Say what you will, no one can argue “legal fiction” for this one:


Reposted from last year with better redaction on the image.

On my way to Israel I joked Twitter that I hoped I wasn’t overweight in terms of luggage. The truth is I could probably stand to lose a few pounds, or at least get better about exercising. Being in Israel certainly helps; when I was in Gush I dropped two suit sizes largely due to walking everywhere and eating less thanks to yeshiva food.
But in New York and working it’s perpetually difficult to find time/space to work out. As a Rabbi my schedule is erratic and I can’t afford the gyms. In Washington Heights I was better about jogging thanks to Ft. Tryon Park and I’m too scared to bike on the Lower East Side – try a bike land and you’ll see what I mean. Still, all these excuses don’t mean anything in the long term when faced with family medical histories.
My sister on the other hand is amazing, juggling a household with 4 kids, a job, active in the community, and still forces herself to do something be it jogging, learning to jump rope, or basic exercises with dumbbells.
Dumbbells! So simple, you can do plenty of stuff at home, a perfect solution! In fact there was a time I had some dumbbells. Years ago my great uncle Ben Yuter once randomly sent me two three pound dumbbells in the mail which should have made for a great conversation in the post office: “let’s see how much that weighs…” “Trust me, it’s 6 pounds.”
Before I try new stuff I typically search online to get a sense of how much things cost and what would make the best deal.¹ Some sets looked intrusting, but I found something even more fascinating in the Body Solid Tools line. Sure looks like an ordinary a 7 pound dumbbell with purple coating, but the real bonus is further down the page. In the “Product Details” section I found this gem:

Shipping Weight: 6.4 pounds

Read that carefully: the shipping weight for a 7 pound dumbbell is 6.4 pounds.
Let one think this is an anomaly, the shipping weight for a 6 pound dumbbell is 5.6 pounds and the 8 pound ships at 7.6.
This is nothing short of revolutionary; Amazon has created a shipping system so advanced they can alter the weight of an object. I’m now thinking why bother with working out when I can just keep shipping myself via Amazon and lose .4-.6 pounds at a clip!
The best part is that after $25, I can even ship for free. Can’t get a better deal than that.

1. The “typical Jew” economics are really important when you’re paid like a rabbi.

Now that I’ve moved to a more mature web space, I’ve decided to formalize some official commenting policies. Thankfully I’ve never had much of an issue in the past, but it’s probably useful to have something on the books.
I’d consider it a work in progress so any feedback or comments would be appreciated.
Within the new guidelines, that is.

As one might expect most of my outlook on Judaism has been influenced by my father. Also nearly as obvious is that my father’s outlook has been extensively influenced by his own teacher Hakham Jose (Yosef) Faur. I have just been informed of a new website for Hakham Faur which includes several articles available for download. Though not not fully comprehensive there are some excellent ones up there, including Anti-Maimonidean Demons (PDF) in which I happen to be footnoted.
The discerning reader will notice differences between Haham Faur’s, my father’s, and my own writings (aside from the drastic dropoff in scholarship and sophistication as found on this blog). What was transmitted to me at least was more of a system of thought which could then be applied elsewhere, but will differ based on individual experiences.
Enjoy!

Last night in my weekly Rambam havruta, we started chapter 5 of Yesodei Hatorah. Rambam begins the chapter by discussing the obligation to sanctify God’s name (kiddush hashem) and its corollary prohibition against desecrating God’s name (hillul hashem). In providing examples, Rambam segues into the laws of yehareg v’al ya’avor – the conditions under which someone should allow himself to be killed rather than violate a commandment under duress.

But while the laws in Rambam are usually straightforward, the laws of yehareg v’al ya’avor have several qualifiers and criteria to evaluate, to the point that it became difficult to keep track of all of them in proper sequence. Being the computer geek that I am, I figured that pseudocode could come in handy. The following snippet assumes the functions do(); which entails preforming the sin in question and die(); means to allow oneself to be killed. It’s not necessarily the most efficient code mind you, but I’m going for maintainability.¹

big3[] = {murder, idolatry, illicitSexualRelations};
if (governmentDecree == true){
    die();
}
else {
    if (big3[].contains(sin)){
        die();
    }
    else{
        if (nonJewBenefits == true){
            do();
        }
        else if (numJews < 10){             do();         }         else {             die();         }     } }

There, that should make everything perfectly clear.
Update: Seth Berger contributes the following optimized code:

if( (!governmentDecree || !big3[].contains(sin)) && ( nonJewBenefits || numJews < 10)) {     do(); } else {die();}

Update 2: Reuven Weiser corrects Seth's optimization since in Seth's code a non-big 3 sin could still result in do(); if a non Jew benefits. This is incorrect and should rather be:
if( (!governmentDecree && !big3[].contains(sin)) && ( nonJewBenefits || numJews < 10)) {     do(); } else {die();}
This sort of confusion often comes up with too much negative logic. We can flip things around to create a slightly more readable optimization:

if ( (governmentDecree || big3[].contains(sin)) || (!nonJewBenefits && numJews >10)){
    die();
else {do();}


1. For Brisker’s, of course

A few odds and ends today from non-work life:

• Last night I posted my Rosh Hashana derasha which was a fun challenge to write and deliver. R. Schnaidman gave me a time range of 30-35 minutes which is normally beyond how long I can talk, so for the first time in many years I had written out most of it beforehand and spoke both from the sheets and extemporaneously. Feedback was positive, though one person asked if it was intentional that I didn’t cite any Zohar or Ba’al Shem Tov.

  I said yes, and politely explained that I was following my mesorah. After all, it was Rosh Hashana…

• As certain individuals know, we had some now resolved issues with my landlord. Apparently, lots of other people had worse experiences: there’s a class action suit against them.
• I know this is late for Rosh Hashana, but this song seems relevant (music starts at 2:18) even if it doesn’t count as an official zemer.
• Speaking of simmanim, the line between what is an innocuous simman and outright avoda zara is somewhat complicated. I gave a shiur on it some time ago, and based on far too many conflicting sources, couldn’t reach a definitive conclusion. I did conjecture that the degree of seriousness which one takes these simmanim is likely proportional to the potential issur, with the litmus test being how one one would feel if the simman wouldn’t be performed. For example, R. Tendler once told us that a woman came to him Erev Yom Kippur looking for a chicken to do kapparot because if she didn’t, she would die that year. That, he said, was avoda zara.

  Regarding the simmanim of Rosh Hashana, I’m beginning to think that most are fine given that most are simply puns – some even bilingual puns. In other words, they seem more for entertainment purposes rather than a magical act. For another R. Tendler example, I first heard from him the one “lettuce, half a raisin, celery” = let us have a raise in salary.

  If you still take these seriously, then in addition to avoda zara problems, you likely have no sense of humor – which could pose problems when people start calling you an idol worshiper.

• In what should some as no surprise, I don’t do kapparot following Shulhan Aruch’s admonition that it’s darkhei emori. I also have never been a fan of tashlich especially since a former Hindu co-worker once asked me, “what was that thing where you pray to the river.”

  However, for efficiency’s sake I suggest that next year we could work on combining the two practices during the asseret yemei teshuva by simply flinging chickens into the water – perhaps even feeding them bread first. I’m sure God would really appreciate that much more than doing them separately as it would double the mehillah power.

• And on a more serious note, through a great set of hashgachic circumstances (and the ubiquitous chords directory I will soon be teaching an Introduction to Jewish Guitar. Even with some nervousness, I’m really looking forward to the entire experience which I hope to recount afterwards.

If I don’t post before Yom Kippur, Gemar Tov to all. Looking back at what I last year I don’t think I can even hope for less erratic blogging given my new work schedule. Despite the infrequent or sporadic posting, we still had an eventful year with preliminary thoughts and detailed rebuttal of the Conservative Teshuva on Homosexuality and the aftermath, a conflict and conversation in Washington Heights, the RCA’s gerut policies, and of course, the Negiah.org fiasco. However, I can and still will ask forgiveness if I have inadvertently or unnecessarily offended people through carelessness or laziness. Although I do stand by what I write I freely admit everything could use more editing, not just for typos, but for tone or imprecise syntax.
Naturally I have no idea what the next year will bring, but I do hope to at least maintain the status quo of quality (if not quantity). Thanks again for reading, commenting, and reminding me why I’m still at this nearly five years later.¹
Shana Tova,
Josh
Update: I will be sans computer for a few days while it’s being repaired, and as such may be slower in responding to e-mails or the like.

1. Yep, it’s been that long; the forthcoming retrospective should be fun.