My wife once helped make someones wedding through facebook. There is a large amount of chesed that goes on over there and i dont view it as something inherently good or bad. I still have not really heard any cogent arguments to the contrary. Most people who bash facebook don’t seem to really understand how it works which tends to negate large portions of their argument.

@yageir there is a machlokes in the meforshim and the poskim how to read that gemora (and what the conclusion of the gemora is) – i am not sure why you are calling one “correct”. In fact the gemora says that Rabba wanted to do the same the next year!

@WIY never knew hating the feeling had anything to with being old

@DY he meant in regards to questions of hashkafa or otherwise people pretend to be something they are not, when they are dating and then when they get married and the wife/husband discovers there spouse is not really who they made themselves out to be … the rest is history. They may divorce immediately or they may hold out for years but many times the results are the same. As he is on the front lines and has dealt with these types of situations many times I would tend to believe him.

I would assume that you are referring to Havineinu mentioned in the Gemorah in Brachos. The Chayai Adam and the shulchan aruch harav hold that it can be used even today.

There are a wide range of shitos on the subject – if you look in the sefer tehila liyona on megillah he covers a lot of them in one place. It is somewhat dependent on how you understand the story in the gemarah there of rabba shactei lrav zeira and what the conclusion of the gemarah is. There are many reasons to get drunk on Purim al pi halacha and al pi sod. That being said follow your posek/rav as the number of opinions are too numerous to list here.

@DY I work for a Jewish company so never had that issue.

Now this is why i didnt want to get involved in the legal status. No one has been prosecuted (to my knowledge) on purim recently for this. The police is well aware of it and they are not interested in getting involved. There is also the question of whether such laws would even be legal because of religious freedom although employment division v. smith probably would if the present supreme court considers that precedent. None of the case law that has been cited has anything to do with religious freedom probably because catholics would run afoul of this with First Communion as would many other religions im sure. Either way its irrelevant – if there is a chiyuv for minors to drink wine – there is no dina dmalchusa plain and simple (even if dina dmalchusa applied in this case – which it doesn’t).

@zahavasdad in the yeshiva i went to they had designated drivers to drive people around and those drivers were not allowed to drink. I believe that is standard practice in lakewood these days.

It is because the part of the banana plant that bears the banana does not grow new bananas the next year – the fruit grows directly from the root each year.

for more info read this article (if it posts) http://rabbikaganoff.com/archives/1527

@ICOT I have seen it in print in his name all though this was years ago so it will be difficult to find and I have heard about it from people who heard it from him. I can try to send someone to ask him about it. From what I heard his reasoning was because it is not sold on the market any more it is not assur. This would also make sense if its maasig gvul. I am not going to claim that I fully understand it and it might not extend to microsoft products as microsoft sells their older products (again maasig gvul is only by a Jew so it may not apply there either). I believe the original question was about davka writer. My second (good) proof was from the fact then when asked the question about the i wouldnt have bought it svara he didnt just say its gneiva either way – he just said that the logic doesnt follow.

The reason youve never heard anyone talking about my nochri distinction is because no posek in their right mind would ever want to be quoted on such a thing.

Also by the way the government doesnt prosecute pirates any more they only prosecute uploaders – you could probably download a program in front of a cop and they wouldnt do anything to you. Which is why similarly to HUD dina dmalchusa would not apply according to many poskim. Dina Dmalchusa is drabanan see the gemora in bava kama about boreich es hameches for more details.

I happen to partial to google docs because it allows a lot collaboration but don’t try putting in too many formulas into a spreadsheet or too many lines because it will go haywire.

@DY Actually after looking at the old thread it seems even clearer that Rav Belsky holds its maasig gvul (and possibly Rav Moshe too from the way he was quoted there). this is the link that was cited there although i am not sure if it will be posted http://torah.org/learning/honesty/class64.html. I am not familiar with the specific language of what Rav Elyashiv said and I never had the privilege to speak with him so I can’t disagree with you on that. If you have a direct quote from him I would love to see it. Also from the famous “Aderet Rental Clause” it would appear that they do intend for you to buy 2 copies. I am aware that it is not the best proof which is why I brought the other 2.

Not going to rehash the whole discussion but according to the ran there is no more dina dmalchusa in the USA because you would need a melech. Another issue is that most shitos (outside of Rav Pam) hold that if the government does not enforce the law – and they do not in this type of situation dina dmalchusa does not apply (similar example is HUD which a lot of people take advantage of). And I still havent seen a good mkor for intellectual property outside of seforim (which for obvious reasons does not count).

@YW Moderator-42 I am quite curious to know what Rav Belsky would say to your scenario as he clearly seems to hold the problem is maasig gvul.

I am not going to say that energy drinks are good for you but if you research some of these deaths one of the girls had a major heart condition and she should not have had any caffeine in the first place while another drank way more than any normal person should drink. these are just people looking for a lawsuit. quoting product liability lawyers as scientific proof is probably not the best idea. while caffeine is an addictive substance it is much more difficult to be come addicted to it than to nicotine.

fischel bensinger is really good if you live any where near brooklyn and he is worth every penny.

familiarize yourself with a system and do it over and over again – logic games are actually the easiest part of the test to improve on if you are systematic about it.

According to Rav Heinemann and many other rabbonim there is no issue what so ever with stacking seforim in any order see aruch hashulchan YD 283:6

@WIY “If you view pornography even once every few months you still have an addiction although on a smaller level than someone who views once a month or once a week.” that’s just plain ridiculous and destroys your credibility for the rest of your argument.

@Sam2 i heard rav simcha bunim cohen say that it is mikar hadin – and he never mentioned a word about rav moshe saying otherwise. he spoke about getting dressed in the bathroom but i dont remember how he paskened in the end.

@tdsdart i completely agree with you

@repharim absolutely nothing that you suggested is actually helpful. a rav or psychologist’s guidance is required in such a case as many of the posters have already said. vihmayvin yavin. i agree very strongly with ohr chodosh laying down the law will do no good only harm and will not even solve the issue at hand.

And now according to the latest testing women have actually overtaken men in IQ scores.

@DY I agree with the author that one can overspend more online and that people confuse value with savings and make impulse buys. However that is not the author’s point. the author is saying that the people who say they have the internet because they save money are wrong. I disagree with that – there are plenty of people who do in fact save money online. “some claim they save $30-$40

per month shopping online rather than going to

the mall. That claim is debatable.” Nothing the author said disproved what “some claim”.

@DY there are a couple of flaws – many is not most (percentage vs. number flaw), and it assume that shopping in a store also doesnt encourage overconsumption. also the article disputes with the “some” who claim that they save by saying that “many” don’t.those 2 actually can both be true.

Amongst things in the booklet that do not logically follow (this is a lot of fun for someone like me who took the lsats):

A case in point: some claim they save $30-$40

per month shopping online rather than going to

the mall. That claim is debatable. Many husbands

who track their expenditures have told me that

the built-in shopping mall at home actually costs a

lot more than it saves, because shopping becomes

so easy that it encourages over-consumption. But

justify the danger of having the internet at home

just for the convenience and possible savings of

shopping online.

@2scents a blacklist is a waste anyone could circumvent that in a couple of seconds. what are you going to do blacklist every inappropriate website? and if your talking about a filter blacklist we are back to the same problem. having a website enabled in seconds doesnt help me if it takes me forever to figure out what the problem is and the filter becomes an issue all the time. if i actually have to search the website each time and manually put in the data there is not much point of using a scraper.

“OK, So being addicted to the internet is not an addiction, who says that it has to have a label?

It does not change the situation.”

of course it does – prolonged exposure to the internet by a person with seichel is not a problem – saying that there is an issue with it is not helpful as it implies that you are trying to do away with the internet in its entirety. read the whole pamphlet and tell me thats not the impression you get.

@boobie i just saw your comment towards me so i will respond – therapists im sure also talk about sports addictions too that doesnt make it real. yes people with obsessive compulsive tendencies are drawn to it but that is because they use elements on the net to satiate their compulsions not because the net is addictive – texting is not addictive either and as it is incredibly unlikely that the APA will ever categorize them as such.

@DY if they just filtered out inappropriate sites that would be great. based on my experience with filters they tend to block all kinds of stuff even on the lowest setting and they are pretty buggy this is not as noticeable to the average user but to someone who does a ton of internet searches it becomes extremely annoying.