AviraDeArah

There’s also not an issue with seeing chometz that belongs to your non jewish roommates; they’re allowed to eat and own chometz… As long as you keep your area chometz free.

Nom -it really is ok to admit when you’re wrong.

Asking for forgiveness for a personal slight against an individual is not a “prayer”. Asking for general forgiveness would be. If i ask a deceased relative to forgive me for what i did to them, it is within their power to do so, because it’sa decision on their part, as rhey are the aggrieved party. People in all circles do this at levayos. That’s not making a request for someone to help you, feed you, heal you, give you money, help you learn torah, or anything else.

If someone asked for forgiveness for being mechalel shabbos, that would in fact be tefilah and would be totally assur.

But that’s not what happened at all.

If your goal was to prove that chazal communicated with the dead, then it’s clear that they did – but in what capacity? Did they nake requests of them as one does from Hashem? Absolutely not!

Ujm is right; while arayos are a problem anywhere, first of all, “miutan barayos” – it’s a minority. But it’s simple and clear that if a community is lax in the gedorim which prevent arayos, and downplay the severity of the issue altogether, they are definitely going to have more of it than if not.

I have no idea where you got the fantasy that a large percentage of rabbonim who are involved in gitten are corrupt.

Also, for gerus…are you serious? MO produces gerim that are questionable on a regular basis – ever see ivanka trump? She admitted to not keeping every halacha, saying in an interview that “we’re more religious than some, less than others,” while walking around dressed like a shiksa.

And she’s far from the exception. MO converts often know and keep very little.

Nom, i admit when I’m wrong on here or when I’m not aware of something. You quoted a gemara erroneously, against the simple reading and the way the meforshim explain it

I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you admit to making a mistake. It can be cathartic; don’t just brush it off by saying that you’re not interested in the conversation and just jumped in to quote a source

Come on; you thought you had a counter proof and when i explained why you didn’t, you turn around and try to make yourself sound aloof.

Try being a little humble.

Ben, bikshu alai rachamim means to daven for me – literally every case in the gemara involving tefilah and kvarim say that they’re asking the tzadik to daven on their behalf. “Bikshu” = ask “alai” on my behalf” rachamim “tefilah, mercy” – ask for mercy for me. Daven for me.

Repeat, daven. For. Me.

Not “save me rebbe”

And i have no issue with what you quoted from the lubavitch text. My issue is with what i asked you and how you answered. I asked you if you pray TO your rebbe, and you said you do, and asked what the difference is between that and asking a live person for help.

Then you went back and quoted another chazal about asking tzadikim to daven for you. And then said that you only say what’s in the lubavitch text you quoted.

The text is from a time when chabad were normal Jews who davened only to Hashem.

Asking the deceased for forgiveness is done all the time, by relatives of the person, etc… It’s not davening.

No need to automatically assume it’s a fake post; what if there’s a 5 percent chance that it’s real and there’s a yid who needs help?

And ujm, renting an apartment is a tall order; while clearly the best option, kashrus can be kept among non observant people – just ask any BT kid.

If you want to know about how klal yisroel was supposed to see moshe rabbeinu, and how cheit heagel happened because they believed in moshe as having independent kedushah/being a go between to Hashem, and used the egel as a substitute, see the meshech chochma.

Nom, it’s the RCA people who made it partisan – they knew exactly how the Torah world was going to respond, and they broke off, doing what they wanted. In the name of women’s rights, championing the cause of the largely fabled agunah and stripping a man of any semblance of leverage should he be abused or have his kids ripped from him unjustly.

And what they’re doing only contributes to divorces, with an escape patch baked right into their marriage documents.

And it’s not as if MO are strangers to creating mamzerim. Many still refer to mamzer maker par excellence Shlomo Goren as “harav”.

That’s partisan.

Nom, why don’t you ask the gedolim that you say you know if one’s beliefs are important, and if it matters to them what klal yisroel is drawn after, or if the status of a belief being kefirah or not matters.

You’re drawing inferences to support your personal orthopraxy opinion, which no gedolim endorse and which was a staple of the haskalah that they all fought against.

Also, check out the hakdama of the chovos halevavos.

And check out the pasuk “mikol, netzur libcha, ki memenu totzos fhain” – of all things, guard your mind, for from it comes life”

Speaking of rishonim, there are many opinions about how to make tanaim, which is why we never use tanaim in kiddushin nowadays.

But to a community which turns a blind eye to illicit relations in general, how bothered are they by mamzerus? Maybe “it’s not the kids fault” and “why should get be up to a man only” and other apostasies are fueling their desire to make loopholes.

Perhaps accountants and doctors should live for less, because the community pays enough as it is and they should want to help everyone…

But no, it’s only Klei kodesh that are undeserving of a living wage that will let them raise families.

I’m not advocating the “women must stay at home” idea – i think there are pitfalls if women are unoccupied; batalah maviah lidei…
Studies also show that women have lower stress thresholds.

I think women should have less stressful jobs, supplementing their husband as primary breadwinner, if they’re not in a position where they need the day to take care of their kids.

Then there’s a kollel lifestyle, which is a whole different system, wifh unique benefits.

If the ideal of a woman working in a high paying job in a Jewish institution isn’t feasible, then a strong kollel husband and joining the growing number of Torah programs for women can prevent careerism and secular values from entering a woman’s mind, but kulei hai ve’ulai…

Is it better for the husband in that circumstance to work instead?

That depends who you ask; very difficult question that is up to gedolei yisroel, and it’s one of the dividing points between chasidim and litvish.

Unfortunately the baalebatish world will say that both spouses need to work to live “normally.”

Maskil, careers are more of a danger to women, because an average yeshiva man enters the workforce with years of intensive learning fortifying him. He maintains a strong kesher to that learning, and it’s gemara and mussar that shape his daily activities and perspective. It is natural for men to go to work, too.

Not so with women. They by and large aren’t capable of independent study, and don’t have much of a spiritual lifeline after seminary, when they’re whisked off into college and work.

Dofi, don’t take my word for it – talk to mechanchos, and they’ll tell you why they encourage their talmidos to get jobs in Jewish organizations or schools. And it’s something i personally see on a daily basis.

Perhaps you think that them keeping basic halacha and asking shailos to poskim means that theit ruchnius is fine.

And that would only go to show how narrow and empty your own view of yiddishkeit is.

Ujm, it’s a machlokes if it’s on the yachid, or derech milchama, which would be when moshiach comes. Also, the gaon would agree that not every single German is an amaleki; just that the nation as a whole ended up there… It’s after sancheriv mixed up the world’s populations, too.

Nom, asking people for help is hishtadlus. Asking malaachim, the aun and moon, or other such things, is avodah zara – it’s clear halacha. There’s a simple difference between tefilah and requesting help from other people.

And yes, asking a tooth fairy, which is, in the person’s mind, a spiritual entity, would also be avodah zara.

The only machlokes i care about is a machlokes in seforim; everything else is inconsequential to understanding hashkofa. Why should we care what individual simple jews thought?

Loyal, sorry for the misunderstanding – I never said that a people’s status of amalek means that violence is acceptable. It isn’t. The Gaon held that Germans were from amalek way before the Holocaust, yet never advocated violence. Rav chaim’s idea about amalek is that they’re not limited to the physical descendents of the amalaekim, but rather can be spiritual heirs to them.

But to be clear, no one before meir kahanah rationalized violence against anyone on the basis of their amaleki status.

Aaq….why do we care about what some Christian wrote centuries after yushkes death? There are a million versions of Christian history from different churches and sects….

This controversy extended to the inclusion of machnisei rachamim, which was a huge machlokes, because while all we’re doing is asking the malaachim to bring our tefilos to Hashem and to daven for us, it’s still a big issue.

But no one says that you can pray to anything besides Hashem. It’s all over the rambam; it’s avodah zara and against his 13 ikkarim… Take a look at the siddur, it’s ikkar number 4… Only Hashem is fit to daven to.

This means that people who actually pray to tzadikim have forfeited their place in klal yisroel.

besides the zohar, chazal are replete with stories of tzadikim davening on behalf of klal yisroel…by the churban beis hamikdash, the avos, moshe, etc…davened, and only rochel was answered. many such stories, and this is part of why some hold you can ask a tzadik by his kever to daven for you, but nowhere does it say that the tzadik himself answers and fulfills your requests…that would be a violation of the 13 ikkarim, as the rambam says you can only daven to Hashem.

and yes, a tzadik can accomplish more in shomayim…through his davening…oy, why do i have to explain this?

As it happens to be, that zohar is not pashut, because there are seforim which say that as tzadikim grow higher and higher in shomayim, they lose the ability to daven for people, because they see how what we consider to be suffering is ultimately for the best.

but I suppose some tzadikim, such as the avos, etc…, are on an even higher level, where they can see how it’s good but still feel the pain of regular people….this is just my own theory; i have no idea what goes on in shomayim.

and I’ll humor our friend a little more – what do you intend to take out from the sefer you linked to? it’s about moving meisim, the pain they might feel, which circumstances you can move them, when it might be pleasing to the meis, etc…

what does that have to do with their ability to help you directly or have absolute insight of what goes on in the world all the time?

absolutely nothing, of course. But it’s an interesting teshuvah regardless, so thanks for sharing!

Aaq, rav rottenberg, author of toldos am olam wrote about it, and as far as i know it was his own theory. Do you know where it is said in the rishonim? Or by medieval did you mean a secular or unreliable jewish source?

Yserb, i have to disagree with you on one point; people in shomayim do look down at the world sometimes and are shown things, especially the lives of family members. But they’re not clairvoyant and are only aware of what they’re shown.

Coffee, you’re going out on a limb to say that paul really did that; it’s not as if it’s in chazal… it’s a theory from a prominent frum historian and talmid chacham, but i wouldn’t take it as a given.

But leshitascha, i think chabad is not irredeemable, pardon the pun. They still keep halacha and believe in torah she baal peh, which makes them able to be saved…could be in a few decades people will wake up, and the tzfas-nik chabadskers will, indeed, be a different religion, like shabsai tzvi followers post-conversion to islam.