Interesting Posts and Articles #281

1. Opposition, from a rabbinic task force, to a Jewish school -- Rappaport - Ahavat Yisrael. And a Rapaport parent speaks up in defense.
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2. DovBear writes about an incident at a wedding:
   
   

   Last week, the crook and I were seated together at a bar mitzvah. He washed for bread, and found the salt was out of reach. A man with manners would have gestured for the salt, or allowed himself to take a nibble from the bread without salting it. Not our crook. Unwilling to forgo an opportunity to look frum - or perhaps so deeply in the grips of his own corruption that he thought what he was doing made sense - our crook dipped his bread - three times! - into the communal pickle plate.
   
   I take offense, not merely at his bad manners or at his criminal activity, but at how frumkeit is allowed to answer for all sins. Its the triumph of style over substance. He looks frum - he dipped his bread - but via something disgusting.

   Firstly, the fellow should have just said "Please pass the salt." This is perfectly justified halachically. The three times is apparently some kabbalistic minhag. It is not that this fellow double-dipped, in that after putting it to his mouth, he dipped again. And I suppose this is subjective and culturally-based. I would not have been disgusted or bothered by this dipping bread into the communal pickle plate.
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3. Autism can be diagnosed with a fifteen-minute brain scan. But it doesn't live up to the hype. Read inside.
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4. A greater number of girls in the US are reaching puberty earlier. Like, at seven. This could well have halachic repercussions.
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5. In Ramapo, because of misbehavior in previous years from the folks running the kappores shlugging, the Health commissioner wants to scrutinize it before the event.
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6. Satmar says living in Israel is forbidden. But which Satmar? Even Neturei Karta live in Israel.
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7. An article by Dr. Tzvi Aryeh Steinfeld on the Truah of Rosh Hashana.
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8. At Hirhurim, Rabbi Ari Enkin about opposition to going to Uman on Rosh Hashanah.
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9. A Saudi judge seeks to paralyze someone in a literal application of the principle of "an eye for an eye..."
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10. Here on parshablog, about shiluach haken as a segulah for having sons.