Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
LU: Why did I say it?
Because many time$, Rabbi$ have made bad deci$ions about mole$ter$, ignoring the well-being of the ma$$e$ to help protect $pecific people.
In some cases, there was a different motivation. My mother told me that when she was looking into kindergartens for my older brother, there was a specific yeshiva she was looking into. She got anonymous phone calls telling her that there was a known molester there, and it was being covered up to protect the yeshiva. As most know, many details about it came out only a few years ago. The yeshiva world used their political influence to get the pervert a light sentence, without having to register as an offender.
In another community, a girl was molested by the person who was supposed to be the “therapist” (although he had no education in the area). The Rabbis who run the community ostracized her family, and blamed her. They protected the pervert again.
Anyone who claims that telling people to beware a known molester is Lashon Harah is a chossid shoteh.
The fact is that they asked the question. I’m sure the Rav who handled it consulted with the Secret Service and anyone else needed to give a psak. We don’t know all the details, and most of us here aren’t Rabbonim, so who are we to speculate on it? Even if we do disagree, it doesn’t reflect on Jared and Ivanka, it reflects on the Rabbi who gave the psak! If they had decided for themselves, I can see where they’d be wrong, but they asked the question. Isn’t that what they’re supposed to do?
Joseph, you said the story with the Chofetz Chaim is “apocryphal”, and wondered if it’s “half true”.
The story was written by R’ Pam zt”l in his sefer on the Parshah. You can look it up.
Personally, I trust that R’ Pam wouldn’t have said/written something which wasn’t true.
yytz: Rewriting halachah doesn’t always need to be allowing things which were forbidden. It can go the opposite way as well.
Chassidim have instituted things which have now reached into mainstream chareidi life, such as separate seating at weddings, dinners, and other events.
Joseph, the things said about people who impose unnecessary chumros are none too flattering. Don’t go down that path.
Shloimel, you take the book “Frumspeak: The First Dictionary of Yeshivish”, and smash the hat with it until it’s completely unwearable.
After that, you go to Hat Box and buy a new hat.
It’s a regular Modern Orthodox yeshiva. Few if any black hats. It’s a very frum yeshiva, that emphasizes a love of Torah and Judaism. A friend of mine sends his kids there, and they all have excellent middos.
R’ Teitz, who runs the JEC, is probably one of the biggest Talmidei Chachomim around, although he isn’t as widely known as many others.
A very sad week for the Jewish music world, with the passing of Ben Zion Shenker.
I am a huge fan of the Modzitzer music, and often use it in my davening.
If I had to choose a chief anti-semite, it would probably be Joseph.
Joseph, any section you’re in is a moshav leitzim.
I post on the CR far less than the OP.
R’ Moshe Feinstein said that one can switch from davening sfard to daven ashkenaz, but not the other way around.
When I was in college, I learned in a small yeshiva for a year, where one of the Rabbeim was a student of R’ Aharon Kotler. He told us a story where R’ Aharon was traveling with a few students (including this Rebbe) and they stopped to daven Mincha. The shul davened sfard. R’ Aharon asked if he could daven for the amud, and he went up and davened ashkenaz. One of hte students asked him, “But Rebbe, the minhag hamakom is to daven sfard!” He replied, “Minhag hamakom has its place, but this is the proper nusach!”
Ah, good times in that yeshiva. It was where I met Feif Un. We went to the same college and the same yeshiva while in that college!
Actually, the Pri Megadim (Eshel Avraham 167:38) says that you should not throw food even if it won’t get ruined.
Maybe because you’re supposed to say the first line in the same breath as you end the previous paragraph, leaving you starting at V’chol Maaminim.
Joseph: The Dati Leumi people are busy learning in the Beis Medrash.
y1234: I also learned in Darchei, and I can back that up. My brother once asked R’ Altusky about learning R’ Soloveitchik’s seforim on Gemara, and R’ Altusky told him to definitely learn them, as the chiddushim are amazing – and he had all the seforim in his house! My brother asked why they don’t have them in the yeshiva beis medrash, and R’ Altusky told him that since there is a difference of opinion regarding some of his hashkafos, he felt some of the younger boys in the yeshiva might take it as an endorsement of ALL his works if they had his seforim there. But he did encourage older students to learn his chiddushim.
My Rav (a close student of R’ Herschel Schachter shlita) told me a funny story. I don’t remember if it was with a relative or a close friend of his, but it was someone close.
So this person came from a family that was mostly yeshivish, and most of his siblings learned in Chareidi yeshivos. He went to YU, and received semichah there.
He once came home for a Yom Tov, and one of his siblings also came home from yeshiva in Israel. At a meal, his father asked the brother to say over a shtikel Torah. He told the YU guy, “Listen, so you can see how a REAL yeshiva guy learns!” The brother began saying it, and my Rav’s friend had to hold back his laughter – he was saying over a chiddush from R’ Soloveitchik zt”l!
When he finished, the father said, “So, you see? That was a wonderful chiddush! Do you learn things like that in your modern Yeshiva University?”
He replied by turning to his brother. “Abba is right. That was beautiful! Who did you learn it from?” The brother hemmed and hawed. “It sounds like a Soloveitchik type of chiddush. What do you think?” Again, the brother hemmed and hawed. The father asked, “Nu, where is it from?” The brother finally cracked and said it was from R’ JB Soloveitchik. The father never insulted YU again.
Why is there a chiyuv to help these girls? Many Rabbonim have famously paskened that when it comes to children receiving a Jewish education, it is considered dinei nefashos. Indeed, some were even machalel Shabbos to deal with these issues.
If you saw someone drowning, would you say “It’s not my business!” and walk away? You’d be transgressing an issur d’Oraysa in doing so – Lo saamod al daam re’acha!
If a girl doesn’t have a school, it’s considered pikuach nefesh. Everyone who is able to help has an obligation to do so.
As for the Five Towns and high tuition, I can’t speak for all schools, but I can speak about the yeshiva I went to, Darchei Torah. Darchei’s tuition is not cheap. But if someone can’t afford it, they will work with the person to find out what they can afford. I personally know of families who not only paid no tuition at all, but had R’ Bender help them out. I remember when I was in the yeshiva, R’ Bender would meet with every boy before Pesach and find out if they needed a new suit, or a new hat for Yom Tov. If it was needed, he would pay for it.
Yes, tuition is high pretty much everywhere in the US. I just think about it the same way I think about other things. One day, I will be giving a din v’cheshbon, and they may ask me, “How much did you value your children’s Jewish education?” I will be able to answer, “I gave up vacations, a big house, a fancy car, and many other things, and made their education my top priority!” Money all comes from Hashem, and He gives us what we need.
Health, is everything ok? You ended a sentence with a period instead of an exclamation point. Just wanted to check up on you and make sure you’re ok!
yehudayona: My brother was there when he spoke about it, and he told me what was said.
Yes, he objected to the promises they made, not how they distribute the money. But he said taking money with false promises is pure stealing.
Joe, you are twisting the words of the Rambam. He says (Mishneh Torah, Talmud Torah, 3:10, and thanks to R’ Eliyahu Fink for the translation):
Anyone who comes to the conclusion that he should involve himself in Torah study without doing work and derive his livelihood from charity, desecrates name, dishonors the Torah, extinguishes the light of faith, brings evil upon himself, and forfeits the life of the world to come, for it is forbidden to derive benefit from the words of Torah in this world.
Yes, in Hilchos Shemitah v’Yovel he goes through the benefits that the Levi’im got, and says that anyone can get the same benefits if they want to dedicate themselves to serving Hashem. However, in his commentary on the Mishna (Avos, 4th perek) he lays out exactly what benefits those are. He also says that many people twist words to allow themselves to learn without working to earn a living at all, and that it is completely wrong. He maintains that even someone who is learning needs to have some kind of business/job in order to support himself and his family. He brings as proof the fact that the Tanaim and Amoraim all had businesses to support themselves.
Congrats, Joe. You are doing just as the Rambam said – twisting words to mean what you want them to mean.
I saw another scam on the front page – Kupat Ha’Ir, who R’ Matisyahu Salomon said are thieves, had an ad.
If the guy running the scam was a Zionist, Joseph’s views would change.
Joseph, what does MO have to do with it?
IIRC, a bunch of Daati Leumi Rabbonim came out and opposed the parade.
It really depends on what you’re looking for. You ask for Modern or Yeshivish – does that mean you want a right-wing MO yeshiva?
RTMA is a good school, if you’re looking for somewhere that will give your child a firm foundation in Judaism, but not a kollel lifestyle. Pretty much all students there go to Israel for a year or two after graduating, and then go to college. They do get a love of learning, and many learn daf yomi, or have a chavrusah every evening.
Someone told me a great story about kibbudim.
This guy married a geyores. Her family was used to family being “part of the wedding”, like bridesmaids, groomsmen, etc. They didn’t understand how a Jewish wedding works, and they wanted to be participants.
The couple came up with a great idea. They told her family, “Did you ever see in movies how at a Jewish wedding, the bride and groom are lifted up in the air on their chairs? That’s something reserved for very close friends. We’d like to honor you with lifting the chairs!” Her family was thrilled with it!
When I was growing up, my father wore a leather or suede kippah. My brothers and I all wore velvet ones. When I got older, and was able to buy them for myself, I started wearing plain black knit kippot, as I found them more comfortable than the velvet ones.
My wife told me she liked the ones with the designs, and asked if I could wear them, as she just preferred them. To make my wife happy, I now wear a kippah srugah with a pattern. The exception is for the Yomim Noraim, I have a plain white knit kippah.
So I don’t do it to identify with a group. I do it out of comfort and to make my wife happy.
147: I believe that the Yekkes give a speech at the chuppah for that reason.
At my wedding, I gave Krias HaKetubah as the 2nd “highest” honor. I’ve mentioned that I learned in Darchei Torah. I was in a smaller, half-day yeshiva while I was in college, which was also the time I got married. That Rosh Yeshiva was my mesader kiddushin, and R’ Bender shlita read the ketubah.
We almost had to switch things up – R’ Shteinman was in the US at the time I got married, and my father-in-law is close with him. There was a possibility that he was going to come to the wedding, and how can you not have him be the mesader kiddushin if he’s there? In the end he couldn’t make it, so things stayed as planned.
I believe the only teshuvos which make it into a sefer are those which the Rav feels apply to the general public – meaning there are no special circumstances which apply to a specific case which don’t usually apply to everyone else.
I purposely avoid these threads, but I am going to clarify one thing here.
True, the RCA didn’t kick out Avi Weiss. There was a special meeting held to discuss it. The decision was that if they kicked him out, it would only draw attention to him, which they wanted to avoid.
Instead, they reaffirmed the decision not to accept YCT ordination as a legitimate semichah, so none of his students will be RCA members. They said either he’ll leave, or eventually he’ll die, and the RCA will be finished with it.
The RCA also put out many statements against ordaining women and other things that Weiss did.
OO may claim to be MO, but that doesn’t make it true. In fact, it only shows the fallacy in the argument posted many times – that people say they do things which are wrong “because I’m Modern!” YCT claims to be MO, and the RCA wants nothing to do with them. I can claim to be a Satmar chossid, but it doesn’t make it true. OO is a completely separate entity than MO.
That’s all I’m going to post about this now. I’m going back to avoiding these threads. Maybe I should avoid reading them, not only posting in them.
Because almost nobody says that Memorial Day shouldn’t be celebrated.
shlumpy shlom, this site is definitely not appropriate. Talking to the opposite gender is the least of the concerns here. There is lashon harah said almost every day. It’s definitely a moshav leitzim. Don’t stay here!
Originally, everyone wore a tallis even before being married. During the black plague, when people were dying at an extremely high rate, they wanted to encourage people to get married earlier, and have children, so that the communities would survive. To incentivize it, the Rabbis at the time changed the rule to be that you wear a tallis after being married. People married earlier to wear the tallis. (At least, this was what I was told by a Rav a number of years ago.)
I would assume that the groups which wear a tallis before marriage never had the rule changed, so they still follow the original customs.
I believe that a Rav I used to use to sell my chametz structured it as a down payment, with a balloon payment due after Pesach ended. If the balloon payment wasn’t made, the chametz would revert back to the original owners – not retroactively, as that would be a problem.
Since this was the contract, the Rav isn’t buying it back for you, it’s going back because the contract stipulates that. Since you authorized the original contract, you can’t change it.
A bigger question might be if you found chametz over Pesach. Let’s say you sold all chametz in your home to a non-Jew. Then, you find something that you missed while cleaning – let’s say a cookie was found inside a cabinet. How can you burn it? It doesn’t belong to you, it belongs to the non-Jew that you sold it to!
When I was in Darchei Torah, R’ Yaakov Reisman (Rav of the Agudah of Long Island) gave a shiur on this topic. The son of a Rebbe had gotten engaged during the beginning of sefirah (before Rosh Chodesh), and a vort was held at the yeshiva for him, with music. The shiur was to explain how to deal with such a situation.
R’ Reisman told us that if there is a wedding, there is a mitzvah to be misameach the new couple, so dancing is allowed, as the mitzvah overrides the minhag of refraining from dancing during sefirah. However, if it was just an engagement, or a bar mitzvah, one should not dance, as it isn’t a special mitzvah to be misameach anyone.
I had this situation. I asked my Rav, and you should do the same.
Rabbi Bender shlita could possibly be a good source of information about R’ Shlomo Heiman, as his father was very close with him.
R’ Bender once told us a story about R’ Heiman. He spent a lot of time learning the seforim of R’ Akiva Eiger, and felt a close attachment to them. When he was on his deathbed, his students were in the room with him. Suddenly, he sat up, and said “Bring a chair! R’ Akiva Eiger is here!” Moments later, he passed away. They said that R’ Akiva Eiger came to escort the soul of R’ Heiman up to Shamayim, since he had dedicated himself to studying R’ Eiger’s teachings.
I used to work as an actuary, so I can give some input to the question asked earlier.
The questions asked on the actuarial exams are the highest level of difficulty. They spend days coming up with each question, trying to make it as difficult as possible. Not only that, they do research on the most common mistakes made while solving the questions, and offer them up as answers in the multiple choice questions.
I went into those exams thinking I knew the material really, really well, and walked out knowing I failed miserably.
To answer another question that was asked:
The Novominsker Rebbe graduated from Brooklyn College
R’ Hutner zt”l went to college in Berlin, and studied philosophy
R’ Avigdor Miller zt”l graduated with a BA from Yeshiva University
When it comes to being somewhat moral, I think Sanders is the best. He’s more honest than most politicians, and he stands by what he believes in. It’s a shame I disagree so strongly with his positions.
Clinton is a pathological liar. M’dvar sheker tirchak – stay away from her!
Trump has no filter, and yes, he says some crazy things. But he’s (for the most part) also honest about things, brutally so at times. I’d much rather have him than a pathological liar or a Communist. While I’m not a fan of his, I think he’s the lesser evil.
Maybe from Rabos Banos on Dveykus 5? It’s the 5th track.
It’s from Eli Gerstner’s first album, Hinei. 3rd track, Eishes Chayil.
This thread started with Romney, so I’m going to ask a question about him: what’s the big deal with Romney? The Republicans bring him out as this big guy who can save them. Why? He doesn’t have much actual political experience. His only position was one term as governor. He has been in 3 elections, and only won one of them. So what’s the big deal with Romney?
I’ve been very selective about what threads I’d post in since I returned. I’ve been trying to avoid anything which would lead me towards negative thoughts. I thought a thread about a yeshiva recommendation would be ok. Unfortunately, Joseph and HaKatan have proved me wrong.
Perhaps I was mistaken, and no threads are “safe”.