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The Wolf – I agree with your post. I wasn’t coming to contradict what you wrote and I didn’t say that both can’t be successful. In fact, I was maskim to that. I was simply raising an additional point, and I was wondering if both marriages can be equally successful. It was meant purely as an academic question.
But now that you mention it, it does have practical ramifications. I am at an age where marrying a widower is a very real possibility and quite possibly the best possibility, and that MAY be something to keep in mind when marrying a widower. I have often thought about the fact that the tafkid of a wife married to a widower may be a slightly different tafkid than someone who is married to someone who was never married before or someone divorced. Likewise, the tafkid of someone married to someone divorced with kids is different. For that matter, a marriage between two older singles is probably somewhat different than the marriage of two young people.
Kapusta:”If some music, book or software program is no longer offered for sale, you know that you would not have purchased it if you didn’t copy it, so there’s no issue of hasagas gvul.”
I once read an interview of a famous Frum singer in one of the Frum magazines. He spoke about how it really bothers him that people constantly copy his music and that this has caused him a TREMENDOUS problem parnassah-wise. He also mentioned that many people apparently have no idea that it’s a problem halachically and financially because his friends and acquaintances will just mention to him casually and innocently that they copied his music.
Yekke2 – on the other hand, if your “beshert” is not someone who will make you happy, you can daven to have your mazel changed as Leah Imeinu did, or you can get divorced as many have done.
I think that for the most part, we all can be happy in theory as long as we daven and do what we are supposed to do. “Ivdu es Hashem b’simcha.” If we are told to be happy, it must be possible.
Is he a musician?
Joseph: “If some music, book or software program is no longer offered for sale, you know that you would not have purchased it if you didn’t copy it, so there’s no issue of hasagas gvul.”
That’s what I always thought, but I was once trying to get a hold of a particular Sefer written by a former teacher of mine. It was no longer in print, so I called the author and asked him if I could photocopy it and he said no. I asked him why not since it’s no longer in print. He responded, “well, maybe I will decide to reprint it one day.” (note: the book had not been printed since the 1970’s, this conversation took place in approximately 2010 when the author a”h, who has since been nifter, was in his 70’s at least).
Even though the author was a tremendous Talmid Chacham, he was not a poseik, so I called a poseik to check if he really did have a right halachically to tell me that I couldn’t copy it. The Poseik said that he did have a right to do so.
ps: End of the story: I posted on a local email list asking if anyone had the Sefer. Someone had it and was willing to give it to me for free, which was very nice of her.
Wolf- That is a good point. I wonder though, if both of them can be just as successful, even if they are both successful. It is possible that the person may feel that one spouse was his “zivug” and the other is more like a good friend helping him deal with his loss.
I also wonder if it’s different for men and women, since men can technically have more than one wife (implying they can potentially build a relationship with more then one person) and women can’t have more then one husband (at a time).
Was he famous before 1985?
Meno – lol. my sentiments exactly. I was thinking the same thing
Sparkly: “teachers work HARD and make no money. pharmacists fill up pill bottles and talk about medicine all day long and get paid lots of money. which is a better job?”
Answer: depends on your value system. Boruch Hashem, I have a value system which makes teaching a better job.
Just reminding you: after 120 years, you will not take your money with you. I will take my limud and Harbatzas HaTorah with me B’ezras Hashem, as well as leave them behind for others to continue benefiting from.
Sparkly, I do want to say that I think it is great that you have found a community in which you can be comfortable and be an Eved Hashem and grow at your own pace. However, you do have to be careful about making comments which imply that one does not HAVE TO keep certain Halachos.
It is also important for you to realize that calling oneself Modern Orthodox does not change one’s obligations. If something is assur, it is assur whether or not you call yourself MO. If it is muttar, it is muttar whether or not you call yourself MO. Not being shomer negiah is assur even if you are MO. Talking to members of the opposite gender in certain circumstances is muttar even if you don’t call yourself MO. The label you give yourself does not change the halacha.
Also, you have to be careful about deciding on the importance of Mitzvos based on what PEOPLE commonly do. It is very common for people to keep everything but hilchos tznius. This does not meant that tznius is any less important than any other Mitzva. It simply means that it is harder for most people to keep.
We have to be careful about deciding things based on what is accepted societally. The fact that tznius and negiah are ignored does not make them unimportant; it just means that they are difficult. We don’t decide how important something is by how difficult it is or how widely- kept it is. If you want to say that these things are hard, say that they are hard, but do not say that they are not important.
Truebt, your post is beautiful, but Sparkly is not a bt. You probably have not read all her posts in previous threads, or you would realize that the context of her posts is not what you are making it out to be, and that there is a reason why people are responding the way that they are. When people become Frum, they are told to take it slowly, since it is not a good idea to take everything on at once. Even if someone is already Frum, they are also told to work on themselves step by step.
However, that is not exactly the issue at hand.
The problem is that in the world of “already Frum” people, there is unfortunately a certain attitude in a large segment of the Orthodox world. This attitude is that being Frum only includes Shabbos and Kashrus and a few other things such as fasting on Yom Kippur and Tisha B’Av, but certain things such as tznius and shmiras hayain and being shomer negiah are not “included” in being Frum, and they are kind of viewed as extras. They are for people who are “ultra Orthodox”, and as long as you call yourself Modern Orthodox, you are not obligated in those Mitzvos.
Of course, we are all unfinished products, and we are all working on ourselves, and some people find certain things more challenging than others do. The fact that someone has certain challenges does not mean that he should consider himself OTD, and he should be praised for keeping those things that he is able to.
However, there is a very fine line between saying that a certain Mitzvah is challenging for you and between legitimizing its non-observance. When someone (with the possible exception of a new bt) makes a statement that being Frum means keeping Shabbos and Kashrus, he is advocating that viewpoint, albeit inadvertantly.
Sparkly is in a situation in which it is important for her to feel good about those things that she does keep (and it is even possible that she keeps everything) and to feel that she is still an Eved Hashem and part of the Orthodox community even if she can’t live up to all the things that she was once taught that everyone has to do and even if she feels she needs to be part of a community where many do not keep everything.
She is absolutely right for feeling that way, and I think it is great that she found a community in which she feels comfortable and can continue being an Eved Hashem.
However, she has a hard time differentiating between the two attitudes and understanding that it is possible to be tolerant and accepting of someone without validating their actions. So she ends up making statements that inadvertently espouse the viewpoint that one does not HAVE TO keep certain Mitzvos and it is being extra-Frum if one does, as well as the view that calling oneself Modern Orthodox makes it okay to do things that would not be okay were one to call oneself Yeshivish. Hence, all the comments in response to her comments.
Syag – that’s what Federal loans are for. You don’t have to start paying it back until you finish school, and then you can do an income-based repayment plan. On an income-based repayment plan, you have to pay back 10-15% of your discretionary income per month. I think discretionary income is defined as the amount of money you earn minus the amount of money for expenses, which I think is calculated based on the number of kids you have and the average income in your County. The average income per person in household is generally much higher than what the average Frum person makes, so you shouldn’t end up having to pay too much a month. It certainly would be way less than the $9000 you would be making a year.
10. Is he an entertainer (musician, etc)?
1.female? No
2.Joseph? No
3.alive? Yes
4. Is he from the Coffee Room? don’t know.
5. Is he a Rabbi? no
6. Is he Jewish? yes.
7. Is he famous for either being in politics or for being related to someone in politics? no.
8. Is he Orthodox? yes
9. Does he live in the US? yes
I just realized that you may have misunderstood my point from the beginning. The point was that it according to halacha, it is assur to say something bad about someone else. Since lying is considered a bad thing, by saying that someone else lied, you are saying something bad about them, and it is either lashon hara or motzi shem ra. Even if you want to argue that lying is not objectively bad (I’m not sure how you would do that, but hypothetically if you would), YOU clearly consider it something bad and you stated as much, so it is still loshon hora or motzi shem ra.
My point about lying for shalom was really a side point. I mentioned it because your defense of speaking loshon hara was that you believe in the truth. Bottom line, according to halacha, believing in the truth does not make it muttar to speak loshon hara/motzi shem ra. But I was trying to tell you that in a nice way, which got you sidetracked discussing when you can lie for shalom. Your examples of lying for shalom had nothing to do with the present case, since we are not talking about lying – it is not lying for you to not discuss something.
Sparkly: |apushatayid – i NEVER said it was less important even mo keep that stuff.”
Sparkly, Huh? You wrote above:
“kosher and shabbos are the most important for a jew. if a jew had to choose 2 mitzvos to keep it should be shabbos and kosher.”
So why are you now saying that you didn’t say that? It’s right here on this thread – according to you, Shabbos & Kashrus are the 2 most important Mitzvos. That means that other Mitzvos are less important (according to you).
Sparkly: |lilmod ulelamaid – if you want me to tell you the pasuk i will h’h ask someone where it says that and post it on here. but its definitely written in the torah. if anyone else wants to bring up the pasuk im talking about please do so. Also i learn a lot more than you do since your a girl and most girls dont learn as much as i do. i learn a LOT for a girl.”
Sparkly, hate to disillusion you but it’s impossible for you to have spent as much time learning as I have since you haven’t been alive nearly long enough (I learned for approximately 10 years post high school). I have been fortunate to have had opportunities that most women don’t have or don’t want to have, and there are very few women in the world who have learned as much as I have been lucky enough to learn, especially in the area of halacha.
CA – 1. I realize that in Sara Imeinu’s case, she was not lying, so the two cases are not the same. I was just bringing that as a raaya that you can lie for shalom.
2. Regarding whether or not you can lie about yourself for shalom, I once asked a Rabbi and was told that you can. The person I asked was a Rabbi, someone learned and someone involved in Chinuch. However, he was not a poseik as far as I know. He also was answering on the spot, and my impression was that he was answering out of his own svara and not necessarily because he had seen a source for it.
However, I have never heard that it does not apply to someone lying about themselves and until I hear otherwise, I think it makes sense to assume that it does, and meanwhile I have been relying on what this Rav said. While this Rav may never have seen a source saying that it does apply to oneself, he clearly had never seen one that said it didn’t. If you know of such a source, I would be happy to see it.
3. Regarding the Shevatim, we are always supposed to minimize lying as much as possible even when it is necessary to lie. That doesn’t mean it’s not sheker, just that it is less so. We see this by Yaakov. On the one hand, he responded to Yitzchak in a manner that minimized his lie, but on the other hand, it was still considered a lie.
So on the one hand, the story with the Shevatim does not show that you can’t lie for yourself since you are always supposed to minimize a lie even when it’s not for yourself.
On the other hand, it may actually be an additional proof to my point, since they were “lying” for themselves when all is said and done even though the lie was minimized.
4. Whatever arguments you want to keep bringing about lying for shalom, it’s really a side point. The main point is stated in my above post to Syag.
5. I’m sorry, but I’m not really sure if I should keep posting on this thread, since it just makes the original post more likely to be read by more people. I did feel that it was important to make my points, but I’m not sure that it’s a good idea to continue this ad infinium (I know I probably got that word wrong, but I don’t care even if it invalidates my post since it now contains sheker). If I could continue this discussion off-line, I would be happy to, but it’s not possible. If you don’t believe me that it’s Motzi shem ra, maybe you should check with your LOR or call up the Shmiras Halashon hotline.
Syag – “what here qualifies as motzi shem ra?”
Syag, I’m sorry, but I don’t quite understand your question, as you yourself stated that you thought it was problematic that CA brought this up in a public forum.
It is Motzi Shem Ra because he is posting a criticism of the person/people presenting the story. That is Loshon Hara/Motzi Shem Ra and it is assur. According to Halacha, you are not allowed to criticize a shiur.
If you want to know why I used the term Motzi Shem Ra instead of LH, it is because when someone speaks Loshon Hara, it is assur for me to “mekabel” it, and therefore I am required to relate to it as though it is false (and t/f Motzi Shem Ra and not LH).
Spark: “lilmod ulelamaid – teaching ISNT a good job.”
Excuse me? I could be offended by that statement, but I’m not in particular because I know that it is the absolute best job and I’m very lucky to have it. Chazal say that your Rebbe is more important than your parents because he gives you life in Olam Haba and your parents only give you life in Olam Hazeh. I have the opportunity to give people Olam Haba – what could be better? I’m also lucky that I had the opportunity to do all the learning I had to do in order to be able to teach on the level I am teaching on! Boruch Hashem!
Smerel – we are not talking about who is better. That no one knows as you wrote.
Health – by their teachers???
Abba_S: I don’t think shmiras haayin applies to polar bears.
Bump
Joseph – what about you?
Meno – I agree. If it weren’t for the fact that it might be assur Halachically (I actually know nothing about the halachos since I never had reason to look into it), I don’t see why it should bother someone.
Sparkly – only their Neshama, chas veshalom.
Meno – lol. That’s why they say that wives should make sure to let their husbands help with the housework when they first get married.
Takamamash: I don’t know anything about rules. I’m not so Yeshivish sociologically speaking (even though I am hashkafically) and a lot of my dating has been with guys who were more Yeshivish YU/Modern Orthodox Machmir types. I wasn’t talking about rules so much as comfort level. I think I would be uncomfortable if a guy gave me flowers before we were engaged. I feel like a guy giving a girl flowers is very meaningful and should only be done after engagement.
BUT, I really am not qualified to say much on the topic since I never went out with anyone at all seriously, so I never went out with anyone whom I would have wanted flowers from. So I can’t really say till it happens, BEH.
Sparkly: “lilmod ulelamaid – thats what i was also thinking i guess i was being a bit generous.”
Then again, a lot of people are engaged way before the 12th date, so they can give flowers earlier. But even if someone has been going out for a few months, if they are not engaged yet, I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to give flowers. Others gifts are probably okay if it’s at a point that you are both very serious about each other.
The problem is that it might be a little weird if he gives her a gift and they end up breaking up. A friend of mine had a shelf full of stuffed animals given to her by guys she had gone out with.
I have gone out with guys who gave me sefarim they had written on the first date. Since it was a first date, and they were the authors, it didn’t “mean” anything. In one case, I was really curious to read the Sefer because he told me that it had been put in cherem. On the second date, I told him why I thought it had been put in cheirem. I don’t think he was too happy with my comment. But then I told him about the parts that I liked, so he was happy.
gavra _ at_ work:”A Galach is Frum, a Yid is Erlich.”
I read that in Rav Yaakov Kamenetzky zatsal’s kehila, they used to refer to people as Ehrlich, not as Frum.
I really like that. It has a much more pnimiusdik connotation, and sounds like it includes both Bein Adam l’Makom and Bein Adam L’Chaveiro, both Halachos involving actions and chovos halevavos.
gavra_at_work: are you talking to me or to Sparkly?
Absan – thank you. it’s nice to get some validation, although I’m not sure what you’re referring to.
It’s not about OCD – it’s because some of the responses made her uncomfortable, I think mine in particular. I apologize if my response made you uncomfortable, Sparkly. I’m not apologizing cuz I think I did something wrong since I had no way of knowing it would make you uncomfortable, but since it did make you uncomfortable, I apologize for that.
Sparkly: “lilmod ulelamaid – kosher and shabbos are the most important for a jew. if a jew had to choose 2 mitzvos to keep it should be shabbos and kosher.”
Sparkly, that may or not be true, but it had nothing to do with anything I wrote. I was responding to Avi K’s post