I get up every weekday at 5:56 a.m. when my alarm sounds and I stumble into the shower and turn on a stream of cold water for 60 seconds (70 seconds when I am feeling particularly hardy).
As I stood there this morning at the gloriously late hour of 6:20 a.m., I reflected that this cold shower was penance for my sins. I felt the water cascade and punish the very part of me so prone to wickedness and I felt yes, yes, this hurts so good, oy, this is shockingly painful, yes, this water is washing away my iniquities and I will emerge from this ordeal and re-enter the camp of Israel as a new man, a clean man, a clean pure man dedicated to G-d’s service and hooray, the long dark nightmare of my past is fully behind me now.
I’ve been enduring cold showers every morning for 18 months now but only today did I finally realize that I was doing penance, damn, why must I sound so Christian?
Oy, so close to Mexico and so far from G-d.
Hark, off in the distance, is that a ram’s horn I hear calling me to do teshuva or is it the blare of an illegal’s leafblower? Perhaps it is the sin of xenophobia for which I most need to repent? Only a black Reform rabbi can give me that absolution.
P.S. I just realized I’ve been running around all day in shorts inside-out. How do I atone for this fashion sin?
How do I turn the Ten Days of Awe into Ten Days of Awesome? Is G-d trying to bore us into submission with endless hours of piyutim?
As I pointed out in my previous post, Rabbi Marc Schneier was not engaged in illicit behavior when he was photographed in Israel kissing a comely speech pathologist not his wife.
Rather, the good rabbi was engaging in routine and wholly appropriate speech training and did not enjoy it one bit. The rabbi was learning to enunciate more clearly so he could better teach the Torah.
If, and I do not believe for a second that this is true, the rabbi was doing something wrong, it is only because he is sick and needs help. Instead of castigating him, we should be encouraging his personal growth. Science shows us that promiscuity is not a moral failing as much as a genetic predisposition. I don’t know why G-d would program some men to want to bang as many hot chicks as they can and then condemn them for adultery. This makes no sense. It is a real dilemma for a very religious man such as myself to understand why a compassionate and loving G-d would make such a world.
Frankly, I don’t see the appeal in multiple sex partners. I would much rather spend my energies studying Talmud and listening to the Miami Boys Yeshiva choir.
It truly pains me to read lashon hara about holy rabbis in the goyisha press. However, if I can use this sad occasion to create a teachable moment, then it will not have been in vain, and who knows, I might even get a wife out of all this.
When he was Yeshiva University, Marc Schneier used to describe himself as a “future Jewish leader.”
A randy rabbi accused of cheating on wife No. 4 was back before his Hamptons congregation Saturday, heading a Sabbath service before bolting from the synagogue.
While Rabbi Marc Schneier had no comment on his brewing scandal, worshipers at The Hampton Synagogue defended their hot-to-trot leader.
“Rabbis are human beings,” said Marshal Weintraub, a 71-year-old retiree and member of the Westhampton Beach synagogue.
“They’re susceptible to temptation like everybody else – maybe more so,” he continued. “Rabbis cheating on their wives? That’s nothing new in the Jewish religion.”
During the service, there was a mention of the exclusive Daily News report about the oft-wed Schneier’s canoodling with a female congregation member during a trip to Israel.
“Whatever you do today, don’t read the paper,” one member of the congregation quoted another rabbi as saying.
The rabbi’s wife, Tori Rubinstein-Schneier, claims in court papers that the woman caught in an overseas clench with her husband is now pregnant with his child.
Speech pathologist Gitty Leiner, the accused other woman, is a member of the synagogue founded by Schneier in 1990.
Lightning says: If this is the worst of it, so be it. As a black man, I’d rather hear about my pastor “en flagrante” (excuse my poor latin), as opposed to him molesting some kid, shooting some homeboy over a diss, raping some money-grabbing creep hoochie, or dealing drugs.
So let them drown, I say, if they refuse help from Jews. If they hate Jews so much that they don’t want our help, then we should do nothing to help them.
She wasn’t putting anyone down. She was making the point that the word is ubiquitous among many black people, particularly black comics on HBO.
I don’t think she should’ve apologized.
Dr. Laura said: CALLER: Is it OK to say that word? Is it ever OK to say that word? DR. LAURA: It depends how it’s said. Black guys talking to each other seem to think it’s ok. CALLER: But you’re not black, they’re not black, my husband is white. DR. LAURA: Oh, I see, so a word is restricted to race. Got it. Can’t do much about that. CALLER: I can’t believe someone like you is on the radio spewing out the n***** word, and I hope everybody heard it. DR. LAURA: I didn’t spew out the n***** word! CALLER: You said “n*****, n*****, n*****” and I hope everybody heard it. DR. LAURA: Yes they did, and I’ll say it again: n*****, n*****, n***** is what you hear on HBO.
I’m signed up on frumster. I have just a basic profile where I’ve nailed down my 99 key theological beliefs (women should wear skirts, not pants, etc). I don’t feel like paying out $10 a month for the privilege of sending and receiving messages to other frumster members. If someone is interested in me, why can’t she just Google me, marvel at my long list of accomplishments, and then friend me on Facebook like a normal person?
This is my profile pic on frumster. I think it’s the perfect combination of frum and frei.
I would like to give thanks to Barack Obama for stepping into the mosque at Ground Zero issue and making it national. The main issue this fall is the economy, but I’d love for the Republicans to campaign as well against this mosque, against illegal immigration and against same-sex marriage.
On the down side, I’m worried about the Dallas Cowboys offensive line which was destroyed by the Minnesota Vikings in the playoffs and manhandled in this season’s first two practice games.
Here I am in 1971 in England (I sit on top of a future religion professor friend) with my parents on the right.
Unlike the New York Daily News, I have done substantial research on stunning speech pathologist Gitty Leiner and I am able to tell you with complete certainty that what is going on in this photo is not romantic kissing but speech pathology.
We’re too critical too often and too much and it is about time that we judge other people with charity.
According to Gitty’s website NYspeechtime.com: “Ms. Leiner is trained in a number of treatment methodologies, including Links to Language, Beckman Oral Motor Intervention Program, Prompt Therapy, Talk Tools, and Sensory Integration.”
What is going on in this photo is that Ms. Leiner is providing the rabbi with links to language, Beckman Oral Motor Intervention, Prompt Therapy, Talk Tools and Sensory Integration.
The rabbi needed this extra help because he’s so busy with interfaith dialogue and the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.
A rabbi to the stars was busted by his jilted wife for smooching a sexy gal pal on an Israeli getaway, according to blockbuster court papers obtained by the Daily News.
Rabbi Marc Schneier, the founder of the star-studded Hampton Synagogue, was slapped with shocking photographic proof of the affair by his fourth wife as they met for a drink at the Four Seasons.
Tobi Rubinstein-Schneier – whose complaint claims her husband impregnated his lover – this week petitioned a Manhattan court for a legal separation from the high-profile rabbi, who pals around with Russell Simmons and makes the scene in the Hamptons.
“My client did not know things were not good in this marriage until late in the day,” said Susan Bender, a lawyer for the rabbi’s wife of nearly four years. “This behavior by an Orthodox rabbi is an embarrassment to Orthodox Jews.”
A private eye for Rubinstein-Schneier snapped several pictures of the randy rabbi getting up close and personal in Israel with Gitty Leiner, a stunning speech pathologist and a congregant at the Hampton Synagogue.
“The differences Rabbi Schneier has with his wife are private and they should not be a matter of public discussion or public debate,” said Don Schuck, a lawyer for the rabbi. “It’s been his desire from the start to resolve this amicably.”
But in sealed court papers obtained by The News, Rubinstein-Schneier doesn’t hold back from slinging mud at her estranged husband.
She claims in a 20-page complaint that he continued living in the couple’s upper East Side home from February to April, even as he carried on with another woman.
On Valentine’s Day, court papers say, Schneier showed up with a bouquet of roses for his wife and pledged his love to her before departing for a San Francisco tryst with Leiner.
He’s also accused in the court papers of putting Leiner up last summer in housing across the street from the Hampton Synagogue. And in July, the suit says, the scorned wife found out her husband had gotten Leiner pregnant.
And Schneier allegedly pitched a fit at an 80th birthday celebration for his dad, Rabbi Arthur Schneier, at Manhattan’s Park East Synagogue.
“During the luncheon, defendant became enraged because his father ‘is an egomaniac, and I am the great one,'” according to the complaint filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Schneier founded his Hamptons house of worship – which is billed on its Web site as “New York’s Most Celebrated Synagogue” – in 1990.
He also founded the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, a racial-harmony group whose board of directors is chaired by hip-hop mogul Simmons.
Earlier this year, Newsweek named Schneier one of the 50 most influential rabbis in America.
The complaint seeks to have Schneier maintain his wife’s preseparation standard of living, pay for her health care and insurance and cover costs on homes in Manhattan and Westhampton Beach.
Too often in life we rush to give people a bad name. We fail to give them the benefit of the doubt. Due to my substantial background in speech pathology, I can assure you that the behavior in the top photo is entirely innocent and completely within the professional norms of speech pathology.
On his radio show today, Dennis Prager says: “Were all the great moral thinkers of history haters? There isn’t a single great moral thinker in history of which I am aware who advocated same-sex marriage. There is no parallel to this. Every great moral idea has been advocated from the beginning of moral thought. The idea that slavery was wrong did not begin with the abolitionists.”
“Human nature aches for irresponsibility. Human happiness aches for responsibility. The more you are responsible for your life, the happier you will be.”
When President Obama announced that kids can stay on their parent’s health insurance until they were 26, college students were ecstatic. They could prolong the age at which they were dependent on their parents another five years.
If there was a student there who did not applaud, he was a happier student that those who did applaud.
Who has more self-esteem? The kid who depends on his parents for another five years for health insurance or the kid who gets his own health insurance?
It is human nature to not want to be responsible. All these people who don’t want to get married? They don’t want to be responsible for somebody else. Marriage is first and foremost responsibility for somebody else.
Taking responsibility for yourself and for others makes you a happier person.
Would Dennis Prager attend a same-sex wedding?
Dennis says: “My niece is gay. She had a religious commitment ceremony. The family all attended but with the provision that it was not called a marriage and the blessings were not identical to those of a marriage. And then the family went to the commitment ceremony. My belief is that for family you do pretty much anything.”
Yesterday, my tichel clad wife took our son to the park. Even though it was about 5 or 6 pm-ish, there was a fair amount of kids still running around. My son began to play with a little boy, who was not Jewish, black and about a year older than he is. My wife usually begins to chat up the mom of a kid my son suddenly becomes friendly with, so they began to schmooze. She was very friendly and the kids were having a lot of fun playing together. The park was full of mostly Jewish kids and after my wife and the other mom parted ways, something happened.
She (my wife) began to get the dirtiest looks from every single Jewish mom in the park. After a few minuted of this, the general unspoken consensus within the playground was “How could you possibly let your child play with one of them.”
What on earth is wrong with two toddlers playing together? If you want to play the whole “bad influence” card, don’t even go there. These kids are way to young to be influencing each other in any way shape or form. And even if bad influence was a factor, these naysayers had no idea what the kids were doing. Why does being black constitute the automatic assumption of being a bad influence? This display of disapproval was pure racism and nothing more.
I don’t think this reaction was primarily racism but primarily values.
Orthodox Jewish parents want to raise their children in a sheltered Orthodox environment. Most Orthodox parents do not want their young children to have non-Orthodox friends and non-Jewish friends.
You raise your kids in a cocoon and grow them up to be strongly rooted in their tradition and then let them free to fly like butterflies, but first you have to protect them when they are young.
I don’t have a problem with an Orthodox parent allowing his kids to play with non-Jews and I don’t have a problem with Orthodox parents who look askance at this. I think they are two valid perspectives. The only thing I have a problem with is this writer who automatically assumes that the disapproval is racist.
In Genesis 45:5, Joseph tells his brother, don’t be distressed for selling me as a slave, for it was G-d who sent me ahead of you to provide.
In a 1995 lecture on this, Dennis Prager says: Joseph says it was not you who sent me here but G-d. G-d’s hand is in all of it.
If G-d did it, what responsibility do the brothers have for having done it? Are they guilty at all?
I don’t have a beautiful answer for you. Did G-d do it or the brothers or some melange of the two? G-d wanted Joseph in Egypt.
I never had a problem with the concept that G-d knows the future and we have free will. I can drive down the freeway and see the traffic is stopped in the opposite direction by an accident. So I know that all the drivers coming up to the accident will soon be stopped. They have free will but I know their future in this respect.
If I were in the medieval Christian world as a Jew, and they were all yelling at me for being a Christ-killer, I would’ve said, it wouldn’t have helped, they would’ve just gotten angrier, but I would’ve said that on purely logical grounds, blame me all you like, but if the Jews didn’t kill him, you would have no religion. Because G-d sent his only son by classical Christian theology to be killed. If he had died in a nursing home, this story would be very different. You don’t die for people’s sins in your sleep. You die for people’s sins by being killed by bad people sinning.
Secular life has its own arguments against free will — genes, environment, parents, health. A purely secular view of humanity argues that you have no freedom.
Only if you believe in G-d, can you believe that humans have free will.
I don’t believe that everything we do is because of genes and environment.
The more secular the society, the less people are likely to blame criminals. If all we are is genes and environment, then it is not right to blame a rapist. It is not right to blame a murderer.
It is the more religious in society who are the most advocative of punishing criminals.
A religious person in Judeo-Christian culture tends to hold that people are responsible for their behavior.
"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)
