After about a year together, the rabbi and the journalist are no longer an item.
A friend emails: “I was wondering the reason your blog posts had become less frequent over the past week. I had no idea that this breakup would cause you this much distress. Hang in there. Time heals all wounds.”
Is this ruling normative Judaism? No! An Orthodox rabbi tells me: “No, it is not normative. He [R. Lazer Brody] actually has a great deal of influence on many people. It is one of these things which is found the Talmud which is absolutely not law, nobody really recommends it today, and yet he thinks it’s wonderful thing. I love the part where he guarantees that will be no illnesses and no genetic problems. Brody is the one who translates into English lots of the writings of Breslov specifically the teachings of Rabbi Arush.”
An Orthodox rav tells me about the below: “That is correct, but today it is very rare, and was never very common.”
Dear Rabbi Brody, am I allowed according to Halacha to marry my niece or my cousin? Would there be any medical or genetic dangers? Thank you, NK from the Great Neck area
Dear NK,
Your superb question is mentioned in the Gemara, tractate Yevamot, 62b, on the bottom of the page. Indeed, our sages both encourage and bless anyone that marries a niece. Rashi states that the Gemara is referring specifically to the daughter of a sister; since a man naturally loves his sister, says Rashi, he will have a special affection for a wife who is the daughter of his sister. The Tosephot argue as follows: Rabbenu Tam agrees with Rashi, and says that the mitzva is to marry the daughter of a sister specifically (more than a brother), because the daughter of a sister will bring her husband good fortune and sons who resemble the father. The Rashbam disagrees with Rashi and with Rabbenu Tam, and says that marrying the daughter of a brother is just as good a mitzva as marrying the daughter of a sister. The Rambam, in agreement with the rationale of the Rashbam stipulates (Hilchot Issure Beia, 2:14), that it’s a “mitzvat khakhamim”, a rabbinical ordnance, to marry a niece, whether she’s the daughter of a sister or a brother. As far as practical Halacha goes, The Rama rules that Ikar HaDin (Principle Halacha) is, “It’s a mitzva to marry the daughter of a sister”, then adds, “There are those who say that it is also a mitzva to marry the daughter of a brother. (See Shulkhan Oruch, Even Ezer 2:6).” In other words, the Rama tends to agree with Rashi and Rabbenu Tam, but doesn’t ignore the Rashbam.
Give a Jew a compliment and he’ll say, “Tell me more.” Give a genuine Christian a compliment and he’ll say, “Oh no, no, no, I’m a big sinner.”
Here’s a true story from the classroom. A non-Jewish student tells the teacher, “I hope I don’t embarrass you.” The Jewish teacher and the rest of the room girds for something rude and inappropriate, but the goy proceeds to lavish praise upon the teacher.
“Why would that embarrass me?” says the teacher, thoroughly mystified. “Tell me more.”
“That’s because you’re Jewish,” I explain to the teacher.
Most Jews I know feel good about themselves. The more religious the Jew, in my experience, the more likely he is to feel good about himself. By contrast, the more religious the Christian, the more he’s likely to think of himself as a sinner.
Christians get religious welfare. They get salvation through faith. When you’re given stuff, when you don’t earn your way, you feel like crap. Jews earn their way. They have genuine self-esteem.
Do you think God is happy with you? I think God is happy with the way I’ve been living the past couple of years. I’m an Orthodox Jew. I have a program. I do it. Ergo, God is happy with me.
I find the Jewish Press more impressive than the Jewish Journal (which refused to publish or link to the article) in this culture war over Sarah Silverman.
Greg Leake emails: Hi Luke,
It’s been a while. I periodically intentionally step away from the computer for a few months. Sort of a sanity break.
Maybe you guys accomplish the same thing by staying away from electronics one day a week. Anyway, it is sort of nice to unplug for a little while.
I don’t see either side of this debate between the rabbi and Mr. Silverman pointing out the obvious.
Sarah Silverman has no business being a mother. While I am sometimes shocked when I find myself in agreement with Rabbs, I must say that being a child of Sarah Silverman’s would be de facto abusive.
Who on earth would imagine that it would be a good idea for someone whose public persona is as reprehensible as Sarah Silverman’s to be responsible for raising a child?
So I have to disagree with the rabbi and disagree with Mr. Silverman. She should not become a mother because of what and who she is, irrespective of her ethnic or religious origin.
Outside of that, one occasionally reflects on the fact that sometimes girls with a religious orientation are the ones who become the most outrageous. Sarah Silverman is not unlike Madonna and some other who have tried to turn social inappropriateness, blasphemy, and outrageousness into a vehicle for fame and money. One wonders if the religious orientation itself proves to be a motivation for their behavior.
Sleep is difficult for me, as it is for my dad. Being shomer brit doesn’t help. When I sleep on my side, I have mild sleep apnea and when I sleep on my back, I have moderate sleep apnea. To diminish this, I’m committed to losing weight and exercising more.
When I go to bed around 10 pm, I’ll usually have trouble falling asleep, then wake up around 1 am for an hour or two. So following the advice of the experts, when I can’t sleep, I get up and try to read. If I’m too tired to read but can’t sleep, I watch Netflix until exhausted and can’t keep my eyes open anymore. So I find by staying up late watching Netflix, when I go to bed, usually around 1 am or so, at least I sleep solidly until 7 am, when I get up and walk for 30 minutes. Don’t let your bed be a battlefield. I try to use my CPAP, but often find it annoying, so my use is probably only half of the time. I tend to grind my teeth at night, so I try to use a mouthguard, but find it annoying, but even using it 25% of the time reduces my teeth pain in the morning. This is the best book on the topic.
Sometimes I get into good cycles where I sleep well for weeks on end. I feel great. I have much more energy and concentration. I’m happier. But most of the time, sleep is a struggle for me.
Just heard: “Greetings, I actually met you about 34 years ago in your 6th grade class at the PUC elementary school. I was a college student observing the class and I remember one of your peers challenged you about something, and you retorted back “Can you prove you exist, can you!” with an air of philosophical certainty. The student was totally lost and couldn’t say a word. It was as if you had pushed his mute button! And I chuckled to myself.”
I used to date a Filipina.
When the passion waned, we began leaving the hovel more often, whereupon I discovered her disconcerting comfort with sitting on the ground. “By dating me, you’ve become an honorary white,” I explained to her, “and white people don’t sit on the ground.” She didn’t abide by my directives and I had to move on after a year.
* It’s great dating someone who puts companionship as their top value because they’ll go anywhere and do anything so long as they can be with you.
S. emails: “I live on Whitworth between Beverly drive and Robertson and every week we have 4 to 5 car accidents on this Stretch. I sometimes worry on Shabbat when kids and families crossing the intersections without the stop signs. Do have a perspective on how to fix this? 90% of accidents are Orthodox Jews going on a Shabbat mission or Jewish holiday mission. It is dangerous to drive on Friday morning in this neighborhood. Any solutions?”
A friend emails: I used to cringe when my shrink urged me to embrace my feelings. No way, I said, that’s so…American. So Oprah!
He responded: Embrace your feelings as if you were French, then.
Suddenly it all made sense. So I embraced my sadness, my rage, my fear, my joy like a Frenchman circa 1952. It helped!
No religion in the world permits abortion for convenience.
I remember when I became seriously religious as an adult. I converted to Judaism in 1993. I got a girlfriend. I compromised on my religion quickly as we started messing around. We didn’t always use protection.
I asked her one night, “What would you do if you got pregnant?”
“I’d just get rid of it,” she said. “I wouldn’t even tell you.”
Part of me was horrified and part of me was relieved. I didn’t want to have children with this woman but I wanted to have a lot of sex with her.
While I was screwing around, I was generally pretty careful about contraception, but not always. It’s probably luck that prevented me from becoming a father.
When you’re out there playing around, you want abortion easy and legal, in case you make some mistakes you want erased. By contrast, religion makes life more challenging. It creates more meaning in routine interactions and it’s not so easy to do as you please. The more religious you are, the more meaning you give to things like eating and sex, and as a consequence, there are more things you can’t do.
When you start compromising in one area, like sex (I don’t know how many women I told, ‘I’m 612’ [meaning I keep 612 of the basic 613 commandments, everything but sex], it just leads to compromising in other areas. By contrast, when you start standing firm in some religious observances, that leads to a firming up in other areas.
When you hang around people who are lax, you become lax. When you hang around people who are strict, you become strict. That’s why I hang around Orthodox Jews. It’s good for me because my temperament is lax.
