moderated halachic mailing list
d.s.chechik
up into various and sundry newsgroups. Most of the proponents argued
that the newsgroup has become mostly a battleground between various
factions of Judaism. The idea of splitting the newsgroup was
yelled down and has not been heard from since.
Some of the people i've spoken to about the newsgroup have told
me that they will not post articles to n.r.j for fear of being ridiculed etc.
And since not everyone has the temperment or the desire to fight the
world, one can't blame them.
One idea that has been suggested is to start a moderated mailing
list dealing with issues of jewish law and culture.
The subject matter of the mailing list will be halachic issues,
NOT the validity of halacha.
Some issues might be:
must married women cover their hair
validity of a woman's minyan
proper direction to pray in
shabbos and electical devices
bugs in vegatables
etc.
Of course, anyone can subscribe.
I am not interested in starting a debate nor will i participate
in one if it should occur.
The mailing list will iy"h exist if people send me mail subscribing to it
and will not exist only if there is no interest. Discussions in n.r.j
will have no effect. So if you're into futility, flame away.
I volunteer to be moderator until shavuos.
After which, if people think i'm doing a lousy job or if
i get sick of it or don't have enough time, a new moderator will be chosen.
If you are interested please send me the following information.
Your name, phone number (day time), machine, login, and which
machines your machine talks to for efficiency of routing.
If need be, send me uucp information and we'll see if
we can figure out a way of connecting the machines.
Dovid Chechik
AT&T Information Systems Labs
Middletown, NJ
(201) 957-5677 work
(201) 370-9756 home
(most backbone sites)!mtgzz!dsc
Dave Esan
So, there are people who have questions that they would like to discuss,
but they are afraid of being ridiculed? I do not think that any of hte
discussions that I have seen in more that 2.5 years on this net qualify
to be called ridicule. There have been some very heated debates that
touched on sensitive issues, but beside the jabs over Sphard/Ashkenaz
traditions, none that I would call ridicule.
But, you have chosen to abandon the open net, and go into your moderated
super-frum ghetto, where you, the great Sage of our time, will decide
which article shall live and which article shall die. You will also
abandon those Jews who do not subscribe to your theories of Judaism
and those who are using this net to increase their knowledge of Judaism.
The precept of 'Kall yisrael arayvin ze la-ze' (All Israel is responsible
one for the other) is being trampled by this moderated newsgroup. Those
who can learn won't be able, those who want to learn won't be able, those
who don't want to learn won't have the learning thrust upon them. As
Pesach approaches remember the four sons and the answers for each. The
wise son doesn't need your group, the wicked son will argue but the
discussion will make him learn in spite of himself, the simple son will
learn from the discussion, and the one who can't ask -- it says: "At
ptach lo" (you should open him). What are you doing for these four
sons of net.religion.jewish? [Sons here is allegorical and in no way
excludes women by design or intent.]
Finally, you choose not to take part in any discussion of your action.
This is very typical of the Khomeini-like mentality of the new Orthodox.
If you are not with me you are against me. This was never the attitude
of mainstream religious Judaism, but has begun to appear with the
pseudo-learned baale-tsuvah of this generation. Rather than admit that
they still have things to learn, they assume that they have better knowledge
than anyone else, and that anyone with less knowledge is beneath their
contempt. Rather than observe the spirit of Judaism, they prefer to observe
the letter of the law.
You probably think that I am reform or even a reconstructionist. I am not.
I am a lifelong member of the Orthodox community. This is not ridicule,
this is 'musar'. I hope no one joins your mailing list, because then the
purpose of nrj is gone, and there will be no more articles posted here.
David Esan (rochester!ritcv!moscom!de)
> Some of the people i've spoken to about the newsgroup have told
> me that they will not post articles to n.r.j for fear of being ridiculed etc.
> And since not everyone has the temperment or the desire to fight the
> world, one can't blame them.
>
> One idea that has been suggested is to start a moderated mailing
> list dealing with issues of jewish law and culture.
> The subject matter of the mailing list will be halachic issues,
> NOT the validity of halacha.
>
Eliyahu Teitz
> So, there are people who have questions that they would like to discuss,
> but they are afraid of being ridiculed? I do not think that any of hte
> discussions that I have seen in more that 2.5 years on this net qualify
> to be called ridicule. There have been some very heated debates that
> touched on sensitive issues, but beside the jabs over Sphard/Ashkenaz
> traditions, none that I would call ridicule.
>
> But, you have chosen to abandon the open net, and go into your moderated
> super-frum ghetto, where you, the great Sage of our time, will decide
> which article shall live and which article shall die. You will also
> abandon those Jews who do not subscribe to your theories of Judaism
> and those who are using this net to increase their knowledge of Judaism.
>
Amen.
Eliyahu Teitz.
Eliyahu Teitz
I realized after sending my reply that I cut off too much of the article. I agree
with the author that it is indeed a bad idea to have the moderated mailing list
that was suggested. Having posted many articles to this newsgroup I can attest
that there is little or no ridicule. Heated debate yes. Ridicule , no. If
anyone cannot have his or her beliefs tested publicly by those who do not
take everything for granted, then he or she should go and hide in a ghetto
and not work in the modern world. You never know when someone will come
and test your beliefs. The only way to be firm in your beliefs is to
have them tested. preferably by someone sincere. That way the tester can point
out flaws and correct them without the testee feeling attacked in any way.
However, if you don't like your beliefs tested you might come into a rude
awakening in the future.
Eliyahu Teitz.
*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE ***
nathanm
> super-frum ghetto, where you, the great Sage of our time, will decide
> which article shall live and which article shall die.
Ridicule? What ridicule? :-(
---------------
Nathan Meyers
hp-pcd!nathanm
sh...@rochester.uucp
I am not sure why the suggestion of a moderated mailing list should
provoke such a strong response, who does it threaten? It was not my
suggestion but I suggested something similar some time back. There are
good reasons why a jewish mailing list would make sense independent of
religious controversy. Some that occur to me are:
Many sites that do not receive news can recieve mail. My site has
already cut off many nonessential groups and is expiring several
others immediately. It is something of a struggle to get
net.religion.jewish described as essential. If this place was larger
or had no Jewish faculty I might have been cut off.
And talking about that, their are Jews who might not want to advertize
their jewishness due to possibilities of persecution. Posting to
net.religion.jewish is considerably more public than mailing to a
mailing list. Admittedly if someone was really interested in finding
out who read a mailing list they probably could get it. There aint no
perfect security.
Finally their are people who find any public forum intimidating. Of
course people who regularly post don't! But people have come to me
(in the mistaken belief that I knew something) who would not be
willing to broadcast their ignorance on some issue.
Now my credentials:
I am a nonobservant Jewish son of nonobservant conservative Jewish
parents. I have had the standard conservative Jewish training so I
know the rules of kashrut and most of the simpler rules. I have been
on the net from before the existence of net.religion. It was my
original message that helped create the controversy that caused the net to
acquire net.religion and net.politics and so on. Before net.misc used
to do that stuff. I know something thus about how the net works.
(Not everything though by any means).
-David Sher
sher@rochester
seismo!rochester!sher
Ps: Keep those D'varim Torah (did I get that right?) coming! They're great!
--
-David Sher
sher@rochester
seismo!rochester!sher
David Sherman
> Ps: Keep those D'varim Torah (did I get that right?) coming! They're great!
The plural of d'var is d'varim, but not when it's in the
conjunct form. As you may know, Hebrew lets you put two words
together ("A B") to get the meaning "A of B". The two main shifts
that occur are that a closing -ah (kamatz-hey) for a feminine
gender becomes 'at (or -as if you're Ashkenazic) -- thus
Torah of Life is Torat Chayim -- and a masculine plural -im
becomes -ey. Hence Children (banim) of Israel becomes B'nei Yisrael.
Therefore, it's
Divrei Torah
(Hope this is useful to some. Understanding how the conjunct,
or whatever its proper name is, works to link Hebrew nouns is
useful in parsing a lot of names and phrases.)
Dave Sherman
The Law Society of Upper Canada
Toronto
--
{ ihnp4!utzoo pesnta utcs hcr decvax!utcsri } !lsuc!dave