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For your entire life. First as a talmid, then perhaps a teacher. Perhaps as a Baal ha-Bayis. A Beis Midrash is to a frum yid what the local pub is to a goy – a focal point of one’s life.
Do you really plan to give up being frum at some point if that is what you need for parnassah? Since that seems to be what you are asking, you should spend more time learning since you haven’t realized that a Baal ha-Bayis can be frum.
jwashing: I couldn’t find any reference in Towson, UMBC or JHU to a joint program with Ner – but that was several years ago. I believe the “joint” program means that a Ner students gets a (NOT entirely worthless) degree from Ner while filling out the secular studies (and professional requirements) elsewhere, or that students can transfer Ner credits (which are potentially transferable since Ner is an accredited college) to get a degree elsewhere. Unlike the typical “joint” programs, student pay full tuitions to both schools.
I suspect a distance education degree from the University of Maryland might be more practical, depending on their policy towards “yeshiva” credits.
Ner really shouldn’t call it a “joint” program unless the colleges see it that way, which apparently they don’t.
I suggest checking the websites of the schools mentioned (JHU, Towson and UMBC) to see if they are discussing “joint” programs, as opposed to a student at Ner earning credits that can be transferred subject to the those schools’ transfer policy.
Depending on what you need a degree for, there are many other options to get college credits (including CLEP and AP courses, and distance education programs such as University of Marland’s University College). A program focused on adult distance students might be much happier about accept “yeshiva” credits then a school that has very high acadmeic standards
zahavasdad: At what point prior to the holocaust was Vilna not in Poland? It didn’t switch until World War II, at which time being behind Soviet lines was much better for Jews than being behind German lines (which was the situation prior to the German invasion of the Soviet Union).
Hashgacha Pratis: one need to include the implication that whatever worked out wasn’t due to your efforts
Dan Lekaf Zechus: That’s not a definition, but an example
Kiddush Hashem: 1) again, that’s an example, not a definition; 2) do you have empirical evidence but the existence of non-rowdy boys (well, perhaps if there is something wrong with them, Ha-Shem designed boys to be rowdy)
charliehall: You must be one of those modern scientific types who gets hung up with all the “Timey-Whiney” (as a popular television series calls it) stuff. No problem for us fanatics who aren’t into strictly linear temporal mechanics.
P.S. Of course, knowing seventy languages would have been easier depending on how you define “language”, and I was hoping for someone to insist there were speakers of Yiddish and English during Bayis Sheini.
1. Do you know your hat size? If yes there are plenty of places that sell “frum” hats on the internet.
2. Is it a style you have previously owned (e.g. a black fedora with a specific type of rim), or is this something new – if the latter, it might be better to wait until you visit a city with hat stores.
FriendInFlatbush:
No big deal. He probably grew up speaking Yiddish and learning in Lashon Kodesh (meaning a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic). That means he was already, by bar mitzvah, bilingual in both a Semitic (Lashon Kodesh) and an Aryan/Indo-European language (Yiddish). That makes it fairly easy to pick up languages. Also the local dialect was a slavic language, so picking up a new slavic language would be a “piece of cake”. Picking up a more distantly related Aryan language, such as Iranian or Greek might have taken a bit longer, and a language from an unrelated family (Chinese, Mohawk, etc.) would have been harder. There are tremendous economies of scale in learning languages. The reasons Americans are so dumb at language has to do with laziness and arrogance since we are spoiled by the fact that English is the de facto “lingua franca” among the goyim – in the 18th century educated Americans typically knew several languages, and throughout history frum Jews have always been excellent in learning languages.
1. They didn’t know English or Yiddish.
2. Unless you are an American, it’s easy to learn languages.
3. They probably only knew those of people in the immediate region. I doubt they had any reason to chat with an American Indian or an Australian Aboriginee.
4. The Rosetta stone only had Egyptian and Greek, and wasn’t intended as a teaching device (it as a bilingual text in a region that was bilingual).
A great many Americans feel the government is overbearing and constantly meddling in matters that they shouldn’t be involved in. There is a certain logic to the theory that if you own property, its your right to do what you want with it. Therefore many people (particularly private citizens, not corporations) ignore the “nanny state” building permit laws. It is hardly limited to Jews, and the fact the frum Jews are becoming more like mainstream Americans in many ways is an interesting development.
For the most part, one should dress in a way that resembles everyone else unless one is making a statement by dressing differently than everyone else. If you don’t want your clothing to indicate an ideological position, dress in a way that fits in. This applies in general, not just shul.
TO bring down a non-religious example, a man should normally wear pants unless he is a Scot making a political statement by wearing a kilt, or an Arab wearing an ankle length gown in a place wear everyone else dresses “western”. If you are in a shul in which most people wear black fedoras, wearing no hat other than a kippah, or on the other hand wearing a homburg or a streimel, communicates an “agenda”. That’s good if that’s what you intent, but not if your intention is just be normal and not make a statement.
No one discovers a new halacha mi-Sinai in the 21st century.
We have 3000 years of mesoret, and know generally how people have dressed, and we have never worn such a garment – therefore we have a mesoret that it is “new”, and “chodash asur min haTorah.”
The only reason it is prohibited to wear a “burka” is that it is imitating the goyim (similar to a nun’s habit, which is quite modest, but likewise prohibited). In that respect, wearing a burka is similar to have a tree for the holiday that occurs in late December, or engaging in “trick or treating” for the holiday that occurs in late October, or engaging in celebrations (drunken or somber) in honor of a possibly unhistorical someone the Irish honor in March.
It also might bed prohibited as being something “hadash” in light of a general rule on creating something new.
I went to law school in New York. Look at the state statute. Unless a state says specifically that a valid license is a prerequisite for marriage, it isn’t (in New York, a clergyman is subject to a fine, but that’s it).
The license is a revenue measure, but it doesn’t affect the validity of the wedding. The people who think they are “officially” single because they had a wedding without a license could be charged with tax evasion if they minimized taxes by filing separately (though in practice, most frum people gain a tax benefit from marriage).
Like much of the marriage law, getting married without a license is a feature largely ignore since it create more problems than benefits. Another ignored feature is the option of marriage by filing a copy of the marriage contract with the clerk’s office.
One world down, next world coming up. Time to roll with punch. This world’s only a corridor, nothing special. We’ll just be rolling along. See you next gilgul!
1. Whether one is married according to our law, is solely a function of halacha (e.g. kesubah, kiddushin, hupah, etc.).
2. While in many (probably, most) states, including New York, a marriage license is not required (i.e. if you marry without one your halachic ceremony constitutes a valid civil marriage, meaning you need a civil divorce to marry anyone else, and you are committing fraud if you claim to be unmarried), it is very inconvenient not to have a marriage license. The alternative would be to bring in affidavits and other evidence for every transaction that requires proof of marriage. Note that this frequently is an issue only when a spouse dies (i.e. is the woman his widow and mother of his children, or a single mother whose children paternity is unknown who happened to be his live-in “best friend”).
I doubt there is such a minhag. If the bride and groom are both in the same shul or even the same city (which until recently, meant the same thing – multiple shuls in a city is a modern innovation), of course he would be there. Where else would he go? Any such minhag is therefore a recent innovation.
If the wedding is in a distant city, the bride’s family won’t be there on the Shabbos before. That a matter of practicality, not a minhag.
It’s interesting that a frei Jew occasionally does a mitsva, but all the people mentioned above played routinely on Shabbos and Yuntuf. If there were a model, they were for the ultra-assimilationist model of being a little bit frum once a year, and ignoring everything else. Observing Yom Kippur is one of the last mitsvos that Jews do before becoming totally assimilated – the analogy would be that the heart keeps beating after the lungs, kidney, brain, and digestive system have shut down, meaning that what comes next is death. Jews who observe only Yom Kippur are moribund – what comes next is total assimilation and being disappeared from Klal Yisrael.
So when meshiach comes, anyone who turns out to be a goy of Jewish descent who has been living as a Jew will convert. Remember that (as is often discovered in working with Baalei Tsuvah) it is a “piece of cake” to convert if a person who is Shomer Mitsvos does a little genealogical research and discovers they aren’t really Jewish.
Cruz is a nice guy. He was a citizen at birth since his parents were citizens at the time (and the issue has been raised several times before). The constitution says “natural” (as opposed to “naturalized). Elsewhere it uses birth within the United States to indicate a person who can not be denied citizenship (presumably Congress could decide that Americans born abroad are
aliens – but they have not done so).
The issue is important to many Israelis who hold a very useful right to an American passport having been born in Israel to American citizens. They are currently natural citizens, and to not have to be naturalized in order to become citizens.
If you are on the subway headed “inbound”, then the answer is obviously “yes.”
Fencing is a honorable sport (modest clothing, no physical contact, masks, etc.).
Why one would do anything in Buffalo is beyond me. The place has seen better days. Even Albany and Cleveland have better prospects.
children spouse adulthood home companion
Artscroll is a “for profit” corporation that sells what its customers which to buy. That’s how things work in capitalism. If they tried to sell something their customers weren’t interested in buying, they would go broke. It should be noted that Jewish bookstores, both in Brooklyn and throughout North America, stock large amounts of materials but multiple vendors, and if a vendor does not correctly gage the feelings of the market, there are others ready and anxious to take their place. Unpopular ideas are “censored” since they don’t sell books – they are unpopular — that’s true of the publishing industry regardless of religion or ethnicity.
Until relatively recently, one usually bought the chicken LIVE and brought your chicken to the shochet, and then brought it to the person who checked it, and then took it home and butchered it. Frum girls learned how to do this, as it was typically part of being a housewife. This was normal back in the early 20th century.
Today, virtually no one knows what to do with a dead animal until its been properly butchered, salted and packaged. That is the complication with live kapores since few people can have their chicken killed and then redeem (or gift it), and expect it to be served shortly.
It’s a style. Styles vary, constantly. You can probably guess the year from a picture based on the styles, even of frum people in yeshivos. While there are some halacha (dress up for Shabbos, follow what your Rosh Yeshiva says at his yeshiva, don’t embarass your spouse, etc.) – it’s fashion. If it really turns you, study anthropology and write a thesis on frum fashion.
Threaten to repeat what he/she just said to his/her kids. Be wary your parents won’t have similar message for you.
If Ha-Shem wanted teenages to act like adults, he would have programmed their brains accordingly. There are some species where the brain is fully developed at birth (generally, these are the less intelligent species). Accept that teenagers usually act like teenagers.
The Talmud is an encyclopedia compilation of sources. If you want something nice and organized consider the Shulhan Arukh or the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah.
1. Different people have different takes on matters. While neither is lying, YWN and Haarets appear to be discussing different worlds.
One wouldn’t expect Nach to match the other side’s account of a war.
2. The hilonim “higher critical” were saying that everything in Taanach was myth, and that finding any document discussing Sancherivis seight was as likely as finding a first person letter from one of the Greek or Roman “gods”. Archeology can’t prove details (especially since we wrote on perishable substances, not clay tablets), but it does show that Nach happened and wasn’t the figment of some modern frum rabbi’s imagination – which is what they were claiming until Archeology proved otherwise.
It is likely the comment is either out of context or refers to a specific situation not a general rule. As various forms of exercise goes, weight lifting does not require immodest dress, does not inherently involve pritsos, and is a lot safer than many sports (and few sports offer equivalent strength training) – and for the most part can be done in the privacy of one’s home. Of course is the person asking the question is in a situation where he plans to go to a co-ed gym where people wear few clothes, it would clearly be explicable why his rebbe told him not to go.
Does your rebbi always take a car even for short distances? Does he prefer a diet rich in fat and sugars, while avoid fiber, fruits, vegetables, etc.? Perhaps he stays in a wheel chair to avoid having to use his body for anything?
It’s cool. Digging up stuff our ancestors played with. Sometimes it helps understand things, but never really something important (e.g., when the Avos were acting in a way that reflected Mesopotamian law, but we would have expected it since our tradition was that in those aspects of law weren’t usings Jewish law since it was pre-Sinai). It’s also fun when archeologists dig up stuff that contradicts the hiloni’s “higher critical” theories and they have to come up with a revised edition of their theories (remember that the “critical” refers to literary criticism rather than research into ancient history, which is why it is so amusingly wrong – they make it up as they go along for obvious ulterior motive).
All filters are inherently problematic since the filters’ AI can’t tell whether the words in question are respectable or not. For example, if you target the word “naked” you block out halachic discussions about what one wears in a mikva, married women’s hair, and how much clothes you need to wear when davening.
The best solution is to remember that Ha-Shem is monitoring at all times (not to mention your boss, the NSA, perhaps the Mossad, and that any clever teenager can hack your computer to see what you’ve been looking at).
1. Set a good example.
2. Look at anyone who appears in public inappropriately (e.g. too short a skirt, too low a neckline, too expensive a suit, too flashy a necktie, too expensive a car) as being weird.
3. Consider how a law firm looks at someone who shows up for work in sneakers, shorts and a flashy “vacation” shirt — or how a geek-oriented hi-tech firm deals with someone who insists on wearing a suit and tie. Most of the human race has strict and intricate dress codes – without have to write them down.
If they are Yidden, they are certainly not strangers. If why shouldn’t people try to “set you up” assuming you are single, frum and have no serious defects (such as antlers, tail, or antenas). If you don’t like the attention, get married, and then you won’t have the problem.
If you are studying Jewish law or Jewish history, it is impossible to do so without familiarity with Talmud. An analogy would be like studying American law without looking at cases and statutes, or studying American history without reading any historical documents. As it is, everyone holds it is permissable to study Pirke Avos, which is clearly one portion of the Talmud, most of whose halachas are relevant to botgh women and to understanding Jewish views on the world.
The only issue is “studying for fun”, without regard to it being useful. That’s what men do, and most consider it a mitzvah to do so (and in any event, its what we like to do). Pilpul on questions that will never arise in the real world is a “boy thing.”
Urban areas generally restrict activities incompatible with being a residential area, such as slaughtering animals. If you want to be free of zoning restrictions, move to a rural area.
Leave skunks alone and you won’t have a problem.
Jews needing to adopt used to benefit from a baby gemach run by the goyim. Women (non-Jewish ones, usually not of the higher classes) who didn’t want their babies left them in a designated field, and people (Jews included) could go to the field and pick one. They usually went by which ones were crying the loudest. Then the goyim got a bit more civilized and now they can only kill babies during the nine months prior to birth.
“A family with more than 6 kids with only a father in kollel and maybe a mother making a little extra cannot expect to send their kids to yeshiva, pay bills and dues, donate to tzedakah, and afford good quality food and healthcare.” — No but they can expect to earn enough to eat but maybe they’ll have to skip the junk food, nosh and eating out. They’ll be able to afford adequate health care, at a level that the Hafetz Haim would have considerable unbelievable – but not a fancy doctor with the latest experimental medicine. No one expects kollel families to play an important role in terms of financing community institutions (but many provide very useful warm bodies to actually get things done). Most frum organizations adjust fees based on ability to pay (one might aruge that if it doesn’t it isn’t really frum).
So do you mean they’ll live like families that afford a large detached single family home in Brooklyn, a second home in the country, full tuition (and all the protectsia that goes with it) at the fanciest most modern Jewish schools, a really fancy doctor who doesn’t let cost bother him in practising in medicine, etc. — of course they won’t. And if someone’s goal in life is a high level of material goods, they will do something else for a living (and if the past is an indication, they will give up a lot in terms of Yiddishkeit to do so). Jews who consider gashmius to be a principle goal rarely stay frum all that long – remember the mere act of keeping Shabbos, wearing a kippah, eating only kosher and living in an unfashionable neighborhood (i.e. one with too many frummies) means giving up perhaps 2/3 of your parnassah.
Learning is work. It pays horribly, and you end up after a few years as a teacher, which is even more work and pays horribly.
If someone wants to live in great poverty in order to learn, that’s there business. If they expect to have a middle class standard of living, that’s being ridiculous. However the working conditions of learning full time, or teaching (and in Hebrew, “learn” and “teach” are just different binyanim of the same verb), are very good (no Shabbos hassles, no calendar hassle, no problem with treff lunches or seriously rude and immoral coworkers, etc.), which is probably why many people prefer poverty in a frum “job” (learning or teaching) to the riches of working for the goyim.
You need a lawyer.
The original posting in this thread referred to some hareidim dancing in a memorial fountain. YNET (a leading hiloni, meaning anti-frum) site now questions that these were really hareidim, noting that the people undressed in public which is very rare for hareidim.
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In American, if women are situated so men are staring at them (sometimes referred to as a “meat market” approach to dating) it is considered harassment of the women. Note that the objection is to separate seating, not to who sits where. In fact many cultures have separate seating options in public transportation – its considered a way to protect women.
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Remember that we are descended from someone who was a radical extremist, accused of heresey and high treason by his countryman, considered a betrayer of the family’s cult, thrown into a fire and finally exiled to a remote no-mans land. You may not like it, but extremism in defense of doing the right thing is a family trait going back 4000 years.
Each receives according to their needs, each contributes according to their abilities — works fine for most families (don’t try it with strangers).
Sam2: What I am see is that people still disagree about cheese (some kosher Yidden insist on vegetarian rennet, others allow even rennet derived from a treff cow, most are in the middle), and it is wrong to say this is settled.
The possible “meat” in question will be debated. Some people will definitely hold that the stem cells come from a kashered slaughtered animal and that the product is fleishig. Others will probably be less fussy. It is unreasonable to expect a definitive agreement to be reached any time soon, since we like to debate such matters.
1. It isn’t known how the stem cells will be derived, or what sort of nutrient will be used to grow the “meat.”
2. Many people hold by rennet from meat, and some even allow it from a treff animal – and some people insist on vegetarian rennet. It’s an ongoing dispute. Anyone who believes this is a settled manner is in error.
3. The original wild Turkeys, which in no way resembled modern Turkeys (they fly, feed themselves and are quite wild) were not universally accepted in the early 16th century and there was much discussion (so amusing, as many thought they came from India and were a type of chicken). It was no slam dunk they would be accepted. Over time a consensus was reached, but one finds discussions and debates lasting until quite recently.
Sam2: In the 1500 they did NOT know what a potato was, not a tomato (for years they thought it was poisonous), nor tobacco (many thought it was a health food), and certainly not what American call “corn” (a.k.a. maize). The initial consensus was that Turkeys (“hodu” in Hebrew) were non-kosher.
I’m suggesting that with the possibility of artificial “meat” (and perhaps something like “replicator” produced food similar to science fiction shows such as Star Trek, involving 3D printers that are now getting invented) – it will be an interesting time, but in this case, interesting in a food sort of way.
Sam2: You may not be aware that many people hold that even if rennet is derived from a dead animal, the cheese made with that meat abstract is kosher. There are shitahs that hold that even if the animal was treff, the cheese would be kosher. Those people who allow cheese made non-vegetarian rennet, will probably hold the “meat” made from animal stem cells is kosher and parve (depending on the nature of the nutrients used to make the “meat”). Those who reject cheese made with non-vegetarian rennet will probably hold that the “meat” is kosher only if the initial cells were from a properly kashered animal.
Since this is still really more science fiction than anything else, its a bit early to worry about the matter.
nitpicker: I’ld assume they decided quickly on that. Remember that around 1500, they were introduced to Corn (American Corn, Maize), Potatoes, Tomatoes, Tobacco and all sorts of new things, and it took a while to settle down and decide what was what.Turkey actually swtiched from being treff to kosher. It will be fun to watch people decide what to do with artificial meat (my guess is that the solution (which will probably be parve)it is grown in must be kosher, and that the initial initial microscopic cells must be from a properly slaughtered kosher animal – and that the debates will focus on whether the resulting food is fleisig or parve (with rennet, we hold that since the solution the product is grown in is milkig, the product is milkig – which would suggest the the “meat” in question might be parve — but anyone who insists on using parve rennet would probably hold it to be fleshig).
The closest thing to that now is Rennet used in making cheese. There are lots of different opinions on that one. Based on how long it took to decide on the status of potatoes and turkeys (are the former hametz or not, are the latter a kosher bird), it will probably take a generation or two for a consensus to build. It will be an interesting case study in halachic decision making.