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Thanks Aurora for all additional details and clarifications. Although I never doubted you, as you see we have a healthy number of cynics here.
And there’s nothing wrong with this website. However, other sites may be more informational versus the CR which is full of banter/socializing/debating with no authoritative religious rulings — just anonymous posters.
More: what exactly is a mod character? One is either a mod or not. No point arguing here as apparently you’ve made up your mind based on your personal cynicism.
And who says Aurora isn’t searching anywhere else? Just because she’s posting here? She seems to have an inquisitive mind and is reading a lot online according to her posts.
More: and you are 100% sure of this because? Last I checked this website is accessible to all.
Aurora didn’t just appear out of thin air — she’s been posting for a while and is very sincere. Read her other thread if you haven’t already (where to start becoming Jewish…) and remember to always give others the benefit of the doubt.
You are bringing tears to my eyes. Thank you so much for sharing and shanah tova umsukah to you and yours.
The problem is that bloomberg seems to have an anti-religious bias, which makes his motive suspect. And this may indicate there are more regulations to follow.
Are you looking for a girl or a malach?
MR: I don’t have wic but my neighbor gave me her WIC cheerios last year some time before pesach. (I took only 1 box, there was more to go around.) Are you saying it was unethical of me to use it and I should have told her to trash/burn it?
As far I know Wic juice is frozen/concentrated only, does anybody expect you to have a dedicated pitcher in the fridge?
Ask anybody with wic , they probably have more peanut butter etc. than they can use. The program is unrealistic of normal consumption by kids, with way too much of a few foods. I don’t know if Kosher plays a factor in why this is so.
I don’t think the reference to black hat/shtreimels/learned is true at all.
As religious as they come everyone is aware of this pre-war reality. And we have the photos to prove the levush, and the stories that reference young boys working, usually because the family depended on their income (at least according to said stories). And of course the typical am-haaretz jokes like biur chametz = beer is chametz.
Wolfish,
Thank you. I must have missed your earlier post where you kindly allowed me to offer unsolicited advice. If I would have noticed it earlier I probably wouldn’t have felt the need to respond to Health.
Thanks again & good shabbos.
I think your analogy is at least a little off base.
I’ll (respectfully) agree to disagree. You mentioned before you’re not a mental health specialist. If anybody here is please feel free to chime in.
Health,
I am not his therapist, but I do have some common sense.
YOU can tell him what to do, i.e. seek therapy, which I’m not going to disagree with, if his opinion about himself is really so low — I’m not sure he’s not exaggerating it a bit.
However, I know he read your comment already — which I doubt he’ll follow in any case. (You could have been a bit more delicate IMHO, though I don’t know if it would have made a difference.) He didn’t rush to tell you he’ll go ahead with it, although he can do so and chose to keep it private.
I feel I’m allowed to add my two cents of something I think might be helpful with or without therapy.
He’s still free to do as he pleases. If he tries it and doesn’t gain enough from it, he can realize he’s in far too deep and seek therapy then. It was basically a suggestion which I doubt any therapist would disagree with or consider harmful.
I know you are very anti-meddling and believe in leaving everything for the real pros. Problem is many of us don’t seek it out for various reasons. If I was confident he’s planning on therapy I would have shut up. It didn’t seem that way to me.
If you propose a CR intervention, I will go along with it, though it has to be done with proper, PROFESSIONAL guidance.
And Wolfish, I know you’re in the room, hope I didn’t offend you. I felt I needed to defend myself and you are mature enough to “listen in”.
Hi Aurora,
Best wishes to your mother for a speedy recovery; and to you on your journey of discovery.
Please do not let BP mensch scare you about your most worthy occupation. Even though college education is not encouraged in some very religious communities, nobody in the US will expect you to forget your training post-facto and switch careers.
Many women work outside the home regardless of how religious they are. The main issue SOME have is with MOTHERS of young children working at the expense of their families.
Again, good luck with everything and don’t let CR politics discourage you…
Apology accepted. Hope I wasn’t too harsh on you.
I’m going to take the liberty and ask you one BIG favor. Can you please write down privately (or at least think of) one wholly positive thing you did that day every night?
Your keeping your negativity to yourself is a nice gesture to all of us, but you have to make hishtadlus to actually be comfortable with yourself for your own sake.
Why are you beating a dead horse? (and it’s just an expression, I am NOT comparing you to a horse.)
Please stop. You yourself said the phone book was important to your mom. All things considered, how can you even doubt that you accomplished any good? oops, I fell for it again. You are just pulling our collective legs — now that’s a sin in my book…
Aurora, all I can say is WOW! Your determination, ambition and vivid expression have left me speechless. You go girl! (sorry, I’m not quite the poet…)
Aside from the fact that we “hijacked” Aurora’s thread, which didn’t involve higher Gemara learning, just most likely being comfortable with her language skills around frum Jews, somebody recently pointed out to me why we don’t have Artscroll Yiddish gemaras etc.
Yiddish, as it is largely spoken today is for better or worse the original Yiddish and L”H plus a very big mish-mash of English (or the language of the host country). Most native Yiddish speakers are FFB and wouldn’t understand “atypical” Yiddish words. At the same time because they grew up religious they are familiar with the concepts discussed and understand very many L”H and Aramaic words.
So translating into a proper Yiddish would mean making things more difficult to a certain extent than sticking to L”H. And obviously you can’t write a sefer in Yinglish… That’s not to say there aren’t proper Yiddish speakers, it’s just not the majority in the US, especially of the younger generation we are trying teach EVEN WHEN YIDDISH IS THEIR FIRST LANGUAGE.
We do however have chumashim etc. with Yiddish teitch, but once somebody had mastered the basics their L”H proficiency has evolved and their simply is no need for a Yiddish translation.
I can only echo what Health said (on another thread) stop with the self depreciating comments.
Furthermore, Judaism is not an absolutist religion in every aspect like you wrongly make it seem. We have what is alluded to as the fifth shulchan aruch, aka common sense.
Also, if you actually want to improve, I think loshan hora against oneself is prohibited.
You are making too many assumptions here. For starters:
1. You really can’t control where people give their tzeddakah money. Some people like plaques…
2. Even if you can convince donors, our mosdos need more buildings to continue their expansion due to natural growth ka”h.
3. There is never enough money to go around, and many more people who are tight financially will stop paying tuition if others are footing the bill. It will be an endless cycle of escalating costs.
Maybe that was the point as I also made a “linguistic error” and was called out for it?
However, king David taught us that all living things can bring benefit to humans, even a spider which he thought worthless, eventually saved his life.
In appreciation to the dogs for not barking when we left Egypt, we are to give unkosher meat to dogs. We thank Hashem every morning for giving wisdom to the rooster to differentiate between day and night (which was the only “alarm” before we had alarm clocks).
My point is that although for various reasons most of us here don’t have pets such as cats and dogs, appreciation is very much a Jewish trait. You should always thank G-d for all the good he sends your way, which presumably includes your cat. Just don’t obsess over her and imbue her with human characteristics — only humans were created “in the image of G-d”.
Personally, I think this has a lot to do with bloomberg himself, the liberals in general are against mila altogether. (Unless the mbp parsha is the beginning of attempts to ban mila ch”v.) He seems to have some Jewish guilt, to put it nicely. Perhaps one of the psychologists here can give us some insight.
Ironically, in the news today the AAP is recommending circumcision for newborn boys, albeit with painkillers. America will be losing money in health costs to fight infection because less boys are being circumcised nowadays. So if the goal here is to prevent infection, NY should force parents to circumcise their boys. (not that it’s ok according to halacha, just saying according to the same “don’t put kids at risk of infection logic”.) And I know it’s easier to ban something than enforce a positive, but we do mandate (with some exceptions) immunizations for kids.
That makes sense, but is probably not the reason for the great variation in font size.
If the CR would alternate fonts between comments it would definitely relieve some eyestrain for me.
I also wanted to add, in case you are not aware, that judaism does not recognize conversions away from its faith, so it doesn’t matter what church your maternal grandmother/great-grandmother was affiliated with, or if anyone was baptized, confirmed etc.
Anybody born a Jew always remains a Jew according to Jewish law. And anyone born to a Jewish mother is Jewish ( again, even if said mother converted to Christianity, because Jewishness is forever).
Also, you may find it interesting to read about spanish Jews returning to their roots, but realize that they would have had to trace (and prove) their maternal roots back over 500 years to verify their Jewishness and not need to convert, your situation is a piece of cake comparitively.
Hi Aurora, It’s been a pleasure to read your comments, full of sincerity and appreciation.
However — unlike what Shein mentioned — even though your Jewishness has not been proven yet, since your info. seems to indicate that you probably are, my humble opinion is that it would be kind of counter-productive to drive to a synagogue or to a Jewish family for a meal on Shabbos.
With the high holidays approaching I can only echo what others have said: find yourself a real life mentor. It’s a leap of faith you need to take, and even more difficult if you are shy, but it’s one that you hopefully will not regret.
I am not trying to “convert” you into a chassid with their minhagim, I was objecting to your calling it “disgusting”.
Mdd: I just came across this thread about the Skulener rebbe shlita suggesting for a woman to shave when she asked about undertaking something to merit special hatzlacha.
I don’t know what she ended up doing, but thought you might want to know that there are many holy people nowadays sanctioning it.
“Quoting the Satmar Rav is not going to get any brownie points from me, since when did Satmar understand what Shalom bayis means, let alone ahavat yisrael? They cannot keep peace between their own leading rabbis and brothers.”
Tahini: I really didn’t want to chime in on this thread, but by denigrating the satmar rebbe zatzal, I didn’t have much choice. The satmar rebbe’s ahavas yisroel was legendary, I suggest you read up on him a little. And mixing a great personality of yesteryear with the current politics of his great-nephews that had no bearing in his lifetime is a real cheap shot.
Unfortunately, many chasidisos are plagued by infighting today, that gives you no excuse to single out satmar as lacking in shalom because you disagree with their shitta. If lubavitch has 2 factions, but doesn’t believe in giving back land EVEN IF IT PUTS JEWS AT RISK , does that make them greater ohevi yisroel?
My post was deleted, so i’ll try to censure myself.
Mdd: The Chasam Sofer knew about this, so obviously there’s more to a jewish woman’ s chein than her hair. Also, a Jewish woman that shaves covers her head afterwards, unlike I’m assuming the woman you mentioned. And there’s nothing disgusting about a yiddisha minhag, even if you don’t like it.
The reason for women shaving is not because of chatzitzah but davka because the hair is part of her body, and there’s a risk that some hair may float above the water and not be properly immersed.
ROB, it seems most of us are in agreement that success does not equate being in the right. But since you brought up the word kfira, I feel I must clarify my comment. The power of the satan to act is given to him by Hashem, usually because of our sins or to test us. Everything is min hashamayim, yet we all have the bchira to do right or wrong. And since this world is “topsy turvy” seemingly bad things do happen to good people (or even their legacy) and vice-versa. The real schar is not necessarily in this world, and sometimes people are rewarded here so they shouldn’t be “owed” in the next world.
“if shlomo zz’l would have been such a bad person and such a sinner, do you think that today ,there would such a big following in niggunim,in nussach and even in loving every jew? Don’t you think that ‘min hashomayim’ they would have prevented that? In your postings, you assert that the establishment of the medinah was an act of HKBH (to which I concur) , in spite of all the faults and difficulties. Why not think the same of Shlomo’s legacy in music?”
ROB, I refrained from commenting on the zionism thread, because quite franky, I’m not “learned enough” but this comment undermines the validity of the post you are referring to and this one. If we follow your logic, the greeks must have been a great nation with their worship of the physical, or else Hashem wouldn’t have allowed them the “merit” of the olympics, which the whole world participates in. Or perhaps more applicable that “Achar”
must have been a tzaddik to merit a talmud such as Reb Meir. Do you realize what, slippery slope you are on?
When it comes to the medina some may call it min hashamyim, others “koach hasatan”.
Back to R’ Shlomo, I’m not G-d, so I can’t judge him or the holiness of his music, just bear in mind that not everybody is so enthralled with him as you are.
Sorry about my typos, I didn’t manage to edit them…
I also wanted to add “most” of their sons, daughters, now a couple of generations down the line still speaking Yiddish — lest I be fined by the accuracy police…
Thanks Nechoma, that’s the info. I was looking for. Unfortunately many women with Hungarian roots have dropped this minhag, partly because they now consider themselves litvish, and many people, even here on yeshiva world, frown upon it and label it “satmar”.
It’s nice to know it works ther other way around sometimes too.
One of the reasons for this misconception may be because the Satmar Rebbe R’ Yoel was very against women not shave while others didn’t have the guts to fight the American trends.
(This not going against the flow btw was very prevalent in other areas such as basically yiddish dropping yiddish. The irony is that most satmar women at the time spoke hungarian as their main language, yet he managed to by reverse it with their sons, daughters and future generations speaking yiddish as their “mother” tongue.
2 scents, thanks, I believe you and don’t need the source.
I was just wondering whether “only” chasidim have this minhag. Was it adopted by non chasidim in certain regions or not? It appeared to me that certain non chasidish (that some here would call heimish) relatives shaved. Maybe they cut their hair very, very, close, but that has always been my impression. Or they did it for practical reasons. I also remember once hearing this, but don’t remember the exact details. So can somebody please enlighten me further?
I thought women shaving their heads was a hungarian minhag, not necessarily limited to chasidish women, although many younger (not chasidic) ones abandoned this practice. Can somebody please clarify?
I usually find that it releases too little steam to prevent boiling over for something like noodles, but maybe I need to use bigger pots… Noodles you can leave the lid or “valve” open a little and watch the pot like a halk after the pasta is in but before it boils again (unless you added the pasta very slowly so the water doesn’t stop boiling, not for my patience). Afterwards, with a heavy pot you should leave the lid completely off and cook on a generous flame.
I understand everybodies sentiments about teachers doing their jobs, but schools do make rules regarding dress to make their lives easier. nowadays if you send your kids to school with rubber boots (remember those?) she’ll stay with them all day. So parents adapt and get different boots.
Practically speaking, there used to be spiral type laces that just need to be twisted and don’t come undone so easily. They’re probably still around. Check at your shoe repair and distribute to students if needed.
And kids are home more than you think, so mothers get enough “practice” tying shoelaces. If she’s frustrated enough she’ll probably get shoes with straps for the tot’s next pair. But that’ll be for the next school year…
I mostly baffled by your statement that fifth graders can’t tie their laces. If that’s true they probably always had velcro… Seriously, get the first grade or pre-1-a teacher to teach tying laces if this is a skill many kids are lacking.
Maybe they’re listening to shiurim on the phone.
Zdad, most people aren’t looking to constantly add chumros to their lives, we have enough mitzvos to keep. If I decided to say 20 kapitlech tehillim every day to bring the geula and went around telling everybody about it (which the guys actually only told you the reasoning behind their “chumra” when you asked, although it was done publicly ) would you also have a problem with it?
Also, can somebody explain to me why they don’t automatically enroll everybody in the carpool plan when they sign up for ezpass? Many people lose a lot of money because they are not aware or forget etc., are they (our friendly tollboth owners) not gaming us? I know we must have higher standards, just venting.
I got upset at somebody for saying carpool with only two people in the car, because of geneiva. However said person sometimes doesn’t use the cash/ezpass lane due to traffic or forgetfulness (with 3 plus people in the car) and this is a more common scenario than saying it when it’s not so.
I guess the real issue is lying then, for someone like this, or are we not allowed to “take back” what’s due to us without permission?
Zdad, you can’t really know how everybody makes their chulent, so don’t assume.
And everything can be made healthier, I’ve seen squash substituted for part of the potato in kugel recipes, kishka can be made with whole wheat bread and flour – and actually taste good. If you want perfect food, you can discount almost all cooked food. But really, different people have differing nutritional needs depending on age, current weight, what they’re missing in the rest of their diet and any other health issues. So don’t label home cooked food bad, try to suggest improvements. And portion size plays a huge factor as well.
I’m not looking to be confrontational or p.c., it’s just that if people believe their weight is inexplicably linked to the foods they are attached to it makes change less likely.
I’ve seen that look in crown heights.
Chulent is very high in protein and fiber and doesn’t have to be high in fat. The heimish diet (if there really is such a thing besides shabbos and yom tov) is anytime as healthy as the american diet, with families not eating out as much and eating more chicken and less red meat, although the men have more catching up to do nutrition-wise. A plate of chulent rates much higher in my book than say a burger and fries, and fruits have no connection to heimish. And I know the american diet is the pits, but by constantly harping on the heimish diet you make it seem like if only we were more americanized we’d all be healthier. We all make choices of what and how much to eat, and those choices are evolving for many of us, stereotyping doesn’t help.
Choppy: ( I finally took the bait) isn’t that when the wife is PURPOSEFULLY burning his dinner?
Thanks for the correction. And for the record, my family persevered and music was in motzei tisha baav…
Thou shall not have the last word. (this conundrum will have to be resolved through commentary…)
Thanks gavra. I never learnt gemara, so if you have time, can you please explain? Thanks.
Bustercrown: not that I’m advocating it as it’s not something to be taken lightly, and you would need to work out the details with somebody experienced, but you are probably aware of the option known as separation , which might be appropriate in your case. The idea is for your husband to get a taste of how life would be without his family and hopefully reconsider his behavior. And you can still decide to go back regardless, just don’t turn it into a game. Hatzlacha, and forget the cr and get the guidance you need.
Ploni Almoni: I remember hearing of a similar post holocaust case years ago where the name of the family (with grandchildren already) was not publicized. However, in that case some heter was invoked by sending a (belated) get via a shaliach. I’m not sure if the messenger actually forwarded the get, but I really don’t remember the details, and this was all hearsay. If anybody knows more about this case or how it would potentially work please post. If there was a heter, it’s a more probable reason for why the townspeople didn’t disclose this information for shidduch purposes, even if they themselves felt uncomfortable with it.
Thanks WIY for clarifying the halacha about music during meals. We all have a lot to learn and implement.
And thanks to anonymouschochom for finding a source in agreement with my motzei tisha baav spirit. Although we have very specific letter of the law halachos, we need to remember that when it comes to things like mourning and tznios, the halachos were implemented to accomplish a certain goal, and if one’s heart is in the right place, it can’t hurt to honor those feelings.