Interesting Posts and Articles #232

1. Via Blog in Dm, Schlock Rock's Leah's Song and I Will Pray:
   
   
   



2. Rationalist Judaism on age of the earth and conversion, among other issues, involving EJF:
   
   

   Rabbi Nachum Eisenstein said words to the following effect, from the podium, during the Tuesday, November 6, 2007 afternoon session of the EJF conference:
   "Rav Elyashiv holds that any person who believes the world to be older than 5768 years is kofer b’ikur, and as such, is pasul l’dayanus. Therefore, a ger who underwent conversion through a beis din on which such a person served as a dayan remains non-Jewish. The conversion is invalid even b’dieved."



3. Mystical Paths on the Neged Jew: the critic, the Karaite, and the Rationalist. I wonder how many of those I fall under. :)
   

   The Rationalist de-mystifies yiddishkeit. Stories of angles and demons are seen only as metaphors, as are all stories outside the realm of physical possibility as understood by modern science (except when such events are specifically described as direct actions by G-d, true miracles.) The rationalist decomposes many Jewish rituals looking for influence of kabbalah or other non-rationalist thinking - to point out what doesn't make sense. But he doesn't change his davening (praying) or performance of mitzvot, just his understanding of what's behind it.

4. Life In Israel has a pashkevil in support of Elior Chen.
   
   
5. Make your own academic sentence. After all, the emergence of the natural is strictly congruent with the historicization of linguistic transparency.
   
   
6. Matzav on further Shabbos elevator developments.
   

   However, it turns out that the matter is not so clear-cut. Rav Levi Yitzchok Halpern, who heads the Yerushalayim Institute for Technology and Halacha and is a renowned expert in this area, has expressed his doubts about the facts that were presented and said that “the engineer who was brought before the rabbonim does not know his right from his left.”

   A team of rabbonim has thus been formed to meet, review and analyze the various issues involved with the Shabbos elevators and the practical halachic applications. The team is headed by Rav Yosef Efrati, trusted right-hand of Rav Elyashiv. The first recent meeting was held in Rav Efrati’s office.

   The meeting was initiated by Rav David Chaim Shubaks, a dayan in Belz. The rabbonim discussed a recent letter written by Rav Shubaks in which he explains why the elevators should not be forbidden on Shabbos. Rav Shubak’s letter contains three principal arguments supporting his contention...

   
   
7. Check out these pictures of bare bears.
   
   
8. Here at parshablog, check out my sources for study of parshat Chayei Sarah.