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> better danven alone with a hat then daven at shul with no hat!!!!!!!!!!!
with such halachik knowledge, you are not allowed to wear a hat.
Generally, one should not try to look like a Talmid Chacham if he is not (Bava Basra, even if it is not popular, it is still a gemora). BUT everyone should be davening with the tzibur – so how can they restrict non-T’Ch from davening!? And if they do such a restriction – why judge by a hat? Why not have a
random gemora questions on the screen and you can come in only if you answer those correctly.K’s husband is Jewish and is known in his interest in ladies, so there is a chance that she has Jewish step-children somewhere. I am sure they’ll show up later like O’s half-brothers.
> ladies’ tights and socks,
indeed, you are supposed to make simcha for the female side of your household, that is clothing and jewelry. For now you are getting socks based on your IRS filings (sold to advertisers by HR Block) or EBT payments (sold by Wholefoods). When AI finds out what your undeclared income is, you’ll start getting ads for jewelry like the rest of us.
Bava Basra: Moshe’s grandson (incorrectly) claims that he learns from his grandfather that it is better to work avoda zara than asking for tzedoka. He is corrected – it means working a “strange job”. Just modify your story that hospital stopped paying the surgeon and then this tzaddik became an exemplary janitor using all his skills, and the story looks different.
Of course, the surgeon will have a challenge that he needs to answer to his bosses, that he needs to sterilize his mop himself, that people do not remember his name and do not call him “Dr” … Hopefully, he overcomes these challenges.
Once a shoichet told R Salanter that he is exhausted being on the hook for kashrus for the whole town and wants to go into business. R Salanter answered – you are afraid of violating halochos of shchita, but what about all halochos of business – honest measures, paying on time, etc – there are way more challenges. So, hopefully medical school taught the surgeon all the skills he needs to be an ehrliche janitor.
why daven in shul where Yaakov Avinu would not be welcome.
Ask your wife. If your middos improved over this time, you can do the siyum. If they didn’t, no point celebrating even if you spent 5 hours daily on the daf. Good you asked early, you can do a check now and refocus your learning.
phil: there’s a saying “if someone doesn’t believe any stories of Chassidishe Rebbes
This is Rambam about Agadot. What Rambam thinks about stories of Chassidishe Rebbes is unknown to me.
I agree with how Chaim approaches analysis. We should disregard election messages – these are crafted to address some very specific narrow voter groups – left-handed muslims in MI or young black males in NC … Look at previous activities, especially those that came out naturally, like muslim ban that T started his term with.
I agree that Trump is an unknown unknown, but Kamala is more known and that includes both supporting Israel in general and deep antipathy to Israeli policies and also lack of executive and military experience making her dependent on her deep state advisors…
So, it will be easier for Hashem to answer our tefilos via a quick decision by T than create an open miracle overturning opinions of all secretaries and undersecretaries.
I am getting only apartment ads, is something wrong with me?!
> anything or anytime
list please
Neville > they’ll just start identifying (correctly) as goyish
Often true but depends on environment. Jews in Western Europe often continued marry mostly within their own, even when assimilated, secular, or even baptized. Same in interwar Poland and USSR (and Israel, of course). I’ve seen with my own eyes a Baal Teshuva from an old-times multi-generational German Reform family.
> Kook was a gadol before he went off the derech.
> You can see the handwritten letter online by Rav Elchonon Wasserman ztz”l who called him a “rushe gumir”.You got to have pretty serious reasons to consider a gadol to become OTD … Just because another person of the same stature disagreed with him on politics may be too risky, and leaves you no method to analyze disagreements between modern Talmidei Chachamim. At best, you yourself are choosing one Rav v. the other and claim that you are following a gadol; at worst, you are following what you learned from your heder rebbe, an accident of birth rather than a thought-through opinion.
To appreciate the problem, I suggest reading a sefer “making of the gadol” that may not necessarily address this hot issue, but it contains a lot of factual material about R Kamenetsky and others lives – and see if any of the details go against the stereotypes we have. This will help you appreciate how much we really know before making judgments on people.
I also wonder how much we hear about gedolim positions on political issues – unless they are outspoken about it.
Just a recent example – when masking wars were all rage, there was an impression in the press that all haredim disregard protection .. and then in a year an article that R Zilberstein Z’L is giving a first public shiur with a wide separation and a transparent mehitza between him and talmidim. I am pretty sure this information was not in the media before.Was R Menachem Kasher / author of Torah Shleima/editor of Rogacvhover – mentioned here? Gerer Rebbe sent him to EY in 1920s.
I just saw in Wiki (duh) that he proposed to have 5th cup during seder after Medinat Israel was created, but Rabanut was not interested …People mention desire for “frum” environment, but also consider “ehrliche” environment also. I heard about a hesitant law student asking R Soloveitchik whether it is ok to go into a profession where many are involved in lies and other ad behaviors. He responded – “so, you will be a poor lawyer”.
Indeed, there is a need to have a profession that will support a family and let you be an ehrliche yid. There is no need to be at the top of a particular profession if this requires compromises. There are might be some jobs where even earning a modest living honestly is hard. For example (notionally, not saying that every business is in this predicament) you run a construction or re-modeling business – how do you compete on price with those who hire illegals and ignore codes? Or, running a nursing home or selling standard merchandize on amazon – where margins are small, you again can earn a living by skirting rules and quality controls, every undernourished elderly would feed you … In this sense, accounting seems like a moderate risk – of course, you can get in trouble by joining a company in fraud, but it is not that difficult to earn a living by being honest, and even keeping others honest. At the other side of the spectrum, if you strive to be at the top of your profession – being an engineer or a computer programmer might be better. In this jobs, someone who is good at his job will get paid more just for that, no tricks required.
I think some people here have a desire to help others – they re-post political statements (from both sides) so that others don’t have to go to treife media. But, as a downside, you condition the group to talk in the same way. Maybe we should have a separate thread – press-releases – and then have a kosher discussion where people do not lie to each other?
Several comments, not necessarily answers to your questions:
1) time-related notion is not a definite rule, it is an asmachta. There are more exception than the rules. People make philosophical conclusions from that, but this is not a neduaraita.
2) halakha has assumptions on women’s social behavior but then treats them with respect when they are in a different position. For example, a lot of halochos around ketuba presume that the woman is dependent on her husband and establishes rules that are fair to both. At the same time, when a woman has property (usual presumption – from the father), then her rights are protected. If she is in business (II did not learn this, but heard from a dayan) – if she has a business dispute, she is not supposed to come to beis din, but beis din comes to her.
3) I presume same applies to learning. Yes, R Eliezer says teaching daughters Torah is teaching them shtus. Now, it is “not learning gemora”. But this is about a social policy – making all little girls into a beis midrash. A particular individual lady who wants or did learn something deserves respect, as it is (mostly) shown here.
4) Read the viduy – how much of it is about men-specific mitzvos? Probably, none. We are all guilty of over-valuing public demonstration of “frumkeit” over decent human behavior, chesed, etc. This is not a new thing, see neviim talking about bringing karbonos while mistreating people, but nowadays are also a response to anti-religious movements, as “frumkeit” demonstrated how we are different from the “apikoirisim”. So, while men are competing who will have a more expensive esrog, women have a whole field to themselves to practice (and learn!) about chesed, raising children, ehrlichkeit – and hopefully transmit that to their husbands and children.
>> For me it’s very clear from the Torah, that Hashem has no guf.
> Yet the Raavad says that it isn’t. So who should I believe?Raavad in this case. Sometimes, you need to suspend your current culture when reading old sources. Rambam lives in monotheistic and philosophical Islam era, Rabman in Christian with their own religious claims. Some of the gaonim they are responding to lived in Persian culture … So, what is clear to you, may not be obvious to them. Similarly, what is clear to Rambam, might not have been clear to those gaonim.
Think of any simple theorem you (hopefully) encountered in math and physics – most of them are proved in the textbook in 2 pages, but it took years for original discoveries.
Chaim > The Alfandri zl who was a big mekubal in Yerushlaim said that the reaon the chafetz chaim didn’t make it to EY was because he would have made sholom between R Kook and R sonnenfeld. Had that happened moshaich would have come.
The way I read this in the (haredi Israeli) sefer, Chofetz Chaim held a more pessimistic (realitsic?): if I go first to old yishuv, then in R Kook they’ll not learn Mishna Berura, if I go first to R Kook, then in old yishuv they’ll not learn Mishna Berura. So, it is better to have Mishna Berura in Israel than me in person. Irocnically, I bought this book near rechov Chofetz Chaim in Petach-Tikva that was, I believe, named for the apartment already bought for him.
Note that Ch.Ch posted a short letter in a newspaper in Poland at a time – to respond to many letters I received, I am not going to EY this year.
If Yonah were to lurk into this thread, he would surely demand everyone to do teshuva, whether they are in EY or in Ashur.
> will, once again, return to the office of the presidency
according to best meta-estimate of all betting sites – the chances are about … 50%. Paraphrasing gemora Kidushin – every person should think that the world vote is 50% exactly and his own vote will decide … small print tosfos: this offer is valid for 30 days for residents of PA, MI, WI, NC, GA, NV, AZ. Does not apply in any other states, countries, or planets.
philosopher> … Ashkenazi rabbonim recognized that the reality of Zionism is not bad for frum Jews. Yes, secular Zionism has led many Jews astray
you always need to consider the alternative – not ideal, but realistic one. Same Jews who were “led astray by Z” would have alternatively assimilated in America; would have died in Germany; or became communism victims or, worse, propagators, in USSR. At least, grandchildren of Zionists have a high chance to be Jewish, live among Jews, and be exposed to observant Jews (see kiruv thread :), but more importantly, their chances of teshuva highly depend on what they see among religious Jews they observe.
ads are often personalized based on your web browsing history – by the ad agency, not YWN.
So, either your female family members are shopping for socks on the same computer or your own browsing history makes the ad software think that you might be interested in those pictures. In the latter case, something to think about during asara yomei teshuva.
For example, I search for Bandera in CR – there are only 3 mentions, one by a current poster, and the other two have same couple of sentences in a row in different months of 2022. I doubt that this is part of a campaign. Most likely, they both copied these sentences without attribution from something that google helped them find.
fandango > Chances are someone on here is posting on behalf of Russia.
There were a number of posters who posted strong pro-Russian bias and sudden knowledge of Ukrainian history with words picked up from translated Soviet textbooks. I even saw such messages in random divrei Torah from established Rabbis, like mentioning memoirs describing “ukrainian nazis” who were prosecuting someone in Nazi camps … Hard to say though – whether a poster is a real russian troll paid in rubles as described in the indictment you referred to, or a result of this virus propagating through the community on- and off-line. It might be also that we notice such things sharper than in usual times.
I have heard that even CR has some gilgulim appearing under a different user name, trying to accomplish what they could not before.
modern, note that all D- Presidents and VPs are “pro-Israel”, while being in a fight with duly elected Israeli PM – and his policies. I don’t think we have such relationship often with allies, such as European countries. They are basically saying – we are your friends when you do what we tell you to. This is, of course, better than outright hostility. Still, no wonder that every time they say – yes, Israel has a right to defend itself BUT … this encourages antisemites in their activities. As just reported, Trump simply called Bibi and said – congrats on your battle successes. There is a lot of value of having clarity that someone is on your side in the battle.
Neville > is the only true Litvisher left on the CR
Lita had a lot of learning and contemplative nature, but not much of luxuries and attractive external culture. No wonder, (true) Litvishe approach is not popular in this country. Even in Lakewood (where the lake does look like Lithuanian lakes, so this is possibly why first Litvakim settled there and attracted R kotler) – an insider wrote decades ago that the place is “litvishe rebbeim with hunarishe students”//
jdf, think western europe and USA where assimilation was in mid 1800 already.
here are news from Dec 2016 – ISIS weakened but a long road ahead …
In recent days Islamic State also claimed responsibility for an attack that killed at least 10 people in Jordan, and authorities in Australia said they disrupted an Islamic State Christmas plot.
U.S. and Iraqi officials say Islamic State’s turn toward terrorism and departure from once hopeful calls for migration to the caliphate is a signal of a weakening organization.
To governments that have supported the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, however, a weakened insurgency poses great danger.
“That is still a serious problem for intelligence and law enforcement,” a senior American official said. “Making sure that we are protecting our homelands and citizens.”
keith> you are incorrect. He is the one who authorized our military to fight and destroy ISIS
I agree. One change was rule of engagement: under Obama, every strike required high-level approvals and often spent hours with white house lawyers confirming what can be hit. Trump delegated local commanders to make decisions, so targets were found and hit with no delay. I am sure there was collateral damage, and some misbehaviors came to light, but the ISIS nightmare ended.
Google trends shows growth of word ISIS in April 2014 and decline Sep 2017.
But I suggest we can do a simple test – look at pre-election, or pre-Trump inauguration news and see what they were forecasting for ISIS? This would be a good educational experience.
philosopher > When people marry they know (or should know) the hashkafah and leanings of the person they are marrying.
Exactly. So, this means that in most cases, there will be no serious disagreement
> . If you choose to marry someone you can’t fight the choices that automatically go along with it.
Same, so we agree here. I would only take an issue with the word “fight”. I would suggest a discussion and some research first. You kind of imply that both partners have their entrenched positions and it will be unbecoming of a litvishe mama to try influence her hasid husband… I think we are (unfortunately?) beyond having fights between two clear paths nowadays – we have tens of choices everywhere, starting with amazon shopping, and we get same in chinuch. So, a lot of research might be required to make the right decision and having two adults approaching it together would be beneficial for the kids.
I think I brought this story before, I think it serves as a good illustration. R Chaim Soloveichik’s son Moshe was Rav of the town in a chabad-majority town, and he hired a chabad tutor for his son, future R YB. RYBS fondly recalled later in life (in a letter to a chabad T’Ch who sent his book for a haskomah) about nigunim, stories, shabbos atmosphere, and Alter Rebbe portrait looking at him … At some point, the MOTHER quizzed the kid and discovered that he learns stories instead of Gemora and advised the FATHER, who became RYBS only teacher (AKA homeschooling). Later on, he learnt with R Chaim Ozer in Vilna, including when visiting from his university studies in Berlin. How is that for the mother’s role.
philosopher, Belzer rebbe was also regretful of his pre-war advice to stay in Europe … so, it seems that he recognized value of zionist enterprise post facto.
Somejew, you are simply inviting a continuous lashon hara asking me for names, so I am not going to post them, as they were posted here repeatedly.
And you are debating as if this is MSNBC debate between two sides, each of them trying to fool another. This is totally treif. Don’t throw around half-truths and expect others to contribute. If you want to make a serious argument, then bring both sides and explain why you think one position is preferred to others.
As philosopher points out, many of quoted rabonim had non-extreme positions. Maybe we need to define the terms better. Opposing zionist emigration before WW1 is different from opposing it before WW2 and agreeing to vote v. finding value in a state or promoting that state, etc.
For example, one famous Rav who supported Mizrachi movement in general, harshly rebuked the US rabbinical organization that distributed mizrachi writings about how to celebrate yom haatzmaut, etc – saying that people should not confuse what comes from a political organization with rabbinical guidance.
R Zeira (Babylonian) avoided marrying his teacher’s R Yohanan’s daughter because he thought his yichus was better.
I agree with akuperma, everyone who was in USA for several generations and not within strictly O community is a suspect. Most people from other countries are in a better position, either having local batei dinim, like Israel/UK or government papers like USSR.
philosopher > Let’s say a husband is adamant that his son attend a certain cheder
A nowadays (avoiding the loaded term “modern”) wife would surely know how to present her position and in any normal family, the decision would be mutual, with each side appreciating the arguments of the other. As I mentioned, the women are pretty likely to be in the loop. Just compare specificity of imamother replies with the blabber at this site :). If parents are not able to come to a joint opinion, they would be better off asking for an advice or a shailah to figure out how to have a joint opinion on important issues.
farrockgrandma> A young men takes on most mitzvas at the time of his bar-mitzvah. For a girl/woman, we are responsible for the most important mitzvas at the time that we marry and start a family.
I would hope that the lady would spend previous years preparing for that great mission whether by being a sidekick to her mother or babysitting or/and actually learning. After a child is born, it becomes a little hectic to learn …
I also noticed that men tend to delegate sholom bayis to their wives, even if a lot of gemoras direct their instructions to men.
I once offered a chatan a book about sholom bayis (that I thought he needed). His immediate reaction was “I am sure my kallah has such books”.somejew, you bring an impressive list. Several issues with that:
(1) there are other T’Ch that had different opinions. They may be of lower stature, in your opinion, or the list might be shorter, but making a list of T’Ch and omitting some of them makes you into an unreliable witness. Maybe you are doing it in the heat of the argument, but this is really a non-Torah attitude(2) you might simply be dismissing those who disagree as not T’Ch. Look up “no true scotsman” phenomenon and get back to us
(3) you need to understand in detail what exactly those T’Ch were holding and against what. Pre-medina and earlier years in Israel had very ideological and anti-religious people involved. Currently, most non-religious Israelis are stam non-religious rather than ideological, and there are so many religious people involved in Israeli politics and government that issues might be very different.
statistically, as most marriages are between a jew and a non-Jew, the one with the Jewish last name is Goyish (Jewish father), and the one with a non-Jewish last name is Jewish.
Seriously, distribution is uneven. There are whole pockets of Jews where most are non-Jews (Reform temples in the south?) and pockets where there is rov yehudim: Israelis, Brooklynites, Russians from smaller towns in Ukraine. Uzbekistan, etc …
philosopher > you will follow his minhugim and he’ll have the last word which moisdos your sons will attend,
shtark> literal definition of ימשל is to lordWhile there is a notion that a man should follow his wife on the issues of gashmiyus and lead on ruchniyus, it does not mean that someone is having a “last word” on school selection, it is usually a mutual decision based on a lot of considerations. Just based on stereotypes, the husband might naturally know more about the derech of the mosdos, but the mother might know more about what really goes on inside based on talking to other mothers; might have better insight in the nature of the children and how they’ll be affected; and better intuition on how to evaluate personalities of teachers and principals. And, as mentioned above, stereotypes are not always true. Hopefully, both sides will bring all their info for mutual discussion.
As to leading, I once was zoche to be present at a summer retreat where a choshuve very traditional rav was giving a shiur sitting at the head of the outside table to several students, sitting on both sides. Rebbetzin was sitting at the end of the table, reading what looked like a paperback novel. At some point, Rav stopped speaking, search for a right word…. Rebbetzin lowered the novel, mouthed the word, Rav looked at her, and continued the shiur. Nobody noticed that, of course – I just happened to be coming from a side and seeing the whole scene.
Sen Vance had a good argument yesterday (T mentioned it also at the end of his debate). Dems present very very appealing ideas – but why didn’t you implement them in the last 3.5 years?
This is the core issue – all progressive ideas sound very appealing: why not “give” everyone $50,000 to have a house, to go to college, to have a child, to have a new kiddush cup. Not all of these ideas are bad, some are good. It sometimes takes years to see what works and what does not. The only serious counter-argument is to consider reality and experience. This election is very special – we have two candidates who were either Pres or VP. They have track record. Consider that before engaging in all your hypotheticals. This is what we are told how we verify whether someone is a true navi or sheker – make them do predictions and see if they happen. Maybe if we introduce capital punishment for politicians and economists shekarim, elections will be easier to bear.
As you see, these are really good questions. I’ll let others deal with lofty issues, here are some observations.
First problem I see is that you feel it difficult to ask these questions. This is something that you should be able to talk about with your family/friends/school on a regular basis, not just in a “crisis mode” looking for excuses. So, think how to change your environment and relationship to achieve that.
One answer I heard from a Rav, who is a Cohen. A feminist lady approached him stating that “you can’t imagine how I feel when being on the other side of the mehitza”. He said – I can, when I was not able to attend the funeral of my beloved stepfather (as a Cohen). .. The point is that there are a lot of differences between different people and lots of mitzvos correspond to circumstances. I am still fuming that I still was not able to pick up a captured woman during a war.
Mitzvos that women have are way enough to fill your whole day doing – and learning how to do them well. Teaching children, making family a place of kedusha and many others will take years to learn how to do properly. In general, mitzvos bein adam l’havero are more complicated as they depend on the person – you talk differently to different people, so getting a PhD in psychology would be a good first step…
Re: men lording over women. Not sure what is going on in your house, you are welcome to stop by mine to disabuse yourself of this notion. Anyway, finishing writing, wife just called to throw the garbage away. Hinei I am accepting upon myself this mitzva of havata raeha kmoha.
coffee > I didn’t know you smoked! You really should stop, as it isn’t healthy
And you should stop drinking coffee. I thought nobody is reading this thread, only writing.
This thread is the most unhealthy thing for blood pressure, you should stop reading it.My CPA is an ehriche Yid that … does not charge by an hour. I have him on a modest monthly rate and he does routine stuff and deals with whatever emergencies happen within that rate. He has many clients, is very busy, earns enough but not much and will be able to answer the question whether he dealt with clients honestly. Shana Tova.
Bayit > Totally separate from every Taava
this seems like a haredi version of helicopter parenting (of which I am also guilty). Where does it say in the Torah that Hashem promises us to guarantee any encounter with yetzer or hara or any other challenge in life? Jews encountered all kind of problems over generations. True, you are not supposed to go and create problem for yourself, but army service is not entertainment. It would seem that a person who goes to serve for a right reason will be granted same protection as all other shluchei mitzzva and mesiras nefesh.
> So in addition to the learning and tehillim perhaps the Hareidi community can think what can they do to lift up the morale. Women in Beitar provide shabbos good for families whose husband’s are off fighting, for example.
this is a great idea. I don’t want to disregard this at all, but one logical extension would be for the learners to learn temporarily at their own expense and donate (not theirs, but) government subsidies to families of chayalim? I think this is one of the suggestions that is being imposed from outside, but why not make it a nedava instead?
> Telling Bnei Torah to leave the Yeshiva and learn less so they can enlist in the army, means less Torah and less protection for Klal Yisroel.
This is mentioned in Maseches Megila. Malach threatens Yehoshua for neglecting karbonos during the day and learning Torah during the night (due to army service) – and then clarifies that a death might come for neglecting learning. Note that there is no suggestion to abandon the military campaign and not even learning during the day. So, as we have no karbonos right now, serving during the day and learning at night would be acceptable by Yehoshua’s standards.
Impeccable timing in turns of yomei teshuva and the war .. YWN front page has a tweet from another supporter who starts his tweets with “b ezrat Hashem” and talks about “zionist regime”. You are keeping a good company.
I can’t parse vague articles about the asifa in Lakewood – they seems to say that it was dedicated to situation in Israel (aka EY) and hostages and also to opposing the draft. Articles sound a little vague. If you were there – what was the ikar and what was tofel – war in Israel or opposing the draft?
Or was it take the combined message – daven for the chayalim and do not join the tzahal?Kuvult, many good points.
> no one had any idea about a Holocaust in the 1930s
It was already clear that the 20th century is different. First WW1 (aka at the time as a Great War) with unheard of losses in “developed” world. Then, by this time, millions of Jews, as well as non-Jews, died or/and suffered immensely in USSR and threatened other countries already.I agree that association of Jews with communism was not helpful to obtaining US visas and might have contributed to immigration restrictions of 1920s in the first place. We see in our time how nativism strengthens from what they see in the arrivals. This association also added to Germans conflating Jews and Communists.
Furthermore, before demanding prophetic vision from FDR, we should look at our own leaders who were often similar blind of the upcoming danger. FDR might had better military intelligence, but Torah wisdom should not be less than that …