29 May Speak Your Vues
Healthful and Snobby?
Dear Editor:
People who eat tofu are always so snobby about it. They claim that they are the only ones who live a healthy lifestyle, and they also say that tofu is delicious, which most sane people find absurd. Why are they this way?
Wondering,
RebYidd23
Editor’s Note: The same way people’s definition of “normal” is really people who are most similar to them, so too, people who go on certain diets define other people’s eating according to their normal. Just like there is no such thing is “one size fits all” there is no such diet as “one size fits all.”
MITZVA VS. SEGULA
Dear Editor:
We are cheapening Hashem’s mitzvos by selling them as a segula.
Tzedaka. Is a mitzvah containing numerous mitzvos assei dioraisoh as well as a lav of lo siametz es livovcha. This is all enumerated by the Chafetz Chaim in his sefer “ahavas chessed”.
You wouldn’t think of any of this by the tzedaka ads I see lately. Tzedaka has become the master segula for shidduchim, refuos, ashirus, children, the list is endless.
Chazal never call tzedaka a segula, they said it brings zechusim to a person, the more generous we are the greater the zechus.
Let’s remember there’s no greater act or zechus than us fulfilling a mitzvah in the Torah, after all we are the am segula.
If we forget about the mitzvah & focus only on the segula then we may be foregoing much of the zechus of tzedaka.
Yaakov Neuman
Editor’s Note: Trust me. If advertising it as a mitzvah would raise more money than advertising it as a segulah, you could bet they would advertise it as a mitzvah.
IS A DEAL HAPPENING
Dear Editor:
We see that NK is playing games with Trump. I don’t believe we will get a deal with them. Look at Iran who claims they can have a nuclear bomb in two days. So much for dealing with the devil.
Shaya Berman
Editor’s Note: Time will tell. With our 24 hour news cycle, things get heated up really quickly. When negotiations are just beginning you have to wait for the whole process to finish.
DIVORCE COURT
Dear Editor:
The NY Times had an interesting article about a New York appellate court reversing the decision of a lower court judge (who happened to be frum) in a custody case involving a frum husband seeking to enforce the provisions of the get with his ex-wife. Without going into details, the Judge ruled that she should lose custody of her children, because her lifestyle was no longer consistent with that of frum yid as required by the get. The appellate court ruled that the judge had erred in making her religious observance the primary factor when deciding custody. The Appeals Court also ruled that the lower court judge violated the mother’s constitutional rights by enforcing an agreement which made her pretend to be frum around her children, even though she obviously was no longer observant. The article pointed to another similar case which raises the question of what will be the law going forward when the parties in a divorce file their get in secular courts as a “contract” governing their future commitments as part of a custody case. The gist of the article is that such “contracts” may no longer be relied upon in the future if the lifestyles of the former husband/wife change and the religious component of their agreement appear to conflict with social norms or constitutional rights. Will these types of decisions lead to even more custody challenges if the terms of a get might not be relied upon years into the future?
All this will do is give more fodder for the courts and the lawyers and judges will make more money.
Choni V.
Editor note: What this case also points to is that New York’s “Get Law” is an unconstitutional infringement by the State enforcing alleged religious components of the litigants beliefs. If this is the case none of the agreements in the Battei dinim will be upheld.