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I recall several times over the years where there were those who questioned whether an elderly rav might not have fullyunderstood the questions and factual predicates surrounding an issue before a psak or kol koreh was issued in his name. There were insinuations of dementia or manipulation by his gaboim. Yet, we do NOT have age limits or mandatory retirement rules for our gadolim or roshei yeshivos. I would submit that their responsibilities to the tzibur are no less significant than our those of our elected offiicals.
“Is the OP officially a troll?”
CS: Actually, officially a jerk. I stopped reading his rant when I got to the part about “women learning gemorah is bad enough”,
OP: Just out of curiosity, if you are willing to share, what leads you to want to focus exclusively on rashi to the exclusion of other meforshim?
With R’ Eli’s daf yomi shiur you get Rashi and bit of everything else. An incredible way to start/end your day.
AVD: Umein.
Why does someone tagged by the FBI as head of terrorist group and a self-identified racist get invoked as some type of prescient observer of the decline of Yiddeshkeit in America??
For many of us, the excesses of some Chassideshe simchas involving thousands of people with bands, banners and tables overflowing with food and drink are a lot more problematic than some frum parents who engage a DJ with some strobe lights for their yinglach’s bar mitzvah.Vote early, vote often (even if your not from Chicago).
“don’t touch the eitz hadas since you might come to eat from it”
B’tayavon
UJM/Syag: With respect, I would 110% support intervention with the parents or others in a life/death matter. We obviously have very different views of the threat (physical or spiritual) posed by a bochur who decides to have a smartphone but I certainly don’t conflate it with a drug dependency.
Q. “Menachem: Why haven’t you let his parents know what he has?”
A. In alphabetical order from thesaurus.com.
betrayer
blabbermouth
canary
double-crosser
fink
informant
narc
nark
rat
sneak
snitcher
source
squealer
stoolie
tattler
tattletale
tipster
turncoat
weasel
whistle-blower
deep throat
stool pigeon“Yasher Koach for sharing this beautiful thought from the Rebbe..
For the first and perhaps last time in a long time, 110% agreement with R’ Yosef. I suspect there are even some closet misnagdim lurking in the CR who could care less as to the provenance of this vert. Yasher koach and gutten moed to the OP (and UJM).
Midwest…in our hashkafah, the book doesn’t close on 5782 for another week or so but agree that 5783 will be longer than usual (even w/o and Adar sheini).
The PRC has been “monitoring” overseas nationals and expats for decades. The more recent focus is on grad students at top American universities and nationals employed in leading high-tech companies and in some of the U.S. national labs. The U.S. is sufficiently concerned about “leakage” of high-tech secrets to China that they pressured the Israeli delegation attending the White House negotiations last week on expanding U.S.-Israel technology collaboration to cancel Israel’s recent agreement to share some of its high-tech programs with China.
G’mar tov and only good news and outcomes going forward. Your loss affected me and other long-time CR regulars in a way that few other tragic outcomes in the Covid-driven craziness of the past two years seems to have.
If this is what now passes for humor or satire, it going to be a long 5782….
I believe the OP was simply acknowledging that the CR has many attributes of an echo chamber in the context of a few posters having deputized themselves as the official bashers of several million unaffiliated, reform, conservative and even MO yidden around the world.
“I think we should have a massive bonfire and everyone should sing kumbaya followed by deep breathing”
CS: Funny, that the new shaliah tzibur in our shul sang “sim shalom” in chazaras hashatz during shachris on the second day of yom tov to the melody of “Kumbaya”. No massive bonfire but a lot of deep conversation in the background.
On a list of “stress factors” prior to the yamim noraim, “having enough meat dishes” would not appear to be on the top 10 along with a terrorist attack or having been able to do real tshuvah.
A condition precedent and requisite basis for the OP is the capacity to engage in rational thought.
“It is really a practical question – how much of including non-Torah material will destroy Jewish life as we know it..”
Its really not a serious question. Without having minimal language, math and science skills, young men and women coming out of yeshivos and BY’s will be functionally illiterate, unable to perform basic functions of paying bills, booking travel arrangements, communicating with medical and service providers, etc. You cannot keep the next generation in a cave forever.
I stopped keeping pens in my shirt pocket after having ink stains on just about all of them when I forgot to cap retract the point.
The best white shirt??
A clean one that is freshly ironed. Any of several of the above mentioned brands are great but why is it that such a large percentage of yungerleit seem to be unaware of washing machines and laundries?
Charles Tyrwhitt would be a good way to go if they had front pockets for pens and CC cards like most other white shirts do.
I can’t recall the last time I needed a “pen” and why would you keep credit cards in your shirt pocket rather than in a wallet in your back or side pants pocket??
“The only option is migration to a jurisdiction that supports freedom of religion..”
I’m trying to visualize Texas versions of Willy, BP and KJ….there is a Texas expression that pokes fun at “newbies” who just arrived who seek to adopt a Lone Star State persona.
“All hat, no cowboy”. Clearly, litvish style black hats will work well but there will be some initial puzzlement regarding Shtreimlach along with Huizen Zaaken and Bekeshes.It would make considerably more sense for the yeshivos to find their own ways of assuring their students have basic proficiency in english language and math skills to function in society rather than having to comply with “one size fits all” state regulations on hours of instruction etc. Parents should not have to engage in “home schooling” to avoid their kids being functionally illiterate when they graduate high school. They should have the skills to get a good job in the modern economy if they choose to do so when they graduate or perhaps a few years later if they want to continue full time learning for a while.
“Am I the crazy one? Is everything perfectly fine? Is there a problem here – at all – that needs to be addressed”
Very well stated. No you are not crazy and yes there is a problem to be addressed. “Education”, “Internet” etc. have become the cutting edge of the “culture wars” within our tzibur. Some truly want to cling to a torah world from the Alte Heim that they feel is slowly slipping away and passionately want to deter what they sincerely believe are the evil vehicles of change. Others are willing to accept limited change and believe they will retain more control in the long term by managing the instruments of those change for themselves and their families rather than adopting a total rejection mindset. Ultimately, the world is changing in terms of the need for certain basic skills and tools for meeting basic needs and the next generation will need those skills and tools for survival.
The story about “dumping” Kushner in favor of Bannon came from a per-publication edition of just one more Trump “tell all” book by Peter Navarro….one of the truly crazy Trumpkopfs among a vast cast of crazies. If you want to sell books about Trump in today’s world, where there already are 20-25 such books by high level Trumpkopfs (including Kushner’s new book) you have to come up with some NEW story about how crazy the boss was and what YOU did (or tried to do) to save the world from his meshugaas.
Amil Zola: I wasn’t invited to that one either. And also, lest someone suggest I was criticizing Lipa S., he is a big baal tzadakah and has on many occasions performed with no compensation in cases where the baalei simcha were going through hard times.
Reb E: Sadly, we have seen too many cases of geese masquerading as ducks in order to avoid becoming a foie gras factory, only to belatedly discover that under governing French law, the liver of EITHER goose OR duck fattened by gavage can be marketed as foie gras.
“The problem is that to keep up with the Johnses by imitating them, even though they can’t afford…”
Well, as usual, Reb E nailed it. First of all the Johnses most likely aren’t yiiden and if by some chance they are, they may be slightly assimilated modernishe yidden living in the Hollywood Hills who can afford to pay R’ Neil Diamond (another ehrliche yid) $50,000 to sing a set of Lipa Shmeltzer nigunim to several hundred of their BFFs for their tokhter’s bat mitzvah gala at the Beverly Hills Hotel atrium.
The FAKE “shidduch crisis” has now morphed into a REAL “literacy crisis” (w/o and reliance or reference to yesterday’s NYT’s hit job on chassidic yeshiovos).
AVD is 100 percent correct. The one-upsmanship in yiddeshe simchas is obscene and even efforts by gedolim to restrict the arms-race seem to have limited effect.
While I’m sure one can find some basis in our mesorah for a d’var torah and associated seudas mitzvah, I cannot believe the current level of extravaganzas with big simcha halls, bands, celebrity singers and enough food for several shtetlekh is mandated by daas torah.
Several of the above posts acknowledge that there are very real and practical ways of limiting internet usage and minimizing the risks of whatever usage is determined necessary for both educational and vocational purposes. For some, there will be NO allowable options and that will be their choice but total abstinence might not be a good long-term strategy versus teaching your kids responsible usage.
???
If it ain’t broken, than of course we need some social media talmedei chachamim to suggest how to fix it. Aside from a recent proliferation of really poor quality posters and trolls, the CR is working just fine.There is a fundamental economic issue operative here. Without mentioning names, many of us have been to restaurants where the mashgiach seems to be bored, disinterested, sitting at a corner table with a sefer, etc. rather than being fully engaged with the owner and kitchen staff, cross-checking deliveries with kitchen inventory, randomly checking security video etc. While I assume most are knowledgeable about dinei kashruth, they lack minimal forensic skills to check all the obvious ways in which the rules can be gamed by the ownership. Most restaurant owners already complain about the burdensome costs of current hashgacha. Recruiting the much higher level of expertise (including some basic computer and accounting skills) would require compensation levels that are simply unaffordable under the current business models of most hashgachos.
“[Goyim] spend all their time wasting away in front of screens and convince themselves that they’re enjoying life.
You need to find some new goyishe friends. Those that I know are NOT “wasting away” and most ARE enjoying life albeit a very different life then is our mesorah. I agree with your general theme of stressing to the kids the positives of a torah-based lifestyle but it can be done without such a shallow and superficial view of others.
Do whatever you are comfortable with after consultation with your LRP. There are different types of memorial “services” held in “churches” or religiously focused facilities which may have dual usage, with different types of art and physical representation of goyishe deities. Each case may be different and there are exceptions to rules of general applicability.
Where does the OP say the neighbor feeding the firds is a yid and is subject to the varying admonitions in Bava Basra etc. Nor at last check, is such an admonition against bird-feeders included in the Sheva Mitzos Bnai Noach. Indeed, the neighbor may truly believe she is engaging in tikun olam (the 614th. mitzvah so highly valued by CR readers).
Acknowledge the positives while clearly stating the risks of unrestricted use, both in terms of the “physical” risks to their privacy and economic well being, but more importantly, to their spiritual and moral well being. If you simply dismiss the entirety of the internet and online sources of information and services as “evil” your warnings themselves may be dismissed as not credible by the younger generation (and ignored) versus presenting it as a tool to be used responsibly.l
“I know that both Amil and GH are of and age and mindset [where] they do not need people commenting on their tablet use..”
Syag: Thanks for the “age” comment and avoiding the usual hyperbole about internet, movies, etc. I’ll readily admit that I don’t travel with a sefer on an overnight flight overseas or a redeye return from the west coast. My tablet movie choices are incredibly boring and the pritzus is generally of the National Geographic/Discovery Channel genre of wildlife shiduchim. Likewise for my E-books. After several hours with a degree of luck (and an Ambien) I can some sleep before landing.
How can the woman sleep at night knowing that the feeder is upsetting her neighbor?
Easy. The same way the owner of the feeder somehow has to learn to live nextdoor to some bird-hater. Alternatively, take an Ambien and watch one of the early vintage Woody Woodpecker cartoons that are now available on Disney streaming channel.
RR: Airplane or anywhere I don’t want to open my considerably more expensive laptop. I also used it on an Alaska hiking trip this summer and it was an adequate alternative (although difficult to do any serious document editing or typing w/o a separate keyboard). Also seems to work as an effective “pacifier” for grandkids on longer roadtrips and flights.
“How could anyone continue to do what annoys someone else?”
Ask R’ Yosef or any of our other ehrliche trolls
AVD: Who said “no movies”. More movies than ever….multiple choices for movies, documentaries,etc. on most overseas flights. Its just BYOS (bring your own screen) and thats where tablets work much better than iphones or laptops. The former is too small and the latter too prone to getting smashed by the guy in front of you leaning his seat back.
With most airlines eliminating the screens on the back of the seats (even in business class), having a tablet is a must for x/country and overseas flights. My aging eyes really are unable to read an ebook or watch a movie on a tiny phone screen for 6 hours.
CA: First, most politicians and the others he personally villifies ARE American Citizens. Secondly, if you just listen to his rants at his MAGA rallies, he frequently DOES just refer to “Democrats” w/o making clear his hyperbole is focused only on politicians. In the same way, Biden is not calling the suburban soccer moms “facists” but inartfully using the term “MAGA Republicans” to refer to those at Trump rallies who do the “lock her up” chants and the politicians and others who deny the election outcome.
Ymribat: Has your wife considered buying a cat?? Alternatively, mount a large fake owl on the corner of your roof closest to the bird feeder.