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You weren’t off the derech and neither were they. Incidentally, it is not necessarily a bad thing that they are “out there in MO schools”. Yeshivish is not superior to MO; it is just a different hashkafa.
If you were davening 3x/day and saying tehillim, you weren’t off the derech, period. It could be that you’ve grown in your observance and hashkafa since then, which is wonderful. But you weren’t off the derech.
If anyone is interested in reading the full article detailing the results of the study, it is available on the JTA website (written by Uriel Heilman).
I find it really depressing that the intermarriage rate has risen to 58%. It makes me think more seriously about aliyah.
What is a “real yeshiva”?
Rav Henkin writes in the name of his grandfather that those who argue about how great of a tzadik Noach was are not really disagreeing with each other. Noach was very old and had already lived through two generations. In the first one (migdal bavel) they demonstrated kindness and menschlichkeit to each other but they were flippantly unobservant of bein adom l’makom. In the second generation, the people observed bein adom l’makom but they openly stole from each other. In each generation Noach was a tzaddik gamur. Now it isn’t so hard to observe bein adom l’makom when no one else is, hence he was really nothing compared to Avraham Avinu in the first generation. But to be a mensch and a decent human being when you’re surrounded by debauchery– now that is really something special. So depending on which dor you look at, Noach was both exceptional and unexceptional.
No, the crowd would not have doubled if women had been allowed to come. Most women who would be interested would have household responsibilities that would have prevented them from coming (e.g. if their husbands come, someone has to watch the kids and not everyone can afford to get a babysitter…)
Some women would have come. But nowhere near as many women as men.
You “chose to go Sephardic”? Isn’t your father Syrian to begin with?
A few points by my husband (who spent way too much time researching this stuff when he was applying):
Note: Everything mentioned here is based on my memory of statistical data found on law school websites and admissions paraphernalia. I’m sure everyone can say “Ploni got into Harvard with a 155” and “Almoni got a Federal clerkship and a job at Skadden with a 3.3 from Brooklyn Law,” but there are usually exceptional reasons for this situations. More importantly, for every Ploni and Almoni, there’s a Yankl with a 180/4.0 who “only” got into U of Texas and a Shmuel who was #1 in his class at Yale and ended up working for an ambulance chaser.
Here goes…
While law schools technically have individual ranks, the legal community thinks of them in groups. There are “Top 3” (called “HYS” – Harvard, Yale, Stanford – even though their order fluctuates from year to year), “Top 6” (those mentioned by OP), “Top 14,” “First Tier” (Top 50, although US News now includes the top 100 in the first tier), and if you need to know about anything below that, it’s probably not worth going to law school unless you have a full scholarship, a guaranteed job, or some other compelling reason.
Go to the “hourumd” website!!! It lets you type in your LSAT score and undergrad GPA (do not check “minority,” since yidden don’t count as UNDER-REPRESENTED minorities), and will generate a list of self-reported statistics about how people with your scores fared at the top 100 law schools, and how much they received in scholarships on average. It’s incredibly powerful information to have, and for me, its predictions were eerily accurate.
Employment prospects (at least for non-minority students) depend not only on the prestige of the school, but the school’s regional connections and your local ties to the area where you want to work. To work in NYC, going to NYU (#6) will be more helpful than either Stanford (#3) or Chicago (#4) because NYU has more large NYC firms attending their on-campus job fairs. To work in LA, after Stanford, the best bets are UCLA (#17) and USC (#18). To work in a “smaller city” (e.g. Baltimore, Boston, Atlanta, etc.), if you’re not already from the city itself, it’s wise to go to the best-ranked law school within 200 miles (I won’t go through the entire country, but feel free to ask me questions about specific cities).
Part-time isn’t really an option. Georgetown and GW (both just slightly outside of the Top 14) are the best part-time programs, but their full-time programs have limited job prospects (neither is strong in NYC, Georgetown is okay for DC (but not a strong enough bias to compete against Top 14 schools) and GW students struggle to compete with Georgetown – I turned down a full scholarship at Georgetown for that very reason). Also, employment statistics for part-time programs are difficult to obtain, and are usually weaker than the corresponding full-time program. Law firms are hesitant to hire graduates of part-time programs unless there is a compelling reason (e.g. single mothers, etc.) because it looks like a lack of commitment or effort.
As for money, it’s really all about a combination of scholarships and loans. However, look into IBR (income-based repayment) and public-interest loan forgiveness programs offered by both the federal government and the law schools themselves. At schools like Harvard and Yale, the loan forgiveness programs basically work as an insurance program guaranteeing that you won’t have to pay your loans if you make less than $80k a year. Other schools won’t help out unless you commit to working in public interest law (usually at a salary of $40-60k), but if you do, they will pay off your loans in their entirety. And through the IBR program, the federal government (may Hashem revive it speedily in our days) will pay any loan payments in excess of approximately 15% of your income. While $200,000 of debt looks and sounds scary, it’s not necessarily as debilitating as it looks.
Brief (hah!) thoughts on specific schools mentioned above:
Harvard: The kollel is in Brighton, not Brookline. The 86 bus runs from Cleveland Circle to Harvard Square and takes about half an hour. In additional to the kollel, there are two other yeshivish and two MO shuls within a relatively short walk. The MO community on campus is confined to the Hillel, and some frum people go to Chabad, but in general, it’s worth the commute (and housing in Brighton is cheaper than Cambridge anyway).
Yale: While Waterbury is great, don’t forget that there are several Orthodox shuls and a Yeshiva in New Haven itself. The law school has a reputation for being “academic” and “theoretical”: a third of their students go on to clerkships with Federal judges. This doesn’t necessarily translate into developing the skills and connections necessary to be a well-paid corporate attorney.
Stanford: Unless you want to live on the West Coast, don’t bother.
Chicago: Great school, but I didn’t apply because the academic program is strongly influenced by Milton Friedman and “law and economics” theory. While I believe that “law and economics” is a valuable field for research, I think one course in law school is sufficient, rather than having it as an underlying theme in the entirety of one’s studies.
Penn: Everyone forgets about it! I think it’s ranked #8 or so, and has one of the largest frum campus communities in the country. Job prospects aren’t as good in NYC as with Columbia and NYU, but it’s a degree that carries weight wherever it goes. Philly is a great place to live – several yeshivish shuls in the Northeast, a community kollel and at least five shuls in Lower Merion, one of the most elite yeshivos in the country, and a huge MO community at the Penn Hillel (two strong minyanim for shacharis, 10:00 ma’ariv every weeknight, shiurim every night of the week, mishmar on Thursdays, etc.)
Emory: R’ Broyde is an amazing scholar, a chaver of the Beis Din of America, and a frequent contributor to the Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society as well as Tradition. There is a large Jewish population (one of the highest percentages in the country, around 30%), but there is not much happening on campus. However, R’ Broyde’s shul (YI of Toco Hills) is about two miles away from campus, and is also a short walk from the Yeshivish Shul and Community Kollel (Beth Jacob). In the opposite direction, the quality and selection of kosher food (including pre-prepared food – important for someone in law school, at least before marriage) at Kroger’s is impressive even by NYC standards. I still wonder to this day if I should have chosen Emory over Cornell.
Cardozo: While Cardozo gets a lot of hype in the frum community for obvious reasons, that hype doesn’t spread far enough into the employment world. Cardozo fell out of the first tier last year. In NYC, it has to compete with Columbia, NYU, Cornell (yes, Cornell is considered part of the NYC local job market) and Fordham, all of which are significantly more competitive. Outside of NYC, it has limited name recognition because its name does not correspond to that of its university (and I’m sure that was intentional).
“Don’t expect to get a boy that has been more frumer than you his WHOLE life.”
Why not? There is no shame in coming from a modern family. I know several Charedi couples who are “mixed”– one comes from a modern family and one grew up Charedi. It can go either way in terms of the guy or the girl. I really don’t think it’s an undesirable thing to have a family with a different hashkafa, as long as they respect you and you respect them.
Yes, potatoes were almost declared kitniyos. The reason they weren’t was that, practically speaking, at that time we wouldn’t have been able to survive for eight days on a Pesach diet that didn’t include potatoes. Now I’m sure we could, although it would be annoying (not that I’m advocating for this or anything!)
Have you been to E”Y? I think it’s worth going to seminary just for the experience of living there, even if you don’t think you “need” the hashkafa or education.
My husband is in law school at Cornell. There is a small but vibrant frum community there (although it’s mostly made up of undergrads, a handful of grad students, and a handful of families who live and work in Ithaca). He got in with a degree and top grades from Swarthmore, where there is no frum community (he went there before he became frum).
Cornell Law School, so far, has been very accommodating for us. The ten-day writing competition to get onto law review overlapped with Shavuos last year, so they allowed the frum students to start and end later than the others.
Try TJ Maxx. I don’t know if there is one in Brooklyn but they have really nice dress shirts, including white ones, in the $15-$40 range.
Try Brandeis. It has the largest percentage of Jewish students aside from Jewishly affiliated colleges, including a nice-sized frum population, and it is highly prestigious in the secular world.
rebdoniel, while you may have “easily adapted”, for most people it is a gradual and difficult process. Furthermore, since you chose this lifestyle voluntarily, you may have difficulty understanding why people would discard it. However, it’s very easy to take what you have for granted. The grass is always greener.
I would also add that there are plenty of frum parents who did everything right and still ended up with children who smoke, have sex, or are “at risk” in other ways. It’s not necessarily a side effect of public school or a secular upbringing. My husband went to public school and never did those things.
Thanks for clarifying– I just got nervous when I saw that this thread had been randomly bumped just after I posted during what was chag in chu”l.
No, they don’t directly contradict each other, they simply have nothing to do with each other, as I said.
I do support women’s rights in contract law, property, and voting. “Bodily integrity” and “autonomy” are so generic as to be meaningless. As for reproductive rights, I think birth control pills need to be made more available to women. There is no reason why an examination and prescription should be necessary. If women could buy birth control pills over the counter, that would significantly cut down on the demand for abortions. While I wish elective abortions weren’t so common, I do not support banning abortion altogether because that would make it really difficult for those few women who really need them (e.g. a fetus with a permanent and serious defect, or when the mother’s health is endangered).
I will also note that Wikipedia isn’t exactly the most reliable source of information.
I posted a few things when it was chag in chutz la’aretz and chol hamo’ed in E”Y. (I considered mentioning this fact in the posts themselves, then reflected that I had already indicated in other recent posts that my husband and I are currently in E”Y, so didn’t think it was necessary). Why then should the posts not be approved?
My husband and I were guests in a yishuv for shabbos and our host said the following:
Bereshis bara elokim es hashamayim v’es ha’aretz. V’ha’aretz hayta tohu va’vohu. Ha’aretz HAYTA, meaning it existed in some form (tohu va’vohu) before Hashem made it into its present state as we now know it. Tohu va’vohu has no precise English translation, but roughly speaking you could call it a big mess. And how did evolution happen? Talk to geologists and they will tell you that it started with a big mess. It is not necessary to choose between Torah and science. There is always a Torah explanation for anything that science discovers.
Why do you feel the need to tell them at all? It will only cause them pain.
We played the Hebrew version of Settlers of Catan this chag!
1) Yes, all things equal, as I said.
2) Contraception and abortions are the rallying causes of liberals, not necessarily feminists.
3) There really aren’t significant differences between secular feminists and religious feminists as groups.
4) Can you clarify your first point? The first and second halves of the sentence have nothing to do with each other as far as I can tell.
Oh Shreck:
Three day yomim tovim are more than “a bit challenging”. They create a significant amount of work– shopping, prep, cooking, cleanup, reheating, etc etc, and the kids are whining and need attention– and they (the chagim) can also pose a significant financial strain. This is not to say that we don’t do all of this work both gladly and willingly. We do it b’simcha. But to make light of the work we do is heartbreaking. It does indeed make our lives harder, and there would be no simchas yom tov without the work we do. Whenever I am a guest in someone’s home for shabbos or yom tov I make sure to express my appreciation to my hosts just as I express my appreciation to Hashem.
My husband and I are blessed to be in E”Y for chagim this year and are keeping only one day. I am saddened that I don’t get to experience a second set of hakafos, but I’ll confess that I don’t miss the work.
Be realistic! If you set an impossible goal, you will fail (because it is impossible) and this will only make you feel bad about yourself. Set small, measurable goals. As you meet each one, your accomplishments will give you chizuk to keep going.
From my husband:
While nesarim on their own are cheaper than bamboo mats, it’s a case of yotzei s’charo b’hefsedo. Once you have the nesarim, you can’t attach them to the sukkah (except by something that is in its natural state and is not m’kabel tumah…this excludes nails, staple gun, thumb tacks, and pretty much every type of fastener you can imagine). Even most types of string and yarn are woven and therefore m’kabel tumah. With the bamboo mats, you’re not paying for “hashgacha,” but for the attachment of the bamboo poles using non-woven string (i.e. not m’kabel tumah). (see Star-K’s website on Halachos of Schach).
Even if you had the time and energy to acquire such string and use it to attach nesarim to each other, you would have to tie them in such a way that allowed at least some light in (most wood that I have bought from lumberyards wasn’t perfectly straight, but was sufficiently even to line up with similar shaped pieces of wood in a manner that would not allow light to penetrate if the boards were placed next to each other).
Furthermore, I wonder whether the extent to which “nesarim” have been processed already makes them m’kabel tumah…
What is “hafifnik”?
When my brother and I were younger, when my mom would go out and leave the two of us home together, she would always make us promise that there would be “no bloodshed” in her absence. That became our little euphemism for fighting. It didn’t always work, but sometimes it did.
Is she having trouble in school? If not, why does she need to switch?
DaMoshe, we have friends with expansion sets, so we have played Munchkin Cthulhu and Munchkin Xmas editions. It does get interesting because there are a few monsters– I don’t remember all of them, but I think one was a baby Cthulhu– that I think are really really cute, and I’ll do whatever I can to keep players from killing them, even if it’s not endgame. Not the best strategy, I know, but it makes the game fun anyway. In general, I think the Xmas expansion is better than the Cthulhu expansion.
WHEN A PERSON LITERALLY WRITES EVERY WORD IN CAPITAL LETTERS IT GIVES THE IMPRESSION THAT HE OR SHE IS REALLY DESPERATE FOR ATTENTION. IT ALSO COMES OFF AS MANIC AND/OR HYSTERICAL. IT IS THEREFORE NOT ONLY RUDE BUT SELF-DEFEATING.
This is not the same thing as CAPITALIZED PHRASES within an otherwise normative sentence.
My husband and I frequently play Settlers of Catan on Shabbos (we figured out how to make it into a 2 player game). Although we love Munchkin, we don’t have a chevra of people to play it with anymore…maybe in a few months when we return to the States.
Scranton may be remote, but it is definitely not Middle America. We have driven through it many times en route to upstate NY– it’s a great place to stop for a minyan on the way if you time it well.
I understand your logic; I just don’t understand how you come up with the “blanket statement hypothesis”, as you put it, that modern feminists are “misguided fools”. You refer to feminists’ viewpoints on the differences between men and women. Can you clarify what you mean by this, and/or bring a source? I think you will be surprised to learn that modern feminism (and I speak for myself and many of my friends when I say this) is not focused on making men and women the same people with the same abilities, but rather expanding opportunities for women according to their needs. Do we think that male-dominated fields should become 50/50? No; we understand that more men are attracted to these professions than women. But we do believe that men and women should receive equal pay for equal work (when the job is exactly the same, seniority is the same, performance is the same, etc.) And when a woman comes along who is different than most women, and who has abilities that most women don’t have and desires that most women don’t have– for instance, she wants to work in an army combat unit and is physically capable of doing so– we don’t think it’s fair for her to be turned away on the basis of “most women can’t or don’t want to do that”. I can give more examples if you like.
Influence can go in both directions. Just as she might influence you away from Torah observance, you might influence her toward it. Maintain the friendship, as it is obviously valuable to you, but monitor yourself– does she put you in awkward situations or is she respectful of your lifestyle? If you find yourself starting to slip because of a comment she made or wishing you could do the things she does, that might be a good time to consider ending it. But for now (unless you have had these thoughts already) there is no need to break off ties.
One more thought: in terms of influence (generally speaking), I actually think that somewhat religious people or those who keep some things are more dangerous than those who are completely secular. After all, how does a person go off the derech? Does he suddenly decide he is done with everything? Maybe in some cases, but usually it is a gradual process– he rationalizes one thing, then another, and eventually everything is gone. Therefore, secular friends are really not a problem because their lifestyles are so drastically different that they are unlikely to influence you. Those who are some degrees less religious than you, but still observe some things, may be more powerful tools of the Satan. I still do not think, though, that you need to cut off ties immediately with this person as long as you maintain a self-awareness.
My class put on a song and dance performance of “tovim hashnayim” in elementary school…I still remember the melody!
Please keep us posted on how you are doing. And do not hesitate to reach out to the Chabad rabbi– it’s his job to help you!
Even if you cannot drive to your local Chabad, you can still develop a relationship with the shul and the rabbi. Give him a phone call and tell him about yourself. I’m sure he will agree to become your rabbi and to learn with you over the phone. He may even be willing to drive to you to (for instance) kasher your kitchen and provide you with tefillin.
yehudayona, I’m the opposite– I’m full of energy the first night, but way too exhausted the second night to go through the whole thing again with adequate enthusiasm!
My cousins have a family tradition of playing Monopoly during Sukkos. I have been with them for Sukkos (and joined in the game) for the past few years, but not this year since it is my first Sukkos since getting married 🙂
Although we may know better, I believe that there are those (especially young people) who do not know the more vulgar versions of “heck” and “freakin”. When I was a child, I was very fond of a card game I knew as “B.S.”, and I was playing it at my friend’s house when her mother came over to us and said “B.S. stands for something not so nice, so let’s call the game ‘I Doubt It’ instead.” I wondered and wondered what B.S. stood for and didn’t find out for years.
Unless there is some serious malpractice going on (which could be possible; we don’t have enough details to do more than speculate) I think the situation is being blown way out of proportion. Okay, so there was a misdiagnosis, and rumors spread, etc etc and it’s hard to repair the damage. But those who really matter won’t listen to rumors and will appreciate your friend for who she is– and, furthermore, wouldn’t care even if she did have Asperger’s. I have a few close friends with Asperger’s and they’re wonderful people, and function quite well (just differently).
Making diagnoses, especially those related to mental rather than physical health, is not easy. There is a lot of “gray area” and it’s not always clear (that’s why autism is called a “spectrum”, because people present in different ways). Furthermore, especially as a youth, one can present symptoms and then have them disappear. What does that mean? Did the person really have the disorder and then it went away, or did she never really have it to begin with? It’s hard to say. Science has not advanced enough to the degree of precision that we would like, and that’s difficult to accept, but it’s true.
I would suggest to you and your friend that you stop looking for scapegoats and focus on moving forward in a positive way. Much hatzlacha.
My father-in-law has a backyard full of invasive bamboo. I happen to think it’s beautiful, but my husband, who grew up seeing it as a nuisance, disagrees.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Also– “his Talmudic wanted to know”…??
What is “fress”?
Search for your location on godaven.com. There may be a synagogue that is not Chabad closer to you.
Also, mods, I don’t believe this is a “controversial topic”…
I’ve never seen/heard of a sukkah hop where kids bring candy bags– the entire point is to eat the candy in the sukkah!
We spent yom tov in a small but growing yishuv. The sukkah hop used to just literally go around to every sukkah, because there were about thirty families, but as more people moved in this was no longer possible. So the family we stayed with told us that last year, the sukkah hop was not scheduled to stop at their sukkah, but then their youngest child (about four or five) started crying uncontrollably when he found out, so the leaders of the sukkah hop decided to make an unnscheduled stop to placate him 🙂
I think “freaking” may be…well…disrespectful is the first word that comes to mind, although I’m not sure it’s quite what I mean. I don’t like it when people say “freaking”. But I definitely do not consider it profanity. And I think “what the heck” is perfectly acceptable.
For those who believe “what the heck” is profanity, how do you feel about more old-fashioned expressions– for instance, “what in tarnation” or “what on earth”? They mean the same thing and are used in the same way.
I don’t know much about filters; I was just responding to the incredible assertion that 99.9% of the world does not need access to women’s health information.
“@jewishfeminist02
‘Hmm, I didn’t realize that women who are interested in their own health comprise less than 0.01% of the world.’
That’s not what I said.”
Except it is…
“> And yes there are a substantial amount of medical students and women who need to access womens health related sites which have things a filter will find objectionable.
Fine, as I said let them have a permissive filter, or no filter, but that’s an extreme case. On that, we can mostly agree. Now, back to 99.9% of the world …”
You said that 99.9% of the world is not a) a medical student or b) a woman who needs to research women’s health information for personal reasons (and therefore would need a permissive filter or no filter).