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“They didn’t know English or Yiddish.”
Neither existed yet.
“It never was intended to be an authoritative source of history, cosmology, geology, etc.”
That is what Rashi says to the very first pasuk in Chumash. Rambam explicitly states that parts of the Bereshit narrative is allegorical. Those of us who interpret Bereshit non-literally have some pretty big support.
“Belief” in science is not the correct term we should be discussing. Scientific facts simply are. Disbelieve scientific facts? You might as well believe that pigs are kosher.
“Are you basing that on the one picture that exists, in which he is not wearing a fedora?”
I’m basing it on the testimony of a Rosh Yeshiva who learned at the Chofetz Chaim’s yeshiva in Poland as a young man while the Chofetz Chaim was still alive.
“The Mishna Berurah says a person should dress respectfully”
The author of the Mishna Berurah did NOT wear a black hat.
He should have been elected in 2004 — except for the creep he chose as his running mate.
Two outside New York that resulted in my best meal ever for that cuisine.
Pizza Gourmetti in Montreal. Best kosher pizza anywhere. Don’t let the fact that the restaurant is tiny throw you off. I tried to talk the owner into moving to New York but he likes Canada.
Darjeeling in Paris. Best Indian meal I’ve ever had. Unusually for a kosher Indian restaurant, it is a meat restaurant.
Both these places are worth a special trip.
“I thought covering hair is a Halacha”
According to the overwhelming majority of sources, it is. It is a machloket whether it is d’oraita or d’rabbanan and among rishonim the d’rabbanans have a majority. There are a very small number of Acharonim who say that it is minhag.
What kinds of haircoverings are permitted (i.e. are wigs ok?), and how much hair must be covered, is a real machloket. My wife decides to be machmir in both areas; she wears hats and scarves that cover everything. I had the sense to keep out of her decision-making process. 😉
“Really a case for divorce?”
Not according to many contemporary poskim. The fact is that there ARE a few opinions that haircovering is minhag not halachah.
I am so happy to see this CR thread. Sandy Koufax not pitching in game 1 of the 1965 World Series was my real first Jewish memory.
This motzei Yom Kippur I took the time to research Koufax’s entire career. It appears that he never pitched on Yom Kippur at any point in his entire career. It took 45 minutes of internet searches, but I was able to compile this record from his 12 years in professional baseball, all with the Dodgers (first Brooklyn, then Los Angeles). The dates are the dates of YK (night, then day), and what follows are what Koufax did or did not do that year on or immediately before/after YK:
1955 September 25-26. The regular season ended September 25; Koufax did not pitch. (He had only pitched in 12 games all season.)
1956 September 14-15. Koufax did not pitch either day. (He only pitched in 16 games all season.)
1957 October 4-5. Regular season was over and Dodgers were not in World Series.
1958 September 23-24. Koufax did not pitch either day. (He had pitched and won 9/21.)
1959 October 11-12. World Series was over October 8.
1960 September 30-October 1. Koufax pitched in relief (7th and 8th innings) in the night game October 1.
1961 September 19-20. Koufax pitched 13 inning complete game victory in the night game September 20. (YK ended 7:30pm; night games started at 8pm back then.)
1962 October 7-8. Playoff was October 1-3 and Dodgers lost, ending their season.
1963 September 27-28. Koufax did not pitch. (He had won his 25th game September 25.)
1964 September 15-16. Koufax was on the disabled list.
1965 October 5-6. Koufax would have pitched game one of the World Series on October 6, but sat out the game, which the Dodgers lost. He pitched and lost game two, but won games 5 and 7.
1966 September 23-24. Koufax would have pitched in Chicago for a day game (the Cubs didn’t have night games yet) on September 24, but sat out the game, which the Dodgers lost (Ferguson Jenkins pitched a 4 hit shutout for the Cubs). Koufax pitched the next day and lost to another Jewish pitcher, Ken Holtzman, who was pitching on his regularly scheduled rotation day.
Sandy Koufax was not from a religious family and he was never religious himself in the way we think of being religious — except that he never pitched on Yom Kippur.
“I saw no respect at all on the part of BYM to Rav Moshe’s psak. No attention at all was given to it.”
WADR to Rav Moshe, he was a single Acharon. If your rav holds differently on a particular issue, it is not necessary to pay any attention to Rav Moshe’s opinion.
“Do you find it insulting when you learn about the D’ORAISA obligations of onah a man has to his wife?”
We actually learned that a week ago in Daf Yomi. (It is covered in several places in Shas.) I was not insulted.
“learning in depth about blood stains”
The gemara in Niddah says that many women at that time were very learned in those areas, and that they consulted with each other and even decided halachah. Essentially there is a talmudic precedent for the modern institution of the Yoetzet Halachah.
“intelligent”
We also recently saw in Daf Yomi that the single person who was cited as THE example of a top gemara learner was — Beruriah.
” I would like some info about the shiurim if possible, thnx”
Here are the ones I know about in my neighborhood:
Weekdays after first minyan at Riverdale Jewish Center, the daf yomi shiur led by David Quint welcomes women. Shabat it meets before minchah. My wife learned Berachot with this shiur.
Weekdays after first minyan at Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, the daf yomi shiur led by Rabbi Dov Linzer welcomes women. Shabat it meets between minchah and maariv and Sunday it meets at 7:30am. My wife learned Shabat and Eruvim with this shiur.
Sunday mornings after Shacharit at Young Israel Ohab Zedek of North Riverdale Yonkers, there is a gemara shiur by Rabbi Shmuel Hain that is geared to beginners and has several women attending every week. Rabbi Hain has years of experience teaching gemara to woman at Stern College.
Most Tuesday nights at Riverdale Jewish Center there is a women-only gemara shiur led by Rabbi Michael Stein, the former Assistant Rabbi of the Riverdale Jewish Center.
Most Friday mornings after the first minyan at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale there is a gemara shiur led by Rabbi Steven Exler that welcomes women.
You also might check out the Drisha Institute in Manhattan; I know that they have classes that are open to women or women-only. I am sure that there are also synagogues in Manhattan with clases that are open to women but as I don’t live in Manhattan I can’t direct you.
May the new year be filled with learning!
Rov Soloveitchik z’tz’l told my rav in the most strident terms I’ve ever heard him relate on anything that it was a chiyuv for a community to teach gemara to women. Almost all of The Rov’s talmidim agree that women can learn gemara.
I’ve completed one cycle of Daf Yomi and am now into my second cycle. My wife got so inspired that she started attending shiurim and she completed Berachot, Shabat, and Eruvim. She loved gemara! She has now dropped out of Daf Yomi because she wants to learn more in-depth.
In Manhattan and the Bronx, as well as in many suburban areas, there are now many gemara shiurim that welcome women or are women-only. (If you are anywhere near Riverdale I can list them for you if you’d like.) I wish you the best in your learning!
“You are not allowed to slaughter animals on private property in NYC”
Actually there ARE some small slaughterhouses in NYC, many run by Muslims. They are in commercially or industrially zoned areas. I’m sure that they would be quite happy to sell you a sheep or goat and let your shochet friend shecht it there — the only real difference between kosher and halal slaughter is who is doing the slaughtering.
I agree with akuperma. Mashiach is coming.
We hired a klezmer band rather than a contemporary band, and they kept the level reasonable. Everyone loved it. Good luck!
A disadvantage to Pelham Parkway is that there is no Jewish school there any more. There was one, but the community considered it to be substandard in every respect and the rabbis who ran the place weren’t interested in improving it. When it folded it left a lot of unpaid bills. 🙁 Elementary school students in Pelham Parkway commute to SAR Academy, Yeshivat Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, or Westchester Day School.
“the housing program looks too good to be true! “
It is for real. Basically, the Young Israel had a huge building with a 900 seat beit knesset when they were getting sixty people in shul on a typical Shabat. Before the crash their former President managed to sell the building for a lot of money. They are now in more reasonable space and used the money to hire a rabbi and start the housing subsidy program. It is a nice friendly community and housing is MUCH less expensive than Riverdale, which itself is MUCH less expensive than Manhattan. There is an eruv that everyone accepts, and an old mikveh that I think is undergoing renovations. The Albert Einstein College of Medicine, which has a beautiful new beit knesset for the student community, is also within the eruv.
But the commute to downtown Brooklyn is a long one on the 2 or 5 train.
Good luck!
“he hadn’t enjoyed learning since the holocaust. That didn’t make him run off to work, and should not make us”
Did you listen to the torah reading yesterday? The curses listed there because we did not serve HaShem ??????????? ???????? ?????.
“I’m recommending Pelham Parkway, for the win. Google for info on the shuls there”
I used to live in Pelham Parkway. It is also modern Orthodox; it still has several shuls and has a housing subsidy program for people wanting to move to the community. But it is a very long commute to downtown Brooklyn on the 2 or 5 train.
“you will also not find the growth you are looking for in terms of that wanting to grow in keeping halacha”
I completely challenge that; I know many people who have become fully observant in Modern Orthodox communities.
There is actually a shul in Brooklyn Heights, a short walk to downtown Brooklyn. It is modern orthodox with a Chabad rabbi. There is even an eruv. Check out B’nai Avraham on 117 Remsen Street — they have a web site.
I’d recommend my own community of Riverdale but the commute is very hard — I know personally because I make that very commute 2x/week. I have to give it 1 1/2 hours each way. OTOH, I do get to learn a lot of Torah on the subway!
“Cuts to the child benefit affect chareidim and arabs far disproportionately, and that is what they are sold as doing.”
I agree that that is reprehensible, but it would be reprehensible to make these kinds of cuts if they didn’t affect charedim and arabs disproportionately.
“Blaming people for being poor (right or wrong) is different than de-funding welfare in a way that specifically targets minority groups.”
The Republican cuts to welfare programs are indeed targeted to have the worst impact on minorities. Only 34% of SNAP participants are white.
I hope you will join me in condemning both the Yesh Atid cuts in Israel and the Republican cuts in America. They are identical in purpose.
While Judaism isn’t about rights, there is a halachic responsibility to provide for the poor, regardless of how they became poor. The Mishnah in Peah describes a system where all Jews in a community were assessed every week and the communal authorities would distribute the collection to the poor. Rambam in Hilchot Matanot Aniyim codifies this as halachah and says that he had never heard of a community where this is not done. He also writes that anyone who refuses to contribute is flogged.
The proposed cuts of funding to the poor — both in Israel and in the US — are not consistent with Jewish teaching.
‘If an American politician would run on a campaign of defunding the African American community, and would propose welfare cuts for “people who live in Harlem”, I can well assure you that I would not vote for that politician.’
Lapid’s cuts affect everyone, not just Charedim.
And there are indeed Republican pols in America who are blaming specific ethnic groups for being poor.
I love The Beatles and commend Sir Paul McCartney for ignoring the boycott calls and performing in Israel. (The Beatles were supposed to have performed in Israel in the 1960s but the puritanical Israeli government vetoed them as a bad influence on the youth.)
Charedim in America overwhelmingly vote for politicians who would do the same thing to the American social safety net that Lapid is trying to do to that of Israel — with the support of rabbinic leaders.
She is a convicted fraudster and I can’t believe that so many commenters are declaring her “innocent”. Her behavior is the kind of nonsense that makes all frum Jews look bad. And the defense of that behavior makes us look silly and hypocritical when we talk about “morality”.
” This SPECIFIC type of shoe (especially in the Goyishe Velt) has a very immoral and suggestive connotation.”
I cannot say exactly what this type of show is called in the licentious non-Jewish community as the term is entirely inappropriate for a frum site; the term “suggestive” is an understatement.
One reason I married my wife is that she NEVER wears high heels and as a result her feet work like feet should work and not like the mangled mess of tangled bones, flesh, and skin that too many women have given themselves.
‘why is their kanaus limited to the learners that are not mekayim the being nehneh from their own work (which the chofetz chaim describes as at best midoh tovah) and not to the much larger groups of “earners” that are not mekayim the “aseh torascho kevah” which is, and always has been, the very basic fundamental obligation of every male Jew?’
Have you not noticed the spectacular popularity of daf yomi? I don’t know how many are actually learning daf yomi but a hundred thousand attended Siyum HaShas and a lot of daf yomi learners couldn’t get there.
“Even if you hold he’s someone it’s Muttar to say Lashon Hara about, you can’t just make things up.”
What is amazing is that he doubled down on the motzi shem ra after I personally offered a first hand recounting of a statement that contradicted him. Is he accusing me of being a liar? Unlike just about everyone else here, I post under my real name, and would suffer consequences not just in Heaven but in Olam Ha-Zeh were I to flood the internet with lies.
I am also a scientist and would like to second physicsyid’s second comment from two days ago.
And the same goes for academic knowledge increasing our understanding of Talmud. Here is a great example:
The Latin teacher at the local Jewish high school used to attend daf yomi. I joked one morning that she can help us understand all the Latin words in the Talmud. Just a few minutes later we discovered that the very first word in that day’s daf was “familia”, a Latin word that is cognate to the English “family”. My hand immediately shot up and I asked the maggid shiur why Chazal hadn’t used the Hebrew term, “mishpachah”. The Latin teacher jumped in, not even waiting for the maggid shiur, and informed us that the meaning of “familia” in Latin was not identical to the English “family” of the Hebrew “mishpachah” because it applied to ones entire household, including slaves and servants. Chazal were being extremely precise and knew exactly what they were doing! However, as the understanding of Latin was lost from our mesorah we can only understand what Chazal meant by relying on such “academic” knowledge.
“in the case of Judaism and Chumash, Occam’s Razor dictates that G-d did not give over the Torah in its entirety to the Jewish people”
That isn’t just Occam’s Razor, such opinions are found in the Gemara and Rishonim. The statement in the introduction to the Artscroll Chumash that it is a unanimous opinion that every letter was dictated to Moshe by God is false and a distortion of Torah — in fact the Artscroll Chumash itself cites the opinion in the Gemara that the last seven verses were written by Yehoshua. But the additions they cite are quite minor, just a handful of verses. The link from such small additions to the Documentary Hypothesis is completely unsupported by anything in our tradition and anyone who justifies DH based on Ibn Ezra is out of line.
And in fact, regarding the rest of the Torah text, it is not possible to prove or disprove its age, or its Divine origin, and anyone who says otherwise is promoting junk science.
Let me give an example of a successful proof of authorship, which shows how these methodologies work, and also why no rigorous scientific statement can be made regarding the text of the Torah: The Federalist Papers (well worth a read) were published anonymously in 1788 to promote the ratification of the United States Constitution. We know that the three authors were Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. However, for some of the papers, whether they were written by Hamilton or Madison was uncertain. Modern scientific analyses comparing the papers of uncertain authorship to contemporary works by the two authors have shown pretty conclusively that the works of uncertain authorship were in fact written by Madison.
Compare this to the attempts to promote a late authorship for the Torah: There are no documents in the Hebrew language from the time of Matan Torah, and none other than the Prophetic works for many hundreds of years later. The only Hebrew language work available are small inscriptions found in archaeological sites. There is nothing with which to compare the Torah text! It must therefore be concluded that it is impossible to either prove or disprove the hypothesis that the text of the Torah was written in the time of Moshe Rabbeinu, and it must either be accepted (or rejected) on faith. It is not a falsifiable proposition and must remain non-falsifiable until such time that some archeologist discovers a huge trove of three thousand year old documents in Hebrew. It is unlikely that that will ever happen. The folks who insist that it has been conclusively proven that the Torah text was written later are simply out of line.
This does not mean that literary analysis, including grammatical structure and the study of the meaning of the many cognate words found in other languages to Hebrew can’t inform us on the meaning of pshat. Such is not a threat to any fundamental of Judaism and should not be treated as such.
‘If we would have a voluntary course in Bais Yakovs and Seminaries where girls, who wish to do so, can “learn how to learn” ‘
Baruch HaShem we now have that, at Midreshet Lindenbaum, Drisha, Nishmat, Stern College, and Yeshivat Maharat.
All are Modern Orthodox Religious Zionist. When will the Charedi world get with the program?
“Weiss and his co-clowns who anyway do not believe Torah is min hashamayim”
1) Rabbi Avi Weiss is no clown. He has done far more for Am Yisrael than any anonymous internet commentator. And he believes that Torah is from HaShem and that the rabbis have binding authority to interpret it. (I’ve personally heard him say that to sceptical audiences where he would have been far more popular had he said otherwise.)
“You must be joking.”
I’m not joking at all. The shilah was whether Jewish women can vote in democratic elections, and one of the arguments he used in favor was that women can be dayanim. If you find me a frum community that prohibits women from voting (while permitting men to vote) I’ll withdraw my statement.
“What was accepted was that women can be toanot, not that women can be judges.”
That isn’t what Rav Uziel z’tz’l wrote.
Don’t hate yourself! Regret is an important part of the tshuvah process an you are still a creature created in the image of God.
Here are some resources that might assist you: Rambam’s Hilchot Teshuvah contains a step by step process that might be of help. Both the original Hebrew and an English translation are online at chabad.org; it is part of the Mishneh Torah. So does Rabbi Yonah of Gerona’s sefer Shaarei Tshuvah. Good luck! And RaMChaL’s Mesillat Yesharim, based on a gemara in Avodah Zara, is in large part about elevating ourselves to higher levels of purity.
Good luck! This is a great topic for Elul.
“Rav Uziel was always considered less than heavyweight”
His psak in which he said that a woman can be a judge was accepted by just about every part of the Orthodox world, the only exceptions being the extremists like Neturei Karta (if they can be considered Orthodox).
‘I will tell you that “other than to point out that The Rav’s wife and one of his daughters both held positions of communal leadership at the Maimonides School” is a response. Why can’t you answer the question? Would the Rov approve of such an institution? Of course not.’
Of course The Rov approved. He *FOUNDED* the Maimonides school.
“Have you ever tried to have a halachic discussion with a woman?”
Probably hundreds of times.
” Now you know why women can’t become rabbis.”
No, I don’t.
” Their bought process with respect to Torah is very different.”
I have not noticed that. You must be having discussions with poorly educated women.
I should add that the local custom in both Dublin and Madrid is that Jews do NOT wear yarmulkes in public. I did, and it identified me as a clueless tourist.
I’ve also been to Dublin and Madrid. The Dublin frum community is incredibly tiny — at most a dozen shomer Shabat families — but incredibly friendly. There is a kosher-friendly guest house a short walk from the synagogue and the bus system goes everywhere. Dublin even has a small Jewish museum. (And yes, everything coming out of the Guiness brewery is kosher.) No kosher restaurants but there was a kosher caterer who operated out of the synagogue kitchen who will send food anywhere on the island. It is an English speaking country with an Ashkenazic English speaking Jewish community — the synagogue used Artscroll siddurim. Ireland has basically no history of anti-Semitism; there is one Jewish school that gets government funding. No eruv.
Madrid has a somewhat larger community but they were mostly away on holiday while I was there, so I really can’t say much except that the synagogue (Sefardic) is VERY hard to find. There was a nice small Best Western hotel just a few blocks away, and there were two kosher restaurants, both Moroccan cuisine. No eruv there, either.
Enjoy!
“I was told not to wear a yarmulka on the street in Paris. I suspect there are many more Arabs there now, so it’s probably even riskier.”
I went to Paris two summers ago. I didn’t want to go; I had heard that the country was anti-Semitic, anti-American, and hostile to people like me who can’t speak French. But my office insisted.
All three of my preconceptions proved wrong. I wore my yarmulke all over the city on the streets and subways and saw many other frum guys wearing yarmulkes — the ONLY place outside of Eretz Yisrael and New York where I have seen that. I didn’t get a single nasty look, even from the large numbers of Muslims there. And the Parisians were quite happy to practice their English with me and didn’t mind that I was a clueless monolingual American.
I also found one of the friendliest little synagogues anywhere. I was saying kaddish, so after landing in Paris on July 14 I found the closest synagogue to my hotel and ran over there for minchah. They were having a kiddush in honor of Bastille Day between minchah and arvit! In America it is hard enough to get people to skip tachanun on July 4!!!
They quickly figured out that I was a clueless non-Francophone Ashkenazic American and they started arguing over who would get to host me for Shabat meals despite my total lack of French and lack of understanding of the Sefardic nusach. The Sefardic Shabat food was great, and they told me that in the past 20 years attitudes among French people — with the exception of non-assimilated Muslim immigrants — has completely changed and they no longer hold by their anti-American and anti-Semitic views, and also know that they need to know English to function in the modern world. Even Marine Le Pen, the leader of the racist National Front Party, dropped anti-Semitism from the party platform in the last election and the country would have elected a pro-Israel Jew, Dominique Stauss-Kahn, as President had he not been France’s equivalent of Bob Filner. 🙁 The French government also generously funds Jewish day schools, but OTOH it has not permitted an eruv anywhere in France.
I should mention that Paris has hundreds of kosher restaurants as well, all over the city. I spent a week trying to find a bad one and was unsuccessful. And the Bastille Day fireworks were as impressive as any I’ve seen in New York or Washington on July 4.
Enjoy!