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chesedname, prayers are always answered. Sometimes the answer is “No”. Moshiach will come when it suits the Divine purpose. It is good to pray for that day, but I find the idea that we can coerce the Master of the Universe into doing our bidding against the Divine Will … troublesome.
Oh, it’s interesting. But I’m a science geek who finds protein folding and metallurgy fascinating.
hie & bjg, it’s definitely AT&T’s lousy network. They’re famous for it.
Torah Mom, you’re pretty much stuck with a data plan. But if you have any sort of self control you can avoid going to dodgy websites. For looking things up Google gives you the options of “safe search”. And if you have kids you can always put a lock-code or password on your phone so they can’t access it.
Or maybe his arrival is on the Almighty’s schedule, not ours.
I already make wine. I’m getting a distilling license once the song-and-dance with the TTB is over. It takes at least two years of aging to make Bourbon or Rye. Would it be worth the time and money to make a kosher whiskey aged in kosher wine casks?
I never met my father’s father. But by all reports he only had one standard for a political candidate. “Is he good for the Jews and the Italians?”
gW, I’m not sure I understand what you mean.
So….your answer to my question is that the question was worth asking. Intention and what one actually does do make important distinctions. And Avraham wouldn’t have to be executed for smashing the idols in his dad’s House O’ Dieties.
I’ve been involved with making and analyzing some of those filters. For the most part they are a joke. Yes, they will catch a lot of the naughty pictures. But they are often (usually?) made by bored, underpaid workers at companies who mostly trade the same stuff back and forth or by organizations with other axes to grind. Depending on the axe La Leche League, the Anti-Defamation League and the Skeptical Inquirer might be banned while Bassett Hound Lust – which I fervently hope does not exist – could make it through.
And yes, LLL, the ADL and SI were filtered on one list I had a chance to examine some years back. Neo-Nazi websites and ones chock-full of malware made it through just fine.
Absolutely normal. Your body is chock-full of powerful hormones that will make you a bit crazy for about the next sixty five years. They should settle down in a couple dozen.
I recommend exercise. Lots of varied exercise including cardio, agility and moderate weightlifting.
It is fun.
It will help distract you a bit. Not much, but it will help.
It will help with your studies.
It will give you self confidence which will give you many advantages throughout life including the time you’re “on the market” for shidduch.
And it will be like money in the bank when you are older. Muscle tone, flexibility and good health are easier to maintain than to acquire once you hit thirty. If you get in the habit now it will be much easier then.
Fruit.
Cereal.
Fried rice.
Just to add to the previous comment…
We don’t know exactly what DY’s standards are. Which disease markers in common are a “no”? Even among experts the recommendations often vary. To only way to make a good decision on something this important is with full knowledge of the facts and a chance to consult with a knowledgeable doctor and rabbi. Without the facts it is impossible to take advantage of their wisdom and experience.
AZ, I fear that is correct. I’ve mentioned them a couple times, none of which has been preserved.
Aries, this group does a lot of good work. It might be better to go with a service that will actually tell you if you are a carrier and if so for what. If a boy has, say, Huntington’s chorea a simple “This marriage should not happen” is not enough. There are profound implications for that person ever getting married or having children not to mention issues surrounding that person’s future health.
AZ, I see the structural problems and solutions slightly differently, from the perspective of a de-frocked economist with some background in demography. Similar, but slightly different. Unfortunately the differences and the solutions run right into to the teeth of what’s acceptable under the Terms of Service here. If you want to discuss them offline the mods have permission to give you my contact information.
Aries, absolute agreement here.
If a young man can’t share a drink with a young woman without someone (else) to hold his hand he probably isn’t ready to start dating.
As for meeting the parents, yes. An eighteen year old who is just getting to know a young man is going to have a hard time standing up to the scrutiny. She’s in a strange place with whom she has an undefined relationship. He will be obliged to defer to his parents who are going to be hyper-critical of the new girl. I can’t see any way it could turn out well for either of them. If the families already know each other it’s different, of course.
Depends on what you mean by “picks up”. Do you mean “picks up without knowing what it was”, “picks up to melt down in the foundry”, “picks up in a container full of unsorted storage locker contents”, “picks up to install in a temple dedicated to Something with tentacles” or something else? There are serious differences between all of these based on knowledge, intent and consequences.
Oomis, you forgot a few…
Neither of them has much experience dealing with members of the opposite sex. It’s hard to learn that while you’re also dealing with the stresses of a new family. The old custom of having the chosson-to-be move in with the kallah’s family for a year before the wedding at least got them used to each other in a controlled environment.
It’s difficult enough to be a young husband when you have the confidence of owning the roof over your head and knowing that you have provided for your family. When many depend on relatives, charity and the government for subsistence it shakes him in ways that go beyond religio and strike at the heart of being a man.
A woman who spends her whole life preparing for a wedding may find she’s unprepared for the reality of children, a man to look after and a family to support.
Also, wet the edges of the cookie and thoroughly seal them just before baking. I haven’t had a batch leak since taking more care with that part.
For something there’s been “enough talk on” people can’t get enough of the subject 🙂
A joke that was old when my father heard it from his father…
Two friends were arguing about whose culture was older.
The Chinese guy said “Our culture goes back three thousand unbroken years.”
The Jew said “Ours goes back four thousand!”
“Yeah, and what did your people eat for the first thousand years?”
Ms. Mus, good for you. You saved yourself a lot of grief later in life. What could you expect from a potential mother-in-law like that. Or from a son who wouldn’t say “Ma, that’s ridiculous!”
Food is food. Good food is good food. We actually eat fewer different kinds of food than people did 100 or even 70 years ago. And in many ways we eat worse with bland, less nutritious drek being the only real choice we are allowed by the (enormous) trans-national conglomerates that control the entire food chain from seed to farmer to factory to market. A couple of really good Jewish writers – Raymond Sokolov and Mark Kurlansky – have written wonderful books on this. Sokolov’s Fading Feast and The American-Jewish Kitchen and Why We Eat What We Eat are great. So are Kurlansky’s Salt: A History of the World and Food of a Younger Land.
In trying to understand the “crisis” I started with the library and did some reading on the history of marriages and matchmaking. From what I gathered it has changed a lot in the last couple hundred years. In villages and small towns the matchmaker functioned more as a go-between as recently as 150 or so years ago. That is, everyone knew who was going to get married. The strict segregation between the sexes practiced by some of the frum was not and could not possibly have worked in a world of hard-scrabble farmers. There’s just too much that men and women had to do to survive that had them interacting with each other.
In larger cities or in cases where no suitable spouse could be found nearby the matchmaker could call on a network of friends, relations and professional contacts in other places. These tended to be full-time professionals, the man with the umbrella and bowler hat of past generations.
Remember, people in those days lived a different life than we did. Almost everyone was involved in farming in one way or another, and nearly everybody lived in villages or small towns. Even in bigger cities identifiable groups lived close to each other. Ethnic and religious groups like Romany or Jews or groups which shared a profession such as dock workers and brewers lived and worked close to each other.
In a situation like that everyone knows everyone. Kids grew up playing with each other. You were friends with the great-grandchildren of your great-grandparents’ friends. The invisible but powerful League of Older Women was always on the lookout for grandchildren. Marriages were often arranged as economic relations between families, ways of increasing land or business.
The point is, you often knew a lot about the man or woman you were going to marry. Say, a girl has a talk with her mother about the boy a farm over, the one with two wells and some river-bottom land. The mother has a talk with her husband who has a talk with the boy’s father who has a talk with his wife who already had a talk with the girl’s mother. Somewhere along the line the shadchan gets called and the young couple are officially “introduced” to each other.
Now we live in big cities with cars. Shelves of books have been written about how this has changed everything in life. The role of matchmakers and the economics of marriage have changed dramatically. And they will continue to change to meet the needs of observant Jews who want to fulfill the mitzvas of marrying and having children.
Not to take things too far off-topic, one of the things that concerns me as I make more friends among traditional Jews compared to the M.O., Conservative and Reform I grew up with is the amount of drinking. When I’m with traditional friends they start sooner, take more and larger drinks over the course of the evening, and are more likely to take their alcohol straight. I’m not saying that everyone does this, but I’ve definitely noticed it on average.
When my father was growing up in New York he says it was noteworthy when a Jew of any sort drank a lot, let alone got drunk. His uncle was a shame to the family because he got drunk regularly. It stood out because it was something “Jews don’t do”.
Is this something recent? Is it due to the wave of Eastern European refugees after WWII?
“What does Romeo and Juliet have to do with this discussion?”
Another post put it up as the ideal of romantic love. I believe the post was deleted, so my response is a bit of an orphan.
Y’know I really should have quoted this one instead…
Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And oft’ is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
If it’s your phone you don’t have to use the web browser. And “The Internet” is a lot more than webpages. It’s a set of common standards for data exchange and the machines which use them. Automatic operating system updates are “Internet”. Downloading the siddur onto your phone is “Internet”. The application which tells me where the nearest shul is and alerts me when Shabbos is less than an hour away are “Internet”. The public key protocols I use at work to verify the integrity of data on remote servers are “Internet”. Unless you’re a number theory freak they are about as exciting as watching (dark gray) paint dry.
In fact, most phone calls these days are “Internet”. You can’t get away from it. Two of the best applications out there – Evernote and DropBox – store your notes and files on Internet servers. It seems like your stuff is on your phone, but it’s really out in the cloud somewhere.
If you are worried that someone might use your phone to access bad websites there’s a simple solution. Set your phone up to require a password to unlock except for answering calls. I know Android-based units and iPhones can do that. I’m sure the Blackberry can as well.
As for Palm, I’d say ditch it right away. Palm is dying. Their market share is circling the drain. Their application store is a joke. Symbian-based phones, Nokai and Windows Mobile are all crashing. I’ve seen the future. It’s dominated by Apple, Android and a slowly shrinking slice for RIM.
Ben Levi, things that are unobjectionable become unacceptable when taken to excess. Washing your hands is good. Washing them every minute and twenty one seconds around the clock is bad. Modesty and humility are good. Making yourself invisible and total self-deprecation are bad.
A sip of kiddush wine barely registers. Getting stinking drunk is bad.
Any grownup understands the idea of moderation and appropriate self-restraint. With any luck the frontal lobes have developed at least that far. And before you ask, yes, there’s an awful lot of children and adolescents running around in sixty year old bodies.
Children? Not so much. Their brains just aren’t that developed.
Teenagers? Especially teenage boys who can’t blow off extra energy by raiding the neighboring tribe’s cattle? Hormonal-hurricane teenage boys with adult permission to get completely polluted? Get them in a group and most of them will have all the impulse control of a falling brick.
Girls get into mischief when they have too much to drink, but they tend to be a little more mature than boys the same age, and the trouble doesn’t usually involve the Famous Last Words “Hey y’all. Hold my beer and watch this!”
Jose, I’m not the judge or jury here. There was already a trial with a jury. There was a judge at the trial. There were almost two dozen appeals to panels of judges as well as appeals for clemency to five governors. Refer your questions about the justice of the verdict to them.
I’m trying to explain how the facts as presented fit into the categories of aggravated, premeditated or felony murder. The person to whom the response was directed didn’t understand how they could. I hope this amateur attempt at an explanation provided some insight into how these things work. “Premeditated” doesn’t mean “planned six weeks in advance”. It can mean as little as a moment before under the right circumstances.
The system worked. His appeal was successful. His union stood up for him.
AOM, at the risk of beating a dead horse let’s look at this from the perspective of the laws of the United States and the State of Florida.
- Murder of a peace officer in the performance of her duties is a capital crime and counted as aggravated murder in Florida and many other States
- While Officer Parks was calling for help on her radio Mr. Grossman took her flashlight and beat her with it to the point where the skull suffered multiple fractures and sub-dural bleeds.
- He then took her gun, turned her and shot her in the back of the head.
If he had taken a swing at her, she had fallen and died from knocking her head a defense attorney might have gotten a manslaughter verdict. It’s the next part that scuttled any hope of a lesser verdict. He took a weapon (flashlight) from her and hit her several dozen times in a fashion likely to cause death or serious injury. And after he disarmed her he took the premeditated steps of taking her pistol, turning her over and shooting her execution-style. Under the laws of any State and the traditions of English Common, Napoleonic and Dutch-Roman law – in other words pretty much the entire Western world – that is clearly pre-meditated murder.
In many States a death which occurs as the result of a felony is raised to the status of Felony Murder or Capital Murder. I forget which term Florida uses. That’s why if you kill someone by accident in the course of a burglary you face murder charges. Or if you rob someone and your accomplice is shot by the police you face a murder rap for his death. Mr. Grossman was in possession of stolen property, a criminal in possession of a firearm and in violation of his parole. Any one of these would be enough to raise the crime to the level of a capital crime.
Attempts to cover up the crime are considered aggravating circumstances, hence “aggravated murder”.
You may not agree with the laws of Florida and the United States. You are free to try and get things changed. But the verdict and the execution were completely in line with them.
The case had been appealed about twenty times and rejected each time due to lack of any new evidence. Four governors saw and rejected pleas for clemency, not just Gov. Crist. The governor in Florida is only supposed to grant clemency if there is new evidence that the condemned was not guilty of the crime. A plea from fifty or fifty thousand should not sway him if this is not the case. And much as I dislike Gov. Crist’s politics I am forced to agree with him. He did his duty under the law.
Jothar, with all respect to your rabbi home distilling was very common in Europe. Stills are easy to make, and the raw materials for hooch are quite inexpensive – grain, potatoes, fruit in season. People might have been too poor in certain times and places, but alcohol was mostly cheap and easy to come by. And given the prevalence of public drunkenness and deaths from alcohol poisoning in the historical record it took a fearsome toll.
Up until the fairly recently the average adult drank four or five liters of beer or wine a day. Coffee transformed Europe for Jew and Gentile alike. That urn of coffee in the yeshiva break room did more for the health and well-being of Jews than almost any other modern invention. cf. A History of the World in Six Glasses and The Devil’s Cup.
aaryd, are you as enthusiastic about following mitzvos which don’t involve something fun?
TlC – Absolutely. Felt it was worth mentioning since, forbidden or not, it happens more often than we’d like.
Aries, forget “gateway”. Alcohol and tobacco and physically dangerous, deadly poison. They are highly addictive. Tobacco is, according to the medical literature, several times more difficult to quit than cocaine. The only reason we tolerate them is that we’re used to them. In all honesty, I’d rather someone smoke cannabis than drink if both were legal. And cigarets should be as much of a crime as heroin.
Start with what you drink and how you drink.
Clear spirits are better. Gin, vodka and rum don’t pick up congeners, terpenes and other nasties from the wood like brandy or whisky.
Your body can only process so much alcohol per hour. The amount depends on your mass, your gender, your age and how lean you are; muscle is better than fat.
Eat while you drink. Fats, fish, meat or milk are good. Stay away from salt which will make you drink more. So is bread. The B-vitamins in bread help replace what the alcohol is destroying.
In the morning, water, aspirin, more B-vitamins and sugars.
Better a monk or nun than a Pictish warrior 🙂
(The ancient Picts went into battle dressed only in helmets and blue paint)
Not to be too much of a killjoy, but it doesn’t matter whether it’s wine, liquor, beer, mead or fermented monkfish droppings. If your underage boys are getting drunk on Purim your not just committing a chillul hashem. You’re committing a crime. If, G-d forbid, they drive afterwards you bear responsibility for the very likely accidents.
I got invited to the wedding and was invited to make the first toast. My wife was given the signal honor of staying with the kallah before the ceremony with instructions to tackle her if she tried to bolt – serious pre-wedding jitters.
We feel that we were well paid. Their little girl calls us “auntie” and “uncle” which we consider riches beyond measure.
If the treatments ruin the finish of the dresser I suggest a trip to Home Despot or a lumber store which caters to cabinetmakers and serious hobbyists. Or talk to a friendly furniture refinisher. Bring a sample of the wood such as dresser drawer if you can. They will be able to tell you what stain to use to match what’s already there. #100 grit sandpaper, sealer and the right stain only take a few hours to apply. I recommend at least two coats with enough time to dry between.
The dictionary defines a crisis as ” the decisive moment “. The shidduch “crisis” is not a crisis. It is the result of systemic structural issues in the community’s current marriage customs and the way they bump up against economics and other lifestyle choices. It isn’t something which just occurred even though it may only have recently been acknowledged. It is not something which will go away anytime soon, not unless we change the way we do a number of things. A few rabbinical decrees will not change the underlying economics, human nature or any of the other root causes.
So expect to hear about it for decades to come. It will resolve itself, but that will require significant changes in how we do things, far beyond the scope of this discussion.
Good. Investment in energy efficiency could save us enough to significantly cut our dependence on foreign oil. I just wish the program offered even larger incentives for those few appliances still made in this country.
If someone is “young” and “immature” he or she has no business getting married. It’s not fair to the person. It’s not fair to the spouse. It is completely irresponsible to do to their children.
If someone is mature enough to enter do responsibly marry, enter into contracts, go to war, die in childbirth, own repeating firearms, run a business and make medical decisions it is past time for the parents to give advice and not make an issue out of it when the adult son or daughter makes an adult decision.
The problems are structural and cannot be solved without a radical overhaul of the system. Those repairs will only happen when the leaders in our community decide that the damage to families is great enough to warrant changing the process.
Ir, if they’re ready to marry and have children they are old enough to die in battle or childbirth, enter into contracts, drink, operate heavy machinery or own repeating firearms. At some point you grow up and are an adult who makes adult decisions. If you aren’t by the time you marry something has gone terribly wrong, and you have no business being a spouse or parent.
Aries, that sort of parent won’t take responsibility for the his or her actions. If the marriage works, they take credit. If the marriage fails it’s the child’s fault.
That’s why the Law specifies “reasonable accommodations”. Missing several days of school a week isn’t reasonable. Occasional appointments are. A yeshiva which has a blanket prohibition against all mental health therapy is being unreasonable.
Tupim, this is one of those things which goes down to the base of who one is as a human being. If we met face to face and talked it out we would probably find that our positions were very close. The differences come from life experiences, subtle differences in the way we were raised, the relationships which we admired and the ones which bothered us when we were very young and everything was still magical.
Maybe restating it will help?
A child should always honor his or her parents and respect their opinions. Loving parents want what’s best for their children and would like them to avoid the last generation of mistakes and regrets. No arguments there. But ultimately our children are themselves. They have to live their own lives, make adult decisions as adults and answer for it to the Final Judge.
When we are infants we cannot make choices, and as little children the decisions we make have small consequences. Growth is a process of making the harder choices and taking responsibility for the results.
A good person honors his or her parents and would rather do almost anything than directly oppose them.
A good parent doesn’t push things to the point where the son or daughter has to make that choice. If you force that choice you’ve already lost.