Opposition to the Hudson Heights Eruv

Well, now there is some opposition to the newly operational Hudson Heights ערוב (eruv) (hat tip: LMOM). It's kind of funny that this opposition springs up only now, as it has been known about since the fall (I had already posted about the eruv previously in October and it certainly has been discussed, so this shouldn't be a sudden surprise). Mt. Sinai's website has more information, though what's certainly interesting is the following from the FAQ:

I got an anonymous email forward with a claim of a third-hand conversation with Rav Hershel Schachter claiming he says the eruv is not kosher. Is it true?

We don't pasken from spam. Members of the eruv committee tried to get Rav Schachter involved with the eruv, first as Rav Hamacshir, and later simply to give his opinions before plans were finalized. He repeatedly declined to get involved, and recently ignored any attempts on the part of the eruv committee to speak with him. We therefore have no knowledge of his opinion on the eruv. However, he is not the Rav Hamachshir, and the eruv follows the psak of Rav Wosner. There may be some differences of opinion between them; everyone is encouraged to decide whether to use any eruv based on a discussion with his or her personal posek.

Hopefully, there won't be too many problems. One thing that is an issue is that the "Breuer's" community has been in the Heights for a while, whereas the young MO community here has been on the come up for the last few years. While I know of no population figures, the young MO community (consisting of both singles and young couples, primarily) seems to have caught up with the "Breuer's" community here. What is certain, however, is that the young MO community is large enough now that it need not rely upon the other community here, such that it can make decisions on its own, with its own leaders. That, I think, is what is troubling the "Breuer's" community is that their geographical-social hegemony upon the area is waning.
If I have any of my information here incorrectly, please feel free to type.
(Jeremy at CitySpecific just posted on the Hudson Heights if you are interested...)
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Tags: Washington Heights, Mount Sinai, Hudson Heights, Hudson Heights eruv, eruv controversy, eruv, Washington Heights Jewish community

Soloveitchik Shul almost ready

On Friday afternoon, I stopped by my building's basement to check on how the work was coming along on the building/constructing of the new Soloveitchik shul. As you can see from the pictures (three of them are from the new shul, the last picture is of the building facade of their previous location), it is pretty much ready to be operational. This will be great, as we won't have to traverse any hills or go very far. That, plus we can build a stronger sense of community in our building and with another building with Jewish units located nearby which are both between the two ערובים (eruvs) in the Heights.
I'll post about the shul's official opening once it happens, though that should be soon, as I spoke to our landlord and he said it should be ready soon.
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Tags: Washington Heights, Washington Heights shul, Soloveitchik minyan, Wadsworth Jewish community, Washington Heights Jewish community

Cleaning Up at 1 Wadsworth Terrace

The cleaning up of debris from the site of the future 1 Wadsworth Terrace ("Wadsworth Condos") is now taking place. While I don't have much more to report than that, it is a nice development, as even when there were trees inhabiting the site, it was fairly littered, so it will be getting better, even if for only briefly before the proper construction begins. In both this earlier posting as well as this one, one can see the difference that the cleaning up has made.
Also, I wanted to thank Curbed for their linking me for taking note of the developments there.
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Tags: construction, Washington Heights, Manhattan, Wadsworth Terrace, 1 Wadsworth Terrace, Wadsworth Condos

Response

The following was anonymously commented on a previous posting (I have edited for grammar, etc.):

Hi, we have a question - kind of weird. My daughter's boyfriend said that he learned in high school (yeshiva) that you need to wipe (after using bathroom) with your left hand. Is this true? Not quite sure why he told us, but it was included in him telling us not to wear our shirts inside out because the mishna berurah says it is a ruah ra'ah (we are sephardic - does Rambam say this, too?). This is all too much for me. My kids are orthodox but I am traditional.

I'm trying to figure out how to answer this. My automatic instinct is to start spitting out halakhic sources, but I'm getting the sense that this is not the main topic at hand (don't worry, I'll touch on the halakhic topics further on in this post). There's definitely a feeling of being threatened by a sweeping change in lifestyle - and not just any - one that not only heads for restricting one's behavior, but the worst kind - illogical or irrational. Also there's probably some feeling of one's own values being encroached. And this is the point where I definitely need further pastoral counseling training [than just one year's worth] and cannot sufficiently answer this aspect of the question.
Now, on to the halakhic bit: Yes, one is supposed to wipe with one's left hand. I can post about this separately as it seems like an interesting topic with several different reasons offered in the Talmud. As to the not wearing shirts inside out, that's a trickier subject. I can first of all say that there is no ruah ra'ah concerns when it comes to wearing one's clothing inside out. As to the severity of this - it's really not that big of a deal, but it doesn't look that good, though (it initially is said with regards to a talmid hakham and not for people, in general - and certainly not in any sort of prohibitory fashion). In fact, the Mishnah Berurah (2.4) states that "if he is a talmid hakham (DK - although I don't see any reason why this would not also extend to a talmidat hakham as well), he needs to straighten it out and properly reorient it..., but for everybody else, there is not need." However, he does distinguish that prayer is special and, thus, "even everybody needs to straighten out his garment in an orderly fashion...."
As I noted above, the wearing one's shirt/garment normally is just more socially acceptable, but not a halakhic problem (for instance, if one goes jogging or to the gym, then wearing it inside out would probably not be a problem).
As to the wiping with one's left hand, it oughtn't be too much of a problem for them to follow. However, if your situation is not simply one of a halakhah there or a halakhah here, then it's definitely something to speak with your children and/or your rabbi about your situation. God bless.
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Tags: Judaism, Jewish, halakhah, halacha, halachah, halakha, Jewish law, Orthodoxy, Orthodox Judaism

The Blogs "A Rabbi Must Follow" Listing

While R' Gil Student of Hirhurim posted an outline of his presentation that he was going to give (well, now has already given) on "What A Rabbi Needs To Know About Blogs", much interest was in which blogs were going to be mentioned in the "Which Blogs Must a Rabbi Follow?" section. However, he has uploaded his PowerPoint presentation to his Yashar website so people may view it there. For those without PowerPoint capabilities or whatever, I have provided the listing below of blogs he mentioned/mentions.
Inspirational
-Beyond BT
-Lazer Beams
-A Simple Jew
Current events
-Canonist
-The Town Crier
Commentary on current events
-Cross-Currents
-DovBear
-Emes Ve-Emunah
Torah content
-Torah Musings (okay, it's really Hirhurim...)
-Seforim
-Rabbi Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer
-On The Contrary!
Israel
-My Right Word
-Little Green Footballs
Prominent personality
-My Obiter Dicta
-Ben Chorin
Scandal
-Luke Ford
-Un-Orthodox Jew
-Failed Messiah
Hipster Judaism
-Jew School
-Jewlicious
-(Esther's) My Urban Kvetch
Skeptic
-[not the] Godol Hador
-Da'as Hedyot
-Jewish Atheist
-Ben Avuyah
Miscellaneous
-Renegade Rebbetzin
-AJHistory
-Drew Kaplan's blog (I'm not making this up, I swear (I posted about this a couple of days ago.))
Jewish Blog Aggregators
-JRants
-Jewish Blogging
-Technorati Judaism Blogs
-Sera and Ez
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Tags: Jewish blogs, JBlogosphere, Gil Student, RCA convention

Shalom in the Home posting No. 2

After having posted last night my posting on Shalom in the Home, I realized that there were some addenda I should mention. First of all, for those who have never seen the show, the way it works is that Rabbi Shmuley Boteach visits a family who have been having problems and tries to do what he can in five days to help them. He does so from his base of his "Shalom mobile home" trailer, which has AV equipment that he uses in order to mainly review tapes of what occurs within the house/home of the respective family. He meets with the family, usually focusing on the parents, and tries to deal with the problems going on.
It is certainly ambitious, though he seems to do decently well. One of his general methodologies that strikes me is that he seems to go for the jugular in situations, which may be a more aggressive technique than may work for me, for instance, though it is interesting. Also, I realized, his level of interactions with these families are different than most family counselors, and certainly rabbis, as most will not have video tapes to show these families or be so actively involved on premises with the family, and especially not with earphones into which he makes suggestions remotely.
A couple of other things: someone has commented to me that Reb Shmuley only tells them what to do in certain cases (casuistics?), but doesn't give general principles all the time.
My mother has also suggested that he ought to have a box of tissues in his trailer as people are often crying.
If you want, there is a Shmuleyisms page.
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Tags: Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Shmuley Boteach, Shmuley, Reb Shmuley, Shalom in the Home, marriage and family therapy, family therapy

Computer News in Drew

Three recent things:
1) My computer is back from its "vacation".
2) I started up a Yahoo! Groups for me to be a biweekly or perhaps even weekly update in my life. See below if you are interested in joining.
3) I signed up for myspace (at the suggestion of a high school classmate), though I don't, aside from connecting with high school classmates, for instance, see much of a point to joining. Who knows? Perhaps I will at some point remove myself from it.

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Mid-Season Review of "Shalom in the Home"

Now that Rabbi Shmuley Boteach's show "Shalom in the Home" has passed its halfway mark for its first season, I thought it would be appropriate for me to weigh in. My interest in this show is three-fold: 1) as a future family leader, 2) as someone who is interested in family dynamics in general, stemming initially from my senior year in high school, and even giving rise to thinking of becoming a family and marriage counselor whilst in college, and finally, 3) as a future rabbi.
My apprehension, however, before having watched any of the episodes, was that he would be emphasizing his conceptions of gender roles, which he described in an article in the WJD.
However, after watching the first episode (which someone noted the lessons gleamed therefrom), I was still slightly leary, but he hasn't really said much about being a man, etc. I have grown to like it quite a bit and found it enriching. One thing that is particularly interesting, which especially came through in this last episode, was his focus on the parents in order to effect change in the child(ren) (also previously noted by someone else).
A recent lecturer for our pastoral counseling class, Dr. Bruce A. Birnberg (I couldn't find a good link for him, but I did find a paper of his that he co-authored), who is a family medicine person, noted what makes Reb Shmuley interesting is that even though Reb Shmuley is working within a very small time-frame (whereas successful therapy usually involves longer periods of therapy), he utilizes a variety of theories/approaches - about three of them, roughly.
Anyways, it has been interesting and I'm excited for the second half of this first season. Oh yeah, and I think he's making a kiddush hashem (lit. sanctification of the Name, though more colloquially, something that makes Jews look good).
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Tags: Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Shmuley Boteach, Shmuley, Reb Shmuley, Shalom in the Home, Bruce Birnberg, marriage and family therapy, family therapy, kiddush hashem

Blog Mentioned at RCA Convention

Ben reported to me today that my blog got mentioned at the RCA annual convention today in his presentation on What A Rabbi Needs To Know About Blogs (outline here) by R' Student. Yay!!! A big thanks to R' Student.
As an aside, I attended the Sunday sessions at last year's convention, but I didn't choose to go this year top the convention.

On the Grammatical Question of WomenRabbis

Much discussion on the JBlogosphere has erupted on the topic of Orthodox women rabbis since the Jerusalem Post reported the ordination of a woman by an Orthodox rabbi a few days ago (for a runthrough of many blogs discussing this issue, scroll to the bottom of this post). As I really don't know what to make of the permissibility, necessity, or prohibition of such a thing, I would like to discuss a separate point. That point is a grammatical point.
The main term is rabbi, which means "my master". As Hebrew is a gendered language, the root is Rav, which is masculine. If one were to feminize it, the result would be rabbah, thus resulting in the equivalent of rabbati to rabbi.
While some would like to discount this pragmatic possibility, there are others who would also like to discount this semantic possibility, probably on grounds that it would distinguish the women, assuming that the women would be automatically placed in a second-rate category.
Nevertheless, I wanted to offer up this issue.
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JBlogosphere discussions: Not the Godol haDor, Hirhurim, Jewschool, Jewlicious, On the Fringe, Seth Chalmer, Harry Mayles, Jewish Adoption Blog, Purim Hero, Alexis (no, not my sister), InContext
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Tags: Judaism, rabbi, rabbis, grammar, hebrew grammar, dikduk, rabbati, rabbah, hebrew, women rabbis, woman rabbi