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Always_Ask_Questions,
Oooh, clumsy analogies, what fun! I can do it too!
Vehicular accidents kill people. We are implementing a Zero Vehicular Accident policy. Effective immediately and for an indeterminate length of time, a walking-only mandate is in effect. Nobody is allowed to use a vehicle. Citizens are encouraged to call the cops on anybody they see and think may be violating this new mandate, because a nation of informants is a happy nation! See that group of people over there who disagree with this mandate and want to find different solutions to reduce accidents? EVERYTHING THAT IS WRONG IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE IS THEIR FAULT! BE ANGRY WITH THEM! HATE THEM! BAN THEM FROM SOCIETY! Nobody would die ever if they didn’t exist. Because the Holy Venerated Experts Say that if nobody drove vehicles, nobody would die in vehicular accidents, and the most important thing in the entire universe is to make sure there are no vehicular accidents. Nothing else matters, because we are talking about LIVES HERE! LIFE AND DEATH! And if you disagree, you are pro-death and must love accidents.
Well I hope it comes back up soon…
ujm,
“Wearing a Talis 7 days a week, 354 days a (Jewish) year, you’d surely notice it on yourself”
Try wearing a real tallis instead of the little Reform scarf thingy, and you’ll see it does slip off the shoulders a lot.
😈
Stop trying to sow discord here.
AviraDeArah,
“i didn’t mean blood and guts stam azoi, i meant they can talk about sugyos like zerikah, shechita, simanim, and tons more”
Understood, sorry for misunderstanding before.
ujm,
“A small minority of them. Additionally, I’ve started very many more threads on Zionism (among many more topics) than this; should I supply that number as well?”
Nah, whatever. OPs aren’t very representative of participation in any given topic, my comment was in jest, and if you’ve got time to compile random CR posting statistics, I do not.
“Why is it that this particular topic makes people nervous?”
I’m not nervous about the topic at all. There are appropriate times and ways to discuss certain things, and there are inappropriate times and ways to discuss certain things. This thread falls into the latter category. If you bring your tefillin into the bathroom, I will object to you having your tefillin in there, and it isn’t because I don’t think tefillin are an important mitzvah and that you should have tefillin.
“I submit that this is directly because the difficulty many have (both female and well as male head of households who carry the sacred obligation of enforcing them) in complying with the laws on the issue of tznius. And that’s all the more reason to discuss it.”
And I submit that the manner in which you bring up this topic is itself a breach of tznius. When I see rabbonim talk about tznius, it is to men or women separately, and there’s no exhaustive review of all the problematic garments. When I see flyers or signs, the positive (dress this way) is emphasized, not the negative (don’t wear this or that). To do otherwise lacks eidelkeit.
” “In my experience, men in the real world do not sit and schmooze together about this.”
I can’t speak about your experience, but in the densely populated centers of Judaism, such as in Eretz Yisroel, New York and elsewhere, this topic is very much and often raised by Rabbonim in droshos to both men and women, as well as reminders placed on posted notices in the communities”
Drashos and signs are not sitting and schmoozing. Those are appropriate venues. And I bet the signs describe the appropriate way of dressing, not the inappropriate, which you have done. There is a world of difference.
“and is certainly often discussed among the Klal and Yeshivaleit as a topic of Halacha and Limud Torah.”
If you think this thread is an example of a halachic discussion or proper limud Torah, then I don’t know what to tell you.
“I don’t recall you objecting to discussions here of other halachic topics.”
I’ll let you do the research on that for me.
AviraDeArah,
“Bored; men talk about blood and guts while eating supper in yeshivos, and plenty of other stuff that would shock you”
We’re not talking about teenagers here. And if my sons were to start talking about gross or inappropriate things at the table I would correct them. And Yeshiva boys speaking inappropriately at the table or in the beis medrash or at any other time should also be corrected by their rebbes/menahels.
“gemara snd halacha discussions don’t phase people who are learning. I understand that it’s something that can make you feel uncomfortable, but in the context of everything else lomdei torah talk about”
We are not learning maseches Brachos on this thread. This is not a beis medrash, and this is not talking in learning. We are on a public internet forum with a mixed audience of various ages and backgrounds. And the idea that lomdei Torah would speak in a way that makes others uncomfortable is motzi shem ra.
“it isn’t necessarily creepy. “
Creepy to the max.
bored_teen,
“I barely read ant of this but I’m totally creeped out that this is a topic that men sit and schmooze about.”
In my experience, men in the real world do not sit and schmooze together about this. There are a select few male posters on the CR who really like to bring these topics up.
n0mesorah,
“When I cross the street, I attempt to keep my mind on crossing the street”
“Driving on rural roads, NYPD horse patrols are far from my mind.”
“Definitely possible. Father and brother too. What they would be doing out here, is anybody’s guess”
These are some good examples of anecdotal argumentative fallacies. Not everyone requires all of their brain power to cross a street. Not everyone lives in a rural area. And you should probably be paying more attention to what’s around you while behind the wheel or you may blow past a flagger at a construction site and CV”S kill a construction worker, or be one one of those drivers who doesn’t help someone who’s in distress.
Also, passing someone on the street is only one example of everyday human interaction, so it’s interesting to me how that becomes the de facto tznius paradigm on the CR.
ujm,
“I just counted the tznius threads in the coffee room. In the over 13 years the coffee room has existed, there is less than one thread per year, on average. “
What percentage of those tznius threads did you start, not necessarily as ujm?
Always_Ask_Questions,
“Logically speaking, yes. First time this would be a shogeg, but if I continue, it would be mazid.”
What aveira would it be that was committed, and how can a Jew who is a baal hanefesh function in the world at all when the random reactions of strangers cannot be predicted and can cause him to become a shogeig?
Always_Ask_Questions,
“I am not “against the Jews”, I am simply trying to extract a lesson for us from this to grow”
And I am simply trying to extract a lesson about dan l’kaf zechus and regarding your fellow Jews with basic respect. How can you declaim any of the lessons you think the Jewish people need to learn from you when you can’t even get the facts of the case straight?
“rather than getting warm satisfaction from how good we all are against a hostile world”
I haven’t written or read anything self-congratulatory in this thread. The discussion is what constitutes a kiddush Hashem, specifically whether the simple public performance of a mitzvah is a kiddush Hashem even if bystanders are bothered by it. Some posters are insistent on finding faults surrounding the mitzvah observance to show it is really a chillul Hashem and the basic question went unanswered, so I tried to clarify the question by presenting a case where those faults were absent. Like an undergrad physics student working Newton’s Laws on a uniform frictionless plane. This seemingly blew such a fuse in your mind that it took several posts to get you to stop inserting imaginary faults onto the Jew in the example, and even then you couldn’t accept the example as stated and give a straight answer to the question I asked. Well, I guess you begrudgingly did in the end after declaring that the flight attendant must be evil or deranged and that the example was not plausible anyway.
“And again, taking your description at face value, I am not even sure why he is being arrested – he is not doing anything, he is simply not replying. I don’t think this is illegal.”
Fine, say rather he was removed from the flight, questioned, and then released without charges. That better matches the real-world case I based my example on.
“As to people reacting to tefilin, whenever I had to daven shaharis before an early flight, I either did it in the car at the airport or spent several minutes looking for an empty corner, so never encountered strong reaction.”
And if someone saw you “acting suspiciously” in the parking garage or a quiet corner of the terminal, reported it, and a security brouhaha ensued, would you declare that being secretive about praying was an aveira and you should’ve done it more publicly so as to not look suspicious?
commonsaychel,
“none of those are trying to compete with old st nick, I started this tread because I find those actions cringworthy, I dont care if it was Satmar, Brisk or Breslov its way too in you face.”
All of those examples are very “in your face”, but you only have a problem by Chanukah. The local Chabad here even did a loud music drive by through the neighborhood last year on Lag Baomer, so the motorcades aren’t an imitation of some sort of Xmas ritual. Xians don’t even do motorcades to celebrate Xmas. They frustrate themselves untangling strings of lights, slip on ladders, and then go fight in the malls. It’s too bad that Chanukah falls in close proximity to a major non-Jewish holiday, but is that Chabad’s fault?
“I find those beyond repulsive but this is a natural next step in the progression downward, so thank you minivans.”
Natural next step? Seems incongruous to me.
“I still cant understand the purpose of the motorcade driving in Manhattan, was it to be in your face? I am serious I am trying to understand the thought process.”
No dice. By the political minivan motorcade you simply asked for the purpose and thought process. By the Chanukah minivan motorcades you called it “idioticy” (sic) and presumed the purpose (who are we competing with?). My question to you still stands. Maybe you cringed a little by the Trump motorcades, but Chabad’s Chanukah shtick really gets your blood boiling. Why?
From the back and forth it seems that a likely reason is you perceive it as an imitation of Xmas. So why not make that the focus of the conversation if that’s the biggest deal? I personally fail to see it as imitation. Those who “motorcade” for Chanukah (*cough Chabad *cough) “motorcade” for every Jewish holiday. And those frum Jews who do not go all in-your-face for Jewish holidays don’t for Chanukah either. If you were to ask me, it’s the involvement of politicians in the Chanukah “motorcades” that makes me cringe.
Always_Ask_Questions,
“I am saying that if there is a trace of inappropriate behavior in the man, that he is doing some aveira, however slight. Even if he is in a window seat.
If you are suggesting a Zeresh character … “
You condemn the Jew and absolve the Gentile to the point where it must be the Jew’s fault unless the Gentile in the example is literally akin to one of the most evil people in history or deranged. This is Olympic level contortion. We are commanded to dan Jews lkaf zechus.
“Look up my posts above and review references therein of multiple gedolim pointing various nekudos what can be inappropriate”
Yeah, and my example preemptively fulfilled all of them yet you still cannot bring yourself to side with the Jew.
“but you seem to be more interested in a hypothetical crazt flight attendant rather than in typical cases.”
The case I described is fairly similar to an actual incident that happened a number of years ago involving a frum teenager. I have also personally encountered strong reactions to my tefillin from non-Jews when I’ve donned them outside of shul or home.
“Again, this presumes I understood the halakha properly that it is ok/desirable to sit down.”
Again, the man in my example was davening in his seat, which presumes sitting. How can you judge correctly if you cannot even ingest the basic facts of the case? Your prejudice against Jews is astonishing given that you seem to be Jewish and know a lot about Judaism.
“That is why I brought those quotes.”
They were irrelevant.
“Also, everyone, his name is Avram.”
😎
commonsaychel,
“I hope this thead does not morph into a anti Chabad forum”
Yet you started a thread attacking what they almost exclusively do. Troll meet thyself.
“my issue is with people competing with santa and xmas tree lighting that was never done since we established chanuka, not Chabad per se.”
So go after the people who put those giant blow-up bears with kippas and dreydels in their front yards, or those who do the laser light magen davids dancing on their houses under twinkly snowflake decorations next door to the houses with Xmas lights. I’ve never had the sense that the Chabad menoras on minivans shtick is competition with Xmas. They do sukkos on pickup trucks, lag baomer barbecues with bounce houses and loud music, and they stand outside sports stadiums with tefillin. They make a pretty big spectacle about everything.
“FYI I wrote quite a number of post negitive of the need to have frum people make a motorcade for trump and frankly that is a few people gping overboard in voicing an opinon for a political candidate.”
Can you show me links to these posts? Must’ve been somewhere other than the thread you started to specifically talk about the level of support for Trump.
commonsaychel,
“@avrahm in md, I was puzzzled by the level of support and I said so in the post, I also wrote in a other post I found the frum trump motorcades cringe worthy.”
No dice. You didn’t speak out against the “motorcades” once in that thread, and even downplayed them as “beeping minivans”. Nowhere in that thread do I see any criticism of the motorcades from you. Yet here you utilize strong language: absurd, dorf, guise, ragtag, hollering, and then finally you get to the minivans. Even if somewhere else you called the political motorcades cringeworthy, that is paltry compared to the rhetorical condemnations you brought here against Chanukah motorcades. My question to you stands.
Always_Ask_Questions,
“ou should not eat and talk at the same time”
Good catch – I did not write that one clearly. Part of the subconscious reasons for eating quickly is a combination of social fear of being engaged in conversation while you have food in your mouth and a fear of the food being taken away or the meal ending before you have a chance to eat. So you warf it down. What I was trying to suggest was eating a little from the plate, pausing the eating to talk or sing, then resume eating. No need to have an empty plate before conversation, which then leads to mindlessly refilling the plate when the conversation lags and others resume eating.
I tried to head off the kvetching, but it happened anyway. Note in my example I said the man was davka davening in his seat. I even made it a window seat to ensure nobody was being blocked from going to the washroom, etc.
charliehall,
“That is almost essential if you want to have a successful academic career. Whatever name you publish under first, you need to keep it for the rest of your life … she has been married to a man with a different surname now for 40 years. But she still uses her ex-husband’s surname.”
Do you think there should be a push to change this sexist rigidity in the academic world, given that even a highly successful woman can feel compelled to remain chained to her ex-husband’s name for the entirety of her professional life?
commonsaychel,
“Eidelkiet is the hallmark of the Jewish nations”
Why didn’t you make this same point when referencing the flag waving motorcades here: https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/affinity-for-donald-trump
Are loud motorcades ok for a goyish politician, but not for Chanukah?
Always_Ask_Questions,
“Seriously, we discussed already how these chabadnikim are almost the only ones doing something for the millions of disappearing Jews, so let’s discuss whether they are has vesholom doing too much.”
AviraDeArah,
“Being concerned more with making a” kidush chabad” than actually helping others is something that needs to be rooted out and acknowledged as a chisaron that’s being avoided.”
Both of these statements are highly unfair. Chabad certainly is not the only group doing kiruv, and while reasonable discussion here on the CR is frequently lacking, there are real questions that do merit thoughtful discussion. For example, safety of highly public displays when Chabad menoras are being R”L trashed by antisemites, challenges of raising frum children outside of religious communities and surrounded by non-frum college students, etc.
And chesed is a primary motivator in Chabad’s mission. I have personally benefited from the chesed of chabad shluchim and have great hakaras hatov. The goal was helping with mitzvah observance on a practical level, not promoting Chabad ideology.
Participant,
“It’s all because I eat too fast.
But I have zero motivation to slow down.”I also have an inclination to eat too fast and too much, probably due to childhood experiences. It’s a surprisingly tough habit to break. Some things that I try:
1. Have kavanah when making the bracha rishona that you are eating to serve the Borei Olam and that the food is a special gift from Him just for you. Say the bracha slowly and out loud. A rushed, furtive bracha leads to rushed, furtive eating. For motivation, think of how you’re turning the meal or snack into a great avodah.
2. Be mindful when chewing food. I’ve heard some say to chew 30 times before swallowing. This may be helpful with GERD and indigestion issues as well.
3. Scan the table and make a mental decision of what and how much you plan to eat, or make up a plate of your food beforehand. Stick to that plan or plate and take nothing else.
4. Compliment your wife or hosts for the food after a bite or two. Try to notice details. If you cooked the food yourself, try to detect the taste of the individual ingredients.
5. Don’t try to finish all your food before divrei Torah, zemiros, conversation, etc. Mix them into the eating.
6. Try to time your eating with someone who eats more slowly.Edited
Scenario: A man is davening shacharis on a plane. To avoid kvetching let’s say he’s davening unobtrusively in a window seat. A flight attendant comes by with the drink cart and asks what he is doing and what those things he’s wearing are. His wife in the aisle seat explains that he is praying and since he is speaking with G-d he cannot interrupt the prayers to answer. The flight attendant refuses to listen to her and demands again that he answer. He is in the middle of shemoneh esrei and does not. The flight arrives at its destination and is met with police, who escort the shocked frum family off the plane in front of everyone. Kiddush Hashem or chillul Hashem?
Yserbius123,
“we had better daven for an extremely socialist government to support all those thousands of new babies so that they don’t get killed by their mothers, nor grow up to be violent criminals.”
Thanks for the masterclass on casual racism. I guess this means your support for abortion goes beyond ubiquitin’s desire to protect cases that are halachically sanctioned, and into the realm of which humans deserve to exist on this planet and which don’t?
charliehall,
“Fetuses are not bables”
You must have a problem with every pregnancy book ever published. Pregnant women have babies in their wombs, and if that makes you squeamish then no matter your position you are addressing abortion with intellectual dishonesty. It’s telling how a fetus is denied the status of “baby” only when he or she is not wanted. Classic dehumanization.
ujm,
“It doesn’t pas to have a goyishe hand-food like pizza for a heilige melave malka.”
1. Pizza is a Jewish food. The Italians yielded it and swaths of Brooklyn to us as part of the Armistice of Mulberry and Grand Streets almost 70 years ago. That’s why Italians snootily say there wasn’t pizza in Italy.
2. When you are 40 we can teach you the secrets of why heilige Yidden eat pizza together with french fries amidst the deafening screeches of children on motzei Shabbos, though it may be too weighty for this forum.Yabia Omer and Gadolhadorah,
I think you both are taking this thread way too seriously, and I bet you’re both well aware of that. Just in case not, a reminder that this is the CR, and DY’s thread is just some motzei Shabbos humor to go with the pizza. If you think poverty or some other weighty issue needs more discussion here, donate one of your Ashkenazim are awful or Trumpkopf is awful posts to the cause.
Always_Ask_Questions,
“FWIW, I started avoiding crowded places and hugs last Purim”
Why on earth did you only start doing this last Purim, more than a year into the pandemic response?
“and a number of choshuve people tried to make a light joke of it or tried to kiss me in an embrace.”
You must to to a shul with some strange folks. I’ve never had someone try to kiss me in shul, nor have I seen anyone kiss anyone else. Pandemic or no pandemic. And strangely enough, in my shul people tend to be respectful of others’ comfort levels.
“I think we just deep down do not respect that Hashem continuously runs the world and we need to listen to his messages.”
It seems that you are the only person in the world who truly respects Hashem and understands His messages. Very lucky.
Duvidf,
“In New Zealand people wear masks and keep social distancing when necessary and they have 40 dead to date.”
New Zealand is doing a whole lot more than masks and social distancing.
farbycoffee,
“we do tend to know about our personal Rebbes because they are our rebbes.”
That is fine, and given my family’s background and location, my children do/will tend to know more about our personal poskim, and gedolim such as Rav Moshe Feinstein and the Chofetz Chaim, than say the dayan in Kalamazoo, the Baba Sali or the Skulener Rebbe. But relative familiarity is not what I’m talking about. From my perspective, it seems that many in Chabad give little to no acknowledgement of any contemporaneous Yiddishkeit or Torah outside of Chabad at all, almost as if they are sundered from the rest of the Jewish world and we’re actually two separate religious groups. I think that situation is accentuated in Syag’s community, and more muted in mine. And I know that many in Chabad will say that is because of misnagdus, and many outside of Chabad will say that is because Chabad believes non-Chabad Torah is inferior and unworthy of attention. But this communal situation is why I think simply saying the mishichists are nuts is not ending the debate.
Always_Ask_Questions,
“We need a list. It is important to know who is and is not a real gadol”
I suspect that unfortunately most who bring up specific names here do so knowing there’s controversy.
So my community seems to be on the other end of the spectrum from Syag’s. The Chabad shuls are well integrated with the rest of the frum community, the rabbonim generally work together on major communal issues, and I have never seen a yellow flag or heard “Yechi” around here.
One question I have about Chabad culture and achdus in general – it seems from my perspective that Chabad gives very little weight to gedolim and Jews outside of Chabad in chinuch. I’ve heard drashos in my shul that bring stories of Lubavitch rebbes, and one of my young children’s favorite gedolim stories is R’ Schneur Zalman of Liadi and the miser who would only offer an old green copper coin. But even in the well integrated Chabad community here, in drashos, stories, and publications, I really only see Chabad rebbes or Jews mentioned (and gedolim who pre-date Chabad). Why is there no mention of non-Chabad gedolim and Jews?
ujm,
That post has so much concentrated Joseph in it that I think you can probably retire with full pension.
“The mitzvah to mock apikorsum”
That ability unfortunately left the CR with popa_bar_abba. Nobody could do it better. Alas he ate too many lethal beans.
Yserbius123,
“From my perspective, it was abundantly clear that one side was acting like childish buffoons and the other side was just trying to live their life.”
I never took you for an anti-masker…
🦆
ujm,
“Infallibility is a straw man and red herring. No one claims it.”
Agreed. Once when I was in middle school, I found a mistake in the answer key that was in the back of my math textbook. I pointed it out to the teacher, who praised me for finding it. That experience was actually detrimental to my learning, because other times came up when my answer differed from the back of the book, and I would argue the correctness of my answer and be wrong. Because while the textbook was obviously not infallible, it made far fewer mistakes than I did. It’s the same thing with the Avos, or the Tannaim, or gedolim. They’re not infallible; they made or make mistakes. But their level is so much greater than mine, that it is exceedingly more likely that I am mistaken or do not understand than it is that they are.
Always_Ask_Questions,
“Indeed, My good-hearted kid just left a nice review and soon got an email suggesting a payment for a longer one with a video or something. This is a smarter semi-ganav.”
Why is it theft? Your daughter liked the product so much that she just promoted it for free. So what is the issue if the company pays her to promote the product in more detail? They’re not asking her to lie or deceive anyone. The only potential problem I can see is if her relationship/sponsorship with the company is not disclosed. I’m not sure if that would be a problem or not.
“Our halachik analysis so far is that this is akin to bribing a judge to issue a correct verdict – still osur.”
Your daughter already issued her verdict, didn’t she? They just want to pay her to say it again with more pizzazz.
“Or maybe it is simply a payment for the labor to express exactly same opinion in a better video form?”
Yes, that’s how I’m seeing it.
“Then mutar. Or maybe mutar aval asur so that the child is not getting used to sheker? please advise.”
What sheker is there, unless your daughter feels compelled by the payment to exaggerate her feelings for the product? This seems very different from fake reviews to me – presumably generated by people who didn’t buy the product, sockpuppetry, people who are offered benefits for writing a good review regardless of their feelings for the product, or bots/AI?
Always_Ask_Questions,
“Let’s move to today’s observant community. I would argue that in many places number of people who seriously stumble in Kashrus & Shabbos is way less than those in geneiva and sheker. “
And I would argue against that. First, those who “seriously stumble” in kashrus and Shabbos are generally called OTD and not frum, so the reason you see “way less” is because you do not count them. And second, I don’t buy the “whitewashed tomb” garbage stereotypes of Jews as kvetching endlessly over every spot on the esrog and wearing big tefillin while praying loudly then going home and lying cheating and stealing. Is 2000 years of antisemitism not enough?
Why daven maariv twice?
Always_Ask_Questions,
“nobodu would ask whether someone us frum when you see him eating Mcdonalds burger, but somehow money aveiros are not that clear cut”
Nobody can really know what is in another’s heart, but we typically call someone who is specifically shomer Shabbos and Y”T, kashrus, and taharas hamishpacha “frum”, because in most cases a fear of Hashem and belief in His Torah are the only reasons for adhering to such a disciplined way of life. It’s not a perfect demarcation obviously.
Also, nobody is above mistakes and falls, so being frum does not mean a person is free of sin. Someone who lies or steals habitually, however, demonstrates that he has no real trust in Hashem as a provider, and no respect for His Torah.
Gadolhadorah,
“But of course some of regulars will paskin that its “OK” if…”
Motzi shem ra is also a grievous sin.
aposhiteyid,
“Is it still gonev daas if its common knowledge that many reviews are fake?”
Yes – there would be no point in fake reviews if nobody was fooled by them. And as people catch on to the more rudimentary ones, they become more elaborate and advanced.
Theft being common does not make theft justified – the dor of the mabul was destroyed for that reason.
Yabia Omer,
Can you tell us what siman in the S”A is specifically violated by not having a mechitza in shul? I think the opposition to WoW is indeed coming from taking things into perspective.
Always_Ask_Questions,
“If you are not earning anything, and someone else pays for your learning, ask him if he is willing to pay for your oil change.”
You seem to bring up full-time learners quite frequently, no matter the context of the thread. What’s with that? Did you go to a community kollel shiur once and they beat you up and stole your lunch money? Are you supporting a son-in-law in kollel and feeling resentful? Or is this more just feeling like a biting donkey?
coffee addict,
“I’m not liking this thread it smells of division right before Rosh Hashanah”
Interestingly, the OP opened the floor for people to bring “taanos” against MO and has since not responded. So yes, I agree with you.
ubiquitin,
“The Rabbi was right.”
The rabbi used a form of relative privation fallacy to dismiss or avoid commenting about the issue. How does taking a position on a bill impact or have anything to do with our ability to learn about honesty in business?
“And definitely being into business honesty is more important than being into other’s people’s Torvalds marriage”
And now you do it too. Hey! I can do it too! The Chumash exhorts us about Shabbos more than it does about kidnapping, so dealing with Shabbos violators is more important than dealing with kidnappers … ?! Also, let’s leave the Linux kernel out of this.
“It’s confusing thst you think “MO people are very into business honesty” is a bad thing”
This is a valid point, though I suspect AviraDeArah’s sentiments are more against the use of business ethics to dismiss other issues than the relative importance of business ethics themselves.
Shimon Nodel,
“I explicitly said he should learn to love her or else leave her (for her sake) because staying would only bring her misery”
Your actual words were “or else consider finding a different wife he can love”, which is a different statement entirely. If a man cannot fulfill his obligations to his wife due to a personal deficiency, he must work on that deficiency. Simply ditching one woman for another will fix nothing. He’ll just carry the same flaws into the new marriage.
This was my point in asking the original question: I think we all agree that marriage is holy, and everything should be done to protect, uphold, and strengthen it, and it should not be just cast away. Same with learning Torah. If learning is boring or challenging, move mountains to make it better, don’t just ditch it. The yetzer hara goes after our most holy endeavors – it makes us focus on ourselves rather than our spouses in our marriages, and brings boredom, distraction, and frustration to our learning. Where the yetzer hara fights us hardest is where we have the best opportunity to do something meaningful, and that is where we have to stand our ground.
AviraDeArah,
“we’re not so far apart in our understanding of the rambam, since you admit that he comes to love through the actions delineated in that halacha and that the goal is to have a loving marriage”
I don’t think it was an admission – that’s how Judaism works in many cases. We can build and/or maintain our inner reality through our actions and behaviors.
“we only differ on my stance that I don’t think there is an actual obligation to feel that ahavah, and you think that there is.”
So what would you say to a husband who is just not “feeling it”? That he’s ok to just continue doing what he’s doing, or is it a deficiency that he should address?
AviraDeArah,
“According to that we still have the problem of why the rambam omits ahavah by a woman.”
Why is that a problem? We’re talking about a man’s emotional and behavioral obligations to his wife; what difference does the wife’s obligations to her husband make?
It’s too bad that commonsaychel took it upon himself to pull this into a new thread, because we lost the give and take that brought us here in the other thread, and the OP abandoned the thread anyway.
A quick and flippant recap:
1. huju claimed that the frum lifestyle was financially unsustainable so we’d have to give some of it up.
2. Shimon Nodel tangented off of that to claim that people who are bored with learning shouldn’t learn full time.
3. I asked him rhetorically what a man should do if he’s bored with his marriage.
4. Shimon Nodel surprised me by responding that a man who cannot love his wife should chuck her and get a new one.
5. You said in response that a man should stay with her even if the marriage is loveless, because where in the Torah does it say we must have a loving marriage? That’s Western values.
6. Shimon Nodel went off on you about how it’s a mitzvah to love your wife. You asked for a source, he provided a Rambam.
7. You kvetched out how the Rambam probably really didn’t mean love in the way we think of love and that he actually meant buying her stuff.
8. Commonsaychel redirected us here.So on one side Shimon Nodel holds that love is halachically essential for marriage, and seems to also hold that love is not something we can actively inculcate within ourselves, so that one should leave a loveless marriage. You seem to hold that, despite Shimon’s Rambam, loving his wife is not something the Torah demands of a man, and thus one should not leave a loveless marriage.
I think both approaches are wrong. I think the husband is indeed obligated to love his wife, and that he is fully capable of developing those feelings via the behavior the Rambam lays out. You wrote earlier in this thread that the Torah tends to not regulate our feelings because they are sometimes not in our control. But that is also a Western sentiment and the same point Shimon Nodel is making. The Torah tells us how we must feel all the time! We say it twice a day, veahavta es Hashem Elokecha. Even in that same Rambam where he tells the husband he must love his wife, he also tells the husband to not become angry or sad. That’s hard to do! But it is important for a good marriage. As for why he did not explicitly say love by a woman’s obligations? I think because it is possible to love without respecting, and that is detrimental to a wife’s relationship with her husband.
AviraDeArah,
“That being said, the rambam follows this statement of oheva kegufo etc with discussion of how to spend his money. The ahavah he refers to seems to mean giving her things and making her feel loved. He is not referring to an obligation as to how he feels about her.”
The Rambam said two things there, and they are parallel:
- Honor your wife more than yourself – give her things according to your wealth (i.e., even if you cheap out on yourself, don’t cheap out on her)
- Love her like your own self – don’t make her afraid of you and speak nicely to her
So the love being discussed here is not just giving her financial benefits and gifts, but affects how he treats her.
“when discussing the woman’s obligations to her husband, the rambam noteably omits loving him”
He says to respect (be in awe of) him, which, in parallel to how a man should treat his wife, gives instructions on how she should treat her husband.
In short, men should treasure their wives, and wives should admire their husbands. This is the foundation of a healthy marriage.