Originally posted on Dov Bear

By Chometz Ben Yayin

No. I don’t pray to a cross, and no, I’m not an angry davener.

Let me explain.

I live on the upper west side. I have for more than ten years. I have done the usual thing regarding shul which is OZ by night and The Jewish Center Shabbat morning.

But week after week and year after year of meaningless socializing and feeling lack of meaning in my prayers. I decided to try out Kehillat Hadar. An open orthodox style minyan with mixed seating. 

I had a good right wing upbringing which of course equivocated davening in a mixed minyan as basically worse than praying alone, or not praying at all. Let alone that some extreme right wingers (eg; Nate) would say its a matter of yaharog v’al ya’avar (better to die rather than transgress).

To be honest I did have a nervous feeling as I walked in. I tried not to look around and I took a seat in the back.

Then, I noticed something. Nobody was talking during davening, women weren’t scoping out the men, and even more surprising, the men were not checking out the women. True, many of the women had talitot on so I suppose they could have been married. But many were sitting alone or with other women, so I presumed them to be single.

What truly struck me though, was the contrast to what I had been raised to believe, that mixed prayers are not modest, that women who go to mixed prayers are radical bra-burning feminists. The women at Hadar were dressed way more modestly than the typical red carpet fashion show that goes on at the Jewish Center. There were some crunchy, hippy types at Hadar. But the vast majority were just dressed plain nicely. No extra jewelry or sexually suggestive dresses to catch the guys’ attention.

Now, the davening. It was not rushed, and the tunes they used were totally traditional and taken from across the range. I particularly liked how they took the Yom Kippur tune from the description of the Kohen after the Avodah. In fact I kept humming the tunes I heard for the rest of the day. The Dvar Torah wasn’t too long and the kiddush was dairy which is my preference, and modest in size, not calculated to leave you feeling like you had a lead weight in your stomach. (They had mini twix bars, a favorite of mine).

When I first entered my stomach was doing flip flops. But as the service progressed I began to feel more comfortable and even to be honest snuck a few surreptitious glances at the women wondering which I might try to strike up a conversation with at kiddush.

Now, the most important aspect of my experiment. I enjoyed my prayers. For the first time in a long, long time I didn’t feel cynical or pressed to go to shul. My davening actually had meaning for me. I also felt I could actually make friends there. I got to chat with a few women and although I didn’t end up with any phone numbers, I felt it was much easier to initiate a conversation than at the Jewish Center or OZ where the size of the crowd, the cacophony of noise, and the imperviousness of the cliques is calculated against you. The conversations I had were also more interesting and not just shallow chatter.

I don’t know if going to Hadar will become a regular weekly habit for me. For now I’m just glad that I tried it. For my davening, for my social life, and for the mini Twix bars.
Search for more information about Hadar at 4torah.com

• Are you pissed that some events have mixed seating?
• My buddies wedding was mixed seating for all besides for the singles!!!
• Going to shul in the morning sucks

As expected the Internet Asifa has been “sold out” and now all those frum scalpers are selling them online check out the ebay ad for them. Someone just sent me this hilarious ad on craigslist, I wonder if there really are box seats that allow women?

Box seats for the Internet Asifa (women allowed) – $613 (Citi Field )

Date: 2012-05-16, 12:17AM EDT
Reply to: tzv7p-3018266735@sale.craigslist.org ^{[Errors when replying to ads?]}

PostingID: 3018266735

• Internet Asifa organizer allegedly beat his own yeshiva students
• Thousands of Charedim will gather at Citi Field to discuss the dangers of the internet
• Is the Internet Asifa a scam?

I don’t know anyone who’s happy and off the derech. If they were so happy, why would they keep having to tell us religious Jews how silly we are, couldn’t they just be happy with their decision and leave us alone. Yet day in and day out they visit this site and others and feel the need to argue relentlessly for the virtues of secularism. They tend to have no values and morals and feel the need to drag us down to their level. You left, that’s great, leave us alone. That’s all I really want to say them when they have these dumb arguments about how terrible religion is.

It seems that they never focus on the good, like the fact that Chassidim and other ultra orthodox groups do lots of charity for everyone in their own communities. In fact Chassidim are responsible for so many charity groups that non-religious people would never do because they aren’t worried about charity because they have no morals. Tomche shabbos doesn’t exist in communities that don’t keep shabbos. Sheitle gemachs are not needed in places where married women choose to flaunt their uncovered hair that is supposed to be for their husbands alone. The off the derech community only offers charity in terms of free education and dating advice as long as you distance yourself from those terrible religious Jews. Have they forgotten about shidduch vision? I bet you they don’t offer free skype dating supervised by baal habbatishe guys standing next to the cases of silver licht.

They have to miserable, otherwise they wouldn’t have left such a beautiful and logical religion right? Something must have went wrong in their lives, in many ways they are like converts and baalei teshuva, only they are less moral and less logical and succumbed to their yetzer harah’s. They could learn a few things from BT’s and converts. Maybe they should attend an Aish Discovery seminar before leaving the derech, they could see the beauty and intricacies of the world that only a master creator could have thought of. They could learn that science and religion coexist only when it works to the Kiruv Artists advantage, but at least it’s not fully shunned like in their own communities.

It’s high time that those considering leaving the path could switch communities and leave their path for another mehalich. Did you know that some communities are so open that they still consider you frum is you touch a member of the opposite sex, own a television, hire someone to push your kid to shul and wear clothing doesn’t jive with 19th century Poland? I know it seems far fetched,  but I think that if you can’t see the beauty and ruchniyus of the Chassidish community you could try something a bit more modernishe and work your way back. There’s no point in just wasting everything for a little premarital sex, bacon and beach time on shabbos. Besides, in some communities you can find veal bacon, sit at the beach on shabbos and have premarital sex and still be considered frum. It’s a good thing that the three things that determine your frum status (shabbos, kashrus and niddah) all have amazing loopholes.

• Stuff off the derech people like
• Convincing my friend to go off the derech
• Off the derech community affiliations

Y-Love came out to me at a shabbos meal a couple years ago, I wasn’t shocked at all, it finally explained his effeminate voice and some of his hand motions. I just wondered what it would do to his career, I’d noticed that many frum Jews can’t separate their politics and religion from things enough to listen to a rapper who called himself frum and gay. Well, he now considers himself ex-Chassidic, so I guess we can all go back to liking Y-Love. For a second there I thought we’d have to give up listening to him (especially his sefira album) because he was going against the Torah. Check out the piece on Out.com.

• Coming out of the closet in the frum community
• Chassidic groups decide to kick out non-Chassidish sounding members
• Unpious Blog: Chassidic Rebels with a cause

I sat alert for about ten minutes and then the rebbe started pacing, at this cue I arranged my gemara, mishna brura, notebooks and a mesilas yeshurim in a way that would hide the fact that I was dozing off. I had always sat in corners to the right side of the room and in this case there was a small pillar to block me from direct rebbe view, besides he was droning on about courtyards and public domains and things I never needed to know in real life.

I knew that some guys liked to read in shiur, there was Zev to the left of me with a comic book and he only got away with this because of the shtender he had made last year at Mogen Av, it seemed as if every camp utilized a perfectly good wood working program to make the same old shtender year after year as if there was no other use for tools then to make shtenders, sukkahs and cherry wood bookcases that every kollel guy seemed to cherish. I would go to these guys on Friday night for dinner, that itself a feat because no one ever invited me and I had to make hints as if I was trying to get a goy to turn on a light for me or something and when I finally got there we had oily shake and bake chicken, some sort of romain lettuce and empire deli meat salad and maybe some cranberry kugel which was really cake. What struck me most was how every piece of furniture was falling apart besides for these dark red bookcases. The couches were second hand, the table had a leaf missing and the chairs were borrowed, but the bookcases which weren’t really needed except to show off seforim collections because you were in yeshiva all day anyway, were in perfect shape.

Next Zev was Yanky and he was doodling, he was on this maze phase, later he would introduce me to Escher, which I think all the jinco wearing druggie dudes from Flatbush got into about the same time they discovered the laser light shows played to the Wall at the local planetarium. I myself wasn’t much into drugs, I liked the concept, I just felt pride in having never tried them. It seemed like no one ever really payed attention in shiur. Yes, there were the in-towners, ironic because they were the goyishe kids who went to NCSY and wore knitted yarmulkes. The Rabbis would tell us that they had to accept them to make the community give more money, but we weren’t allowed to eat by their houses or go to their shuls – most because of girls.

Even more funny was the fact that these in-towners were sitting in front of the shiur room and all the supposedly frum yeshiva guys were in back goofing off, sleeping or thinking about the latest porno they smuggled into yeshiva in their cereal box. I’m not gonna lie, I spent a lot of time thinking about girls, biking and how to get an invitation to a kollel guy for Friday night so I could go to shul and look over the mechitza at the girls from the girls yeshiva in town.

Suddenly I felt something whiz by my ear and could hear everyone laughing. Then before I knew what hit me the rebbe had smacked the table out from under me and all of my books went flying everywhere. I was jolted awake and wondering what on earth had happened. I’m sure glad the chalk that whizzed by my ear didn’t get me. I could also distinctly remember being woken up with dangling tzitzis in my ear, pouring water down my back and various other rebbe tactics that would probably qualify as abuse by today’s standards. It was all in good fun, except when it involved a kenas, then it just got plain old stupid.

• Yeshiva Memories: The girls sunbathing across the street
• My kind of shiur
• Yeshiva Memories: Saturday Nights

Dear Chinuch Roundtable:

• Frum Nudist wonders how to broach this issue on shidduchim
• Join the Chinuch Round Table on Frum Satire
• Why frum Jews don’t hold of the government

They say that government and taxes are two necessary evils whether we like it or not. The frum community also has a lot of necessary evils and I just wanted to touch upon a few of them today. I’m sure some of you may think that certain things are necessary evils, but things like shabbos toilet paper is not necessary and pre-checked vegetables are just plain evil. 

1. Motzoi Shabbos Pizza: Every time I go to New York, I end up eating pizza on motzoi shabbos. It’s one of the facts of life, despite the fact that NY has so much going on, I end up doing nothing but eating pizza and watching all the frummies doing exactly what I’m doing.
2. Kids saying Ma Nishtana: I absolutely hate it when every kid at the table has to say ma nishtana, but it has to happen because this is one of the ways in which parents gauge the value of the education their children at getting at the local chabad preschool. Can they do it in 3 languages with a nice enough tune with enough bravado so all the adults can actually listen without singing along in hushed voices? Or do the adults have to push the shy child to get one phrase out in Hebrew?
3. Early Shabbos: If not for kids, we wouldn’t have early shabbos, thank God the shul in San Francisco decided to push it back from the minhag yisroel of 7pm to middle at 7:30. The only folks who do a normal shabbos start time in the Bay are chabad, God bless em.
4. Crusty Washing cups: How exactly is one supposed to clean a washing cup that’s chained to a metal sink without any soap in site? Washing cups are all about spiritual cleanliness? Ruach ra’ah is not visible, accept on the hands of meshulachim. Did you know that there used to be a facebook event called “national clean your washing cup day” or something of the sort.
5. Egg Kichel: Surprisingly there are enough people born before 1935 still alive that have fond memories of Egg Kichel to keep the business alive. So until everyone over 80 dies off, we will still have to see this terrible invention at select kiddushim.
6. Frum Magazines: Heck, I even read them for the ads and shidduch crisis solution articles, how else would frum women keep up their Yinglish skills if they moved out of town. There is also a hint, maybe more than a hint of propaganda and indoctrination inlaid within the pages of Ami and Mishpacha.
7. Pre-pubescent boys choirs: Men fiend the high voice of a woman so badly that instead of risking arousal by a female voice, they risk arousal by a little boys voice. I’m not sure which one is better, I guess there is no problem halachically with becoming aroused by little boys voices. Ethically, it’s a problem because it looks really pedo-homo-erotic.
8. Shabbos Robes: Yes, they are damned ugly, but the comfort level of going without bra, panties and stockings is unsurpassed. If I were a woman, I’d be wearing that darned thing all day (only after I was married, because dudes in general don’t like shabbos robes)
9. Snoods: If you had to cover your hair all the time, wouldn’t it be more comfy to throw it in a windsock. Yes, they are ugly and scare away any wife swapping opportunities, but there’s a general rule that women who wear snoods do not wife swap.
10. Bimeh Madlikin: I have never said it in my life, but it’s a great time to go to the bathroom, look over the mechitza and do any talking that you need to do before maariv.
11. Tehillim Lists: Nothing like being part of a massive campaign to heal some peeps, so what if 99% of the time you ignore them when they show up unwanted in your inbox.
12. Denial: How else could orthodox Judaism flourish through logic, reason, rationality, science and cheeseburgers.
13. Black Hats: Like it or not, it’s still the determinate factor of frumkeit. If you don’t wear a black hat you just aren’t that frum. We have tried to get away from it, but it shall always be like that, unless rabbits become an endangered species.
14. Shtetl Fiction: I think that by now most people realize that not everyone in the alter heim was a genius wagon wheel repairman that knew all of shas by age 10, but the stories of the gedolim in all those artscroll hagiographies are pretty darned good. How else do you expect people to become frum, reading inspiring stories is one of the best ways, even though it’s all fiction.
15. Telz Charoses: When I was a kid, the only packages we ever got in the mail were from Telse Yeshiva, we got charoses and the bedikas chometz kit and we got wicks for chanukah. Sure, the choroses is made in China and actually looks like Egyptian cement, but I’m sure many a secular Jew were touched enough to marry within the fold due to such generosity from such a fine institution.
16. Mezonos Bread: I feel it’s an unfair loophole to create bread made with juice so that lazydox Jews can skirt the requirement to thank God for our sustenance in benching, but it’s actually kind of cool that frummies hold by such things.
17. Shabbos Toothpaste: I remember the days when no one brushed their teeth on shabbos and no one thought to complain about it, if you were frum you knew that Hashem couldn’t care less if your breath was stinky. All Hashem cared about was bleeding gums and bubbles. Then some modernishe people frummed out and couldn’t take 24 hours with brushing their teeth and they caused for such terrible things as the shabbos toothbrush and shabbos toothpaste.
18. Shaloshudos: AKA suedat shlishit: As if anyone who has just spent all of shabbos eating is hungry for more. Shaloshudos is commonly known as the most depressing meal of the week, shabbos is almost over and to commemorate this sad event, the rejects and nebishy guys of the shul get together to eat soggy leftovers, flat seltzer and sing the same tired songs every week. But, apparently it’s a very important meal and elevated in some kabbalistic works to the point of such highs that you are required to eat matza and ice cream scoop shaped tuna salad in honor of this auspicious time.
19. Kiruv: To be honest with you, I hate kiruv, it’s ruined the frum community. It makes us FFB’s look bad when you have people who’ve only just got into Judaism and they know more than you, but there are a lot of reasons to like Kiruv. Frum Hip-Hop never would have happened without kiruv. We never would have had scantily clad chabad girls running around and we never would have had good food, because frummies would have been content with kishke and gravy for lunch instead of salad bars and sushi.
20. Chabad: Yeh, yeh, I know you hate them for some abstract reason like their beliefs which don’t jive with yours, but how else are you going to get kosher food in Tailand? How else are thousands of college kids going to find real Judaism at the University of Georgia or Colorado? How else would there have ever been something called the luxury mikvah?
21. Chumras: A lot of people think chumras are a new thing, but there have been chumras for thousands of years. In my chosson class I just learned of the Ohr Zarua, possibly the worst chumra in the world for those familiar. Chumras are necessary to all the zealots to be more zealous. There’s no better feeling than knowing you are frummer than your neighbor and it’s actually a good taiyva to have.
22. Having these darned 4torah.com ads on the bottom of every post.

• What will the next frum community crisis be?
• Guide to the different crises of the frum community
• RE: The different crises of the frum community

• Why We May Never Know Which 85 Ultra-Orthodox Men Were Arrested for Child Sex Abuse
• Larry Flynt wants the government to bailout the porn industry
• Why frum Jews don’t hold of the government

The Akivan view purports that the entire Torah was given to Moses on Sinai — general principles along with all of the particulars — but this appears to come into conflict with the closing segment of this week’s parsha.

During a family dispute, a certain man took God’s name in vain and was immediately taken to Moses and sequestered “lifrosh lahem al pi Hashem,” “until it would be explained to them through the word of God.” (Leviticus 24:12)

According to the Ishmaelian school of thought, Moses did not receive the entire Torah at Sinai and it is entirely consistent with this perspective that Moses did not know what to do at this juncture — Moses had simply not yet received word from on high as to how to deal with a blasphemer.

The Sifre, a compendium of midrashic literature that largely advances an Ishmaelian viewpoint, points out that there were four rulings that eluded Moses, one of them being the megadef (the law concerning the blasphemer).  The other three mentioned by the midrash are Pesach Sheini (the law of the Second Passover — Numbers 9:6-14), bnos Tzelofchad (the law concerning the daughters of Tzelofchad — Numbers 27:1-11) and the mekoshesh eitzim (the law concerning the wood gatherer — Numbers 15:32-36).  All of this is very consistent with the view of R’ Ishmael, for Moses only knew what he knew when he knew it — spread out over some time in the wilderness rather than concentrated at Sinai.

Things are not so simple though, for the Akivan perspective, which must explain how it was that Moses was unaware of the appropriate response to these 4 situations if he had access to the Torah, and by “Torah,” R’ Akiva means nearly anything and everything related to the codified teachings of Judaism.  The paradoxical nature of what follows from taking such a position amounts to something quite bizarre indeed.  Moses learns on Sinai the law concerning the blasphemer, and not only can he not recall this later at the actual time of the blasphemer but part of the Torah that he learned at Sinai was the narrative of him in the future not recalling what to do with the blasphemer.  Thinking about this brings back fond memories of the time I played Johnny B. Goode with Marvin Berry and the Starlighters at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance.

To reconcile their position on the unified presentation of the entire Torah with the obvious plot holes that develop, the School of R’ Akiva proposes that the incident of the wood gatherer occurred prior to Sinai but after the events at Marah, which tradition maintains included the giving over of the laws of Shabbos.  This is supported by the view of R’ Akiva which explains the special distinction of Saturday in relation to the manna as having been a function of the laws of Shabbos that had already been received by the Children of Israel.

In this week’s parsha, Rashi explains the use of the term “vayanichuhu” as specifically meaning that the blasphemer was placed livado — in solitary confinement — and not with another prisoner.  But who else would be imprisoned?  The Torah never speaks of imprisonment, other than a single time: in relation to the wood gatherer.  Rashi, in line with the Akivan view, puts the two events together chronologically, making them both before Sinai and thus eliminating any paradoxes of Moses not knowing what to do even though he had not only been forewarned how to handle the situations but had been informed, in learning the text of the Torah, that he wouldn’t know what to do.

Moses knew that the wood gatherer — identified by R’ Akiva as Tzelofchad himself (commentary of Rashi on Numbers 27:3, v’hu lo haya) — was deserving of death (Bavli Sanhedrin 78b, 13th line from the top) because of the verse (Exodus 31:14) that states so explicitly…so what was it exactly that Moses was unsure of?  Chizkuni suggests that Moses was torn over whether to sentence him to the default type of court-ordered execution, chenek (strangulation), because no special mention of another means of execution was stated by the verse, or whether he should die by skilah (stoning) because of a link to idolatry via a g’zeirah shaveh, which is punishable by stoning.

But as for the blasphemer, Moses was unsure if he even deserved the death penalty, and so he was not confined with the wood gatherer who was on death row.

This sort of chronological shifting works well for the wood gatherer and the blasphemer (even though it is the School of R’ Ishmael that applies the notion of dischronology in the apparent continuum of biblical events) but cannot be employed for the other two events that seem to expose plot holes in R’ Akiva’s version of the nature of the revelation at Sinai.   The answers proposed, though — that Moses became weak and/or forgot (Sifra, heavily influenced by the Akivan philosophy) or that he really did know but chose not to reveal the information until such time as those in whose merit the laws would be elucidated came onto the scene (Rid) — seem somewhat contrived.  Other answers are given that do not seem so strange but that extend beyond the focus of this post.

• Dvar Torah Pinchas: Warning (Spoilers)
• Dvar Torah Va’era: Moses’ Contribution
• Dvar Torah Bo: Moses’ Innovation