Rabbi Avi Grossman remarks regarding our recent list of dastardly debased definitions that “living in sin” is simply incorrect, seeing as it encompasses not only cohabitation (kedeisha) but also concubinage (pilegesh), which is not, in fact, sinful, at least for kings or non-Jews (and see this).
Point taken.
Some halachic background
Outline of the opinions based on R’ Zuriel’s most lenient presentation:Either 1. abortion is akin to murder and strictly forbidden to both Jew and gentile alike, unless performed in order to save the mother’s life, in which case it is required. The talmud also requires an abortion be performed on a Jewish woman sentenced to death.This is the approach of Rabbi Tendler.Or 2. For Gentiles, abortion is akin to murder and strictly forbidden, unless performed in order to save the mother’s life. For Jews, abortion is forbidden but treated as “just” a form of personal damage because the fetus, before birth, lacks the status of a person independent of the mother, and may be performed under extenuating circumstances. The talmud also requires an abortion be performed on a Jewish woman sentenced to death or in order to save the life endangered by having to give birth.This is the approach of the Tzitz Eliezer, and the one R’ Zuriel espoused.However, according to all opinions, in any situation where an abortion is performed, the fetus must be destroyed in utero, as explicitly described by the sages, and once the fetus has been halachically “born,” even if he thereby endangers the woman’s life, no intervention may be taken.Therefore, even according to most lenient opinions within halacha, that which is correctly described as partial-birth abortion is strictly forbidden for Jews and gentiles alike.
Rabbi Avi Grossman adds to yesterday’s article:
And that callous rabbi (?) missed the point. When it says v’lo yamusu, the Torah means that entering the Temple in a state of impurity can not and will not be punished with death by courts, but one is liable to death at the hands of Heaven. I am surprised that he is married because, by his logic regarding the verse v’hizartem es bnei yisrael mitumoisam, he should avoid women entirely lest he violate issurei nidda and zava.
Rabbi Grossman comments on yesterday’s article:
The thirteenth knock is the one that the mizrachi establishment, as exemplified by the YU rabbis, wants to keep hidden. It is the awakening of the younger generation to the fact that the Torah, and the entire Torah, was given to us in order to be put into practice. That is it insufficient to just study Talmud, and that we have to settle the land of Israel and strive to seek out the place of the Temple in order to rebuild it.
Https://mizrachi.org/ publication after publication, event after event, speech after speech, but nothing ever about even fostering a yearning to visit the temple! But the youngsters know better, thank God.
Rabbi Avi Grossman writes:
Aside from the deeply scandalous and heretical claim of the so-called Chief Rabbi that we respect other religions and their places of worship, such that the soldiers who used the Jenin mosque’s PA system for qabbalath ‘ol malchuth shamayim should be disciplined, it is even more so insulting to our intelligence: yes the place was built for “worship”, but in practice it was used as a base for their paramilitary organization, just like the vast majority of their ostensible places of worship.