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Apparently many, but not all, sources hold that it is a mitzvah to relieve animals of their suffering, whether or not the animal belongs to you. See this passage from a book by R’ Dovid Sears:
The Chasam Sofer advances the opinion that, although causing pain to an animal is scripturally forbidden, the obligation to rescue an animal in distress applies only to one’s own animals; see Teshuvos Chasam Sofer, Yoreh De’ah, nos. 314, 318, and Choshen Mishpat, no. 185. This appears to be consistent with the view of Maharam Schick on the Taryag Mitzvos, Mitzvah 80. Authorities who do not make such a distinction include: Noda B’Yehudah, Mahadurah Kama, Yoreh De’ah, nos. 81-83; Shulchan Aruch HaRav, Vol. 6, Tza’ar Baalei Chaim, 4; Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, 191:1; Orach Maysharim, 15:1; et al. The Netziv in Ha’amek Davar, Deuteronomy 22, maintains that one is not obligated by Torah law but is required to intervene by rabbinic decree. In Eishel Avraham: Tinyana, Yoreh De’ah 305:20, R. Avraham of Butchatch argues that the relief of tza’ar baalei chaim directly or indirectly caused by a human being is incumbent upon any Jew capable of intervening by scriptural law. For further discussion see R. Yitzchak Nachman Eshkoli, Tza’ar Baalei Chaim (2002), chap. 11.
“Under Lawrence bestiality laws should be unconstitutional.”
I don’t think so. The Lawrence court emphasized the fact that the sodomy was consensual. See this quote from Lawrence:
“The present case does not involve minors. It does not involve persons who might be injured or coerced or who are situated in relationships where consent might not easily be refused.”
I see what you’re saying, though I don’t agree completely. An “unpopular group” has in fact been a term used by the Court. See this sentence from Windsor:
The thing about practitioners of bestiality is that they’re not really a “group” in any recognizable way; they’re just people who happen to all have some desire or practice in common. For this reason I don’t think the Court would take seriously their complaints of being discriminated against. Gays, by contrast, have everyone treating them as if they’re a full-fledged race. (Toeiva advocates can barely talk about their issues without invoking race metaphors.) This doesn’t make sense — it’s just how it is. They see themselves as a social group and so does the law.
It’s in Kagan’s interest (as a member of the hard left of the Court) to spin this case as primarily being about moral disapproval, because that’s a broader concept than animus and it increases the likelihood that Windsor will be used as a precedent to impose toieva marriage everywhere.
Windsor does use the term disapproval (once). But Windsor says a lot more than moral disapproval — it also mentions animus, bare desire to harm, etc. Even if there is some great unexplained significance to the term disapproval, it doesn’t mean that any laws based on moral disapproval are invalid. Rather, it would mean that laws based on moral disapproval that are meant solely to harm the disapproved-of group call for heightened scrutiny or are invalid.
The funny thing is that the Court’s decision does not say whether it is applying rational-basis or heightened scrutiny, while Scalia’s dissent seems to argue that the majority either employed rational-basis review or was a substantial-due-process case in disguise, and Alito’s dissent says the Court used some kind of heightened scrutiny. Confusing indeed. I believe Kennedy is known for his confusing opinions — this case will certainly support that aspect of his reputation.
It’s true that the Romer Court said the amendment (to Colorado’s constitution) did not even withstand rational basis review. However, it was still an equal protection case, and the Court’s main concern was that the amendment was class-based legislation that disadvantaged an unpopular group.
Given the Court’s strong language in this regard, I think there’s no question that if they’d skipped the rational basis test or actually found it to have a rational basis then they would have applied strict scrutiny and overturned the amendment on that basis. So Winsdor did go beyond Romer by applying a heightened form of scrutiny, but not by much.
Benignuman: I’m sorry, but that’s incorrect. First of all, the phrase “rational basis” doesn’t appear in the opinion.
Second, homosexuals have in fact been recognized as a protected group, in the sense that legislation against them invites strict scrutiny. In Romer v. Evans, the Court overturned a state law on equal protection grounds because it sought to disadvantage a politically unpopular group (homosexuals). 517 U.S. 620, 624, 634 (1996). The same occurred in Windsor.
Lawrence v. Texas was different — that was decided on due process grounds. If I remember correctly, equal protection was not an issue, because sodomy was illegal regardless of the sexual orientation of the people doing it. The case didn’t exactly proclaim a “fundamental right” to sodomy, but it did declare that the government can’t make it illegal for consenting adults behind closed doors to commit sodomy.
Windsor applied some form of heightened scrutiny (without explaining itself very well) to overturn DOMA on equal protection grounds. (See Alito’s dissent for a better explanation). It is an equal protection case, like Romer.
It’s a confusing opinion, as Scalia’s dissent points out. But it doesn’t establish a general rule that laws expressing moral disapproval are invalid. It is an equal protection opinion, with a “whiff” of federalism concerns, that strikes down a federal statute because it based on a animus toward a group and desire to disadvantage that group, the same group the state sought to protect.
Contrary to your assumptions, it is not the case that any law expressing some kind of moral disapproval is now prohibited. Virtually all of our laws, including those against murder and tax evasion, express moral disapproval.
This is how it works. If a law (such as those against bestiality) do not burden a protected group, then rational basis review applies. Bestiality practitioners have never been recognized as a vulnerable social group. That means that courts will uphold anti-bestiality laws as long as there is some rational basis for them. There is a rational basis for laws against bestiality, because animals cannot give consent and it can harm animals. No court would disagree with this.
Regarding polygamy, as I mentioned, bans on it do seem to express animus towards a politically unpopular, vulnerable group, which means that strict scrutiny review applies. This means that courts can only uphold if it is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. This is a much harder test, but ultimately I think courts will uphold it. This is not to say they should — it’s just a prediction.
Health, I agree that promoting homosexuality could reduce the pool of mates (depending on the relative rates of homosexuality among the genders). I also think the ban on gay marriage not only has a rational basis (many bases, really), but also is narrowly tailored to further a compelling state interest. However, as a practical matter, courts are not adopting these arguments, in part because, unfortunately, it’s not generally seen as politically correct to make arguments against a group (such as gays) seen as an underdog. That’s an unfortunate feature of our country’s messed-up political discourse.
I enjoyed reading Scalia’s dissent in the DOMA case, and I largely agree with him, but I don’t think this case will directly lead to the Supreme Court forcing all states to have toieva marriage, at least not anytime soon. Kennedy’s federalism concerns will keep that from happening, I think. The important thing is who replaces the next few justices who retire.
The analogy to bestiality is absurd, and it’s counterproductive to even bring it up.
Not so with polygamy. The constitutional case for overturning state laws against polygamy is very strong, especially now.
The strict scrutiny test definitely applies, since the bans are motivated, at least in part, in animus against certain politically unpopular groups, such as fundamentalist Mormons and Muslims.
So the question is, are these bans narrowly tailored to support a compelling government interest? Ultimately, the answer judges will give is probably yes, which means that courts will uphold polygamy bans.
The reasons given will probably be that polygamy potentially harms women and harms men by reducing the pool of mates. Since it might hurt women and women are seen as underdogs, this is a politically acceptable argument that will appeal to judges.
Even so, I think the legal case against polygamy bans is very strong, because it’s clearly motivated by bias.
Regardless, analogies won’t help much in convincing people to oppose toieva marriage, and they can hurt. Other lines of argument need to be emphasized (and tested on focus groups!)
Opponents of same-sex marriage don’t “hate” gays. This is a highly ideological canard widely used by the left to delegitimize not only political opposition to gay marriage, but also religions (such as ours!) that disapprove of homosexual behavior.
We don’t hate gays at all — we just disagree on what the proper response is to people’s same-sex desires (embrace them and normalize them vs. ignore or suppress them and refrain from acting on them).
In fact, many opponents of toieva marriage have expressed great caring and compassion for those with same sex attraction, because it must a very difficult nisayon, and very hard to know what to do about it. This comes across very clearly in some Orthodox rabbinical statements regarding homosexuality (many of the signatories of which are certainly against gay marriage).
I don’t have a specific answer to the OP’s question. But I like the idea of hiring as kiruv in general. What if there were big frum organizations that would either give a job to, or find a job for, any Jew that needed help? (Or as Rambam discussed as the highest level of charity, helping the person set up their own successful business.) Now that could be effective kiruv — if Orthodox Jews were perceived as helping the non-Orthodox economically (instead of the opposite perception among chilonim in Israel). I think Chabad runs some job-training programs in Israel…
Apparently the Shulchan Aruch rules that hand-clapping is forbidden on Shabbos, but the Rema says that some are lenient.
Rema mentions two possible grounds for leniency: 1) not wanting to inform people of their transgression if they aren’t going to stop clapping (making it an intentional transgression), 2) the fact that tosafos said that the reason behind the prohibition is no longer relevant.
I believe chassidim allow clapping on Shabbos, though I don’t know their rationale.
The pro-toieva ideology is rising fast in the US and across the West at the moment, but time is on our side. Groups with strong traditional beliefs against toieva, including not only Orthodox Jews but also evangelicals, Mormons and traditionalist Catholics, have many more children than pro-toieva Americans, and immigrants tend to be socially-conservative. Also, 38 state legislatures have already banned toieva marriage. So things aren’t as bad as they may seem, at least in a long-term view.
Zahavasdad, taking it to Sacramento or doing another prop won’t help, because the federal district court opinion in Perry striking down Prop 8 still stands, and can’t be appealed. Perry can’t be overturned by state legislation or a new proposition. So it’s very unlikely to be reversed in California. If anti-toieva Republicans take control in California, then it’s possible, because they would defend Prop 8 in court and have standing.
Morah, I know how you feel, and I’m keeping my mouth shut too. There are a lot of Orthodox Jews, even pretty right-wing MO or right of MO, support “marriage equality” now, and given the political climate and the line of work I’m in, I know I need to keep my mouth shut or risk ostracism. Somebody’s got to speak out, but not everybody has to.
Davening with kavanah is not easy. It doesn’t come naturally. It doesn’t come without effort, and learning, and prayer (about prayer).
I’ve found some of the teachings of Breslov chassidut (as collected in Likutei Eitzos, all the collected practical advice from Rebbe Nachman’s works) to be helpful in this regard. He has a number of suggestions for achieving kavanah in davening, and also places great emphasis on the importance of hisbodedus, or personal prayer in one’s own words, as a daily supplement to the required prayers.
If you Google “As soon as a person stands up to pray, he is immediately surrounded by extraneous thoughts” and “pour out your heart like water before God,” the relevant chapters will come right up.
The way people sound while davening is not necessarily an indication of what they are thinking and feeling while davening.
That said, it would probably be beneficial for kavanah if everyone were to slow down and say everything with good articulation and evident enthusiasm.
Regardless, we shouldn’t pay attention to other people davening because we’re not really supposed to be able to hear them anyway. Maybe we should create huge, spacious shuls in which everyone gets to daven at least 10 feet from anyone else?
Further random fact about Bob Dylan: he was recently quoted (under his birth name) on Cross Currents of all places, in an article about locusts of all things.
It’s not exactly related to the Cindy article, but R’ Alderstein’s article on the whole situation on Cross Currents is worth reading too. There and in his other writings, he comes off as a very moderate and reasonable observer of events in Israel.
R’ Slifkin’s blog analyzes the Cindy analogy in considerable detail — worth reading if you’re interested in thinking through the arguments on either side.
In psychology this is known as “rumination.” There might be other terms, but that is one. It is a common thing for one negative thought to lead to another.
Rumination is a habit under your voluntary control and you can stop it, with effort (and prayer).
I recommend reading Jewish sources on positive thinking and how to avoid negative thoughts. If you google “Don’t dwell on bad thoughts or desires at all” and “Search for your good points in order to make yourself happy,” you will find chapters from Likutei Eitzos, which contain a lot of chassidic teachings on this and similar topics.
I’m sure there is a lot of good material written by psychologists for the general public on this topic, too.
Hatlzacha! Lots of people deal with similar issues, but many have overcome them through education, effort and prayer. You can do it too.
Bob Dylan periodically shows up to Orthodox shuls (often Chabad) in random locations on Yom Kippur (and perhaps other holidays or on Shabbos — I don’t know). People usually figure out who is he and give him an aliyah.
Elvis was a Shabbos goy not because he was non-Jewish, but because he didn’t know what it meant to be halachically Jewish. According to what I’ve read, he knew he had Jewish ancestry and identified with it, but people he knew in the recording industry were afraid to tell him that since the ancestry was from his maternal line (I think it was his mother’s mother’s mother or something like that) that meant he was Jewish. They were afraid that if he knew he would become a practicing Jew and that that would hurt his career. It may not have been definitively proven but one of his biographers writes that his mother’s mother mother or whatever was Jewish. Some Chabadniks made a film about Elvis’s Jewishness a few years ago (which I haven’t seen).
RebDoniel, about Yesha, well I think he’s in favor of the two-state solution but wants Yerushalayim to remain undivided and is not opposed to the natural growth of settlements for the time being. So I guess you could call that moderate left. The close pact between Yesh Atid and Bayit HaYehudi might have influenced Lapid to place less emphasis on this issue, in order to focus on policy goals that (unlike achieving peace by uprooting settlements) actually have a chance of getting accomplished. I don’t really care for most of Yesh Atid’s policy positions, but they certainly seem less bad than Shinui, the anti-religious party his father started.
Curiosity, you’re using quotation marks, but in fact I didn’t say anything about “validating” Rambam’s science. I just added some tentative personal comments.
Do you think following all of Rambam’s health advice is actually required? If not, then why not discuss whether they are in fact healthy? In general, we are not required to believe that the rishonim never erred in scientific matters (after all, dozens of rishonim, including Ramam’s son Rabbeinu Avraham, believed Chazal could err in science because they limited by the scientific knowledge of their times).
I agree with Reb Doniel that much of Rambam’s health advice is sound and we should take it seriously, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t compare it to modern scientific knowledge. Interestingly, people have noted several parallels between Rambam’s health advice and Chinese medicine.
The Gemara says that one should only eat meat once a week, on Shabbos night. (Chulin 84a). Given the story in the Gemara about the son who told his mother his father wanted peas when he really wanted lentils and vice versa in order to preserve shalom bayis (Yevamos 63a), it seems that people then got most of their protein through legumes. If people did that today they would save a lot of money, and enjoy better health to boot.
Regarding jewishfeminist’s comment about having kids and the parnassah following, many people believe very strongly in that teaching. The idea is that each child has a source of parnassah that actually comes with it into the world. I don’t know the source, but I’ve read things by rabbis who discuss and endorse it (such as Rav Shalom Arush). In my own family we did not wait until we had a good income before we had children.
It’s true that being Orthodox is expensive, at least in the US. I don’t know how people with average incomes manage to get by AND consistently save money for retirement. But with G-d’s help and good planning, I’m sure it can be done.
Do people really follow his health advice?
I think there’s an Artscroll translation of the Kitzur which curiously, translates everything but the Kitzur’s health advice (much of which seems to be from the Rambam). I’d say that’s a subtle message that many people think such advice shouldn’t be taken seriously. I think it should be taken seriously, but it’s not the last word.
One thing I remember from the Kitzur is that it says whole wheat bread is healthier. Now we know that to be true. But it also says carob is always unhealthy, which I think there’s no scientific basis for.
Can anyone summarize the main points of Rambam’s health advice?
Here are some things I think he advises (with my comments):
1) eat only until you’re 3/4th full (probably good advice — eating until you’re completely full or overfull causes fatigue and, probably, obesity)
2) don’t eat until you’re hungry and until after you’ve done some exercise (probably good advice, with the caveat that one should eat a decent-sized meal early in the day)
3) one shouldn’t walk around or exert oneself after eating (I don’t think this is true for walking — there’s nothing wrong with walking after eating)
4) sit still or lean to the left while eating (I think there’s no scientific basis for leaning a certain way)
5) sleep eight hours a night (good advice — most people need 7-8 hours a sleep, according to recent research)
6) sleeping on one’s right side early in the night and left side later in the night (this might be codified as halacha, but I’m not sure if people follow it, and I doubt there’s a scientific basis for it)
7) his statements in favor of regular strenuous exercise (definitely good advice)
8) foods should be eaten in a certain order (meat from a small animal before a big one, certain fruits before a meal but others after a meal, etc.) (not sure about this one; some of it might be valid)
You can increase your scores through practice, and through learning techniques to get a handle on those thorny logic problems. There’s just a limit to how much you can increase them. And your score will be different each time you take a (real or practice) test, so it’s likely that the real one you take won’t be as high as what you’ve sometimes been able to achieve in practice tests.
Ahava, as others have mentioned, this is a complex topic. Few are familiar with all the sources, because they are seldom studied. (That said, R’ Yaacov Astor wrote an interesting book, called Soul Searching I think, with a chapter on this topic.) But here are some of my thoughts on your original question.
Neshamos aren’t reincarnated forever. Some souls may never reincarnate, because they fulfilled their tikun in one lifetime, while some may reincarnate numerous times, because it is necessary for the achievement of their soul’s purpose or rectification.
Even if a departed soul is later reincarnated, we don’t know how long it takes. So your prayers (and kaddish) may help cleanse the soul prior to reincarnation, so that less will need to be accomplished in the next life. Or perhaps your prayers will spare it from having to reincarnate again at all.
I don’t know if this is really a general rule, but I’ve heard chassidic sources teach that if one sins against G-d and does not achieve forgiveness, the punishment is only some purification in purgatory, but our unforgiven sins against one another make an additional gilgul necessary.
The Baba Sali asked a well-known kabbalist to tell him whose neshama he (Baba Sali) had. The kabbalist told him he was reincarnated from Chizkiyahu, I think, which pleased the Baba Sali. I believe the Arizal was also known for telling people who they were reincarnated from.
I don’t remember a particular source saying that departed souls watch over us, but I remember reading that in various places, and I’m sure they do. It’s even possible that part of the soul reincarnates, and part of the soul stays to watch over us. Or even during a reincarnation, one’s soul might watch over the living during sleep (when souls leave the body and do…what souls do.)
Sefer HaBris (by R’ Eliyahu Pinchas of Vilna) explains at length why this mitzvah applies to all people, not just Jews. Google “love of one’s neighbor means that we should love all people” and you’ll see translations of the relevant parts, particularly in the book on Compassion for Humanity in the Jewish Tradition by R’ Dovid Sears.
Law is not a good field to get into right now. Don’t go if you’re just looking for a good reliable well-paying career. (There are many other fields that do provide that.) But go ahead and go if you decide you really want to be a lawyer.
To get a sense of how you’d do on the LSAT, get copies of old tests (they sell books full of them), time yourself and see what scores you get. But before you do that, go through a workbook mean to teach you how to improve your LSAT score.
If you’re smart enough to be a decent lawyer, and you have an entrepreneurial spirit, then you can start your own firm and potentially be successful even if you have such low grades that no one would hire you. I’ve known people who have started their own firms after graduation. But it’s not easy, it’s not common, and it’s not for everyone. It is very common nowadays for smart people with good grades to graduate law school without a job.
Frumnotyeshivish, I don’t know if it’s really the case that doctors have difficulty finding jobs in the places they want to live. Even if you get a scholarship that makes you move to an area with a doctor shortage, this shouldn’t be a problem, because although rural areas usually have a shortage, so do most inner cities. The vast majority of inner city areas are within commuting distance of a frum community.
My main concern would be hours and work/life balance, since the hours are often unreasonable. But that totally depends; there are some doctors who work for HMOs or have their own practice and work a 40-hour week. Such reasonable hours just seem much more common for non-physician medical professionals.
If you really want to be a doctor, go for it, but consider this: medicine has the worst residencies of all the medical professions. You can help a lot of people and make a lot of money being a chiropractor, dentist, optometrist, podiatrist, etc. without having to spend 5 years working 80 hours a week or more and barely holding on to your sanity. According to the published research on this topic, any suffer from anxiety and depression and make serious medical errors because of the lack of sleep during residency. That said, the hours are more reasonable in some specialties.
Many doctors are also burnt out because of various reasons — working hours, medicare reimbursement, malpractice insurance, etc. — and want to leave medicine. But I’m sure satisfaction differs tremendously from job to job and from speciality to speciality.
I don’t know! But for husbands to avoid these problems, they should definitely read the related chapter in Garden of Peace by Rav Shalom Arush. It has a lot to say about criticism in marriage, which is really important for men to hear. There’s a woman’s version too, but I haven’t read it.
Thanks for that, Avi K — very interesting!
Squeak, Toi’s “segue” makes sense, because R’ Hirsch and R’ Bamberger were debating how to relate to the non-Orthodox (ie, whether to officially/legally separate from them under German law). I assume he’s not suggesting R’ Bamberger was a kofer for opposing R’ Hirsch’s view that the Orthodox community should separate or secede or whatever.
What percentage of women or men need to be unmarried at what age for there to be a crisis? What do you think the current percentages are?
Crisis or no crisis, the rate of marriage is much higher in the Orthodox world than it is in the general Jewish or non-Jewish US population.
Crisis: In some of the pictures I saw, some of the women (and men) were in fact smiling. Regardless, I wouldn’t read too much into smiling in these types of pictures, because it all depends on when the picture was taken, as well as the kind of image the photographer or the website editor wants to convey.
People have a (false) image of charedim as very serious and somber, and perhaps the photographer or editor wanted to go along with that, consciously or unconsciously.
Another thing to consider is that if it’s a several hour event and you haven’t eaten yet, it can be tiring and you’re not going to see most people smiling most of the time.
About the comments on news sites: Everyone should do themselves a favor and never read the comments! That’s the only place anti-Semites have to spread their message. So that’s where they hang out. I don’t think it says anything about the general population.
Google “Absolute risk of tobacco deaths” and you’ll find an article discussing research that shows that about 1 in 2 smokers will die because of smoking. However, for those who started smoking young, about 2 in 3 will die because of smoking.
About 1/5 or 1/4 of smokers get lung cancer, and a large proportion of smokers will die sooner than non-smokers, due to various other smoking-induced causes, from leukemia to heart disease to pneumonia. The proportion is probably more than 50%, though you’d have to analyze a lot of research, and have a good understanding of statistics and research methodology, to demonstrate this.
I know that some poskim think that it matters whether there’s more than a 50% chance of death from smoking. But I don’t.
If you play Russian Roulette once, with just one bullet in a six-cartridge revolver, there is only a 1/6th chance of dying. But it is certainly forbidden, because it is akin to suicide. So is smoking. Smoking a single cigarette should also be asur because it can lead to a habit and then an addiction.
Avi K: I’m not into red strings, Na Nach or “worshipping dead people” (not sure if you mean visiting graves of tzaddikim or meshichists or elohists or whatever), but I don’t know why you single these out as the most important distortions of Judaism. What about the ever-increasing stringencies common in much of Orthodox Judaism today, and the extremist behavior of some of them charedim in Israel? (Beit Shemesh, etc.)
To give one of many possible examples, isn’t requiring people to wear thick black tights, black coats and shtremiels (not all at the same time, of course) in the heat of summer just as much of, or even more of, a distortion as dancing joyfully in the streets all the time? Where is it written that Judaism should become more stringent with time? Or that clothing minhagim should be followed so rigidly as to dress the opposite of what the weather calls for?
In any case, as I see it, the problem you mentioned, that intelligent non-Orthodox Jews might be turned off by distortions of Judaism, is best addressed by people (of every variety of Orthodoxy) promoting themselves to the public in a friendly, open, public-relations savvy way. For the dati leumi, this means Tzohar and Beit Hillel. The Chabad mainstream has already got this down, and for that reason are much more positively viewed by chilonim than are the rest of charedim. Groups like Aish present a pleasant face for the Anglophone non-chassidic frum world. What seems to be missing are constructive public relations efforts from the Israeli chassidic and litvish worlds.
Lesschumras, I don’t agree with most of Akuperma’s post, but I think it’s clear that WoW do want to take over and impose their views on everyone. They purposely sing as loud as they can so that Orthodox Jewish men can’t pray there. They want to either drive the Orthodox out or force them to change their views on kol isha and feminism more generally. They already have a place they can pray according to their heterodox practices; they want to be able to do all those things in the Orthodox area as well.
Derech: I agree completely that we should try to get everyone to study Torah or study more Torah. At the same time, we should also try to make sure everyone works at least a little bit too. Chazal say very clearly in Avos 2:2 that Torah and work should be combined. Torah study must provide more protection when we’re doing it the way Chazal said it should be done.
Chazal might not have said one should become a doctor to save lives. But they did say to teach one’s son a trade, and to teach one’s son to swim (this also saves lives). Teaching one’s son a trade presumes that one knows a trade. And as you know, Rambam, Ramban, Ramchal and many other gedolim who devoted their lives to Torah study also found the time to become physicians and, presumably, to save lives with their medicine expertise. We can’t say that we know better than them now, and that their medical activities were in fact a waste of time and bitul Torah.
Sam2: Yes, but my point was, it doesn’t say one individual’s Torah study necessarily saves lives. Perhaps each person’s Torah study saves 1/10th of a life? We just don’t know. Or like you’re suggesting, there might be less literal ways of interpreting it.
Derech: Torah study in general protects the Jewish people, but how do you know whether your individual Torah study has saved lives? As far as I know, there’s no pasuk that says, “Don’t worry about saving lives, just study Torah and that will save more lives than you ever could by trying to save lives.” In contrast, we are told “not to rely on a miracle,” that saving a life is like saving a world, and that every person should believe that the world was created for his sake.
More generally, the poor will never cease from the land (Devarim 15:11), and acts of kindness are one of the pillars of the world. So no matter how much we study Torah, there will always be poor people in need of tzedakah, and we still need to do acts of kindness because after all it’s a pillar upon which the world stands. It’s hard to give much tzedakah or help other people very much if you’ve never studied non-Torah subjects and gained practical skills and knowledge.
HaKatan: I disagree with everything you’re saying, but I’ll limit my response to your claim that all those Jews who died in Israeli wars/terrorism would have lived in the US (“every one of those Jews would still be alive”). First of all, many of those who died wouldn’t have existed in the US because of undeniably higher assimilation rates (whether or not their ancestors were frum) in the US and other countries they could have moved to.
Second, if all Jews had moved to the US instead of Israel, then many of them would have died early anyway. There were 80,000 U.S. casualties (combat deaths) in Korea and Vietnam. About 180,000 Jewish soldiers fought in those wars, so at least a few hundred, probably a thousand or more Jews died in those wars. There have been another 5,000 combat deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan (about 1% of whom were Jewish) and of course many Jews died on 9/11.
More importantly, the traffic fatality rate, murder rate and suicide rate are all more than twice as high in the US than in Israel. This would have killed several thousand more Jews, if Israeli Jews had all been living in the US instead.
Let’s take traffic accidents. From WWII to the present there have been about 25k to 55k traffic fatalities in the US each year. Assuming about 1% of those is Jewish (which is conservative, since Jews are 2% of the population), that’s 250-550 Jewish deaths per year, half of which would not have happened if they’d been in Israel. If that’s about 400 excess Jewish deaths per year, then about 26,000 Jews (400*65) have died in car accidents in the US who would have survived if they’d lived in Israel. That alone is more than all the war/terror fatalities in Israel.
So if we’re talking about early deaths, whether by war or other means, I don’t think you can say Israelis are worse off. They may even be better off.
Well, that’s related to what I’m saying. One of the Noahide commandments is not to steal, and kidnapping children and making them slaves surely is prohibited under that mitzvah.
It is also a Noahide mitzvah to set up just courts. That is one of the main things missing in many of the countries — efficient, non-corrupt legal systems that create law and order, prevent people from abusing the poor, and set the stage for a secure, orderly and prosperous society. We should help them with this.
HaKatan, have you considered the following, regarding your “physical” perspective? About 25,000 have died as a result of wars and terrorist attacks in Israel (that counts deaths that occurred in the decades before the establishment of the Medinah as well).
But in Israel, the vast majority of Jews (probably at least 90%) marry other Jews and have halachically Jewish children. In America, the number is much lower, about 50%. This means that millions of Jews who would have existed in the US, if people had only married Jews, do not exist. This has been referred to as a “silent holocaust.”
If the millions of Jews in Israel had been living in the US or elsewhere, the overall intermarriage rate would have probably been similar. So the existence of Israel has been responsible for the birth of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Jews who wouldn’t have existed otherwise. This more than makes up for the 25,000 who have died.
You really think the “shmad” and the prominence of secular Jews and ideology in the Medinah is so bad that it outweighs the existence of all those hundreds of thousands of Jewish neshamos that wouldn’t have existed without the Medina? Anyway, it’s not as if there’s not secular ideology here in golus. It’s not as if the US government financially supports charedi yeshivas and lifelong kollel learners.
Many workers in developing countries are crushingly poor, malnourished, and have virtually no access to medical care or education. This poverty and deprivation causes great suffering.
Many workers producing some of the staples of the Western diet — coffee, tea, chocolate and bananas (the main fair trade products) — are desperate and have no other options, so they will work all day for just enough wages to survive. As long as the workers do their job and don’t die, the corporations selling these staples profit. Since they can pay them so little, they do, because that makes them a larger profit.
Besides paying them more, fair trade companies and certification agencies monitor the farms for human rights abuses, and invest in their communities in various ways to improve their lives.
The human rights aspect is significant, because in the chocolate industry especially, child slavery is rampant. Farmers kidnap poor rural children, take them across the country, and force them to work on chocolate farms for years for no pay. This horrifying practice is widespread and very well documented (there’s an interesting documentary about it that you can watch online for free). Fair trade ensures that when you buy a bar of chocolate, you are not supporting slavery.
Fair trade is a very small slice of the marketplace, and overall it is probably not a very effective strategy for solving the problems of poor people in developing countries. However, it does improve the lives of the workers directly involved.
I would say it is not required, but it is praiseworthy and an act of chesed to buy fair trade. But it would be even more praiseworthy to work towards more permanent international or country-wide solutions to these problems.
Derech: Learning Torah is not our only purpose in life. We also need to do mitzvos, including acts of kindness. We are very limited in the acts of kindness we can do for others if we have no “secular” skills or knowledge.
Being a doctor, a plumber, an engineer, whatever, whether it’s part time or full time, enables you to help other people much more effectively, both through giving tzedakah and through giving practical assistance to others (something the Shulchan Aruch says we should always be doing).
I would rather have someone whose mind is 50% Torah and 50% Engineering, if that person’s engineering skills save one person’s life, or save one person from great suffering.
Akuperma: “confiscating the money they raise abroad, as well as throwing the talmidim in prison.”
What are you talking about? Where did you hear this?
Akuperma:
1. He said he didn’t propose that, and R’ Feldman has apologized.
2. They are in fact doing exactly that. According to R’ Alderstein’s summary of the legislation, “immediately, anyone over the age of 22 is free to enter the workforce, even if he did not do any army service.”
3. They are trying very hard to make army service and alternative national service accomodating to charedim. It’s not perfect yet, but they’re definitely working on it. I sometimes read the blog of one charedi man (Akiva of mpaths) two of whose children have joined the IDF; one had a great experience and the other one has had not had very good religious accomodation. Like I said, it’s not perfect.
He’s still part of the Torah world. He’s just part of the moderates now — the new charedim, as they are called. He is sincere in wanting to make changes that will bring society together and improve the public’s image of charedim. Many charedim agree with him behind the scenes but are afraid to speak out out of fear of being denounced by hardliners.
R’ YG Bechhofer (who teaches at Ohr Sameach and elsewhere) has an interesting perspective on all of this, though I forget whether it’s on his blog or somewhere else.
He was attacked publicly and responded publicly. Nothing wrong with that. We don’t know whether he called Rav Feldman or not. But even if he can’t change R’ Feldman’s mind, that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.