Recently in Jewish Category

Last Saturday night I gave a class as part of the Jewish LES discussion series on the very topic of "Halakhic Ramifications of Eruv Disputes." Most of the class was an abbreviation of my earlier three part series on eruvin in general.

The issue of eruv on the Lower East Side is particularly contentious. R. Moshe Feinstein, a preeminent decisor of Jewish Law, used to live on the Lower East Side and his son and many students of his still do so. R. Feinstein was particularly strict in prohibiting the construction on any eruv in Manhattan for reasons too complicated to discuss here, and it is allegedly out of allegiance to R. Feinstein's position on eruv which has precluded its construction to this day.

However, R. Moshe Feinstein has another fascinating responsa regarding the opposition of eruvin in Manhattan, though in conversation it is rarely quoted by his most ardent followers. In response to the question if one ought to protest constructing eruvin in Manhattan, R. Feinstein states that while he personally cannot endorse it, one should not oppose it either since the positions allowing its construction are still legitimate. By all accounts this ought to be considered a very reasonable, respectful position and were it stated 30 years later might even be classified as "pluralistic."

Here is the responsa in the original with my translation, for which I assume responsibility for errors.

Regarding the "Kol Korei" issue see this wonderful post form Eruv Online.

Being far removed from my alma mater, it is difficult for me to truly have a sense of what happens on campus anymore and second-hand reports fail to adequately capture the full zeitgeist of the community. The most recent controversy around Yeshiva University involves a forum on "Being Gay in the Orthodox World" and the expected. The topic of homosexuality in Orthodox Judaism has long been a controversial issue, one which we discussed years ago in "Lonely Men of Faith, but it is still considered taboo in certain Orthodox circles. Case in point, following said forum R. Meir Twersky responded with a public diatribe lambasting the entire event and its participants. This forum and the aftermath are helpfully recounted in great detail on Curious Jew's blog. Since I did not attend the event nor did I hear R. Twersky's statements firsthand I will not address either specifically. However, that such a controversy exists demonstrates that even after 123 YU is still struggling with its own identity as a "Yeshiva", "University", and a representative if not champion for "Modern Orthodoxy."

Halakhic Logic for Waiting One Hour Between Meat and Dairy

I'll skip the usual apologies for neglecting the blog; I'm a "part time" Rabbi and I've always believed that real life takes precedence over virtual life. Actually I think I've fulfilled my "virtual" requirements quite nicely on my Twitter feed.¹ Case in point, one Twitter conversation discussed the halakhic topic of waiting to eat dairy foods after consuming meat. There are varying cultural traditions regarding the length one must wait ranging from one to six hours but the minimum time of waiting only one hour is the least commonly observed practice. The reason for this phenomenon is likely the result of social factors - a cultural affinity towards selective stringencies being one of many- than legal hermeneutic. (The support for longer waiting periods certainly has halakhic support with Rambam (Ma'achalot Assurot 9:28) and Shulhan Aruch (O.C. 89:1) stipulating a 5-6 hour waiting period but Ashkenazi Jews follow these authorities inconsistently). In this post I will argue that the minimum position of waiting one hour, typically not considered normative, maintains halakhic validity.

My 9:00am Sunday morning shiur at The Stanton St. Shul has been discussing as of late topics in Mahchsevet Hazal / Rabbinic Thought and Theology. In today's class we were discussing various sources regarding Gehenom / Hell (PDF) in the Rabbinic tradition and we came across a fascinating contradiction in the thought of one of the Sages.

Dear Loyal Readers,
I recently decided to cash out my credit card points from my American Express card to move. In my program each point is worth 1/2 a cent. As you could imagine most of the items in their store are "overpriced" at that ratio, but through their "Giving Express" program, AmEx allows for donating points at a rate of 1 cent per point to any charity in the GuideStar database.

I currently have 8,000 points left which translates into one $50 donation and three $10 donations.¹ The question is, where should it go?

Taking advantage of the recent national holidays I gave a two-part shiur series at The Stanton St. Shul. Part 1 was given on December 25th (fourth day of Hanukah) on Rabbinic Responses to Greek Culture and Part 2 was delivered this morning on Rabbinic Responses to Christian Thought. (The initial plan was to combine both into one shiur, but that was unrealistic).

I'm not writing them up because to be perfectly honest most of what I did was done before, and much better than I could ever hope to do. In particular I borrowed heavily from Saul Lieberman's Greek in Jewish Palestine / Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, Ephraim Urbach's The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, and Haham Jose' Faur's new book The Horizontal Society which I hope to review shortly.

Still there are those who may be interested in the source sheets, which may be downloaded in PDF:
Rabbinic Reactions to Greek Culture
Rabbinic Responses to Christian Thought.

Also, I'm going to be posting future source sheets - and slowly migrating old ones - to a new section of YUTOPIA: http://joshyuter.com/shiurim/

Enjoy!

A few months ago I wrote a short article for the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals' new journal Conversations. The purpose of this journal is to promote communal dialogue on various issues facing the Jewish community. Unlike the Edah/Meorot journals, the journal is supposed to be more accessible than academic and so I was given two editorial conditions:1. keep it short and 2. no footnotes.

As longtime blog readers know, that last condition was a tough one to overcome.

At any rate, I'm posting my article "A Fair And Balanced Approach To Jewish Social Justice" and I plan on revisiting the motivations for the article at some later point.

I've been getting some requests to respond to some comments made by my teacher, R. Moshe Tendler as reported in today's NYPost. For this latest YU controversy, the Post reports that one of YU's faculty members recently underwent a sex-change operation:

A few weeks ago I received the relieving news that my master's thesis from the University of Chicago finally passed after several years and several attempts. The approved version was actually a draft and needed some degree of editing for typos, grammar, and a few structural changes. After mulling it over for a while and getting some positive feedback I've decided to post the thesis here with a few explanations.