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The DE jury followed my advice and were done by lunch! Lawyers need to drive back to NY by shkiah.
Hunter raised an interesting (Talmudic?) point – are you considered a drunkard at the moment you are not drinking (and maybe alcohol level just below the legal limit). Should a person have a chezkas kashrus? The fact that he drunk before does not mean that he’ll not stop today. Power of teshuva, etc. Same goes for a ganav or a gambler. If he is not gambling right now, he is a kosher witness. And if it is Montag, he is not a mechalel shabbos (right now).
Possibilities are endless. A policeman stops you – why are you speeding? A: I am not speeding, I am at full rest right now, forget all my previous aveiros.
Maybe this needs to be included into YK liturgy – ashamnu, but not right now; bagadnu, but not right now. Look at us right now, we are fasting and davening. Disregard nah the sheretz b’yadeinu.
Simcha, this is very confusing. Melech Dovid was able to gather an army. Was it not “charedi” enough for you? Torah is not calling on us to wear certain clothes and eat gefilte fish. It has various mitzvos and our job is to analyze when they are applicable and act when necessary. Whatever social and psychological issues are there, they should not be an excuse to not follow Torah. I am not saying that there is a definite answer to serious questions, just that excuses are not relevant.
And for sure, one cannot claim an exemption as a ” T Ch” if he has issues that prevent him from considering his options under Torah. This is like killing the parents and asking for rachmonus as an yasom.
Lernt, rabbonim, or at least what they say & publish, are influenced by the people they lead. For one, they need to know what the kahal is ready to accept. Second, they respond to the questions they ask. As I quoted before, my Rav lectured on business ethics and mentioned that Polish responsa at some point stopped addressing business issues and concnetrated more on pots & pans … I quipped “it is YOUR fault” (meaning Rabbonim who stopped writing). He responded “No, it is YOUR fault”, that is – no shailos, no teshuvos.
DaMoshe, you have a point – pointing that tzadik, and other terms, change their meaning over time, so quoting a source with a word in it maight be anachronism. I know a Rav that when Gemorah mentions “chassid”, he clarifies “real chassid”
Note that none of them is a candidate yet. One intriguing shitah is that someone lured B into having a debate before the convention so that if he fully fails, Ds can substitute a wife of one of the previous presidents instead of him.
In related news, Texas had primaries and it seems that most of Rs that were against school vouchers lost. So, expect school vouchers in Texas next year. I think the plan is for about $10K per child.
A better way to put it: US based to have 2 candidates both trying to get to 50.1% favorability. Now we have two both fighting to get to 40% favorability and winning on the strength of the opposition to the other guy. How far can this go? Can we see two candidates with 20% favorability and still fighting on?Maybe when sum of favorabilities for two candidates falls below 50%, this opens a place for a 3rd candidate to get to 50%?
Good humor, but “Stop paying teachers a living wage.” is actually a part of the solution. Vouchers that you describe that follow families is another part.
Halakha allows unrestricted competition between teachers, leading to lower prices and higher affordability. Let teachers or small group of teachers open one-class schools, teaching second grade only in their home or any small office or inside a school building to which they pay rent. R Kamenetsky and R Ruderman were in such classes in their Litvishe shtetl and grew up OK. They did complain about one insensitive second grade teacher, but our current towns should provide enough competition.
Chaim,
my question is whether Litvaks are a reaction to Chassidus or their reaction to Chassidus was based on their previous positions. Other groups had somewhat different reactions to Chassidus, so it is more than just minhag ashkenaz. And please fix your keyboard, not sure why you are calling Litvaks Litfaks, there is no Litfa country.Jackk, Trump won because he won over “deplorables” who were traditional D base, expanding R reach beyond 47% of taxpayers that Romney so correctly estimated. Very Reaganesque. And he is continuing improving his standing among those groups.
If you are looking for a positive side of the recent politics, it is that large groups of population decided that they “have nothing to lose” and are now open to voting for two parties which is healthier than when two parties simply rally their bases.
Note also that “the verdict” might cost T some independent votes but will surely bring T additional votes from the part of the traditional D base – convicted felons and their relatives and friends.
all, please notice chassidus and ehrelichkeit of exCTlawyer who was ready to lose credit for millions of posts he created just to make sure that his pseudonym complies with CT Bar rules! Very inspirational. Keep his face in your mind next time you are skirting some minor regulation.
Wolf, refuah shleimah
`Interesting that R’L both sides have a Cohen on their team, one as a witness against, another as a current wife.
Also, does Hunter give credit for taking a crack at performing mitzva of yibum?
akuperma, interesting theory. One problem: most of those Yidden would have ended up in Soviet area of occupation, and a serious number of them would have ended up simply relocating to GULAG or just resettling in Siberia. Such resettling trips in soviet cattle cars had death rate of 50% just during the trip.
I heard that R Zelig Epstein was asked how did Mir Yeshiva decided to travel through USSR in apparent violation of Daas Torah of R Ozer who apparently advised them not to go. He answered – it was not a problem because this was before the Daas Torah…
Given that Mir students were getting Sugihara visas up to September 1940, and R Ozer was niftar in August 1940, it seems that DT was not yet operational during R Ozer’s lifetime. Maybe, out of modesty, the Rav authorized DT to start after his own petirah so that people would not think that he is doing it for his own aggrandizement?!
Chaim re: Egypt. This is exactly what US and similar systems are designed for – control by masses. This danger was known from ancient times and that is why “democracy” was discredited and was not tried for centuries. Possibly, early modernity that made more people educated allowed thinking about letting more people to participate in the government.
Ex-CTL, thanks for a good summary. I would like to point out a couple of points:
1) the federal system works in a unique way in USA – it is a big country with recently arrived (a couple of centuries on average) population that is pretty mobile (most, except the natives and the slaves, come from people who volunteered to go to the other side of the world). Thus, if you do not like your state laws, you can easily relocate to one of the remaining 49. Same language, currency, even starbucks and other chains. This creates choices for population and competition between state governments. This compensates for the biggest weakness of the modern state – there is competition in private sector, but not in public. Of course, the more feds take over, the less gov competition there is.
2) These freedoms of movement and of religion and of the press are used best by mobile and active population that is not afraid to make choices and act (anshei chayil in the words of Yisro). The rest of the population gets captured by whatever government and information channel they get… and they suffer from the freedoms they are not able to take advantage of. Arguably, these people would be better off with the government that takes care of them, does not allow hate speech, provides social safety, etc
If you know that daas Torah will be not tax deductible – do you still ask the shaila or compensate your daas Torah for the expense. Or, worse, you don’t compensate your DT and he feels that it is his obligation to respond to you but he cannot afford losing tax free status, so you made him into a ganav, thus losing his DT status, of course.
the question is “what came first” – a Litvak or a Chossid. You can obviously say that Chasidim started a revolution so that they can came later. But you can’t easily dismiss the argument that Litvak attitude was emphasized as a response to Chasidut and may not be same now as then.
Still, I quoted before a gemora about an amorah who silently refuses a shidduch with his Rebbe’s (Tanna!) daughter that probably means that at least THAT amorah was a Litvak.
Germans agreeing to a pace agreement, then developing nuclear capabilities, intercontinental missiles and missile defense before US did – would this be a better option? Or, maybe someone learned from Wilsonian WWI fail to “stop all the wars”
what are the implications of this very stringent interpretation of “benefiting the campaign”?
if a newspaper announces that this is an emergency and their goal is to stop election of a certain candidate, is their publishing activity a campaign contribution? If they have 1 million of digital readers, this would make it a million counts. The jury will take a lot of time to read them out.
when an elected official performs multiple acts to benefit his campaign (forgiving loans, proposing peace plans, issuing border instructions) – these are all benefiting his campaign. He should (1) reimburse USGOV all the expenses (2) use only funds he acquired via legit campaign donations for the reimbursement. Of course, you can argue that it is hard to prove that the president did this for campaign purposes, but after votes in South Dakota sue him, it will be up to a jury there to decide.
Chaim > chasdim just do it out of fear and the chumras come first.
I have an idea about the chumros – why so many people run for chumros bein adam l’makom, but not always bein adam l’chavero. As you say – fear.
You have a relationship with Hashem and you have only limited information about what He expects from you. What if $50 lulav is not enough for a chashuve Yid like you? My neighbor who is an am haaretz spent $100, so it may be $200 is expected from me?! This is a Jewish version of Pascal wager : if your error on being machmir costs you $100, and your error on meikel costs you olam habo, the choice is obvious.
It looks easier when you are dealing with people who provide you with feedback.
Someone is selling a car. You say – how about $2000 for this clunker? The guy agrees. So, obviously the price was right.
Your wife asks – when are you going to be home? After the latest maariv in town and a class after that. OK, says the wife … obviously, she is happy that you are learning and she has the zechus to put kids to sleep.There two possible errors here:
1) it might be that Hashem did not really care about $200 for the esrog. OK, so the loss is just $150, right? No, the loss will be all the time and effort you spent pursuing these chumros while neglecting other issues and learning and maybe stealing more from others for the chumros (if yo are meikel on using OPM, other people’s money).2) you can’t always rely on getting feedback from people.
a) They may think that you are dishonest and rude person, but they will not tell you that in your face. Did you have hear people saying bad things about others? Do they usually say it in their face or only behind their back?
b) they may know that they can’t expect more from you. A wife would be the first to know that.
c) they may not understand themselves at the moment that you are not doing enough for them. They may not know choshen mishpat to know, for example, that you have to disclose problems with your clunker when you sell it, or that the buyer is not allowed to insist on a lower price same way as the seller is not allowed to insist on a higher …So, bottom line is that one should appreciate complexity of human psychology and be fearful that they are not machmir enough in bein adam l’chavero , that are so machmir that Hashem will not forgive them until people do ..
Chaim > I question specifically the American style democracy. I advocate that yes maybe we need a style like you outline in France
American system is somewhat different from European. As Gemorah says – better to live in a new town than in an old, as its sins are fewer.
European countries are (or were until recently) groups of a small number of homogeneous groups. (Jews were an exception for most of last 2000 years, that is why everyone was against us). USA system was created from the scratch to accommodate differing views. Original idea was that each state is almost a sovereign entity that can have their own laws, religion, with certain federal laws that make the states leave peacefully and cooperatively with each other. Bill of rights applied to the feds, the state could have, and had, established religions, for example. Things are more complicated now, but the idea is still there: the role of the government, ideally, is not so much as to establish one community, but to accommodate multiple communities. This is really well designed for what the Jews want (and is similar to what we had in Poland as Vaad Arabah Artzot had a state within the state).
So, if you will invite government to suppress speech against us, then it will surely end up with suppressing our speech. We will be better off if we use the freedoms this country grants us to build a community with beautiful speech and actions between each other.
good observation. Here is a possible answer;
We often come here to discuss things we would not discuss with our neighbors in shul. Who wants to get into a daas Torah fight with the gabbay?!
Republican Jews can express themselves in shuls, while Dem Jews feel like marranos and come here to express themselves. So, let’s have rachmonus and let them be.CTL > I was quite specific about the NY DA, etc.
> You conflate this with a story about Merrick Garland who is a Federal official.The story mentions a “leak” to NYT that explained what Biden wants. Anyone who is interested in a political promotion could now act accordingly.
Just as a thought experiment, read the leaked article as it is a personally written by the President about what he expects from prosecutors. There is a good chance you will consider such an article inappropriate. How is it different when the article is intentionally leaked to the reporters?coffee > Ask Sam Klein
exactly, I just did.If increasing number of people increases choices, then the UN secretary will be the biggest tzaddik.
over long term, American and European systems are pretty competitive
Agree w/ Simcha – these matters are very complicated. All we can do is daven for Hashem to provide wisdom to the decision-makers and maintain unity without undermining their standing with demonstration for any of the preferred positions leading to headlines “Bibi is changing decision under pressure from XYZ”. Gov has way better negotiating position when they can say to pressing friends – all Israelis/Jews support the government policy, so you can’t pressure us into a different policy.
Any significance that 34 charges were summed up after 34 days of OMER? And the 34th day of omer itself was a MEMORIAL day in USA?
indeed, one of the Litvishe Rebbeim of the previous generation called some of the “litvishe” yeshivos – as litvishe teachers of Hungarian students. By now, it is Hungarian teachers teaching Hungarian students zecher l’Lita…
Btw, I am not sure why you spell them/us with F. Litvaks are mispronouncing Sh, not V! According to R Twersky, two Yidden in 1920s were negotiating a border between Russia and Lithuania (representing corresponding countries). They thought of going thru shtetls and asking them to recite Shir Hashirim. The ones that say “Sir haSirim aser leSlomo” would belong to Lithuania, the rest to Russia. (Maybe we need 2 people like that for Russia-Ukraine border now).
to segue into learning: this is a good moment to learn what is (and in this case IS NOT) a kosher witness. From Jewish POV, defense should all the right things – how much the witness was lying, including to the jury itself. If it were a beis din, they would say “enough, enough” after 2-3 examples and dismissed the witness.
Chaim,
I am not sure tuition vouchers should be based on income at all. You want the middle/upper class working community to afford the schools also. I know a number of families who would choose a Jewish school if it were more affordable (and they do when granted a scholarship).American precedent is social security: FDR on purpose started it as a universal program rather than just for poor to keep it popular.
not a peace plan, an election plan.
Yasher Koach! This is a great initiative – essentially a voucher system for Jewish schools, with money following students. If this is successful, hopefully, the subsidy will incrase. I heard Seattle also has a subsidy system. And, of course, some red states have state vouchers already.
mazal tov again. I don’t think you have anything to be ashamed of with your current name.
Chaim,
American founders created a system that tried to take into account human frailties and make it work around dangers of both despotism and lawless anarchy. At previous times, democracy was not a discredited word: ancients tried it in Greece and Rome and it was eventually supplanted by “benevolent” Kings, who were expected to be responsible with the people that “belonged” to them, similar to how every balabos takes care of things inside his house for his own sake. Letting unruly masses to run the country was considered insane. Two attempts were made simultaneously: France and USA. French experiment ran indeed insane very quickly, leading to mass lawful and unlawful murder of lots of people, both from old regime and between revolutionaries themselves. It did work out in a long term. American experiment ran surprisingly better and USA has 250 years of elections, interrupted just once by a civil war period. Compare it with the history of European countries and all the wars and revolutions they generated.So, there is clearly something done right in this country. Does it mean that courts and free speech rules are perfect? of course not. But it would make sense to learn first about how they developed in history. If you would like a kosher perspective on history. I would recommend Rabbi Berel Wein. I see that he has a book “The Golden Land: The Jewish Experience in the United States and Canada” also recordings on Torah downloads, etc.
R Yochanan b Zakkai was not sure till the end of his days whether he was right when he asked Vespasian for a little, and succeeded, or maybe he could have asked for more. Somehow he did not trust his daas Torah …
on the other hand, when rabbi Yehoshua ben Korcha calls (his student?) R Eliezer “vinegar ben wine” for becoming a Roman collaborator searching for Jewish bandits, R Eliezer tries to defend himself. But when a simple person says the same thing, R Eliezer sends the guards on him – so disrespect to daas Torah might be dangerous…. but then R Eliezer himself takes yissurim upon himself till his death because of this episode, despite others assuring him that his “gut judgment” was correct and the man was deserving and he himself tested his fat to prove that he is right. So, he also was not sure of his own daas Torah … not an easy question.
We have several posters saying here that even if they do not support T, they are not happy with the trial outcome. This is really good news. Besides immediate effects on the election, these events are dangerous as they might harden people’s views and make them hate each other more.
CTL > Do I want him incarcerated? NO
If Biden lost CTL, he lost the moderate wing of D party. He also lost all the Black “formerly incarcerated” vote. T may not have best legal council, but B does not have best political council.
> you ascribe far to much power to Biden. He does not control
WSJ editorial discusses this issue and mentions an April 2022 planted article in NYT that proclaimed Biden’s wants to the world, and any well-connected prosecutor will understand what it means.
Quote: The attorney general’s deliberative approach has come to frustrate Democratic allies of the White House and, at times, President Biden himself. As recently as late last year, Mr. Biden confided to his inner circle that he believed former President Donald J. Trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted, according to two people familiar with his comments. And while the president has never communicated his frustrations directly to Mr. Garland, he has said privately that he wanted Mr. Garland to act less like a ponderous judge and more like a prosecutor who is willing to take decisive action over the events of Jan. 6.
OK, so propose a law that sends to the Army those who R’L deserve kares – mechalal shabbat, worship AZ, eat blood, eat chametz on Pesach,, arayos, eat chelev, eat on YK, as well as I presume arba misos Beis din: bestiality/homosexuality/not listening to parents.
I would add specifically that geneiva is not sufficient, you will still be protecting Am Yisroel thru your learning as long as your levush is appropriate.
yid, thanks for bringing this quote, hope you mis-represented it by mistake and not on purpose.
This is a quote from RYBS eulogy for R Heller. He is using “modern Orthodoxy” (note my capitalization) exactly the way I use it above: a modern state of “orthodoxy” in general – that I guess RYBS is trying to improve and bring it back to the old ideals. Here is the quote in the context, so you can judge by yourself:
As long as Rav Hayyim was with us, among us, there existed a strong tie between us and earlier generations. . . . When I visited him at home, on the West Side of Manhattan, with its congeries of bustling, hollow, Jewish life; with its synagogues, societies, clubs, and their auxiliaries, I always felt as if I were entering another world, as if I had breached some border separating two realms of being—the domain of earlier generations, of Shakh, Taz, and Gra, and that of **** modern Orthodoxy ***** , with its snipped wings and rootlessness, unable to fathom the depths of religious experience. . . . Moved by old, forgotten tales, he chuckled and sorrowed with his heroes. Images he described came to life, pushed their way into his modest room. Do you know where this power came from? Not from any art of speech or imagery! He never used a metaphor. He lived the events he recounted. He himself belonged to those generations, whose greatness he transmitted to us. . . . O he was a remnant of the ancient scribes.
On eyn Yaakov, it is not simpler than halakha. I think Gemora usually lists accomplishments in the order of : baalei chumash, mishna, halakha, agadah, in this order…
Sechel, you ask 2 good questions: gemora before pshat, and halakha v agadah.
On first, I already explained ^ that many modern people need to be able to reason at the same high level they know secular science. Also, my Lakewood rebbe explained Rambam similarly: 1/3 division means you need to finish tanach, Mishnah/halakha, gemora/reasoning at the same time, which means gemora should take most of the time
Ok, so propose a law that anyone who is mechalel major mitzvos – shabbos, arayos, geneiva, spilling blood by insulting people, standing idle by his brother’s blood, etc should be drafted. This should get majority of the knesses behind it.
Thursday 1310 EST after eating a free lunch.
Jackk, according to polls I saw, way more people feel better about t administration than b. You ate entitled to your own opinions but not to your own polls.
All orthodoxy is modern. Rambam was modern, Mishna was modern, 10 commandments were modern – each of these were modern in their times. Stop bashing other people for no reason. If you must, at least find a good reason.
smerel> Today a similar speech on July 4th from a major gadol would be unthinkable.
Maybe you can just post R Moshe’s words. They should be operative unless later poskim contradict it explicitly, I think – and it is not out of question .. for example, praises of Germany by some Yakki gedolim did not age well. Look at R Shimon b Yochai who refused to “celebrate” any of Roman achievements, while his son, R Eliezer found it possible to work as a detective for the Romans.
Maybe because most Yidden are not in kesher with civil war origins of the day … we have schools open on the day, I am not mentioning this to coworkers