Lilmod Ulelamaid

You want to hear something funny? I actually almost met someone from the CR this week!!!

M: 1. There would be no women involved in any part of the army or National Service.
2. The food would be on the highest standard of Kashrus. No one would be served food that has a hashgacha that he doesn’t hold by (unless he doesn’t hold by any hashgachos at all).
3. All decisions would be made according to Daas Torah.
4. There would be required Torah learning every day, preferably for at least one full Seder.
5. Everyone who is learning full-time would be exempt from serving in the army.
6. Either all of the soldiers would be Chareidi/Chardal or they would all be “modern” or they would all be not-yet-Frum. Alternatively, the army could be made up of all three, but they would be in separate units.
7. The Commanders (I’m not sure if that’s the correct term) of each unit would be at least as religious as all of the soldiers in their unit.
8. There would be three minyanim a day, and the schedule would be set up so that each soldier could attend minyan.
9. No smartphones would be allowed on base (except as absolutely needed, and then they would be filtered).

clarification on above post: “loshon hora l’toeles” refers to a situation in which ALL the conditions of L’H l’toeles are met.

“Pink is not”

🙁 What if I never wear them further than the garbage bin except on Tisha B’Av and Yom Kippur?

“Beige and pink make you look like you have swollen bare feet.”
If they are bright pink and/or you are wearing socks, they don’t.

As I wrote previously, a lot of it depends on the “point” that one is trying to make when he/she uses the terms “learning” and “working”.

For many (possibly most) people, the point they are trying to make is that they (or their husbands, etc.) are learning Torah all day. So if he has a job that involves learning they would call it learning regardless of the fact that he is paid. The issue for them is not the pay, but the learning.

So, for example, they would refer to someone who is a Rosh Kollel or someone who is a Rebbe in a Mesivta (high school) or Beis Medrash (post-high-school) as learning, since he is learning even though he gets paid for it. When you teach adult men, or older boys, you are learning. On the other hand, they might not refer to a second grade Rebbe as learning, since he is not learning even though he is teaching.

On the other hand, there are others who have a different point to make when they use the terms “learning” or “working”. For example, a girl who values learning but doesn’t feel that she would be able to support her husband in kollel might refer to someone who is a Rosh Kollel as “working” because her “point” is that she wants to marry someone who has a parnassah, so for her the difference between “learning” and “working” has to do with the paycheck.

Sometimes, the point is something different. Sometimes, people want to make a statistical point about the percentage of Chareidim who “work”. In that case, they would include anyone who teaches, since there is no reason not to count someone who teaches Limudei Kodesh as working, just like you would include someone who teaches limudei chol.

So like any other categorization, who gets included depends on the way you define your terms, and the way you define your terms depends on the reason why you are setting up these categories in the first place. I think this is also the reason why different people have different ways of categorizing terms like “Chareidi”,etc.

In any case, I think that a lot of people, if not most, use the first definition I gave.

” Last week I saw someone walking, carrying a water bottle, was that you?”

oh, my gosh, yes!! I was walking last week, carrying a water bottle. How’d you know it was me?

Akuperma – it sounds like anyone who receives a kollel stipend would be considered to be working according to your definition. Is that what you mean? (I’m not criticizing – you can define things however you want to – I’m just clarifying).

As funnybone wrote, kollels usually give a stipend. There are some that don’t give any stipend, and some that give a very small amount, and there are others that give more. A lot of it depends on location (Eretz Yisrael, Lakewood, out-of-town, New York), but it also depends on the specific kollel.

Nowadays, I think it would be very rare or impossible to find to find a kollel that pays enough to live on, but whatever they do give is definitely needed in combination with the wife’s salary. Often, the couple/family is only able to manage due to the kollel stipend combined with the wife’s salaray.

Randomex – lol, I can’t believe you remembered this! I actually am here now, and it’s the first chance I had to get to a computer since I got here, and I was thinking that as soon as I log in, I should let you know I’m here.

Well, here I am. Come say hi!

If you offer someone a million dollars and tell them they don’t have to take it if they don’t want it, you assume they will take it. You have technically given them a choice, but you assume they will choose to take it.

When people adopt goyim, it’s not like a regular case of converting goyim in which we discourage the goy from converting. When a goy is adopted, we encourage him to be Jewish.

“Lilmod, if the family isn’t frum, there’s no way for the adopted child to become Jewish even if he wanted to – since he clearly isn’t being mekabel the taryag mitzvos.”

I’m just talking about the metzius – not whether or not it should be that way. I know of families that either weren’t Frum or weren’t so Frum and adopted goyim whom they brought up as Jews who chose not to be Jewish at their Bar Mitzvah.

Regarding whether or not they could have become Jewish if they had wanted to: 1. They could have chosen to be Frum even if their families weren’t. They did go to Frum schools and had some Frum siblings, so they knew what it was about.
2. I don’t know exactly how religious the families were or weren’t. It is possible that they kept some things. They may have kept Shabbos and Kashrus. And halachically, I’m not sure if the family has to keep every single halacha in such a case.

“Lesschumras, I suspect the cases of mamzeirus are uncommon. Even in those cases, it’s certainly better for a Jewish child to be raised by Jews than to be raised by non-Jews.”

Good point! I always wondered about that when people talk about its being better to adopt a goyish baby because there are no mamzeirus issues. Even if the child is a mamzer, he is still a Jewish baby with a heilige neshama who needs a home.

I do understand that someone might be hesitant to adopt a baby with a “problem”, but it bothers me that many people seem to just write off the possibility of adopting a mamzer. And this is despite the fact that people will adopt kids with all sorts of other problems. I think it’s because there is a stigma attached to mamzeirim, and I think we need to try to get rid of that. The kid is just as holy as any other kid and has as much potential to be good Jew and maybe even a tzaddik.

All it really means is that he can’t get married, and there are even halachic ways around that.

Why is yichud more of a problem with a goyish adopted child? It could be a problem with any adopted child.

And yayin nesech is also a problem if there is a family member who is not Shomer Shabbos. It’s not such a problem – just make sure that all the wine in the house is mevushal.

In all the cases I know of, I think the family was either not-Frum or not-so-Frum at the time. I would guess that in the majority of cases in which the family is Frum, the kids do choose to be Jewish. And if the family isn’t Frum, it probably doesn’t matter so much if the kid isn’t Jewish.

Either way, they probably continue to love their kid because he is their kid. Just like a Ger loves his kids because they are his kids even though he is Jewish and they aren’t. In this case, it is probably harder because the kid is rejecting the values and lifestyle that his family raised him with.

bmyer – nice!! I especially like the one by Bibi.

While many, and maybe most, Poskim today hold that the problem with women wearing pants today is tznius, I believe there still are some opinions that it is beged ish. That may not be the opinion that most go by, but I am fairly certain there is such an opinion given by accepted Poskim.

That’s not a sheilah for a Gadol.

okay, you were right in this case, Ubiquitin. Not that I was wrong – I didn’t say it wasn’t a sheilah for a Gadol – I said that it could be either way.

My Rabbanim have taught me not to go to one Rav for everything. There is almost no one today who is an expert in every area. You are supposed to go to different Rabbanim for different types of sheilahs, depending what his area of expertise is.

And it is a good idea to find out what “Daas Torah” (i.e. the Gedolim) have to say once in a while, especially if it’s a controversial topic.

And asking your LOR can’t be used as an excuse for doing something against the Torah (as it unfortunately often is). No LOR is infallible. If your LOR tells you something that seems to be against the Torah, it is your responsibility to look into it and find another, greater Rav to ask. I don’t want to start giving examples since I’m afraid it will get into Loshon Hara, but people often use their Rabbanim as an excuse to do things that are clearly assur.

Your LOR is not a Gadol (unless he is), and everything he says is not Daas Torah (unless he’s a Gadol).

I hope it’s clear that I’m not talking about shopping for leniencies her – I am talking about searching for the truth.

According to the Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chayim 89/4), if you are so hungry or thirsty that you will not be able to have kavana unless you eat or drink, you are allowed to.

Water is okay in any case. So are coffee and tea, although the Mishna Berurah says you can’t add milk or sugar. According to Ishei Yisrael, nowadays everyone does add sugar and milk, and there is what to be someich on.

All of the above applies to all Jews, so MO people are okay if they feel they need to eat in order to be able to daven.