Yehupitz
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
We have moved
Impressed with the content features of the baliblogs family, I have decided to move my blog to baltiblogs, though the hamlet of Yehupitz is quite a distance from Baltimore. All entries have been moved to that site as well.
See you on the other side.
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
FOOD
I am very very hungry right now. Like, REALLY hungry.
A hunger that only fleishigs can soothe. All the milchigs in the world will not suffice to silence the raging beast in my stomach who is demanding to be fed.
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Rabbi Reinman
Rabbi Yosef Reinman lives in Lakewood, New Jersey. If you have ever davened in a shul in Lakewood NJ you would understand why he considers Shomrei Emunah in Baltimore a "Modern Orthodox" shul.
Friday, March 19, 2004
You know what peeves me?
The Ashkenazi custom to refain from Kitniyos on Passover, that's what.
All these congregants and balebatim who think it's absurd that they would confuse the corn syrup in their Coca-Cola, or their cranberry bean soup, with chometz ask me for reassurance. And I can't give it to them. I can only smile sheepishly as in my heart of hearts I totally agree with them.
And since I defend Judaism to the masses, my justification is that ein hochi nami it is totally insane and unnecessary, and Minhag Yisrael Torah Hee that Jews behave insanely and unnecessarily when it comes to Passover. Why? Because the Torah tells us to, at least when it comes to chometz.
When it comes to the standard rules of Kashrus, the Torah tells us not to eat this or that, throw it to the dog even. But when it comes to chometz, we can't even OWN any from the previous midday or have any 1-seen or 2-found in our homes! Rather extreme.
I think that Jews saw this attitude and said "Ah. so that's how neurotic we should get when we develop our rabbinic and communal-custom extensions of the rule." And voila, no corn syrup!
This theory is based on something the RaM'CHaL says in Mesilas Yesharim. He says that Chazal derived their attitude towards rabbinic fences from the Torah's admonitions to the nazir.
It still annoys me. After all, hundreds of thousands of sefardim have no issue with it. There are no more of those kehillos to enforce it, so there's no more jurisdiction issue as described in the Rambam's intro to the Yad. And when it comes to syrups and oils, there are even Ashkenazi Rabbis, most notably R'Yitzchok Elchonon Spector of Kovno,who allowed liquid Kitniyos derivatives.
Chag Kasher v'Sameyach
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
On being old
I was tutoring a Bar-Mitzvah kid today and he made some sort of lame joke about me being very old. My feelings weren't hurt. It got me thinking though. I'm under 30 now. But I thought it was very funny that one day I could be thought of as old, or very old.
Monday, March 15, 2004
The Spanish dishonoured their dead
You all must be tired of me citing Mark Steyn all the time. But gosh darn it, the man is on the ball. In this article he writes what I have been thinking all day.
PS My apologies to him for calling him a meshumad a while back. His assistant e-mailed me, telling me that the last real Jew in his family was two or three generations back, on his father's side.
Orthodoxy vs. Orthopraxy
This friend of a friend wrote this essay about a new book Marc Shapiro has wrote, poo-pooing the idea that Judaism has articles of faith that are immutable, particularly most of the Rambam's 13 principles.
I know from a reliable Hungarian source that the late Rabbi Yaakov Weinberg considered Shapiro to be a "meizid" i.e. he knows that what he's doing with the essay cum book that he is distorting the truth!
I will be writing more about this Orthopraxy in future blogs.
One point to remember is that Moses Mendelsohn was an Orthopraxic Jew.
Passover
It's amazing what learning a little halacha can do for a person.
All these years we've been hearing and reading about all these women who are "oppressed" with all their extensive Passover preparations. The implied moral was that it's the male rabbis who have made their lives miserable.
But a touch of research into the halachic codes reveals that what these women do isn't really required! The most extreme the Talmud and codes get is when you need to look down some hole in a wall. But that's only if there is reason to assume that someone ate there, or if rats are walking around your house and grabbing cookies as they go.
So ladies: Take it easy! Enjoy the holiday.
Sunday, March 14, 2004
Orthodox but...
When I wrote "but" in the headline, I did not mean to suggest that the Rabbi whose views are promoted on www.kashrut.org is not Orthodox. But one who peruses the halachic views promoted on the website will discover that the rabbi's views are not considered mainstream by the current convention in the observant world.
Among his eyebrow-raising claims:
1) Products that are nominally kosher do not need an official hechsher. Reading the ingredients on the label is sufficient. This is because a) Food producers would not lie to the FDA, which insists on truth in labeling, and b) there is no need to suspect that the producers have cooked non-kosher items on their machinery in the 24 hours prior to cooking the kosher items.
2) Gelatin has been confirmed by the rabbi through investigation to be totally dried up and inedible, and is therefore kosher pareve. He claims that the rabbis who forbid gelatin did so because of their uncertainty as to whether it is truly 100%dried up. But Rabib Abadi actually investigated and discovered that it rally is, removing the doubt.
3) The rules of Battul B'Shishim apply Bdieved. That means that while it is forbidden to mix 1/60th treif in one's own food at home, if a non-Jew has added less than 1/60th treif in their factories for their own recipe purposes, the food should be considered 100% kosher with no reservations.
4) While whey is derived from milk, it is what the Talmud calls "Nisiubei d'chalba", residual liquid that is left over after cheese production, and pareve. Therefore, according to him, all those OU-D products that list whey as an ingredient are halachically pareve.
He has many other views that are fascinating, and let's face it, would make our lives much easier. The problem is that the one who runs the website is so freakin' rude that he offends many otherwise openminded and observant people.
There's more. I'm not endorsing rabbi abadi's views. He certainly doesn't need my endorsement! I just thought I'd pass it on.
