Conference taveng::bagels

1219.0. ""..a big pizza pie, that's amore!"" by NAC::OFSEVIT (card-carrying member) Thu May 07 1992 19:27

    	I plucked the attached article off the Conservative-interest
    newsletter.  I thought of putting it in the humor topic, but I figure
    that might offend somebody.  :-) :-)  I'll attach a joke as a response,
    which is somehow related.

    		David

    ----------------------------

[header deleted]

	I found this article in the April 23th issue of "The Jerusalem
Report" thought you might find it interesting.

"Bnei Brak Pizza to go, go, go!"  by Peter Hirschberg
Rabbinical rulings ensure that fast food takes a little longer

	With its silver oven, long glass-covered counter-top and overpowering
smell of cheese, Haim Nachum's eatery in the ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak
outside Tel Aviv is much like a regular pizza joint anywhere in the country.
But this is a pizza parlor with a difference, a take-out establishment where
they positively insist that you take out.
	When a recent visitor to Pizza Nachum began eagerly removing the
plastic wrapping on his pizza before he had left the shop, he was
reprimanded.  "No, no, no," spluttered the young man behind the counter,
wagging his finger in the direction of a sign on the wall which reads:  "No
one may eat their pizza in the shop."
	The reason:  The rabbis of Bnei Brak, saying they are determined to
prevent contact between unmarried males and females, do not want to give
their young charges any opportunity of being led astray.  Those critical
moments in which they hover by the counter wolfing down their pizza, the
rabbis fear, could lead to unsavory interaction between Bnei Brak's young
ultra-Orthodox men and women.  "The rabbis don't want men and women mixing
together," says Nachum.  "This is an issue of modesty."
	Eating pizza in or taking it out has become an issue of burning
political import ever since the cheesy slices hit Bnei Brak about six months
ago.  Nachum's customers are only allowed to purchase pizza for consumption
off the premises--a stipulation insisted upon by She'erit Yisrael, a
rabbinical authority linked to the Degel Hatorah party, under the tutelage of
96-year-old Rabbi Eliezer Schach, which supervises kashrut at Pizza Nachum.
	But Nachum's local competitors, Speed Pizza and Guttah Pizza, are
under the supervision of Rabbi Moshe Landa, one of city's chief rabbinical
authorities, who is affiliated with Schach's arch-rivals, the Lubavitcher
hasidic movement.  And Landa's restrictions are even more stringent.  Pizza
joints under his supervision may not sell directly to customers on the
premises at all.  All sales must be by home delivery.
	Neither of the two home delivery services has an address, and no one
on the streets of Bnei Brak seems to know the location of either.  All that
exists is a contact number.  "That's underground pizza," says Nachum,
laughing.
	Avraham, who identifies himself as a partner, answers the phone at
the secret Speed Pizza headquarters.  "I'm not prepared to discuss politics,"
he says, when asked about the differing demands of the rabbinical
authorities.  But he is happy to talk at length about the logic behind
Landa's conditions.  "He wants to keep fast-food places out of Bnei Brak
because he doesn't want boys and girls mixing," says Avraham.  "He doesn't
want Bnei Brak to become like the secular cities of Tel Aviv or Ramat Gan."
	Before pizza came to Bnei Brak, ultra-Orthodox residents had to
journey to Jerusalem's extreme religious enclave of Me'ah She'arim if they
wanted to tast the forbidden fruit in a proper atmosphere.
	Whereas pizza has been sold freely in Me'ah She'arim for almost four
years, the rabbis of Bnei Brak succeeded in keeping it out of their city
until last year.  Many prior attempts to set up pizza parlors in the
ultra-Orthodox enclave were quashed by Landa'a father, Ya'akov, the city's
former chief rabbi, and Landa himself.
	But now the fast food, in many ways a symbol of Western, secular
culture--something the ultra-Orthodox have fought tirelessly to keep out of
their neighborhoods--has taken Bnei Brak by storm.  Demand at the pizza
parlors, from families with young children, young women and yeshivah students
alike, is increasing.  At some yeshivahs where it is forbidden to bring in
food from the outside, says the owner of one pizza joint, the students even
smuggle it in under their long black coats.  "It's popular and it's easy,"
says Benjamin Kohn, the director of She'erit Yisrael.  "With Pesah coming up,
I can buy pizza and give it to the children in the garden and there is no
need to cook."
	If Landa and She'erit Yisrael have their differences on what
constitutes a "safe house" for pizza consumption, they are both in full
agreement that there should be no room for mixing of the sexes.  It is hardly
surprising, then, that the booming sales at Pizeleh, on the outskirts of Bnei
Brak, have them both hopping mad.
	At Pizeleh, which has a certificate from yet another rabbinnical
authority, not only can clients buy pizza over the counter, they can also sit
and chew leisurely at one of the white plastic tables sprinkled around the
shop's interior and spilling out onto the sidewalk.
	For Landa, that's sacrilege.  Two weeks after he opened Pizeleh, says
Benni Farkash, a 27-year-old ultra-Orthodox former diamond dealer, Landa
ordered his people to put up posters around the city denouncing Farkash.  "I
also received threatening phone calls," he says.  "They told me I would be
beaten up if I didn't fall in line with Landa."
	But the posters and the threats didn't deter Farkash.  On a warm
evening in mid-April, trade is brisk at Pizeleh.  Young ultra-Orthodox men
and women stand shoulder to shoulder as they order their pizza.  Some leave
immediately, others sit to eat.
	"Even though I don't have a hekhsher (a kashrut certificate) from
Landa, people trust me," says Farkash, raising his voice above the roaring
engine of one of the Pizeleh mortorbikes as it shoots off to make a delivery.
 "Anyway, I don't get invloved in politics.  I'm here to make money."
	How, though, can Farkash countenance what some of his neighbors
clearly consider such flagrant immodesty, such flouting of local rabbis'
wishes?  "We aren't like the ultra-Orthodox in (Brooklyn's) Boro Park where
they have separate buses for men and women," he says.  If a guy wants to meet
a girl, and can't do so at a pizza parlor, adds Farkash, he'll find a million
other places to meet her.
	In fact, it seems that pizza parlors have been unfairly singled out
as targets for the rabbis' ire.  Bnei Brak is dotted with stands selling
felafel, and they have no such stringent regulations governing circumstances
of consumption.  The only stipulation with regard to felafel, which has been
available in Bnei Brak since Landa's father gave it the green light many
years back, is that chairs and tables be packed away by eight at night to
prevent any late-night untoward male-female interaction.  "The difference
between felafel and pizza," explains Nachum, not entirely convincingly, "is
that felafel is considered a meal, while pizza is something you eat for fun."
Kohn, however, insists there is no difference and that it is only out of
respect for Landa's father, who did not want pizza at all in his city, that
the regulations differ.
	The felafel rules are clear and generally accepted.  The pizza
problems have not quite been ironed out yet.  But already, there is new
trouble on the horizon, in the guise of another popular Western take-out
delight:  frozen yogurt.  Farkash is planning to open his first yogurt store
in June.

	Hope that was interesting to you, if not, I did a lot of typing for
nothing.

    [Internet stuff deleted]

    	This is a little off-color, so don't complain that you haven't been
    warned...

    	So this fellow meets the young woman of his dreams.  (No, not at
    the pizza shop!)  She's quite Orthodox, so he figures he'd better check
    with her rabbi about what he's getting himself into:

    	"Rabbi, will we be able to go dancing?"

    	"I'm, sorry, that's forbidden, since dancing would be a violation
    of the requirement for modesty."

    	"Well, will we be able to have sex?"

    	"Certainly, you must be fruitful and multiply."

    	"That's a relief...can we do it with the man on top?"

    	"Yes, that would be no problem."

    	"How about, um, with the woman on top?"

    	"Yes, that would be no problem either."

    	"Uh, how about standing up?"

    	"NO!!!  THAT COULD LEAD TO DANCING!!!"

    	Where and when did the strict rules on modesty and mixing of the
    sexes come from?  I just read the Song of Songs, and they sure had
    different ideas way back when...

    		David

    
    Re: .2
    
    >        Where and when did the strict rules on modesty and mixing of
    >the sexes come from? 
    
    The Benei Berak measures may be a bit extreme, but your first 
    question may be best answered by a treatment of your second
    point (recently dealt with in another forum):
    
    >I just read the Song of Songs, and they sure had
    >    different ideas way back when...
    
    The eroticism of the Song of Songs is certainly undeniable.
    And yet, the great Rabbi Akiva declared:
    
            The world never had a day as great as the day the Song
            of Songs was given to Israel! For all the writings are
            holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies.
    
    No further elucidation is offered. Why this book in particular?
    He is not so excited about Ecclesiastes, about which he puts
    up no fight in the next sentence!
    
    Pious Jews recite the following verse several  times a day:
    
            Love the Lord your G-d, with all your heart, with
            all your soul and with all your might (Deut. 6:5).
    
    How many people, however, fulfill this precept? How does
    one even go about "loving" an entity one can't tangibly
    perceive?
    
    Explains Maimonides (Yad, Tesh. 10:3):
    
            How is this "love" manifested? One must love G-d
            with a superior, powerful love to the point that
            his soul is encompassed with this love, and he
            finds himself preoccupied by it constantly...
    
    Now, if this is the mitzva, where does one learn such a
    powerful love? Here's the end of the quote:
    
            ...as if he is sick of lovesickness* from his love
            of a particular woman, being preoccupied with her
            while sitting, standing, eating and drinking...
            Greater still should be G-d's love in the hearts
            of his lovers, preoccupied by it constantly, as�
            it says, "with all your heart, with all your soul..."
            And this is what Solomon said metaphorically, "for
            I am lovesick." Indeed, the entire book of The
            Song of Songs is a metaphor for this idea."
    
    The fact is that there is no more powerful force in one's
    life than one's love for one's lover, including the erotic
    part of the relationship. If we are indeed bidden to love
    G-d with an even *more* powerful love, we must use a human
    experience as a point of departure, an analogue. Do you think
    Solomon understood this premise less than R. Akiva and Maimonides?
    
    * For an example of Maimonides' (an outstanding physician) under-
    standing of lovesickness, see Yad, Yes. HaTorah, 5:9.
    
    But the love between man and woman spoken of must be understood.
    I recently heard a compelling comment: People speak of "loving"
    ice cream. But what do they do to it? They destroy it! It's a
    ten-minute stand, if you will.
    
    There's a difference between love and lust. The latter is a
    characteristic that people share with animals. The former
    must be cultivated and nurtured, and arises only out of a total
    committment, through thick and thin. It is the cogency and power
    of such a love that the author of the Song wishes to use as a
    model for the human-Divine relationship.
    
    Are such relationships forged in night-clubs or singles-bars?
    Thank G-d, there are no such dens of iniquity in Benei Berak.
    Although we may think that they have gone overboard in this
    case, we should at least respect their wish to err on the 
    side of caution. 
    
    (All this talk of pizza is starting to get me a little hungry...)
    
    Jem
    

    Why don't they put up a mechitza between the men's and women's sections
    of the dining room?  For that matter, why not a mechitza to divide the
    men's and women's sections of the serving counter?

    re .3, "...are such relationships forged in night clubs and 
    	    singles bars?"
    
    I bet some of them are.  I met my wife at work, but I know
    someone who met her future husband at a bar, and I'm sure
    there are lots of similiar stories.
    
    		-John Bishop