DaMoshe

That may be true. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I don’t know what the rate of growth is in Lakewood. Do you mean the growth as far as actual people, as a percentage, or both? You may be surprised at the growth in some other communities!

Another area that is growing quickly is the Far Rockaway/Five Towns area. The Bayswater neighborhood has many young people moving in, as do Woodmere and Cedarhurst.

lol @ Sam Klein: “What can you reply back to Hashem by replying back to this message.”

This looks like one of those ridiculous Facebook posts I see all the time: “Only 1 in 10 people will repost this message. Show you care by posting it! If you don’t post this message to your status, it means you don’t care!”

I had a grandson of the Chofetz Chaim as a Rebbe when I was young. We asked him about the famous picture that’s on the cover of the seforim. He said, “My mother told me, ‘He looks like a nice frum Jew – but that’s not my father!'”

Does it matter if nobody is greater? The fact remains that R’ Lichtenstein shlita is a HUGE gadol.

He was a talmud of R’ Hutner zt”l as well as R’ Soloveitchik zt”l, both of whom were from the gedolei hador. He is a well-known Rosh Yeshiva. Does it matter if he’s the best, or “just” in the top 10 or top 20? Either way, he knows more than ANYONE who posts here in the CR, and is worthy of respect.

Rabbi Bender would not agree with Darchei being considered MO. They require black hats, velvet yarmulkas, and white shirts. I don’t know of any MO schools that require that.

R’ Bender is a visionary, who realizes that it’s unrealistic to expect boys to learn for a long time, and then be able to support a family. He makes sure the groundwork is there for when his talmidim need to go work. That should be the norm for all Jews.

DZ, I can’t speak for charlie, but my father went to college. His father went to college. My mother went to college. Her father began going for secular education, but was interrupted by the Nazis. Is that good enough for you?

Daya Zooger: While the income gap may be closing, that is only for those who have jobs. If you look at the unemployment numbers for January 2015, it says people with Bachelors degrees or higher have a 2.8 unemployment rate. Those with Associate’s degrees have a 5.2 rate. High school graduates with no college are at 5.4. And people who didn’t even finish high school are at 8.5.

So yes, once you find a job, you may make close to the same amount of money. But it’s far easier to find a job once you’ve graduated from college.

When it comes to tzedakah, my first priority is the school my kids attend. I’ll be honest. Many times I can’t afford the full tuition payments, and the school is extremely nice to us, and helps us with a scholarship. So when I have any extra money, I don’t give it to someone in kollel. I give it to the school.

If I have a lot of extra tzedakah money, I also give to Bonei Olam. I’ve written about the fertility treatments my wife and I went through. Bonei Olam was a tremendous help to us. I try to support them.

There’s a tzedakah organization which handles almost every need within my community, whether it’s help with medical bills, food, rent/mortgage, or anything else. I give them money when I can.

I also try to support the yeshiva I attended, Darchei Torah.

So supporting someone in kollel is not even really on the radar for me. I think my community comes first, then comes places I am somewhat beholden to. I’d then possibly consider a kollel. Unfortunately, right now, I don’t have that much money to give.

The best is to eat the dough before the cookies are baked. Chocolate chip cookie dough is delicious!

My shul has a base amount per family, plus a small amount per child. My membership this year came out to about $1,200.

The membership doesn’t just cover seats. They have youth groups every Shabbos and Yom Tov during Shacharis, where the youth leaders teach the children parts of Shabbos davening and discuss the parshah with them, so the parents can daven without being disturbed. There are groups for the kids on Shabbos afternoon. There is a kiddush and Seudah Shlishi in shul every week. The membership dues cover the bills the shul has.

I think another issue that can come from letters like this is that people will lose their trust in their Rabbonim. When a Rav tells you don’t go to school, it’s better to be hungry, would you want to follow him, or find another Rav?

First off, I’d like to know where the letter was published. I haven’t found it on any other site yet.

If it proves to be real, I will make sure not to donate a penny to his yeshiva. After all, he wouldn’t want to take money I earned through going to college!

DY: Just because someone works doesn’t mean they don’t learn! I work full time. I also have a chavrusah every night, and attend other shiurim throughout the week. I don’t consider myself an ama’aretz.

And your point is???

No, he doesn’t think the entire Lakewood is a mistake. He just acknowledges that there are many problems with the system as it exists, and doesn’t have answers for fixing it.

I can tell you that Rabbi Bender is different than most Roshei Yeshiva today. When I was in Darchei, he actually encouraged me to go to college. He told me, “You’re not cut out to sit and learn! Go to college, so that you’ll be able to support a family.” R’ Altusky (the Rosh Yeshiva who gives the highest shiur in Darchei)tried to convince me otherwise.

I once asked R’ Bender about why we have the kollel system we have today – it hadn’t existed before! He told me that after the Holocaust, the Chazon Ish said we needed to rebuild. Many Rabbonim had been lost, and we needed a foundation of Rabbonim to exist as frum Jews. He said we should encourage full time learning so we could have that again. He said that should happen for 3 generations, and then we’d have what we need. We could then go back to the way things were, with most people working to support a family, and only the elite learning full time.

But, R’ Bender said, that message wasn’t publicized. Full time learning was pushed, and the reason wasn’t explained why. He said it’s about time to switch back (and he told me this over 10 years ago!), but people have had it drilled into them that full time learning is the only way to go. They think it would be terrible to switch back to the way things were for centuries!

He told me it’s a big problem, and he doesn’t have the answer for it. His words were, “I try to help my bachurim. What can I do with everyone else?”

I quickly skimmed through this thread, and now want to add my 2 cents.

I agree with some posters who said that people come back from yeshiva/seminary brainwashed into thinking a kollel lifestyle is the only option that is “right”. I have no problem with someone sitting and learning – with a few caveats. First, they should come to that choice on their own, not be pushed into it. Second, the husband MUST have some means of supporting a family when the time comes.

In the Ketubah, it says the husband will provide for his wife. Yes, the wife can choose to work so the husband can learn. But what happens if she decides it’s too much for her, and needs him to work? Does the husband then decide to go to school for a degree? You’re then looking at college bills when you’re already paying rent/mortgage, for diapers (possibly), food for a family, and possibly even tuitions! Not to mention that the schooling can take a few years! If a husband doesn’t fulfill the ketubah, the wife has the right to ask for a divorce! Is that what we want?

A man should have the means to support a family. Once he has that in hand, he can go learn if he wants. But he needs something to fall back on!

A good friend of mine learned in kollel for a number of years, until his wife told him, “I’m working 2 jobs, we have 3 kids, and I’m burned out. It’s time for you to help out!” He immediately enrolled in school for the next semester, and found a job in the meantime. The job was ok, it brought in some money, but not enough – it was supposed to help him out while he was in school. But you know what? He was paying a mortgage, 2 tuitions, and day care. It wasn’t enough. He went to our Rosh Yeshiva, R’ Bender shlita, and asked him, “Why didn’t you warn us? Why didn’t you tell us how hard it would be? We were told to sit and learn in kollel, that it’s the best option. Now look where I am! My wife is ready to have a nervous breakdown, I’m not far behind, and I have 2 years before I finish my degree! You need to tell people the reality of what a kollel life is like!”

R’ Bender agreed with him, and told him it’s one of the biggest problems in the yeshiva world today – that they purposely don’t tell the bachurim that, for fear of scaring them away from the kollel life.

Just to note, R’ Bender is amazing at helping out these families. I won’t go into details, but he provides tremendous assistance to the people in his kollel, when they decide it’s time to go to school so they can support their families.

Rema711, let me explain to you what a blood libel was/is:

They mostly took place in Europe, although there were some in other areas. Christian residents wanted a reason to kill Jews. They would kill a Christian child (or take one who had died), and claim the Jews had killed it. They claimed it was done so the Jews could use the blood to make matzos with. This resulted in a mob which would usually go to the Jewish areas of the town/city, and begin butchering the Jews who lived there.

Obviously, Jews don’t use blood to make matzos, and they didn’t kill the child. So the entire story was fabricated. If you look up the definition of the word “libel”, you’ll see something like this:

“a published false statement that is damaging to a person’s reputation”

To say that constantly reporting on abuse in the Jewish community is a blood libel is not true. It may be biased reporting. It may be antisemitism (although I don’t believe it is). But it’s definitely not a libel.

If anything, the libel in the abuse cases is when many Jewish communities blame the victims, and claim they’re making up stories to get someone in trouble! That would be a libel. In fact, I believe that’s the reason it gets reported on so much. It’s not as much the abuse itself as the attempts to cover it up. They hold rallies to raise funds for the abuser. The victims are ostracized. That’s why so much is written about it. When there are cases where everyone cooperates, almost nothing is written about it.

I like how he writes, “even if the pizza has a reliable hechsher certification.” Why is that an “even”? If it doesn’t have it, you shouldn’t be eating it any day of the week!

When I was in Darchei Torah, the yeshiva used to order pizza for the melava malka each week. They also usually had leftovers from Shabbos. So they’d use one side of the dining room for pizza, and on the other side, they had the fleishig stuff. Some people would have pizza, wait a bit, then go have some cholent and kishka.

Rema711, how can you say it’s a blood libel? Yes, they report on abuse in the frum community, but only when it’s actually happening. The blood libels were 100% false, usually made up by Christians as an excuse to attack Jews.

The usual reason abuse in the frum community gets reported on so much is because of the attempts to cover it up, and the rallying around the abuser.

I know of a few cases of abuse where it wasn’t covered up, and everyone cooperated with the police. Guess what? There was a small article about it once, and that was it. Never another word about it.

Rosenblatt was a great chazzan, and was also a good frum Jew. Kvartin was also a great chazzan, but was not really frum.

I once heard that someone asked, “Who is better, Rosenblatt or Kvartin?” The response was, “On Rosh Hashanah, Rosenblatt is better. On Yom Kippur, Kvartin is better, because he drank some water to loosen his throat while Rosenblatt didn’t.”

So the question was asked, “If Kvartin sounds better on Yom Kippur, why does Rosenblatt get paid more?” The response was, “Because he davens 2 shemoneh esreis, one quiet, and one loud. Kvartin only davens one, so he gets paid less.”

FrumRav, you mentioned applesauce earlier. The cRc says that “Unflavored, unsweetened applesauce does not need a hechsher.” You can look it up, they sent it out as a Twitter message this past December.

With the vegetables, you left out the part where they listed the exceptions. Again, a quick look at the cRc website will show that they also say frozen vegetables are kosher, with a list of exceptions. The lists don’t sync up exactly, but some research of other hashgachos shows that there are disagreements on the veggies I looked up. A good example is potatoes – the cRc lists them as an exception. Others say they’re fine as long as they’re not fully cooked through.

There are plenty of issues with OO. The kashrus rules of one OO synagogue shouldn’t be your focus.

I’m usually rushing to finish the final preparations for Shabbos – I set up my wife’s candlesticks and put on the tablecloths, and obviously need a shower for Shabbos. I usually drive to shul on Friday afternoon, and I make sure I’m there before candle lighting time so I’m finished with any melachah by that time. I then read divrei Torah on the parshah until Mincha starts.

I don’t think it’s categorically assur to go to a mixed gym. It depends on the type of gym. If a woman wants to go, dressed appropriately, why should it be wrong? If a man wants to go, and he stays in an area where there aren’t women dressed inappropriately, what’s wrong with that?