re: Censored Selichos for Taanis Esther

Eliyahu Levin (from Erev Shabbos):

בסליחות לתענית אסתר,  בפזמון במתי מספר בבית לפני האחרון בחלק מהסידוריםהשיבנו למנוחתך כי ידך לא תקצרבמקורבְּאַפְּךָ קוּמָה עַל הַצּוֹרֵר הַצָּר.

ובבית האחרוןלוחצינו ישלימו אתנו(!ועוונותינו תשליך במצולהגם מי שלא מבין בנושא יבין שאסור לומר כןועדיף לא לומר כלום מלומר את זה.

במקורלוֹחֲצֵינוּהַמְעַד וּמַלְּאֵם חַלְחָלָה.

Yehoshua Shalet writes:

In response to this article, you’ll be pleased to know that the practice of our synagogues (minhag old Ashkenaz/Frankfurt) is to sing the original, uncensored version

Sincerely Joshua Shalet of Kehal Adath Yeshurun, Beitar Illith

Government: The Fantasy of ‘Something for Nothing’

The fallacy was created with vaccines… That you could get all the benefits (lifelong immunity) with none of the challenge/work.
It’s a lie we’ve been sold for a very long time.
The lives we’ve lived were built on the back of the slave labor in China, Africa, and so on…
When communism/dictatorship/tyranny took over the world, we shook our heads and said nu nu nu… But we also gave over our industry to those countries and the slave labor they created for us.
We nó longer needed to think about others… Their pain and suffering. It was bigger than us… There was nothing we could do… So we continued to finance these regimes until everything was “made in China.”
We made jokes and comedy shows about it… But we kept buying.
All the rewards and no work. We committed atrocities that we never would have alone until Big corporations made it easy/possible for us. We could always shift the blame.
And we did. Hashem save us, we did.
China started to buy up our land… The whole world. Tnuva is owned by China… Haifa Port…
We stayed silent.
We wanted democracy, a rule of the people by the people for the people. But we wanted it without work and responsibility.
We decided it was the elected officials’ responsibility. Is it any wonder they started taking advantage of our trust… And the fact that we were never going to check up on their work beyond a cursory glance every 2-6 years.
We turned off our own critical thinking eons ago.
There was no need to think beyond putting the politician in office. And even then, we could merely align ourselves with a party and be given a “cheat sheet” before every election to tell us who to vote for.
We outsourced more than “made in China.” We outsourced our own children to public education. A factory, cookie-cutter institution.
Weren’t we supposed to teach our children a trade? Wasn’t it one of the 613?
Now, nó one leaves school with a trade. No. They need University. And sometimes even then, it’s not enough. Raising our own children is hard. We wanted something for nothing.
We outsourced birth. We outsourced our knowledge of healing. All the rabbinical degrees about doctors applied to the herbalists. Those were the doctors, those who lived in harmony with the seasons of HaShem’s earth… Who used medicines created for us by Hashem (how many times is it written that the herbs are for healing in our holy texts?!) and we allowed our governments to align with a new medicine. They burned the herbalists and midwives that we praised as Jews for millennia! (Shifra and Puah, anyone?) We vilified the people who kept the old (Torah sanctioned) ways. We pulled a switcheroo with the new Rockefeller Western Medical Model. The one that brought in animal studies, cadavers, Mengele, may his name be blotted out.
We turned the other cheek. We fed off the suffering of others again. Something for nothing.
This false Moshiach made a few healing, a few miracles. How quick and how fast they could heal. What fancy ventilators! We shifted our trust. We wanted all the benefits with no work, so we lowered our standards.
We corrupted ourselves, claiming all this was a gift from Hashem, all the while destroying the earth, the medicine and food Hashem created for us, and the keepers of HaShem’s wisdom.
We wanted ease. We sold our souls.
(Wise words from a friend)

Let’s Have Only One Person Saying Kaddish at a Time

Letter to London Beth Din

With the imminent reopening of the shuls, I have a radical proposal, an opportunity to correct an error
I strongly urge the Beth Din to consider returning to the original custom of only one person saying one kaddish per service
If piyyutim can be omitted on the yamim noraim (which is a custom), then my suggestion must also be discussed seriously
The common practice of multiple people saying kaddish together is halachically unsound as you are well aware
GGBH does this
In Israel, the western Ashkenazim (yekkes) do this
So do the Zilbermans
The original custom is making a comeback in many other shuls around the world
Also, in all Yemenite communities, only one person recites kaddish
In these congregations, no bickering takes place because they never saw a reason to go along with this innovation
There is no reason why the United Synagogue can’t reinstate a practice that was followed up until WW1 (as seen in the earliest editions of the “singers” siddur)
Or better yet, you could tell your followers to make aliyah and set an example by doing so yourself
Sincerely, Joshua Shalet, a Torah Jew