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The point has been made here repeatedly on multiple topics and in multiple contexts. The notion of a very large percentage of chareidi young men foregoing any secular education and vocational training and instead spending 10+ years shteiging while throwing their families on the welfare rolls is a true chillul hashem (overused term) and totally inconsistent with how prior generations (with exceptions for a few future gaonim) found the time to do both. These yungerleit fully know the hole they are digging for themselves and their families by rejecting all the available options today to combine secular studies and job training with their learning so the laments about making the transition after 10 years of zero effort on acquiring the skills for a paranassah cannot be taken credibly.
I think most of us have learned that we cannot take literally all the words of chazal and more modern-day gadolim and meforshim since most commentary and psaks have a contextual element not always apparent from the quote or attribution. Generally, most are not blanket edicts or unqualified but the conditionality is often implicit rather than explicit or inferred from the facts of the question or the identify of the questioner.
There is a misguided notion that learning and earning a parnassah are mutually exclusive. Throughout our history, with few exceptions, there have been generations of those who lived a balanced life including limudei torah, working for a parnassah and spending time relaxing with family and friends. Its only in the last generations that the notion of learning 24×7 while throwing your family on to the public welfare rolls and private charities has become the norm in some communities. Its time to go back to basics with respect to living a balanced life. Sure, maybe a small subset of brilliant talmidim might learn full-time, but 90 percent of the shteigers in BMG, et. al. are NOT brilliant learners.
Apparently, there are still ongoing investigations that could result in even more arrests in the coming weeks. The government task force investigating this fraud is now able to access confidential tax return information and use newly available software that makes it much easier to verify information and flag inconsistencies between welfare applications and other previously inaccessible information. It would ultimately be good if the prosecutors could recruit honest frum yidden from the BMG tzibur to work on these investigations since they would be able to focus on the real fraud artists and ganovim who give the 95% of the honest citizens a bad name. Maybe also provide cash awards for a “tip line” to report those who commit welfare fraud if they can figure out a way to avoid cries of “gevalt” and “moser”
Its somewhat bizarre that a Rav who cannot even get along with his own brother feels competent to give musar to the yidden in France whose own sense of security is at risk. He says nothing about how they can resolve their security issues and instead uses his comments to exploit their fears and tell them their children will go OTD if they c’v move to eretz hakodesh where there security will be substantially approved.
As yidden, we have a deeper obligation to support those government services critical to providing basic life-sustaining health-care services to those truly in need and who have done all within their capability to provide for themselves. At the same time, I hear you rationalize why families of learners in Lakewood with 10 children should grab all the welfare money they can (even though the parents refuse to work), you offer bogus philosophical objections to an entitlement of basic health care for those truly in need.
If I understand your perspective, any behavior or communal committment explicitly addressed in the Torah is a fundamental moral imperative….everything else is a discretionary policy choice over which reasonable yidden might disagree. I guess that works for you but what about the young child of a single mother who would like to observe the mitzvah of “u’shamartem es nofshosechem” but sadly lacks the resources to provide for preventive health care. Is it the responsibility of the tzibur to provide a social safety net or simply allow for those who want to voluntarily give tzadakah to do so and if not, the child may be at risk from fatal childhood diseases.
Adlerstein make a cogent point with respect to the risks of “endorsement’ of any website postings since there is not the same level of “quality control” as one might assume with hard copy publications. However, that simply means we apply a higher level of skepticism and due diligence to “advice” websites, Wikopedia type sites, and other forms of social media. I’m not aware that Moshe Rabenu had a Facebook pate and was liked by hundreds of thousands of yidden in the midbar and then flamed when the maan didn’t show up on time…..somehow, the rebbe was able to communicate to the world without a Twitter account by sharing pearls of wisdom, along with his aura and a dollar bill. Every generation communicates and shares information and advice differently but one common thread is that everyone ultimately is given the power of analysis and reasoning by HKBH and failure to use that power is ultimately you own fault, not that of some “Fake Virtual Posek”
To DaasYochid:
Do you really believe “the market” will provide what society doesn’t value…..if adequate health care for children is not treated as a “right” (as it is in EY and most of the world outside the U.S.) and subsidized as necessary by the government, the market will NOT voluntarily provide care to those who cannot pay (we can argue why) but run in the direction of offering higher quality service at increasingly higher prices to those that can afford it. Health care is different from any other product or service in the economy. If you insist on protecting “life” in the womb as an objectively moral requirement under penalty of law (one infamous state law would have made abortion a capital crime) than you are equally obligated to treat that life with dignity and value after it emerges into the world. As a yid, you seem to be saying that unless some social value or objective can be explicitly found among taryag mitzvos, it inherently must be assigned a lower priority.
Yes….cannot imagine how I could have confused Meno and RebYid….my apologies to whichever of you felt the greater insult
RebYid23
You clearly have a viewpoint and are entitled to hold by it ….for many of us, getting input from online sources on a subject we know little about is better than making decisions with no information. Most of us feel competent to sort out the information we get online and apply the appropriate discount factors based on the qualifications of the source, how the advice conforms with other views solicited, etc. As another post commented, ANY third-party information requires one to exercise some degree of analysis prior to using that information as the basis for decisions. As to your own challenges in virtual rehab, we all wish you a refuah shelaymah.
To Meno:
Getting objective and non-judgmental advice on matters of halacha online when you don’t have physical or electronic access to a rav/posek with whom you’ve established a personal relationship Is a lot better than simply not getting any advice.
To Joseph:
My virtual wife assures me that she much prefers our electronic relationship than having to deal with me in a physical reality. Also, while Toras Moshe is “judgmental” there is no reason why a rav who professes to be knowledge about Toras Moshe must be judgemental. In fact, one of the greatest midos shared by both Rav Moshe’ Z’TL, and the Rebbe , ZTL, was how each was known for never denigrating or disparaging someone who came to them for advice. They were not shy about offering their views of what the Torah objectively required but at the same time never verbally abused a yid who professed to not having met that ideal.Both the torah and our own constitution implicitly approved of slavery, albeit under conditions requiring that slaves be treated humanely. There also are provisions for one yid to summarily execute another yid without going through a judicial process for certain violations of torah law. I’m unaware that the Ebeshter provided his yidden a mechanism to amend his torah by a vote of 2/3 of the shevatim or by a 3/4 vote of the RCA membership. There are lots of things in the torah that might seem morally repugnant today but its not up to us to question. However, as long as we live in galus, we must in most cases to dina d’malchusa and cannot invoke torah law to justify actions that are strictly forbidden under civil law. I find it bizarre how many political conservatives (including some yidden) who rant and rave about outlawing any adherence to Shariah law in the U.S. but are totally quiet (or ignorant) about the degree to which frum yidden already subject themselves voluntarily to halacha, rely on a system of beis dins to adjudicate disputes, etc. Of course, we would contend there is no “moral equivalence” betweeh Shariah and Halacha but from a legal and constitutional perspective we cannot enforce a selective prohibition on ANYONE voluntarily subjecting themselves to any religious code.
To Daas Yochid:
You say that “comparing [society’s] self-determined sense of morality to G-d’s is probably kefirah. Definitely idiocy.”…..Well, I guess you also would take exception to calling the “asseres hadibros” (aka the 10 commandments), the “The 10 suggestions”. If you cannot accept the fundamental moral equivalence of not taking the life of a so-called “unborn child” with the obligation to assure that the child has access to basic health-care and nutrition after birth, I would suggest its you who is the tipesh gamur. I could care less if zealots such as yourself consider such moral imperatives as ‘kefirah” but that is reality. I don’t look to torah moshe m’sinai to outline the required elements of national health care but would place a much higher priority on providing basic health care to all than legislating and regulating about what two consenting adults do in the privacy of their home or whether the government provides a piece of paper providing certain contractual rights to same gender couples.
What is necessary today are websites that provide non-judgmental, torah-based information to those with questions about lifestyles, education, workplace issues etc. but provide the opportunity for the individual to analyze information and decide for himself/herself their own hashkafah. The old fashioned guidance of finding one’s own local rav/posek is an ideal but often impractical in today’s world where younger people are highly mobile and don’t set down roots long enough to build such relationships. While having your own “virtual rav” would be second best, it also requires that individuals learn to think critically and decide for themselves how they want to live a torah-based life in the 21st century.
I believe its “objectively immoral” to allow any child born in the U.S. to lack adequate health care or nutrition. Yet, these same Republican “moralists” insist that each state should be allowed to decide whether such an entitlement exists. What would happen in Monsey or Lakewood if the states wee allowed to cut off welfare benefits to families with more than 2 children because the parents were morally irresponsible for having children they could not feed or care for?? The scope of the selective morality and hypocrisy is breathtaking.
I don’t think the actual regents test scores are publicly disclosed for individual schools so it is difficult to make direct comparisons. On an anecdotal level, I’d believe the assumption that yeshiva grads from schools with good secular programs score better than public school counterparts in the same communities. However, I’d be skeptical about the test scores I some frum schools where secular classes are not given much priority.
Take the government (both federal and state) out of the business of regulating kedushin and bedroom behavior. The Republicans preach the gospel of individual liberty but seem to carve out exceptions for their right wing evangelical friends. Be consistent or acknowledge your hypocrisy.
To Joseph:
Are you really serious about Lakewood being such a “Kiddush hashem”?? You are either trolling as usual or are totally oblivious to the fact that welfare is so widespread in the township that according to census data, more than half of all the children live in homes that receive some form of government assistance for the poor. There are 10,000 more children in households with married couples in Lakewood receiving food, income or state aid than Newark. Clearly, the BMG network did much to help rebuild the frum tzibur and support limud torah in the post-War period here in the U.S. However, do you really believe that Aron Kotler imagined that the frum community he helped establish and nurture would deteriorate to the point It has become the welfare capital of the state??
Until the leading rabbonim in Lakewood speak out forcefully and unequivocally about these low-lifes who steal from the public (which means stealing from you and me), than the type of anti-Semitic vandalism we saw at the Jersey shul last night will proliferate. All of these “innocent until proven guilty” and “maybe they didn’t understand the law” excuses are simply another form of denial. These ganovim and their families who were complicit in this fraud, if convicted, should be publicly cut off from the Jewish community and treated like pariahs. Welcoming them back into the tzibur after they get out of prison will make them seem like conquering heros. If people know that they and their wives and children will be treated like pariahs, then maybe there would be some deterrent effect.
Avi K is right….if chazal were to opine on the issue today, they would be considerably more careful to qualify their statement so that CR readers would not take it as a blanket statement. Its intutitive that the daughter of a talmid chacham is more likely to have good midos and make a good wife and mother but everyone can probably cite examples where that is not ALWAYS the case.
Lowertutition: I get your point….if there is simply a loss of confidence by the mashgiach for a variety of reasons, it might be difficult to be transparent. There are obviously going to be subjective determinations in hashgacha where thee might not always be a “smoking gun”. However, my concern is that in some communities with only one hashgacha or vaad, a purely personal matter can literally destroy a business overnight. Self-monitoring would not be a viable alternative where hashgacha is withdrawn arbitrarily.
Perhaps its time to place less empahasis on shiduchim and focus more on allowing our young men and women to meet and get to know one another without all the stress and pressures of the current system where parents, grandparents, family and friends create a sense of near-hysteria if a date for kiddushin is not fixed within a short time of the first date. There is no “shidduch crisis”; there is cultural crisis where we push marriage on children not ready of marriage and make them feel like damaged goods (especially the girls) if they c’v reach the age of 20 w/o a chooson and baby carriage. In the context of young men and women with some physical illness or emotional disability, they have every obligation to be transparent as to their condition, even if it means taking longer to find their beschert. To do otherwise is deceitful and more likely than not to result in a breakup of the marriage or serious marital disfunction.
In matters like this particular incident, and many others, confidence in hashgacha in general would be enhanced if the parties would stop using “code words” for the underlying issue and be more transparent. Absent some legal constraint (e.g. allegations of criminal activity under investigation where the authorities have requested that information be withheld) or important matter of personal privacy, providing the real reason why a hashgacha is being suspended or withdrawn should be the rule, not the exception. If yidden have patronized a restaurant or market or purchased a product for a period of time based in part on the hashgacaha, they are entitled to know why it suddenly is no longer applicable. If a product, should they worry about having to kasher and toivel their entire kitchen?
In today’s world, any mark or symbol of “hasgacha” has great commercial value since it conveys the sense that the product is produced under higher standards, with higher quality ingredients, etc. In some respects, its a second tier version of “organic” or “natural”. You can credit this to a few brands such as Hebrew National (whose hashgacha gets low grades here on YWN) because of their national TV marketing about “we report to a higher authority”. There are various studies, but some estimates indicate that more than 2/3 of the market for specialty kosher products are purchased by goyim for the reasons noted above, This does not include such generic products as nationally marketed baked goods, breakfast cereals, canned tuna fish, etc who have a kosher certification.
OPM data shows that there are thousands of federal employees “fired” annually for a variety of reasons ranging from poor performance to violation of ethics rules or simple workplace issues such as threats of violence, theft, etc. Yes, its more difficult than in the private sector but it was meant to be so that a new administration could not arbitrarily create some “trumped up” excuse (bad pun) to fire those whose politics they disagree with. Every democratic government in the industrialized world has a career, non-political government workforce.
To “rational jew”
You didn’t get the memo…at least for the past few days, the Trumpkopf-in-Chief has been listening to his lawyers and calling it an interim suspension of visa issuances to residents of high risk countries” rather than a “Muslim Ban”. If he reverts back to his old language, even the Supreme Court will tell him to go back to Mar a Lago and take a cold shower. Logical security safeguards are essential; those based on optics or nominal association with a religious belief will never pass muster here in the U.S. or Europe.
To Dass Yochid: That may be a better way of saying it…every rule of general applicability still has some exceptions….especially when it comes to people.
To Joseph:
You ask “You’re saying Chazal are wrong? ..”
Answer is they can be wrong in some cases…..it is beyond foolish to believe that Chazal meant this in ALL cases. Obviously there are exceptions where a bas talmid chochom goes OTD, has personality issues, or any of a dozen good reasons why in a particular case she would NOT be a good choice as a wife. Obviously, most cases one would expect a bas talmid chochom to be someone with wonderful midos, etc. but nothing I 100 percent
There is a centralized job listing website managed by OPM for most federal agencies (except for certain SES jobs, and excepted service jobs along with schedule C political slots) ….the hiring process has gotten somewhat better but still plan on at least 3 or 4 months and sometimes 6 months to a year. There are hiring preferences for veterans that trump (excuse the expression) merit based hiring decisions.
Assuming most YWN readers are not pregnant, there is no reason you cannot eat fresh fish once a week without worrying about mercury et. al. You fail to mention the cardiac benefits of fish along with the protein and absence of material amounts of bad fats. Like anything else, with moderation its fine. If you are going to eat fish once or twice a week, much better fresh than canned. Substantially more people get sick from poorly handled and prepared chicken than fish according to the CDC. If you know a commercial insurance broker, just ask if a sushi restaurant would pay a higher premium to cover potential customer claims versus a pizza restaurant or chicken rotisserie takeout.
To lowerourtuition1121
With regard to an expensive steak, properly “cooked” does not mean well done….you can find a better valued piece of leather at the shoe store. Most of the top restaurants won’t even accept orders for a “well done” steak. As to the price of canned tuna versus fresh tuna, most of us don’t purchase food for our families based on finding the cheapest option available, unless of course, that’s also “your preference”. For a casual lunch sandwich perhaps but who would choose canned tuna for a dinner when fresh is readily available. If you live in the boonies where fresh fish is not available, than of course you are right.
With fresh tuna so readily available in most cities (especially the NYC metro area) its hard to understand why anyone would eat cooked tuna from a can, frequently packed in oil. I guess its the same mindless gourmands who pay $40 or $50 for a good steak and then mindlessly ask that it be served “well-done”.
It seems everyone agrees that food preferences were NOT dictated via torah moshe m’sinai nor does the very limited (and grossly unhealthy) pantry of food choices available to yidden in the Alte Heim 75 or 100 years ago have any relevance to what we choose to eat today based on having access to an almost unlimited set of choices that provide much greater nutrition, are healthier and satisfy even the kashruth requirements of the “mega machmir” crowd. Of course, every segment of the tzibur and every family may have its own minhagim which may guide their menus, especially for Shabbos and yom tovim, but otherwise there really are no limits (other than kashruth) for a frum yid today living in any large metropolitan area. Also, today, there are many more families where men share in the cooking with their wives so that introduces a totally separate range of food choices and preparation options. Finally, it was not that easy in the Alte Heim to push a few buttons on your iPhone and have your chulent delivered to your door within 30 minutes. It took that long to walk down the street to the rebbe’s house with a chicken you were fortunate enough to have for Shabbos but about which you had a sheilah.
To Joseph:
Now we know you are a troll?? The Ebeshter gives us fresh fish as a great source of protein and fresh flavors of the sea; Chazal bring down that he did not intend for his creation to become a condiment for Hungarians to serve sugar etc.
Most good sushi bars (kosher or otherwise) will not serve that yucky fake shrimp stuff made from ground up and processed trash fish. Sushi and sashimi are the prime example where “less is more”. Fresh fish with minimal handling and simple presentation are the best and raise the fewest issues of kashruth. The more “stuff” you add to sushi rolls (an entirely American meshugaas) to make them more attractive to the less adventuresome palettes in the market (aka its not schmaltz herring or zeese Ungareshe gefilte fish), the more issues the mashgiach has to focus on and the less tasteful the outcome.
There is probably a rather old but reliable metric in considering a potential kallah….does she (herself) act in accordance with daas torah….do her midos and demeanor reflect the family’s yichus….and MOST importantly, does she show she cares for and cherishes her potential chassan and look forward to building together with him bayin ne’eman b’yisroel.
The same proliferation of educators was a problem in the public sector in the 80’s and 90’s where kids who had no clue what they wanted to do when they graduated college became “education” majors. The teacher pipeline was flooded with mediocre teaching grads and compensation was flat or went down. Only when other lines of work became more attractive did the pipeline slow and the laws of supply/demand pushed up salaries (along with powerful teachers’ unions in some states). For a kollel yungerleit who wants to study full time for several years and then go out and work to start a family, chinuch is likely the only real option in many areas, given their lack of secular job skills. Its not clear the really top student want to go into chinuch. Most prefer to stay and learn 24×7 and in some cases, will find financial sponsors if they are truly the top 1 percent. Most roshei yeshivos do not have programs to systematically evaluate their yungerleit to determine which ones will make the best teachers. A top learner is not necessarily a top teacher.
The Sushi Tokyo location in 5T…..even better than the original location in Brooklyn. Service is a bit uneven (but with one or two exceptions, that seems to be the norm in most Kosher restaurants). Fish quality is excellent and turnover is high so freshness is not a concern.
While Trump and his chevrah run around disparaging government employees and “unelected bureacrats” and using them to scapegoat all of the government’s problems, the vast majority are dedicated workers who have a public service ethic and really are committed to their work. Studies show that compensation is slightly above market at the lower wage levels but substantially below market at the higher levels where most government employees could be earning substantially more for doing equivalent work in the private sector. While there needs to be more efficient hiring and firing practices, the system overall works reasonably well. Also, the number of federal employees is actually lower today than 20 years ago, notwithstanding an enormous increase in federal agency responsibilities. If anyone thinks it would be cheaper to hire a private contractor to do the work of a Department of Defense analyst, just look at the few studies that have examined so called “outsourcing” programs.
The most talented rabbeim will find their ways in to the top yeshivot where the compensation is higher. Chinuch is a free market. No one forces a Rav to teach for a non-compensatory wage. He can move on to another school if he feels he is not earning enough for his family. This is not a unique problem Public school teachers are also complaining that society doesn’t value their work correctly and in some cities, the trash collectors earn more than the teachers.
If there are lots of empty seats, than asking a woman to voluntarily relocate to a comparable seat across the aisle or a row or two back is obviously not a big deal. However, the burden should be on the man who doesn’t want to sit next to a woman to relocate, NOT the woman. In any event, its NEVER ok to require a woman change seats if she doesn’t want to move, unless its a matter of security.
The El Al decision applies only to El Al; other international carriers are not covered although all U.S. airlines already have policies in place that do not allow flight attendants to move passengers because another passenger objects to sitting next to them. The rules are flexible to ask for volunteers to change seats to accommodate a disabled person or allow a family with young children to sit together but the key word is “voluntary”; they cannot require a seat change to accommodate other passengers’ preferences. Chareidim can always book an empty seat next to them (and pay the cost) or take another flight. There is no reason ANY woman should be inconvenienced on a long overseas flight because some ehrliche yid is worried that they might not be able to control their yetzer horah.
There is a libertarian perspective that there should be NO regulation or interference with individual use of any product or service, no matter the risk to a minority. SouthWest Airlines, for example, got a lot of flak when it agreed not to serve peanuts on any flight where any passenger claimed to have an allergy risk, without even requiring any proof. Legally, they are required to accommodate such requests along with any other reasonable requests. Its gotten silly since on a flight to Las Vegas last month, a passenger in the row behind me boarded with a real pig that she characterized as a “companion animal” which must be allowed on board. The flight was too crowded for me to change seats.
If you look carefully at the photos of some Chassideshe courts from the Alte Heim, the Shtreimlach have actually been getting smaller over time from the much large ones worn by Polish nobility; most likely because the cost of fur has been rising as a result of the Endangered Species Act and a recognition that the smaller Shtreimlach provide a smaller profile target for some antisemitim throwing snowballs.
2qwerty: Thanks for the useful and informative information. However, I’m not sure the same analogy about timing the compressor works for an HVAC system using the type of thermostat with a lag response that is impossible to predict. If the cooling is set to 70 degrees in some small shteeblach and the ambient room air temperature is at that same 70 degrees, having a few daveners walk into the room could increase the room temperature by a degree within a minute or two, thus triggering the thermostat to start the compressor to cool the room back down to 70 degrees. I don’t think you would stand outside the beis medrash and only go in while the compressor is already running to avoid being the davener who starts the compressor.
Its sad that some posters wanting to isolate kids with special needs from allergies rather than accommodating those needs to the extent possible seem unable to show some empathy. Perhaps if their own kids or grandkids were those suffering, it might enhance their understanding. That may be what it will take.
There are several models which have built-in LED lights that can stay on 24×7 so that the bulb will outlast the refrigerator. Problem solved, if you only worry is the bulb going on/off. Most yidden don’t get hung up on the compressor going on any more than worrying about a few additional yidden walking into the beis medrash and their body temperatures pushing up the ambient temperature sufficiently to trigger the thermostat to put on the cooling compressor (even if the fan on the air handler is running).
ANY Yid, without regard to their hashkafah, should be able to enter ANY shul in EY to daven without fear as long as they act with respect and do not interrupt the davening. The issue is not their dress, their affiliation with the IDF or whether they daven nusach shpard, ashkenaz, Ari or whatever. If someone attempts to verbally or physically assault them, the security forces should forcefully grab that individual and prosecute them to the maximum extent allowed by law. These zealots who attack IDF chayalim who come in to daven or say kaddish, and the rabbonim/askanim who allow such attacks to occur in or near their shuls are beneath contempt and should be treated accordingly.
Not worth litigating further…I think we all agree that accommodations need to be made where feasible….we agree to disagree on where is the line between accommodation and entitlement and when one person’s accommodation encroaches on another’s sense of right or entitlement not to forego certain activities