No-Thing is different than nothing. Nothing is something. No-thing permits the spirit of the way to reveal itself to you.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Pope Benedict and Holocaust denial
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Machida will defend UFC title
New York's Ultra-Orthodox community torn apart by sex abuse scandal
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New York's Ultra-Orthodox community torn apart by sex abuse scandal | |||||
By Rebecca Dube, The Forward | |||||
Tags: Jewish World, Israel News | |||||
Inside the grand ballroom of the Midtown Hilton in Manhattan, Agudath Israel of America's annual dinner was unfolding according to plan. Men and women dressed in traditional yet elegant clothes dined on salmon and listened to Senator Charles Schumer and Mayor Michael Bloomberg pledge their fealty. Outside, a storm was brewing. A dozen protesters stood in front of the Hilton's parking garage and waved signs that said "Agudah: Stop protecting pedophiles." But Agudath board of trustees member Israel Lefkowitz rolled down his car window to chastise the protesters. "I am against sexual harassment for all the children," Lefkowitz said. "But you don't do this in public." The angry exchange outside the annual dinner May 15 for Agudath Israel, a national ultra-Orthodox umbrella group, encapsulates the escalating battle within the Orthodox community over sexual abuse of children by rabbis, yeshiva teachers and other religious authority figures. On one side, a band of loosely organized victims of sexual abuse and their supporters are crying out for community leaders to take a tougher stand against pedophilia. On the other side, many powerful leaders regard any public airing of sexual abuse allegations in the Orthodox community as hillul Hashem, a desecration of God's name. One of the protesters, Mark Appel, yelled at Lefkowitz in his car: "Your children are being molested, and you know that [officials from Agudath] are not doing anything about it." "Why are you so angry?" Lefkowitz asked. "What is Agudah doing to my molester?" asked Joe DiAngelo, who says he was raped as a child in a Brooklyn mikveh. In his defense, Lefkowitz replied that he booted out a principal who was molesting boys at his son's school. "What happened to him? Why wasn't he arrested?" asked Levi Goldberg, a soft-spoken young man wearing a traditional black suit, hat and peyes. "I do not know," Lefkowitz said. He called the protest "a desecration of a Godly institution." The protesters' ire was aimed at Agudah's opposition to a bill now before the state Legislature that would extend the statute of limitations for civil and criminal claims of child sexual abuse and create a one-time, one-year "window" during which victims of crimes committed beyond the statute of limitations could file civil claims against their alleged abusers and the institutions that harbored them. The bill appears stalled in the state Assembly a few weeks before the legislative session adjourns. Agudah's official position is that it supports lengthening the statute of limitations, but opposes the one-year window because it could allow plaintiffs to file decades-old claims. "Reasonable people can disagree on this," Agudah spokesman Rabbi Avi Shafran said inside the dinner hall. "We have no problem with extending the statute of limitations, we have no problem with anything preventative, we only have problems with the so-called 'window' provision." Rabbi Yaakov Perlow, the Novominsker Rebbe and Rosh Agudath Israel of America, took a harsher tone in his dinner address, chiding "the bloggers and the picketers, presumptuous promoters" for the notion that "they know better [than Agudah's Council of Torah Sages] what is good for the Jews." Perlow called child sexual abuse "a serious issue." He acknowledged a need "for correcting the past - and for addressing the future, creating means to guide against wrongdoing to children." The protesters find Agudah's statements short on specifics. They accused Agudah of a conflict of interest. The organization is named as a defendant in sex-abuse lawsuits involving Rabbi Yehuda Kolko, accused of molesting dozens of students, including boys at an Agudah-run summer camp, and would likely face more lawsuits if the window legislation passes. Appel, one of the protesters, is founder of a Jewish community group called Am Echad aimed at promoting Jewish unity and supporting social services. It is New York-based with chapters in other cities. "I've met kids who have been abused [recently] by people who were abusing kids 30 years ago," said Appel. "These guys [Agudah] are just stalling ? they?re emotionless on this issue. So they're going to sit here tonight and have a nice collective meal, and meanwhile their community is being torn apart." Elliot Pasik, a director of the Jewish Board of Advocates for Children, a group in favor of the window legislation as well as mandatory fingerprinting of private school teachers, said he's disappointed by Agudah's response | |||||
Atheists advertise 'Man Created God' on Chicago buses
Christian Post Reporter
"In the beginning, man created God," read ads posted on 25 Chicago buses.
The slogan "espouses the idea that man created God as well as all religions, and encourages public and critical examination of the merits of religious belief," according to Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign.
The ads were launched in the windy city last week just after the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign had similar messages up and running in South Bend, Ind., where President Barack Obama had earlier addressed graduates of the preeminent Roman Catholic university – the University of Notre Dame.
"In my opinion, this is a great message to put out there," said Reba Boyd Wooden, executive director of Center for Inquiry, an organization that promotes secularism. "Too many people think that you have to be religious to be a moral person. They don't know they have a choice. They think that it is a given that there is a god, that everyone believes there is a god, and if you don't believe in god you are a bad person. We secular humanists know that is not true."
The ads in South Bend state "You can be good without God."
Members and supporters of the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign revealed two different motivations behind launching the ads. Some, the campaign reported, want to promote a positive message about atheism and encourage atheists to "come out" while others want to tackle religious belief head-on with science and evidence-based approaches.
According to The Chicago Tribune, the Indiana atheist group was "inspired" by a similar campaign that was launched in Europe last year by the British Humanist Association. Bus ads there read: "There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."
In recent years, more atheists have come into the spotlight, loudly proclaiming their beliefs – or unbelief – and challenging Christianity. Although atheists make up a small percentage of America's population, the public nature of their efforts has not left them unnoticed, especially among Christians.
Christian scholars have responded by releasing a myriad of resources helping fellow believers to strengthen their Bible knowledge, training them in Christian apologetics to defend their faith, and in the process strengthening their own faith.
Dogma and Humanism
I understand. I do not hold this against them. If I were defending something I cherish, something (or someone) to which I have devoted myself, emotion would take over. Staying cool and harmonious in a defensive posture is tough.
I remember when my newborn was terribly ill and in the hospital. I remember when I was in the hospital after my car crash. I remember when my wife was in the hospital literally at deaths door. In each case someone asked me if I was praying. In each case the follow up was, 'why not? it can't hurt."
My reply was this: by that logic when you pray you should pray to every god out there, after all, it can't hurt.
And then they would get upset and drop the issue.
But the fact is it can hurt. When you have to go against what you believe and understand, it hurts.
So often I hear people define liberalism or humanism or reform etc, as a feeling, as an attidue that has no substance. There is no recognition of an underlying philosphy or understanding of the world we inhabit.
So I will give a brief synopsis of what humanism means to me. I must live in a manner that makes healthy harmonious sense. In order to do this I must live with the recognition that I am ignorant and have zero understanding of anything. I breathe and I work on breathing. I recognize that we as people are biological beings and therefore we have no flaws or imperfections, we have no perfection either; we exist. We exist occurding to the laws of our physical natural world. Our reality has ingrained in our species certain imperatives which we have codified into laws and a general guide to a healthy life for this version of reality. Laws such as, don't sleep with your close family and don't murder etc. I accept these laws because unlike the chicken and the egg, these laws came first. These laws developed from a natural state. Furth, archeology has shown that these laws, and others, were followed by many societies long before any religion in existence today.
But people are people. For tens of thousands of years people had even less understanding of the world than we have today. Tribes developed. Important people and cultures and societies were built. Laws were imposed. Prayers were developed. Gods were invented. And this continues today.
Maybe one or more of those peoples or cultures were right and had the truth. But so far what I have found is that most of what we think we know is wrong. We don't know a whole lot more than what we do know. So the idea that people think they have the truth is more than a little frightning. Humanism, for me, is about recognizing that I don't know a whole lot more than what I do know. But living based on someone else view of the truth can hurt and does.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Guest Post from my Wife
New UFC Light Heavyweight Champ
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Brisk Battle continues
From this week's Brisk Parsha Sheet.
He who adheres to the root of his neshama, is attached to the Source of his existence, and constantly draws renewed vitality from this Source. All his days are filled with joy and happiness and contentment..
Ish al machaneihu v'ish al diglo..
And in the context of this idea of the importance of acknowledging those who are greater than oneself we want to express our protest against the balabatim that have taken control of Yeshivas Brisk of Chicago. They fail miserably in this task of acknowledging those who are greater than oneself. This why they have stolen the Yeshiva from the children of Rav Aharon. Such an absurd and exaggerated situation was able to evolve only as a result and as an expression of the lashon harah, jealously and systematic ayin ra'ah that has taken place over many years and still continues. Various people were jealous of Rav Aharon because of the extraordinary Torah he was teaching, the great Mesorah that he represented, and the outstanding unparalleled personal example of Tzidkus, Chessed, Mesirus Nefesh that he was.
The target of this jealousy was Rav Aharon's children - gaonim, tzaddikim, mamshichei darko
.During the first few years of Yeshivas Brisk there was a group of students within the Yeshiva that in co-ordination with certain members of the staff did extensive harm to the Yeshiva. They were motivated by jealousy of Rav Aharon's children and they created immense ayin ra'ah within the Yeshiva by talking against the Yeshiva and against the children of Rav Aharon. The harm they did to the Yeshiva in those few years is immeasurable. All of this created the sequence of events that caused the stroke and illness of Rav Aharon (which was caused exclusively by external factors) which entailed immense suffering for Rav Aharon and his children for many years.
Rav Aharon's debilitating paralysis was a frightening and glaring testimony for almost twenty years of the jealous and malicious behavior that targeted Rav Aharon and his children.
The balabatim who have presently taken over the Yeshiva were in the early years of the Yeshiva not disconnected and did not stand apart from this group of students that did immeasurable harm to the Yeshiva. Through their past participation in the jealous behavior of this group of students they share in the guilt of what transpired in the early years of the Yeshiva and the ensuing suffering of "their Rebbe" and his children. It is shameful that they continue the ayin ra'ah and jealousy of those early years by persistently refusing to return the Yeshiva to its rightful owners, Rav Aharon's children - gaonim, tzaddikim, mamshichei darko
.Where is their remorse for their participation in what caused so much physical suffering and pain to Rav Aharon?! Where is their remorse for their participation in what caused "their Rebbe" to be paralyzed on his left side for almost twenty years? Do they know what remorse and what tikun hameuvas means?! They are continuing the jealousy and ayin ra'ah against the children of Rav Aharon and are creating additional meuvas instead of being mesaken past meuvas. Are they demonstrating their respect and devotion to "their Rebbe" by stealing the Yeshiva from the children of their Rebbe?! Their behavior is criminal and insane, and they humiliate and disgrace the memory of "their Rebbe" in a very blatant way.
Rav Aharon bequeathed the Yeshiva to his very devoted, learned, bright, capable, sensitive and righteous children and not to these balabatim.
And they also allow the ayin ra'ah against the great Torah of Rav Aharon to continue to rage. If they are at the helm of the Yeshiva - how can we expect people to connect to the great Torah of Rav Aharon? They are balabatim and are not talmidei chachamim because they are not involved in learning and they, therefore, are not capable of projecting or disseminating the great Torah of Rav Aharon in any way. They are not connected to the great Torah of Rav Aharon, so how can we expect other people to connect to the great Torah of Rav Aharon? They hijacked the Yeshiva and its premises and are, thereby. destroying the Torah of Rav Aharon by allowing the ayin ra'ah to rage in Rav Aharon's own Yeshiva. They must immediately do teshuva and return the Yeshiva to Rav Aharon's children so that Rav Aharon's children can continue to teach and highlight the great Torah and great Mesorah of their father with even greater strength.
Ish al machaneihu v'ish al diglo..
KOL BRISK
Broadcasting shiurim in
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Directly from
YESHIVAS BRISK YERUSHALAYIM
718 305 5805 or 02 6276071 or 02 640 0000 ext.1163
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A gutten Erev Shabbos from Yerushalayim Ir HaKodesh.
death by faith
A neighbor they called in to help pray at the end called the ambulence.
The parents are chraged with negligent homicide.
These are not people living in a forest. These people live in an urban setting in wisconsin. They moved their from California to open their own buisiness. I guess they didn't think God would cover their expenses and they need to have jobs.
So many people claim to believe. So why is it outlandish to imagine that prayer would heal? People have believed that for tens of thousands of years. Maybe they just didn't believe enough? or pray enough?
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
racist humor
Someone I barely know, who says they are Catholic and know I am Jewish, told me that joke. Why is that Ok? Is it Ok? Is it not Ok?
I accept that artists, be they painters or comedians or actors or other, but people pursuing art, may at times break the lines and barriars that society has drawn and that is awesome in my p.o.v. But is it ok for regular people to tell these types of jokes? Does it matter the race/religion/gender of either the teller or listner?
I hear less and less of this type of humor, but it is still previlant.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Scientists Unveil Missing Link In Evolution
12:35am UK, Wednesday May 20, 2009
Alex Watts, Sky News Online
Scientists have unveiled a 47-million-year-old fossilised skeleton of a monkey hailed as the missing link in human evolution.
This 95%-complete 'lemur monkey' is described as the "eighth wonder of the world"
The search for a direct connection between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom has taken 200 years - but it was presented to the world today at a special news conference in New York.
The discovery of the 95%-complete 'lemur monkey' - dubbed Ida - is described by experts as the "eighth wonder of the world".
They say its impact on the world of palaeontology will be "somewhat like an asteroid falling down to Earth".
Researchers say proof of this transitional species finally confirms Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, and the then radical, outlandish ideas he came up with during his time aboard the Beagle.
Sir David Attenborough said Darwin "would have been thrilled" to have seen the fossil - and says it tells us who we are andwhere we came from.
Pictures From Atlantic Productions
"This little creature is going to show us our connection with the rest of the mammals," he said.
"This is the one that connects us directly with them.
"Now people can say 'okay we are primates, show us the link'.
"The link they would have said up to now is missing - well it's no longer missing."
A team of the world's leading fossil experts, led by Professor Jorn Hurum, of Norway's National History Museum, have beensecretly researching the 1ft 9in-tall young female monkey for the past two years.
And now it has been transported to New York under high security and unveiled to the world during the bicentenary of Darwin's birth.
Darwin caused storm with his theory
Later this month, it will be exhibited for one day only at the Natural History Museum in London before being returned to Oslo.
Scientists say Ida - squashed to the thickness of a beer mat by the immense passage of time - is the most complete primate fossil ever found.
With her human-like nails instead of claws, and opposable big toes, she is placed at the very root of human evolution when early primates first developed features that would eventually develop into our own.
Another important discovery is the shape of the talus bone in her foot, which humans still have in their feet millions of lifetimes later.
Ida was unearthed by an amateur fossil-hunter some 25 years ago in Messel pit, an ancient crater lake near Frankfurt, Germany, famous for its fossils.
Fossil expert Professor Jorn HurumThis fossil is really a part of our history; this is part of our evolution, deep, deep back into the aeons of time, 47 million years ago.
She was cleaned and set in polyester resin - and incredibly, was hung on a mystery German collector's wall for 20 years.
Sky News sources say the owner had no idea of the unique fossil's significance and simply admired it like a cherished Van Gogh or Picasso painting.
But in 2006, Ida came into the hands of private dealer Thomas Perner, who presented her to Prof Hurum at the annual Hamburg Fossil and Mineral Fair in Germany - a centre for themurky world of fossil-trading.
Prof Hurum said when he first saw the blueprint for evolution - the "most beautiful fossil worldwide" - he could not sleep for two days.
A home movie records the dramatic moment.
"This is really something that the world has never seen before, this is a unique specimen, totally unique," he says, clearly emotional.
X-ray of Ida's badly fractured left wrist
He says he knew she should be saved for science rather than end up hidden from the world in a wealthy private collector's vault.
But the dealer's asking price was more than $1 million (£660,000) - ten times the amount even the rarest of fossils fetch on the black market.
Eventually, after six months of negotiations, he managed to raise the cash in Norway and brought Ida to Oslo.
Attenborough: The Link Is No Longer Missing
Prof Hurum - who last summer dug up the fossil remains of a 50ft marine monster called Predator X from the permafrost on Svalbard, a Norwegian island close to the North Pole - then assembled a "dream team" of experts who worked in secret for two years.
They included palaeontologist Dr Jens Franzen, Dr Holly Smith, of the University of Michigan, and Philip Gingerich, president-elect of the US Paleontological Society.
Researchers could prove the fossil was genuine through X-rays, knowing it is impossible to fake the inner structure of a bone.
Through radiometric dating of Messel's volcanic rocks, they discovered Ida lived 47 million years ago in the Eocene period.
This was when tropical forests stretched right to the poles, and South America was still drifting and had yet to make contact with North America.
During that period, the first whales, horses, bats and monkeys emerged, and the early primates branched into two groups - one group lived on mainly as lemurs, and the second developed into monkeys, apes and humans.
The experts concluded Ida was not simply a lemur but a 'lemur monkey', displaying a mixture of both groups, and therefore putting her at the very branch of the human line.
Sir David AttenboroughThis little creature is going to show us our connection with the rest of the mammals. This is the one that connects us directly with them.
"When Darwin published his On the Origin of Species in 1859, he said a lot about transitional species," said Prof Hurum
"...and he said that will never be found, a transitional species, and his whole theory will be wrong, so he would be really happy to live today when we publish Ida.
"This fossil is really a part of our history; this is part of our evolution, deep, deep back into the aeons of time, 47 million years ago.
"It's part of our evolution that's been hidden so far, it's been hidden because all the other specimens are so incomplete.
"They are so broken there's almost nothing to study and now this wonderful fossil appears and it makes the story so much easier to tell, so it's really a dream come true."
Up until now, the most famous fossil primate in the world has been Lucy, a 3.18-million-year-old hominid found in Ethiopia in 1974.
She was then our earliest known ancestor, and only 40% complete.
Bishop of Worcester's wife to Charles Darwin
But at 95% complete, Ida was so well preserved in the mud at the bottom of the volcanic lake, there is even evidence of her fur shadow and remains of her last meal.
From this they concluded she was a leaf and fruit eater, and probably lived in the trees around the lake.
The absence of a bacculum (penis bone) confirmed she was female, and her milk teeth put her age at about nine-months-old - in maturity, equivalent to a six-year-old human child.
This was the same age as Prof Hurum's daughter Ida, and he named the fossil after her.
The study is being published and put online by the Public Library of Science, a leading academic journal with offices in Britain and the US.
Dr Hurum also found Predator X
Co-author of the scientific paper, Prof Gingerich, likens its importance to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, an ancient Egyptian artefact found in 1799, which allowed us to decipher hieroglyphic writing.
One clue to Ida's fate - and her remarkable preservation as our oldest ancestor - was her badly fractured left wrist.
The team believes this stopped her from climbing and she had to emerge from the trees to drink water from the 250-metre-deep lake.
They think she was overcome by carbon dioxide gas from the crater, and sunk to the bottom where she was preserved in the mud as a time capsule - and a snapshot of evolution.
But amazingly this final piece of Darwin's jigsaw was almost lost to science when German authorities tried to turn Messel into a massive landfill rubbish dump.
Eventually, after campaigning by Dr Franzen, the plans were rejected and the fossil-rich lake was designated a World Heritage Site.
But no doubt there would have been one person happy for the missing link to have remained hidden.
When Darwin famously told the Bishop of Worcester's wife about his theory of evolution, she remarked: "Descended from the apes! My dear, let us hope that it is not true, but if it is, let us pray that it will not become generally known."
Now, it certainly is.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
brisk battle
Rav Aharon Soloveichik zt'l emphasized the centrality of amailus baTorah specifically in respect to leadership in Klal Yisrael. Also for Dayanim and Poskim, it is insufficient to have only bekiyus-type knowledge and broad familiarity with piskei Halachah. A Posaik b'Yisrael should be steeped in Gemara learning, in shakla vetarya, in Shach and Taz, R' Akiva Eiger, Noda b'Yehuda.. He must continually be involved in learning Gemara, Rishonim vaAchronim. He must be an amail baTorah.
We feel it very important to protest here what two balabatim did to Yeshivas Brisk of Chicago since Rav Aharon Soloveichik passed away. We are taught that the Halacha is:
הוא ובניו בקרב ישראל.
A Gadol in any type of position is to be succeeded by his sons.
Two balabatim "sat themselves down" on the premises and took control of the Yeshiva. One of Rav Aharon's children went to discuss this scandalous situation with the Novominsker Rebbe, HaRav Yaakov Perlow shlit"a, nasi of Mo'etses Gedolei HaTorah of America and also a talmid of Rav Aharon. The Novominsker Rebbe said that he heard from two separate people that someone, an accountant, I don't know him, has taken control of the Yeshiva. He said that he heard this from two separate people. One of them was Rabbi Moshe Meiselman. Rav Perlow shlit"a emphatically declared, "This is an INTOLERABLE situation."
Let us put aside for a moment the major issue of the sons being the rightful yorshim.
Not only are these two balabatim not involved in high-level learning of Gemara. They are not even involved in learning and they are not Talmidai Chachamim. Rav Aharon always emphasized that a Talmid Chacham is someone who is involved in learning. And they are not involved in learning. One is an accountant, the other is an electrical contractor. This is unquestionably a colossal bizayon of the Torah of Rav Aharon. They are blocking the Torah of "their Rebbe" from going forth.
This is NOT LASHON HARAH. Anyone who has any feeling of connection to Rav Aharon Soloveichik and to his Torah has an obligation to cry out in protest! On the contrary, such an absurd and exaggerated situation was able to evolve only as a result and as an expression of the lashon harah, jealously and systematic ayin ra'ah that has taken place over many years and still continues. Various people were jealous of Rav Aharon because of the extraordinary Torah he was teaching, the great Mesorah that he represented, and the outstanding unparalleled personal example of Tzidkus, Chessed, Mesirus Nefesh that he was.
The target of this jealousy was Rav Aharon's children - gaonim, tzaddikim, mamshichei darko.
(This painful story of the jealousy and ayin ra'ah will yet be written about and documented in further detail in a forthcoming sefer.)
The control over the Yeshiva today does not represent the Torah of Rav Aharon and does notrepresent the chessed of Rav Aharon. We ask anyone who has any AUTHENTIC respect, not just self-serving lip service loyalty (I'm a talmid, I have Rav Aharon's picture on my wall..), what are you doing to enable the Torah of Rav Aharon to stay alive through his children in his Yeshiva?!
DEVOTED TALMIDIM, speak up and protest!! The time has come to be mesakain this bizarre and scandalous situation.
The time has come to fully return the Yeshiva to its rightful owners.