This post will make most sense to you if you’re from a religious Jewish background.
1. Halacha is about distinguishing between kosher and trafe. Human beings are a combination. We have to stop judging each other the same way we inspect broccoli for bugs. (Okay, I don’t inspect broccoli for bugs…I just don’t eat broccoli…but you get the idea.)
2. I personally find that Chabad Chassidus is the most appealing version of authentic Torah Judaism out there. I just really like the way they explain the Torah, without deviating from what it actually says and without dumbing it down.
3.The person who learns Torah a great deal of the time in an exclusively male environment (i.e. yeshiva life) is inevitably going to develop a weird attitude about life priorities and sexism toward women. It’s a problem because these are the people who end up adjudicating halacha, and they aren’t in real life as most people experience it.
4. The reason we don’t have policies around predators in shul is that some (enough to be embarrassing) rabbis would be kicked out (!) Not a good look. Parents should be aware that the children are not safe from sexual offenders in shul and act accordingly: Either watch them closely or keep them at home.
5. It is mind boggling that we still have a “get” abuser problem nowadays. The rabbis know that they can annul the marriage on the basis that the “get” refuser is mentally not capable of marriage, and wasn’t when he entered into the marriage contract. This situation should be relatively easy to fix, and it’s hard to understand why so many have been made to suffer for so long.
By Dr. Dannielle Blumenthal (Dossy). All opinions are the author’s own. Public domain.
Writing by Dr. Dannielle Blumenthal 