Always_Ask_Questions

an example of successful market strategy:
When Rav Huna was told that he is wrong not paying workers who already stole from him and paid them: either vinegar (literal “stock”) became wine, or price (NYSE stock) of vinegar went up. Maybe there is an economic pshat here: when people behave positively towards each other, there is less mistrust in the market, and the stocks go up. Similarly, Yaakov “created markets” and also urged shepherds to work the full day honestly without mistrust to each other.

Another way to invest is in your own skills: have a profession/skills that is not tied to dealing with speculative things, like stock markets, but to something that can be useful in any market: plumbing, medicine, teaching and then you’ll survive the downturn.

Women overall have less inclination to deal with abstract issues, like math, maybe because they have more issues to attend in real life. So, maybe women should not plan their learning around dafim of Gemorah, but focus on a wide variety of mitzvos that they feel are relevant to them, depending on a person this could be kashrus and niddah, or also chesed, education of their and other children, business, speech, etc. If they want to understand those issues in depth, they can surely learn whatever helps them learn it, and this might be Gemora, poskim.

Nat, there is a clinical trial that finished a month ago with 100 people
Studying the Expected Effect of Ivermectin Nanosuspension as Nasal Spray Upon Post covid19 Persistant Anosmia. PI: Zaky Aref . No results published yet.

Ash, it does not mean that ADHD does not exist and should be denied, I think what many of us are saying that there are multiple ways to deal with it in a good way, and the outcomes might improve depending on how bad the problem is and how well you deal with it. Ignoring is not a solution.

kollelman,
there are several large studies showing that vaccines are not increasing number of miscarriages.

There are also observations of effect on the cycle that seems to be affecting 1-2 cycles. Several studies just started in US abot it with expected results in Spring 2022.

There are also studies showing increased number of miscarriages due to COVID disease.

So, any family who is in this situation and is not taking a vaccine, should practice social distancing. hope you are advising this to your numerous contacts who report this to you.

Avira,
an interesting test case. Mental illness aside, could you point to a source that says that people who are not doing mitzvos bein adam l’makom are dealt harsher than ben adam l’havero. I clearly understand that we feel that way, as l’makom makes us feel Jewish, but it is not clear to what extent…

Ben sore umore is eating/drinking/stealing, nothing about shabbos or kashrus
Hashem being not so harsh on Migdal Bavel generation as they have unity between themselves

If you let your hypothetical bum get out of the house, the case become harder to defend – here he is driving endangering people, not wearing mask when visiting grandma, forgetting his kid in a hot car. Even in the basement, he might hack someone or steal from his parents to get money to pay for the video games.

> but to remind us all of our feelings in 2008,

there is indeed a theory that crashes come at about every 20 years – when there is a new generation of financial advisors who do not believe that a crash can really happen again. Difference between personal experience and intellectual knowledge. We have a lot of Torah on that – that Noah believed and did not believe that flood is coming …

> In this case, the people that believe in it have no interest. They usually are individual practioners, that just want to do what they think is best for the patient.

On another thought – how is this narrow focus different from the pharma focused in developing their own medicines?

Syag> he threw it out there as an insult,

Syag, just re-read it loudly using softer tones and you will see that RebE thinks that Artscroll is not helping students in a long term. It is a reasoned opinion. It is OK to suspect someone who always asks annoying questions, but you need to dan Rebbe of CR l’tzad zhus!

> I’m just used to google docs

yes, indeed. One article reports about a “teacher” who “successfully” “taught” 4th graders on zoom. when they came back and she asked them to spell, she heard a sound of (school-provided) iPads switching on – all kids were simply talking into iPads whole year and could not spell anything. I agree that this is arguable, as we lost ability to prepare horses for a ride; to follow direction without Waze, etc. But at least, if you can’t spell without docs, prepare your post in docs. If you didn’t, then THAT is a sign of disrespect, especially if you are talking to older people.

farby, when learning a sugya, try reading some general overviews that will enable you think about it before delving into pages and pages of details.

My read of the studies is that Ivermectin might be helpful when used early after or even before exposure. Benefit increases with dose but so do side effects. If you use it every time you are exposed, you may end up overdosing indeed. Positive studies on the site are small, large ones are negative – claimed to be done under bad protocols.

This is how it should work – after small studies show promise, you organize a large study that follows a promising protocol. People who are promoting this should focus on creating such trial. Given the cost of the drug, this would be an easy one to do.

> A person whose ideas are different from mine, or a person I find too thin-skinned, should be accorded no less respect and be treated no less pleasantly than my doppelganger.

This should be fixed at the top of CR!

Syag > Everyone has heard how the chofetz chaim treated the yid who broke shabbos.

True, but he has limits also. He visited a Jewish commissar who was taking Yeshiva boys into Soviet army and said that he did not come to give tochacha as he realizes it is not going to help, but he come because when the commissar will be accused in Shemayim, he will defend himself – if Ch. H were to give me tochacha, I would have done teshuva. “So I came to take this defense from you”. Of course, this can be interpreted as a round-about way to cause teshuva….

Avira > chazon ish in YD 2 28 and say that nowadays we don’t know how to give proper tochacha

What was the chiddush here if R Akiva said this way earlier? Maybe you are skipping over something?

L’maase, I am wondering even when we talk about people who did receive Jewish education in large quantities – can we be sure of the quality? We are now discussing seriously when is geneiva allowed. I kind of suspect that in previous times, this was better undertsood.

> As a historical aside the Vaad handled all communal matters, including takonos for religious standards. It was run by rabbonim, not askonim.

Vaad did address a variety of issues indeed. It included both Rabonim and not. At some point, Lita was sending 2 non-Rabbis and one Rabbi for each large community. Others did not reserve places to Rabbis and had some sort of elections. Later on, there were 2 boards – Rabbis and general, and ten they merged, etc.

Do we know any Rabbis who were involved in the Vaad?

> Eastern Europe’s geography changed constantly.

yes, but to a limit: Hungary/Russia/Bukovina did not join Vaad at any time of it’s existence as far as I recall. Seems that Vaad would occasionally get involved into issues in other communities – when invited, and when Polish Jews were involved, and often reluctant to be involved.

Avira > think that in mamonis issues with goyim or especially with corporations and/or the govt, we are not to waste our money

I understand what you are saying, i.e. we should not give presents, etc. Here we are talking about justifying questionable behavior. And, suddenly, the same people would spend money on better heksher, on nicer lulav, are eagerly looking for tirutzim to do something that looks bad (otherwise, there would be no shailah!).

I think we are just not feeling same respect to dinim as we do to hukim. The latter give you a feeling of being “frum”, while the former – just a regular member of the society, nothing spectacular.

Muslim would not be drinking with goyim, or Jews, or Muslims

Avira,
I am with you on not paying extra to IRS, and so does American law, you are allowed to take allowable …
But I disagree in business. People see what you are doing and opportunities for both kiddush and hillul Hashem are everywhere.

I was once in an expensive course in job search after a layoff.. the trainer was guiding me how to highlight my strengths via light gnevat daas in a mock interview. I was a bad student. After several attempts, she stopped and said that she actually believes me more the way I talk… In an earlier case, a non Jewish employer told me later that he hired me over another candidate because I was asking about what I don’t know, and the other guy claimed knowing everything

philosopher > Great people have come not from sitting in class and memorizing for hours, which is what education means today

But you need to give the person some material to work with. Imagination in general is a double-edged sword – it included both neveyut and avoda zara. When one disappeared, so did the other, according to midrash about destruction of the first beis hamikdash.

So, when a kid is sitting in a class with nothing to do, he will use his genius to create mischief. If you put him in front of an interesting problem and help him start going, then his creativity will have something to work with.

> Books are already very different from music. They are tangible

we are not talking about stealing tangible books. There were controversies regarding stealing design of the Shas page that people were putting decades of life to create. This is probably more controversial with Torah books – as we are not supposed to charge for Torah … Avira, thanks for bringing the sources

coffee, maybe you did not the scheme – he wants to buy one copy, then give it to a friend instead of the friend buying it, and pay missing revenue to the singer and not to spotify.

According to a quick search, spotify has family subscriptions and is trying to police “families” that do not live at the same address. So, they obviously object to that. Maybe reading rules might help.

a good point on Sotah: for some reason, Gemora fails to discuss what would Kohen do with the woman with shaved hair. Presumably, Amoraim could not imagine that Chasidishe women will ever be affected – or that their husband would ever be suspicious.

philosopher v syag, I agree with each on separate issues – there is COVID but not ADHD or 80% of it, to be more accurate.

To add to on ADHD/creativity connection, fMRI seem to show that ADHD connection “misfire” so that a signal goes to multiple locations instead of (intended?) one. Of course, one might argue whether activating multiple connection is a bug or a feature, as programmers say.

Historically, it may have been more important for 99% of population to memorize and follow instructions to survive. 1% had a luxury to be creative. In industrial age, machines were built for right-handed only. Currently, we have computers to make computations, google to look up statistics, Sefaria to look up Mishna, and so many people having more “free” time on their hands than ever.
So, the people who make those unusual connections are more and more valuable.

Of course, you don’t just “ignore it” – you need first to build the kid’s confidence after all negative feedback he was getting from school. Best is to study something interesting with the kid, until he becomes good at it, better than peers and teachers. Then, you need to give him skills to use his abilities: build something tangible rather than just imagine something that does not make sense. Then to deal with the lack of skills – practice at least some attention to detail, search Internet for things he does not remember, make lists of things not to forget, partner with others with different skills.