Milhouse

Lying and slander are serious aveiros, and it makes no difference that the victim is a nochri. JacKKK is a rosho merusha. Any mitzvos he may do (and I’m not convinced he does any) are worthless, because he is such a hateful liar.

Thomas has never done anything unethical in his entire career. If a friend invites him to come with him on vacation, there is no reason in the world why he should turn it down. There is no judge anywhere who would turn it down. Harlan Crow is a personal friend of his, and occasionally invites him to travel with him, or does him favors; any decent person should be happy for him.

If Crow would ever have a case come before the Supreme Court, obviously Thomas would recuse himself; but that has never happened, and there’s no prospect of it ever happening.

Likewise if a case ever came before the court to which Mrs Thomas was a party, he would obviously have to recuse himself, but that has never happened either. The fact that she is active politically is completely irrelevant, and it is NEVER the practice of judges to recuse themselves just because a family member is politically active. That would be a ridiculous and unsustainable rule.

Consider Reinhardt, who used to be chief judge of the 9th circuit, and whose wife was the head of the Southern California chapter of the ACLU. He would recuse himself only if that chapter was party to a case; but if it was any other chapter he would NOT recuse himself, because his wife was not a party. That is the standard, and Thomas has every right to stick to it. Anyone criticizing him for it is dishonest.

Avira, you are a liar and are slandering a tzadik and kadosh who was brutally murdered. Dr Goldstein was not “mentally unstable”, and the Arabs were not “worshipers”, they had a stash of hatchets and knives with which they hacked him to death; that is not what one has at a place of “worship”. They were openly announcing for days that they were going to carry out a massacre, and the army refused to do anything to stop them. The army even warned Dr Goldstein to prepare for multiple casualties. So he did the only thing he could to stop them.

By the way, even according to your sick version how can you say there’s no evidence they were terrorists? Even according to your version, they murdered him after they captured and disarmed him; that is cold-blooded murder, and when Jews have done the same to actual terrorists they have been convicted and imprisoned for it. So that alone makes them terrorists.

What do you mean, no motive? The motive was that his financial crimes were about to go public.

But even without that, suppose we didn’t know a motive, so what? Since when has it ever been necessary to know why someone committed a crime? It’s enough to prove that he did it, and the prosecution did that to the jury’s satisfaction. What else is required?

What’s wrong with circumstantial evidence? When has it EVER been the case that circumstantial evidence is not enough?

There are no tapuchim in Bereishis. The first mention of “tapuach” is in Shir Hashirim. And this is used by some as evidence that Shir Hashirim was written quite late, and was not written by Shlomo Hamelech.

As for apples, they were not known in the middle east at the time of matan torah. Maybe not even when Shir Hashirim was written, since Tosfos says the “tapuach” there is an esrog.

Smerel, the chief rabbi is NOT appointed by the government! He is appointed by the United Synagogue, which is the organization he is chief rabbi of. He is not chief rabbi of those Jews not affiliated with the US, such as the Chareidim, the Sefardim, and the various heretical sects. So the whole question of government appointment is irrelevant.

AAQ, the Anglican church is theologically very diverse. Within the Anglican church you have a split between “High Church” which is closer to Catholicism and “Low Church” which is far away from it. Historically there were bitter struggles between these factions. But in general, and especially at a “High Church” church such as Westminster Abbey, there’s much more of an avoda zara problem than, for instance, at a Reformed Church, or the Puritan churches of the 18th century.

And no, the difference goes well beyond statues. In fact statues are not really that much of a problem. Kosher they’re not, but comparatively speaking they’re small change. The one thing in a Catholic church that is absolutely 100% unmistakable avoda zara is the “consecrated Host”. Almost all protestants, including even most High Church Anglicans, reject the doctrine of transsubstantiation, and therefore the problem is smaller. And most protestants don’t even have the whole concept.

All other issues with Xianity are less important. It’s questionable whether worshiping J. is avoda zara at all. They mistakenly believe that he is HKBH, so when they worship him their intent is to worship HKBH, rather than a rival god. (The same is true with the Host, but that is a physical object. When you believe that a physical object is HKBH, and you bow down to it, I don’t see how that can be anything but classic avoda zara.)

Kuvult, it depends very much on what kind of church it is. If your Zeide was in a small town in the USA, it is likely that the churches he spoke in were all Protestant, and some may have been very Protestant, where there is not really much of a problem entering. Catholic and Orthodox churches are much more of a problem, and so are High-Church Anglican churches such as Westminster Abbey.

Wow. All this discussion, and nobody has mentioned the clear and explicit halachic status of shtadlonim, which has been established for over 2500 years, and the wide range of heterim available for them. Someone asked whether there could be a heter to eat chazir to please a king; the answer is no, there is not, but there is a heter for a shtadlan to drink the king’s wine, and to wear shatnez, and to have a hair style that is normally forbidden as chukos hagoyim. The heter for drinking stam yeinam goes all the way back to Nechemiah! The gemara says that the reason he is sometimes called Hatirshoso is because the Sanhedrin gave him a heter to drink stam yeinam. And that’s a lot worse than simply setting foot in a church.

Zushy is correct. Flags didn’t even exist in the Torah’s times. They were invented in medieval times. דגל only means “flag” in medieval and modern Hebrew, not in Leshon Torah or Leshon Chazal. In Chazal’s times, and apparently also in the Torah’s times, since it’s mentioned in Chumash and Tehillim, what they had was standards, which in Hebrew is נס. These were usually not made of cloth; sometimes a cloth was tied to the standard to make it more visible, but the cloth was just a shmatteh, and didn’t have any particular color or design.

UJM, if he is a Lubavicher he may indeed never have seen it. It’s unheard of in Lubavitch.

No, I don’t believe the Maharal ever made a golem. My reason is that nobody ever heard of this story until the early 19th century. There are many stories of the Maharal, that have been told ever since he was alive; but there is no story about his making a golem.

The biggest proof is that Reb Tia Weil, who lived in Prague in the late 18th century and was a talmid of the Noda Biyhuda, a successor to the Maharal’s rabbonus, wrote a whole book about golems, containing ever fact he could gather about them, and yet he doesn’t mention that the Maharal made one. If the story were true, how could he not have heard of it? The only possible answer is that it hadn’t yet been invented.

So no. Reb Eliyohu Chelmer made a golem, probably some other people made them too, but the Maharal didn’t.

Gemara in yavamos has this case quite often

And look what happens in every one of those cases!

In fact going to ones rebbe on yomtov REPLACES aliyah laregel, so it’s completely appropriate to compare them.

There is no problem saying that Hashem sustains us many times, or that He pastures us many times. Of course He does. He does it several times a day, throughout our lives! Why would anyone even think that’s a problem? But it remains one Sustainer, one Shepherd.

Avira, English definitely does give special consideration to the Creator; not only His Name is capitalized, but also every pronoun or other word that refers to Him (such as “Name”). That is not the case with any other subject, not even the Queen.

And I agree with the Tana Kama, the repetition of “Shemo” is problematic, especially when followed by the declaration that these three names are in fact one. I’ve had this objection since I first heard that song more than 30 years ago, and I refuse to sing it.

מפרנסים עניי נכרים עם עניי ישראל is not an obligation, it is permission. The gemara is telling the gabaim of a tzedakah fund, to which Jewish donors have given on the understanding that their money will go to עניי ישראל and they will therefore get the reward for tzedaka, that if it happens, while they are distributing the money to עניי ישראל that עניי נכרים show up and get in line, they are permitted to give to them too, even though whoever donated that money did not fulfill the mitzvah and will not get the reward. And the reason this is allowed is darchei sholom. The reason it’s not stealing is that the donors know this in advance, and give on the understanding that their money may go for that purpose.

The gemara further says that if a nochri wishes to donate to the tzedaka fund, and it’s not possible to refuse the donation, then it should be given to עניי נכרים so that the donor will not get a mitzvah, unless the donor specifically stipulated that it should go only to עניי ישראל.

It means that the comment goes into the spam bucket and does not appear on the site.

Truth?! You are a liar. I don’t believe your claim to have supported Israeli action in the past, because what’s happening now is no different from any other time. There are no Israeli “provocations”, and Israeli police are NOT “overly aggressive and violent”. On the contrary, as usual they are overly restrained and merciful, which the Arabs see as weakness and it encourages them to more violence. The only time they are overly aggressive is when Jews respond with counter-violence, just as Etzel did in the 1930s and 40s; THEN they become violent.

I explained above that the difference between a Jew and a goy is whether we go after rov.

Excuse me? Are you seriously trying to suggest that the majority of foetuses are nefalim?! That’s ridiculous. Everyone knows the exact opposite is true.

What kind of question is this? The halacha is very clear and there is NO MACHLOKES WHATSOEVER. Killing an unborn baby has exactly the same halachic status as killing a goy. In both cases a yid who does it is exempt from human justice, but must face Hashem’s justice, while a goy who does it must be tried in a court of law, sentenced to death, and executed. This is not some kind of moshol; it means literally that the nations are OBLIGATED to execute all goyishe abortionists. If they don’t do so they are violating the 7 mitzvos themselves.

“Reb Eliezer”, you’re also wrong about doctors being able to pasken to eat on Yom Kippur. NO DOCTOR HAS THE RIGHT TO GIVE A HETER TO EAT. If you need a heter you must ask a ROV, not a doctor. The ROV should ask the doctor for his opinion, and then decide the halocho taking into account what the doctor says. But the doctor himself cannot pasken, and you cannot eat just because the doctor said so.

Mrs Plony: ” I recall a chapter in A House Full of Chessed where Rebbetzin Machlis kept bringing her baby to have his bilirubin tested so he could have his circumcision on the eighth day, and miraculously his levels fell to an acceptable number just in time”

She was getting his bilurubin tested so the MOHEL would agree to do the bris. As far as every doctor in the world is concerned this obsession with jaundice is one big narishkeit, and there’s no reason not to circumcise a baby who’s bright yellow.

The halacha is that if you have a medical question (like whether to be mechalel Shabbos for a choleh, or whether a baby boy is too yellow for milah) then you ask a doctor.

Mrs Plony, NOBODY asks a doctor whether a baby is too yellow for milah. The UNIVERSALLY accepted halacha is that we do NOT ask doctors. If we were to ask the doctors there would be no such thing as a delayed bris for yellowness, and the whole halacha about it would have been long forgotten. We ask only a mohel who has received the tradition from the mohel who trained him, and we disregard the unanimous advice of all doctors that postnatal jaundice is no reason to delay circumcision.

NoM, Biden was never at the top of his wits. He’s always been Slow Joe. But senility happens; some people get it and some don’t, and it’s clear to anyone who pays attention that he has it.

Why would anyone have to be “respected in the Democrat Party” to tell Biden what to do? if it comes to it, the 0bama machine will simply give him the choice between resigning or having a funeral. They don’t have to be respected to do that, just powerful. The only resistance would be from “Dr” Jill, who has visions of being another Edith Wilson, and from Harris whose presidential ambitions would be cut short by a replacement candidate.

No, BT, theories about cabals secretly controlling governments are usually NOT about Jews. They’re usually about such people as the Freemasons, the Templars, the Illumnati, the Bilderbergs, the CFR and Trilateral Commission, the House of Windsor, etc., none of whom are Jewish. The first one that involved Jews was the Protocols, which was cribbed from earlier French works about the Freemasons. The Russian secret police simply substituted “Jews” for “Freemasons”.

There are, of course, people who really do try to manipulate governments, and one of those currently doing so, with some success, happens to be a Jew by birth, although not in any other way: George Soros. Attacks on him are NOT antisemitic; most people who write about him have no idea he’s even Jewish. And the attacks are mostly true.

Even the claim that he was a Nazi collaborator MAY be true, although there’s no genuine evidence for it. It’s based entirely on an interview he gave, in which he phrased himself ambiguously; if you don’t listen carefully it sounds like he is admitting it, and that’s where those who make the accusation are coming from — certainly not from any antisemitic motive! On the contrary, an antisemite would consider it a compliment to say that Soros helped the Nazis.

Deliberately separating them is forbidden, at least according to some opinions. Merely playing with them should be fine; if they happen to become separated in the process it was unintentional and therefore not a problem. There is no reason to invent a new gezera to avoid it.