Mishloach Manot

The recent shul mailing on mishloach manos, at the bottom, was misleading regarding the minimum parameters of the requirement.

It is two food items to a single individual.

Conservative Day School

Recently the Rabbi made a statement from the pulpit which, by mistake, could have sounded like he was describing a Conservative day school as a place of Torah.

This must have been a mis-speak. A Conservative school, or any place that teaches apikorsus, such as the idea that Torah is not from heaven, God forbid, is most certainly NOT a place of Torah.

• It is forbidden to learn heretical ideas except for specific purposes, such as debating heretics.
• It is forbidden to send one's children to such a school--doing so would be tantamount to spiritual child abuse.
• One would be better off going to public school, ideally followed by an Orthodox Hebrew school in the afternoon, than to attend a place that teaches heretical ideas. It is clearly better to learn nothing than to learn a mixture of good and bad, when one does not posess the ability to discern the difference. For example, which would be better--to learn how to install a light fixture from a book that was half correct and half not, or to not learn how to install a light fixture at all? In the latter case, the worse that can happen is you sit in the dark. In the former, you might blow up your house! Going to public school means you sit in the dark. Conservative blows up our house.

Again, I can only pray that the Rabbi mis-spoke when he said what he said. Let us all pray that this is the last we hear of such mis-speaks.