Geulah!

Coming a Long Way, Baby

Sometimes fiction:

WASHINGTON, DC—Responding to recent criticism of reconstruction efforts in Iraq, the U.S. Defensive Department released a statement to the public Monday suggesting that perhaps they could do better, since they're obviously so smart.

is merely ahead of the truth, in this case reported by CNN's Ed Henry:

When I pressed Tony Snow, and since he’s calling flatly the Democratic plan a recipe for defeat, I asked him, four years later, what is the recipe for success? Tony Snow tried to turn it around on me in this off-camera briefing. He said, well what’s your recipe for success? How do you define it? And when I pointed out to him that that was inappropriate for me to answer that — it’s not up for me about what the recipe for success is, what is the President’s recipe for success? — Tony felt I was interrupting him and said, “Zip it.” He later apologized. He said he felt that was inappropriate for him to say that to me. But I point it out because I think it shows the White House a little bit on the defensive this morning about this anniversary.

This Wouldn't Fly in "The Apprentice: OU"

Recap of last night's The Apprentice on EW:

...Muna for some reason insisting she wanted to act in the video, despite her heavily accented speech and her increasingly religious behavior. ''The only thing is, you guys,'' she said, as they discussed a script that was all about infidelity, ''I can't use the Lord's name in vain.'' Cranky project manager Kristine replied, ''God said I could use it in vain, though.'' That was but one of the snappy secular bon mots Kristine tossed off tonight, which were pretty much the episode's only redeeming (get it?) quality. Kinetic lost the task ... and as the two women at fault prepared to go head-to-head in the boardroom, they each pulled out their trusty manuals for living. Muna read to us from her Bible: ''The Bible says if you have faith, you can move mountains.'' Meanwhile, Kristine sat on the other side of the campground reading one of Trump's books, because ''God is not the one in there making the decision. Mr. Trump is making the decision. And I have yet to see God sitting in the chair to his right.'

I might have made some crack about the joke being on Kristine, because all evidence points to the conclusion that Trump didn't actually write his own books. Of course, she would then just say the same thing about God.

Too Easy, Really

Before The Baby, The Wife and I had a subscription to blockbuster.com. Once The Baby was born we traded that in for a Tivo, because we figured we would have far fewer chances to spend 2-3 hours watching a DVD and far more times when we'd need to pause live television. On the whole, good move. We haven't actually seen a movie in about a year now, but we still read reviews.
Anyway, I was reading this review of 300 by right wing firebreather Benjamin Shapiro on WND (tells you all you need to know) and I got very confused. He writes:

The Spartans of "300" are brutal. The opening scene of the movie depicts a Spartan soldier, standing on a cliff overlooking a valley of skulls, inspecting a baby to make sure it is hardy enough. If the baby is too weak, we are told, it will be left for dead. This isn't exactly civilized conduct.
But the Persian hordes make the Spartans look like members of a British tea club. Xerxes is an androgynous giant of a man with more body piercings than Christina Aguilera. His camp is full of decadent bisexual promiscuity. He seeks worldwide dictatorship and threatens Sparta with mass murder of its male citizens, rape of its female citizens, and use of women and children as slaves if Sparta fails to submit to his rule.

So both sides are bad, right? After all, Shapiro is clearly pro-life and anti-gay. So we have baby-killers on the Spartan side and a dittohead's vision of the 'gay agenda' on the Persian side. If I were Shapiro, I'd be making jokes about how this movie is really some weird metaphor for a Democratic primary or something. The problem is that 300 is drawing very well. Clearly, it resonates with mainstream Americans, but why....?

The Spartans, by contrast, say they are fighting for "freedom." In which case, "300" is an old-fashioned battle between the forces of freedom and the forces of oppression.

Well, then. Palestinians say they are fighting for freedom. So do Iraqi insurgents. I'm not quite sure where Shapiro is going with this. Of course, I haven't actually seen the movie, so I'm not really in a position to judge. Help, anyone?

Chivalry is dead...and assur?

Letter in this week's Yated:

Dear Editor,
This is an appalled response to the letter from “A Flabbergasted Yidess.”
I’d like to know just where in halacha, mussar, hashkafah, chassidus or other Torah sources it is brought down that a woman has kadimah over a man (or that a man has kadimah over a woman) in regard to a seat anywhere, especially on a bus or train. To the best of my knowledge, nowhere in the laws of tznius and derech eretz does it state that a man must give up his seat to a woman, if there is no pressing reason to do so.
I would expect such behavior when the woman is an expectant mother, or if the woman (or man) is old or sick, or finds it difficult to stand. But all things being equal, there is no requirement or obligation for a man to give up his seat for a woman, as far as I know. (If I’m wrong, please cite me a makor.)
And if it’s to prevent the woman from falling on male passengers, how would it improve things to have the men falling on female passengers?
In what way does a woman have a more inherent right to a seat than a man? What is the basis for such so-called “gallantry” or courtesy?
Chivalry, as it happens, is defined as a “code of behavior that medieval knights followed.” It has been said (by a gentile named Richard Armour) that the Age of Chivalry was when people were very polite about how they hit each other with swords.
We Jews are supposed to get our values, our ideas of right and wrong, from Torah sources, not from gentile inventions of imaginary or arbitrary concepts. A man giving up his seat for a woman is a gentile concept. Giving up your seat for someone else is an act of chessed, but not always an obligation. You would fulfill the same concept by giving up your seat to a man.
I cannot understand where you get the idea that women are so much better than men that they have some sort of automatic right to everything they want, over and above what men want. You have no greater rights than any man, all other things being equal. Is this some sort of weird reverse feminism? So you didn’t get a seat on the bus because all the seats were already taken. Live with it. Derech eretz and tznius demand that you accept it and not make a fuss over it.

Last week's letter, by "A flabbergasted Yidess" wrote, in part:

In a community where it is immodest for a male storeowner to courteously speak to a female customer, when did it become tzonua to allow women to stand for a sixty-minute ride, falling on male passengers with every thump and bump.

Seems like a valid point.

Valid Inspiration For A Parshat Zachor Sermon

Here's the link. There's a good week's worth with this mini story line.

Bad News

Tehillim needed for Rav Shagar Shlita

Done and Done

The YBT debate in my comments section has been heated, although I think the R. Aharon Soloveitchik comment really clinched the argument. Agreeing are the following two letters in this week's Yated:

WE ARE SO SORRYDear Editor,
I was very upset that you printed a letter vilifying Rabbi Chait of Far Rockaway. I have many nephews who learned in his yeshiva and I know him enough to tell you that what was written is totally untrue. Rabbi Chait is a major talmid chochom totally devoted to every se’if in Shulchan Aruch. He is a loyal follower of Rabbi Soloveitchik and has produced and continues to produce Modern Orthodox students who are wonderful Bnei Torah.
As a disciple of Rabbi Soloveitchik, his views of Yiddishkeit may not be the same as those of us in the yeshiva world, but he was definitely a person of great scholarship and integrity.
The comparison to Avi Weiss is very unfair. Avi is totally devoid of Torah and uses his yeshiva and pulpit only as a vehicle to foment social issues that are anathema to any Ben Torah, such as minyanim and talis and tefillin for women.
You owe Rabbi Chait an apology. You should certainly not have printed that letter.
Shabbat shalom.

Not anonymous,
Yacov Schonfeld
Lakewood, N.J.

UNFAIRLY MALIGNEDDear Editor,
In last week’s letters concerning Yisroel Lichter’s exposé of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, there was one (anonymous) letter that was shocking and dismaying. The writer gratuitously and baselessly linked a yeshiva in Far Rockaway to YCT. Pray tell which elements of the exposé have any transfer value to this yeshiva? As a resident of the community these past eleven years, I have visited that yeshiva many times and found consistently a sincere student body poring over the Talmud texts and commentary with diligence and respect. There is meticulous observance of halacha. The Rosh Yeshiva studied under Rav Aharon Kotler zt”l, Rav Moshe Feinstien zt”l, and under Rav Y. B. Soloveitcik. He brings a broad perspective to his work and has succeeded with many where others failed.
Please sign my name proudly to this defense of a decent Torah institution which is being maligned unfairly.

Rabbi Yechezkel Lichtman

I like the fact that both letters were signed with (we have to think) actual names. Schonfeld took a bit of a cheap shot at Rabbi Weiss.

Quick Note

I'm very busy these days, but I'll have more to say about the YCT-YBT debates brewing in my comments section soon. In the meantime, I'd like to announce that, while I've received many papers and quizzes in my PMOSE years with no name on top, today, for the first time, I received one with the name "Anonomasz".
You can't make this stuff up.