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>> People should ask their ONE rav and their ONE doctor.
this is not always true. Specifically, in a case of unknown entity like a new virus, it is prudent to ask multiple doctors and take into account the worst case. this is according to Rav Twersky above, some other poskim, and Dr. AAQ himself. If your Rabbi is making this mistake before paskenining, please explain it to him. Some local Rabbis here initially tried that – just call their friendly frum doctor form a well-known institution. This is still daas yahid.
All these are “first world problems”. How about – do we have a moral reason to vaccinate low-risk groups while there are hundreds of millions of high-risk people all over the world who will not get a vaccine for maybe years?
Should Jews at least make sure to help Jewish communities in 3rd world countries?
for the laughs: our online school required flu vaccinations this year ….
We filed for a religious exemption – our religion does not allow even little risk of going to the medical office to get a vaccine from flu that is not happening this year in order not to infect other online students?!
PS please don’t ask me whether I asked a shaila about this!
Quoting a story from R Meir Twersky:
I heard the following story from my brother, Ha’Gaon Hakadosh Rav Moshe Twersky zt”l hy”d, who, in turn, heard it from Ha’Gaon Rav Gershon Zaks zt”l: There was once an emergency meeting of gedolim to discuss potential responses to a harsh, cruel governmental edict. The discussion continued through the day until it was almost sunset. One of the participants suggested that they should stop to daven Mincha. The Chafetz Chaim zt”l, astonished, lovingly reproached him: “Mincha ligt ihr offen kup?! Mincha is on your mind[8]?!” The importance and sanctity of tefilah (prayer) is indeed inestimable, and yet – in certain circumstances – it is forbidden to pray!
[8] Tur, Orach Chaim 93>> CDC is jumping the gun by allowing vaccinated people to avoid quarantine even when exposed?
good question. Maybe they have numbers, or feeling pressure from politicians. When politicians say that “they will follow science”, they take responsibility from themselves but MIGHT be pressuring scientists behind the scenes.
Hopefully, this is a transient question: if vaccines decrease prevalence of the virus, then it will be easier for everyone.
Mrs Syag,
thanks for clarifying. I think we have a profound disagreement here – which questions are important and, further, where chumrot are applicable.It would be a bad pun to say that “nobody died” because I said 1 kaddish instead of 3. I obviously showed chesed to freezing people. The Rav did not correct me. so, how bad it could be.
You just can’t say the same about people not wearing masks, especially in the communities where so many older people died. “no shortage” of doctors is a strange reference. This illustrates that you are willing to approach this question in a much lighter way than question of liturgy. (Overwhelming majority of doctors tell people to wear masks. Re: rabbis, I quoted a psak above that one should not ask such Rabbis shailos, so it is a catch-22 here).
>> All Ethiopians undergo geirus misofek. Why not all Russians?
Because Ethiopians went through hundreds of years of having their version of Yehadut. Russians started coming in the 70s – 60 years after Soviets destroyed religious life, or just 30 for those from Lithuania and Latvia. A competent beit din can figure out who is Jewish or not by talking to their grandparents.
FYI, when the student movement for Soviet Jewry was starting in US in the 60s, both Rabbis and Israeli government were not eager. R Feinstein, R Teitz, Lubavitch Rebbe all called for a quiter approach to a different degree, partly being afraid of Soviets, partly to protect their own quiet efforts. R Soloveichik, when asked by students, consulted Israeli government, and also suggested restrained, but later changed his mind, when he realized that he based his halachik ruling on false advise from Israelis – he asked them “what is best for Soviet Jews”, and they replied “what is best for Israel” (as they hoped for diplomacy with USSR).
You seem to be making a similar logical error – making conclusions about a group of Jews not based on what they are, but how it immediately affects you.
>> how likely it is for someone who has been vaccinated to be contagious
again, preliminary results show that you are right. But opposite thinking goes as following: vaccine may prevent serious illness more than viral load. Then, vaccinated person will be walking around feeling healthy but possibly infect others, especially those with whom they are in prolonged contact, such as family. Just like children …
Even if the load reduction is confirmed, the question is – by how much. Would it be enough not to reduce other measures. And the main protection, of course – despite the threads online – is not the masks, but deciding where not to go.
Apparently, Bidenistas are canceling agreement with Mexico on preventing Central Americans move through their territory (which they did in lieu of paying for the wall, I guess). What is the justification? If I understand correctly, international laws on refugees say that they should apply to the first country they enter.
MadeAliyah, my point is that we have different political parties claiming opposite things.
It just can’t be that closings are a left-wing thing in US and a right-wing thing in Israel.
It just can’t be that Trump’s pro-active approach to vaccine did not matter – and EU’s by-the-book approach failed because they were tardy.
The simplest explanation is that politicians use situation to attack their opponents. Usual thing in a democracy, but an unseemly one during a public emergency.And we do not need to join that.
>> dont consult an expert.
I quoted bunch of opinions and ways I consulted, I did not see you quoting whom you are consulting regarding COVID behavior. I asked several times. Maybe I miss some, I apologize.
Still this is funny, as apparently you subscribe to Daas Torah and I do not (yes, I asked).
>> in part to water down the rapidly growing Chareidi vote
such ahavat israel .. Or maybe to be sure that all Jews will come given how many mixed families were among them?
Charlie, glad to see someone working on this! If you are doing analysis, it got to be by a connected cluster, not just by zip code. People mostly communicate within their own group .. you can use maybe mobility data + estimate ethnicity from names to see if there are tighter cluster – maybe some indeed are 95% …
Raboisem, savlanut. Israel is producing the answers to all these questions. We should know clearly in 1-2 months.
There are preliminary studies saying that vaccinated people have lower load and thus decrease probability of infecting others.
>> did you just read some opinions and made a decision
a good question – when do we need to ask, and whom? I heard and read enough questions about kaddish that I don’t see my situation as unique or risky. These questions do not seem to depend on the particular person, unless someone is uniquely OCD or disorganized …
I ask more often when the answer might differ depending who is asking.
For example, I asked questions when I had problems with schools. One confirmed that my kid is not a problem, a school is (by referring to his own experiences) and hoped it will work out. Another one encouraged me not to be afraid of doing online (which we were reluctant at that point). When COVID started, I sent info about online resources around, the Rav resent it to many other Rabbonim, vouching for me, so I presume he did not mind.
I also heard a question ask re:COVID – someone’s Rav was not careful about this – how one should relate to this Talmid Chacham? The answer was – you should still show him respect as to Talmid Chacham, but you should not ask him shailos.
The world seemingly went mad. Maybe it is a long asymptomatic COVID or a separate virus that Chinese or Russians sent at the same time. For some reason, when the country/world needs to come together, everyone is reducing public health problems to political arguments.
It is easy to see that most of them are wrong, as they all contradict each other. In US, wearing masks and closing businesses is considered liberal. In Israel, right-wing government tries to close and their lefty ‘partners” – to close. In US, some blame “lack of federal distribution” and say getting vaccine was easy. In Europe – many blame rigid centralized system for being behind US in getting vaccines. In Israel, being the highest vaccinated country in the world seemingly leads to yet another election…
I would not trust statistics quoted about illegal immigration one way or another. They are most likely propaganda. Many quotes say “immigrants have less crime”, for example, intentionally confuse legal and illegal immigrants. The other side often brings spectacular cases that may not be representative.
Legal immigration is much safer as people are to some degree vetted for their background and have known connections to people or companies in US. Congress should agree to the number we are willing to accept and stick with the numbers. If you want more, maybe organize private charity and sponsor more (may need some legislation also). Soviet Jews, arriving as refugees, were faring better in the communities that helped them directly, v. those that offloaded them to government services.
In extreme cases, like Syria, the most practical way to support refugees is to resettle most of them in nearby countries. Bringing 10,000 of them to US is taking focus away from the millions left behind.
I believe most new economic immigrants tend to vote for a party that provides more benefits.
Exception are political immigrants and refugees with prior experience of socialism: Cubans, Russians, East Europeans. Including Jews from those countries. Not sure where Chinese stand on this. Later on, some move to more conservative positions, but many stay behind (Reform Jews).
Eventually, it evens out, as most all voters are descendants of immigrants and the country is split 50-50 (in electoral results)MiDvar Sheker Tirhok? Just buy tulips.
The difference between bitcoin and tulip is anonymity that is being used by criminals and terrorists, and countries headed by criminals and terrorists, to go around financial monitoring.
Will participation of more mainstream players change that? bring some regulation? Or simply make it harder to find criminals among larger population? I did not research that.
Syag >> covid run through more than 95% some of our shuls as well.
You sound weirdly proud of your aveiros. could you verify the 95% number?
Check how many people are in the hospital from your wider community – significantly less than before?
Note that making conclusions from a very small circle of neighbors may be misleading, you need to look at larger population. Virus comes and goes in clusters. So, there might be a time period
with no cases, and then suddenly a cluster.If the real number is 50% (this is Russia and Mexico level) and not 95%, then transmission will be reduced significantly, but not fully.
For a comparison, there was a recent conference organized by a world-known technology “futurist”, who gave PCR tests to those who wanted to attend in person. Despite that, there was a cluster of cases among attendees. Futurist apologized but seemingly is still believed to predict the future …
Ujm AAQ: What can we learn from Vashti?
Why do Jews answer question with a question?
Who told you that?Maybe, it has a lesson for women, as they are obligated in reading the megillah more than the other parts of Torah?! Beware of your husband even when he is trying to prove that you are the most beautiful woman in the belt? One wrong word, one bad friend, and he is ready for the beauty pageant?
Btw, Trump wasn’t the first head of state to run beauty pageant, aheshverosh was. But Trump had more wives. Both have Jewish children
For balance to the misogyny above, pesachim quote another King on how to answer questions about the menu: ask the Queen, and everyone should follow that and not be demanding
>> That’s not a choice you get to make without a rav
I quoted already multiple opinions about being careful. And also opinions about one kaddish being sufficient. Maybe you can verbalize what exactly makes you so uncomfortable.
>> That may mean the they are doing it lman sholam, not that its the way to do things,
Hey, you don’t know _our_ gabbi 🙂 He can just look … We do have open line of communication
>> I always ask a shaila in regards to Yiddishkiet and I don’t always like the answer but I do it anyway
We seem to differ in our definition of Yiddishkeit. I would rather be careful about not infecting people, rather than missing an extra kaddish.
on a related note of priorites, I saw a quick teshuva from R Willig some time last spring. Someone asked about payments for broken contracts. He answered – now we are doing just dinei nefashot, keep money where it is, we will deal with mamonot later.
>> even though Vashti HaMalka was very pretty that Esther HaMalka was even prettier
That’s what he (the King) said …
We need to learn something from Vashti! Otherwise, it is not clear why she is in the Megillah, other than explaining why the King became single.
>> ROFL China started this whole mess
mi hu haham? halomed mikol adam …
Everyone is talking about dangers. This is legit. Still, Hashem created all this devices that you could use … buy him a Chrombook, bolt it in the living room, and use it to learn divrei Torah and math.
common, here is a more specific Q&A regarding number of kaddishim:
Q; May one sign-up to learn the same mesechta mishnayos in memory of two different people who recently died, and only learn it once or does he have to learn the mesechta twice? While R’ Moshe (IG”M Y”D 1:254) rules that by Kaddish at least one Kaddish daily must be recited for each individual niftar, I am not sure if this same concept applies by learning mishnayos. R’ Ephraim Glatt
Answer: Rav Willig- Kitzur Divrei Sofrim Perek 55:246-7 quotes the Ra’anach who says that one kaddish can be said for two people because the zichron can be for two people. Divrei Sofrim suggests that this leiniency is only when the kaddish is for a parent and then a second person is added on. When it comes to mishnayos, it is even more important to learn twice.CtLawyer: thanks for claridying
re:old strange shuls. There is a shul in CT that, out of good intentions, has the word “shalom” printed on the pavement. I was confused as this is one of the Hashem’s names, and walked around just in case. The regulars, of course, have no problems with that.
>> she backpaddled like crazy
Oh, I thought the issue was fully confirmed.
The fastest route for Trunmp is to become President in 2023 is by running for Congress in 22.
Given that base shows up in midterms, his participation will ensure flipping the house and possibly a couple of Senate seats. He can then become the Speaker – 3rd in line to Presidency and impeach first Harris on insurrection and immediately after that Biden on corruption or 25th amendment. He can argue the case in the Senate as the impeachment manager. Bernie & K will be already mad at the centrist Biden by that time, so they’ll flip for the price of a couple of cabinet posts.>> some shuls restrict to members only
“members only” is another issue. I am talking about travel/quarantine – whether they are covered by minyan or government rules. I know of lot of people, whether Jews or non-Jews, disregard them. This is how pandemic travels and evolves.
a WHO member says that he realized what quarantine is only when he was in China – they were taken from a side entrance from the plane to the hotel and were treated as biohazard.
common >> this was done after consultation with a leading posek
First, thanks for the wonderful bank story. As the story clearly says – the lady asked for one kaddish for her husband, and one kaddish for someone else. It is obviously more zechuyot to say more.
I then consulted R Salanter. He let someone else be shaliach tzibur on his mother’s yohrtzeit and explained – my mother deserves that I do this mitzva (hesed to the other person) be done on this day. So, this establishes that hesed is not less a good thing for neshomah than extra davening.
As to permissibility of reducing davening – our minyan already skips upfront, and there are multiple teshuvot what canbe reduced that I can summarize as “you can skip, but make sure it still feels like davening”. This is definitely a case here.
On a simple level, shtika k’mode. Rabbi and gabbi heard me and did not correct. And they are quite capable of!
>> [river] Interestingly that is the law nowhere in the US
I learned this sugya very superficially, maybe others can contribute and we can understand equity in halakha. This issue will be pushed at us, whether we want it or not.
Re: Health, I think this is more aggressive than AA. This will now be measured systematically. there is now lively discussion in liberal media about every Biden’s department and whether there are enough people of each sub-class at every level. If this continue, I think Biden will just quit.
I think the question is a valid one during the pandemic. Even if this is a relatively little time, but it is extra time. Whether you are in an unsafe minyan inside, or at a safer minyan outside where people are exposed to elements. I am also often an only one saying kaddish, I just skip the earlier ones, and then say one at the end at a relatively high speed. I hope others utilize various other means of minimizing tircha …
abukspan >> It is easy to look back through the meggilah and see in retrospect
excellent, psychologists call it “hindsight bias” – you look at Esther’s actions or vaccine development after the fact, and you say – of course, I understand that and could have done better than them!
CtLawyer, am I reading you correctly – you got first vaccine and went to shul the next day?
Even lawyers get emotional? You are not having any immunity until next shabbos.Not a scientific observation, but a common sense one, that might later be confirmed by an experiment: those, especially elderly, who had no side effects should be more careful as possibly their immune system is not responding well. Especially w/ Moderna, as they seem to have used a higher dose in Phase 3 to make sure they pass the criteria. A later antigen test would be another data point, although researchers warn of low reliability. Again, these ideas are not (yet, unfortunately) tested.
> So what did we come out with?
yes. We need a resolution in a week! Could someone go back and review this plethora of opinion by the COVID rule: consider the poskim who figured out, followed, and publicized protective rules more reliable on any issues that require an intense inquiry, like above. If someone did not pass the COVID test, is less reliable on his ability to analyze complex situations. for example. I heard R Heinemann speaking last April, and he was on the “passed” side. [“if you do not behave according to most stringent societal opinions, someone somewhere will not give a ventilator to a Jewish person”]. For the poskim who are not with us, you might check behavior of his students, although this is not entirely fair ….
>> Until this issue is resolved
How would this issue be resolved? I thought it is already resolved – someone admitted that they were covering deaths to avoid federal prosecutors. I am not aware of a “Trump exemption” in federal policies.
>> $2.75
thank you for your generous $0.02 contribution! I rather drive.
We are discussing in another thread a subtle idea that even if a mashkeh is technically kosher, but it lists non-kosher ingridents, you don’t serve it to heilike people. In the sane vein, even if the state and the minyan you visited does not ask for quarantine, it would be prudent to be more machmir with other people’s lives when visiting them.
Why wouldn’t you?! It is a question, I really can not comprehend.
SZ: not sure where your point about “upper class”
My point is that one of the reasons Us “middle class” is less is because the “upper class” is larger. That is not a bad thing, except for commies.As to “culture”, OUSD numbers show that US had a (decreasing) lead on educated population over Europe from 1920s. What you define as “culture” was remarked upon by Tocqueville: Americans tend towards practical skills that are useful when going to frontier (whether physical or virtual) rather than poetry and philosophy popular among European aristocrats. So, you may be unfair discounting applied intellectuals as just “materialism”. They are the ones who connect the world though railroads, radio, electricity, special forces, internet.
Nothing stops talking better than having masks on and freezing temperature! I don’t even miss having seforim around as the kahal is definitely catching up with me in speed with every degree down…so, maybe this is one of the ways for our teshuva ….
I notice also people above bragging about visiting shuls while traveling. Could you please limit your rich religiosity for just a little?! The rule about travel is on the books in many schools and minyanim (probably the ones you visited) but is not enforced in many places.
Almost all cases in the Jewish community I know about are brought by travelers – to somewhere or just after return. Many of worldwide outbreaks are tied to vacations or holidays. Variants are also moving this way.
>> I read Biden’s Executive Order
It start nicely, defining equity as ” consistent and systematic fair, just, and impartial treatment of all individuals, including individuals who belong to underserved communities that have been denied such treatment,”. Who can be against “impartial treatment”?!
next – “agencies shall consult with members of communities that have been historically underrepresented in the Federal Government”. So, here is the test for equal outcome, rather than equal opportunity.
next – Many Federal datasets are not disaggregated by race, ethnicity, gender, disability, income, veteran status, or other key demographic variables. we will all be marked up by reporting, I presume, our races, ethnicity, sexual preferences …
What does Gemora say about equity? What comes to my mind is how do we monitor several farmers along a river to ensure “equity”. The answer is that we do not – we let the first farmer along the river to possibly use more water “le derech shalom”. Maybe there is more discussion there…But at minimum this identifies potential danger of pursuing equity – inevitable fights for more or less equity (hope this word is still allowed!).
As Exhibit A, currently any policy streamlining vaccination is attacked as potentially inequitable. Statnews (sic!) counts percentage of vaccinated in rich and poor, black and white counties, not even bothering to weight by population age. Ein ledavar sof.
Can Jews apply for our equity? We were probably the only minority in Christian countries for about 1500 years.
I previously compared Trump w/ Yiftach – we need this type sometimes, but there are downsides, and downfalls .. Possibly same midos that made him popular, alsl let to his downside. Still, in terms of rhetoric, he was not much different from others, such as Al Gore. The only difference is that there are more people listening to him. Notice that, not counting those who went to fight in DC, there were a lot of pretty ordinary people – business owners, nurses, veterans.
>> When frum people were sending their children to public school, they left Yiddishkeit in droves.
So, we have undeniable both positive and negative effects of American education on Jews. I listened with kids to Ellis Island audio interviews and several Jews there said that they could not believe that it is possible to go to a free high school and also did not discriminate against Jews.
On the other hand, it lead to tremendous assimilation, it is no doubt that yeshiva/BY education saved a lot of people, but is not preparing them for modern life and for earning an honest living outside of teaching in the same yeshivos, which obviously can not accommodate everyone without an external source of funds.on a related note – school ran by Rabban Gamliel had 2 tracks – Torah and Greek. Which one had more students and why?
>> America has a small middle class, culturally and economically-speaking,
fact check: often claimed, but is true only if you consider being in an “upper class” a bad thing.
quoting Rakesh Kochhar, Pew Research, 2017:
US has less “middle class” than Europe – 60% v. 70-75% in France and Germany when middle class is defined “relative” to the income in that same country (2/3 to 2 median incomes). Part of it because .. US has, o horror, 15% upper class, while Europe has 10%. Lower class in US is 26% v. 18% in Germany/France. So, differences are not dramatic and mostly in US favor.When adjusted for cost of living and using US standards, Germany/France get almost same 63% middle class, 4% upper class, 33% lower class. When trying to adjust for possibly not including myriads of gov benefits in Europe in the above, France is 92% of US.
College-wise, al pi OUSD, number of people with tertiary education in US is > 40% from 20s to 60s; UK slightly behind;l in in France 40s for 20-y.o, going down to 20 for 60yo; Germany in 20s (take in mind their non-college career tracks). Russia, Canada, Israel, Japan South Korea are 5-10% ahead.
Just read about R Twerski’s mother going to talk to his teacher after he was included into a holiday play .. the teacher, I guess, realized and started apologizing, but Rebetzin did not see any problems “if after all education at home, he will be affected by a play, then _we_ have a problem”
I agree that this changes with times .. From a dvar Torah, some Hasidishe Rav in Poland would not let his daughter out of his house. Didn’t want her to socialize with kids on his, hasidische shul, forget about public schools… This is pre-corona 1920s ….
Still, I don’t think, we got logistics of getting kids educated both Jewishly and in general studies right.[Heard R Meir Twersky quoting R Soloveichik, when organizing Maimonides in Boston – “we are faced with a need to give dual education. It looks impossible, but we need to do that”. ] It is mostly a choice between under-funded school with limited education and mediocre Rebbes, or an over-priced school with lack of proper behavior.
I see a path as elementary Jewish schools that focus on middos, and then switching to online semi-public schools and online colleges (can control/improve quality, affordable, and no effect of regular public schools) with offline Jewish subjects in small groups or formal schools. There are already several yeshivot (LA) and Beis Yaakovs (Denver, last time I checked) that outsourced general studies to state online schools.
If there would be a critical mass of families going this way, so that kids could do Jewish subject together and socialize, this might become a path forward.
>> just putting down like 3 or 4 percent of the price of the house .. yes that’s the new generation and economy were in today.
Ein Hadash Tahat Hashemaim – this happens before every housing crisis. So, if it happens in your area already [not in mine, I believe], please do not buy RE, or at least do not buy on the outskirts of the city … typical pattern is that when things are going hot, prices in best areas go up, say, 20% and people start buying in more “affordable” areas where prices go up 100%. Then, things go down and people in “affordable” areas with 4% down foreclose.
I am preparing to watch Reagan’s impeachment next week. remember how he reached out to Russians and called for violence in the [German] Capital?!
“Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall”?? As a direct result of his hateful language, thousands of people [several years later] ILLEGALLY overran and destroyed that wall.