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From razors back to learning. We went through this sugya before and I fully admit that modern poskim are ok with taking funds. Aveira inference from “rav of the city” to anyone with a desire not to work is unfortunate, probably just an accident, he used to give better sources. I can’t say to what degree poskim accept funds – nobody quoted Moshe Feinstein allowing using welfare and such, if I recall, but given wide acceptance of the practice, I presume someone paskens this way privately.
huju, as lakewhut is saying, this was tried en masse and lead to unhappy results. CTL is an exception due to his family background and where his schooling happened. Current day school system is a reaction to that and achieved tremendous results.
It is just not sustainable in long term if we want to have Jews functioning as part of the society and remain a strong Jewish community. It should be possible to accept government funding in a way that keeps kids out of trouble. Charter and private schools accepting funds and accepting testing (better than pushing kids into special ed for federal funding). Maybe real public school in super-majority frum neighborhoods. Online public schools. I think some towns try to decrease funding for public education so that parents pay less taxes, not sure what percentage of total funding that is.
I am not against looking shulchan aruch haRav, just don’t call it “a shulchan aruch”, as if it is a legit series from Mehaber to Alter Rebbe to Kitzur.
Reminds of someone who was willing to do a shevua on a monetary issue. The Rav said – our sul has a special minhag, we are not using sefer Torah [turns to the gabbai]: BRING SHNEI LUCHOS HABRIS. The person shrieks and runs away in horror. The gabbai brings the sefer.
Reb E, this was a good suggestion for a Shoah commemoration. As of now, we ended up with a day accepted by some, and not accepted by others because it was established by the first ones. Maybe we should use Sivan 20 for all Yidden who perished in 20th century perturbations, (in chronological order): whether WW1, Russian civil war, communist labor camps, Nazi persecutions, Hungarian 1956 rebellion, Arab revolutions, Israeli wars …
Unless you live in Medinas Yisroel or in certain enclaves or on a kosher farm, the trade-off of cost and quality should be an issue.
So, especially, if your lifestyle is subsidized by a generous shver, or you rely on kulos to accept communal funds or goyishe welfare or pandemic emergency funds – and spend that money on less healthy amd more expensive foods? Then, H’V spend additional funds on treating health of children who were not eating healthy. I am not saying this is a clear cut issue. Just wondering whether people thought of the issue and have enough health education about this.
references:
R Salanter disregarded pas yisroel when on a health trip to waters, subsidized by a friend.
Alter from Novordok would not let his daughter buy new dress as they were paid as part of yeshiva funds.Thanks for so many good reference on cholov. Does this not come to metziyus – how (un)likely is it that a particular goyishe farm will engage in fraud? Surely, this probability decreased from the time we had a Polish peasant v. a modern farm that can lose FDA certification in case of misconduct. How many such cases are recorded by FDA over the years? Surely, you need someone with broad shoulders to put this reasoning into halakha and that is what Rav Feinstein did.
Also, would it help halachically if you mix up 3 bottles of milk from different sources or mix up 3 pieces of cheese, so you would have rov kosher milk?
Avira > Imagine if someone(and there were) convinced me that I wasn’t cut out for learning, and i would have just gone to college
So, then by now, you will work for 10 hours a day and spent the rest of the day in learning. Your middos would be also better because you’d learn some manners, as when you are talking inappropriately in business, you tend to lose customers. I am puzzled how so many hours of learning did not have similar effect – up to now, at least. Maybe it is an indicator that a system of learning by hours of Gemoras not always affects the person, despite the promise of lo lishma not leading to lishma. Please note, this is not personal.
edited
Coffee, did anyone in your ‘hood got out masks or is this still asur as minhag goyim?
CTL,
it is fair to say that religious education should not be publicly funded according to US minhagim, but why we need to pay double for professional education? As we both seem to agree, it is proper for at least some Jews to have both just because we want our kids to be “separate but equal”. In the current system, poor chareidi parents are against a lot of odds – from the government that would not reimburse them for general education, and those in their community that do not value general education. And currently in the cases the government does pay in some roundabout ways (lunches, transportation), the funds empower the schools and not parents, so general education is not getting better off. And middle class educated parents are spending ridiculous amounts of money to afford day schools and have no time to spend with kids. No wonder such lifestyle is not attractive to the kids. Straight vouchers to parents would solve lots of these problems.You will feel more comfortable in Iraq, where you may not to have a goy as your barber, but you can trust him on the milk! I heard from some anashim peshutim from there that they had hard time adjusting to American kashrut. For them, muslims could be trusted on a lot of simple foods.
food prices fluctuate … in Gemora, chicken was a delicatessen, now it is viewed inferior to meat. Maybe our chicken is not like their chicken.
Also, maybe CTL owns a fleishig farm somewhere in Texas. US probably was the first to have general population eat a lot of fleishig after railroads in 19th century enabled delivery of meat from Midwest to Northeast. I presume CTL’s forefathers bet on a farm early on.
looks like another chumra making people to throw away the food Hashem sent their way. Why not give it to some sheigetz in Lakewood that holds by mechiras chometz?
hm,, maybe this pool is too smal. Let’s widen it – do you know of any 2020 T voters who will not vote for him in 2023 genera;?
> why not just open a shulchan aruch – look in shulchan aruch harav
if this is not a definition of hacking a chinik, I don’t know what is.
> “time for people to stop spreading hate and realizing the lubavitcher rebbe was a גאון עולם
I don’t think this says what you meant it to say! A more serious point is that if you have seforim (witnesses) that have verifiable inaccuracies, the eid is posul (or at least uninformed), and you should view such books accordingly. It would be especially sad if people put misleading information in books about their Rebbes. So, if I were, I would get to emes on this and maybe confront the publishers.
ujm, this is an opinion. It sounds that ketuba is the right way to do prenup. Ashkenazim our days are using a standard text. It is clear from the gemorah that people used to change value and property that is included, and sefardim still do that, as far as I know.
Avira, I do not have a prenup, so I can’t compare the texts. I can see that there could be prenups that are not in the spirit of ketuba, for example protecting the husband. Although, I would say that conditioning ketuba on resolving divorce fully in Jewish court might bea reasonable idea.
But otherwise, ketuba is preventing divorce exactly by making husband think about financial consequences. Gemora goes thru history of ketuba – first husbands would put money aside in home, etc – but it did not prevent them from making quick decisions.
And you contradict yourself – provision for widows is not simply to make it light in his eyes. Unless you think it will prevent an abused husband from committing suicide as it will not frees him from paying to the hated wife. As in the famous “if you were my wife, I’ll drink it (poisoned tea)”
To put chumros and kulos together: what if one can learn more by eating cholov hacompanies – cheaper and healthier? would you rather be machmir/meikel on the milk from a factory or on limud Torah? Maybe your answer would be – stay on bread & water, respect.
And, as we discussed before, “tzedoka” here may not include using non-Jewish programs to support poor, or taking money from unwilling public. I am sure there are kulos to support (pardon the pun) these positions, but, as we established in other threats, you could expect others to consider this treif. And the value of learning that general public might see as treif may not be kashered (what is crooked …)
Neville, I think the question comes to – how do you relate to someone who follows R Moshe’s opinion on chalav hacompanies. You compared it to giving pork to Refor, I presume that was just a figure of speech. As well as calling chalav hacompanies chalav akum, both are disrespect both to whole communities of Yidden and R Moshe. That does not seem to bother anyone who feels frummer because he is keeping chumros.
And it is not here, not there whether this is a kula or a chumra – commercial milk and USDA did not exist in earlier times.
Ok, ujm, thanks for the psak on touro, do you also have gedolim on record against columbia medical school and against asu online?
For a non expert, what is the difference between a ketuba and a prenup?
I am not against languages. Not everyone did. Chofetz Chaim did not speak Polish and there is a moving story about Polish minister agreed with him based on seeing him speaking in Yiddish even before the translation. Of course, he was born before the Poland was back. Not sure whether he spoke Russian.
So Mrs. Shneerson was fluent in Russian? Interesting, I thought she spoke Yiddish.
> And the fellow who threw out the Hershey’s chocolate holds it is treif, per the psak of his posek. So he cannot give it to someone else, even if the other fellow holds otherwise.
This. is what keeps us apart. You could at least give it to your goyishe friend or cleaner crew, or to your dog.
show of hands – do we have here T 2020 voters who will not vote for him in the general 2024 election?
> Ice cream truck frequency
Just find out what the frequency is, jam it with white noise, and the kids will not hear the sound.
Neville, you can’t be that parochial. If you have a system that allows us to have better life at the expense of others, then you can, in a short term, have resentment, and, in a longer term, weaken the country where we are zoche to live. Jews who got freedom in Russia by destroying the wicked Czarist regime, got the short end of the stick.
We should always try to combine our own interests with the overall society.So, in this case, CTL is right in arguing for the benefit of the society, I just do not agree with his evaluation of the benefit.
RSo, that is why Kotzker chasidus is not so popular in our times! That, and the preference for emes before sholom.
I would even say that fasting on shabbos till midday is more questionable than eating a cholov isroel cake.
Neville, thanks for the reference. Interesting to note some of the factors that R Moshe used re:Queens – reliability of checking and sholom between communities.
As discussed in Nedorim, chumras are a double-edge sword, it can elevate you and it can make you into a rasha. Someone in Boro Park surrounded by Yiddishe stores would be silly to suddenly rely on the heter just to eat M&Ms. At the same time, someone who is from a family where the heter is used and who has, say, temper and attitude and learning problems – going for cholov isroel might help in some cases, leading to more observance, or deceive in other cases , making him presume that chumros will make other problems go away.
If you do not eat chalav hacompanies, would you consider plates treif?
a quick search for kelm shows several images with streets and markets with men only, also an image of children with various parents of all genders accompanying them, and a 1920 photo of non-yeshivish school with parents with no assigned seating at all. Was the takana for separate street sides at some specific times?
Back to original question about bridging the gap. I was once told by a wise Rav – Yidden can not pray together, but they can learn together. So, maybe this could be the way – both personally in your interactions and also here. This is a unique place where we can discuss Torah from multiple views and, hopefully, with integrity that Tora requires, rather than approaching issues as politics, where you can quote only sources that support your position and disparage those who hold opposite ones.
Maybe same can be happening at the level of Talmidei Chachamim. It says at the end of Sotah that T’Ch who live in the same town and do not learn together – one dies, another goes to exile… How often do we have such Torah discussions? We hear about Rabbis of previous generation having good personal relationships (R Feinstein/R Soloveichik/L Rebbe, etc), but how often we hear them learning together? Maybe invite a Rav from a different shul to have a public hevrusa with your Rav?
CTL,
I understand the realities you mention. I am talking about an ideal view of how things should be. There are so many discussions on how to deal with side effects of over-centralization. This is like chinese government in Beijing issuing edicts about lack of healthcare beds in a remote province. Same happens even in Great Britain with a PM spouting number of new beds built in some town that the MP just inquired about – due to central ownership of the issue. These issues are intractable, and each “cure” creates additional “inequalities” that yet another government office will “resolve”.Jewish educational system, as described in Bava Basra, suggests a local system with each town being responsible for hiring enough teachers. you are using a threat of segregated schools to oppose improved education of most of the country, including Jews – as if most of schools are not segregated anyway due to segregated housing. If you are so serious about the issue, and I respect that, then you should propose a limited solution for that without holding back millions of kids. for example, allow vouchers for schools that are in areas where there are no mixed areas, or where schools are not segregated. This would allow most of your state to move ahead in education. You yourself received wonderful religious and general education, how do you feel that others are not able to afford it?
I would say this affects even those who can afford it – can you open a Jewish school that will serve only rich children and hope to have good Torah and middos to happen there? From Gemora to Chofetz Chaim in 1920s Poland say that rich kids are not learning Torah well, talmidei chachamim will come out of poor children.
well, what if you’d like to become a Chosid?
Bava Kamma, I think, suggests several suggestions: to learn (no, not Sichos!) – (1) nezikin, (2) pirkei avos, (3) brochos. So, one of those seforim would be enough after tanach. I presume, therecommendation above assumes that one did not learn any of the above yet, and after learning one of them will be a chosid already.Maybe we need to clarify what “going to college” means in practice. Are we talking about sending a BY girl into a remote party school with a reform clergy for gender studies, or, someone going to a local or online college for a technical degree? Some non-Jews understand this also. I had a young Saudi girl in a CS class I was teaching as a grad student. Before the boys were able to approach her after the class, her father’s chauffeur was already there. Worth the expense.
> The iced cream was taken back, and thrown in the garbage.
There are no goyishe kids in your town!?
Just tell the kids that you don’t trust the truck kashrus.
I used to worry when I went to the store with several little kids that they’ll consume or destroy all the attractive items that are on display at the lower level while we were waiting for the cashier. Then, I inspected the aisle more carefully and realized that these items are there on purpose to attract the children’s attention. So, I turned to simply defending the cart from kids adding items to the cart. The rest would be store’s problem.
CTLawyer, thanks for additional info. CT is a prime example of what I mentioned – it had a state religion. I understand that things changed by now, I am just illustrating that all these restrictions are not part of the original US ideas, so if some of the non-federal restrictions are rolled back in some way, it is not ruining the whole idea.
For example, for schools – there is no good reason for most school to depend on federal money. This should be part of the state responsibilities. As to charters, you might have a good case – except that your state will be better off giving voucher to population and let them use it for the school of their choice, and all problems will go away. It seems that many R- states are moving in this direction. It will be an interesting eperiment, but it will take some years before results will be in.
> while sad, is not a tragedy
R Yaakov Kamenetsky’s son writes against this attitude (about his father). He says that people who think this way do not appreciate that the longer you know the person, the greater the loss.
All the discussions about protection from internet and secular colleges is important in terms of protecting people from assimilation. And this is practically very important and yeshivish/chasidic communities are more successful in keeping people within. At the same time, don’t confuse these measures (that Hazon Ish called “desert”) with all Jewish (Hashem’s) values. Torah does not require looking at down at people who have less chumros; dressing in black hats; staying ignorant of science; relying on non-Jewish charity or unwilling Israeli taxpayers to support their learning, etc, etc. This is like Chava confusing siyag with Torah.
I can see if someone davens at 10a AND slowly with kavana – that he would need a piece of cake before that. I saw a quote fomr Kotzker who answered his student, a grandson of R Akiva Eger, how to justify the practice to his zeide: Rambam says that if you hire someone to axe your logs and he spends most of the day sharpening the axe and only then using it – he is paid for the whole day. Maynr Kotzker to Rambam specifically due to the kashya of the Rambam above? Anyway, people who don’t get a profession before getting married live in glass houses (if they can afford them) and should not be quoting Rambam they disregard. <Ducking>
Given that most men prefer to be providers after kollel or whatever rather than takers, a smart high earning lady essentially forces her husband to earn more than her, at which point she can stay at home
Avira, such kallah could finish or almost finish a bachelor degree by the time of getting married, at reasonable cost with loans to be paid over long time or even forgiven eventually if she doesn’t earn much, not sure of details
She can then work a small number of hours at higher rate, exactly what a busy mother needs.Note that 1st amendment applied to Federal Gov. States could, and did, have official religions. Not sure how comfortable we are with that idea, but it does make sense. If we are bothered by a NY religion, we can move to Montana and get enough votes to make it into an Uganda or a Birobidjan. So, under this system, there would be no problem having 10 comm in a state school.
Only later expansion of right to state governments created a current system. It also, I think, hallowed out state governments and lead to the current, unhealthy, state where democracy is hinging on an election of all-powerful President who is the head of an all-powerful Federal machine.
If we were to still have strong states, people would stop freaking out about federal elections.As to 10 comm in public schools – just give everyone vouchers and the problem will be solved.
NY is huge not because it is so great that everyone from US moves there. To the opposite, maybe hundred millions arrived there from the other countries, and eighty millions left, the remaining 20 are temporarily stuck on an island before they can afford to buy a car, pay the tolls and cross a bridge to America proper. .. Jews had good historical reasons and fear of assimilation to be stuck in NY for longer, of course, so we move gradually to Elizabeth, Monsey, Stamford, and Lakewood …
Disregarding Nach seems to be a tradition stemming from (1) focusing on Gemora, (2) backlash to Zionists who highlight Nach as nationalist history and it is hard to argue against, so it is easier to skip.
Still, I don’t think we can call someone who claims Nach is not Torah an apikoires – just an ignoramus.
N0, maybe we just use different terms. I am not claiming that “he is not afraid”. I am not into hero-worship or similar avoda zara. I see him as Yaftach be’doro … His middos are both the source of his great things and his problems too, like with most people.
I was comfortable – at a time – with Romney’s policies, but he had no heart to fight dirty politics. He was laughed off for claiming that Russia is our biggest enemy – maybe there would be no war at the moment were he a President. While Romney correctly concluded that 47% will vote for handouts, Trump was able to win elections in his own ways, changing calculus of the 47% through his populist inspiration – “what do you have to lose”.
As you just added judges to the long list of his accomplishments, we need to acknowledge the achievements, rather than trying to explain them away just because you do not like the guy personally. It is a very Jewish thing to do, even as it is hard.
I think, you guys here are a little confused by viewing labels as defining a person. How about this view:
fact: we have Jews all along the spectrum of observance. I am not talking MO v non-MO, but along the traditional measures: shabbat, kashrut … We have millions of people R’L who are not at all, or are partially, observant. These people are not, mostly, result of laxity of MO shuls, but of all other factors of the modern world.
Some of these people might sometimes come to a shul or otherwise interact with observant Yidden and, hopefully, learn and get inspired. Where will these people go? Some to Chabad, some to MO, only rarely directly to a yeshivish or chassidish shul. This is what you are saying when you mention that many of people in “MO” are not observant. You seem to be proud that none of these Jewish people who need our help are not coming to your shul … (this may be an unfair generalization with apology to those to whom it does not apply). Any ideas how to fix it and invite those people to your shul!?
Poland, Lita and couple of other small places were exceptions where Jews lived – on average – better and more independent. Germany was similar to the most of Europe – and that is why “Ashekanzim” moved from Germany further East.
Communism was popular among Eastern European Jews at the time when most of them were not under Poland or Lita but under Russian empire, with those countries being “beyond the Pale” and not allowed into Russia proper. They were discriminated against, but still better off than actual Russian serfs.
what happened with athe notion that a Talmid Chacham allowed to change the words to deny that he learnt a masechet?! Should claim “hetzi” not “kula”