Please read and reread Wikipedia carefully: It does not mention who converted Amy Rule, nor does it say that it was an Orthodox conversion. Rahm Emanuel and his family are well liked members of our Modern Orthodox synagogue, but we are proud that Anshe Sholom attracts many members who would not necessarily classify themselves as Orthodox
Even the surreal spectacle of the Barzilai Medical Center bones fiasco is a direct result of the Sharon government’s senseless capitulation to political correctness in withdrawing from Gaza in a potentially suicidal goodwill gesture of “hope” for a nebulous, imaginary “peace.” The long-running and ongoing Barzilai pseudo-religious psychodrama involved the uprooting of what are probably pagan bones to enable construction of a new underground emergency department to protect the Ashkelon hospital’s patients, staff and visitors from potential rocket attacks from nearby Gaza.
The chareidi protesters who today are so perturbed by the removal and reburial of ancient bones in order to protect the lives and safety of Israeli citizens were probably not upset at all by the forcible removal of live Jews from Gaza five years ago.
The purpose of the Disengagement Plan is to reduce terrorism as much as possible, and grant Israeli citizens the maximum level of security. The process of disengagement will lead to an improvement in the quality of life, and will help strengthen the Israeli economy. The unilateral steps which Israel will take in the framework of the Disengagement Plan will be fully coordinated with the United States. We must not harm our strategic coordination with the United States. These steps will increase security for the residents of Israel and relieve the pressure on the IDF and security forces in fulfilling the difficult tasks they are faced with. The Disengagement Plan is meant to grant maximum security and minimize friction between Israelis and Palestinians.
Sharon certainly was no prophet. Nor were all those who foolishly put their trust in his ill-conceived “plan.”
There have always been worms in fish, Rashi says so in his commentary on the Talmud, the question was always which ones are allowed and which ones are prohibited. Are there worms in this fish or not? To talk about all fish this way is silly.
Rabbi Gadol emails: If more Torah Juden resolved to follow a proper Seventh Day Adventist diet (like Luke), there would be no need for Jews to vex themselves with invidious discussions of parasites in fish. It is only a matter of time before we learn that there are insect parasites in fleish (beef), if not through infection than through abiogenesis. Hence, to truly avoid the problem, one must avoid all fish, beef, chicken and so forth.
Of course, that does not mean that Yidden are free to eat strawberries or other goyishe fruits known to harbor insects! We can not be as a “light unto the nations of the world” if we eat the cousins of the firefly.
Similarly, I must posek that it is forbidden for a Jew to ride a bicycle at any time and at any place when there are flying insects about. It is inevitable that while riding a bicycle, one has one’s mouth open, in which case it is just a matter of time before one swallows an insect. This is, of course, assur. Some posek that one may ride a bicycle provided one is wearing a face mask to keep the insects out even when one’s mouth is open. but this strikes me as insufficiently high a fence around the Torah. And remember: oral law comes from G-d on Mt. Sinai.
Jews account for most of the great stand-up comics in America.
Jews tend be secure in themselves and have no problem making fun of themselves — as opposed to, for instance, Muslims who are always crying about dishonor. If you’re always worrying about dishonor, you’re probably not going to make many jokes in public about your group.
The word “Israel” means “struggle with God.” Jews since Abraham have argued with God. Jewish kids will read the Torah portion at their bar mitzvah and then spend much of their speech arguing with what they just read.
If Jews argue with God, they’re certainly not going to be easily led by some guy from Nazareth who claims to be God. Instead we’d respond, “Josh thinks he’s God. What a nut.”
In a speech Jan. 2nd, 2007 for Chabad of Yorbalinda, Dennis Prager says: “The two funniest genres of humor in my life have been Soviet dissident jokes and American lawyer jokes. …Bitterness causes humor. Happy people are not that funny. If you look at comedians’ lives, they are generally miserable. Lawyers cause misery here and the Soviets caused there. I’m generalizing. There are lawyers here who don’t cause misery. Yeah, there are.”
In 1982, KABC general manager George Green, a secular Jew, told educator Roberta Weintraub that he needed someone to host the two-hour public affairs Sunday night show Religion on the Line. She suggested Prager.
(Carole Hemingway, a secular Jew, preceded Prager. She got a lot of anti-Semitic mail. Dennis says he never received anti-Semitic mail.)
“I had my first tryout on radio at KABC Radio on a Sunday night in August, ’82,” remembers Dennis, “and I was so nervous, I was dripping [sweat]. And then, at 11 p.m., the program director [Wally Sherwin] slips me a note, ‘Tell them you’ll be on next Sunday night’ — one of the happiest moments of my life, because I ached to get my ideas out. I’m like a cow who has milk to give and I’ve been dying to give it my whole life. So I was engaged in interfaith dialogue every Sunday night with a priest, minister, rabbi for 10 years, and it is one of the things that changed my life.” (CSPAN Booknotes)
“I had a feeling that if I did well [on his radio debut],” say s Prager on his radio show January 3, 2006, “that it would change my life.”
In a speech to Chabad of Orange County on Jan. 23, 2007, Dennis says: “I am the worst candidate for the charge of religious intolerance… I was chosen to moderate the most popular show on religion in America on radio… I was chosen in part because I was so fair to the religions. Very often I would get a letter like this: ‘Dear Mr. Prager, I am an evangelical Christian and I was stunned to learn that you were Jewish.’ ‘Dear Mr. Prager, I am a Roman Catholic and I was stunned to learn that you were Jewish.’
“Everybody thought I was their religion. Jews were also stunned. A religious Jew on the radio, it doesn’t make sense. He sounds coherent. A lot of secular Jews reacted that way.”
“My favorite moment on Religion on the Line was when a caller called in. I don’t know if he was anti-Semitic. I allow people their little prejudices. I did a whole show on Oriental drivers. Asians called in and asked why do we drive so fast.
“One night a guy calls in and he starts giving the rabbi a really hard time. ‘Rabbi, isn’t it elitist and even racist for you Jews to think you are the Chosen People.’ This was a rabbi who was not terribly comfortable with the idea. He was on the more liberal end of the theological spectrum. He was queasy about the whole thing.
“Father Michael Nocita comes on and says, ‘God chose the Jews. Get a life.’ The guy said OK.”
“I opened radio to Muslims. They were never part of the Religion on the Line. I deliberately sought them because it’s a major religion. I had Muslims on so often on Religion on the Line that they invited me to various mosques to speak. I was beloved in the Muslims community during the period of Religion on the Line because I had such respect. Nobody opened up a major media outlet like I opened up ABC Radio and I was rewarded with their affection and respect.”
The Most Controversial Thing Dennis Prager Ever Said
In mid-November 2006 it was reported that Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress (for Minnesota‘s 5th congressional district), “will take his oath of office with his hand upon the Koran, the Islamicholy book.”[1][2] In reaction to the news, conservative media pundit Dennis Prager criticized the decision in his November 28, 2006 column entitled “America, not Keith Ellison, decides what book a Congressman takes his oath on.”[3] The column attracted national attention from both Ellison and Prager supporters. Presented with the fact that all members of the House officially swear in (or affirm) en masse without the use of any religious text, and that such works are only used in ceremonial reenactments afterwards, Prager stated “that’s the whole point: it’s exactly because it’s ceremonial that it matters”.[4] In response to a wave of criticism, Prager released another column on the topic on December 5, 2006 entitled “A response to my many critics – and a solution”.[5]
As of April 6, 2010, the Wikipedia entry on this controversy is about 20 times as long as its entry on Dennis Prager.
In a column Dec. 5, 2006, Dennis writes: “In addition, there was widespread coverage on left-wing blogs, which, with no exception I could find, distorted what I said, charging my column and me with, for example, racism (see below), when race plays no role at all in this issue or in my column. For the record, because I deem this a significant statement about most of the Left, I found virtually no left-wing blog that was not filled with obscenity-laced descriptions of me. Aside from the immaturity and loathing of higher civilization that such public use of curse words reveal, the fury and hate render the leftist charge that it is the Right that is hate-filled one of the most obvious expressions of psychological projection I have seen in my lifetime.”
Introduced before a speech at U.C. Berkeley May 5, 2008 as a “spirited controversialist”, Dennis says: “How many people at your age, I’m speaking to the students here, when somebody asks you what do you want to do when you graduate, you say, ‘I’d like to be a spirited controversialist.’ It’s not the sort of occupation one anticipates in life.
“I’ll never forget the former University of Judaism in Los Angeles, and currently the American Jewish University, had a number of years ago the following ad for its distinguished speaker series: ‘The University of Judaism is proud to present this year Nobel laureate and conscience of the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel, internationally reknowned Jewish educator Yitz Greenberg and the controversial Dennis Prager.’ That’s it?
“I never wake up any day and think, ‘What rumpus can I cause today?’ I seem to do so periodically but that is not my intent. I’m very easygoing. I wrote a book on happiness. How many controversialists spend ten years writing a book on happiness?”
In a speech Jan. 23, 2007, Dennis says: “It’s very rare that passion defeats reason when I speak. I’m very rational, I’m very calm. I was so passionate. Nobody had raised this issue. It was new to me too. I wrote sentences such as, ‘Keith Ellison should not be allowed to take his oath on the Koran.’ That was a mistaken sentence. I acknowledged it immediately. He is allowed to do whatever he wants. He can take his oath on the phone book. I totally understand that. My concern…has been…the place of the Bible in American life. If we don’t get our values from that book, where will we get our values from?”
In a speech at U.C. Berkeley May 5, 2008, Dennis says: “I was not a pro-settlement person. I did not speak out much about it. When it was asked in a forum like this, I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t use my radio abilities to criticize Israel.”
“Here is why I don’t speak out against Israel. If Israel did something evil, that would be a different story… Baruch Goldstein. There I did speak out because that was evil. Beyond that, I’ve had this attitude, which I tell American Jews, if you want to get involved in Israeli policy making, make aliyah (move to Israel). It is not our children who are in the Israeli army. We do not take those buses that are blown up. I have supported every left-wing and every right-wing Israeli prime minister…
“My opinion is as important as when people ask me, if you were God, would you have made a mosquito? I’m not God, it is irrelevant what I would do. And I’m not Israeli.”
“I wish Israel would’ve built only a handful of settlements that were absolutely necessary for security or religious reasons.
“But I always have this question — why is it OK for one-quarter of the Israeli state to be Muslim but Palestine must be judenrein? If Muslims can live in the Jewish state, then Jews can live in the Muslim state.”
Here’s the billing: “New scientific findings of the past century have changed our understanding of everything – the evolution of the cosmos and life, quantum weirdness and cosmic vastness. How do we bring what we know about the world to our love for god, torah, and the Jewish people? Let’s look at torah through fresh eyes – to meet again the god we already know and love.”
New scientific findings of the past century have changed our understanding of everything?
Hmm. How have they changed the way we relate to each other? The way we meet God’s demands upon us?
It seems to me that in the most important ways our lives are unchanged by scientific findings.
Science doesn’t help me when I lack purpose. Science doesn’t help me when there’s a girl I love but she cares not for me. Science doesn’t help my social standing when I go around saying obnoxious things. Science doesn’t comfort me when a friend dies.
Second. There’s nothing in the formal education of Rabbi Brad Artson and Rabbi David Wolpe that gives them expertise in science.
So why do rabbis without scientific expertise keep using science as an excuse to change the way we do our religion?
Third. Cosmic vastness. Why does that matter? If the universe is bigger or smaller than we thought, why does that have any significance on how we lead our lives and relate to God and His moral demands?
Four. What’s this nonsense about “our love for god, torah and the Jewish people?” How many Jews love god? A distinct minority. There’s very little “God talk” in Jewish life when compared to the religious life of other religions in America and other ethnic groups.
What’s with referring to God as “god”? The lower case “god” is not the God who created the universe and chose the Jews.
I find it revealing that this announcement capitalizes the “Jewish” people but not “God.” I suspect that many Conservative rabbis who have been influenced by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan believe more in capitalizing the “Jewish” people than in capitalizing “God.”
All this talk about “loving god” seems to be trying too hard. It’s something you say when your relationship is on the brink. “But that doesn’t change my feelings for you.” People who are confident don’t try too hard.
Precisely because “God” plays such a small role in non-Orthodox Judaism as currently practiced, these non-Orthodox intellectuals make a big deal of love for God. It’s like the work of the rabbis who wrote the Amidah prayer. It keeps repeating that God will resurrect the dead.
Why so much repetition on this point? Because the authors of the prayer were pretty shaky in their belief about resurrection of the dead. If they took that belief for granted, they wouldn’t need to keep repeating it in Judaism’s central prayer.
The Jewish Journal ad for this event reads: “How do we bring our modern perspective of the world to our love for God, Torah and the Jewish people?”
At least here Sinai Temple capitalizes “God.”
But what’s this about bringing a modern perspective to our love for God? Science doesn’t shed any light on God. God, by definition, is beyond science and beyond nature.
I understand bringing a modern perspective on Torah. There modern developments in our understanding of history, archeology and text are stimulating, but isn’t it more important to bring the Torah’s perspective to our modern world?
One thing I hate about non-Orthodox Judaism is when any ignoramus is invited into a public discussion about the Torah. What do I care about how ignorant people think or feel about any difficult text, let alone the holy Torah.
The deeper problem here is that non-Orthodox Judaism tends to expend far greater effort on judging the Torah by modernity than judging modernity by the Torah.
In the end, what are you going to live your moral and ritual life by? The latest scientific findings or the text that has commanded the Jewish people for more than 2500 years?
Then there’s this headline — “The Dynamic God You Already Love (But Didn’t Know You Could)”?
How many people — aside from non-Orthodox Jewish intellectuals — waste any time worrying about how they can love God?
The first part of the phrase says you already love God. Then there’s the stuff in the parentheses — “But Didn’t Know You Could.”
If you already love God, then the parenthetical remark makes no sense.
This brings me back to the first time I met the eloquent Rabbi David Wolpe.
During question time, I said that the Conservative movement had done more to remove God from Jewish life than any other Jewish movement. I listed names such as Mordecai Kaplan and Harold Schulweis. Rabbi Wolpe said that the removal of God from Jewish life was a problem that went far beyond the Conservative movement and that he wouldn’t let the discussion degenerate into lashon hara.
Lashon hara. That’s the Jewish perennial way of stopping a discussion.
During his book signing, I asked Rabbi Wolpe what he thought of the verses in the Torah condemning gay male sex. Rabbi Wolpe said that the authors of those verses were homophobic.
Tavis Smiley: “But Christians do that [blow people up] every single day in this country.”
I did a Google news search on this and there’s not one result. I wonder why the news media ignore such foolishness. It’s only covered on right-wing blogs.
If Ann Coulter said this, the news media would be all over it.
Dennis Prager: “The left warps the mind. You fit reality into the prescription for reality that you have. In the leftist bubble, there are no Muslim extremists.”
Tavis says that Columbine was committed by Christians. The Columbine killers hated Christianity. They celebrated Hitler’s birthday.
On Dennis Prager’s radio show today, Dutch novelist and essayist Leon DeWinter accounted for Europe’s tendency towards pacifism as largely due to its low birthrate. When you only have one son, you’re very reluctant to send him off to war. When you had many sons, it was typical for one to join the army and one to join the priesthood, etc.
Europeans don’t want to fight now because they don’t have enough sons to do the fighting.
Prager and DeWinter expect the death of the European Union and the European welfare state.
Prager says the welfare state — in Europe and the U.S. — is a ponzi scheme. It pays out more than it brings in. This can’t go on forever.
A teacher complained she should make more money, say, $83,000 a year or $3 per pupil. “You’re not compensating me for my education and my experience,” she complained.
“Then you don’t have to do it,” he said.
She responded: “Teachers do it because they love it.”
I love that! It’s not because you love it, but because you want good compensation, which is fine, just don’t lie.
Chris Christie: “People go into it knowing what the pay scale is.”
“Unlike the United States of America, New Jersey can’t print money.”
I love this guy. He’s my new hero. Dennis Prager said today he wanted to travel to Trenton and kiss the governor’s ring. “Of course I supported him but I did not expect him to turn out great. He is turning out so great he should be considered presidential material. Americans go crazy for forthright speech. He’s quick. That’s not common.”
On his radio show today, Dennis Prager says: “I have not spoken about this terrible oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
“Why have I not covered this? Because there’s nothing for me to say. Unlike the left, I have not pointed a finger for one moment, not even in my brain, let alone my mouth, at the president.
“Everyone listening knows that if this happened under President Bush, it would be known as Katrina II, but because the press serve as a mouthpiece for this administration, there is no need for a press secretary as the LA Times and the New York Times and the other newspapers serve as a press secretary for this president. So of course there’s no blame of the president but I don’t blame the president either. I don’t blame BP. I don’t know who to blame right now. Unlike the left, I do not speak when I don’t know what to say.
“My agenda is not to bash the other side. My agenda is to tell the truth first and then give my opinion.
“Nobody knows the truth here. It may have been negligence on the part of BP. It may have been negligence on the part of Washington authorities, but we don’t know.
“I feel terrible. It breaks my heart. I can’t believe that ten people listen to this show to hear me emote about sad events. That’s not how I view my task. My task is to provide clarity on events. There is no clarity on this event.
“James Carville got on some show and laced on to the president for not showing up. He should bring ships, a command post. The president knows as much about the BP disaster as I do. He’s the president of the country, he’s not commiserator in chief. That’s why I haven’t spoken about it. That’s why there’s such a moral gulf when it comes to acting responsibly between the right and the left.”
Dennis was shocked that movies now cost $13 and that secretaries are called administrative professionals.
I remember working as a temp secretary between 1995 and 1997 and I was grateful I was called an “administrative assistant.” It just sounds better than “secretary.” More manly.
"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)
