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Here are the facts that I know:
A couple of weeks ago I saw posters hung in Kiryat Sefer announcing that this book is full of misunderstandings and invented pshatim. The posters bore the signature of my Rebbe, R. Aharon Feldman, Rosh Yeshivas Ner Yisrael שליט”א.Whether the posters are truth or someone’s fraud I have no idea. I have not called R. Aharon to verify because I don’t use books like this one anyway, since Mikraos Gedolos is better.
It’s simple. Just use lots of butter, then onion, barley, and broad white beans (oddly, their “official” name is butter beans), and fill up with water. Add salt to taste and pepper if you like. You can add a vegetarian bullion cube. It’s far from low-calorie, but delicious.
“Many charedim”? In Kiryat Sefer several big stores sell it, and it’s very popular.
Politics and שנאת חינם. In reality it’s more מחמיר than any Ashkenazi hechsher, as you can see all through Yoreh De’ah.
There is no heter at all to tell a lie so as to collect tzedakah. You cannot do a mitzvah by lying; Hashem demands that we be truthful in all our dealings. (Yoma 86a)
Tzedakah must certainly be legitimate, too, or else we have done no mitzvah. (BK 16b) What “legitimate” means is hard to say, and will depend on one’s judgment and his Rebbe’s wisdom, but in each case it must be determined.
Personally I would recommend never taking a collector’s word unsupported. One is not only entitled but almost obligated to find out reliably to whom one is giving and what for.I hold with the גר”א, against baking on Erev Pesach, but I bake all my family’s matzah myself every year. Here are the necessary steps to follow if you want to bake Pesach matzah:
Learn Masechta Pesachim with Rashi.
Learn הלכות אפיית מצה in the שולחן ערוך three times over. Ask questions about whatever you don’t understand.
While you are doing this, learn to bake bread (chametz), using hands only. When you are consistently turning out good bread, and have completed steps 1 & 2, you can proceed.
Now join a matzah chavurah, and learn from them how to mix and knead matzah dough, how to roll it out, and how to get it into the oven and out.
When you are skilled at these things, buy a propane oven, a solid aluminum rolling pin, smooth steel mixing bowls, cups for flour and baby bottles to measure the water, and lots of paper towels.
Propane ovens may only be used out of doors. Be sure the hose is equipped with the standard safety devices. I don’t know whether these ovens are legal in NYC; I live in Aretz. But they are identical to backyard barbecue ovens, so they should be legal. You don’t need to import one, a local model should be fine.
Make sure the oven can reach 500 degrees F, and that it comes with a baker’s stone that fits into the floor. This is essential. Heat the stone for half an hour before you begin.she-hakol, without a doubt
Yeshivish? Does this word describe anything in the real world? I never saw this word in the Gemara.
As for me, I’m an Eretz Yisrael Yid, a lamdan, a moreh tzedek for my town, living a life most of you would describe as “blacker than black.” I call it living in accordance with the gedolei Acharonim. I also read eleven languages, including Latin and Greek, which is how I make my living. I listen all day long to music of the Medieval, Renaissance, and Early Baroque periods, because the Gemara, Rishonim, and Acharonim teach a strong heter for this. I like Impressionist paintings, provided they’re tzeni’us. Where is there an issur for this?
People sometimes claim that I live “in two worlds.” I ask them to show me a second world; I know only of one, that HaKadosh baruch Hu created. Learn lots of Torah, learn each sugya aliba d’hilchesa, ask lots of questions, get answers from your Rebbes, then live the way that emerges from the sugya. As far as I know, this is what Yiddischkeit is all about.
This Midrash translation is part of the Soncino series of translations. About kashrus it’s hard to say anything. The Soncino group were graduates of “Jews’ College of London,” definitely not yeshivah-grade people. They kept Shabbos, but ….
The big problem is competence, or rather their total lack of it. They had only the most superficial knowledge of their texts, only the most rudimentary learning skills, only the vaguest notion of what Chazal were trying to teach. You certainly will not get an accurate idea of the Midrash from this work.
For that matter, given the tremendous depth and subtlety of Midrash, and its close relation to Hebrew grammar and orthography (from which midrashim are derived), even I, a veteran yeshivah scholar and moreh tzedek in my town, would not agree to attempt a translation.
I am a multi-lingual translator of some fifty years’ experience, most of it spent dealing with sefarim. After all these years, my only advice to everyone is, “Learn Hebrew, no matter how hard it is for you, and never use a translation.” There is a reason the Torah was given in leshon hakodesh — the same reason the world was created with it. Learn your native language and don’t compromise.