Kitniot – let the buyer beware
1. From what I see in the shops before Pesach these days, I fear that many people are unwittingly eating food on Pesach that is not kosher l’Pesach according to their own family and community traditions.
2. Kitniot – rice, beans and pulses – are not chametz. But the centuries-old ashkenazi minhag is not to eat them on Pesach, for any one of a number of possible reasons. The sepharadi minhag has always been to allow kitniot on Pesach, and for them they are fully kosher l’Pesach.
3. An increasing number of foods manufactured for Pesach in Israel contain kitniot, to accommodate the sepharadi majority. Even surprising things – ice-cream, mayonnaise, ketchup – routinely contain kitniot nowadays. But the fact is mentioned on the label only in very small Hebrew letters that can be difficult to find and decipher even for those who know what they are looking for.
4. The shops in London clearly have a duty to put up large notices warning the majority ashkenazi population in this country to watch out for kitniot; and they would do well to label each product on the shelves as kitniot-free or containing kitniot. I encourage everyone to bring gentle, polite and friendly pressure on the shop-keepers to do this for us.
5. Until they do, I am worried that many people who want to keep Pesach properly but are not well-versed in these issues and may not be able to read Hebrew are likely unwittingly to bring into their houses for Pesach use products which they would not want to use if they knew the full story.
The London Eruv
1. For the last few years I have relied on the London Eruv without any qualms. As my Rav whom I first consulted about the matter remarked, “Dayan Ehrentreu is a reasonably orthodox gentleman …”.
2. This week I received, unsolicited, a glossy booklet called “The Eruv HaMehudar in NW London” published by Friends of the North West London Eruv. Everything about it suggests spin worthy of a dodgy double-glazing firm. The result of its pages of selective quotations, questionable translations and effusive peroration is that for the first time ever I am seriously doubtful about the kashrus of the eruv. If it needs this kind of advertising propaganda, I seriously wonder whether there is not something wrong with it.
3. Before receiving this booklet it would never have occurred to me to try to assess the issues surrounding the eruv: that is a matter for rabbonim mumchim b’hilchos eruv, not for me. But this booklet purports to explain the reasons for the eruv’s kashrus b’hiddur and in effect invites me to consider them. So I have read it, and contrasted it with the commendably measured responses published in this week’s Jewish Tribune (a publication which I bought for the first time in many years for this purpose) from the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations and a world-renowned Rov whose letter is printed in the booklet.
4. My conclusion is that this is clearly an eruv: but to call it mehudar, and to suggest that it is endorsed by the gedolei Torah generally, is seriously misleading: the kashrus of the eruv depends in essence on reliance on a single minority opinion of the Chazon Ish.
5. So those who rely on the eruv have something on which to rely, as well as Dayonim on whom to rely; and those who regard it as insufficient also have much on which to rely. I am now clear, which I was not before, that this is not a question of divisive politics on behalf of those who reject the kashrus of the eruv: they have strong grounds for believing that carrying within the eruv is genuine chillul shabbos.
6. In other words, we are in territory of eilu v’eilu divrei elokim chayim. Many who wish to be machmir in their shabbos observance will choose not to rely on the eruv; those who have particular family or other reasons to wish to rely on an eruv will probably continue to do so. The important thing is to ensure that both groups treat each other with sensitivity, understanding, respect and love.
Oldest posts coming online!
It is my pleasure to inform readers of this blog that at long last, we have piled together every issue of the original newsletter that was The Sceptic Tank, and have begun the process of posting them on this blog. These will contain many classic writings of my father’s, including my personal favourite: “What if God’s a Christian?”
These will not show up as recent posts, but by using the drop-down box marked “Older Rants” on the right-hand column, all posts as far back as the inaugural newsletter in October 2004 can be found.
As always, any comments will be gratefully received, whether about the content of the blog (please address to my father) or technical matters relating to it (can be addressed to me).
We hope you continue enjoying this site.
Yisroel Greenberg.
The who is a Jew crisis – whose fault?
1. The British Jewish community is now in serious trouble, its right to have schools for Jews threatened on two sides. The High Court is about to decide whether JFS can apply its admissions criteria by reference to exclusively orthodox criteria of Jewish status. And the government has recently changed, and is currently in the process of a critical examination of the application of, the laws of selective admission as they relate to faith schools.
2. The surest way to resolve both crises is to determine whose fault they are.
3. In typical style the British Jewish community has already offered a number of possible public answers to that: the Chief Rabbi, the London Beth Din, the parents of the children challenging admissions.
4. In other words, everyone except the rank and file of the British Jewish community: but it is we who have brought this on our selves.
5. A reform leader went on the BBC Radio 4 this morning to explain that the JFS crisis is because orthodox rabbis do not recognise “all” decisions of the reform, so that “technically” the child is not Jewish.
6. An orthodox rabbi was asked to reply to that – so he said “Judaism is not a democracy – you have to abide by the rules.”
7. Which is the point. When judges or Ministers examine our community to see these selective rules in application, they will see that we enforce them strictly only against people on the outside looking in. Once a person is accepted as “technically” Jewish, they can eat what they like, do what they like, and nobody regards them as beyond the pale of the community. But the product of a reform conversion, who may observe more of the rules of kashrut than 90% of our community, who may pray to God more often than 95% of our community, is dismissed as unworthy to mix with our children because of being not Jewish.
8. This attitude is halachically sound, but spiritually bankrupt. While we as a community hold our own rules of religion in apparent contempt, why should we expect judges or Ministers to accord respect to any of them?
9. In the tochahah warnings, God warns that if we behave as if the world is without a ruler, He will allow the world to carry on as if it were. Here too, if we behave as though being Jewish is a matter of mere genetics, God will show us the emptiness and futility of that approach.
10. So the only real answer is, as always, nachpeso derochienu venoshuvo – to sort out our own communal behaviour. If we can live in a way which gives the impression that the rules of the Torah and the rabbis are worthy of respect, perhaps others outside the community will be encouraged to follow suit.
Question: evolution
1. This is a genuine – not rhetorical – question about the scientific theories of evolution (much of many of which is compatible with Torah thought). It will display my complete scientific ignorance – but it may be possible for someone reading this to explain in easy lay terms what it is I want to know.
2. If the process of evolution from micro-organisms to intelligent life was a completely natural one, why did some organisms only get to animal stage and then stop, while others went through the animal stage to become human? Or, if no species has stopped evolving, is it thought that all species will eventually evolve human intelligence, and if so why are some doing it so much slower than others?
3. Perhaps even the question doesn’t make sense in scientific terms and just shows how little I understand about the theories of evolution: but if it is possible for anyone to offer me a (polite) answer I will be very grateful. Please use the comment bar.
Death penalty
1. The victims’ families in a murder case that concluded today have called for the reintroduction of the death penalty.
2. Jewish law and thought supports the notion of a death penalty. The Torah prescribes death as a penalty for a number of wrongs, including murder. And the executive powers of a Jewish King includes powers of taking life.
3. The executive imposition of a death penalty can be justified in Jewish law by the need to deter others from a particular course of action. Of course, modern research sheds considerable doubt on the deterrent effectiveness of a death penalty, and that research would have to be taken into account in any modern re-application of the Jewish criminal code following the rebuilding of the Temple and the re-establishment of the Sanhedrin.
4. The judicial death penalty as prescribed by the Torah is not, however, expressly linked to deterrence. Rather, it is part of the Jewish notion of kapparah – atonement – that a person needs a way to purge himself or herself of the spiritual damage self-inflicted by the commission of a wrong. In some cases, such as a wilful murder, giving up one’s life in this world may be the only effective way of moving in spiritual purity to life in the next.
5. The possibility of a miscarriage of justice is one which worries Torah judges and scholars to such an extent that the Jewish applied criminal laws are a mass of complexity, designed to make the execution of an innocent person a practical impossibility. An uncorroborated confession is insufficient, for example, there being many cases in which an inbalanced person will confess to a crime he or she did not commit. Indeed, it could almost be said that the Jewish death penalty is “voluntary”, in the sense that there are so many opportunities for a defendant to oppose technical obstacles – such as objecting that he or she was not given an intelligible warning of the possible punishment before the commission of the crime – that one cannot see that anyone would actually be killed without in effect co-operating in the process.
6. Clearly, that is the essential issue, to ensure that there is no possibility of miscarriage of justice: easier said than done – no kind of evidence is unimpeachable, whether it be fifty witnesses who may all have conspired together or a DNA sample that may have been deliberately or inadvertently contaminated.
7. But, of course, it is a mistake to think that we need worry less about miscarriages of justice so long as we do not have the death penalty: imprisoning a person is potentially completely ruining their lives – and indeed the spiritual damage may in some cases be worse than that caused by the death penalty: which is why prison is not an approved Torah punishment, although it can be used as a preventative technique.
Updates by e-mail – now available!
My son has done some research and found ways to enable people to recive updates to this blog via e-mail.
There are two free services available to do this:
The feed address to enter in either of these is “https://thescepticblog.wordpress.com/feed/” Once you have confirmed this, new articles on this blog will automatically be e-mailed to you. Of course, if you already use an RSS feed reader such as Google Reader or any other, you can enter the same feed address on that.
I hope this service will be of use to some readers who do not have the time to continually check this blog for new items.
Sharia law in the United Kingdom
1. The Archbishop of Canterbury said today that it might be helpful in a number of ways to permit the application of Sharia law in the United Kingdom: “There’s a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law, as we already do with some other aspects of religious law”.
2. Jewish thought and practice has always believed that religious law can and must work alongside that of our host nations.
3. On the one hand, we have a concept of dina d’malchusso dina hi – the law of the land has status in Jewish law. The rule of secular law is vital for the wellbeing of all those who live in secular societies, since the religious communal institutions are (except in a country wholly governed by and in accordance with those institutions) unable both theoretically and practically to provide effective control over most aspects of human behaviour. The establishment of a just and fair system of secular law is one of the Noachide laws, an obligation on all non-Jewish states, and one which we who live in those states are therefore bound to support by compliance and respect.
4. On the other hand, there are some matters of communal law that can be enforced effectively only within the communal religious institutions. English secular law has long granted autonomy to the Jewish community in matters of kashrus and marriage, and with occasional forays into the secular legal institutions for the resolution of disputes the system appears to work to the satisfaction of all.
5. Between these two areas lies a wide range of civil matters where the secular institutions may well be able to handle them, but where there may be significant advantages in having them addressed by people who are able to empathise with the social, cultural and religious aspirations and values of the parties involved. One takes it that this is one of the areas to which the Archbishop is referring. Certainly Jewish law strongly supports the idea that a dispute between Jews should be handled by the Jewish courts wherever possible (Shemos 21:1 ; Gittin 88b). And in the United Kingdom for some years we have managed to put this into practice through the mechanism of the Arbitration Acts: Jews with a dispute on any commercial matter can go the Beis Din and sign an arbitration agreement, following which the matter proceeds as an arbitration and the Beis Din’s decision may be enforced if necessary through the secular courts, and can be challenged there only on limited, mostly procedural, grounds.
6. An important point about the latter process is that it does not involve imposing Jewish law on anyone who chooses not to be bound by it; it makes it possible for those who wish to have disputes determined in accordance with religious values that they share to go to their religious judges and have the matter treated accordingly (although, as I say above, that will often involve the importation of principles of local secular law, as a matter of dina d’malchusso dina hi).
Reform Judaism – The Penny Drops
1. A certain Jewish school is being taken to court for refusing admission to a child who is not halachically Jewish, although the child is Jewish according to the Reform movement. So one might expect them to be enthusiastic about the litigation: but they are not at all, because they have realised that once the courts intervene in matters of who is and is not Jewish there is no guarantee that they will adopt precisely the Reform’s criteria – they might substitute their own entirely.
2. The Talmud noticed something similar a few centuries ago. At the end of the tractate Avodah Zarah two rabbis are eating in the palace of a non-Jewish king. He insists that one of them is offered all kosher facilities. The other says “What about me?” To which the answer is that the King has been watching this second rabbi’s behaviour, and has come to the conclusion that he does not consistently follow one set of rules but makes them up as he goes along to suit his convenience.
3. We can ask the non-Jewish world to respect our religious practices when they are consistent and sincere, based on adherence to the Code of Jewish Law redacted centuries ago in codification of still earlier authority, based on time-honoured majority practice where opinions originally differed. Once we adopt a do-it-yourself free-for-all attitude where we make the rules up ourselves, they are not worthy of respect and will not receive it.
Sight and sound: how we see and hear the world
1. In this morning’s Torah reading Yisro hears and reacts (Shemos 18:1). He hears world news available to everybody else – news about the Jews’ exit from Egypt – but he has a greater than normal capacity to understand the implications, and to allow them to cause him to change his entire mode of life and to become a monotheist.
2. Later in the reading we have a physical impossibility – the Jews at Mount Sinai see voices (Shemos 20:19). That could indicate an entirely transcendental experience; or it could suggest merely a heightened perception, an enhancement of the natural sense of vision to a degree at which it was capable of perceiving the sounds. We can prove which it was from Rashi: he comments (from the Mechilta) that “all the nation saw” shows that no blind people were at Sinai. If by seeing sounds we were referring to something wholly unnatural, why should blind people be less able to do it than sighted people? So it must have been a natural use of sight, but enhanced to an unusual degree of refinement.
3. Both these are the essence of the Jewish approach to the world. We do not claim to be able to hear or see things that other people cannot. But we believe that concentration on spiritual values can lead human beings to be able to understand more of what they hear, and to see aspects of happenings that other might miss. The world is full of blessings and miracles, but we need to train ourselves to notice them and to understand their implications.
4. This also explains something about the nature of ruach hakodesh. Some people have trained their spiritual sensitivities, by close adherence to Torah values, so that they understand more than I do of what God wants from the world and is doing to the world. By consulting them I may not learn things that I did not already know, but I may come to understand them better or to see aspects of them that were hidden to me. Similarly, when chassidim seek a brochoh from a Rebbe they are asking him to apply his more refined understanding of the world to confirm whether they are moving in paths that make proper use of their blessings and that reflect understanding of events around them.
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