Honesty and the Jewish Community VIII: Quotable Interjection

(continued as part of this series)

"Anonymous" recently made the following comment on a post:

IMO as long as he is supporting frum families it makes no difference if it is stolen money.

It doesn't appear that there is a logical reply to someone who thinks in such a twisted fashion and truly believes this, but it brought to mind the following observation of a Gemara made recently by R' Yitzchak Adlerstein at Cross-Currents:

The latter version tells us that serious sin is no bar to emunah. Chonyo could try to kill his brother for his aggrandizement, but this would not get in the way of his seeing himself as remaining within the basic faith. People rationalize all sorts of things, including the worst transgressions.

The former version, however, shows us that an upstanding member of the community whose safety is jeopardized by someone close and trusted, and who is then let down by a community that does not protect him, will easily run headlong out of the fold, and take up the embrace of an alien ideology. He has had enough of the one he used to be comfortable in. If he can be treated so savagely by people he trusts, and if the community at large is powerless to save him, he will walk out.

In light of what numerous friends of ours (and we) have gone through the past years, it seemed an apropos pair of thoughts - particularly when combined.

There appears to be a general feeling among a thankfully small but unfortunately not insignificant portion of the Orthodox community which feels that various indiscretions and transgressions, no matter the size or impact, somehow do not take away from one's faith (or even enhance, as seen above). Worse in a fashion, however, is the shrugging of shoulders and sometimes outright support to the transgressors, even at the expense of those upstanding members of the community whose safety were jeopardized by these formerly close and trusted individuals.

Some of the primary thrusts of this series are to demonstrate just how dangerous this attitude is for those people who are jeopardized and how important it is that as a community we stamp out not only corruption, but support for corrupt individuals. It was unexpected to find that there are some who do not grasp the basic concepts of right and wrong, but as it is futile to convince those who are capable of rationalizing anything, this series will not attempt to do so. Those who believe evil is justified will continue to justify such acts to themselves and one another, and the only way to deal with such people is to isolate and expose them - at least, the ones who aren't placed in prison first.

It's Time

A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to a friend discuss some difficulties they were going through with someone they knew well. As we discussed the various issues, it dawned on me that so much of what I was saying could easily be extrapolated to my own situation as well. Yes, there were obvious differences, but at the same time, there were some eerie similarities. I've always found it interesting and obvious at the same time how it's so much easier to help 'solve' someone else's problem than solve your own, even if they are exactly the same.

Similarly, something my cousin wrote recently about therapy struck home as well. (And perhaps it was ironic that he was here to raise funding to start a yeshiva that would be all about working on one's self...) Sure, we all know everything comes back to what we decide to do, but at the end of the day, we wait for so much else to happen first that is completely not dependent on ourselves... and that's the error. Today, the friend followed up and noted that they had successfully ended their difficult relationship. In the context of the conversation, they expressed how it was freeing to not be leaning on someone anymore. While noting that there are times where it's okay and appropriate to lean on someone, I had to agree wholeheartedly - it's so important to be able to be self-reliant in most aspects of life.

Of course, that doesn't necessarily make it easy.

BDE, Helen Stone

Helen Stone of Cleveland (my grandmother's sister and widow of Irving I. Stone - he of American Greetings, Stone Chumash/Tanach, and the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland fame) passed away today.

Baruch Dayan Emes.

Don P. Design House

It's always great to see friends working really hard at something they're good at, especially as they start overcoming the various hurdles associated with it. One friend who has likely been mentioned previously on this blog has always been a great dresser and designer, ironically married someone who does the same, and now has started manufacturing and selling his own custom shirts for little boys - and other friends have been buying and loving them. Feel free to support him, he's just a great guy - and your sons will look great.

About Mental Illness

After the horrific events of the past days, a friend who works in the psych fields e-mailed me, asking that this blog discuss not only the very important aspects of talking to one's children and communicating with them about the various dangers and how to approach them, but also the fear and stigma the community sometimes has toward discussing issues such as sexual abuse and mental illness, and people who do not get help due to that stigma.

This friend also attended the funeral and noted that "...words cannot describe the experience adequately; the hespedim (that I heard) were in Yiddish, which I do not speak. There was no need to understand the syntax; the emotion felt pierced through and spoke what words could not." [sic]

The friend also emphasized the importance of reading the following letter which appears in full on The Yeshiva World, by the Director of the Center for Applied Psychology (CAPs) at Bikur Cholim (Rockland County), Yitzchak Schechter, Psy.D. I'm quoting an excerpt below, please read it in full:

A simple example to all of what we mentioned comes in this incident itself. Most school age children of the community, whether they be in cheder, day camps, mesivta, sleep away camps or at home will likely hear of this painful and horrific story (or may have heard of other difficult and harrowing stories of the recent past), that is the nature of childhood - stories circulate quickly and usually with great elaboration - without our control. To ignore the story, therefore, is likely foolhardy and to do so allows children to develop their own narrative, perhaps fears, wrong beliefs, etc. about the story and make the traumatic story even worse. Therefore, in a proactive step parents should, at the appropriate level of the child, mention, without anxiety, drama or stress, the sadness that there was a boy who died and if they have any further questions they can discuss it with you the parents. In addition, the moment can, if appropriate, be used to reinforce the very simple concept of safety and privacy (i.e. “no one should touch you in your private parts or make you feel uncomfortable, if they do immediately tell a trusted adult or your parents”). While in this situation it seems to have been a stranger- and of course one should never get into a car or walk with a stranger, the large majority of incidents of abuse occur with people known to the child and familiarity is not protective (and the child must be specifically told “no matter who it is”).
By not allowing secrets, developing open communication and dealing outright with our challenges- as a community, as parents, families and individuals we will create a better environment for our personal and spiritual growth.

Lesson Finally Learned?

I just read this piece by R' Yitzchak Adlerstein and actually clapped upon reading it. After the horrible news yesterday about Leiby Kletzky, the little boy who was picked up and horribly murdered and dismembered by confessed murderer Levi Aron, I noted and questioned to a few friends that it would be interesting to find out if anyone knew if this Levi Aron was a molester or pedophile, and someone covered it up as has been done all too often in the past. However, without proof, I was reluctant to even mention it, until reading R' Adlerstein quote an unnamed respected rav:

I am sure he was, and I am sure he molested many others, and I am sure that there were people that knew and hushed it.

Whether this was the case here or not, there are certainly people like Levi Aron who are free because people have done exactly that: Hushed up cases of abuse, molestation, and the like. This needs to end, once and for all.

As R' Adlerstein says:

It is time to forever bury the myth that reports of pedophilia can be managed and dealt with by committees of rabbonim, even for a short time. It is time to bury the myth that there is a serious halachic barrier to going to authorities to deal with credible reports of such behavior. Enough baalei halacha have told us that there is no barrier. 

Choshen Mishpat 358:12 tells us that those who vex the public can be handed over. Any pedophile does at least that, and poses a danger of doing much more. Moreover, mesirah of a molester exposes him to a safek of danger; pedophiles pose a much greater danger level to many more victims. 

It is natural and good that many people were not eager to rush to modes of address that themselves could be too sweeping and harsh, with terrible consequences to people and their families. They thought that various types of modus vivendi were possible. By now they should realize that this is not true. Rabbonim cannot handle the issue. We have enough evidence of this. Failure to take notice of this could have been said, figuratively, to be shefichas damim/ bloodshed. 

Today, it is no longer figurative. 

It is not a stain on our record that it took time to learn the facts about molestation. Reacting far too slowly is a terrible stain, though. 

Leiby’s horrific petirah can save the lives of many others – those who could meet a similar fate, r”l, and those victims whose lives are a living death. 

I may still be proven wrong, but the analysis will not change. Parents will be speaking about safety to their children. Whatever really happened to Leiby, the fact is that our kids are often in far greater [sic: danger] in school, shul and camp than from encounters with detested “others” while walking home. 

The greatest aliyah for Leiby and nechamah for his family will come from all of us getting serious about molestation. 

If your rov doesn’t get it, think of getting a new rov.

Speaking to Your Kids About Personal Safety

R' Horowitz - full video.

Speaking To Your Kids About Personal Safety from Yakov Horowitz on Vimeo.

Switch Your Verizon Plan Now

If you're on Verizon or are considering switching to Verizon, do it today or tomorrow at the latest. After tomorrow Verizon will no longer have unlimited data plans. If however you're in by tomorrow you will be grandfathered in and keep your unlimited plan at $30/month (versus the new pricing levels which will range from $30-80/month).

Google+... +++

Ezzie: Tried posting this a couple nights ago, but didn't publish for some reason. Enjoy.

Jon nails why Google+ is off to a hot start, but to add to it - the accompanying xkcd is spot-on, plus there's the actual product: It's everything you want on Facebook, minus all the stuff you don't, with the ability to customize a bunch of stuff as you'd like to. The most important things to me are selective sharing, ability to restrict whether something I put up can be shared by others, and communication by group rather than all or nothing. So far it's pretty impressive.

On one hand, you'll never be able to convince your parents to switch. On the other hand, you'll never be able to convince your parents to switch!

Understanding the idea of "Niskatnu HaDoros"...

,,, which roughly translates to "the diminishing of the generations". Ready?

I'm a Dad.
(poor kid)

Should I Steal?

One of the best articles I've read in a long time, at The Atlantic. (Hat tip: Farbs)

Should I Steal From Macy's?

Excerpt:

Macy's is a large corporation.  They are not particularly nice to me.   They issue credit cards with high interest rates.

Many of the things I purchased at Macy's have not really made me better off.  In fact, some have made me worse off. Once I bought a suit for $800 that I couldn't really afford, but the sales clerk at Macy's didn't even ask me to rethink before I paid.  All she cared about was selling me that suit.

Macy's makes an allowance for theft (euphemistically known as "shrinkage" in the retail trade).  It's factored into the price of the product.  They knew when they let me into the store that there was a risk that I might try to steal something.  As soon as they opened the doors, everyone knew what was going to happen: a bunch of stuff would get bought, and some stuff would be stolen.  One could argue that every time I have bought something at retail, paying an extra percentage to cover losses from shrinkage, I have been paying for the right to steal at some point in the future.

Macy's doesn't even use written contracts for most transactions!  If they had wanted to, they could have asked me to sign a contract agreeing not to steal.  Since they didn't, why do I have an obligation not to steal?

EZ Reads 6/13/11: No Shortcuts

I don't think non-Clevelanders always understand how exactly Clevelanders feel and felt about Lebron James. Two (really three, but the one in Deadspin's language is way too unnecessary) pieces really explain it perfectly:

• LeBron's failure warms Cleveland's heart - NBA - Yahoo! Sports
• A Tale of Two Decisions | WaitingForNextYear

On a related note, this video by the Greater Cleveland Partnership about Cleveland's rebirth and rebuilding process is impressive - not just for the video, but the amount of infrastructure ($6.8 billion!) being put into the city as it reinvents itself around its outstanding medical facilities.


Elsewhere:

• James Taranto on the Monster Mohel cartoons which led to the circumcision ban's primary backer dropping it.
• James Bovard discusses his summer working for government, which shows perfectly why government operations are so ineffective: There's simply no incentive to work properly.
• Kol HaRav has R' Bigman's piece on Coercing a Divorce, about how the process ultimately gives power to uncooperative husbands. As we have seen a couple friends pay small fortunes to get their get, this one hit home.
• On a related note, Kefirot questions, after watching a friend be forced to give up her own get rights to get hers, whether we have lost our belief in God that we allow so many people to act so horribly.

Rescue Needed

For those of you old enough to remember Suri Feldman's disappearance and her subsequent rescue, I cannot help but notice the difference in response to Lauren Spierer's disappearance.

Her name is Golda bas Mazal, and everyone should please daven for her and help in any way that they possibly can, whether it be to daven a little for her, to donate, or volunteer services.

EZ Reads 6/12/11: Mazel Tov Edition

Since it's been a while...

• Happy 38th Anniversary to my parents this past Friday!
• Mazel tov to OD and SIL on the birth of a girl over Shavuos!
• Mazel tov to G on the birth of a baby boy recently! (English name suggestion below...)
• Mazel tov to Moshe and family on their move to (gasp) Cleveland!
• Happy 24th (!) birthday to the Apple!
• Mazel tov to Pobody's Nerfect on a baby girl recently!
• ...and I'm sure there are more I'm forgetting, sorry!
• Elsewhere, some good stuff - Blobby with a really nice story about Jews. That's how I was brought up, where that's how we were viewed. Awesome.
• Avi Shafran proudly "informs" on other Jews, for a good cause. 
• Love is the Motive talks of a nice new app (waiting for it on Android) called PowerSefer, bringing a slew of seforim etc. to your iPhone or PC.
• And really - did you think I'd forget? GO MAVS!! (Suggestion for G: Dirk. I don't care what name he's got, this is a potential add, right?)

The Talk

R' Yanky Horowitz is giving The Talk in Baltimore, KGH, Monsey, and Brooklyn over the coming weeks. See info below and here.

EZ Reads 6/3/11

Some thoughts going into Shabbos:

• Someone did a study of the 5 largest regrets people have on their deathbeds. It's an interesting read, if somewhat obvious. Excerpt:
  

  3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
  Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.
  We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.

• Another interesting piece, if only to the extent to which it's true: What we expect is what we get, to the point that people who were told their jobs are good exercise would lose weight, while those who weren't  told wouldn't. To me, this simply proves that mind truly is over matter to a large extent: You can control far more of your life if you simply decide to.
• An interesting aside from Mark Suster's excellent entrepreneurial blog Both Sides of the Table, discussing Peter Thiel's offer to find 20 bright young entrepreneurs to pay them to drop out of college and pursue their own companies. (Why couldn't anyone do this 8 years ago?!) Excerpt y'all may appreciate if you know me:

  I don’t give a s*** whether you were graduated from college or not. If you’re excellent at what you do (coding, sales, marketing, leadership) and you can demonstrate that, I really don’t care if you went to or dropped out of college. At least not as an entrepreneur. Others might care so you should take that into consideration. I personally don’t. And I can attest to this because one of my leading developers at both of my startups never finished college. It never affected him when it was time to check in his code and I’d hire him again in a second.

• Need some extra motivation? How about an alarm clock which shreds your money?
• Finally, a great marriage proposal using a graffiti mural, in time lapse.
  

The Best Comic (Ever?!)

I'm not the "wow this is the best stuff ever!" kind of person, but I love this strip by xkcd. Make sure to mouseover the image to see the other text.

4,000 Years of Jerusalem in 5 Minutes

Very well done, showing the history of Jerusalem using artwork, archeology, and written history.

Effective vs. Statutory

(HT: Special Ed) Bruce Bartlett has an interesting piece on the NYTimes Economix blog today in which he attempts to show that for all the complaining from the right, tax rates today are lower than ever, because the effective rate is lower:

Historically, the term “tax rate” has meant the average or effective tax rate — that is, taxes as a share of income. The broadest measure of the tax rate is total federal revenues divided by the gross domestic product.

By this measure, federal taxes are at their lowest level in more than 60 years. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that federal taxes would consume just 14.8 percent of G.D.P. this year. The last year in which revenues were lower was 1950, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

The postwar annual average is about 18.5 percent of G.D.P. Revenues averaged 18.2 percent of G.D.P. during Ronald Reagan’s administration; the lowest percentage during that administration was 17.3 percent of G.D.P. in 1984.

In short, by the broadest measure of the tax rate, the current level is unusually low and has been for some time. Revenues were 14.9 percent of G.D.P. in both 2009 and 2010.

What Bartlett doesn't seem to realize is that he's given the precise reason why he's absolutely wrong. To oversimplify a bit, what we want is for the effective tax rate to be as maximized as possible. As our tax rates slide higher the greater one's income, the higher the effective rate means that the greater the percentage of taxes are being collected from those on the higher end of the scale. The argument he's making is precisely the argument Republicans have always made: When we lower the statutory tax rates, it stimulates the economy which translates into greater income for all, giving a higher tax base to be collecting from. (Bartlett doesn't address this point at all.) On top of that, the effective tax rate rises, meaning that there is a combination of people moving out of lower tax brackets and people in higher brackets having increasing incomes - all of which result in higher tax revenues and a higher effective tax rate.

The primary significance of a low effective tax rate is not that tax rates are too low, but rather that the economy is struggling mightily, suppressing incomes and lowering the amount of taxes they're able to pay.

EZ Reads 5/31/11

A few of the couple hundred posts I've been meaning to link to... (sigh)

• Da'as Torah with the links relating to the extremely important White Institute's Conference on Sexual Abuse in the Orthodox Jewish Community: Report; recordings; press coverage (London Jewish Chronicle). I heard from someone who was at (and I believe presented) at the conference that the conference was excellent and the speakers extremely moving.
• G6 on Conformity vs. Individuality.
• Harry on The Jewish Hammer, the Chicago Bears' first-round pick Gabe Corsi.
• DA with some funny cartoons relating to Obama's statement about the 1967 borders.
• (HT: Eliyahu Fink) Touched by a Landing, one passenger's retrospective on the ElAl flight which thankfully landed safely after trouble with its landing gear.
• R' Gil - Teiku on Faith. The comments are interesting as well.
• An awesome video (play in full screen) courtesy of Popular Science (via Meryl), if you like some beautiful night sky. Wow.
• Great ad which shows what kind of physicality is required to drive in the 24-hour Le Mans race in Europe. "Breathe in or my lungs will be crushed" - pretty crazy. I've long found it interesting that race drivers are ridiculously athletic and assumed it played a role, but it's cool to see just how that's so.