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Mod-29, would it be possible to auto-email when you are censoring? you probably do not want to do that as it will invite protests and attempt to communicate with you, but I am not keeping a list of posts and then verifying what happened with them.
Many posters have asked us questions which we can answer in bold within your post, or if need be, answer in bold and then approve as a private post visible only to the poster and mods.
I heard a quick response from a Rav, who said it is not a psak:
Q1: boycott? We have history of boycotts usually when the price is outrageous – fish on shabbos. A couple of gemorahs where Rabonim threatened merchants that they will rule according to a minority opinion (what hadasim are kosher, etc) to ruin their business if the prices do not go down.
Q2: should one destroy ice-cream in his freezer? It is not hurting the company, even if you post the picture of that on twitter, and there is bal tashlis issue. Maybe, only if you physically feel like you are eating treif …
I am glad that this icecream brought all of us together. Even the staunch anti-Zs understand that we are all the same for anti-semites.
Someone wrote that in some place in Poland when Nazis were putting a shul on fire, a socialist ran in trying to save a sefer Torah …
I like questions and these are fascinating! It is not of question to monitor kashrus of business practices. If you are from Lita, check your old seforim by Chofetz Chaim: if it has “Muga” scribbled in pencil, that is because the author was personally checking that the books were printed and bound correctly. There are various organizations that check whether funds invest in illegal diamonds, child labor. some might do what these tzvei alter ice-screamers did – object to Israeli investments …
So, it might be possible to have a kashrus organization that checks the books and certifies them.
Need to know the standards though, maybe there will be:
gnivas israel heksher that allows over-charging non-Jews
tzvei dinim heksher – allows two sets of books, as long as both pass the kashrus separately
2-hand image heksher – given to those who shook hands with R Shimon bar Yochai
picture of an elderly Jew – to those who fully pay social security tax
hebrew national – certifies that you were not yet fined by IRS
1099 heksher – all employees working as contractorsSyag,
again, I was/am calling on people to look at online options – full or partial, I do not doubt that it might not work for many people. I am just saying that it could work for more people than previously. My pre-covid research showed a couple of mainstream right-wing yeshivos and BYs in CA and Rockies that specifically incorporated state resources for general studies into their curriculum in a similar way as we did. I see MO less interested in such approaches as they are trying to go for best secular studies throwing more resources into general education – and having more parental funds to do that.RebE > Why weren’t the machines fixed for Biden were Trump won like Florida and Texas and most of the South?
nobody can win this debate. you will get the answer that maybe machines were fixed, but not enough to counter increasing Florida Cuban enthusiasm for Trump and Rs in general. Lefty politicians now complain that they can not get donors to support candidates in Florida as Dems start writing the state off.
Syag, you are right, there are many gray areas here. One Rav who gets shailohs on this issue, says that reopening turned out harder than closing. In one nice shul here that has a lot of space, the pattern I noticed that real doctors still have masks on, while Rabbis and PhD do not. I felt like an imposter.
I am getting more appreciation for Gemora discussions where everyone agrees that 4 tefahim is too much for sechach, and 3 is Ok, but what about between 3 and 4…. These intermediate cases are really making things complicated. But if you approach it with intellectual curiosity, it feels better. In this case, I tried to balance my own view on what is right with not offending the locals. I think distance was less visibly jarring to them than being over-masked. After all, their local cougher was trecking for tissue and back as much as I did. He might have been the only one who noticed that I was making circles around him, but he did not look like he cared much.
Mod-29, I hope you are not working nights because you also have a day job in Beijing Standard Time zone making sure nobody offends CCP.
Syag > They started meeting in person with masks and social distancing right from the start in September.
This is fine. I know people who approached this very responsibly. Many encouraged people to get tested when symptoms came up and ended up with small number of cases when there were outbreaks. It was not easy to do this the right way. for example, some people or schools did not disseminate information quickly, or people disregarded quarantine and went to shuls on yomim tovim. On the other hand, I know people who would visit various Jewish towns and then get tested every time when coming back. To do it right was not easy and those who passed this test should be proud of it.
Was there a negative impact on health is hard to estimate. Propagation happens a lot within younger asymptomatic groups, so you may not notice that something was passed through and then attacked an older person in a family. I saw a pretty convincing research showing that deaths in nursing homes in towns with colleges were 50% higher than those without. Apparently, asymptomatic young medical workers who would go to school and then to work would pass it on, despite testing and protection.
emes, to clarify – there are several recent analyses of 2020 polls done by center-left organizations. They concluded that polls favored Biden and Ds in other races by 4-5% all over despite corrections that were made after 2016. 2016 bias was identified due to several specific factors – such as undervaluing low-educated voter support for Trump (his famous quip “I love low educated” was correct). for 2020, they can’t point to a specific problem. This corresponds to right claims before the elections that polls are consistently showing commanding advantage for Biden, leading to vote suppression – why bother voting, if a candidate has no chance. Intentionality is unresolved, but fact of “systemic bias” confirmed.
Hunter was under investigation and, again according to left-wing sources (I use only those to avoid bias), an extremely independent DE prosecutor decided MULTIPLE months, not days like Comey, in advance of election not to publicize the investigation.. any public suggestions of impropriety were laughed at and suppressed. I am just calling your attention to how the other side sees this is a call for action. If you are a true emes and nicht sheker, you should try to mitigate these issues and help country move to a happy middle point. For a counter-point, Pres Biden just called Fbook murderers and then somewhat retracted. Was his first post blocked and called fake news? I did not check, but let me know.
as of 2016, yes, it appears that Trump benefited from inept behavior by Comey, Hillary (wiping it up) and Podesta (clicking on fake Russian email link), but there was no collusion by any official figures to benefit Trump, except maybe the biggest loser Putin who apparently tried to weaken future President Hillary, but overreached and underestimated American voter and got himself a most anti-Russian President since Reagan. Had to put his plan to fully conquer Ukraine on hold.
Gadol, thanks for the inspiring vort. I am glad you woke up to tell the story.
> how to write posts that don’t need deleting
this is exactly how I plan to use this program!
It is a difficult task to consider whether something offends a particular person, even harder when the person is anonymous. I hope yuo have a good posek to ask shailos about it! Still, the question for posters is even harder – on one hand, you don’t want to offend, on the other – you want to wake them up.
Syag, as I described, my kids bli ayin hara doing great in online programs. And they are much more friends to each other. And it is much better to spend quality learning time with kids instead of having discussions with teachers, driving them, reminding them to do homework that someone else assigned…the only difficult issue was with kids concerned how others will view them, but covid solved that.
And again, this is not zoom, this is well organized program that fosters independent learning skills
We only do zoom for my endless business meetings, daf yomi, and when my kids run educational programs for younger kids.Avira, people will see that I am Jewish just by my name! Who else would always ask questions? As r Steinsaltz haya omer: Eskimo have 100 synonyms for snow, Arabs for sand, and Jews for question.
I was not clear about nafka mina: I am asking what is practical difference for us when returning an object to a jew or a nonjew. What I can see: anonymity. Maybe also returning something that will embarrass a Jew, say who stole that object. What else?
A possible reason to be in one mask. If you are way out of how they behave, they can take it as a serious disapproval of their behavior, which is at this stage inappropriate: it was in a state with high vaccination rates and some people wrote publicly that they got covid, and from the description that they posted openly but our mod is even embarrassed to publish, surely more did.
If you think I enjoy davening 6 amos from the community, I am not. I was very sad.
more sad is your thought that that was the reason for the deletion
Syag, LOL
I almost posted that I indeed was in two masks and whether the guy who was coughing near me was your husband
But then I thought this would be too cruel to ask in case he was, and in case he wasn’t! And now you posted this yourself. Refuah shleima to your husband.> Did he tell you that directly, or are you assuming that?
I applaud you going for primary sources. response from the state Edu committee staffer forwarded to me by another staffer:: as the funding will go from districts, depending how it will be handled, could face resistance from the local level (and not just from teachers).
This was early in the pandemic, there is more activity in many states this year. I hear that Florida Virtual School franchises their online system to other states.
for now, some states have state online schools that, as mentioned above, are seen as competition for funds with local money pits. A promising trend seems to create virtual schools per district, i.e. money do not leave the district.
To what degree do hasan and kallah have to come from the same shita? Is the ideal where both come from the same shtetl and have all same minhagim?
There used to be an idea that rich people should marry daughters to students. Is it harder now, when everyone is looking for someone with the same opinion on everything, including how to work and what to learn.
Common, thanks for the elephant story. It is indeed relevant to the state of art in knowledge transfer. The correct “big picture” algorithms would then consider – how is it likely to have a spear, a snake, a wall and a rope all in one place? If not, then they need to be substituted by other things that fit together. Some ascribe this approach to Mishna Berurah – let’s resolve the issue the best way possible (while respecting sources the best way possible) v. some previous codes that focus on resolving the shitos on their own. Not my thought, so don’t flame me.
> my nomination is for Candyman of the CR
So, even if I get through the mods, I am then censored by the .. candyman. Sweet!
Mod-29, if you send me a collection of rejected articles (and I can scrap accepted ones online), I can see if it is possible to help automate your work. Or I can simply keep track of my own postings and see which one you reject. It will not be a one-time thing though because as you are training the robot, we will be inventing ways to go around the robots, or training our own robots. Chinese already do that trying to go around great firewall of China.
> How will a school deploy online learning to a student body that largely lacks internet connected devices or even an internet connection at home?
A good question … Many cities provided funding for laptops and internet.
> You can’t just throw them in front of a Chromebook
> If parents, what if they need to work?I do not deny the challenge. I am just saying that one would need to start with existing resources.
Online schools have systems that allow parents easy view of what was done and what will be done. There is also a councilor that looks at all grades and talks to each kid for 15 minutes weekly to make sure kids are on target. Many of the quick tests are multiple-choice and both the kid and you get answers immediately. So, you can quickly see what is going on and the kid knows that too.
From our perspective, ability to monitor classes is a great way that allows using this great public resource. For example, one woke teacher used an anti-Israeli material instead of a standard one. It was “balanced” – an anti-Jewish Pali article was balanced with an anti-Jewish Israeli article … So, we learned the sugya in depth, brought all other materials, and discussed what motivated the teacher to show material like that, etc. Even in good Jewish schools, you may not have such blatant stuff, but there will be lots of narishkeit in general studies [of course, some would say – why social studies].
Another useful trick – sign kids for hard online classes, so that they’ll require your help. If you know the stuff, you can direct them and connect general studies with the Jewish POV. If you don’t, you can bond by studying together.
> who says the majority of goyim are mayshiv aveidos? I believe that they don’t.
you live in NY. I once left a purse at a busy building in the South. Came back a week later and retrieved it. Even in NorthEast, we had people calling us up after finding an ID in the purse.
Again, ma nafka mina? The only way not to do Kiddush Hashem is to return anonymously. One Rav told me that he specifically invited the person to come to his shul office to pickup the lost item to increase Kiddush Hashem.
common > How about this for a novel conspect, if you have no clue about the subject refain from commenting about it,
hey, when I am commenting without admitting that I know nothing, you are also not happy. I am ain’t votig for you as a Ruv of CR: if you limit posting only to those who know, you might severely damage YWN ad revenue.
I am simply asking questions and suggesting general ideas for consideration. It is called in modern math “knowledge transfer”.
> Gutting a school’s experienced staff when the students might have been returning to in-person classes fairly soon might not have been a good idea
Not suggesting gutting staff, but if you concur that there were better educational options that were not applied in consideration for staff, a better solution would have been to let teachers collect unemployment for a couple of months till summer and then later possibly join a quality online program with your staff. this is sort yom sheni boker quarterbacking, it is of course time of uncertainty. I specifically refer to my discussion with a local lawmaker – I gave him a very clear picture what needs to be done, it was pretty simple, he bought into that, and had to back up due to people who care about their money more than what the kids learn. There are often such illuminating cases in messy life, like greenees who cry wolf but would not accept nuclear energy in order to save Florida from sinking into the ocean.
emes > people promoting fraud, before the election said that if Trump loses it must be fraud
You may not convince some people, but there are always moderate reasonable people – like me, who can be either convinced or at least pacified not to protest. I try not to pay attention to all protestation because these are like one witness in beis din – what do you do with that unverified information? But there are some things that can be improved or should not have happened.
Surely, all changes made in the name of pandemic raise suspicion. Just making election a multi-day affair is a force multiplier for the activists: in one day, they can approach so many people. in 10 days – 10 times more.All the polls that were claimed to be “suppression” are now evaluated to be worst in 20-40 years – 4-5% towards Biden and Ds in general. So, claim confirmed, the question is only whether it is mazid or not.
Pfizer delay of vaccine results after election: I ran numbers this way and that and I do not see what was the reason for the delay. The only charitable explanation is that someone strongly preferred to have a sample larger than initially agreed to exclude a chance of data looking not-so-good.
Suppressing NY Post article about Hunter, while at the same time not disclosing (both officially and not) fact of active investigation.
Making fun of Trump for blaming virus on Chinese and now agreeing that this is reasonable.
Not challenging Biden on what exactly is his Federal plan is to distribute vaccine better. (He still keeps it secret while vaccination rates declined).
All together this creates a very bad vibe of unfairness that enables even craziest conspiracy theories. It might be better for moderate Dems to make some conciliatory steps and admit some problems.
GotAPoint, I hear your bitterness and I am familiar with all the issue you are raising from R Wissmandel to Sephardim. At some point, worked with my kid on an essay describing how Begin looked differently at Sephardim addressing them as heirs of Rambam, rather than poor cousins. Another example of ideological bias in Zionist development was emphasis on kibutzim pre WW2 v. development of Tel Aviv manufacturing. Sochnut inserted itself between donors and recipients who wanted to support T-A as manufacturing was providing additional jobs and thus a place for immigrants to come, while kibutzim were providing land and otherwise was a bottomless pit. I saw research computing how many would have come pre-war from Europe and did not, sad…
Still, I think your recounting of Haredi contributions is way biased. Again, I understand pretty much where this coming from and is passed along for several generations already. For one, there is no reshus to disregard your obligations just because you think you were cheated somewhere else. See Rav Huna with his spoiled wine who did not want to pay workers who already “helped themselves”, was rebutted by other chachamim and deserved a miracle for teshuvah, either open (vinegar -> wine) or hidden (vinegar price up).
We in America also pay taxes, while murdering less, paying for schools we do not use, and sometimes have to move to a different neighborhood when government policies lead to disaster. Most of us do not see this as a reason to cheat or hate the country. So, I surmise, your bitterness is more due to the fact that these are specifically Jews who are in power and do think that you disagree with. It is, of course, understandable. The closer we are, the more we expect and the more we react to problems. So, you just need to acknowledge that.
No, I was in one light mask out of respect to the locals. I just stood far away from everyone and in the corridor when sneezing people started trecking to the tissues and back. Emunah peshuta is something to respect and kept Jews going for centuries. I was in this shul before and they’re great baalei hesed and tefilah. One of the congregants wrote a heart breaking account of his sickness
edited- it is confusing to be disrespectful while describing being respectful, no? Perhaps we’ll wait til further from tisha b’av.
I’ll skip the rest of it, as you would not believe me.
When another guy in a mask came, we looked at each other as we came both from the same planet different from localsMaido, I also understand more on add v autism of which I know nothing. There are good reasons for add people to at least avoid authority figures who try to break creativity and force them to be like others. I am not sure whether the alternative would be to put all such kids together.who will manage such balagan!? So, the question on autism seems to be: do they really need a support group of like people, or simply adults who understand them and help them following their path
Others consider the view that Meiri wrote his major work to appease non Jews not very credible. How many rishonim advocated consistent positions just for such reasons?!
You seem to follow no true Scotsman fallacy: if a sefer contradicts your teachers, then it’s written for non Jews or by a zionist and thus not a true talmid chacham. This way you eliminate everyone who disagree with you.Also, it seems that Meiri was not widely printed until 1900s and thus was not as embedded into mesorah as other rishonim, and as you are saying.
Re: being thankful to everyone, I finally had an experience I dreaded davening in a shul with emunei peshuta, who live blissfully in a world without covid… thanks to all my cr friends who prepared me mentally for such experience.your descriptions were very much on target.
Ujm, I did but quite some time ago. Is this a prerequisite to be taken seriously in cr? I can as well say that those who live on an island connected to American continent don’t understand the country. I once interviewed with a big five consulting company o’h. They suggested one of two departments: nyc and the rest of the country. You had to choose, ad these are totally different worlds According to them
Ujm, here you are talking about a so called blind man…. And in the cynical context of busy NY that is hard for me to imagine. I got a similar advice from a haredi Rav after giving tzedoka to a visiting blackhated young healthy looking person who after collecting spend the rest of davening communicating on his impressive cell phone…. Rav said, just give a dollar. Then I realized why the Rav always gets a stack of money out of the table for such cases…
Avira, a very good point on different motivation for tzedoka and influence of pluralistic society. Just don’t throw the baby with the bathwater… Derech shalom and Kiddush Hashem are not something to disregard v “real mitzvah”
I also thought that Sephardim had it easier – until I talked to those who have both direct memory and historical knowledge. Not much love lost. And Sephardim proper ended up in Muslim lands only after being kicked out of Spain. Ashkenazim on the other hand moved to new lands volunteerly. The real answer is probably that there is no average experience. There were good and bad periods and aspects in different places. For example, Jews had unbelievable autonomy in polish lithuanian commonwealth via vaad arba artzos…
Also, we know more of history of arab countries than in 1950s:
Could you imagine if Jews of Aleppo stayed until islamic state and russian carpet bombing?Also, destruction of european jewry didn’t start in 1939.. numerous communities were already destroyed by Soviet communists by that time at no fault of zionism
People use the word “News” liberally… News can not be fake, these would not be news. If you hear some claims – whether from your friend, from a box in the corner of your room, or streaming from your pocket – just go look up something resembling facts. for example, there are sites with detailed crime reports for many neighborhoods for several years, you can check that.
PS I heard R Soloveichik, I think, quoted as: “why there is no word for “politics” in Hebrew? It surely existed. There is one – sheker. ” So, don’t peddle in one.
> Three Mile Island incident having nuclear physics background.
hm, that’s not peanuts. Maybe he can convince the weather-fighters that nuclea are green?
It may be an issue that families indeed do not want to disclose such thing. Where it is really detrimental is when families do not use medical help from fear of disclosure. At the same time, I am not sure whether it is a necessity to bring everyone together, and seems that various organizations feel the same way. If you have some friends, families, teachers around you who understand and support you – do you necessarily need to be with other people suffering from same things? As Avira testifies, there are lots of people who would be willing to help. Maybe, some are not sensitive because they are ignorant. I have no clue, for example, of the issues involved and maybe my suggestion above is not shaiach.
PS There are cases where people seem to benefit from talking to people in similar conditions. R Twersky Z’L for example highly recommended AA meeting to addicts (even despite christian roots), but this seems to be especially important when a person needs encouragement to change their behaviors. I did not hear, for example, that, say, people with casts on their hands would need others like that around them.
Yaakov chastised the shepherds at the well who did not trust each other and directed them to work honestly. He was on the way from the yeshiva to shiduchim, why didn’t learn Mishna and not waste time on the goyishe problems?
A midrash also says that Yaakov “established markets”, that is create right market conditions for economy to work.
Can we work on the moris ayn principle here? Why not try to have an election that has less chances of being SEEN as fraudulent? this will benefit everyone.
We already have some such features, like electoral college: accusations are limited to several close states rather than whole country. I think last time Cook County could have cooked their books to affect Presidential was during Kennedy-Nixon …
there are (were) others – most voting on the same day, paper ballots – that are now being disregarded and the risk of having election revolt is too high to have. Maybe Democrats can agree to a risk of some of their illiterate voters not voting without extensive help to safeguard the integrity of the voting system.
I skipped Avira’s snide remark on Israel that others are protesting because it is off-topic and he mentioned his position before. Combining multiple threads, I have an impression of Avira’s deah (ad presumably his teachers) is being rich on detail, whether halachik or factual, but somehow veering away from important central issues. I hope this is not what Brisker method evolved into.
Complaining about the Rebbeim forced to teach zionism, you somehow ignore the fact that these Rebbeim and students got a chance to walk streets of Yerushalaim in relative safety instead of dying in Camps and Gulags. The animosity is understandable historically and was pretty reasonable when the Zionist experiment was unsure to survive, but at this point seems most of religious Jews appreciate having a country, imperfect as it is. And you yourself proposed a simple solution to the Rebbe’s dilemma – do not partake funds from the Zionist entity, as you surely wouldn’t in Ottoman empire.
>> Do the moderators consider the Torah as explained by HaRav Avigdor Miller zt’l to be unacceptable?
> No
al pi Yinglish dikduk, this answer means that the nistar Torah is not unacceptable, i.e. it is acceptable. given that the torah is not niglah in the post, the moderator probably meant the opposite.
PS This is not a disrespect to the hard-working mods, but if you become part of the discussion, you are a fair game 🙂 Just showing respect to the non-Jewish language.
I may have missed the answer, but I did not see it – if someone is scared of mRNA, why don’t you take J&J or old-fashioned Sinovac or Sputnik that are not worse than placebos! Are you afraid that Sputnik will launch you to space?! If this would help end the thread, I am ready to take sputnik myself.
on other notes:
>> Native Americans were exposed to European diseases hundreds died instantly. And then the infection rates went down until herd immunity was acheived.It seems that majority of population died before the herd immunity was achieved … Those guys were at further disadvantage – they did not have domesticated animals and, thus, no zootic viruses at all. So, their immune system was totally unprepared. Those of us who had kids in schools or went there ourselves, were, Baruch Hashem, exposed to enough viruses to begin with.
>> However, they will need to be repeatedly injected every half a year or so, like flu shots are
I don’t have numbers but qualitatively, the first shots are way more important than the latter ones. Most immediate research measures antibodies in blood, but long-term protection is due to B-cells that will start fighting virus after being infected. so, getting those B-cells informed about a class of viruses is more significant step. This probably explains why vaccine against a new virus achieves 95% hard reduction, while flu vaccine only 70%. for a person who never had a flu, the reduction would be higher too. There is very limited medical data on B-cells so far, like tests with tens of people, so we will need to wait to see real life effects.
Peanuts? Usually a person appreciates what he is baki in, like the peasant who is not interested in a princess. And if you catch yourself thinking, I wish an honest peanut farmer was a president, sigh.
There is also troubling singing of Hashem giving us Torah Torah at the opening of aron. Some might enjoy a hint to oral Torah, but I prefer to think of seeing Hashem’s teachings as a joint unit, so I just sing aiaiai for the second instance.
There’s though an argument for the double. One opinion is that two tablets had ten commandments each, and they are two copies as any legal document, for both parties to keep
Black in nature? Night? That would be half of the world. Maybe you are thinking modern world where there’s ambient light all the time even away from the cities. Think being in a totally dark country side on a rosh hodesh…
Jews always saw black as a sign of mourning. As rabban gamliel explained to some people who mourned constantly, it is not appropriate
Avira, thanks, I had some questions on your position and you responded to them while I was formulated the questions. I agreed that going to a random Chinese citizen and showering him with tzedoka funds is inappropriate, and you agree that we should honor police and ww2 veterans. We just disagree on the facts on between. I think you taking a very narrow view of benefits. Any us veteran took upon himself to risk his life and be sent to whatever place is required. Just that determination is sufficient. Esther becomes Mordecai’s rebbe when she decides to risk her life, not when she actually goes to the king. Any US politician who voted to support freedom ( that excludes some…) benefits us, and Hashem’s will overall. By extension, maybe even those who voted for such politicians have zechus, and this would be a majority of voters, and given that older people vote more, any older person should have zechus
FDR with multiple shortcomings played a major role in both making us fight the war and in prosecuting it successfully. Often at high pain, such as when traveling to see Stalin.
Without his effort, the survivors of the war would be speaking german or russianPhilosopher, we more and more sound like children, or more harshly peshaim. Hashem sends us certain realities and we deny them and complain that he is bothering us with changes in our way of life up to such miniscule inconveniences as wearing masks and traveling for vacation. Compare current cases and death rates with previous waves and ponder how many lives would be lost if the death rates stay prevaccine. And ponder that increased cases are due to combination of delta and relaxing of behavior.
As a couple of people already posted, I also found it amusing that one of the first things administration is worried about is that Cubans should not try to get to US. I believe it is part of the airport security training that you look at first reaction on person’s face. Similarly here, first reaction is indicative of what these people are thinking about. So, we will now start catching people at the border and checking if they are Cubans before releasing them into US? Would Cubans be faking Mexican accent now?!