I consider myself a fairly observant Jew.
Shomer Shabat.
Shomer kashrut.
Tallit and tefillin every morning (excluding Shabat, haggim, and hol hamoed of course).
I am not a yeshiva student and while I do get a dose of ba'al pei every weekday morning, I can't say I am a full participant in the study group.
But sometimes I wonder what the rabbis are thinking.
The other day I was informed that an observant Jew cannot take medicines for health on Shabat.
Birth control pills and, I suppose, ED medications, these are OK to take on Shabat.
But my blood pressure pills - forbidden, אשור.
The reason is because the rabbis decided that I might compound my medications on Shabat. Never mind that almost no one compounds their own medications these days, certainly not in industrial countries. And even if we did why would I wait until Shabat to fix the medicine?
Didn't HaShem give us man for two days?
Don't we fix Shabat meals before Shabat?
I "fix" the refrigerator, stove, and necessary lights before Shabat.
Why, given all that, would I compound medicines on Shabat? It simply lacks credibility.
So now I read that the rabbis have decided that I must put on my shoes their way.
What is the rabbinical way to don - and doff - shoes? According to Rabbi Ya'aqob Menashe of the Midrash Ben Ish Hai, I am to put on the right shoe first, but if there are shoe laces, I am to tie the left shoe first. When removing the shoes, the left is removed first; the rabbi fails to tell me which shoe to untie first.
According to the rabbi, "The right (side) is considered more important in all matters and, as such, we give precedence to the right over the left. As far as tying the laces is concerned, priority is given to the left in matters of tying as in the case of Tefillin which are bound on the left hand."
In a follow-up email, the rabbi tells us we are forbidden to go bare foot.
Rabbi Menashe, to his credit, always cites his source; in this case, the Shulhan Aruk with Mappa (Rema's Ashkenazi "take" on the work). He notes that Ari z'l also offered an opinion in line with Rema's.)
I ask myself: How does putting my right shoe on before my left help me be a better Jew? Certainly it requires discipline, but so does getting up at 5 a.m. every morning to "slap leather" with a minyan.
Likewise walking 4 miles over the course of Shabat to and from synagogue, even in Florida's summer heat and humidity. (I've also made Shabat trips in northern cold, snow, and ice; I prefer the heat and humidity.)
Does it make me a better Jew if I forego my medications for a day? It might make me a less healthy Jew, but it certainly does nothing for my practice.
There ARE laws, even rabbinical ones, that we need to observe. But there are many others that need to be reviewed and maybe - if we have a gadol b'dor - mitigated out of existence.
Rabbinical decisions such as those above hold Judaism up to ridicule as much as some hasidim who dress today like Polish pans of the 1800s.
Telling me which shoe to put on or take off first ranks down there with the Moroccan superstitions of making sure shoes are upright and facing the same direction when waiting to be worn, or making certain to go out the same door through which you entered.
An aside. I know it's getting cold "up north." We are starting to see more and more professional schnorers coming to our door.
Some join our minyan; others, like the one who came the other day, turn their backs on us and do their own "thing" - which I suppose is better than not doing any "thing" at all.
Most of the visitors came from Israel and I am left wondering: How much
* did the round trip airfare cost
* does the rental car cost, plus gasoline now hovering around $3.50/gallon
* does the overnight stay at the motel cost
* does it cost in kosher groceries
and how much is left for whatever institute or datee daughter's dowry or yeshiva boy's wedding?
Sometimes it's hard, but
הריני מקבל עלי מצוה עשה של ואהבת לרעך כמוך, והריני אוהב כל אחד מבני ישראל כנפשי ומאודי
