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n0, could you look at your post with a fresh look – you are tying yourself into a pretzel finding far-fetched explanations for each of the cases. In each of them, you agree with the fact, but then find a way to say it was popular, it does not really mean that he did it on purpose, etc.
On Afghanistan, you seem to agree with my thesis, while highlighting that T had doubts too. I agree, I am not trying to paint him as a super-hero.
On embassy, I do not know of evidence that any previous Presidents were bargaining rather than just simply postponing. When T did that, it was met with usual condemnations how stupid and risky it was. Thanks for adding accords to the list. I presume you also discount it for some reason.
NS2 is now seen ass the center of German folly in their accommodating policy towards Russia. T tried to force them to reconsider, Biden caved, making it another factor in Putin’s decision to start the war, planning for no opposition. This is very “consequential”.
Most modern Europeans are barbarians who travelled there from Ukranian steppes and beyond.
ten comm are coming pretty close to what we are supposed bnei Noach to believe. I understand concern for church/state separation, but it is hard to take a position against your own religion for the sake of a constitutional principle. At least, suggest some modification to the stature but just arguing against 10 commandments is plain backwards. Especially, from posters who find some other bill of rights provisions, like 2nd amt, questionable.
Avira > Of course there are working people who are talmidei chachamim, but that’s only if fhey spent years learning before going to work full time.
Interesting question. I would venture majority of T’Ch in history were working, whether full time or not. Did we have T’Ch who always worked and learned, or all of them spent some time (presumably when young) exclusively in learning?
Right, cctv might not prevent an attack but it will ensure that the crime will be proven. Whether this is enough of a deterrent will depend 9n the location, time and your barber… if he of the type who might want to steal your car, he’ll be deterred, but if he is a possible jihadi, then maybe you need a mirror..might be awkward though to first look at the barber and then ask for a mirror. Maybe lo plug here and ask for a mirror all the time and not get accused of being a latent racist
R Yehuda in Sotah 49 suggests using Hebrew, Greek, or Persian rather than Syriac (seemingly Aramaic dialect). Guessing he would prefer English or even High German to Yiddish …
huju, my guess – Robert Byrd?
A fair comment about Europeans: and the best,and cheaper, alternative to German products, I guess, would be Chinese – who not only imprison 1 bln + of their own citizens but also support all other current dictatorships – Norks, Russia, Iran … So, if you can’t find a heimeshe or a free anglo world alternative, I would first limit purchases from the current commies and only as a second priorities to the German/Europeans even if the latter is more emotionally charged.
“As no people have the same faces, no people have the same opinions”, said one of the acharonim. So, if you expecting achdus by waiting until everyone else agree with your opinion, you are an obstacle on the way to achdus.
Marxist, chatGPT does not claim to solve our problems. It merely learns from the corpus of human writing and repeats nonsense similar to what an average human is spouting. It also might be biased towards the way you ask question in order to please you. Were you to ask the same question using a more lefty terms, chatGPT would have answered that service in Tzahal is a great way to meet eligible partners.
I suggest yeshivish invite some of the gvirim to give seminars on how to emter the business world and to succeed there. Even if, in your opinion, a particular gvir is “keeping up with the joneses”, yeshiva bochrim can take the good from the bad.
Maybe, if someone expand to the gvir about maalos tzedaka and then disclose to him the secret (that is usually not mentioned in the appeals to him) that the biggest tzedoka is to help someone with making a living, the gvir can take some of the more aspiring bochrim as apprentices.
Hashem offered Torah to various goyim and they objected to various of 10 comm. Isn’t this a good moment when a nation wants to post all of them?!
n0,
on Afghanistan: it was reported that T indeed wanted to leave and would have benefited politically and chance his mind based on strong message from his military leaders. Biden did not. T had strong-minded advisors, some disagreeing with him. They were given a chance to express them, and – in some cases – he listened. B has non-leaders in key positions, who do not confront him when needed, or are not capable of forming independent opinions.On embassy: classic pattern of ingratitude. He did something we were asking for, everyone was telling him how wrong he was, but we still have reasons to not be grateful. Try to look at this without a bias.
I agree that T may not have an overarching theory of government, the way Reagan (“I am from the government …”) or Obama (“you did not build it”) were. He is more a transactional guy, focused on a particular deal and making it work. Say, explain a simple thing: why was T trying to stop Russian pipeline and got some concessions from Germans, and B reversed the course (and so did Germans after B won).
DaMoshe, I also perused the book and do not remember anti-Israeli stance. This is motzi shem ra, even if the poster meant it as a praise.
coffee, reading and quoting other religions ls also annoying, even if it is also a comic.
Look at state gov site for Passport Agencies. You schedule an appointment and go there, I think, with tickets that are in 1 or 2 weeks.
You are missing something here in this jarring comparisons: Trump voters forgive his quirks for the attractive sides he brings: dismissing establishment, doing things others were afraid, etc. Biden had only one attraction – that he is a safe choice. Now, turns out a safe choice has corrupt connections, can not even retreat troops from a 3rd world country, etc.
P v NP is a misleading scholastic question. It talks about “worst case” performance -that is, a performance on a hardest problem of certain type. So, a traveling salesman problem (finding a shortest path through a set of towns) is NP-complete, does it mean that all of us are unable to plan our day with 3 stops? of course not. A relevant theory is “average case” performance – how long does it take to solve an average problem of this type. Many modern algorithms, including AI/machine learning, are built in this way (some explicitly, most implicitly) – solving typical problems fast, even if theoretical hardest problems are not solvable.
Jackk, I would be interested to hear your opinion about what is in the report, but you seem to be rehashing your opinions without reading it. Is it some sort of denial mechanism that you are protecting yourself from a cognitive dissonance?
Avira > the state being a harbinger for moshiach is baseless, but the fact that jews returned(not all of whom came b’issur – only declaring the state was totally assur) could be kibutz golios
Great, this is a meaningful step forward! So, if we see Yidden coming to EY is positive, what next should have happened? (unrealistic ideas above about charedi medinah notwithstanding).
I don’t think Yidden in EY at the time were less religious than pre-war Poland and USA, with majority non-religious. Polish state tried to establish something along the lines of historical Vaad arba artzos, and Chofetz Chaim was writing forceful letters to Polish minister, explaining that such arrangement will make Rabbis subject to control of non-religious Jewish leaders, and he did not want it, and tried to make a case that Polish medina should not want it either.
So, what kind of entity could Jews have realistically? Ask British to stay or submit to Jordan and ask them to maintain separation between charedim and chiloim? I think the system that emerged with charedi community in many aspects separate from the state is close to what could be done realistically. So, as long as there is ability to maintain religious institutions, we should have at least same respect to Medinah that Chofetz Chaim had for Medina Polin.
I am too lazy to scroll up to see what was mentioned, but last page of Sotah mentions halochos that are different for “karov l’malchus” learning hochmas yavanit by R’ Gamliel’s students, a goyishe haircut ….
Neville, some of this “public knowledge” possibly came as leaks from, or in opposition to, this investigation. Some of that was clearly new to some of the participants. Report mention one FBI agent, leaving to cry and returning to say that the info Durham showed him was withheld from him and this affected his investigation.
There is also clear information about multiple named participants in the same meeting “forgetting” what was said at the meeting – not enough to prosecute, but enough to form opinion about them. Some are still in senior positions in the government.
Jackk, yes, gov agencies that have extraordinary powers over citizens have laws and policies to keep them straight. For example, FISA applications to allow surveillance of US citizens have special forms with specific questions that need to be verified and signed by several people. In this case, it appears that some of these questions were answered based on not looking at them, some people were routinely signing them presuming others checked them out, some were given to junior people who did not understand what they were doing. The FBI agent who was found guilty put into the form the inverse of what he was told. And multiple cases, where they act because the senior leadership is asking them daily – “Nu?”, and opposite for Hillary investigation.
In one case, when agents realized that all the information about, I think, Carter Page was not supported – they AGAIN renewed fake FISA, justifying it by – let’s verify that this is all wrong and clear his name. This is totally against the rules – they are not charged with investigating someone until “proven innocent”.
One interesting conclusion is that the whole saga was started by Mrs. Ohr bringing fake info from Justice dept to her British employer, who then resold that back to US via … Mr. Ohr and then used to trigger investigation.
Note that all of this is NOT an indictment of a typical FBI agent. Most of T investigations was done by the headquarters taking over the investigation instead of regular offices – a highly irregular thing, and therefore there was no “chain of command” supervision.
I don’t want to go through everything – you would not believe me anyway, and I can mix it up. I would suggest that you do this exercise yourself – just read first 20 pages of the summary, and then scroll to some random places and tell us what you think.
@Neville, ^, Ohr Sameach, Avira, and I all seem to agree that there is no problem at the Balfour time. Ohr Sameach of course is the most significant here, not just because he is the gadol between us, but he wrote that at the time.
Now, Avira nd you seem to make a point of “making a state”. I understand your emotions here – this is a major event that you do not like. But this is a very Zionist view, pardon me. Why is a “state” shaich to anything in halocho?
Do the Oaths say anything about a state? or about establishing malchus? having elections? building a Knesset building? Waiving a flag? I think not, they are only talking about arriving to EY. Please correct me if I missed the fine print.
Computations were not that hard. After you shoot an object, trajectories follow laws of physics, there is no wind or rain to confuse in the space.
Trajectories of the planets were computed so precisely a couple of centuries ago, so that the planets that were not yet seen were predicted by the variations of the paths of the visible planets.
Gadol, maybe the father removed the seforim for the tznius of his son?! As one is allowed to hide knowledge of a maseches – a sefer with his son’s name will give away what the son learnt?!
I am, like Neville, puzzled why Yidden would care about some King, but I agree with anon Jew that it is your business, and especially your Rabanut, how to deal with the powers of your country. But there seems to be a strong recent tradition here, and everywhere, for people with little knowledge to disregard opinion of experts whether it is politics, beis din, medicine etc. This just shows how ‘modern” we are, even those of us who proclaim that they are most traditional. Would a Yid who lived in a Hungarian shtetl 700 years ago send their advice to Beis din in spain? I don’t think so, and he should not start now.
jackk > worthless investigation
did you actually read it and feel everything mentioned there is OK? FNI agents considering an investigative action against a political candidate and one warning another – she is going to be a President and she will not forget?
Not being boke in this, I googled a little. It seems that Ohr Sameach considered Balfour declaration sufficient for matir nedorim. I wonder whether we have statements on Oaths from other gedolim shortly from pre-state time, without being colored with later history. Any info?
Chofetz Chaim was for political separation from anti-religious Jewish groups in Poland, but I do not see him decreeing against those who went to EY (and he almost went himself, if not his wife’s sickness). Indeed, from his description it seems that anti-religious pressure among Polish Jewry was not different from EY. Seems that some here oppose Zionists more than Bundists or Communists. Not sure, why.
Neville > From his comment, it sounded like he meant the fact that Jews even lived there (pre-state) made the Oaths not apply and therefore matir’d conquering the land.
Not just some Jews lived there. I think we can’t easily use small old Yishuv as a justification for further expansion, but at some point pre-1948, there were masses of Jews in possession of Tel Aviv and multiple kibutzim without, seemingly, any violation of Oaths. I am not sure whether you disagree with this premise, or you don’t agree with using it as a starting point (Avira’s Tanna Kamma seems to disagree on the first point, but agrees on the second).
Avira > Anothet rebbe of mine held that once they’re violated, the act is done,
Ok, great, so your Rebbe (no name for this opinion!?) is looking at the same issue I was thinking about. I was trying to show that there was no violation under Turkish/British government, so it was nolad b’heter. Your rebbe seem to count from 1948, but it was not the time when masses of Yidden entered EY, it was done before. Now, maybe you can address my sevora then.
Maybe technology in general, and AI as a final point, are the ways zman Moschiach comes “naturally”. Given productivity increase in last 200 years, most people do not need to work any more and can spend their time either learning and doing mitzvos, or drinking, smoking, and killing other people.
Maybe people are complaining more because they have more time on their hands and they do not know what to do with it.I suggest reading the short 300 page Durham repo issued today.
Describes in plain terms how senior leaders at fbi misbehaved in creating Trump investigations while being afraid of Hillary because she might bear a grudge after the election. If you are a real liberal, you should be mad how these people damaged your cause by their lies.you have a point, but I wonder whether this is a healthy backlash.
Original setup was that states had jurisdiction on most things, and feds insured interoperability via commerce clause. Later, feds abused commerce clause to regulate almost everything, and states lost most of their power – and that is why everyone is obsessed with Presidential elections. a President is supposed to be someone who faithfully executes the laws … Chief Shoter, not a big deal
so, npw, states are finding how to use the legal system to get some of their power back.
n0 >So he is saying that we should continue supplying Ukraine with weapons. Were you trying to misquote or not?
right, I am pointing out that Ze is misquoting, or, more likely, reading some source that misquoted. I this misquote in Iranian news, for example. I hope Ze will clarify what her sources was, and we can learn something from that.
I guess a lesson for politicians is – speak precisely so that you can not be misquoted…
> What, then, was their reason?
I am pointing out a historical loophole in the Oaths that Yidden exploited (and maybe Hashem provided) – immigration happened under Ottoman Empire and British mandate, in a large part with their agreement. So, at that point, Arab opinions were not relevant – they were subjects. So, after Brits left, Jews and Arabs were left to their devices. At this point, Oaths are not shayach as Jews are already in the land. Would you agree to that? So, whatever wisdom was in the decisions after that, this is not about oaths. Similarly, the next waves were of refugees from Europe/Arab countries/USSR, not political movements to conquer anything (and as there was a state already, oaths may not be relevant to new arrivals anyway).
In many states, you can buy electrons from a list of companies. Sounds like, people should buy ot Sun to Fri from that Yid, but shabbos from someone else.
The question is how AI uses the data. In theory, machine learning (actual current technology behind AI marketing name) is capable of generalization and coming up with new solutions not envisioned by the developers and their data. In practice, most existing applications collect so much data that when confronted with new data point, they simply need to find a closest data point in the data they collected. Not much generalization, just old-fashioned database lookup. See, for example, a self-driving car that gets further away in the rear mirror. It seems that they are still not able to collect enough data to resolve all possible situations.
Neville> don’t say the land wasn’t conquered. Denying the Israeli War for Independence is crazier than denying the moon landing.
I don’t think this is clear. Jews came and acquired land, mostly legally. So, this did not violate oaths, I think. Opposition grew over time and got to a point of confrontation that involved nearby countries and was prevented by British Mandate. When mandate was over, confrontation started. Would you say that were Jews accepted dhimmi status in 1948, war would be avoided? Not sure, nearby countries were not that religious to be interested in that. Also, Oaths do not include a need to submit when already in EY, self-defense (including preventive) sounds pretty legit. And net waves of immigration – from post-war Europe, from Arab countries, Russian Jews – all were people escaping or after prosecution, not coming as a wall. The only people coming as a wall are American Jews, maybe.
Nechemiah – do you mean Persian king? Note the difference as at the moment Persians are somewhat better than Assyrians towards Jews
RebE, unfortunately, in the passing years, Moon completely lost the atmosphere, so the next dor haflaga would need to travel further.
space race was not completely political. Capability to send satellites is equivalent to the capability to send nuclear intercontinental missiles from which there was no protection at the time. So, that lead to MAD … and to explosion of Americans learning maths. Growth was so fast that there were no qualified teachers, of course, so US ended up with generational plague of teachers who hate maths teaching next generation to hate it.
RebE, is it a 65th anniversary of your arrival? Are you celebrating day of departure from Hungary or day of Arrival?
and I presume you meant “leaving due to Soviet occupation”, not revolution itself?
We have in Sotah ~42 that if a person has too much zevel coming out, he needs to check the status of his health and fix himself before things became worse. Similarly, B Metztya 107 talks about people being responsible for effects of cold and heat and how a healthy breakfast (bread, salt, water) has so many physical and spiritual benefits. At the same time, Sotah also says that Hashem protection is limited to people who do not have aveiros…
So, you need to read BB 116 in the context of these other sources. My suggestion is that one first checks his health, then checks his aveiros, and only then go to the chochom (not simply a talmid of one). Just for the simple reason that we, R’L, have more sick people than Chachomim, so the latter need some time to learn. Do you have a better explanation that covers all sources, not just one?
R Elchonon’s statement seem to contradict all of the sources, whether requiring refuah or going to the chochom. also, requires an explanation.
The question (not mine) was not what your name mean, but why did you choose it! Do we have something to learn from appeasement if we infuse some yeshiva enthusiasm in it?!
Earliest Chaim Berlin was named so in 1914 when Mr. Cham Berlain was already an adult, so he did not attend the yeshiva. So, most likely Mr. Cham Berlain was named after the _original_ r Chaim Berlin, son of Volozhin RY. This is also cler from the fact that Cham Berlain was a Mayor (Meir) of Birmingham, while Chaim’s brother was named Meir and also partioned his name from BerLin to Bar Ilan.
Ze truth> Reverence for words – an awareness of the wonder of words, of the mystery of words – is an essential prerequisite for prayer. By the word of G-d the world was created
Well said! Is there a source for these wise words?
fuller version of Mr. Borrell on May 8 is below. But Ze did not come up with this herself. From quick search, I see for example Iranian News reported the way Ze does. Out of curiosity, which agency did you read it from?
And everybody wants peace, yes, but for the time being, unhappily, Putin is continuing the war and Ukraine has to defend. And if we don’t support Ukraine, Ukraine will fall, in a matter of days. So, yes, I would prefer to spend this money increasing the, the well-being of the people, hospitals, schools, the cities, as the mayor is asking for. But we don’t have the choice.
…
What would be your message to Vladimir Putin?**Josep Borrell
**Well, the only message that the international community and certainly the Europeans are sending is ‘Sto
p this war. Stop this war. And stop bombing Ukraine, withdraw your troops’. I know he’s not going to do it, but every time I listen to some world leader saying I want peace. Yes, OK, if you want peace, push Russia to withdraw. Push Russia to stop the war. Don’t tell me ‘Stop supporting Ukraine’. Because if I stop supporting Ukraine, certainly the war will finish soon. But how? How the war will finish. It doesn’t matter? Yes, it matters. It is the most important thing. The war cannot just finish because Ukraine is unable to defend itself and it has to surrender. And the Russian troops will be in the Polish border and Ukraine will become a second Belarus. Do you want this kind of ending for the war? No.R Bruan has some interesting expressions:
I am not going to give an answer whether one should vaccinate or not, but I want to discuss the principle of Torah … medical questions are to be determined by doctors. You are not the barometer of truth. This principle that people should debate whether we should vaccinate or not vaccinate, and everybody has an opinion on the matter, is anathema to Torah.“You are not entitled to your opinion when it comes to medical matters!
“You are not entitled to your opinion when it comes to Torah matters!
“A, It’s a waste of time and bittul Torah. And B, the Rebbe wrote to people many times when it came to medical matters, they should not research this matter. They should listen to the doctors and not involve their minds in their condition other than to listen to doctors’ instructions,” Rabbi Braun said.
That was years ago, before the “information superhighway,” Rabbi Braun said. Nowadays, with the “social media explosion, everybody has an opinion which they spread around all over.”
“Every one of these WhatsApp groups should be closed completely – they have nothing to contribute to this discussion,” he said. “You can’t even answer a question about v’sen tal umatar, you are going to decide about pikuach nefesh issues – issues of life and death?!”
And someone will say, I will find a doctor who agrees with my opinion…I will shop out for a rov who agrees with my opinion,” he said.
…
“Conspiracy theories about doctors and Rabbonim is apikorsis,” he said. “You are not an expert – you are not the one to decide if there should be an eruv or not, or to vaccinate or not.”“Furthermore, you have no ownership of your body to begin with. That’s another principle of Torah – nobody has ownership of their body. This whole concept of liberalism where I get to decide what I feel is right and you are taking away my rights to make choices for myself, is also not according to the Torah,” he said. “You are not to decide whether to get vaccinated or not – that is a flawed way of thinking.”
Ze, thanks for the link! for those who don’t want to go to the link: the article lists who the panel was: a son of a BD member, a SIL of a former BD member, a melamed, someone who runs a Hotline, a sofer, a Rabbi, and a chiropractor. This is not Beis din, or even individual members of BD.
The article quotes at the end an actual BD member: Rabbi Yosef Braun, member of the Bais Din of Crown Heights, issued a clear call to members of the community not to follow the “lone” opinions of doctors, rather the majority who recommend being vaccinated
So, we can restore the honor of CH BD, B’H.
RBZS, see here https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/headlines-breaking-stories/308078/haircuts-on-the-night-of-lag-baomer.html
Rav Moshe Feinstein zt”l, however, argued against the Mshna Brurah’s position and allowed for weddings on the night of Lag BaOmer even if it did not fall out on a Thursday night. He writes that one can rely upon the lenient view – especially for one who has not yet fulfilled the Mitzvah of Pru uRvu.