BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

I know that some of my Orthodox friends are going to call or write me now and tell me I don't understand. Maybe I don't. But I do know what abuse is. So was the husband mentioned below abusing his wife because of her infertility? Abuse and marital problems are big issues when there's infertility. Infertility can cause severe depression, acting out and other serious problems in the woman. So because she wasn't breeding it was o.k. to treat her poorly? And not giving a woman a Get. Making an Agunah out of a woman. Talk about misogyny and control. These are things I don't think I want to understand. By ANDREA PEYSER AND you thought you had trouble committing. Thirty years after divorce became all the rage in America, the pastime is catching on like wildfire in the kid-rich, ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, where getting a "get" is the new black. So says psychologist Daniel Schonbuch, who thinks divorces (known in the community as "gets") are th...

From THE AWARENESS CENTER Regarding New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind By Vicki Polin Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people; neither shalt thou stand idly by the blood of thy neighbor" (Leviticus 19:16). It saddens me a great deal to see how a few Jewish leaders in the orthodox world appear to be manipulating community members into believing they do not have to report heinous crimes to child protective services. Orthodox children deserve the same rights and protection as other children in the Unitied States of America. I personally believe that Assemblyman Dov Hikind is wrong and is violating the civil rights of children from Torah observant homes. Each day that goes by that he refuses to work with law enforcement officials means another child is being sexually victimized. One has to realize that turning over the names of alleged sex offenders and also those who were allegedly sexually abused to child protection workers does not mean that the names will be...

'scuse Moses while he kisses the sky' For those of us who went through the 70s and came out in one piece -- we can see some of the validity in this. Native Americans have used hallucinogens to enhance the meditative or spiritual experience for 100s of years. Anyone like me, who read Carlos Castaneda knows this experience through Castaneda's writings. It can be as transformative as you see it to be. But to suggest the 10 Commandments was the result of a hallucinogenic trip devalues God and devalues Moses' experience and work. High? Maybe. The product of a 'trip'? No way. Study suggests Israelites may have eaten hallucinogenics, but scholars scoff When Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai, he may have been high on a hallucinogenic plant, according to a new study by an Israeli psychology professor. Writing in the British philosophy journal Time and Mind, Benny Shanon of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University said two plants in the Sinai desert conta...

Gifts of a Convert The metamorphosis of Ahuvah Gray, a black American who was once a Christian minister and is now an Orthodox Jew. The following is the introduction to Ahuvah Gray's new book, Gifts of a Stranger: A Convert's Round-the-World Travels and Spiritual Journeys . As I follow Ahuvah Gray along the narrow stairway leading to her apartment, and step up into the little light-filled penthouse that is her home above the rooftops of Bayit Vegan, what comes to mind is the childhood classic, A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. In that famous tale, the heroine dwells cozily in an attic room above the rooftops of London, and looks out from her oasis upon the world below. Here, through windows on every side, it's the fast-moving clouds of a rainy winter morning in Israel that adorn the horizon, and the branches of a Jerusalem pine tree that brush up against the opaquely luminous rectangle of skylight. Ahuvah Gray herself -- a black American who was once a Christia...

CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG? Life's hard. Being a Jew isn't easy either. So, I will simply excerpt this finish of this article up front: It is Yom Kippur. It is time to lay anger aside. It is time, as the prayers of both Orthodoxy and Reform specify, to shelve slander, scorn, ridicule, and baseless hatred. It is Yom Kippur. It is time to let Jews be Jews. It is time to recognize that Judaism itself is changing - even Orthodox Judaism. It is time to let individuals be alone with their God, and, at least this one day of the year, to accord that relationship the respect it deserves. Jews who hate Reform Jews By Bradley Burston The Scene: A spinning class at a smartly appointed gym at a kibbutz in the Judean Hills, a few days before Yom Kippur. The instructor has yet to arrive. "We have a minyan, we can begin anyway," says one member of the class. "Wait," says another, astride his exercise bike. "Women aren't counted in a minyan." "Refor...