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This is very much related to the societal norms. R Salanter was very interested in how German Rabonim were able to work with their community, and he was amused at seeing ladies showing up for the lecture of one of them, saying that if he (R Salanter) tried such an event in Lita, he would be put in cherem.
So, there is no simple “halakha” here.We now live in same countries, but often in different societies. So, each community should follow their reasonable rules without getting crazy in either direction.
I once observed a funny situation: an academic husband gave a lecture to Jewish audience describing some interesting findings that came from his travels around the world. After the lecture, some people complimented his wife for letting him do such exciting work while holding the fort at home. Little did they know that his wife was an even busier professional, and this traveler was actually “holding the fort” all the days he was not on travel.
Froggie > Tosfes’ Kasha or a Shach
There might be disagreements here. For a random example, Maharal was against training children in Tosfos, but rather on first teaching more straightforward approaches. So, a good SAT-type test should encompass multiple ways of learning.
common, Adar or not, there are a lot of issues that might be turned to a healthier path with some creative solutions. For example, exchange illegal immigration for a legal one. That is, close the borders and allow increased immigration quotes. After that, you can have further political discussions about how much legal immigration is the right one and what categories should get priorities, but at least there will be no people stuck in the desert and bused to Chicago. This negotiating (peshora) attitude is something T brought to US politics and will hopefully be expanded upon.
Two beds are in BM 113, baraita says that beis din would leave two beds even for a poor person when taking a loan collateral.
Shmuel explains that he does not know how to heal only 3 sicknesses, including not walking after eating bread.
Interesting, that we not only presume that the poor person will eat bread but also that we need to make sure he exercises.
We can’t take the 2nd bed and just leave him directions to the gym.Also, it seems that Shmuel stresses these 3 incurable sicknesses are very much along the line of the OP – unhealthy things
people do to themselves. The other two are – bad diet (bitter dates when hungry) and wearing wet clothes.common > little early in the morning to get inebriated
how do you know I am aint posting from Beijing or Siberia?
Little Froggie croakth: he was once מכוין to a Tosfes’ Kasha
this is true. Unfortunately, I am not aware of well-developed widely appliable tests measuring learning knowledge and abilities. Maybe you know? “knows whole shas” and “gaon” are just too wide and subjective, especially in our Lake Wabegon times, when everyone is a Talmid Chacham above average.
You can go around, like I do, and ask people obscure questions and see who can answer it, but this is not scalable.
I am not the only one who is interested in being able to sort out this. R Soloveichik in early YU days laments that he is giving the same semicha to all students instead of giving them a grade. I presume he would answer when a congregation calls him and asks about a specific candidate, but he felt that transparent information would be more useful.
yankel > If the message is correct , who cares how it got to you ?
yes, this is correct in many cases where it is possible to evaluate evidence directly.
as someone told me about Rambam, “he would accept the truth regardless of the source”.
May also depend on a person’s own knowledge and abilities.Here we are discussing matters that are truly beyond my abilities, and probably beyond abilities of other posters. I can’t rely on Chachamim as their quotes here seem to be contradictory and most likely taken out of context. Thus, I can only (somewhat) trust based on poster’s reputation. So, that was my first basic question – do any of the posters have any external proof of their thinking abilities. If they did not invent a new light bulb or something, how can they be sure they can figure out such weighty topics? I would suggest – to those who did not yet – do something intellectually competitive that will indicate to them how good they are at thinking and even where their strong and weak spots are. Try SAT, chess, NYT crossword … IT is not bitul zman as knowing yourself will help you a lot in learning and working on middos.
Maybe we need some smart people to run as independent (asking for too much?). Establish 5-10% following in key states, sufficient to throw election either way and then negotiate with either side (most likely T as he would negotiate) to merge the ticket for some reasonable policy concessions.
This is sort of a parliamentary tactic that is against US system, as it was never possible to hold an executive to his promises. T is unique as he actually has karka to put a lien on. Maybe a commercial contract that if T does not sign Ukraine funding bill, he forfeits a hotel. Put a hotel in escrow and select a beis din to adjudicate before the election.
yechiell, you may have your position and feel free to defend it but it is embarrassing to see you pretend that T did not do anything good for Israel – embassy, Golan heights recognition, Abrahamic accords …
Note that there were ongoing negotiations with Saudi Arabia. When B started, he immediately insulted Saudis, relationships froze, then _recently_ renewed again and there were rumors of – again – increased contacts between Israel and KSA and, again rumors, that Hamas motivation was to stop those contacts. Possibly, if the process would not have reversed under B, KSA would have been in the accords already.
lots of people here know a lot about secrets of the world. As this is way above my capabilities, I’d like to see who is the greatest here so that I take his/her views more seriously. Could you guys maybe list your accomplishments in gashmiyus so I can see who has highest intellectual abilities? maybe patents or articles. If this is too ofeensive for your modesty, maybe I could go with the highest SAT score? please help me find my bearing in this important debate.
I think there was a takana or just a suggestion to have at least two “beds” in the house. Reason: a person would sleep on one and then get up and move to the other. Without the second bed, he might stay in the same bed and not moving (before eating?) is bad for the health. So, amoraim cared about health.
>> he has at least $2 million dollars in
> really think girls are so vain?He thinks girls are uneducated and are not indexing for inflation.
There is a hiluk that many in shidduch business do not seem to pay attention to – earning parnasa v. doing something in your life. There are lots of occupations where the only outcome seems to be financial v. others where one heals people, builds things, invents, teaches.
It is a big difference whether a husband (or wife also) spends 6-10 hours a day focused just on “parnasah” and his real “life” is in the remaining several hours between parnasah and shloffen that he needs to subdivide between learning, wife, children, YWN OR he spends whole day being productive and performing mitzvos. Of course, attitude may change occupation between these 2 categories. Probably R Miller, not sure, suggests for a woman to think that she is not just washing dishes, but works on sholom bayis. Same thing, a doctor may be thinking about how much he charges for the surgery or how he is saving a human life. Same for a melamed …
R Soloveichik writes that the same way we often defer to doctors when halakha needs medical opinion, we should defer to Israeli political and military leaders when halakha requires a military opinion.
CS > probably would have cost him [Rambam] his head.
Did Muslims of his time get that agitated about the founder of another religion who they in theory respected? Rambam did risk his head when he was confronted by a witness who said Rambam previously behaved as a Muslim, probably in the times he was learning science in or near Fez medrasa/aka first university.
Arso: a melamed in a cheder of FRUM kids from FRUM families, as well as anyone else involved in chinuch, is doing just as an important job as Lubavichers or others who work in kiruv
Without diminishing the role, these kids have parents who have a mitzva of teaching their kids and they are capable of hiring a melamed. Those other lost kids are like orphans as there is nobody to hire a melamed for them. Maybe, if you are melamed who is teaching kids for free, or at least not differentiating between those who pay you and those who do not, then you might be comparable.
On the other hand, you are right, the “frum” people also need to be baalei teshuva.
RebE, I forgot which amora had a field in the middle of the river, someone asked to teach him Torah in exchange for working the field. To make it easier, this student told people upriver that halakha is that downriver had the priority for water, and to people downriver other way around. You know, it was a machloket … when amora found out about it, he didn’t harvest produce from that field. So, yes, stolen goods ate not kosher.
These are the ways of the world. People perceive conservative positions as safe, and innovations as risky and criticized. Moshe was met with doubts, Rambams books were burned.
I am not saying that ANY innovation is good, but when metziyus changes, it requires a response. Mendelssohn is criticized, but maybe many jews were lost to assimilation not only by his translation, but by the inability of the rest of the community to come up with an appealing alternative. It took us generations to come up with yeshiva system, yu, chabad houses etc to somewhat deal with modernity.
What is marriageability status of someone has yichus to prominent misnagdim who had a zechus of throwing heilike stones at Baal Shem Tov? Asking for a friend.
Menachem, finally we found something to agree on! And bitcoin should to be traceable to David HaMelech.
> zionist activities made the Arab population militantly
We have to be realistic at the state of the nations in that neighborhood. In a big number of ME countries, many groups suffer either all the time or during crises. Most non-Muslims either emigrated or were killed off, not just Jews. Muslims shoot at each other all the time – from Turkey to Yemen. So, Zionists are not so much at fault.
There are some exceptions: mild dictatorships – Egypt, KSA, Jordan, emirates, and even muddling democracies – Lebanon, Iraq. West Bank PA fit somewhere in this list.
Israelis finally admitted that “from the river to the sea” are coming to the tunnels near you. I mean them. If Mhmt is not going to the sea, the sea is coming down on Mhmt.
> bar Kochba minted coins
I think Moschiach will mint bitcoins.
Gedol Hador, see CSs post.
> questions come from klipa
Who said “Aiekah”?
> questions are a lack of understanding.
Are you sure?
DaMoshe > Instead of answering, the Rebbe sang a song, and their questions disappeared.
Now I understand why so many times, when I would ask a question of a Chabad Rav, he would break out in a nigun. But either, they were not holding by Alter Rebbe’s level or I am not at the level of Talmidei Shklov, my questions did not disappear.
I am not so sure that Taanis fully approves of this attitude. It criticizes Eliezer for not qualifying that the girl is not lame or blind, but it does not criticize him for requesting her to have right middos.
Avira> it is completely forbidden to believe that chazal erred in science issues.
Avira is attacked for allegedly claiming that “chazal knew all science”.
We probably need to separate “knew all science” from “erred in science issues”. Chazal did not have to address all science issues, and it seems to me that they filtered science and general knowledge of their times thru both Torah positions and their expertise in logic, omitting a lot of errors prevalent in their times.The question whether ” chazal erred in science issues” is an interesting question by itself, but is different from “chazal knew all science”. And, when discussing this issue, hopefully posters would honestly discuss it rather than simply bringing opinions that support their side, leaving for the opponents to bring other opinions, sometimes from same author. It is bitul zman & Torah to argue like this on a complicated matter, on which there are clear disagreements throughout generations of respectable thinkers on both sides.
Shadchanim hording resumes and matching according to their understansding seems to be one of the issues leading to narrow choices.
I heard there is a modern way to share shidduch resume thry Isawyou@sinai, with YU having their own subgroup there. Is there a yeshivishe version? And if not, maybe there should be.Shortness might also be affected by lack of nutrition.
So, like in this case, the OP throws in all kind of partisan points, without bothering to check which ones of them are strongly supported, which ones are “possible” and which ones have no support at all. I would think that bitter experience of Jewish marxists would teach us a lesson.
>> Some of the political points in the original posting are irrelevant to us (e.g. while Ukraine’s defeat will encourage Iran and Hamas, immigration policy and the exaggerated response to Covid are not Jewish issues, though if Medinat Yisrael goes the way of Afghanistan we will liberal immigration rules in place)
R Soloveichik comments on Megilah that it is naive thinking that world events are irrelevant, they all end up affecting Jews in a major way. R Avigdor Miller writes that everyone should learn lessons from events that are far away. If you do not learn that lesson, then the next event R’L will be closer until we learn … And, at the end, Hashem sent us to be ohr legoyim and when we can affect it, we should. This approach might be getting a bad press due to irresponsible Jews doing crazy things “to save the world”, but that is due to the Jews applying their considerable energy inappropriately. This does not take away our responsibility to the world.
Medieval Christians insisted on Jews having different dress from them. In 16th century Poland, yellow hats were decreed for Jews – with an exemption during travel. Presumably, without the hats, many Jews dressed like Polaks. Things indeed changed under Russian government:
1804 Russian law: (soon after Poland was divided and Russia got a big part of it)
Jewish children attending parochial or district schools, may wear Jewish dress, but those attending gymnasiums must wear German or Polish [style] dress for the purpose of uniformity.anyone who would like to be elected as a Member of Town Council from among the Jews in the Gubernias incorporated from Poland, for general order and uniformity, must wear Russian or Polish dress, if they do not like to wear German dress. In the Russian Gubernias where Jews are permitted to live, Jews elected to Town Council must wear German dress.
nobody can be elected or appointed to any position in Kahal or the Rabbinate without being literate in [ Russian, German or Polish]
Manufacturers, artisans, artist and merchants will be permitted to visit other Gubernias and even capitals due to business purposes for a specified period of time, but only by a Gubernator issued passports, about which [Governers] in their turn have to send monthly reports to the Minister of Interior [on passport issuing].
Jews (including their wives and children) temporarily traveling outside of the Pale, have to wear German [style] dress no different than that of others. If they wear traditional dress, they shall be sent back [to the Pale] by the Police.More came in 1840s and 50s
CS,
so you seem to answer me that yes, older generation did not support the rebbe-moschiach movement, or at least, was divided into two groups? This explanation makes sense, as I was mostly listening to older people, and most of them were not part of the new movement. I think this should give you a pause, though – how come people who were right there did not share your views that are based on viewing videos and explanations of them. This violates Kuzari principle – a belief based on evidence starting with people who saw the evidence firsthand.And you can’t dismiss that generation as some dor hamidbar. If we are talking about elderly people in the 90s, they were with L Rebbe for 50 years of his leadership, educated by him, they had early memories of alter heim, and they spent most of their lives in US, so I think they saw a big picture.
> book on novardok, which obviously didn’t include the picture of the chazon ish standing for rav kook
why would you quote a book with such low standards?
I am also not sure whether Satmar Rebbe was the only initiator of the new minhag of everyone dressing up like Rabbonim before them, I think there were others also. Are you saying other Rabbonim picked it up from Satmar?
I agree, btw, that Chazal appear to have a strong tradition re: creation of the world even in the overwhelming face of the contemporary scientific evidence.
That does not mean that Hashem shared with us all volumes of Feynman’s physics textbook. For example, glancing at same Pesachim 94 – discussion about star looking the same from any angle is the same classical argument that I tihnk Greeks had – some of whom computed distances to Moon and Sun, but were not able to observe parallax to the stars and thus developed theories that stars belong to stationary spheres. Now, if you read passages like that not being familiar with basics of ancient science, then you would not see these correlations.
Avira, are other quotes from my post also questionable? But it seems we are moving towards throwing at each other quotes form authors who argue with each other and accuse each other from not quoting enough. For example, R Tam above is not an only one commenting on Pesachim. I can’t commit time required to verify all these claims right now. My opinion was not based on specific claims, but on overall scene of Talmudic discussions. Just for fun, though, while we are on Pesachim 94, how about a much simpler question: what is the length of parsah that corresponds to the size of Mitzraim?
CS > Beis Moshiach is gematria 770
Do we have precedence of someone hinting subtly like that? Naviim seemed to be pretty straight-forward about their role. So were aspiring Moschiachs – from Bar Kochba to Shabtai Tzvi.
> Also, after the stroke, the Rebbe encouraged yechi with the little time we had with him
Did you see this personally? At that time – after the stroke – a choshuve local Rav publicly said that he called Rebbe’s secretariate and asked them how he can be helpful, and they asked him to state publicly that all the meshugas is NOT coming from them – and that is what he told us.
Mazal tov. You should keep your user name, you are not losing your CT license, so it will not be a misrepresentation.
maybe it will be helpful to bring some quotes that can help us clarify positions:
In my opinion, the first principle that every student of Chazal’s statements must keep before his eyes is the following: Chazal were the sages of God’s law – .. They did not especially master the natural sciences, geometry, astronomy or medicine – except insofar as they needed them for knowing, observing and fulfilling the Torah. We do not find that this knowledge was transmitted to them from Sinai ….. We find that Chazal themselves considered the wisdom of the gentile scholars equal to their own in the natural sciences. To determine who was right … they did not rely on their tradition but on reason. Moreover they even respected the opinion of the gentile scholars, << Rav S.R. Hirsch – Trusting the Torah’s Sages, Chapter 4The great excellence of the Sages of the Talmud in the interpretation of the Torah.. does not oblige us to accept all their statements in the spheres of medicine, natural science or astronomy. << Rav Sherira Gaon (or possibly his son, Rav Hai Gaon) Maamar al ha-Derashot, Ein Yaakov,
Chazal knew the law as a tradition from earlier generations … But with regard to scientific explanations, it is not that the explanation mandates the law, but rather the opposite: that the law mandates an explanation. The reason given in the Talmud is not the sole possible reason. And if, on occasion, they gave an explanation according to the scientific knowledge of their day, we are obligated to search for other explanations which establish the law on
its basis according to the scientific knowledge or our day. Thus I heard from Rav Dessler zt’l.switching to modern situation. A Rav who works for a yeshiva that takes in boys who have problems in “top” yeshivos writes a number of great articles about how to deal with kids as people, nurture them, quoting a lot of roshei Yeshivos, etc. Wonderful approach and writing. I think, he undersells himself, as same approach should also be applied to “top” students.
So, he spends several articles arguing that yeshivos should not be evaluated (including by parents who decide, or not, to send kids there) by quality of students at the beginning or even at the end – but by improvement they make at the end over the initial condition, and improvement includes middos and learning ability, not just amount of memorized material.
Wonderful. Now, it happens that there is academic work on measuring school and teacher quality using exactly this method – relative improvement over initial stage. I do not recall details, but there were lots of details learned from this. Of course, secular educators in general do not care for this. Now, does this Rav know about such research? Maybe no, or maybe yes, but he does not see any use in bringing it xto his yeshivish readers.
So, he goes around using his heimishe version of this scientific approach without any contact with the existing literature. Would he go further if he were to read about existing work? Maybe, he would go further and actually measure that improvement .. I don’t know. But clearly even great Rabonim might be disconnected from the existing chochmah.
yeridat hadorot according to the seder hahalanot (from Windows 3 to 11)
I may not fully apprehend what your statement is. It would help to see some examples. When you say ” they did not err in scientific issues.” – this is a somewhat defensible statement. As I see it, Chazal passed science or general chochma of their time/place and often avoid relying on things that are not proven enough. Bavli method of logic is very good at verifying confidence of a statement (al pi Maharal, not a Maskil), so they applied same approach to science they were bringing into their argument. And, again, there are certain positions that Chazal take based on tradition against all odds, such as creation ex nihilo.
Avira > rav meiselman’s sefer
I apologize if I created such impression. I did not read this sefer, just read reviews and discussions about it, and also read and met some of the authors he is quoting/discussing.
As to bans, I hope you had a chance to read another infamously banned sefer about making a Rav Kamenetsky that does not go into hard scientific problems, but simply provided high quality research in the life of the author’s father. If you believe into bans after that … Even if someone thought that publicizing the book in certain circles with have some harmful effect, surely one should contact and appease the author who spent years on this research, and this does not seem to happen.
Avira > The maskilim pick up on one rishon, rabbeinu Avrohom ben harambam
I am sorry, I do not know any maskilim in my neighborhood. I am sure there are some, but we do not intersect. In this case, it is my own conclusion from going thru cases and making a mental estimate of what could explain each particular case. Of course, I am affected by meta-literature I read – from multiple sides of the argument. In this case, I just brought a current traditional Chacham that agrees with your view but does not cinsder the opposite as apikorisus.
We need to separate the bitter biased arguments in the times of haskala from our current situation where society absorbed already 200 years of industrial life.
Think: nobody seriously argues that we do not need hishtadlus in watching the fire or crossing the street. Gemora discusses these in detail. Somehow, when the discussion concerns modern artifacts – science, colleges – everyone is up in arms. The reason is obvious – recent history when going to college meant abandoning the shtetl.
Looking at discussions of R Messelman, I see this: an explicit statement that chazal relied on science of their time is attributed to Avrhaham b’ Rambam – and many disagreed. R Ovadia Yosef disagrees but does not allow calling those who in our time agree w R Avraham heretics.
To clarify my view, I don’t think that Chazal “relied” on science of their time in a simplistic way – we do halakha and ask scientists for quotes in science. Some Chazal relied sometimes on their own expertise and filtered science of the time through both tradition and their own high standards of proofs. Furthermore, most Amoraim did not live in places/times of high science, so they mostly react to generic knowledge of the society.
Avira,
I agree on midrashim about melech Shlomo and about positions on such fundamental questions as Creation – scientific positions from Greeks to early 20th century Big Bang was that world was not created.Still, if you go thru Gemora’s discussions of various issues, you can clearly see that – amoraim at least – mostly operate from physical facts and logic, and literary arguments about text of Chumash and Mishnayos and Baraisos. Their analysis is often very intricate as they paid more attention to how crops grow and animals behave than we do. To say that amoraim did not operate from the facts known to them essentially means to reject more than half of the Gemora arguments.