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That sounds reasonable. Among Ashkenazim it is unlikely that more than 5% of males over 13 put on tefillin.
It should be noted that the non-elite law schools are having trouble finding people to fill classes, so if you meet their minimum requirements and don’t require financial aid, it isn’t hard to get it. Only the very top of their class has a chance of getting into “Big Law”, but if what you want is to hang out a shingle it doesn’t really matter where you went to law school. In some states, one can even qualify to take the bar exam by “reading law” (private tutoring and independent study while working as a de facto paralegal). If one’s goal is to be a respectable lawyer in one’s own community (in New York that means serving those with no connection to Wall Street or Midtown or large corporations or large organizations, e.g. serving those who live in Brooklyn outside of downtown Brooklyn), going to an elite law school won’t help as much as being competent and well connected in your comunity.
Of course if the person asking the question is interested in getting rich, then they probably should go to an elite school in which case a BTL is only very helpful if it is in addition to an undergraduate degree in a secular subject from a leading college.
There are no formal requirements for admission to law school. If you have a BTL, an interesting resume and a good background for pre-law (writing skills in English, a respectable background in history/social sciences), and good LSAT scores, a BTL should get you into an American law school (it also helps to be able to pay the $150K or so tuition without financial aid).
If the school offering the BTL has regional accreditation, it is worth as much as any other degree that is of little relevance to the graduate program you are going to. One can always supplement a BTL by taking courses to improve one’s “resume”.
In any area of expertise, intelligent people “refer” to those with specialized expertise. That is not a hiddush. Anyone in any field will over time tend to develop specialized expertise. That’s how the world works. The cooks in the neighborhood will know who is best at pastry, and who makes the best cholent. The gardeners know who can plants the best roses, and who raises the best tomatoes.
The title of “rabbi” has only a single “rank”. It’s a degree that at most is equivalent to a first undergraduate degree (a newly “graduated” rabbi is qualified to teach high school student. There are no “Jewish” equivalents of masters, doctorates, etc. And depending on their interests and career tracts, there are Talmidim Hachamim who never worry about semicha. It’s not a structured system similar to the goyim’ s degrees.
Since the sound of the “Ayin” is absent from all Indo-European (a.k.a. Aryan) languages, virtually all Ashkenazim and many Sefardim will find it very difficult to pronounce it. The same goes (for English speakers) with the sounds associated with Aleph, Hes, Chaf and Heh.
Given the Hebrew has always been a living language (contrary to zionist propaganda that Hebrew died out millenia ago and was re-invented by Ben Yehudah & friends), the prononciation and grammar are constantly changing.
Prices varied but usually the animal fodder was produced locally so they would reflect local problems. When there was a local disruption (such as a crop failure, or a war), one could always eat the animals.
Most people who keep kosher are pleased enough to find a respectable restaurant with waiters and table cloths. They wouldn’t be inclined to pay a premium for fancy cuisine, noting that this is a second premium beyond the premium for the restaurant being kosher.
Saying “Eretz Yisrael” shows rejection of the zionist government, either because you hold the establishment of the secular “Medinat Yisrael” violates halacha, or because you reject the position of the zionists that “Israel” consists only of the territory over which the Medinah claims sovereignty, excluding (in particular) the West Bank. Therefore both anti-zionist Hareidim, and “fanatical” Religious Zionists both have good reason to refer to “Eretz Yisrael” rather than the medinah (“Israel”).
Baruch ha-Shem that Yiddish, Hebrew and “Judeo-English” (yeshivish, Brooklynese) are LIVING language. If you want a language that is fixed in stone, consider Babylonian or Latin.
5ish – if they post the pictures in a way that states something false, it is defamation. If they take the picture and say this was taken by a antivax event, that is not defamatory and is true. If they post the picture and say the person opposed vaccination and has caused multiple death, that is defamatory, and if the person can disprove the online statement it will be clearly actionable. Knowing the social media, the latter scenario is more likely (remember not all persons photographed on the street outside the building are persons who oppose vaccination, but the social media will say so).
Private citizens can do what they want at public events. As long as the event is not on private property, one can’t exclude photographers. If they attempt to make commercial use of the photographs, they probably need a “release”, If the event is on private property, the owner could sue them for trespassing, or ask the police to remove them. If they take pictures on the public sidewalk, and post them with a crtical caption, they are open to a lawsuit for defamation (the law protecting social media protects the website, not the poster).
Many things have changed. Most children survive childhood, and almost no women die in childbirth. In pre-modern societies most children didn’t make, and death in childbirth was the leading cause of death of women (remember that serious infections treated with antibiotics were often fatal before the mid-20th century, and caesarean were done only to save the baby after the mother died). One has to be a very old person to remember when the leading cause of death of Jews involved goyim killing them, or when most professions were largely closed to Jews (not just frum Jews). These sorts of things affect personal decision on economic and family matters. The world changed, don’t complain, get used to it. The old ways were horrible.
Why is it a problem?
BTW, and what language are you objecting to (Yiddish, English) and which dialect (YIVO Yiddish, Queen’s English, Brooklynese).
It appears based on what one hears in America, that both Shabbos and Tallis are evolving masculine form plurals. Such happens in living languages, such as Yiddish and the developing “frum” dialect of English.
I suggest it is actually the initial period of a new Jewish language but that will take a while to settle down before scholars decide that Judeo-English is a language (in all fairness, many argued that Yiddish was just a type of German “jargon” until World War II when we decided we didn’t want to speak German anymore).
Fashion is not frumkeit (well, wearing pants are, but since the goyim also wear pants no one realizes the halachic significance of wearing pants). If the goyim went back to wear skullcaps, no one would notice that Yidden wear them as well.
It is a mitsvah to wear fancier clothes on special occasions, and velvet is fancier than regular cloth. It not “frummer”, its “fancier”, but sometimes there is a good halachic reason to dress up.
If you wear a plain cloth kippah on weekdays, than you can switch to velvet on Shabbos. If you want to look like you are wearing Shabbos clothes all week (e.g. to show you want to be considered prosperous and self-important, e.g. a lawyer whose respectability is his stock in trade), you might prefer velvet rather than plain cloth on weekdays.
If the US had a parliament system, Obama (or some other Democrat) would have become prime minister in 2006 and would have been replaced in 2010. However one needs to remember that in parliamentary systems there are never “mid-term” elections, and tghe dynamic of choosing a leader impacts more on the election of the legislators.
While the founding fathers (who didn’t approve of political parties, and then promptly started founding them) thought that the House, Senate and President would be at each other throats, therebe preventing a dictatorship, the hypepartisan political parties also do a good job. If you want a government where decisions are made by the leader and immedciately carried out, try places such as North Korea or Germany’s Third Reich. A little bit of anarchy isn’t such a bad think – look at it as a vaccine against dictatorship.
1. The Democrats screwed up badly. They worked on running up the popular vote totals (in “blue” states) in order to a “mandate” and ignored the “purple states.” The Republicans focused on getting their voters out where it mattered and won the “purple” states. In the American system, a party should ignore states that you are certain to win or lose, and concentrate on the “in between” states. The Democrats must have thought we were using the French system (straight popular vote).
2. Please note that Hilary did not “win” the popular vote, she only had a plurality. The difference was in third party votes, particularly for the Libertarians. If we were using the French system, a runoff would have been required.
3, Also note that one reason for not using popular vote nationally is that states have different systems, e.g. some states let felons vote, others do not. Some states allow activists to collect absentee ballots and turn them in to be counted, and others do not. Also not that many of the big cities (New York and Chicago) are infamous for voter fraud, but in an electoral college system they only affect one state, not the national system.
The Democrats will shoot themselves in the foot like they did in 1972 and 1984, and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Trump will regard it as if he has been proclaimed a diety.
First amendment protects freedom expression, and there might be a first amendment issue raised by prohibiting display of a gun (especially if it was unloaded). It is unlikely to be litigated since the debate on guns focuses on the 2nd amendment. However if the right to gun ownership was restricted based on religion or political ideology, it would involve both amendments. (at least according to those who hold guns are for self-defense, a more traditional reading of the 2nd amendment is that its primary purpose was to allow dissidents to own guns).
Is reading non-Jewish fiction kosher?
While the idea of a suffering hero is Christian, the idea of a persecuted minority with a vibrant advanced culture hidden from the general society is a Jewish theme. The author is a Christian and the Christian themes are visible in the book if you know what to look for.
1. Should women be tax-exempt?
2. Men have pretty much run the world even after women could vote, and they came pretty close to trashing
it. Just look at the leaders who inflicted World War II on us – no women there.3. Since the primary role of Jewish men is to learn Torah, it would make sense to let women take care of other details like running the government and making money.
Grant and Harding may have been inept and tolerated corruption if not corrupt themselves, but they also made serious efforts to support civil rights laws (remember the Democrats were the party opposed to civil rights until the second half on the 20th century – until then, most Blacks were Republicans). Jackson may have supported a well established policy of forcing Indians to relocate away from population centers, but his policies in what is known as the Jacksonian era led to opening up political participation to a wide range of Americans including Jews. American was arugably moving towards developing an aristorcracy until Jackson shook things up. That the Democrats under Jackson significantly included the working class led in the long run to opening the way for Blacks to eventually join the system (though that was clearly not his intent), and by opening up the political system to the proletariat the US avoided the severe class-based divisions found in Britain. For all your criticism of Pierce and Buchanan, as well as Jackson, that by acting in ways that postponed the Civil War, they significant increased the liklihood of a Union victory – if the civil war has begun 30 years earlier, before railroads, with only muzzle loaders, and with the northern states not have pulled way ahead of the south in terms of industrial capacity, the outcome might have been very different, and the presidents from Jackson through Buchanan all worked to prevent the civil war. It should be noted that support for tariffs has wide support in the past, usually among the “liberals” favoring protecting jobs rather than “conservaties” who see free trade as promoting economic development.
The classic definition was a Jew (in a rich western country) who sends a second Jew (from a poor backward country, such as Russia or the Ottoman Empire, but usually Russia) to Eretz Yisrael with a third Jew’s money.
It isn’t so clear about Grant, and in particular how much he had to do with the anti-Jewish order issued by his office, and promptly cancelled. Looking at his whole career, he appears to have good relations with Jews.
Obama accomplished one of his primary goals: establishing an American national health insurance that is too popular to abolish. Johnson was successful in radically changing the role of government in social programs, which was what he wanted to do. Roosevelt convinced the American people to reject both Communism and Fascism, which many if not most Americans in 1932 were likely futures, and then managed to get the United States into World War II even though most Americans were isolationists (without Roosevelt, there is a good chance American would not be western style democracy, and that the thrid Reich would now be approaching its 100th anniversay). Carter and Hoover failed in all their policies, but both were seen as nice guys. Its too early to tell with Trump though he has managed to put a brake on the leftward shifing of the judiciary which was one on his major goals.
For super-losers, I would suggest Andrew Johnson and William Henry Harrison.
The DE FACTO position of Chabad, taken globally, is the politics (Likud vs whomever else is running, Trump or Schumer, Tories or Labor, etc.) are really not all that important, and what matters is Jews learning Torah and doing MItzvos, and anyone concerned over anything else (e.g. almost all of us on YWN) is wasting their time with things that aren’t important. The “bottom line” (as well put in Pirke Avos, among other places), is that this world really isn’t worth prutah.
Chabad isn’t really “zionist”. Note that they actively work to preserve Jewish communities in golus. On matters unrelated to Torah and MItsvos, they tend to support whatever the community supports. That’s why Chabad in New York supports the Yankees and Mets, whereas Chabad in Baltimore supports the Orioles. In things that don’t really matter, such as politics and supporting the “home team”, a Chabad shliach in Tel Aviv will be acting different than one in Morocco or Russia,
Just like we did for Shabsai Tvi’s birthday?
“Mrs.” followed by husbands name reflected the husband higher legal status, e.g. if he was an duke, she was a duchess only by virtue of being married to him. Such titles, along with a woman adopting her husbands surname, reflect usage among the Christians in general, and the British in particular. Traditionally, Jewish women did not adopt a husband’s name but were known as “Pilonis bas Piloni” where “Piloni” was her patronymic (her father’s name). In the 19th century the governments made us adopt their form of names in order to make it easiet to tax and conscript us.
1. Since most Jews live in Blue states, that isn’t surprising.
2. Red states support the traditional idea of religious tolerance which is deeply rooted in American culture, whereas people in blue states focus on identity politics, promoting race and class hatreds, and tend to favor “freedom from religion”, thereby creating a climate that encourage toleration of anti-semitism.
What else would you call it? Unlike Sukkos, the last days of Pesach are not a separate yuntuf with their own name?
1. The Democrats decided to impeach president, and otherwise to resist anything and everything he does.
2. A special prosecutor is appointed to investigate the charge that the president was a Russian agent.
3. Special prosecutor concluded Trump was not a Russian agent, but many of his friends are crooks.
4. Since special prosecutor didn’t produce evidence that Trump had engaged in “high crimes and misdemeanors” (political crimes while in office), and since it had already been determined that Trump is evil incarnate who must be opposed by all good (“political correct”) persons (determined by the Democrats in 2016, and affirmed by CNN), Trump obviously obstructed justice by concealing that he is evil and worthy of impeachment (and probably drawing and quatering).
So really, it all makes perfect sense,
The more we assimilate the more likely the goyim will turn to “racial” anti-semitism rather than religious anti-semitism. The underlying reason is our refusal to fully assimilate. Note that in pre-war Germany and modern America, secular persons of Jewish descent are readily identified as Jews, and are attempt to impose an alien ideology on the general society. Those who choose to truely assimilate are not identified as Jews (e.g. John Kerry, can assimlate quite well).
We reject their culture, lifestyle and way of doing things. We mock their dieties. We smash their idols. We deny the authenticity of their scriptures. Note the anti-semitism began when Avaham Aveinu was the only Yid. Also not that even Jews who make a serious effort to live and act and believe like goyim, keeping only the slightest degree of Jewishness also run into problems. The cause of bigotry is bigots. No hiddush here.
Not really.
First, the frum anti-vaxers are marginal to the frum community. It isn’t like they are followers of a leading rav or rebbe, since the “official” frum community is not involved with “alternative medicine”. The efforts of the frum community have always been toward “establishment” medicine (e.g. getting more people covered by CHIPS. That some Yidden follow some very dumb non-Jewish ideology and get n trouble for it is something that the frum establishment probably sees as reason to say “I told you so”.
Second, the diseases prevented by vaccines are all fairly serious. Even the mildest ones cause major expenses especiaily if both parents are working (including situations where the mother is a teacher), since the children get sick enough that a parent has to stay home with them. Some have serious complications, and even if the chance is 1/10 of a percent, that means a few dozen frum Jews will die or be permanently disabled.
both. One finds individuals of both genders with the name. I suggest giving a child with the name a middle name that is gender-specific so people won’t have to ask.
Good bookcases cost hundreds of dollars, and the best ones cost over $1000) and are made of real wood (or steel, but they are less attractive).. You can not assemble them yourself. They are not made of plywood, engineered wood, or manufactured wood.
If you are a ewe, I would think that having your child as a korban pesach would be a great honor.
Children rarely go to college as by they time they complete the necessary courses they are already adults.
Perhaps the question is on how to advise young adults considering going a secular university?IF an indiviudal can declare a personal fast, there is no question a Rosh Yeshiva (or other leader of Klal Yisrael, e.g. the “Rebbe” of a community) can declare a fast.
If he decided to do something that would otherwise not be allowed, such as to require the yeshiva to recite Hallel on his birthday, that would be different.
Acting against his own personal economic interests (assuming he is as rich as he claims to be and isn’t just faking it), Trump targeted high income persons and affluent home owners in states with high state taxation, and benefits those with lower incomes who can’t afford to own a home and live in poorer states.
This is the idea of progressive taxation. Until recently, it was the Democrats who favored a “tax the rich”, but as the Democrats become the party of Limousine liberals it appears it is now the Republicans who are the party of that favors progressive tax rates.Misnagdim see Ha-Shem as a “Boss” who is constantly assigning “shoulds”. They “fear” the Ribono shel Olam.
Hasidim see Ha-Shem as a super-duper best friend and everyone likes doing things together with one’s best friend, and it happens this friends like mitsvos. Hasidim think its cool to have the Ribbono shel Olam as best friend.
There are two sets of hedarim, one Chabad and one started by the Chassidsh Kollel (how that will develop is unknown as it is quite new). “Totah Institute” was founded by a hasid but is now dominated by yeshivsh.
In the heart of the frum community, houses under $250K are common, and if you look hard enough you could find a semi-detached for well under $200K. More expensive options abound, but they tend to be further away from the most-frum shuls.
Note you will probably need a car in Baltimore, unlike Brooklyn.
Rational: In Hebrew, “arranged” would be “mesudar”, which suggests organized. The word shidduch applies just as much to a professional matchmaker involving people who hardly know each other (common only among the self-perceived aristocratic types), to friends and relations that make a shidduch (roughly a very heavy blind date, since the preliminary exchange of information that take up the first few dates for goyim are done before hand), to the phrase that “HaShem made the shidduch” which would suggest a random event but Jews hold that nothing that happens in this world is ever random or by coincidence.
Among the goyim, arranged marriages usually involved children who were requried to marry for political, economic and dynastic reasons and the children involved were expect to be compliant (and in many if not most cases, the managed to fall in love and live happy lives until one of them died of something like a mild infection or childbirth as was common back them). If you learned humash Berishis and remeber Rivka Imeinu, you would know that “arranged marriages” without the parties consent are not allowed,
Define “arranged”?
Does it refer to the boy meets the girl for the first time at the wedding hall?
Does it include when the shadchan “fixes” them up for a date, and perhaps relays messages, but all that is involved is a serious first date with someone who has been pre-checked as being acceptable? What if the “shadchan” is not a commercial shadchan, but a friends or relation?
The area in the City of Baltimore where the frum community is centered has a low crime rate. Northern Parkway effectively cuts off the neighborhood from the rest of the city. The adjacent neighborhood “Mount Washington” is largely upper class, but the frum areas are still middle class. There is begining to be a correlation between frumkeit and living in the city, and being “modern” and living in adjacent Baltimore County. but it isn’t absolute. In general, the city is not into the expensive lifestyle of many frum Baal ha-battim in New York (fancy clothes, fancy weddings, going away for the summer, etc.). Most employment is related to the Federal government in Washington (less than an hour commute). There are several well established schools run by misnagdim and recently there has been a big growth in hasidim (someone more or less “imported” them by planting a hasidische kollel in the heart of the community.
If he held office in New York, his populism would seem a lot more liberal. Actually, he is fairly centered nationally, the national Democrats are ridiculously to the left, and the Republicans would be happier with small government, pro-immigration (albeit selectively), free trade and a muscular foreign policy – but are content to have a non-Democrat in the White House.
People get the government they vote for.
There were always people “off the derekh” but usually they converted to Christianity (remember the status of Jews in most countries was similar to the status of Blacks under “Jim Crow”, so if one isn’t going to bother being frum, why not convert and immediately get full civil rights). Also remember that pre-haskalah every country had “personal law” at least for domestic relations, so as long as one didn’t convert, a non-frum Jew was subject to Beis Din in all matters of family status and inheritance, and could be penalized for being off the derekh. — There was always wide diversity among frum Jews, as there is today, with arguments among kashrus just like we have today. The jokes that all Jews need at least two shuls (“one to go to, and one to refuse to go to”) are pre-haskallah. But individuals who openly rejected halacha would usually also choose to convert and would not be seen as part of the frum community.