Gadolhadorah

Recipe for Purim Kugel:
Start with a take out 2-lb Kugel from Greenfeld’s on Lee Avenue In Willy (or whatever is the best source fo an Ungaresh style kugel in your neighborhood), soak in 3/4 cup of Johny walker red (or your favorie scotch) and warm in oven at about 275 degrees for about 15 minutes before serving. Call Uber for a ride to shul fo Megillah.

Not sure what you mean by “substandard”. You get the best quality”stuff” you can afford that serves its intended pupose and provide you and your family with satisfaction. If your not a big “car person” than there is no need to buy a $75,000 luxury SUV if a $35,000 provides the fucntionality, safety, space and comfort you need. Buying to impress others rarely provides the satisfaction you are seeking but deliberately living a spartan lifestyle with substandard material posessions may cost more in the long-term and in some cases could also put you and your family at risk.

Phil…..
Apparently the need for comic relief outweighs the trolling factor….try to remember trolling 101 (aka if you respond to a stupid or hateful comment by a troll you get more trolling). Do you recall those cute little furry creatures on the original Startrek series called “Tribbles” where each time you touched them, you got more Tribbles. Well Trolls here in the CR are sort of like virtual yiddeshe Triblach. If you respond to Joe you get more Joe.

Obviously, there are those who strongly hold that it is irrelevant that today, dairy farmers don’t mix milk supplies from different animals, there are rigid inspection protocols over dairy farms and producers, we have strict health and refrigeration standards, etc. All that is important to them is that a gazillion years ago, some goy might have milked a cow, adulterated the milk, yadda yadda. For them, they are fortunate that cholov yisroel is more readily available at reasonable prices and with better shelf life. For those who hold that cholov stam is sufficient for their hashkafah, than its never been a concern.

Laskern: So you are saying that the Ebeshter wants his yidden to first build the Beis Hamikdash prior to the arrival of Moishiach somewhere in the vicinity of har habayis (TBD) and then he will send down a secondBais Hamikdash that will consume the first one in flames??? Sounds a bit circular….

Minor issue that even talking about building ANYTHING in the area currently occupired by what we commonly refer to as har habayis, El Asqua, the Dome etc. would likely trigger a massive civil insurrection, war with neighboring arab countries etc. Other than that bloodletting (and also that there has been no sighting of Moishiach on Eastern Parkway other than the usual guys running around with yellow flags) initiating construciton of a “beis hamikdash” b’yamenu, would be a great idea.

The level of dialogue here in the YWN CR is really outstanding. Every few weeks, there is some posting complaining that criticisim of other yidden by some participant or strong disagreement with a political view expressed by a well know rav is either lashon harah, mevazeh talmid chacom or apikorsus (or in some cases a trifecta of all three). By and large, the Mods seem to be trying to keep us on the high road without cutting off legitimate dissenting views. In many cases, there are facts and realities which some may regard as lashon harah but in reality must be stated and openly debated. Shutting down discussion in the name of avoiding someone else’s definition of “lashon horah” would substantially erode the valuie of this site.

In theory, every business has the potential to encounter issues of halacha but that doesn’t mean you need to pay some rebbe to set around during business hours in case you have a shaylah. Many food establishments have gone out of business, in part because of the high cost of keep a mashgiach on the payroll.. If a media company has some issue arise, send an email, text or just call your rav/posek and ask if some comment might be construed as lashon haroah or some photo might cross the line on matters of tziniu.

Too much angst about the ehrliche cousins or chashuve rabbonim who somehow cannot ever seem to get their acts together, and allow enough time for traffic et. al. so they can arrive on time. Better to delay hundreds of people, stress out th already stressed chasan/kalah etc. and just get started rather than c’v having to explain to cousin mordechai or some rebbele why you started without them. Answer is simple, as we bring down from chazal, “TIME WAITS FOR ON ONE”…

If the Ebeshter did not want us to experience “pleasure” from ingesting great food separate from the physiological need for nutrition, why did he wire our nervous system and sensory organs so that such “pleasure ” messages get sent from mouth to brain???

Having seen many chashuve rabbonim and poskim engaging in dinner events that were NOT tied directly to a seudas mitzvah and went far beyond what one might opine was necessary for sustenance, its fair to speculate that they were not worrying about risking their share of olam haboh or otherwise engaging in bitul torah by simply having a good meal.

To DellEpson;

First of all yasher koach on Dell announcing this AM it will do a reverse merger with vM Ware, with the surviving company taking the Dell name so you may need to update your posting name.

Second, you are right on with respect to how much easier it is to maintain your yiddeshkeit while living in Zimbawe or Antarctica w/o having all the sinas chinam so pervasive within ostensibly “frum” communities as our day-to-day environment.

Yehuda: Several GOP Congressman who were among the most strident opponents of voting rights for felons (which is primarily a STATE issue) are now themselves felons

[being a Foodie]… is a secular hedonistic expression which contradicts the mitzva of Kedoshim T’hiyue.”

As the resident expert in all forms of ” secular hedonistic expression” (at least from Joe’s perspective) I can assure you that we have had “foodies” among gadoylei yisroel for generations. We can even go back to the avos and remind ourselves that a certain “son” sought to gain favor with his father by exploiting his yearning for good food.

Joe says that literacy in the English language shouldn’t be relevant to voting rights for the frum tzibur and they should be allowed to participte in selecting our public officials notwithstanding their inability to communicate in the English langauge and for many of them, making zero economic contribution to the economy. However, his hero, the Trumpkopf in Chief, has insisted we need to prioritize access to America to those who speak English, want to assimilate into our society and contribute to our economy. So I guess, Joe will be overjoyed if they start rounding up those in can’t speak English and refuse to work and start shipping them back to the Alte Heim so we can make room in Monsey,BP, Willy and Lakewood for some more productive Norwegians.

If any Rav runs out of a chassanah screaming “pritzus” because the Chassan/Kalah sat next to one another in front of hundreds of guests at the chassanah, I think we all know who has a problem. (Hint: its not the chasson or the kalah or the photographer).

Greetings from the Greek Isles and a special shout out to Binyamin.
While I’m not sure if being called a “Hellenist” is sort of like being designatd an upscale apikores, I go back to a simple point that in matters of public health such as vaccination against highly infectious diseases, our primary sources of guidance are medical and public health professionals, not a rav or posek, no disrepect to the latter. If something about the medical advice we receive raises a red flag, than certainly discussing it with you R/P may be warranted and he may offer some useful guidance as to reconciling that advice with halacha. If the Rav himself is not also a medical professional, it was be malpractice for him to render medical opinions. We are not like the goyishe lunatics who refuse medical care, transfusions etc. because doing so might contradict their misguided notion of hashgacha paratis (i.e. if you are sick its (R’L) “God’s will” and seeking medical intervention is to disrupt “God’s” will. Even if you want to put yourself and your own family at risk by foregoing recommended vaccinantion s (with the concurrence of your R/P), you have zero right to project your foolishness on the rest of the Tzibur and place others at risk.

Having said that, hoping all the CR family including UB) stays well and is up-to-date on the ir shots.

From the bottom of the “bor”, the view is a bit blurry but Binyamin’s willingness to ignore the consensus of real medical experts and blindly substitute the advice of his Rav on the risks of vaccination is truly admirable…..just don’t bother sending your kids to school or coming in close contact with otherwise rational yidden who don’t go to their physician to paskin on the the kashruth of their local Chinese take out place or whether they can ingest the cute little bugs on the romaine in the Caesar salad. Wisdom is knowing from whom to seek knowledge on a particular subject. Since its now eruv Shabbos I can wish you a gutten Shabbos and stay healthy.

There are also frequent assertions here on various threads that the pre-War generation of gadolim in the alte heim were somehow on higher madragah than those of today. From there, it is presumed that the downward spiral implied by the concept of yeridas hadoros continues unabated and will not be remedied until z’man moishiach. Ultimately, we go back to the notion that there are objective standards through which one can measure the “gadlus” of the gadolim of today versus those of prior generations and the kedushah and spirituality of yidden today versus those of our grandparents in the alte heim.

We have been fortunate in our lifetimes to have had some of the greatest gadolei yisroel in generations share with us their daas torah and ahavas yisroel to an extent I cannot imagine was exceed in any prior generation. We still suffer from a level of sinas chinam that some would say is the biggest obstacle to z’man morishiach but its hard to imagine from a spiritual perspective we are on a downward trendline. Some will invoke the internet as the biggest contributor to moral decline but over the long term, I think this will be shown to have resulted in greater access to torah knowledge than any other single development in our history.

The “gashmisus versus ruchnius’ battle goes on virtually non-stop since every decision about “how much is too much” triggers a question of whether at the margin, additional expenditures don’t contribute to hidur mitzvah but rather are focused on “hidur those who are the simcha machers” (aka showing up in shul with a Calabrian esrog that cost several hundred dollars in a sterling silver box). There is no bright line test in terms of $$/person spent on a bar mitzvah any more so than having a chassidus charter a commercial jet to shlep over several hundred chassidim to join a rav at some simcha or on his vacation or advertising a “heimeshe peisach” at some incredibly expensive Florida hotel for a cost of $5,000 per family member. Its what you can afford and what makes you happy. Every dollar you spend for a simcha celebration beyond the minimum required to be yotzeh the mitzvah, at the margin, could feed some poor family or help some yesomim. But that’s not life.

There is a growing trend today, even among frum families, for the woman to retain her name or use a hyphenated name, especially among women who pursue both families and a professional career. As another poster noted, there is NOTHING in hallacha that mandates adopting a husband’s name, even though that is the norm today among both yidden and goyim.

To Winnie: probably the former…unless you happen to be wishing it to some guy in chassidish lvush on Eastern Parkway waving a yellow flag and humming a new nigun for “Yechi”