rebdoniel

It may even be worse than stealing from a Yid; see Hoshen Mishpat 348:2; Kitzur S”A 182:1 and the Ben Ish Hai on Ki Tetze.

The Tosefta, Bava Kamma 10, says that if a yid cheats or steals from a goy and is murdered, his death provides no kappara because of the hillul HaShem and damage the yid caused.

Liberation Theology is to be found right in the Torah itself.

We do express a preferential option for the poor, and the Gra believed that wisdom resides among the poor.

Tehillim 37:11 says that the poor will inherit the earth, and Sukkah 29b says that among the 4 things for which someone’s property should be confiscated are gasut haruach and mistreatment of the poor, and the pasul from tehilim is there cited.

Immediately following this is a discussion of lulav hagazul.

This indicates that we hold ethics and social justice in high regard, right alongside ritual obligations.

PBA,

Regarding the bimah, there are quite a few Sephardi poskim who would disagree with that.

Synagogue architecture was polemicized in the wake of Reform by those who claimed hadash assur min hatorah, to which I’d reply, ein chiddush gadol mi zeh.

It depends on the nature and scope of the illness.

A Choleh she’ain bo sakanah is allowed to take such medicine Aino reuii leachila adam or She’lo ki’derech achila

Cough syrup is derech achila.

Therefore, what I would do if I got sick would be take each teaspoon of cough syrup and mix it with 2 oz. of water or juice. You are allowed to be mevatel a safek issur, which is what the cough syrup is.

Why would a medication need a hechsher?

I never ate sturgeon or swordfish, and I am not fully aware of the scientific facts.

R’ Soloveitchik, it seems, held like the Knesset haGedolah. Italian and Moroccan Jews have a clear mesorah to eat it.

Holding like Rav Soloveitchik hardly makes one a clown.

And, I think there are very few people out there who hold like one rav on all things. The Rav urged his talmidim to think for themselves, which is why I doubt any of his talmidim eat Kraft Cheese (certainly not Rabbi Avi Weiss, shlita).

The Rav believed in land for peace; I think this is a flawed argument halakhically. Yet, the Rov also had many unconventional chumros and frankly, some leniencies that I don’t chap. Rav Schachter himself says this.

I would be the first to say that a chutznik in Israel needs to keep 2 days of yom tov, yet the Rav said they should keep a day and a half. His talmidim put up an eruv in Teaneck, which is not kosher. And he also allowed dairy bread without a heker (he said that the dairy hechsher on the bag is a heker), which goes against the Gemara.

I don’t claim to slavishly follow any one authority. I follow a rational and reasonable reading of the halakha, in line with the intended meaning of Hazal and its codification in the Rambam and Shulchan Aruch.

You know that what I said about mechitza is perfectly logical.

Is logic and the use of facts against your weltanschauung?

PBA,

Why don’t you deal with the substantial arguments I make?

I made a typo. I personally wouldn’t eat sturgeon or swordfish, including their roe. If you read that sentence in its entirety and the logical structure, you’d see that I meant to write we don’t eat sturgeon caviar BUT:

The Noda biYehuda pasqened that sturgeon was kosher (Mahadura Tinyana YD #28), even though they tried censoring this.

And the Kenesset haGedolah pasqened that swordfish was kosher, and Rav Hershel Schachter has eaten it.

Ii never had ketchup on a latke, but Ii do like ketchup on hash browns.

YCT grads don’t get many senior rabbi positions at all. They mostly go into Hillel, hinukh at Pluralistic or community day schools, nonprofit work, chaplaincy, counseling, etc.

PBA:

Professor Jonathan Sarna authored that historical study very recently. It is based on what Orthodox institutional practices were at the time.

Granted, times have changed, but we also cannot be revisionists. And, prior to R’ Moshe Feinstein and Rav Soloveitchik, who were very homiletic and polemical in their respective arguments on the issue of mehitza due to the height of Orthodox//Conservative competition in the 1950s (at that time, there was still little which divided the 2, since many American Orthodox Jews were exceptionally lenient then, and many ignored certain halakhot, and the Conservative movement then was rather frum), there was no mention of mechitza being a requirement, let alone something d’oraita, in any literature of the rishonim or acharonim.

In fact, the Igros Moshe’s argument derives the fact that mechitza is a chiyuv from Divrei haYamim, which violates a klal psak- we don’t derive halakha from sifrei Nach. Karaites do that, whereas Chagigah 10b tells us that this is not how we deduce halakha.

Furthermore, he says that the “tikkun” made on the day of simchas beis hashoevah (Sukkah 52) is the source for mechitza, as a mechitza was somehow made based on an obscure pasuk in Divrei HaYamim.

One does not derive Torah law from a Biblical book that is post-Torah, and the Chronicles were among the last books of Hebrew Scripture to have been written, by all accounts. Second, the idiom tiqqun, enactment, is a human made law that by definition cannot be a Scriptural obligation.

R’ Soloveitchik also claimed mechitza was d’oraita, citing Devarim 23:15. However, there are two problems with this approach. Rabbis living after the Talmud, however great they may be in wisdom and learning, do not possess the authority to derive new Biblical laws out of Biblical texts. Such claims require not only their formulation, but the review and endorsement of the Supreme Court of Israel, the Sanhedrin. This juridic power has sadly lapsed in our day. Since the Talmud does not explicitly make the claim that mixed seating violates Biblical law, the claim that it does is, at best, hyperbolic

It would have made more sense halakhically and textually to claim that mechitza is needed due to the prohibition against saying Shema near an erva. Yet, he allowed mixed torah learning at Maimonides School in Brookline! Like tefillah, torah study may not be done in the presence of either nakedness or excrement. And since classroom furniture is more separate than synagogue pews, there is greater danger of visual impropriety in the classroom than in the sanctuary.

Furthermore, Tosafot and the Mordechai say that a mechitza can be erected on Shabbat for the sake of conventional modesty; yet in Eruvin 94, it is being erected purely because Shmuel wants his privacy.

[Mishnah Eduyyos 2:2]

Caviar is just a generic term for fish roe. If a kind of fish is kosher, its caviar is kosher, as well.

Sturgeon happens to be a nonkosher fish we eat caviar from. (Although sturgeon is/was considered kosher by some, similar to the case of swordfish).

There is plenty of kosher caviar, which comes from species like salmon, whitefish, etc.

In fact, one can even buy Kronos-brand Taramosalata, a Greek caviar dip, under Kof K.

When I make these latkes, I purchase Kosher Black Whitefish Caviar with an OU from Marky’s. It is about $62 for a pound.

And, because latkes fried in goose fat and schmaltz are so unhealthy, I do limit them to Chanukah. I buy rendered goose fat from Aaron’s Gourmet in Queens, at $17 a pound, which makes this method of preparation far from economical, so it is a rare treat.

Originally, latkes were prepared in goose fat in the medieval days, and they were eaten with chrein.

I find the idea of compote with goose latkes to be better, though, since when people traditionally roasted goose, they would serve it with something fruity. Roast goose with a fruit compote is heavenly.

He was a brilliantly complex figure, and I agree that it is necessary to separate the controversy from the man.

I once made latkes fried in goose fat and schmaltz, and ate them with a homemade berry-citrus sauce and Tofutti sour cream mixed with shopped garlic and parsley. They were to die for.

I only eat beit yosef meat. Pic N Pay meat meets these standards, since I know Rabbi Gavrielov and ask him she’eilas.

I will eat only milchigs and vegetarian or vegan food from hashgachas such as the IKC and Tablet K. I do not eat Hebrew National because I follow halak beit yosef.

I would also like to keep yashan, and this is something I am working towards, since yashan is a d’oraita (unlike pat yisrael, which we treat with greater leniency).

I practice the religion of Hazal and the Rambam, the religion of the sacred book.

Your faith is that of men, not G-d, and you care about the sacred look above all.

There is no issur of a woman becoming a shochet, and the arguments against it, quit frankly, fall flat.

Comparing Jews to the left of you with Christian missionaries is highly unwarranted and inflammatory conduct.

Minhagim also spells gehinnam. Hazal and the Rambam, among others, do not hold like those mostly Ashkenazic authorities you cite.

And, it is funny you mention shechita. I spoke with a Hassidishe shochet who trains in ofot and he said that for unmarried men and non-Satmar men, it is enormously difficult to get any work, since Empire and Rubashkin both use Nirbarter hashgacha.

Kollel should be an option only for the best of the best, people who will give shiurim, pasken she’eilos, become educators, mashgichim, dayanim or enter other klei kodesh.

Kiruv should only be an option for those who have the personality, likability, secular learning, sophistication, charm, yirat shamayim, and torah learning that shape up. There are several gemaras about the dangers of being immersed around those who aren’t on your madreiga, and for many people, they can easily succumb to the temptations and mores of the general society, r”l.

How about being a balanced Yid, like the Tannaim, Amoraim, and Rambam? Learn a profession, make an honest living, and make time yomam v’laylah to learn. Work and go to regular shiurim and chavrusos.

I feel that I am covering a lot of ground in my own learning, and I think that if I were in a yeshiva or kollel, I’d just be drei-ing around like many others, spending weeks on a single blatt.

For the baal habayis, I suggest being mesayem Shas with Rashi and Tosafos, Rambam, Chumash with the meforshim, Nach, Mishnayos, and Shulchan Aruch with the Nosei Kelim, Mishna Berura, and Sifrei Mussar and Machshava. The bulk of my learning involves Shas and Shulchan Aruch.

I find his music to be very clever and uplifting, especially Hentelech.

Sour cream and apple sauce. If I want meat after, I’d wash out my mouth, eat some crackers, make the bracha acharona, and fress.

Who decides what a “ben torah” wears? The Chofetz Chaim wore overalls.