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what i learned: if you want to become a journalist, it is important to obtain a solid education because otherwise when your moment in the sun comes you may end up being too incoherent and inarticulate that your question ends up becoming a national story.
those that have okayed saying tehillim “nowadays” after sunset are not sod and sometimes anti-sod gedolim. the mekubulim still oppose it.
while I do not live by the rules of sod, i do not say tehillim after sunset except on shabbos. in my mind, using tehillim to pray is something very “sod-like” and the remuzim, rushei teivos, sofei teivos, etc work only in the world of sod. since i am in the world of sod, i play by the rules of sod. when in rome.
(i understand an argument can be made that tehillim functions in guluy also but that seems like a stretch. i believe that the power of tehillim is different.
I think Pew said 62% but that is of the American Jewish population. I think Israel’s orthodox population is harder to define (because the traditional/orthodox line is blurred) but as a group is much larger than the US orthodox population and is maybe 25-30% Hareidi and maybe another 10% Hareidi-Sefaradi (whatever that is). Surely, the Hareidim are trending towards 70% (or higher) but I dont think we are quite there yet.
“chareidim are about 70% of Orthodox Jews” I’m curious where you get that from – Ive seen numbers saying about 45%
“the vast majority of them are unhappy it was created.” the vast majority of chareidim I know do not feel that way. I don’t think you really believe that.
Joseph, what are your thoughts on Rav Mordechai Attia’s zt”l seifer Lech Lechu?
Litvos – you obviously have a very special soul. You will meet a very wide variety of posters on sites such as this one – from the very learned and intellectual to the simple and uneducated and everything in between. A topic as important as this one should probably be first discussed with a trusted orthodox rabbi specializing in conversions. after laying down some roots with the assistance of such a rabbi it may not be harmful to seek output and criticism on a board such as this one.
while i disagree completely, i appreciate joseph’s general argument that jews should not be zionists and therefore approach issues in israel from a pragmatic and not sentimental point of view. that being said, as akuperma points out, joseph’s “pragmatism” is misplaced. There is no rational reason why anyone should object to placing the embassy in west jerusalem. while an argument can be made that jews should avoid upsetting its surrounding neighbors, this is only true if there is a rational basis for the neighbors being upset. there are many irrational, upset neighbors in lakewood and monroe (that joseph never talks about) but that does not mean that jews should disappear from those areas just because their mere presence upsets the neighbors.
bottom line: if anyone claims that placing an embassy in west jerusalem somehow serves as a hindrance to the two state solution, it only goes to prove how immature and unrealistic the two state solution actually is.
??? ??? ?????? ?????? ???–?? ???? ??? ???? ????, ?? ?????: ?????? ?????? ?? ??? ???????. ?? ?????? ??? ??? ???? ?????? ???, ??? ??? ???? ???????; ?????? ?? ??? ?????? ?????? ???. ??? ?? ????, ??? ????? ?????? ????? ??? ??? ??????, ???? ???.
?????? ?? ????? ??? ????? ??????, ??? ????? ????? ?????? ??????? ???????? ??? ?????? ???; ??? ????? ????–????? ?????? ?? ???? ????, ??? ???? ????. ??? ?? ???? ??????; ???? ?????, ???? ???? ?? ????? ?????. ??? ???? ?????? ???? ????, ??? ???????.
mewho: i suggest you first reach out to rabbi jordan hoffman and there probably is no need to see anyone else.
ubiq: isnt it sad how many there are to compare? There is no president who has not allowed some damage. Time will tell if the fears about 2334 play out. Still, the language and the way this one played out is particularly harsh. Obama was not looking to appease anyone or move towards some grand theory as to how to bring peace. he was looking to punish.
Ubiq: the prefix languages in un resolutions is a form of art. It is the demands and resolves language that matter not the affirmed language.
But you are correct that 465 was very similar. Us actually supported that one.
ubiquitin: this resolution was unprecedented because of its long term ramifications. While 1397 & 1322 were not great for Israel, they addressed a specific snapshot in time this one went to the nature of the state. This resolution basically makes Israel illegal unless it returns to june 4 1967 borders which cannot and will not ever happen.
I am a progressive liberal. I voted for the current President. His actions on Friday are completely indefensible. While many in my camp have called your guy names, on Friday, Obama proved himself to be petty, reckless and a type of guy who does not care how much destruction he causes is his attempt to settle personal disputes.
While Bush was no friend of Israel (I can write a ten page essay with examples), his acts do not compare to the terrible hole Obama just placed Israel into. Ultimately, like Yosef, our salvation will come from Hashem and maybe we needed this to remind us that we have no one upon whom to rely other than Hashem but Obama’s move was cowardly, anti-Semitic and I do not know when I will ever be able to vote for a Democrat again.
To those who said Obama was sonei yisroel, you were right, we were wrong.
On huma: she seems about as pro falestinian as rahm emmanuel and David axlerod were pro Israel.
unsocial: as i sift through the sand that is TYW in general and the coffee room in particular, every once in a while I come across a gem. Your post was one. enlightening and powerful. while hashem may have handcuffed you in one way, he’s given you a talent in a different way. maybe you can start there. write.
lavender, i am sorry for your pain. there is no one here who can help you figure it out. all we can do is conjecture and you can do the same thing.
BYG: it appears that the goal is to reach every jew. today they may not be in kenya (or anywhere else outside the us and canada) but who knows what tomorrow brings. 10 years ago no one imagined a chofetz chaim in sin city but alas today it is there. it is a commitment and dedication to a cause (albeit a beautiful one, if you ask me).
further, so long as he continues to learn in chofetz chaim there will always be the chance that even after 5 or 10 years he will look to move to that location. There is no way of ensuring that you will stay in NY or any other large jewish city unless he does not plan on staying in chofetz chaim.
Joseph: I will not address your question because the topic seems to be limited to shidduch related questions. see, also, lilmod ulelamed, above.
BYG: from a shidduch point of view there is one major consideration which is that chofetz chaim believes in harbutzus torah the way the other yeshivas do not and that means that many, many, of them end up in remote locations spreading judiasm. are you willing to live in a place you have never heard of before while doing the shlichus of avrohom avinu? that is the question you need to ask yourself.
lilmod: yes and no. the shulchan aruch covers what shoe should be put on first and other minute details but never asks you to put your brain and common sense away. quite the opposite is true.
joseph: good point but i still accept the eidus.
I heard years ago from someone I trust completely that he observed Rav Moshe hold the door for women.
How sad is it that we lack common sense sometimes and replace long complicated halachic analysis for common sense. How sad is it that we live in a world where being a decent human has been replaced with “salad and halacha” “holding the door open for women and halacha” “pokemon and halacha” “riding the bus and halacha” “taking your kids to the park and halacha”. you get the point.
Ben levy and Yehuda yona,
You may have been oiver some serious lavim your entire lives. Unlike sfardim we don’t eat kitniyos but we don’t hold them to be chumeitz. Believing them to be chumeitz is just plain wrong. Maybe some of the separation is based on ignorance not hate. But back to the topic at hand, why won’t sfardim in Israel, who have the choice, want to send to their own bais yaakovs? I’m not saying it justifies the racism but I just don’t get it.
I think that besides the Halachick considerations, we need to take into account the social norms of the world we live in. During the British Mandate of Palestine, there was a temporary practice to wrap the bodies of Muslim terrorists in pig skin and then bury the terrorist. This was used to deter the terrorism based on the assumption that Islam forbade the dead who were buried in pig skin to enter heaven. This practice was stopped because the social norms of the entire world dictated that it is deplorable and unethical to use someone’s religious beliefs against them – no matter what.
With the case of husbands who refuse gets – at its heart – the man is using the woman’s religious convictions to punish her. This is in both the world’s view and IMHO both deplorable and unethical and therefore should be treated as such.
For all intents and purposes the couple is quite actually divorced. Let us not use our religion to torture one another – no matter what.
heres another one: saying elokeinu velokei avoseinu (duchan replacement) on fast days during mincha when mincha is davened early in the day. the rama and mishana brura explicitly follow the mechaber not to say it yet everyone does. why?
bow at barchu (not torah reading barchu but tfilla barchu)
Joseph,
I read the report about the report today, as well. Found some things to be very strange. For example, 93% of all orthodox jews identified as either modern or hareidi. ten percent of modern orthodox jews said they do not fast on yom kippur. seventeen percent do not keep kosher. zero sense.
I have a feeling that many observant jews (which is the general defnition of orthodox) were not included is the category orthodox. this would make sense if the Syrian, Uzbeki, etc Jews were asked if they are othodox and they answered no (because they consider orthodox judaism an ashkenazic/western practice).
i also have a feeling that many non observant jews called themselves modern orthodox because they used to be orthodox (or grew up in an orthodox home) but are now modern and no longer affiliated.
further, within the hareidi camp, the numbers appear to run contrary to what we know about satmar and affilaited chassidus which lean very heavily democrat and by sheer numbers cannot sustain the idea that 60% of chareidim are republicans.
the report of the report raises more questions than it supplies answers.
tirtsa: i have thought about it. i theorize that NK got its jump start as follows: there were jews who have always maintained the yishuv in E”Y even as their brothers went for greener pastures in Europe and elsewhere. they suffered to live in israel and worked hard to maintain a yishuv in the face of a rabid enemy by working towards a peaceful coexistence all the while emphasizing their religious lifestyles and beliefs.. when the green pastures were converted into killing fields the zionists basically invaded the yishuv, dumped on religion, cared little about the jews who were there and what they were doing, pretended to be the first jews to show up and basically claimed the titled of the “jews of israel” from the jews who were already there. the old religious yishuv then became NK who tried to reclaim its position by aligning itself with all of the palestinians who were displaced by the zionists.
What happened since is a different story. Satmar came along and gave a chassidish, quazi-halachic reason to oppose zionism. NK and satmar started to mesh. those with extremist views rotated towards NK while those with a more moderate approach denounced them. the rest, as they say, is history.
it matters little what the flag represents. does it matter that the swastika represents the universe in our own spiral galaxy in the fore finger of Vishnu? It is a symbol of hate which offends and horrifies those which it targets. Same is true with the flag. That, combined with the fact that there is no actual reason to fly the flag in south carolina – it is not the state flag of s.c. – makes this one an easy call. take it down.
akuperma: lew picked the 10 because that is the next bill in line for a change anyway.
i think irrational and illogical in applying the law in london in 2015 is appropriate. in any event, i think the way it evolved shows the fallacy in the reasoning in the first instance. the poskim figured the women will sit home but that is not practical nor will that ever happen, BH. instead, there are teams of male cab drivers who take these women around. im sure thats not what they had in mind. i spent a considerable amount of time in KY and NS and this is exactly what takes place there. a situation which is irrational and illogical. this is a chumra that not only ein yecholim lamoid buh but will cause resentment and a chillul hashem. they need to back down.
Dy: Bnei brak in the ’60s and not London in 2015. And I am sorry for my unnecessarily harsh and gratuitous ending to my last post. I just feel like Charlton Heston sometimes.
DY: certain tznius issues (non erva) differ depending on the place and time. If it was a tznius issue in one setting it can still be irrational and absurd in another. This is called common sense. I recommend it.
Musicaldignity: but different people have different styles of music that bring them spiritually higher and some others can be spiritually lifted through more than one style. While it could be that for you the fast simple riffs and non stop drums of punk makes you feel one way for another person it could provide her soul with a burst of positive energy and spiritual happiness. For one person Bach is associated with the dentists chair and for another it takes him closer to hashem.
Your claim that we are invested into a particular type of music and this blinds our ability to see clearly is both irrational and condescending. It is also not true. I am not arguing for any particular style of music. I find beauty is all styles and genres. And every song that in your head you’ve categorized as Jewish started out in its base as a non Jewish tune which in your words were slapped with Jewish words.
sushi: the blind boys of alabama, canton jones, mary mary and others will disagree with your assessment of r&b while reliant k, pocket change and others will disagree with your assessment of punk.
as for the crossover between cantorial and opera, a good study on the subject was elucidated in the June 2000 edition of the Voice Foundation Journal, “Comparing historical and contemporary opera singers with historical and contemporary Jewish cantors.”
it is amusing that the only people i ever heard claim that there is a “jewishness” to music styles or genres were people with very narrow and limited exposure to music. i find the claim absurd, immature and nonsensical.
for music lovers, it is disheartening that there exists such a strong repression of this particular art in the frum velt.
there is no disagreeing, however, that a song that exhibits prust and disgusting themes should be avoided by a yirei shomayim.
finally, it should be noted that i have found that the only jewish musician to have attempted to blend various styles into a new genre of jewish music was carlebach but his musical influences are recognizable anyway and those who perform in the carlebach genre today draw heavily from alternative rock.
i also once read that Gregorian chants were based in temple jewish music. there is also an interview i once saw in which yechiel nahari explains that the arabic music he learned in egypt and syria were brought there from the jews of the first temple. they both cannot be true and considering the total lack of any real evidence for either i dont believe either one to be true.
i want to be clear. music can certainly be broken down into genres. rap sounds nothing like country which sounds nothing like tarab which sounds nothing like opera. sometimes genres can touch – country/folk, rock/punk etc. or borrow from one another (r&b/jazz). jewish is not a genre of music. all jewish music we listen to today fall into other genres or are very closely related. mordechai ben david and avraham fried fit nicely into russian genres of music plus loud horns; the boys choirs are pop and electric with loud horns; schwecky is rock and pop with loud horns; dveikus is folk; lipa is rock, rap, pop and electric (and some annoying horns). there is beautiful music in all genres but the songs called jewish music are usually just really, really (extremely) poor exhibits of their particular genres.
chazzanus and niggunim usually are exact copies of songs within european genres the way the sfardishe chazzanus is usually an exact copy of allepo, baghdad and egypt music genre songs. helfgot is a classic opera singer and habusha is a classical tarab singer. there is nothing jewish about their music.
Nfgo3: I agree wholeheartedly with the first part of your statement. Jewish music is neither Jewish nor music. Most niggunim and chazzunus is music but not Jewish either. There is no such thing as Jewish music as all music was built on top of what existed before it. There is prust lyrics and non prust lyrics to be sure. There are Jewish lyrics and not Jewish lyrics to be sure. But Jewish music simply does not exist.
Godwin’s law of the Coffee Room: as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of the zionist jewish debate approaches 1″
Akperma gets points for both by comparing israel to the nazis. also the comment was quite vile.
i tend to agree with akuperma on this one. that being said, there are many situations where we need to find solutions for delicate problems (sick, elderly, etc.) and although bh we may not need tzomet or kosher switch devices, there are families that need them and if their poskim say its ok for them, it really doesnt bother me.
in response to nfgo3 and coffee: I consider myself a progressive liberal (i voted for obama). And no, not all leftists are anti Semites. quite the opposite is true, true liberals are against misogynist, racist and homophobic organizations like radical islam.
I believe there is an entirely different reason. They are pro Islam because they are anti Jews. They are anti Jews because they simply are anti Jews (or they are anti God). There is no reason for anti-Semitism, it just is. But the anti-Semites have had other covers which they used for anti Semitism discredited and so they can no longer use nationalism, communism, etc as their cover because that is passe. So they flock to the one sanctuary where they feel their anti semitism can flourish without worry: the left. at this new home they can cover their anti semitism as anti zionism. once this too will become passe they will flock somewhere else and everyone will ask something like “why are all environmentalist pro islam” and the answer will remain the same.
Akuperma: why does it matter what the zionists think when (1) we know the truth and (2) Zionism no longer exists?
From the kitzur shulchun aruch
?? ????? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ????, ??? ??? ??? ????? ?? ??? ??????, ??? ?? ????? ?????? ???? ?????? ??? ?? ??? ?? ????.
DY: there were a few rabbis who took this position before the KS controversy. (rav herschel schechter, for example). The signators to the kol kire were not among them. one of them specifically took a different view until this device came along. i am curious to see if they will stick to this position when the tummult dies down or will abandon it.
further, many in the velt rejected the device from the outset because it felt wrong. the charges against the KS from the outset were 1) it is zilzul shabbos 2) the heter was meant for bkoim tzoirich gadol 3) the company were made up of bad guys.
it seems like even if a device were to be invented which would address all the meolocho issues, there will be many in the tzibur who will reject it because it violates what they know about shabbos and they will therefore look for a poisk who will give them a tzad to be oisser. rav sz once famously said about another device, it is a kula shein hatzibur yachol lamoid buh. the fact that so many people use an eiruv which was oiker an entire melocho to which massechet shabbos devotes most of its attention and relies on daas yichidus built upon hekeilim built upon daas yichidus shows that when it comes to some things, the letter of law matters less than what we feel comfortable with. at the present time, the tzibur, for whatever reason, feels comfortable with an eiruv but not flicking on lights. i know that i, for one, am one of those people.
DY: that is clearly not the position of rabbi sz or rabbi ovadia yosef and until 2 weeks ago was also not the general consensus as tzomet was given a green light to operate.
DY: i think you underestimate the role played by some including rabbi rosen and zman switch. rabbi rosen’s opportunism was self evident. the periodical articles were authored by the zman switch rav hamachshir. whether your poisik allowed the KS or not, we were all played and most of the khal knows this.
it also goes without saying that asking my rov would be step one.
You can’t be serious. I don’t have a taiva to flick on a light switch. With this in place if I accidentally hit it I would not be doing a melocho and can right away flick it off saving myself a chatas and an aveiru chillul shabbos beshoygeg. If I had elderly people at home or young children I would have even greater uses. I think if you really care about shabbos spending a few shekels to eliminate the possibility is a no brainer. I think once you get past the natural initial reaction and disregard the bells and whistles of the video it makes so much sense for a yirey shomayim to have these instead of regular switches.
Personally, I would take anything tzomet says about a direct competitor with a grain of salt. Stripped of its hyperbole, the tzomet argument is that the kosher switch is not a lechatchila on shabbos. I think many of us look at it the same way. But for those with an elderly resident, young children, sick residents, etc this seems like a simple cheap way to make things a heck of a lot easier. I don’t see the downside to putting these in your home for those just in case moments or to prevent accidentally flicking the switch.
Marketing the product as Lechatchilu on shabbos is probably an overreach. Akuperma’s take is very apropos although it does have the randomness built into it which makes it a bit better – makes it less a gromo. I would imagine its use would be best fit in hospitals or in homes for the elderly and maybe yuntiff for a tzoyrich.
With respect to the miskavein issue i believe there are those who hold that melechis machshevet works both ways so that just like when you do not intend a melocho its muttar midoraysa no matter your action when you intend a melocho its assur as a gromo no matter the action you take – but that is clearly not the general opinion and represents a small minority view.