Electronic barrier might not be sufficient-- especially for the stinky folks and yakkers. But it can have a forcefield and give anyone who penetrates it a small shock. I would hope the person with the app themselves gets zapped a time or two.
I vote for one of these pop up hampers -
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/61/e3/ee/61e3eeb205e25159602ed8493469b276.jpg
So is it only orthodox Cohens who will not knowing fly over a cemetery? I’d guess that there are very few flights that do not at one point or another fly over a cemetery, and that would be especially true of any that fly over Queens or Westchester.
This guy looks like he may NEED a cemetery if he is on a long flight! http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2307713/Pictured-Orthodox-Jewish-man-covers-PLASTIC-BAG-flight.html
The funny thing is that in terms of pure genetics, almost every (ethnic) Jew is descended in fairly equal portion from Cohanim. I have at least ten male Cohens-Cohns-Kahns-Kagans in my direct ancestral line over the last three or four hundred years – most recently, my father’s father’s father’s mother’s father, and my mother’s father’s father’s father’s mother’s father – and each of them was (at least theoretically) a direct descendant of Aaron (assuming that such a person ever existed), and so am I, in multiple ways. The only difference is that they’re all my ancestors through descent from women, and of course in Orthodox and most Conservative Judaism the status only passes through the male line, and only men can hold it for most purposes, even though being the daughter of a male Cohen does have certain attributes. So technically my father was only a Levite, a much less exalted status!
Had ever heard anything about Kohens and flights over cemeteries, and neither had DH. But it is referenced in that plastic-bag-over-passenger story I linked in #303. Am guessing there was no discussion of such things (airline flights) in the torah, talmud or the kabbalah writings.
This is one of those cases when the interpretation appears to me to be strained beyond belief.
Not to mention that there are so many old Jewish cemeteries all over Europe and elsewhere (many of them destroyed without a visible trace), that consciously avoiding a flight over any of them is impossible as a practical matter. Orthodox Jews in general – not only Cohanim – are prohibited from entering Christian churches; by this logic, shouldn’t they also be prohibited from flying over them? Even more of a practical impossibility!
I’m telling you, undiagnosed OCD among otherwise very smart people.
OCD?? According to the article with the guy who put himself in a plastic bag (now there’s a real smart decision… cue sarcasm music) re: the Kohenim
So, are they talking about the spiritual, ethereal remains of the departed, whose spirits are somehow in a continuous, straightline trajectory from the cemeteries to the great beyond? How is this “contact”? Does this mean they can never enter a cemetery, because they attend funerals and such. In fact, at the cemetery where my parents are buried, there are always some orthodoxy at the entrance who are available, for a “donation” to help make a minyan at the gravesite. Paid mourners. So they can stand spitting distance from a gravesite where some recently departed is about to be interred, but they can’t momentarily fly thousands of feet above some possible cemetery?
Thats not OCD, thats ODD (and I don’t mean oppositional defiant disorder)
“So they can stand spitting distance from aaa gravesite but they can’t momentarily fly thousands of feet above some possible cemetery?”
The professional mourners presumably aren’t Kohanim.
Good point, but who knows. Regardless, the logic is peculiar, to say the least. Maybe they don’t truly know if they are Kohenim. Many do not know their lineage, especially with the many name changes. So maybe anyone who is a known Kohenim should drive wherever they go, but select routes that are sure not to take them near a cemetery. Do spiritual remains go sideways as well as upwards? This is all foreign to me. I would rally like to understand as it makes no sense to me.
What frustrates me more is that this guy’s request now becomes the woman’s problem. I am sure there would be many people on the flight saying to a woman who held her ground “c’mon just switch, what difference does it make?” They just want to get off the ground. So now she is the bad guy and the focus is no longer on him. SHE’S the unreasonable one. Infuriating.
The guy’s the problem, but one thing about people being the problem is that, in a group, they cause problems for others. This then becomes the airline’s problem if it wants to get off the ground, keep the flight schefudule, and also keep the customers happy.
The man is the problem, and the airline has to deal with it. They have a choice- get him off the plane, or accommodate him by finding him another seat. If they choose to find another seat for him, they also have a choice to charge him for the switch, and/or reimburse a person for switching. It also doesn’t have to be a woman who moves. There may be a man sitting next to another man who would not mind changing seats.
None of this changes the fact that the man is the problem passenger. It’s just about how to deal with the problem. If there was some simple solution like a pop up personal barrier, it would make this easier.
I googled the flying over a cemetary rule, and one source said it was determined in 1997 by a rabbinical leader. Naturally, the original law- to not come in contact with a corpse- was decided long before modern transportation. I don’t know the accuracy of this, but it is the only reference I could find. I am not at all familiar with that rule. Since the laws were in place, over the years, commentary has added to how to observe them. This adds to the diversity in practice. Of note is that this isn’t exclusive to Judaism. Some branches of other religions have begun with the ideas of a leader- Martin Luther, Joseph Smith.
I agree that the flying over a cemetary rule makes no logical sense to me. I don’t know why it is decided that way. The more common concern for an observant Cohen is not to fly on a plane with a casket , and someone can know that before boarding.
Again, just to be clear- it is the man’s problem if he doesn’t like his seat. Then, it is the airline’s problem of how to deal with a disruptive passenger. It is not the passengers who are the problem. I am not proposing that one way to do this is the preferred way.
In fairness, there may be many Orthodox men who do ask politely, or who make arrangements in advance, or who talk to the gate staff about it before boarding, etc. They don’t get into the news. The Ultra-Orthodox may not have a larger or smaller percentage of jerks than any other group.
IMHO, it’s important to recognize how isolated some of these people are from “normal” society. They live in a world surrounded by similar people and they likely are at the fringe in that group, being more highly devout, more involved in study - very possibly not working, just studying Torah, or perhaps working but only in one of their group’s institutions. This results in increasingly odd relations to our world and those differences are emphasized by larger Jewish traditions about the way to live and worship, meaning in general concepts of identifying God’s will as manifested specifically in acts that must be done or not done and in the most specific ways. Judaism is meant to be lived in a set of daily obligations, both individual and community - and how these are viewed is of course what divides the various strains and sects - but it isn’t OCD but a theological obsession which can take root in a person who believes this is the highest form of devotion.
I get frustrated with these people but I try to remember: they aren’t cutting off heads and aren’t blowing themselves up in crowds. These people can be annoying but their religious convictions don’t make them dangerous to others (except when a government tries to regulate them, in which case they can be unruly but not suicidal and grotesquely barbaric).
Yes many men spend their lives studying Torah and think it’s a mitzvah ( blessing) to have others help them financially while they do. Then there are those who have businesses ( eg electronics stores or jewelry shops in the 47st area of Manhattan) and who interact with people outside their community. Some are more insular, but it’s perhaps less likely they are flying on commercial flights (though who knows). My DH has ultra orthodox relatives and my late dad’s neighborhood became very orthodox when a shul was built nearby. Some of the things they did ( eg pressure nearby stores to close on Saturday or they’d essentially force them out of business, which did happen with some). There were other things that occurred that were unpleasant and upsetting as they were manipulative. Very upsetting to hear about.
This one reported by the NYT is not an isolated incident. For Ultra-O men,their faith is what they demand of others, not what they demand of themselves.
http://thedailybanter.com/2014/12/time-arrest-ultra-orthodox-jews-delay-flights-seating/
http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2014/10/religious-belief-and-flying
They’re going to be on El Al to Israel and this thread is about the small group of extremely devout, not those who work in the regular world. And I totally disagree that for Haredi “their faith is what they demand of others” because 99% of the time they either aren’t interacting with outsiders or the interactions aren’t contentious.
In the original NYTimes article, one flight was from Chicago to London via NYC on Delta or United.