Avram in MD

YW Moderator-29,

To the OP: I closed the other thread. If you don’t like the topic or the contents, why in the world did you bring it back?

Hee hee.

So we got a couple responses, and the critical thinking meter has been pushed up just a tick or two. But let’s get real. Are we just to afraid to approach topics that may force us to see things in a way we are uncomfortable with? Are we too strong in our biases, too buried in our dusty attics, that we are scared to open up new avenues?

Arguments for assuming that everyone in the CR who disagrees with me lacks critical thinking skills and has a dusty brain:

1. I am so smart and my position so correct, that anyone who disagrees with me is obviously closed-minded and dusty brained.

2. My failure to convince anyone else of my position is totally because they are closed minded and dusty brained, and it certainly isn’t because of my own persuasive abilities or flaws in my positions that need to be addressed.

3. I can easily see the flaws in other people’s positions, so the fact that they hold those positions is because they are closed minded and dusty brained, certainly not because they have valid reasons that I may not understand fully because I never asked.

4. I can throw out some meager points in favor of the opposing view. Because I never see anyone else do this, they must all be closed minded and dusty brained.

Lilmod Ulelamaid,

When you are trying to determine the Torah’s position, you must do so from a place of rationality. If you determine that the Torah’s position is that you use your emotions when dealing with your children, then you should use your emotions while dealing with your children. But while you are deciding what the Torah’s position is, you have to keep your emotions at bay.

True, and good catch. I misread what yekke2 wrote. I wasn’t intending to imply that our emotions should override our obligation to learn and carry out the Torah’s position, but rather that when the Torah deals with emotional issues, it takes into account that we are emotional beings.

yekke2,

The purpose of this thread is to discuss whether: (A) Should you be expressing your love, or should your reactions be stronger to the point of anger, and suppress the love you feel towards your son;

Anger and love are not mutually exclusive. It is totally appropriate to let your child know in no uncertain terms that you feel angry about a choice s/he made, and doing that is not a suppression of love. When anger overcomes our ability to make proper decisions or is used to intimidate a child, however, it blocks any constructive message from going through.

(B) Are you supposed to be feeling the love at all; if we would consider him a Rasha, may you love your son who is a Rasha.

Ask Avraham Aveinu about Yishmael.

but I’m wondering what the Torah position is when we think about it rationally, leaving our emotions aside.

Why would we cast aside our emotions when we are dealing with an emotional question?

Joseph,

It seems that neither of us have any problems with blunting teeth 🙂

I never used the term “libs” (neither here nor elsewhere)

I’m glad that your level of discourse is so high; however, you have used “liberals” as a pejorative, so your response is essentially a quibble. But that’s fine. I retract my association of you with the slang term “libs”.

What I said was pure Torah and it was said because it is pure Torah.

Pure Torah is given over in proper context. As an extreme example, we don’t utter some excerpts from Maseches Nidda or other sensitive sections in halacha randomly in the office or on the bus (or even here in the CR, as trolls have tried to do in the past). To do so, even if what is said is word-for-word accurate, is not respectful of Torah. Additionally, when statements are made out of context, they can be misleading.

If you have a “hard time” with something the best course of action is to request help not sputter falsehoods.

So help me understand how your comment furthers this discussion.

Joseph,

Has this discussion of unconditional love broached the fact that the Torah, directly, and Shulchan Aruch, al pi halacha, tell us we are required to hit our children?

Out of curiosity, was the purpose of writing this an attempt to further Torah knowledge, or was it using our holy Torah as a spade for your personal quest to troll those you consider “libs”? Given the complexity of the issue and the flippant, distorted way in which you brought it up, I have a hard time seeing the former.

Lilmod Ulelamaid,

What an excellent post!

yekke2,

Is the only reason they are more fragile simply because we have changed the way we deal with our kids? Is it a direct consequence of our forgiving patient model of Chinuch?

No, the fragility comes from the fact that we are in golus, and we have not offered a korban on the mizbeach for almost 2000 years. That hurts us and weakens us, even if we’ve never known differently.

Of course you can love a kid and still be sharp. But this isn’t the conventional “Unconditional Love”, where you are told not to react negatively to anything, but show a constant outpouring of love and support, simply ignoring the bad.

If that’s what you think unconditional love is, then you have misread a lot of parenting books. Unconditional love is about maintaining a constant awareness of why I am a parent and what my goal as a parent is: to raise good, healthy Jewish children, and to maintain that awareness even during frustrating situations. There is a big difference between healthy discipline and reacting with little thought out of frustration, anger, or wanting to seem like a tough with-it parent in front of others. Or going to the other extreme and being a pushover because you want your kid to like you.

golfer,

Thanks for being the one to say that.

I, for one, do not think that adocs’ “shaila” was serious. It was a rhetorical jab and guilt by association.

Joseph,

But the rest of the protesters are probably justified after she did what happened before the clip started.

Yeah… no. We are responsible for our own behavior no matter what someone else does.

baisyaakovliberal chucks the ball up at the basket:

Why do many teachers in bais yaakov schools refer to their students as “future wives and mothers of klal yisroel” but rebbeim in yeshivos don’t refer to their students as “future husbands and fathers of klal yisroel”?

Joseph grabs the ball and slam dunks it in:

Because men and women are different and have very different roles in life.

Brilliant alley-oop Poe-Troll play!

Ah, I see, the restaurant has Chinese menu items.

Not a bug, but a suggestion: Allow users to edit their posts at any time, but keep a log of the edits at the bottom of the post – each edit submission adds a line such as “Edited by [poster] at NNNN EDT – diff” to the end of the post, where diff is a link that shows what was removed/added. Moderator edits should also generate lines, but with no diff link.

lightbrite,

Most respondents to your OP are assuming that the reason you were uncomfortable knocking on his door was because of tznius. In a later post, however, you wrote that you would just ask him what he would have wanted you to do, which suggests that you are fine with having conversations with him (i.e., it doesn’t violate your sense of tznius or safety). Therefore, I am confused about your OP, because I do not understand why you wouldn’t feel comfortable knocking on his door.

Also, what did you mean by,

I don’t want to be the nice older neighbor next door

feivel,

nowadays our understanding and sensitivity to the higher spiritual world has been deadened and hidden. trying to grasp it is trying to grasp Hashem. dont let the Yetzer Ha Rah stop you.

I agree with this in principle, but one must be careful in the application. Our conduit to the spiritual world is Torah, and its core precepts should garner our primary attention. Spices smell very good and therefore capture our attention, and, applied with skill, can turn a regular meal into a gourmet masterpiece. But chasing after spices when there is no meat to put it on makes no meal at all.

zahavasdad,

You must like baby greens 🙂

zahavasdad,

marror too, you have to eat a certain amount. I think its about 5 stalks of lettuce for a Kezayis

Depends on the size of the stalks.

To those asking why this specific question is a LOR question: Why?

Has anyone heard of a requirement to possess chametz before Pesach so that it can be sold to a non Jew? I would think that if it were possible to be 100% rid of chametz before Pesach (thus not needing to sell anything), that would be fine, or even ideal, and it doesn’t require a rav to say that there’s no need to go out and buy chametz before Pesach just to have some to sell.

Based on previous posts, I feel that lightbrite has a LOR, and these OPs are more for discussion than psak. If that’s not the case, then AYLOR away.

lightbrite,

What does that mean?

I was kidding. In just under a month, we’ll probably start reading complaints in the CR about how the shiurim (amounts of matza and marror we’re required to eat at the seder) grow each year, like the big ol’ fish that Bubba caught back in the day.

lightbrite,

4. What about a children’s eating contest?

Didn’t think about it back then, but I once babysat for a Jewish family. The children had a gherkin eating contest.

The parents allowed it.

I was there watching as they were laughing and stuffing their faces.

I personally have discouraged my kids from competing with each other while eating, but every child and every situation are different, so it’s up to the loving parents. Depending on the ages and type of food, there still could be a choking risk to watch out for, but siblings at the table who are having fun are unlikely to “push past the pain” and risk hurting themselves.

lesschumras,

Don’t let your vendetta against perceived “chumras” overload your common sense. Do you really intend to argue that endangering your life in order to win a prize is muttar?

lightbrite,

Furthermore, someone who is that angry/deranged/skewed generally is not going to consider what I am saying or any logic for the matter. Instead the person will get defensive.

Yes, exactly. If someone is so outside the bounds of normal human decency that s/he would hurl abuse at someone, or say horrible things about someone to others as if that’s a normal thing to do, then there’s no way that person is safe to interact with.

In my mind, social disengagement is the most powerful response. Stony silence after “jokes” sends a pretty clear and strong message to most people that they have stepped outside of proper societal bounds. What seems more problematic in your case to me was that the store employees were “playing along” with the deranged customer. Rather than being treated like the loon he was, his destructive behavior was reinforced. Given that, the best response would probably still be coldness and silence towards the offending employees, but lodging a complaint with management might be appropriate too. The store managers should know if a customer had a bad experience in the store.

Very clear! I might try the game out on an upcoming Shabbos.

Bigfoot is real. My definition of Bigfoot in this case is someone with size 12 shoes or more.

The Loch Ness Monster is real. My definition of the Loch Ness Monster in this case is someone within 50km of Loch Ness who behaved in a mean way to someone else that day.

zahavasdad,

As I was walking home from Shul on Shabbos about a month ago, Someone decided to park their car in the middle of the cross walk blocking the ability to walk normally.

Just curious, did you say something to the woman about how her car was blocking the walkway before she yelled the anti-Semitic slur? Or was it completely random?

As I had to really walk around this car , this woman in the car started yelling at me how hitler did not complete the job. So I yelled back. I will not stand for someone telling that to me

I think that behavior would constitute harassment. If I were in that situation and thinking clearly (but most likely I would not be), I’d either say nothing or simply, “that was a very unkind thing to say”. And then try to memorize the license plate number and call the police after Shabbos. Especially if there were witnesses (e.g., someone walking with you or nearby who you know).

Ignoring someone who is so outside of societal norms that s/he would verbally attack a random person is not necessarily a sign of weakness.