In a lawsuit filed in federal court today, the pro-Israel group Z Street alleges that it has been discriminated against. Z Street says, in its complaint, that was “informed explicitly by an IRS Agent on July 19, 2010, that approval of Z STREET’s application for tax-exempt status has been at least delayed, and may be denied because of a special IRS policy in place regarding organizations in any way connected with Israel, and further that the applications of many such Israel-related organizations have been assigned to ‘a special unit in the D.C. office to determine whether the organization’s activities contradict the Administration’s public policies.’”
In other words, Z Street was told by an IRS agent that it might not be granted 501(c)(3) status, which would allow the group to be tax exempt, because its position toward Israel differs from the Obama administration’s official policies.
Ordinarily, I’d find these allegations dubious. But in light of other stuff from this administration, not quite so much.
UPDATE: More at TaxProf. They told me if I voted for John McCain, we’d see thuggish attacks on people who oppose American foreign policy. And they were right!
In a 1996 lecture on Exodus 20, Dennis Prager says: It’s called The Ten Words. The Ten Commandments is an English or Christian statement. The Hebrew Bible does not call this the Ten Commandments. The Decalogue is the Greek for ten words.
The idea of a covenantal relationship between God and an entire people is brand new.
The second uniqueness is that it regulates the internal life of the recipient of the covenant, not just how you treat the suzerain.
These norms of covenant are expressions of divine will. That the God of the universe is behind these commandments is unique.
God creates order in Genesis…and again with these commandments.
From this day forth, there will be a center of reference, a line of conduct… This is a second act of creation. A separation of chaos from order.
The undoing of Judeo-Christian civilization is the resumption of chaos. One example is androgyny. To the Biblical mind, androgyny is chaos. Male is male and female is female. That is order.
That’s why there is a law against men wearing women’s clothing.
Creation is not merely creation. It is creating order. We’re creating social order out of chaos with the giving of the Law.
The ultimate chaos is moral chaos where there is no right and wrong.
Why were the Ten Commandments not given in the land of Israel? You’d think the Israelites would get their new code in the Promised Land where they are going to practice it.
This is to be practiced around the world. If it had been given in Israel, Jews outside of Israel would not have felt obligated to keep it. Who feels obligated to keep French law outside of France or American law outside of America?
This shows the Torah’s universal concern. The law is not confined to a land. It is understood it will be practiced around the world.
The law is given in the desert. Everybody owns the desert. Therefore, there’s an implication that not only is it given so that Jews will practice it anywhere, but that anyone can practice it. It is given to the Jews as a group but it is given to the world geographically. It might as well have been given on the moon.
* The Jews are defined by a code of law, not by race, ethnicity or geography. This is unheard of. You can not become an American living in another country. You can become a member of the Jewish people anywhere in the world. It’s the one group where admittance is by birth or naturalization.
The Ten Commandments is a formulation of those conditions required for membership in the community. One who does not hold to these imperatives excludes himself from the community of believers.
* It’s the only time in the Torah that God speaks to nobody.
* The Ten Commandments are formulated in basically negative terms.
* Allen Estrin and I have produced three films (about goodness, character and diversity) for a company headed by two Christians. The videos are on ethics. We had such a big debate on the character film. We kept couching the ideas of character on what you shouldn’t do. And they kept saying, no, you should keep telling people what you should do to be good. And we kept saying, no, if people will just desist from doing bad things, the world will be terrific. It was a classic Jewish-Christian debate.
As Hillel stated the most important principle of Judaism, that which is hateful to you, do not do to others. That is the way Jews think.
It’s a fascinating issue. Do you get a better world by telling people what they should not do or by telling people what they should do?
If people refrained from doing bad things, the world would be heavenly. There would be no crime.
What positive commandment can I give that will in any way equal in its impact do not murder?
“Revere life.” That’s a platitude. It’s not an action.
All codes of behavior are overwhelmingly don’t. To say “Drive safely” is a platitude but it doesn’t tell me what to do. To know how to behave, I have to know no.
As a parent, it kills me to see how often I say to my kid no, especially when they are very young. You don’t want to bury them under an avalanche of nos, you want to affirm that all right, you can beat up that kid today. Something has to be yes.
If you want to raise a good child, you tell him you cannot cross the street. What would you say that was positive? Be careful. That’s ludicrous.
* There are no abstract moral principles in the Ten Commandments, like be careful, love your neighbor as yourself, treat others as you would like to be treated. Do you know why? Because it doesn’t work. To do the right thing, you need specifics. From left to right in this country, people think they are doing the right thing. The only way to tell if they are doing the wrong thing is by specific behaviors.
Let’s say you’re studying piano and I’m your teacher and I tell you to play with your heart. If you do not have technique, it’s worthless. If you can’t do a D-major scale, your heart is pointless. You have to know the right behaviors.
There is in the human being an antinomianism — a hostility to law. We like platitudes. People talk about compassion and rights, but they don’t mean anything. What is the specific behavior? Then I can judge if it is compassionate and if rights are important.
Who’s against goodness and compassion? Did Hitler say he was pro-evil? Never. He was idealistic. Ideals are good but not enough. If the world lived by the Ten Commandments, I wouldn’t care what ideals they had.
I want to be disgusting, mean and miserable but I live by the Ten Commandments! Fine by me. Much better than someone saying I don’t need the Ten Commandments, but I want to be a fine kind human being.
* The Reform Jews say we are for loving the stranger and loving your neighbor and pursuing justice. The Orthodox response is — we are for not writing on the Sabbath, not eating this food.
It is the classic debate between the person of principles and the person of law. I am on the side of law. Principles without law are worthless. They are platitudes for doing nothing or for doing the wrong thing (like communism which built the gulag in the name of beautiful principles).
* The Hebrew word for faith, emunah, occurs once in the Torah, in Deuteronomy, and it describes God’s faith, not humans’ faith in God.
Faith in God is not part of Judaism’s vocabulary.
Judaism and the Torah don’t expect you to take God on faith. They expect you to believe because God did things. Because it is logical.
The leap of faith is a Christian idea, not a Jewish one. In Judaism, it is a leap of knowledge.
For ten years, I moderated Religion on the Line. There was one particular pastor who cracked me up. He was a very simple man.
Somebody would call up and say, I can’t believe in Jesus.
And every time the pastor was on, he’d say, Did you ever see George Washington?
The caller would go no. The pastor would say, how do you know he existed? How do you know he was first president?
His answer was that I know Jesus saved mankind the same way you know George Washington was the first president.
Not a compelling argument in my opinion. You have to be a Christian to believe that Jesus is the Christ. You don’t have to be American to believe that George Washington was the first president. It’s not a matter of faith with George Washington. But with all the non-compelling nature, Judaism holds almost exactly like this pastor does. I’ve heard this from some Orthodox rabbis.
I don’t believe that God took the Jews out of Egypt. It was handed down to me. That is a typical traditional Jewish response.
I’m not saying this convinces anybody.
* Hitler believed in God. Terrorists who blow up innocents believe in God. Prager believes in God. “I believe in God” is a meaningless phrase and that’s why Judaism doesn’t talk about it.
I know nothing more about you when I hear you believe in God. What I need to know is what do you mean?
Imagine if the pollsters asked, do you know God?
Everybody associates religion with faith and you don’t find the word “faith [in the existence God]” in the Torah. The Torah is about what God wants, not what you believe, because it doesn’t matter that you believe in God.
I believe there is a creator God but not as a matter of faith, but rather as a matter of logic.
Even God has to do something to earn our obedience.
Judaism is filled with non-entitlements. You are not even entitled to Heaven, which is a classic Christian rebuke to Judaism. We know we’re going to Heaven. Do you? No. I have to earn my way every day.
God says you repay me by doing good things for each other.
I’ve added Facebook Connect to my blog to make it easier to leave comments.
Log-in on the upper right of the page.
I paid somebody $50 to install this, so you better use it!
PS. One of the best things I’ve done since I bought a real computer in 1997 was to have people on hand who would help me with my computer issues (for around $50 an hour). I’d much rather spend a little money than get as angry and frustrated as I was getting with technical stuff.
Chaim Amalek emails: Perhaps you could find some spinsters to address the question posed in the current failedmessiah blog: May a spinster have procreative sex outside of marriage if the alternative is that she die without issue? Invite women from your past. Offering the sensitive rabbinic POV can be Rabbi Rabbs.
But what struck me most was one line from Yoseph himself that he posted on his website bio, that he chose Orthodox Judaism “as a means to surrender control, accept humility, and educate.” Many would disagree with the former part, seeing Orthodoxy as a way to maximize control in their lives, seizing the opportunity to strenghthen a relationship with God in almost any daily task. But the words suggest that Yoseph, who dropped out of school and seems to have had a difficult childhood, saw strict religious life as a means of rejecting the abundance of freedom that led him to make bad choices.
Yoseph’s story reminds me of Yisrael Campbell, another Orthodox convert, who tells his story in the hilarious one-man show “Circumcise Me.” Both men faced the challenge of proving themselves as strangers (Orthodox rabbis require years of study and commitment before granting conversion status) and sought refuge from the havoc of their lives in fervently observant Judaism.
Orthodox Jews face the brunt of anti-Semitism because they’re so easily identified; they face discrimination and resentment in the workplace because of their strict limitations and worry constantly about chillul Hashem, sending a negative message about their faith to the outside world by faililng to live up to their principles.
The Yisroel Campbells and Yoseph Robinsons in the fold may have had to undergo years of instruction in Jewish teachings, but they also have an important lesson of their own to impart to the Orthodox community: That, clearly, they are doing something right.
A woman calls. “My husband loves for me to dress in a very provocative way, especially when we take our daily walks. I’d rather wear a sports bra and spandex leggings.”
“He [likes to show me off and he] really likes looking over and gazing at this beautiful package.”
“He’s that guy walking with this gorgeous girl who’s not slovenly…”
The woman turns out to be 56 and she’s been married 33 years.
Yo Dude, I give you some material and you publish it without giving me your most righteously humble man credit!
Where’s your Torah for all you knock rabbinical officialdom?
I’ll be sending you some more of my photo-wizardry as I’m moved to make some.
That highly-secularized, goyim-marrying Rabbi Ally is super hot. I admire your fastidious adherence to Torah thought through the whole interview. Had I been there, I’d just been thinking about boning her. Luke, you’re a holier and more Yirah Shamaiyam guy than me.
You remind of healers. Healer dispense advise for all kind of physical and mental health issues, but have none of the legal and ethical structures to define the right and wrong way of doing things that doctors and mental health-care professionals have. You are a blogger and not a journalist, so you quote without proper attribution or verification of the facts!
Hell, the more I think about it, you’re a journalist. They do the same du-du.
Alan in the mirror is pro-Zionistic at his best!
Posted inPersonal|Comments Off on I’ve Been Dreaming About My Wedding Day
Sex-centric news, information site shows off its makeover with VIP bash in Hollywood, Calif.
LOS ANGELES – Aug. 26, 2010 – LAWeekly and parent company Village Voice Media have officially launched AfterDarkLA.com, a new sex-centric website that unabashedly dares readers to explore the sexier side of the other city that never sleeps.
AfterDarkLA.com was founded as a bridge between sex-focused companies and individuals with something to offer the masses but had no forum on which to info-rnicate. Now with new fuel, fire and focus the site is ready for an official unveiling at midnight tonight following an all-night launch party at Bardot in Hollywood, Calif.
“AfterDarkLA.com is the go-to spot for sex stories, advice and tips, and is without a doubt the sexiest way to procrastinate online,” AfterDarkLA.com Web Editor Anne Hodder said. “Our articles revolve around topics typically tossed around with a dose of giggling, groaning and a gimlet or three – if people can muster the courage to share! AfterDarkLA.com is a place in which to both show and tell, and pick up some pointers while you’re at it.”
LAWeekly’s newest city blog also lifts the sheets to expose Los Angeles’ not-so-private parts, showing readers the local events, clubs and very special occasions they’d never have known existed. From erotic poetry slams to bondage demonstrations to monster sales at the best adult shops in town, AfterDarkLA.com keeps L.A. newbies and nymphos alike in the know.
“AfterDarkLA.com brings carnal news, sex advice and the sex industries’ best writers, designers, performers and entertainers together on one open-minded website,” LAWeekly Advertising Director Mat Cooperstein said. “We now can connect companies, service providers and anyone with the common goal of opening the minds of the masses.”
Current AfterDarkLA.com contributors include sex therapists Dr. Ava Cadell and Dr. Lori Buckley; sex educator and author Jamye Waxman; Wicked Pictures contract starlet Jessica Drake; Burning Angel founder and performer Joanna Angel; adult industry superstar Lisa Ann; Digital Playground starlet and published poet Kayden Kross; and Rascal Video contract star Jeremy Bilding.
And AfterDarkLA.com even gives readers like you the opportunity to become anonymous auteurs with L.A. Libido, an entire column devoted to user-submitted stories of sex tales and erotic rendezvous too good to keep inside.
“AfterDarkLA.com prides itself on its connectivity with the community and we love getting tweets, Facebook alerts and emails telling us about what went down in the handicap bathroom at My House that no one talked about but everyone masturbated to later that night,” Hodder said.
LA Weekly would like to thank AfterDarkLA.com’s launch party sponsors: Bluebird Video, Exotic Erotic, CityVibe, The Screaming O, LELO, Sportsheets, Stockroom.com and Cockstar.
Send all editorial inquiries and contributions to [email protected], and be sure to follow @afterdarkla on Twitter and friend AfterDarkLA on Facebook for daily updates and tidbits to make you laugh.
For more information visit http://www.afterdarkla.com.
Thank you for your email regarding Rabbi Orlofsky. The clip you heard on
the internet was from a shiur Rabbi Orlofsky gave over five years ago to
a group of Kollel students in the Ohr Lagolah program. I spoke to Rabbi
Orlofsky about the recording since I was obviously disturbed to hear the
clip. Rabbi Orlofsky has spoken to Rabbi Weinreb and apologized. Rabbi
Weinreb has been mochel. I attach a general letter that Rabbi Orlofsky
has written in response to this recent release of his shiur. Hopefully
we can all learn a lesson about speech and be as magnanimous as Rabbi
Weinreb and forgive Rabbi Orlofsky for his indiscretion. He is truly
remorseful.
Rabbi Orlofsky has been an effective Rabbi to hundreds if not thousands
of students over the years. In Darchei Binah he gives selflessly of his
time to each student. I encourage you to accept the fact that he made a
mistake as we are unfortunately all capable of doing. I believe his
remorse is genuine and that this is sufficient punishment for anyone to
endure.
As I recover from my initial shock, of hearing the harsh recording of myself from 51/2 years ago blaring at me, I feel I need to get some perspective for myself and for the people who know me well.
I am a pretty open person. I don’t have a lot to hide. I can’t think of a time when I refused a request to record any of my shiurim, public or private. In truth I have a style that has been described as humorous although also with an edge. As I get older I have gotten better at striking a balance between the two and not coming on too harsh. But there have definitely been times that I have lost control and gone overboard. I regret those times.
When the Slifkin debacle was taking place, I was being sent on a daily basis entry after entry attacking gedolei Torah. My view on gedolei Torah is clear – Klal Yisroel has always turned to their Torah authorities for guidance and direction. There have been legitimate disagreements which gadol to follow, but as long as everyone felt bound by Torah and halacha, that was legitimate.
What is not legitimate were the terrible attacks on gedolei Torah being perpetrated by the “bloggers”, a term I was not familiar with at the time. These people had always existed of course, but they were usually relegated to the back of the shul or the mikva, where they would share their witticisms and attacks on Torah among themselves.
Today, anyone can set up a weblog and say anything they want, no matter how nasty or unsubstantiated it may be, and many people will flock to read it. These are people who no one pays attention to in real life, but they take on an anonymous identity and can be as outrageous as they want, without having to take responsibility for their words.
I was told at the time, that my opinion, koton that I am (or maybe because I am a koton), would make a difference to a lot of people who were confused by the disinformation that was going around. As one yeshiva guy put it “Orlofsky is such a cynic, if he believes the gedolim on this, it must be true! So I tried to draft a letter on the subject, to defend the gedolim who had signed the kol koreh against Slifkin’s books.
No one authorized me to do so, since why would they? Who am I? As I told one person who thought I was acting on behalf of Reb Moshe Shapiro, do you really think if he wants to get a message out to the world, he would choose the guy sitting in the back taking notes who doesn’t really understand everything that well? He has doctors and scientists and big talmidei chachamim in his shiurim – why would he pick me?
I sent the draft to a friend for his thoughts and he mistakenly sent it to someone else. Soon the bloggers had it. They decided to declare open season on me. Unfortunately, although I can be accused of being a loudmouth, fifty years of clean living didn’t leave them much to work with. They were reduced to calling me stupid (I’ve been called that by better people) or “a third rate seminary teacher” (which I said is not an insult, it’s a job description) and “kiruv clown”.
The personal insults didn’t bother me, I was upset though, that somehow I had been propelled into controversy, when I had managed to avoid this kind of thing my whole life. But can I remain silent when I see great people being maligned? There comes a time in everyone’s life when you have to choose between playing it safe and maintaining your integrity. I was given my chance “to take a bullet for the president”.
In the middle of this maelstrom I was told that there were people in the Ohr LaGolah class I was teaching who were being affected by all the bashing. Now these are not Ohr Someach students; these are Rabbonim who are part of a separate program and supposed to be people who share common values. One of those values is allegiance to the concept of following gedolei Torah. To hear the views of the bloggers coming out of the mouths of these people was very upsetting.
And so I lost it. I did not prepare a well thought out presentation to give on the subject; that I did in my Har Nof shiur. Here I allowed myself to lose control and speak in an unacceptable manner.
I have already written to Rabbi Weinreb, a man I have a lot of respect for and have spoken with in the past, to beg for forgiveness. The mench that he is, wrote me back:
machul lach, machul lach, machul lach. Kesiva v’chasima tovah to you and yours. THW
which is frankly more than I deserve because of the harsh way I spoke about him. But he is a better man than I.
Rabbi Nissel, who has been close to Rabbi Weinreb for many years on a personal level, was shocked to see that he was being dragged into this mess. He shared that story about Rabbi Weinreb, to show his gadlus; how he had an appreciation for the gedolei Torah. It was I that used it to create a contrast between that and what I felt was infidelity to them. It was not a point I made in any other forum but in this class I allowed my emotions to get the better of me.
The shiur lasted an hour. I am relieved that at my worst, the bloggers could only find 2 minutes worth of material to use to humiliate me. So I guess at my worst, I am okay 98% of the time.
The second clip, cut immediately at the words “Modern Orthodox” was obviously a slip of the tongue. I said “Conservative” several times; that was my point. Conservative Judaism accepts the concept of “Catholic Israel” developed by Solomon Shechter that klal Yisroel and not the Rabbonim are the ultimate deciders of Jewish tradition.
Modern Orthodox (and that is an amorphous term) does not reject that concept to the best of my knowledge. HaRav Lichtenstein from the Gush once bemoaned the fact that there was no Moetzis Gedolei Torah for the Dati Leumi. I don’t know what comes next in the recording; I don’t have a copy, but it could be that I clarify this point in the next minute.
So that’s the story. The bloggers who have had it out for me for years, found a class from 51/2 years ago where I said some harsh things. There are hundreds, possibly thousands of hours of recordings of me around. If this is the best they can do, at least I have more control than I realize.
I don’t know how these things come to a close, but if there is anything to learn from it, it’s the lesson I learnt from Pirkei Avos “there is an eye that sees and an ear that hears and everything is written in a book”.
Ksiva VaChasima Tova
Sincerely,
Dovid Orlofsky
Jeff emails: “Two weeks before Rosh Hashana and in the context of an apology,
Orlofsky feels free to insult bloggers who objected to the Slifkin
ban. Those bloggers include rabbis, students, doctors, lawyers,
unemployed, men, women most of whom opposed the Slifkin ban without
ever insulting Gedolim and all of whom are surely waiting for another
apology.”
Jack emails: “I remember Orlo in his NCSY days as one of the worst offenders with regards to these neo-fascist like crowd techniques, where he’d have the group yelling out all sorts of “funny” things (N-E-S-T-L-E and so on) and then when the kids were all worked up suddenly work in torah-associated phrases; his “shtick” was so familiar to Seminar and NCSY that a group of us among the advisors were assigned to gather up the high school kids who disturbed by this and talk them down, that Torah wasn’t really like this, etc. Of course, in that world, everything was ok if it was for “kiruv”. Why is that all these “funny” guys in the frum world are always the ones espousing the most problematic extreme messages?”
Walter Pincus says the reason he became a news reporter was to “change the world.” (Pg. xx)
I don’t want to get my news from people who are motivated to change the world. Such people should become activists. I don’t trust them to be objective when reporting the news.
Dana Priest has a cartoon on her desk about a reporter getting jailed for reporting on espionage. It’s ludicrous. Who needs her persecution complex? We live in the freeest country in the world with the New York Times et al publishing key details about terrorist programs that will cost American lives and these journalists pose as patriotic heroes.
BY NOW IT’S UNDENIABLE: The New York Times is a national security threat. So drunk is it on its own power and so antagonistic to the Bush administration that it will expose every classified antiterror program it finds out about, no matter how legal the program, how carefully crafted to safeguard civil liberties, or how vital to protecting American lives.
The Times’s latest revelation of a national security secret appeared on last Friday’s front page–where no al Qaeda operative could possibly miss it. Under the deliberately sensational headline, “Bank Data Sifted in Secret by U.S. to Block Terror,” the Times blows the cover on a highly targeted program to locate terrorist financing networks. According to the report, since 9/11, the Bush administration has obtained information about terror suspects’ international financial transactions from a Belgian clearinghouse of international money transfers.
When Washington Post reporters Eli Saslow and Rchael Backman married, presiding rabbi Ariel Stone said: “The two of you share a wonderful passion for tikkun olam.”
That’s the last passion I’d want reporters to have. Just ferreting out the truth is not enough for such types. They have to effect social change.
Heshy Fried blogs: “My car almost died. It overheated and we had to stand around picking blackberries on the side of a dirt road before I could get it started again. I need a new one and I’m asking you – the loyal fan who gets free entertainment day in and out — to help me get a new one. Nothing is too little, nothing is too much – from $5 to $5000. Contrary to popular belief I don’t make a living from this blog. I work full time and I get paid very little for what I do. I live paycheck to paycheck and while I have about $1000 saved up, that’s not the $4000 I need to get a decent car that will last me another 6 years.”
Abijah comments: “Aren’t you seeking someone who would find picking blackberries a good time?”
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff)
