From the Desk of Don Coyote
Notes and musings from an anonymous friend
Hi מכרכר,
Your blog and its comments have much that is insightful and inciteful, exciting and excited. Searches for models of hedonism. I'm having a problem commenting on a very lively post, 'Natan's Latest Post, A digest of 'The Craziest Ban' '. If there's such a thing as a guest post, is there such a thing as a guest comment? If you are able, kindly post the following:
As a second-hand observer of the original post, I want to offer the following. (My apologies for lumping a few things together.)
As pointed out by מרכבות פרעה, not everything is a “ban”. When reading school rules, as sent home at the beginning of each year, many of them appear odd. But they do the job. Maybe because when there are one hundred rules the students keep the twenty important ones better. Even an ill-advised rule, if not extreme, is advantageous in that it imbues the students with a feeling of responsibility, accountability and being on your toes. This advantage holds across divisions of the school experience; rules in the gym benefit the classroom and vice versa.
Back in the day, they experimented with “dress down Friday”. What could be wrong with that? Then when employee performance tanked, they learned their lesson. Ended up that dress IS more connected to performance than they thought. Peripherals impact the core.
About bunches of boys with bamba, the same issue is in the private arena, when you take your young boy to shul, and he bothers your own davening. But you do it to acclimatize him to shul. Eventually he's gotta and gonna settle in. Then you can't be too strict with him lest he come to detest the place. Neither can you be strict with the other guy's kid because you can't interfere with HIM being comfortable in shul. You're aware of the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. He'll grow up and sit like a mensch.
Especially Chassidim. The weekday coffee and the Shabbos herring are main draws that make people comfortable to come and engage in their devotions. The shteebel is meant to be a homey place. Even 'Shteebel' is a homey name, and it was designed in contrast to the austere Bais Haknesess.
We have a boy in shul who I think has a mild form of ADHD. So, we put up with him. The whole community has a responsibility that he be mainstreamed, even at the expense of a more focused davening. Those opposed can (and do, with our blessings) find somewhere else to daven.
As opposed to girls. They have no future in the men's section. If they sit quietly is one thing. But if not, why should they be kept there at all?
Then what about common sense? Isn't there such a thing as erring on the side of caution? Even if this rule is inane, why isn't that—i.e., an error on the side of caution—mentioned as a positive aspect of the rule? Unless one feels that society has no need to be cautious in that direction.
In the context of Issur Eishes Ish, Rambam says that it takes effect with the Biah. Inasmuch as the whole context is Ishus, he doesn't mention the details (= the intention) of that Biah. For that you're meant to look in the beginning of Hilchos Ishus.
Yours, Don
Unclear is why @test thinks that halachik infringement of Chassidim is sanctioned by traditional Jewry. It is not. They received their fare share, open a history book. The reason the vehemence leveled off is because of their unbridled passion for yiddeshkeit overall, which is grudgingly acknowledged to have kept many Jews on the beaten path. As the Chofetz Chaim once said they are a mazik bereshus. Modox however are mazikim shlo breshus. It's that simple. This should account for 99% of his comments.
"In the context of Issur Eishes Ish, Rambam says that it takes effect with the Biah. Inasmuch as the whole context is Ishus, he doesn't mention the details (= the intention) of that Biah. For that you're meant to look in the beginning of Hilchos Ishus."
Classic yeshivish. When it suits, every word a rishon writes means something. And every word that is not written is also significant.
And when it doesn't suit, and a word that should be there to support a 'tzad' is not present, well, the yeshivish response is 'its obvious from the context'. Very weak indeed. I would expect a condition 'lesheim ishus', that creates a chiuv misah of eishes ish for a non-Jew, to be clearly stated. Since when is any 'tanai' in a halochoh left to 'context' to determine? One man's determination from context could be very different from anothers. The context of hilchos ishus (I am not conceding there is a clear context, what is 'context' exactly, and I have NEVER heard a rov create a halochoh from 'context', but even using your argument) is anyway 99.9% Jews, non-Jews have different rules and you cannot (well, people that really know how to learn and want to be mevakesh the emes rather than just demolish an argument cannot) infer one from the other.
It's all amost as good as the classic 'it doesn't not say it', or 'he doesn't not argue'.
At least you have conceded there is no 'mekor'. 'Context' is just a glorified version of 'its obvious'. Too vague to be meaningful. One man's derivation from context could be very different from another.