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I also don’t double park. Period. There have even been times when I’ve had to miss davening with a minyan because I could not find a legal parking space. But I wasn’t sure my tefillah would be kosher if I had to commit an aveirah in order to get to the beit knesset.
HaShem Is Everywhere,
Please cite a source for your claim. We are learning the 7 Noachide laws in Daf Yomi right now and there is no prohibition of a census among them — unless you think that the US is a Jewish state or that President Obama is a Jew!
volvie,
The “statistical analysis” you mention also comes from census surveys! I happen to be a statistician and I know something about how this is done.
mom12,
Most of the census questions are similar to those that have been asked for many years; President Obama had nothing to do with them. And yes, your response might eventually get more transportation funding for NY which would mean more D and F trains. Much government funding is allocated based on population and on use of public facilities. If enough people fail to answer the questions, New York will lose out and our local taxes will be higher as a result.
The census is specifically mandated in the US Constitution in order to insure that members of the US House of Representatives are allocated according to population. (Those who call the census “unconstitutional” obviously have not read the Constitution.) The courts have also ruled that state and local legislative bodies must be allocated somewhat according to population. So the census is an essential part of US democracy. Some extreme right wingers are urging people not to return the census forms; if enough refuse to do so the effect will be to allocate more representatives to states with fewer such right wingers. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!
The government also takes the opportunity to collect additional information at the time of the census; it is not mandatory to respond to those additional questions but it helps our elected officials make intelligent decisions. The census bureau also conducts population surveys in between the decennial census, in part to keep the agency tested for the one that really counts, and also to provide additional information to governmental agencies. Typically only a small subset of the population will be surveyed.
One additional point is that old census records can be invaluable in tracing family ancestry. Many old census records are now available online through for-profit internet services who took the time to scan them in and index them. I’ve located several century ancestors in 19th century census records.
We just ate a very nice rice and lentils lunch on our kosher for Pesach kelim. Yes, we are Ashkenazic and we did this with the full support of my rabbi. We do this in part to remind ourselves that kitniyot are NOT chametz; the prohibition of kitniyot is an Ashkenazic minhag, not halachah; only applies to *eating* kitniyot on Pesach itself, not to owning it or benefitting from it, and does NOT make your kelim non-Pesadick. If we ever have a Sefardic guest during the Yom Tov we will cook a kitniyot dish for him/her even though we cannot eat it ourselves.
The “morality issue” was indeed there; one reason why many Western States allowed women to vote even before 1920 was the hope that more women would migrate to those states and help to civilize the men.
dvorak,
A major reason Wyoming and Utah gave women the right to vote early (1869 and 1871, respectively) was that at that time the large Mormon population practiced “plural marriage”, i.e. polygyny. Allowing all of a man’s wives to vote greatly increased the Mormon turnout compared to the monogamous Christians.
Ben Levi,
The idea for public schools came not from contemporary liberals but from Yehoshua Ben Gamla. If you read about the motivation for setting up the first public schools in America in the 1630s, it is very similar to that of Ben Gamla except that the people who set them up were Christian. Once the schools stopped being Christian (Massachusetts was the last state to make the change in 1833), Jews could attend and in fact many frum Jews, including even some great rabbis, attended public schools. Of course, traditional Torah education is better but Jews have always been permitted to set up our own schools here in America. Calling for the destruction of public schools is no way to improve conditions for Jews.
hereorthere,
Rabbi Dr. Tendler showed that there is a Torah obligation to provide healthcare for all. No rabbi of any stature has publicly disagreed.
Furthermore, private property rights are severely limited under Torah law, at least in Eretz Yisrael. If you have a house in Yerushalayim, you are required to put up visitors for the shlosh regalim. If you have a farm, you are required to allow poor people to collect leket, peah, and shich’chah, not to mention shmittah produce. And you don’t have freehold land tenure.
And of course communal authorities collect taxes for public works and education, whether the public likes it or not — all with the approval of the Torah.
Ben Levi,
Great point regarding Norway. It formed a state-owned company to exploit its natural resources for the benefit of all, rather than letting robber barons control it as has been done in the US. You are right that the Dems should follow those policies, but the Republicans gave sweetheart leases to their supporters, many of which are still yet to be explored.
Ben Levi,
Greece is facing bankruptcy for two reasons: (1) The former “conservative” government went on a wild (and unsuccessful) spending spree in an attempt to buy the support of voters in last year’s election, and (2) Goldman Sachs’s duplicity.
France’s unemployment rate is currently 10.1%, lower than that in the US. In 2007, when Sarkozy was elected, it averaged 8.7%. You really should spend a few minutes checking your facts before you post here.
And Norway’s per capita gross domestic product is 27% higher than that of the US according to the CIA World Factbook. Would that we had such “foolish” policies in the US!
Ben Levi,
Abraham Lincoln was definitely a Republican. He presided over the biggest expansion of government involvement in business, agriculture, and education in the nation’s history up to that time.
Theodore Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford were also Republicans. All supported National Health Insurance.
hereorthere,
Clinton’s Black cabinet members:
Ron Brown, U.S. Secretary of Commerce;
Mike Espy, Secretary of Agriculture;
Alexis Herman, Secretary of Labor;
Hazel O’Leary, Secretary of Energy;
Rodney Slater, Secretary of Transportation;
Jesse Brown, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, who was succeeded by Togo West;
Dr. Jocelyn Elders, U.S. Surgeon General, who was succeeded by Dr. David Satcher.
And I see a lot of Patrick Buchanan’s nonsense on the internet. Are you going to redefine him as a liberal?
Ben Levi,
Unemployment in the EU is currently LOWER (9.5%) than in the US (10.4%). And some of the European countries with the most generous social welfare systems have very low unemployment; for example the rate in the Netherlands is 5.7% and in Denmark 4.2%. Norway (not in the EU) has a 3.3% unemployment rate despite some of the highest taxes and most generous social benefits in the world.
Try again.
anuran is correct about the fact that the Beveridge (UK, Canada) or Bismarck (France, Germany, Israel) model or some combination of the two (Japan) would be better. But we lost the opportunity to get the Beveridge model in the 1960s when Medicare was limited to the elderly and we lost the opportunity to get the Bismarck model when Congress failed to pass Nixon’s national health insurance proposal. This is the best we can get now and it only passed with three votes to spare in the House and zero votes to spare in the Senate. Hopefully we can improve the system in the future, but for over 30 million Americans without heath insurance this change alone may be the difference between life and death.
Israel has had a similar system for a long time. Has it experienced “total destruction and disintigration”?
Rebbitzen,
The most important *immediate* consequence is that effective upon the signing of the bill, no child will be denied insurance because of pre-existing conditions. This will literally save children’s lives. Most of the other provisions will not take effect for several years.
HaShem is Everywhere,
Israel has has universal health insurance for quite some time!
If an about-to-be-dating couple can’t figure out between themselves who should do the traveling, maybe they aren’t ready for marriage? That isn’t a very complicated issue compared to the kinds of things married couples face regularly.
Volvie,
You wrote,
“I’ve never seen a poisek officially pasken that it IS permissible for them to vote (perhaps it exists though)”
I just posted that one exists, said who wrote it, and told you how to find it.
“Furthermore, even where a Rov will tell you of course women should vote today, it is clearly a b’dieved.”
Not according to Rav Uziel z’tz’l, whose tshuvah you didn’t bother to read.
“I challenge anyone to find any Godol on the record who ever stated that we are better off with this suffrage. It simply does not exist.”
It does exist, and I pointed it out to you.
“I highly doubt any Godol would disagree with Rav Kook on this issue.”
Rav Uziel did just that.
The actual tshuvot of Rav Kook and Rav Uziel were recently translated into English and published in the Edah Journal. You can find them online with an internet search. (I’d post the link but I want to respect YWN’s policy against outside links.) Rav Uziel shows that women can vote, be elected to public office, be appointed to positions of authority (serarah), and even serve as a judge. Rav Uziel concludes by saying,
“1) A woman has an absolute right of participation in elections
so that she be bound by the collective obligation
to obey the elected officials who govern the nation.
2) A woman may also be elected to public office by the
consent and ordinance of the community.”
Rav Uziel’s opinion, and not that of Rav Kook, is now accepted within Israel.
This was discussed almost a century ago and resulted in a big public machloket between Rav Kook z’tz’l, then chief rabbi of Jerusalem, and Rav Uziel z’tz’l, then chief rabbi of Jaffa. Rav Kook was stridently opposed, but Rav Uziel supported, and the rabbinate pretty much accepted Rav Uziel’s position. Religious women have even served in the Knesset.
BTW in many Torah communities it is totally acceptable for women to share their opinions on Torah and secular matters if they are learned.
Jose,
Regents exams were around long before I was born, but they were never mandatory until recently.
Who said the teacher’s union likes them? They were pushed by politicians like Pataki, Bush, and Bloomberg who want more standardized testing rather than more education. Most teachers I have met would prefer more flexibility.
I had a professor in Graduate School who was a Chilean Jew. His family had had to flee Pinochet.
The citrus flavors have actually been kosher for some time; they just did not have the stamp on the label.
I recommend against getting either.
And I’m serious.
Since I got an internet-capable phone I am never off duty except for Shabat and Yom Tov when I turn it off. If there is any way you can keep your job while not having 24/6 access to email, do it.
My wife and I are frumster match #152.
We did not consult Daas Torah before putting our profiles up. Nor did we consult Daas Torah regarding what to put in our profiles. It didn’t occur to either of us. In fact, shadchanim had advised me not to put a particular bit of information into my profile because it might scare people away; it happened to be exactly the thing that caused my wife to initiate the first frumster contact!
That said, I called her rav (Lakewood-trained) and she called my rav (YU-trained) after we connected on frumster but before we met. Any real frum Jew would have a rav who can be honest about a possible shidduch. We did not consult a gedol because neither of us personally knew a gedol. “Make yourself a rav” means a lot more than running to him for every little halachic issue — it means having a spiritual guide. And hearing from the spiritual guide of a potential life partner is well worth a phone call!
We were engaged 23 days after our first face to face meeting.
I wish all singles their bashert — through frumster or otherwise.
Reported on YNET today:
EDITED
I think we have a problem commenter here.
If worms in fish posed a serious health hazard, one would have expected that Japan, a country in which raw fish are consumed in huge quantities, would have seen severe health effects. But Japan has the healthiest people and the longest life expectancy in the world.
I will yield to the rabbis regarding kashrut, except to say that just this past Thursday I purchased scrod and salmon from my local kosher certified (Vaad of Riverdale) fish store and served them this past Shabat, and I’m cooking sole for a Purim seudah tomorrow. At such time as my local rabbis ban these fish I will abide by their ruling. (I buy all my fish from the same local kosher fish store.)
I download audio shiurim to my Blackberry and listen to them on the bus and subway through headphones.
I’m modern orthodox and I’ve always found myself very welcomed in charedi shuls.
Every Jew should be learning Torah as much as possible. At every opportunity. And that goes for men and women. Most of us can’t do it full time, though. And if everyone did it full time out communities would collapse. And in my case my own rabbi opposes people who come to observance late in life ditching their careers to learn full time, because it would make it difficult for others who want to become observant and because we need to be examples for other Jews who might want to become observant. It also is ungrateful to employers who have invested in us. I wish I had more time to learn but I have a demanding full time job and a lot of people depend on me.
I think my favorite Purim of all time was when my wife created a feast of Persian cuisine for 15 guests at our seudah. (No, we aren’t Persian; we are both Ashkenazic.)
Moderator 77,
Did you know that Hedy Lamarr, most famous for her acting (she played Delilah in Cecil B. Demille’s “Samson and Delilah”) also invented an encription method that is the basis for much wireless communication today? And that she was halachically Jewish?
Moderator 80,
Thanks!
A quick Google search found the following by Gail Lichtman in the Jerusalem Post:
“According to Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin, in his authoritative work Moadim Behalacha, the earliest reference in halachic literature prohibiting eating kitniyot during Pessah is found in the 13th-century book Sefer Mitzvot Katan (“A Little Book of Mitzvot”) by the Ashkenazi sage Rabbi Yitzhak Ben-Yosef of Corbeil. Rabbi Yitzhak refers to the prohibition, not as a new custom but as one “from the times of previous sages,” indicating that the custom was already well-established in his time. “
This was long before Columbus so I don’t see how maize could have been part of that original prohibition unless the Ashkenazic sages had nevuah to prohibit something no Jew had ever seen!
Moderator 80,
Thank you for those sources!
I have a question regarding one of them. It quotes Rav Moshe as saying that “foods which were not consumed by Jews at the time the minhag of kitnios began are not forbidden on Pesach.” In that case, corn (maize), being native to the New World only, would be permitted on Pesach because the kitniyot prohibition predates Columbus by a few centuries. Does that mean I can enjoy corn and corn derivatives on Pesach?
All grains are grasses. Quinoa is not a grass. Last year I surveyed pesach lists all over the world and found that almost all permitted quinoa. However, it has to be processed in a factory that does not process chametz so that would eliminate most brands of quinoa although the rest of the year it would be kosher without a hechsher as it is a raw agricultural product. The Ancient Harvest brand carried in many health food stores with a Half Moon K was processed in a factory that did not process chametz and hopefully that will continue to be the case.
See the show “Circumcise Me!” at the Bleeker Street Theater. It is a one-man autobiographical show where the actor Yisrael Campbell describes his path from growing up an Irish Catholic alcoholic to being a frum Jew! There are no performances on Shabat :). Tickets are available through telecharge.com. And you will be supporting a frum Jew in a field that has not in the past been friendly to frum Jews because of the perceived need to perform on Shabat. (Cantor Dudu Fisher has turned down many opportunities because of his commitment to Shabat.)
Philadelphia has an incredible amount of history and is very overlooked as a tourist destination. In Center City, just seconds from some of the most important historical sites, is the Mikveh Israel Synagogue that has been continuously operating since 1740. (Yes, it is Orthodox, but if you spend a Shabat there as I once did you will notice a lot of unusual minhagim as it uses the rare Western European Sefardic nusach.) It is also cheap to get to on public transit either by bus, or by NJ Transit/SEPTA trains changing at Trenton, taking you right to the historic area.
We a lot of vegetarian Indian cooking. Just about any recipe you find is kosher because there is no meat. Most are quite simple, nutritious, and very flavorful with lots of interesting spices. There are many cookbooks including two we have that contain recipes from the 2500 year old Jewish community of India. I don’t want to post them because of copyright considerations but if people want I can post the names of some of the cookbooks.
I hadn’t heard of this either; I would have assumed that YWN would have covered it if it were a real case.
My wife and I were married in the beit knesset of her synagogue. The seudah was in the basement social hall. Much nicer than any wedding hall, and much cheaper!
I don’t have an answer to this, but the local vaad in my community does not have a mashgiach tamidi in any of the stores or restaurants it supervises. Instead, a mashgiach visits every establishment every single day. I’ve talked with several owners and they really like how it works as the mashgichim are well trained and their staff is familiar with them.
hereorthere,
You make a great point about the cost of education. Most countries charge far less for undergraduate education than does the US; some, such as Ireland, don’t charge tuition at all. And the quality of undergraduate education in Canada and Europe is just as good as in the US.
But you are mistaken when you imply that there is a serious attempt to provide free health care for all in the US. The current health care reform proposals will simply make it possible for the currently uninsurable to get insurance. It does not create any new government plan.
Those who are indiscriminately blasting government regulation and labor unions haven’t reviewed their American history, in particular the horrific conditions in sweatshops a hundred years ago. You can start with the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which killed over a hundred workers, many of them desparately poor Jewish immigrants.
There is absolutely no difference between the regular flu shot and H1N1 except that the H1N1 contains some extra strains to protect against the new strain. The only reason it is given separately is that it takes a long time to produce flu vaccine and they didn’t want to delay the production of the seasonal flu vaccine. I had three physicians at my Shabat table yesterday, one of whom is an infectious disease researcher, and they all agreed that unless you have a specific contraindication such as allergy to eggs you should get the H1N1 vaccination. If anything, it is MORE important to vaccinate young people against H1N1 than the seasonal flu because the seasonal flu is more dangerous to older people and H1N1 is relatively more dangerous to young people.
I would never have gotten married had my in-laws tried to analyze my handwriting because it is illegible. Thanks HaShem for giving us computers!