Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
“Ivrit is not Lashon Kodesh”
How do they differ?
“electricity”
What word in Lashon Kodoesh is used by contemporary poskim when referring to electricity?
“Chazal tell us that the lashon of the Torah was unique. In other words, no person spoke that way as vernacular.”
???? ???? ????? ??? ???
“The Halacha is 100% clear that if your parent and your wife make conflicting requests to you, that you’re legally obligated to honor your parent’s request over your wife’s.”
And if you don’t figure out a way to reconcile that conflict, there won’t be any more such conflicts because you won’t be married much longer.
Early in my marriage my wife and I had numerous arguments over halachah.
Me: But [my] Rabbi X [YU guy] says this.
She: But [her] Rabbi Y [Lakewood guy] says not this.
For the sake of shalom bayit I compromised. I agreed to follow her rav on all matters except when he agreed with my rav, and only then would we follow my rav. Something similar might be worth considering here.
“Since I have neither a father nor a husband, where am I supposed to go with my shailos? “
You are supposed to master Shas and Poskim on your own so that you never have to ask a shilah.
‘the Rishonim sanctified (“mekadesh”) Yiddish in a manner similar to what the Chachmei HaTorah did with Aramaic’
Source?
Numerous Rishonim wrote sefarim in Arabic. Did any write in Yiddish?
“His vicious attacks”
The only viciousness I see here is from the people attacking Rabbi Lipman.
“Wilson testified to his sergeant that he had not been aware of the robbery when he stopped Wilson; this was indeed publicly available information long before the grand jury’s decision. This testimony was completely changed during McCulloch’s press conference with no explanation.”
That change of story would have been very damning to Wilson had he gone to trial. His lawyers would probably have had to keep him off the witness stand so the trial jury would not have been able to hear Wilson’s own account.
The facts are nowhere near as clear as people think.
” there are two main reasons that the black community is furious about what happened”
There is a third reason: It is pretty much unheard of for a prosecutor to let a grand jury see any evidence other than what is favorable for an indictment. For whatever reason, that was not what was done here. The grand jury naturally saw the conflicting evidence and declined to indict. But it should be noted that in a summary by NPR, 16 of 29 witnesses testified that Brown had his hands up while being shot while only two testified otherwise, and 15 of 29 witnesses testified that Brown was running away from Wilson when he was shot and only five testified otherwise. The prosecutor could easily have obtained an indictment by careful selection of witnesses and that is what is routinely done in thousands of counties across the US. Had Michael Brown been a Jew shot by a member of a police force with a history of treating Jews badly, WE would be up in arms.
“Brown was heading away from the scene at the time and no longer threatening anyone”
That is what the majority of witnesses said, but as I pointed out there were those that testified otherwise.
” ended up paying the ultimate price for being a punk. “
Nothing that Brown did is a death penalty offense under US law. Interestingly, the theft of the cigars would be under Noachide law. But the US rejected Noachide law back in 1788.
Decades ago there was a rebbitzen in Brooklyn who wanted to learn gemara but couldn’t find anyone to teach her (not even her husband). So she enrolled at JTS and learned with Prof. David Weiss Halivni (with the approval of her husband — for some reason academic study seems to have engendered less objection than traditional study). Eventually she did find orthodox teachers and at the time of her death she was on her third daf yomi cycle. Interestingly, she rarely TALKED about gemara outside of the shiurim she attended.
“except for the Schomberg scale, there are only a finite number of combinations on the regular scale “
Even the Schoenberg method has a finite number of combinations — about 9 trillion.
“There is no such thing as Jewish music that is not influenced by Non Jewish music.”
Arnold Schoenberg’s 12 tone atonal music does not have any obvious influence from any non-Jewish source, although it should be noted that Schoenberg himself claimed that he was following in the tradition of Johannes Brahms, n irreligious non-Jew.
I challenge any chazan to use Schoenberg’s style in tefillah. Schoenberg himself composed a setting of Kol Nidre but it is a tonal work.
“It is not one bit better in that context.”
Why not? The out of context excerpt was designed to deceive people into thinking that Obama didn’t condemn the murders. And he didn’t blame Israel for anything.
I know that you hate Obama. That doesn’t give you a heter to lie about what he says.
“about Obama deporting all the illegals as hard as he can”
He *has* deported more illegals than any President ever. And he has also prosecuted more illegals than any President ever. What he isn’t is the first President to suspend deportations by executive action — both Reagan and Bush 41 did that, too. Obama has even tried unsuccessfully to force local law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of people they arrest. But you won’t hear any of this on Faux News.
“whereas over here when there are four AMERICAN citizens his statement is”
This is an example of the venal deceitful vitriol that President Obama gets from his political opponents. What he actually said was the following:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/18/statement-president-attack-jerusalem
The reason to quote an excerpt out of context is clearly to defame President Obama and to cause us to thing more poorly of him. I think there may be some d’oraita violations here.
While it is absolutely correct that things were generally worse for Jews in Christian Europe than under Muslim rule, the idea that live as a Jew under Muslim rule was always rosy or that Zionism was the reason things got bad is simply not consistent with history.
” we lived in far greater harmony under Arab rule than under the rule of any other country that hosted many Jews”
The United States of America is an exception to that statement.
Also, FWIW while the Jewish population of India was never large, Jews were never persecuted in India by either Hindus, Buddhists, or Muslims. Not sure why more Jews didn’t move there.
“It will help.”
No it will hurt. And 000646 explained why:
“Sending qualified medical proffesionals to the affected areas to deal with the disease and help educate the public on how to avoid infection as well as to help treat the disease does help get it under control.”
This is 100% correct. The way to stop Ebola is to stop it in Africa. And that requires people from other countries to go there and the last thing we should be doing is discouraging medical personnel from doing that.
If you want to quarantine someplace it would make more sense to quarantine all of Texas and all of New York City, because those places have had Ebola cases and do not need outside medical help. Of course, you would destroy the economy in the process.
Thousands of Americans die every year from influenza. It is MUCH more contagious than Ebola and yet there is no outcry, no call for quarantine, no call even for mandatory vaccinations. THAT is a disease that we should really be worrying about.
DaasYochid is right. Football is now known to be associated with both acute and chronic neuological impairments. There are so many fun sports that are nowhere near as dangerous; there is no reason to play American football.
‘The situation in the Middle East today is a direct result of the “Jewish” run government. ‘
‘before the 1940s Jews and Arabs co existed with each other’
Did you get no secular education in your yeshivot? While things weren’t as bad as in Christian Europe, things were often bad. A sampling:
1066: Pogrom in Granada, Spain, then under Arab rule. Thousands die.
1465: Pogrom in Fez, Morocco. 11 Jews survive.
1517: Pogrom in Chevron. All Jews dead or fled. Jews would not return until 1533 once the Ottomans had gotten things under control and an Ottoman census in the 1520s confirms that there were no Jews in Chevron then.
1840: Damascus blood libel.
1917: Pogroms by Ottoman governot Djemal Pasha against Jews.
All this and more — I could fill up a page — predates even the Balfour Declaration, much less any ‘Jewish run government’.
“Your point three isn’t correct.”
It has been proven correct EMPIRICALLY.
You doubt that statement? Try living as a Jew anywhere else in the Middle East today. Or anywhere on the continent of Europe in the early 1940s.
“However if the law made abortion illegal”
To be fair, Astorino has stated publicly that he will not seek changes to New York’s abortion law, which was enacted in 1970 by a Republican legislature and signed by a Republican governor and made almost all abortions legal.
” as such obviously far more severe.”
Chazal say that cheating in business is a worse sin than sexual sins, as you can atone for a sexual sin but you can never atone for cheating lots of customers. The Torah calls both male-male sex and cheating in business a toeiva.
“Most pro-lifers are Bible Belt Christians who hold that you cannot kill the fetus even to save the mother.”
The evangelicals will generally accept an abortion to save the life of the mother. However, the Catholic church, which outnumbers the evangelicals worldwide by something like 10 to 1 or more, would require the mother to die. It has managed to make that the law in several Latin American countries and women are in fact dying as a result. (Plus, see my next comment.)
Few evangelicals I’ve ever heard of, however, will allow abortions for some of the reasons that are mutared by sumerous poskim such as mental health or genetic defects.
“Tim Tebows mother was a missionary in the Phillipines “
The Republic of the Philippines is one of the countries where all abortions are illegal, even when the mother will die.
I’m not sure why they needed missionaries in the Philippines — the country is one the most devoutly Christian countries in the world.
“Most reliable poskin hold that women and girls should not learn gemara”
But there are also reliable poskim who hold otherwise. Rav Soloveitchik z’tz’l said it was a chiyuv to teach women gemara. My wife has completed three tractates.
I actually asked the magid shiur about Bat Paro and he said that we would get to her later. Stay tuned.
“the American rescued the Israelis (in 1948 by forcing the British not to re-occupy Palestine which was clearly their plan”
Nonsense. The US didn’t force the UK to do anything in 1948, the UK wanted out ASAP (and in fact it left earlier than originally scheduled), and the US even slapped an arms embargo on the new state, prosecuting people whom it caught violating the embargo. Thank HaShem for Josef Stalin Yemach Shemo who ordered his Czech stooge Klement Gottwald to send arms to the new state of the Arabs would have murdered another 600,000.
‘Read Martin Gilbert’s “In Ishmael’s Garden” and Joanne Peters’ “From Tme Immemorial”.’
Don’t bother with Peters. Her work has been thoroughly debunked. Israel does not need to justify its existence on falsehood.
“LIVING Torah is everything.”
And Rabbi Weiss is even according to his most bitter opponents a completely frum Jew, meeting the standards of a kosher eid.
‘D”L/R”Z have no mesorah for their theology.’
To the contrary, the idea that everyone needs to learn and not work, and to learn only torah and not secular studies, is explicitly rejected by Chazal and Rambam and both teach that it is a mitzvah to learn at least enough secular knowledge to support oneself. Rambam also mastered science, philosophy, and secular history. Furthermore, Jews attended secular universities in Europe starting in the 15th century, with no objections from rabbis. Sforno earned a medical degree from the University of Rome. Rav Hirsh, Rav Hildesheimer, Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler, Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann, Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg, and Rav Soloveitchik all were educated in secular universities and they all preceded the modern “everyone must learn Torah and only Torah” derech.
‘As any MO adherent can tell you, R”Z was created by Rabbi A.Y. Kook and further developed by his son and others.’
Actually, MO adherents will *not* tell you that if they are learned. The Mizrachi movement was founded before Rav Kook’s involvement by Rabbi Y. Y. Reines who had a very different derech from Rav Kook and for decades it was led by Rav Soloveitchik whose derech was much more like Rav Reines than Rav Kook.
“But why shouldn’t some gedolei Torah be given the same latitude given to other gedolei Torah in making a psak?”
Back in the day, Rav Soloveitchik z’tz’l was very close to charedi gedolim including the Lubavicher Rebbe z’tz’l, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein z’tz’l, and Rav Kotler z’tz’l. None would ever have permitted their talmidim to express the kind of lashan hara or motzi shem ra that we have seen in this thread. This thread has indeed proven the existence of yeridot hadorot.
“anyone who can learn should”
So start hesder yeshivot like the datim did!
“we also cannot allow a situation to continue where men are in the mikveh when women are immersing”
You would like to be in the mikveh when women are immersing?
” the 13 ikarim cannot colloquially be described as a psak”
One could describe the 13 ikkarim as a psak for mandatory beliefs. One should note that they were not universally accepted, even today. See Prof. Marc Shapiro’s book and the Machnise Rachamim prayer in the Selichot service, for example. Albo of course had a shorter list.
“But cats aren’t kosher.”
So don’t eat them!
They make great pets and you will never have a rodent problem if you have a cat.
‘And join Avi Weiss and Zev Farber as minim who don’t believe Chaza”l!’
AFAIK I have never met Rabbi Farber, but Rabbi Avi Weiss professes belief in Torah Mi Sinai and the authority of Chazal to interpret it.
I would hesitate to assume that the male/female ration is 50/50 without some real data, and I would also hesitate to assume that the decline in school enrollment with increasing age is entirely due to an increasing population without real data regarding dropout, aliyah, etc., as there are other reasons why the population might be decreasing as a function of age.
Better to encourage than force. Throwing charedim in jail will not accomplish anything other than creating a lot of jail kollels.
The IDF should also pay more attention to its own rabbis, and charedi leaders should tell charedi youth that yes, IDF rabbis are orthodox and can be relied upon (and know a lot more about the halachot of army service).
The dati community used to have a huge OTD problem when its young men entered the army. But it realized that the army is needed and it made changes, creating hesder yeshivot and army prep schools. The charedi community should do the same. While many datim are modern orthodox, many others are barely distinguishable from charedim other than dress and the fact that they serve in the army (some in Nachal Charedi!). Concerns are real but they can be worked out if all are willing to work things out.
As charedim become a larger and larger share of the Israeli population, charedim do need to take responsibility for the defense of the country. Otherwise the Arab rashaim will overrun everything and anyone who thinks that torah study will prevent that should look at the example of Eastern Europe in the 1940s.
The planes were MIG-21 or MIG-23 jets, decades old. Sitting ducks for Israel’s F-15’s or F-16’s.
I did look again at the three census reports; I was familiar with them but had not looked at them since the most recent one came out five years ago. I could not find anything in any of the reports that gave a male/female breakdown of enrollment. Did I miss something? Without that, I don’t see how one can draw any conclusions from them. (There are a few other issues, but that is the biggest one.)
‘you mean Scientific things those are not things that can be “paskened” they simply are what they are, (you can’t “Pasken” that a frog is a bird).’
Years ago in this coffee room we had a discussion over whether one should eat pig if the gedol hador ruled that pig is kosher. I would not. There are some things that even the greatest rabbi can’t pasken.
“pay an extra $1200 (every time you fly)”
If it is actually asur, you would pay an extra $12,000 every time you fly and you would not object to it, because we rejoice at fulfilling mitzvot regardless of the cost.
“Do you object to a person asking to switch seats because of a sensitivity?”
No, but I would object to a person delaying a flight for 45 minutes when he/she doesn’t get his/her way.
“not by Rabbi Saul Lieberman or other reform Rabbi”
Rabbi Saul Lieberman was not a reform rabbi. He was an orthodox rabbi who taught at a conservative seminary and produced important works of scholarship. Rav Soloveitchik z’tz’l was willing to sit with him on a beit din. Had that conservative seminary followed in Lieberman’s path and not on the path of the other faculty we would consider them orthodox today; unfortunately that did not happen.
“and the fact that he codifies 13 Ikarim in Mishna Torah is the simplest example of that”
Actually the 13 ikkarim are from the Perush HaMishnayot, not the Mishnah Torah.
If it really is a religious requirement not to sit by a woman, buy yourself an extra ticket.
I’m not sure there were any Jews to expel — New Orleans itself wasn’t founded until 1718 and the Code Noir was in 1685 — but there was indeed such a decree, and it applied to all French colonies other than Canada.
I’m happy to try to help out here, but I must say that I am a statistician not a demographer, so while I am an expert at analyzing data, I am not an expert at modeling demography. Can someone direct me to some links that have data that would address some of these issues? Thanks!
“What gives? There appears to be some huge inconsistency in your stance.”
No inconsistency. The only reason that I objected to mass protests was because I didn’t want to help sell tickets. But in fact, even with the protests, ticket sales are slow. I can’t think of any other reason not to protest. If one is to be honest, one must re-evaluate ones position when data that do not support it become available.
“if the point was that it shouldn’t be seen, then how does it help to wear hair on top of it–that’s just more hair”
IIRC Rav Hirsch allowed a woman to make a wig from her OWN hair and use it to fulfill the mitzvah.
“It’s always the girls with straight who curl and the girls with curly who straighten, It’s the way of life.”
My mother o”h had naturally curly hair and never straightened it.
Sales of tickets have been slow. My concern turned out not to be warranted. And that was my only concern — this opera is awful. Had I not been at the dentist yesterday I would have been at the protest. I hope that the Met takes a bath on this.
“It’s implicit in the heter hora’ah.”
If it were implicit then there would be no need for yadin yadin semicha. Yoreh yoreh semicha does not cover the topics needed to be a dayan.
“And it doesn’t cost a ton of money to bar entry.”
Actually if you bar everyone who has been to any country where there has been a case, you haven’t just cost a ton of money, you have destroyed the world economy.
“By 1984”
By 1984 we understood how difficult it is to spread HIV and that there was no reason to quarantine anyone. Today there are millions of HIV-positive people, many living normal lives. You want to quarantine all of them?
Well you have to start with Rabban Gamliel in Mishnah Avot chapter 2; the dispute between Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Shimon in Talmud Bavli Berachot 35b; and of course Rambam Hilchot Talmud Torah 3:10.
‘if instead of giving a woman semicha they gave her a certificate which says “(insert name) has demonstrated a proficient understanding of the laws of (insert category e.g. shabbos, niddah etc.)”? ‘
That is pretty much what Rabba Sara Hurwitz’s semicah certificate says. You can find a copy of it on the internet if you have a good search engine.
” women cannot sit on a beis din and a heter hora’ah is considered a license to do so”
I’ve seen a lot of heter hora’ah (yoreh yoreh semicha) certificates. None of them say that. I would presume that the yadin yadin semicha certificate would say that, but I’ve never seen one.
” I am not a statistician (if I was, I’d be busy right now compiling data for or against the NASI people).”
I am a statistician. Who is NASI?