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Tell your wife that she shouldn’t be wasting her time cooking delicious food because it is asur to love food and see how she reacts.
Secular education is also a Torah mandate, at least enough to have a trade and earn a living.
The Republican-dominated Maricopa County Board of Supervisors put out a 93 page report that disproved 76 out of 77 claims by the former company that was known as Cyber Ninjas. The one claim that was valid was that 50 votes were counted twice. Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes, a margin so large that state law prohibited a recount. And Cyber Ninjas itself concluded that Biden actually won by more than that. Yet Cyber Ninjas raised huge amounts of money from gullible Trump supporters, most of which is now going to have to be paid out in contempt of court fines.
Just to give you an example of how bad Cyber Ninjas was, they used “fuzzy matching” methodology to try to match voters to databases of names and addresses in order to determine whether or not a voter had moved. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that that will result in huge numbers of errors — and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors confirmed that. But you do have to have a higher IQ than the people who still claim that Trump won the election.
And that is giving them the benefit of the doubt. It is possible that many of them secretly really do know that Trump lost, but that they want a dictatorship rather than democracy in America. Some of them showed up in Washington on January 6 for the attempted coup.
“The best economy is capitalism, free and mostly unfettered and ulittered with corruption from government handouts.”
Our entire street and highway system was built by the government. And the fossil fuel industry has benefited from huge subsidies for generations.
Many great rabbis have been clean shaven. Electric razors have been around since 1933.
Being a firefighter is almost the perfect career for someone who wants a Torah lifestsyle. Most of the time you sit and wait for a call, which in NYC might only come once a week. Get paid to learn! And it would be halachically required to stop the learning for a fire call as it is pikuach nefesh!!! Pay and benefits are good, with generous early retirement.
(FWIW I have had a beard since early 1986, which is the last time I have shaved. I keep it very short, though.)
I have been pointing out (1), (2), and (3) in the OP for a long time in other forums. (1) is the reason we need millions of fast charging stations. (2) shows that EVs are largely the idea of well off white suburbanites with driveways. (3) however isn’t the big deal you think it is because peak electric power generation is late afternoons and there is lots of excess capacity at night when cars would be charged. However, if we are forced to switch to electric heat, as the NY City Council unfortunately is trying to do, that changes everything. (4) is not an issue because blackouts only occur about once every 20-25 years in places other than Texas. (5) is nonsense because the demand for gasoline will plummet and the price will crash. That’s economics 101. (6) is a problem for gasoline engine vehicles as well. (7) is nonsense; the automakers acted on their own to phase out gasoline engine vehicles. In fact there are huge potential advantages to electric vehicles; the century of experience with electric buses is that they require far less maintenance and last twice as long.
The Palestinians are big time Gay bashers. Hamas especially.
Maybe that is why we have so many super frum anti-Gay Jews who are also anti-Zionists. They would prefer Hamas rule over Eretz Yisrael.
A few thousands murdered and tens of thousands tortured. Everyone in Chile knows someone who was a victim of the regime. And they don’t apparently want to go back there.
The problem is that the mainstream center-left and the mainstream center-right failed here. The center-left ruled Chile for two decades after Pinochet and failed to re-establish a decent safety net. Now millions there are looking at poverty in retirement because of Pinochet’s destruction of their social security system. Boric’s promise to create a welfare state is obviously appealing (although voters did not give him the congressional majority that would be needed to accomoplish it). More recently the center-right ruled and accomplished, well, nothing.
Boric isn’t really in a position to do much to harm Israel. But he can do a lot of harm to Chile. He could be another Allende. Pray for Chile.
When the other candidate is a supporter of one of the most brutal dictators of the 20th century, almost anyone would be preferred. 🙁
“This isn’t America’s fight.”
Precisely what the French government said about Czechoslovakia in 1938. France and Czechoslovakia had a mutual defense agreement when France refused to uphold.
Britain was even worse. Winston Churchill was horrified, but he had made himself so obnoxious over the preceding decade that nobody cared what he thought. (In particular, he had fought to keep the Nazi sympathizer Edward VIII on the throne!) At least the Labour Party leader Clement Attlee spoke out:
“The Prime Minister has confidence in the good will and in the word of Herr Hitler, although when Herr Hitler broke the Treaty of Versailles he undertook to keep the Treaty of Locarno, and when he broke the Treaty of Locarno he undertook not to interfere further, or to have further territorial aims, in Europe. When he entered Austria by force he authorised his henchmen to give an authoritative assurance that he would not interfere with Czechoslovakia. That was less than six months ago.”
“when every European and South American country had revolutions”
No socialist revolution in South America succeeded. And the ones that succeeded in Europe were only because of the Soviet Army.
Meanwhile, every South American country has had a right wing dictatorship installed at the point of a gun. Ditto over a dozen countries in Europe.
Socialists have ruled many countries in Europe, usually with quite a bit of success. Oh, and Israel too.
“When WW1 broke out the Turks expelled any Jew who did not have Ottoman citizenship”
And even worse, the Ottoman Governor of the region that included Eretz Yisrael then tried to do to the Jews there what they had already done to the Armenians. Many Jews had to flee, some even to Egypt! You can even find some articles about this effort in the archives of the New York Times!
The Ottoman Empire, for most of its existence, treated Jews better than most other European countries. But it is not hard to have treated Jews batter than England, France, Spain, Portugal, or Russia, which were Judenrein for much of that period. But had the British Army not arrived in time it is entirely possible that the Ottomans would have done what the Romans and Crusaders had failed to do — exterminated all Jews in the Land of Israel. Excusing the genocidal Ottoman leaders is simply inexcusable.
“people aren’t dying in pandemic proportion anymore”
1,290 deaths a day in the US over the past week. The numbers have been that high or higher for almost four months now. That is a bit higher than the average number of deaths during the entire pandemic. So no, people continue to die and the reasons are that people won’t get vaccinated, won’t wear masks, and pretend that the pandemic is over. It isn’t.
“dont shove your likes down my throat”
Masks aren’t being shoved down your trhoat. They do, however, reduce the likelihood that a ventilator will be shoved down your throat and the throats of others.
“we value human life more than others”
The large number of anti-mask, anti-vax, and pro-quackery comments on YWN show that he was mistaken. 🙁
“I’m not against Slavery.
The Torah is for it.”Rabbis Bernard Illowy, at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, and Rabbi Morris Raphall, and B’nai Jeshurun in New York, were probably the two leading orthodox rabbis in the US as of 1861. They both made sermons early that year that enthusiastically supported slavery and the Southern Cause. To this day they remain an embarrassment to all Jews.
Both those two congregations would cease to be orthodox within 20 years. And if those two rabbis had accurately reflected the Torah perspective, I wouldn’t be either.
And similarly the commenters here who continue to express support for the attempted coup that would have ended democracy in the US.
” Nationalism/Zionism is just as illegitimate”
It is very clear from both Tanakh and Chazal that Judaism is really the original nationalism. One People, with One God, given One Land. The idea that there is no nationalism in Judaism is actually the heresy of the German reformers of the 19th century. It is shocking to see supposedly frum Jews promoting that heresy on a frum site.
“teach Gemorah to ladies have significant names and arguments behind them”
My rav o”h quoted Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik z’tz’l as saying that it was a chiyuv to teach gemara to women. And one of the few halachic statements we have from him in writing is one in which he orders a school to all their limdei kodesh classes be co-ed. He refused to give that psak until the school leaders agreed to follow his psak no matter what he said. And of course he himself founded a co-ed school.
Obviously there are those who disagree who have the stature to do so. But I suspect that none of them comment in the YWN comment fields.
“Rabbi shechter is fine with the idea that a secular state is the lifeblood of the jewish nation, and worthy of the wanton lose of jewish life, not because he learned it in gemara, but because of European Nationalism dressed up in techeles and a kippah.”
You obviously have not studied Rabbi Schachter’s Torah. And you can’t even give him the respect of spelling his name correctly.
There are numerous rabbis of sufficient stature to disagree with him. But they would never insult him the way you have.
UJM, your conclusion is not accurate. What the case might do is to require that states that fund non-religious private schools have to fund religious private schools in the same way. See my other comment if it gets approved by the mods on the problems that causes.
At least one state, Virginia, has an absolute ban in its state constitution prohibiting funding of any private schools at all, whether religious or non-religious.
“one doesn’t decide halacha based on Tanach.”
That isn’t true at all. Chazal often cite pesukim from Nach in halachic discussions.
“could have major ramifications for yeshiva parents”
There are only two other states with programs like Maine’s: Vermont and Connecticut. There are no yeshivot in Maine or Vermont. But a few yeshivot in Connecticut may benefit.
But there is a hitch. Actually many hitches. The programs require that the students be charged zero tuition. And the programs require that the schools follow state curriculum mandates and state labor law. Their teachers and nonprofessional staff are unionized.
The programs also have geographic limits.
And an even bigger hitch is that the schools participating in these programs have to accept all students. They can’t discriminate on the basis of religion. Nor can they cherry pick to avoid special education students. They have to be co-ed. Would the yeshivot accept non-Jewish students? There are Jewish schools in the UK, Ireland, and India (!) that do. (When I was in Ireland I had a Catholic cab driver who effusively praised the Jewish school where he was sending his daughter!) Would they allow co-ed classes?
The programs actually work pretty well. But it would be a dramatic change for yeshivot.
“where reportedly Jews do not walk publicly in kipah?”
I was in Paris a decade ago and almost everywhere in the city, on sidewalks and subways, I saw Jewish men wearing yarmulkes. There are synagogues all over the city and the government pays a significant part of the cost of Jewish schools. The city felt like New York. Kosher restaurants all over, too, and all of them had good food — not like New York. 😉
“are flawed torah scholars”
Is it surprising that a thread entitled “Denigrating Gadolim” contains many comments denigrating gadolim by anonymous commenters who don’t have the standing to make such critiques?
“Every one of them has a different understanding of what he said and meant.”
That is because he paskened differently to different people in different circumstances, and at times changed his mind on things. Any decent rav will do that; kal v’chomer the Gedol HaDor.
And he *was* the Gedol HaDor for the United States for two generations. His students ended up leading most of the orthodox synagogues in America. He isn’t studied in charedi yeshivot today because he hardly published anything during his lifetime and few charedi yeshiva teachers are linked directly to his mesorah.
“he would stop going to operas”
My rav o”h was adamant that The Rav held that going to opera was mutar. Rav Hutner z’tz’l used to go to the opera in Berlin with The Rav z’tz’l. My wife and I still subscribe to the Metropolitan Opera. I see a lot of guys in yarmulkes there.
“his rabbinic colleagues and students referred to him as”
All of them that I have heard simply refer to him as “The Rav”, reflecting his high stature.
“especially if Japan did attack the Soviets”
Japan had no interest in attacking the Soviet Union. The Soviet Far East was sparsely populated and undeveloped. The only real city was Vladivostok which while critically important to the Soviet Union was of no interest to Japan as long as the USSR stayed neutral. Stalin had to understand that Vladivostock was indefensible and agreed to a nonagression pact with Japan.
Stalin broke that pact on the morning of August 9, 1945. A few hours later, the second atomic bomb was dropped, on Nagasaki. The Soviet Army would in the next two weeks overrun an area the size of all of Western Europe, defeating the formerly terrifying Kwantung Army whose reputation for cruelty rivaled that of the SS.
FDR desparately wanted the US to go to war with Hitler, and desparately wanted the US *not* to go to war with Japan. The trouble was, Japan was already endangering US interests and had been for over four years. Sanctions were ineffective and Japan realized that the US was the only thing in the way of its conquest of all of East and Southeast Asia. So it attacked.
The other trouble was that almost every prominent Republican (1940 Presidential nominee Wendell Willkie was a rare exception) and large numbers of prominent Democrats (FDR actually had to fire his Secratary of War because of that) were isolationists who actually tried to sabotage preparations for war. Lindbergh was probably an actual Nazi in terms of his ideology and Herbert Hoover at one point expressed hope for a Nazi victory.
Even so, FDR still didn’t have the public’s support for war against Hitler after Pearl Harbor — until Hitler himself declared war on the US four days after Pearl Harbor. Mussolini did the same thing the same day.
“publish several scientific or even popular articles before getting married and it will be a good excuse to keep the last name.”
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. Otherwise people will not find your publications in search engines.
Elizabeth Warren took her first husband’s surname when she got married. (She was a traditional conservative Republican back then.) Then they got divorced and she has been married to a man with a different surname now for 40 years. But she still uses her ex-husband’s surname.
“that their Tanach is the same as the Old Testament ”
Our Tanakh is the same as the Old Testament used by Protestant Christians. The only difference is that the books are in a different order, and that very few Protestant Christians can read Hebrew so they only use translations. But their scholars for centuries have used the Hebrew Tanakh as the basis for their translations. (The first such English translation was published in 1560.)
More like 25%. The majority of the non-Jews are Arab Muslims.
You would be surprised how many Jews live in hick towns. Or whose only connection to Judaism might be that shopping center menorah. If even one of those menorahs inspires even one lost Jew to become closer to Judaism it will have been worth the effort.
“Why didn’t you quote the other Shittos?”
There are other shittos other than a clear statement in HaShem’s Torah? What religion do you practice?
“if something is murder, it is unequivocally forbidden, and jf it’s not, what’s wrong?”
Thare are homicides that are wrong but aren’t murder. And by your argument, since there are abortions that aren’t just permitted but are actually mandated, there is nothing wrong with abortion at all. Judaism does not teach that.
“we’ll have less babies murdered.”
Fetuses are not bables and the Torah does not call abortion murder.
“probably should define a “Jew” as someone who at the least in Shomer Shabbos and Shomer Kashrus”
You disagree with the halachic definition of a Jew?
“I could keep my last name”
Why not? Surnames themselves are a goyish invention, forced on Jews unwillingly. Rachel bat Lavan did not become Rachel bat Yitzchak when she married Yaakov ben Yitzchak. Your Hebrew name doesn’t change when you get married, why would your English name have to?
In addition, there are often very good professional reasons to keep ones last name.
The juries made the correct decisions based on the facts and the law in both the Rittenhouse and Arbery cases. Rittenhouse was seriously discredited by his first lawyer, a venal person who tried to capitalize on the case at the expense of his client, prejudicing the public against him. The original DA in the Arbery case tried to prevent a prosecution, was defeated in her re-election campaign, and is now facing criminal charges for obstruction.
The system ended up working in spite of some of the people who are part of it.
Turkey was eaten in Plymouth because it was a common and tasty bird, not for religious meaning. Interestingly there was actually another Thanksgiving two years earlier in Virginia that people ignore. How turkey became accepted as a kosher bird is itself an interesting story.
But the first national Thanksgiving was in 1789, declared by the famous philo-Semite President George Washington. It was not Christian (although Washington himself was) and was enthusiastically embraced by the Jews of New York.
“The machlokes is more about the facts than halacha.”
No machlokes about the facts. Thanksgiving Day has been celebrated by American Jews since 1789. Even it it were an incorrect minhag to adopt (as eating turkey probably was) we are not permitted to deviate from minhagim. That is what the heterodox movements do!
Actually, there is long standing Mesorah for Jews in the US to celebrate Thanksgiving, going all the way back to 1789. That is older than many other minhagim we adhere to today. The Jewish community in New York enthusaiasticly endorsed the holiday that year and even modified the nusach hatefilliah to skip tachanun and to add additional psalms. A sermon was given on the topic of Mizmor L’Todah. That synagogue still exists — Shearith Israel in Manhattan — and still maintains that nusach for the day. No synagogue in America has as long a Mesorah.
Those who asur either don’t understand this historical context, or improperly ignore it. There is no avoda zara issue. Furthermore, newcomers to an area are halachically required to accept the existing minhagim of the community, including special days of observance. The bottom line is that Thanksgiving SHOULD be observed by Jews in the United States.
Whether one can eat turkey is a separate issue.
“Otherwise, she would not be allowed to hit him with anything. ”
Pikuach nefesh overrides most prohibitions, including that one. (If there actually is such a prohibition. It is a mitzvah to kill rodfim.)
“Women policemen, women soldiers, women football players, construction workers, lawyers, mechanics, fork-lift operators, doctors, managers, plumbers, engineers, electricians, truck drivers, etc.”
My wife is a frum doctor. A lot of other female frum doctors live in my community. And I teach future female frum doctors.
“And on the other side of the token, men secretaries, men nurses, childcare, hairdressers, housekeepers, domestic servants, receptionists, etc.”
Among the men who have worked as secretaries in the past was future President Lyndon Johnson. He became the secretary for a newly elected Congressman in 1931. Less than six years later he became a Congressman himself.
“the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) and many other localities and jurisdictions *lowered* physical standards to become a firefighter, specifically in order to facilitate enrolling female firefighters”
I work at FDNY. The same standards apply to men and women.
“also have a chiyuv in providing for his household”
Apparently all the ketubot have been nullified in the current generation in order to create mass kollel.
“The entire corpus of halachic Seforim *explicitly* define Kol Kevuda Bas Melech Penima as meaning that a woman’s place is at home”
Obviously those Seforim have also been nullified.
“Can you imagine the idiocy of fire departments being forced to lower their physical standards to accept women firemen?”
That isn’t done, at least in the US for unionized (and many non-unionized) fire departments. The same physical standards apply to all candidate firefighters. The International Association of Fire Fighters developed its Candidate Physical Ability Test in collaboration with ten large fire departments (including FDNY) and it is widely seen as a standard.
Most school boards in Virgnia are elected. When they do stupid things they can be tossed out by the voters.
And interestingly, despite Youngkin’s attacks on its elected school board, McAuliffe won Loudon County 55-45.
“welcome back Charlie H I have not seen you in a while”
Thanks! Trying to spend more time learning Torah and less time arguing on the internet. 🙂
Today is the festive holiday of Sigd.