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What is The Final Countdown by Europe?
PBA – it’s a special thing for women to be able to get the schar of Limud Torah by enabling others to learn. A teacher of mine once showed me a Gemara or a Rashi on a Gemara (I have no idea where it was – maybe someone here can help out?) to the effect that when a lady does housework so that her husband and sons can learn it counts as Limud Torah for her. This is something specific to women.
I have no idea if I’m quoting correctly at all, so if someone knows the source, I’d appreciate it.
I don’t know if it’s a good idea to start comparing boys from one Yeshiva to another. That sounds like it could be a Hilchos L”H issue.
Women can be called Rebbetzin just because they deserve it without having to have a specific profession or degree.
I think men can be called Rabbi without semicha. I call most men I know Rabbi, and I don’t think most of them have Semicaha.
“Check out the Aruch HaShulchan when you have a chance.”
Sorry, I just realized that A”H meant Aruch Hashulchan.
The Chofetz Chaim said that it’s assur to smoke (I believe it’s in “Zechor L’Miriam). He gives two reasons: 1. health & 2. bitul Torah (in those days it took at least half an hour to roll the cigars).
And that was way before the surgeon general came out against it.
But, I still don’t think it’s “assur” the way that being mechalel Shabbos is assur. And he doesn’t bring it down in a halacha sefer like the Mishna Berurah.
By not committing suicide. For some people, that is enough of a challenge.
If you’re talking about modern songs, I would guess that Yeshivishe kup is right. However, if you are talking about really old songs, some would say they are better than modern Jewish music (although I personally have no problem with modern Jewish music).
There was a book I read a long time ago (I think it was “The way it was” by Hindy Krohn”). The author talks about how Jewish music had just started being recorded. His mother wouldn’t let him listen to Jewish music and told him that not-Jewish was better (and fine). This was several generations ago, and I’m sure she would not have said the same about today’s music.
Of course, you have to make sure that listening to old (kosher) goyish music doesn’t lead you to start listening to treif goyish music.
DY -huh? The Shulchan Aruch says straight out that it’s not a chiyuv. I just checked the B’eer Haitaiv and he says likewise.
Check out the Aruch HaShulchan when you have a chance.
Taking care of one’s emotional health/psychological well-being is more important than taking care of one’s physical health. Of course, ideally one should be able to do both, but most people do find that to some extent they have to choose between one and the other. Most people are not “holding by” living a completely healthy lifestyle and it would break them emotionally to try to be “perfect” in this area.
For example, I know of a lady who was suffering from depression, and she dealt with it by smoking.
You never know what choices other people are making, and we have an obligation to judge them favorably, just as we do in other areas. Maybe the guy you see smoking just got out of rehab and is trying not to have a relapse.
In one of Rav Matisyahu’s books, he writes that words are the problem, not the music. So it’s not a problem to listen to Jewish music that is taken from goyish music, unless you know the real words and they are problematic (since you will think of the real words when you listen to the music).
One problem I have discovered though is that normally if I am somewhere where goyish music is being played (a bus or goyish store – although I try to avoid such places), I am usually able to block it out and not listen, but if it’s a tune that is used by Jewish musicians, I will end up hearing it and hearing the real words.
I don’t smoke – I eat chocolate instead.
yekke2 -that was definitely not the type of thing I was talking about! I’m not even afraid of spiders. I am scared of a lot of other things, but I hope that no matter what happened, I would not call my husband during Seder!!!!!!
I just meant that my husband shouldn’t just be marrying me so that I can be his slave and support him in Kollel, and he shouldn’t make me feel like my needs aren’t important.
Also, he shouldn’t consider it bitul Torah to ever talk to me or do anything for me (during bein hasedarim obviously).
What had really offended me was the choice of words, “He has you and he has his learning.” Your wife is not an object; she is a person.
Shkoyach DY! So it’s pretty clear that according to both the Shulchan Aruch and the Rema, women have no chiyuv to get married.
I just read the Aruch HaShulchan on the topic (Even HaEzer, 1/1-3). He explains the whole inyan, and it was very interesting.
His basic points are:
1. Women are not obligated in “Pru u’rvu” and can choose to remain single.
2. When Noach left the Taivah, the women may have had been obligated in the Mitzvah because at that point, the men couldn’t have fulfilled the Mitzvah w/o them, but this is not true of later generations.
3. Getting married to avoid “chashad” is an “aitza tova” (good idea), but not an obligation.
4. Whether or not “chashad” applies depends on the particular place. It is never an obligation, and it doesn’t even necessarily apply in all places (I would think that it doesn’t apply nowadays at all – I have never heard that it is an issue today).
5. Some say that women are obligated in the Mitzvah of “Sheves”, but the Aruch HaShulchan rejects this.
6. One of his proofs that women are not obligated in Sheves is the fact that according to halacha, if someone’s husband can’t have children, it is not grounds for her to divorce him (which it would be if she had a chiyuv to have children).
Another interesting thing he says is that women want to get married more than men do. I thought that was interesting because I would have thought the opposite.
DY – I’m very tired, but it sounds the same to me. I’m not sure why you think not? Maybe you misunderstood what I meant. Apparently, I thought I was being misunderstood which was why I rephrased.
How do you think the two statements are different.
For all the single girls who are wondering how they can fulfill this concept:
1. Give money to a Kollel or to someone learning.
2. Daven for someone (either someone specific, all the men and boys in Am Yisrael or your zivug) to learn well.
The first one I heard. The second one I came up with since I have no money to give to anyone.
3. (I just thought of this) Work in Kiruv.
I learned that it is referring to how women are zoche to Techiyas Hamaisim specifically.
There is a specific merit to supporting men’s learning, but women do get schar for their own learning even if it’s not the same thing. The Rambam says that women receive schar for learning Torah. It’s like any other Mitzvah that women do that they aren’t obligated to do but they do as “aino metzuveh v’oshe”. For that matter, they aren’t chayiv to get married in the first place.
According to the Maharal, women don’t have a chiyuv to learn Torah since they can get Olam Haba without it.
That’s part of Hashem’s plan for them – that’s how He created nature. The animal’s purpose is to live in the wild and eat other animals and be eaten by them.
just curious – what brought this up?
She also gets schar for her own learning as well. I’m not saying it’s as important or that it’s the same thing, but it is important to know that she gets some schar for her learning too.
Golfer & Joseph- I just chapped what your comments were in response to. I hadn’t gone into details, so based on what I wrote, I guess it was hard to understand. Without going into all the details, the point was that I was feeling exceedingly overwhelmed with my responsibilities to my family and was not thinking about my own needs at all. At some point I started to realize that was not such a good idea and that I was in danger of collapsing if I didn’t start to think about myself, and I realized that I needed to start thinking about my own needs once in a while. This was a big chidush to me and not something that I was used to doing, so it was very hard for me, especially since my family’s financial situation was really bad and no matter what I did, it wasn’t enough, so I felt very guilty spending any time doing things for myself (like sleeping and eating). But I knew that it was something important for me to work on if I wanted to survive.
At around the same time, this teacher decided to pressure me to go out with and marry someone who I couldn’t stand and who was totally not the kind of person I was looking for. The main reason he seemed to want me to go out with and marry him was so that I could support him in Kollel even though I had no way of doing so, and even though I didn’t really want to be going out just yet at all, and certainly not with someone who was expecting me to support him in Kollel for the rest of his life which was something I couldn’t do.
I tried explaining this to my teacher (both before during and after going out with the guy the 5 times he pressurred me to go out with him),
and that just led to his screaming at me and saying really abusive things about how horrible I was because I was poor and had no way of supporting this guy in Kollel who I didn’t even want to be going out with in the first place.
I was under tremendous pressure as it was and the last thing I needed was the additional pressure that I had to marry someone and support him in Kollel for the rest of his life when I was having such a hard time managing as it was! And I was just working on convincing myself that it’s okay to take time to breathe once in a while!
In the course of one of numerous conversations with this teacher (revolving around his trying to pressure me to marry this guy and/or trying to making me feel bad about the fact that I had no way of supporting someone in Kollel), I mentioned something about how I was having a hard time thinking about my own needs once in a while and not just my (current) family’s needs, and likewise, when I get married, I will need to marry someone who is not just marrying me so that I can support him in Kollel, but will care about my needs and encourage me to take care of my needs (such as sleeping). He responded by screaming at me and telling me what a horrible person I am for thinking that I am more important than my husband’s learning, etc.
I guess that wasn’t so short, but I hope that sort of explains things.
“And I don’t even daven with a minyan (most of the time).
I expect same goes for you, LU.”
Lol. I actually went to Shul for Vasikin on Hoshana Rabba. That was only because I had stayed up trying to say Tehillim (in between spacing out), so I figured I may as well. But other than Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur and one recent Friday night, I don’t think I have been to shul in years. And even on Rosh Hashana & Yom Kippur, I took a lot of breaks.
Golfer – I hadn’t gone into details. I just mentioned one small detail – I didn’t mean that was the reason I don’t forgive him – it was a small part of a very long story.
Joseph – sorry, that’s not what happened here. I didn’t go into all the details, but he was very abusive (I definitely would have divorced him if I had been married to him, which Boruch Hashem, I wasn’t).
Any misunderstanding that took place was on his part and was a result of his listening to and believing motzi shem ra about me, and then hearing everything I said in the context of the motzi shem ra he had heard and believed.
By the way, that is one of the worst things about L”H and Motzi Shem Ra. If someone hears something about you that is either untrue or is technically true but the context is missing, the chances are they will believe it as it was told, and then they end up hearing things you say differently than what you meant because they are starting out with certain misconceptions.
That is exactly what happened here.
And he is to blame, because he should have:
1. listened to me when I told him that what he had heard about me wasn’t true.
2. paid attention to what I really was saying
3. Most importantly – not spent an hour at a time (literally – I timed it) screaming at me and saying really abusive things.
I did try many times to discuss it with him afterwards and to give him an opportunity to apologize which he didn’t do.
Personally, I think it is completely inappropriate for a teacher to scream at an (adult) student, especially if the teacher is a man and the student is a girl, and I think he should have been fired. The problem is that in that school, such things were considered acceptable, which I think is a serious problem.
The only one who deserved mussar and tochacha here was him.
Golfer – I’m not sure if you followed the whole thread. It sounds like you might have missed the context of my comments. I was the one who said “ishto k’gufo” and everything else was an explanation of what I meant by that.
lol. I didn’t realize you were talking about the Coffee Room. I thought we were talking about news articles specifically.
btw, on Sukkos, as a result of letting everyone else on first and getting on last, I ended up in the front of the mens’ section. Which happens to be the most comfortable standing spot on the bus, but I’m not sure if it’s the most tznius.
It would probably depend on what you mean by “no bad words”. Even if there aren’t bad words, the question still remains, “What is the content? What message is being given over in the words? Is it one that is antithetical to Judaism or not?
In other words, it’s not enough that the words aren’t bad, you have to make that the sentences are also okay.
The Babbler – we will definitely miss you when you leave, but I will not only refrain from encouraging you to stay, I encourage you to give up Internet. I think it’s a great decision, even though I’ll miss you!
I already figured out it can’t possibly be you.
But I’m not sure if you responded to my question of: “More importantly, would you have said such a thing?”
btw, that teacher is one of the people I have in mind when I say Tefilas Zaka erev Yom Kippur. (yes, I know that one should try to forgive everyone even if they don’t ask mechila, but I’m not on that level, and I gave him a million chances to apologize. It was his choice not to).
Huh?
Cool!. I imagine that’s pretty unusual, but I could be wrong.
I hope it’s not you, because if it is you, you owe me a trillion and a half apologies!!!! (not just for that segment of a conversation – there was a lot more than that!).
“They’re all rooting for you There!!!”
That is for sure!!
More importantly, would you have said such a thing?
“Maybe I was that teacher?!”
Are you a teacher, and do you remember having such a conversation?
Anyhow, I ruled out that possibility.
Joseph, for real? What kind of comments?
don’t know, and I don’t have it at home to look it up now. Health seems to think it says that it’s a chiyuv, but Rav Leff says it’s not, and if it said it in the Shulchan Aruch, Rav Leff would have known.
Personally, I trust Rav Leff on this.
Why don’t you look it up?
And the age thing is not the only reason for the Shidduch Crisis, although it may contribute to it.
My point was that I think your spouse’s needs should be at least as important to you as your own (as in, “my knee is hurting us”).
I think that I heard that the Shidduch Crisis may have started to come to EY now also, but I’m not sure. Most American things end up coming to EY eventually.
I don’t think the Rambam says it’s a chiyuv because of chashad. I think he just says it’s a good idea.
Personally, I always had trouble understanding that Rambam (not to imply that my issues understanding the Rambam have any bearing on halacha, chas v’shalom, or on the truth of his words!). I have never noticed that there is a problem with chashad by older single girls, but that is a problem with older single boys.
btw, I only made that comment about “ishto k’gufo” because your comment about priorities reminded me of a conversation I had with someone many years ago that really upset me, but I realize now your comment was not meant the same way at all.
In the course of a conversation with a teacher regarding someone he had set me up with, I mentioned that I would want to marry someone who considers me more important than his learning and his response was, “He has you and he has his learning; why should one be more important than the other.” I found that really offensive.
It’s possible he didn’t understand what I meant and didn’t understand why his comment was offensive, and it’s possible you won’t either. It may have something to do with the difference between how men and women understand things, but whatever.
In any case, I realize now that that had nothing to do with your comment.
“LU,
‘Sh’lo La’shaves ye’tzarah’ is only a mitzvah?”
That is what Rav Zev Leff Shlit”a said, and I trust him. It’s in the recording that I mentioned above that can be found on his website (I gave directions in a previous post in this thread).
Sorry, I’m too Frum – I don’t read news or comments on news (just the Coffee Room).
“there is no question your choice of expression would have offended.”
That I hear. I thought it was the whole thing that you had an issue with. Thank you for clarifying and allowing me to express myself more appropriately!
By the way, I appreciate it when you let me know the reasons for the deletions.
“Of course HKB”Hs Will comes before a persons own. One certainly doesn’t prioritize himself. Batel Retzoincho Mipnei Retzonoi…”
“One places Hashem above himself.”
True of course. But in the above context, I wasn’t sure if it was relevant. When I wrote that he might have to leave to take care of himself, no one questioned his prioritizing his own needs.
You can only serve Hashem if you take care of yourself, and since “Ishto k’gufo” the same is true regarding taking care of your wife.
Bottom line: Man’s only purpose in life is to serve Hashem. Sometimes that is best done by taking care of his wife or himself. It depends on the situation. If we’re talking about other people, we should assume the best.
“I suppose things might be very different here in E”Y. Here they didn’t even there was a crisis (“Mashber Hashiduchim” is an American import)”
That’s true. It was mainly when I was in America that I kept hearing about the Shidduch Crisis. That is mainly because they are more into it there, but also partially because I had more access to Frum publications there, and the Frum magazines and papers in the US are constantly writing about it, and making it sound like a major tragedy and like the purpose in life is to get married.
“edited by the Shmiras HaLashon squad”
I appreciate your concern for Shmiras Haloshon, but I think you are a little bit confused about the halachos.
There was no Loshon Hora here. I was referring to a comment that everyone here can see! It would only be a problem if I mentioned a comment that had been said off-line.
If someone offends me, it is not Loshon Hora to tell them that I was offended by what they said, and in fact according to halacha I have an obligation to do so.
If you are really concerned about Shmiras Haloshon, the original comment should not have been printed since offending someone is loshon hora. That is true of any offensive comments made by any posters in the CR.
there is no question your choice of expression would have offended.