Lilmod Ulelamaid

Sparkly _ “lilmod ulelamaid – conservative and reform (the ones i know) dont keep shabbos and kosher but they do stuff for yom tov and go to their reform or conservative syangogue. have bar and bas mitzvahs. bas mitzvah are usually done at the wrong age. so on.”

Sparkly, what is your point? What does this have to do with anything I said?

I’m talking about the Yeshiva area.

Is it alive?

7. Is it something that you would find in most houses?

Sparkly – not in Lakewood.

Sparkly- I wasn’t talking about belief in Hashem. I was talking about belief in the Mitzvos. As I and others keep repeating, someone who denies even a single Mitzvah or any of the other basic tenets of Judaism is an apikorus. Reform ideology is not to believe in Torah Min Hashamayim. I’m not sure what Conservative ideology is regarding Torah M’Sinai, but they certainly say that you don’t have to keep all the Mitzvos. There is a reason why the Gedolim consider Conservative and Reform ideologies to be off the map as opposed to Orthodox ideologies.

Again, there may be people who call themselves Conservative or Reform who aren’t really Conservative or Reform. I am not talking about them – I am talking about the ideology of Conservative and Reform.

Again, if someone wants to keep some Mitzvos and not all, they can be Orthodox and keep some Mitzvos; they don’t have to be Conservative or Reform. That is what the Chilonim and Mesoratim in Israel do (and I think this is the case in other countries as well).

Shopping, I do realize that in any case, you were just responding to Sparkly and your point was not to generalize but to defend the way that people in EY do things. I just think that it’s important to point out that many of things you mentioned apply to Yeshivish Americans as well and do not have to do with being Israeli but rather, with being Yeshivish (or Chassidish for that matter).

I do agree with your bottom line different communities have different ways of doing things and people should be respectful of that and of the fact that someone growing up in one type of community will be ready to get married at a different age than someone from a different type of community.

9) Is it coffee?

Sparkly and Shopping – you are both making sweeping false generalizations about Americans and Israelis. Everything that each of you said about Americans only applies to some Americans and can apply to some Israelis as well, and the same with the things you said about Israelis.

There are many Americans who don’t believe in going to College and do believe in getting married young and there are also Americans who smoke. There are also many Americans who are very mature. In terms of the seminaries, I know a girl who attended a seminary that placed Shana Bet Americans with Shana Alef Israelis or American/Israelis, and the Americans had a very hard time because the Shana Alef Israelis were so much more immature than them and were at the stage they had been at a year before.

In any case, I just want to remind everybody that it is Loshon Hara to speak about groups of people within Am Yisrael. It is the Nine Days and hopefully, if we work on not speaking LH and increasing our Ahavas Yisrael, the Beis HaMikdash will be up before Tisha B’Av and we won’t have to fast this year!!!! So let’s get to work (myself included) and start thinking about good things to say about each other.

I think that each person here should write a post listing the maalehs of a group she does not belong to, and we will vote on the best post!

JF2: It’s true that many or most people nowadays who call themselves Conservative or Reform do not necessarily believe in (or know) the ideology of those movements, and therefore the things I wrote might not apply to them. I was thinking of mentioning that, but didn’t since: a) my post was long enough b) it wasn’t really necessary since it doesn’t negate the point that I was making. I was talking about people who do believe in the conservative or reform ideologies.

In any event, the Rabbis themselves do believe in the ideology and when people identify with the movements, they are strengthening movements that are kefira and that is a serious problem, even if it is inadvertant.

If they want to keep some Mitzvos, that is great, and it is not necessary to belong to a conservative or reform synagogue in order to do so. There are plenty of people who keep some of the Mitzvos w/o identifying with conservative or reform.

In Eretz Yisrael, the conservative and reform movements are, Boruch Hashem, almost non-existent, and your average Secular Israeli Jew keeps many more Mitzvos than the average conservative or reform Jew in the US. And most importantly, they keep THE MOST IMPORTANT Mitzvah which is not being an apikorus. Better not to keep the Mitzvos than to deny the truth of any Mitzvah, which renders someone an apikorus, as Joseph pointed out. And the average Secular Jews keep many Mitzvos than the average American Jew.

Yehudayon: “She’s 17, in college, and afraid to quit a job because people will call her a quitter and it will ruin her chances for shidduchim?”

There’s nothing unbelievable about that. She’s a girl. A boy wouldn’t understand.

Sparkly: “shopping 613 – can you see yourself married and pregnat and having so much responsibilities? like paying bills, doing laundry, cooking, but every day not allowed to stop?”

Many girls do those things for years before they are married, and if they are doing it already, they may as well do it in their own homes. For some girls who have a lot of responsibilities, marriage is a break because there are no kids to take care of for at least the first year.

We count 49 days between Pesach and Shavuos, but there are really 50 levels. The 50th level is the one that puts it all together.

There are four chalakim of the Shulchan Aruch, but the “fifth one” represents the seichel of the person who has learned the four chalakim but now has to figure out how to apply it to his life even when it’s not clear-cut. So it’s not really a separate cheilik per se’ – it’s the way of understanding the other four chalakim.

Sparkly- light brite didn’t say anything about marrying someone you don’t really like or getting married when you aren’t ready. He is just saying that you might not have to be “mature”. From the context, I understood that he is talking about someone who is ready to get married, but who still has growing to do. However, he is mature enough to build a relationship with someone and grow together with them.

I agree with light brite. But at the end of the day, these things really are very individual and depend on the individual, his background, and his life circumstances. There is absolutely no one right age to get married. Some people should get married at 18 and others at 40.

The one thing that is true is that it is Torah hashkafa to try to get married as soon as possible (stress on the word possible by which I mean acc. to what makes sense for the particular person). This is what Chazal say. And what Rav Chaim Kanievsky, Shlita says also.

Sparkly – someone who denies the truth of the Torah which includes denying any particular Mitzvah is considered an apikorus and that is much worse than someone who acknowledges the truth of Torah but doesn’t keep it. It is ten million times worse to be Conservative or Reform than it is to by OTD or to be Chiloni!!! Rav Moshe Feinstein has a teshuva in Igros Moshe where he discusses this.

Even if the Conservative person keeps more than the OTD person it is still worse, because Kefira is one of the worst (or probably the worst) aveira that there is! There are very few things for which one loses their cheilik in Olam Haba but kefira is one of them. A person can keep nothing and still have a cheilik in Olam Haba, but if he is an apikorus, no matter how many Mitzvos he does, he has no cheilik in Olam Haba.

Just to clarify – if the person is a tinok shenishba, obviously he won’t lose his cheilik in olam haba. I am not judging anyone right now – I am just judging their actions. In Rav Moshe’s teshuva, he is talking about the Issur of answering Amein to the Bracha of an apikorus, and he says that people who are Conservative or Reform fall in this category. He says that they may be tinok shenishba, but l’maaseh they are still apikorsim. It’s possible that they are wonderful people who don’t better and they won’t be punished, but that has nothing to do with this discussion. The OTD person and the Chiloni person might also be wonderful people who don’t know better and won’t be punished for that matter.

Sparkly – Hashem says that you need to keep the whole Torah, and what your Rabbi says doesn’t change that. If your Rabbi says that one doesn’t need to keep the whole Torah, then he is an apikorus. However, I will be dan l’kaf zchus and assume that wasn’t exactly what he said. I suspect from your posts that he is being understanding/tolerant/realistic regarding where his particular Congregants are holding and giving over the message to them that they don’t have to “throw out the baby with the bathwater” and give up on everything just because there are certain things that they don’t feel they can handle right now. Kind of like the way, when one works with people who are becoming baalei teshuva, you are supposes to encourage to “take baby steps” and grow at their own pace.

But there is a very big difference between saying that one does not have to cover their hair or keep certain halachos, and saying that you know it’s the halacha and it’s a goal to strive for but you’re not holding by it. Even the second thing is something that should be said with caution, and only in certain circumstances. In general, we do say that any Jew who grew up Frum should be keeping all of the halachos. However, sometimes, there can be specific people who are having a hard time with specific things and have to work on things at their own pace. Since you mentioned that you almost became OTD, I suspect that you fall in that category. It sounds like you have an understanding Rabbi who is working with you, but you have to be careful about making statements like, “if someone is MO, then they don’t have to cover their hair.” If that were really the definition of MO, then it would be in the same category as Conservative and Reform when they started (in other words Kefira which is worse than OTD).

That’s not called barefoot! That’s called comfortable! That’s how I usually walk around and I don’t spend that much time in the kitchen.

Is that really what the expression means? What is the point?

Health, as I already told you, the words “equally preferred” mean chaviv not chaviv or shalem. Also, if you look at the lashon of the Halachopedia, it is impossible to translate it your way.

In any event, that was a side point. The main point was that the Mishna Brura poskens according to the opinion in the Rishonim that we go by chaviv not by Haetz.

As I wrote before: “You have spent a lot of time trying to tell me that I am wrong, and yet you have not brought a single proof that I am wrong, and if fact the only source that you brought (which is not even a source) agrees with me.”

Also, you can get married if you are in the army, and it is probably a good idea to do so (since it provides more shmira). When you’re single, the army supports you while you are in the army. I’m not sure how it works when you are married, but I am sure that they give a reasonable stipend. And since most girls in Israel start working by the age of 20, your wife can support you.

In Israel, if you are learning, you will probably be learning forever or at least for a very long time, so that is not a reason to push off marriage. Also, once you are married, you at least get a Kollel stipend.

If you are learning, it means that when you get married, it will be your wife who will be supporting you, and Bais Yaakov girls in Israel finish school(including professional training) at 20. Many of them do wait until they have finished school to get married, although if the parents are willing to support them and they want to get married earlier, there is no reason for them not to.

Is it visible?

Moshiach Agent: “to raise & take care of their children with love & all their needs

& of course take care of their husband too so they could sit in the coffeeroom 24-7 like me & the rest of us here now lol”

That would mean that a single woman (or one who can’t have kids) has no purpose in life.

What Abba S. wrote is more on target (They are needed to help raise up the next generation and nurture the Messiah may he come quickly in our time.) since even single women can help raise the next generation.

Obviously, being a wife and mother is an important part of a woman’s tafkid but clearly not the only one since it is one that does not apply to everyone.

I remember learning years ago that someone says that a woman has 2 tafkidim as shown by the first woman’s two names (Isha and Chava). One name has to do with her tafkid as mother and the other has to do with her tafkid as a person.

The way I look at it is that a woman has a unique tafkid to fulfill. This tafkid relates to the unique qualities she has. The role of mother epitomizes the unique qualities of a woman, but there are many ways that a women can utilize those qualities and fulfill that role.

For example, Sara Schnirer used her female qualities in her role as “mother of an entire generation”. Any social worker or teacher (or anyone who has a similar profession) can do the same. And anyone can find a way to fulfill this role in her every day dealings with the people around her.

sadgirlygirl: “im alone with him most of the day..and another point he isnt here right now so im alone with a different male patient.”

This sounds like a really bad situation. I understand that it is hard for you to quit, and I can understand your concerns about what people will say and getting another job. I have been in similar situations many times in my life (although the reasons were different).

But at the end of the day, you will be proud of yourself if you muster up the courage to quit. It will give you more self-confidence which will serve you well in all your future endeavors in parnassah and shidduchim.

It will make you a stronger person although it’s hard to see it now.

I have been through a lot of difficult things in my life and had to make a lot of difficult decisions. I have had to quit jobs because of halachic considerations, and it was hard and I didn’t necessarily see a yeshua right away. But I can see now that I am a much stronger person as a result and my emunah in Hashem has been strengthened.

Remember – “lfum tsaarah agrah” “The harder it is, the greater the rewared.” Since it is such a hard decision to make, Hashem will reward you tremendously although you might not see it right away.

Health – I had made the following statement:

“For example, most people (of both genders including B’nei Torah) think that if you have a Haetz and a Haadamah, you make the bracha on the Haetz first, and this is incorrect according to the Mishna Berurah and most comtemporary Poskim.”

You have spent a lot of time trying to tell me that I am wrong, and yet you have not brought a single proof that I am wrong, and if fact the only source that you brought (which is not even a source) agrees with me.

Health – regarding your last post, you make no sense. You wrote as follows:

“LU -“You wrote that the Halacha is that if there is no chaviv or 7 minim, Haetz comes first. According to the Mishna Berura that is not correct – the next thing we look at is shalem.”

Stop putting words in my post! I did not write what you said.”

Then you went and again said exactly what I told you that you said. You quote Halachapedia which says as follows: If neither are Shivat HaMinim and are equally preferred, then HaEtz takes precedence over HaAdama”

That is exactly what I said that you said. I wrote that you said that if there is no chaviv or 7 minim, haetz comes first. And you just proved my point, since you said it again.