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But everything that happens is because Ha-Shem has caused it to happen (cf. Hagacha pratis). So if everyone hates you, it means you need to do tseuvah.
We are loyal to Ha-Shem. Centuries and millenia ago, before there were Americans or Zionists, we were Yidden and Ha-Shem was our king. Centuries and millenia from now, when only historians know what an American or a Zionist were, we will still be Yidden and Ha-SHem will still be our king.
In countries such as the United States, where the nation exists be virtue of a contract between the government and the governed, being adherents to such a contract poses no halachic issue, and if the government ever goes off the derekh, then the contract is batul. In other countries (most of them) where the government is based on a concept of loyalty based on birth or ancestry, it is more of a problem since such countries expect loyalty based soley on where you were born or your ancestry.
A fascist believes in a strong government. Trump is more of an anarchist who likes to toss verbal bombs.
There is also the element that is personal life doesn’t match his media persona, suggesting he is “in character” when he campaigns (not that other media people such as Franken and Reagan were able to transition, whereas Trump is still playing the character he developed for his TV show).
If the Israeli goverment (a.k.a. “the zionists”) were to attempt to ban Torah education, conscript women, require all students to attend government school, ban Bris Milah, etc., actions that are advocated by many secular Jews in Eretz Yisrael and elsewhere, and were also implemented by the Misyavanim who were running the government in Eretz Yisrael as clients for the Greek regime based in what is now Syria – then it would clearly a a Milhemes Mitzvah to oppose them and the Hareidim would be ready to put down their sefarim and go to war (as opposed to the current political and real estate dispute with the Yismaelim, which isn’t about Torah or Mitsvos, and should be treated as any other dispute about dinei mamonos with a submission to arbitration).
I believe some archeologists have dug up some unusually thick pots in the earliest post-conquest Jewish settlements. The non-frum archeologists couldn’t see what they were for, their frum colleagues immediately realized the value of a pot designed to keep something hot for an unusually long time.
Nothing new under the sun.
Hopefully it will never come to that. The chareidi gedolim are all opposed to killing Jews, even if they are non-religious and/or zionists. It would take an extreme provocation (banning bris milah, closing down yeshivos, perhaps conscription of boys and girls) to cause the hareidim to follow the route of the Hasmoneaim and go to war against the modern day Misyavanim (who currently run the government in Eretz Yisrael).
Another factor is that after the Misyavanim (in control of the government in Eretz Yisrael) lost, they were able to call in the local Greek army from Syria. The zionists have no outside help they can count on as most of the world considers them to be criminals. Indeed, if the haredim were willing and able to take up arms against the zionists, it would be the frum insurgents who most likely could find outside allies from the many countries at war with the zionists.
While in an Israel in which Lapid was Prime Minister and Avidgdor Lieberman was the principle opposition, it could create a situation in which instead of throwing dirty diaper or lighting trash can the hareidim would be forced to armed rebellion – that is an unlikely scenario.
Halachically, I believe the meeting in New York is a Sheva Brachos (the luncheon is the wedding meal), so the question is about inviting someone to a gala Seva Brachos but not to the wedding.
Plus the goyim have recently discoverd the probability of there being multiple universes (so I guess its okay to talk about since in the past that was only something that came up in kabbalah’dik literature).
ubiquitin: When someone goes into public service, which is important work but with lousy pay, and emerges wealthy at the end of a long but poor paying career (such as some people we know from our own community, not to mention the Clintons, not to mention a lot of Israeli politicians), it suggests that perhaps they weren’t as dedicated to the public good as they want people to believe.
If someone services the public without enrichment themselves, it probably indicates someone who wants to serve the ???? ????? ??????.
When we see gedolim involved in public affairs it tends to be of the former type. And many of the baal ha-battim who get into politics, seem to be of the latter.
If people wore their hair “long” no one would notice that the hairline is changing. The fault lies in modern styles.The most effective treatment is to take a time machine and encourage your father to marry a woman’s whose father never went bald. Another alternative is to wear a hat.
Unlike problems such as getting fat (which you can do something about), there is little one can do. The problem wasn’t so severe in the past since most people died before they went bald – so if one avoids such things as vaccines and antibiotics and surgery that requires anesthetics you are likely to avoid significant hair loss.
ubiquitin: Did R.Shapiro get rich from his membership in the Sejm?
There will always be a need for people to deal with the ???? ????? and that includes dealing the government and the local community. It is very easy to tell if a community activist or politician someone is doing so ?????? since those are the ones driving old cars, arguing with tuition committees and whose spouse are urging them to concentrate on their day job and let others run the community.
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But “imminent” is relative, and time is inherently relative. By some (medieval kaballistic) theories, suprising similar to modern science, the physical universe has existed for over 10 billion years – so if something is going to happen in another few millenia, that is imminent.
As we have observed, being on both sides of the equation depending on place and time, neighborhoods are constantly changing, and the newcomers think the place is getting better and the old times think the places is going downhill.And a lot of people whine about it. This is to be expected and no one should get all worked up about it.
Unless you do something unusual (chemotherapy, exposure to lethal amounts of radiation), hair loss is purely genetic, and is affected by age. . However if you cut your hair short, as do most “yeshiva guys” (and most frum men), it will be quite visible. Hopefully no yeshiva guy will go off the derekh so that he can grow his hair longer enough so that his shrinking hairline will be less noticable.
If someone is planning to work for “Big law” and get rich, the right degree from the right school matters. If someone is planning on “hanging out a shingle” serving the local community, all that matters is the persons competence and ability to market themselves, along with admission from the bar (which is most states requires an accredited bachelors degree and a degree from an accredited law school though some states allow “reading law” as an alternative). While “big law” may be increasingly tight since oversupply wipes out the impact of retiring boomers, and they were overpaid as it is with the result that paralegals and “outsourcing” to contract lawyers are replacing overpaid associates – if someone wants to work in a largely frum environment they should plan on being a “small” law pracitioner in which case any law school will be adequate and avoiding crushing debt is important.
Also, if someone is planning to go into “small law” having trained as a paralegal might not be so dumb since they’ll be doing a lot of things that paralegals do in the “big law” world.
If you lack a bachelors from a regionally accredited college, many states will not let you take the bar exam, even if you also have a JD from an ABA accredited law school. Many yeshivos that grant a “bachelor’s” don’t have the right accreditation. Law schools will admit someone who is academically qualified and able to pay tuition (especially if they will pay full tuition) even though there is something about them that would keep them from being licensed to practice law (lack of an accredited bachelors is one possible problem, a criminal record is another). For an institution in Israel, they will probably ask if it has been accredited by the Ministry of Education as a regular degree-granting college.
If your goal is to practice law in the United States, you will need a bachelors that is accredited by the an agency recognized by the United States, meaning one of the regional accreditation agencies. If you are presenting any other equivalent, you should confirm that it will be accepted by discussing it with the Board of Law Examiners in the state you want to practice in, and get them to say so in writing. Note the law schools will often admit a student who they know is ineligible to take the Bar exam (on the theory its the student right to spend their money as they wish, even though the student may be under the erroneous assumption they will be a lawyer after graduation).
To succeed in law school, you should have good English langauge skills, especially in writing, and at least a vague idea of American history and government (otherwise you may make a fool of yourself).
This all assumes you want to be a lawyer because you think its a fun thing to do for a living. If you believe its a sure route to a comfortable economic situation, in spite of it not being what you want to do for living, you are making a whooper of a mistake.
Back in the 20th century it was not uncommon for a Jewish neighborhood to change over as goyim moved in, and many of the Jewish residents were quite annoyed since the newcomers looked different, had different lifestyles, and shopped at different types of stores. While such tensions lead to people saying nasty things about the newcomers, it isn’t something to get too worried about as it is quite normal, and occurs everywhere in the world when a neighborhood changes its demographics.
1. Many of the refugees are Christians, and there are no Arab Christian countries. In terms of finding a friendly church, America is probably their best bet. Most European countries are ultra-secular with an official established church and not much toleration for anything other than the official government religion. The only middle eastern country where Christians are not persecuted in Israel.
2. Many are losers in the “Arab Spring” which tried to establish western style democracy in the middle east, and failed miserably. There are no western-style democratic countries in the middle east for them to flee to. The only secular Muslim country in the middle east was Turkey, and they’ve turned politically Islamist. Lebanon is basically jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
3. Preventing terrorists from posing as refugees is a real problem but hardly one that is hard to surmount.
1. The vast majority of the refugees are non-Muslims or secular Muslims, i.e., the losers of the civil war which is now being fought between Assad and ISIS. The bulk of refuguees are on “our” side.
2. The same problem was posed in the 1930s, with the danger of German spies posing as anti-Nazi refuguees. It was not hard to check people out.
1. If one is independently wealthy, and can afford to learn full time, college is clearly an extra. For most of us, that isn’t an option. If you can manage a job working as a teacher (or similar occupation) within the frum community, that is another option (albeit not a financially rewarding one).
2. All secular work involves bitual Torah. College plays the same role as a traditional apprenticeship. In some career you start at the bottom and work your way up. In others one needs to go to college first.
3. If one feels unable to associate with non-Jews but still wants a career that requires a college degree, distance education degrees exist and some of quite reputatble (e.g. Maryland’s University College, New York’s Empire State College, etc.).
While one probably disagrees with their position that the secularism of the Israeli military is a threat to Jewish survival just as much as the Nazis were, they seem to have been effectively in communicating how they feel.
You do realize that the streets in Brooklyn were laid out over a century ago when much of Kings County (this was pre-merger) was farmland, and even in urban areas (downtown Brooklyn was already urban), few people owned private vehicles.
The obvious solution is to tear down most of the houses and replace the people with cows and horses. If one can’t stand modern traffic, move to a remote suburb, or at least a city that was laid out after the invention of automobiles.
Most of the people fighting Islamic State are Muslims. From a Muslim perspective, its a civil war among differenet Muslim groups. ISIS is hoping to win the civil war by convincing the western countries to persecute Muslims everywhere, thereby forcing the majority of Muslims, who at this point feel that ISIS is a pain, to see ISIS as the only hope for Muslim survival. Idiots who call for persecuting Muslims in America, are doing exactly what ISIS is trying to manipulate them into.
Fashions are constantly evolving. The lowly fedora which was an “un-dress” hat similar to a cap, becomes a fancy Shabbos-dik hat. Once no one would be causght dead wearing pants, and now almost all men wear them (some Scots and some Arabs excepted). It used to be everyone wore boots outdoors, and almost no one does now (at least for “dress”). I’ld discuss how underwear has changed but this is a family site. While halacha affects modesty, for the most part clothing styles evolve quite independently. It happens that an Ashkenazi style hat, which originally was a working hat until it became dressy about 70 years ago, has spread to Sefardim. Fashions change. If you dress up like people did 50 or 100 years ago, and walked down the street, people would think you are some sort of historic reinactor.
In answer to the original question:
Eretz Yisrael has been overrun by uncouth vulgar barbarians with disgusting habits who will stop at nothing to uproot Torah, and about whom there is little we are able or even willing to do about it.
Not to mention the country is under constant attack by very annoying Yismaelim.
One holds that the establishment of the State of Israel is required by halacha and is the beginning of the Geula, and it is a mitzva to support the Medinah, and that the future of the Jewish people is tied up with the survival of the Medinah.
The other holds that the establishment of the State of Israel was not only prohibited by Torah, but is also a dumb idea, and that the zionists are similar to Shabbatai Zvi and the Frankists, and no good end will come of this, and the survival of the Jewish people will be in spite of the Medinah.
Other than that, they get along fine. They read each others sefarim. They often work together on non-political matters. Many people with hareidi views are quite modern, and many of the religious zionists are quite frum. The leading rabbanim of both camps are cousins.And most baal ha-battim are somewhere in the middle.
While a diamond ring is clearly not a Jewish minhag, it is perhaps similar to men wearing pants. Over time it was accepted and almost all frum men now wear pants (a handful of don’t). Fedoras are similar. Two centuries ago no one thought a fedora was a Jewish hat, but now it is widely accepted.
1. One should look at countries with a high rate of meat consumption and look to see if the population is dying off. It is especially interesting to note that in many countries, meat consumption correlates with affluence (i.e. the 1% types get lots of steak), and that in those countries, affluences also correlates with longer life.
2. Note that many of the environmentalists and “experts” are people who are vegetarians. Would you trust a frum Jew or a Muslim to discuss the health benefits of pork?
Arguably the word is at the same time a word in Hebrew, Yiddish and English (and will be found in dictionaries of all three languages, albeit with some differences in meaning – in English the term almost always refers to a woman whose husband is refusing to give a get, whereas the original meaning was exclusively to a woman whose husband had vanished). Depending on language, the accent shifts.
Most police vote “red” and most criminals vote “blue”. The Democrats need to rally their base. That’s politics.
But the goyim have been changing their dogma about dinosaurs. Now they decided they are really birds. Most of us have kosher dinosaurs as the guest of honor for dinner.
As for unicorns and femminist rabbis, I’m sure they’ll come up with a theory soon or later.
“Definitely not harmless, probably evil”
But what if they turn out to be right.
1) The zionists have been arguing for years that being Jewish is about living Eretz Yisrael and defending the medinah in battle – and that Torah and Mitsvos are something leftover from our distant dismal past. The great reformers of the 17th thru the 18th century (Shabbatai Zvi, Jacob Frank, Moses Mendelson, Isaac Wise) also aruged that Torah and Mitsvos no later defined Jewishness – and their followers came to no good end.
2) The zionists say that having a modern state makes Jews more secure and will win the respect of the nations of the world. That doesn’t seem to have happened. Israel is reviled throughout the world. More than once, only the intervention of goyim influenced by diaspora Jews saved the Israeli for being conquered by their enemies (or more technically, the patrons of their enemies). If the Muslims ever stop fighing each other (which in the past, has happened once every few centuries), Israel is unlikely to survive.
Israel aspires to be a great nation like the greatest of the goyim – but do we really want to place our hopes knowing that Israel will someday be as great as, for example, the Roman Empire, or the British Empire, or the Holy Roman Empire, or the “thousand year Reich”.
The zionists are gambling in a casino where the house always wins in the end, and Neturei Karta is just complaining about the bad bet.
If you believed that people such as Herzl, Ben Gurion, Sharon, Netanyahu, etc., were the modern equivalents of Shabatai Zvi or Yaakov Frank, what would you do?
If you saw the leaders of the Jewish community getting themselves into a hopeless war whose only likely outcome, except for a miracle, is that they will get themselves killed, what would you do?
Many Palestinians support Israel, even if they only tolerate zionism. Whole units of the Israeli army consist Palestinians. The Golani Brigade is commanded by a Palestinian. Given that it increasingly appears that for many Arabs in Eretz Yisrael, the only alternative to a zionist state is one dominated/based on “Islamic State” – one can expect that many Arabs, especially members of minorities, will increasingly support Israel.
Someone holding in the manner of the Satmarer Rebbe would respond that attacks are the result of Jews going off the derekh and giving up the lifestyle based on Torah and Mitsvos, and embracing the secular lifestyle of zionism (which includes conquering, ruling and disposessing the Palestinians, which is what set off the current violence which has been going on, more or less, for almost a century). If someone is throwing firebombs at buildings, is it better to concentrate on putting out the fires (joining the IDF) or to concentrate on getting those throwing the firebombs to stop (by keeping alive the derekh of Torah and Mitsvos).
As long as the Jews acquiesced to be a minority under Arabic and Islamic rule, there was no problem with Jews moving into Eretz Yisrael. There was no opposition to Jews building up the economy (until the Jews started to boycott Arab labor and businesses, unprovoked). There was no objection to communal autonomy or to Jews living as Jews according to Torah (but then the zionists tried to shove secular western socialism down the Arab Muslim’s throats). We could have has a thriving yishuv, but instead the zionists decided that they wouldn’t be complete unless they had their boots on the Arabs throats. And that’s how we got into the current mess.
1. Oral traditions, and written sources derived from oral traditions, are like that. It’s the nature of that genre.
2. You do realize that most of thde “debates” in the Talmud never took place (the “give away” is that the people debating lived in different centuries, and sometimes in different regions). When the Talmud was compiled, the editors derived a coherent structure for us to work with, continuing a process that had been ongoing for generations.
charliehall: Dr. Carson did not blame the holocaust on Jews. He said that having strict gun control (the case in all of Europe other than Switzerland) greatly facilitated the holocaust. He could have added, that it also greatly facilitated the Nazi occupation of Europe (other than Switzerland) since the disarmed population was unable to offer any significant resistance to the Germans. Had Europe has American (red state) type gun control and patterns of gun ownership, the occupation of conquered territories, which included rounding up and killing the Jewish populations, would have been much more difficult. As it is, once they took care of the local army, the Germans were always dealing with a disarmed population (thanks to gun control) with no effective means of resistance. The “Hava Mina” is that Democratic position on gun control is one that supports tyranny and facilitates a police states, and leaves the people unable to defend themselves (e.g. the students in Oregon who were disarmed by a school anti-gun policy, and were shot down while waiting for the authorities to get their act together and send someone with guns to take down a terrorist).
MW13 – The Palestinians are among the best educated of the Arabs. Their miseries are political. Their territory is ruled by foreigners – and not just any foreigners, for foreigners who are neither Arabs nor Muslims. No self-respecting Arab Muslim can stand for that.
I’ld vote for “Tefillah, Teshuva, Tzedaka”.
The zionists have painted themselves into a corner. If they respond weakly, it encourages the Palestinians to think that further escalation will bring them victory. If they respond strongly, they will alienate the many Palestinians who support or at least don’t mind a zionist state (note that many Palestinians fear an Islamic State more than a zionist one), and seriously alienate Israel’s few allies in the western countries. Most Muslims will never accept anything other than an at least nominally Islamic State in place of Israel, and almost all non-hariedi Israelis will accept only a nominally Jewish state – so its hopeless.
For most frum Jews, America starting with the 20th century is our first experience in a capitalist system. In a market economy, consumers get to bend the business to their will. The bowling alley managers were reacting to the threat to take their business elsewhere.
If the skirt was a safety issue, they can address it through a waiver of liability. That they didn’t do so suggests violation of the statutory (and common law) duty of a merchant to serve all customers.
While from a geological perspective, the British Isles are part of Europe, they are culturally, legally, politically, socially and linguisitically different. Note that in most of Europe you are visiting places in which Jews used to live before they were killed or driven off, and where most Jewish communities are debating where to emigrate to (and importation of perhaps millions of anti-Semitic Muslims will probably speed that up), whereas in Britian while there are some historic places for the most part one speaks of British Jewry in a present and future tense.
To CharlieHall’s snide remark “The new mainstream of the Republican Party is as bad as the new UK Labour leader. Really.”.
So what’ wrong with Dr. Carson? His views on social and economic issues mesh closely with what most Orthodox Jews feels. And as a member of a small religious minority you don’t have to worry about the Church-State issues one encounters with groups such as mainstream Protestants, Catholics and Mormons. While he’s currently only in second place among Republicans, its apparent he’s the second choice of almost everyone other than Trump supporters, and combined with the fact that 2/3 of Republicans see Trump as unelectable, and no other Republican has even 10% support (Carson has well over 20 %), the face of the mainstream Republicans is a soft spoken retired African American (meaning his ancestors were slaves, unlike Obama who is desended from slave owners) Adventist.
The US equivalent of the new UK Labor leaders is Bernie Sanders, who is now in first place in the early primary states.
By American standards, the “Tories” (the popular name for the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom), has a platform similar to moderate republicans or conservative Democrats (supporting big government, comfortable with corporate welfare and high taxes, not overly upset about breaches of civil liberties). Anything analagous to the Tea Party (which is becoming the mainstream of the American Republican party) is considered a way out fanatic in the UK (probably becase those with such views migrated to North America a few centruies ago).
It is possible that many supporters of the Labor party as it was under Tony Blair (the “New Labour” movement) might switch to the Liberal Democrats (a merger of the classic “Whig” Liberals, and the mid-20th century “Social Democrats” who broke away from Labour when they went ultra-left period before being taken over by the aforementioned “New Labour” group). It should be noted that the two party Tories-Labour split was solid for almost 90 years (since Labour replaced the Liberals as one of the “big two” after World War I).
1/ For the US, it’s too late already. The idea the North America will be a bastion of pure white, west European (being liberal, most preferred British) Christian culture is gone. It was gone even before they let us in.
2. The Europeans are dying out anyways. They prefer to enjoy life and don’t have enough faith in the future to want to have children. That’s why the Germans are anxious to recruit educated refugees from the third world – they need someone to work. Same thing is happening to the secular ruling class in America, but in America we have lots of religious fanatics willing to produce anew generation (not to mention millions of people in adjacent countries with similar cultures to our own).
charliehall: So when Carson-Fiorina end up as the Republican tickets, determined by primary voters rather than pollsters egging people on to act amusing, you’ll vote Democrat, or do you feel more comfortable with Bernie and Hillary.
The Democrats are in touch with their base, which happens to be isolationist, quasi-socialist, and great believers is identity politics and entitlements.
The some “old fashioned” Democrats who naively think that there’s is still the party of people such as Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. It is interesting to note that about half of the Republican candidates for President started off as Democrats, but the party then luched to the left leaving them behind.
1. Most of the pro-Israel Democrats are on the centrist side of the party, and will be increasingly alienated as the Democrats become more and more socialistic. Compared to the Democrats of a generation or two ago (Kennedy, Johnson, Scoop Jackson, Humphrey, Truman), today’s Democrats are radically to the left on almost every thing. If people like Bernie Sanders, Al Sharpton and Bill DeBlasio are the future of the Democrats, most Jewish Democrats will either end up as Republicans or end up supporting a new middle of the road party that would become much more likely.
2. If the move towards Iran results in defeat of ISIS and stabilization of the Middle East, Obama won’t seem dumb. Remember, had a beefed up British and French military won World War II in 1939, Chamberlain would be remembered as a genius who concessions at Munich were a strategic brilliancy.