitch ass who is trying to not be a parrot of everything that rabbis told him, but from the way he argued with me on my blog, this loser can't help himself.

Lastly (at the time of this writing) is Baruch Pelta. Baruch was incredibly impressed that all J.D. had to do was post my response on his blog, and the parrots of the rabbis automatically started bashing it, (trivial spelling errors instead of actual points that I bring up). This guy is a Baal Tshuva and a lover of history, which of course means he was moving his bowels while the history teacher was giving a lesson on primary and secondary sources, and why oral traditions are not equally reliable with written traditions.

In conclusion, Pravada Ne'eman, your commentors suck.

"A Secular Jew" Responds

Unedited from SJ's post entitled: Pravda Ne'eman says 'Defamation is Cool'

Ok so this smart ass editor of the blog Pravda Ne'eman with a J.D. degree, who calls himself J.D., has defamed me by trying to say on their blog that I am motivated by being rejected by an orthodox girl by quoting that post I made about the girl who was pissy with me. I was never even interested in that girl.

Before that he speaks about putting "links to my blog on other people's blogs as if it was a cardinal sin of blogging so to speak, which is ridiculous. This wierd woman put a link to her blog on my blog and I didn't cry like a little bitch the way J.D. did in his post.

After that JD mentions my blog when I said "WE [ORTHODOX JEWS] ARE NOT TOO STRICT! THE TALMUD IS ONLY 5,422 PAGES LONG!!!" And when JD tried to make it like the talmud's size is no big deal by trying to compare it to American law, JD makes the logical error of comparing a legal code in a religion that's meant to regulate every aspect of a person's life to a legal code in a free society.

Then J.D. said, "First of all, it is worth noting that SJ seems to feel that such trivialities as spelling, grammar and punctuation are for the birds. Fine. But he also seems to feel similarly about clear thinking and reasoning," and a commentor on the thread in JD's blog said referring to me, "he uses language and grammar that is reasonably sophisticated."

It seems that J.D. is a snob who feels that anything that is not written New York Times quality is automatically not worth reading. Since my blog is just my opinion I don't feel a need to proofread every last punctuation mark. Further, its not even a professional blog, its just my opinion and I do feel that I make my point articulately enough.

Another point is that J.D. bashed me for saying "Let us presume that God intended Judaism to be a Judaism that the majority of jews can follow with minimum difficulty. Let us presume that God intended Judaism to be a Judaism that the majority of jews can follow with minimum difficulty. any more difficulty beyond the minimum would be self flagellation and self flagellation is retarded." Well what kind of religion do you want, one that only a minimum of Jews can do with a maximum of difficulty?

So to conclude this post allow me to say what in fact motivates me to blog, the insane rules that orthodox judaism has, and the lack of being able to disagree in orthodox judaism and still be apart of the community. If orthodox judaism succeeds in being the only possible sect of judaism out there, the jewish people will be a fascist state in the midst of a free country. I am not on a mission to save the jews from self inflicted fascism, but merely to voice my opinion and ridicule all the crap that's going on.

So by the way, mr. faggot religious lawyer, i expect my apology for your defamation of me in your blog (of course none is going to come). I think I pretty much established in my previous post that the only thing worse than a sleezy lawyer is a sleezy orthodox lawyer.

The Toby-Katz-Inspired Approach to Domestic Violence

In honor of Toby's unprecedented tantrum on Cross Currents:

In all the articles and comments about whether wives are not abused by their husbands, one major factor I haven’t seen mentioned is the character of the individual wife. I know a woman who is a sweet, outgoing, pleasant, talented, easy-going person, and she finds her husband to be delightful and wonderful. He is good, warm, intelligent, altogether admirable. I know another woman who is sour, dour, prickly and altogether a difficult person, and she finds that her husband is cold, unwelcoming, uncaring, and smacks her around from time to time. And both of these women formed their impressions while married to the same man! Fancy that.

...

To clarify:

My point about how husbands act was not “A wife should put on a false smile, and overlook all the crockery that her husband throws her way.” It was, “If you are nice to other people, they will be nice to you.” This is a worthwhile lesson for everyone to learn, not only abused women.

...

OMG!!! WTH!!!! Can't you people get it straight?!?!

It is astonishing to me that people find such difficulty simply reading the words on a page (or on the screen). Three quarters of the comments here would have been rendered entirely moot had people simply READ my opening sentence. Here it is. Read it. It answers all criticisms:

–begin quote–
In all the articles and comments about whether wives are not abused by their husbands, one major factor I haven’t seen mentioned is the character of the individual wife.
–end quote–

OK, for you dyslexics out there, let’s read this slowly and carefully. Did you get that phrase “one major factor”? Let’s look at it again. *ONE* major factor.

And did you get that bit about “In all the articles and comments…..”? Huh? Huh? See, that means “There have been a LOT OF ARTICLES AND COMMENTS and they raised a lot of points and I don’t have to rehash EVERY SINGLE POINT EVERYONE EVER MADE before I can add one more comment of my own!”

I just wanted to add ONE factor, one factor that nobody else mentioned. I did not want to, and did not need to, repeat what everybody else has already hashed and rehashed ad infinitum, about everything that is wrong with men, especially abusive men. It’s coming out of my ears already. Got that? OK everybody now go away, all this negativity is totally getting on my nerves.

Man, I love being a moderator here on X-Currents. No one else would get away with a post like this...

...

Actually, one more things, you lousy good-for-nothings...

Mrs Fleece, you wrote: “…in concert with intellectual honesty, the 2 examples you cite hardly constitute a scientific poll”

That’s an incredibly insulting and condescending remark. Did I claim it was a scientific poll? Do I have to cite footnotes and sources, before I can write one paragraph on a blog?!

You then wrote:

“As an example: For over a year I was married to a nice man. I was very nice to him, too. Every Erev Shabbat he brought me roses… And then, when he was in a bad mood, everything changed, and he broke my nose.”

How ironic! You made your point — by bringing an example!

Possibly you yourself realized that the pot was calling the kettle black, because you quickly added, “I have far more anecdotes.”

Well, guess what? So do I. And I'm the moderator. So I can post as many as I want. And you can't. So ha!

< flounces away petulantly >

M.D.