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Zoos are a definite shailoh if you own the zoo. Of course, most carnivores do not eat hametz, though they do eat animals that had eaten hametz. And while Lions and Tigers never eat hametz or kitniot, Bears are know to eat anything and anyone they can.
zahavasdad who wrote “A stipend for learning (Or any other reason) from the government would be called Welfare or a handout here in the US “
Actually it isn’t. Pell Grants and other forms of scholarships to attend academic institutions are not considered to be a form of welfare. Once the student gets beyond a certain point (typically by graduate school), stipends given to students if they do more than cover the cost of tuition (tuition waiver) and basic room and board, are considered income and are taxable in many cases (and if not taxable, only because specific rules were issued to protect them from taxation). The Israelis don’t considerd teachers in yeshivos to be the equivalent of university teachers or fellows since they would have to draft them. If in fact, if anyone receiving money (often from private donations raised abroad) beyond the cost of tuition and room and board in return for being a “Ben Yeshiva” were considered employed, unemployment in the frum community would be minimal. That is why the people in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem don’t act as if they were in a city with a high unemployment rate – if fact they have a low unemployment rate.
While in the United States “welfare” is what is given to the desperately poor, in most western countries “welfare” is when the government covers basic needs such as housing, living costs and medical care from the public treasury for all persons regardless of need. In the US, programs that are need-based such as Medicare or Social Security or subsidized tuition at public schools are NOT considered to be welfare, though in Europe the equivalent programs are considered part of the “welfare state.”
The real issue in Israel is that the ruling class wants Israel to be what to them is the “zionists” – meaning free of the yoke of Torah that they came to Israel to escape — and the hareidim are very publicly destroying their zionist dream. It’s not about employment or welfare or even serving in the army and schechting Arabs.
“middle of the knight “
I thought we could have a discussion about chess (well, politics is getting boring)
If Ben Gurion offered a 60 year draft exemption (i.e. yeshivas allowed for 60 years, then no longer) – the Hareidim would probably have supported the plan to make Palestine into an American Trust Territory. Any significant Jewish opposition to independence would have tilted the balance. American policy is to leave self-contained peaceful religious minorities alone.
Note that the zionists aren’t discussing defunding yeshivos, but of seizing the students and their money, and seizing money raised in America so it can’t be used to support students learning Torah. Even the British and Muslims never did that. So this means Lapid and Bennett are more in a class with the Crusaders and Romans as enemies of Torah.
Current Israeli policy is that if you are Jewish, you are NOT ALLOWED TO WORK until you serve in the army. If you attempt to engage in gainful employment you will be arrested and/or conscripted. As a consequence most hareidi males once they are full fledged adults either work “off the books” or in jobs that allow them to remain “Bnei Yeshiva” (such as being teachers). If the zionists were concerned about hareidim being employed in the official economy, they would LEGALIZE WORK for non-veterans (the way they do for frum women and Arabs, who are allowed to work without being in the army.
If the zionists wanted hareidim to help defend their country, they would offer to opportunties to serve in the army without harassment or discrimination. As it is many hareidim do serve, because they are so highly motivated they serve in spite of discrimination (similar to many African Americans who served in the American military in the Civil War thru WWII era, in spite of horrific discrimination).
The reality is the efforts to draft hareidim are motivated by a hope that after three years in the army they will “see the light” and give up a lifestyle based on Torah and Mitsvos, based on the their past success in turning most religious recruits into non-Shomer Shabbos. They are probably wrong, but that’s another story.
All the Nationalists such as Likud, Bayit Yehudi, Yesh Atid and even Livni who is an ex-Liukd princess) will accomplish is to end up forcing an end to conscription (which will be good for the Israeli economy, and excellent for Hareidim who want to work outside the frum “ghetto”). They won’t be willing to throw people in jail, and fines won’t work since the people they want to fine don’t have any assets. They seriously underestimate the extent the yeshiva world gets money from overseas (both as donations and tuitions), in part since for ideological reasons they won’t admit that this is “income”, and also haven’t realized that the “welfare state” is a more important source of income than subsidies paid to yeshivos, and limiting welfare state benefits based on political views is very problematic. They will manage to encourage many Hareidim who are inclined to volunteer to decline to do so, since even Hareidim who want to play soldier, don’t want to be seen as opposing yeshivos. Most importantly, unless they back down quickly, they may find that the current kenesset “opposition” group of Socialists, Hareidim and Arabs will evolve into a coherent political block united by support for liberal welfare policies, and opposition to conscription (which they are now just discovering) which will make Israeli politics more interesting.
gavra_at_work=
The English word “money” as currently defined has nothing to do with Kesef, Zahav, etc. In fact, there is no word in the Hebrew language for “money”. The people of the time of the gemara (Jews and goyim) had no conception of what we in the 21st century refer to as “money”, and probably would think we must be totally insane to confuse what we call “money” with what they used for money (many conservative economists would probably agree with them).
The word modern Israeli word “kesef” actually refers to “silver”. Modern Ivrit has adapted it to refer to “money.” In modern English, money consists of entries in bank accounts, which exist in online databases (for the most part) and are typically exchanged via the internet. Some people still make limited use of paper certificates or coins made of worthless metal, but their use is being phased out. Kesef and Zahav are rarely used for commercial purposes on a daily basis (can you imagine offering a one-ounce coin to pay for pizza).
However since the modern economy totally runs on what in English is called “money”, which is a virtual unit of relative value with no intrinsic worth and certainly no fixed or stable worth – it is impossible to apply any psak halacha about what was used for “money” more than a few centuries ago to the modern economy.
Thus talking about Rambam and “Free market economy” makes no more sense than talking about Rambam and the telephone, or Rambam and the computer.
The economy today is so different it is impossible to apply modern terms to what the Rambam or any contemporary said.
Money as we know it didn’t exist 1000 years ago. They bartered using commodities, goods, and pieces of rare metals (gold, silver and copper in particular- which are really just commodities).
Due to globalization, crop shortages don’t result in starvation. Indeed, even in the poorest countries, obesity is the fastest growing public health problem. If some is starving today, it means their government is causing it to happen by some deliberate policy.
Jews have always had a propensity to stop working once they have enough to eat and spend more time learning. We have always been more concerned with how a job affects ability to do mitsvos than with making money.
Giving someone money so they can spend more time learning is hardly welfare. It’s a tradition. Whereas goyim learn only to find a way to get more money, we learn since the existence of the world depends on it. Among the Jews, only those who shirk their duty concentrate on getting rich, leaving the burden of Torah and Mitsvos to those who tend to be moser nefesh to have the time (and given today’s economy, it doesn’t take all that much meserias nefesh to find the time).
American foreign aid actually hurts Israel. Rand Paul’s proposal would help the Israeli economy.
As an example:
Remember the “Lavi” – an Israeli plane that would have been state of the art and able to compete for global arms sales – and made by Israeli workers. THe Americans offered “aid” to be used for buying American planes – and preserving jobs for Americans.
Consider a rifle that costs $1000 for the Israelis to make. The American model costs $2000, and is just as good. The USA comes along and offers to “give” the Israelis $1500 of foreign aid to buy rifles – as long as they buy American rifles. With this figured in, the American rifle is $500.
Just imagine when QUINOA gets accepted widely. Then we can have kosher-le-pesach pizza and hallah. Of course, once such recipes become common, I suspect opinion will turn against accepted quinoa as kosher-le-pesach.
Unfortunately they are probably in poor condition. They changed the way they made paper about 150 years, and the new paper tends to have a short life expectancy (the older paper, found in books from before 1860 lasted centuries). This is why a book published in the 1500s is usually in better condition than a book from the 1880s.
I would be very skeptical if R. Herzog (who held positions in Ireland, Britain and Israel) would observe “St. Patrick’s Day” since in Ireland it has always been a solemn holiday in which attendance at Church services was the highlight of the observance. The celebrations involving alcohol are of Amercian origin, but even in America they are in addition to the religious ceremonies (and note that the parade routes are designed with the religious element in mind).
While in America it is largely secular, the holiday is in fact celebrated by religious ceremonies. It is the feast day of the patron saint of Ireland (whose historic veriity has been question by Catholic Church historians – but don’t tell that to any self-respecting person of Irish descent). Part of the avodah is praying to this person.
If Roman Americans were marching to honor “Jupiter Day”, or if Babylonian Americans were marching to honor “Marduck Day” — would you join them? How do you celebrate Dec. 25, which raises an identical issue?
The Arabs will never make territorial concessions. They will insist that Eretz Yisrael be art of an Arab Islamic state (even if it is an autonomous Hebrew speaking entity with its own army). They will insist that Arab Muslims are considered first class citizens (which they certainly aren’t). Our insistence that Arab Muslim be a tolerate minority in places they have lived in for centuries is the cause of the war (a war that, BTW, the gedolim opposed, and had the zionists listened to the gedolim, the war could have been avoided).
Hareidim demand that we can control our own affairs. We don’t want to impose our laws on the goyim. Thus Hareidim are in a better position to negotiate. We might be willing to agree to ban abortion, ban public same-gender you know what, require wearing decent clothes in public, prohibit ribis, etc., as the price of peace. Indeed, if the Arabs agreed to let Jews live anywhere in the Land of Israel, I suspect even many of the settlers might agree.But as long as we insist on “sovereign” status (which, BTW, means no one, even G-d, is above the state – meaning the whole idea of soverignity is apikoresdik), there is no hope for peace – meaning the eventual end will be like all other nations, which sooner later, means being something found only in history books.
The zionists will try to draft the Hareidim, and they will fail. They will look like fools when confronted with mass resistance, and when their attempts at coercion are denounced for violating Israeli and international human rights laws. If the climate continues more than a few months, the end will be when an alliance of Hareidim, Arabs and Socialists come to power and end the draft (not unrealistic, Hareidi politicians are already talking about, many non-Hareidim also oppose conscription, and all three favor the “welfare state”), and possibly end the war which the Hareidim can end (we want to live in peace and do mitsvos whereas the Dati Leumi focus on territory is a recipe for perpetual warfare).
So all will end well, but not immediately, and not the way the hiloni ruling class expects.
There is a folk story that it comes from “De-Rabanan”.
I believe more likely it is related to the the English word “devine”, meaning it is of Latin/Old French origin (remember that Asheknazim arrived in German-speaking areas where we invented Yiddish after moving through areas that spoke Latin or other Romance languages, which is where Yiddish picked up some words of Latin origin). Note that “Bentsch” (related to English “benediction”) is also a Yiddish word for a religious term derived from a Latin route.
In light of the latest news from Eretz Yisrael: ??? ??? ???? ????
Until recently, you could argue that if someone frum was in one of the frum units, or was being very stubborn, they would have no problem in the army, and it would be permissable to serve just as one sometimes needs to take job in the goyish world for parnassah.
But not that the medinah has embarked on a policy of persecution and coercion aimed at “breaking” the yeshiva world, one can argue it has a full status of “Sha’as ha-Shmad” and we have to resist in all possible ways.
In all fairness, there are still many ways they could back down and perhaps limit the maximum sanction to losing any stipends paid to yeshiva students, but not cancelling civil rights or welfare state benefits, and for political reasons, neither Likud not Bayit Yehudi wants to “burn bridges” to the hareidim. However if they start to throw people in jail for not paying fines, or seizing money raised privately to support learning – the situation will seriously deteriorate, perhaps to the point where some secular bigots can accomplish what all the terrorists have failed to do – and bring down the medinah once and for all.
Likud and Bayit Yehudi might reconsider how much they want to permanently antagonize the Hareidim, and limit the sanctions for not serving in the army to loss of yeshiva stipends (rather than fines, loss of welfare state benefits, restrictions on civil rights, etc.). The fact that Likud always has an option to substitute the Hareidim for Lapid will serve to limit Lapid’s options.
Or- the you know what hits the fan and the next year will be very “interesting” (as in the proverbial curse, ‘may you live in interesting times’)
Dear OblateSpheroid: There are approximately 3000 colleges and universities. For the cost of applying to them all, you could pay full tuition for four years at a public school in your home state.
What do you want to do for a living? Studying for a CLEP or AP is a good way to test a subject to see if you like it? Do you have a high school diploma (if not, you need to do a GED, which is fairly easy)? What was your SAT score? Do you need to live at home? How affluent is your family? Are you interested in AP/CLEP as an alternative to high school, or in addition to high school.
OblateSpheroid: As I said, not all colleges accept CLEP or APs, and not for all exams. In general, the better the school, the fussier they are. At a place such as Johns Hopkins, only some APs are accepted, and only with very high grades. As you work down towards the better public schools, you’ll find most APs and most CLEPs are accepted. On the bottom rung, you’ll find general acceptance. Needless to say, most YWN users probably are more likely to find themselves going to Brooklyn College, a community college, or piecing together secular credits for a BTL – than they are to be seeking admission to an Ivy League type universitiy.
If someone is from a school that doesn’t have a good academic reputation, e.g., a frum yeshiva that doesn’t usually send its graduates to universities, the AP and CLEP exams pose an addition role in proving the student can do college work – meaning it counts for admission rather than credits.
1. Remember they can only be taken in May. All but the best colleges give credit for them, and they are probably the equivalent of the typical freshman survey courses in all but the best colleges. Even when they don’t produce credits, they may allow you to place out of a class. Passing some will convince even the best universities that you are capable of doing college level work.
2. If your goal is to pile up credits, consider the CLEP exams, which cover more subjects and are easier but are almost never accepted at the top colleges. Unlike the AP, they do not includes essays and can be taken at any time during the year.
3. Both CLEP and AP can be taken regardless of whether you took a formal class to prepare, or simply worked your way through a basic textbook and learned on your own. As such, they are well suited to a yeshiva student who wants credits without having to go to college. They also allow one to skip introductory courses, which tend to be dull. Also having AP (or CLEP) credits can convince a school that you are qualified for college even if your transcript says otherwise.
No one says its treff.
The only Jewish food is matza. The rest we copied from the goyim (even gefilte fish). Yidden are too busy with Torah and Mitsvos to invent our own cuisine.
1. There could be a Shomer Shabbos majority in the foreseeable party. Note that the non-religious parties have an increasing number of members who are Shomer Shabbos. The less being Shomer Shabbos correlates with one’s political views, the greater the chance of a Shomer Shabbos majority.
2. What does “land” have to do with things? We will get Eretz Yisrael back when Meshiach comes.
A monarchy can have an elected king. The Resh Galusa was one, so were Polish kings, so is the Pope. You can also have someone filling in for a king (equivalent to the British concepts of a Regent or a Lord Protector).
There are many ways to argue that a frum government needs consent of the governed. A Jewish king could always agree to a constitution with elected representative – and presumably would be bound by his promise (or oath) to respect it.
A Sanhedrin would require all the gedolim to agree (Ashkenazi and Sefardi, Satmar and Lubavitch, Hasidim and Young Israel). When that happens, you’ll know the revolution has arrived.
Mobe613: You really think moshiach will want to be a mere prime minister?
Actually, if a Jewish state were establised in accordance with Torah’s constitutional principles, the head of state would be either a “Melech Yisrael” or perhaps a Regent (Malei makom or perhaps an “Apitropus” similar in theory to the English “Lord protector”). However it isn’t likely the zionists would ever go along with having a Jewish state. Meaning we are stuck with the current regime and need to muddle through (like we always have done in the past) until they go away, which is the nature of all effemeral goyish governments.
The end game involves restoration of the monarchy, a sanhedrin and an kohen gadol. It’s the middle game that’s problematic. In such a state, all military units would resemble hesder units, and hilonim would be in charge of nothing more important than cleaning latrines.
In the interim, and realizing that it is probably impossible for a zionist state to ever make peace with the goyim (a major factor in our gedolim having opposed the zionists), they should switch to a professional army. Based on the percentage of volunteers for combat units, they shouldn’t have a problem. If they want frum recruits, they’ll have to offer them terms and conditions of service that are attractive.
Re: above discussion of bigotry
The Hareidim desire to be left alone. They don’t want to march into the hiloni schools and take the students, or change their curriculum. They are insisting that those who go “off the derekh” be returned. They aren’t objection to the hilonim taking court cases to the hiloni courts. They just want to be left alone in their own communities.
It is the hilonim (and the Dati Leumi) who want to take away the Hareidi children, and force the schools to change the subjects they teach, and make it a crime to use non-government courts, and who have a law stating that hareidim who don’t serve in the army aren’t allowed to hold jobs outside the hareidi community. This is what you would expect from prejudiced bigots.
Most western cultures respect a minority seeking to be left alone, and consider it bigotry for the majority to force their norms on the minority. The secular Jews (and many of the Modern Orthodox/Religious Zionists as well) have let their prejudices get the best of them. Most of the world will see the persecution of the Hareidim (denying social security benefits, denying passports, seizing their money) as religious persecution.
zahavasdad: Teachers are employed. Only Israel considered teachers to be NOT WORKING, and then only in the frum schools. If they were “learning” in a university, they would be considered employed. If an advanced student studying Talmud who lives off of stipends paid to students is in a yeshiva he is unemployed in Israel, but if he is in the university he is employed.
And that doesn’t count the huge number of people who are actually working off the books, but need to avoid the army since the army (except for select units) is hostile to haredim (you will know if the army changed when you hear of promising well connected officers being dismissed for being anti-hareidi, just as in the 1960s the US starting dismissing officers for racism – it hasn’t happened yet).
In a welfare state, being cut off from the welfare state puts you in a very bad way. It means that in a hospital, you pay the rate charged to rich American tourists. Most housing in Israel is in someway subsidized – so it means you can only buy housing in the “tourist” apartments. The major tax benefit yeshiovos receive is to be able to avoid taxes on foreign contributions (which otherwise would be taxable income). And they are still banning hareidim who want to work “on the books” from doing so unless they serve in the army (as opposed to Arabs, who can get jobs).
By avoiding arrests, they avoid an immediate confrontation, unless they (as their press suggests) see these only as first steps, with stricter measures to be applied if they don’t work at lowering the yeshiva population. By establishing a system in which 15% of the people have restricted civil rights, you guarantee instability. Since this is religion based, it will violate most human rights principles.
At the very least, it will end cooperation in other areas between hareidim and dati leumi. The Hareidim will offer to ally with Labor based on common support for the welfare state, and an agreement to end conscription and equal rights. Imagine the situation at a school in America where some students are raising money for hareidim who are being denied basic medical care and housing since they learn Torah and the Dati Leumi are responsible, while their classmates are raising money for settlers who are left homeless by policies to reduce settlements which they will blame on the hareidim who will be supporting such policies.
So a Palestinian who supports Hamas, and whose sibling is a terrorist, can get an Israeli passport and welfare state benefits, but a Jew who wants to learn Torah can’t. And Hareidim who take jobs “on the books” will be immediately arrested for draft evasion. And since welfare state benefits include housing and health care, anyone learning Torah will be cut off from access to all but the most expensive alternatives. Does loss of tax benefits for yeshivos means that they will have to pay income tax on money received from abroad (i.e. if Americans send $100K to support students learning, the government takes $30K)? If these sanctions don’t work, what comes next? The whole article, in context, makes it clears this is the governmetn deliberately oppressing the hareidim in the hope of forcing them to give up being hareidi. And absent a change to the Basic Laws, the Supreme Court will order conscription of women – which is even more of a problem halachically. It is oppression, pure and simple.
If Hareidim are treated worse than Arabs (and bluntly, the zionists do mistreat Arabs, especially those that oppose them politically), then why not support a Palestinian state? [edited] The most optimistic scenario is the haredim will be able to ally with the Israeli left and force an end to conscription. The worst is that the ability to peacefully sit and learn Torah in Eretz Yisrael will require replacing Medinat Yisrael.
If the article is correct, and goes into effect, it means the end of the yishuv as we know it.
[edited] inappropriate terminology
The ideal situation is for the wife to be a homemaker and the husband to learn all day. For those of us without independently wealthy parents, it becomes necessary to work for a living.
Frum women have always worked outside the family. While some jobs are prohibited to women (most of which we can’t discusses on YWN), the real issue is how much a woman wants to work outside the home, can she arrange childcare (very easy if her sister or sister-in-law is available to babysit), etc. Beyond that, everything depends on what she wants to do. As with anyone else, making a lot on money usually results in long hours, risk taking and hard work. Whether it is worthy it is an individual choice. Running a small business out of the house is easier than being a vice-president of a Wall Street investment bank, but it brings in a lot smaller income.
By “work” do you mean doing something during the day that gets you paid. In the United States, or in the Israeli universities, once you receive money in excess of tuition or waived room and board fees, you are considered an employee. In Israel, if such persons are employed by the teachers, they are not considered employed. While in English there is a clear distinction between student and teacher, in traditional Hebrew, a “Ben Yeshiva” could mean either. Bnei Yeshiva who receive enough money to support a family are employed, even if the green eyeshade guys don’t count them. In addition a great many yeshiva “students” have jobs off the books since if they worked on the books, they would be drafted into an army that is incredibly hostile to bnei Torah.
If the government wanted most of the bnei yeshiva to be part of the economy, they could exempt them from the army (perhaps tied to being fathers, a grounds for exemption in many countries with conscription).
The Israelis have been experimenting with a variety of formulas – largely as a result of the desire of the secular parties to minimize the influence of the religious.
Israel has a parliamentary system meaning that the government is run by the party or coalition controlling the parliament. It doesn’t have to be the largest party, and after the previous election it was the party with the second highest totals that was able to form a majority government. An advantage of a parliamentary system is that the legislature and the executive always work together, without gridlock (as opposed to he USA, with an executive chosen separately from the legislature). The Israeli experimented with a system by which the prime minister was chosen is a separate ballot, and they ended up with a prime minister from one party and a kenesset dominated by the opposition – which doesn’t work in a parliamentary system. Some Israelis have preferred a “strong president” system such as the USA, but that could lead to a new set of problems.
In addition Israel uses proportional representation, which is reasonable given Jewish history (we always try to be inclusive, rather than preferring to have a ruling group and ignoring the rest). Thus no party gets a majority. However for the period 1948-1977 the socialist parties usually had majority, and from 1977-2013 the nationalist parties usually had a majority. Since the hareidim are being kicked out of the “nationalist” camp, it isn’t clear will be in the future.
1. Who would notice given the rather dull dress code we seem have imposed on ourselves?
What does a designer white shirt with plain suit look like?
2. Borsolino is a popular designer and everyone seems to like it.
3. Many frum people shop at “Second hand” shops, so a second hand name brand designer might be cheaper than something brand new from Walmart’s (where non-New Yorkers are allowed to buy inexpensive new stuff at reasonable prices).
I believe the hospital believed she was in a hospice situation in which death was imminent regardless of what was done, and that she was there to die. Based on the British press, it appears to be part of a larger controversy in which the health care providers (who are working for the government in most cases, rather than for the patients or the independent insurance companies that are responsible to the patients) are very willing to decide the a patient is moribund without consulting, or in disregard of the opinions of, the patient and the patient’s family.
RebdonieL “Freedom is not free. It comes at a cost and with considerable mesirat nefesh. “
And for countless generations ( okay, about 150 generations if you want to count), the Bnei Yeshiva, and the Baal ha-Battim, having been paying that price. Giving up their livlihoods, and often more (soon in Eretz Yisrael it will be a crime for 18-21 boys to learn Torah, though in all fairness Israeli prisons are nicer than the Nazi or Soviet ones). for the sake of learning Torah. We might not be glamorous as filling the sky with bombers and marching into battle in fancy uniforms with drums beating and flags flying – but someone we manage to survive, and our enemies seem to end up in the “dustbin” (as one of them called it) of history.
Yossibroch who said “…however my only knowledge of Satmar is from Wikipedia, the book/film ‘The Chosen’ …”
Wikipedia is inherently unreliable since it reflect whomever wrote the article, though it often has useful bibliographies. It is especially unreliable on controversial topics in which partisans strive to manipulate the article (they have had a great deal of trouble with Palestinians and Zionists in this respect).
The author of “The Chosen” is a Conservative Rabbi trying to justify his going off the derekh. Consider it as good a source for understanding orthodox Jews as Der Sturmer was for understanding the holocaust (except that Potok never got into a fight with people who hang troublemakers – but he’s just as guilty as people such as Streicher)
First decide what you would like to do, since no matter how I the pay you will probably fail if you pick a job that make’s you miserable.
Then figure out how to make enough money in your chosen field in order to survive.
Do not believe the propaganda that Satmar hasidim (in all their flavors) are sub-human perverse misanthropes incapable of dealing with the real world.
In Hebrew, they often refrer to “Kadur ha-Ha’aretz” to distinguish it from the word “aretz” which can also refer to Eretz Yisrael, or land in general. Until a few hundred years ago, there really wasn’t much need to develop vocabulary in any language to distinguish planets, but the relatively recent invention of telescopes changed that. English, which has the richest vocabularly of any language has a similar problem, as “Earth” can also mean “dirt” as well as the planet we live on.
One could look for deep meanings in all this, but in reality, it’s a matter than words generally don’t get invented for things that people never have to deal with.
A yarmulke is worn for indoor use when one would normally be bareheaded (for a goy). They are not very good as outdoor hats since they blow away. An outdoor hat is usually needed. Some people put the outdoor over the yarmulke, others put the yarmulke in the pocket while wearing an outdoor hat.
Baseball caps are a popular style of outdoor non-dress hats. One would not wear a baseball hat at a formal event. Other non-dress hats currently popular include a wide variety of caps. Among all Americans, baseball caps are quite popular.
I have never seen anyone wearing a baseball hat to shul on Shabbos.
According the press he might not have been licenses, might have been arrested for DUI in the past, and has a record for criminal offenses. He definitely needs a lawyer, and being experienced in such needs, wisely sought one out before surrendering.
If you mean yeshivos with leading academic standards, that would depend on one’s haskafa.
Generous compensation and a decent work-life are usually incompatible.
If you work a decent work-life (plenty of time off to learn with the kids, no hassles getting to minyan, of course plenty of time for vacation, etc.), try being an underpaid employee of the frum community or at worse, working for civil service or a non-profit.
If on the other hand, you want to be the one who pays full tuition, whom they honor at the maleve malka, and who generously provides the bail outs for the vital community organizations who seem to base their business plan on the federal goverment (but minus the printing press- a role you will pay), then go for the generous compensation.
If fitness is the goal, I’ld suggest strength training (weight lifting, calisthenics) and aerobics (such as biking or hiking or running). Sports are fun, and perhaps fun is mutar (I played baseball back in the era when the bats were made of wood and major leaguers took off-season jobs to make ends meet, and I’ld still root for the Dodgers if they ever came back to Brooklyn) – but from a fitness perspective sports all have serious question marks.
and by the way, there are several frum “major league” chess players (professional grandmasters)