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HaLeivi: The maharal you cite was talking about two negative side affects of kavana and specifies at the end that he is not talking about someone being ???? ???????. In other words, he isn’t saying not to daven b’arichus, he’s telling us how to do so. Of course no one paskens from the nesivos olam and plenty of sects (dor shvi’i lubavitch for one) make a point of davening relatively quickly.
The only thing I can add to golfer’s post is that buying something special to wear for shabbos is the best way to start from a machshevet-halacha perspective as opposed to starting by refraining from one melacha. If shabbos is broken down into zachor and shamor, then someone who refrains from one melacha is doing neither zachor nor shamor. Someone who makes kiddush or does something else to mark shabbos (kiddush is the obvious ideal because that is how chazal formulated “zachor”) is at least doing one of them.
SiDi: The hashkafic problem is not the idea that Hashem’s brachos will be used up ch’v (though that is assur to believe as well.) The problem with the vort you posted is that it implies that we human beings can “force” Hashem to give us something by asking at a particular time and a particular way. He can say “no” on Purim, at neilah, or — dare I say it — after 40 days at someone’s grave as well.
DY: That being said, I still don’t understand how the fact that more people take fish supplements should force us to reevaluate how we apply the din of derech achila to pills. Could you explain, or point me to a canonical definition of derech achila that would cover it?
rob: I don’t think anyone worth listening to is arguing that. They are arguing that different vegetables are infested than before, or that we are eating different vegetables than before and therefore have to reevaluate what is muchzak b’tolaim and what isn’t. A good place to start is ??? ???? ????? which lays out definitions of muchzak b’tolaim, miut hamatzui, nir’eh l’anayim and so on. (I’ve been avoiding the bug wars here because I don’t have my own copy to look things up in and I haven’t done hilchos tolaim yet).
HaLeivi: Yes, calling something nonsense coming from Indian idolatry is the strongest terms. I’ll get the source from Rabbi Miller, bli neder.
Sam2: Surely not Rav Shalom Shabazi the paytan?
Here’s one that most people don’t think of: Getting a hot drink for someone whose job keeps him out in the snow. This morning there were a number of people in union square collecting for various worthy causes. When I went into the nearby Starbucks, three of them were ahead of me on line along with a gentleman who was buying them each a coffee.
Most places that cut keys can also etch a letter or two into the top of the key. That way you don’t have to remember which color stands for what.
Goq: Most unmarried bochurim have female relatives. I keep a tube of lipstick in my toolbox for marking moving parts like locks. Believe me, I didn’t buy it myself.
I am maskim to none of the above.
The only two authorities I can think of offhand who explicitly said gilgulim are not part of Judaism are Rabbeinu Saadya Gaon and lehavdil Rabbi Avigdor Miller. I once saw a third (following the well known rule that there’s a Rishon for everything) but I forget who it was.
ROB: Not sure I agree with you that it isn’t miskaven. After all, he wants to have hot water later too.
popa: Right you are. I’m a working sheigetz. And because I was endorsed by the the breakaway to the lef the rabbanut just annulled my geirus in the beit din of Mod-42. Thanks a lot!
CR is very for debating some Torah topics but lousy for halacha. Mi Yodea is very good for halacha because well-documented and well-reasoned answers get voted up and they have at least one very well-qualified talmid chacham who I know personally who answers there regularly. Of course Mi Yodea is lousy for debate because of the format of the site.
Rabbi Eliyahu Fink (Pacific Jewish Center) has a 20 minute daf which he posts online. No idea whether or not it will be too fast for you because I don’t do daf yomi, my current gemara seder averages 2 blatt a week. (If you want to see some confused looks refer to dappim as “blatt” in a hesder yeshiva)
Sam, only if you take it seriously and consider the vort part of actual God-given Torah which I don’t think most people here do, including OP. The best way to view this genre of shalsheedis torah is as a form of secular entertainment guaranteed to be kosher because of the medium.
B’mchilas kvodo, once there’s a chief rabbi anywhere, there has to be a breakaway to the right, a breakaway to the left, and chabad.
I nominate Sam2 for rov of the breakaway to the right, popa as president of the board of rabbis of the breakaway to the left, and toi as shliach.
Sam2: Calm down. Standardized chapter and verse is one of the best things Christians ever did for Torah learning (probably ranks even higher than the Bomberg Talmud). Can you imagine trying to look anything up without them, especially in the parts of tanach which most frum people don’t read and have no frame of reference for?
popa: Buy them tools. Then they can break your cheap things and fix your expensive things. Or sometimes the other way around. Whatever. (Disclaimer: This post was almost entirely serious).
Sheesh, don’t you people pay attention during megillah leining?
We have an open passuk:
???? ?? ??? ?????? ???? ??????? — ??? ??? ????
Translation:
To keep these days of Purim in their proper time — in the entire year
(obviously the second v’shana comes to include adar sheni)
The Roosevelt trilogy by Edmund Morris (Theodore, not Franklin).
#3- Not bolet is an open Rambam and the Raavad is the only one I know of who disagrees. Also, ?? ?????
By pretty well do you mean “thank God they didn’t get engaged?”
One of my highschool rebbeim said it best. “Anyone to the right of me is a chnyock and anyone to the left of me is a sheigetz.” I’m pretty sure I quoted it elsewhere in the CR many times.
????? ????? is a long term program as far as I know. You might want to look into sar-el or non-government volunteer programs instead.
Last night I learned (because I’m still a sheigetz) and then went to a yahrtzeit seuda. One of the speakers was chassidish and apologized for quoting psukim on nittle nacht but excused himself based on “minhag hamakom” because the deceased was known as a masmid among other things.
rebdoniel: The sources you list represent a very thorough exploration of one shitah in emunah. What about all the others, especially since most of the people who would theoretically be teaching emunah subscribe to other shittos.
VM: That was a very tactful way of putting it. Perhaps too tactful.
42:A kamatz katan is supposed to be pronounced like a cholom i.e. a cholom as in ???? not a kamatz-yud as in God’s name. In practice most ashkenazim don’t bother, even serious daykanim.
The practice of transliterating a kamatz as aw comes from chazanus because in the Western musical tradition “uh” sounds are sung something like “aw”
I once tried to get in to see the Bobover (there can be only one just like MacLeods) but I couldn’t so I decided to open up a Kretchmeh in the middle of nowhere that way I’ll be able to see all the Rebbes I could ever want. The only downside is that I’ll only ever see them in the middle of the night.
PS Two thirds of the above story is true.
On a related note, one of my favorite true Rebbe stories is the one about the Naroller who went to shamayim every year and missed the first night of slichos. One year some misnagdim decided to follow him to find out where he really went. They saw the rebbe leave his house through a back door without his shmoyneh b’goodim and go into the forest. They trailed him and saw him chop wood in the forest and carry it to a cottage where a sick widow was living with three children. He took the wood, built them a fire, and cooked them a meal. When the misnagdim got back to town they told everyone that the Naroller was not ??? ????? but “much higher.”
I’m currently reading Plutarch and I keep coming across so many ideas which I first learned about in our sources that I find my self wishing we were more Greek and less American/Hungarian/whathaveyou.
Highly of what, bris menucha? Read the shaar blatt of the book, it says student of the arizal etc. etc. avraham ben yitzchak of Grenada. Obviously calling someone of that period “of Grenada” is strange so any other sources placing him before the expulsion. (Though if he was “of Grenada” he was clearly not a Gaon in the historical sense.)
Sam2: I saw the leaflet and I was bored so I looked everything up. The sefer they quote is by a student of the Ari who no one I asked (including two students of kabbala) ever heard of. Be that as it may, I was shocked that they were quoting a sefer that actually existed. Even more shockingly, the RaMBaM they quoted was indeed where they say it is and it does work out according to RaMBaM. Since the last segula of theirs I bothered to check out, I had despaired of them knowing how to read Hebrew. Though they stayed true to form in their boasts about how after years of looking they found some fine print in the Rambam.
HaLeivi: And no sefer quotes the zohar until the middle of tekufas harishonim so we still know about Ben Sirah from the gemarah. (I am purposely ignoring Rav Yaakov Emden’s shittah because some people here are can’t take it.) And Sirah was indeed originally written in Hebrew. Any place you’re likely to find it printed in full will probably call it Ecclesiasticus.
Sam2: I doubt it was actively discouraged by chazal given that some communities including the one living in the seat of the Catholic Church read it. Also, there is not one set of Apocrypha. Different Christian Bibles include different books. In fact Ben Sirah (not the “Alphabet of Ben Sirah” which was a poem written later but the actual book) is a standard part of the Christian Old Testament but we consider it sefarim chitzonim and don’t read it except for the handful of quotes in the gemara.
On a related note, I once heard that Ben Sirah is never quoted in yerushalmi. Can anyone verify this?
charlie: Personally, I almost never wear one but I don’t see why the origins of the style should make a difference. Lots of Christians take a mis-shaped copy of an ancient torture instrument shrink it down to a couple inches, and wear it around their necks and find it a source of inspiration and comfort. Symbols are all about associations in the minds of the people using them.
SecularFrummy: I’m not salaried either, and re: my comment on the closed thread, it was a joke as old as representative government. I thought everyone would have gotten it.
Sam2, Redleg: A ? ????? is universally pronounced as a “T” (except for certain people who only ever saw some words without nikkud and never heard them. Don’t laugh, it’s rude.) The variations come in with the tav refuyah. As far as we can tell, most likely it was originally pronounced as the TH in with. Many communities still preserve that version but honestly there are much worse errors to complain about especially in davening like ?? ???? ??? ?????? with a kamatz on the bet.
akuperma: Your argument doesn’t really hold water. It’s almost equivalent to saying “if Hashem was a fanatic about eruvin, then Humash would have included a guide to eruvin.”
I can’t really add much to that, but when people talk about Rav Ovadiah’s political activism they often forget what he did for the ashkenazim. Rav Ovadiah basically single-handedly brought the ashkenazi yeshiva system to the Edot haMizrach, and it was only because of who he was that they accepted such a thing. It is solely to his credit that the Sephardi and Mizrachi communities learn in and ashkenazi yeshivos and in a large part created the yeshiva system as we know it today.
Correction: Rav Soloveichik was being considered for the chief rabbi of Tel Aviv (he ceded to Rav Amiel, the author of ???? ???? ????) so I would assume the kollel was in tel aviv.
No, the Rambam disagreed with what we call segulos.
Feif: No? Oh well, the difference between “Fair” and “Yoshor” was a favorite subject for some people. Regarding the mods, I don’t recall them saying any such thing. Actually, I recall the editor being very explicit about the double standards. That was one of the reasons I kept the site blocked in my hosts file for a while. (Decided to give the forum another chance.)
SecularFrummy: It is well known that any elected official forfeits their soul upon assuming office. This has been the case in every representative system from the Scandinavian “Althing” on down to our own time.
Sam2: We are noheg not to talk about that.
rebdoniel: I agree with you about most “externalities” i.e. that the thing itself is neutral but if it helps someone that’s great. I would make an exception for big tzitzis because they’re specifically mentioned in the Christian Bible as something “the Pharisees” do, which IMO would classify them as a good thing in their own right.
Putting a scarecrow up in your field is completely muttar. Putting one up on your porch some time in the next three weeks might be chukat hagoy.
You’re wrong about being nice to your spouse. It’s not a segula if it makes sense on its own. (you can probably tell that I’m one of the people who tends to cry nichush when hearing such things)
Feif: Because fairness is goyish. I’m sure you heard the same mussar shmuessen in high school as I did.
In general anti-zionism is a fig-leaf for antisemitism. The Satmar Rov was a notable exception.
1- This is from sefer shmirat haguf v’hanefesh, a contemporary collection of segulos regardless of source.
2- The version recorded there does not say that it causes tzaros, it says that having the taggim is a segula for shalom bayis.
3- If this segula is true, what did Jews do for all the centuries before we started making lameds that way?
apushatayid: ????”? ?”? get the collection of three taggim with which most people are familiar because those are mentioned in the gemara. Ketav beis yosef has a number of other single taggim, or taggim without heads (sometimes called kotzim, regular taggim are supposed to look like zayin’s) on various letters. The Lamed has two kotzim on the tip and the one on the right is supposed to be larger. Many sofrim don’t bother with the right hand kotz in tefillin and mezuzos at all because of the risk of making a psul.
ryaakovweinbergztlfan: As someone who is also in the business, that number sounds a little high. You can get lechatchilah mezuzos for as low as $35 if you know where to look (not factoring in checking because at that price it’s a mixed bag). Mehudar start at 55, 60 or so.
twisted: That is simply not true. Sta”m ink can last for decades, sometimes centuries without cracking. Also, many sofrim (I haven’t but I don’t write for sochrim) have switched to a flexible ink called dyo lanetzach that doesn’t crack at all.
Who do you all respect now that it isn’t tisha b’av?
(Popa, am I doing it right?)
I respect the old American amei ha’aretz for sticking to mesorah and building the framework for everything we have today despite having no clue what it was about. Salute to a vanishing breed.
Popa: Of course when you said “Then it’s free” in response to Sam2 that implies that you paid. If you paid for a free mikva, that makes you a freier.
Sam2: What are the parameters of this issur? The muchni would seem to be a violation the way you put it.