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Avi, I am glad we do not have actuaries in charge of shiduchim! But it is already proven that married men live longer than non-married, and this was measured under current conditions – where men are older or same age as women. So, let’s not mess up with success!
So, maybe instead of forcing 15-y.o. bochrim marry eligible 20-y.o. let’s encourage men smoking less, running more, and women to feed their husbands healthier – to make our lives more “equitable”
Avira, fair re: R Meir – but what was the fruit? What was he learning from Aher that he would not learn from others?
re: Rambam & Aristotle.
I am not such a boke on Aristotle, but it seems that the middle path on midos is taken from Aristotle with minor, but significant, corrections to discount Heroism/Gaava. This seems like a reasonable critical approach of keeping the fruit. It is impossible to take other than a polemic all the interpretations of Rambam that basically discount all his work. The logical conclusion would be taht Rambam would have approved burning his own books, so Rabbeinu Yona was wrong on his teshuva?!another issue on science is that it developed tremendously from the time of Gemora and Rambam. for example, Gemorah often asks for experimental proves, and science now has great protocols to carry those experiments. I would think that most Tannaim and Amoraim in our time would be scouting internet for recent medical and astronomical views. As R Twersky Z’L suggested – to appreciate Hashem’s chochma, study physiology. don’t ahve to do it in yeshiva, do it after hours.
>> catching corona, wouldn’t they also be worried about catching apikorsus
agree here too. But what is the defense: either complete isolation, that I find easier to do form corona than science, or vaccination. For kids, I see isolation working till mid-middle school, and after that vaccination – studying science/history/literature in the Torah context before they encounter these subjects without parental/school supervision.
ujm,
could you be more specific – how do modern Charedim are same as pre-haskala (medieval East European?) Jews. I think you are over-simplifying historyAvi, I never looked into what was R Meir’s motivation to learn from Acher? Did Acher have Mishnayos that others did not? Did he have his own logical approach? Maybe he was quoting Aristotle and R Meir found it as interesting as Rambam did?
> what Pythagoras and Euclid believed?
Personalities would not matter in pure math. A proof stands on its own. But other sciences are not that simple, especially in pre-experimental times.
Ctlawyer,
refuah shleima and thanks for sharing your knowledge. Get your numerous, bli ayn hara, kids,grandkids, and other underlinks to set up text-reading software so that you can read either documents or CR, depending on your mood, and also download online classes that proliferated so much. so, by the time of your full recovery at the end of September, you’ll memorize Torah Kula by heart and will become an even more formidable debater. Refuah Shleima again.PS For those who are asking for Hebrew Name (given taht CT stands for land on the long tidal river), maybe HaDayan Ben Eretz Nahor Aruch?
RebE Rambam was like Rebbi Meir who learned from acber but we are not on his level to learn from an atheist.
Are you quoting someone here? It sounds like an easy rationalization, you can always say that Moshe rabeinu didn’t misuse public money, but we are not at his level …
When you are offered a. Seemingly good warranty on the car you know is a lemon, you can’t take it! It is either he is scamming you, as already mentioned, BUT the other alternative is that you are scamming him! This is also not allowed, so there is nothing to hope for. Hope we will not starting looking for tirutzim on which cases you can still cheat …
I think there are a lot of misconceptions here re “300” years ago, or before haskala. There was mostly one Jewish community, of which a typical member was a tailor or a peddler, not necessarily learned, or looking for humros. BUT, all stayed in Jewish community, and their children were still Jewish. Modernity created a challenge where uncommitted would leave, especially when there were economic incentives. We seem to have found two ways to deal with it: learn how to confront modernity on its own terms, or create a community that is totally separate, knows Jewish law and ignore the rest of the world. Both approaches are new, there is no reason to pretend our great grandmothers went to bays yaakov, both have pluses and minuses, and I don’t think we found the full response to modernity. Those who pretend that they did, whether super modern or super chareidi are both wrong.
And, yabia, Sephardim mostly avoided haskala, so you don’t recognize all these new movements as authentic.
Yrs, list of those who allegedly moved to EY was mysterious. There seems to be some hint there – both Again and Chofetz CHaim attempted to go to Israel
Cdc seems to be very rigid in their decision making. Recently, they first announced full unmasking without any caveat and are changing back only after delta is proven to be everywhere. With several countries on front of us on the same trajectory, they could have been more foresighted
I asked one boke about Rambam and Muslim philosophy/science, he summarized it very nicely: Rambam was not afraid to acknowledge the truth as he saw it, regardless of the source. [I hate to say it again, the gentleman is quite a traditional Chassidish bokeh before someone dismisses my source as “MO/Reform apikoires”]. While you definitely need to be careful, I don’t think we should cope out and say that only Rambam and R Meir should be doing this, we will just skip the truth if we stumble at it unless it is pre-approved. The differentiation seem to be simple conceptually as partially outlined by Avira – we trust Jewish sources in mesorah, but we trust any source of intellectual integrity on facts and logic. See an argument in Gemora somewhere between Jewish and Greek scientists whether the world was created. Greeks seemingly had a better argument that the world always existed, but Jews stayed with the Mesorah.
Gadol, you are right. It is a sad thing that destroys society from inside. Neither vaccine nor masks are right or left wing (I am skipping the virus itself until we find out what lab it came from). In US, israel, UK, France, governments were blamed for being too restrictive or too permissive, with opposition being against just because they see an opportunity. We just need not to get caught up in to this.
Avira, I don’t care of arguing where people should live as long it is not Cuba or China, we have bigger problems than that. I quoted Chofetz Chaim before why he didn’t go to EY to avoid making Mishna Berurah political. (He obviously cared about both groups). He also made an utmost effort to get out of Soviet Russia, and then thought that he was wrong as all Rabbis abandoned the remaining Jews… Thetr is also teshuva by r Grozdinski in 1940 Vilno right before USSR occupied and Nazis on Polish border: which Rabbis should get Sugihara visas: older ones who will be arrested immediately, or younger ones whose children will be sent to Soviet schools and be lost. What would you say?
Even if a child had its own board, the parent is ultimately responsible for making such an arrangement, letting every Ben, Tom, and Jerry child run around with a knife
RebE, you can’t fully abandon caution. Oft-quoted vaccine efficiency is based on everything else being equal. If you previous did not spend long time in closed quarters with people, and now you do, then you did not decrease yours, and community’s, risk, you simply use vaccine to rescind restrictions. Still, do not spend prolonged time in unventilated closed spaces, esp with unvaccinated people. Furthermore, if you feel so negative towards them that you do not feel responsibility to protect them, then why bother spending time with them.
To push this logic further, does the LOR feel it is OK to have in his minyan people for whose health he does not want to be responsible? Would he daven for their health? or just sanity?
> We are, at times, forbidden
ok, so when you now qualify with “at times”, hopefully everyone agrees. Not sure what others are argueing, I am not so much for altruism, I am more arguing that derech shalom, properly understood, in most cases will make you do the same things as you would do out of altruism. Shalom is not a downgrade from a “real mitzva”.
Avira > They deny the evils of …. [list of aveiros omitted]
Funny that this comedian seemingly was not guilty of the things you mention, maybe of others. Avira, you seem to be very brisk about two Rambams, but in several cases, you are not able to make hakira between different types of people, and different types of motivations, and different types of circumstances. It is OK if you want to stay and deal with Rambam and ignore borsch Belt jokes, but then you should not make rush judgments and pronouncements.
Maybe relevant to the topic is Netziv’s Hakdoma to Chofetz Chaim Ahavat Hesed where he talks about Hesed being a fundamental part of the world applicable to all nations, and similar ideas in Haamek Hadavar on Yaakov and Yosef
Avira, and the other antiZ here, don’t feel so isolated. You sound like choni who fell asleep 70 years ago, while ruled by a government of socialists and communists… Look around at the current Israeli society: lots of religious Jews, some Z, some not, you may disagree with them on many issues, but you can’t say that Hashem wouldn’t want shomer shabbat community in EY
Then, there are traditional Sephardim who respect bet knesset and who were not part of those who hurt you 70 years ago. Add Russian Jews, people who escaped 80 years without shul, yeshivas, subsidies for being Jewish – things that you think are a must to be Jewish and some non Jews who were tzadikim enough to marry Jews in an anti semitic country, and not responsible for Zionism either, plus Arabs who would be there anyway, are even more antiZ than you. With all of them, you have a slither of commies who live in a different city, and who exist in any country except Saudi Arabia… Feel goodAvira is using a phone that capitalize after a period. Like this. As caps are reserved in the Humash for only special occasions, Avira is too traditional to use caps where he doesn’t have a mesorah. Even if some non Jews invented the language, he thinks darkei shalom do not apply between the Jews. Rak Emes.
Common, what there were no takers? Sad. But whole ice cream issue is not a joke. The issue is whether other american businesses will follow in the political environment that supports it. Seems like many progressive companies are under pressure, and they feel that feds will not create problems. In unrelated news, russkies are threatening to upgrade Syrian air defense, after reportedly talking to US and getting a feeling that US will not get involved in supporting Israeli raids there.
Gh, there’s a simple way to test your fellow progressives on sincerity of their concerns about the poor: education. They should be in the front of the movement to test school performance, close non performing schools, open charters, if not vouchers for private schools. If they do not, then they care about politics, not poor people. Side note: president is proposing flat federal budget for charters among adding money for everything else, House changed it to reduce amount.
Ok, Gadol Hadorah is jus a little gaava, but are we allowed to call a person by such a derogatory name?! I believe halakha is that you don’t use such names even if the person himself uses it. So, just say “Chicago Mayor”
RebE >> sometimes we rely on emunah and we stop asking questions.
get it. When is sometimes? and why? A git shabbos, as you might say.
RebE > I came from Hungary under communist rule
This is a good comparison. So, you had one year under Nazis (after Horty) and then what 10 years and Communists? (I am not comparing suffering, of course, just the length of servitude). It seems as long as people remember the previous generation, they can hold on. Did you ever met Soviet Jews from Vilno and Riga who emigrated in the 70s? They had pretty good Jewish background (they were first occupied in 1940, while most other Soviet Jews were under commies from 1918). Those who came to Israel in 1990s had 80 years of destroyed Jewish life. You can’t take the pale to the farmer if you don’t know what kosher means.
RebE, I am not sure we argue here. Maybe I was not clear. I am for people following their minhagim and singing their .פיוטים I have an opposite problem with those who say that their 13th gate can be a substitute for the 12th particular gates and inviting those from other gates, or without a gate, to go through the 13th instead of the gate of the person who asks.
RebE > living in EY, the palace of the King.
That speaker gave his answer that halakhot of speech – lashon hara but not only – would be something Jews find difficult.
RebE, yes, some teich people to follow minhag of the one who asked: “we do this, and you do this”. I am very comfortable asking such Rabbis shailohs, as I know they’ll answer according to the one who is asking. See example of R Feinstein advising someone to follow person’s Rebbe, r Soloveichik, on an issue, on which r Feinstein just signed a public letter opposing that position.
The other shita – everyone has its gate, but their gate is bigger than other gates and open to everyone, is more problematic, as when many groups start claiming their gates … I am not even sure whether this shita has a history in Gemora or Rishonim, or should be considered a modernishe one.
> how the owners lived at home
that sounds like overreach, but what about a hashgaha accountant certifying store and school business practices?
It is a hard question when someone is sneezing occasionally or all the time. The guy I mentioned at the beginning made like 3 trips for tissues during just one shmone esre (normal speed) sneezing all the way through, without even having a foresight to grab more tissues in one run. Maybe we should measure sneezing old fashioned way – in beitzim or handkerchiefs (anyone remembers those, spellchecker just did). I would say if a person runs out of one handkerchief, he needs to go home.
Other than kids at school, at shul or business meetings, I don’t recall seeing people with constant sneeze except rarely. Maybe it is a matter of minhag hamakom. We did not send kids to school when they were in constant use of tissues. My mother later admitted that she would sometimes (not often) tell me that I was coughing at night and should stay home when she judged I need some sleep and rest. She did not want me to think that school is optional.
confused on “Russians”, here in America, peole say “Germans”, “Russians” meaning Jews from those countries. Maybe it is different in Israel. But then when you say “1 million”, you mean all of them, so maybe you now realized that you over-reached. That’s good. Would you judge Jews coming from concentration camps for eating Treif there? Then, maybe you can be more understnading for people who spent 70 years in socialist gan eden…. Looking up research on “Russians”, Several interesting observations, some how Jews are being seen by these immigrants:
Israel, numbers by Rabbinate count:
– up to 1990 – 10-20% non-Jewish
– 40% 1990s
– 55-60% in 2000s
– out of 1 mln total, 350k are non-Jewish. This seems like a slight over-estimate, as there are some who claim to be Jewish but are missing documentation.politically. leftist researchers complain that Russians lead to Israel becoming a right-wing majority, by the way. Russian-speaking voters have 15 seats in knesset.
80% of newcomers are center-right, their children are 8% (!) more “progressive” than their parents and 25% are left-wing. 1% total voted for Meretz (is it not on par with general population?!) Yesh tikva indeed.. sounds like there are more Meretz voters in Mea Shearim than in Ashdod. 15% for BLue& White in 2019. 40% for Liberman, Likud 27%, Kulanu 6% Labor 2% New Right 3%, Shas 1.5%US data:
– US has 700K, half in NY area, 40% from Ukraine, 30% from Russia
– 60-70% in US self-identify as “definitely Jewish”, 20% somewhat, 15 non-Jewish. I think these US numbers are significant as contrary to Israel, there is no pressure to identify as Jewish. “somewhat” might be a mixture of one Jewish parents and people not very attached in general. I think these numbers are on par with generic “American Jews”
– 25% of marriages are intermarriage (only 12, same as with Americans
– for 36% religion importnat/very important part of their life
– 13% are synagogue members (all denominations), more attend without membership. 32% say religion is personal, 13% do not attend because do not understand what is going on. 8% do not feel welcomed, 11% not interestedto the question that we discussed – report makes no attempt to separate R- and D- leaning polls. They took all public polls on realclearpolitics, 538, etc and lumped them together.
They compare accuracy by type of polling: joint online/phone polling is only 1% off, while pure online and pure live polls are 5% off. 50% of these joint polls are by one company that they do not identify, so it seems that this one company has good methodology. I looked up realclearpolitics:
final general results are Biden +4.5, and closests polls are IBD/TIPP, The Hill, Emerson, sounds like one of them is that great poll. Rasmussen biased 3.5% towards Trump, the other TEN polls are 2.5 to 6.5% towards Biden.So, no conclusion can be made about different polls in this report, except the above, because the report does not address the question. The expert who was quoted did not have any data to support in this report.
Report underestimates the level of the problem – polls showed 11% preference for Biden in October and then paddled down. So, I think, reasonable Dem voters should understand frustration of the R- voters at these polls (together with other media influences) that undoubtfully affected voter enthusiasm – given how narrow the election was (50K votes in Presidential, 50-50 in the Senate and the House)
On sneezing in general:
many people would not normally go sneezing around to shul or office before COVID. Not just moris ayn, just kavod habriyut. Cultures might differ.
publicly quoted experts say that it is generally not possible to differentiate between COVID and less harmful viruses based on external symptoms, so your friends did the right thing to go test. I am thinking it is true only one way: if you have a cold, you don’t know what it is. But I heard some COVID cough that does not sound like anything I ever heard, and especially from that particular person.jackk, the report goes through a lot of stuff and is inconclusive, indeed. Their main supposition is that some of the Trump voters were under-sampled. That is they sampled Republicans in general, but not the most ro-Trump ones that also happened to be distrustful of the government, pollsters, etc. We see similar in vaccination, so this rings true. Here are characteristics that were undersampled in the polls the most when tried to re-match regression of the population data to election results by counties: solid Republican, white, less populated cases, more covid cases.
Another interesting item: a very high number of “new voters” – who did not vote in 2016. Pollsters struggled understanding how many of these voters are and what their preferences are, as they often relied on previous data to stratify voters. These new voters went +14 for Trump in Florida and +10 to 20 for Biden in many other states. There is a lot to unpack here – enthusiasm, groups that started to care, early voting. I imagine this is where suspicion about dead voters and vote harvesting will from. Some of the numbers for new voters and confirmed voters are way abnormal for Georgia and Michigan (see Table 11, for example), I did not try to understand whether this is due to their data collection or something else.
the bottom line of the report that polls on average under-weighted Republicans and Conservatives by 3-4% everywhere, and the final result was worse than in many years before – even as they corrected some of the 2016 errors (stratifying by education). Reagan was the last candidate to be undercounted by as much, and in other races they say delicately “worse in 20 years” with an asterisk that they only track data for 20 years, or, in blunt Trumpian language, “worse polls EVER”. Note that polls were biased towards Republicans in 1936-48 by 4-12% and after that all large outliers 2-8% were in favor of Dems (1952, 64,80,92,96,2020) with an exception of 2012 Obama (2%).
Note that most of the analysis is done on average, linear approximation, without focusing only on elections and states really mattered. So, use conclusions with care
Syag, I gave you just one example where a Rav applied Hillul Hashem broadly to a person not wearing a mask. But maybe either you or other posters can help us with their definition of moris ayn/hillul Hashem.
RebE, someone asked a good kashia: Hashem told each nation a mitzva that was hard for them. We preempted that by saying naase v’nishma. But He surely had one hard for us in case we ask for a sample. What do you think that was?
Syag> Mares ayin and chilul Hashem have specific halachik criteria. You seem to use those terms loosrly to mean, “something that makes religious people look bad” that isn’t how it works.
Every time I learned this sugya, the Rabbonim indeed bring expansive definition of this, regardless of the Rav’s hashkafa. A pretty Haredi Rav said that he stopped a maskless person dressed as a Jew in the street when there was a state gezera on outside masks and explained to him that this is Hillul Hashem. The next day after gezera was off, he was walking without the mask and joyfully questioned why I do. so, his major concern was Hillul Hashem not anything else. (I answered because I found my humra, I later updated the answer – because it helps me keep my mouth shut, although it is not really true)
common > Really, you have MS in mechanical engineering?
Thanks for the tochacha, I have a PhD in a related engineering, but I am indeed not qualified to build anything, even a Sukkah.
I read up specifically on airflows [some of the work published last year was fascinating – such as measuring air flows in simulated airplanes] and did some experiments myself in several offices and shuls to measure CO2, particle levels – that are proxies for how much air re-circulates and particle level indicates how much air is filtered and and how much comes from outside (I can do calculations, my MS is in Applied Math). I ran the results by a couple of “real” engineers. And I think I know when to send for a real mechanical engineer, like you. What were your recommendations for your shul/school/office?
Avi > Morris” is from a couple of generations ago. Today MO Jews also give their kids Hebrew names.
This Moshe/Moses is ok b’dieved, but there is a little busha involved: Please call Moishe. There is no Moishe here, only Moses. Ok, please call Moses. Moishe, someone is calling you!
We are trying to give kids Jewish names that will not make them want to avoid in whatever environment you are, like David, Aaron, Ruth, Miriam, Joseph, etc. A second name gives a kid an extra chance if he is uneasy about the first. Another shita, that we do not subscribe to,
edited
> There is a 3 page executive summary
if you would not learn halakha from a Mishna, you would not understand statistics from an executive summary.
boruchbrown123> a much deeper and fundamental aspect to “darkhei shalom”
Agree whole-heartedly. And Talmidei Chachamim merabim D. Sh. It got to be something important if someone has to take his time off learning and go appease some random non-Jew!
> If you don’t respect a godol hador because they are a “Zionist”,
He is not the only one. A lot of people – on all sides – enjoy quoting only people they respect and call it “everyone agrees”. If Beis Hillel would do that, we would have never heard of Beis Shammai, and will be totally unprepared when Moschiach comes.
“After all, their local cougher ”
>> You do realize there are other viruses besides covid out there, right?
this is an important question. People should realize that if they have symptoms, they should, most probably, not be in public. There is less flu and common cold now, so there is a high chance this is Covid. by the time one realizes that this cough (or stomach issue) is not same as usual, you already infected others. Even if assume you got your regular allergies, there is a high chance your assumptions are wrong (to be complete, there might be a reverse starting as people catch flu with going out and losing immunity after a year). Second reason is, even if are sure, you should not go out of moris ayn and hillul Hashem you will create. People with flu should not go out either.
Also, wear a mask for allergies. I recently realized I did not have allergies last 2 years. got them back when taking mask off.
>> so he just wandered around hoping you wouldn’t have him thrown out.
He did not wander “around”, he wandered towards me, and I was pretending to “wander around” while wondering where he will wander next. I always wander during davening where I can, so it was not a big deal, and it was his shul anyway.
Syag
> There’s no issue of offending people. They aren’t judging youI mean that they’ll think that I am judging them and might get offended or upset. Post-vaccine, this does not sound appropriate.
> Your willingness to be less careful is not their doing. It comes from knowing the danger doesn’t really exist.
I did not compromise, I moved way away. By now, I am boke on airflows, I did a bunch of experiments in different buildings, and can estimate based on volume of incoming air, ventilation locations how much air is re-circulating. The only thing not visible is how good air filters are and when they were changed. One Rav told me that they were careful and changed the filters but did not know what kind. There is a lot of mechanics and statistics that people do not understand and then discuss in public, hopefully it will make into high school curricula in 10 years!
ujm> On the other hand, every Jew has a Torah right to live in Eretz Yisroel
I heard of this Ran but did not learn it. What is the context – paying taxes to a local hegemon? In the Israeli context, you are not just paying ransom, but for specific services that the government provides. There are halochos that cities can charge for building walls. If you don’t want to pay for, say, IDF, then at least you should not use their protection.
I think you are guys are making a legitimate point that you do not want to receive from the regime you do not respect and do not want to feel obliged. I am not 100% sure that the whole community lives up to the good standard you are using, but the principles sound reasonable.
Maybe the best way to advocate for your way of life – and get respect from those who do not trust your approach, would be to fully form your own community without relying on Zionists. Purchase a piece of land from PA or Hamas, or maybe even Syrians, Egyptians, or Jordanians – a lot of these areas might be Eretz Isroel – and form your own tax system, roads, defense forces, or hire someone. If this experiment works, then it will be great Kiddush Hashem, and others will learn from it.
It seems that it is ok to daven in a different nusach, but one should follow that nusach correctly. Maybe there are different malachim per nusach – litvishe, taimani, etc, so you want to be accepted fully by one of them. It makes sense: you can figure out one word by knowing the person’s nusach from the rest.
>> davening is for US
here is an example where capitalization is used, but may be confusing. Who knew that davening can be so America-centered!? on the other hand, Hebrew has no captal letters, so I doubt that Sh’A addresses this
>> And if the zionist had not admitted 1,000,000 russians,
First another poster suggests Sefardim will be better off in Islamic State, and, I guess, Russian Jews would be better in Russia. I guess you are OK with Americans as they send you money. There is not much difference between American and Russian Jews except the former moved to Goldene Medina despite the Rabbis warning them about assimilation. This cruelty to the Jewish people borders on obscene.
>> It is not clear that Republican pollsters did any better
I did not read the whole report yet (I am interested in statistics of the issue), I saw this phrase and it does sound like a weaseling phrase “it is not clear” rather than “there is no difference”. Prior to each of the last 3 elections, there was clear difference between lefty/”mainstream” and more sympathetic to right wing pollsters. So, there should be difference at the end. Let me get to read that.
As I said, intentionality may not have been proven. But this is now a fashionable trend – you are an implicit racist if you don;t perfectly balance your race-blind hiring to exact race quotas. Same here – if your polls are always wrong same way … I almost said – good for goose/gander, but realized that this would be also verboten.
> Frum kehilla is a good 15% of the population, probably more
way more – just voters of 3 religious parties is 18% + halfs of 3 more parties + more children. Unless, of course, you limit “frum” to a subset of religious Jews for some strange reason.