Always_Ask_Questions

I worked out a speech for one of the kids for a middle school graduation – about a difference between “graduation” and a “siyum”.

Graduation comes from latin “step” so you step out of what you were doing. Siyum says that we are going to return to the maseches again

There were some times news of Hamas executing collaborationists. There is a son of Hamas founder who lives in England and writes books and gives speeches against Hamas. For comparison, when Americans liberated Iraq, there were lots of insurgents in the news, but there were also thousands and thousands of Iraqis who worked closely with Americans. When you read the news that an ISIS or Saddam insurgent bombed a line to the police station – that means there were hundred of Iraqis standing in line to get a police job. [I am paraphrasing RE Silver story about someone who was selling siddur in German camps]

> So where are the good Gazaians who simply have to make one phone call to the Israelis and inform them where the hostages are?

how do we know that is not how they found recent hostages? or targeted some of the hamas leaders? whatever info is in the papers is not necessarily accurate, and for a good reason.

Maybe academic dress is similar to what Jews consider scholarly dress also? Long robes and sleeves are the sign that the person is not engaged in manual labor and does not need to run fast in his business. Not that different from scholarly costumes yeshiva students wear our days.

chaim > How does democracy save us from those dangers?

right, that is why throughout a lot of history, democracy was not practiced. It works when (1) voting public (does not have to be all population) are suffiently educated (2) there are parts of the system that can stop passions (republic, courts, etc)

Indeed, tzahal may not be short on soldiers right now, but they are limited how long they can keep people away from their civilian jobs. So helping with those jobs should also be an option.

The DE jury followed my advice and were done by lunch! Lawyers need to drive back to NY by shkiah.

Hunter raised an interesting (Talmudic?) point – are you considered a drunkard at the moment you are not drinking (and maybe alcohol level just below the legal limit). Should a person have a chezkas kashrus? The fact that he drunk before does not mean that he’ll not stop today. Power of teshuva, etc. Same goes for a ganav or a gambler. If he is not gambling right now, he is a kosher witness. And if it is Montag, he is not a mechalel shabbos (right now).

Possibilities are endless. A policeman stops you – why are you speeding? A: I am not speeding, I am at full rest right now, forget all my previous aveiros.

Maybe this needs to be included into YK liturgy – ashamnu, but not right now; bagadnu, but not right now. Look at us right now, we are fasting and davening. Disregard nah the sheretz b’yadeinu.

Lernt, rabbonim, or at least what they say & publish, are influenced by the people they lead. For one, they need to know what the kahal is ready to accept. Second, they respond to the questions they ask. As I quoted before, my Rav lectured on business ethics and mentioned that Polish responsa at some point stopped addressing business issues and concnetrated more on pots & pans … I quipped “it is YOUR fault” (meaning Rabbonim who stopped writing). He responded “No, it is YOUR fault”, that is – no shailos, no teshuvos.

Note that none of them is a candidate yet. One intriguing shitah is that someone lured B into having a debate before the convention so that if he fully fails, Ds can substitute a wife of one of the previous presidents instead of him.

A better way to put it: US based to have 2 candidates both trying to get to 50.1% favorability. Now we have two both fighting to get to 40% favorability and winning on the strength of the opposition to the other guy. How far can this go? Can we see two candidates with 20% favorability and still fighting on?Maybe when sum of favorabilities for two candidates falls below 50%, this opens a place for a 3rd candidate to get to 50%?

Chaim,
my question is whether Litvaks are a reaction to Chassidus or their reaction to Chassidus was based on their previous positions. Other groups had somewhat different reactions to Chassidus, so it is more than just minhag ashkenaz. And please fix your keyboard, not sure why you are calling Litvaks Litfaks, there is no Litfa country.

all, please notice chassidus and ehrelichkeit of exCTlawyer who was ready to lose credit for millions of posts he created just to make sure that his pseudonym complies with CT Bar rules! Very inspirational. Keep his face in your mind next time you are skirting some minor regulation.

`Interesting that R’L both sides have a Cohen on their team, one as a witness against, another as a current wife.

Also, does Hunter give credit for taking a crack at performing mitzva of yibum?

I heard that R Zelig Epstein was asked how did Mir Yeshiva decided to travel through USSR in apparent violation of Daas Torah of R Ozer who apparently advised them not to go. He answered – it was not a problem because this was before the Daas Torah…

Given that Mir students were getting Sugihara visas up to September 1940, and R Ozer was niftar in August 1940, it seems that DT was not yet operational during R Ozer’s lifetime. Maybe, out of modesty, the Rav authorized DT to start after his own petirah so that people would not think that he is doing it for his own aggrandizement?!

Ex-CTL, thanks for a good summary. I would like to point out a couple of points:

1) the federal system works in a unique way in USA – it is a big country with recently arrived (a couple of centuries on average) population that is pretty mobile (most, except the natives and the slaves, come from people who volunteered to go to the other side of the world). Thus, if you do not like your state laws, you can easily relocate to one of the remaining 49. Same language, currency, even starbucks and other chains. This creates choices for population and competition between state governments. This compensates for the biggest weakness of the modern state – there is competition in private sector, but not in public. Of course, the more feds take over, the less gov competition there is.

2) These freedoms of movement and of religion and of the press are used best by mobile and active population that is not afraid to make choices and act (anshei chayil in the words of Yisro). The rest of the population gets captured by whatever government and information channel they get… and they suffer from the freedoms they are not able to take advantage of. Arguably, these people would be better off with the government that takes care of them, does not allow hate speech, provides social safety, etc

the question is “what came first” – a Litvak or a Chossid. You can obviously say that Chasidim started a revolution so that they can came later. But you can’t easily dismiss the argument that Litvak attitude was emphasized as a response to Chasidut and may not be same now as then.

Still, I quoted before a gemora about an amorah who silently refuses a shidduch with his Rebbe’s (Tanna!) daughter that probably means that at least THAT amorah was a Litvak.

what are the implications of this very stringent interpretation of “benefiting the campaign”?

if a newspaper announces that this is an emergency and their goal is to stop election of a certain candidate, is their publishing activity a campaign contribution? If they have 1 million of digital readers, this would make it a million counts. The jury will take a lot of time to read them out.

when an elected official performs multiple acts to benefit his campaign (forgiving loans, proposing peace plans, issuing border instructions) – these are all benefiting his campaign. He should (1) reimburse USGOV all the expenses (2) use only funds he acquired via legit campaign donations for the reimbursement. Of course, you can argue that it is hard to prove that the president did this for campaign purposes, but after votes in South Dakota sue him, it will be up to a jury there to decide.

Chaim > I question specifically the American style democracy. I advocate that yes maybe we need a style like you outline in France

American system is somewhat different from European. As Gemorah says – better to live in a new town than in an old, as its sins are fewer.

European countries are (or were until recently) groups of a small number of homogeneous groups. (Jews were an exception for most of last 2000 years, that is why everyone was against us). USA system was created from the scratch to accommodate differing views. Original idea was that each state is almost a sovereign entity that can have their own laws, religion, with certain federal laws that make the states leave peacefully and cooperatively with each other. Bill of rights applied to the feds, the state could have, and had, established religions, for example. Things are more complicated now, but the idea is still there: the role of the government, ideally, is not so much as to establish one community, but to accommodate multiple communities. This is really well designed for what the Jews want (and is similar to what we had in Poland as Vaad Arabah Artzot had a state within the state).

So, if you will invite government to suppress speech against us, then it will surely end up with suppressing our speech. We will be better off if we use the freedoms this country grants us to build a community with beautiful speech and actions between each other.

CTL > I was quite specific about the NY DA, etc.
> You conflate this with a story about Merrick Garland who is a Federal official.

The story mentions a “leak” to NYT that explained what Biden wants. Anyone who is interested in a political promotion could now act accordingly.
Just as a thought experiment, read the leaked article as it is a personally written by the President about what he expects from prosecutors. There is a good chance you will consider such an article inappropriate. How is it different when the article is intentionally leaked to the reporters?

If increasing number of people increases choices, then the UN secretary will be the biggest tzaddik.

Agree w/ Simcha – these matters are very complicated. All we can do is daven for Hashem to provide wisdom to the decision-makers and maintain unity without undermining their standing with demonstration for any of the preferred positions leading to headlines “Bibi is changing decision under pressure from XYZ”. Gov has way better negotiating position when they can say to pressing friends – all Israelis/Jews support the government policy, so you can’t pressure us into a different policy.

indeed, one of the Litvishe Rebbeim of the previous generation called some of the “litvishe” yeshivos – as litvishe teachers of Hungarian students. By now, it is Hungarian teachers teaching Hungarian students zecher l’Lita…

Btw, I am not sure why you spell them/us with F. Litvaks are mispronouncing Sh, not V! According to R Twersky, two Yidden in 1920s were negotiating a border between Russia and Lithuania (representing corresponding countries). They thought of going thru shtetls and asking them to recite Shir Hashirim. The ones that say “Sir haSirim aser leSlomo” would belong to Lithuania, the rest to Russia. (Maybe we need 2 people like that for Russia-Ukraine border now).

Chaim,
I am not sure tuition vouchers should be based on income at all. You want the middle/upper class working community to afford the schools also. I know a number of families who would choose a Jewish school if it were more affordable (and they do when granted a scholarship).

American precedent is social security: FDR on purpose started it as a universal program rather than just for poor to keep it popular.

Yasher Koach! This is a great initiative – essentially a voucher system for Jewish schools, with money following students. If this is successful, hopefully, the subsidy will incrase. I heard Seattle also has a subsidy system. And, of course, some red states have state vouchers already.

Chaim,
American founders created a system that tried to take into account human frailties and make it work around dangers of both despotism and lawless anarchy. At previous times, democracy was not a discredited word: ancients tried it in Greece and Rome and it was eventually supplanted by “benevolent” Kings, who were expected to be responsible with the people that “belonged” to them, similar to how every balabos takes care of things inside his house for his own sake. Letting unruly masses to run the country was considered insane. Two attempts were made simultaneously: France and USA. French experiment ran indeed insane very quickly, leading to mass lawful and unlawful murder of lots of people, both from old regime and between revolutionaries themselves. It did work out in a long term. American experiment ran surprisingly better and USA has 250 years of elections, interrupted just once by a civil war period. Compare it with the history of European countries and all the wars and revolutions they generated.

So, there is clearly something done right in this country. Does it mean that courts and free speech rules are perfect? of course not. But it would make sense to learn first about how they developed in history. If you would like a kosher perspective on history. I would recommend Rabbi Berel Wein. I see that he has a book “The Golden Land: The Jewish Experience in the United States and Canada” also recordings on Torah downloads, etc.