העורך Editor

Chafetz Chaim on ‘One Who Teaches His Daughter Torah…’

An excerpt from Rabbi Chaim Twerski (in the context of Sotah 20a, which states a clear objection to teaching women Torah: “One who teaches his daughter Torah is as if he teaches her lewdness.”):

I have the following family tradition. Someone once challenged the Hafetz Hayyim for his support for Bais Yaakov schools, basing the criticism on the previously cited passage in Sotah. To this person, the Hafetz Hayyim responded that “today, all types of ‘lewdness’ are taught to girls, and you are concerned with the word ke-ilu (‘as if’)! If the Torah will not be taught to girls, they will have no appreciation of Torah values and will be left only with lewdness!”

See the rest here…

In Defense of a ‘Letter to the Editor’ in Hamodia

The following “letter to the editor” in Hamodia was quoted on a certain blog as seeming evidence of false bitachon:

I didn’t see the original “Safety Alert” article mentioned here. But I see nothing wrong with this letter.

The gist here is that there are many angles to observe events (scientific, mathematical, historical, economic, etc.), but the single perspective of value to the general reader is that which applies to the layman’s own life and sphere of control, namely bitachon and other religious lessons. In contrast, a lengthy discussion of arcane matters of special expertise (proximal causes) in the context of a publication sold for mass consumption suggests there is no underlying, theological cause here but blind chance, God forbid. “Too much information.”

This narrative is false (“might have been appropriate”) even in the case of a “non-Jewish entity”, which receives only indirect, “natural” Divine providence (Chazon Ish: מה שאנו קורין “טבע” המכוון בזה רצון היותר תמידי של הקב”ה).

(True, those charged with safety were asleep at the wheel, etc., for institutional reasons, so the details are relevant to all, but I doubt the paper suggested rational de-socializing everything in Meron (and for Corona), anyway.)