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Y’all actually believe this?
It’s so easy to troll. It’s so illogical to think that someone who got his car stolen would go to the YWN coffeeroom for advice. That’s where a guy goes for advice?
Elbow them again, and act like you’re playing with them. If done right, the effects are magical.
Amazing to see how people want to simultaneously rip on and understand our president. The insults and distortions people on this thread have come up with show clearly that you are viewing President Trump through an emotional lens, instead of a realistic one. Through an emotional lens, you will never understand why he does anything, and continue to make yourselves miserable with his actions.
That it is a men’s issue is the stereotype, and a fairly accurate one. But not to the exclusion of women. Just run a quick Google search for hard statistics and prepare to be shocked. And while Orthodox Jews may have it easier, I have firsthand knowledge that it is a prevalent issue, and overlooking it with a closed-minded perspective is part of what allows the issue to be so prevalent.
Interesting that there was such a low turnout for voting. Could it be that people were simply fed up with the hatred and annoyance of such a despicable election race?
It’s not tznius for men to speak about and spread womens’ personal issues, especially in these areas, on the internet.
Thank you for speaking up in your nicely worded piece.
This is actually an issue that has bothered me for a while. Orthodox Jews have a tendency to view any negative behavior towards them as anti-semitism, when quite often they themselves are to blame. I second all of your points, and could not have phrased them better myself.
I personally would like to take it a step further. With all of the blatant corruption, insensitivity to other religions and ethnicities, among other problems in Jewish communities (not to mention the massive amount of arguments initiated and fought by ‘frum’ Jews), non-Jews simply don’t want to bother with us moving in. That’s not anti-semitism, that should serve as a message to the Jewish community that they’re doing something wrong here. Something tells me that if it was an influx of Modern Orthodox Jews, there wouldn’t be the same resistance.
Crying anti-semitism and making a big deal in the media will not fix this problem. The only thing that will is changing our society for the better.
With Rav Miller’s name on it, it’s hard to disagree without being automatically accused of possible kefira.
“What Mesivtas are known to have strong limudei chol departments where the kids and administration actually take them seriously but still maintains strong hashkafa in the limudei kodesh?”
Darchei HaTorah in Far Rockaway.
Well said, Gadolhadorah.
It’s often the other way around than what people think. Dense jewish communities often create an Orthodox ‘culture’ rather than a Torah environment, which can be quite harmful in raising children and often leads to increased rates of people leaving religion.
I had the privilege of viewing some of these protests first hand (and discussing them afterwards with indignant residents) while I was in Meah Shearim this summer. I can tell you first hand it was not kiddush Hashem in any way, shape, or form. It was quite the opposite, in fact, and I was astonished at the horrifying behavior and attitudes of people who call themselves Bnei Torah.
1) The frum by rote problem, too many people are just following in the motions, and not thinking about what they’re doing.
2) The tuition problem, tuition rates are skyrocketing, and no one can afford to pay because they don’t have jobs.
3) The next-generation kollel problem, where there are no rich fathers to rely on for money.
4) The current generation kollel problem, where everyone is in learning, cannot afford to support their families, and then leaves kollel to earn a living without the necessary skills to do so.
5) The over-emphasis on chitzoniyus, and the neglect of the pnimiyus, both in lifestyle and in education, leaving today’s children growing up in a world where what matters is the color of your shirt and the amount of chumras, instead of one’s true emunah and place in life, causing thousands to become irreligious.
6) The polarization of the Jewish community and educational system, which is turning radically to the right and left, respectively, leaving all those in the middle (this especially affects teenagers) without any place to feel at home, and creates a massive gap in our education system leaving a massive group completely uncatered towards, whereby the community neglects the spiritual needs of an entire segment of the population.
7) The division in beliefs between all sects of Judaism, leaving us without a clear, united front on major world issues, and leaving us vulnerable to media attacks which massacre the ‘Ultra-Orthodox’ on many issues, and make us look like a divided, infighting nation.
8) The general education system, including: Schools are only created for A students, leaving B students and the rest in a subpar educational system. That schools are not teaching the proper skills for life, leaving many in the Jewish world without the basic skills to earn a living. That the secular education is Jewish schools is defunct, and not taken seriously, which besides for the obvious problems, it destroys hours a day (resulting in hundreds of hours a year) of a student’s already well-committed time. That special needs students are not being taken care of. That large in-town Jewish communities need to find an efficient bus system, and learn to move away from government money and avoid crimes such as fraud, corruption, and chillul Hashem.
9) The shidduch crisis, whatever you wish to attribute it to (men starting dating too late, women starting too early, people only wanting A-class shidduchim etc.), leaving thousands of Jewish women unmarried for years, or even life r”l.
10) The closed-mindedness of the community, that people refuse to hear opposing viewpoints, opposing hashkafos, and refuse to entertain the possibility that things they’re doing may be wrong, morally, hashkafically, and halachically and contributing to many problems in the world today. But most importantly, that almost no one will choose to take action on any of these issues.
The word is Christian. You can’t hide behind anything with the X because they also used to refer to him with a plain X. It’s better to write normally and give over your point effectively.
*your.
Anyone using YWN as a news source for anything other than Jewish News is probably Yeshivish. Most other people would not use a Jewish news site as a news source, they’d rather hear it from the pros.
(I don’t mean to knock Yeshiva World News in any way, shape or form, I mean to illustrate a reality).
However, I have no doubt this post will come under fire from people who define the term ‘yeshivish’ differently than I do. I am coming from a specific viewpoint, and for those who understand it from my posts, wonderful.
Regardless of any opinions regarding her ‘kabbalas hamitzvos,’ it is not our position to judge the status of her gairus. Let’s face it: Almost no one on here has any real knowledge of her geirus process, and has little or no knowledge of her personal life. (While it can be argued that it is important, as Jews, for us to understand how a face of the Orthodox Jewish World represents us, it’s possible to do that without passing judgment on the status of her geirus.) It’s not our job to be the judges of her life.
People on the Coffee Room are very quick to say things are assur. It’s quite amusing. Not everything is so black and white. (Pun intended, V’Hameivin Yavin.)
Joseph, I’m trying to understand if you have extreme, overzealous views or are merely trolling.
bmyer, it could be that’s true, but even from the first ten years the point stands.
Joseph, I happen to know that’s not correct at all. YHS in Boca Raton was created with permission from Gedolai HaDor, and there are many other examples. Blanket statements like that in Judaism are often wrong, and give people an improper impression of what we are about.
I heard a theory from a respected lawyer that Netanyahu told Trump to wait on the embassy move. It seems to make a lot of sense. Another theory is that Trump is waiting to use it as a bargaining chip over Abbas to force direct negotiations with Israel without preconditions.
The reason I haven’t responded as to the reasoning of the psak, was because the Rav I asked the question to felt that it should not be posted here. I thought I made that position clear, and didn’t feel a need to further defend it.
As to why I didn’t respond to Avram in MD’s paragraph by paragraph analysis on my post in the original thread, I didn’t feel that I was able to write anything that could better defend my position than what I originally wrote, and felt that if I wrote anything further it would detract from the original message I wished to put out there. I wrote the post in a moment of focus, and I’m not able to write on that level at most other times to accurately defend my position.
Lilmod, you seem too rational a person to have this much of an emotional response to an issue. Why are you so attached to this issue? It seems to be taken too far at this point.
Watching people play Xbox Kinect is fun. They think they’re doing something, but to everyone around them, they just look ridiculous.
For arguments sake, I’ll put up the flip side. The more that’s forbidden, and the more questionable the questionable content is viewed, the more the person wants to see it. For regular humans, a supermarket is not an issue. But as soon as someone makes it into an issue, it will certainly become one.
Lilmod, I spoke to the Rav, and he doesn’t want his name out there. (He’s not as into controversial discussions as I am.)
Lilmod, no disrespect intended, your position on Lashon Hara seems to be coming from something other than what it seems to be. Why do you have such an attachment to this issue?
Lilmod Ulelamaid: I only saw this thread now, I’ve been offline here for a few days, I apologize for the late response. I’ll mention your request to the Rav tomorrow, but from speaking with him, he doesn’t want his name out there. I’ll mention a few more things about this though. He did see the original post, and read through many of the responses. He is fully versed in Hilchos Lashon Hara (obviously), and gave a full logical reason as to why the post did not constitute an issur l’halacha. What he said fully answers the questions and difficulties you had with the psak. I didn’t post the details online, because as I said on the original thread, it’s not for those who don’t have smicha to debate the psak from someone who does, and as we can all see, even though I left out the details, it still became a massive discussion. However, I can tell from the language of your question here that you have a sincere desire to understand this, so I will forward him your question and leave it for him to respond.
@YW Moderator 29: I hate when that happens 🙁 I appreciate it though.
Gadolhadorah: Exactly, but it’s not about easy or hard. It’s about doing the right thing with the right intentions. We often lack the latter.
Lilmod Ulelamaid: My intention here is not to come down on OP, not remotely, it sounds like she’s doing what she thinks is right, and I apologize to her if I was misunderstood because I wasn’t clear.
I’m coming down on the problem that when someone looks to understand, that’s what (s)he sees. This is a criticism of our society, not of her. The ridiculousness of someone trying to learn about tznius, and what she sees is little details of a chumra shel chumra, in some remote possiblity, a type of umbrella could be untznius, is insane. That’s not the spirit of tznius. And I don’t mean to sound neo-conservative at all, halacha matters more than the meaning of a mitzvah, according to a Gadol I asked yesterday, but there’s a certain point in chumras where it goes too far. And that fact that these things are blown out of proportion to the point that people lose focus about the meaning of what they’re doing. We talk the talk, walk the walk, and keep all the chumras, but do we know what the essence of what we’re doing is?
Lilmod Ulelamaid: But don’t you think it says something that someone who is in the process of figuring things out sees this, not the concept itself?
The very fact that we are having this conversation on this thread is very disconcerting.
Jogging my memory, I apologize, it could be that the figure mentioned was for a family of four. I retract the number, but you get the idea. We need a monetary system that works if we want our kids to be educated.
I heard it from a respected speaker who said the number at the Torah U’Mesorah President’s Conference this year. Anyone else there should be able to testify to the number. It was said about the next generation, not this one.
@catchyourself I understand your point, but I believe we need to create a sustainable system. I heard a figure that to fully educate a child for the next generation it’s expected to cost $2,000,000 PER child!!!! That’s an outrageous figure, and something needs to be done about this. With more and more people going into full time learning (not saying harbatzas Torah), it cannot be helping the matter.
@YWModerator-29 I am concerned that many frum people have the wrong impression of what frumkeit is also. We get so caught up in the form of an umbrella or the color of nail polish that we miss out on what it really means to be tznius, among other things. We often fail to see the forest for its trees.
You wouldn’t agree that improper hashkafah is better than no hashkafah?
Lilmod Ulelamaid, with all due respect, your answer doesn’t explain anything, and I just saw LB’s answer above that, it doesn’t explain its impropriety either.
It all comes along with the kollel mentality. People sit and learn and don’t make enough money to support their families, and we’re starting to see now the effect of that, that now schools don’t have enough money to pay Rebbeim (it should be noted that going into harbatzas Torah is considered differently than sitting and learning oneself), and then they shut down. Where is this really getting us, when our sons don’t have a school to go to because of our learning?
(I mean no disrespect to those sitting and learning, it’s a beautiful, and amazing thing that most people simply could not make the sacrifice to do, but I disagree with the practicality of it. It’s not a sustainable system; The Rambam said one should not be hitztarech al haBrios, and even Hillel HaZaken and the Chofetz Chaim in our times earned themselves a living.)
One thing people do need to realize, however, is that there’s no such thing as a perfect match. Every marriage will have its issues, and any married person knows that there will have to be compromises. I’m not saying people should marry someone who’s bad for them, don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean at all to say that, but there’s no such thing as the perfect match.
But in response to the OP, I think we need to reform the shadchan system, and make things more normalized.
Can somebody explain how transparent bubble umbrellas can possibly constitute a lack of tznius?
Hire people in the Coffee Room to teach the classes.
These robocallers drive me crazy. The latest thing is to start the robocall with a recording of someone going “Oops! I was just adjusting my headset!” And then it goes straight into a recorded speech.
“4. Will I be more or less likely to be set up with the kinds of boys I want to be set up with?
5. Will the kinds of boys I don’t want to marry be more likely to talk to me and want to go out with me?”
Lilmod Ulelamaid: Forgive my lack of knowledge about how the shidduch system works, but why should a girl change her lifestyle because of how it could affect her prospects? I don’t see why she shouldn’t just be herself, and thereby find a guy who’s a better fit for who she really is, not who she pretends to be, that way.
It sounds like we both know people of similar backgrounds then, and it’s understandable why some people should not date some of them. But just because people come from different backgrounds, or have a different understanding of life doesn’t mean they can’t date, opposites attract, and differences provide a needed balance in any marriage, that’s part of the blessing of marriage. I don’t think people understand that his experience in other areas of life is a pro, not a con. It gives him a deeper understanding of what life is about, he’s ‘been there done that’ and realizes what’s true in the world and what the proper things in life are, and actually believes in them, as evidenced by him coming back. Whereas many people his age with an always-frum background never had that exposure, and quite possibly (or even probably), don’t have his appreciation for God, religion, and Judaism, because they never knew anyone else. Sure, if people only see this as a con, they will criticize, but if they look at both sides of the issue, they’ll see why almost any girl would be lucky to have him.
To back up Joseph: There’s a concept called ‘A Jew in Galus,’ and we have to act it. We’re not in the world in this historical era to take the spotlight. Whenever such things happened in history, it has never turned out well for us. We need to know our place in this world, and act it.
This kind of judgmentalness is part of what sends people off in the first place. @Bochur2.0 did an amazing thing coming back. Let’s not be the ones to ruin it.
Yaakov bowed to Yosef in Egypt, and Yosef walked ahead of the procession to meet him when Yaakov came down there in the first place.
The reason why Hashem’s name isn’t mentioned in Megillas Esther is to show us that if one looks at without looking, he wouldn’t see that the entire thing was done through Hashem, it would appear to have happened by teva, through a string of natural occurrences. I think I heard a Chazal somewhere that said the events leading up to Mashiach will take place through a string of ‘natural occurrences’ that unless one looks into it, will appear entirely through teva and lacking the visible hand of God. Trump is exactly that.
Lilmod Ulelamaid: The concept of Naaseh V’Nishma in this week’s parsha shows us that we are supposed to the mitzvos, and do the right thing even if we do not understand it, then we seek to understand.
It’s clear you want us to say we don’t have our priorities straight. Yet there is a basic difference between acting inappropriately during davening and what Turx did. One is a Chillul Hashem on a national level, and one isn’t.