Volume 14 Number 90
Produced: Sun Aug 21 23:07:11 1994
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
A Different Question about Cheating
[Jules Reichel]
Conferences on Shabbos & asking a Rav
[Abe Perlman]
Dating and Divorce
[Daniel Levy Est.MLC]
Dating and Women
[Leah S Reingold]
Dating Definitions
[Janice Gelb]
Dating Ethics
[Meylekh Viswanath ]
Dating practices in the Yeshiva world
[Constance Stillinger]
Hakol tzafui vihareshus nisunah
[Warren Burstein]
Veheinei Tov meod = tov mavet
[Barry Freundel]
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From: <JPREICHEL@...> (Jules Reichel)
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 1994 19:51:17 -0400
Subject: Re: A Different Question about Cheating
Re Dr. Schiff's student who cheated. I'm not in the category of those
from whom you are seeking opinions, nevertheless I wish to offer the
following. The monitor is wrong. The student is already humiliated and
highly stressed. He's learned something. The monitor, however, has
learned how delicious it is to abuse power, even small amounts of
power. He doesn't know that even those who err deserve kindness. He can
feel righteous at another's pain. He should be strongly rebuked and
asked to sincerely apologize to the student. I also worry about the
teaching methodology. How much could anyone write on the back of a
ruler? 10 formulas? Is testing that memorization under the stress of an
exam really your educational goal? I recall technical courses in which a
dozen key formulas were printed and handed out. Funny thing is that I
seldom looked at them, but my stress level went way down because I knew
that they were there. Everyone doesn't handle stress the same way. To be
charitable, this could be a student, and some report this, who draws a
blank when the test book opens. I recommend that you not destroy the
student. That you request a sincere apology and commitment to
change. And that you implement procedures based on the charitable
assumption that stressed students exist in your population mix. You
will see that the prepared students will still do well, and the unprep'd
will do poorly. You will just remove one confounding variable from your
test results.
Jules
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From: Abe Perlman <abeperl@...>
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 94 21:06:45 EDT
Subject: Conferences on Shabbos & asking a Rav
Avi Witkin writes:
>Last year a friend of mine who is in medicine asked a
>well known rabbi in New York if he can attend a course
>from Thursday through Sunday. He told him that is was
>ok to attend on Sabbath. Of course he walked to the
>course and didn't take notes. He did not even ask
>anybody else to take notes. I am not sure exactly why
>this rabbi said it is mutar. I know other Rabbis say it
>is asur.
One cannot conduct his life according to the view of every Rabbi. It is
impossible. In Pirke Avos we read "Aseh L'cho Rav" (Make for yourself a
Rav). One must choose for himself the one to whom he will address all his
queries in Halocho. If his Rav says it is permitted in the specific
circumstances he is involved in, good for him. It's possible that the other
Rabbonim might agree as well if they knew the circumstances of this case.
It's also possible that they would disagree but that does not and should not
prevent a competent Rav from saying differently. And once one's Rav has made
a decision, he should be listened to regardless of what others think and have
heard.
Mordechai Perlman <abeperl@...>
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From: <daniel@...> (Daniel Levy Est.MLC)
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 94 23:36:34 -0500
Subject: Dating and Divorce
The m-j readership has not ceased to amaze me. The way that most
responses to Dr. Juny`s comment asserted that the way you rate the
success of a population of marriages is by gauging the divorce rate is
absurd. It may well be that this is due to social pressure against
divorce, or a host of other sociological reasons. If this is the case,
it could be such a community is worse off, since not only do they chose
a partner they do not know (not in the biblical sense, of course), but
they are stuck because of social pressure. A further point I would like
to make is that social practices of observant jews over the last couple
of centuries do not represent (necesarilly) a jewish perspective
(global). THat is, it could very well be that dating was a common Jewish
practice in (maybe not so earlier) other times. The Shulkhan Orukh
states that a child need not heed his parents in his choice of a
spouse...etc. These, I believe, were practical issues in a society
where dating (not our conception of it, though) was more common.
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From: Leah S Reingold <leah@...>
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 1994 16:54:16 -0400
Subject: Dating and Women
In response to Shaul Wallach, Naomi Graetz has written a well
thought-out and accurate reply. I would add the following comments:
>> How successful was this practice? This is a good question, since
>> Yemenite Jews, for example, went according to the Talmudic law that a
>> man could divorce his wife at will and did not accept Rabbeinu Gershom's
>> ban either on this or on taking more than one wife. R. Qafeh's
>> observation on this is noteworthy. He reports that in San`a, where women
>> were totally secluded from the men, divorces were quite rare. He also
>> gives the typical age of marriage as 16 to 19 for men and 11 to 15 for
>> women. In the smaller villages, however, where men and women worked
>> together in the fields, marriages were less stable.
>
>Is the writer of this communication aware of how much wife-beating is
>tolerated among Yemenite Jews (and considered natural by the women-- "we
>must have done something to deserve this".
Not only that, but does Mr. Wallach really think it is reasonable to
promote pedophilia by allowing marriages of girls only 11 or 12 (or even
13) years old? We all complain about inner city girls of that age who
become sexually active and/or pregnant--when the girls are religious
Jews instead, the only difference is possibly some moral view (though in
my opinion such marriages are abhorrent). The health and emotional
problems associated with prepubescent or barely pubescent sexual
activity are still just as real.
>> It is true that today, family life in even the most conservative
>> Jewish circles is more strained than it was even 20 years ago. In the
>> lack of any concrete data, I would tend to attribute this to the ever
>> quickening pace of life, the greater material demands being placed on
>> the family, the greater mobility of children and their independence from
>> their parents and from each other, and the growing acceptance of the
>> concept of the woman working outside the home and mingling freely with
>> the men.
It seems to me that the men are to be blamed equally for any mingling--
how peculiar to blame problems that have always existed (wife-beating,
divorce, unhappy marriages) on women becoming more free. I would posit
that these problems became more visible, though not more prevalent,
because women gained a voice in society--which is a positive change.
Also, Mr. Wallach writes, "...roles between man and wife"-- this
language is extremely offensive. If this seems an unreasonable
criticism, replace it with "...between woman and husband" used in a
general sense to refer to marriage.
Leah S. Gordon
<leah@...>
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From: <Janice.Gelb@...> (Janice Gelb)
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 1994 13:02:04 +0800
Subject: Dating Definitions
Some of the confusion over whether four dates is an absurdly small
sample for a couple to decide whether they are bashert may be a
difference in the definition of the word "date." I have never been
on a "shidduch date" myself (more for lack of people to arrange one
for me than for philosophical objections!) but, as the saying goes,
some of my good friends have.
A date in the general scheme of things (and in Dr. Juni's
understanding, perhaps) might consist of a social activity such as
bowling or a museum, with small talk about currrent events and perhaps
some superficial personal things like one's profession, hobbies, etc.
As the dating progresses over some months, the level of intimacy of
discussion grows. In this scenario, four dates is probably about the
time at which the couple might start talking about more tachlis
things. Dating is seen as a primarily social activity that *might*
lead to something more long-term. And, as other people have pointed
out, the expectations of the people involved tend to be more toward a
love match in which physical attraction and personality compatibility
are the most important aspects.
In the more Yeshivish community (this based on reports from friends and
from other posts here), dating is for one and only one purpose: finding
someone to marry. Neither side is under any illusions about this, so
the agenda is less on the social aspect and is concentrated on
discovering immediately whether the two people find each other
compatible. Therefore, it obviously takes many fewer dates for the two
people to come to some decision about whether they feel they are
compatible. And the important aspects of compatibility for this couple
are probably more along the lines of whether they have similar goals,
desires for similar lifestyles, and so on. Certainly physical
attraction and personality compatibility play an important part, but
are probably much lower on the list of crucial aspects.
Janice Gelb | (415) 336-7075
<janiceg@...> | "A silly message but mine own" (not Sun's!)
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From: Meylekh Viswanath <PVISWANA@...>
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 1994 14:58:48 EST5EDT
Subject: Dating Ethics
Naomy Graetz <graetz@...> writes about geonic
responsa mentioning wife beating.
I recently read Dr. Agus's book on the Maharam mi-Ruthenberg, which
contains many of this tshuves. Several of them were on the issue of
wife-beating. As I recall it, he sentenced the wife-beater to 'lashing.'
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From: Constance Stillinger <cas@...>
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 1994 17:42:19 -0400
Subject: Dating practices in the Yeshiva world
Shaul Wallach <F66204@...> wrote:
> ...
> How successful was this practice? This is a good question, since
> Yemenite Jews, for example, went according to the Talmudic law that a
> man could divorce his wife at will and did not accept Rabbeinu Gershom's
> ban either on this or on taking more than one wife. R. Qafeh's
> observation on this is noteworthy. He reports that in San`a, where women
> were totally secluded from the men, divorces were quite rare. He also
> gives the typical age of marriage as 16 to 19 for men and 11 to 15 for
> women. In the smaller villages, however, where men and women worked
> together in the fields, marriages were less stable.
>
> It is true that today, family life in even the most conservative
> Jewish circles is more strained than it was even 20 years ago. In the
> lack of any concrete data, I would tend to attribute this to the ever
> quickening pace of life, the greater material demands being placed on
> the family, the greater mobility of children and their independence from
> their parents and from each other, and the growing acceptance of the
> concept of the woman working outside the home and mingling freely with
> the men.
> ...
Although I agree that one serious problem with the modern world is a
failure to take marriage seriously, I think it is important to realize
that divorce rates may rise when individuals are given some freedom
precisely because they find the freedom to end lousy marriages.
Indeed, the fact that divorce rates rise sharply in communities where
women (and men) experience new freedom could indicate that
"traditional" match-making practices don't do a very good job. Should
children be raised and socialized by miserable parents who share no
love?
Shaul took offense at Sam's questions about the wisdom of getting
married after only a few meetings. *I* take offense at the suggestion
that women's freedom (to work outside the home and mingle with men) is
a threat to the quality of marriage.
Regards,
Connie
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From: <warren@...> (Warren Burstein)
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 1994 13:01:11 GMT
Subject: Re: Hakol tzafui vihareshus nisunah
David Charlap writes:
> I don't see how prediction is the same as causality.
I don't think that anyone could assert that prediction is identical to
causality, but I do think that for entirly accurate prediction to be
possible, the situation needs to be entirely causal.
|warren@ an Anglo-Saxon." -- Stuart Schoffman
/ nysernet.org
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From: <Dialectic@...> (Barry Freundel)
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 1994 19:28:31 -0400
Subject: Re: Veheinei Tov meod = tov mavet
Regarding the source of Veheinei Tov meod = tov mavet see Genesis Rabbah
9:5. This was the version or the marginal note in R. Meir's Torah
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End of Volume 14 Issue 90
