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Yes, but one usually refers to a relationship by the closest term. If someone is your spouse, your first cousin, and your fifth cousin twice removed – you refer to the person as a spouse.
In some American states, such marriages are prohibited (though I suspect the prohibition, left over from canon law, would be unconstitutional). Jewish law has no problem with it, though some geneticists might take issue (especially if the common ancestor, the grandparents of the couple, had any recessive traits that one wants to avoid, e.g. Tay-Sachs disease).
The current “marijuana stocks” are for small companies that are likely to be pushed aside when larger well-established companies enter the business. In effect you have two problems buy stocks in that industry. If the movement towards legalization reverses, you own shares in a company whose main activity is illegal. If the movement towards legalization continues, the companies in similar businesses (tobacco, food, alcohol, etc.) are likely to move in and crush the small players you are investing in.
If you are not a professional investor, you are likely to get burned playing the stock market.
When you are the majority culture you get to impose your views on everyone else, thus in America, we don’t eat horses or dogs or cats (though in all fairness, no one eats cats, whereas dogs and horses are eaten in many countries). Note that many countries prohibit eating pigs as well. Same principle.
1. You can go to any graduate school that doesn’t require specific course work to get admitted, or you can take the necessary courses and rely on the BTL to meet the required undergraduate degree (this includes law and medical school).
2. You can apply for any job that requires an undergraduate degree but does not specify anything more, If there are specific courses required in addition to an undergraduate degree, you can take said courses.
Midwest2: Did you ever read what your rebbe, the founder of zionism, Theodore Herzl wrote. Yes, they wanted to stop getting shot at by the goyim, but they could accomplish that in a variety of ways. Escaping from the restrictions of having to follow halacha was the major attraction of zionism. Israelis are infamous for their secularity. One can’t even discuss on YWN the ways in which Tel Aviv and Eliat have become world famous (we would say “infamous”).
Because such a ban would also prohibit all forms of “Kiruv”, which, as seen by the hiloni ruling class, involves socially undesirable Orthodox Jews conducting missionary activities aimed at non-religious Israelis. To most secular Israelis (who are atheists, and very committed to that belief), the Christian missionaries are non-threatening and more amusing and deluded than anything else whereas the frum “missionaries” have a serious record of causing many Jewish youth to go off the zionist derekh and embrace the “yoke of Torah and Mitsvos” (the “yoke” which the zionist anthem sings about being free of). We should remember that to frum Jews, who accept the existence of a creator, the Christians are at least “serious”, but to most secular Jews anyone supporting the idea of a “creator” or “ruler” of the universe is totally off his rocker.
Scientists don’t have a good record when they get involved with politics. In the not too distant past, leading scientists, to choose one example, supported genetics and were instrumental in convincing various democracies to support policies such as race-based slavery (abolished due to “science denying” religious fanatics), not to mention the holocaust. In the 20th century, a king of Britain was killed by doctors relying on accepted sciences, who encouraged him to smoke. Depending on the settled science of the week, doctors have been encouraging, and the discouraging, mother to nurse their babies. Forty years ago they were predicting an ice age.
On top of that, the environmentalists regard any of their dogmas with a religious fervour without thinking things through (which has caused many deaths, e.g. banning DDT thereby causing massive increases in malaria, and banning GMOs causing hardships in many countries whose farmers are forced to use old fashioned and less productive seeds).
However none of this has anything to do with Torah. We should always be a bit skeptical of the goyim’s hachmos since they are based on ignorance, or denial, of Ha-Shem.
If a restaurant wants to pay for two sets of supervision, it could easily be certified as both “kosher” and “halal” since there is a tremendous overlap – but just because it is certified as one, doesn’t mean it qualifies for the other with additional certification. Indeed, I’ve seen products with certifications for hallal, kosher and vegan.
Avram in MD: Can/Should one daven for snow in July, which goes against the natural order of things in our part of the world? At a certain point, davening for something “impossible” becomes a shailoh.
What Ha-Shem wants to do with the weather is not really something we can “dictate”. Whether “climate change” is good or bad is subject to debate (warm weather means fewer deaths from snow and ice and cold, and a longer growing season). The climate has been changing constantly throughout our history (which is longer than most Americans “remember”). During the period of Bayis Sheini and during the period of the Rishonim it was warmer than at present, based on historical records of what crops grew where, and what rivers froze in the winter. Cooler periods such as the “Dark ages” and the Early Modern Period tended to be associated with famines and falling populations, and often horrific migrations (e.g. western European invading the Americas and doing many bad things to the inhabitants).
As climate has been constantly changing (and if you hold by paleontology, it appears that at times Greenland was green, and Antarctica was tree covered as well), it would seem that davening for a particular climate might be a bet dubious, though one supposes there is no harm is asking Ha-Shem to violate the natural order. Politically, our leaders should be wary of anyone asking for people to give up their standard of living in the belief that it will affect the weather, and suspicious that the “environmentalists” have developed a quasi-religious in their dogmas going far beyond science or public policy.
There are also upper class regional accents. The key “division” was the civil war, which established that mid-western was the American “standard”. Television and movies led to increased standardization in spoken English. Ethnic and regional accents are not “wrong”, and one needs to note that English vocabulary constantly absorbs words from other languages (and seems to be more open than most languages to assimilating foreign words).
In discussing topics related to Yiddishkeit (“Judaisim”), words derived from Hebrew and Yiddish are more precise, and often replace the English word that is a nominal equivalent in the speech and writing of cultured (in Jewish culture) Jews. Words such as Ha-Shem (rather than “G-d”), Yuntuf (rather than “Festival” or “Holiday”), Sefer (rather than “book on Torah subject”), or “Shabbos” (rather than “Saturday” or “Jewish Sabbath”), are examples of words moving across linguistic barriers.
Some kosher is not hallal, and some hallal is not kosher. however the rules are similar enough that a vendor could produce items that are both kosher and hallal with minimal difficulty (other than politics due to the current real estate dispute in Eretz Yisrael).
It would need to have someone from the Muslim community certifying it as well. While our rules are similar there are differences. Halal can include camels or mixtures of meat and milk. We often hold bitul be-shisim (ignoring 1/60th non-kosher) but they don’t have a similar rule – though most good hecksherim prefer to avoid relying on this rule and prefer only kosher ingredients be used. We allow wine, and they don’t. Also, some Muslims don’t accept Jewish slaughter and insist that meat be slaughtered by a Muslim (just as we insist that animals be slaughtered only by a frum Yid).
In Britain, “normal” English is well defined as being the accent taught to the upper class. In America there are regional accidents, though mid-western (mid-Amerca) became standard as a result of the civil war (when someone from Illinois accepted the surrender from a Virginian). Of course, America has been very open to absorbing words from a variety of languages (and to a lesser extent, British English as well), including Yiddish. One can argue that whatever people are using is by definition “normal”. So normal English includes that spoken in Brooklyn.
Note that some countries (France and Israel come to mind) have government agencies defining what is “normal”, though it should be noted that real people tend to speak without regard to bureaucratic requirements as to what is normal. To most Americans, the idea of an official “normal” English is laughable.
It clearly takes jobs from many places and concentrates them in areas where Amazon has facilities. This undermines economies in rural areas and small cities (largely inhabited by “deplorables”) since previously the “sellers” were locals who also bought local goods, and now the sellers are in major cities.
It isn’t clear how this impacts on quality of jobs. Small businesses paid poorly, but there were many opportunities to advance. Most of the major retailers started out as small poorly paid retail operations. An argument can be made that for most Amazon workers, it is a dead end job with no hope of advancement.
None of the examples cited are mitsvos. They are things that halacha allows that have become obsolete for reasons unrelated to halacha.
Economically, slavery is a bad deal (the owner of an eved Ivri got stick with massive bills for wife and kids, even though they didn’t do any work, and the eved Kaanani turned out to be highly inefficient once capitalism was invented several centuries ago – it seems that paying workers make them work a lot harder than an unpaid worker). Polygamy was never practical (most men have trouble supporting one wife and set of kids). Marrying first cousins seriously increases the risk of genetic disorders in the children, something unknown until the 20th century. Another factor is that due to improvements of transportation and communications everyone has a bigger pool of possible spouses (it no longer takes months for a letter from Jerusalem to western Europe, and travelling to Eretz Yisrae from Europe is no longer a life-threatening once in a lifetime effort).
Actually, the reason people who don’t eat gebrokts is the feat that there is some uncooked piece of flour buried away inside the matza and it could get wet and not eaten within 18 minutes. Nothing much has changed that affects this. It’s as much a problem as it was several millenia ago.
Shouldn’t you be asking when did people starting eating non-shmurah matzah, other than in situations where shmurah was unavailable? Obviously there can be situation where one is unable to obtain shmurah flour and there was a heter to use non-shmurah flour, but during normal times (not durings wars, famines, pogroms, etc.) people always arranged with the farmers to obtain shmurah flour.
1. America has a very strong republican (small “r”) tradition. Most people get annoyed when children of leaders try to base a career on their parent’s success.
2. Most monarchies tend to flop except for ones such as Britain in which they steadily gave up power and ended up as being apolitical and powerless (which in itself is useful, since in the US there is no one who is able to be apolitical).
3. Trump has managed to alienated at least half of the country. A successful president would have something like 80% approval ratings at least. Few presidents approached that (Washington probably but he was unique, Lincoln by the summer of 1865, Franklin Roosevelt by the fall of 1945, you get the picture).
If he wishes to marry a girl who wants a husband who learns full time, and doesn’t mind poverty, he never will. He should look for a girl who wants to be a bourgeois housewife, or an affluent “career” woman.
If we banned politicians for having a bad sense of humor, who would run the government? And at least Trump doesn’t take his bad jokes seriously, unlikely some previous presidents who tried to have enacted into law.
If going off the derekh led to poverty, it would be very unpopular. Being frum means giving up a large percentage of your income – not just the seventh you lose by not working one day, but all the options you give up by following a non-standard schedule, giving up most mobility, having to pass on many types of jobs. For example, the two largest “merit” (not based on need) scholarship programs for higher education are athletic scholarships and the various ROTC programs – and it is virtually impossible for a Shomer Shabbos to go into either. One can only take jobs in cities with frum communities – and most of the country is not near a kosher grocery, a mikva or even a shul. Many jobs involve foreign travel, and much of the world is inhosptable to frum Jews. — You can go a little bit off the derekh (conceal being frum by dressing like a goy, find a way to “work” without doing malachos on Shabbos, switch to a lower standard of kashrus, etc.). But even a modern Orthodox (who keeps kosher and will stay have to decline food at work, who takes off Shabbos, who still walks to a shul on Shabbos) gives up a large percentage of career opportunities.
Home made food is supposed to be better. However store bought is cheaper and easier. That applies to almost anything, not just hummus. So there’s really no hiddush in the original posting.
For centuries, Jews did not have the right the bare arms (consider the complications of having a pogrom if the Jews could defend themselves). In fact, since Jews couldn’t use swords in many countries, there were books in Hebrew on how to fight without a weapon (and you think the zionists invented Krav Maga – the hareidim were doing in 600 years ago). Note that when the Germans elected the National Socialists, one of the first laws was to revoke the right of Jews to bear arms. Indeed, it is an obvious sign that a dictatorship fears armed citizens.
In the English speaking countries, the right to bare arms was limited to the politically and religiously correct, and was sharply curtailed after the militia called itself up and twice overthrew the lawful king in the 17th century (not that about half the American colonies were founded by the losers in that civil war). To a large extent, the Democrats desire to disarm conservatives and deplorables follows a similar logic.
It should be noted that traditionally a criminal who used a gun in a crime faced certain death, and perhaps they should make use of the deterrence in discouraging gun crime, rather than disarming law abiding citizens.
Joseph: For a frum woman to not have an “outside” job she has to have tremendous economic resources (inherited wealth, a rich husband which probably indicates he isn’t a Ben Torah since one doesn’t get rich by sitting and learning, etc.). The choice is between doing semi-skilled work in a store or office, or being an underpaid functionary in a frum non-profit, or being a lawyer.
Also note that “best of frum women who work outside the home” is compared to “best of frum men” (who by definition don’t go into professions, leaving the money-making to the second raters) and “best of other types of women” (who have tremendous problems finding child care since in their communities few women they would associate with are stay-at-home mothers).
If a frum woman is going to get a job outside the home, and goes to law school, she enters the career tract that can result in one becoming a judge. The same holds true of frum men, but many frum men prefer to concentrate on learning, which reduces those likely to end up becoming judges.
Indeed, since the “best” of the frum men focus their vocational energy on learning (e.g. teaching within the Torah world), and the “best” of the frum women who choose to work outside the home are not so distracted, one should expect to find increasing number of hareidi women doing well in professions. They have an added advantage over non-chareidi women in that they are in a community in which many women stay at home, creating a large pool of reliable child-care opportunities.
ubiquitin and joseph: The “town crier” didn’t do news. It was more for public service announcements (remember to pay taxes this week, remember to make an eruv tavshillin, etc.). People wrote books, sometimes works of art (the famous Bayeux tapestry), letters were sent. The “new cycle” took years but word got through. The Chinese probably were unaware of western Europe, in part since the area was a bit too primitive to interest them (though the Chinese routinely were in contact with the Muslims and to a lesser extent with the remaining Romans in whatg we call the Byzantine Empire). England and France were well connected, and for much of the medieval period the “big story” was one trying to conquer the other (Jews were illegal aliens in both countries, and we stayed out of politics as best we could).
The 24 hour news cycle took a bit longer, but yes, the Norman Conquest was well known. It was big news.
He obviously knew of the existence of England. England had a significant Jewish community at the time, and one that produced Torah literature, and whose Jews spoke the same language (Judeo-French). It is less likely he visited it as Rashi was not know for travelling (unlike some Torah scholars), and it appears he spent his life in the area that is the border between France (which existed at the time) and Germany (which did not exist at the time).
Technologies change. Hazakahs disappear. At one time, Jews routinely ate non-Jewish bread if there was a local hazakah they didn’t use animal fat or milk.
Today we have hecksherim for anything, including hard liquor. Why rely on a probably obsolete hazakah that a product is inherently kosher, when we can get the same product with certification from a proper kashrus agency.
zahavasdad: In that case no one would have heard of him for a while. The first people only reached New Zealand in the time of the Rishonim and the first Europeans only in the time of the Achronim. We would have had prolonged peace and quiet, except for gigantic (but not meat eating) birds. Of course, when the Europeans arrived (and remember, they would probably be worshipping their ancestral dieties), tghey would have gunpowder and we would still be as well armed as the Jews were in the Midbar. Isolation results in backwardness.
Seriously though, the fact that Ha-Shem didn’t send us to an isolated uninhabited island suggest a deliberate reason for us to have a homeland at the cross roads between Africa, Asia and Europe, “in the thick of things”.
Is the initial question asking when one would want to live (probably not very far in the past, the modern standard of living gives us a vastly higher quality of life than our ancestors) or, when would you go to alter history (to benefit the Klal Yisrael, I would suggest preventing World War I (preserving the stable era of the “Proud Tower” and avoiding the rise of Socialism, Naziism and Islamic Natinalism which have not been good for us) , or perhaps preventing the breakdown of relations with Rome which led to a several wars that were disasterous for us) or perhaps Bayit Rishon (some sage advice and a bit of gunpowder and there wouldn’t be numbers after Bayit), or (being sarcastic) going to Avraham Aveinu or Moshe Rabeinu and telling them about New Zealand and Madagascar which were both totally free of goyim (i.e. uninhabited) at the time.
A newborn clone will be a baby that it exactly you were when you were a baby. if you are human, so will the kid be. Since we allow test tube babies, and a clone has fewer shailohs , what will the problem be?
I’m comparing American college students to yeshiva students. As far as I can tell, Baal ha-basim never got off for “Bein ha-zmanim” unless they were employed by a yeshiva. Note that some Americans, particularly teachers, do routinely get three months of vacation every year.
By the 19th century, they had railroads. It dates back earlier to when they often had to walk.
Actually the vacations are relatively short. The Americans get off from Memorial Day to Labor Day, three complete months.
BTW – I’ve been looking at some pictures from Syria and Iraq, and they have done a good job on reducing obesity. And lets give credit where credit is due, 73 years ago the Germans did a fantastic job on reducing obesity among European Jews. (in fact most Europeans were quite thin by the spring of 1945, and would you believe, they were complaining about it).
Be happy to live in time where being too fat is considered a problem. Baruch ha-Shem we have more than enough to eat.
So we are a bit overweight. Looks at some typical pictures of frum Jews from, say, 73 years ago. Be happy. It is a bracha to live at a time when obesity is considered to be a public health problem.
And if someone doesn’t want the convenience of prepared foods and restaurants, they can go back to what was done in the past – buy the ingredients, and the fruits and vegetables,and prepare your own. It isn’t like one has trouble finding kosher potatoes.
Homeschooling limudei kodesh is a problem for most families. Assuming that both parents are Bnei Torah (the father learned in a yeshiva after high school, the mother went to seminary), the boys Torah curriculum by late middle school includes subjects that the mother can’t teach (in particular gemara). And usually the father is employed and doesn’t have adequate time.
Remember that the home schooling parent has to give up tremendous time, resulting in opportunity costs. If the mother (as it typically is) has a college degree and the option to earn somewhere between $50K and $100K (which is normal), then the cost of home school is the money she gives up by staying home.
Also remember that the goyim have well developed networks to assist parents, and we do not.
However if one is seriously “out of town” in a place with no day school, or if one wants to home school for “English” only, this probably makes it more reasonable.
Large amounts of currency create a risk of theft, whereas “plastic” (in its various forms) have reduced risk of theft (in the case of credit cards, a $50 cap, debit and payment cards are a bit different). One should also note that large payments in cash can be illegal in some places, and in general appear questionable and get the attention of law enforcement agencies.
Which “state” do you refer to. If you mean Medinat Yisrael, the obvious answer is “NO”. Israel is a secular state whose stated goal is to build a country free from the yoke of Torah. That, alone, is the raison d’etre.
If you mean a “generic” state, the answer is “perhaps indirectly” is in a given country they have entitlemenet policies that benefit frum Jews such as American food stamps and medicaid that benefit the Torah world even though that was not the government’s intention.
Corn and wheat were genetically modified in prehistoric times (i.e. before there were written records), the same goes to dogs and cattle. While unmodified dogs still exist (wolves), unmodified cattle became extinct. None of the basic foods exist in pre-modified form.
So now they can do it faster. Big deal. If mass sterility is a problem caused by GMOs, you would see it among groups such as Mormons and Orthodox Jews, but in fact both groups have close genetic cousins with whom they share diet (both eat GMOs), but only the seculars have falling fertility, somewhat proving that the well documents fall in fertility is caused by religion and culture, not diet.
Abusing small rodents with disgusting experiments designed to get tenure for professors proves very little. Such experiments in the past have proved whatever the professor thinks will get him tenure. A century ago, they proved that Jews and Blacks were inferior, since at the time that was a politically correct view (which is how democratic governments enacted the holocaust in Europe and Jim Crow in America – relying on best science).
Your hypothesis that GMOs cause infertility is easy to test, and the evidence is pretty overwhelming that GMOs are safe.
Paleontologists have found clear evidence of humans engaging in genetic modification of plants and animals since longer than there has been writing. If your grandfather was one of the first to dabble in creating GMOs, he must have known Noah personally, if not Adam ha-Rishon himself.
All that happened in the last cenutry was an improvement in technique. No reputable scientist claims GMOs have been proven to be “bad” – however in many countries (particulary in Europe) they have a rule that something must be proven to be “safe” (though in all fairness, the rule is designed primarily to protect inefficient farmers against competition from farmers in American and Britain using modern methods) . GMOs even if the definition is defined to the newer methods of accomplishing it are widely used, and are a major reason why people have enough to eat.
Without GMOs people would be starving in the streets. And if you really believe that falling birth rates are caused by GMOs, you are incredibly naive.
It seems no one else seems to think so. Virtually all food we eat has been genetically modified, and the process began over several generations ago, so the human race is probably extinct by now. If you honestly believe the anti-GMO nonsense, feel free to live off wild grass, but don’t be disappointed when you do NOT have the world do yourself in 50 years.
The only halachic issue with GMOs might be if you introduce genes from one plant or animal into another, and that would deal with questions of kilayim. The consensus seems to be that unless it is done with actual grafting or cross breeding (mating), there is not an issue, and that deriving benefit is not as problematic as doing it ourselves (e.g. we can use a mule, but we can’t cause one to be made).
Since we now have a well developed system of hecksherim, why would any frum Yid even consider relying on the “good old days” system of relying on checking ingredients.
Do released felons (who have finished serving the sentence) pay taxes? Are they subject to laws passed by the legislature? Do they use services provided by the elected government? Does the phrase “no taxation without representation” sound familiar to anyone?
Does it matter the more than any other factor (economic status, family background, ethnicity, gender), the factor that most closely correlates with criminal behavior is age. Young people tend to make mischief and get into trouble, and the propensity to do so decline over time (as the people grow older and wiser), which suggests a good reason not to overly penalize a grownup over something they did when they were a kid.
Republicans like religion, include our’s. Democrats think that people like us are deplorables who cling to religion.
If the “frum” Democrats were to “cross the aisle”, it would seriously revitalize the Republican party in New York, and might influence many other “deplorables” to switch as well.
Kametz, can be an “ah” as in father, an “oh” as in oatmeal, or an “aw” as in “raw” depending on dialect. All are glatt kosher. The “aw” (spoken by western and northeastern European Ashkenazi) is probably closer to the ancient pronounication, but you’ll need a time machine to be certain.
According to current theories, dinosaurs did not become extinct, they just became smaller. Most Yidden eat them on Shabbos evening for dinner.
Most Jews, and all Ashkenazim, did not use inherited surnames until the 19th century. A man’s legal names was “Piloni ben Piloni” and a woman’s name was “Pilonis bas Pilonis”. While people often used additional names, they were not necessarily inherited. The goyim required us to use surnames in the 19th century to facilitate conscription, tax collection and assimilation. They initially forgot to require that they be inherited on the male line and it wasn’t uncommon for a man to adopt the wife’s family name (especially if he was moving in with her family and supported by them, as was common). Until recently, Dina Malchusa Dina required a woman to use her husband’s surname, reflecting various Christian legal traditions, but that is often not the case.
There is certainly no halachic requirement for a woman to adopt her husband’s surname, but it is convenient to do so.
Specific wedding customs:
“Mr. and Mrs. …. ” as referring to the hasan/kallah is clearly non-Jewish, as traditionally Jewish women did not change their names on marriage (prior to use of surnames, which were for the most part adopted by Ashkenazim in the 19th century)
Entrance ceremony – Jews had the hasan and kallah walk to the huppah with their parents, anything else is non-Jewish. Among goyim, the hasan arrives with his friends led by the “Best man”, whereas the bride is escorted by the father or senior male relative who has to “give her away” (Jewish give make their own marriage arrangments, at least in theory, so there is no guardian to give her way).
Post-wedding. Goyim traditionally leave town immediately after the wedding for a honey moon, so anything we do after our weddings (where the couple stays in town and goes to parties for a week) is Jewish.
As to what is a “custom” one should remember that customs, by definition, are constantly changing. New Jewish customs are constantly being created based on how we adapt halacha to changing circumstance. For example, 200 years ago there were no microphones or loudspeaker, nor any possible recorded music – and there were no photographers at weddings- Clothing constantly changes since new fabrics become available and styles change (e.g. no one wore pants 500 years ago) – the halacha for clothes pertain to the tallis katan and the need for modesty – the rest it how the Yidden adapt.