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theprof1,
Many people can’t tolerate anything close to 2000 mg of Vitamin C a day.
Goodman played professionally in Israel, but has now retired because of injuries.
There is a lot of demand for statistical programmers with masters degrees in statistics or biostatistics. In fact, I’m trying to hire one right now!
We have always used lemon juice rather than vinegar in almost all recipes, even though we don’t hold by the minhagim you mentioned.
There are lots of Jews who have been successful in sports. Prof. Gurock at YU even wrote a book about them! But almost none have been shomer Shabat and the way the sports industry is set up it would be almost impossible for a successful athlete to keep Shabat. We should encourage our young people to emulate those who are successful in what they do and keep HaShem’s commandments.
Some very notable examples of that are US Senator Joe Lieberman; Cantor Dudu Fisher who was a cantor before he became a Broadway star — and had his Broadway debut delayed for years because he would not under any circumstances perform on Shabat; the great novelist Herman Wouk whose shipmates in World War II attributed their ship’s survival of a Japanese kamikaze attack to “Lt. Wouk’s magic black boxes” he would put on every morning; Prof. Robert Aumann, the graduate of the Rabbi Jacob Joseph Yeshiva who won a Nobel Prize in Economics; Michael Mukasey, the Ramaz School graduate who served as a federal judge and US Attorney General; and Howard Jonas, the founder of a telecom company who has given millions to tzedakah and set up a beit midrash in his corporate headquarters. And these are just some of the folks who were successful in the non-Jewish world; imagine the number of great rabbis and teachers who can also serve as models for us. Why encourage our young people to emulate sports figures when we have these kind of great examples?
Jose,
Dakshin has two restaurants, one kosher and one not. The non-kosher one will be closing.
The kosher one is at 1154 First Avenue between 63rd & 64th Streets, Tel: (212) 355-4600, Fax: (212) 355-4614. It is under OK supervision.
While it is a meat restaurant its vegetarian entrees are also outstanding — and very inexpensive, only slightly more expensive than the many kosher dairy Indian restaurants in Manhattan that are open on Shabat (owned by non-Jews). (The mashgiach tamidi needed in a meat restaurant does cost!)
Here is the study that showed that Vitamin D reduces influenza in children:
Mitsuyoshi Urashima, Takaaki Segawa, Minoru Okazaki, Mana Kurihara, Yasuyuki Wada and Hiroyuki Ida. Randomized trial of vitamin D supplementation to prevent seasonal influenza A in schoolchildren. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, published online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
Background: To our knowledge, no rigorously designed clinical trials have evaluated the relation between vitamin D and physician-diagnosed seasonal influenza.
Objective: We investigated the effect of vitamin D supplements on the incidence of seasonal influenza A in schoolchildren.
Design: From December 2008 through March 2009, we conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial comparing vitamin D3 supplements (1200 IU/d) with placebo in schoolchildren. The primary outcome was the incidence of influenza A, diagnosed with influenza antigen testing with a nasopharyngeal swab specimen.
Results: Influenza A occurred in 18 of 167 (10.8%) children in the vitamin D3 group compared with 31 of 167 (18.6%) children in the placebo group [relative risk (RR), 0.58; 95% CI: 0.34, 0.99; P = 0.04]. The reduction in influenza A was more prominent in children who had not been taking other vitamin D supplements (RR: 0.36; 95% CI: 0.17, 0.79; P = 0.006) and who started nursery school after age 3 y (RR: 0.36; 95% CI: 0.17, 0.78; P = 0.005). In children with a previous diagnosis of asthma, asthma attacks as a secondary outcome occurred in 2 children receiving vitamin D3 compared with 12 children receiving placebo (RR: 0.17; 95% CI: 0.04, 0.73; P = 0.006).
Conclusion: This study suggests that vitamin D3 supplementation during the winter may reduce the incidence of influenza A, especially in specific subgroups of schoolchildren. This trial was registered at https://center.umin.ac.jp as UMIN000001373.
Received for publication December 17, 2009. Accepted for publication February 11, 2010.
You can buy the article at the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition website. Pediatricians and Family Physicians should be aware of it.
To a healthy flu season!
All that said, Vitamin D has been found to be associated with lower rates of influenza in children in a rigorous clinical trial. It is not a replacement for a vaccine, though. And consult a doctor for the correct dose: excessive doses can be toxic!
Also, Vitamin D is one vitamin that light skinned people can produce with no supplement at all — it is made in the skin when exposed to sunlight. We frum Jews don’t get a lot of sun exposure on our skin because we cover up so much, but at least expose your face to the outdoor sun a little more (but not enough to get sunburned) — it really is good for you.
From the CDC:
“Most children who have febrile seizures recover quickly and have no lasting effects. However, febrile seizures often result in a visit to an emergency room and can be very frightening for parents and caregivers.”
“Two studies have shown that children who have febrile seizures after receiving an MMR vaccine are no more likely to have epilepsy or learning or developmental problems than children who have febrile seizures that are not associated with a vaccine. Experts believe it is likely that this finding for MMR vaccine applies to MMRV vaccine as well.”
Kids get fevers, high fevers sometimes are associated with seizures, and they are almost never associated with long term consequences. You think that they might be associated with the vaccine, but the child just gets sick about the time of the vaccine. By contrast, influenza can cause high fever and death in vulnerable populations, including unvaccinated children. Get your kids vaccinated!
This is junk science that can endanger your children. The lie about vaccines causing autism was promoted by a crooked researcher who was in cohoots with trial lawyers who wanted to make money from lawsuits. (I am not creative enough to make this up.) Many millions of your tax dollars have been wasted in attempts to confirm an association between vaccines and autism, all because of this crooked researcher and the people who bought into his lies.
More in another comment.
Dakshin Indian restaurant in the Upper East Side.
dunno,
Skirts getting stuck in the chain are LIFE THREATENING! My wife’s rabbi ok’d her wearing a short skirt over long tight pants or leggings while bicycling. PIKUACH NEFESH TRUMPS TZNIUT!
What if the school just doesn’t have the physical space, or the staff?
I realized after I hit “Send Post” that my comment is probably insensitive. I regret the error and retract the comment.
“It’s not fair to parents who are straggling to pay daily bills, to put them under tremendous pressure to pay tuition, and if not their child can’t attend school. “
It’s not fair to the teachers and staff to be expected to work for free.
Not only was it an easy buy, it was a steal of a deal! Less than five million dollars for the site — about what three co-op apartments cost in Manhattan. Anyone here would have bought the site, too!
fabie,
You wrote:
“Public education has and will constanntly fail, just like all other goverment programs.”
This is factually untrue. There are many great public schools all over the United States. There is one a few miles from me in the Bronx that has produced seven Nobel Prize winners and it remains an excellent school at a per pupil cost of about $15,000. Many surburban schools are and remain outstanding and if you look at referendum results, it is those surburban parents who overwhelmingly vote down vouchers everywhere because they (correctly) think that many pro-voucher advocates are out to destroy the public school system.
fabie,
Tax cuts and a voucher system are definitely incompatible in any area where large numbers of children attend voucher eligible private schools. That is simple arithmetic.
Huge savings in could be achieved through school consolidations. This is true both for public schools and private schools. NY State has almost 700 school districts, NJ about 600 — but Maryland has only 24! Since every school district has to have a Superintendent, at a market rate of about $200k/year or more, that is tens of millions of dollars in Superintendent salaries alone that MD avoids each year, and the efficencies extend throughout the system.
And the same holds for yeshivot. Chasidic schools tend to be much larger than yeshivish or MO schools and the tuition costs are commensurately lower. But who has the authority to order a rabbi to close his school and combine it with another?
Yeshiva University High Schools in New York City. (Boy’s school in Manhattan, girl’s school in Queens):
Tuition (includes breakfast & transportation from most communities): $20,800
Registration Fee: $750
Dinner Journal Fee: $1,000
If applicable:
Dormitory Fee: $4,200
Dormitory Activity Fee: $200
—
I get a huge discount because I work for YU.
Ben Torah is basically right. It is good to play sports and there is no reason why shomer Shabat teams and players should not be covered in Jewish newspapers. For example, there is a shomer Shabat Little League in my neighborhood, many Orthodox high schools play other Orthodox high schools in sports, and Yeshiva University even has some teams that play in NCAA Division III which is the “play for fun” division. But the near-worship of professional athletes in secular society at best reflects misplaced values and may even reward bad conduct.
Speaking of competition, there is a popular television series in many locales called “It’s Academic” in which high school kids compete to see which school’s best students can best answer questions about science, history, math, literature, and so on. Why not an “It’s Torah” competition in which students are quizzed on their knowledge of Tanakh, Mishnah, Gemara, and Machsheva? Because girls’s schools have such a different curriculum, we could have separate competitions for the girls. Sports are good, but Torah is even better!
“Private institutions that don’t wish to abide by the terms of the PUBLICLY FUNDED GRANT should not ask for it to begin with, and don’t complain when BIG BROTHER WATCHES OVER YOU! “
I do agree with this statement; those who do not want to follow government rules should not ask for government money. But we should not complain when the money is given to someone willing to follow the rules.
“Would you prefer the Rabbeim be laid off? The yeshiva shut down?”
What is the heter that permits a business to violate Torah law? Would you suggest that a kosher meat restaurant that can only get non-kosher meat continue to operate?
fabie,
Milton Friedman did not invent the idea of voucher systems; they have been used in three New England states with great success since the 19th century. Furtmermore, in many free countries including Ireland, Spain, the UK, France, and Canada the Jewish schools get direct government support. All these schools have to follow government curriculum mandates; I don’t have a problem with that at all but some in the frum world do. And vouchers for religious schools violate the provisions of 38 state constitutions in the US, and they have been defeated in every single referendum ever held in the US, usually by landslide margins. An attempt to amend the NY State Constitution to allow direct funding of religious schools was made in 1967 and it got under 30% of the vote. Furthermore, significant support for religious schools would require significant tax increases and the frum community has in recent years been allying itself with the anti-tax folks. I would support an effort to repeal New York State’s Blaine Amendment, consolidate schools (public and private) in order to save money, and an alliance with the unions (almost all Catholic schools are unionized in NY) and poor minorities (who suffer disproportionately from inadequate public schools) in order to increase educational options via vouchers or direct governmental support. But I don’t see anyone seriously trying to build the necessary coalitions.
(I should mention that I used to be an opponent of government funding of religious schools but have turned around 180 degrees on this after visting three of the countries I mentioned.)
This is the wrong shilah.
The shilah should be, is it mutar to work for an organization that violates explicit Torah commandments?
The Torah explicitly requires that employees be paid on time. How can a yeshiva that violates this commandment be considered Orthodox? We would never countenance a yeshiva serving treif food in order to save money. Yet Chazal tell us that financial transgressions are worse than arayot!
por,
Great comments. I agree entirely. It is very much in our interests both short and long term to be in the right side on this.
popa,
“I don’t see why using legal means to attempt to stop this is un-American, or at all similar to anti-semites using the courts to attempt to block shuls.”
It is so similar it is creepy! The leader of the effort is an apostate Jew who converted to Christianity and can legitimately be called an anti-Muslim bigot. Don’t think for a second that he will not be running to court to support Christian attempts to stop shuls and yeshivot that aren’t “Messianic”. The amazing thing is that so many frum Jews have fallen for this; it is a sign of the high level of assimilation within the frum community that we now identify with people like this.
“It has to do with their attempting to memorialize their attack on us. “
There is no evidence from any of the statements of the projects’ supporters that the project is an attempt to memorialize the attack. They got a good deal on a piece of property in a somewhat run-down area where the two existing mosques are overcrowded.
Or do you think strip joints and gay bars are preferable?
“why is the question to build or not to build when there is already a fully functional mosque there?”
That mosque is overcrowded, with such an inadequate worship space that people have to pray outside on the sidewalk. If the attempts to stop the Park 51 center succeed, forget about ever being able to expand an overcrowded shul when the neighbors object.
Baruch wrote,
“I’m up for using whatever it takes to prevent Islam from growing here. “
And if you succeed it will set the precedent for stopping any religious group from building or expanding whenever the populace objects. Forget about ever expanding a shul or yeshiva. The effects on the frum community will be disastrous. And unfortunately we will have earned that punishment because we were on the wrong side of this mosque controversy.
AinOhdMilvado,
I live in a county that already probably as more Muslims than Jews; I see Muslims frequently on the street and on public transit vehicles. I walk past mosques and halal slaughterhouse. Not once has any Muslim ever treated me with anything other than the greatest of respect. I have spoken with Muslims about our respective fasting rules (they can’t see how we can fast for 25 hours; I can’t see how they can fast for a month at a time). My wife has compared experiences of hair covering and modest dress with Muslim women.
France is far from “overrun” with Muslims — the Muslim population of France is at most 12%. The big problem there is that the Christians hate the Muslims as much as they have hated Jews. France has always demanded a higher standard of assimilation of its immigrants; the American standard in which immigrants are encouraged to keep their culture is far better. (Note that it indeed has worked out much better for Jews in America than in France!)
Furthermore, regarding the location, there exists an existing mosque two blocks from the proposed site that is currently overcrowded, it has been there since 1970. What is different about two blocks?
SJS wrote,
“Why did they choose this location? Because they had a lease with an option to buy. Its a great location, great size and perfect for them. And it was an easy purchase.”
In fact they got a good deal because it is a run down area featuring (among other things) gay bars and strip joints. A place where people can worship God (the proposed center will have a prayer room) will be an elevation over the current tumah!
Mod-80 wrote,
“i dont think so….look what they teach their children in school”
Google “gus dur” and you will find a web site devoted to the teachings of a man who died late last year who was the leader of the largest Muslim organization in the world. His name was “Abdurrahman Wahid” and he also served briefly as President of Indonesia. He was a tremendous Muslim scholar and a man of peace and tolerance. No less a figure than Paul Wolfowitz wrote in his praise after his death. Unfortunately, most Americans have never heard of him and he never had access to the oil money that the Wahabis and Iranian mullahs have that enable them to spread their narrowminded intolerant version of Islam. It is probably Mr. Wahid’s liberal and tolerant form of Islam that President Obama saw when he spent his childhood in Djakarta, Indonesia’s capital. (Remember also that Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world.)
oomis1105,
You are wrong when you write, “No one disputes the legal right for someone to build on property that belongs to him”. In fact, a right Christian group known as the American Center for Law and Justice — led by an apostate Jew — has filed lawsuits that seek to force the city government to stop the project despite the fact that it is completely permitted within the current zoning. That is a depicable un-American act and it is similar to what anti-Semites have tried to pull in their attempts to stop shuls and yeshivot from expanding.
noitallmr,
You write, “Its like the Japanese building a huge center next to Pearl Harbor…” In fact, there are numerous Shinto shrines in Hawaii, including one close to Pearl Harbor.
AinOhdMilvado,
Burning at the stake is not one of the four methods by which Jews administer death penalties.
I’m a biostatistics professor at a medical school and my wife is a physician. I’ll spare everyone the details of some of our seriously nerdy conversations.
Chosson,
Hand soap and paper towels don’t require a hechsher.
“Didn’t you guys ever have chosson classes?”
I will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they are still single.
“They say that it is pointing out that this Masechta is Torah”
True, but that doesn’t mean it is binding halachah. We don’t wait until 15 to teach gemara.
‘Rav Moshe Feinstein writes clearly that mixed schooling is forbidden “min hadin”.’
His cousin Rav Soloveitchik z’tz’l disagreed. See below.
‘Even Rav Soloveitchik zt”l, who himself founded a co-ed school more than half a century ago, did so only because “he had no choice” – not because he held it was permissable.’
Not true.
Here are The Rav’s own words, in writing to a rabbi who asked a shilah about the permissibility of teaching Torah she-bal peh to women. It is very significant because this is one of the very rare examples of a written halachic tshuvah from The Rav. This is an except from an article by Rabbi Seth Farber in 7 of Conversations, the journal of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals. A quick Google search will find it.
“Please accept my apologies for not answering your letters sooner. The delay was due to my overcrowded schedule. As to your question with regard to a curriculum in a coeducational school, I expressed my opinion to you long ago that it would be a very regrettable oversight on our part if we were to arrange separate Hebrew courses for girls. Not only is the teaching of Torah she-be-al peh to girls permissible but it is nowadays an absolute imperative. This policy of discrimination between the sexes as to subject matter and method of instruction which is still advocated by certain groups within our Orthodox community has contributed greatly to the deterioration and downfall of traditional Judaism. Boys and girls alike should be introduced to the inner halls of Torah she-be-al peh. “
I was just learning tonight with a young Rabbi who went to elementary school and high school with his Rebbitzen. They now have two kids together. So yes, sometimes it leads to more! May there be more such “more”!!!!
“Oddly, those with shorter dating have longer marriages. “
My wife and I got engaged on the second date. I hope your statement holds for us! 🙂
emoticon613,
If you know of anyone else who wrote that millions of Jews would die at the hands of the Nazis and that Jews needed to get out of Europe as fast as possible, please cite! I’ve only seen statements from Schoenberg and Jabbotinsky. If any rabbis “knew” what was going to happen I’m unaware of any who made made any public statements or left us any writings to this effect.
What I think we may need is more creativity among Jewish musicians. It is really easy to imitate others’ forms, not so easy to do so in a way that elevates, and even more difficult to create uniquely Jewish forms. Do we offer our young people sufficient musical training and/or experience so that they may turn into the first class musicians? Do we honor our really great musicians like Cantors Helfgot, Herstik, and Fisher, Miller, Malovany, or Stark? Why aren’t we bringing them into our yeshivot to show that there is a Jewish musical form that elevates and serves HaShem? How many of us even daven Shabat morning in a shul with a professionally trained chazzan? And how many yeshiva students — even in MO yeshivot — have even heard of Arnold Schoenberg? He wasn’t just one of the most important Jewish musicians of the 20th century, he has a fascinating and inspiring tshuvah story and was one of only two people to predict the Shoah as early as 1938. (The other was Jabbotinsky.)
I have a completely different complaint regarding the music at simchahs: In most simchahs I’ve attended, it is FAR TOO LOUD!!!! I can’t even hear myself speak much less call my wife on my cell phone when she is seated on the other side of the mechitzah during the seudah.
When we got married we hired a klezmer band as we weren’t much interested in the modern pop stuff, and we read them the riot act that they were to keep the volume to a reasonable level. They did a great job.
I hate to break the news to folks, but most “Jewish songs” are in the style of contemporary non-Jewish music, or even actual copies.
Two examples:
1. The most common tune used for “Maoz Tzur” is a German melody that was used by none other than Martin Luther HaRasha for Christian liturgical music.
2. The nigunim used at the oldest continuously operating Jewish congregation in America, Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia, are in the style of the music that was popular in 18th century colonial America.
I dare anyone to find a Jewish composer other than Arnold Schoenberg who wrote music that was not influenced by non-Jewish styles. (And I dare anyone to try to sing any of Schoenberg’s atonal compositions at a simchah or in shul. He did write a setting of “Kol Nidre” but I’ve never heard of anyone trying to use it on Yom Kippur.)
” I resent the earlier email.”
Got it! Will reply later.
If you asur all Jewish music that has had any influence from non-Jews, all you will be left with is Arnold Schoenberg’s atonal music. I can’t imagine any of it being sung at a wedding.
Pashuteh Yid,
Please re-send the email you sent me. I can’t access it. My apologies.
” SEGULOS ARE EASY. Think about it, if you are having a serious family issue, one rav tells you to improve upon your behavior and actually change your middos vs. another rav who says just say a certain kfitel tehillim and wear a red string – which would you choose??? “
I’ve seen a quote attributed to Rabbi Yisrael Salanter that went something like, “It is harder to change a single character trait than to learn all of Shas.” Can anyone give a source?
“My problem with segulos and the like is that if you try to test them, somebody will label you an apikorus.”
Chazal in Shabat 61a talk about proving the efficacy of amulets. For reasons that I’ve never understood, they reject a biblical model of research design from the first perek of Sefer Daniel and rule that three successes means efficacy — with no mention of how many times the amulet has been tried (the denominator) and no comparison group as in Daniel to account for the fact that most illnesses clear up by themselves with no treatment. That Chazal knew about the importants of denominators is proven from the discussion in Taanit 21a regarding the definition of a plague that requires a public fast.
“I do not understand what role could be played by sheidim, for example.”
As others have pointed out, you are in the company of Rambam on that one!
“segulos have some source because EVERYONE has a minhag to do simanim on rosh hashana “
I had always thought that they were just excuses to say more blessings to HaShem!
“It is the Ramban who says the pshat on Azazel because he was a mysticist.”
Not in everything. In the Ramban’s long discussion of shiluach hakein in this week’s parsha, he spends pages on the rational/mussar approach and barely mentions that there might be another approach at the end of his commentary without describing it.
“you are saying that anything you can’t see can’t really exist”
Regarding the physical world, if you can’t see it (or detect it through some other sense) it doesn’t exist.
“How do you know He exists?”
Faith. HaShem is NOT part of the physicial world and can’t even be compared to anything in the physical world. See Rambam’s 3rd principle.
“how come nobody complains about going to doctors and getting expensive security systems?”
Rabbi Tendler explained this very well in a shiur a few years ago. Doctors don’t cure anybody, ever. (My wife is a physician and she agrees with this.) The healing is from HaShem and ONLY from HaShem. Once you realize that, the halachah requires us to go to real doctors with real medical training because that is the system HaShem set up. Relying only on faith is a major tenet of a Christian group and therefore might also be a violation of the prohibition of chukat hagoyim.
“The problems in Emuna are mostly from believing too much in the natural order.”
But we also get into *physical* trouble when we don’t accept the natural order. If you stick you hand in a fire you will get burned. More seriously, some frum people have bought into the junk science about vaccines being dangerous and now we have had the chilul HaShem of frum kids getting measles.
“then the only way he can explain those gemaros is to say they are not-literal”
Both Rambam and Ramban explictly write that we do not have to take any particular aggadata literally. Rabbi Avraham Ben HaRambam goes into greater detail and that seems to be the accepted wisdom regarding interpretation of aggadata given that his commentary is the introduction to the Ein Yaakov aggadata compilation.
The OU recently published a list of items that require no kashrut supervision, and milk is on the list:
I would add that many people find their right parnassah later in life. I completed my PhD at age 37 and my wife graduated from medical school at age 40.
All the best!
I would continue dating but I would be absolutely open with every potential shidduch about the fact that you have no idea what kind of career you will have. That will help screen out the young women who are looking for prestige rather than a mentsch. May you find the person with whom you can grow and raise a wonderful family.
Almost everyone in my neighborhood eats OU-D.
The usual rule of thumb has been about one cent per mile.
And we wonder why there is a shidduch crisis?
“What is the significance of something written in Shulchan Aruch?”
That itself is worthy of a thread; there are cases where we don’t follow what is written in the S”A (or, for Ashkenazim, the Rema’s glosses). The methodology regarding how we pick and choose has never been adequately explained.