▪ The Benefits of a Maharat
▪ Why does a shul need a Maharat?
▪ Yated interview with an RCA member: Neo-Orthodox Pressing For Relaxed Geirus Standards
▪ So much of this is disturbing, I don’t know where to begin: Orthodox Feminists Address ‘Power Imbalance’
▪ Once maligned, Iran’s Jews find greater acceptance
▪ Why is kosher meat more expensive than non-kosher meat?
▪ R N Kamenetsky: “Is taking my husband not enough?” (Gen 30:15)
▪ New International Beit Din Looks to Break the Chains
▪ Widow Of Slain Rabbi Blames Internal Haredi Discord For Synagogue Terror Attack
▪ Get Refusal: When There’s Only One Side to the Story
▪ Non-Orthodox Judaism’s disappearing male: Where have all the men gone?
▪ Kesher Israel Congregation in Harrisburg serves Thanksgiving dinner to city firefighters and police
▪ I hope he also did teshuvah for setting the fires, which includes committing to never do it again: Instructs ‘Eid Kedushin’ to Pay His Debts Before Chupah – Pays For Setting Dumpsters Ablaze In Meah Shearim Protest
▪ R Bechhofer: Har HaBayis Redux
▪ Three reasons converts to Judaism are treated poorly
Re: Har haBayis
The Rav was so maqpid, he was afraid the issur included the space until the Kotel — ad ve’ad bichlal — until and including! He therefore told students that if they felt a need to put notes in the Kotel (the Rav himself was too “Litvish” for such things), they should use a pen cap or something, and not put a finger into a crack in the kotel!
(I wonder about the fact that standing next to the kotel at current ground level is standing above the bottom part of the kotel near the original ground level. [The kotel narrows as it gets higher.] So, if you’re worried about qedushas har habayis possibly including the kotel itself, should you be worried about standing next to the kotel at the current level? But in any case, it shows you how seriously the Rav took this issur.)
I don’t know about the Rav, but there is a Brisker position that the Kotel is, in fact, the wall of the Heichal itself. (Which is impossible, to put it simply.) Therefore, some don’t even enter the plaza, as the Azara extends some distance west of the Heichal and, under their definition, includes the plaza. You sometimes see people davening all the way over by the entrance.
The young man who was told by his Rebbe to pay for the public property he damaged in a Meah Shearim ‘protest’ says that he often thinks about what he did and regrets it. It’s is quite clear that he decided long ago to never do this again. Sounds like real Teshuva to me…