Someone noticed that Deuteronomy 22 in fact seems to imply that simple sex with an unmarried girl makes her one's wife.

Someone noticed that Deuteronomy 22 in fact seems to imply that simple sex with an unmarried girl makes her one's wife. If you read it with no thought in mind about the gezera Shava "devar Erva" al kal devar."

That is you have the guy coming to court saying he did not find his bride a virgin. If the parents can't produce the sheet with blood, then she is stoned. We have the Sages that depend on a drasha that she can't be married without two witnesses, but still the simple explanation of the verses seems clear. Add to that the end of the Parsha when a girl is raped and she thus has to be the wife of the person that rapped her. It does not say he has to marry her because she is thus already married. Rather it says he can not divorce her. Looking at the simple Peshat of the verses clearly indicates that there is no reason to stone the poor girl simply because she was not a virgin. Rather the stoning is because she is considered married to the first gut that had sex with her. Thus a married woman that intentionally had sex with someone else later.

Thus question: is there someone else in the Old Testament that would seem to contradict this?

The girl friend thing we find might mean no ketubah. There is a hekish between marriage and divorce so like one needs two witnesses so the other. still I wonder about a drasha that seems to be contradicted by the simple explanation of the verses.


(Of course even of it would mean she is married he still could be required to give a divorce document that would set her free.)

The idea of a זונה would seem to contradict the whole idea also.

Men in the USA have trouble with women. on the site Dalrock I saw someone mention about the Ukraine [and Russia] and that seems right to me. [My impression of women in China and Japan is also very positive but I have no experience in that area. On the other hand with Ukraine and Russia, there is no question.]






Here is a comment  that I think is 100% correct:

"Eastern Europe: I first went to Ukraine, to see for myself if the marketing hype from the various “foreign bride” service companies had any truth to it. Although many/most of those companies are in fact primarily interested in your money rather than helping you, they can be successful because the claim that many women there are vastly superior to western women is in fact true.

Learning Russian is fine, but it will probably be a long time before you are proficient enough to not need a translator. So learn 3 to 5 hundred words, and consider that good enough to make a good impression, and to be able to navigate (find the bus, buy food, etc.). Translators are $15 an hour, so not a big deal.
I would advise you to focus on getting debt free so that you can afford to take 3 months to go there. Slavery to money/debt is SO bad for us.
You cannot expect to start a decent relationship in a couple weeks, so having at least 6 weeks there would be good. Especially since the first woman you pick to pursue may not be appropriate/serious anyway.

When I was there, women actually made an effort, or gave openings, to spend time with me. And these were women upon whom I had spent very little money, not even dinner, so there was not an immediate gold-digger motivation. For example, one woman went for a walk with me through her city. The only monetary benefit she received was the rose I gave her. And she wanted to get together again.
Another met me, and I paid only for a few flowers, a salad, water bottle, and a couple games of ping-pong. After that, she really wanted to get together again.

If you are really interested, just go. Trying to find/communicate with a woman before you get there is just a way to line the pockets of unethical companies. As a guy who will get no financial benefit from you regardless, I can tell you: Many women there ARE in fact vastly superior. It is not just marketing hype.
I am thinking of going next spring, so if you want company/help, maybe we can arrange to go at the same time. Most companies that offer to help are massively overcharging, or are outright frauds.

One problem you will have that you do not have in North America is that the women are very feminine/beautiful, so this will be very distracting for you unless you firmly hold to your reason/mind. (At least, it was a problem for me.)
Have a short list of what is important to you, and then you can run through the list and pass on the women that, while strongly emotionally/sexually appealing, are not appropriate for marriage with you. E.g., I want:
– woman not married to her career; if she’s not prepared to ditch school/career so she can invest her time in our children, I don’t want her. Similarly, she must have investing time in her marriage as a life priority.
– she accepts that we will read the Bible together almost daily and obey it. (As opposed to churchians who say the right “Christian” words, but do not live it out — read Matt 21:28-32. I am not too concerned about her past “religious” experience, just her obedience.)
– 2 mandatory physical characteristics that are important to me. Tough beans to the feminists/churchians who claim that we are all equal and the outside should not matter
– feminine in the areas of her appearance that she can control (clothes (deut 22:5), hair length (1 Cor 11), not fat (Titus 2:3-5))
– easy to talk with and pleasant. Able to have fun with me.
– under 29, preferably about 25, give or take a few years. I want kids from my new wife, not menopause. Plus the “wife goggles” would be a benefit to the marriage.

Oh, and living costs there are very low. A private apartment is about $33 US a day, less if you pay by the month. A week’s worth of groceries is maybe $26, if you plan to eat “high on the hog”. Six games of bowling, with shoe rentals, is about $5 US."

 Human relations are in God's hands as far as I can see and rules that apply in one case change for another. No two people are alike. Still as far as the general nature of that comment about the Ukraine and Russia I have to agree. The women are far, far, superior to anything one can find in the USA in character and looks. Just avoid those dating sites at all cost. Learn Russian and go there. Period.

I mentioned before this the various reasons why this is allowed even if not preferable. The basic reasons are: the incident with Rav Asi in Avoda Zara. There was a woman that people were saying that she was not Jewish. Rav Asi said did not she go to the Mikvah? Rashi says it is enough to go to the mikva for the sake of marriage to become Jewish.

My other reason is the Raavad (and most of the Baali HaTosphot) that a girl friend is permitted. See Chronicles II 2:46.

I have been looking at the trial of Joan of Arc for the second time. And I think it is perhaps the most disturbing document I have ever seen outside of the Guide of the Rambam. It is hard to know which one bothers me more and for what reasons.

The Rambam I have not looked at for some time so for now perhaps I will limit myself to a few random thoughts on the trial.
I think the most disturbing part of it is that some of the approach of the church authorities seems true.
If it would be all cut and dry--a righteous girl sentenced by evil judges, then there would be nothing more to contemplate.
The worries about schismatics seems that she herself agreed with. Of everything that they said to her there seems to be little that she herself would not agree to--except the point that the judges did not accurately represent the way things are in heaven.

The way Western Civilization has gone down the tubes since then seems to indicate at lot of what they were saying is true. Visions can come from the Sitra Achra.[The dark realm].  The worry about the weakening of faith in the church has led to an  atheistic Europe and USA and a protestant church that seems to be problematic- to say the least. At least one can say that nothing Luther did led anyone to be a better human being. If anything it led to a complete destruction of faith. And Joan would be the first person to jump up and agree with me.

From a strictly halachic point of view, it is clear that the Catholics preserved Divine Simplicity. The schism that produced the Protestants clearly is uninterested in that. [That is Catholics believe like us that God is simple and not a composite and has no material aspect or substance. They have  a hard time defending this but they still try to.]



{I am not saying the Catholics got everything right. Rather they are the closest to belief in the Torah. The better approach is of course the Litvak yeshiva.}

I mentioned in passing to someone about my connection with the Bava Sali family and they asked me for more details. It is perturbing to me to be reminded about Bava Sali because it reminds me of my responsibilities that I have not fulfilled and can't fulfill. Learning and keeping Torah and helping others also to do so.
Litvak yeshivas seem to me to be the best way to go about getting close to God.
I think that it was by spending a few years in two Lithuanian yeshivas  that helped me that when I got to Israel that I gained a kind of spiritual light that helped those years be really amazing.It is not that I had any kind of "Ruach Hakodesh" [holy spirit] or anything like that. It was simply a kind of feeling of attachment with God that was really intense.

At some point, I rebelled against it, so I do not expect it to return. But I can at least recommend to others the amazing path that helped me --that is the basic simple straight Torah approach you find in almost any Litvak Yeshiva. [The best one are obviously Ponovitch and the regular Litvak NY yeshivas.]

I know my concept of including Physics, Math Music and survival skills into a yeshiva is radical departure of the approach of those that think all secular studies are  bad.  There is on the other hand those that think all secular studies is a great thing and that is obviously quite terrible as we can see.
My approach is that that having some secular studies is a good thing, but most of it is bad. The fact that people pursue secular studies for the sake of a vocation does not turn bad into good.

I asked Rav Zilverman [Old City of Jerusalem] once about electrical engineering  and he thought that it is in the category of natural sciences that the Rambam recommended.

Litvak approach

I think the Litvak approach can be contrasted with the approach of the "pursuit of happiness."
I think the Gra's approach that forms the foundation of Litvak yeshivas is the "pursuit of morality."

The fact that limiting the amount of time spent on Musar in from the European Musar Yeshiva which spent enormous amounts of time on Musar to the American version which spends much less time is more based on the fact that the amount of time does not seem to increase the effect. It is the law of limited returns. That is there is a limit of how much you can learn it per day that increases any good effect. In fact there might be a maximum point. After that perhaps learning more Musar begins to detract  and start to create immorality? I think there is plenty of evidence to that fact. We all know Mashgichim [teachers of Musar in Litvak Yeshivas] are pretty poor examples of human beings. Therefore the best idea is the 20 minutes and the 15 minutes of Musar in the afternoon and evening and the ret of the day Talmud [Gemara] Tosphot Maharsha and after that the basic achronim Pnei Yehoshua, Reb Chaim of Brisk, Rav Shach's Avi Ezri.

   

It is possible to understand the idea of idolatry in a Kantian sense.  I might try to give some background about what I mean but the basic idea is simple. God is one, not two or three and he is not a composite. According to the Torah he is not the world nor is the world him. He is the First Cause that caused everything that exist to exist. That is to say he is transcendent and one and ideas of form and substance do not apply  to him.
With Schopenhauer we get further that he is the only unconditioned reality, though that is not like Kant.
What you get from this is a kind of clarity about God but also you get the idea of a limit how far human understanding can go about him. That is the apt title of the Critique of Pure Reason.

This helps to understand the idea of idolatry--which I found very difficult to understand. The major help I found about idolatry was reading the book of Daniel and later learning pages 62b in Sanhedrin and on-ward. [ie 62b -circa 64]. Of course the Nefesh HaChaim was helpful to some degree in the place where he deals with the problem of worship of people.[That is the chapter where he explains the idea of service of God as intending to get attached to God through prayer (I think.) I don't have t to be able to look it up.]


So in short unconditioned reality is unconditioned reality and thus idolatry is simply trying to make it concrete.