Lilmod Ulelamaid

“On Rosh Hashanah, I eat it without chrein.”

On Rosh Hashanah, I eat it with chrein. Does that make me a goy?

k, thanks for explaining and apologizing. I was wondering, because it didn’t seem your type…

I have a strange schedule – nice of you to notice – I sort of have an American schedule, so I’m usually up nights and sleep during the day – except of course when I’m up at night and don’t sleep during the day…. that could explain a few things…

LF- I do feel like you have been insinuating that because I am serious, I am somehow not nice. And when I asked you if you were trying to insult me, you didn’t answer… I did feel rather attacked by your comments, but I tried to say so politely. I thought you would explain that you didn’t mean it or something, but instead you accused ME of attacking YOU, without any explanation as to what in the world you were referring to. I was rather taken aback by that and wonder why you haven’t explained.

So I feeling a bit hurt as well as confused. If you have something to say to me, please say it straight out instead of all these comments that I have no clue what they are about….

How do you get 1/40th? I agree that it’s not 1/80th as I already pointed out, but why 1/40th davka? I’m not disagreeing – just curious how you figured that out.

Shopping – I didn’t mean there were none – I know that there are some, ther e was actually an Eighth Grade boy who has posted – I meant that there are few 0-16 year olds compared to the size of their population.

The truth is, I really should have written 0-15 in any case, because girls can be asking about seminary at 16, but the previous poster had written 17-18 year olds so I just left it at that.

And what does that fact that you are almost 19 prove? I am missing something. What exactly am I wrong about?

Shopping – true, but they have dorms. I was responding to Person1’s statement that Israeli girls go to sem but don’t have dorms. My point was that the typical Israeli girl who goes to a seminary w/o a dorm is not “going to seminary” the way Americans do.

I was going to mention that Ofakim and the seminaries for American-Israelis are different, but like I said, they do have dorms. Also, they are not typical Israeli seminaries. The typical system is different.

You had mentioned that you are not in a dorm, so I guess that girls who go to these seminaries don’t always dorm, but I imagine that it is always an option. (correct me if I’m wrong). I would also guess that it is not the same experience if you are not in the dorm (although I guess that some prefer that – I know one girl who chose her seminary on that basis).

“(Oh well… I guess I’m under attack)”

??? I thought you believed in seeing things positively. Why do you assume that you are under attack???

Also, part of having bitachon in Hashem means not second-guessing ourselves, and recognizing that everything, including the results of our actions comes from Hashem. If someone’s Tefillin gets lost (certainly in a case like this where he didn’t do anything that would have been considered a problem halachically – he put his Tefillin in the same place that everyone does and that is considered the normal place to put Tefillin), one must believe that it was from Hashem and not feel guilty about it.

I think that is one the hardest nisyonos. I know it’s something I find very difficult. I am continually second-guessing myself and thinking that thing a) must have happened because of a certain wrong decision I made, etc.

But a believing Jew is not allowed to think like that. We have to remind ourselves that everything comes from Hashem, and even if we made poor decisions, they don’t cause bad things to happen to us- everything comes from Hashem and is for our good, period!!!

Bottom line – it was a very positive story with a very positive message, and let’s try to see the positive in it and not the negative! A whole community was willing to go to such lengths and spend so much money for the sake of a piece of parchment only because it signifies our relationship with HaKadosh Baruch Hu!

“Mi k’amcha Yisrael!” Let’s not turn this beautiful story into an excuse to speak badly about Am Yisrael – either individuals or the klal!

I never heard of Maayanot before. I tried looking for it online, but I couldn’t really find anything. But if it’s a more academic track of B’aer Miriam, that sounds like it could be great for you, Iy”H!

Futuregirl – unless things have changed over the years, MMY used to be either the most or one of the top two in terms of academics. I’m not trying to scare you away – it’s a great school and it would be great if you went – but it is super-academic, so you have to be prepared for that.

In terms of whatever it is your sister heard, keep in mind that most schools have different types of girls in them. It would be very hard to find a school that hasn’t had any “not-good girls”. I haven’t been involved with MMY in several years, but they used to have great girls there.

In terms of your wanting academic but not overly so, it seems to me that TD or MT would be more matim. Shaalvim might also be a possibility, but it’s possible that it’s more academic than you are looking for (although it is less than MMY)

“Individuals perhaps, but not the klal. All such comments directed to the individual had been deleted.”

I’m very happy to hear that comments to the individual were deleted (thank you very much for your sensitivity to the individual who is going through a hard enough time as it is), but I think there were some that were overlooked

edited

Syag – try reading your own words and following them.

“My friend’s kids love the game, Settlers of Cattan. I asked her if a young couple would like it, and she said that her married son and daughter-in-law always play it.”

“That’s strange, seeing as Settlers of Catan is for 3 or 4 players only.”

It’s interesting that you are saying that. Someone in the family did point out that it’s not as much fun for 2 players, but my friend said that her son does enjoy playing with 2 because he has never played with more people so he doesn’t know what he is missing.

I have never played the game, so I wouldn’t know, but I understood from that that it could be played by any number of people but it’s more fun if there are more than 2.

Snooper – just wanted to point out that I didn’t mean to make you feel guilty or put pressure on you with my learning/reading suggestions. I understand that there are times when a person can’t learn and needs something more relaxing to chill out [hey, why do you think I’m in the CR so much? :)]

My thinking was just that I would start with those types of suggestions and see how they went over, before I went on to the other types of suggestions.

(That is one of the reasons why it’s easier to give advice in person; you can see the person’s expression as you’re speaking and switch tacks immmediately as needed).

The truth is you are wise for choosing something relaxing and fun for several reasons. Amongst other things, since your point is to “go off of tv/movies”, you need to choose something that will help you to do that. If you choose something difficult, your resolve might not last that long. But if you choose something fun and enjoyable, you might even come to appreciate your decision to stop watching.

btw, some peoplach enjoy talking about serious topics…it’s not such a terrrible thing.

“??? ????”? ?????? ??? ?’ ???? ?? ???? ????”

Yes, it is also a very important Mitzvah to make people happy, (and you do a great job of it!) but I couldn’t leave that comment about there being more to the world than Halacha.

“If you can’t see why choice 3 would be stressful, you should speak to a therapist because you are repressed”

or just am not married and don’t have kids yet.

Listen, I’m not in the situation yet, and don’t have kids, but I know a lot of people who have a lot of kids bli ayin hora, and no one I know has a harness, and they seem to manage. And this has been going on for centuries (I think since the world began). I’m not saying it’s necessarily a problem to use a harness (I don’t feel qualified to have a definitive opinion on the subject, esp. since I’ve never seen it used), but to me, the concept is a chiddush, and it’s hard for me to see how much freedom the kid has if he is on a harness. But, I could be wrong.

In terms of its not being fair to decline to marry someone because they have a quality that they can’t help, I disagree with that premise.

Would you marry someone who has bad middos because he can’t help it? Usually when people have bad middos, it is not their fault – it is the result of nature and nurture. People don’t choose to have bad middos, and we are supposed to be “dan l’kaf zchus” that everyone is doing the best with what he is given.

Basically, you can say that about every trait – that it is not his fault so it is unfair to decline to marry him because of it.

We are not supposed to just marry anyone. We are supposed to choose whom to marry based on the traits that they have and determining if these traits would make them compatible for you.

We have no way of knowing who is beshert -that is exactly the way in which we try to figure it out – by looking at their traits and thinking about if they have the traits that would work for you.

And the difference between a physical ailment and an emotional one is that an emotional one does often affect the person’s middos/personality traits (perhaps a physical one can as well, and in that case, that may be a legitimate reason not to go out with the person). Just like you wouldn’t want to marry someone who has bad middos but doesn’t have a syndrome to blame it on, why should you want to marry someone who has bad middos just because he can give it a name.

According to your logic, there is no reason to ever say no to any shidduch, and shidduchim should just be made randomly. There is a story in the Gemara about someone who tried to do that, and it was a failure.

LB- In the case in the Tanach, the problem was that he didn’t want to get married at all, not that he didn’t want to marry a specific person. That is completely different. Also, he was a man, and men have a chiyuv to get married and women don’t.

I disagree with this idea that it is a lack of bitachon to take heriditary factors into account. You have to be rational about it, and of course, you can’t refuse to marry anyone who has something in their family that could possibly be hereditary (that would kind of limit your choices to 0).

However, if it is known that there is a particular issue in that person’s family, and it is known that it is something very hereditary (and since we are talking about emotional issues, one must also take into account, the possibility of the particular issue being passed down through “nurture” as well as “nature”), it is responsible and appropriate to consider if this is something that you, personally are capable of dealing with.

There is a reason why Dor Yesharim has haskamos from Gedolim.

That being said, of course, one has to have bitachon and can’t go crazy about hereditary factors. They should consider carefully if this person is someone who would be worth marrying despite whatever risks are involved to their future kids, and if they would end up regretting not marrying the person.

But there are two sides to the equation, and it is only responsible to weigh both of them, imho.

“blame? suggesting people should be more responsible is now considered blame?”

If it had been a general comment not made in reference to a spedific situation, you would be right and it would not be blame. Since it was in the context of a specific person, and the implication is clearly that that person was irresponsible, it is blame and t/f loshon hora.

The comment is general

“Women are about half the population. 17-18 yr old girls is just 1/80th or so of that half (assuming 80 yr lifespan).”

Keeping in mind the population growth , 18 year olds would be way more than 1/80th of the population. (just ask the founders of the NASI project).

Also, keep in mind that the 0-16 year olds are very unlikely to posting in the CR (at least I certainly hope so!), and since there are less people in every age over 18 (because of population growth), that means that the 18 years should represent for more than 1/80th of the people who could potentially be posting in the CR.

Furthermore, one could assume that wives and mothers are less likely to spend time in the CR as our Yeshiva bochurim/yungeleit. So it makes sense that 18 year old girls could represent a much greater percentage of those in the CR. They also probably spend much more time online than most others.

However, I would guess that despite their overrepresentation online, most of the topics in the CR don’t paricularly interest them (Trump,Clinton, etc), so they only post about those topics that interest them – namely seminary.

I would be interested in hearing from others as well. TIA!

PBA – I’m just curious – do you really get that stressed out from having your kids run around? I’m not at that stage of life yet, but I’m the worrying type and I always worry about what a paranoid mother I will be, and how that will affect my kids and my ability to allow them their freedom.

I could see where if you will be really nervous, it might be a good idea, but I still think that it is better not to be so nervous and give the kid his freedom (if possible).

What concerns me is the idea that this could become the norm and then for sure everyone will be nervous if they don’t do it, and ALL the kids will lose their freedom.

But what are we talking about – are we talking about something that is done all the time, or just in specific circumstances (like a family Chol HaMoed trip somewhere crowded and/or dangerous where the danger of losing track of family members is very real).

And what age are we talking about? 2 year olds? 4 year olds? 6 year olds?

btw, writersoul, just wanted to mention that your views on this topic have a “maaleh” that mine don’t since you were in seminary recently so you know girls who were there recently, which is helpful.