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at the end, people are usually in charge: according to a Midrash, Pharaoh first resisted persecuting Jews but succumbed to popular pressure; Jews did not go to EY because of popular outcry; and Hitler, Stalin, and Putin depended on popular madness that they carefully cultivated.
not sure what the issue is, but maybe other members of the community should be allowed to do something “different” as long as it is not bad or harmful. Maybe low self-esteem does not allow you to do what you think is the right thing for you?
Maybe this discussion will be more grounded if the proponents start simple. Rather than making grandiose statements, pick up specific gemoras that discuss what you would call “ethical behavior” and then make implications to current life.
This statement has very good intentions but very vague so it could be mis-directed, same way as “tikkun olam” by Reform. That is why you are immediately met with criticism here.
On the positive side, I heard specific statements along these lines from many “standard/RW orthodoxy” Rabonim, and if you read from R Salanter to R Avigdor Miller, you will find similar sentiment. R Miller, for example, suggests that batei dinim will be administering punishments to bad drivers.
Focusing on “saving an idolater” is an interesting theoretical bit to clarify positions, but it does not deny my experience thinking about saying gomel after driving through a parking lot in a “frum” town [several drivers dashing in front of me, a pair of frum drivers waiting to be towed after bumping into each other, and others driving around them creating further havoc, several children from B’H large families standing alone in the cars way]. There are many areas we can improve without getting into obscure issues.
> we should look at our forefathers during this crisis for a solution (as Klal Yisroel has always done)
a good approach! Do we have examples of Klal Isroel using polygamy as an emergency solution? Or at least, at the times before R Gershom increasing polygamy from a rare occurrence to a frequent practice?
Note that we had this problem at least once: when Jewish numbers were increasing dramatically during Yetziyas Mitzraim! Maybe it was mitigated by men being killed off directly or in labor camps.
Maybe that is why Amram marries his aunt? (presumably older than, say, a niece)Here are several possible solutions for parity under rapid growth, what do you think?
1) re-institute a 2-stage marriage with 1-2 years in between. I don’t think R Gershom forbade that!
This still means that the shidduch is done for immature people, but at least they are matched up and mature at the time of the chuppah. This is very similar to what was done in Eastern Europe in troubled times when children were matched up way early.2) nudge men to marry earlier. This goes against the trend of delaying maturity (of which extra yeshiva time is just one manifestation). Solution would be to teach in the yeshiva how to be a good husband and support the family. Sign up prenups that the boy can continue learning.
3) nudge women to marry later. This would lead to more mature marriages, but goes both against girls’ instincts and social pressure and also boys preferring “younger”. Maybe Roshei yeshiva can order their students not just to stay in the “freezer” but also no brides under 22 or pay back previously subsidized tuition (say, $1K multiplied by months before kallah’s 22).
4) focus kiruv on college women more than men. Pay shadchanus fee to college Hillel and Chabad Rabbis.
As mentioned above, Muslim rulers included Almahids that Rambam ran away from and thought to be the worst (not that he moved to artzot ashkenaz, of course 🙂
coffee, this is why democracy was not considered a viable system until recently. People with chochma need to establish guiderails for people to limit their collective greed.
You can’t easily generalize and you can’t go by how people “feel”. Jews that I know who lived in most Muslim countries are often bitter about their experience, even though historically their experience might have been better than other places. Nobody is going to be excited about being “less prosecuted” than someone else. So, personal anecdotes are subjective, and as mentioned above, different rulers had different effects.
Same thing in Europe – Polish Jews are very bitter about their pre-WW2 experiences, even as their circumstances were much better than nearby evil empires of Russia and Germany – and there were so many Jews in Poland because they moved their from other places. Maybe, they had higher expectations from a democracy and previous experiences, when both Poles and Jews were under Russians.
n0, this gemora presumes that the girl is married.
n0, thanks for the clarification.
Avira, using the pool does not sound like a big reason for a big b’dieved. Unless you tell me that parents will not send kids to the schools without a pool and will be a major parnosa loss.
Avira > Academics say that the cherem was because goyim had forbade it. Rabbeinu Gershom makes no mention of that. He says it’s because people can’t do it for the right reasons.
I understand your instinctive reaction at goyishe chochma, but we are all social beings. And rejecting history is apikoiresus. Gemora is full of examples of how institutions developed over time:
schools – parents -> Yerushalaim -> big high-schools -> small local schools;
ketuba – prepaid sum -> in F-I-L house -> mortgage on propertysame thing here: people not doing for right reasons may correspond to the fact that non-Jews were not doing it any more. Polygamy was not very popular (R Stensaltz writes that he knows of one Amora or Tanna who had 2 wives), so these will be strange people under strange circumstances who
will use it. Given the surrounding culture, people will be even less willing to do it, so the remaining cases will be even “weirder”.Also, note that Sephardim who lived in a culture permitting it, somehow were able to continue having this option. Did they have better attitudes?
> political to the teeth!
ROTFL. Indeed, dentistry is the remaining part of medicine that is not fully socialized, and there are still small dental practices where you can go to the dentist you trust.
ACA did not reduce the cost of medicine as far as I know, and so will socialist dentists. It will just force dentists from their practices and transfer costs to the taxpayers – and we will be paying THROUGH THE TEETH.
At the end, this is a free world. America happened to be founded and populated by people who literally ran away from countries with strong governments. Please respect our choice. If you prefer more government control, you can move to Germany, France, Russia, or Canada.
If you take over this country, the rest of us do not have much to go to – and the world will miss out on all future the achievements like the US brought to the world – Hollywood, Windows, Internet, Google, Facebook, NATO, F-35, … as the fortune cookies say “learn Chinese”
Avira,
I think sephardim are more assimilated in America than in Israel. Non-observant Ashkenazim in T-A are probably similar to their counterparts in US, but at least their children are Jewish and have some hope.3. Social pressure
Girls are absolutely for seminaries, and schools are telling them that their life will not be a life without it. Absolute madness. The patients taking charge of the asylum. This is deplorable and annoying and destructive to the yiddishkeit that we are trying to teach.2. Seminary v. HS
Why are we in the position that kids who spent 12-14 years in Jewish places of learning, require additional 1-2 years in an exciting environment to strengthen their neshomos?A) One answer: simply passing time in a dangerous moment when parental control is off, and a future husband is still learning Baba Kama. Seems like any other productive occupation – working, safe college, helping run the home – would also work. Maybe, after communities and schools help strengthen authority of parents so that girls at 18 accept their advice.
B) Seminaries actually teach something at higher level. Then, maybe need to ask a question – was it possible to teach THAT earlier? Possibly, the school system reflects the idea that kids will have more years to learn. What if HS is aware that girls not going to seminary and need to learn the “adult” things now – at 16 or 17? Maybe, different high schools are required who are capable to do that.
I’ve seen baalos teshuva learning during college and getting to a marriageable state in 2-3 years, without having much hesoron of missing on 12 years of pre-learning.
This affliction is not unique to Jewish school. Public schools similarly have “pre-pre-algebra”, algebra 1,2,3 .. for years. Kids are capable of learnings xs and ys without drawing the stress for years.
Girls seem to generally like the experience, recommend it to each other, and this might be the first question they ask each other when introduced. That is seminaries achieved the goal of making themselves the default option.
there are multiple questions here, not just one:
1) what are they to do anyway after HS? Unless you follow gemora that presumes girls mostly married after bas mitzva, you have an answer. Otherwise, she would be learning, working, or going to college.
a) Learning – in this case, doing it in Israel is a reasonable choice, especially for those who are going in into chinuch later. In Bava Basra discussion of schools (for sons), going to Yerushalaim is a second choice that was made after being taught at home: enthusiastic teachers in holy environment
b) Working – post-HS jobs are not always attractive. To work in a school, having 1-2 years of seminary would be helpful, although not recoup the pay, of course.
c) College – for those who send kids to a college away from home, a year of seminary might help to strengthen them spiritually. Also, many provide college credits that are at least acceptable by a couple of Jewish colleges that provide safe spiritual environment at a price (price of a college with better academics).
d) Safe college – a commuter or online college, and there is parental supervision and local learning and socializing options. [There is a 20-yo old article in some OU magazine by a campus Rabbi (sic!) telling people to send kids to local colleges, instead of “American tradition” of sending them away].
In this case, the seminary is not so useful and may be also not conducive to the girl’s development (exposing to additional teachers with some ideology) and possibly not able to use those credits when used in local/online colleges.
I don’t think it is forbidden to entry. It is probably forbidden to daven there (or by their rules?). R Soloveichik ruled, I think, that one can not go to shofar blowing to a R- place even if there is no alternative
CTL > secretary of Transportation does not run the day to day operations of the FAA.
I don’t know about this case, but there is a general tendency in government to work on what is visible to the bosses and public and ignore the rest. So every little item that is PC or otherwise inane by itself is not a disaster, but all together, they end up with people spending 90% of their time and money on secondary issues and ignoring, to some degree, the main ones, not even mentioning of wasting the money we gave them.
Also, analyzing one disaster will not give us a trend of what happened. For example, a number of times someone brakes abruptly is predictive of a chance of getting into an accident. So, you need to look at statistics of “pre-disasters” – cases where there were “almost collisions”, etc and see if they are increasing.
CTL > Armed man arrested
a description can be also subtle. Some people are called by where they live – New Yorker, others – by profession – accountant. One famous rioter was called “motorist”. This is not a libel, but a subtle hint that he had no job or address to describe with.
CTL, thanks for the explanation!
if police is not sure he is the right guy and also not sure tht the act was a crime, then it is sfek sfeika and he should be let go.
Divide your dental work in batches and do them by year. Sometimes dentists say that a lot is required, but some can “wait”. My, reasonably responsible, paskened one of my teeth a trefah and proscribed an immediate tehiyas hamesim – 10 years ago. I paskened that when a sofek, shev velo taaseh is good enough. He (dentist) is still looking at him (the tooth) every year while thinking about yeshiva tuition he can exchange this tooth for.
“way after” – up to a year. If the chassan is not ready by the day he committed, he is paying for her mezonos, so it is pretty sure that a pre-bas-mitzva girl will be in the shver’s house within a year.
Btw, you know it is not recommended to live with your wife’s parents – as her mother may be about your age … (Rav’s words, not mine)
there are also halochos when a girl can/needs to use birth control not to endanger her health when she is not yet ready for pregnancy. This is not an impression, pretty definite.
CTL, we are on the same page here. I had some of my (small number of) employees WFH for years, including working from their own states.
We are, in a sense, going back to the dignity of personal work that existed before the industrial age, when people worked in their yards or in small businesses. See Bava Basra discussions about what businesses are allowed or not in the courtyards – from tanneries to schools.
Also, halochos of employees are very sensitive to their dependency. For example, employer should give an advance notice when laying someone off, but the employee can quit any time (subject to not damaging the project). Forcing him to work after the notice makes him in some way an eved. So, the more freedom and flexibility employee can have, the more he is a free person.
n0, I don’t know whether Gemora mentions the age, maybe it does not bother as it is understood that the girls are interested in marriage and not distracted by books or jobs. But, the impression from various halochos related to marriage creates an impression that if by the bas mitzva the girl is still in the father’s house, it is time to say tehilim. This explains why nobody was clamoring for BY high schools at that time.
another change positively affecting Yidden – decline in business travel with ensuring kashrus, davening and sholom bayis problems. Some forecasted that it will come back for competitive reasons – when one supplier goes to drink with the client, others would need to follow. Not sure this happened. I see travel back but there is less of it. Nobody expects you anymore to jump on a plane for an one hour conversation, or at least you can politely decline.
why bump? I thought this was settled. Did Munkach move to to Area C or join the government?
CTL, I also wanted to reply but then, Little Froggie is probably not yet in the workforce so why disturb his fantasies?
The way WFH transformed the work environment is still an unfinished story. For the Jews specifically, there are now so many places where you have no problems with erev shabbos, taking chol hamoed off, staying away from pritzut and social drinking, healthy home diet instead of brown bag lunches, ability to learn with the kids during the day, and take Florida workations.
Bigger point is – employees always liked WFH, but employers, esp middle managers, were afraid of letting it happen. It seems that there was no productivity decline overall, probably a combination of two factors:
1) productive people are even more productive without constant control and inane meetings
2) non-productive people are equally not productive at home and not interfering with the rest.it is a cultural thing – when powerful people start putting their pronouns in signatures and bios, it creates pressure on the masses to follow to be liked by the boss, and then remaining ones stand out. One of my kids was asked what his pronoun is, and he replied “I do not have one”
I don’t know much about PCS, but you might also want to look at wider choices: there are now quite a number of reputable online colleges with good degree programs. You do not generally need to interact with strangers and the class deadlines are easy to manage around yomim tovim, way easier than in in-person colleges.
Are they paid salary and get insurance while this is going on? I hope not and that would be a good reason to hope this ends soon.
> like asking an alcoholic if he works for the bar he’s in
I was recently “served” by a coffee shop worker who woke up, asking me to repeat the order, and then yawned while making coffee. I suggested that he might need the coffee himself (themselves?!). He replied that he does not drink coffee…
This is a serious hesaron. If the country does not have Hamedaber, is it even human!?
The poll is not fully reflecting the options. I simply picked up the highest age because nothing higher was available.
The available choices may subtly influence the answers. For example, bike stores put a $1000 bike and others for $300. They really sell the $300 ones, but the buyers feel that they made a rational choice by avoiding the most expensive one.
Rambam suggests job -> house -> marriage unless you are a fool. I am sure someone will point out that this Rambam is also outdated.
by the way, search engines personalizes things. So, if you usually search for “exciting news” will (probably) bring you a rogachever chidush if you usually look for tosfos and something else if you look up different material. [I did not experiment with this, so try on your own risk[
And they have information not only from the search itself but also from other corners of internet that resell your history.
n0 > Find a senior posek who approves of thirty year olds that can’t remember what their father did but will pick up any chumra in the newest publication.
As Avira says, the yeshiva movement raises up average observance level by establishing their own norms. It generally achieves the intended purpose and saved several generations of Yidden not just from spitting on their jackets but from outright assimilation. Of course, with such tremendous growth, most of the 2nd and 3rd generation of teachers are the product of the system and your call for remembering what their parents do falls on deaf ears. How do we combine successes of large-scale education with keeping deeper Jewish values?
huju,
I don’t think Jews in general, or even shomer shabbos Jews as a group are more anti-vaccine than other groups of American popoulation. We are just more visible, and maybe our middah of koshe oref plays some role too. An interesting question is – what explains specific clusters of anti-everything among Yidden. Not for the purpose of publishing in WaPo, but in order to understand ourselves.n0 > Anything which depends on the surrounding norms, is intrinsically subjective
First, implementation of all mitzvos bein adam l’havero are subjective to begin with – they depend on how the other person will be affected. What is honor for one, is a dishonor for another. So, this “subjective” is not a chiddush.
Maybe you mean “subjective” as a danger of deciding what to do on your own, with a great danger of rationalizing either kulos or chumros, whatever fits your current state of mind. This is, of course, a great danger and that is indeed why we often have often rules that limt our “creativity” – a bird belongs to the house if there are less than 50 amos, etc.
On a personal note, my nature is mostly to contradict norms, so you can rely on me when I call for following the norms 🙂 In most cases, when I bring the idea of following norms, it is either direct from the sources or something I heard form a Rav. I don’t tend to come up with chidushim calling for unity. I need to work more on that…
Avira > chazal say that sholom is bad for reshoim, it lets them sin more. I don’t see how you can call it an independently important calue.
you are getting carried away. If you play a shot game every time you mention “sholom” in your davening, you’ll be drunk by Mussaf. And we end with “talmidei chachomim merabim sholom b’olam”, which I see as one of the criteria for a T. Ch. – you are one if you increase sholom (NOT an only one).
I think YWN also ran a halachic discussion about this. I understood this as: lying is forbidden to non-Jews and while you can acknowledge this guy and rely on his vote, you should try to find other partners when looking for political allies.
On the positive side, this guy may have a been a Berdichever chosid: look, how openly he admits all his aveiros. On the negative side, this seems to be part of the modern trend when all aveiros are not just tolerated in private or overlooked with understanding that “everyone is human”, but proudly paraded in front of the public.
Not only Dems, but Reps should have found this during the primary. American system rightfully does not criminalize such behavior but presumes that open public discourse will deal with such cases. If this is a one-off miss that will warn people that is fine, but not if the next guy will point to this one as a precedent.
Not to defend, but to explain:
Famous “man bites dog” bias? Who would be surprised that some uneducated refugees from Africa are afraid of needles? Nobody in DC is going to take their clue from these poor souls. It may be worth mentioning as this could cause an outbreak, but not deserving a picture.
Same behavior from members of “am chacham venavon” who spend their lives learning intricate machlokes of Abaye ve Rava surely deserves attention and an interest in understanding their position. And a picture for those who would not believe this unless they saw it.
If a person can reach retrospection by any means possible, it is great. R Dessler says that everyone is trying to get up the “sulam Yaakov” and those who do not have proper means to do so would use any
crutch they can find.Some review their action when going to sleep (“do not remind a Talmid Chochom about his aveira he did yesterday, as he surely did teshuva overnight”); or you can do it by Rosh Hodesh or by the financial quarter…
Definitely, an end of the tax year should bring thoughts about mis-spent time and money, charity deductions one did not use, wrong stocks and ideas he bought in the last year … One should also shutter at the thought – how he will be seen by people if the Congress were to publish his tax forms.
Alter from Kelm had a piece of wood in his bread and he thought that nobody cares about this, while the Pharaoh’s baker got into such a trouble, and we should always think how our actions matter in front of the King…
Our daf yomi group was pondering who are all these people who habitually pledge not to eat this or that. Mashechet Nedarim surely had in mind people making NY resolutions- or some other cultural traditions that take over people … so, it seems that making such makes one almost a rasha.
Is there a kosher way to do NY resolutions that do not sound like nedorim?
Rashi says that Yosef hints to brothers that he speaks loshon kodesh. r Twersky asks what is so special about ivrit!? after all, they had an interpreter who also spoke it… his answer: loshon kodesh is about speaking in a kodesh way… so if you claim you speak it, please make sure you actually do
YO has benefit over CS of living after 200 years of chadash
FYI – Currently there is a spike of Omicron XBB variant with high reinfections, especially those who had pre-omicron virus or vaccine.
Figure 1 in paper below shows antibody response from different vaccines to different strains 15 to 40 days after vaccination. One old booster was somewhat effective to previous BA.x and BQ.x strains but not to XBB. Two old ones and one new bivalent booster still effective for XBB.
See:
Neutralization against BA.2.75.2, BQ.1.1, and XBB from mRNA Bivalent Booster
letter to NEJM December 21, 2022 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMc2214293Israeli right includes a lot of “masorti” that includes Sephardim who even if not fully observant are pro-datiim. Others might be economic and politically right-wing and, and the same time, “not religious”. Left includes commies and former commies that are built on ANTI-religious ideology. ANTI is different from “NOT” and “PRO”
Avira > Takah, we aren’t going to have to work when moshiach comes – we’re all going to sit and learn
I recall Rambam says that the main change will be that Jews will not be subjugated to others. So, we will all work for our own businesses.