Monday, July 27, 2009

Interesting Posts and Articles #187

  1. Rabbi Gil Student announces the release of his book quite soon, and that you can get an early-bird discount.

  2. An unintended consequence of Pennsylvania's filial statute.

  3. Among JNUL's recent scans/uploads, a work from the 16th century or early 17th century by David Ganz on astronomy and earth science, and making it work with Chazal. And also a notice by Saul Berlin, who forged Besamim Rosh and wrote a commentary on it, Kasa Deharsena, retracting a particular kulla about shaving with regard to the moed.

  4. Vos iz Neais about how an Arab cell-phone their returns a cell phone to a women, because he is afraid of her activist father.

  5. And a Belz committee comes up with limits on wedding spending. Including using cubic zirconium rather than a diamond for the engagement ring. Hasidic Musician is troubled by just what is supposed to be "reasonable rates" for a wedding band.

  6. Emes veEmunah on female rabbis.

  7. At the Seforim blog, the peh / ayin order in the acrostics of Eicha. Among the points,
    Based on the archaeological evidence for peh preceding ayin, let us see what happens under the assumption that peh precedes ayin here:

    יז פְּנֵי ה׳ בְּעֹשֵׂי רָע לְהַכְרִית מֵאֶרֶץ זִכְרָם.

    טז עֵינֵי ה׳ אֶל צַדִּיקִים וְאָזְנָיו אֶל שַׁוְעָתָם.

    יח צָעֲקוּ וה׳ שָׁמֵעַ וּמִכָּל צָרוֹתָם הִצִּילָם.

    The ones whom God listens to and saves are not the evildoers, but the tzadikkim. Suddenly, the sequence of verses makes perfect sense!

  8. At parshablog, I've been discussing Og's dimensions (here and then here).

4 comments:

a husband said...

Finally, somebody is willing to stand up the women and say no diamond ring. Lukus Lukus ad mosai ata ochel mamonam shel yisrael.
Only an expert can tell the difference btw a diamond and cubic zirconium.

LazerA said...

Re #2, who says its unintentional?

joshwaxman said...

true enough.
why i would consider it unintentional: not the lack of relationship to the parent, but rather that it dated to Elizabethan England, and that it is a little known law which is suddenly being enforced in an entirely different context.

the type of medical bills and nursing home costs that one can accrue nowadays are astronomical, and likely not anywhere akin to what they were when the law was established. indeed, i have heard of people giving away their assets to children in their later years because otherwise, their entire fortune would be swiftly consumed. The average yearly cost of a nursing home in 2004 was $70,080 per year. In Alaska, $204,765 per year.

This enables such high costs together with foisting such costs on possibly unwilling parties. And this in turn ruins the lives / credit of the unwilling parties and lets the wealthy institutions get even wealthier. This is possibly quite different from making sure that children do not leave their parents out on the street. In the present situation, the parents will almost certainly be cared for anyway (indeed, they already have), but it allows these institutions to sue others for money they otherwise would not have access to.

In other words, the product of a different era, such that I suspect that this scenario was never intended.

kt,
josh

thanbo said...

Seems to me the diamond ring ought to be the value of the 2000 zuzim + 2000 zekukim. It serves the same purpose: upon the marriage's termination, the wife is left with sufficient money to support herself for a little while.

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