re: The Unknown Jew Who Risked the Electric Chair To Save the Globe From American Nuclear Tyranny

A reader wrote that he appreciates our posts, even when they don’t necessarily have anything to do with Judaism per se, such as this one:

The Unknown Jew Who Risked the Electric Chair To Save the Globe From American Nuclear Tyranny

To repeat myself in a past article:

Ever see an article that doesn’t seem related to Judaism on Hyehudi.org – “Aggregated Articles About Judaism”?

Here’s a general rule for reading Hyehudi:

Ask yourself if many of the most famous and scholarly rabbis today would agree with a certain message. If they wouldn’t, well then that’s what I mean to wonder about. And if the said rabbis haven’t expressed an opinion either way, then I mean they really ought to do so.

Even for the minute number of filler, or “padding” articles, my goal is to render the rest of the site more appealing and get new readers for the more meaty articles.
To illustrate, here is the Jewish connection of just this article:
  1. If a Jew were to ask a Torah question about a similar case of breaking monopoly, I think he should be told to do the same as our protagonist.
  2. My cynical view of the US tyrannizing the world if only it could is meant as a critique of blind, stupid Pollyanish views of the US, so common among Jews.
  3. How come you never read any Torah scholar lambasting nukes? Why not?!
  4. Look at this one Jew. Even distant Jews should at least not drift too far; Jews are ‘awesome’!
  5. Even the so-called exceptional USA could have been (even worse) a monster, so we should go slow on Iggros Moshe‘s “Medinah shel Chessed”-induced patriotism.
  6. An inter alia reminder of Hiroshima (we have elsewhere shown to be gratuitous), which undercuts the US claim of morality, let alone unique morality. And “When they fall we rise“.
  7. Hiroshima should awaken Jews to leave a State blithely capable of such things.
  8. Hiroshima should inoculate Jews against the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s feelings about the US.
  9. If a duly state-miseducated\programmed American Jew can walk away from a random article quoting Wikipedia suddenly thinking Soviet spies can be heroic (!), what other firmly-held convictions might you be wrong about (Temple Mount, Mechiras Chametz, etc.)?
  10. The article is meant to condition the reader to deep revulsion of mainstream, “Charedi” neocon rags (with numerous Jewish side-benefits).
  11. A reminder world peace is usually a good thing in Judaism, pace the necocons.
  12. Even if other interpretations of this are possible, how come you never heard any of this fascinating story? And what does that tell you about your, if not Jewish at least Jew-ish, education supposedly including all chief highlights (thereby encouraging independent study of Jewish history, etc.)?
  13. Another dig at some Jews’ acceptance of the USG’s world-monopoly-aspiring Russia-Ukraine narrative.
  14. This anecdote further illustrates the simple meaning of Mishlei here.
  15. I think counterfactual thinking (“the bomb might have been dropped on China…”) is essential to Torah study, as demonstrated eleswhere.


Enough to make my point yet?

Note: Feel free to evade all the above and read Hyehudi purely for pleasure (as some people read the Torah itself as a novel) so long as you don’t attribute to this writer the “starving artist” foolishness of spending hours writing this site for free\zip\nada\gratis\gornisht, merely to amuse the bored.

Marriage Counseling Is for Goyim!

I know a few married couples that break all the rules (of any accepted school of thought) and have great Shalom Bayis (yes, I do know).

How is this possible? Simple.

The couple doesn’t come to the marriage with much spiritual “baggage”. Either that or they do full Teshuvah for prior sins.

Fine, this comes across as reactionary. Sue me (and also name as respondents the Arizal, Netziv, Chida).

Take Care in Kri’as Shema!

I am pretty reliably informed (but can’t confirm) Rabbi Chaim Greinemann zatzal has ruled an Ashkenazi need not differentiate Alef and Ayin, even לכתחילא, even for reading the Shema.

I assume he was asked despite Mishna Berurah stating in 53 and 128 “כתבו האחרונים דבזמנינו שרוב בני עמנו אין יודעים להבחין בין הברת העי”ן לאל”ף מותר”, because we live among Sefardim, as well.

But here is an interesting story. I just heard an Ashkenzai yeshiva student (nowhere near a beginner!) commit the following “טעות הדומות”. (I corrected him.)

The man recited:

“השמרו לכם פן יפתה לבבכם וסרתם ואבדתם מהרה מעל הארץ הטבה…”

Guard your hearts against straying“, indeed!

The actual text is thus:

השמרו לכם פן יפתה לבבכם וסרתם ועבדתם אלהים אחרים והשתחויתם להם.
וחרה אף השם בכם ועצר את השמים ולא יהיה מטר והאדמה לא תתן את יבולה ואבדתם מהרה מעל הארץ הטבה אשר השם נתן לכם.

The first with an “Ayin”, the second an “Alef”.

Big Difference!

Ilan Ramon: Two Possible Lessons

Short version: Ilan Ramon acted more traditionally Jewish in outer space, was killed on reentry to earth.

From Wikipedia (edited):

… He was the first spaceflight participant to request kosher food and mark the Sabbath.

The STS-107 mission ended abruptly when Space Shuttle Columbia was destroyed and its crew died during re-entry, 16 minutes before the scheduled landing.

Ramon, whose mother and grandmother were survivors of Auschwitz, was asked by S. Isaac Mekel, director of development at the American Society for Yad Vashem, to take an item from Yad Vashem aboard STS-107. Ramon carried with him a pencil sketch, Moon Landscape, drawn by 16-year-old Petr Ginz, who was murdered in Auschwitz. Ramon also took with him a microfiche copy of the Torah given to him by Israeli president Moshe Katsav and a miniature Torah scroll (from the Holocaust) that was given to him by Prof. Yehoyachin Yosef, a Bergen Belsen survivor. Ramon asked the 1939 Club, a Holocaust survivor organization in Los Angeles, for a symbol of the Holocaust to take into outer space with him. A barbed wire mezuzah by the San Francisco artist Aimee Golant was selected. Ramon also took with him a dollar of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson…

Also: 

Ramon’s miraculously recovered diary “contained the handwritten Sabbath prayer of the wine – the kiddush – which Ramon had written out in order to be the first Jew to recite the blessing in space.”

But why?

Surely not fear of death for a seasoned pilot, who volunteered for this mission as well. And no reason to assume this was all genuine (an obtuse Y. Leibowitz missed one opportunity long ago).

Why did Ramon go to such lengths, then?

I take him at his word, again quoting Wikipedia (before the first ellipses above):

Personally nonreligious, Ramon performed traditional observance while in orbit: “I feel I am representing all Jews and all Israelis.”

He thought he represented the Jewish people, who are mostly traditional. This was reciprocated in the genuine, universal wave of grief in Eretz Yisrael when he died (beyond the usual pain of a Jewish terror casualty and the like), including by my quasi-Neturei Karta friends.

So what? What are the two lessons you promised?

First of all, cheer up! Instead of the bad old days of “Yom Kippur Balls” we see even the likes of Leiberman and Lapid selling themselves by explaining how they, in fact, represent Judaism better (right or wrong is not the point).

Anti-Zionist perma-pessimists are wrong!

Secondly, there is some reason to hope an average Jewish king, even if not an ideal candidate (unlike a grasping, bare-voting-majority politician), seeing himself representing the nation as a whole (not to mention, “before God”!) would likely take a similar course of at-least external observance of some known mitzvos.

Restore monarchy now!