The Apikorsus Companion v2.0

OU Transliteration Humor

2009-03-23T16:08:00.004-04:00

It's nice when a blog people actually read picks up on important news like the OU's kitniyot waffling on quinoa.

In my last post, I pointed out the different spellings of kitni[y]?o(t|s|th) on the same site, and had simply assumed that there were just a lot of articles with different authors and no style guide. I could easily excuse the headline writer of this article for not carefully reading the article. What I hadn't noticed last time is this page (which is very similar, but not identical to, the content of the PDF Passover Guide), which includes all of the following words, all within two paragraphs:

machloketh

kitniyoth

kitniyot

kitniyos

Why not just throw in some "kitnios" for good measure?

Quinoa 2009

2009-03-12T00:54:00.002-04:00

Once again, it's time for the annual check on the status of quinoa for Passover. This year, instead of Aish Hatorah, the source of bafflement is the OU.

Their Passover Guide is out and online. The full PDF quotes the now common and relatively safe "ask your Rabbi" (yes, Rabbi is capitalized) position. One article attempts to define "kitnios" (or is it "kitniyot?") logically by reference to the Mishnah Brura, thus stating that quinoa "logically" should be kitniyot, despite all the exceptions that lead to the conclusion that kitniyot defies logic.* (Another baffling statement in the article is that if kitniyot are prepared on Pesach for a permissible reason, "they should be prepared in special non-Pesach and non-chametz utensils, which should not be washed with the Pesach dishes" -- anyone know where that comes from?) The other quinoa-related news on the OU website is the short kitniyot list, which, despite the official "ask your Rabbi" position, says (drumroll please):

The following may be Kitniyot and are therefore not used:
Quinoa
Amaranth

Huh?

* The article was prepared in a word processor with autocorrect turned on. Anyone want to guess how I knew that? :-)

Funniest copyright license?

2009-02-19T16:38:00.003-05:00

From a Debian bug report comes the copyright license for a file from a LaTeX package:


%  This should appear in a file named diagram.tex
%         Copyright 1988,1989 Michael Barr
[snip]
%
%         All commercial rights reserved.  May be freely distributed
%         and used with the following exceptions:
%         1. No commercial use without explicit permission.
%         2. It may not be used by any employee of a telephone
%         company.
%         3. It may not be distributed without this notice.

You have to wonder what the author had against telephone companies.

Post-election baby-eating roundup

2008-11-08T23:16:00.003-05:00

An earlier post tracked the election by how many times "[candidate name] eats babies" appeared on the Intertubes (via Google). It was posted shortly after Palin was selected as McCain's VP nominee, and so, she had very few hits. How things have changed:

McCain-eats-babies: 2340 (up x4.95)
Obama-eats-babies: 85000 (up x107)

Palin-eats-babies: 1910 (up x955)
Biden-eats-babies: 22 (up x5.5)

Well, except for Biden. He made so little of an impression that he didn't even eat triple-digits worth of babies.

Obama and McCain had head starts over their running mates, but boy did Obama chow down in the three months since we last visited this topic. The largest increase factor, though, was Palin's, at almost 1000x higher than her August numbers.

What does it mean? I'd go out on a limb and guess: very little.

Do they teach spamming in publicist school?

2008-11-06T22:15:00.005-05:00

I just got this email in my blog account email box:

Hi there,

I'm reaching out to offer you articles by [innocent client], author of [client's other book]. !

Below is an article by [innocent client] that I thought might be of interest to you and your readers. Please feel free to reprint it including copyright information and let me know if you'd like any additional materials, as I have several others. I look forward to working with you!

Best,

Julie

[...snipped out the actual press release...]

--------------------------------------
Julie Harabedian
Publicist
Main line [phone number redacted (easy enough to find by Google)]
------------------------------
FSB Associates
[address redacted]
[link redacted]
--------------------------------------

I've gotten email like this before, usually promoting websites and blogs with kooky views, but what caught my attention this time is that the company is real and presents itself as a professional operation, the name associated with the email appears to be real, and the product seems to be real too.^* The company is probably aiming for something of a viral marketing campaign by having random bloggers print their press releases (read: advertisements) for free, and make it look like a popular product endorsed by all sorts of random people. Because I've never had a business relationship with the sender or the company, sending the canned post to me is completely random. The key point that was missed is that spam is unprofessional.^**

Additionally, the sender didn't read the terms of use/spam policy that is listed right next to my email address. How could she? She probably used a spider/mass mailer to get my email address.

Congratulations, Julie, you've now got a cherished place on the list of evil spammers on my right sidebar. Maybe I'll tip you off. You were nice enough to give me an email address to contact you if I want more ads. Otherwise, I hope you Google yourself some day.

^* The spam operation is presented on their own page this way [my comments in bracketed italics]:

Content Syndication:
The majority of web sites online are eager for content deemed of interest to their readers. FSB has established and continues to establish [parasitic] relationships with numerous Web sites - for both general interest and niche audiences. We are able to provide these Web sites with ready-to-use electronic book excerpts and original articles as well as electronic photos making it as simple as possible for online editors to update and add to their sites [because they can't come up with their own original content]. These features happen faster and last longer than other types of media coverage, giving the buzz about a book a quick start and longevity.

One particularly entertaining tidbit is that the spammer also touts their own “thorough understanding of "netiquette."”

^** Or, alternatively, which part of "this is not an advertising blog" was unclear?

Throwing the bums out

2008-11-04T10:11:00.004-05:00

Place: "Studentville," MA
Time: 9:25AM-9:55AM
Line length: Approximately 40-50 ahead of me. 20 minutes long. By 9:35, approximately 30 more were behind me. The line length was getting slightly shorter over time, but was still out of the polling place and around a corner when I left. For reference, the longest voting line I had waited on previously in Studentville was about 5 minutes, during the previous state gubernatorial election. I usually vote at about the same time of day.

The apparent average age of the voters was definitely younger (20's-30's) than usual (40's+ -- "usual" is based on a much lower sample size!).

Studentville uses optical scan paper ballots; Disabled voters can uses an ES&S AutoMark (link is to a press release) machine, which marks the same optical scan ballots, but does not record votes.

Voting problems: The usual procedure for checking voter eligibility is to check off address-associated names from the list at the entrance/exit. Some names (including mine) were not on the voter lists. When that happened, the poll workers were checking IDs and writing names and addresses on a list at the entrance and exit from the polls. They were making some people sign forms, and others not. Sometimes, they seemed to be giving provisional ballots, sometimes, not. (They gave me a real ballot). I'm not sure what differentiated what happened to whom (having a photo ID?). A call to the Studentville Elections Commission revealed that they printed incomplete lists and were delivering complete lists to polling places. They verified my registration over the phone.

Meta d'var Torah on Parshat Noach

2008-10-31T15:47:00.003-04:00

The beginning of the Tower of Babel story is Genesis 11:1: וַיְהִי כָל-הָאָרֶץ, שָׂפָה אֶחָת, וּדְבָרִים, אֲחָדִים.. The (old) JPS translates "And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech." If you assume that the Bible conserves words, the meaning of this verse must be nontrivial, after all, speaking the same language necessarily implies usage of the the same words.

I would propose that the "one speech" (d'varim achadim) is a hint that everyone was giving the same d'var Torah, resulting in the beginning of the end of the Babylonian project. The languages were confused so that nobody would understand each other and they might come up with some original ideas.

The story was placed in Parshat Noach as a warning to future generations. It didn't work.

PSA: Save the world! If you're giving a d'var torah this week, avoid the Rashi on the first verse of the parsha at all costs.

Candidates eat babies!

2008-08-29T15:28:00.005-04:00

And now for something completely different...

Now that we know who will be the running mates on both the Obama and McCain tickets, here's an unscientific and unrepresentative way of figuring out how they're doing (at least in notoriety) via Google search:
McCain-eats-babies: 472 results.
Obama-eats-babies: 791 results.

and for VP:
Palin-eats-babies: 2 results.
Biden-eats-babies: 4 results.

Note that, when the announcement was first made, "Palin-eats-babies" had 0 results. (Update: For an explanation of why you need the dashes, see the third comment).

Because she asked for it

2008-08-03T21:28:00.003-04:00

In a post only tangentially related to digital cameras, DW posted that I fixed our Casio EX-Z120 digital camera. The camera's problem was that the retractable lens got stuck in the out position. Turning the camera on would result in a low motor-moving noise, followed by the camera beeping once and/or shutting itself off without an error.

Where else would I turn for the solution other than Google? Eventually, I found this very helpful(!) page which carefully warns you not to try the final "fixes" unless everything else is completely hopeless (the camera's out of warranty and nothing else works).

My problem seemed similar enough to the "lens error" problem to which the solution applied, so, I tried all of the easy fixes, none of which worked. Eventually, I tried fix #7 - forcing the lens. (Your mileage may vary. All warnings and disclaimers apply.) It didn't work the first time, but, it did actually move the lens after a bit of pushing. Once I realized that I should be turning the lens, not pushing it, moving it became easier, and I was eventually able to get it back into the camera. Turning the camera on got the lens stuck again, sometimes giving the "lens error" message on the display. I repeated the process a few times until eventually the camera would turn on and off and be able to zoom the lens. It was risky, but it worked. Once again, the Internet solves an everyday problem, and results in a not very interesting blog post adding more text to the Internet.

Worst Named Childrens' Activity ... Ever

2008-06-04T11:11:00.002-04:00

Click here.

(Update: just to remove any doubt -- yes, the link is to a joke-site, but it's a very well put together one!)

Quinoa: the slow drift toward kitniyotization continues

2008-04-04T11:28:00.005-04:00

Every year since 2005, I've been tracking the status of quinoa for Passover. I've been using the instructions on the Aish HaTorah website as a guide to when it would be considered kitniyot, on the theory that where that Chareidi kiruv organization goes, soon gets dragged down the Modern Orthodox world, then, whatever they said becomes "universal observant practice." This year, ADDeRabbi beat me to an update, adding in:

I’ve been informed that the Gedolim in Eretz Yisrael consider quinoa to be kitniyot. No surprise there.

Once again, I checked the trusty Aish "all about kitniyot" page. This year, it says:

There is one product called "quinoa" (pronounced "kin-O-ah," or keen-WA) that is the subject of much discussion. Although quinoa resembles a grain, it is technically in the "goose foot" family, which includes sugar beets and beet root. As such, some rabbis (for example, Rabbi Heinemann of Star-K) permit its use even for Ashkenazim on Passover, while other rabbis do not.

Compare that to the text I recorded in 2006. Notice a pattern? Does it conform to the process I described there?

The Partnership Minyan Gabbai Guide

2008-02-24T21:06:00.003-05:00

It's well known to readers of this blog that my feelings about partnership minyanim (aka, 10+10's) are ambivalent. On the one hand, they are progressive from the Orthodox feminist perspective, in that they allow women some public role in the service. It appears to me that the partnership minyan has quickly been replacing the womens' tefillah group as the preferred way for women to participate in an Orthodox-style service. The partnership minyan may be contrasted with womens' tefillah groups, which have some characteristics that resemble communal prayer, but always seemed (to me, anyway, having never attended one for the obvious reason) as a kind of play-service, where it is made known (through liturgical changes and omissions) to everyone in attendance that none of the additional parts of the service that look like the activities reserved for a minyan really “count” the way they would have had a minyan of men been present. The partnership minyan, on the other hand, is a “real” service, and, in most cases (see below), where women are allowed to do something, what they do “counts” equally. On the other hand, from the perspective of a full-egalitarian, they are regressive, in that women are only allowed to lead parts of the service which are less important (see below for more about that characterization). Perhaps some of my ambivalence is in seeing these minyanim attract people who might otherwise daven in a fully egalitarian style, where womens' position really is (for the most part) considered equal to mens', whereas the partnership minyan still leaves women in an awkward communal position.

Our local partnership minyan linked to the Guide for the 'Halachic Minyan', effectively, a guide for the gabbaim of partnership minyanim to determine what parts of the service they decided women can definitely lead. The guide also gives a brief description of the rationale behind the movement and behind its halachic methodology. The basic assumptions of the partnership minyan, as expressed or implied by the guide, are that women are obligated in prayer (that is, they may pray any time they want), not obligated in specific prayers, nor are they obligated in the separate mitzvah of communal prayer, nor any other time-bound positive commandments. These are absolute constraints, and women cannot accept them upon themselves and become equally obligated. The goal of the enterprise is to maximize womens' participation under these traditional constraints, resulting in a wholly non-traditional form of congregational prayer.

The guide consciously expresses what women can lead in the positive, and is careful not to say “a woman does not lead” any part of the service. Instead, it expresses the same idea as “a man takes over at ...”, describing a practice instead of prescribing halacha. The guide leaves open the idea that increased permission may be discovered at some future time. The guide seeks to rely only on the direct and plain meaning of the halachic literature it uses as its sources, and only uses sources which explicitly permit women to perform the ritual function in question, without making any logical inferences or any original innovations (with respect to halachic issues, but not with respect to stylistic ones). Minority opinions in the literature may be relied upon, even if they contradict traditional practice. In that way, the guide functions as a sort of clearinghouse of permissive rulings in the literature on the issue of womens' participation. The rejection of innovation of new halacha is perhaps the abstract concept that separates the bases of partnership minyanim from fully egalitarian minyanim.

The abstract conception of the position of a woman in the community is also a primary difference. This can be demonstrated by the guide's answer to a question I brought up in a previous post. Namely, what should be done when 10 men are present and fewer than 10 women are present. In comments on that post, most defenders of the partnership minyan movement said that the group should wait or continue to daven as if no minyan were present (even though all agree that a halachic minyan is present in the room). A few indicated that they had seen such a practice followed. That position struck me as strange, given that the group is already making an assumption that communal prayer is a separate obligation from prayer itself. The guide instructs as follows:

Whenever a minyan is required, it is common practice, to wait for 10 men and 10 women to start pray[sic] (as long as the time of tefilla [Zman Tefilla] has not passed) besides when women are counted for a minyan such as in the case of megilah reading on Purim. (emph added)

As I argued in my previous post and its comments, the function of the 10 women is to hold up an already-present halachically-valid minyan of 10 men, not to contribute positively toward a minyan of 20. The 10+10 custom is acknowledged to be secondary to the halacha, a position that is fully consistent with the current assumptions of the movement. It does, however, support the conception that the function of women in a 10+10 is subtractive, not additive.

The idea that men are given primacy over women, even for things they are otherwise allowed to do is still present, at least in some congregations (eg, in the divisions of aliyot — “some congregations reserve a majority of aliyot for men” on the basis of Rema OH 282:3). A similar note indicates that some congregations reserve the first two aliyot for men when a kohen or levi is not present. (If the kohen/levi precedence for the first two aliyot is considered to be a purely historical artifact, then only men would take the first two aliyot, even in a fully egalitarian minyan.) The movement, although it has gone a long way [over traditional Orthodox practice] in allowing limited womens' participation, has not completely abandoned the idea that womens' participation in prayer services is a denigration of the honor of the congregation. By citing these halachic sources, the movement implies that women are, at best, ancillary members of the congregation (which is traditionally defined as the men only).

I often characterize the services at partnership minyanim as ones where “women do things that aren't important.” The guide divides the service into three categories. The first category is that of parts of the service that women can lead — those that may be left out of the service, or may be led even by a child. The other two types are parts in which womens' participation may be considered problematic or is apparently barred. The methodology used for approaching the second and third categories is a bit more instructive than the first. Where sources are found for womens' obligation (such as Hallel on the first night of Passover), they are allowed to participate equally. Another method used for finding room for womens' participation, where it is deemed possible, is to find halachic opinions that reduce the level of obligation associated with the particular prayer such that it no longer has communal importance. An alternative approach is used for Hallel on Festivals, in which it states that the leader need not fulfill the congregation's obligations.¹ Parts of the service containing devarim sh'biqedusha are (as of now) non-negotiably led entirely by men. Some partnership minyanim have adopted the practice of assigning any part of the service (excluding the Torah reading) that can be led by women to a woman. This essentially divides the entire service leadership on the basis of gender. In a sense, it is inclusive, but counter-egalitarian.

The partnership minyan movement also calls itself “halachic egalitarian” (a term full egalitarians do and should consider objectionable). The guide goes through considerable trouble to defend the use of the term:

This guide does not refer to parts of the tefillah that are categorized as devarin shbiqdusha, in which the chazzan fulfills the congregation's obligation. It is not our intention to claim that communities in which women lead these parts of the prayer are not halachically justifiable. ...
In conclusion, a word about the name “halachic minyan.” The congregations for which this guide is intended have been described by many names. From among them this name has been chosen as it is meant to describe the essence of the process by which the practices of these congregations are determined and the nature of their connection to the tradition of halachic decision making. Halachah is the basis upon which we stand. With the chosen name we mean to convey that, despite our departure from traditional practice to include women, we may only innovate as far as the Halachah, as recorded in the writings of traditional decisors, permits. The name thus functions descriptively, not contrastively. We do not at all mean implicitly to denigrate other practices and movements as non-halachic.

It is difficult to parse out an entirely positive interpretation of the name, without it being a comparative term. Did not the movement which calls itself “traditional egalitarian” jump through hoops to justify their practice within halacha (albeit under a moderately different set of halachic assumptions)? The guide leaves open that it is not a final answer to the question of womens' participation, and that further ~~progress~~ ~~innovation~~ allowances may be ~~made~~ discovered in the future. Both movements essentially started with a goal and trawled the literature for their defenses. Both accept that minority opinions in the literature may be relied upon, and may even overturn traditional practice.

¹ I once attended an Orthodox service on a Festival night following Shabbat at a college Hillel, where the custom in the Hillel's dining hall was for a woman to make kiddush at the meal, and for a man to lead birkat hamazon. (This was clearly a concession to the Orthodox minyan which did not want women leading birkat hamazon). The Orthodox minyan held that a woman could not fulfill the congregation's obligation (the partnership minyan gabbai guide says that they may). The gabbai of the minyan made an announcement after services, which essentially said that the kiddush and havdalah that would be made later by a woman would not fulfill everyone's obligation and that they should all say it for themselves. Had I been the woman making kiddush, I would have found that announcement mildly insulting, even though I could fully appreciate the halachic basis. I would hope that the partnership minyan could handle this issue more tactfully.

Housekeeping

2008-02-16T18:11:00.002-05:00

A few housekeeping items: You may notice that I've switched my online aggregator from Kinja to BlogLines. Recently, I'd found that Kinja was both missing posts from blogs I want to read and occasionally just dropped a blog from aggregation for no good reason. Overall, Kinja is badly broken and has been for some time. As a side benefit, BlogLines provides both an aggregator and a blogroll, so they don't have to be maintained separately. If you think I should be reading your blog, but I'm not (as you can see from the aggregation list), drop me a comment here. It doesn't guarantee that I'll link to you, but, here's your chance for some free publicity from a blog with a readership of about 2. I also might be pruning out dead blogs from the list soon.

How long...

2008-02-01T11:33:00.000-05:00

until a terrorist group claims responsibility? (whether they did it or not)

In defense of one oven

2008-01-31T13:49:00.000-05:00

One friend (who will remain nameless to protect the guilty) made the claim that our kitchen is not kosher because we use one oven for milk and meat. Not that it was not in accordance with her stricture. But, that it was not kosher.¹. I went ahead and made the claim that the idea that one needed a separate milk and meat oven is one of the piled-on modern chumrot. I underestimated the amount of time that it took to enter halacha. I originally put it at about 40 years (see below), but it turns out that the theory can be traced to a longer-running dispute that I'm not sure how much significance it had for practical halacha.

The Internet has some very good resources. ²

As you can see from the sources (I won't repeat the details, if you want them, see the links above), the primary problem that is discussed in the literature until the Rema (16th century) is cooking kosher and non-kosher in the same oven simultaneously. The Rema inserts that milk and meat and kosher/non-kosher have the same laws, and that consecutive use under the same covering might be problematic because the steam (not the "aroma," which is essentially halachic cooties) from one food might change the status of the other. The ensuing halachic debate revolves around how steam transfers food-gender. Does it only work directly (from one steamy pot to another above it)? Does it work indirectly (from one steaming pot to anything else in the same enclosed atmosphere)? Does it work through enclosures? Does steam embed in the oven? Do all hot things produce steam with the same halachic status?

It also appears that "steam" the Rema is worried about is an actual physical entity, not halachic cooties. It is directly analogized to the condensation that appears on a pot cover. Note also that this explains the Rosh's (13th century)³ seemingly paradoxical conclusion that steam doesn't affect hot pots, where one would ordinarily expect that heat would worsen the transfer: water doesn't condense above its boiling point.

Our approach is never to cook or heat milk and meat in the same oven at the same time, and to allow the oven to cool down before switching genders. It is cleaned if recognizable food particles are present. In practice, it is an implementation of the Aruch Hashulchan's position, but, in theory, it's somewhere between those of the Aruch Hashulchan and Lichtenstein/Feinstein's. The added chumra is that even if the steam from consecutive use is important, we are worried about an actual physical entity. The actual steam from food is evacuated when the door to the oven is opened to remove the food (and the air inside exchanges with the air outside), and that if anything recognizable condenses during the cool-down cycle, it can be cleaned.

As noted in Rabbi Mordechai Broyde's article, the Aruch Hashulchan's position "was the custom in Eastern Europe a century ago."

In fact, three of the four practices with halachic-literature bases ((1) use the same [clean] oven for both, but not at the same time (2) use the same [clean] oven for both, with a 24 hour waiting period OR one hour at maximum temperature in between, (3) use the same [clean] oven for both, covering either dairy or meat liquids,⁴ (4) not using the same oven for both unless one is double-wrapped) allow the same oven to be used for milk and meat, with only the procedure for their use varying.

The practical implication is that it's possible to have a fully functional and fully kosher kitchen without being super-wealthy. That is, until the chumra police make you need a second oven.

¹ Actually, she compared eating at our house to "eating out" (in the Jewishism sense), and effectively treats food we cook as treif. It was later modified to a "lower level transgression" instead of actual treifness.

² For other resources, one wonders if they deliberately archaize the text ("a housewife should...") in order to sound more "traditional" or "authentic," or if the writers really live in a hole.

³ But didn't I say that this problem isn't discussed until the 16th century? Indeed, I did. The problem the Rosh is discussing is steam emitted directly onto another pot. The question of import here is whether steam that is emitted, condensed, and re-emitted is significant.

⁴ Reading about this subject has made me wonder whether popular misunderstanding of Rav Moshe Feinstein's position (or the other variants of it) contributes to the idea that one needs two separate ovens. It does require that one designate an oven as "meat" or "dairy" and pareve items that are cooked in it uncovered are considered to have the status of "meat equipment" or "dairy equipment." Yet, still a "meat" oven can be used to cook covered dairy liquids or uncovered dairy solids. Does the concept of designation itself lead people toward acceptance of the strictest opinion?

Responding to email forwards

2008-01-20T01:26:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about this for a while, but finally decided to implement this plan for dealing with junk email forwards, specifically the ones that warn of the newest super-dangerous WILL KILL YOUR CHILDREN AND PILLAGE YOUR HOME virus. Basically, the plan is this: start with a form letter, enter a few specifics, then send it back to whoever sent it to me plus everyone who sent it in the forward chain as far back as I can find. Although I would hope it informs someone down the line, at least it helps me get out my aggressive tendencies toward serial forwarders. Anyway, here goes the form letter (required insertions/comments in CAPITALS):

You are receiving this message because you are in a forwarding chain of a hoax/false/insufficiently detailed email that eventually got to me. Nobody likes getting spam. At some point in the past few days, you sent some. You (or your friends) forwarded to their friends. Then, it got to me. You are a spammer. Here is how you can be part of the solution instead of being part of the problem. 1. When you receive any kinds of warnings by email, be wary of them. Most warnings that come over email are simply false. A small number are true, but exaggerated. 2. Email forwarding expands exponentially, and frequently is undated. Chances are, by the time you get it, even if it were true, it's not true anymore. 3. The more dire the warnings, the less likely it is that the details are true. Warnings such as "THIS WILL DESTROY ALL YOUR DATA INSTANTLY AND FRY YOUR HARD DRIVE AND EAT YOUR CHILDREN!" are exaggerated. 4. One should always practice safe Internet usage: a. Don't open attachments from unknown sources. b. Be wary of unrequested attachments from known sources. c. Carefully read and respond to warnings sent by your software. d. Use antivirus/antispyware software if you use Windows *or* switch to a Mac or Linux. e. Disable macros if you use Microsoft Office, or don't use Microsoft Office. f. Avoid use of insecure and buggy Internet software, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer and Outlook or Outlook Express. Use alternatives such as Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird. 99% of the time, whatever is warned about by these kinds of warnings, even *if* true, would have been prevented by these steps. So, no need to bother your friends, except to tell them those six things. You can prevent this kind of spam by doing a tiny amount of research. For the email you sent me, the following <(INCLUDE A LINK THAT SHOWS THE EMAIL IS A HOAX)>, which was the *(INSERT NUMBER, IT'S USUALLY LOW) result* of a Google search I did proved that the email you sent was (INSERT THE LEVEL OF TRUTH OF THE FORWARD). It took me less than 10 seconds. You could have saved your friends (and their friends, and theirs) a bit of worry by doing the same thing I did, and not pressing forward. And to make it even better, even if this email were true, I could not have been affected by the virus. I use Linux. X VIRUS would likely only affect Microsoft Windows. (INSERT DETAILS HERE; SINCE I'VE NEVER SEEN A VIRUS IN THE WILD THAT ATTACKS LINUX (OR MAC OS X) SYSTEMS, THIS IS RELEVANT) You would never know that from the email, either. (MOST VIRUS FORWARDS SAY "WILL ATTACK YOUR COMPUTER" AND ARE UNSPECIFIC ABOUT WHAT SYSTEMS ARE AFFECTED, EVEN IN THE RARE CASES THAT THEY'RE TRUE.) In addition, your record of following instructions in a random email without even checking if you should shows that *you* should be the one worried about falling for virus attacks, identity theft scams, and other "social engineering" attacks sent by email. Remember -- your friends have enough to worry about. Think before you forward. Thanks for your time; no thanks for wasting mine. The email you forwarded, and the forwarding chain showing how I got it is quoted below: (QUOTE HERE. THIS CAN BE ADDED AUTOMATICALLY BY YOUR EMAIL PROGRAM WHEN YOU PRESS REPLY)

Hartman rabbinic ordination of women: not such a big deal

2008-01-11T12:34:00.000-05:00

This J-Post article is setting the blogosphere abuzz about Rabbi David Hartman's decision to offer Orthodox rabbinic ordination to women at the Shalom Hartman Institute. The popular press rhetoric is certainly the rhetoric of egalitarianism. Rabbi Donniel Hartman, co-director of the institute and son of David Hartman, is quoted as saying:

"The classic distinctions between men and women are no longer relevant. People who come to the Hartman Institute to study are committed to making gender equality in Judaism a reality."

Now, here's the description of the program:

Melamdim also offers an optional Rabbi-Educator track – the first rabbinic ordination program of its kind. Tailored to the distinct professional needs of rabbis who serve as North American community high school educators, the track is open to students of both sexes and all denominations who are interested in pursuing an MA degree, teaching career and rabbinic ordination at the same time.
Target Population
The program is open to individuals of all denominations from Israel and North America, who satisfy the following criteria:

Hold a BA either in Jewish studies or in Bible, Talmud or Jewish Philosophy

Have a good knowledge of Hebrew

Have a knowledge of classical Jewish texts

Commit to fulfill the program’s considerable study and work requirements

Commit to work as a teacher in a Jewish high school for at least three years after graduating from the program

It looks like it's offering the status of rav hamaggid, the lowest level of ordination which entitles the bearer to hold the title of "rabbi" and to teach. It does not confer the status of halachic decisor. It does not automatically allow one to perform the functions commonly associated with pulpit rabbis (which was the focus of the Conservative teshuvot in the 1970's and 1980's). One can argue that this status is not an equivalent of nor a modern replacement for "traditional" (Talmudic?) rabbinic ordination.

In Modern Orthodox circles, many high schools already allow women to be taught Talmud, a few more allow women to teach Talmud to men. Most already have women teaching some subjects, implying that they do not consider teaching high school to be serara (holding a position of communal authority), so, they do not have to face that halachic boundary. Judaic studies teachers who hold the title of "rabbi" are probably paid at a higher level for their advanced degree, which is a path toward career advancement previously not open to women. If a high school were to accept Hartman's ordination of a woman, they may then be forced to pay her at an equal rate to men who hold the same type of degree.

Even so, women who graduate from the program would have a second-class status, even as a rav hamaggid. They could function as high school teachers (the intent of the training in the program), but they could not function as pulpit rabbis, the other career path for a rav hamaggid, because their activities are still restricted by Orthodox interpretations of halacha.

In sum, this may affect teachers' pay and titles (and we aren't even sure if the title "rabbi" will be conferred on a woman), but it doesn't look like there's anything truly ground-breaking coming out of it.

Lawyers think of everything

2008-01-10T21:32:00.000-05:00

Check out this disclaimer in the EULA for the SBL Hebrew font:

8. Neither Tiro Typeworks nor the Society of Biblical Literature accept any liability for injury, death, financial loss or damage to person or property (including computer hardware, software or data) resulting from the use of this font software.

(It's in Appendix A of the manual PDF, but it's helpfully reproduced here in web-friendly HTML)

They planned for the contingency that someone will die because of the use of their font.

(Incidentally, while this EULA is clearly non-free, there is a free software Unicode 5 Biblical Hebrew font, Ezra SIL, which is released under the Open Font License. Sadly, the OFL contains a more standard software disclaimer and does not anticipate death as a result of the use of the software.)

It's an RUS!

2007-12-17T11:43:00.000-05:00

Couldn't resist :-)

"Torah-True rabbis"

2007-12-13T15:16:00.000-05:00

If you're not a member of a Young Israel (and maybe if you are), you can get a good laugh out of the National Council of Young Israel's proposed new standards for Young Israel rabbis and synagogues. You may be even be amused to find out that NCYI thinks it has power to set standards. (The standards, as best as I understand them, include (1) that a central board has to vet rabbinical hirings by local Young Israels, (2) that women and converts can't serve as synagogue presidents, and that (3) no Young Israel can run womens prayer groups or megillah readings).

The YU Commentator ran an article on it, pointing out that it's an attempt by the Chareidi segment of Young Israel to take control from the left-wing Modern Orthodox. NCYI president Shlomo Mostofsky responded to the article in a comment on their website. In it, he said:

Synagogues and communities that have joined the Young Israel movement over the past 96 years are proud to be identified with the standards of halacha and hadracha that our founding Torah-true lay leaders and rabbis were moser nefesh to establish. (emph. added)

The punch-line: It's nice to know that the NCYI president considers Mordechai Kaplan to have been a "Torah-true rabbi!"

Highlights from Elbogen

2007-11-27T23:56:00.000-05:00

This is a set of collected quotes from Ismar Elbogen's Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History. Some of them are in context, some a bit out of context.

The book was originally written in German (1913, 1ed; 1924, 2ed; 1931, 3ed), then translated to Hebrew by Joseph Heinemann and others (1972) and translated from Hebrew and German to English by Raymond Scheindlin (1993). In the foreward, the translator refers to "precious traces of the man behind the book and of the intellectual climate of his times ... scattered throughout" the book. This post can be thought of as something of a celebration of the more entertaining aspects of those "traces." Footnotes have been removed. All emphasis and commentary is added unless otherwise noted. Page numbers are from the 1993 JPS edition.

On the kedushah (in Yotser):

The verbose character of our text, which serves as a transition and which appears in Saadia in a very abbreviated form, is apparently no older than the geonic period, having originated in the circles of the Merkava mystics, who strove mightily in their prayers to comprehend the godhead. They longed for visions; and the heaping up of hymns is a tried and true means of achieving ecstasy that was practiced by mystics in every age. (p18)

On birkat haminim:

In modern prayer books the text has been subjected to many alterations, but the most sensible change is to eliminate it entirely, as was done in the Berlin prayer book (p46)

On kiddush:

In the course of time, when the synagogue ceased serving this purpose [as a hostel for travelers], doubts were expressed about the propriety of saying Kiddush there, but no one dared to act on these doubts. Here is a classic example of how religious rites, once they have taken root, cannot be removed by the force of logic.(pp94-95)

Here's Elbogen as reviewer. When talking about the kingship verses in High Holiday services, he opines:

The author did not succeed equally in all parts of this prayer; the introduction to the Kingship verses excels in its cohesiveness and elevated theme, and no less by its beauty of expression. ... Likewise, in "You remember," the splendid opening hymn deserves praise, though it repeats the same theme too many times. The transition to the biblical verses is an obvious failure ...(p120)

Much of the compiled history of the liturgy is based on speculation and educated guessing. Perhaps the most blatant example is the reason given for the recitation of the "Ribbono shel olam" paragraphs in birkat kohanim:

Distinguished authorities admonished the congregations to say the verses only while the precentor was calling out the words, and to listen in silence when the priests repeated them;but the hubbub of the verses drowned out the words of the Blessing in spite of all the reproaches. Another equally bad and equally severe practice arose from the terror of nightmares common in Babylonia ... (p64)

The plague of nightmares being one consequence of:

Likewise, there is no overlooking the fact that Babylonia is the source of every superstition in the world. Some of the amoraim were affected by these errors of their native land, and were subject to fear of demons, nightmares, and witchcraft. ... Especially in later centuries, when every word in the Talmud was seen as binding, and when people lived in fear of witches and demons, these errors led to sorry consequences [for the liturgy]. (p212)

The entire gemara in one sentence:

The amoraim strived to achieve two things: to bring everything into fixed forms, and to imitate the exemplary behavior of famous men.

leading up to:

thus, it is hardly astonishing that in such an important realm as prayer they observed the behavior of the great men of the age very closely, and recommended that it be imitated. This could have a deleterious effect, when observances undertaken by the individual as stringencies meant for himself, with no thought of making them binding on others, later were turned into generally valid norms. In the amoraic period this did not yet happen, or it happened only seldom, but in later centuries it was a common phenomenon, one that was not always beneficial to religious institutions. Another goal, or at least a common tendency, was to increase the amount of praying. Unlike in the preceding centuries in which short prayers were considered the best, this generation found no harm in lengthy prayers; on the contrary, these were even thought desirable, though the principle that the congregation not be unduly burdened was never rescinded. (pp211-212)

On mysticism:

At the book's [Hekhalot rabati] end are hymns intended for the highest level of ecstasy, including האדרת והאמונה, "The splendor and the faithfulness," which has entered nearly all prayer books and is composed of that abundance of half-intelligible words typical of the prayers of these mystics. The intense veneration of God is expressed through the heaping-up of words that are equivalent in meaning and similar in sound, but that say little and do not advance the train of thought. ... In all this they differ considerably from the sober piety of the Bible, the Talmud, and the ancient prayers, which were oriented rather toward the psalmists' proverbial words, "to You silence is praise." (p287)

Don't take the drugs, because after the high comes the low:

On the other hand, there were plenty of sober thinkers who denounced the forcible inducing of ecstasy, not only because this state is not always attained, but because even when it is, the soul afterwards sinks back into a state of confusion. In fact this whole movement [Thirteenth century Ashkenazic pietism] was one of unhealthy extremes; the period was deficient in clear and prudent thinking, and a great deal of superstition became part of the mixture.(p290)

The Zohar's fantastic ideas freed many downtrodden people from the burdens of their lives; the spiritual uplift that they experienced in traditional prayer and in the recitation of the kabbalistic hymns gave them a taste of the world to come in the midst of the hell of their everyday lives. But at the same time we must not close our eyes to the severe harm done to Jewish piety by kabbalistic theory. It turned prayer into a tool for forcibly bringing about magical effects. by introducing intermediaries [angels] between God and man, it spelled a fateful regression in the history of the Jewish religion. Finally, the new doctrine fave a boost to all kinds of superstition.(p291)

Skip a few centuries and...

Lurianic mysticism, with its liturgical innovations, spread in every direction as swiftly as an infectious disease.(p293)

One of those damaging influences from Kabbalah was kabbalat shabbat:

The Sabbath service is introduced by an element not known in the Middle ages, the Welcoming of the Sabbath. It originated in the circle of kabbalists in Safed at the end of the sixteenth century, whose influence on Jewish life was a lasting and unhappy one. (p92)

Among these [additions to the service from Lurianic kabbalah] are some of a very high level, for the kabbalists undeniably knew how to choose materials that uplifted the heart and encouraged a spirit of piety. But there are also many passages attesting to the crassest superstition. There is no doubt that these peculiarly Lurianic innovations, such as the tikunum, kavanot and yihudim, which have long vanished from the western European prayer books, imposed a heavy burden on religious life and were actually a mockery of true prayer. (p294)

And, finally, Hasidism:

According to its principles, Hasidism represents an absolute rebellion against the synagogue service, and no more convincing proof exists of the intolerable condition of the synagogue service than the fact that so many turned their backs on it — no t out of lack of faith or out of skepticism, but out of a longing for piety. This should have been taken as a serious warning that the liturgy was in need of revision. But no change occurred because Hasidism did not keep to the oppositional position of its founders, but instead sought compromise with rabbinic Judaism. Thus, its effect on the synagogue service was more deleterious than it was an improvement. It strengthened the conservative tendency of faith in the written word, the ascetic spirit of renunciation, and the striving to compel the advent of the messianic age; it brought with it new plagues in the form of commotion and unrestrained wild gestures.

Going to shul has no positive benefit if you're not sitting their quietly, frowning.

On the study of detailed halacha about the order of nonessential prayers:

Already in 1313 Menahem b. Joseph of Troyes wrote his סדר טרוייש, "Rite of Troyes" for the explicit purpose of instructing the precentors on how to conduct the service in accordance with the true custom of the Troyes community ... The contents of [its] ten chapters ... bear no relationship to the importance claimed for the book in its introduction. They deal with prayers whose text had never been fixed, and the reciting of which had formerly been up to the judgment of the congregation — for example, the use and placement of the psalms, the Supplications, the prayers during the Torah reading, the exact fixing of the pericope in the Torah and Haftara, and, finally, the selection of piyyut and seliha. ... [After the Black Plague (1348-9),] These studies had some justification to the extent that their purpose was the reestablishment of the continuity of tradition and to the extent that they served to overcome the disorder and confusion that had spread to many places. But they went much further, and bestowed such exaggerated attention on such minuscule matters and unimportant habits that we can only view it as morbidity, the pathetic sign of a period of decadence.(p282) ... [After the Shulhan Arukh,] care for customary practice became a morbid obsession, confirming the harsh observation of a medieval sage that excessive concentration on the custom could lead the communities to perdition.(p283)

The worst consequence of [the development of the printed siddur] was the deification of the letter. ... The deadly force of reverence for the letter caused great harm to the liturgy, for the spirit that had the power to revive it was moribund. In the absolute absence of general education, discipline, and order, the effort to dislodge the rigid faith in the written letter led to such disruptions that, on the threshold of the modern age, the form of the liturgy had become absolutely untenable.(p285)

On the scourge of liturgical poetry:

The first attempt to embellish the liturgy of festivals and fast days, ... already involved additions of the type that may be called piyyut ... Nevertheless, these compositions were of a very different type from piyyut in the narrow sense of the term. First, they always remained separate from the statutory prayers, never penetrating them as did the piyyut, which interrupted the traditional sequence of the service. Second, they are distinguished from the piyyut — and this must be stressed as strongly as possible — in the simplicity of their form, the modesty of their language, and the intelligibility and clarity of their expression. (p221)

The poems first composed [for selihot] were simple and unadorned, but deeply felt; later came elaborate structures in which the artificiality of the form often suppressed the content.(p179)

To this [Aramaic] translation [of the Torah reading] poetic introductions in the Aramaic language were also composed; one of them, אקדמות מלין, "The beginning of words," has been preserved to this day in our holiday prayer book for the first day of Pentecost. These poems were never intelligible, but now, with the elimination of the translation that they were intended to introduce, they have completely lost their significance and their right to exist.(p154)

The! downfall! of! Piyyut!

How great was the religious feeling excited by the piyyut! What courage it offered the downcast! What consolation it instilled in the despairing! But the convenient accessibility of the material could easily become and inducement to facile rhyming, encouraging many who were not poets to try their hand at writing piyyutim.

Did you start thinking of the Sim Shalom when you read that?

Fixed forms were established that were too easy to use; the same places in the service and the same occasions attracted the same ideas: Certain themes like the suffering of the Ten Martyrs, the binding of Isaac, and the recitation of the Kedushah by the Hosts of Heaven came to be constantly repeated and treated in routine cliches. It was intrinsically hard to invent original and telling ways of expressing all these things; only few succeeded, but many became longwinded and indulged in monotonous repetition.(p227)

Like the letters of the alphabet, biblical verses may be used in the most varied combinations. One of the most artificial combinations, fortunately an uncommon one, is the qerova for the Ninth of Av by Kallir in Rome. The first line of each stanza begins with the first word of the successive verses of Lamentations chapter 5, which does not have the alphabetical acrostic and with the first word of a verse from chapter 4; the three following lines begin with the opening word of the verses of chapter 3 in reverse order (3,2,1,6,5,4), and the fifth and sixth lines begin with the opening word of a verse from chapters 2 and 1. The sixth line ends with the last two words of the verses of chapter 5 with which the stanza began. But even this does not exhaust the complexity of the piyyut, which is considerably increased by the rhyme.(p228)

With a certain amount of practice it would be possible to find one's way through the unusual and incorrect word formations, but what makes the synagogue poetry particularly difficult, and often impossible to enjoy is the obscurity of the poets' manner of expression.

With their depth of feeling, the loftiness of their ideas, and the purity of their language, th[e "classic" liturgical poets] came near the biblical psalms, for these were the true poets who undertook to speak, while the great majority of synagogue poets had no poetic talent. The didactic contents of the piyyut, the display of external form, and the invention of word forms were easy to imitate, and the congregations' demand for this new adornment of the liturgy was intense. Thus, the custom of composing liturgical poetry spread like a contagious disease. ... The error was not in the act of composing piyyutim, but in the unrestrained versifying, by the compulsion felt by people lacking any specific feeling of linguistic understanding to compose piyyutim and selihot.(p234)

As manuscripts decreased and printed books proliferated, as understanding for historical and local character decreased, as meaningless customs came to be adhered to more stubbornly, the more entrenched did the piyyut become, and the less could its position be shaken by even the chief authorities of religious law... The modern period has mercilessly eliminated the great mass of unintelligible and worthless poems ... and has no compunctions about retaining in the prayer book piyyutim of true poetic value.(p237)

Saadia's poetic efforts were important in that not only did he try hsi own hand as a poet, but he dealt with the theory of poetry as well. The many worthless poems circulating in his time caught his attention and induced him to compose a kind of textbook for the improvement of the language and style of the poets.(p251)

It didn't satisfy Elbogen, though:

Saadia ... did no better; if Kallir's poems must be called obscure, Saadia's are books with seven seals.(p234)

The one true religion™:

a change occurred in the tenth and eleventh centuries; poetic selihot became more and more entrenched, displacing the earlier simple, nonrhyming compositions, which were often superior to all the artificial productions of later times in poetic spirit and, above all, in depth of religious feeling.(p254)

[Sahlal b. Nethaniel]'s poetry exemplifies some of the strange fruit that the liturgical poetry bore; though completely artificial, pedantic, and remote from both the content and tone of true prayer, it nevertheless enjoyed great esteem in the Middle Ages.(p255)

Can't argue with him here:

For the Additional Service [Meshulam b. Kalonymus] composed two versions of the Avoda, including אמיץ כח, "Mighty in Strength," used in Ashkenaz. Among known Avodot, this work is the least regular in its poetic structure; it is typical of the later Ashkenazic poets as well, in that they often neglect the fundamental principle of poetry, uniformity of pattern. Surprisingly, we find that the poem lacks rhyme. It has been shown that the author's intention was to abridge the Avoda of Yose [b. Yose, an earlier payyetan] to put it into the form more in accordance with the taste of his contemporaries, full of hard words and complicated expressions. Besides the alphabetical acrostic, he also had to devise a relatively lengthy acrostic for his own name. Because he was not able to extricate himself from all these difficulties, his Avoda came out very irregularly — sometimes they were very condensed, jumping from idea to idea, and at other times they went into great detail.(p253)

In which I learn that my usual practices or practices with which I am quite familiar are unheard of in modern times:

The modern suggestion to shorten the weekly [Torah] readings and have the congregation [as opposed to a rabbi or cantor] again do the reading itself has gained no attention anywhere. (p140)

Certainly this paying for ritual functions [aliyot/synagogue honors] was bound to lead to undesirable consequences, especially since for a time, they were even sold at public auction to the highest bidder. (p142)

(you know who you are).

Occasions on which I learn that I'm either uncivilized, or live in an uncivilized country:

In all civilized countries the external form of the liturgy underwent more or less fundamental improvements. Choral singing was introduced everywhere, accompanied by organ in France and Italy, while the liturgy itself remained unchanged.(p319)

In the manner of such customs, the secondary eventually becomes primary, and "May He Who blessed" [מי שברך] became for the unlettered the most important part of the Torah reading. Gradually the unfortunate situation arose that the blessings multiplied to a horrifying degree, leading to the excessive prolongation of the service, diverting attention from the reading itself, and opening the way to all kinds of abuse. The interruption of the Torah reading for the recitation of private blessings was long ago eliminated in all progressive countries.(p161)

Quiet and order, dignity and reverence in worship are such self-explanatory requirements for civilized people, and approach so nearly the precepts of traditional Judaism, that the most conservative circles recognized that they were justified, and everywhere efforts were made to realize them. The refinement of the cantorial rendition and the introduction of harmonic choral singing were also demanded from every quarter and were put everywhere into effect for the beautification of the service.(p325)

It's like Judaism: the musical. Just sit back quietly and enjoy.

Quietly:

Merely listening did not satisfy the congregation; they wanted to pray along with the precentor or they sought to pass the time in other ways. The result of both was disruptive, necessitating a thorough revision in the modern period.(p381)

Just don't enjoy too much:

Often the reading of the scroll [of Esther] was accompanied by customs intended to release the overwhelming feelings of joy, and these not infrequently took on wild form; . . . In Reform congregations, the reading of the Scroll of Esther has mostly been limited to the Morning Service, while in the evening it is replaced by a selection in the vernacular. The noisy disturbances have been eliminated in every civilized country.(p110)

In the course of time, the Joy of the Torah became a popular festival in the synagogue, and the processions a kind of popular amusement for observers; in less cultivated times and places these generated into wild excesses and indecorous behavior.(p160)

Uh oh. Someone may have smiled in shul.

The Frankfurt rabbinical conference (1845) had a way of preventing that from happening too often:

The commission had proposed the introduction of the triennial cycle; this was accepted with a great majority. The festival of the Joy of the Torah was therefore to be celebrated only once in three years.(p313)

But the greatest advance in Jewish prayer since the advent of sliced bread is...

The classical historian of the sermon was Leopold Zunz; his book ... is one of the chief factors that enabled the sermon, in the course of the last century, to regain the place in the synagogue that it had in ancient times. Thanks to it, the last seventy years have seen regular liturgical instruction successfully reassert itself in Jewish communities, irrespective of religious inclination, in every civilized country, and the vernacular sermon has once again become an integral part of the Sabbath and festival service. (p157)

... the (return of the) sermon. But,

in the great synagogues of our time the problem often arises that one does not find individuals who combine intellectual capacity, vocal power, and rhetorical skill.(p158)

On the bright side, nap time returned to the synagogue.

On the need for reform:

The liturgy could not go completely untouched by this mighty upheaval in the lives and thinking of the Jews. Its forms no longer suited the demands of a new age. They repelled both eye and ear, and could neither satisfy the mind nor warm the heart. ... A tiny group of intelligent people sought reforms that would not harm the essence of the liturgy, such as the simplification of the prayers, the elimination of the bad customs that had infected the liturgy, and the introduction of aesthetic forms and conduct appropriate to the house of God.(p297)

I guess that means not sitting in the back of shul talking.

...and the backlash against it

...in other Prussian communities such as Breslau and Koenigsberg, the German sermons that by now had been in use for quite some time were eliminated. Thus for several decades all progress in the synagogue service in the territory of the Prussian kingdom was blocked.(p302)

On nusach:

... synagogue melody was transplanted to the West, to the detriment of congregations and the liturgy. For those precentors schooled neither in the Hebrew language nor in music, the "melody" became the main thing, and prayer was forced into the background, its text mercilessly corrupted.(p384)

And other forms of synagogue singing:

A strange error was the introduction of choir boys in Poland, a practice perhaps still known to this day in the East, and which even in Germany had for centuries the most harmful influence on the liturgy. ... On either side of the precentor stood a singer, who accompanied his singing in a higher or lower voice — and who was therefore called singer and bass—sounding harmonic intervals and sometimes performing small solo passages. This kind of singing could generally be heard everywhere until the middle of the last [19^th] century (it was still customary in Berlin until 1840); it intensified the disorder and tastelessness in the extreme.

From the Jews-will-be-Jews department:

On April 2, 1846, the congregation [Association for Reform in Judaism, Berlin] moved into its own synagogue building, and after a long struggle it was decided to hold services twice a week, on Saturday and on Sunday. The leadership of the congregation declared themselves in favor of Saturday services and voted decisively against shifting the Sabbath to Sunday; in the end they came to an agreement that services of identical status should be held on both days, and that neither day should be treated as a solemn one.(p315)

The radicalism with which the Reform congregation developed its liturgical institutions was easy to put into effect, when the congregation was founded for this purpose. But conditions were much harder in the existing congregations in which the new liturgy was to be introduced ... Violent disputes were unleashed even by matters of no importance at all, like calling people up to the Torah by name or the elimination of the first "May the salvation arise," the prayer for the ancient Babylonian authorities who had not existed for centuries.(p317)

It's about the first יקום פורקן, and it wasn't intended to be humorous.

[In 1840's Hungary] Bitter, sometimes bloody battles were fought over the most insignificant minutiae of synagogue construction and liturgical custom.

In Studentville, too. Without the blood.

Take this, Carlebach:

For nearly every prayer an individual melody was formed, and a special recitative for Sabbaths and festivals. Special pleasure was taken in singing the Verses of Song in the Morning Service, which was done at length. In Regensberg a full hour was needed just for the prayer "Blessed is He Who spoke" [ברוך שאמר], and the same amount of time was used by Isserlein in Weiner Neustadt during the period from the first of Elul to the Day of Atonement [presumably for לדוד? selichot?].

Result of FTC crackdown on Do Not Call violators?

2007-11-08T11:02:00.000-05:00

According to a recent article linked to at Slashdot, the FTC has recently been cracking down on telemarketers who violate the do not call registry. Recently, my voicemail has received a number of sales robo-calls (trying to sell loan products) for which I couldn't identify the origin numbers on caller ID. They had too many digits to be what I know of as a ten-digit phone number. Later, I found that they were actually from international phone numbers beginning with the digits 445.

Is outsourcing robo-calls overseas the way that telemarketers are going to get around the restrictions Do Not Call list?

Edit: Here's one:
442074264150

If anyone in the UK would like to prank call a phone number, they're trying to sell mortgages.

Which cost more: Maarat Hamachpelah or Manhattan?

2007-11-02T16:26:00.000-04:00

I am not a historian, nor am I an economist, so, you can take this all with a grain of salt. I thought it was kind of a fun question.

In this week's parsha, chayyei sarah, we learn that the cave of machpelah was bought by Abraham from Ephron the Hittite for 400 shekels of silver (Gen 23). Converting the shekel into a standard unit is not trivial, but, let's say we take it to be the average of Wikipedia's quoted values, ~13g of silver/shekel, making 400 shekel ~ 5200g silver.

Manhattan was bought for goods that were equivalent in value to 60 Dutch guiders in 1626. Thanks to some analysis provided by a role playing game, we can estimate what a guilder was worth in 1632, and extrapolate that it's about the same in 1626. According to that document, one guilder was supposed to be equivalent to a Venetian ducat, which was standardized at 3.5 g gold. Between the medieval period and the early 18th century, the value of gold to silver went from 12:1 to 15:1. Assuming one gram of gold was worth about 14g of silver, one guilder was worth ~49g of silver, and 60 guilder was worth ~2940g silver.

So, the cave of machpelah was almost twice as expensive as Manhattan.

Other than the assumptions about the accuracy of the sources, an additional assumption here is that one gram silver was worth the same amount to Abraham as to the 17th century Dutch. It is most likely incorrect.

Tidbits from Wikipedia

2007-10-25T00:28:00.000-04:00

Wikipedia is a great resource. But, occasionally, its democratic editing methods lead to some rather humorous entries. Like this one on Marty Stouffer, (revision from 15:00 Oct 23 2007) host of the 1980's PBS documentary Wild America:

The lives of Marty Stouffer, and his brothers, Mark and Marshall, in rural Arkansas were captured in the 1997 movie, Wild America. Headlined by the effete child actor Jonathan Taylor Thomas, the movie related how the boys became intrigued with the production of wild life documentaries. In an interview for Royal Beardsman Magazine Mart [sic] remarked that the film "is the singlemost greatest masterpiece that modern cinema has bestowed upon the world and all its people. I have been devoured by my own greatness." The adventure movie has a wilder flavor to it than the Wild America PBS program. Both Mark and Marshall are filmmakers as well. Their upcoming film will be a summer blockbuster depicting the great woodchuck famine of 1991. Jonathan Taylor Thomas will play the lead woodchuck role. (emph. added)

Ubuntu 7.10 released

2007-10-18T21:25:00.000-04:00

Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) was released today. After having some not-quite-ready-for-prime-time tech support issues with upgrades to Feisty the last time around, it's probably worth waiting a week or so before upgrading. If you're setting up a new system on Ubuntu, though, it's probably the way to go.

But, here's something interesting. The front page of the Ubuntu website has a picture that looks like a dictionary defining the term “Ubuntu 7.10”. The pronunciation key says the pronunciation is “\oo-boon-too\”. I always thought it was pronounced “oo-bun-too”. You learn something new every day. (You learn more quickly if you read the FAQ. Real nerds don't read manuals? :-) ) It's not quite as earth-shattering as learning that the “i” in “Linux” is a short vowel (unless you're Linus Torvalds himself, who pronounces it as “ee”).

Like being a refugee from the last century...

2007-09-09T16:49:00.000-04:00

Me: Do you have any inexpensive tape players?
RadioShack employee: Any what?
Me: Machines that play audio tapes.
RS employee: I wish I could tell you we had them, but I'm not sure.
RS employee (to RS employee II): Do we have any tape players?
RS employee II: You're looking for a CD player? or a DVD player?
Me: No, a tape player, like they used in the last century.
RS employee II (thinks for a moment): Over there...

And soon there will be another?

2007-08-30T23:39:00.000-04:00

Will there be a fifteenth^* minyan in Studentville? Not immediately, but the seeds have been planted. We'll see what happens.

^* OPEM II turned out to be a one-time thing after all, but I didn't count Hillel II Reform in the original count, so I still stand by the original count of 14.

Has anyone ever done this?

2007-08-12T18:26:00.000-04:00

In a moment of boredom in shul, I was looking at the text of the Pidyon Haben ceremony (in a Birnbaum Ashkenazic siddur, it's about the same in the Artscroll).

The kohen says:
מאי בעית טפי -- ליתן לי בנך בכורך שהוא פטר רחם לאמו? או בעית לפדותו בעד חמש סלעים? כדמחויבתא דאורייתא
What would you like to do: do you choose to give me your firstborn son who opened the womb of his mother? or do you choose to redeem him for five selaim? as you are required from the Torah.

According to the standard text, the father answers:
חפץ אני לפדות את בני והילך דמי פדיונו כדמחויבתי דאורייתא
I choose to redeem my son, and here is the worth of his redemption that is required of me by the Torah.

But, what if he answers:
חפץ אני ליתן לך את בני והילך בני כדמחויבתי דאורייתא
I choose to give you my son, and here is the my son as required of me by the Torah.

Textual note: I punctuated the kohen's question differently from the siddurim. They put the question mark after כדמחויבתא דאורייתא. I put it before, because both are options available from the Torah, implying that the first option is not in compliance with Torah law.

Note for those who question my sanity: For reasons known to people who know me (or, perhaps to people who pay attention to my blog and comments in other places), I can guarantee you that I will never have the opportunity to actually try it. :-)

A Rorschach test to identify Jews?

2007-07-15T21:51:00.000-04:00

An area church had its time table out front on one of those ubiquitous boards with movable letters. The Sunday schedule was:
10:00AM BIBLE STUDY
11:00AM W RSHI

(I was going to take a picture of it, but it was corrected by the time I got a camera over there.)

Should copyrights last forever?

2007-05-20T16:40:00.000-04:00

Mark Helprin argues in a New York Times op-ed piece that “no good case exists for the inequality of real and intellectual property, because no good case can exist for treating with special disfavor the work of the spirit and the mind.”

Not surprisingly, Lawrence Lessig's community is drafting an op-ed piece in response. In true free-culture style, the response piece is being written by wiki (— and under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike copyright license).

Ubuntu 7.04 released!

2007-04-19T11:40:00.000-04:00

A new version of the popular GNU/Linux operating system distribution Ubuntu 7.04 (aka, Feisty Fawn) has been released on schedule. Ubuntu variants, such as the KDE desktop version Kubuntu have also been released simultaneously.

For anyone who's already got Ubuntu, upgrade instructions are also up. The same page contains instructions for Kubuntu. (Note: For Kubunti upgrades, the link on the top of the page is broken. The information is on the same page. Follow the instructions labeled "Network upgrade for Kubuntu desktops (recommended)" about halfway down the page.)

If you don't yet have Ubuntu, you can download it or have a CD shipped to you.

[UPDATE: The info about the instructions for Kubuntu.]

Festival of Free Software?

2007-04-08T18:17:00.000-04:00

Debian has (finally) released Debian GNU/Linux 4.0, codename "etch," the next stable version of the popular community-run Linux distribution.

Here's what Slashdot user plasmacutter had to say (copy-pasted, so, spelling/capitalization errors are original):

western nations base their entire diet around bread, so passover takes a huge chunk out of nerd diets (i know first hand), so to compensate for the scarcity of kosher food, they must have guzzled more caffeinated beverages.. thus resulting in the warp speed rush to 4.0 ..

As for me, one old webserver (an old Dell laptop named "craptop") that was running "etch" while it was still the "testing" distribution is now running "etch" stable.

No news is good news

2007-03-26T20:43:00.000-04:00

It's the week before Passover, making it time for the annual update on quinoa. And, so far, I haven't heard of any more bans. And, the pro-quinoa articles are all still on their originating websites; some include their original "check with your rabbi" disclaimers. Overall, this year, quinoa looks like it's safe from further kitniyotization.

Shhh... Don't tell Andrew Sullivan...

2007-03-26T20:15:00.000-04:00

From Andrew Sullivan's reaction to the JTS announcement that they will knowingly admit and ordain gays and lesbians:

Here's an eloquent, profound and conservative defense of inclusion (emph is his)

Should anyone tell him that Conservative Judaism is a liberal denomination?

From a University Police Log...

2007-03-26T15:18:00.000-04:00

I just noticed this in a University police log:
3/4/2007 2:48AM SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY Officers dispatched to a report of suspicious individuals walking around the area. Officers arrived and report there is a party going on at [the building] and all is in order.

And 3/4/2007 was...

Awkward Minyan Situations

2007-03-12T10:52:00.000-04:00

This post was inspired by a (friends-locked) post on another blog; I actually do want to know the answers to the questions, if anyone has any insight.

Has anyone ever been to a minyan in one of the following (or similar) situations?

A 10+10 minyan^* where there were 10 men present, fewer than 10 women present, and:

someone had to say kaddish?
the time for Shacharit was rapidly expiring?

What was done?⁰

Does anyone know of any halachic defense that has ever been put forward for a group to daven as if a minyan were not present^** in either of these situations?

An egalitarian minyan that followed the Golinkin or Wald teshuvot as their theory of egalitarianism, and a woman who followed the Roth teshuva and did not consider herself obligated was the tenth adult Jew in the room in time for a part of the service that required a minyan^***? Same questions.

By the way, the "minyan check" method proposed by BZ does not make some of these types of situations any less awkward if the person who has to say kaddish is one who thinks there's a minyan in the room.

[Update: Clarified what one of the questions means.]

^* A "10+10 minyan" means one where it is agreed upon that the group waits for 10 men and 10 women before proceeding with davening as if there were a minyan. Note the confusing use of the word "minyan" to mean both "prayer community" and "quorum" in the same sentence.

⁰ I do actually have one answer from the other post, and, it was that the 10+10 minyan davened as if no minyan were present. What I found most interesting was that it was phrased in terms of the "halacha" of the community. (Posted by hotshot2000 as a comment to the private post and reposted here (thanks!), see comments.).

^** To the best of my knowledge, everyone in the room agrees that the requirement of a quorum for prayer is satisfied by the 10 men. In both of these cases, halacha contradicts the 10+10 principle.

^*** The not-obligated Roth teshuva adherent would not consider the room to have a minyan in it. The Golinkin/Wald teshuva-(only)-adherents may have no choice other than to consider her obligated. Does anyone know if any such group exists?

Purim Kiddush 2007 (edited)

2007-02-27T20:08:00.000-05:00

It wouldn't be Purim without the annual changes to the Purim kiddush. This year, there have been only minor changes to the text, and a number of changes to the document formatting. Mostly, these are attempts to make a closer parody of the evil empire of siddurim, emphasizing some of the bad typography choices they made (can someone explain to me why English is in italics?).

Here's the 2007 version in PDF (for viewing and printing) and OpenDocument format (for editing).

Beyond the more-or-less standard and interchangeable Roman fonts, the fonts used are: Ezra SIL for serif-Hebrew, and FreeSerif for the biohazard symbol dingbat used as a substitute for the 90-degree rotated fleur-de-lis.

If you're interested in liturgical development, the previous versions are: 2006, 2005, 2004.

Note that the copyright terms and permission notice for these two files are different from the rest of my blog. Here goes the legalese:
Copyright © 2004-2007 Elf's DH. Permission is granted to make and distribute copies of this work, with or without modifications, under the conditions (1) that the above copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies and (2) that if the work is modified, distribution of the modified work is under the terms of an identical permission notice.

Chag Sameach!

[Edited to correct bad links to the 2007 edition. Sorry, forgot the http:// prefix]

Be happy... it'll be Tishrei?

2007-02-26T23:33:00.000-05:00

All prepped for Purim? It's not too early to start planning next year's Yom Kippur Party.

Jew It Yourself DDOS-s itself

2007-02-21T19:26:00.000-05:00

If you haven't been living in a cave for the past few days, you've probably encountered either a blog, a LiveJournal community, a mailing list, or a mainstream press article that referred to ShulShopper, a new website that launched whose goal is for congregations and independent minyanim of all (or no) denominations to self-list based on style and affiliation. Users can then search the site based on location and certain aspects of the minyanim that they're looking, and be matched to those that suit their preferences.

The basic idea is very good. It's still in public beta, so there are a number of kinks to be worked out in the backend and the interface, both of which are to be expected.

One of those kinks is the probably unexpected business of the site. The server is constantly choking under its load, and HTTP error 503 (service unavailable) is not an uncommon occurrence. In fact, it's been so busy in the first two days since its launch and has received so many links from so many sources that they've been affected by the blogosphere equivalent of the Slashdot effect. That is, an unintentional distributed denial of service attack caused by too many people trying to access the same site at the same time.

The moral: too much publicity can be a bad thing. I would expect that the DDOS will settle over the next few days as the site loses its brand-newness and becomes just another niche Internet service — or obtains more bandwidth. That, and, the blogosphere's attention span only goes so far (it's no more than 5 days).

UPDATE: What was it I said a week ago? Incidentally, the site is no longer DDOS-ed to the point of being nearly unusable, supporting my point about the blogosphere's attention span.

Homosexuality in halacha V: Human Dignity

2007-02-11T00:27:00.000-05:00

For the purposes of this post, I will assume that we can accept the Dorff, Nevins, Reisner teshuva's conclusion that among all homosexual activity, only male-on-male anal intercourse is forbidden from the Torah, and the remainder is forbidden rabbinically.^*

Please note that we are discussing here a legal, not a colloquial, definition of “dignity.” An answer that says that the principle does not apply to the case of homosexuality is not equivalent to saying that homosexuals are somehow undignified or not due the honor that is due to any human being.

Dorff et al begin their argument on the concept of “feasibility” — that the halacha does not demand what it knows to be impossible. Upon first reading this argument, I equated it in my mind with Rabbi Simchah Roth's final argument in his teshuva that homosexuals are אנוסים (compelled in their actions). The Dorff teshuva never makes the equation to that legal language. It uses more fuzzy broad-based logic to argue that the Torah does not demand the impossible (pp13-14). Both arguments are similar in that both documents use this particular argument towards the end of increased permissiveness, which looks to me like the wrong conclusion. A more authentic use might be to use these types of arguments to absolve homosexuals of the positive obligations of heterosexual marriage. Another potential use would be to absolve them of legal culpability for wrongdoing. Because the halacha is not a civil code, removal of such culpability has no practical effect. It also may be counterproductive to the final intent of the argument. It appears to me that Dorff et al intend to make halacha accepting of homosexuals in an ideal way (לכתכילה), not merely as compelled sinners. It does not appear to me that these arguments help overturn negative commandments in anything more than a single-instance and/or non-ideal case (בדיעבד).

The primary halachic argument that Dorff et al advance, and the one from which they derived the title of their work is that כבוד הבריות (human dignity, dignity due to all creations) overrides the Rabbinic negative commandments, and would thus allow homosexuals full participation in the community.

The principle, as stated in the Talmud (see footnote 56 for multiple references), is גדול כבוד הבריות שדוחה לא תעשה שבתורה, “[so] great is human dignity that it sets aside a negative commandment in the Torah.” All agree that the Talmud limits its own statement to Rabbinic commandments. That is why one must agree with this teshuva's interpretation of the the distinction between Biblical and Rabbinic prohibitions that was summarized earlier in order for this particular argument to hold.

The analysis then turns to practical cases where the principle is used:

BT Berachot 19b: A sage must strip off a garment that he learns contains a prohibited combination (shatnez), even if he is in public. In this case, Divine dignity, which is determined by observance of the commandments, overrides human dignity and the dignity due to the sage.
A kohen may accompany a mourner through a field that was rendered impure through the possible presence of human remains. Had the field been an actual cemetery, this act would be Biblically forbidden. The prohibition of a kohen's passage through the uncertain field is Rabbinic, and is overridden by the dignity due to the mourner.
Similarly, the rabbis, including kohanim would go over actual coffins in order to greet a king of Israel. The dignity due to the king overrides what turns out to be a rabbinic commandment (because the coffins themselves were constructed to limit the spread of impure cooties).
Because leading an animal would be beneath his dignity, a Torah scholar does not have to return a lost animal he found, in contravention to a positive Biblical commandment.
A person may carry smooth stones (an equivalent to toilet paper) up to a roof -based bathroom on Shabbat in order to clean himself, in deference to human dignity. Such carrying would violate a negative Rabbinic commandment.
A dead body may be removed from a house to an intermediate area on Shabbat. Such carrying would violate a negative Rabbinic commandment.
One should bury an abandoned body in preference to reading the Megilah at the proper time, because of the dignity due to the body (this is indeed referred to in B.T. Megilah 3b as כבוד הבריות, the dignity due to creations, and not the more common כבוד המת, the dignity due to the dead).

The opposing arguments are (Roth 2006 p21-26):

Person A may violate a negative rabbinic commandment on behalf of the dignity of person B, but not on behalf of his own dignity.
In order to qualify as indignity, the undignified state must occur in public.
The dignity exception only applies to violations that occur in single-instances, and is an emergency measure.

In fact, most of the cited cases do follow one of these patterns, and Dorff et al acknowledge that fact (p23). R. Louis Ginzberg's modern definition that they cite of כבוד הבריות, in fact, comes somewhere between Roth's and their own:

שכבוד הבריות משמעו דבר שאדם מונע עצמו ממנו כדי שלא יתבזה בין בני אדם
The meaning of [the exception due to] human dignity is that a man withholds himself from something so that he will not be humiliated among people. (Dorff translation, p23)

This definition seems to allow for someone to make an exception on his own behalf, but also indicates that the indignity must occur in public.

It appears to me that the only case of those provided where an individual is clearly violating a negative Rabbinic commandment on behalf of his own dignity is that of the carrying of cleaning stones on Shabbat. Roth's first and second counterarguments are applied to this case by asserting that the prevented indignity is the smell of feces among others. The dignity of the others is being protected, and the indignity occurs in public. This line of thought can be negated by pointing out that there is no mention of others in the private domain. One could easily imagine that the man be advised not to violate Shabbat and not to appear in public, or that the exception be limited to a multi-occupant house! Unfortunately, Dorff et al seemingly contradict themselves on the bottom of p23: “Dignity is a social phenomenon... for a person to smell filthy in isolation is uncomfortable, but it becomes humiliating only when others smell him.” Roth's third counterargument that it is only a single-instance emergency measure is negated by the fact that this exception is codified in the Shulchan Aruch as a permanent exception.^**

In defense of the argument that this ruling applies to homosexuals, Dorff et al assert that homosexuals' “social status is one of humiliation” (p22). One thing in common between all the precedent proof-cases provided both by Dorff et al and by Roth (who includes additional cases in his refutation) is that it is perfectly clear that a specific commandment is being violated by one person on behalf of the dignity of a specific person. The major legal issue with the exception proposed by Dorff et al is that the permission is highly nonspecific. It is never clear who's dignity is being protected in the particular violation of any rabbinic commandment. The “hard” legal principle from which they tried to derive a hard legal argument devolved into a “soft” principle, to use their own terminology (p17).

The teshuva also suffers from a philosophical flaw that is inherent to other permissive Conservative teshuvot as well. Namely, it speaks the language of permission, but not of obligation.^*** In this case, the teshuva concludes that all rabbinic prohibitions relating to homosexuality are annulled because of the principle of “so great is human dignity...”. It also emphasizes Jewish values such as fidelity/monogamy, (p27) but it does not translate these values into part of the proposed solution. It intentionally leaves out discussion of the nature of “commitment ceremonies”, allowing them, but effectively making them optional (p25). It appears that the teshuva leaves fewer obligations with regards to a homosexual relationship than a heterosexual one!

Unlike R. Gordon Tucker's teshuva (for example), the work of Rabbis Dorff, Nevins, and Reisner is intended to be a paper for an audience willing to accept classical halachic reasoning. Because it relies on essentially weak or incomplete argumentation, it would tend to fail to convince that kind of audience. As far as I have read, though, it is the most plausible attempt to create a permissive regime for homosexuality within the context of halacha. An unfortunate side-effect of its acceptance by the CJLS may be that it will be considered the final word on the subject, and a more halachically honest approach will never even be proposed. As a side note, the Masorti movement, the Israeli equivalent of the Conservative movement, which retains its own decision-making apparatus, has stated that it will not be bound by the American decision. It is possible, therefore, that these issues will be ironed out in the Israeli/overseas process.

^* In my previous post, I decided not to discuss the issue of lesbianism. Briefly, Roth (1992,pp5-6;2006,pp18-19) claims that it's Biblically prohibited, quoting from Sifra, which derives the prohibition from the general introductory statement of Lev. 18:3. Both Roth and Dorff et al agree that any punishment for lesbianism is rabbinic. Should we accept Dorff's argument about the Biblical prohibitions with regard to men, then, it would only seem logical to accept their arguments with respect to women. Otherwise, lesbianism, which does not involve any intercourse and is not mentioned specifically in the Torah, would be under a more stringent ruling than male homosexuality, which involves intercourse that is forbidden by the Torah. It is not clear from the Sifra's text itself whether it actually intended to derive a new Biblical prohibition or make a midrashic comment, or, for that matter, what acts precisely would be considered Biblically prohibited.

^** Dorff et al attempt to provide a grammatical argument from the Talmudic text of the case of the Israelite king to prove that the human dignity exception is continuous, and not an emergency measure. The argument is not that convincing.

^*** We may contrast this teshuva to those that permitted egalitarianism, which based their conclusions on two theories. According to one theory (Roth), women must accept upon themselves obligations before they could fulfil them for others. According to the other theory (Golinkin, eg), women are already, in fact, equally obligated.

The minyanim of Studentville UAQ

2007-02-06T22:09:00.000-05:00

Now that:

I've gotten at least 4 plugs,
it's been revealed elsewhere that Studentville is a mock-up of an actual place,
and my hit counter is running off the scale (by the way, the display counts visits, not page views),

I feel an obligation to post this.

The catch-phrase of the Ig Nobel Prizes is that they "first make people laugh, and then make them think." I would hope that post did it.

Pseudonymous commenter Locke (not the political philosopher) wrote:

I like to think of the two major groups of people that inhabit Studentville as crowd 1: which takes itself very seriously and won't laugh at anything. and crowd 2: who have a tendency to laugh much too loudly, and at inappropriate times.

You can think of this post as being written by crowd 2 with an audience of crowd 1.

And now, to the UAQ:

Oh no! My minyan was misrepresented!

Of course it was! It's a parody. Certain elements were exaggerated for effect and humor value.

But my minyan was misrepresented even more than all the others!

No, it wasn't. And, I would find it hard to believe that you did not recognize at least some elements of the (short) characterization that rang true.

Why would you write something inflammatory like this? The community is fine.

Read the comments to the original post. See if you still believe that.

Was it all a ploy to get people to go to a specific minyan?

No.

Was it directed as a jab any specific minyan?

Not really. The impetus for the post was a specific minyan. But, the point is valid for the entire community.

So, why did you say that my minyan had no reason to come into existence?

Because its founding duplicated an institution that's already in existence, rather than adding something new to communal life.

What do you mean by adding something new?

Creating a group with differences in practice and/or religious ideology sufficient to differentiate your group from the pre-existing ones.

Do you really think that Metropolis should only have three shuls -- one Reform, one Conservative, and one Orthodox?

That's two separate questions! The answer to the first is: No. If the active community is large enough to support duplicate institutions, or if geographical constraints make duplication necessary, it's not problematic at all. One can argue that the challenge in some communities is to make the religious groupings smaller. To the second question: Differences in practice and religious ideology are not limited to, and are more confused by than enlightened by, denominational lines.

But my minyan has social action, learning programs, etc.

That's great! Kol hakavod! Why do you need a minyan?

Are you on drugs?

No.

Do you hate independent minyanim?

No. I think independent minyanim have an important place in the greater Jewish community, and have done a lot to bring uninvolved Jews into the fold, and keep Jews involved. There's a time and place for everything, says Kohelet. Also, if you read the post, you'll note that independent minyanim are not the only targets of barbs.

Did the Republicans put you up to this?

No.

Why didn't you list my minyan?

Is it really in Studentville? If so, it means I didn't know about it. If you have to ask this question, though, you should probably be asking yourself where your minyan fits in to the "taxonomy."

What's a UAQ, anyway?

A FAQ is a frequently asked questions list. A UAQ is an unasked questions list. My telepathy software told me you were thinking them. :-)

Are you just writing this post to get back on everyone's RSS aggregators?

Shhh...

Say what?

2007-02-06T17:44:00.000-05:00

This is a real error message I got from Windows XP Professional when I tried to delete a file (file name removed):

You have to wonder what the programmer was smoking when he wrote it.

If you're using a text-based browser, it says:
Title bar: Error deleting file or folder
Message:

Cannot delete [filename]: There is not enough free disk space.
Delete one or more files to free disk space, and then try again.
To free space on this drive by deleting old or unnecessary files, click Disk Cleanup.

Button options: "Disk cleanup..." and "OK"

From the fact-is-just-a-few-months-behind-parody department

2007-02-04T19:06:00.000-05:00

One of these links is to a satire.
The other is to a real news story.
Which is which?

Link 1.
Link 2.

(Note: There's somewhat contradictory information on the 'net about the resolution of the real issue. The main point here is that 55" or larger televisions will soon be common in normal households. And, that's where the satire becomes more plausible.)

The minyanim of Studentville, MA...

2007-02-02T14:34:00.000-05:00

... or, can't we all just daven together?

Important: If you lack a sense of humor, read this first.

Town stats:

Population: Approximately 100,000 (source: Wikipedia)
Number of kosher restaurants: 0
Number of kosher stores: 0
Number of mikvaot: 0
Jewish population: Unable to obtain statistics. I'd estimate somewhere in thousands. Like many places, most Jews do not go to shul. I would estimate the active Jewish population to be under 1000.
Number of minyanim: At least 14

Names changed to protect the guilty.

Hillel I^* Orthodox Minyan I.

Practice: Modern Orthodox
Reasons for existence: Orthodox undergraduate and graduate students from School I, Orthodox non-students who live in the area; Previously, only regularly-meeting Orthodox prayer group in town.
Served an unserved need when it started: Yes

Hillel I^* Orthodox Minyan II.

Practice: Modern Orthodox
Original reasons for existence: Orthodox undergraduate students who didn't want to daven with the non-students in Hillel I Orthodox Minyan I. (The original intent of the minyan was to meet on Shabbat. It never took off.)
Would have served an unserved need when it started: No
Current reason for existence: Weekday morning minyan an hour later.
Served an unserved need when it started: Yes

Hillel I^* Conservative Minyan I

Practice: Shortened-service, discussion session, Conservative/egalitarian
Original reasons for existence: Conservative students from School I; Conservative non-students
Current reasons for existence: Conservative non-students
Served an unserved need when it started: Yes

Hillel I^* Conservative Minyan II

Practice: Traditional-liturgy Conservative/egalitarian
Reasons for existence: Egalitarian-leaning Conservative students (mostly undergraduates) who didn't want to daven with Hillel I Orthodox Minyan I (yes, that's right. Conservative Minyan II was more a breakaway from Orthodox I than Conservative I!)
Served an unserved need when it started: Yes

Hillel I^* Reform Minyan

Practice: Guitar Reform
Reasons for existence: Only Reform prayer group in town.
Served an unserved need when it started: Yes

Hillel II^** Orthodox Minyan.

Practice: Orthodox
Reasons for existence: Orthodox students from School II.
Served an unserved need when it started: Yes

Hillel II^** Conservative Minyan.

Practice: Traditional-liturgy egalitarian/Conservative
Reasons for existence: Conservative/egalitarian students from School II.
Served an unserved need when it started: Yes

Orthodox Pseudo-Egalitarian Minyan I

Practice: Mechitza; Wait for 10 men/10 women for a "minyan"; Women lead parts of the service that aren't important.
Reasons for existence: Orthodox 20- and 30-somethings who wanted to maximize women's participation; Egalitarians who didn't want to daven at Shul Egalitarian Minyan or Hillel I Conservative Minyan II.
Served an unserved need before it started: Maybe. The real pseudo-egalitarian crowd was unserved. The (majority?) egalitarian crowd was served.

Orthodox Pseudo-Egalitarian Minyan II

Note: The latest addition to the fray.
Practice: Mechitza; Wait for 10 men/10 women for a "minyan"; Women lead parts of the service that aren't important. (Sound familiar?)
Reasons for existence: Undergraduate students who didn't want to daven with Orthodox Pseudo-Egalitarian Minyan I or Hillel I Orthodox Minyan I.
Served an unserved need before it started: No. Practice exactly mirrors Orthodox Pseudo-Egalitarian Minyan I.

Shul I Egalitarian Minyan

Practice: Traditional liturgy egalitarian/Conservative
Reasons for existence: Egalitarian-leaning Shul-I-goers who didn't want to daven with Shul I Traditional Minyan; Conservative area residents.
Served an unserved need before it started: Yes

Shul I Traditional Minyan

Original Practice: Orthodox, then non-egalitarian Conservative without a mechitza.
Original reasons for existence: It was the shul minyan.
Served an unserved need before it started: Yes
Current Practice: Modern Orthodox
Current reasons for existence: Members of Shul I who became "too frum" for Shul I Egalitarian Minyan; Orthodox area residents.
Served an unserved need before it started: Maybe

Postdenominational Egalitarian Minyan

Practice: Traditional-liturgy egalitarian/not Conservative
Reasons for existence: A place for 20- and 30-something egalitarians who go to Orthodox Pseudo-Egalitarian Minyan I to go when they don't meet; they won't go to Shul I Egalitarian Minyan or Hillel I Conservative Minyan II.
Served an unserved need before it started: No

Shul Nobody Goes To

Practice: Friday night egalitarian/"non-denominational" minyan
Original reasons for existence: Area residents who grew up in Hillel I forming a community.
Served an unserved need before it started: I dunno.
Current reasons for existence: Providing rental space for Postdenominational egalitarian minyan and Orthodox Pseudo-Egalitarian Minyan I. Getting Torah scrolls declared pasul (unfit) by said minyanim.

Big Orthodox Outreach Organization

Practice: Big Orthodox Outreach Organization
Reasons for existence: Feeding hungry students and non-students, especially of the bu$ine$$ and law varieties; Starting an hour later on Shabbat morning, thus avoiding any suspicion that Big Orthodox Outreach Organization rabbi is davening b'zman at Hillel I Orthodox Minyan I.
Served an unserved need before it started: Food, yes. Minyan, no.

^* It may come as a surprise to some who don't live in Studentville that I'm considering Hillel I as supporting minyanim for non-students. This is something of a historical accident. Hillel I is roughly centrally located in Studentville and functioned as something akin to a Jewish Community Center. At one point, it associated with local K-8 day school (now independent). With recent policy shifts added to the advent or ascendence of so many other minyanim, Hillel I is in the process of losing its connection to non-undergraduate students and non-students alike. When these changes begin to hit them significantly in the donation department has yet to be seen.

^** Geographical Note: School II is located far enough way from School I that they could not reasonably be expected to join each others' Hillels on a regular basis. Historical note: Both Hillel organizations were founded with a year of each other.

Updated: Added footnote *, corrected a few typos.
Update 2: Corrected characterization of one of the minyan's practices to reflect it "better." Added link to second post.

Hitchhiker's Guide to Movies

2007-01-28T23:01:00.000-05:00

How can such a good series of books have been turned into such a bad movie?

Google vs. Windows Live

2007-01-28T22:47:00.000-05:00

Has anybody seen the latest ads for Windows Live search, Microsoft's latest attempt to compete with Google? One of the ads features a woman searching for someone to move her cats with the search term “cat movers”. I ran the search on Windows Live search and Google.

When I ran the search, Windows Live returned a stock listing of Caterpillar, Inc. (from Google Finance, no less) as its first unsponsored link, a top-level directory type spam page as its second, and a search site to find movers as its first ad-link.

Google returned an article about moving cats as its first link, an article about a cat's psyche(!) on moving day as its second, and a pet mover as its first ad-link.

(Results subject to change).

Homosexuality in halacha IV: The Biblical Prohibition

2007-01-10T00:08:00.000-05:00

By now, I hope that I've shown that the Biblical prohibition in a halachic sense is not defined by the Biblical text itself. Now, I would like to examine the early rabbinic (primarily Talmudic) texts used by Dorff et al (2006), and Roth's responses (2006), interspersed with my own analysis.

Most of the discussion of Talmudic sources in Roth's 1992 teshuva focused on whether the rabbis of the Talmud could envision (and thus could have knowingly prohibited) the modern, monogamous, loving homosexual relationship. These sources, while they have halachic import, do more to establish social context than to determine the nature of the Biblical prohibition as a technical issue.

Dorff et al acknowledge that some form of homosexual behavior is not only Biblically prohibited, but is in the category of גילוי עריות (gilui arayot, illicit “uncoverings of nakedness”). Transgressing these prohibitions is considered so serious that one is halachically expected to die instead of submitting to a forced transgression of them.

Our analysis could begin in many places, but, perhaps the most appropriate is at BT Sanhedrin 55a:

א"ל רבינא לרבא: המערה בזכור מהו? המערה בזכור "משכבי אשה" כתיב ביה!
Ravina asked Rava: What are the illicit sexual relations concerning a man [and another man]? [Rava answered:] About that it is written: "The lyings of a woman!"

So, the Talmud defines the Biblically forbidden homosexual relations as whatever is legally included in the two verses in Leviticus. Based on their halachic analysis, Dorff et al interpret that to mean “anal intercourse”, and based on analysis of many of the same sources, Roth interprets it to mean all penetrative contact between men. In its discussion of the verses in question, the Talmud addresses three key points. The first is that the term “lyings of a woman” is not clear. The second is that it is written in plural. The third is that it is in a Biblical context dealing with other manners of forbidden sexual relations, such as between male and female relatives, between people and animals, and between men and menstruant women.

The plural “lyings of a woman” is addressed with the same Talmudic statement in three places, BT Sanhedrin 54a, BT Yevamot 56b, and Sifra Kedoshim 9:14 (92b):

“משכבי אשה” מגיד לך הכתוב ששני משכבות באשה. הרי זה בא ללמד ונמצא למד.
“The lyings of a woman” comes to teach us that there are two lyings with a woman. This passage comes to teach one thing, and it also teaches about another.

Rashi defines the two “lyings” as follows (emphasis added):

משכבי אשה - שתי משכבות יש באשה, שוין זה לזה לחייב בכל עריות, כדרכה ושלא כדרכה. הרי זה בא ללמד - על זכר, שחייב אפילו שלא כדרכה. ונמצא למד - למשכב זכור לא איצטריך קרא, דפשיטא לן דכל משכב זכר שלא כדרכו הוא, אלא האי משכבי לאשמועינן אתא דהבא על אשה, בין כדרכה, בין שלא כדרכה חייב.
“‘there are two lyings with a woman’ . . . that are equivalent to each other for legal liability with regards to all illicit sexual relations; the usual way [vaginal intercourse] and the unusual way. ‘This passage comes to teach one thing.’ That a man is liable [for illicit relations] even though they are done the unusual way. ‘and it also teaches us about another.’ For the purposes of homosexual relations, we don't need a Biblical verse, because clearly all relations between men are not performed the usual way. Instead, the verse comes to teach us that a man who has illicit sexual relations with a woman is liable, whether those relations were the usual way or the unusual way.”

The primary dispute here is the definition of “the unusual way.” Dorff et al argue that it means anal sex specifically, while Roth argues that it includes all nonvaginal penetrative intercourse. As a side note, this last Rashi undermines Dorff et al's note 29, where they write: “We are not aware of any rabbinic text which employs the term biah shelo kedarkah to describe homosexual sex.”

That sex the “unusual way” is sufficient to incur Biblical liability is made somewhat clearer from an unrelated discussion in Horayot 4a (brought up by Roth but not addressed in Dorff). The case the Talmud is discussing involves a sanhedrin (court) that makes an incorrect ruling. Ordinarily, this would make the court liable for having to bring a sacrifice, but anyone who followed the incorrect ruling would not be liable. The exception (mishna, Horayot 3b) is when the court annuls an entire Biblical law, for example, it removes the niddah prohibitions, the Sabbath, or the prohibitions against praying to foreign gods from the Torah in their entirety. In that case, the court is not liable to bring the sacrifice, and anyone who followed the ruling is liable for violating the “overturned” prohibition. The reasoning is that it should have been obvious (even to a Biblical literalist, such as a Sadducee) that the ruling was wrong, because it so obviously overreached the authority of the court.^* The mishna also presents a borderline case, in which the court annuls only a specific portion of a Biblical law. For example, it states that the niddah prohibitions are in force, but that a woman may consider herself pure (and thus have sexual relations with her husband) while she counts the days until her time of immersion; or that the Shabbat laws are in full force, except one may carry between a private domain and a public domain; or that the prohibitions against foreign worship are in full force, but one who merely bows before other gods is not liable. In these cases, when the court finds that it ruled incorrectly, it is liable for a sacrifice. When the Talmud discusses the first of these cases, it touches on issues relevant to our discussion. The Talmud is in the process of suggesting and rejecting what the court could have said in this case that was wrong, but not “obviously” Biblically prohibited. One of the suggestions is:

דאמרי: כדרכה אסירא, שלא כדרכה שריא, הא כתיב: "משכבי אשה."
[If] they say: the usual way is OK, the unusual way is forbidden, [they are answered: ] It is written: “the lyings of a woman”.

The conclusion is that it should be obvious that the phrase “the lyings of a woman” implies that both types of intercourse, the “usual” and “unusual” ways are Biblically forbidden.

The connection to the Biblical context is made in BT Yevamot 54b:

אמר ר' יונה, ואיתימא רב הונא בריה דרב יהושע: אמר קרא: "כי כל אשר יעשה מכל התועבות האלה ונכרתו הנפשות העושות" הוקשו כל העריות כולן לנדה. מה נדה בהעראה, אף כל בהעראה.
Rav Jonah said, and there are some who attribute it to Rav Huna son of Rav Joshua: The verse says: "All who do any of these abhorrences will have their souls cut off [from among their nation]" (Lev 18:29). All of the illicit sexual acts [listed in Leviticus 18] were connected to niddah. Just as for niddah, initiation of sexual contact [is sufficient for liability], so in all of them, initiation of sexual contact [is sufficient for liability].

The Talmud Yerushalmi, Kiddushin 1,1 (2a), is even more specific:

ר' יוסי בעא: הערייה בזכור מהו? הערייה בבהמה מה היא? וכל העריות לא מן הנידה למדו? זכור מינה, בהמה מינה.
R. Jose asked: What is the forbidden initiation of sexual contact between a man and another man? What is the forbidden initiation of sexual contact between a man and an animal? [He was answered:] Have we not learned about the forbidden sexual relations from the case of the menstruant woman? We learn the case of a man from there, and we learn the case of an animal from there.

This passage defines the Biblical injunction against the “lyings of a woman” with a man as the equivalent of what is forbidden with a menstruant woman. As far as I can tell, this source is not addressed in Dorff et al.

So, now, we know that העראה (I've been translating it as “initiation of sexual contact”) of ביאה שלא כדרכה (“sex the unusual way”) is sufficient to incur a Biblical penalty^**. Both of these remain undefined terms.

The Talmud defines העראה (initiation) in a discussion in Yevamot 55b as “הכנסת עטרה”, the entry of the crown of the penis. Both Roth (pp8-9) and Dorff (note 25) agree on this point. Their primary disagreement is into which orifice(s) the penis must be inserted in order to incur a Biblical penalty.

One Talmudic case considered strong proof by Dorff et al that “the unusual way” only refers to anal intercourse is that of the androginus, a human with two sets of genitalia. (Simplifying, ) The halachic definition of a male is one with a penis, so, the androginus is male according to halacha, and, thus can be liable for relations with another man. From BT Yevamot 83b:

אמר רב שמואל בר יהודה א"ר אבא אחוה דר' יהודה בר זבדי אמר רב יהודה אמר רב: אנדרוגינוס חייבין עליו סקילה משתי מקומות. מיתיבי: רבי אליעזר אמר אנדרוגינוס חייבין עליו סקילה כבזכר. בד"א בזכרות שלו, אבל בנקבות שלו, פטור. הוא דאמר כי האי תנא דתניא רבי סימאי אומר: אנדרוגינוס חייבין עליו סקילה משתי מקומות. מ"ט דרבי סימאי? אמר רבא בר המדורי: אסברא לי "ואת זכר לא תשכב משכבי אשה." אי זהו זכר שיש בו שני משכבות? הוי אומר: זה אנדרוגינוס. ורבנן אע"ג דאית ביה שני משכבות "את זכר" כתיב. ורבנן זכר גרידא מנא להו? מ"ואת אשה." באשה שלא כדרכה מנא להו? מ"אשה."
Rav Samuel son of Judah said in the name of Rabbi Aba brother of Rabbi Judah son of Zveidi who said in the name of Rabbi Judah who said in the name of Rav: An androginus is liable for [the Biblical penalty of] stoning [for homosexual relations] from two places. They asked of him [from the mishna]: “Rabbi Eliezer said: An androginus is liable for stoning as a man” — “As a man” means to say “with his maleness” (בזכרות שלו), but in his femaleness (בנקבות שלו), he is not liable!? This tannaitic ruling agrees with another [Beraita]: “Rabbi Simai said: An androginus is liable for stoning from two places.” Why does Rabbi Simai rule this way? Rava son of Hamduri said: Explain to me [the verse, Lev 18:22] “Do not lie with a man the lyings of a woman”. What man has two “lyings”? This is the androginus! The opinion of the [other] rabbis is that even though he has two “lyings”, it is written “And a man” [that is, he is only liable for sex with male parts (Rashi)]. [But] according to the opinion of the rabbis [where the word “a man” is being used to remove the liability from the female part of the androginus], from where do we derive the law [against homosexual relations] in relation to a normal male? From “and to a woman”^***. [According to both Rabbi Simai and the other rabbis, ] from where do we derive the law in relation to [illicit sexual relations between a man and woman] that the unusual way [is sufficient to incur a Biblical penalty? (We had thought that it was from the plural form of “lyings”, but this is already being used for different legal derivations -- Rashi)] From “a woman” (most likely referring to Lev. 18:22).

The ultimate ruling with regard to the androginus is unimportant for our purposes. Dorff et al would like “two places” to mean “two and only two”. There are a number of linguistic problems with the interpretation of this passage. One is pointed out by Roth (p12). “Femaleness” is universally equated with a vagina. The question then is the meaning of “maleness” in this context. Dorff et al equate it with an anus, following the Ritv"a (Rabbeinu Yom Tov ben Avraham Asevilli, 1255-1300; Dorff, note 31), who explicitly defines “maleness” as the “behind”. Roth prefers the term I translated as “maleness” to be understood according to its more frequent usage — “penis.” What Dorff's definition loses in linguistic fidelity, it gains in textual symmetry: the text refers to the two places an androginus can be penetrated and thus incur a penalty. The textual symmetry in Roth's definition is that both “maleness” and “femaleness” refer to genitalia. Either way, at least one “place” that is known to that author to result in a Biblical penalty is missing. For Dorff, it's the penis. For Roth, it's the anus (or the mouth, for that matter!). Both would argue based on their own versions of the textual parallelism that it is not expected to be there. This passage is therefore inconclusive.^****

Colloquially, “sex the unusual way” likely means any nonvaginal sex. Roth suggests that it means any nonvaginal penetration (for reasons discussed below). However, from the Talmudic sources alone, there is little evidence of its legal definition. It could be specifically anal, or it could be more general. In some places, it could have one meaning, and in others, it could be a specific euphemism. Other sources are introduced by both Roth and Dorff. But, they are similarly inconclusive.

There is later evidence as to the possible meanings of “sex the unnatural way”. Dorff et al suggest that the Rashi on the language used in the rape of Dinah (Gen 34:2) proves that “the unusual way” is painful, and therefore, it must refer to anal sex. Rashi derives this from the midrash Bereshit Rabba chapter 5. Once again, however, this is not absolute proof, since there is no evidence that the term has only one meaning. In that case, Rashi had one of many specific meanings of the “unusual way” in mind when he wrote the commentary on Genesis.

The closest we come to an actual definition is Rashi on Yevamot 34b:

שלא כדרכה והעראה משכבת זרע נפקא - שלא כדרכה אינו מקום זרע העראה לאו שכבת זרע הוא דאין כאן זרע הלכך תרוייהו משכבת זרע מימעטי:
The unusual way and initiation are differentiated [legally] from [the Biblical category of] “intercourse involving seed” - The unusual way [means] ‘not in a place with procreative potential’, and initiation of sexual contact is not [considered intercourse involving seed] because there is no ejaculation. Both are eliminated [from incurring legal liability] wherever [the Torah says] “intercourse involving seed”.

This would seem to support Roth's more general understanding of sex “the unusual way”.

Another cited proof text is the Rashi on Niddah 13b that defines another term, sex דרך אברים, “by way of the limbs”, which the Talmud explicity excludes from the category of “lyings of a woman”. Rashi defines:

דרך אברים - היינו שכבת זרע לבטלה, ואינו משכב זכור דבמשכב זכור כתיב: "משכבי אשה".
[Sex] by way of the limbs -- This [is a sexual act that] wastes seed, but it is not considered [the legal equivalent of] “lying with a man” because all of the cases for “lying with a man” must be included in “the lyings of a woman” (Lev 18:22).

Roth's interpretation is that “by way of the limbs” refers to nonpenetrative sex acts, and “the unnatural way” refers to penetrative sex acts. Dorff et al include only anal sex in “the unnatural way”, and the remainder in “by way of the limbs”.

The earliest quoted primary source of an absolutely clear broad legal definition is in an edition of the Shulchan Aruch published in Venice in 1594 (Roth p10). The Ram"a on Even Haezer 25:2 which reads: “And has intercourse with her the usual way or the unusual way, but not by way of the anus, God forbid”. The proof text itself (italicized), which clearly includes non-anal intercourse in “sex the unusual way” is not in our editions of the Ram"a. I don't know whether the Venice 1594 edition is a more or less reliable one than the one we have.

The later commentators and halachists include ever broader definitions of the Biblical prohibition (see Mainmonides, the Shulchan Aruch, Tur, etc. quoted by Roth p13), deriving the prohibition against intercourse from “the lyings of a woman”, and the prohibition against all other sexual activity from Lev. 18:3.

To this point, all that we've determined is that the early sources can be read such that anal intercourse is the only Biblical prohibition. It is a plausible reading, but, truthfully, not that conclusive nor convincing. Roth's understanding is most consistent with the greatest number of halachic texts, including the Talmud and post-Talmudic codes. To this point, the differentiation is all just an academic exercise. Even if the remainder is not Biblically prohibited, it is certainly Rabbinically prohibited. A future post will (hopefully) look at the logic used by Dorff et al to overturn the remaining prohibitions.

Roth provides a number of philosophical objections to defining the Biblical prohibition narrowly. The first, from a halachic perspective, is the principle ספיקא דאורייתא לחומרא, that when there is an uncertainty with regard to application of a Biblical law, we rule stringently. The counterargument would be that this is a cop-out. The uncertainty here is not (yet) in application, it is in whether the law is actually Biblical. To the best of my knowledge, this principle is a guideline for deciding practical applications, not for categorizing. The second objection is essentially a slippery-slope argument. Roth argues that should we decide to limit the Biblical prohibition against homosexuality, there is no reason not to do the same for all the other sexual prohibitions in Lev. 18. However, deciding on the nature of the Biblical prohibition does no such thing automatically. Rabbinic prohibitions still prevent one from making any forms of bestiality or incest halachically legitimate. The ultimate question is whether there is any compelling reason to reconsider the Rabbinic prohibitions. Dorff et al are not suggesting that Rabbinic halacha is nonbinding. On the contrary, much of their case relies on Rabbinic jurisprudence. Roth's third objection is more sociological. He argues there is a difference between what a decisor would say to someone privately and what should be enshrined in law for all to read. But, the fact that this issue has come up as a societal issue rather than as a private issue demands a societal answer.

^* A cynic would snicker at the parallels to the issue currently under discussion.

^** I want to make absolutely clear here that when a halachist talks about a liability for a Biblical or Rabbinic penalty, it is not equivalent to a statement that the halachist thinks that someone should actually go out and punish another according to that penalty. Penalties are being used to make legal distinctions. Nothing more.

^*** The text here is severely corrupted and it's a bit hard to tell which proof-verse is intended.

^**** I should point out that even though the language is inconclusive, if you're willing to accept Dorff et al's perfectly reasonable understanding at face value, this passage is pretty much the only one presented that would strongly indicate that the sole definition of “sex the unusual way” is anal sex. (Updated: 1/12/2007)

Many thanks to DW for helping me proofread and copy-edit.

Brick Testament on Vayyehi

2007-01-06T21:15:00.000-05:00

Today's parsha (Vayyehi) included the subject of some of my favorite Brick Testament cartoons (1) (2).

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Homosexuality in halacha III: The Biblical text

2006-12-28T23:25:00.000-05:00

All teshuvot referred to in the following posts on this subject will either be linked to from these posts or have previously been linked on my blog. While I may only reference names of first authors, this is being used as shorthand for the full author list. Page numbers refer to the CJLS-posted PDF versions.

The well-known Biblical sources for the prohibitions associated with homosexual relations are ‏וְאֶ֨ת־זָכָ֔ר לֹ֥א תִשְׁכַּ֖ב מִשְׁכְּבֵ֣י אִשָּׁ֑ה תּוֹעֵבָ֖ה הִֽוא "And [with] a man, do not sleep the way [you do with] a woman, it is an abhorrence," (Leviticus 18:22) and ‏וְאִ֗ישׁ אֲשֶׁ֨ר יִשְׁכַּ֤ב אֶת־זָכָר֙ מִשְׁכְּבֵ֣י אִשָּׁ֔ה תּוֹעֵבָ֥ה עָשׂ֖וּ שְׁנֵיהֶ֑ם מ֥וֹת יוּמָ֖תוּ דְּמֵיהֶ֥ם בָּֽם "And a man who sleeps with a man as [a man does] with a woman, both have committed an abhorrent act, they shall certainly be put to death, the bloodguilt is theirs" (Leviticus 20:13). The former comes in the context of a long list of sexual prohibitions and the latter comes in a similar list that adds penalties for the offenders.

It is clear from the language that the Biblical author had zero tolerance for homosexual sex. Attempts to read leniency directly into the text are bound to fail. One such attempt is made by Geller et al (pp9-10). First, they reject others' attempts to limit the context to exploitative or coercive sex as “unconvincing”. Then, they present their own theory that attempts to limit the context to sexual acts performed outside of a sanctified setting (eg, bestiality, homosexuality, incest). They bring in another theory attributed to Jacob Milgrom, that claims that the primary reason for the proscription of the acts is that they involve destruction of seed in ways that lack procreative potential. They conclude (based on a Talmudic interpretation) that the Torah really intended to teach that gay sex is real sex and is thus required to be performed in a sanctified context, for which there is none available. Therefore, because two men cannot sanctify their relationship through marriage, male-male intercourse is thoroughly prohibited. I don't understand the connection between the Geller theory and Milgrom's; they position in their paper as if Milgrom's provides theirs with support, but it seems to me that it does not.

There are problems with both theories. Among the prohibitions in the Holiness code is ‏וְאֶל־אִשָּׁ֖ה בְּנִדַּ֣ת טֻמְאָתָ֑הּ לֹ֣א תִקְרַ֔ב לְגַלּ֖וֹת עֶרְוָתָֽהּ “And do not approach a woman in the midst of her menstrual impurity to uncover her nakedness”(Lev. 20:19). That verse is the source of the niddah prohibitions which are still in force today. Niddah impurity occurs in the normal process of sanctified heterosexual marriage. Sex during the niddah period is more probably nonprocreative (although, if you include all the additional Rabbinically-ordained abstention time, niddah-observance could lead to the phenomenon of Orthodox infertility, that is prevent procreation). It certainly occurs by the same physical mechanism and in the same social context as procreative sex. Whether the biology was known to the Biblical author is questionable. Either way, these explanations are no more convincing than the ones the same authors rejected.

If any leniency at all can be found in the text itself, it would be found with the reason given by the Torah for the prohibitions. This is stated in (Lev 18:3):
‏כְּמַעֲשֵׂ֧ה אֶֽרֶץ־מִצְרַ֛יִם אֲשֶׁ֥ר יְשַׁבְתֶּם־בָּ֖הּ לֹ֣א תַעֲשׂ֑וּ וּכְמַעֲשֵׂ֣ה אֶֽרֶץ־כְּנַ֡עַן אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֲנִי֩ מֵבִ֨יא אֶתְכֶ֥ם שָׁ֙מָּה֙ לֹ֣א תַעֲשׂ֔וּ וּבְחֻקֹּתֵיהֶ֖ם לֹ֥א תֵלֵֽכוּ "Do not do the acts of the Land of Egypt where you dwelt; and do not do the acts of the Land of Canaan where I am bringing you; and do not follow their established practices."
and repeated at the end of the chapter (18:30):
‏וּשְׁמַרְתֶּ֣ם אֶת־מִשְׁמַרְתִּ֗י לְבִלְתִּ֨י עֲשׂ֜וֹת מֵחֻקּ֤וֹת הַתּֽוֹעֵבֹת֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר נַעֲשׂ֣וּ לִפְנֵיכֶ֔ם וְלֹ֥א תִֽטַּמְּא֖וּ בָּהֶ֑ם אֲנִ֖י יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵיכֶֽם And you shall observe My laws to avoid all of the abhorrent practices that are done before you; and do not become impure by them. I am YHVH your God."
On the one hand, this can be read as a blanket prohibition of all the acts described. On the other, it can be read as a prohibition only if they are like the acts of the Egyptians and Canaanites. However, any interpretation of the verses in this light would have to be well-supported by the historical evidence (of which there is little or none) and it would also have to encompass all of the prohibited acts listed. The argument from the source of the commandment is therefore difficult or impossible to make.

Contemporary Judaism (of all denominations), however, is not a Biblically fundamentalist religion. As described in an earlier post, practical halacha is a combination of biblical and rabbinic law, and both aspects are rabbinically determined. In the grand scheme of halacha, the interpretive rabbinic statements make a much larger impression.

There are two potentially unclear phrases in the Leviticus verses. One is משכבי אשה (“as [one] sleeps with a woman”) and the other is תועבה (“abhorrence”, “abomination”, or the like). All the teshuvot on the table dealt with תועבה as an attributed —that is, not absolute— quality of abhorrence. The most complete analysis was written by Roth for his 1992 work. That analysis was, in fact, more necessary for a negative answer than for a positive one. The Biblical assignment of homosexual sex as an abhorrence is a potential source for civil discrimination against homosexuals. If the assignment is merely attributed by the Torah for the sake of halacha, it is only valid in the halachic system, and Jews are permitted to push for advancing gay's civil rights in the secular sphere. This idea alone would be considered radical in some Orthodox circles. The differences between them are brought forward in the interpretation of exactly what acts משכבי אשה comprises. The definition, which cannot be found in the Biblical text, defines what the practical halacha considers to be Biblically prohibited. Any remaining prohibitions known to be “on the books” are rabbinic in nature, and potentially more adjustable.

The interpretation and limitation of these two words are, in my opinion, the most important hurdle for the permission granted by Dorff et al to cross. Firstly, their own internal logic requires that they be right about what is Biblically and rabbinically forbidden. Secondly, even if their argument about the methodology for overturning the rabbinic prohibitions is incorrect, if their methodology on the Biblical prohibitions is right, room is still left for others to fill in the missing piece without too much (social) damage to the very people they are trying to help. After all, once a permission of such importance to individuals has been granted and used, it is nearly impossible to rescind.

Final CJLS teshuva released [updated]

2006-12-13T17:32:00.000-05:00

The last of the approved CJLS homosexuality teshuvot has been released. It is available (once again, in MS Word format :-( ) at this link. All the teshuvot (approved and not) are available from one place at the Rabbinical Assembly website.

This final release will give us all the ability to determine for ourselves whether the (approved) Levy teshuva is totally off the wall.

[UPDATE: All the teshuvot are now in PDF format:

Dorff, Nevins, Reisner (accepted)
Geller, Fine, and Fine (rejected)
Levy (accepted)
Roth (accepted)
Tucker (rejected)
Weiss (concurring opinion)

This should correct the strange interpretation of right-to-left letter ordering that showed up in some versions of MS Word in the previous copies of the documents.]

Additional delay expected

2006-12-12T00:10:00.000-05:00

Now that Joel Roth's new paper has been released, I expect there to be an additional delay in my response to the Dorff-Nevins-Reisner teshuva. Roth's 55 page document (in addition to his previous 63 page document) directly addresses the arguments in Dorff et al (and some of the other teshuvot that were not accepted). A compare-contrast of the use and interpretation of sources would be a worthwhile exercise.

I expect that my first substantive post will be about the role of science in these teshuvot.

More papers released

2006-12-11T21:23:00.000-05:00

And they are...

Joel Roth's "Homosexuality Revisited". Passed.
Myron Geller, Robert Fine and David Fine's "The Halakhah of Same-Sex Relations in a New Context" (labeled as a "dissent," presumably, to Roth or Levy). Declared a takkanah because it called for sweeping changes. Failed at a vote. As a dissenting opinion, it is not considered an official paper of the CJLS.
Loel Weiss's "A Concurring Opinion to Levy". Apparently, not voted on. As a concurring opinion, it is not an official opinion of the CJLS.
From Weiss's paper, we now know the title of Levy's teshuva: "Same-Sex Attraction and Halakhah." It is the last remaining official position that is not available to the public, and the one that has caused the most confusion as to its content.

(via Canonist)

Regrettably, they're all in (non-free) MS Word format. They open up correctly in OpenOffice.org.

Brief interlude: Another paper released

2006-12-10T22:52:00.000-05:00

Gordon Tucker's essay/teshuva is now on his shul's website.* This paper got 7 votes in the CJLS. Had it been an ordinary teshuva it would have been declared a legitimate followable opinion in the Conservative movement. Because it called for very sweeping changes, it was declared a takkanah (decree). I've seen and heard a number of different numbers thrown around for how many votes it would have required to pass, ranging from a true majority to unanimity. Either way, it did not pass.

*It still has the "DRAFT -- NOT FOR CIRCULATION OR DISTIBUTION" warning in big letters on the top, but, he seems to have put it up himself and it's being circulated through a number of email lists. If I find that it was not really intended to be released, I'll remove the link.

Homosexuality in halacha, post II: Biblical and Rabbinic law

2006-12-10T16:09:00.000-05:00

Within the halachic system, there are two possible sources of law. These are Biblical law and Rabbinic law. Within the Conservative understanding, both are considered equally binding. The excuse “it's just Rabbinic anyway” has no meaning. Introducing this distinction, however, is one place where the system becomes really complicated. The reason is that a law being written in the Torah does not necessarily make its literal word a "Biblical law" and a law's specifics not being found anywhere in the Bible does not make them "Rabbinic Law." The distinction itself is Rabbinic in origin! The forbidden manners of work on Shabbat is one example where this concept can be made abundantly clear. The Torah explicitly forbids “creative work” (a loose translation of “מלאכה”) on the Sabbath. Few of what modern Jews recognize as the “39 categories” are directly mentioned in the Torah as forbidden. And, some acts which are directly mentioned as forbidden are not contained in the 39 categories. The categories were derived (or, better, “derived”) from the Torah. Other activities were forbidden by the authority of the Rabbis in order to prevent the transgression of the Biblical laws.

The distinction between Biblical and Rabbinic law does have some practical implications. The first is that, as a general principle, one should rule stringently in an indeterminate case of a transgression of Biblical law, and one should rule leniently in an indeterminate case of a transgression of Rabbinic law. Another distinction is that while both are binding, the "legislative process" of interpretation proceeds differently. Overturning Biblical law (within the confines of the system) is difficult. Overturning or changing Rabbinic law may involve showing that it no longer provides any protection against transgression of a Biblical law, or that its stated social purpose is no longer valid. By the nature of the system, it is far easier to add new Rabbinic prohibitions than to remove old prohibitions, whether they be Biblical or Rabbinic. As a very loose analogy to secular law, Biblical law resembles a written constitution, and Rabbinic law resembles ordinary legislation. While this analogy holds to some extent for Rabbinic law decided at the time of the Talmud, contemporary Rabbinic law more resembles case law than actual legislation.

There are two processes of halachic decision-making available to contemporary rabbinic bodies. The first is the takkanah, or decree, where a Rabbinic authority makes declaration of new law that becomes binding on the community that accepts that authority (as far as I can tell, this usually a means adding a new prohibition, not removing one). The second process is responsa. Under this process, a questioner asks a rabbi or rabbinic authority for a decision. A teshuva (literally, answer) is a clarification of the halacha under the particular circumstance that is asked. The "clarification" effectively adds new binding case law.

Because Rabbinic law is considered more malleable, one way the Rabbis approach halacha is to begin with a known Biblical law, limit its scope, then legislate the remainder Rabbinically. A classical example of this process is the theory underlying the eruv that allows Jews to carry otherwise-Sabbath-permitted objects outside on Shabbat. Carrying outside in the public domain is considered a transgression of Biblical law, which cannot be undone through Rabbinic intercession. The solution to the problem, one that is nearly universally accepted today, was to define a limited scope of the Biblical prohibition (effectively, removing the possibility that one can transgress the Biblical prohibition), regulate the remainder of Shabbat carrying activities under Rabbinic law, and provide an exception to the Rabbinic prohibition, namely, the eruv.

The previous discussion is relevant because there is clearly a Biblical prohibition related to homosexual relations. Our teshuvot -- whether permissive or not permissive -- have to address the nature of this prohibition. The teshuvot purport to be working within the system of halacha. Therefore, they must limit themselves to providing an answer within the boundaries of their authority. Should a question be asked, and there is no opposition between halachic principles, the decision is clear. No responsum can make pork kosher. It is in this context that I set out to read the Dorff-Nevins-Reisner teshuva.

Homosexuality in halacha, post I: secular context (with clarification)

2006-12-10T16:06:00.000-05:00

There are a number of important differences between secular and religious law that impact issues of the rights of homosexuals. Perhaps the first is that the language of "civil rights" is primary in secular law, and mostly irrelevant in halacha. The basis of secular law in a democracy is that there is a necessity for government, but its powers are limited through a social contract with the governed. The government's powers are limited by the people's rights. The basis of adherence to Jewish religious law is traditional. Whether the initial origin of the law was Divine, Divinely-inspired or entirely human is irrelevant to this discussion. The language of halacha is that of positive and negative obligations. The specific decision related to positive obligations is whether a certain act is merely permitted or required. The specific decision related to negative obligations is whether the act is permitted or forbidden. An important point is that adherence to halacha is, for practical purposes, entirely voluntary. This is especially true within the Conservative Movement, where strict adherence is the exception, rather than the norm. Unlike in Chareidi communities, practicially, one may still function as a member of a Conservative community and forego most private practice.
Legislation of private, consensual sexual activity is anathema to secular democracy. It is well within the domain of halacha. Within the system of halacha, heterosexuals, too, have limits placed on their private sexuality. Sexual intercourse is limited to the context of marriage. Even within marriage, the laws of family purity forbid sexual relations during certain times, and sexual activity is forbidden on Yom Kippur and until midday on the Ninth of Av ^clarified.
The differences between secular and Judaic law are emphasized in R. Joel Roth's 1992 teshuva. In the postscript to his 1992 teshuva, he wrote:

The United States legal system, however, is not a religious legal system. It behooves us, therefore, to reflect briefly on the practical consequences of the difference bwteen a religious and a secular legal system vis-a-vis the issue of homosexuality.... It is far harder to argue that those same reasons [for forbidding homosexual relations] are of legitimate concern to a secular legal system. Indeed, one would be very hard pressed to defend that claim at all. . . . I am unable to offer any cogent argument to demonstrate why the private sexual acts of consenting adults should present any danger or threat to the legitimate interests of the state itself or to its citizens, under common circumstances. Therefore, I can see no justification for civil legislation proscribing such acts....
There is no inconsistency whatsoever in making the halakhic claims made in this paper, on the one hand, and asserting absolute opposition to any infringement of the civil rights of homosexuals on the other. (emph added)

So, even if a Conservative Jew accepts that all homosexual activity is forbidden by halacha, that same Jew, need not be homophobic. In fact, he may actively support gay and lesbian civil rights with a clear religious conscience. Given the history of the Jewish people as a minority persecuted at the hands of a majority for religious reasons, that permission should even be seen by the Jewish community as a cultural obligation.

^clarified Even according to the most lenient Conservative position of Theodore Friedman. All the more so for the traditional and more prevalent custom [also affirmed by David Golinkin] which holds that the Ninth of Av prohibitions continue to last all day. Thanks to Mar Gavriel for pointing out that this statement required clarification.

Dorff-Nevins-Reisner teshuva online

2006-12-08T13:55:00.000-05:00

Rabbi Nevins posted the center-permissive responsum on his website. I intend to write my own analysis of it, but, it's quite long and I haven't read it yet.

The day after the CJLS decision

2006-12-07T10:38:00.000-05:00

Unless you've been living in a cave, you've probably heard about the CJLS's approval of three contradictory responsa on the issue of the position of gays and lesbians in the Jewish community. I would wonder if the press release qualifies as one of the most successful press releases ever in terms of fast promulgation.

Immediate analysis (and reporting) of the decision and its fallout (notably, the resignations of four CJLS members) may be found elsewhere. I intend to reserve most comment in detail until the final text of the approved teshuvot is released to the public. It's a bit hard to comment when one does not know the content of what he's commenting about. When they are released, I might do an analysis of their arguments.

From the early indications, it seems like the CJLS did the right thing for two out of the three documents. Approving contradictory statements (Roth's and Dorff's) leaves a pluralistic approach open. From what I've read, one of the texts advocates the scientifically unsound "restorative therapy" approach (I haven't read the text myself, take what I say for the nothing it's worth).

UPDATE: R. Nevins, who voted against Levy's responsum, called the statement that it advocates "restorative therapy" a "distortion." If so, it was distorted by the CJLS's own press office. Openness can clear this up. Hint, hint, CJLS...

The scourge of email forwards

2006-12-03T13:46:00.000-05:00

What is it about email that turns off the critical thinking skills of people with college degrees who are generally capable of simple analysis?

If a friend told you that his friend told him that his friend told him that ... his friend told him that a virus was going to wipe out humanity tomorrow, you probably wouldn't go out in the street shouting “the end is near”. And yet, when such dire warnings come over email (although usually in the form of “beware the virus Tim that will cause your computer to explode into pixie dust”), they get passed on without question.

Perhaps, the forwarding tendency could be understood when email was a young technology for the general population. Then, the simple novelty of forwarding text to a hundred AOL accounts might have explained it. But, even over a decade later, when email is ubiquitous and there isn't an inbox that hasn't been hit by spam, some people can't stop forwarding. Some of the forwards from that bygone decade are still being passed around as breaking news. And, they're still being forwarded. After all, it says in it that it will happen “next Monday.”

And, now, here's where the small amount of thinking comes in. There's are search engines out there. One of the popular ones is called Google. It takes a few seconds to type a few key words from the email forward into this search engine, and a fraction of a second for the results to come back to you. It takes less than a minute to skim a few results to see if the claim is true. And, in that minute, you can spare your friends a bit of time, and a bit of anxiety over whatever the email forward is warning about.

As is, I've only received one email warning that had any semblance of truth to it. It was about one of the Windows worms (though I can't remember which one). Of course, it had the doomsday scenario written in it, and never bothered mentioning that it only affected Windows. The forwarder (and the original author) never considered that I might be using GNU/Linux or a Mac.

You can be part of the solution. Just take the anti-forwarding pledge:

I pledge not to forward email without first checking whether the claim is true.

Or, don't take the pledge. Forward this post to ten people. If you do, a Nigerian will contact you with information about how you can help a ruthless dictator launder a billion dollars. He promises to give you a cut.

Getting re-booted in the behind

2006-11-29T13:11:00.000-05:00

I went to one of my machines at work and found this message popping up from the system tray in this everything's-all-right-with-the-world green background color:

Microsoft Windows has automatically installed a critical update to your computer and has rebooted your system. This update was so important that whatever work you were doing on your machine had to be stopped. We were nice enough to ask you whether you wanted to reboot at 3AM. You were in front of your computer, weren't you? We even gave you a full ten minutes to answer. You should thank us. We own you.

OK, so, the message didn't say precisely that. But, it gets the basic idea right. Apparently, there are a lot of web pages dedicated to turning off this “feature” and its associated nag screen. Is that an idiotic default setting or what?

By the way, for a number of years, Debian and its derived GNU/Linux distributions have been able to update application programs, libraries, servers, etc. on a system (with the exception of the kernel) in-place, with no reboot required. Why is it that I have to reboot a Windows machine once a week?

Geek out! Java GPL'd!

2006-11-13T20:26:00.000-05:00

Sun GPL'd Java! The second-to-last major hurdle to a completely free and functional Linux desktop was passed today, when Sun donated their code to the community under the most popular copyleft free software license around.

This announcement will have a few consequences for the free software desktop:

Sun's Java code can now be included in the main branches of Debian and other distributions that will only distribute software for which source code is freely available.
Such distributions will no longer be required to disable features or rewrite crude hacks in OpenOffice.org and similar programs that required features of Java to be available that were not present in the free software versions.
The GNU Compiler for Java and GNU Classpath projects won't have to spend time duplicating Sun's efforts. Instead, they can work to integrate the two programs and improve on what both already developed. Sun's version of Java will benefit from increased scrutiny and bug-fixing.

Note: Immediately, only the compiler, virtual machine, and the cross-platform help system are available. Most of the class library will not be released until March. 2007. According to the new OpenJDK front page:

The remainder of the open-source JDK will be available in the first half of 2007. At that time this project will host the source code for the complete JDK except for a few components that Sun does not have the right to publish in source form under the GPL; pre-built binaries will be provided for those components.

Of course, we must hope that the system will compile and run without those “few” components. Whatever they are, they might be targets for GNU Classpath to replace.

Now, if only Adobe would follow their lead and release an open-source Flash... (yes, I know about GNash. It's a promising project, but, it doesn't work with most of the Flash that's on the web today.)

The really important things...

2006-11-10T11:25:00.000-05:00

Now that the House and Senate are both going to be controlled by Democrats, and Rummy is out, we can discuss the important issues to face our world: whether a burrito is considered a sandwich. The answer is no, according to a Massachusetts court, and the USDA.

One thing I found interesting is the definition of the sandwich given in the affidavit of Judith A. Quick, former deputy director of the Standards and Labeling Division of the USDA to the court (as quoted in the print edition of the Nov. 10 Globe, but not the online edition):

According to the USDA definition, an ordinary closed sandwich consists of two distinct pieces of bread (or the top and bottom sections of a sliced roll or bun) with some kind of filling that contains meat or poultry. (emph. added)

In that case, what do you call peanut butter and jam? or a Fluffernutter? The USDA labeling policy book is online. It's primarily concerned with which types of meat and poultry are subject to which inspection regulations, so, perhaps the USDA is not the best source of an all-encompassing definition of a "sandwich."

Technorati tags: sandwich

A spam bot can really get around

2006-10-18T20:46:00.000-04:00

In the past few days, a spam bot with the name "nanbe1st" has been posting the following message on vBulletin, phpBB, and Invision Power Board bulletin boards (and possibly others):

Post title: "Hello, sort anoob here" (sic)
Post content:
"hello ladies and gents!I've been kind of lurking around.I love this site! thanks for having me :-)"

Last I checked on Google, there were 477,000 hits for the string "sort anoob here" and 144,000 hits for the string "nanbe1st." All the words in the string in the correct order, excluding the punctuation, appear 535 times.

The spam does not always have a link directly in it. When the boards allow public display of a link to a URL in the member profile -- an area of the boards that's not immediately obvious to look at -- the profile (sometimes, but not always) links to the usual pharmacy spam. Because of that, people just assume it's a real newbie, and, it seems to get welcome replies on a lot of forums.

So, what's this thing doing? Trying, with limited success, to increase the Google ranking of a website by planting links? When it does link, it seems to link to the same place. Testing various board software from some vulnerability? It isn't anywhere near the first spam-bot to have figured out how to bypass most boards' weak CAPTCHAs or email verification schemes.

If nothing else, it's an equal opportunity spammer. It got seems to "love" gays, Trekkies (topic itself was trashed already), freelance workers and Nazis.

Technorati tags: forum, spam

Simchat Torah songs...

2006-10-13T00:30:00.000-04:00

Presented as a public service to those who don't want to sing "David melech yisrael..." fifty times over in the course of 14 hakafot.

It's not pointed, and may have some typos. Most of it is intentionally in ktiv male, with the exception of common words. And, yes, one of them is a joke.

[Update: I took the joke out, so I could distribute it, and decided that I liked the formatting better in the later version. What it said:
יחי אדונינו מורינו ורבינו מלך המשיח לעולם ועד
And the commentary:"Helps clear a room quickly."]

Download: OpenDocument source. PDF.

Chag Sameach!

Technorati tags: Simchat+Torah

New Year's Greetings...

2006-09-26T18:12:00.000-04:00

שנה טובה and גמר חתימה טובה to the J-blogosphere!

If you want a break from pondering Divine kingship and atonement, and you haven't seen it already (and can forgive the translation of כְּלֵי צדיק as a singular). check out Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report blowing a tekiah gedolah (flash animation under the title "Making Amends"), then ... sniffing the shofar (which anyone who has ever been near one can tell you is a Very Bad Idea™).

Book meme

2006-08-31T20:51:00.000-04:00

I've been tagged by Am Echad, so, here goes.

1. Name one book that changed your life:

J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings." It turned me into a nerd.

2. One book you've read more than once:

Douglas Adams's "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Five Parts" (although not all of it more than once); also a potential answer to #4.

3. One book you'd want on a desert island:

"How to Get Off a Desert Island for Dummies." I'm not sure if it's been published yet.

4. One book that made you laugh:

Most recently, David Sedaris's Holidays on Ice.

5. One book that made you cry:

Not sure, but, I'm sure my brother must have hit me in the head with one at some point during our childhoods.

6. One book you wish you'd written:

The Torah, because then I'd be... J, E, P, D, or H?

7. One book you wish had never been written:

Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre," bane of high school boys everywhere (and, he's still bitter).

8. One book you're currently reading:

Aside from lots of scientific papers, Bram Stoker's "Dracula" in real time. Thanks, eye of a cat and elettaria.

9. One book you've been meaning to read:

Richard Elliot Friedman's "Who wrote the Bible", so I can understand more of what DW does.

DW, give it a shot. (Cheap, isn't it?)

Technorati tags: Book+meme

2006 Desktop Linux Survey: What it didn't ask

2006-08-23T13:45:00.000-04:00

If you use GNU/Linux on a desktop computer, be sure to complete the 2006 Desktop Linux survey. It's a few short questions, mostly trying to find what distributions and large software packages are used.

Its usefulness is a bit limited, though. It does ask, for example, which web browser, email client and X window or desktop manager the respondant uses, but doesn't ask about text editors, office suites, photo viewers/editors, etc. All are applications which are necessary on the average desktop.

It also doesn't ask whether the system is single or dual-boot, and what the user's primary system is. Both those questions would give a much better idea of how desktop users are approaching GNU/Linux.

Also interesting: of the 8546 responses (at the time I answered the survey), 36.4 % said they don't run Windows applications under GNU/Linux. Does this mean that the users don't use Windows applications or that they're dual booting their systems?

It also doesn't ask whether the user thinks there are any important desktop applications that are not available on GNU/Linux (in my case, the answer would be "no").

It doesn't ask whether the user is a system administrator, programmer, or other computer professional.

And, finally, it doesn't ask whether the desktop installations are at home, at work, or both.

The survey, of course, is of little statistical value. It's respondants are self-selected. However, the self-selection could have given us an idea of what people who care enough to respond to the survey think of the state of GNU/Linux on the desktop. As written, it won't give as complete an idea as it could have, had it included just a few more questions. But, for what it does ask, it is still worth completing.

Technorati tags: Linux

Finding meaning in false cognates

2006-08-14T14:18:00.000-04:00

Did anyone notice that the name of one of Jill Carroll's kidnappers was "Abu Rasha?"

A Biblical Hebrew Keyboard for the X Window System

2006-07-16T23:31:00.001-04:00

UPDATE: A Biblical Hebrew keyboard, based on the commonly used Tiro keyboard is now available as a variant of the Israeli Hebrew keyboard in the standard X11 distribution.

On the standard Israeli Hebrew keyboard (SI-1452), the Hebrew alphabet and nikud are both accessible. But, the trope and some lesser-used punctuation are not. This "Biblical Hebrew" keyboard attempts to solve that problem.

Download here: il_biblical

To install:
Download the file.

If you have XFree86, replace $XKBDIR with /usr/share/X11/xkb. If you have X.org 7, replace it with /etc/X11/xkb.

Copy or link the file into the $XKBDIR/symbols (X.org 7) or $XKBDIR/symbols (XFree86) directory.

Add the following line to $XKBDIR/rules/xfree86.lst (XFree86) or $XKBDIR/rules/xorg.lst (X.org), on its own line, following the line that begins il:


il_biblical Biblical Hebrew

The keyboard layout is now usable. To test whether the system sees the layout, type at the prompt:

$ xkbcomp il_biblical

It should return no errors.

To use:
For the Hebrew alphabet, nikud, and some obscure characters, this keyboard layout implements the SI-1452 standard. I don't know of any standard keyboard layout for trope, so, I made one up.

The Hebrew keyboard defines the unshifted keys as the Hebrew letters. If you want to be able to type in English on the same layout, you have to load two keyboard layouts and use a "group shift" to switch between them (or, you can simply switch keyboard layouts on the fly).

The shifted keyboard is defined by SI-1452 to contain the capital English letters (don't ask why) and the nikud.

The third-level keyboard is defined by the standard to contain some obscure characters like the micron sign, currency symbol, euro sign, and others.

My keyboard defines a fourth level (shifted third level) for the trope.

In order to access the third and fourth levels, you have to define a key as a "third level modifier" — effectively, a second shift key.

The partial implementation of SI-1452 that comes with X is a two-level layout that requires a "group shift" if you want to be able to use English and Hebrew simultaneously. This layout is a "four level" layout. It requires a "group shift" if you want to be able to type English and Hebrew simultaneously and it requires a "third level chooser" to access the more obscure keys in SI-1452 (third level) and the trope (fourth level).

In KDE 3.5 (and some earlier versions, and probably later ones too), these settings can be set graphically:
Go to the KDE Control Center from the K-menu.

Under Regional And Accessibility, go to Keyboard Layout.

Find the Biblical Hebrew layout in the list of Available layouts. Select it and press Add.

In the Layouts tab, select the Biblical Hebrew layout from the Active Layouts. Under Label, enter ilb (or any other three letter identifier you'd like to use). If you want to use English simultaneously, check the Include latin layout box.

Select the XKB Options tab.

Check the Enable xkb options box.

If you're using English and Hebrew simultaneously, select a key switch to switch between groups from the group of options labeled Group Shift/Lock Behavior. An example is Alt+Shift changes groups. Also, you can set a keyboard LED to show you whether the keyboard will type in English or Hebrew under the set of options labeled Use keyboard LED to show alternative group. I use the scroll lock LED (whose only other function appears to be turning on and off when the scroll lock button is pressed).

In order to access the trope, you must have a Third level chooser key selected. Thankfully, the 104 key keyboards include two otherwise useless keys — the Win key and the Menu key. Pressing the third level chooser+shift allows you access the trope.

There's also a way to do it in GNOME, but, I'm not sure what it is.

If all else fails, this command should allow you to use the full functionality of the keyboard layout:


setxkbmap -model pc104 -layout us,il_biblical -option grp_led:scroll,grp:alt_shift_toggle,lv3:menu_switch

In this case, the menu key is the third level chooser, the scroll lock LED shows whether it is typing in Hebrew (on) or English (off) and alt+shift switches between Hebrew and English.

The keyboard layout:
All keys defined by the SI-1452 standard, and the following fourth level (shift+third level chooser+key = result):

key - result
1 - zero width joiner
2 - zero width non-joiner
6 - upper dot
7 - lower dot
8 - qamats qatan (Unicode 4.1 only)
9 - nun hafukh
0 - masora circle
- - maqaf
\ - paseq

Q - shalshelet
W - qarney para
E - telisha qetana
R - telisha gedola
T - gershayim (trope)
Y - pazer
U - ole
I - iluy
O - dehi
P - zinor
[ - etnah hafukh
] - yerach ben yomo

A - zarqa
S - segol
D - qadma
F - azla (geresh)
G - revia
H - zaqef gadol
J - zaqef qatan
K - pashta
L
; - geresh (punctuation)
' - gershayim (punctuation)

Z - mercha
X - tipcha
C - munach
V - etnachtah
B - darga
N - tevir
M - yetiv
< - mahpach
. - sof pasuq
/ - mercha kefula

space - nonbreaking space

For Hebrew fonts that support trope, try Ezra SIL or Cardo (rather old, but still works).

Technorati tags: Hebrew, keyboard, typing, X+Window

Wawayanda State Park

2006-07-06T12:00:00.000-04:00

These are some pictures I took while camping with elf's family at Wawayanda State Park (northern NJ).

The toy: A Casio Exilim EX-Z120 digital camera.

WARNING: This post has a lot of images.

Image to make parents nervous:

Outhouses:

Find the wildlife (hint: caterpillars):

Caterpillar on a rock:

Brook near the campsite:

Laurel Pond:

Laurel Pond heading into the marshes and the brook:

A bird of prey flying over Laurel Pond:

Fluid dynamics in the brook near a bridge:

A dam and the flowing water coming out of it:

Water flowing through the woods:

Find the wildlife:

Close-up (dragonfly):

Another dragonfly:

Find the wildlife:

Spider (close-up):

A butterfly:

Find the wildlife:

Close-up (chipmunk):

Find the wildlife:

It's a deer's butt:

A bug on a leaf:

Find the wildlife:

It's a frog hiding in the grass:

The frog near the brook:

Close-up::

Frog head shot:

A frog that decided the campsite was a good place to jump around:

Rocks and plants on the side of a hiking trail:

Technorati tags: pictures

Davening Do's

2006-06-07T21:32:00.000-04:00

A few weeks back, I posted what turned out to be a popular comment destination for this blog — my list of top davening pet peeves. Now that I've let you all know (some of) what I think goes wrong, I thought I'd post about what I think goes right. What are some of the practices of a good shaliah tzibbur (prayer leader)?

Note that, as in my previous post, I'm directing most of my comments towards leaders in certain types of congregations. Specifically, those where the leader and congregation mostly go through the service together, and there is singing. Many of them will be irrelevant to congregations where the entire service is mumbled as individuals, and the sha"tz's role is minimal.

A good sha"tz:

Leads the congregation

Firstly, and, naturally, this means that the leader must be loud enough for the entire congregation to hear. A low-voiced sha"tz is overpowered by the congregation. It occasionally leads to awkward pauses where the congregation waits and listens carefully, trying to figure out what their leader is doing. Secondly, this means that the sha"tz should be thinking one step ahead of where he/she is. It's usually not good when the congregation has to wait for the leader to figure out what he/she is doing next.

Reads the congregation

At the same time, a good sha"tz should be aware of how the congregation is reacting to his/her leading. If the congregation seems to be in to singing, then more singing is appropriate. If it's past everyone's dinner or lunchtime, it's time to start mumbling. Alternatively, if the congregation is all staring blankly at upside-down siddurim or the wall, the service should be more interactive.

Chooses tunes carefully

Choice of tunes is a compromise. If one chooses tunes that are used by the congregation week after week, one knows that the congregation will be familiar with them and even those who aren't as comfortable in Hebrew will be able to sing along. On the other hand, the same tunes repeated regularly is an invitation to boredom. So, a sha"tz might try to introduce new tunes. The danger is that the congregation will not be able to learn quickly enough, will lose the sense of familiarity with the service, or will not follow along. I think that it's reasonable for a good sha"tz to choose a small fraction of new tunes per week, and leave the rest as what the congregation would be familiar with. That way, the congregation can maintain both interest and familiarity. In a related note, a good leader ...

Gains the confidence of the congregation

This is especially important while going through parts of the service with which the congregation is not familiar (such as new tunes). It is tempting to start off, realize the congregation is not following, and quickly switch to something with which the congregation is familiar. The congregation will immediately pick up on the familiar, but, will lose confidence in the leader. The next time he/she tries a new tune, they will be reluctant to follow along because it would be expected that the leader will change it when nobody follows along.

Thoughts?

Technorati tags: davening, Judaism, prayer

What scientists and philosophers will do for money...

2006-05-28T22:52:00.000-04:00

... Propose answers to the chicken and egg debate, courtesy of Disney.

A human spammer can beat a captcha...

2006-05-20T23:42:00.000-04:00

Check out the comment from “web2earn” in my call center post. It came from someone who used Blogger search with the terms '"call center" blogger'. The spammer's blog appears to be maintained by a person. It doesn't have the randomized-word feel of computer-generated content. Feel free to go to his blog (his profile is at this address) and click the “Flag for objectionable content” button on the Blogger bar.

Technorati tags: Blogger, spam

Top Davening Pet Peeves

2006-05-14T00:23:00.000-04:00

In no particular order, for anyone who cares...

General annoyances

Carlebach tunes fit to everything

I don't mind use of Carlebach tunes. I use them sometimes. But, they don't fit any words particularly well. On the other side of the coin, that means that they fit everything equally well. Bonus bad karma for singing Carlebach tunes at the speed of a lullaby.

The 100% mumbled Kabbalat Shabbat

It's Shabbat, not Tisha B'Av! On the other hand, it should not take an hour and a half.

Kaddish

ויתהדר ויתעלה ויתעלל
This is a long list of God's attributes. Praised, yes. Abusive, no.

The name of God

Example, Kabbalat Shabbat: The Psalm says:
טוב להודות ליהוה
which we avoid during prayer by pronouncing it:
טוב להודות לאדוני
not:
טוב להודות ל[ה]שם
or, worse:
טוב להודות לאדושם.

Evil tunes

From the repetition of the Shacharit and/or Musaf Amidah

שים, שים, שים שלום
שים שלום טובה וברכה [בעולם]
שים, שים, שים שלום [בעולם] טובה וברכה

(repeated after every few words)

From Musaf k'dushah:

איה מקום כבודו?
איה מקום כבודו?
כבודו מלא, מלא עולם
איה מקום כבודו?
כבודו מלא, מלא עולם
משרתיו שואלים, שואלים זה לזה
איה מקום כבודו? (x2)

In some crazy way, the song's reordering of the words makes some sense, whereas the real nusach,

כבודו מלא עולם, משרתיו שואלים זה לזה. איה מקום כבודו?

"answers" the question before "asking" it.

and...

לדור ודור... (repeat ad infinitum)

From Musaf Amidah repetition

וביום, וביום, וביום השבת
וביום, וביום, וביום, וביום, וביום השבת
וביום, וביום, וביום ,וביום, וביום השבת
שני כבשים בני שנה, בני שנה תמימים
ושני עשרונים סולת, סולת מנחה בלולה
סולת מנחה בלולה בשמן, בשמן ונסכו
עולת שבת, עולת שבת בשבתו, עולת שבת בשבתו על עולת התמיד ונסכה

Has all the exciting content of an ingredient list in a recipe, probably because it is one. What day was it made on again? Extra annoyance points for singing the refrain more than once.

and just after that...

ישמחו במלכותך שומרי, שומרי, שומרי שבת
וקוראי עונג שבת (x2)
עם מקדשי, מקדשי שביעי שבת (ישמחו...)
כולם ישבעו ויתענגו מטוביך שבת (ישמחו...)
ובשביעי רצית בו, רצית בו וקדשתו שבת (ישמחו...)
חמדת ימים אותו קראת שבת (ישמחו...)
זכר למעשה בראשית שבת (ישמחו...)

Takes forever, and gratuitously inserts the word שבת everywhere.

On calling up aliyot

Egalitarian congregations' gabbaim calling up a daughter of a kohen for the first aliyah: כהן קרב יעמד
Yes, it says it in the Siddur Sim Shalom (1985 ed), but that siddur only includes egalitarian instructions inconsistently.

Along the same lines, תעמד פלונית בת פלוני מפטיר

When no Kohen is present, and a Yisrael is called up for the second aliyah:
יעמד פלוני בן פלוני במקום לוי
The Israelite is not "in the place of a Levite." Not only does a Levite has no precedence for the second aliyah, he has a negative precedence for it (and an equal or negative precedence for the first, depending on custom).

Technorati tags: davening, Judaism, prayer

Freedom?

2006-04-30T02:58:00.000-04:00

The mere existence of this comment is a disturbing commentary on the state of the First Amendment.

Hypothesis on Plagiarism and Copyrights [corrected]

2006-04-30T01:33:00.000-04:00

Hypothesis: Incidents of plagiarism increase as the length of copyright increases.

Reasoning: Plagiarism is an academic crime. It is prevented by attribution. Copyright infringement is a legal crime. It is prevented by licensing or by building off works from the public domain.

Copyrighted works eventually become part of our general culture. Copyright is a bargain between the needs of authors to be compensated for their creations and the public good of having their creations available for free use. The full argument is made in Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture.

Currently, a copyright lasts until 70 years after the author's death or 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation if the author is a corporation. Congress can extend (and has extended) the terms of copyrights each time they are in danger of expiring. By the time any works created today enter the public domain, most will be culturally irrelevant. The majority of works written after 1923 may be assumed to be copyright protected in the US.

The length of the copyright term encourages attempts to “cheat the system,” by removing attributions and hoping that nobody will notice. Building new works out of older works is part of how our culture expands and evolves. Disney makes movies out of public domain novels and fairy tales, updating them and bringing them new cultural relevance. They also lobby Congress to make sure that these new creations are never cycled back into the public domain.

As one example of the benefits that come to a work from its being in the public domain, see Dracula 1897, a LiveJournal-based "real-time" edition of Bram Stoker's Dracula, enhanced for a medium that Bram Stoker never knew would exist. (hat tip: Lawrence)

Technorati tags: copyright, plagiarism

From the extremely bad ideas department (updated)

2006-04-27T11:06:00.000-04:00

A new project, calling itself Explorer Destroyer has proposed a campaign to end Microsoft's browser dominance. They are requesting webmasters to add a scripts to their sites that has three settings. The scripts only activate if the user comes to the page using Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. The first, called "gentle encouragement" will place a message offering a Firefox download. This is simple advocacy. If a webmaster doesn't mind having banner ads on his/her site, this one isn't too bad. The second, called "semi-serious," puts up a splash screen that claims that Internet Explorer "is not compatible with [the] site." If the site is well-designed, chances are, that's a lie. That, and, the annoyance is just the webmaster acting like what we technical people call “a dick.” The third is the one to which I seriously object. Entitled "dead serious," it will arbitrarily block a user from viewing the site if he/she is using Internet Explorer.

I'm all for people dumping the IE security hole for Firefox (or any other browser, for that matter). But, this is the wrong way for anyone in the open source community to go about advocacy.

The Internet is based on neutrality and standards-compliance. Any computer can connect to any other computer on the Internet, independent of who sold it, what processor powers it, what network card physically connects it or what operating system it's running. All that the computer has to do is conform to publically available the TCP/IP networking standards. Similarly, all modern browsers can read the data from all websites because they conform to (X)HTML, ECMAscript, and a host of other specifications. There is no longer any reason for a website to sport a "works best in browser X" button.¹ Any website that really doesn't work on one platform or another is, in effect, breaking the Internet. This is certainly the case where the site is fully or nearly standards-compliant and just rejects requests from one platform out of spite. Respect for these concepts means allowing users to have a choice, even if you think that choice is a bad one. The alternative is having a number of mutually incompatible Internets, and, in that case, everyone loses.

(UPDATED and edited: I misunderstood how Google got involved in this.) Google is promoting their own extension of Firefox -- Firefox+Google Toolbar, and any referral to it through AdSense gives website publishers $1 for referral. The Explorer Destroyer project is using that feature so that its scripts are equivalent to that kind of referral. The Explorer Destroyer project, not Google, is effectively making the Mozilla Corporation and the Mozilla Foundation into pawns in the Google vs. Microsoft war by attacking Microsoft using Google's money.

Beyond contributing code, the best way for a webmaster to support open-source is to refuse to write in anything other than platform independent and standards-compliant code.²

Google can keep their money.

(via LinuxWorld)

¹ The fact that some websites do not respect browser neutrality and Internet standards is a statement against the programmers who wrote them and/or the tools they used. While there are some features that are available in some browsers and on individual platforms, and not others, there are frequently alternatives that will do the job just as well or better and maintain platform neutrality.

² Which, incidentally, might also break the way it looks in Internet Explorer. But, that's a bug in IE, not the website. If I find out about a display problem of my website in IE, I will usually fix it, but I will not break my own page's standards compliance just to fix a bug in a browser.

Technorati tags: Firefox, Internet+Explorer, net+neutrality, standards

What not to do from a call center

2006-04-26T11:54:00.000-04:00

This morning, I got a call from Verizon Wireless telling me about their newer plans. Incidentally, I don't mind getting these kinds of sales calls from companies with whom I actually have a business relationship, especially if they don't call often. I also recently renewed my wireless contract (and got a new phone out of it), so, it wasn't a bad time to be reviewing my wireless plan.

Along with informing me that I could get 100 extra minutes per month for the same price as I'm paying now, the woman at the call center starting going through the obligatory script trying to sell me more services. The conversation is paraphrased, but, roughly accurate.

Verizon Wireless rep: This call may be monitored for quality assurance, is that OK with you?
Me: Yes.

[Skipping blather about plan]

VZW: You will be able to send text messages for 10 cents each. Or, we have a plan for unlimited text messaging to any mobile customer for $9.99 a month, if you use that...
Me: I'm not interested. I don't use text messaging.
VZW: Oh, that's for the younger people.

At this point, I sensed an opportunity...

Me: How old do you think I am?

And the VZW rep fell right into it...

VZW: Maybe in your thirties...

oops...

Me: Not yet.
VZW: Oh, I'm sorry. I meant about people in their teens. You're not in your teens, are you?
Me: No.

The representative then went on to tell me how sorry she was, and I finally told her that I wasn't actually offended. She probably was hoping that call wasn't monitored or recorded.

Before I was on the National Do Not Call Registry, I used to get sales calls from companies that I had never bought anything from, and had no intention of starting. At that point, I learned that call center employees were reluctant to hang up, no matter what what going on in the conversation with their victim potential customer. At one point, I got a call from the Boston Herald trying to get me to subscribe. When asked why I didn't want to subscribe after having heard the script of all of the paper's wonderful features, I told the call center rep that the Herald was part of a government conspiracy with the aliens to infect our brains, or control us, or something like that. The poor call center rep then spent a few minutes arguing with me telling me that the Herald was not involved in any conspiracies with the government or with aliens. Meanwhile, I just tacked on additional charges at each argument, trying and failing not to laugh. Eventually, I got bored and hung up.

Technorati tags: call+center, humor

Friendly blogosphere etiquette reminder...

2006-04-20T23:59:00.000-04:00

This is just a friendly reminder of blogosphere etiquette: It is considered extremely impolite to out the real-world names of pseudonymous bloggers, on their own blogs or on others' blogs, unless the blogger has done so him or herself or given you permission. If you need to refer to another blogger, use a link or the pseudonym.

Shavua Tov (for the one day of regular week)...

The kitniyotization of quinoa has begun! (update)

2006-04-07T13:34:00.000-04:00

... at least in the Chareidi world.

A year ago, I wrote that, eventually, quinoa would be considered kitniyot. Quinoa is a pseudo-cereal crop native to the Andes that can be used a grain-equivalent. It is clearly not included in the five species of grain that are prohibited from the Torah for use on Passover. “Kiniyot” is a broad, undefined¹ category of items that are not chametz, but are forbidden by custom to Ashkenazic Jews on Passover. Because of its nature as an undefined category, and the lack of a contemporary reason for continuing the prohibition, the category of kitniyot has expanded to include such items as corn and peanuts² (both New World crops).

For the record, here's the text from the Aish website:

Finally, there is one product called "quinoa" (pronounced "kin-o-ah") that is permitted on Passover even for Ashkenazim. Although it resembles a grain, it is technically a grass, and was never included in the prohibition against kitniyot. It is prepared like rice and has a very high protein content. (It's excellent in "chollent" stew!) You should be able to find it at most health food stores. Of course, it needs to be from a closed container that is new for Passover.

Let's see how long it stays there...

(Hat tip to llennhoff on WeirdJews)

Update: Yaakov Menken on Cross Currents and Gil Student on Hirhurim chime in. The kitniyot-expansion machine ticks on. We are now in stage III of the process: uncertainty.

Update 2: A clarification of the “process” of kitniyotization:

Unknown
Universally permitted
Kitniyot in limited circles. Some permit, some prohibit
Kiruv organizations prohibit?
Universally accepted as kitniyot. Prohibited.

Technorati tags: Judaism, kitniyot, Passover

¹ Kitniyot might initially have been defined as "legumes." Before crop rotation was commonly used as a farming technique, they were frequently grown in the same fields as grain products at the same time in order to take advantage of the nitrogen-fixing bacteria. These kitniyot may have contained actual prohibited chametz. An alternate derivation of the prohibition is that they or their products may be made to look like prohibited grains or their products. Either way, the reason for the prohibition is quite tenuous today. The best reason I can find is in a 1997 essay by Richard J. Israel:

Though I try very hard not to pasken for anyone, if you were to ask me, "As an Ashkenazi Jew, should I eat kitniot on Pesach?" I would say no. Most Passover-observing Ashkenazi Jews don't eat kitniot. If you want to be part of their club, don't eat kitniot.

² The controversy over peanuts was unfortunately resolved in favor of a ban during the mid-20th century, so, Jews of my generation are less likely to accept them as permissible. (My current opinion is that they are permissible, but I avoid them on Passover). Peanuts, incidentally, are legumes, so, they could in theory have been used for the same purposes of nitrogen fixation of grain fields. To the best of my knowledge, they weren't, simply because they were unknown to the Old World at the time when those farming practices were used.

What about the Talmud?

2006-04-02T13:40:00.000-04:00

This essay, by Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, put online on Gil Student's Yashar Books Open Access site makes me wonder how she would have reviewed the Talmud.

Some of her criticisms of the Conservative movement's Etz Hayim Torah commentary are valid. The halacha l'maaseh (practical halacha) commentary indeed doesn't reference any of the process that is so important to Conservative scholarship, and even sounds so absurd that it looks like it written by a committee.

Her primary gripe is that the commentary (and the Conservative movement in general) should have ignored modern textual scholarship in favor of a “traditional” reading of both pshat (literal meaning) and drash (figurative meaning), because to include modern scholarship leads to inconsistency. She says that you can't have a midrashic view of halacha without accepting the traditional view of a unified pshat. Among other things, the CJLS effectively denies the basis of its own authority. To ignore modern scholarship (as she proposes) leads to cognitive dissonance and inconsistency as well, it just doesn't come out in the open. Like their Orthodox peers, Conservative Jews would either talk about it quietly in dark rooms, or simply pretend it doesn't exist or have any validity.

She never mentions my biggest complaint about the Etz Hayim: It's such an expensive book — why did they print it on such cheap paper?

Technorati tags: Conservative+Judaism, Orthodox+Judaism

From the Jewish Week...

2006-04-01T23:59:00.000-05:00

From the Mar 24, 2006 New York Jewish Week (yes, I know I'm behind). Apparently, the "Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education" (PEJE) conference has come up with the solution to the Jewish day school tuition crisis:

For those not entirely sold on the idea — and even for those who are — the spiraling cost of a day school education is a major barrier [to day school attendance]. Potential antidotes to the so-called “tuition crisis” such as grandparent involvement and low-interest financing were the topics of several sessions at the assembly.

[snip]

During a symposium called “Grandparents: An Essential Element of Day School Life,” Jewish school professionals shared strategies to have grandparents help cover tuition.

Bruce Powell, the founding head of school at the New Community Jewish High School of Los Angeles, said it is unfortunate when parents apply for financial assistance from schools in lieu of asking grandparents to chip in.

“They’d rather ask a stranger,” Powell said at the forum. “They’d rather ask Mr. Farber and Mr. Masor on the board than ask their own parents. I have one word for that — obscene.”

[snip]

In another, Jewish Family & Life! CEO Yossi Abramowitz unveiled a financial model that would enable day school parents to borrow up to $80,000 annually to cover tuition and school expenses. Philanthropists, federations, foundations and funds from the State of Israel would help offset the interest and perhaps some of the principal on the 20-year loans.
(emph. added)

So, let me get this straight. They want parents to borrow $80,000 for 12 years to send their kids to day school, then the colleges want them to borrow another few tens of thousands of dollars for four year college, and, just in time to pay off those loans, they'll hit up the same people for money for their grandchildrens' day school tuition.

I can just see the 2050 PEJE conference: With all Jewish parents and grandparents who are committed to Jewish education in massive debt, the time has come to start asking great-grandparents to chip in to their great-grandchildrens' education. Uh... היש לדבר סוף?

Technorati tags: Jewish+day+schools, tuition

A Plug: English Hebraica

2006-03-28T00:16:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd put in a plug here for English Hebraica, On the Main Line's other blog. It's about pre-19th century Jewish-themed items in English, many of them written by non-Jews. I have no special knowledge of the subject matter (and I am not involved in the blog). What makes it interesting is the (scanned) original material that I don't usually see. It now takes its rightful place on my sidebar (and in my RSS feed).

Thought-patents

2006-03-19T14:23:00.000-05:00

Michael Crichton, of Jurassic Park fame, wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times about an idiotic patent whose case is now going to the Supreme Court. Briefly, the USPTO approved a patent claiming ownership over the correlation between homocysteine levels and vitamin B-12 deficiency. So far, it's been upheld in the lower courts.

Technorati tags: patents

Anti-spam policy in effect

2006-03-19T02:50:00.000-05:00

See the bottom of my sidebar. All the links have the tag rel="nofollow" to prevent search engines from increasing the sites' page ranks based on my links to them.

The Purim Kiddush, 2006 edition

2006-03-12T01:29:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year again: Time to poke fun at our liturgical and textual traditions. And, so, I present to you the 2006 edition of the Purim Kiddush.

You can download it in Open Document format or PDF.

There have been a number of changes since last year:

It's pointed!
New Aramaic/English pun
New Biblical quotes (one removed)
Better integration of some Biblical quotes into the flow of the text
Translation Super-Frummified™. All references to "God" replaced with "G-d" and "Lord" replaced with "Hash-m."

Comments and corrections welcome (especially on the Aramaic and pointing).

In case you'd like to study the history of this highly important liturgical text: The older editions are here (2005) and here (2004).

(Unlike the rest of my blog, the files are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike2.5 License copyright license. The difference is that derivative works are allowed, under the conditions that the work is attributed and released with the same freedoms as I'm giving you.)

Technorati tags: Purim

From the Boston Globe

2006-03-07T09:01:00.000-05:00

From today's article about raising the national debt limit:

''I know that you share the president's and my commitment to maintaining the full faith and credit of the US government," Snow said in his letter to leaders in the House and Senate. His ''full faith and credit" comment referred to the Fourth Amendment. (emph. added)

oops.

Comcast TOS

2006-03-05T02:15:00.000-05:00

From Comcast's new terms of service for online accounts:

You acknowledge that communications or transactions conducted online are not absolutely secure. You further acknowledge that there may be system failures that may limit your ability to use the My Account. You agree to assume all risk and liability arising from your use of Comcast's My Account, including the risk of breach in the security of the communications or transactions you conduct with Comcast online. (Empahasis added.)

Whoa! They designed the system. They certified the system. They keep your data. You're responsible if they screwed up.

Technorati tags: Comcast, security, terms+of+service

Voting machines: A scandal that isn't (updated)

2006-02-26T02:34:00.000-05:00

It's 2005, an off-year election (if there's an election in your area at all). So, why am I writing about voting machines, a big issue in 2000 and 2004?

After the 2000 election, a lot of people were convinced that if only a complete recount were allowed, Gore would have beaten Bush. My response to them is that there is simply no way to know. Different recounts performed by the same group of media came up with different results. Votes that were never cast or lost in various ways could never be recovered. And, the prospect of election workers attempting to figure out “voter intent” by examining incorrectly punched ballots is just asking for a biased result. If the margin of victory were large, using this type of procedure wouldn't effect the result. Given that the error in the voting process was systematic, the only way to solve the problem would have been to have the entire state recast its ballots. Of course, a recount of the disputed counties was blocked and Bush was declared victorious by approximately 500 votes.

Now, fast forward to 2004. Democratic partisans like to point out that electronic voting machines were used in the 2004 election in Ohio, the state that swung the election towards Bush. The machines were made by Diebold, a company whose owner was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president”¹. The difference here was that the margin of victory in Ohio was greater than the number of disputed votes. Even if all the disputed votes were cast for Kerry, Bush would have won the state. Votes that were never cast, of course, cannot be recounted. So, the only possibility (I know of) that could have swung the election was tampering with the ballots themselves. This is a situation where no recounts would ever solve the problem. If the ballots were cast incorrectly, and there is no voter-verifiable paper trail, they are lost forever.

The possibility that the voting machines could be manipulated was well known, but whether it had actually happened was conjecture until Black Box Voting ² sued to obtain the logs from Palm Beach County, Florida voting machines (made by Sequoia, not Diebold). They report that the logs contain date discrepancies in recorded votes (specifically, votes recorded on dates other than election day on machines that were only used on election day), and a number of strange errors. While there is no evidence yet that any votes were changed, there is mounting evidence that the machines are not doing their jobs correctly, and that some votes were lost (when the mechines were powered down on election day).

A democracy requires an elections system that is trusted by all its citizens. The American system is on the verge of losing this trust (if it hasn't already). The two advantages of voting machine technology over paper ballots are increased handicapped accessibility and rapid, accurate counting. The disadvantages are that the votes have no real existence, and, in a badly designed system, are subject to unverifiable manipulation.

The technological problems with the machines can be fixed. Taxpayers are paying for the machines. They should not have to sue to obtain the records, and there should be no claims that any databases used in the administration of elections are owned by the voting machine company.³ In the best case, voting machines should be:

open source, such that any competent citizen-hacker can find sloppy programming and security glitches before the machines are used
voter-verifiable, with a paper backup of the cast ballot being printed and no vote being recorded until the voter verifies that what is written on the paper is the same as his/her vote.
tested, both before and after election day. The machines should all be tested for accuracy before being used, and some machines' results should be checked against the paper ballots and other records to assure that the machine actually recorded in code what it wrote on the paper.
backed up on election day. The machines should have a continuous, encrypted and authenticated feed to a central location where the votes are stored or tabulated, such that the central location's records could be compared to the individual machine's, and any problems with one machine would not cause any votes to be lost.

All of these technologies are used regularly in other fields. Banks regularly and securely process large amounts of data from far-away local machines. Votes should be treated with equal or greater importance.

¹ Of course, as a citizen, the owner of a voting machine-maker has equal free speech rights to support whatever candidate he chooses. But, given how much actual control he and his company have over the process of the elections, an extra amount of transparency in the machines would go a long way to quieting conspiracy theorists. Diebold has been anything but transparent.

² Engineers use the term “black box” to refer to any equipment that they don't know how it works. A car with its hood welded shut would be a black box, in this sense. It can be interacted with through the controls that the driver is allowed to see (the steering wheel, pedals, transmission stick), but it can't be determined what those controls do internally.

Update:
³ Brad Blog documents the shenanigans to date in trying to gain access to the voting records from the 2004 elections in Alaska. First, the state refused to release them, on the grounds that their contract with Diebold stated that they were property of the company. Second, the company and state reached an agreement where the records would be released, but only if the company could manipulate them first. Now, the state has blocked their release on the grounds that the public having the voting records would pose a threat to the state's security.

Technorati tags: security, voting+machines

Followup: Birthright application (In)security

2006-02-20T16:29:00.000-05:00

I received a reply from Birthright Israel's information address about the transmission of the last four digits of a social security number over the Internet in clear text. They said I could make up four digits if I wanted to. So, my theory was right. It is being used as an internal identifier. The responder also asserted that because they are only asking for the last four digits, no identity theft would be possible. Is that true? My feeling would be that it isn't. Here's why.

Anyone who has ever called any company they have a personal account with, from a bank to a cable company, knows that the following information is sufficient to verify their identity:

Name (on application)
Birthdate (on application)
Address and/or telephone number (not on first page, but I assume it will be asked for elsewhere in the application)
Last four digits of the social security number

Secondly, any of that information combined with the whole social security number will certainly be able to be used for identity theft. Can a whole nine digit SSN be reconstructed with only the last four digits? To figure that out, you need to know how a social security number is constructed. The first three digits are an area number. All that someone would need to know to figure that out is my place of birth. Given my real name, it's not that hard to figure out from Google or other public records. The middle two digits, the group number, are a bit harder to figure out, but they're issued in a regular pattern. Anyone who has figured out the pattern (like a sophisticated identity thief or a sophisticated identity thief's customer) could know them. The last four digits are the only ones that are truly random! So, by giving them away, I could effectively be giving away all nine digits, or minimally, seven of them, reducing the probability of randomly guessing it from an unreasonably high number slightly above one in a billion to a doable number slightly above one in a hundred.¹

It is true, (as far as I can tell) that if the only information a nefarious man-in-the-middle had were the last four digits of a social security number, then, he cannot steal an identity. Here, that is not the case. All the other information that's transmitted (or the password to which are transmitted) with it do give enough information to be a serious identity theft risk.

Given the risk, it is inconceivable why anyone would design a website that transmits such information in clear text, or even that uses any part of a social security number as an internal identifier. Why not simply assign the application a number in the order it's received?

¹ The reason the probabilities are "slightly above" the values that would be suggested by the number of digits are because certain SSN's are publically known to be invalid.

Technorati tags: computer+security, social+security+number, website+design

Software freedom matters: The case of Skype

2006-02-20T12:38:00.000-05:00

Most end users have probably never even heard of the term "software freedom." It's use has been reserved to programmers and enthusiasts. I wonder when it will catch on.

Recently, Intel and Skype have reached a deal where Skype's product, the popular Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) software, will be crippled on machines running older Intel processors and competing equipment made by rival AMD. Skype's new version will be (is?) capable of facilitating conference calls. They intend to limit its conference call capability to 5 callers, except on the newest Intel processors, where the limit will be 10. The newest Intel processors do not contain any instructions related to voice-over-Internet capabilities. From the reporting, it seems that the only processor-specific function being used here will be the return value of the CPUID instruction, a code that identifies the make, model and capabilities of the processor. The software would then be crippled based on the results. There is no evidence that the AMD processors (or even older Intel processors, for that matter) are incapable of performing the operations necessary for the software to function. One report even indicates that the AMD processors benchmark better than their Intel-made counterparts.

As of now, the only processor feature being used is the CPUID instruction, which has been around since the days of the 486. Having it in the toolkit is usually a good thing. If a programmer wants to use a feature only available on some processors, it introduces a quick and easy way to determine an individual machine's capabilities. But, one must ask where this is all going. Now, one may simply decide to use (or become) one of Skype's competitors' services if one does not want to be limited by this deal. With the coming era of "trusted computing", hardware makers (possibly in collusion with software makers) will be able to hardware-encode what software a machine can run. Collusion between sufficiently powerful companies could create artificial incompatibilities between systems in order to force consumers to buy both companies products together. Imagine a world where you need an Intel-based machine to run office software, and an AMD-based machine to run your favorite game. Both machines could be technically capable, but the software and/or hardware prevent the program from running on competitors' machines. I would even venture to predict that most users will just blindly accept things as the way they are and pay even higher prices¹ for the crippled products.

The alternative to this kind of proprietary world is the free software world. In the free software world, source code is always available, so any attempts by the original programmers to cripple the software's functionality could quickly be removed by someone else at the source code level. The free software community relies on the continued ability of all computers (of the same architecture) to run the same software. But now, what if the hardware itself were encoded to only allow certain signed ("blessed") software to run on the machine? The continued availability of free software is not guaranteed.

Technorati tags: free+software, Intel, Skype

¹ Consider, for example, that the complexity of both Microsoft Office and microprocessors have increased. The prices of consumer editions of the Intel chips have gone down, but the prices of consumer editions of Office software have increased or stagnated, see this column, for the detailed argument presented by another not-quite-unbiased source. :-)

Birthright Israel: Bad/Insecure website design

2006-02-19T15:25:00.000-05:00

I started to fill out the online Birthright Israel application (here), and noticed something very strange. It asks for my name, email address, a password, birthdate, and the last four digits of my social security number. What's wrong with that? All of it gets transmitted over the Internet as clear text! Anyone snooping Internet traffic between my computer and theirs could, in theory, grab and store all of that information. Presumably, the rest of the application asks for other personally identifiable information (like my address). The snooping man in the middle gets just enough information to begin a process of identity theft. Security problems like these were resolved years ago through the use of secure encrypted HTTP connections. Why the sloppy and potentially dangerous application? I asked Birthright. Let's see if they answer.

Technorati tags: computer+security, website+design

A Massachusetts Marriage Penalty

2006-02-12T00:08:00.000-05:00

I noticed this the first time I did taxes married, but I haven't posted about it until now.

In Massachusetts, half of the rent paid during the year is tax deductible up to $3000, as you can see if you look at Massachusetts Form 1 (the basic income tax form, the rough equivalent of a Federal 1040). If you are married, filing separately, each partner can only deduct $1500. If you are single, you can deduct the full $3000. Rent in the Boston area is well over $6000 per year, even for the smallest hole in the ground. The cheapest studios in the area go for ~$1000/month ($12000/yr). The least expensive roommate situations are usually around $500/person/month ($6000/yr).

Two single roommates can take the full rental deduction ($6000), but a married couple in a similarly sized apartment with similar rent can only take on $3000 deduction. Assuming no other complications, that's an additional $159.00 tax burden for being a married renter in the inflated Boston-area real-estate market.

Technorati tags: Massachusetts, taxes

A Tale of Two Virus Warnings

2006-02-05T13:43:00.000-05:00

The day before the BlackDoom worm attacked last Friday, I received two vulnerability warnings. One came from the university faculty, the other from department in which I work. Here's the one from the faculty (I've redacted the institution name):

Subject: Vulnerability notification
Good Evening, We're writing to let you know that there is an email worm that is spreading and is very dangerous. If your computer is infected with this worm, it will delete files like Word documents from your computer on the 3rd of every month, beginning this Friday, February 3rd. Computers that are running up-to-date antivirus software should catch this worm and prevent it from installing on your computer. [Our] version of McAfee Antivirus (available from the Computer Services website) updates automatically every day. However, we strongly encourage all faculty and staff members to take time today to check their antivirus software, make sure it is updated, and run an antivirus scan of their computer. For more information about this worm, see [link to slightly more information] For assistance with your antivirus software: [Our] faculty and staff: please contact the [Our] Help Desk at [phone number] or by email at [email address]. Students and residential affiliates: please contact the Student Help Desk at [phone number] or by email at [email address].

The good: The email contained a link to a page that contained a link to enough information to figure out what this was all about.

The bad:

The subject line. It looks too much like the kind of subject line that would be in a hoax virus email
No information about who is vulnerable. The warning says "your computer." Computers are not affected by viruses and worms. Computer software is. In this case, the target was Microsoft Windows. Users with Macs and Linux PC's were unaffected.
The incredible damage claim. The more incredible the damage claim (deletes important files), the more likely I am to disbelieve a warning. It's a tactic used by hoaxsters all the time. So, in order to set aside my disbelief, I would want more information.
No indication of how it was spread. The warning calls it an "email worm." It does not specify whether it was spread by a vulnerability in the operating system (in which case, everyone with the same OS is vulnerable), or a specific email program. In reality, it was a social engineering attack! I don't even know whether I would consider it a "worm," but that seemed to be the standard terminology the anti-virus people were using. This one only spread by highly insecure email clients that automatically run attachments and by stupid people who open and run all attachments they get.

And, here's the one from the department (Institution and department name both redacted):

Subject: Please read: Important Windows security information
Good morning, Some of you may have seen the message from [Faculty] regarding a malicious Windows worm that is set to turn on tomorrow. ([Another faculty] may have sent something similar, as well) This infection is already present on thousands of un-protected Windows computers and is programmed to switch on tomorrow, Feb. 3rd. Once started, the worm will begin over-writing or erasing Word documents, PDF files, Excel files and several other file types on both the local drive _and any connected network share_. There is some debate over how wide-spread this threat will actually turn out to be, but there is one inescapable agreement: If you have it on an unprotected machine, it will attempt to destroy data and spread itself. Please consider this ounce of prevention, as the pound of cure is much more expensive. FACULTY/RESEARCH/UNDERGRAD/HOME I urge faculty, undergrad and research users (as well laptop users, home PC users) who are using Windows to make certain they are running anti-virus software on their machines and that it is set to update automatically. Current anti-virus definition should stop and remove this worm when found. [Faculty] provides McAfee VirusScan on its computing site: [Download website] (Listed as 'VirusScan') ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF/G1/G2 [Department] administrative staff computers as well as machines in the grad student commons (1st & 2nd year) are under strict control and users of those machines do not need to take any additional steps today. We will be surveying them behind the scenes and possibly by visiting your desk. You are, however, reminded that your personal laptop or home machine could be infected and you should take all necessary steps to insure that your personal machine is protected, especially if you intend to interface with [Institution]'s network in any way (Dial-up, VPN, etc.). ADDITIONAL * Machines found to be attempting to spread this (or any other) threat may be disconnected from the network by [Faculty] without warning. * This virus has no bearing on MacOS/OSX and Linux users (except those rare users who use Windows emulation software such as VirtualPC or VMware - please insure your virtual Windows machine, if you use one, is running anti-virus software). * If your Windows workstation was provided by us and requires you to log onto the [Department] domain (you have a Z:\ drive) and you do not have administrative privileges, then [Department] Computer Services is responsible for this machine. All other machines are the responsibility of their owner. * If you are interested in learning more about this worm (which goes by various names - KamaSutra, Blackworm, Nyxem-D and W32.blackmail.e) visit: http://www.lurhq.com/blackworm.html * If you are concerned that you may have this worm or think you may have recently opened a suspicious attachment, I will be providing CD containing F-Secure's F-Force utility (and latest updates file) which you can use to help clean the infection from your machine. I will leave several copies at the reception desk at [Building and Room number]. Please view the "readme" file on the CD for instructions on running it. Thanks, [Sender's Name] =================================== Systems Administrator - [Institution] [Department] [email address]

Notice how much more information was given. The email was written in a much calmer, less alarmist tone, which is uncommon for virus hoaxes, making it more believable. It also specifies all the information a user would need to know to determine whether his/her machine was vulnerable, and what to do to ensure it wasn't. This is a good example of how to write a real virus warning.

Technorati tags: computers, virus+warnings, worm

What applications do you want?

2006-02-02T13:20:00.000-05:00

Novell, maker of the SUSE Linux distribution, has been polling users asking what Windows- or MacOS-only applications they want ported to Linux. The idea behind it is to find out what application availabilty is preventing users from switching to the operating system. The poll will likely run for a year, and results are reported monthly.

This poll is particularly important, because Novell spokespeople have made statements like this:

The end result is that we will be contacting the vendors of these applications, asking them to partner with Novell to port their software to Linux.

This poll does not just represent a list of unattainable wishes.

The results have already shown some interesting trends. The current top requested applications are Photoshop and AutoCAD. There is currently an incomplete, free replacement for Photoshop (the GIMP), but, it is not yet filling the proprietary application's role for many users. There is not yet any free replacement for 3D computer-aided design software. Mutimedia development applications and financial applications are also at the top of the list. It is not surprising that applications for basic computer and Internet use (eg, e-mail and web browsing) aren't there. There are already a number of free software applications that run on GNU/Linux [and Windows!] to fill those niches. Also not present in the ten 10 requests are any of the Microsoft Office products, possibly indicating that the free office suites, such as OpenOffice.org, are capable of replacing it.

To participate in the survey, simply fill out the form here

Technorati tags: Linux

Google

2006-01-25T18:46:00.000-05:00

Evil.

Not evil.

UPDATE: This should have been in here before: Both Yahoo and Microsoft Network (MSN) are far worse in their complicity in Chinese censorship than Google is. Reporting indicates that Google makes reference (in Chinese, which I can't read) to the fact that the results were filtered. Neither Yahoo nor MSN, the second and third most popular search engines, make any reference to their filtering. The Chinese firewall technology would work whether or not the American search engines were complicit. A Chinese user would simply be presented with search results that were blocked by the country's firewall. An annoying, but constant reminder that the society was not a free one. And that is enough to make Google's (and MSN's and Yahoo's) positions qualify as evil.

Note to spammers (updated!)

2006-01-18T20:01:00.000-05:00

This is not an advertising blog. If I see or hear about a worthwhile blog, project, service or web page (that everyone else hasn't gotten to months before me), I'll post a link here. If you're providing a service that's altruistic, that's great. If it's entirely self promoting (that means you, "Jewish bible quiz" and "Learn Hebrew verbs" guy¹), I'll pass. I don't need your prewritten blog posts. I don't need your mass mailings. I know you like your page rank, but, there are better ways to get it.

I may consider adding a new column to the bottom of my sidebar, entitled "Spammers." On it, I will post the name and email address associated with blog-ad spam. I may not have many readers, but I am traversed by search engines, and your address will be harvested by third-party spambots.

By the way, this only applies to mass mail². I won't consider personal email to be spam, so don't be worried about clicking my email address. I do want to hear from readers through comments and email.

¹ Never have I seen a site with more copyright notices on a single screen than this one. And, truth is, if it were free/open source software, the backend might have been somewhat useful. As a web service, it's of low to moderate interest.

And, by the way, dude, the 90's are over. You can use Unicode now. And, even if you're representing Hebrew words with graphics, you don't need a library of "over 10,000 graphical images." You just need enough graphics to represent each character and point. It's the basis of a novel technology called a 'font.' (Maybe I should apply for a patent on it.) If you want to see what I'm talking about, I won't provide a link, you can go Google for it yourself, or find some sucker who put up the press release/announcement.

² Hint: if it has more than 10 email addresses in the "To" line, it's mass mail. At least learn how to use BCC. It's good for you.

Update: At least one spammer got part of the message. He took me off his list. He still didn't get that sending unsolicited mass email is bad netiquette. The reason: spam works.

Technorati tags: spam

NCSY Alumni Family Retreat

2006-01-17T21:43:00.000-05:00

A spammer¹ has asked me² to inform former members of the brainwashing organization for Orthodox youth (NCSY) that they will be having a retreat soon. So, if you've been thinking lately, and wanted to stop, or, you thought it would be a good time to start your kids on the path to becoming too frum to look in your direction (child care and/or paternity testing will be provided!), you might want to go to the NCSY Alumni Family Retreat. It's taking place in a chat room with live animals communicating in sign language.

So, remember to KEEP THE FLAME ALIVE, because it's getting a lot colder in Hell.

To the spammer³: I'm glad I could help spread the word. You're welcome.

¹ "Dear blogger" is a good indication that you're getting mass mail.
² The one problem with spamming for blog space is you never know what kind of advertising you're going to get.
³ Your name and email address could have been posted here too.

Technorati tags: cults, Orthodox+Judaism

Business Reply Junk Mail

2006-01-10T00:22:00.000-05:00

I saw a piece on CNN Headline News about some things people do to get back at annoyances. One of them was sending those free business reply mail envelopes back to the companies that send them junk mail. For an extra measure of satisfaction, you can stuff in some junk of your own (like brochures that other junk mailers have sent you; Anyone think Capital One should lose weight?).

The good: It might encourage companies to stop sending junk mail.

The bad: It might encourage companies not to use business reply envelopes for things that you actually need.

One thing I've noticed (unscientifically) is that when I actually want or need to reply, they don't send me free envelopes. Then, I need to send back a letter with a stamp (now 2 cents more expensive) on it. The best example is the credit card “privacy” policy notice that gives me 30 days to tell them not to sell my information. They gave me a form to fill out (with lots of personally identifiable information, of course), but no free reply envelope.

What d'ya think?

Technorati tags: junk+mail, snail+mail

Business Week takes on patents

2006-01-05T15:23:00.000-05:00

Here, I present a link to a Business Week article about the recent history of the “obviousness” test for a patent's validity. It starts out describing a case related to auto parts, but quickly gets into software and “business method” patents, and defensive patenting. The interesting bit is: note which side a particular large proprietary software company falls out on.

Technorati tags: software+patents

Cross-Currents Bullshit Alert

2006-01-02T16:00:00.000-05:00

I don't usually read Cross-Currents, and I took them off my RSS aggregator a long time ago. Needless to say, I don't comment there, given their history of careful "selection." But, DW brought this diatribe of Orthodox triumphalism to my attention. Their thesis: Neil Gilman says that Conservayive Judaism should give up on halacha, therefore, Conservative Judaism has given up on halacha. And, of course that means that Agudas Israel spokesman Avi Shafran was right when he questioned the intellectual integrity of the Conservative movement. So, do we owe Shafran an apology?

Not yet. Conservative Judaism is not, and pretty much has never been, a united movement. When Mordechai Kaplan (as a JTS professor) wrote the foundational book for Reconstructionism, "Judaism as a Civilization," he argued that all three contemporary American Jewish movements were not viable. There were four chapters on the subject, one for each denomination — Neo-Orthodox, Reformist, Right Conservative, and Left Conservative. The non-halachic side of Conservative Judaism has already given birth to Kaplan's "Reconstructionism," David Wolpe's proposal for "Covenental Judaism," and Neil Gilman's current attempt to define the movement. Jonathan Rosenblum already knew that:

Just as Mordechai Kaplan taught an earlier generation of JTS rabbinical students to view Judaism as a civilization, in which scheme God played little or no role, so Gilman teaches them that a “binding” mitzvah is whatever a Jew decides at that particular moment is binding for him – an odd definition of obligation. Gilman reiterated this theme in his keynote address when he stressed that to whatever extent Conservative Jews follow halachic norms, it is because they want to and not because they have to.¹

It is not news that some prominent Conservative thinkers don't view halacha as binding. So, what makes Rosenblum think that the internal debate is any more “settled” now than it was in the 1930's?

¹The same can be said of a large part of contemporary Orthodox Jews as well. Yes, there's social pressure towards conformity and observance, but for many, the obligation is felt personally, but not externally enforced.

Technorati tags: Conservative+Judaism, Judaism