A hearty yasher koach and mazal tov to good friend A Town Crier on his nomination for a Weblog award!
Vote here and vote often.

Conservative Judaism recently made headlines with their reevaluation of homosexuality in Jewish law. Although Conservative Judaism rejected homosexuality in 1992 (PDF), there was a request to reconsider the issue. When we covered homosexuality from an Orthodox perspective in “Lonely Men of Faith“1 we referenced the debate between Rabbi Elliot Dorf and Rabbi Joel Roth, but there has obviously been significantly more discussion on the matter culminating in yesterday’s decision. From what limited information we have at this time, this new decision is hardly as groundbreaking as people might think.

For the first time since the inaugural Parashat Shelach devar torah, I’m writing the “Parasha Perspectives” section of Mt. Sinai’s announcements this week. The delay is most likely due to the changing of the people in charge, and the fact that Mt. Sinai has such a deep pool of talent.
Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself.
Anyway, here’s this week’s for Parashat Vayetzei. Once again, the degree of difficulty is the one-page limit.

Thanks to everyone’s concern about the new nibling. Avi just e-mailed that everyone is home, and since the bris can be bizmano, he has 48 hours to prepare. Fortunately, my mother is en route to help out.
Of course most importantly, the most recent picture fresh off the family e-mail list:

UPDATE: We have a name! From Avi:

His name is Netanel Moshe. Netanel was a name we liked. Moshe was name after one of Esther’s Grandma’s relative (Muni Distenfeld — we decided that Muni was Moshe, but there isn’t any way of really ever knowing). He is very cute and awake right now :)

Incidentally, if Muni does mean something else it’s too late now.

Just got called this morning that Esther gave birth to Nibling #4 (boy number 3) about one month earlier than expected. No details or pics just yet, but Mazal Tov to the Rosenfeld’s, Yuter’s, extended families, and anyone else who wants while we’re at it.
Update From Avi:

Esther is doing basically ok, but the surgery (c-section) will take a few weeks to fully heal. The baby has a condition called TTN (see http://www.kidshealth.org/parent/medical/lungs/ttn.html for details) which sounds bad, and the baby looks a little blue in the hands and feet, but they say will be ok (so does the website). Anyway, if you can say a mishbayrach, I’d be appreciative.

Every now and again there are a collection of stories which I find interesting, but not enough to write something substantive (not that I do anyway). Anyway I created a “quickies” section for this purpose, but I’m looking for a wittier title. Suggestions welcome, puns encouraged.
Here’s today’s list:

• This excellent editorial by Dinesh D’Souza attacks the “atheist hubris” that religions are the primary cause of evil in the world. We wrote about this a few weeks ago, demonstrating that some atheists function similarly to religious fundamentalists. SIW had something on this recently, but his site is down at the moment so I cannot provide a more detailed link.
• I doubt many of my readers were or are big fans of professional wrestling, but a not uncommon storyline was when a title match had a controversial ending and the official loser (a bad guy in this case) declared himself the “real champion,” carried around a fake belt, and generally get in the good guy champ’s way until the blowoff match on pay per view. Why does this matter? Because the exact same thing is happening in Mexico with the presidential elections. No word yet on the steel cage match.
• At the NJDC phone conference someone asked if there was a concern regarding Keith Ellison being the first Muslim elected to Congress. The NJDC said that they were encouraged by Ellison’s positions on Israel and in general were not worried. Yesterday Ellison delivered a video address to a CAIR fund raiser. His remarks were typical Democratic talking points which is to be expected, but there could be some concern based on CAIR’s track record. In fairness there were other Representative who spoke (notably all Democrats) and addressing a crowd does not indicate total agreement with its policies. Still, the political world does place a value on which organizations merit appearances. It might be something, it might be nothing, but it will probably be fodder for someone.
• I used to live in Spring Valley NY. Back then we didn’t roll this way.

New Scientist reports on an advancement in painkillers which might seem hard to swallow:

Saliva from humans has yielded a natural painkiller up to six times more powerful than morphine, researchers say.
The substance, dubbed opiorphin, may spawn a new generation of natural painkillers that relieve pain as well as morphine but without the addictive and psychological side effects of the traditional drug.

On the downside, it kind of gives new meaning to “lohesh ‘al hamaka” (M. Sanhedrin 10:1), so if you’re planning on taking this, just don’t say anything.