Finally, according to all shittot, Arafat is dead. Check out this Hallmark tribute picture on CNN:

Kind of makes you forget about the few thousand Jews he’s responsible for murdering.

This will be the final post in the impossibly named series I called Rabbi Week. Today, I’d like to discuss what I consider to be the major misconception of the Rabbinate, and wrap things up with some thoughts as to what the future might hold.

I didn’t expect this East Coast Swing to be a vacation, but I couldn’t have predicted it to be as eventful as it was. I figured I would be driving my mother around, considering she had broken her knee a few days before I arrived. Still I planned to try to get something productive done, either in terms of reading, thesising, or job hunting.¹
It was a disaster on all counts.
First, the multiple trips to NY were more draining than usual. I was supposed to speak at the bridge shul for a seudah shelishit, but found out last minute that it was cancelled. Then, the broken kneecap became a broken hip, and of course that rightly required attention. This isn’t a complaint, just pointing that the whole experience had been somewhat exhausting.
And for the coup de grace, I had to spend the night in Newark Airport.
It’s not that I missed my flight as much as my flight missed me. I ordered my ticket from ATA a while ago and booked an 8:06 PM flight back to Chicago. Somewhere between then and now, ATA either removed the flight from its schedule or just moved it earlier. In either case, I arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare only to find out that their last flight left at 6:12 PM. I hadn’t received any notification about the switch,² and the representatives were less than helpful. The most that they could or would do was to put me on the 6:00 AM flight Friday morning. For that, it didn’t pay to go back home, or even to stay in a hotel. I called their customer service from the airport and the person said that they should have offered a hotel stay, but they weren’t the friendliest of people here. At any rate, the best she could do was to send me a $50 voucher for my next flight.
Actually, the food court is open all night long and isn’t such a bad place to be. I might even get some reading done. They have wireless here, but it’s about $7 for the night and not really worth it.
I’ll post this tomorrow, and maybe something more if I feel like writing tonight.

1. I’m not including dating here, because although I’m not pessimistic, I’ve also learned not to expect anything to go in a particular way.
2. One representative muttered something about faxing it over, which is odd considering that I don’t own a fax machine.

At risk of losing my blogger’s license, today’s discussion is on politics. I’m not going to discuss whether or not the results are “good” or “bad” on any level, but I did notice two ironic results. The first was picked up by The Daily Show in their election recap. The Bush camp claimed that John Kerry was soft on terrorism and would be too weak of a leader. Despite these accusations, Kerry easily carried New York, the state most directly affected by the 9/11 attacks.
Similarly, Kerry attacked Bush’s economic policies which supposedly cost jobs while giving tax breaks to the wealthy. However, as Nicholas Kristoff mourns, Bush carried all the “middle America” hard working states.
It could be that the candidate’s directed their messages to the wrong people – in the sense that they weren’t able to change the people’s minds. Or, you could say that they simply sold their positions to whomever wished to hear them.
Anyway, I’m also interested in the role religion played in people’s decisions. Between the left-leaning liberal Jews and R. Eliyashiv’s pesak to vote for Bush, I’ve gotten several IM’s asking for my opinions. Maybe for when I get back to Chicago.

Dear Loyal Readers,
Some of you may know that my mother broke her kneecap a short time before I came to visit NY. Although she had been managing surprsingly well, last night she had an accident, fell down two stairs, and fractured her hip.
She is scheduled for surgery tomorrow – definitely on the hip, possibly on the knee as well, depending on the x-ray. We don’t know what time of day it will be, nor how long it will take (which is understandable considering we’re not sure what exactly will be operated).
If you have a tehillim group or a misheberach list of some sort, please add the name, “Leah Bat Chava.”
Thank You.
UPDATE: Latest news is that the knee doesn’t need operation, and the surgery is scheduled for around 6:00 PM tomorrow.

Introduction
With the previous ramblings about rabbinical schools and the rabbinate, I feel it’s only fair that I explain my own rationale for not only becoming a rabbi, but why I chose to the path I did.

If you’re reading this blog, odds are you’ve read something about Jewish Law. You might have seen one of the many codifications such as the Mishnah Torah or Shulhan Aruch. Perhaps you’ve come across a commentary on one of these codes, common ones being the Ramo or Mishnah Berurah. You may have even read published rabbinic teshuvot – responsa addressing specific questions – like Yehaveh Da’at by R. Ovadia Yosef or the Iggros Moshe by R. Moshe Feinstein. Contemporary publishers such as Feldheim or Artscroll compile popular positions of Jewish Law on selected topics. All these works contain Rabbis’ opinions, rulings, and occasionally reasonings for their halakhic decisions. In all of these works, the Rabbinic writers intend to shape Jewish practice – albeit to different degrees depending on the intended audience and the intended effect of their decisions.
If you’ve seen these types of sources, you’re also probably aware that for any given issue, there are multiple opinions. Considering all the halakhic debates, it’s hard enough deciding whom to follow, let alone making a decision for other people. Each posek has his own methodologies for reaching his conclusions, and to fully understand each one requires a complete and detailed study of their individual works. However, all “poskim” share similar challenges in publishing their works. One such challenge is distinguishing normative Jewish Law with statements of public policy.