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Click here to read about the Ein Mishpat Ner Mitzvah (cross-references to the Codes)

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Amazing! There still seems to be some blank space left on this page. Maybe one day you will fill it with your own original commentary.

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The standard printed Talmud page, as reproduced below, spans many centuries of Jewish religious scholarship, from the Bible to the beginning of the twentieth century.

In this Web page, a typical Talmud page will serve us as a port of departure on a voyage through the history of Jewish religious literature.

Click here to see a hyperlinked selection of the texts in translation (requires a frames-capable browser).

Choose an item from this menuThe Mishnah The Gemara (Talmud) Rashi Tosafot Other Commentaries Glosses Page Number Tractate Name Chapter Number Chapter Name Mesoret Ha-Sha"S Ein Mishpat-Ner Mitzvah Torah Or

Choose an item from this menuThe Mishnah Maimonides' Commentary Bertinoro's Commentary Tosefot Yom-Tov M'lekhet Shlomo Tif'eret Tisra'el Hiddushei Mahariah Tosefot Rabbi Akiva Eger Tosefot Anshei Shem Mishnah RishonahPage Numbers Tractate Names Chapter Numbers Chapter NamesCross-ReferencesVariant Readings Mishnah Numbers

Choose an item from this menuThe "Mikra'ot Gedolot" Rabbinic Bible The Torah MasorahThe "Onkelos" Targum The "Yonatan ben 'Uzziel" Targum Targum Yerushalmi Rashi's Commentary Ibn Ezra's Commentary Ramban's Commentary Rashbam's CommentarySforno's Commentary TBa'al ha-Turim's Commentary Chapter Numbers The Names of the Books of the TorahThe Sedrahs (lection divisions) of the TorahPage Number Toledot Aharon

Choose an item from this menuMaimonides' Mishneh Torah Glosses of the Ravad The Kesef MishnehThe Magggid Mishneh Lehem Mishneh Hagahot Maimuniot Migdal 'Oz Mishneh LaMelekh Page Numbers Volume NamesTopics and ChaptersCross-References to Other Codes

Choose an item from this menuThe 'Arba'ah Turim Beit YosefBayit HadashDarkhei MosheBeit Israel ("Perishah" and "Derishah")Page NumberVolume NamesParagraph TitlesParagraph Numbers

Choose an item from this menuThe Shulhan ArukhGlosses by Rabbi Moses IsserlesCommentaries on the Inner ColumnCommentaries on the Outer ColumnCommentaries on the Outer MarginCommentaries on the Outer MarginBe'ur ha-GR"ABa'er HeitevPage NumbersVolume NamesTopic NamesParagraph NumbersBe'er Ha-GolahPit-hei T'shuvah

The page format of the Babylonian Talmud has remained almost unchanged since the early printings in Italy. Some twenty-five individual tractates were printed by Joshua and Gershom Soncino between 1484 and 1519, culminating in the complete edition of the Talmud produced by Daniel Bomberg (a Christian) in 1520-30. These editions established the familiar format of placing the original text in square formal letters the centre of the page, surrounded by the commentaries of Rashi and Tosafot, which are printed in a semi-cursive typeface. The page divisions used in the Bomberg edition have been used by all subsequent editions of the Talmud until the present day.

Over the years several additions were introduced, including identifications of Biblical quotes, cross-references the Talmud and Rabbinic literature, and to the principal codes of Jewish law.

Almost all Talmuds in current use are copies of the famous Vilna (Wilno, Vilnyus) Talmuds, published in several versions from 1880 by the "Widow and Brothers Romm" in that renowned Lithuanian centre of Jewish scholarship. While retaining the same format and pagination as the previous editions, the Vilna Talmud added several new commentaries, along the margins and in supplementary pages at the ends of the respective volumes.

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A Page of Talmud - University of Calgary in Alberta

Thought nonbinary gender was a modern concept? Think again. The ancient Jewish understanding of gender was far more nuanced than many assume.

The Talmud, a huge and authoritative compendium of Jewish legal traditions, contains in fact no less than eight gender designations including:

In fact, not only did the rabbis recognize six genders that were neither male nor female, they had a tradition that the first human being was both. Versions of this midrash are found throughout rabbinic literature, including in the Talmud:

Rabbi Yirmeya ben Elazar also said: Adam was first created with two faces (one male and the other female). As it is stated: You have formed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. (Psalms 139:5)

Rabbi Yirmeya ben Elazar imagines that the first human was created both male and female with two faces. Later, this original human being was separated and became two distinct people, Adam and Eve. According to this midrash then, the first human being was, to use contemporary parlance, nonbinary. Genesis Rabbah 8:1 offers a slightly different version of Rabbi Yirmeyas teaching:

Rabbi Yirmeya ben Elazar: In the hour when the Holy One created the first human, He created him as an androgynos (one having both male and female sexual characteristics), as it is said, male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:27)

Said Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani: In the hour when the Holy One created the first human, He created for him a double face, and sawed him and made him backs, a back here and a back there, as it is said, Behind and before, You formed me (Psalms 139:5).

In this version of the teaching, Rabbi Yirmeya is not focusing on the first humans face (or, rather, faces) but on their sex organs they have both. The midrash imagines this original human looked something like a man and woman conjoined at the back so that one side has a womens face and a womans sex organs and the other side has a mans face and sex organs. Then God split this original person in half, creating the first man and woman. Ancient history buffs will recognize this image as similar to the character Aristophanes description of the first humans as both male and female, eventually sundered to create lone males and females forever madly seeking one another for the purposes of reuniting to experience that primordial state. (Plato, Symposium, 189ff)

For the rabbis, the androgynos wasnt just a thing of the mythic past. The androgynos was in fact a recognized gender category in their present though not with two heads, only both kinds of sex organs. The term appears no less than 32 times in the Mishnah and 283 times in the Talmud. Most of these citations are not variations on this myth, but rather discussions that consider how Jewish law (halakhah) applies to one who has both male and female sexual characteristics.

That the androgynos is, from a halakhic perspective, neither male nor female, is confirmed by Mishnah Bikkurim 4:1, which states this explicitly:

The androgynos is in some ways like men, and in other ways like women. In other ways he is like men and women, and in others he is like neither men nor women.

Because Hebrew has no gender neutral pronoun, the Mishnah uses a male pronoun for the androgynos, though this is obviously insufficient given the rabbinic descriptions of this person. Reading on we find that the androgynos is, for the rabbis, in many ways like a man they dress like a man, they are obligated in all commandments like a man, they marry women and their white emissions lead to impurity. However, in other ways, the androgynos is like a woman they do not share in inheritance like sons, they do not eat of sacrifices that are reserved only for men and their red discharge leads to impurity.

The Mishnah goes on to list ways in which an androgynos is just like any other person. Like any human being, one who strikes him or curses him is liable. (Bikkurim 4:3) Similarly, one who murders an androgynos is, well, a murderer. But the androgynos is also unlike a man or a woman in other important legal respects for instance, such a person is not liable for entering the Temple in a state of impurity as both a man and woman would be.

As should now be clear, the rabbinic interest in these gender ambiguous categories is largely legal. Since halakhah was structured for a world in which most people were either male or female, applying the law to individuals who didnt fall neatly into one of those two categories was challenging. As Rabbi Yose remarks in this same chapter of the Mishnah: The androgynos is a unique creature, and the sages could not decide about him. (Bikkurim 4:5)

In many cases, the androgynos is lumped together with other kinds of nonbinary persons as well as other marginalized populations, including women, slaves, the disabled and minors. For example, concerning participation in the three pilgrimage festivals (Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot) during which the Jews of antiquity would travel to the Temple in Jerusalem, the mishnah of Chagigah opens:

All are obligated on the three pilgrimage festivals to appear in the Temple and sacrifice an offering, except for a deaf-mute, an imbecile, and a minor; and a tumtum, an androgynos, women, and slaves who are not emancipated; and the lame, the blind, the sick, and the old, and one who is unable to ascend to Jerusalem on his own legs.

As this mishnah indicates, it is only healthy, free adult men who are obligated to appear at the Temple to observe the pilgrimage festivals. People who are not adult men, and men who are enslaved or too old or unwell to make the journey, are exempt.

As we have already stated, the androgynos was not the only person of ambiguous gender identified by the rabbis. Similarly, the rabbis recognized one whose sexual characteristics are lacking or difficult to determine, called a tumtum. In the mishnah from Bikkurim we cited earlier, Rabbi Yose, who said the androgynos was legally challenging for the sages, said the tumtum was much easier to figure out.

The rabbis also recognized that some peoples sexual characteristics can change with puberty either naturally or through intervention. Less common than the androgynos and tumtum, but still found throughout rabbinic texts, are the aylonit, who is born with organs identified as female at birth but develops male characteristics at puberty, and the saris, who is born with male-identified organs and later develops features recognized as female. These changes can happen naturally over time (saris hamah) or with human intervention (saris adam).

For the rabbis, what is most significant about the aylonit and the saris is that they are presumed infertile the latter is sometimes translated as eunuch. Their inability to have offspring creates legal complications the rabbis address, for example:

A woman who is 20 years old who did not grow two pubic hairs shall bring proof that she is twenty years old, and from that point forward she assumes the status of an aylonit. If she marries and her husband dies childless, she neither performs halitzah nor does she enter into levirate marriage.

A woman who reaches the age of 20 without visible signs of puberty, in particular pubic hair, is deemed an aylonit who is infertile. According to this mishnah, she may still marry, but it is not expected that she will bear children. Therefore, if her husband dies and the couple is in fact childless, his brother is not obligated to marry her, as would normally be required by the law of levirate marriage.

A nonbinary person who does not have the same halakhic status as a male or female, but is something else that is best described as ambiguous or in between, presented a halakhic challenge that was not particularly foreign for the rabbis, who discuss analogs in the animal and plant kingdoms. For example, the rabbinic texts describe a koi as an animal that is somewhere between wild and domesticated (Mishnah Bikkurim 2:8) and an etrog yes, that beautiful citron that is essential for Sukkot as between a fruit and a vegetable (Mishnah Bikkurim 2:6, see also Rosh Hashanah 14). Because they dont fit neatly into common categories, the koi and the etrog require special halakhic consideration. The rabbinic understanding of the world was that most categories be they animal, vegetable or mineral are imperfect descriptors of the world, either as it is or as it should be.

In recent decades, queer Jews and allies have sought to reinterpret these eight genders of the Talmud as a way of reclaiming a positive space for nonbinary Jews in the tradition. The starting point is that while it is true that the Talmud understands gender to largely operate on a binary axis, the rabbis clearly understood that not everyone fits these categories.

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The Eight Genders in the Talmud | My Jewish Learning

Copperhead snakes are some of the more commonly seen North American snakes. They're also the most likely to bite, although their venom is relatively mild, and their bites are rarely fatal for humans.

These snakes get their name, fittingly, from their copper-red heads, according to the biology department at Pennsylvania State University. Some other snakes are referred to as copperheads, which is a common (nonscientific) name.Water moccasins (cottonmouths), radiated rat snakes, Australian copperheads and sharp-nosed pit vipers are all sometimes called copperheads, but these are different species from the North American copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix).

Copperheads are pit vipers, like rattlesnakes and water moccasins. Pit vipers have "heat-sensory pits between eye and nostril on each side of head," which are able to detect minute differences in temperatures so that the snakes can accurately strike the source of heat, which is often potential prey. Copperhead "behavior is very much like that of most other pit vipers," said herpetologist Jeff Beane, collections manager of amphibians and reptiles at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

Copperheads are medium-size snakes, averaging between 2 and 3 feet (0.6 to 0.9 meters) in length. According to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park, female copperheads are longer than males; however, males possess proportionally longer tails.

According to Beane, copperheads' bodies are distinctly patterned. Their "dorsal pattern is a series of dark, chestnut-brown or reddish-brown crossbands, each shaped like an hourglass, dumbbell or saddlebag on a background of lighter brown, tan, salmon or pinkish," Beane said. He further described the saddlebags as "wide on sides of body, narrow in center of back the crossbands typically have darker margins and lighter lateral centers." Meanwhile, "some crossbands may be broken, and sometimes small dark spots may be in the spaces between the crossbands."

Several other nonvenomous species of snakes have similar coloring, and so are frequently confused for copperheads. However, copperheads are the only kind of snakes with hourglass-shaped markings.

In contrast to its patterned body, the snake's coppery-brown head lacks such adornments, "except for a pair of tiny dark dots usually present on top of the head," said Beane. He described copperheads' bellies as "whitish, yellowish or a light brownish, stippled or mottled, with brown, gray or blackish, often large, paired dark spots or smudges along sides of [its] belly."

Copperheads have muscular, thick bodies and keeled (ridged) scales. Their heads are "somewhat triangular/arrow-shaped and distinct from the neck," with a "somewhat distinct ridge separating [the] top of head from side snout between eye and nostril," said Beane. Their pupils are vertical, like cats' eyes, and their irises are usually orange, tan or reddish-brown.

Young copperheads are more grayish in color than adults and possess "bright yellow or greenish yellow tail tips." According to Beane, "this color fades in about a year."

Copperheads reside "from southern New England to West Texas and northern Mexico," said Beane, advising those interested to check out range maps in a number of field guides.

There are five subspecies of copperhead distributed according to geographic range: the northern, northwestern, southern and two southwestern subspecies. According to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park, the northern copperhead has by far the largest range, from Alabama to Massachusetts and Illinois.

According to Beane, copperheads are happy in "an extremely wide range of habitats," though usually "at least some semblance of woods or forest habitat is present." They are "particularly fond of ecotones," which are transition areas between two ecological communities. They like rocky, wooded areas, mountains, thickets near streams, desert oases, canyons and other natural environments, according to Penn State; Beane added that they like "almost any habitat with both sunlight and cover."

According to the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, copperheads are "quite tolerant of habitat alteration." This means that they can survive well in suburban areas. Copperheads can sometimes be found in wood and sawdust piles, abandoned farm buildings, junkyards and old construction areas. They "often seek shelter under surface cover such as boards, sheet metal, logs or large flat rocks," said Beane.

Copperheads are semi-social snakes. While they usually hunt alone, they usually hibernate in communal dens and often return to the same den every year. Beane said that populations in the "montane" (a forest area below the timberline with large, coniferous trees) often spend the winter hibernating "with timber rattlesnakes, rat snakes or other species." However, "Piedmont and Coastal Plain snakes are more likely to hibernate individually," Beane said.They also can be seen near one another while basking in the sun, drinking, eating and courting, according to the Smithsonian Zoo.

According to the Ohio Public Library Information Network, copperheads are usually out and about during the day in the spring and fall, but during the summer they become nocturnal. They especially like being out on humid, warm nights after rain. While they usually stay on the ground, copperheads will sometimes climb into low bushes or trees in search of prey or to bask in the sun. Sometimes, they even voluntarily go swimming.

According to Animal Diversity Web (ADW), a database maintained by the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, scientists have hypothesized that copperheads migrate late in the spring to their summer feeding area, then return home in early fall.

He described copperheads as being "mobile ambush predators." Mostly, they get their prey by "sit-and-wait ambush"; however, they sometimes do hunt, using their heat-sensing pits to find prey.

The ADW explains that when attacking large prey, copperheads bite the victim, and then release it. They let the venom work, and then track down the prey once it has died. The snakes usually hold smaller prey in their mouths until the victim dies. Copperheads eat their food whole, using their flexibly hinged jaws to swallow the meal. According to Penn State, adult copperheads may eat only 10 or 12 meals per year, depending on the size of their dinners.

Copperhead mating season lasts from February to May and from late August to October, and it can be a dramatic affair. "Males may engage in ritual combat (body-shoving contests) when two or more meet in the presence of a receptive female," said Beane. According to Penn State, the snakes that lose rarely challenge again. A female may also fight prospective partners, and will always reject males who back down from a fight with her.

Copperheads are ovoviviparous, which means that eggs incubate inside the mother's body. Babies are born live. After mating in the spring, females will give birth to "from two to 18 live young in late summer or fall," said Beane. According to The Maryland Zoo, after mating in the fall, the female will store sperm and defer fertilization for months, until she has finished hibernating. Baby copperheads are born with fangs and venom as potent as an adult's, according to the Smithsonian Zoo.

Young copperheads are 8 to 10 inches (20 to 25 cm) long and are born with both fangs and venom, according to Penn State. They eat mostly insects, especially caterpillars.

Beane pointed out that young copperheads may exhibit different hunting patterns than adults. "Young snakes may sit otherwise motionless, flicking their yellow tail tips," he said. "This is known as 'caudal luring'; the tail resembles a small caterpillar or other insect and may attract a lizard or frog [to come] within striking range."

According to the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS), the taxonomy of copperheads is:

Kingdom: Animalia Subkingdom: Bilateria Infrakingdom: Deuterostomia Phylum: Chordata Subphylum: Vertebrata Infraphylum: Gnathostomata Superclass: Tetrapoda Class: Reptilia Order: Squamata Suborder: Serpentes Infraorder: Alethinophidia Family: Viperidae Subfamily: Crotalinae Genus & species: Agkistrodon contortrix Subspecies:

Copperheads bite more people in most years than any other U.S. species of snake, according to the North Carolina State University Cooperative Extension Service. Fortunately, copperhead venom is not very potent.

Unlike most venomous snakes, copperheads give no warning signs and strike almost immediately if they feel threatened. Copperheads have hemotoxic venom, said Beane, which means that a copperhead bite "often results in temporary tissue damage in the immediate area of bite." Their bite may be painful but is "very rarely (almost never) fatal to humans." Children, the elderly and people with compromised immune systems may have strong reactions to the venom, however, and anyone who is bitten by a copperhead should seek medical attention.

Despite this, Beane thinks you should still let a Copperhead snake live in your back yard. He told North Carolina's Blue Ridge Public Radio that, "if you encounter them and they're coiled up somewhere where they want to be, they'll remain completely still and hope that you don't see them or bother them... If you do disturb them, the first thing they'll probably do is try to get away. If you move them... they're going to try to get back to something that's familiar."

Bean also talked about the benefits of having a Copperhead near your house: "They eat a lot of species that we don't like, like mice and rats, that can cause diseases and problems. And [by] eating a lot of rodents, snakes are swallowing a lot of ticks. And ticks cause things like Rocky Mountain spotted fever and Lyme disease. One study showed that snakes are significant tick destroyers in Eastern forest sites."

According to recent research on the US National Library of Medicine, snake venom in general is "recognized as a potential resource of biologically active compounds" that can be used in cancer treatments. Scientists have found that a chemical in copperhead venom may be helpful in stopping the growth of cancerous tumors. Researchers at the University of Southern California injectedthe protein contortrostatin from the southern copperhead's venom,directlyintothe mammary glands of micewherehuman breast cancer cellshad been injected two weeks earlier.

The injection of the protein inhibited the growth of the tumor and also slowed the growth of blood vessels that supply the tumor with nutrients. The venom's protein also impaired the spread of the tumor to the lungs,one sitewhere breast cancer spreadseffectively.

More:

Copperhead Snakes: Facts, bites & babies | Live Science

Verbal Abuse and Sefirah

By Rabbi Yair Hoffman for 5tjt.com

12,000 pairs of Rabbi Akivas students died during the period of Sefirah. Why? Because they did not speak to each other with the respect that was due to them.

Every Yom Tov and every period of time in the Jewish calendar has its own special Avodah in which we can grow. When Chazal point out the reason for their passing away to us, perhaps they are indicating that the growth we should eb working on during this period is to avoid verbal abuse and to respect others.

THE VERSE

THERE IS A VERSE in VaYikra the import of which has been little understood. The verse is velo sonu Ish es amiso (VaYikra 25:17). The Mitzvah is generally called Onaas Dvarim or just plain Onaah.

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THE MAIN REASON

The Sfas Emes explains that the main reason behind this Mitzvah is so that we will all have a sense of complete oneness as a people. Causing another pain was prohibited because it causes division within us as a people.

THE SERIOUSNESS OF THE ISSUE

There is an interesting debate between Rav Henoch Leibowitz zatzal and Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz zatzal in regard to Pnina and Chana. Pnina realized that the reason Hashem was withholding children from Chana was because she was not davening to Hashem with the requisite intensity. She took it upon herself,leshaim shamayim,to help Chana intensify her prayers by teasing her that she had no children. Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz zatzal (Sichos Mussar) points out that the notion of what goes around comes around (or the Middah keneged Middah) regarding causing someone else pain exists even when the underlying intention is 100% proper. Rav Henoch Leibowitz zatzal held that it must be that Pnina was only 99.999% Lishma but there was a subtle, infinitesimally small trace of improper motivation in Pninas actions. Regardless, we see how serious the issue of causing another pain actually is.

RAV ELYASHIV ZATZALS RULING

A question was once posed to Rav Elyashiv Zatzal: A man was not giving his wife a get. Is it permissible to try to get his parents to influence the son to give a get by threatening to expose an illegal activity that one of the parents was doing? The response from Rav Elyashiv was, No. There is no permission whatsoever to cause pain to another, no matter what his son is doing.

BIBLICAL FIGURES SUFFERED

The Midrash Rabbah (Bereishis 14:19) explains that Menashe, Yosephs son was punished for finding the goblet in Binyamins sack even though he did so on his fathers instruction. He caused the Shvatim pain, they ripped their clothes in agony over the fate of Binyamin. The Midrash explains that Menashes portion of his inheritance was also ripped.

Rachel Imeinu, stole the Teraphim of her father Lavan. Her intent, of course, was absolutely proper. She wished to wean her father off of his belief in worshipping idols. Yet the Zohar tells us (VaYeitzei 164b) that she did not merit to raise those whom she loved because she deprived her father of what he loved!

EXAMPLES

Examples of this violation include reminding a Ger of the actions of his fathers, or a Baal Teshuvah of his original behaviors or sins. Asking someone a question in a subject area where the person being asked does not know the subject well is also a violation of Onaah (See Rambam Hilchos Mechira 14:12). Similarly, inquiring the price of item where one has no intention at all of purchasing the item is also a violation of Onaah (See Bava Metziah 58b).

EVEN THROUGH INACTION

In discussing this Mitzvah, Rav Yechiel Michel Stern cites the Chikrei Laiv (YD Vol. III #80) that this prohibition could also be violated through inaction. For example, if someone recites a Mishebarach for a number of people but purposefully leaves one person out he is in violation of this prohibition. A sad aspect of this prohibition is that violators are often unaware that that they are verbally abusing or causing pain. Often they may characterize the recipient of their statement, words or actions as overly sensitive.

Different manifestations of Onaas Dvarim include, demonstrating Kaas (anger) at another, name calling, threatening, and blaming ones own behavior on someone elses actions. Certain criticisms are also subsumed under the category of Onaas Dvarim as well.

THIN LINE

Sometimes, there is a very thin line between proper parenting and Onaas Dvarim. This thin line must be navigated very carefully. For example, lets assume that a mother is concerned and convinced that in todays atmosphere where thin is in her daughter needs to lose the excess weight. [The prohibition even applies to little children the exceptions, of course, are when it is necessary for parenting (See Sefer HaChinuch 251)]. At what point, however, does the mothers comments turn from constructive parenting into a Torah violation of Onaas Dvarim? Often, most people do not get the message unless the issue is made clear to them in no uncertain terms.

There is a story of a young single man who never showered. His Rav approached him and told him that he had to start showering daily. The young man responded that in his particular line of work showering would not be effective because he constantly sweatsin his particular line of work and he would have to shower several times a day in order to be clean. The Rav told him that that was his obligation and put his foot down. Within two months the young man got engaged and was told by his fianc that she did not even so much as look at him prior to his complete turnaround.

The point of the story is that, generally speaking, when people have an underlying issue, nicely telling them is not going to do the trick. Since that is the case, the issue is very pertinent at what point is it Onaas Dvarim and at what point is it constructive criticism or constructive parenting?

The answer to this question depends upon the persons response. The Torah in many places stresses the obligation for one to be intelligent, and to be able to accurately assess likely responses of people. This situation is no different. An accurate assessment of the persons likely response must be made. If it is unlikely that a change will be effected, then further pressing the issue would be a violation of Onaas Dvarim. This does not mean, however, that one should give up. One should constantly be thinking how to coordinate a change within the person but one that would be effective.

IF ONE VIOLATES IT

What if one violated this prohibition? What must he do? The Talmud (Yuma 87a) tells us that there is an obligation to try to placate him to undo the damage. The Talmud quotes verses in Mishlei as to what he must do, Press your plea with your neighbor There are opinions that one must make nice in front of three rows of three people too.

The conclusion of all this is that the violation is a very serious one. It is a Mitzvah that has also, somehow, fallen off the wayside. There is another prohibition called Onaas Mamom monetary abuse. The Talmud (Bava Metziah 58b) states that quotes three sages who explain how the prohibition of verbal abuse is by far more serious than the prohibitions of monetary abuse.

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Verbal Abuse and Sefirah - VINnews

By junior high school, a girl-besotted Mills is sent to a coed summer camp funded by the UJA-Federation, a Jewish philanthropic organization. The director, Dan Farinella, with his big shoulders, powerful arms and broad chest, a pack of cigarettes rolled up in his left shirtsleeve, likes to horse around with male campers.

One night, after a sex-ed film, Farinella summons Mills, saying, Dont worry, you didnt do anything. I just like to get to know my campers. He then proceeds to test and groom Mills, taking him for long walks, quizzing him about masturbation, preying on his isolation. Mills is flattered, as are his parents when Farinella shows up in the off-season, bringing a box of cannoli when he whisks Mills away for a weekend of projects at camp.

Once on their beds in the infirmary, Mills says, Farinella tosses him a pornographic magazine, pushes him down on a mattress and fellates him. I closed my eyes and prayed, Mills writes. Im not here. Im not here. When he opens his eyes, I was floating, looking down at my body, as if it belonged to someone else.

Anyone whos listened to accounts of abuse survivors will recognize certain characteristics the disassociation, the shame, the self-flagellation. But Mills has his fathers instincts as a writer. He fills his story with indelible details the Brylcreem in his predators hair, the cloying compliment Farinella pays Millss stepfather when he arrives to invite Mills to the Bahamas for Christmas. And Mills does a nuanced job of capturing his own emotions, how he blames himself for getting aroused, how he delights when Farinella gives him a Led Zeppelin album, how he imagines the glowing letter of recommendation his abuser will write to colleges.

That commitment to honesty continues in the books second section, Flight, as Mills opens up about his descent into drugs, petty crimes and paranoia. He sabotages promising relationships with women, joins a yeshiva in Jerusalem, drops out of grad school, then volunteers at a refugee camp in Thailand, where he becomes ill. When a doctor tells him hes suffering from post-traumatic stress, Mills returns to New York to seek help.

Continued here:

At a Place Where He Was Supposed to Be Safe, He Was Molested - The New York Times

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The book, with its kitschy cover illustration of a red rose, has made the rounds for years. By the time I became a bride in 2015, it was status quo, passed around alongside the traditional recommended readings on ritual purity and Jewish marriage. The Surrendered Wife is a title frequently invoked among Orthodox Jewish women, quoted during mom walks with strollers and discussed in WhatsApp groups. Premarital teachers recommend the text to young brides-to-be. Rabbis and their wives preach from it, framing it around selective quotes from the Torah and Talmud.

In the controversial 2001 best seller, the American author Laura Doyle argues that the key to a happy marriage is a wife relinquishing control and allowing her husband to handle all decision making, including household finances, a lifestyle that is rooted in conservative biblical principles. When you surrender to your husband, you accept that a supreme being is looking after you both, reads one passage. The more you admire your husbands magnificence and how everything about him is just as it should be, the more you will feel Gods presence. Though these tenets are rooted less in Jewish textual traditions than in the New Testament and in fundamentalist-Christian notions of wifely submission, they have seeped into the Orthodox community over the past two decades.

The Surrendered Wifes popularity highlights how an insular religious group with carefully preserved boundaries can in fact be quite porous to outside influenceparticularly to views popular on the American Christian right. A mini-industry of Orthodox Laura Doyle coaches and educators have emerged, most of them unlicensed yet fashioning themselves as quasi-therapists, offering marital-harmony courses and workshops. Drawing from Doyles text (albeit sometimes without Doyles direct involvement or instruction), they teach women how to accept their husbands, to never criticize, and above all, to be aidel, the Yiddish word for refined or demure. But recently, the books proliferation in the community has stirred controversy, as some Orthodox women began to publicly criticize this sort of marriage education.

Traditional Jewish texts are complex regarding marriage. Though ancient Jewish law sees marriage as a sort of financial transaction, giving husbands control over their wifes vows and ability to divorce, the idea of female surrender as a virtue is a foreign import. As intra-community struggles over Orthodox womens rights have grown more heated in the past decade, this sort of literature has found a home within the community. Social media has created grassroots platforms for religious women to speak up about issues such as female erasure in public spaces, the right to divorce, access to female-provided emergency medicine, and sexual abuse. And in response, theres a real communal concern about what would happen if women would start to assert themselves, Rivka Press Schwartz, an Orthodox educator, told me. There is something scary for individual women about the power of their own anger, and its easier to say, I choose to be surrendered in order to make my husband happy, to make me happy.

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Whats more, The Surrendered Wife has attracted many Orthodox Jewish women who see it as a solution to what they perceive to be a marriage crisis. I just wanted to share that I can honestly say that Laura Doyle book saved my marriage, one woman wrote in a letter published on an Orthodox Jewish womens lifestyle blog. Others see female submission as harkening back to a more traditional past. May I venture to say that the reason why [Doyle] is so controversial is that she is going back to what marriage used to look like? wrote another woman in that blogs comment section. Her concepts are very much in line with the Torah perspective Many rabbonim [rabbis] approve of her method. (Doyle did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)

One of the most popular proponents of reframing Doyles work for Orthodox Jewish audiences is the American-born, Jerusalem-based author Sara Yoheved Rigler, who in 2013 created the Kesher Wife Workshopa virtual seminar series that she has described as offering basic ideas from The Surrendered Wife amplified by the Torah. Rigler has said that she has given this workshop to 2,000 Jewish women internationally. On a popular Orthodox podcast last year, she spoke about reframing dissatisfaction with ones husband as heaven-sent. This is from Hashem, she tells her students, using the Hebrew word for God. Its not from my husband. Im going to stop blaming my husband, criticizing my husband, because everything that happens to me is from Hashem. That perspective, she suggested, takes the sting out of it.

But some women are calling into question the merits of these parallels drawn to Jewish doctrine. Leslie Ginsparg Klein, a scholar of Jewish womens history and an Orthodox educator, told me that seminars like these are a retelling of a completely non-Jewish ideology in Jewish terms in order to push girls and women into adopting a new social norm. Another woman I spoke with, Rachel Tuchman, was engaged to be married when she first heard of the ideology, in 2003. I couldnt believe that it had infiltrated our community, she told me. In her work as a licensed mental-health counselor in Cedarhurst, New York, where many of her clients are from varying Orthodox backgrounds, Tuchman told me she observes firsthand the consequences of subscribing to The Surrendered Wifes ethos. A lot of kallah [premarital] teachers are recommending the book, and I think thats why its getting [attention] Then people end up in therapy and [Im] like, Where did you learn that this is how you should have a relationship? Doyles book may have gained nearly doctrinal status among many women, but, Tuchman said, its not based in Orthodox principlesits really a cultural-societal influence.

To some religious women, though, the question of authenticity is not as urgent as seeking the key to a happy marriage in a terrifyingly modern world. Theres kind of a sense of family life being under attack, that the world out there is not welcoming to families, that the world out there is trying to get everyone divorced, said Keshet Starr, the director of the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot, which is devoted to resolving contentious Jewish divorce cases. Some women, she said, are looking for this perfect formula: Just follow these rules, and youll have a perfect, amazing marriage. Fear of the outside world is prevalentand, ironically, the solution to dealing with that fear comes from the outside, too.

According to historians, the American embrace of wifely submission was popularized in the 19th century with the cult of domesticity, or the cult of true womanhood. As men went to work outside the home and middle- and upper-class white women stayed back to manage the household, American religious literature and womens magazines began to preach four virtues for the ideal wife: domesticity, purity, piety, and submission. Female labor outside the home was needed during the world wars, but afterward, the notion of wifely submission reentered the popular discourse, in an attempt to return to some myth of an idyllic America. Part of that is reimagining the home, Beth Allison Barr, a history professor at Baylor University and the author of The Making of Biblical Womanhood, told me over Zoom. Part of it was What do we do with all these displaced men who have just gone through this horrible thing? Part of it is Lets get them back in jobs; lets build back their self-esteem. And part of that was reordering the household.

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The pendulum swung back and forth: The 1960s brought the sexual revolution, and then, Barr said, the early 70s brought a desire for religious education. Some 1,600 women were enrolled in Southern Baptist divinity programs, many of them likely seeking ordination. If all of those women came through, there was going to be significant displacement [of men]. And it is at that time that we see that crackdown, Barr noted. In 1979, the Southern Baptist Convention experienced a conservative resurgenceand within a few years came conservative Christians widespread adoption of the verses in Ephesians 5: Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. Barr characterizes the rise of the wifely-submission ideology, and the use of language like biblical womanhood, largely as a reaction to ascendant female religious power. And then it just explodes onto the scene.

Many religious Americans, both Christians and Jews, point to Gods punishment of Eve (And he shall rule over you) as proof of female submission being divinely commanded. That reading sees the text as prescriptive. In fact, the central description of the ideal wife, according to Genesis, is as a helpmate opposite him. It is this phrase in Hebrew, ezer knegdo, that is most cited in the Orthodox Jewish community: in girls schools, at wedding ceremonies, in eulogies. The phrase suggests that a spouse ought to be a foil, a point of contrast, neither a mirror nor a servant. The righteous wife is also often referred to as akeret habayit, the bedrock of the home, in a complementarian sort of way; families sing an ode to the woman of valor at the Sabbath table weekly, praising the Jewish wife as both a domestic queen and a shrewd businesswoman.

But as todays Orthodox women attain educations, pursue careers, become breadwinners, access the wider world through the internet, and even build independent platforms for themselves, that complementarianism has been challenged. Some community influencers have turned to conservative American Christian thought for its language on submission within a religious framework, in order to maintain a certain status quo around gender. This sort of anxiety isnt newthe history of modern-day Orthodoxy is one long chain of reactions to outside influences, whether dominant religious cultures or secularism. Orthodox Judaism as a whole has grown more stringent, in what sociologists call a slide to the right, as a response to the pervasiveness of secular culture. And yet, as Doyles influence shows, this communitys boundaries are, as ever, permeable. Theres no way to exist in American culture and not be in some way influenced by it, Ginsparg Klein, the Jewish womens-history scholar, said. Throughout history, the Jewish community has been influenced by its surrounding culture and has likewise influenced its surrounding culture.

Indeed, the Orthodox Jewish adoption of The Surrendered Wife is part of a bigger trend: As large swaths of the community have aligned themselves with the Christian right, theyve built political alliances based on the idea of a shared Judeo-Christian worldview, on concerns about social issues regarding abortion and gender, and on a general sense of an existential threat posed by secular progressivism. Concurrently, a younger generation of religious women that is plugged in to online discourse is being exposed to alternative critical voices. The tension will only continue to grow. As this community struggles with assimilation and with its boundaries around authenticity, the outcome of that struggle will likely set the tone not just for the design of a home, but also for female visibility and leadership in the Orthodox sphere.

Excerpt from:

The Controversial Marriage Book That's Dividing Orthodox Jewish Women - The Atlantic

Elisha Wiesel speaks with Lubavitch International about his famous father and raising his children to love Yiddishkeit

Your father, Elie Wiesel, put the tragedy of his personal experience in the Holocaust to work, raising awareness about the danger of antisemitism and the evil of hatred. You yourself have begun to speak out against antisemitism, sometimes as you did at the UN this past February with indignation, even anger. Is that something youd say came from your father?

My father was not an angry person, so I wont blame him for this. But I think theres a time and a place to get appropriately angry. Today, being a victim seems to be the only way to get the microphone. We shake our heads and sit there stunned, shockedfor exampleby the stupidity of the argument against Israel about disproportionate killing. This rhetoric is absolutely antisemitic, absolutely hateful, because the only way to get proportionality is to turn off the Iron Dome for an hour so that more Jews die. So we need to raise our voices. We need to respond. Sometimes, you have to get angry with these people, because its the only way that they realize they have crossed a linefrom pontificating to calling for absolutely murderous results.

The world knows Elie Wiesel as the most famous Holocaust survivor, a prolific author, activist, and Nobel Peace Prize winner. Who was Elie Wiesel to you, his only child?

When I was young, I thought my father was a weak person. A lot of the other kids had parents who were throwing a baseball with them, teaching them how to catch a football, taking them skiing. That was not my father.

At age eight or nine, Id hear a friend say his father had served in the IDF and was now flying planes for El Al. Another would say his father was a pharmacist, saving people with his medicines. I would say, I think something really bad happened to my father, and he talks about it.

But my impression of my father changed a lot over the years. In my twenties, I began to appreciate the person who existed before the war. He was a bright, engaged, curious student, full of affection. I began to appreciate the incredible childhood that he had and I could see the young person that hed been. I no longer saw him as just a snapshot.

You once said that you struggled as a child: it was difficult being in your fathers shadow and trying to carve out your own identity. What were you looking for?

I felt that there was this path that had been constructed for me, and an expectation that I would be a mini Elie. I went to a Modern Orthodox yeshivah where my father was very well known. So, of course, I was supposed to be the best-behaved student in class. I mean, your father is Elie Wiesel, so how could you possibly be goofing off and not paying attention? I felt very boxed in by all of the expectations of who I was supposed to be. I was desperate to break out.

What did that look like?

As an adolescent, I went through a very strong inflection point. I began to question everything. I felt Yiddishkeit was useless to me, and I found myself completely on the other side.

How did your father relate to your adolescent frustrations?

He didnt always know how to connect with me. My parents were first-generation immigrants from European families. They didnt get a guidebook on how to be an American parent in the twentieth century, and I think they struggled with it. My father was a very patient man, and he continued to love me no matter what horrible things I said or did. Ultimately, I think that that served him well as a parenting strategy. Its one that I try to remember. But Im sure it was very hard for him.

I think my father felt that he had placed a big burden on me by bringing me into this world. At a time when it was hard for anyone to keep faith and fight the forces of assimilation, it was a difficult thing to be the sonthe only sonof a famous Holocaust survivor whose family had been almost decimated. And he felt bad for me that all that weight was on my shoulders. He tried to lessen the burden. He tried to protect me and let me live my own life.

What was the turning point in your relationship with your father?

In 1995, I joined my father on a trip to Sighet, his childhood hometown. That was a turning point. We also went to Auschwitz on that trip, but thats where the Jewish community went to die. Sighet is where the Jewish community lived. In Sighet, my father could describe what his day looked like, how he would run home from cheder, or from choir practice, stopping at his grandmothers windowon Fridays she had a fresh challah to give him as she asked him what he learned that day. This was powerful for me.

This is where my father grew up, and its charged with all fourteen or fifteen years of his memories before Auschwitz. Being there allowed me to see him as someone who had this incredible strength to persevere, with life, with family, with Yiddishkeit, and to engage with the world after the Shoah.

Where do you think that resilience came from?

It came from the way he was raised. My father was not raised in a vacuum. I could feel my grandparents fingerprints in all this.

My father loved Judaism, loved the world. He had an incredible thirst for knowledge. You dont get that in a vacuum. He was raised in a loving home. He had a strong sense of identity. And when you have that, you have the self-confidence that can take you forward in life.

This is something that I only appreciated when I had kids of my own and started thinking about what shapes character and what shapes destiny.

Were there other turning points for you?

Growing up, I didnt get to experience a big family or joy in Judaism, and that was really missing for me. But my father gave me a gift when he passed. He wanted me to say Kaddish for him, and when I started to visit shuls to do so, I saw joy. I saw joy in the davening, joy in everythingfrom Birkat HaMazon, to the Torah class, to the kids running around.

The joy of Yiddishkeit seems to be an important theme in your family life.

We only get this narrow window to give our children the values and experiences we want them to remember. I want my son to have experiences hes going to remember ten years from now, when he has to make his own decisions about life. I dont feel Im going to get my kids to have a lifelong interest in Judaism by lecturing or giving them rational arguments.

What he will remember is that he and a friend would sit in shul and have a good time together, and occasionally theyd get up and dance with us and run around. Hell remember the experience of the lively singing, and hell know the songs and be able to sing along. Hell remember that great feeling at the Shabbos Kiddush in shul, where youre schmoozing and the food is great, and people are happy to see each other. These are things hes going to rememberin his heart, not in his head. So Im much more focused on that.

My son is almost sixteen. And Im respectful of his time and his choices. He knows that I expect him to wear tefillin with me every day. He doesnt go to a Jewish school, so we daven together every morning. We go to shul together when we can, and we experience the liveliness, the spirit of Yiddishkeit.

Your father was a serious student of Gemara. He loved learning Talmud, he said. You also are studying Talmud. What has that been like?

Im on this seven-year adventure, making my way through all of Shas, seeing every corner of the Talmud. I study with a chevruta. I could spend the rest of my life studying, because how can you possibly master this conversation thats been occurring for 2,000 years? Were flying 1,000 miles an hour at 30,000 feet, so I know that Im not getting it in depth. But occasionally theres something that I want to double-click on and go deeper. Im keeping a journal of the things that I find the most memorable so that when I do it the second time around, I can go even deeper. It has been an incredible experience.

Its also taught me to appreciate the depth in which my father was swimming, and what he was inspired by. Ill be sitting in shul and reading a certain Haftorah, and I know what my father would have been thinking about.

In a 2012 interview in these pages, your father spoke about his personal relationship with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He said the Rebbe urged him to marry and have a family.

I have only one side of their correspondencethe letters the Rebbe wrote to my father. No matter what they would be talking about, the Rebbe would end by saying, By the way, are you married yet?

He was constantly reminding my father that this was the most important thing he could do to really defeat Hitler. To really show that he stood for all the things he said he stood for: You need to get married, you need to have kids, and they should grow up to be Chasidic, G-d-fearing kids. And if theyre not Lubavitch, thatll still be good. He did it with a sense of humor.

Did your father live to see the way you have evolved?

He didnt live to see my sons bar mitzvah, which Im very sad about. But he lived to see my kids have Jewish literacy. He taught my son alef-bet on his knee. And he saw that we were beginning to make Shabbos a joyful time, that I could raise a Jewish family with joy very much at the center of the experience.

This article appeared in the Spring 2022 issue of the Lubavitch International magazine. To download the full magazine and to gain access to previous issues pleaseclick here.

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Memories of the Heart - Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters - Lubavitch.com