Lilmod Ulelamaid

His point wasn’t to criticize anyone – it was to raise awareness.

I saw the response before it was deleted. But I didn’t think that was your point. I thought you were making a point about gender. You had asked me which gender I would save first and why. This was somehow supposed to be connected to the original discussion about who opens the door for who. At least I assumed it was supposed to be connected somehow.

“lilmod ulelamaid – i wear sandals WITHOUT socks.”

therefore?

ZD: I was being sarcastic myself, or was that lost on you?

As a girl, I can’t imagine that too many people would consider me OTD if I started learning Nach instead of Gemara!

“I also sympathize with them.

Say, I could help out by relieving you for a couple days and volunteering to do your modding while you can relax.”

I’ll help! As long as I don’t have to read through the boring threads like this one and all the science, legal and political ones.

I consider myself to be OTD. I don’t think I’m completely on the Derech. Maybe on the side at best.

Meno: “Can we please just all agree that smoking is otd and pikuach nefesh, and its ok to watch movies so we can stop bumping this thread?”

lol.

Cool Sparkly – that sounds great!!

Meno:

“is it wrong to wear sandals if everyone else is wearing tights?”

Are you wearing socks? If so, it’s wrong, no matter what everyone else is wearing.”

Meno, I’m guessing you’re joking?? What’s wrong with wearing sandals with socks?

It seems to me that his point is to not point fingers at anyone; rather, his point is that the community should try to do something about it. He is right – we are all responsible for each other and have to try to do whatever we can. If there are any Jewish kids who are not in school for whatever reason, the entire community should be concerned and should be trying to do what they can (without placing blame on anyone else).

I always assumed that there could be halachic problems with sharing financial information that could end up hurting someone. I know when I was looking into the possibility of renting a particular apartment and I asked the previous renter how much she had paid, she didn’t want to tell me, because she thought it could be problematic halachically since I might then go to the landlord and say, “I know your previous tenant only paid $x so can you give me the same deal?” I also always tried to be careful not to tell people how much rent I was paying for the same reason (in case I left and someone else wanted to rent who had heard what I was paying and wanted to be able to pay the same amount).

I have no idea if there is such a halacha – I just always assumed that according to halacha, you should not give over information that might hurt someone else.

Mashiach Agent – there are so many qualifications to the Mitzvah of tochacha anyhow, so a lot of the time it’s not relevant (although of course, there are times when it is).

But you do have a valid question for those situations when it does apply.

1. Being dan l’kaf zchus doesn’t apply in every situation. I can’t look up the halachos this second, but for example, if you know that someone isn’t frum and always drives on Shabbos, you do not have to assume that they are having a baby every time they drive on Shabbos. On the other hand, if you see your frum neighbor in a car on Shabbos, you should definitely assume that she is having a baby or has some other emergency.

2. Even when you give tochacha, you can be dan l’kaf zchus simultaneously. If you see someone cutting in line and you feel that it’s appropriate to give him tochacha in this situation (which you should think carefully about, because it’s not always the right thing to do), you have to think carefully about how you give tochacha. You need to give it in a pleasant way and you can say it in a way that leaves open the possibility that he had a reason for cutting in line.

And honestly, maybe you should not be giving tochacha in that situation. Maybe you should be assuming that he had a good reason. It is perfectly possible. Maybe he was really in line first, but for some reason the cashier told him to take care of something and come right back. Or maybe he had an emergency. There can definitely be many reasons why it may appear that someone is cutting and he really isn’t. Also, sometimes, people really don’t realize that someone is behind them or they are not sure where the line is.

There’s an Ateres in EY that stands for Ateres Bais Yaakov or Ateres Bnos Yisrael or something like that (I know the rashei taivos are ABY). I never heard of Ateres Miriam, but a lot of new seminaries have opened up the past few years. Is this a new school? Is it in EY?

“i think im going to become a halacha teacher.”

That will take a lot more than 2 years, and if you want to get married soon, I wouldn’t advise it.

I always wished people would be more open about these things (both salary and expenses) because I think it would make it much easier for me to figure out how I’m supposed to do things. People tend to be pretty quiet about these things, or maybe it’s just that I’m scared to ask because I was taught not to and I’m scared that it’s rude to ask. But I always wish people would be more open, because I feel like it makes it so much easier for me to figure out how to manage if I have some idea how others are managing. How can I know what’s a normal salary or a normal amount to spend on things if I don’t know what others do?

I do think that in EY, people are more likely to be open about these things. In more materialistic societies, people are more likely to consider it a personal topic because they define themselves by how much money they make and they think that it’s a chisaron if someone doesn’t make so much money. In less materialistic societies (such as in EY), people don’t place value judgments on others based on how much they earn, so it is less likely to be considered personal.