the palace of torah

Three years ago Dr. Tamar Ross published a book. last month, R. Aryeh Frimer wrote a review. I have to admit I was quite taken aback by 1- the tone and 2 - the complete failure to actually engage many of the points he attacks.*
I've just read her response.
I'm not sure I agree with everything she says, (rather, I'm pretty sure I'm not comfortable with some of it) but I do think she has the upper hand in this argument overall. And in general, I'm glad to be reminded of what she stands for, since it helps me in a lot of ways.

Also, I happened to have been discussing something very much like the first full paragraph on p. 14 with my former chavruta earlier today:

It is not internal religious logic, but rather the obsession with borders and denominational lines that drives considerable segments even of Torah U-Madda circles to selectivity in their willingness to veer from literalist interpretations of dogma that cannot be defended on rational grounds. It is this that drives them to engage in often ludicrous contortions and splitting of hairs in order to come up with some consistent doctrinal formula that distinguishes between Orthodox conceptions of Torah and halakha and those of other denominations...

* [eg, TR observes that it's odd that Torah study for women and innovations in women's prayer (eg, womens tefillah groups) have received very different responses/levels of acceptance despite looking like quite similar innovations, allegedly, from an ex-ante perspective. AF responds that the difference is that learning was implemented with rabbinic approval, WTGs not. Assuming any/all of the factual observations/assertions are true (TR points out that beis yaakov was hardly uncontroversial), somethings still sounds circular here, no?]
arg.

a public service announcement

The Golders Green Hotel has Bedbugs. Bed Bugs. (it also smells and has various other things wrong with it. but most of those fall under the "you get what you pay for" category, i think...)
hopefully this information will make in into the google universe, to help future travelers...

(as some of you know, I* have a sad history with the blood-sucking insects in question, thanks to my Manhattan neighbors, so I was quite annoyed to encounter them again.)

* Oren, on the other hand, seems immune to bites. good for him...

shabbos table math

the appetizer:
for any prime p > 5, show that p^4 - 1 is divisible by 240.

the menfolk at the table continued with various math brain teasers for the better part of the meal. every three problems or so, one of the Wives would say "listen to you, you're still talking about the same thing! who cares?!" and then make some joke about men...

lest i come off as mean, the meal and people were lovely, and atypical
(in a good way) in many other ways.

on being hard of hearing in a foreign counrty

for various reasons not fully understood and not worth detailing here, my right ear was not functioning well yesterday. (needing popping, but unpoppable) B"H, better now. Being temporarily and unexpectedly disabled was odd. Apparently since my voice was echoing in my head I was talking too quietly. I had to focus terribly just to hear the nice lady trying to show me how to use the audio guide at the national portrait gallery. (The guide itself was fine via my "good ear")

There is a joke that goes something like this:

Old Man: Doctor, my wife's hearing is getting terrible, but she refuses to be tested.
Doctor: Well, you can do some informal testing for me at home. Say something to her first from the next room, then moving closer and closer, saying the same, thing, until she responds, and see how close you have to get.
__ (later that day...)
Man (from living room): "what's for dinner?"
Man (from doorway to kitchen): "what's for dinner?"
Man (from 5 feet away from wife): "what's for dinner?"
Wife: "meatloaf, for the third time!"

Oddly, I was the opposite of the man. Ratter than assume nothing was happening if I couldn't hear it, I assumed I was always missing something important. I kept turning to see if someone was saying something, calling me, if something had happened, etc. maybe because the change in my hearing was not gradual. I did find that I walked into people more, etc, because apparently one of the cues I use to figure out what's going on that I can't see is hearing.

anyway, that's all for now. Thankfully, it's back to normal. so in retrospect, it's kind of like one of those activities in fourth grade where you wear a blindfold and get led around for a few hours...
makes you appreciate what you have, i suppose...

you know you're away from home when...

it takes you 10 minutes to figure out which product in the supermarket is for washing clothes.
then, when you get home, you open the washer-dryer-in-one contraption to release a torrent of water onto the hardwood floors of your pseudo-spiffy corporate apartment.* you finally figure out how to make it work and it turns out it takes 2:34 (that's hours: minutes, not minutes: seconds), drying not included... but at least you (ok, let's make it your husband to keep this totally hypothetical....) have clean undershirts.

*spiffy enough, it turns out, that they left you some clothes-washing tablets, but you, in your ignorance, didn't recognize what they were for until you bought some of your own...

apparently it rhymes in british

"nothing's fitter than a chicken in a pitta"