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Moderator: There is a commenter here writing “afra lepumei” (“may his mouth [be filled with] dust”) — a severe Talmudic curse — in reference to Rav Kook zt”l as well as attributing an unsubstantiated opprobrium to the Chafetz Chaim zt”l. The person who wrote this puts the word Rav in quotes when referring to Rav Kook. In addition to possessing very bad middot, this commenter is also an ignoramus, unaware that when Rebbe Alter of Ger zt”l visited Palestine in 1924, the first person he went to visit was Rav Kook. Whatever philosophical differences may separate us from other Jews, these great men were veritable angels who deserve our respect, reverence, and our honesty.
Someone needs to write an article on the Zionist rebbes who settled in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and established courts there starting in the 1920s. Among these were the Drohobyczer Rebbe of Jerusalem (d. 1924), the Husyatiner Rebbe of Tel Aviv (d. 1956), and the Sadigurer Rebbe of Tel Aviv (d. 1972). Also, the Bohusher Rebbe and the Pashkaner Rebbe.
Another buried historical artifact is how a Zionist heir to a very large and prominent Chasidus in Israel was passed over because of his pro-Israel stance.
From the fevered rantings of certain Johnny One-Note commentators, one might think that every Rebbe or Charedi leader shared their views.
HaKatan: No, it is not merely a difference in context. You are incorrect. Please do not be willful when someone politely points something out.
HaKatan: During the Tannaitic period, Judea was quadrilingual. It is not true that Judeo-Aramaic (JA) was the only spoken language there at the time. The Mishnah and Tosefta reveal a living language (“Neo Hebrew” or “Rabbinic Hebrew,” i.e. RH) that was vibrant and adaptive to the experience of the people, which is why it contains Aramaisms as well as many Greek and even Latin loan words. The less educated among the Jews of Judea spoke JA, while the scholarly class communicated in RH. The Jews did not have a high opinion of Latin, which the Talmud Yerushalmi attests. So, the Roman officials communicated with the Jewish representatives in Greek, which the Jewish merchant class spoke as well. Latin was spoken among the Romans themselves and was the only language used by the Plebians and common soldiers.
HaKatan: לשון הקדש absolutely DID evolve. This is one of my areas of knowledge, having written a master’s thesis on the way the various Targumim render the poetic portions of the Tanakh and having taught BH on the university level for years. (Now, I do secondary ed consulting, for the most part, but this was one of my fields.) The oldest portions of the Tanakh (e.g. שירת למך in Genesis 4; Genesis, 49; שירת הים in Exodus 15; שירת דבורה in Judges 5; Psalms 18, 29, 68, et al.) are examples of Archaic Hebrew, which differs from pre-exilic and post-exilic Hebrew. (We are not talking about Rabbinic Hebrew, which is something else.) Aside from the Judeo-Aramaic portions of Ezra, the Hebrew there is quite modern, forming a sort of nexus between the biblical and post-biblical varieties of the language.
Please re-read my original retort to Avi. I do not subscribe to the view that some have in mistaking Yiddish for the language of the oppressed but was merely mentioning it.
As for the dialect in Suwalki: Before the War, there was a sixty-five-mile borderland between Poland and Lithuania where Suwalki is situated. In that very small geographic area, the Jews would say “oyf” rather than “uf” or “af.” It was this pronunciation upon which the artificial כּלל-אידיש is based. It is interesting that you mention Suwalki because the kehilla there was quite modern and even cosmopolitan. The Haskalah made major inroads in Suwalki as it had done in places like Lwów.
Also, דאגה is written with an אל”ף.
commonsaychel: Never in my life have I attacked Yiddish.
Avi: There was disdain on the part of SOME for the language. I believe it is in “The Middle Gate” where Joseph Patai, a Hungarian poet and scholar, wrote that as a boy, his very pious grandmother slapped him for speaking to her in “זשאַרגאָן.” Like many Hungarian Jews under Emperor Franz Joseph I, she spoke German at home. Further, the letter עי”ן has the voiced nasal sound /ng/. Few Ashkenazim observed this feature, though R’ Haskel Lookstein, who is an outstanding בעל נוסח and בעל תפילה and uses the הברה אשכנזית (or did years ago), gives the slightest hint of it when he davens נעילה (he also differentiates the חי”ת from the כ”ך, but leaves the קו”ף as is). Look up “Eighteen Treatises from the Mishna” by D. A. Sola and M. J. Raphall [1843]. This was the very first partial English translation of the Mishnah. True to the Spanish-Portuguese tradition (though Raphall was very much Ashkenazic), the שמע is transliterated “Shemang.”
That aside, as we post-Holocaust Jews will forever be engaged in a program of spiritual and intellectual reclamation, it remains one of the great tragedies of Jewish life, born of ignorance and shortsightedness, to jettison the fruits of a thousand years of East, Central, and West European Jewish culture just because we would rather turn away. It is a dismissive and quite cruel הסתר פנים to our forebears of which I want no part.
DaMoshe: That is such a presumptive thing to say to anyone whose late parents or immediate relatives spoke Yiddish. We are supposed to be רחמנים בני רחמנים.
SQUARE_ROOT: As in, “If I haven’t heard of it, it must be meritless.” As someone who has taught Yiddish as well (as Hebrew and English) for years, your “Yumptif” remark is way off. It would be “Yoƞtif.” The /m/ and /n/ are both nasal consonants, and the shift from the alveolar to the bilabial sound occurs in the colloquial speech of hundreds of languages.
spot on: The ק״ג /aw/ vowel and חולם /oʊ/ diphthong are two distinct sounds.
As I have been saying for years, מען קען זיַין מוטער נישט ליבּן אויבּ ער האַסט איר שטימע צוגליַיך.
Why do the Byzantine Jews refer to a בית כנסת as a “kenessa”?
Why do the older Beta Yisra’el Jews call a כהן “kahenat”? Why do the same Beta Yisrael Jews call the תורה “Orit” and שבת “Sanbat”?
Why do some pedantic people in Israel write “בר המצווה” when the term is a carryover from Judeo-Aramaic and should thus have no הא הידיעה? (It would be incorrect, for instance, to write בעל התריסין and the like, but I have met Israeli Hebrew teachers who are ignorant in rabbinic literature and insist upon “בר המצווה”.)
Why do most people vocalize רבי as רַבִּי or רֶבִּי when, as the יעב”ץ demonstrates in לחם שמים, the word should be pronounced רְבִּי?
Why did the Jews of Kaifeng vocalize the שם הוי-ה as “Yiweh”?
Why do subliterate people in Israel say אוֹתְכֶם and אוֹתְכֶן?
Why have most Israeli publishers of siddurim done away with the מתג, which indicates proper syllabic stress? This causes most people to exchange מלעיל for מלרע and vice-versa.
Why do most Hebrew professors not know that the actual word “מלרע” is itself מלעיל?
Why do most people pronounce וּלְיִשְׁרֵי לֵב as “U-Le-Yish-Rey …” when the שוא beneath the למ”ד is a שוא נח, meaning that the word
is “Ul-Yish-Rey”?Why in the Kaddish de-Rabbanan, do most people say מְזוֹנֵי רְוִיחֵי when the correct wording is מְזוֹנָא רְוִיחָא?
Why do most people pronounce the first two words of the Kaddish as יִתְגַּדַּל וְיִתְקַדַּשׁ when the גר”א demonstrated that those two specific words are not Judeo-Aramaic but לשון הקדש and should thus be pronounced יִתְגַּדֵּל וְיִתְקַדֵּשׁ? (See ס’ מעשה רב.)
Why do most people say כִרְעוּתֵהּ when, as the גר”א demonstrates, the כ”ף should have a דגש? (The word should be כִּרְעוּתֵהּ. Again, see ס’ מעשה רב.)
Why do people say הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא when, as the late Professor Gerson Cohen proved in an in-depth study, the term is a hebraized version of קֻדְשָׁא בְּרִיךְ הוּא, a usage in the Targum? (קֻדְשָׁא is the nominal form, meaning that the Hebrew must be הַקֹּֽדֶשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, which it was until centuries ago.)
Why do most people pronounce the קמ”ץ קטן like a קמ”ץ גדול? And why do most people mispronounce the קמ”ץ גדול as a פת”ח when the pronunciation “aw” traditional to the Ashkenazic and Yeminite Jews is the correct one?
And why do the Sephardim traditionally pronounce the קמ”ץ preceding a חטף קמ”ץ as a short ō, making the sound of words like צָהֳרַיִם “Tza-Ho-Ra’im”? After all, the word is the dual form of צֹֽהַר (“window,” “aperture”). Is it correct to transmute the חוֹלָם to a קמ”ץ גדול?
You see, Avi, in the life of a language, there will inevitably be changes in pronunciation as the people habituate to what they hear around them. Further, rules of grammar are intermittently forgotten or ignored, which causes the language to evolve. This is all part of how languages emerge, live, and die.
You are not the first ostensibly frum person to call out Yiddish for an aspect of human experience common to all times and climes. This often stems from an inherent dislike some post-War Jews have for the language, being the vernacular of most victims of the Holocaust נ”ע הי”ד and therefore reminiscent, they believe, of weakness and shame. I have heard otherwise intelligent students at YU make such barbs about Yiddish and this has always been disturbing.
This is pure ignorance on the part of such people. Yiddish is a beautiful language with its own rhythm and spirit, and with a labyrinthian grammar and literature that can rival any other in the world. Actually, to a child of survivors ע”ה like me, it is hurtful to read the verb “butcher,” which you chose as the headline here. As I have shown you, there are plenty of questions to be asked of various communities when it comes to the grammar and pronunciation of Hebrew and Judeo-Aramaic.
And with that, let me say that מאַמע לשון is sacred to me. When I read and speak Yiddish, I am connecting on a very deep level with my beloved parents ע”ה and with my hundreds of family members נ”ע הי”ד who were, to use your word, butchered. My heart is filled with pride and joy when I learn משניות with the Yiddish commentary of the late genius Dr. Symcha Petrushka ע”ה, which a certain very popular Modern Hebrew commentary on the Mishnah plagiarized. In my library, I have nineteen tractates of ש”ס with a Yiddish translation and commentary, including the tractates elucidated by Rabbi Dr. Yankev-Meyer Zalkind ע”ה and some others, which are hard to acquire. I especially love the Yiddish Gemaras of R’ Shelomo Drillich זצ”ל and R’ Shemuel Hibner זצ”ל. (These great rabbis were both natives of Poland. They led congregations on the Lower East Side and in Brooklyn respectively.)
זאָל אידיש נאָך לעבּן, and may we all open up our minds and hearts a little more.
My DavkaWriter Platinum 6 cannot do this. I think Adobe is the way to go.
Thank you, Square and Gadol.
Instead of prevaricating, please tell us what you think on the matter.
lakewhut: Neither the Rabbinical College of America nor the Eitz Chaim Yeshiva, the two institutions that merged in 1915 to form the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, were breakaways from JTS. Rather, RIETS emerged and developed along its own trajectory.
The Jewish Theological Seminary had been Orthodox from its founding in 1886 until Solomon Schechter took over as the second President of JTS in 1902, ending the era of Hakham Sabato Morais zt”l and Rabbi Henry Pereira Mendes zt”l. Until Saul Lieberman’s death in 1983, all the professors at JTS were expected to be fully observant. The Seminary’s traditional minyan with separate seating was home to all the members of the Talmud faculty, including Drs. Israel Francus and Dov Zlotnick. When not davening at the Gerrer Shtiebel on the Upper West Side, Professor A. J. Heschel davened at the JTS traditional minyan.
To make matters even more interesting, there were graduates or former students of RIETS that ended up at the Seminary, such as Rabbi Isaac Klein and להבדיל Mordecai Kaplan יש”ו. Likewise, there were JTS graduates who became גאָר פֿרום and became part of the Orthodox milieu, such as Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein. Goldstein was founder of the West Side Institutional Synagogue, chair of the homiletics department at RIETS, as well as president of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.
Rabbi Louis Bernstein, rabbi of the Young Israel of Windsor Park in Queens, professor of Jewish History at Yeshiva College, and president of Religious Zionists of America, wrote about the failed plan to establish a joint בית דין comprising rabbinic scholars from both YU and JTS, which might have kept the Conservative Movement within the bounds of normative Halachic practice. The effort was foredoomed to failure, however, as Rav Moshe זצ”ל and others nullified the קידושין of all JTS ordinees.
Interestingly, Rabbi Bernard Louis (Dov Aryeh) Levinthal zt”l, a Kovno native and Talmudist who used to travel by train to Manhattan once a week to deliver a פלפול at RIETS while serving as chief Orthodox rabbi of Philadelphia, signed a קול קורא against JTS that was published in the Yiddish press. His son was Israel H. Leventhal, founding rabbi of the Brooklyn Jewish Center (Conservative). Another signatory of the קול קורא was Rabbi Simon Finkelstein zt”l, also a native of Kovno and Talmudist who authored many ספרים. Finkelstein’s son was Dr. Louis Finkelstein, professor of Talmud at JTS as well as chancellor, and rabbi of Kehillath Israel, an Orthodox shul in the Bronx.
Meh. There’s no “void” within Modern Orthodoxy and no sizeable segment of Modern Orthodox youth who become Chasidic. YU did make Rabbi Weinberger, i.e. The Woodmerer Rebbe, its Mashgiach, which is a joke as RIETS was founded as an anti-Mussar yeshiva of the non-Salanter Litvish mold. Yes, there are some Lubavitchers at YU as well as some Breslov-esque Neo-Chasidic types, but they are a very small minority.
What a ridiculous claim. Of course, Hashem wants us to shep נחת from our children. Try reading Tehillim, chapter 128 just one more time. It was one of the Psalms Jewish fathers would sing with their sons as they carried or accompanied them up to the בית המקדש on the Shalosh Regalim.
Meh. They were saying the same thing about the ducktail back in my day.
שֵֽׁשֶׁת יָמִים תַּעֲבֹד
Square_Root: Hear! Hear!
In terms of frequency of antisemitic acts, Christian Europe under the popes and kings was far worse than the Muslim world. It is not even comparable. In terms of ferocity, each society could give the other a run for their money.
Yemen is an interesting case: The Himyarite viceroy Harith Ibn-Amru converted to Judaism around 380 C.E. I think it was Tub’a Abu Kariba As’ad, the next king, who made Judaism the state religion. Dhu Nuwas was the last Jewish king of the Himyarites. He died in 527 and the Aksumites took over. Yemen is a wild and backwards country, and it grates on many people there that the country was once a Jewish kingdom.
Of course, countless acts of Jew-hatred were committed by the Muslims. I heard from an elderly Moroccan-born rabbi that before the French colonized Morocco in 1912, the Muslims there would kidnap Jewish girls from time to time who would never be heard from again.
Rabbi Dr. Herbert C. Dobrinsky, a scholar of Sephardic history, wrote that in Iran, there was a barbaric annual observance that included government officials kidnapping a random Jew, binding him in a catapult, and launching him into a field where he would meet his death upon impact.
One can trade accounts of horror until the end of time. The English knights of the Crusades disemboweled pregnant Jewish women. Muslims were not far behind in terms depravity and cruelty. After Israel won the Six Day War, at least one male from every remaining Jewish family in Egypt was arrested and sent to the Abu Zabaal Prison in Cairo. The rabbi was crucified on the prison gate under which the Jewish men and boys had to pass. Once in the prison, the men and boys were given female names and raped. What else the Egyptian monsters did to our brothers is not appropriate for this forum. The Times of Israel has an archived article about it.
“Landers is a good place with solid academics.”
Thanks for this. I needed a good laugh.
It is not a rabbit hole. You are getting an education. Nothing worthwhile is easy, from earning a degree and licensure to losing weight or becoming successful in business.
Yes, you can make a nice living as a therapist, and you don’t necessarily need a doctorate to be one. LCSWs who practice to the maximum earn over 100k per annum. Of course, you can parlay your earnings by investing wisely and make much more money than that. Classically, psychologists (PhDs or PsyDs) earn more than LCSWs, while psychiatrists (MDs or DOs) make a king’s ransom.
However, to become a psychiatrist, you’d have to be willing (and able) to get into medical school and schvitz for four years, plus another four years of residency and possibly another two years for a fellowship. Along the way, you will need to pass a host of board exams. So, in order to become a psychiatrist, we’re talking about ten solid years of blood, sweat and tears, give or take. (The path to becoming a psychologist is fairly coextensive.) But if earning a half-million to a million dollars a year as a therapist is your object, that’s what you have to do. No offense, but your tentativeness and impatience indicate that medical school or a PhD may not be in your future.
That being said, while nothing worthwhile is easy, there are far easier ways to become wealthy. There is a Harvard graduate I heard about who drove a truck for a few years while investing his earnings in growth stocks and became a millionaire.
The scare quotes tell us what you think.
Being asked about one’s religiosity is not antisemitic in and of itself. Issues of kashrut, chaplaincy services and the permissibility of an autopsy all depend on the patient’s religious orientation.
Big deal. You have found a practice that is seldom followed and now you’re feeling your oats.
Question: When you are an invited guest while a זימון are present and you have been asked to lead the בּענטשן, do you do so over wine and then pass the בּעכער after the בּענטשן to the lady of the house? Rashi mentions this ancient custom in his commentary on ספר בראשית.
Do you make sure to remove the wine on the table if it is not used in the בּענטשן? Because that is a law – not a custom, a law.
This reminds me of a hothead pulpit rabbi who had found an obscure דין in the מגן אברהם that week and shouted on Friday night, “We are all מחלל שבת!” Terrific way to start people’s Shabbos, and also to fatuously proclaim his own ignorance and absence of human decency.
There are literally thousands of defunct practices, which some consider laws and others consider customs.
The question is, “Have YOU ever been to Nyírtass, née Tass, Hungary?”
Rationalizing Jewish persecutions and massacres ex post facto is tantamount to saying they got what they deserved. It is the fetid, smegma-ridden underbelly of theodicy and should always be rejected.
For your own edification, try reading “Anti-Maimonidean Demons” by the late Sephardic Hakham José Faur a”h.
One of the predictable results of these discussions is the charge of machlokes, sinas chinam, bigotry, hatefulness or wickedness leveled at anyone who disagrees with what has become normative Chabad orthodoxy. This is a cheap tactic meant to quell any and all discussion regarding the virtues or faults of Chabad. Thank you very much, but nobody has the right to force us to go against the values with which we were raised. Nobody.
Another queer feature concomitant with these threads is the absurd remark made by some along the lines of “So, Chabad holds that their Rebbe is the Moshiach. Big deal. Get over it!” Or how about this one: “The Rebbe knew as much Torah as the Brisker Rov.”
Really? Surely you jest.
But no, they are quite serious. Historical revisionism and logical fallacies are par for the course. Marvel at the zero-sum game they play.
I have longstanding relationships with people in Crown Heights and Morristown and know the average Lubavitcher chassidim to be beautiful Jews. It is for this reason I opt out of most of these threads.
There are others, however, who have invaded established kehillos and executed a hostile takeover of the shul board. One of my late friends, a longtime pulpit rabbi, experienced this. The ordeal drove him to an early grave.
Still and all, most of the time I שוויַיג שטיל. Only when I read something over-the-top regarding MMS or some Chabad activity will I feel it necessary to contribute a salient thought.
Steve–
Work is not a hustle. To call it that is an insult to all of us who work for a living and do so proudly. I needn’t remind you of the various occupations held by the חז”ל, and by ראשונים such as Rashi, Rambam and others. Obviously, you are not a vintner or court physician. Nor are you a tanner, sandler, woodcutter or hotelier. But the Torah tells us שֵֽׁשֶׁת יָמִים תַּעֲבֹד. It is a מצוות עשה to work, and to do so six days out of the week. I know R’ Meir says הוי ממעט בעסק, ועסוק בתורה. Ideally, through a passive income, you can follow both directives (so may it be said of us all).
Very few occupations provide a regular passive income, but there are a few:
You could do day trading. You need not pass the Series 7 exam or have any broker’s license. Just have an account with E*Trade or another online trading platform. Start small. Invest in blue chip stocks that pay a dividend. As you grow in your knowledge of the markets, you can begin buying and selling with greater frequency. But bear some things in mind:
NO PENNY STOCKS.
NO FUTURES OR OPTIONS.
NEVER BUY ANYTHING ON MARGIN (My late father ע”ה bought on margin and lost his proverbial shirt).
DIVERSIFY AND USE COMMON SENSE. Invest in real companies with a history and reputation. IBM, AT&T, Pfizer, Exxon Mobil, Texas Instruments, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Merck, IBM, Con Edison, Dominion, etc.
Of course, there’s always a catch. YOU NEED MONEY TO MAKE MONEY. So, invest what you can without causing yourself any hardship. LEARN SOME PATIENCE (a virtue I take it you need to work on a bit).
Also: Mutual funds are safe. You won’t lose money in the end, but you won’t become King Midas either.
Bonds are extremely safe. Yes, the interest rate (the return you as the investor realize) is quite low at 4.3%, but it is guaranteed.
There’s that. We should all have stock and bond portfolios.
Also, lest I forget: STAY AWAY FROM REAL ESTATE. (If you own real estate, however, KEEP IT. Even if you have to eat out of a can, DON’T SELL. Real estate is just what it says: A real, tangible holding. And real estate will always be highly valued.)
Another idea:
Open a pizza shop. (I’m being quite serious.) You won’t need to invest in over-the-top ambience. The menu is short and straightforward. The ingredients are relatively cheap. You can pool your resources with a group of other Kollel yungeleit and establish a thriving concern. You will have to pay at least a few people to do the menial work. You yourself can serve as the mashgiach (or alternate with your partners). With such a business, you would (conceivably) be able to sit with a ספר all day. I’d stay away from a פֿליישיק restaurant. In fact, I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. Far too expensive and too many potential kashrus-related issues. Remember: Keep it simple. And also: ALWAYS GO OVER THE BOOKS YOURSELF.
Another idea:
Become a writer. You can write original books on Torah subjects, copyright them, print them and sell them out of your house (or from a distributor). If you make a hit with, say, a Parsha book or some such work, you can make very good money. Are you a gifted writer? Are you a bona fide תלמיד חכם? Do you have your finger on the pulse of the community and know what they would love to read but is not yet available? Then get started! אִם לֹא עַכְשָׁיו, אֵימָתָי
I have found that if you daven to Hashem and tell Him that you wish to become wealthy (remember, such an ambition is nothing to be ashamed of!), and that your aim is not only to provide a better life for your wife and children but also to become a בעל צדקה and help the אָרעמע ליַיט, if you are meritorious and have no outstanding debts with Him or with man, He will answer your תפילה. So first, get your house in order. Settle all outstanding obligations. Then daven that prayer with as much כוונה you can muster. After that, embark on one or more of these ideas.
Once the Almighty answers your prayer and things start to happen (slowly at first, but they will happen), show Him that you are not out for גאווה. G-d puts a very special חן on בעלי צדקה who live humbly, don’t flaunt their wealth, and give discreetly.
I wish you much success, my friend.
A friend lent me Deutsch’s book years ago, and I read some eye-opening things about both the late subject of the book.
There are many things I am tempted to say here, but I imagine my ג-ט זעליגן father ע”ה cautioning me against doing so. As I get older, I become less צעהיצט. “People are people,” I say to myself. “The world’s a rich tapestry. Who am I to condemn anyone?”
This forum has been an outlet for me. At times, though, it riles me up, which is bad for my soul. Remember the old expression: אַ בּייזע צונג איז ערגער פֿון אַ שלעכטער האַנט
The Brisker Rov zt”l had you-know-who pegged to a tee.
In hashkafic matters, always side with the superior ga’on.
Adidas is a German company. Adolf Dassler, founder of Adidas, joined the Nazi Party in 1933 along with his brother. The two also became members of the National Socialist Motor Corps. Adolf also took the rank of Sportwart in the Hitler Youth from 1935 until the end of the war.
During WWII, Adidas supplied the Wehrmacht with shoes. In 1943, they halted shoe production and began to manufacture anti-tank weapons. From 1942 to 1945, there were slave laborers working at the two Adidas factories. The company claims there were only nine slave laborers, but who would believe them.
You can be sure that many of the shoes the Jews at Sachsenhausen were forced by the Nazis to test out were Adidas. At that camp, the Germans made the prisoners wear new shoe prototypes many times smaller than their feet and walk for miles on end until their toes broke. It is one of the lesser-known atrocities of the War. German shoe companies wanted to test the strength and durability of their new models, and the interned Jews were perfect for the job. But just to be sadistic, the Germans made sure to always use shoes many times smaller than the prisoners’ feet, which of course meant that the test runs of the shoes were worthless. When a prisoner fell over writhing in pain, they were either tortured, starved, shot, or hanged. “D-IX,” the notorious performance-enhancing cocktail of coke, meth, and oxycodone was tested on the prisoners of Sachsenhausen before it was approved and given to German military units to keep them high when in action.
Adidas is a Nazi company through and through. No Jew should buy their products.
links removed
If you believe that space travel has regressed, then you’ve got a lot of problems. For your own mental health, stay off the conspiracy sites.
Rav Moshe Feinstein זצ”ל would address his rabbinical querents as “הרב הגאון”. This was his custom for whatever reason. One פוסק who did not engage in such generous language was R’ Seligman Baer (Isaac Dov ha-Levi) Bamberger, i.e., the Würzburger Rav זצ”ל. If you look at his halachic responsa, he addresses his querents plainly as רבי or רב.
Has it gotten out of hand? Perhaps. In Sefer Mishlei, we read זֵכֶר צַדִּיק לִבְרָכָה, but now we have taken it on ourselves to expand the expression to זצוק”ל or even זצוקללה”ה. Good enough for Shelomo ha-Melech, not good enough for us.
Not only the Chasidim but the Litvaks as well sometimes took this took an extreme. There was a commentary on מס’ קידושין my מגיד שיעור learned with us back in post-high school bes medrash. The author had been a pupil of R’ Chaim Brisker זצ”ל. In the introduction, he wrote a more-than-ten-line blandishment without even mentioning his sainted teacher’s actual name.
spot on: That is the Ashkenazic pronunciation of the Hebrew word שטויות. In Yiddish both written and oral, the word is שטותים. The same thing goes for words like טליתים and שבתים, which are the Yiddish plural forms, even as the Ashkenazic pronunciation of the non-dialectical Hebrew words is “Talisos” and “Shabbosos”.
The amount of ignorance, prejudice, preoccupation with externalities and sheer שנאת חינם on display here is astounding.
Of course. The Mahara”l of Prague and many other Torah giants throughout the generations also held of the same teaching model. The source is Avot 5:21 where Yehuda ben Tema says:
“At five years of age the study of Mikra;
“At ten the study of Mishna;
“At thirteen subject to the mitzvot;
“At fifteen the study of Talmud…”Saying every Yid is a tzaddik is an inane as saying every gentile is a rasha.