Walking the Newly-Expanded YU Eruv [4 Min. Video]

I posted two weeks ago about the YU eruv's expansion, encompassing my building (yay!) and decided to do a brief video, walking along the edges of it (in case people were interested beyond a 2-D map). I had hoped to put music to it, but that, for some reason, was not working, so feel free to listen to the music of your own choosing while watching it:

Washington Heights Kosher Eating Options [Updated for Spring 2009]

It's been over a year and a half since I last posted the kosher dining options in Washington Heights and felt it was time to update the list. I've organized this list by dairy places to eat and meat places to eat.

Dairy
Dougie Doug's
501 West 184th Street
212.928.2222
Free wifi
Hours:
Sunday 10:30-5
Monday-Thursday 8:30 - 8
Friday 8:30-2
However, in the summer, they may be closing around 4pm.

Grandma's Pizza
2551 Amsterdam Avenue
212.927.4895

Lake Como Pizza
2549 Amsterdam Avenue
212.740.0110
Hours are about 8-9, although they will be closed end of June - mid August

Your Heights Cafe
4413 Broadway
212.544.9044 or 212.544.0041
Tav HaYosher certification
Open Sunday through Thursday 11-9 (and will keep those hours through the summer)
The newest kosher eatery in the Heights, having opened about two weeks before Pessah.


Meat

Beli
2566 Amsterdam Avenue
917.797.0703
Sunday-Thursday 4:30 - 11 (although I don't know what their summer hours will be)

Golan Heights
2553 Amsterdam Avenue
212.795.7842

Just Kosher Delight
2543 Amsterdam
212.568.2343
Sunday-Thursday 11:30-11
Friday Closed
Saturday One hour after shabbas until 1
Not sure about summer hours and might be closed in July


As an aside, if I believe I got this right, all of the kosher eateries in the Heights are certified kosher by the Va'ad haRabbanim of Riverdale.

YU Eruv Expanded

I found out on Friday that the eruv that encompasses the campus of Yeshiva University has been officially expanded and operational. This is big news for my wife and me since not only do we live in this area as well as some of our friends, which permit us to bring food over on shabbas if need be, but also, since having our baby, allows us to leave the apartment with us and to go over to others' apartments if need be.
Anyways, this is great news for us and we're glad it is operational for our last few months here.
(By the way, this is not the Hudson Heights eruv, which is on the west side of Broadway in Washington Heights, whereas the YU eruv is to the east of Broadway.)

אמונת חכמים: The Sages' Faith

In the sixth chapter of Avos (although not part of the mishnah), there is a statement which says "גדולה תורה יותר מן הכהונה ומן המלכות, שהמלכות נקנית בשלשים מעלות, והכהונה בעשרים וארבע, והתורה נקנית בארבעים ושמונה דברים, ואלו הן" ("Torah is greater than the priesthood or kingship, for kingship is acquired with thirty virtues, the priesthood with twenty-four, and Torah is acquired with forty-eight qualities. These are...") - amidst this list is אמונת חכמים (emunat hakhamim (sages' faith/belief)), but it goes undescribed as to what, specifically, the Sages' faith was, leaving us with the question as to what that is. Over the weekend, I found the following relevant and concise description of the faith of the Sages:

was an extremely simple faith, and the doctrine of the world to come prevented any amount of trouble and calamity from clouding or weakening this faith. For trouble and calamity were always explicable as a test and purification, or as a temporary punishment; all the greater would be the joys and raptures of the world to come. Fulfill the commandments: then God will help you.¹

I know there is also Urbach's chapter on this (ch. 2, "The Belief in One God"), although not as concise, he concludes with

The concept of faith in the Lord does not find exhaustive expression in the recognition of God's existence or in a declaration proclaiming this recognition, but includes the conviction that there is a permanent relationship between the Deity and the world and its creatures. Faith is trust in the existence of Divine Providence. The manifestations of man's faith are the love and fear of the Lord.²

So these definitely help us in understanding this phrase of "sages' faith". However, one investigating this term should also be acquainted with the common understanding that it really should be אמונה בחכמים - faith in the sages, which is a separate topic.
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1 - C.G. Montefiore and H. Loewe, A Rabbinic Anthology (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1960), 334.
2 - Ephraim E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, trans. Israel Abrahams (Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press, 1975)

JTwitterverse Coming of Age

With this morning's unveiling of JTA's top 100 Most Influential Jewish Twitterers (props to Adam Soclof for putting it together), it seems like the Jewish presence in the Twitterverse is not only here, but also properly getting recognition. To me, it seems that there is more going on Jewishly in the Twitterverse than a couple of months ago when Jane Herman posted about Jewish Twitterers. As such, it's about time that we properly affix the appellation "JTwitterverse" (unless people would rather the less cumbersome "Jwitterverse"), much similar to Steven I. Weiss' neologistic success, the "JBlogosphere".
On another Twitter note [related to the Jwitterverse], the specific genre of Torah Twitterers must also be acknowledged (to some degree, apropos of the recent CrossCurrents posting (primarily: "There is one aspect of Jewish singularity about which all agree. The Torah belongs to the Jewish people. No other people has ever viewed its multitude of commandments as binding on them.")). Although I had posted over a month ago about Torah on Twitter, there have been some developments in this matter. Foremost interestingly amongst them is the twagregator, TorahTweets.org, which collects all tweets with #Torah in it. The other advancement is simply the matter of more people joining Twitter (generally, but also Jewishly) and, amongst them, tweeting about Torah (may they increase).
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Seperately on the topic of Twittering Torah (and following up my "Trying to Twitter Torah" post), my Twittering Torah in my Birkas HaHamah series only went for a few days before it got derailed (by busyness with schoolwork and having my first child born). It was interesting and I would like to attempt it again at the right time - it just takes time to look stuff up.
The one interesting development that emerged from that attempt occurred unexpectedly: I came up with a hashtag. Yup, my very first hashtag I not only created, but also got to catch on a little. I created #BhH (acronym for Birkas haHamah) for my series, but I realized that other people would be interested in all Birkas HaHamah tweets be able to be easily located, thus #BhH was created.

Just So You Know As Soon As Possible When Simchas Happen: OnlySimchas on Twitter

While checking for myself on Addictomatic, I noticed that the most recent tweet on Twitter about me was by OnlySimchas. I hadn't even known OnlySimchas was on Twitter (according to When Did You Join Twitter?, it joined on 5 June 2008). Alas, it is. Apparently, the first tweet was on 15 March and started announcing simchas on 24 March. So, for those interested, you can follow OnlySimchas via Twitter. I'm not - I'm sticking with following its RSS feed (btw, for those on FutureSimchas, they do have separate feeds for men's profiles and for women's profiles).

Conversations & Different Epistemologies in Orthodoxy

I haven't yet written here before about Conversations, the Center for Jewish Ideas and Ideals' publication which appears thrice yearly, but I am finally starting to write about. It is, in the words of Rabbi Joshua Yuter (who wrote, in vol. 2, "Balanced Approach to Social Justice" (pp. 112-117)) that, as opposed to "the Edah/Meorot journals, the journal is supposed to be more accessible than academic" and there are "two editorial conditions: 1. keep it short and 2. no footnotes". It is certainly interesting format-wise, and so, too, is the content. For instance, in the most recent volume (3), the most interesting piece is that of the aforementioned Rabbi Yuter's father, Rabbi Alan Yuter, entitled "Conversions, Covenant, and Conscience" (pp. 96-99), in which he concludes on p. 99 (the piece is available in full here)

Authentic Orthodoxy advances principles and not politics. Torah is about rules and not rulers, it is about the law of Torah and not standards of self-selecting elites. There is room for vigorous and public discussion. We undermine our own bona fides when we succumb to incivility and when we put up with put downs. Judaism is about the fear of Heaven and not the fear of people. In order to restore its existential credibility, Orthodox Judaism must affirm Jewish law honestly, because this alone is our eternal Jewish standard.

Aside from Rabbi Yuter the elder's article, another really interesting piece is David Balint's "The 'Grasshopper Effect' and Other Defects in Modern Orthodox Leadership" (pp. 58-67)(available here), wherein he describes this so-called "grasshopper effect" (p. 59):

When the Jews left Egypt, they left with the direct intervention of God, with all God's visible power and with the promise of continuing intervention in the conquest of the Promised Land. Moses assembled the leadership of the time and sent them to reconnoiter the land. Despite having all of the power of God behind them, the majority had a crisis of confidence. Ten of the twelve spies projected their own insecurities onto the situation with the Canaanites, and in a famous bout of self-criticism said: "We were like grasshoppers in our eyes, and so were we in their eyes" (Numbers 13:31-33).

In the context of this discussion, many in our Modern Orthodox world, including congregational rabbis and organizations, seem to frequently operate with one eye on the Hareidi world as if it consisted of giants. As a consequence, they seem to view themselves as inferior. It is time to stop this grasshopper effect.

As to the latter part of the title of this posting, I meant it referring to Rabbi Aryeh Klapper's discussion in his "Fostering Modern Torah Leadership" (pp. 85-91) (online version (uploaded yesterday)), where, on p. 87, he writes the following:

Imagine for a moment two Orthodox Jewish communities. In the first, rabbis are given the narrowest of talmudic educations and censured if they seek any kind of breadth of knowledge. Rabbis are expected to remain ignorant of economics, history, jurisprudence, biology, and the liberal arts except insofar as they can be derived from traditional talmudic study.

In the second, rabbis are expected to obtain broad and deep general knowledge and competence. Rabbis are expected to have a good grasp of economics, history, jurisprudence, biology, as well as the liberal arts, and to have graduate competence in at least one field other than traditional talmudic study.

Now imagine further two Orthodox Jewish communities. In the first, rabbis are given broad authority over areas of religious life that impinge on economics, history, jurisprudence, biology, and the liberal arts. In the second, rabbis are given authority solely over issues of technical halakha.

Rabbi Klapper presents a very interesting irony, although it actually makes sense that where the Modern Orthodox place epistemological importance is different from that of the Haredim: whereas the latter rely on primarily on rabbinic literature for information, the former see it in the world, while seeing rabbinic literature as informing their Jewish lives, thus they look to their rabbi to provide guidance in a Jewish context. Rabbi Klapper writes that

It should be evident that Modern Orthodoxy is the community that expects great breadth of knowledge in its rabbis while greatly narrowing their authority. The reason for this is that the community does not believe that its rabbis live integrated religious lives, that their breadth of knowledge is effectively translated into Torah and halakha. And the community is certainly not entirely mistaken in this regard. The gaps between values and law, and between intellectual commitments and creeds, are significant.

My point is that it doesn't necessarily mean that "the community does not believe that its rabbis live integrated religious lives", it's just that the Modern Orthodox and the Haredim value a different sense of deriving truth.

Morning Hand-Washing Article Online

Dr. Rabbi Martin Gordon's good article "Netilat Yadayim Shel Shaharit: Ritual of Crisis or Dedication?" is now online (hat tip). I had quoted the article in my most recently published article (p. 168, n. 82).
The topic of morning hand-washing was also the subject of a posting of mine from three and a half years ago ("Got Evil Spirit on Your Hands?").
Enjoy the article!

Bringing Baby Home [Video]

for more info, see previous post

Now a Father

This past shabbas, my wife and I were at a hospital for my wife to give birth. She did, indeed, give birth. She gave birth to a healthy baby girl, making us parents together!
I must say that although being at a hospital on shabbas made it difficult to do some things (fortunately we were there before shabbas and had food ready [for me (Rachel wasn't eating since she was not allowed to)]), nevertheless, we realized that it made it more calm and peaceful: we didn't have to deal with people's phone calling, texting, and my twittering, not to mention no picture-taking (the hospital has a prohibition against videotaping, so that doesn't enter the discussion).
Anyways, I'm now hoping to get some sleep before going to the hospital to visit my new daughter and wife tomorrow.