Where does it say that in Halacha?

For yet another time I am re-posting the quote below.

The context (this time) is a statement on one of the blogs that a solution to the “shidduch crisis” is to pull down mechitza — figuratively and literally, except in the cases explicitly mandated by Halacha (i.e., davening). The author of the opinion says, for example, that mehadrin buses in Eretz Yisroel which separate men and women are counter-productive to healthy opportunities for young singles to meet. To my surprised response: “Do you want the singles to meet on a bus?”, the author responded along the lines of: “What’s the problem?” (Note that I am not endorsing the mehadrin buses themselves or the behavior of chareidim on them. That’s a separate issue.)

To me, the answer (of what the problem is) is rather clear from multiple perspectives. I consulted with my rabbis to make sure I am not nuts, and they confirmed that at least in this issue I seem to be within boundaries of reason. I.e., that it is certainly an authentic value in Judaism that tznius goes beyond a skirt length, and that separation between genders goes beyond davening. There are very clear reasons for this that are, moreover, very rational.

My point right now is not to discuss the issue of tznius and solutions to shidduch crisis. I wanted to express my opinion that stripping Judaism to the bare bones of Halacha is, in and of itself, past nisht. (More on the topic here.) Now the excerpt from the post on Circus Tent:

Today in the US we have a whole range of people under 60, American born, whose knowledge of Judaism is based exclusively on books, and those books are the Shulchan Aruch and Gemora. Most of these people had parents who I am sure were fine people but left behind the emotional attachment to echte Yiddishkayt in Europe. Here they belonged to Young Israel synagogues and became very acculturated and lost that special hergesh. In America, Judaism was reduced to learning and doing mitzvos by rote. These people include most MO Jews, the so-called Yeshiva community, and even some “Amerikane Chasidim”.

On the other side we have people whose view of Judaism was shaped by seeing how their parents acted, felt, laughed, cried, talked and walked. These people tended to have a genuine Mesorah. They saw Judaism as more than just book learning, and the book learning included Midrash, Chassidus, Sifrei Mussar, vechulu. This people tend to be Chassidic and a few Misnagdim who come from European homes. And in the background of all of this loomed the Holocaust, not Coney Island! To the first category Rabbonim are “machinove”, automated people who act in a mathematical way, and have no emotions. The second category knows that Judaism is more than the dry letter of the law.

Even though it is not the main topic of my post, my rabbi points out that the so-called “shidduch crisis” seems to be affecting the groups listed in the first, not the second paragraph (the ones whose mechitza is barely there as it is).

Update: the point of my quoting the above passage is not to compare the two types of communities, but to compare the two approaches to Torah.

Making everything the best it can be

I had a conversation with a friend yesterday, in which I confessed that I have no idea what the avoida of women in Yiddishkeit and in Chassidus is. Which is still true.

My friend answered: to make things and people the best they can be. Or something along those lines.

I could say that I have these problems and those problems with the answer, and a different set of problems with the alternative answer, but the most intelligent thing I will say is that I still don't really know. (In general, ignorance seems to be my predominant state lately.)

But seeing this joke just now (on this blog) reminded me of my friend’s assertion:

The governor of Texas and his wife are driving through a small town and getting gas. The governor notices that his wife is looking very closely at the gas station attendant filling them up. He remembers that she was born and  grew up in this very town and figures out what two plus two is. After they drive off, the following conversation ensues:

— Hey, aren’t you from this town?
— Yes, dear.
— And you dated a few guys in this town before you moved to Dallas and met me, didn’t you?
— Yep, sure did.
— Hmm. This is really just a wild guess, but is there a chance the guy filling us up was one of them?
— Yeah, you got it. He was my former boyfriend. Didn’t recognize me though.
— In that case, can I ask you what you were thinking about when you were looking at him? Were you thinking that had you married him instead of me, instead of being a wife of the governor of Texas, you’d be married to a gas station attendant?
— No, I was thinking that had I married him, he would be the governor of Texas.

Regarding "coming out"

A bit of a rough draft (I am not on my computer, so forgive errors etc.) of my answer to Hesh's post about his friend's coming out of closet (which, apparently, may not be a PC term).

A few points from me, to begin with:

1. Obviously, one cannot and should not judge someone before being in his shoes. This is a general address of the issue.

1.5 I am not subscribing to the general conservative (right-wing) homophobia. It's wrong and bad because Torah forbids it. Just like breaking Shabbos. If it wasn't for Torah, I'd have no problem with it (of course, there is a question of what's wrong with anything if it's not for Torah -- I am not getting into that, though).

2. Judaism does not prohibit having forbidden desires. Judaism forbids continuing to fantasize and, especially, G-d forbid, act on these desires -- whatever they are, from homosexuality, to adultery, to eating cholov stam. But obviously, Judaism recognizes that we have tendencies and forbidden desires, while we are reshoim and beinoinim. Judaism does not forbid poking one's eye out with a pencil (specifically), because for the most part there is no such tendency.

3. I don't understand the reason behind coming out. He felt like he was lying when his buddies were making comments about passing girls and he had to make those comments too? This is a frum Jew?.. Maybe this is Hashem telling him to stop hanging out with this crowd.

(Also, what frum Jew wears a wife-beater in a way that others see it? OK, as I said, non-judgmental. :)

4. I don't understand the general idea of coming out (unless it's necessary for therapeutic purposes). Imagine yourself coming to shull and saying: "Hey, I am a pedophile!" Or: "Hey, I break Shabbos secretly." Or: "Hey, I cannot control myself and have desires about eating pork -- and from time to time, I eat it."

If you have them, you have them. You deal with them, you struggle with them -- whatever. You talk about them to your mashpia, your friends or relatives, or your rabbi or shrink. But the idea of coming out -- does this mean this person doesn't consider his desires or (G-d forbid) actions (which, I know, have not happened yet) no longer wrong? I will certainly never come out about my sins, such as my secret infatuation with Andrszei Sapkowski's books. (Oops...)

5. Finally, Chabad Chassidus offers the general approach of how to deal with sadness and depression from what one knows to be wrong desires. Obviously, just learning this bit of Chassidus (Ch. 27 of Tanya) isn't going to help and solve all the problems -- one needs general immersion into the ideology and "air" of Chassidus. But the following may help.

Some clips may be not in order and need to be reposted or not accessible now (the first three clips are addressing the actual issue — although you may want to skip ahead a bit in the first one; the rest you can watch for the your general benefit).

Anyway, I am from Russia and not used to technology, so don't judge me.

Seriously speaking, if this helps somebody, at least to some degree, I think it will be a good thing. I am not posting this, because I think it's a cool video, or because I want to have an additional chance to spread Chabad Chassidus propaganda (well, not only because of that), but because I genuinely think this may help somewhat.

From Tanya class on Ch. 27 with Rabbi Shmuel Posner (Chabad of Boston):


Watch live video from chabadboston's channel on Justin.tv


Watch live video from chabadboston's channel on Justin.tv


Watch live video from chabadboston's channel on Justin.tv


Watch live video from chabadboston's channel on Justin.tv


Watch live video from chabadboston's channel on Justin.tv

Gender stereotypes

Saw a funny video and a series of diagrams.



The video seems somewhat misogynist and the diagrams somewhat… what’s female chauvinism?

Anyway, obviously these are stereotypes — some true, others… maybe true (also, they are mostly oriented towards goyishe society), but I was laughing the whole time during the video.

Men vs. women — from Neuroscience to Judaism

(Excitatory neuron is in red. Inhibitory neurons controlling its activity are in blue and green. Click on the picture to see more detail. Source: the quoted paper.)

From “Development of GABA innervation in the cerebral and cerebellar cortices” (Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2007, 8: 673–686) by Huang et al.:

In many regions of the vertebrate brain, neural networks consist of two broad classes of neurons: excitatory principal neurons and inhibitory interneurons. Although excitatory neurons often constitute the vast majority of the neurons that make up neural circuits, by themselves they would only generate an avalanche of excitation, and they would not be able to perform useful computations. It is often the inhibitory interneurons that provide the functional balance, complexity and computational architecture of neural circuits.

Interneurons that use GABA (γ-aminobutyric acid) as their transmitter have far more functions than just the “inhibition” of other neurons. For example, GABA transmission regulates synaptic integration, probability and timing of action potential generation, and plasticity in principal neurons.

Furthermore, interneurons generate and maintain network oscillations, which provide the temporal structures that orchestrate the activities of neural ensembles. The functional output of principal cells — the neural code embedded in their firing patterns — is largely determined by the temporal and spatial dynamics of inhibition in the network.

In other words, it is very well for excitatory cells to be the “representatives” of a specific cortical area and be responsible for sending information to other areas and even sub-cortical structures (all the way to periphery — e.g., to muscles), but it is the interneurons who determine what sort of information will be sent out.

According to Rabbi Gottlieb’s lecture on the differential role of men and women in Judaism (part of a series called “Men and Women”), the former play the role of “representatives” of their families in the society at large. Furthermore, they are the ones taking active roles in the society: witnesses in court, rabbis, judges, kings. In a synagogue, men pray in minyanim, wear their talleisim and tefillin, get an aliyah for reading of the Torah and give over divrei Torah in front of an adience.

(The reason why women do not take an active role in the society is also discussed. As expected, it has to do with cherishing privacy and not drawing public attention to oneself, which for women is crucial, but for men is merely important.)

Without women, however, men would be unable to make correct decisions — or, at least, it is rare that they (choose to) do so. Rabbi Gottlieb distinguishes between authority and power. Authority is a legal concept; power is a pragmatic concept. A king (or a president) may have authority to make any decree (and a bill does not become a law without his “stamp of approval”), but the “power behind the throne” — whoever it is — is who determines what the decree will be and whether it will be passed or not. Without this power-figure, the authority-figure would be blind and... well, powerless.

If we confuse authority and power, it may seem that women are powerless in Judaism. We must realize, however, that just like an excitatory neuron does not fire without its inhibitory neurons telling it how and when to fire (and what information to transmit), in Judaism, men’s public decisions depend crucially on their wives’ private control, advice and approval (or lack of thereof).

A slippery slope of dressing like women. Importance of a beard

(this guy skipped a few steps)

This is what happens. First, men start trimming their beards (bad idea according to Kabbala). Then they start shaving (halachically forbidden according to Tzemach Tzedek). And the next thing you know — they are wearing bras. OK, not exactly, but according to Judaism, shaving is considered to be an activity that leads to men imitating female look, which is forbidden to Jews (as is practice of women imitating masculine look).

Many people believe that just because it says in Shulchan Aruch and Rambam that it is OK to trimm one’s beard, these sources allow use of electric shavers that “trim” all the way to no beard (as opposed to obviously forbidden shaving with a razor). That’s not true. Shulchan Aruch and Rambam talk about halachically allowed (although still kabbalistically forbidden) trimming of beard to maintain a symmetric shape. According to Tzemach Tzedek (whose psak din relates not only to Chabad Chassidim but arguably to all Jews of Russian heritage), trimming all the way down to no beard is immitating a female look, which is not allowed.

In general, having a beard is considered in Judaism a sign of fear of heaven (a Russian shochet who moved to Germany and started shaving should not be bought meat from). In Chassidus, it is considered important to have an untrimmed beard. Listen to Rabbi Paltiel’s shiur explaining the reasons.

* * *

Coming back to the topic of male bras. Those Japanese… what would we do without them? They are the only ones with common sense not only in cars, but, as it turns out, in clothes too.

“Executive director of Wishroom, Akiko Okunomiya, hopes the [men bras] will help men understand women better.” Umm… Yes. This makes sense. I think… Get even more in touch with our feminine side to understand women. And women should get more in touch with their masculine side to understand men. (Women playing Unreal Tournament and paintball, drinking beer and watching soccer? Sounds good to me.)

Regarding this new phenomenon in men’s attire. I’ll go out on a limb and say this is probably assur.

I wonder, however, how long it will take for some MO rabbis to declare that it’s OK, since in our culture, an image of a man in a bra is not shocking (after all, Seinfeld already introduced the concept) — especially, if it contributes to a man’s feeling of self-worth. Just like women feel inadequate by not being given opportunity to wear talles… well, you get the idea. (Lehavdil.)

* * *

Returning to the topic of beards, a joke.

A modern, cleanely-shaven Jew is approached by a traditional-looking Jew with a full beard. The latter says to the former:
— When you go up to Heaven, they will ask you: “Jew, where is your beard?”
The first Jew answers:
— And when you go to Heaven, they will ask: “Beard, where is your Jew?”