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1. If you were on Medicaid (including various CHIPS programs), which many frum people are, you still are. You might even be eligible. Minimal change.
2. If you had good insurance (typically from a major employer such as the FEHBP or a state or local government or union), you still do. Be happy.
3. If you had lousy insurance, you still do but it might be lousy in different ways.
4. If you are a healthy, single frummie – stop whining about health insurance and find your beshert (and then you’ll be in the class causing health care spending to increase, baruch ha-Shem).
Beyond the fact they have nothing to do with christianity, no one is sure about the “Dead Sea Scrolls”. One theory is they are the leftovers of a library, or perhaps a genizah, and probably represent a variety of groups. They are especially interesting to frum Jews for several reasons: 1) they totally disproved the assertions made prior to their discovery that Taanach was written in final form in the medieval period – according to the secular opinions of the early 20th century a complete text of Taanch couldn’t exist that early; 2) in some cases they have details of discussions that are referenced or replied to in the gemara (but not detailed, since halacha went diffrerently); 3) some of the arguments on halacha sound very modern (as in who won’t eat at someone’s house and why. Dr. Schiffman’s books are probably the most readable ones – when anyone other than frum Jews looks at them they tend to end up comically displaying their ignorance. Note that from a halachic perspective they are totally irrelevant, but from an historical perspective they are fascinating.
Are they required to accept testimony from apostate moslems in America?”
Since in the United States religious courts are private courts of arbitration, the rules would be governed by the contract signed by the litigants and the courts. If the parties stipulate that heretics’ testimony is inadmissable, so be it. “Private” means the government doesn’t get to tell you what to do and how to run your life.
A largenumber of yeshivos have boarding students, and even many who don’t have many students and teachers who live close by. The more modern schools and public schools tend to be all “day students” (commuters) and teachers are less likely to live in the same neighborhood. You should be comparing them to private schools with on site dormitories.
I seriously doubt a yeshiva would penalize a teacher or student who didn’t make it from a different neighborhood (especially if they had to drive). I suspect the teachers who need to drive to work were very much annoyed, but after all, its their boy who got elected on a promise of helping surpress anti-union activists (which is more important than money to them).
Some Muslims want a situation similar to what exists in Muslim countries in which Muslims would be required to use shariah courts and they wouldn’t be a need to gain their consent. That is very unlikely to happen. The danger is some people want to make it illegal for a Muslim court to exist and such laws would prohibit arbitration according to legal system other than American law – such laws would probably violate equal protection, freedom of religion, and right of contract and would severely restrict the rights of Orthodox Jews, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and many groups of businesses that rely on private arbitration according to non-US law (which include major companies engaged in international transactions).
heretohelp: In terms of civil law (other than domestic relations) they are very similar. It appears they copied much from us, and much that reflects commercial custom in the middle east at the time. Their criminal law is totally different (our criminal never amounted to much since the evidence rule was so strict – most crime was probably dealt with as a dine mamonos). They are a little less strict on ribis, and allow polygamous and temporary marriages (which would be banned in the US under the public policy exception). They have a little more variety with greater difference than our Sefardi-Ashkenazi or Hasidic-Yeshivish divides.
Absolutely none in theory. From the point of view of the American legal system they are private arbitration tribunals, meaning that if the parties sign a contract to accept the ruling it is legally binding (with the same exceptions as apply to any arbitration). Sociologically there is a difference since Muslims aren’t used to being a minority group and are more likely to forget that they aren’t in charge in America (Christians have the same problem, Jews on the other hand have centuries of experience at being a minority and negotiating life in a world we don’t control).
I am using one user name and have no intention of using more than one. I suspect the others are following the interpretation that one should observe Purim in Adar Rishon in all matters other than the specific mitzvos (i.e. except for megillah, seudah, matanos).
Most fiction is about tzarus, and how the character overcame (or didn’t). Reading about someone who gets up, has a normal happy day, and goes to bed contented would be somewhat boring.
Health: Actually, a Medical/Dental school could admit someone without an undergraduate degree, and in fact many have programs leading to combined BS-MD degrees. The requirement of an undergraduatge background is “law” rather than “minhag” only for law and then not in all states. However its a very strong minhag.
Somewith a BTL combined with the correct coursework (available in many places that offer one year pre-med programs for people with degrees in other subject) would be adequate. Of course you would have to be especially brilliant with fanatstic grades in the science courses and great scores and a fanatstic resume – but it can happen. It’s easier to go to a regular college to take the premed courses as part of an undergraduate program. A BTL trying to to medical school would be no worse off than an English major or Jewish studies major.
Except for law (which an accredited undergraduate degree is legally required in most states), graduate schools don’t even require a BA to get in, but it certainly helps. Getting accept to a graduate program requires, typically, an undergraduate degree, and a transcript that shows you can do the work required, and it helps if you can convince them you know what you are doing. Fro example, if you come to an interview and can switch between Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic (a.k.a. Syriac), Farsi and Turkish — they will be very impressed if you are applying for a program in middle eastern languages. Want ancient near eastern studies: write your application letter in Akkadian.
But for normal people, they look at your undergraduate transcript, references, and anything else you can use to “sell” yourself, and a BTL from a yeshiva is not especially prestigious. It does mean you are qualified to apply without asking for an “exception”, but if all your transcript has is evidence of studying in a yeshiva you may not be in a great position.
And of course, many schools are very happy to admit people who pay full tuition, and even more so if your family wants to endow something.
and they both go to prison, together
unless it is something when one is authorized to act as an agent (shliach), with full authorization from the person whose identity is being “loaned” (the principal/sholach), and this is not concealed from third parties (since otherwise it would be fraud).
Measuring devices predate most surviving written records (okay, that’s cheating since a cup may last thousands of years, and most writing materials survive centuries at best). The oldest measuring cup predates the oldest surviving recipes.
Frum Jews divide based on Yiddishkeit rather then “ethnicity.” That’s why almost all gedolim have ancestors from a different groups. There are well established halachos on merging minhagim.
Israel is a client state that feels its about to be deserted by its patron, or at least Bibi thinks so (Karzai feels the same way, by the way). Think of the Brits (we’ld see them as Welsh)when Romans said they were leaving, or Franco when he realized he had backed the wrong team in World War II (be grateful, it encouraged to become very friendly to Jewish refugees), etc. And Obama is certainly doing a good job of convincing Israel that their back’s need watching.
The US couldn’t care less about Israelis (even dual citizens) killed in was the US is increasingly disinterested in. If settlers get killed, it isn’t Obama’s concern. You may disagree, and if eligible, there will be a vacancy for Obama’s job in two years, but until then, he’s in charge.
For zionists it is painful to realize that after all these efforts and money and blood, Israel is just a small impotent colony getting abandonned by its masters, and realize it might not be able to survive in the long run. Bibi hopes things will change, and needs to stall. He does have the Iranians making the Arabs nervous, which helps, but he also needs to keep a lid on the Palestinians. Letting out middle aged prisoners seems to be a strategy, and probably does less damage that can’t be repaired that, say, withdrawing from more areas of the West Bank. The prisoners after getting their hero’s welcome, are much more likely to want to get a job and a family than to become suicide bombers – so Bibi isn’t totally irrational.
You need to know who is behind a given site, just as you need to know who is the person you are asking a shailoh to. The internet is the medium, not the message.
Absolutely none of the prisoners released by Bibi has ever killed an American and they pose no threat to the United States.
Karzai may believe that his best chance of survival is to make peace with his enemies. Bibi might feel the same (the US is rapidly losing military strength and moving to isolationism, and left to its own devices it isn’t clear what Israel’s long term prospects are). Releasing people who for the most part were young when captured, and are now middle aged, is a low risk way of trying to open a door.
If you hold that the barrier surrounding I-95 counts as being a rural (outside the city) area with no habitations, you’ll have an oportunity, but we normally don’t hold that a park that is built by design qualifies (i.e. you don’t say Tefilas ha-Derekh when passing through Central Park), and you could argue that the barrier surrounding the highway to protect the local houses should be treated similarly. If so, it is unclear where exactly the northeast “megalopolis” pauses enough to allow for Tefilas ha-Derekh. For all purposes, the Washington-Boston corridor is a gigantic city. The issue is how you extrapolate from a definition designed for an era where people often walked or went a ox-carts in an area in which cities were well definied and surrounded by farmland. If you look out the window on a train you will be hard put to find the uninhabited farmland that categorizes the space between a city that sets up the need to say Tefilas ha-Derekh.
Do you say Tefilas Haderech between Washington and Boston, since you have to pass through an uninhabited area, and the area is almost 100% built-up in the middle. The trees you see along side the highways are there to hide the fact (and the noise) that there are houses immediately on the other side.
A suggest rule of thumb: No one who really studies kabbalah claims to be a kabbalist, and anyone who goes around claiming to be a kabbalist is a fool or a fraud.
His views are typical of “Modern Orthodox”. He’s on the border between them and “Conservadox”. In Israel, the army uses female singing to weed out hareidim (from the Israeli equivalent of modern orthodox) in an officers course. So if you hold that the Medinah is “glatt treff” there is no way you’ll find any limud z’chus for him, but if you consider the “Dati Leumi” to be religious Jews with misguided views on many matters, he fits right in.
Decide what sort of career you want? “Big law” – that means an elite law school which requires excellent academics and big tuition money. Aiming for a middle class salaried job (e.g. civil service), a less fancy law school will do. Do you want to be a self-employed local lawyer in the frum community – then a fancy law school might even be a disadvantage? Are you able to toss a quarter of million into an education for a career?
Have you ever read literature about lawyers or seen movies about lawyers? What type appeals to you? You have a lot of homework before deciding.
What is important about Washington is that he played the key role in extending civil rights to Jews. Remember that Jews had no rights in any colonies before the Revolution, and were officially banned from about half the colonies. As part of a policy of establishing religious pluralism (which was critical for national survival given the diversity of the colonists/rebels in 1776), he went out of his way to make sure that pluralism included Jews. The stuff about his clever intelligence operations is interesting, but his role in establishing American religiousity combined with religious diversity, is critical (especially to us).
Obama beat him to it. Frankly, between the shutdown and the snow, Obama has been very good for frum civil servants who want to get to morning minyanim.
This has been discussed many times before. The short answer is “yes” followed by many caveats:
1. To get into the elite law schools (such as Columbia and NYU in New York – there are at most twenty elite ones in the United States), you’ll need a lot more than a BTL (such as impressive courses elsewhere, fantastic scores on the LSAT, etc.). Many if not most of the non-elite law schools are much less fussy, and a warm body with a respectable LSAT and any sort of undergraduate degree will be welcome as long as they can pay tuition. Some of the public law schools are non-elite in terms of how they impact getting a job, but are highly competitive due to reasonable tuition. The less elite the law school, the better your chance of financial aid in the form of waived tuition.
2. Job prospects are much better at the elite law schools, but if your goal is to be neighborhood lawyers serving a local community, that’s irrelevant ( a JD from Columbia won’t help you if your goal is to hang out a shingle in Boro Park). Remember that in some states one can skip law school and “read law” under an attorney and eventually be able to take the bar. Law school is very expensive, and student loans are not dischargeable in bankruptcy.
3. Even if a BTL will get you into law school, it is a handicap if your English is deficient since law school, and lawyers, involves intensive written and oral communication, and a good background in American history and the social sciences will make it more likely to succeed in law school and in becoming a lawyer.
4. If you think going to law school will make you rich, you have not done your research (recently) and are making a big mistake. If your desire is actually to be a lawyer, go for it, and disregard the poor economic prospects, and now is a good time to take advantage of the fact that the law schools are having trouble getting enough students (especially the non-elite).
Jewish music is the music that Jews like. Frum Jews have their own styles and preferences, and they tend to be influenced, often indirectly, by the local goyim (e.g. a hasidic nigun based on a 19th century waltz, which they probably heard even though it is unlikely any hasidim ever danced to a waltz).
Africa produced plenty of food. The only problems they have are when the local government does something stupid such as having a civil war. With modern technology reaching worldwide, no one starves any more (unless someone is starving them by design).
Make sure that all devices and program are using the same system for coding Hebrew, and that both devices have compatible Hebrew fonts installed. The gibberish means they weren’t using the same system (as when a unicode document gets downloaded into the older ASCII standard), or that the Hebrew support hadn’t been activated.
You are required to tell them if any children who are living at home have a drivers license. If you don’t and you have an accident, they might be able to cancel your policy retroactively since you were committing insurance fraud.
If the child is truely an adult, you don’t need to tell them if the child is not claimed as a dependent on your taxes and doesn’t live at home. Also, they don’t charge if the child is at a dorm at a considerable distance (for a New Yorker, I believe Chicago is far enough away).
If the child doesn’t need a license to commute to work or school, why did you let him get a license?
A clever trick I discovered is for the child to get the license immediately before leaving for Israel. That’s far enough away that it doesn’t affect rate, and when they come back they have the status of a new driver who has been driving for a year (or more) without an accident — even though they haven’t driven since they left home for yeshiva.
charliehall: If colonists (or later immigrants) weren’t coming here to practice their religion in peace and avoid discrimination for being a member of a religious or political minority, they were someing here to be free of the economic constraints of living in societies where everyone had a place and if you didn’t like your station in life you had very few means to change it. That’s true even of the many founding fathers who biggest concern was avoiding being drawn and quartered as traitors (as they called the losing side in political disputes back then). Of course many were common criminals but they often had a choice, and “transportation” was often preferred because it offered a chance of a new life.
It’s only in the late 20th century that Europe started to get away from the “manor mentality” of a society in which there was no upward mobility. Socialism largely regulates what you do and what you can become, you become a cog in a machine in which individual initiative is seen as anti-social – and Americans are descended from those who took the initiative to come to a new world to build their own lives.
Socialism is the master tells you what you want, and you are happy with that, because you know that your betters are wise and are making good decisions for you. The sorts of people who liked being slaves or serfs, love socialism. Americans (other than blacks) came to America to have the personal and economic freedom that was always lacking elsewhere. But if you were a happy slave, you’ll be happy as a socialist.
A more benign explanation is that the community is reacting to two big changes. First, the economy collapsed six years ago and while improving is unlikely to ever recover, and more and more young men are (responsibily) reluctant to get married and start a family until they have the means to support them, meaning men will marry later. Such developments are natural and hardly earthshaking. Even for families with a tradition of becoming professional scholars, the economic decline affects them indirectly since the donors who finance the yeshiva world are less well off.
Second, we are finally adjusting to the fact that prior to the mid-20th century, we have very high infant and maternal mortality, but this radically changed in the mid-20th century (invention of anti-biotics, defeat of the Nazis, etc.), and there is less pressure to have as many children as possible since now, unlike a century ago, we can reasonably expect that all the mothers will survive their childbearing years, and almost all the children will reach adulthood. There is less to worry about. In all cultures, family patterns take a few generations to shift when these changes occur, and due to the holocaust the decline in child mortality (of which anti-semites were a major factor) occured somewhat later.
Bigots are bigots. You can’t argue with them. Would you have bothered writing a nasty letter to Julius Streicher? Do you understand to the bulk of the secular left, which includes most non-Orthodox Jews, hareidim are a social ill in need of being removed from society. That you take her so seriously suggests you fail to see her and them for what they are – you think they are good people who are misinformed or prejudiced, rather than evil people who acting quite reasonably for evil doers.
to zahavasdad: Unlike blood testing, DNA testing can prove paternity and maternity with almost certainty, and even so ancestry for multiple generations – assuming you have good DNA samples. That’s why it might be valid to prove someone is actually Jewish based on the maternal grandmother’s DNA (the situation of a child of a disappeared woman) since all that matters for determining Jewishness is maternal descent. It gets more complicated if you are trying to argue that someone is a mamzer since the laws are more complicated and there are virtually irrebutable presumptions in place to minimize the liklihood of someone being a mamzer.
Do you mean DNA testing to:
1) Determine who the mother is? (e.g. a child put up for adoption but who suspects a given women is his/her mother, a not uncommon situation in Argentina where some Jewish babies were adopted by non-Jews after their mothers were disappeared)
2. Determine if a woman became pregnant by someone other than her husband?
3. Determine some sort of more distant relationship?
I believe the first would probably allow DNA testing to prove someone is Jewist. I believe the third would have no halachic significance ever. I don’t believe the second would be accepted to prove someone to be a mamzer absent more significant evidence but I’m sure there is debate over the matter (with the more traditional being the least willing to accept scientific evidence).
How could frum Jews possibly boycott the New York Post. Unlike some newspapers (e.g. the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times if you ignore its editorial bias), the Post doesn’t provide useful information about public affairs or economic life. It frequently has offensive stories from a variety of perspectives.
You have to be a patron of something first, in order to boycott, and what frum Jew would admit to have been a regular customer of the Post?
Children that age (though they don’t believe they are children) tend to be very hard to motivate – in all cultures. Bluntly, being a grown-up means being burdened with having to support a family and means having to give up control over what you do in order to do what is best for the family. It’s no surprise that most 18 year olds are not overly anxious to give up childhood. Be happy that for your child, being a child means learning in yeshiva – what the “competition” does in a similar situation is largely undiscussable on YWN. Sooner or later he’ll have to become a responsible adult and support a family- and most 18 year old think “sooner or later” is postponable. In all truth, how many of us were anxious to become hard working, nose to grindstone, members of the economy at 18?
You should follow the local practice as this is merely a form of derekh eretz, not halacha). Remember that the last real smicha was almost 20 centuries ago, but Ashkenazi frequently use “Rabbi” as a courtesy title (similar to “Mister” which indicate a rank well above mere peasant, or the French “monsieur” which indicated a nobleman). Indeed, in Yiddish, “Reb ….. ” was the only form of address Jews used for each other (unless they person was really assimilated in which case they were “Herr” or “Mister” depending on country – which was an insult when used for a Yid).
You don’t have to prove you are interesting or unusual, since a yeshiva student is be definition quite unusual (“weird” as they would say) from their perspective. You need to prove you can do academics since at a good university (meaning in New York, Columbia or maybe NYU) you are competing with the best of the best. Do lots of APs and CLEPs, all of which you can prepare for independently.
Learning Torah counts as something that makes you exotic if combined with good academic accomplishments in western subjects. Universities like diversity, and someone who is a relic from the middle ages (from their perspective – remember a yeshiva is very much structured like a medieval university) is valued. Remember that in most universities, studying classical texts with medieveal commentaries – in the original script, is usually done only by graduate students.
Completing college level work in diverse subjects via AP or CLEP look very good (shows you are smart and can work independently in all subjects). It shows you can function in the competitive environment (remember yeshivas are non-competitive, unlike universities where only a certain percentage are allowed to do well). If you have a vocational goal, something related to that helps. A wife and child help from a diversity perspective and make you eligible for lots of financial aid.
All languages have different euphemisms. Words the cross between cultures can be prolematic, even for dialects withing a language. Words that were mildly rude in the secular Yiddish of pre-war New York and quite obscene in the Yiddish of modern Boro Park (just ask Chuck Schumer, D’Amato tried to be cute and insulting and ended up being crude and vulgar, and an ex-Senator). Sometimes words derived from one language get different meanngs in another (the English word “sodomy” is of Hebrew origin but has nothing to do with the Humash origins of the word). Hebrew is more tricky since itg was primarily used by Bnei Torah for over 1500 years, and Bnei Torah are much more refined than the average user, so much crude language dropped out of Hebrew and is absent in modern Ivrit.
There are just things you have to learn with learning a language. It is interesting, but not a big deal.
MHY: There was a distinct western dialect but it is largely extinct. You might find a few surviving speakers in Switzerland, Strasbourg and Amsterdam – but between assimilation, nazis and the overwhelming presence of speakers of other dialects, the western dialect vanished.
The length of the day, and the month, and the year, were designed by Ha-Shem.
For the most part the current calendar system was invented in ancient Mesopotamia and was already in use by the time of Avraham Aveinu. If you have a complaint, go to Iraq and dig up a Sumerian and argue with him.
If you already know German and Hebrew you are 90% of the way there. If you know Hebrew and another Germanic language (such as English or Dutch), you are about 50% of the way there. You can use textbooks and occasional translations or bilingual works to fill it the rest.
There don’t appear to be any good textbooks appropriate for frum Jews though Weinreich’s (which is basically pre-World War II) and others such as Zuker’s (multivolume with audio materials but recent) reflect the secular Yiddish as it existed before World War II. Frum Jews always spoke Yiddish differently (more use of Hebrew words, and without many of the “colorful” phrases that secular Yiddishists are proud of), plus World War II shifted the demographics since the Jews speaking the northeastern (Litvish, yeshivish) dialect had a much lower chance of survival than the southeastern (Galicianer, hasidiche) dialect. It might be nice if someone produced a textbook of the “living Yiddish” as spoken today in community’s where the children grow up speaking it as a first language.
Heavy snow occurs in Yerusalayim once every few years. What may be different now is more people have central heating (without central heat people were used to dressing warmly indoors during winter, and using keroscene space heaters, meaning they weren’t affect by power loss).
If you attribute bad weather to Ha-Shem objecting to some policy, then do you attribute good weather to good policies? That is a problem if you object to the government since Yerusalayim usually has good weather.
If you believe in global warming with the religiousity of many of the left, the snow is a shock, but if you are so foolish to confuse normal weather variance with climate change, you are easy to shock,
The only reason to be skeptical of a vaccine is if it is for a disease you are highly unlikely to get (which is why they no longer offer smallpox vaccines, which used to be standard), which is probably the case, for example, of a frum person and a vaccine for a sexually transmitted disease. But that’s a rare situation, as most of the vaccines are for diseases that would otherwise be common (polio, measles, etc.).
modified
Vaccinations are very bad for parnassah, especially of doctors, nurses and the hevrah kadisha.
If you have sufficient funds to own a “dress” wardrobe as well as a “regular” wardrobe, then the “dress” wardrobe will include shoes. If you had a meeting with President Obama or Queen Elizabeth (depending on your country), etc., if you would have a “dress” wardrobe for the occasion, and that includes shoes, you have your answer.
If you would wear your regular clothes for such occasions as Shabbos or meeting your Head of State, you wouldn’t have special shoes for the occasion.
The Israelis have argued that a one-state solution won’t work since Arabs and Jews hate each other. Remember that in a single state, based on the original “Palestine/Eretz Yisrael” borders, Arabs would be a clear majority. The Arab position is that the fight isn’t about borders or settlements, but over partition. They want a single state from the desert to the sea.
If a significant number of Jews support the Arab position, and if the Arabs can point to Jewish communities living under their rule with Palestinian passports, it would totally undermine the Israeli’s claims. A simple majority in the United Nations could repeal the partition resolution and call for an internationally supervised election to establish a democratic government.
If the zionists manage to force all the hareidim (including those supporting Shas, Agudah and Degel ha-Torah) to become anti-zionists (similar to Satmar, Toldos Aharon, Neturei Karta, Eidah hareidis), and the Arabs exploit this by offering to allow hareidim to live in their territory (a return to the pre-1914 status quo) this would seriously undermine Israel’s right to exist.
Israel was created by goyim (and assimilated Jews) as a place to be a haven for persecuted Jews. If the most Jewish part of the population is supporting a democratic non-zionist solution, it will undermine the zionists and lead to the end of their dream of a secular state. Remember, hareidim have no problems being an autonomous minority under Islamic law.
You can put the subject anywhere in the sentence thus if you see:
DOG BITES MAN in English, the word order tells you the dog is biting the man and you must be in that order. In Hebrew you can any of the words first, second or third depending on emphasis, since the present of ?? before the noun tells you who is biting whom. Caveat: in modern Israel, to be considered part of the Ashkenazi elite you must use English word order (subject predicate object).