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J K Rowling's reluctance to forgive Dan and Emma is understandable, but a story from Reb Shlomo Carlebach shows us why she should be more generous. Reb Shlomo tells of a miser who has never given a penny of charity in all his life. Because all he ever offers is a single rusty penny. We assume he offers this to show his disdain for all who ask him for help. But are we correct?
Listen above to learn the full story. This is only a short podcast today. Hastily recorded in the midst of Passover preparations. But with an important lesson that we need to heed in these toxic unforgiving times.
JK Rowling's tweet can be found here: https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1778124467027267804
The Times article can be found here: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jk-rowling-i-wont-forgive-harry-potter-stars-over-pro-trans-views-fp79wpbvn
It's very, very difficult to offer that first rusty penny. We have to help people find the strength to go back and then say, “Yes, I was wrong about this and I was also wrong about that.” And then people can actually find the strength to make amends properly.
And if we act in a miserly way ourselves, and we reject out of hand the tiny little offerings of apologies that come our way; if we do that then we take away the opportunity to pull people out of the rabbit holes that they are buried in.
Because very often we see what appears to be some self-righteous, nasty person. How dare they think that a single rusty penny will make it all better?
But maybe it's a hand reaching up and they are saying: “Please grab my hand. Give me a little, little pull to help me come out.”
Reb Shlomo Carlebach’s story “A Bit of Charity” can be found in the book Shlomo’s Stories: Selected Tales
The most important parts of the story can also be found here: https://issuu.com/jewishhome/docs/currentissue_3816061d4e388f/64
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It is a mistake to focus excessively on the problem that children lack capacity to consent to trans medicalisation. The problem is much more serious than that.
This audio essay explores how the concepts of medical care and consent have been queered by those campaigning for “gender affirmative” healthcare. By clarifying the mindset that leads people to find such treatments plausible, we can more effectively argue against them and disabuse those who have been hoodwinked by smoke and mirror tactics as words like “consent” and “healthcare” have multiple meanings so that the absurd is made to appear plausible.
Now trans healthcare, being “healthcare”, must be paid for by your health insurance and you cannot discriminate against trans people by having their “healthcare” not get paid for.
And secondly, it being necessary “healthcare”, you can then loosen up on the requirements for consent by being allowed to be paternalistic and deciding on behalf of a vulnerable patient like somebody who's mentally ill or a child that you know what's in their best interest. Because you understand that this patient is trans because you are the expert.
You can see into their soul.
So paternalistically you will then approve of the child having healthcare done to them for which they do not have the capacity to consent, to which they actually have not consented.
You consent on behalf of them, and you do it in the name of personal autonomy.
Sources on Informed Consent and Medical Necessity in Body-Altering Healthcare
When patients lack capacity, others decide for them in their best interests
* https://www.cqc.org.uk/guidance-providers/learning-safety-incidents/issue-12-capacity-and-consent
* https://code-medical-ethics.ama-assn.org/ethics-opinions/decisions-adult-patients-who-lack-capacity
Reconsidering Informed Consent for Trans-Identified Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults by Stephen B. Levine, E. Abbruzzese &Julia W. Mason
Summarises the issues to do with consent.
It is common for gender-affirmative specialists to erroneously believe that gender-affirmative interventions are a standard of care
Five scientific observations question and refute the assumption that an individual’s experience of incongruence of sex and gender identity is best addressed by supporting the newly assumed gender identity with psychosocial and medical interventions
AMA to states: Stop interfering in health care of transgender children
Empirical evidence has demonstrated that trans and non-binary gender identities are normal variations of human identity and expression. For gender diverse individuals, standards of care and accepted medically necessary services that affirm gender or treat gender dysphoria may include mental health counseling, non-medical social transition, gender-affirming hormone therapy, and/or gender-affirming surgeries. Clinical guidelines established by professional medical organizations for the care of minors promote these supportive interventions based on the current evidence and that enable young people to explore and live the gender that they choose. Every major medical association in the United States recognizes the medical necessity of transition-related care for improving the physical and mental health of transgender people.
Misinformation Obscures Standards Guiding Gender-Affirming Care for Trans Youth
This article defends gender affirming care by pointing out that there is careful assessment to make sure that children have capacity. The Endocrine Society claims most adolescents have capacity by age 16.
Different Aspects of Informed Consent in Aesthetic Surgeries by Nasrin Nejadsarvari and Ali Ebrahimi
About informed consent for aesthetic surgeries. Consent is impossible if patients have psychiatric problems. Surgery may make psychiatric problems worse. Misinformed consent can lead to legal liability for malpractice.
Note: Gender doctors treat the psychological distress of patients as analogous to the distress of an accident victim who is mis-figured and requires reparative surgery to restore their appearance and therefore help their mental health.
Example: https://saberplasticsurgery.com/gender-affirming-breast-removal/
Advertises surgery as helping with gender dysphoria and feeling “comfortable in your skin”. Top surgery is “medically necessary”.
New advertising guidelines for cosmetic surgery in Australia: https://aestheticmedicalpractitioner.com.au/features/cosmetic-practice/new-cosmetic-surgery-advertising-guidelines/
Gender affirmation surgery is not considered cosmetic surgery, and the cosmetic surgery advertising guidelines ‘do not apply to non- surgical cosmetic procedures’.
Cosmetic surgery must not be advertised in a way that exploits the vulnerabilities or insecurities of individuals to increase demand for cosmetic surgery
* testimonials are not allowed
Gender Confirmation Surgery: Cosmetic or Reconstructive Procedure? Alexis Laungani, MDcorresponding author* and Pierre Brassard, MD, FRCS(C)
For the sole purpose of dichotomy, the transgender patient could be considered as having a birth defect by not having a body envelope corresponding to their true gender. Gender confirmation (also called sex reassignment) with hormones, mental therapy, and surgical transition, has been shown to relieve symptoms of gender dysphoria and to provide patients with a regained socialization in their true gender, as opposed to their gender assigned at birth.
Body modification – when consent is not a defence
This is a longstanding legal principle. Where actual bodily harm or above is inflicted upon a person with no good reason, in public or private, the consent of the victim is irrelevant. Whether there is a “good reason” is a matter for the courts to decide.
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Organisations such as MEND and Stonewall can no longer be allowed to dominate diversity training. The potential solution may surprise you.
You can find a written version of this article with hyperlinks to sources here:
https://shirabatya.substack.com/p/can-we-mend-diversity-training
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Jews and Feminists have common cause against extremists who wish to shut down debate. Any conflict of interests is illusory.
I speak carefully here and I recommend listening at 1.25X
You can find a written version of this article with hyperlinks to sources here:
https://shirabatya.substack.com/p/david-miller-jo-phoenix
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This year at Limmud Conference, I was privileged to attend a number of lectures by Ysoscher Katz, who heads Yeshivat Chovevei Torah. These talks have helped clarify in my mind why it is time to stop being embarrassed about being modern Orthodox Jews, and to hold our heads up and realise that not only are we just as halachic as our 'ultra Orthodox' fellow Jews, but actually we can claim to be the torch-bearers of true Judaism.
Rabbi Katz explained the following idea (among others) in his lectures. In nurturing forward-thinking halachic Judaism, perhaps the greatest challenge we face is the accusation that we are doing the halachic equivalent of data mining in Statistics. In other words, we know what end results we want (more equality for women, etc.) and so we seek a halachic opinion that justifies what we have already decided to do. The argument goes that if you really are committed to Halacha --- if you are a proper frum Jew --- then you will accept the law even if it jars with what you want it to say. Such is the sacrifice of serving God. Halacha is law and the law is the law. From this point of view, how can we justify the 'halachic innovations' being produced that permit such things as partnership minyanim, previously thought to be prohibited?
What I learnt at Limmud is that this sort of argument misses the importance of facts on the ground. Of course, you do not go searching for an opinion to justify what you want to do, any more than a statistician searches for data to fit a theory. However, the 'right' halachic answer is not actually a fixed thing, and actually depends on practice. Any rabbi knows this, as often the halachic answer to a question can differ from one community to another. If a community has a minhag (established custom) to do things one way, unless a Rabbi can prove that this minhag is unhalachic, the minhag stands and in fact it is against halacha to change it.
The importance of minhag essentially means that, contrary to what some people might think, Halacha is not black and white. Several practices might all be potentially correct, and which is correct in a particular situation is contextual. There is no one halachic way to be Jewish. It's a lovely idea, and it gives us hope. However, it also cuts both ways. The supremacy of minhag has often been used by reactionary Jews to justify stasis. Nothing can change because the minhag is that we do things as we have always done them. Any change is therefore forbidden. As the chatam sofer famously said 'chadash asur min haTorah' (New things are forbidden according to the Torah.)
So what is our way out, and why do I say that modern Orthodoxy is true halachic Judaism? The point is that facts on the ground determine where the burden of proof lies in halachic decisions by rabbis. Although a rabbi might disapprove of some social innovation such as partnership minyanim, if the practice emerges from social events and becomes established, then one can argue that now the burden of proof is on rabbis to prove that the practice is forbidden rather than on the participants to prove that it is permitted. By the way, this also reflects another halachic principle: that if something is not forbidden then it is permitted. There have been numerous times in Jewish history when practice has changed in this way. In all such cases, the Halacha has not changed, but its application has changed and practice has changed.
The process of halachic innovation is therefore laid out to us: If we want things to change, then the lay folk need to learn the Halacha and find ways to innovate that might break with minhag, but are not forbidden. Don't ask a rabbi for permission to innovate, because he will have to say no. But once you have done your innovation, you can ask a rabbi to say that it is OK to keep doing it. I argue that this is precisely what is happening in the Open Orthodox community. People who are committed to Halacha and to serving God have learnt the sources and found ways to give honour to women without transgressing Halacha. Now some brave rabbis are telling them that what they are doing is not forbidden and they can keep doing it.
So why now do I say that modern orthodoxy is the most halachic form of Judaism? The reason is this. In terms of the interaction between minhag and Halacha, there seem to be four approaches in the Jewish community today.
1. Post-halachic Judaism
On the left, 'halachah has a vote but not a veto' (as Mordecai Kaplan put it so clearly). People decide what they want to change based on such motives as modern ideas of equality or social justice or practicality, and then they say that Judaism should change even if Halacha would say otherwise. This approach is not halachic, but it is honest.
2. Pseudo-halachic Judaism
A little to the right of post-halacha, is the position that a halachic justification should be sought for a desired change, by mining the range of opinions available, if necessary by even going back to the Talmud. If even that approach does not work, then the change will be justified by an appeal to the principle 'Eit Laasot Lashem'. (Time to do something for God – a general catchall that allows Halacha to be changed in times of social emergency.)
3. Halachic Judaism
Normative halachic Judaism looks at practices and asks whether they are permitted or not. If a change in practice occurs and it is not forbidden, then it is permitted. Those who seek to change practice to meet social needs seek changes that will pass the halachic test post facto. This is how Judaism has adapted to the need for change over the centuries, a dance between the laity and the rabbis in which each group respects the other.
4. Reactionary / Authoritarian Judaism
Practice cannot change unless those in Authority like the change. If a change in practice occurs and those in Authority do not like the change, then this change is declared wrong. Change is wrong whether or not it is forbidden according to Halacha. If a halachic reason to oppose change cannot be found, then appeal is made to the principle of Das Torah (which means that those in Authority are always right.) If those in Authority want a change, then Das Torah can also be used to justify the change even if the change is not according to Halacha (for example nullifying conversions for political reasons).
As one reads the description of Reactionary Judaism, it becomes clear just how similar it really is to Pseudo-halachic Judaism. I fail to see how one is more halachic than the other. I now understand that as one moves to the right, one does not become 'more' orthodox at all. It is like coming round a circle. So it is time to scrap the term 'ultra orthodox' and call Reactionary Judaism by its real name.
For myself, I will stick to the middle path of Halachic Judaism, and I make no excuses for being modern and orthodox.
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