העורך Editor

Rafi Farber of The Jewish Libertarian recommends this humble site of ours.

Really.

An excerpt to prove it:

I feel alone most of the time, notwithstanding my amazing wife and family. But here and there someone pops up who, surprisingly, also gets it, and gets me, mostly.

The webmaster at Hyehudi is one of those guys. See his post on Women at the Wall here. Not what you’d expect from a Haredi guy. I don’t know who he is and he wishes to remain anonymous, understandably so. He’s some sort of Haredi libertarian guy. I can’t make it out completely. There’s a lot I disagree with him about but the disagreements are all inconsequential and academic, since they are restricted entirely to the private sphere of our own thought and not public policy which affects the lives of others.

…

Look at his website and subscribe to his newsletter. It’s well worth it, if only to hear thoughts from someone like me who has stayed closer to mesorah and Torah Shebe’al Peh than I have.

I hope not to disappoint him.

Beis Yosef Even Ha’ezer 154, end:

מצאתי בתשובת רבינו שמחה המכה את אשתו מקובלני שיש יותר להחמיר מבמכה את חבירו דבחבירו אינו חייב בכבודו ואשתו חייב לכבדה יותר מגופו והעושה כן יש להחרימו ולנדותו ולהלקותו ולענשו בכל מיני רדוי ואף לקוץ ידו אם רגיל בכך ואם הוא רוצה לגרש יוציא ויתן כתובה ואחר כך כתב תטילו שלום ביניהם ואם לא יעמוד הבעל בקיום השלום שאם יוסיף להכותה ולבזותה אנו מסכימים להיות מנודה ויעשוהו ע”י עכו”ם לתת גט או עשה מה שישראל אומרין לך ואפילו לשמואל שאמר בפרק המדיר עד שיכופוהו להוציא יכפוהו לזון ה”מ מזונות שיש תקנה בידינו לירד לנכסיו ולזון אותה אבל להכותה ולבזותה שעניה זו מסורה בידו ואין בידינו לעשות תקנה לדבר אפילו שמואל מודה ואפילו בההוא גופא דזן ומפרנס כרב קי”ל ואפי’ קבלה עליה יכולה לומר איני יכולה לקבל שהן הכאות שאין להם קצבה…

I trust I can convey the point in the few minutes I have left to write this…

Some known kinds of implementations of a revolutionary idea include gradualist activism vs. one-step activism, moderate vs. radical. Here’s another: more pessimistic vs. less so. One example should suffice.

Assume private Jews are buying off non-Jewish owners of entire swathes of land at once. A strong case can be made for purchasing outlying settlement areas first (e.g., lower cost). On the other hand, the Nazis in government will greatly hesitate to expel Goyim, but not Jews, of course. Perhaps it’s expedient to leave the Druze (who prefer Israeli sovereignty because of living conditions) to protect the Golan?

[…] What about the prospects for liberty and a freer economy in the United States?

Rothbard: Everything is getting worse, and very rapidly. Few favor central planning, but the battleground has shifted to interventionism. There are three areas of interventionism which are the big issues, now and in the future: (1) Prohibitionism and the attempt to eliminate all risk. If, for example, automobiles cause accidents, they should be eliminated. (2) Egalitarianism and the idea that victim groups should get special treatment for the next 2,000 years for previous oppression. (3) Environmentalism or antihumanism. The implicit idea is that man is the lowest creature and every creature or inanimate thing has rights.

Excerpt from Mises.org, here.

Why are women praying with Tefillin, Tallis, and Kippah at the Western Wall a topic of discussion? It’s all hypothetical, to the best of my knowledge. If it ever occurs (unlikely!), we’ll figure it out then.

What do you mean?

Let’s go through it, shall we?

“Praying” – The official Reform position is atheistic (!). What they are doing sounds like wailing. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah! This is because they still refer to it as the “Wailing Wall”, not the “Western Wall”. The word “west” is severely “racist”. “Wall” probably too, since it sounds like “Berlin Wall”, or separation or an exclusionary non-state project, or a Trump speech.

“At the Western Wall” – Feiglin, David Sidman, and others assert the zone has no holiness; it’s nothing but a “parking lot“. No, it does have the sanctity of a synagogue. But this is not true for areas not made so through prayer! So, is where they are a synagogue? Was the area accepted as such? Does it even have the sanctity of the Ezras Nashim (I mean that of the Mikdash Me’at!)?

“Tefillin” – Apparently they never even glanced through those charming Chabad handouts describing the correct positioning of Tefillin Shel Rosh. As far as I can tell, the WoWing wailing Wymyn (sic) of THE wall have never put on Tefillin, period, let alone at the Kosel, where they are far too distracted.

“Tallis”? Why? Does it even have Techeiles? Exactly.

And if their food isn’t kosher, why do we assume their Tallis and Tefillin are any better?

Wearing a Kippah? Why not? Women are supposed to wear a Kippah (and even more, in more public areas), see footnote #1 on p. 2 here.

So what’s left?

They entered a government-controlled area with a Sefer Torah!

Ooh, is it against “Hilchos Medinah”? The Law of Return excludes the word “kehilchata” from its definition of “Jew”, but surely the Sefer Torah must meet some halachic standard, perhaps as determined by the Chief State “Rabbinate”. (If their lawyers wish to use this argument, please have them contact me to negotiate my finder’s fee.)

The solution? This. You can tell it’s likely the solution from the fact it angers nearly everyone.

UPDATE: Rafi Farber loves this article!