enlightenedjew

Mikehall, a child of the 80’s, I see..?

😉

Ronrsr, have you ever watched sports on standard definition TVs? Compare the two images – then come back and ask “what’s the big deal?”

Full disclosure, I have both systems – Wii and PS3. And I am far older than 15.

If your child is someone who’ll become comfortable or OK with monitoring (both content and time), I’d recommend the PS3. It is a much better deal than the Wii, since it can play DVDs/CDs and games in HD and has a hard drive where you can store pretty much anything (like photos). YES, it can be connected to the internet, BUT so can the Wii, PLUS the PS3’s connectivity is NOT designed for a great web browsing experience, rather so that one can log into Playstation Network (PSN) and buy content from there. There are some very good, entertaining, wholesome games on PSN. Just because something can “connect to the Internet” doesn’t mean you could or would want to do the same thing on that connected device as you’d on a PC.

The Wii is a fun console, content offering for it are a little thin and it doesn’t have the visual and aural “pop” that PS3 content does. I’d recommend a Wii if a family was looking into a family console, but a teenager wanting to buy one is different, if monitored OK, I wouldn’t want to see him sink all that $$$ into a console he’ll use for a month then discard.

Mother In Israel-

If you have no idea what a PS3 is, how would know that a PS3 is part of “these contraptions tend to be addictive”? Obviously you do know what a PS3 is, since you do know what “these contraptions” are as well as their nature, and you do seem to group a PS3 with “these contraptions” in your statement…

Yes. 55″ of HD plasma gas… NFL never looked so good…

Video games, as a genre, have been grossly mis-characterized. They don’t on the whole represent a ‘dumbing down’ form of media, on the contrary. Read a bit about some of the more involving and immersive games and you’ll see that the complexity of games causes the player to use a fair amount of cognitive acrobatics, critical thinking, and problem solving skills while playing ’em. Also, it’s not fair to compare books to games – they are completely different forms of media and should be evaluated as such. Both have detracting and redeeming qualities.

Onegoal, well said. I agree. I have a PS3 and Wii in my house. Like anything else, you need to PARENT your child.

That said, games get short shrift these days. The title is a bit hyperbolic (on purpose, I assume) but if you want some interesting reading, check out Everything Bad is Good for You, by Steven Johnson.

Mosherose:

“I guess Sorah became pregnant, exactly how?”

“A neis, obviously. Of course it was a neis. How many ninty year old woman do you know who give birth?”

I just had to laugh – you do realize that there are a few billion people in this world that believe this happened to another woman as well???

SJS, please clarify what you wrote:

A) “A Yeshiva education is a priveledge (sic), not a right.”

GAW – that’s not a bad idea.

SJS, I understand your response. But maybe we should really sit and think whether the “prep” place really is inferior based on what we’re trying to accomplish

SJS, I don’t care about how public schools are funded. I care about yeshivos and our chinuch funding structure. (Actually, I do care about PS – my gargantuan property tax bill helps fund it. So I’m actually paying 1.5X – I assume not all of your 15K figure is funded by my tax – for my kid’s education).

Again the wrong focus. Why are we ignoring the elephant in the room!!!??? We are ASKING THE WRONG QUESTIONS AND MAKING THE WRONG statements. I don’t care how PS is funded AS MUCH as I care about yeshiva since, if I had 4 kids and paid 10K in property tax, my yeshiva bill will FAR outstrip my tax bill. The whole system is more of a problem that what we’re spending COMMUNALLY. yes, I think weddings can get too fancy and pesach spending on cruises is disgustingly luxurious, but the beauty of a market economy is that spending may be largely “in-house” (ie, within the community – it’s usually frum ppl who own catering businesses for example) and that trickles around the communal economy. That spending is also discretionary, while tuition is not – I can turn the spending spigot off if I want when I deem it unaffordable, and economic equilibrium can be maintained. MANDATING unaffordable spending, on the other hand, is a recipe for disaster.

The ECONOMIC structure is almost completely flawed. For example, determining socially what is and isn’t a valid ‘extraneous’ expense vis a vis who qualifies for what discount is a ridiculous way of making chinuch ‘affordable’ and is going down a very, very slippery slope. It’s completely unfair to make one’s committment to chinuch hinge solely on cutting living expenses to the BONE and living on bread and rice, walking all over the place while ditching the car, cell phone, and budgeting for some of the expenses that bring a little bit of comfort an joy into our otherwise stressful and busy lives (a new sheitel once in a blue moon, going out to eat on a birthday, buying a little something for our wives, buying a beautiful new sefer, etc etc etc etc etc). Not wanting to live like a complete ascetic does NOT mean you don’t value tuition – spare me the righteous quid pro quos.

SJS-

I don’t disagree. But what if you’re so busy, both spouses with full time, that you literally have no time for cleaning yourself? Do you let the condition of the house/apt go to pot? Or you spend every waking moment either cleaning or working? And cleaning help doesn’t have to cost thousands per year. But that’s not my point.

So let’s say you’re saving $3.5-$4.5K per year in ‘extraneous’ expenses. That’s nickel and dimes compared to a full tuition burden for, say, 4-5 kids. So you’re still underwater, just not as much. So what have you really accomplished? And, no, tapping equity is not the funding answer because AS WE’VE SEEN real equity can disappear with terrifying speed.

SJS, you’re making good points but we’re talking around the issue. The problem isn’t really what we spend as much as the horrid economics of the system we’ve built for ourselves. We can cut expenses to a point, but one property and/or income tax hike could wipe those savings off the map and we’re right back to square one. The issue really is that tuition costs too much for your average family living in the US. The cost structure based on the infrastructure is flawed. The continued delusion that we can expect average families to pay 60%-70% of after tax income on tuition while being able to afford to live without worrying themselves into a heart attack is ludicrous, ESPECIALLY with all the other (albeit smaller) financial burdens being frum entails.

The issue is that it’s UNREALISTIC to expect all frum families here to sell all their cars, ditch all cell phones, bunk 3 to a room and crowd into a 500 sq ft house and never, ever spend a penny on relaxation ever again in order to afford tuition. People need relaxation and leisure – not being able to relax carries serious health risks. People have the right to spend MODESTLY on relaxing activities and pursuits. The problem is that tuition costs too much money. The problem isn’t that we ALL spend too much.

Thanks, Squeak. I don’t mean to come off as anti-yeshiva education, or being anti-school. At LEAST some sort of Yeshiva education is nearly a requirement to ensuring the spiritual health of the next dor. Schools are battling rising costs themselves. Admins aren’t evil, they’re just trying to ensure the viability of the institutions that pay their salary. But schools are amorphic entities. They don’t live, breathe, interact on an emotional and physical level with their peers and family members, etc – families do.

What’s frustrating me is that many are advocating for schools and education (“they’re already tapped”, “we need to give the chinuch for our kids”, etc) – but schools and the idea of “chinuch” are inanimate, amorphic objects and concepts. Families aren’t – they’re organic, dynamic entities that need more TLC than bricks and mortar. If all yeshivas nationwide were to spontaneously combust tomorrow, we as a community will still be around and still soldier on. Yahadus would still exist. If many, many families were to break up ch”v, Yahadus would take a serious, serious blow and could be on life support.

In the end, what is more important – preserving the traditional family structure with shalom bayis, etc, or schools and infrastructure (brick and mortar buildings, teachers, administrators)? I’m not saying it’s the old “guns and butter” argument – it’s not necessarily a zero sum game (at this point – it may be 20 years down the road). But what’s more important should be leading the discussion on the subject.

If we let THAT lead the discussion instead of accepting the educational infrastructure at status quo, we may collectively find some interesting things. Things like online education initiatives (K-12, for example) which bends the school structure in possibly sacrificing something for what’s more important – sane, healthy families. I’m hoping my point here is clear…

Coupled with NNJKids, my tax point is that the “tax” should apply to the Jewish community – the ENTIRE Jewish community (non denominational – conservative, reform, etc). The tax should be progressive.

That’s the best way to get our schools the funding they need and help our parents who are shouldering this burden. Economic strength in numbers.

There’s almost no economic way the frum community can shoulder the burden for all of its many schools alone.

BPTotty-

Good point about healthcare and maaser. Unfortunately payments for tuition at private schools are not tax-deductible as charitable contributions, I think.

SJS, I beg to differ about NNJ, I wouldn’t dismiss it so readily. My reason for mentioning it was to respond to Cherrybim’s comment that the obligation rests squarely on parents’ shoulders and it’s their shoulders that should bear the brunt.

BP, back to you – yes, education does pay. We want to see our children succeed in yahadus and have a chance at making a respectable parnassa. However, it’s coming at an increasingly higher cost these days and takes a bigger emotional, social, and financial toll than it once did. That price is becoming very steep. Furthermore, tuition payments help keep money out of retirement and targeted (eg saving for making a wedding, etc). Who’s going to fund parents’ living expenses when they can’t work anymore and have little or no savings? Their kids? Uncle Sam (and then he’ll raise taxes? Something to consider.

The problem here is that many families just cannot theoretically afford tuition these days. I know it’s nice and easy to say that tuition always pays, but that doesn’t even begin to answer what is a firmly entrenched economic problem.

Cherrybim, I’m not saying I agree 100% to this way of thinking, but I think I can argue somewhat plausibly that certain services and payments that are one’s communal “obligations” should be treated as progressive taxes and not commodities. American income tax structure is theoretically progressive on the whole – the more money you make the higher your tax percentage (bracket). The government understands that simply dividing the cost of running the nation equally by the number of (legal) residents or households is an extremely inequitable undertaking and, more importantly, can be unsustainable. Our society understands that government expenditures funded from tax money generally, eventually, benefit the country as a whole – thus, we have a progressive system.

The same might be said for tuition. Communal pressures, stigmas, and logic leave frum Jews little or no choice but to give their kids a Jewish day school education. No one will argue that mass Jewish education will at the very least spiritually benefit the Jewish community as a whole. Because of the obligation, one could possibly argue for modeling the school funding structure after our progressive income tax system.

SJSinNYC-

I agree – but take issue with some of your assumptions.

1. You are not mechuyav to give ma’aser at the 10% of gross figure if it will entail financial hardship. There are also many ways one can calculate ma’aser (after tax, after tax minus essential expenses, etc).

2. Where are property tax and insurance bills in your calculation? Included in the $2,500 mortgage figure? Hardly, at least in the NY/NJ area.

3. That tax figure is high, I think, for the average homeowner. Remember that contributions to charity are tax deductible – so assuming the couple is in the 25% tax bracket, that $9,500 maaser amount is really $7,125. Commuting costs can be tax deductible up to $230 per month, so that reduces taxes by another $690 ($230*12*.25). Add in some mortgage interest, state income and local property tax deduction, exemptions for self, spouse, and children, and possibly some child-care deduction (if young children) and that $55K tax bill can be a bit lower.

4. $1,000 per parent per year for life insurance?? I think that’s quite high, unless the parents are smokers weighing 250lbs each. 😉

Wall St Journal, Financial Times, The Economist. All top notch papers/publications with excellent writing.

Wolfish – I’m not entirely sure what you mean by irresponsible people being ‘rewarded’ by the current system, unless you mean that they can buy things, go on vacations, etc, that Steve can’t.

If so, VERY good point. The tuition superstructure that we’ve created for ourselves is riddled with unintended consequences like this one. It’s broken and in desperate need of fixing, and is rapidly becoming unsustainable in its current state.

Yiddeshemama-

+1

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

That and the fact that renting can lead to being intransient – renters can be subject to the selling whim of the owner, med to long term.

Bloggerman2, see my post above – I agree wholeheartedly that it’s tough for even $100K earners, that’s exactly my point. I’m in the working world, have bills, etc.

I still think that, today, you’re basically shortchanging yourself by not getting an education or not encouraging your kids to get one. College, etc doesn’t HAVE to be expensive, plus it’s an investment. Many studies have demonstrated that, on average, higher education translates to higher earnings. See this- http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa072602a.htm – as an example. Even if $100K don’t quite cut the mustard, I’d still rather $100K/year + moderate student loans over my working life than $40-50K/year without.

AND – the fact that even over $100K doesn’t work is, in my mind, a sad, sad commentary on how far our financial life has devolved, at least in this part of the country.

Much has been said already in this post – I agree that education and advanced skill building are keys to success (note – success doesn’t have to mean becoming a millionaire) in our world today.

Cost of tuition coupled with the horribly relentless cost of living increase (especially in the tri-state area) is flat out unsustainable. I think it’s disgusting that a guy can slave for years through an advanced degree and through work in the hopes of making enough to cover costs and then by the time he gets to tuition, boom, all that slaving was really not enough. With tuition at like $15K per kid it never will be. Something HAS to give with tuition or the cost of frum living will become literally unsustainable over the next few years for all but the highest net worth individuals and people will just not have kids or not send them to higher cost Jewish schools.

I’d say though that people can be encouraged to just move away from the NY-NJ area. Costs of taxes and housing (the number 1-2 expenses for your average family) have just spiraled out of control here. We pay an enormous amount of taxes to these states and get appallingly little for it. I find it repugnant that hard working people pay enormous amounts of tax cash to local municipalities for public school education that they never will use. I also find it repugnant that on top of all the other costs a frum person must shoulder, housing costs rise another 15%-20% as well for the privilege of living in a Jewish area. Taxes and housing are sharply lower in out of town communities (no state taxes in Texas, for example, where there are vibrant Jewish communities) and it’s possible to save nearly $30K a year or more in housing and tax costs alone. So why don’t more people turn their back on this area and leave for greener pastures if they can (job, etc)?

There’s a head in the sand mentality about this though. I was speaking with someone who responded to my above argument (I was arguing about Texas) with “but are there yeshivas in Dallas or Houston?” To which I responded yes, there actually are a few. He said “but are they {certain type of hashkafa} places? I’d only want to send my kid to {type} of place”. I thought about that a little later and realized how ridiculous an argument (on its own) that is for staying in the NY-NJ area. Why would someone trade more financial peace of mind and shalom bayis etc so that their kid can be not just educated in a Jewish manner, but educated only to be yeshivish, modern, litvish, etc? You can’t have your cake and eat it, too, in economics. You always need to make a tradeoff. If you don’t, that could be leading yourself down the road to financial doom.

No, popularly waving the phrase “shver tzu zein a yid” around doesn’t answer the problem nor is it proper. Saying that shows an appalling lack of thinking and initiative in combating the ingrained financial problems we face. It shows a remarkable ability to keep one’s head firmly in the sand while the world crumbles around them.

R’ Schorr can restrict access to his own yeshiva/shul in whatever way he wants, as long as it’s somewhat reasonable and within halachic bounds. While I really don’t think I would react as drastically to texting, he does have that right.

HIS, you got issues.

I use the eruv in Boro Park, don’t use in Flatbush. I heard from a talmid muvhak of a major gadol (zt”l) about BP eruv that the BP was OK, but he didn’t want to go public with it b/c he didn’t want to stir machlokes.

I haven’t gotten a definitive answer on Flatbush, but I do think it a bit childish to accuse those who do use it (or BP) of chillul shabbos. There are very learned people who take both sides.

I do know that appearances and politics also seem to creep into this – someone I know asked a local rav and he said they can use the Flatbush eruv for their baby (carry/push baby) and baby things, but nothing else. Does that make sense, logically? Not really, in my mind.

“1.written by a goy vs written by a Jew” So?

“im sorry, i cant explain it to you”

I think I’m aware of what you’re getting at – that the soul of Jew infuses itself into his/her creative works, and the soul of a goy infuses theirs. Disregard if I’m wrong.

OK. But does that mean automatically = BAD? What if the goy creates something spectacularly amazing and beautiful without tznius, etc issues (say, Beethoven’s 9th, 5th, 6th symphonies) with the intent solely on creating something wonderful, ex nihilo almost? Take Beethoven. His soul went into it but with very possibly pure, simple intentions of translating the natural, physical vibrations in his head into weaving a pleasant tapestry of musical notes? Is that a problem, given the circumstances? Maybe LVB was trying to reach the divine in his own way. Maybe. Maybe Mozart was as well, as was Vermeer, Conan Doyle, Michelangelo, Dante, etc?