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>> pulling back the same wonderful cabinet
there is a p0ositive here: if they have some wisdom, they know what did not work! They might first use “lessons learned” in how to fight their biggest enemy – Republicans, but BEzrat Hashem, they also see positive changes in foreign policy. Other than position on Iran, they seem to indicate that they’ll keep many of successful Trump’s policy, adding more “cooperation” to enhance taste – pressing Germany on Russian pipelines, tariffs on China, (real) defense restructuring towards Asia
>> shaloch manos.
R Schechter reminded that this is a good year to follow Rambam on spending more on poor than on friends
>> Sponsored content is NOT news
Are Jews allowed to post non-truths as advertisement? Is there a “puffery” exemption in halakhah?!
asme person posted:
>> 1 half of 1 % of Rav Chaim knowledge
>> each of the Rabbonim who where nifter were well into the 90sI am not sure how you can at the same time value opinions of Talmidei Hahamim and disregard their lives. I can’t imagine who are people surrounding Talmidei Hahamim that lead to this. I can’t imagine R Twersky ZT’L being not careful himself.
Charlie, you are right. Another observation – US and UK are ahead of EU due to earlier pre-payments. A couple of factories in Europe have production problems, while US & UK are working fine. EU is trying to force companies to send UK vaccines to EU. One of the explanations – earlier payments allowed more time to fix manufacturing problems.
@Sam,
I think Hashem is telling us that we are taking too much for granted our days, and we should spend some time inside with our families, learn to appreciate them, talk to your spouses and kids, take them for walks, learn with them, model for them how to act calmly in difficult circumstances. This might be a first serious adverse event in this country after WW2. Several generations expecting daily great service.I agree that many are not hearing the message and complaining about the service – schools are not opening, governor does not allow seudas mitzva, scientists are not clear about vaccine efficiency …
I still do not get it: why is everyone so much against doing mitzva of teaching their own children on their own, or in small groups? You davka need to cram thousands of kids in one building, exponentially increasing pandemic propagation in your own community?
Get 5 families together, and one of parents, or a hired person, could teach the group in one of your apartments. You have seforim, internet, food, electricity – you are in better conditions than Volozhin yeshiva was
Start discussing how to organize teaching – for those who can do it, rather than lamenting the situation. You can not daven for help if you are not doing your part.
In other news, Mr. Biden
– reversed Suleimani assassination as unlawful with the help of a mekubal
– restored diplomatic relations with ISIS and send an ambassador to Raqqah. The embassy is under construction given the disaster that previous administration “literally left us nothing and nobody to work with at Raqqah”.
– the new ambassador will not refer to IS as “Islamic” though. We did not decide yet what the new meaning of “IS” is
– all progressive House members are told that they’ll be send as an ambassador to Raqqah if they do not behave
–
maybe not for home tests, but there are also batch tests that amkes testing much cheaper. You combine multiple people’s specimen together and dig further only if at least one is positive. Chinese use that and FDA finally approved some recently
I recall Melech David was asked whether he prefers a natural disaster – pandemic, climate change, or the war. He preferred the natural punishment as there is no limit to human cruelty once it is unleashed.
20th century illustrates it well with two WWs, communists and Nazis. There were lots of “useful idiots” in USA and Western Europe who would protest every Western action against Commies, but not other way around ….
I don’t think anything changed much – if we can decrease advances of Russia/China/Iran/Norks and leave more dirty air to our children, that’s Ok. So, if we can have Canadian oil instead of Russian, this is OK. If you want to reduce pollution in a smart way, you can, for exanple, put a tariff on everything China is producing using energy from dirty coal and slave labor in North Korea. Just keep your priorities straight.
RebE, thanks for the explanation, a gut vort
>> Mathematically impossible?
what 3×3 meant to say – “statistically impossible”
the reason for this misconception – you can come up with 1000s of different patterns which counties are important – since 1980, or maybe since 1890, or 1089 – and then focus on the pattern where current election is “statistically impossible”
a better way is to fix prediction rules before the election and then check them after.
another way is to construct multiple predictions and then use machine learning and cluster analysis to see if this one is different from others
REbE >> There is a minhag to put out for shabbos bread crumbs for the birds
this is a nice minhag, but looks like we are emulating Dasan & Aviram?! Hope you did not mean the way political arguments are happening here …
Charlie >> The exception was Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who took 16 weeks, but that didn’t matter
Of note, Lighthizer was involved in very significant activities re: China, but it’s ok by you
indeed, strange, why is it “moot”
not knowing anything about it, my guess is either:
1) court just wants to get rid of this craziness2) it is a political issue:
what is the punishment for the emulents? prison? probably, not. Impeachment?so, Court thinks that any extra impeachment is … moot … tiyuvta Pelosi tiyuvta
>> greater commitment and awareness in the fight against terrorism
While, I think it is arguable where and when we need to send troops in, a good joke going around the internets:
<b> Biden To Reestablish Diplomatic Relations With ISIS </b>
>> President Biden appointed Dr.
so, not Amen, not Awomen? Aperson?
I would stick with the “doctor”, hope the mother is happy.
huju, the full quote is below. I am not sure what the relevance here is, are you trying to say that this is super-offensive? You are illustating my point …
All I am sayin’ is that if candidates who say such things (in private) are deemed unacceptable to the newsmakers, then Republicans have a choice – run someone like Trump who will fight, or not bother to run for elections at all.There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.
GH: Had he taken the advice …
As you are sympathetic to liberal views, it may be hard for you to appreciate how the other half of the country feels when most of information space is filled & controlled by the other side. People like Mitt Romney ran as a gentleman and had all possible qualifications to be a President. He was laughed of both for being cruel to his dog and for claiming that Russia is our worst enemy. So, those who are opposed to creeping progressivism, had to go for someone different. If you were to vote for Romney, you might not have gotten Trump.
I would compare Trump to Yiftach. He has qualities needed in this generations, and he is also limited by them.
You guys from 2 different neighborhoods remind me of that Manhattan lady who was surprised that Nixon was elected – “I don’t know ANYONE who voted for him”. You both need to get out more (in a mask) or at least browse.
There might be a fundamental reason why we are having more and more of “not my” presidents – federal overreach. We now have feds deciding where to dig for oil, protect birds, minimal wage, etc. I am omitting mandating masks and injecting vaccines, as this has some emergency justification.
So, if the feds decide all these issues, then, naturally, about 50% of the people will not be happy. If we were to return decision powers to states, then you can decide to follow your favorite policies by simply moving from New Jersey to Alabama or other way around. The stakes of presidential elections will diminish to several manageable issues and nobody will be forced to live according to rules they do not agree with.
ujm: my comment with statistics was a response to the previous
exactly, and we are polluting internets with these numbers for no reason. And the question you asked is a good one. With all these very noisy numbers, better to look at more numbers and look at robust statistics, such as order, rather than at direct numbers.
So, overall Israel is 56 out of 200+ countries in death rates. Lebanon is 71, Jordan is 62, Turkey 76. Not that far. European and other random countries of similar to Israel economic condition: Greece 49, Spain 17, Poland 32, Germany 45, Serbia 61, Argentina 25. I would say Israel is on average same as peers. And note that poor and non-free countries probably undercount COVID deaths.
If you have time, look at these statistics separately by month. You will probably see countries jumping up and down the list over time. Virus attacks very unevenly. Recall all these Sweden success stories (N 23 total).
ujm, I asked another poster, and I would like to ask you. I am really interested in an answer:
what is the point of quoting statistics out of context?
you can say – Israel is Mth out of N comparable countries, that would give us an idea. You just pick countries from the list with lower numbers. Is Norway comparable to Israel? how big are their school classes? When readers see abuse of statistics they would either (a) skip it with no comment, (b) believe of opposite of what you are trying to proof, as your arguments are not convincing.DY: whether to prioritize minorities in theory
again, define “prioritize” –
1) put some extra vaccine stations in poor neighborhood to facilitate access?
or is it: 2) do not vaccinate Whites until all Blacks (of certain age) are vaccinated?
there is a difference here.
It looked like some states tried to go for option (2) at the beginning, under an euphemism of “essential workers” but are now switching gears to a more balanced approachOrechDin> pandemic came under the leadership
Could you make your argument worth reading? Say, compare Trump’s results with Canada, or UK or EU on all these different parameters. It is really sad that we are arguing like that.
What is your goal? You obviously will only make the opposite side to stick with their opinion seeing that you have no argument. Are you a Republican plant here?!
Charlie, Daas,
you are discussing as if there is perfect data to decide what is better and there is a perfect way to implement a policy. We are dealing with already too much delays due to complex rules. I am pointing you to a Gemora discussing water allocation along the river – we allow the first one to get more water “le darkei shalom” instead of creating an army of inspectors to maximize fairness.Simplify and you will get less angry people in the street. Use the age, and then add a reasonable number of field offices in underprivileged areas. This is already done for testing. All “free testing” sites I heard of are in the poor areas.
We get to be careful when we are agreeing to the word “prioritizing” – it might mean encouraging/making more available OR it might mean cutting off other people.
It sounds like a positive word – who would not want to “prioritize” someone disadvantage, and then the government person who is afraid of being blamed will simply not vaccinate anyone until he found everyone in the previous group, registered them, convinced everyone who does not want to take a vaccine.
Also, when they give you a nice-sounding list of priorities, they might interpret it as each item in the list is a hard priority before next. So, “medical, essential, elderly” might be interpreted as every last admin in the hospital first, then every last college admin, before they give it to anyone over 80….
We need lawyers to talk to our own governmentI think that if the parents are safely isolated, they can safely wait a month. It may be even recommended to let people who are more in danger to go first. At the same time, any old person who is connected to any institutions (nursing home, hospitals, yeshivas) should get it immediately.
After about a month, we will have observational data on millions of people from Israel, US, and UK and we will see immediate effects across all age groups and health conditions.
@Sam, maybe blockchain for tzedokah to ensure optimal anonymity?
! Yeserbius>> so now a lot of clinics are forced to throw out vaccinations
I heard that too. This seems to be totally inappropriate and seems to be changing. I am reading that now people are allowed to come and get it at the end of the day.
Maybe politicians should have been last, not first, in line, then the line will move faster. I know some governors who honorably did not jump the line.
It looks like initial delays are due to some gov folks interpreting “priority” as – we will not go to next group until this whole one is done – and providers are punished for vaccinating the wrong group. Is this the case in NY state? This is different than merely prioritizing who will be the next recipient.
This is where “darkei shalom” approach is applicable – make simply borad rules that are easy to identify – age is a good one, and then focus on doing it rather than arguing about it.
DY, I agree that this consideration might not fully apply to the vaccine.
Argument for bracha – prison/desert are not direct danger, they are just a place where you are very likely to get hurt. So, this is same as unvaccinated person during pandemic.
The way I thought bracha does not apply – a non-careful person’s danger is primarily due to his own actions. But, the danger would still exist for most reasonably behaving people and sources I quoted are ambiguous, so I’ll concede here.
Another interesting aspect raised by Minchas Elazar – we are supposed not to quote Torah in the name of those who are not careful. Anyone can help me understand Minchas Elazar and the sources? B Kama 61b seems to be referring only not to encouraging self-sacrificing, not fully disregarding such a scholar.
Daf to the rescue – it is miracle that any currency is accepted. Going to an exotic currency seems like pushing the miracle too far.
Maybe, as in the lottery thread, it depends on what else you do for hishtadlus. If you have a steady job and want to increase your rate of return investing a little into crypto or lottery, this is one thing.
But, if you did not try to get a profession, and chase miracles instead, this is unseemly. If you learned Torah disregarding your financial status, then you should be happy with your helek. If you now ask Hashem for a miracle to provide for you, it means that you both not value your learning and did not bother to learn a profession. You should at least go take swimming lessons.
today’s WSJ: Europe is closing schools as evidence shows levels of infection, changing their previous November position, quoting multiple studies from UK, Germany, Austria, Swiss..
Still, I think it is clear now that humanity, Jews included, fears children at home more than a pandemic.
So, maybe you can think pragmatically – what can you do: could you strengthen yourself and fulfill “the shinantem levaneha” on your own for one day with one kid? do that. then, see if you can do it for 2 days with 2 kids. Find a subject that you will enjoy teaching, or the one that you would love to learn. Kids will really respect you more when they see you struggling with rishonim or algebra. Maybe we should have a thread for parent self-help … Exchanging 2 algebra quizzes for one English essay.The stats I saw is that a lot of current transmission is in families – one member brings it in, he may not become sick, and makes others sick via prolonged contact.
I would say: if adults are having daily parties, then children are not a problem. Where adults are taking precautions, then children may be a major source of transmission. You will not notice it as most kids will be asymptomatic, but you will see “unexplained” cases in the community, more among parents.
PS
on suicide, on an advise from my kid: if one was psychologically sick, you might be able to say gomel from being cured from that sickness, rather than saying that he committed a son, like R’ Ovadia says.can we say that someone who was not careful re:Covid was not of full capacity due to psychological pressure of kids being at home for months? consult your local Rabbi Dr….
thanks for challenging me. Here is what Gil Student writes online in 2016, summarized. Enjoy and apply.
Do we say the blessing if we emerge from a life-threat we willingly accepted?
In Machazik Berakhah (219:1), Chida quotes a debate on this subject. His father, Rav Yosef Azulai, ruled that the blessing was only enacted for someone who survived an external life threat, not something willingly undertaken. However, Rav Eliezer Nachum (author of Chazon Nachum) ruled that the blessing applies to anyone who survives.
Rav Eliezer Melamed (Peninei Halakhah, Berakhos, Harchavos 16:4) lists three practical implications:Elective Surgery – Tzitz Eliezer 10:25:23) rules that someone who donates a kidney does not bentch Gomel. Rav Ovadiah Yosef (Yechaveh Da’as 4:14) disagrees
Suicide Attempt –Chaim Palaggi (Responsa Lev Chaim 3:53) rules that he should recite the blessing because he was saved, as does Rav Azriel Hildesheimer (Responsa Rav Azriel, vol. 1 no. 29). However, Rav Ovadiah Yosef (ibid.) disagrees. Attempting suicide is a sin. How can someone recite a blessing generated by the sin?
Release From Prison: Some people who are convicted of a crime can avoid prison by paying a fine or ransom. If they choose not to pay and instead suffer the prison sentence
Ri Mi-Gash (no. 90) – yes, ha’arei Teshuvah (219:2) quotes him as yes without the shem
R. Simcha Rabinowitz (Piskei Teshuvos, vol. 2 219:11) sees this Sha’arei Teshuvah as a companion to the general view (of Rav Yosef Azulai) that someone who puts himself in danger should not bentch Gomel if he is saved.Rav Chaim Elazar Shapira (Minchas Elazar 4:47) discusses whether you may place yourself in life-threatening danger in order to learn Torah or earn money. He concludes that it is forbidden and that others may not quote a Torah insight in the name of someone who endangers his own life in order to learn Torah (based on Bava Kamma 61a). However, if someone did place his life in danger for pure purposes in order to learn Torah and was saved, he may bentch Gomel, but not someone who undertook the danger for monetary profit. When it comes to profit, no ones intention is ever completely pure.
There are no absolutes at this point, we need to think how to improve things incrementally:
ujm: children are *NOT* a major spreader
indeed, probability of passing the virus is lower with age. Teenagers are same as adults. Having more close contacts increases that. So, if you are in a community where nobody is careful, then (elementary/middle) school are not a priority. But, where there are some adults who are more careful, children in schools are a relative high risk.Ari256: probably need to focus more on providing families tools to teach their children at home, whether it is one day a week or anything else. The less children are at school at the same time, the better.
RR> Gambling is mutar according to the RaMA. The Beis Yosef holds it’s assur.
Yt> I’m not sure who to hold byJust roll a dice
Syag >> Why not?
I somehow recalled learning that one does not say gomel after endangering himself recklessly, but I can not find a source. So, I’ll rephrase it as a question. Anyone else heard this?