Midwest2

In recent years, I think Ladino fell out of daily use, and Arabic replaced it, although it remains a language of beautiful music and poetry.

Try books by R’ Zelig Pliskin

Who is the person who is posting under several screen names? Could someone tell me which sceen names so I need only post one reply if I disagree with him/her?

And if you ask a Sefardi, he’ll probably ask, “What’s Yiddish?” Their daily language before/outside of Israel was/is Arabic or Persian.

First, there are no more “misnagdim” because we Litvish got used to the Chassidim when the Chassidim calmed down and started learning Gemara like everyone else. Nobody “won” anything.

Second, We Litvish never called ourselves “misnagdim.” That was a label which Chassidim coined in order to differentiate themselves from us. Before two hundred years ago there were no Chassidim. “Litvish” was the mainstream. Chassidism was an innovation by the followers of the Baal Shem Tov, and was regarded with skepticism until it had proven itself kosher and not a cult like Shabtai Tzvi or Frankel’s followers.

Some Chassidic outreach people in their zeal to be mekarev people like to set up an “us lovable Chassidim versus those straightlaced Misnagdim” dichotomy to show that they’re hip and not the old fogeys most non-frum assume Orthodox to be. As one person once tried to tell me: “We [X] Chassidim start with the laws of Simchas Torah and those ‘misnagdim’ start with the laws of Tisha B’Av” in an attempt to show how upbeat he was compared to me 🙂 This attitude is unfortunate, but then again many proper Litvish types I know were mekareved by these Chassidic outreach people, and then moved over to the mainstream when they knew more.

So, there never was a “war” to be “won” in the sense you’re worried about. Eilu v’eilu divrei Elokim Chayim.

APY – you got it. Now how do we get the changes going that will help the situation? Everyone is afraid to jump in first, and our Gedolim most of all. They just keep repeating what Rav Kotler zatzal did back in the day, when it was appropriate to get as many people as possible learning because so few did.

Now, the question is how to start a social revolution to reverse the social revolution that occurred previously. Any ideas?

On the other hand, HKBH may have solved the problem for us when He arranged for the economy to crash. No more parents able to support kids indefinitely, no more wives able to bear the double burden of home and parnassah. We might actually return to something like normalcy and begin to produce talmidei chachamim on a par with Europe, when the very best are learning and being supported adequately because the larger number are working, earning, supporting the community, and being kovea ittim with enthusiasm, rather than spending the day “warming a bench.”

Wolf, when are you going to realize that your satire is just going over people’s heads? You’ve been reading too much Mark Twain. (For that matter, so have I.)

Kudos to the Coffee Room for lots of good info. Too bad there isn’t a way to export this thread as an article to the main news page. This kind of knowledge is crucial.

Two people in my neighborhood were recently killed this way, so I guess it hits a little closer to home….

Why not a dog? I know people who have dogs, cats, parrots, etc. Dogs are friendly and fun, and not the halachic complications you think. It’s true that in NY people are down on dogs, but that’s no reason for the rest of us to think that way.

R’ Neuwirth’s sefer Shmirath Shabbath K’Hilchatha talks in detail about how to take care of a dog on Shabbos. I had a dog myself once and asked that shailah about a brachah. My rav thought it was OK. Evidently some others don’t. When in doubt ask your own rav, don’t take any second-hand prejudice that drifted in from the Promised Land of Brooklyn. If you like dogs, by all means have one. And the smile it will put on your face will help you be mekayem “sever ponim yafos.”

Check the statistics on OTD kids. The major abused substance is alcohol, and many started at surprisingly young ages. Why put these kids at risk by offering them alcohol when they’re too young to foresee the consequences? I wouldn’t be very happy with a rebbe who gave a teen-age bochur booze.

For that matter, I wonder about Purim too. I’ve seen some high-school kids who were stinking throwing-up drunk on stuff they drank at their rebbe’s. Remember the days when your zaide said, “Shikker is a goy?” Since when have we Jews started up with this stuff?

With a debit card I can go online and see the exact amount charged and where. The only problem is buying online where sometimes they don’t charge until they’ve shipped the item, but that would be the same for a credit card.

I’ll say it again – the credit card companies are making lots of money, and that money is coming from YOU, the customer. Why pay someone else to use your own money?

YOu also don’t need to have cash on you if you have a debit card. And, unlike a credit card, you can tell the bank you want no overdraft protection, so if you exceed the money you have in the bank the transaction will be refused (embarrassing, but it will keep you within budget).

You can also check your balance online.

Debit cards don’t charge interest. Depending on the type of account, you may actually *earn* interest.

And, you don’t run the risk of running up weird fees that you never heard of because they’re buried in the 45th paragraph of the small print you never read 😉

Or you can keep most of your money in an interest-bearing savings account and only transfer it to your checking account as you need it.

The people who run the credit card companies do it to make money – YOUR money. Why pay them to spend your own money?

If we really want to ignore the secular world, that includes not giving their holy days any importance either (except where it involves being mentschlich with individuals of other belief systems) so it makes no sense to think that “nittel nacht” has any spiritual significance. Therefore – no tuma or anything else. Life goes on as usual.

Besides, if you consult the history books, Dec. 25th is the wrong date. It was moved to Dec. 25 to coincide with a pagan festival that the Church Fathers wanted to coopt. We don’t know for sure when the “real nittel nacht” was, so we’d have to observe every evening of the year!

Maybe a gym membership? Walk around the block a few times every day? Buy a bike?

Derech – the satire was appreciated. It is a real phenomenon, though. Maybe ask your wife to cook in smaller quantities so it looks like you’re eating more and she can still feel appreciated?

Pardon my out-of-townishness, but what difference does all of it make? How can you estimate someone’s avodas HaShem by such trivial details? Tsitsis in or out, brim up or down, shirt color, hat or not – give us a break! What has this got to do with a person’s middos, or their sincerity?

All the same, I have two questions:

1. Why the ongoing inflation in hat sizes? In the last 10-15 years not only have the hats becvome obligatory, they’ve also gotten larger. The crowns are higher, and – more noticeably – the brims have gotten wider and wider until your average yeshiva bochur looks like he strayed in from a 1930’s cowboy movie. To someone who’s not used to it it’s really funny, and it’s way beyond the size that people used to wear “before Lakewood.”

2. Since when is it obligatory for girls and women to wear black too? Especially in the East, this seems to now be almost halachah – no colors, just black, white and the occasional shade of grey. Again, this is a chiddush. Ladies used to wear colors (just not bright red). I remember hearing that black makes someone look thinner. Is that the origin? Or has there been a psak about looking grim that I missed hearing?

Cops worrying about lawsuits? They’d better. Around the corner from where friends of mine live in BP a mentally ill young man was shot down in the street by several officers. He was carrying a claw hammer and screaming insults. He took one step towards the officers (plural) and they shot him dead in front of his neighbors (and their children). The logical choice in this situation would have been a taser. Or the officers could simply have backed off and waited until the squad specially trained for dealing with such situations had a chance to arrive. After all, a claw hammer isn’t a gun. Believe it or not, the investigation cleared the officers.

NYC seems to have problems along these lines. If officers know that they will have to answer to someone outside their in-group it will keep down the frequency of such incidents.

Dave, are you running for office :-)? Are you practicing to set up a right-wing political blog?

I hate to disillusion you, but there are still plenty of Democrats in our circles. We don’t make as much noise – or usually write such long posts – but we’re here. And some of us are doing content analysis on some of the more enthusiastic “redstate” posts because we want to understand a mindset that’s so totally removed from the reality of the country.

Artchill – I wouldn’t try giving a gift to a police commander. It might make him/her suspicious as to what you were up too (and it’s probably illegal).

But for the others? Why not? You don’t have to mention the specific holiday. For that matter, there are other people besides Xtians around, and they might not like “Merry Xmas!” either. Give an appropriate tip, with the message, as mentioned above, “For all you’ve done for us this year.”

And if it’s local custom t tip, and you don’t, the “cheap Jew” label will surely be applied.

havesomeseichel – Do you really think that the average college student is going to carry a gun to class? Or the average high school teacher carry a gun to school? How many normal people outside of the Southwest are going to carry a gun on the street as a matter of habit? Even if it’s legal?

Most people who use guns own long guns – rifles or shotguns – and use them for hunting or target practice. These aren’t the kind of weapons you carry to the mall, or leave loaded in your nightstand. There are a few people making a lot of noise about being able to carry handguns. Don’t confuse them with the majority of gun owners who don’t have fantasies of being Clint Eastwood.

According to “Shmirath Shabbath K’Hilchata” (R’ Yehoshua Neuwirth)

English Vol. 1 p.197, “It is not permitted to make snowballs or a snowman, but the snow itself is not muktzeh, even if it fell on Shabbath or Yom Tov.”

p.174 (paraphrase) – snow may be shaken off clothing but only gently, unless the material is made from non-woven plastic sheets, when it can be done even vigorously.

But of course consult your Rov. As for children, I guess it depends on what you consider the age of chinuch, same aa for playing with a muktzeh toy on Shabbos.

Mikehall – this is a sneaky way of getting a pro-or-con discussion on TV going, especially since so many people “only watch the sports” on TV. I know people who actually rent hotel rooms with TVs to watch the World Series / Superbowl, etc.

As far as type of TV – shell out the cash and go to the game in person. Your local team needs the financial support. And take your little kids – they’ll remember it as good family time.

Especially where a parent asking a child is involved, you can’t be sure the kid isn’t afraid/shy about saying it bothers him. (Been there, didn’t like it but eventually spoke up.)

BTW “Yankl the Tailor” isn’t properly speaking a nickname, it’s just labelling which Yankl. “Shorty” would be a nickname.

A totally immodest prediction about the “crisis.”

Why immodest? Well, I predicted the OTD crisis, and I predicted the shidduch crisis and I predicted the parnassah crisis. Not with nevi’ah, but with common sense and little knowledge of the social sciences. (Not that anyone listened to me.) And I wasn’t the only person predicting. I would name names but I wouldn’t want to offend anyone or reveal my true identity.

NEXT CRISIS: OTD older single girls. We teach our girls that the only worthwhile thing in life is children and marriage (in that order emotionally speaking, not temporally) then we make sure that a lot of them can’t achieve it. And we also have a society in which there is no place for single older women (or single older men, now that I come to think about it).

What’s going to happen when these girls, most of whom are now in mid to late twenties, hit their middle thirties and see their chances of having children closing off? Are they going to feel disillusioned? Desperate? Are they going to hang around to become “poor things” or are they going to go off the derech, maybe even marry that nice non-hareidi guy at work? OTD crisis? We ain’t seen nuttin’ yet.

Another angle on this – from what I’ve seen more women are being mekarev than men, making the imbalance at slightly older ages even worse. A male baal teshuvah has a chance of being matched to an FFB girl with a “problem” while it’s highly unusual for a shadchan to set up an FFB guy with a BT girl.

And don’t be too complacent about girls not going off the derech. The biological horizon for women having children is middle thirties. We raise our girls to believe that children and marriage are the only worthwhile goal, and then make it impossible for some of them – through no fault of their own – to achieve it, and there is no place in hareidi society for unmarried older women. When the current crop of single women now in their twenties start hitting that crucial age, we may get an unpleasant surprise.

There needs to be a clear differentiation between living in the US and living in EY. Likewise living in some parts of Brooklyn and living in a tame OOT neighborhood are different, as are living in Beit Shemesh and living in a settlement.

The primary purpose of guns is to kill people, and they are VERY VERY dangerous. I’ve had gun safety and I can tell you that there is no such thing as an unloaded gun. In fact, every year many people are killed by “unloaded” guns.

So check the statistics in your area. If the odds of being the victim of violent crime or terrorism are high, then, if you have considered the danger of accidents (like your kid getting killed) then by all means get one and take the proper precautions.

And if the stats are low and you don’t need one – don’t be a fool. A gun is a bomb waiting to go off. You don’t want to take on that risk to your family just to look macho.