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The Ramban writes in this weeks parsha (Gen. 18:19) that God's providence in the world is only over general principles (nature), but is absent from a life of an individual in its details. God controls change of seasons, perhaps earthquakes, but life of a particular man is the realm of neccesity haunted by coincidence.(Ramban uses this word, –coincidence!) Ramban further develops this idea in his commentary on Job (36,7), where his language is even more radical. Same concept is echoed in Rabbeinu Bechaye elswhere in Chumash and by the Rambam in Moyre nevoychim (3:19). Rambam in Moyreh says that the divine providence is not distributed equally among all people, rather it depends on the level of one's intellectual sublimation, the greater it is, the more God watches over that person. That's different from the Ramban, who seems to believe that the Divine Providence is dependent on the level of comandemet performance, it has to do with schar veoynesh. Anyway, thesse differences, as well as the disticnction these Rishonim make between a tzaddik and an average person in the context of God Providence is not so important. What is very striking, however, how all of them happily admit God's withdrawal from the affairs of this world. What is even more striking that this sort of talk completely disappeared in later generations to be replaced by the concept of Divine omnipresence, so when we get to Besh't and the Gra"h the idea that God controls every movement of every blade of grass becomes a central theme and foundation of faith. Further, as time moves on and, arguably, the suffering of the Jews, both collective and individual, worsens, the ideas of Gods full control become more and more strongly underlined. I wonder whether this later tendency arises from theological sophistication that cannot bear the idea of imperfection, such as coinidence, in Gods Creation, or whether it's an expression of intellectual vulgarity that allows justification of human suffering with one stroke of a pen?

I believe we are the first Jewish blog breaking this story

New York-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia visitor is accused of molesting elderly patient (New York Daily News)

A 27-year-old man was busted Wednesday night on charges of sneaking into a Manhattan hospital room and molesting a 72-year-old patient, police sources said.

A nurse came into the victim's room to find Yakov Kramer allegedly standing over the elderly man's bed at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia yesterday, sources said.

Kramer had allegedly pulled up the victim's hospital gown and was fondling him, sources said.

The elderly victim, though frail, was able to describe the alleged assault, sources said. The horrified nurse called hospital security, who grabbed Kramer about 12:15 p.m., sources said.

"The whole story is wrong and stupid," said a woman who answered the phone at the Williamsburg, Brooklyn, home of Kramer's father, Jeremias Kramer.

"He is a student, a studious person," the woman said. "He was in the hospital with his wife. She had an appointment. Something is very wrong if someone could be arrested at a hospital. This is a stupid, stupid mistake."

Kramer, a Hasidic Jew from Spring Valley, Rockland County, was arrested about 9 p.m. and taken out of the hospital in handcuffs for processing at the 33rd Precinct stationhouse in Washington Heights.

Charges were pending Wednesday night.

Though the alleged assault was discovered about noon, hospital staff waited more than three hours to notify police, hospital security sources said.

"The allegations are disgusting, preying on an elderly person, a sick patient who couldn't fight back," a police source said.

The cloth Kramer allegedly used to clean up the evidence was seized by the NYPD for testing, sources said.

"He didn't know the victim - it looks like he just wandered into a room and took advantage," another police source said.

Kramer's father and relatives declined to comment as they waited at the stationhouse.

agendar@nydailynews.com

Comment by kolbayar on Info

The Vilder Koznitzer was Reb Ahareleh Koznitzer. He lived in Lodz and Varsheh. I know of his one hanhogeh that I heard from an eyd riyah, that he used to ride around Lodz in his horse drawn wagon and would suddenly jump out and give a passerby a frask in ponim. For that he was despised by soem misnagdim and maskilim in Lodz and warsaw. However apparently many great rebbes held his in very high esteem. Another two vildeh uvdos I know of him mipi hashmuah :
1)He once invited his one a yid (a former chosid, an ex-frummie?) to a melave malkeh, which the latter declined, saying that he has a girlfriend that he needs to spend time with, Reb Ahareleh told him “breng ihr oyich”-”bring your girlfriend with you.
2)Once a yid stole something his Bais Medrash, and when the gaboyim reported it to reb Aharele, the first thing he said was, “zog nisht geganvet, nor genimen”-don’t say that he stole, just say that he took.

His father was a rebbe (R’Yechiel?) and so he received all the rebbishe chinuch. In his early twenties he sent away all his mechanchim, all the nedivim from his father’s court and moved to Lodz to hang out with pshutei am, the poorest and most wretched yidden from Baluty area, which was tye poorest section of Lodz, possibly the poorest section of the entire Poland. During the war he would go around collecting food for the hungry in the ghetto.

to YALHAK!!

  A Broken Appointment by Thomas Hardy

You did not come,
And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb.
Yet less for loss of your dear presence there
Than that I thus found lacking in your make
That high compassion which can overbear
Reluctance for pure loving kindness’ sake
Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,
You did not come.

You love me not,
And love alone can lend you loyalty;
—I know and knew it. But, unto the store
Of human deeds divine in all but name,
Was it not worth a little hour or more
To add yet this: Once you, a woman, came
To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be
You love me not.

He thought it was a dangerous file to have readily at hand on this site and insisted I take it down.

I mean if I died, fuck. I would'nt have those fancy Litvaks crying. (BTW, to see Litvaks cry was takke a zach.)

Thanks to Warren for the translation via the comments. Hat tip tip to who I am told is Schmorgel (van Borgel) and certain past dwellers of the basement of Rabbi Fischer's shul.

To the minister of finance (Levi Eshkol had this job in 1953):

I glanced today at “Worker’s declaration for purposes of deducting tax”.

Part 4 of this form says “my husband/my wife” (using the word “baali”). In my opinion it should say “ishi”.

The word “baal” has connotations of ownership and of idolatry and does not express respect for women, whose rights are precisely identical to that of men. Follow the words of the prophet Hoshea: “And on that day, you will call Me “ishi” and no longer call Me “baali” (Hoshea 2:18).

Sincerely,

D. Ben-Gurion.

CC: Member of Knesset Ada Maimon

Who was the Rabbi of Shilev in Katzetniks books?

The Radziner? The Piasnitzer?

It would be funny if it weren't true:

"Baptism of a Jewish Holocaust victim and then merely removing that name from the database is just not acceptable," said Michel, whose parents died at Auschwitz. He spoke on the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Nazi-incited riots against Jews.

"We ask you to respect us and our Judaism just as we respect your religion," Michel said in a statement released ahead of the news conference. "We ask you to leave our six million Jews, all victims of the Holocaust, alone, they suffered enough."

Read the rest on CNN.