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You don't have to be personally affected in order to fight for a cause.
Published: Saturday, June 28, 2008
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Visitor Comments: 10
About the Author
Lori Palatnik
Lori Palatnik is an author and Jewish educator who has appeared on television and radio and has lectured on five continents, illuminating traditional practices and life-styles for our contemporary world. She and her husband, Rabbi Yaakov Palatnik, live in Washington, DC, where she is the Executive Director of The Jewish Women's Renaissance Project of Aish DC.
Lori is the author of "Friday Night and Beyond—The Shabbat Experience Step-by-Step"; "Remember My Soul", which explains the Jewish concepts of soul and the afterlife and a guide to anyone who has ever lost a loved one; and "Gossip—Ten Pathways to Eliminate It From Your Life and Transform Your Soul", featured on "Dr. Laura" and FoxNews.com.
(10) ruth housman , December 17, 2008
vitriolic comments on line
Hi, I just gave a response to Judy Abraham who wrote a commentary in today's Globe about so many people who write nasty, vitriolic and painful comments about others on line and to correspondents who write articles in newspapers. I just came upon this, in looking up something else, and it's so nasty and hateful. I was merely saying that I feel it's very important to pay attention to the needs of our environment, this entire creation, and that I love it when there are articles anywhere about the preservation of the earth, because it's important. Then I see these really angry and stupid, ignorant comments addressed to me on line. If Hitler was a vegetarian, does that make all vegetarians EVIL? Does this one fact then inform the activities of the writer? I am so sorry the world is in this kind of shape, that people are so shaped and so warped by what they learn. In terms of other forums, I spend so much time writing on behalf of environmental policies and I have also received a very dignified and lovely commentary from someone at this very site. Not everyone makes such comments and not everyone writes in hateful ways. Anything that is written about love, should be responded to in just this way and we need way more of this, in this world. Ruth Housman
(9) raye , July 6, 2008
Who's got the beef?
Does Ruth Housman know that Hitler was a vegetarian who allowed the animals of the Jews he murdered to survive.
(8) Yisroel Pollack , July 2, 2008
Disconcerting Indignation
If Ms. Housman feels so strongly about doing the right thing, why does she do the obviously wrong thing of openly berating an upstanding and dignified individual of high caliber, whose ideas she seems unable to comprehend? Why does she bring her gripes to an entirely other forum and not just have it out with HIM directly?
(7) Gary , July 1, 2008
Oh what a coincidence!
When I was around 14 years old I gave money and walked for Parkinson's Disease in New York's Central Park.
I knew no one who was afflicted with the disease, and my reason for giving was that I wanted it to stay that way. I didn't want anyone in my family afflicted with it.
Lori is so empathetic she must have realized this about my life. I feel since I have no affiliation with a synogogue she is like my rebbetzin
(6) ruth housman , July 1, 2008
making it more than personal
Dear Lori,
I have been writing almost continuously, in response to articles at Aish.com and I have remarked that so rarely, if ever, are there articles about the environment, about this most beautiful creation. I spend many hours responding to pleas on line from a host of environmental organizations and I am so concerned about the degradation of this, our collective home and about what we are doing that is beyond cruel, which will inevitably and is now affecting us all, from issues of pollution, toxic waste, the water supply world-wide, to the degradation of the rain forest, and the extinction of animal, insect and vegetation.
I just heard Rabbi Salomon speak on line, below, in this Aish broadcast of articles and pieces and I am so totally bereft, feeling so upset, because he is referring to SOUL as if animals, as if all creation is not reverberating with life, with "anima" which means "soul". It is such arrogance to speak as he just did and with such assurance and I would say smug assurance. This creation includes the animals and I would say, anyone, ANYONE, who reveres and respects God and this universe we inhabit will know about soul and how wrong it is, how arrogant, how cruel, how totally misguided are these words.
If this is the mindset of Aish and its contributors, it's time for me to stop.
I cannot condone these words and for me, there's a deep Biblical meaning to the naming of the animals, to our very lives, that connect in this gold thread to all beating hearts.
I am stopping my emails to Aish. It's too much to hear words like this on line because the truth is the beauty and strength of recognition that we're all ONE and all in this together. God created this beautiful world so we will reverence, respect and love, all creation.
Ruth Housman
Newton Centre, MA