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@Shady >> how would the masses be expected to receive a fair account
I think you are asking a fair question and this question is behind the confused mass of protest. We had a complicated event with lots of rule changes comparing with usual elections + information blocks. Thus, it is impossible to prove – and impossible to reject – any hypothesis. With that, everyone is following their own biases and the society can not agree with anything.
I think these events help us understand “moris ayn” better. Public policies should be conducted in a way that assures people of integrity, rather than using “caveat emptor” approach – where the opposite side needs to prove misbehavior.
huju>> Stalin tried to eliminate farm ownership
We tried it already. Yoma 69 – Talmidei Hahamim banned Yetzer Hara, people stopped going to work and getting married. Hens did not produce eggs.
It seems that Warp speed shifting to the correct idea that priority should be simply based on age.
those who put themselves unnecessarily in danger (not wore masks, went to crowded places without a compelling need) probably should not say a bracha.
Do you say a bracha at a 95% statistics? Also, you are also experiencing a little pain and worrying about side effects. Most importantly, protection will start about 10 days after the vaccine – can you say a bracha on something that will happen 10 days later?!
Maybe gomel, bli shem, is more appropriate, at about 10 days after first dose, where presumably risk of serious sickness diminishes.
@Rabbaim, indeed. Wife of one of baalei mussar (maybe Alter from Slobodka?) bought a lottery. He immediately called witnesses and wrote a shtar that he has nothing to do with the money in case she will win. He was terrified with possible responsibility to use it properly.
I am reading about a local restaurant owner who was there peacefully, posted about it somewhere, then posted an apology. Online mob responded that they are not going to that restaurant ever and “who knew those restaurant owners are mostly Republicans”. Another person fired from a medical job when recognized on a video, also not as part of disturbances.
To amplify the zaidy – you are not allowed to rely on miracles. So, you need to give Hashem a chance to support you through normal channels. Many people go and learn a profession. But for those of us on a higher madregah, it is sufficient to buy a lottery ticket.
A practical advice: don’t buy the losing tickets, they are a waste of money and asur to buy. But just the winning ticket, and maybe a couple of losing ones to avoid ayin hara of people saying that things are too easy for you.
Let us know how it worked out.
during 2024 campaign, Republican candidates will have a debate. After the debate, they’ll be removed from Twitter, lose their AOL accounts, and have FICO score revoked because they all were advocating verbal violence against the lawful President of the country. House will pro-actively impeach them all. This would be the new 2024 word: pre-peach.
Distribution is pretty even by state. Percentage of those used varies from 20% to 50%, excluding several outliers. I don’t see ideological difference – Dakotas and CT are at the top and Deep South and Left coast are at the bottom. Geography gives a better pattern – NE and MidWest are doing better, Deep South, Industrial North MidWest and Left Coast are doing worse.
It looks like biggest problem is that states are trying to follow rigid rules – do Group 1a and only later 1b, including that, Ch’V, minority groups do not suffer. So, they are not opening up to next group until they deal with previous groups, including getting written permissions, dealing with those who do not want it. Some hospitals are scared to even give left-over vaccine to the unapproved groups. This requires advanced planning, so some states complain that Feds have chutzpah to send them vaccine without giving a multi-week advanced notice to plan everything right… Sounds like some leaders are seeing the light and opening up – FL, TX and now NY.
This appears to be discussed in, IIRC, Bava Metzia – when there is a river, we allow those who get water first to take as much as they want “l derech shalom” – instead of having government measuring how much everyone takes to make it fair.
State/Territory/Federal Entity Shots per Distributed (CDC, Jan 9, ordered from highest)
West Virginia 69%
North Dakota 68%
South Dakota 54%
Connecticut 53%
Nebraska 48%
New Hampshire 47%
Vermont 46%
District of Columbia 44%
Montana 44%
Maine 43%
Tennessee 43%
Iowa 42%
Rhode Island 42%
New Mexico 39%
Colorado 38%
New York State 36%
Kentucky 35%
Oklahoma 35%
Ohio 35%
Utah 35%
Texas 34%
Massachusetts 34%
Indiana 32%
Maryland 31%
Kansas 31%
Missouri 31%
Wisconsin 30%
Illinois 30%
Florida 30%
Minnesota 29%
Hawaii 29%
Delaware 28%
Pennsylvania 28%
North Carolina 27%
New Jersey 27%
Virginia 27%
Alaska 26%
Louisiana 26%
Wyoming 26%
Washington 26%
Oregon 26%
California 25%
South Carolina 25%
Nevada 24%
Michigan 24%
Arizona 23%
Idaho 23%
Puerto Rico 22%
Mississippi 22%
Alabama 20%
Guam 20%
Arkansas 18%
Georgia 17%
Northern Mariana Islands 17%
American Samoa 12%
Republic of Palau 9%
Virgin Islands 5%
Federated States of Micronesia 2%
Marshall Islands 0%There is an interesting lesson on “daas Torah” (even if this principle is not in the Torah or Talmud) in this parsha and midrashim – Moshe goes to zekenim first, they follow him but jump off one-by-one during the trip – and due to this lack of leadership, their further role is diminished, including not receiving Torah at Sinai directly. They still stayed as zekenim, right? Or was there an election in between?
Related in Pesachim 50: one should marry daughter of (1st perference) – talmid chacham, 2nd – gedolei hador (politicians?). Somehow, some people in our generation call talmidtei chachamim gedolei hador. Seems this is insulting both categories – lowering T.Ch. to the next category and disregarding Ged. H. as a group.
Well, Trumps’ speech was pretty long, but Twitter’s statement is pretty short (and Orwellian). They claim that these two statements are “glorification of violence” due to “context around them”.
1) “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”
2) “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”
There are lots of interesting ideas floating around – decreasing each dose (sounds more reasonable than giving just one), prioritize older v. essential, etc. I don’t think there are easy answers.
It well may be that Biden’s centralized approach may pick up on a good idea. There is a risk that it will be a bad one. So far, US does as good as UK and a little ahead of EU. Other than Israel, nobody found the best path. It well may be that it is just noise who many people were vaccinated by now: after figuring out the system, most of available vaccine will be used, and we will be limited by manufacturing for months to come.
It is a clear test of integrity for Biden: he can say that he continues/improves what was done under Trump, or he can continue saying that everything was wrong under Trump, and he will be do everything better. He has an incentive to follow the second path – things are getting in place, more people are getting vaccinated, so he can just surf the wave and claim the success
Very good question. We need to always to look at original text.
ABC news has a full text of Trump’s speech
titled: trump-told-supporters-stormed-capitol-hill and story id is 75110558Charlie>> outdoor events with everyone wearing masks don’t spread the virus.
You can’t prove this from BLM. There is a paper that looked at cities with BLM violence over summer, comparing COVID and mobility statistics with other comparable cities. They conclude: BLM cities have decreased COVID stats due to decreased mobility. That is, most people were _NOT_ at the protests and was staying at home due to violence.
What about Shmuel being unhappy when Jews (democratically) ask him to establish the monarchy?
Btw, most nations had kings for centuries not because they were dumb and never heard about democracy. Democracy was not considered viable – with masses of uneducated people making decisions. That is why we do not live in a democracy, but in a Republic.
We partially solved the “uneducated” problems in 20th century, but created an opposite one. Now, there are oligopolies in education and information industries, so people (aka voters) get fed well-crafted information en masse. We can see this in almost every discussion – everyone is capable of coming up with a statistics that confirm their views, selected from some source somewhere.
I think the reasons for the public frustration is this lack of reasonable discussion. If the country would let Trump use his considerable energy to fight Chinese, Russians, and COVID instead of NYT front page, we would be in a much better place right now.
Dr. Nat >> Daf Yomi in any way compares to the learning that the yungerleit do when learning full-time
This is a good point. I think some busy professionals sign up for an activity with an eye on regularity to help keep learning. I am doing Daf Y this time, and I see that I am gaining in regularity but I am either not interested in half of pilpul on a page, or I am doing written or mental notes to research interesting issues and ideas that (literally) zoom by. I also found it harder to derail the class with probing questions in the zoom setting. In person, everyone gets into the same mood, less so online.
On the opposite side, I would like to understand the value of yungerleit learning, if this learning does not transfer into ability to make decision. We see it now with COVID. If you don’t understand ahavta reehah k’mocha, or hillul Hashem, I dare say you may have not fully grasped that tosfos also.
Maharal, similarly, explains that the value of Bavli (in comparison with Yerushalmi) is developing methodology to resolve new problems. I’d like to see some evidence that yungerleit of the last 50 years have this ability.
R berl Wein reports that, I think, his father, as a kid, learned about Rosh Hodesh, from their Lithuanian helper.
CTL >> If the offer is refused, the former employee loses benefits
This is not easy to do for any sensitive position. So, you are getting unemployment claim from someone who just quit. You send him a job offer and he accepts it and comes back under duress. I would not want this employee in my office.
Halachik aspect: we are supposed to treat employees with some leeway to make sure they do not feel enslaved (i.e. be not in control of himself and his time). For example, employees can leave on a spot and you are not supposed to force him work further. This offer essentially forces him to work.
R’ Asher Weiss in an August lecture discusses what levels of danger is allowed. His conclusion, I think, is that a “1 in 1000” (figuratively) dangerous situation is allowed provided the person is in control of the situation and is following safety measures, i.e. ok to ride a boat (with a life jacket), ride a bike (with a helmet). At the same time, it is not always an issue of percentage, but of numbers. That is, if 1% of women are at risk during birthing, we need to be careful. Given the large numbers involved, being careful will save, say, 100 lives (don’t think “it is only 0.1%”). He applies same logic to COVID.
Applying this to riding bikes in the city – 1) you are not fully in control, as you are at mercy of drivers and helmet is not going to protect from them, 2) think of psychology of a person who is going to do that – can you guarantee that they’ll stay safe (R’ Weiss starts lamenting how careless religious community in Israel is, and how many accidents happen)
When our oldest were small, we had a neighbor, an avid and a very experienced biker. He was hit by a truck, had a major operation and a titanium implant in his leg. My wife stopped teaching kids biking. No, not after she heard about an accident. Only after we asked the neighbor how he is doing, and he said it will be a couple of months before he feels good enough to bike again.
huju: I don’t know exactly what we are doing, but it is working. calm down and find something else to rant about.
A good point! I believe we are doing exactly what Am Israel was doing all the time – worrying, arguing, and looking for a better way forward. So, calm down, and rant better!
Beyond direct manipulation, responsa consists of answers to our questions, so WYAISWYG (what you ask is what you get).
I learned this accidently: my Teacher gave a class on Jewish business ethics and, inter alia, commented that responsa in Poland was full of ethical questions, but gradually ethical questions disapparede and only questions of pots & pans kashrus remained.
I commented after the class: “so it is _your_ fault” [ i.e. Rabbis’ fault that ethics is not discussed enough], and got immediate response:
” No, it is _your_ fault” [ that is, you people should be asking better questions, then we will be answering them!]So, any time you post on YWN, think that it might influence what the poskim of this generation will be writing about [and poskim of next generation will be learning]
Reb E, I think all Presidents (and just candidates) have NPD, it does not detract from what they achieve. I don’t think ADHD is prevalent among Presidents.
ADHD is not lack of attention. As I understand it, “normal” person activates one area of the brain in response to a stimulus, an “ADHD” person activates multiple areas at the same time.
Many jobs require first type – pilots, surgeons, school principals. Others, like your son and like a lot of very creative people, do well in jobs that require combining multiple pieces of information, questioning the tasks they are given instead of following instructions they were given.
As most people are not creative, they are annoyed by more creative ones and trying to medicate or beat them into submission. If you show a page of Bavli to a psychologist, I bet Bavli will be given ritalin and told to go learn Shulchan Oruch like everyone else.
@Real_1: many girls that in sem they are taught to only want boys who are full time learning
It is a community problem… I have a simple explanation of a mis-balance between talmidei chachamim and those who want to marry one: it takes a lot of learning to become a talmid chacham – and it is much easier for a girl to _want_ to marry a talmid chacham! Less price – more demand. Econ 101. Of course, those girls will pay later, if, has vesholom, they marry someone who stayed in yeshiva for the sake of a shiduch (compounding if averah of not working with learning lo l’shma).
So, for you personally, maybe instead of adjusting to wrong expectations, you should look at working families and daughters who have a better grasp of reality and halakha. Maybe you need to review if you are limiting your search to certain communities or conditions that lead you to people with the attitudes you do not want. If you know that a seminary teaches bad values, just avoid the graduates.
Fake News. There are no COVID cases in NK!
Khe-KheGadol, with all headlines, US is N4 – after Israel, Bahrain, UK …
As Brits commented after WW1, and then after WW2: Americans will always do the right thing after exhausting all the alternatives. The serious part of that was: Americans refused to listen to British prior experiences, made same mistaken, then quickly switched to other mistakes, until finding the right path. Brits were still re-living their first mistakes.Same thing here: there are many unknowns here. In a month, some state will figure out the path, and others will follow. So far, I am concerned about time spent on finding the right politically correct groups. Seems like some states are turning to age-based. It is a hard balance
One thing that might be correct is happening in UK – giving one dose and waiting 3 months for the 2nd, instead of “reserving doses”
We need to be humble here. We can’t figure out whether a cloth slows down particles, with billion people participating in the daily experiments. And some of you are claiming to have better insights into classified matters than a Sec of Defense who was part of the team that won the Cold War.
Did you try getting 13 college credits in 13 weeks, working 13 hours for 13 days every week, asking 13 friends to ask their wives to introduce you to 13 ladies each?
Participant,
Not being an expert here, it is the same as not underestimating a price of a diamond. You will either sell it too low, not polish it right; or not buy it when you could. If you do not know your own value, you will not use your talents appropriately; you will not improve them; etc.Again, I suggest going thru works such R Twersky. I really do not have enough confidence
One practical suggestion is to get involved in some competitive endeavors, such as scrabble, chess, checkers, spelling bee, SAT, LSAT, running … – if you challenge yourself and then compare your performance with others, you will see better both your strengths and witnesses. Caveat: once, as a youngster, I challenged a much older and extremely accomplished world-renowned person on a minor issue, and he suddenly opened up with a long tirade that despite his obvious achievements, it is not just “you, young man” – “everybody always disagree with me and I have to prove it every time …”. So, maybe, self-esteemed is not fully curable by achievement – but it is worth trying.
YSF156, you are making a good point that we_all are pretty much lost in the current sea of data.
You would think we have access to so much info, more than any time in the world, but it is usually impossible to figure things out, as sources are unreliable and the more data you have, the more it can be misrepresented. Nobody seems to know a good answer.
In math, if you make one error, you can prove anything. I.e if 0 = 1, then 0+2 = 1 + 2, that is 2=3, etc.
There is a Jewish method “if someone is telling non-truth in one aspect, then we do not believe anything he is saying”. Applying that would eliminate most public sources we have, not sure if this can work.
YSF156, the main sources of info are Phase 3 trials for Pfizer and Moderna. They seem to be run by strict protocols and involve a lot of research personnel. Interestingly, both trials have very similar profiles of results. Are you aware of any concerns related to such trials? Maybe you want to review the results and protocols and see what could be a problem there.
I suggest also look at AstroZenica trials – they seemed to present slightly biased results: one sub-group had 50% first dose due to false double-measuring, and they did not fully explain it first and tried to combine results of two sub-groups – and seem to be delayed by months. I did not look into details, but this is evidence that someone is watching for bad results.
I do not feel comfortable wearing pants, but I usually do wear them outside.
Can I take them off every 15 minutes if I am overheating?In fact, we had one guy at YK services who felt it necessary to wear mask on a beard davka to talk to hid neighbor. I made a quick sign with my hand as if to show him that his zipper is open. He quickly looked at his kittel and then back at me with a question in his eyes. Then, I made same zipping sign near the mouth. I was not sure how it will be accepted, but it was.
torahvaluesoverparty: you seem to be sure taking the vaccine will stop transmission, but a Google search tells me otherwise…
I am absolutely not sure of anything. We should be able to see effect on transmission in several months by looking, for example, at families of frontline workers, and see if their rates of infection decreased. Note that phase 3 trials had < 100K participants, we now have 2 mln vaccinated in US. Effect starts 10 days after first dose. We will see all kind of numbers in 1-2 months.
Maybe leaders should be given 50% placebos, to be sure that they demonstrate leadership but not over-use it.
Real priority question is about “essential” workers and elderly. The way government looks at that, half of the country is essential. And even vaccinating all 100 mln essentials, we are not achieving herd immunity, as the remaining 200 mln will become less careful with time. Showing respect to elders is much simpler and will directly save lives.
Maybe there is some simulation somewhere that shows benefit of going with essential workers. Or, maybe it is the same overthinking that lead to initial declaration of “don’t need masks” to save them for medical workers.
@efshar, R Shapiro’s story? Here is a lady that apparently knows everything her husband knows, and also knows her husband, and knows when to help him. And a husband, who knows that when in trouble, he needs to look at his wife.re: specific sources for girls to study.
I am for studying “basics” – but in depth. Remind you, we had ten commandments in the service, then deleted it due to apikoirosim claiming that this is all we have. I think we went the other way – we are teaching minute details of halakha, skipping basics.
We have disagreements here on such basic things as a need to work for a living, protect someone’s life, hillul Hashem, truth v false news. And discussions on these topics have less sources than minhagei nittel acht!What do you think about
Nehoma Leibowitz, Elia Munk for Humash, relatable/modern and still traditional, with occasional digging into their sources
Ein Yaakov – as intro to Talmudic approach, without piling up pilpul.Yserbius,
my understanding – Pfizer was paying Biontech themselves. It is very typical for a large company to pay for R&D themselves and, thus, keep IP to themselves. [of course, there is also criticism of Trump for giving Phizer those rights]. This is really a manifestation of market power against a lazy customer (US government), as those R&D funds come out of profits from US customers, often regulated.In ~ 1982, Reagan’s Sec of Navy started doing separate bids for R&D, and then use R&D results as a starting point for production bids for a small number (2-3) of available producers. Industry was not happy to lose “R&D rights”, and it worked. Clinton’s team closed some to generate saving “from duplication”. It is hit and miss from there on between two extremes – either allowing industry own everything, or taking all IP away and making industry into a disinterested manufacturer.
CTLawyer: here in CT if you quit a job, you don’t collect. If you are called back (such as when in person school restarted) and refuse you no longer can collect.
I believe it is the same here. There may be something in union contracts. It also seems that employers, especially small ones, are reluctant reporting employees to the government. Not sure.
There is better understanding now where the need for economic support is, so hopefully the moral hazard will be lower.Going forward, we should look at employment levels. If they start going down again as they did under Obama, then all partial statistics, like unemployment rate, will not reflect actual effect on population.
>> Can someone explain to me what was the point
Can’t fully explain, but it seems that there will be several votes next week on the raised issues. I am not even sure what is the next level of outrage and why I am replying.
Warp speed supported several parallel efforts and also production, which seems like a very complicated process involving multiple companies both in US and Europe, some of which developing totally new production lines in a matter of months.
I also suggest people here take a short break and review some European press, most of which is as anti-Trump as any. I came up with 12/18 (well 18.12) article in Der Spiegel that depicts how pitiful European process is comparing with UK and US.
US pre-ordered mRNAs in July, EU in November; US/UK ordered a lot from each of the companies, EU mostly from the most favorite ones that have problems (AstroZenics, Sanofi,CureVac). As a result, EU expects to vaccine 2/3 of population in September, 4 months behind US.
So, we are really at a comparatively good spot here. I presume there would always be a delta between EU and US, but it is amazing that this happened consistently in multiple government purchasing decisions, most of them in Warp speed territory, some in FDA (approvals).
ujm >> Pekuach Nefesh is doche virtually everything.
I understand Rambam and Chinuch discuss that public Hillul Hashem in general is not doche, in addition to 3 sins. We can presume that NYTimes has at least 10 Jewish readers. I’ll let those more learned to present detailed shitot, but it is clearly not a simple issue.
Reb E: It can be done without a chilul Hashem,
Indeed, NY Post raises this halakhic issue by giving us a picture of the office and a person with a hat and without a mask walking in front. Again, I am not believing those stories or pictures until proven, just discussing hypotheticals.
Could we all agree at least on this meager moral principle:
>>> someone who is not bothering to protect himself, should not cut the line for the vaccine <<<participant, I am not qualified to discuss this. I found R Twersky a good source that connects psychology with Torah attitudes. I suggest google for Twersky self esteem, and also buy or order any of his books. As he says “I wrote same books 50 times”, not 50 books, so order any 🙂
here are a couple of quotes:
Your feelings of self-respect are independent of others. You do not allow others to control you, but you do not feel the need to control others. You look at life and it’s difficulties as challenges and opportunities for personal growth. You are commanded by G-d to strive, not necessarily to succeed. A person should recognize that that he has intrinsic value and worth and is a competent and capable individual.Cheshbon Hanefesh, which is self-criticism, can be beneficial for you when you think of ways to improve. The Torah gives intrinsic meaning to all life regardless what he can or has achieved. The Torah commands each person to try, and try again, but not to believe that success is totally contingent on his particular behavior and effort. When this belief is in place, a person will not experience anger or depression even if he fails. Nowhere is a Jew commanded to succeed, but rather to act according to the commandments of the Torah. The person acts and G-d decides which path history will take.
Our sages mentioned the subject of self-esteem and ways to correct this flaw in character, in many of the Holy Books. The one solution helpful to everybody is, support and encouragement. King Solomon said, ” When you have worry in your heart, speak to somebody”. Rabbi Elemelech from L’znsk says in the “zetel katan”, a person should find a friend who he can trust and speak about his faults and get support from him. A proven method to achieving a positive self-image is to acknowledge and share your anxious feelings with others.
Self-esteem support groups, provides support and encouragement. A group will help you recognize your potential, skills, talents and abilities and help you realize that you’re not the only one with this problem.
The purpose of working the 12 steps of self-esteem is much the same as that of working the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous; namely, to free ourselves of a pathologic dependency and to get support.
pekak >>>pikuach nefesh is doche a possible chilul Hashem
what is the source for that?
>> check out the videos of senior Roshi Yeshiva of Yeshiva University
papers I saw are not clear who got it. It seems to be an accepted practice that community/business leaders vaccinate to encourage others. Not saying whether this is right or wrong. Are we talking about several leaders, or general public?
I do question government strict preference for medical workers v. elderly that are not in nursing home and not fully isolated. Vaccinating elderly is directly saving lives.
The troubling part is the _allegation_ that vaccines were received directly from feds around the state control.
Overall, I hope all focus will be on vaccinating. It seems to be happening slowly, with doses reserved for the 2nd shot, balancing groups … Currently 9.5 mln doses shipped in US and 2 mln used (20%).
NYC – 175K delivered, 55K used.Israel is vaccinating 0.6% of population per day, US and UK – 0.1%. It is early days, of course, but this is something to watch.