העורך Editor

Bechoros 44b:

אמר רבי אבא בריה דרבי חייא בר אבא משתינין מים בפני רבים ואין שותין מים בפני רבים ותניא נמי הכי משתינין מים בפני רבים ואין שותין מים בפני רבים ומעשה באחד שביקש להשתין מים ולא השתין ונמצא כריסו צבה. שמואל איצטריך ליה בשבתא דרגלא נגדו ליה גלימא אתא לקמיה דאבוה א”ל אתן לך ד’ מאה זוזי וזיל אהדר עובדא את דאפשר לך דלא אפשר ליה ליסתכן…

What does “Ahadar Uvda” mean?

Rashi explains:

אהדר עובדא, דרוש שאסור להמתין מלהטיל מים עד שיהא לו צניעות.

If retraction is just oral, such a large sum of money seems excessive as a reward for doing his clear duty. Rather, it appears the retraction referred to here means to do Teshuvas Hamishkal: Teach again and urinate without a mechitza. Perform a Ma’aseh Rav to counteract the faulty one.

Soncino agrees with me, for what that’s worth:

R. Abba b. R. Hiyya b. Abba reported in the name of R. Johanan: It is permitted to urinate in public, whereas it is not permitted to drink water in public. So indeed it has been taught: It is permitted to urinate in public, whereas it is not permitted to drink water in public. And it once happened that someone wanted to urinate and forewent it, and it was found that his belly was swollen.

Samuel needed to urinate on a Sabbath preceding a Festival. He spread his cloak [as a screen between his audience and himself]. He came before his father [and reported this to him]. He [the latter] then said to him: ‘I will give you four hundred zuz to retract* this ruling, for you were able to spread a cloak, but one who is not able to do so, shall he delay and expose himself to the danger?’

* To urinate in their presence and thus proclaim that it was not necessary to exercise privacy when requiring to urinate.

Maybe that’s why the sum is exactly 400 Zuz (the fine paid for shaming a Jew).

בראשית י”ד א’:

ויהי בימי אמרפל מלך שנער אריוך מלך אלסר כדרלעמר מלך עילם ותדעל מלך גוים. עשו מלחמה…

וז”ל בראשית רבה מ”ב ד’:

ויהי בימי אמרפל מלך שנער זו בבל ואריוך מלך אלסר זה (יון) אנטיוכס כדרלעומר מלך עילם זה מדי ותדעל מלך גוים זו מלכות אדום שהיא מכתבת טירוניא מכל אומות העולם.

אמר רבי אלעזר בר אבינא, אם ראית מלכיות מתגרות אלו באלו צפה לרגלו של משיח תדע שכן שהרי בימי אברהם על ידי שנתגרו המלכיות אלו באלו באה הגאולה לאברהם.

I quote “Reb Simcha Speaks“, ArtScroll 1994.

From p. 80:

A Torah scholar causes all of the Jewish people to become rich. In economics, there is the sphere of the individual’s domain and the sphere of the community’s domain. When it comes to the total national wealth, it does not make a difference to the wealth of the nation, in one particular sense, whether that wealth is concentrated in a few hands or distributed equally among everyone. The nation is still wealthy. And a wealthier nation can accomplish more. Even a poor man who is living in a wealthy nation has certain advantages.

It is exactly the same in the Jewish community. When someone is learning, he is adding to the public good with his learning. The Torah scholar adds to the accumulation of Torah and causes the whole nation to be rich. When the Chafetz Chaim lived, all the Jewish people were rich. When he passed away, the entire nation became poorer.

We have a responsibility to the Jewish people to become great in Torah…

From p. 85:

“You open your hand and You give to every living being…”

The Master of the World has organized everything so that we have all that we need. But that is not enough; if we have food but we have no appetite, we will starve. So the Master of the World gave us also the will to eat.

…

This appetite and ambition is what Hashem has instilled in us. A shoemaker makes shoes not because he does not want people to walk barefoot. He makes shoes because he has an appetite to eat. But Hashem uses him in order to provide shoes for people. He has given us ambition, but the wise ones realize that, in truth, we are not working for ourselves, but for others.

Sounds like the famous passage in Adam Smith to me…

And from p. 105:

The Jew doesn’t ask for a blessing for his bread. He says, “Thank You, G-g, for giving me the bread.” He’s not asking G-d to serve him; he realizes that he has to be grateful to -d for giving him this.

That is the difference between the giver and the taker. Idol worshippers are takers. A person would like to have everything, but there are some things which are not in his reach, so he conjures up a mysterious power that can give him whatever is beyond his reach.

Children are very much like this. They are concerned with who is going to bring them a gift and give them toys. A truly mature person is interested in more than simply receiving gifts. The realities of life teach him that if he want to consume, he has to produce. Only the child thinks he can take and not give. He would like to have things, so he dreams that maybe there will be a miracle.

The language patterns of Torah renegades are all the same, for some reason.

The Brisker Rav once observed:

When a Jew comes to me and begins speaking of “Ahavas Yisrael”, I immediately know three things about him:

1. He hates the Master of the World.
2. He hates the Torah.
3. He hates kosher Jews.

This is is still the case in my experience. This does not indicate anything against genuine and proper Ahavas Yisrael.

Source: Peninei Rabbenu Hagriz p. 121 (and here’s another source)

I quote from a 209 survey of 300 Jewish women, “Observant Married Jewish Women and Sexual Life: An Empirical Study“:

Asking for Rabbinical Counsel

Traditional Jewish practice encourages people to seek rabbinic advice when faced with challenging questions. As all aspects of life, from the mundane to the lofty, are imbued with religious significance, observant Jews regularly pose questions to rabbis. Queries concerning pillars of observant life, kashruth, Shabbat, and taharat haMishpahah are routine. Our data, however, revealed a significant skew regarding questions posed to rabbinic counsel—namely, that women in our study were less likely to inquire about matters relating to sexuality. This is illustrated by the fact that over 90 percent of women indicated that they have asked a rabbi questions about kashruth or about laws pertaining to the Sabbath. Only 76 percent, however, have asked about an aspect of niddah, and most of these questions were directed to technical concerns about menstrual staining. Just over one-third of women had ever asked a question pertaining to permissibility of a particular sexual practice. Mindful that our respondents are highly adherent to the laws of family purity, we assumed that they would naturally have questions about the religious permissibility of various sexual activities in marriage. We knew from their comments about their kallah (bridal preparation) classes that frank issues such as sexual desires and practices were rarely discussed by those teachers. We wondered, therefore, how couples align their sexual desires and their religious sensibilities.

Fully half of all women answering our survey have wondered whether performing certain sexual acts, during the course of their observant, married life, might constitute a violation of Jewish law. Oral sex was the activity of most concern followed by the use of fantasy during relations. Of this 50 percent who acknowledged halakhic concerns, only a small portion (12 percent) asked a rabbi for guidance. Of the remaining 88 percent who did not seek religious consultation, almost half refrained from the religiously questionable sex, while the rest enacted their desire without permission.

A related area is the use of contraception. Observant Jews take the biblical commandment to “be fruitful and multiply” seriously and generally give birth to and raise families larger than those of their secular peers. We wondered how observant women access family planning. Our findings revealed that although nearly 90 percent of our sample reported using birth control at some time in their marriage, only half of these women consulted a rabbi about that decision. Once again, our data suggest that many religiously committed Jews do not bring questions about their sexual or reproductive lives to the scrutiny of their rabbis with the same frequency that they bring questions about equally serious but less bodily intimate matters.

The lesson? Torah scholars (not necessarily the same thing as rabbis!) should, in fact, know what to say and additionally actively encourage people to ask.

P.S. The study also confirms the following:

One domain in which observant women and secular American women did not differ was in the prevalence of sexual abuse. It is imperative to not minimize the prevalence of such experiences within the observant community in light of their impact on both mental-health-related issues and married life.