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No, CTLawyer, Yiddish is not “the language is spoken by low-class ignoramuses”. All the examples you gave are not incorrect Hebrew but correct Yiddish. Since Yiddish is rather closely related to English, it should not be surprising that, as in English, adjectives precede their nouns rather than follow them as they do in Hebrew.
Chosheve mosad or chosheve bachur (vs. mosad chashuv)
Chanuka mesiba (vs. Mesibas chanuka)
Purim seuda (vs. seduas purim)
These are all Yiddish, and perfectly correct Yiddish, which should not be surprising since Yiddish is related to English.
Until 1948 even the zionists called it “Eretz Yisrael”. Under the British the official Hebrew name for the country was פלסטין– א״י, and the א״י stood for ארץ ישראל, though many zionists complained that the name פלסטין was a statement that the land is not Jewish., and the א״י really stood for אינה יהודית. Only when they declared the state did they change the name, and they did it to reject the traditions that went with the traditional name.
So when speaking English English I say “Israel”, but when speaking Jewish English, let alone Yiddish or Hebrew, I say Eretz Yisroel.
“Zechus” in Hebrew is feminine, and the plural is “Zechuyos”. “Zechusim”, like “Shabosim”, “Taleisim”, “Taneisim”, etc., is correct Yiddish.
Perhaps when it comes to conversion they go with Orthodox rabbi and do it kadat vekadin but in the rest of the their life they are not “frum”. You do realize that is very plausible.
It’s not at all plausible. If the parents are not observant, and will therefore not raise the child to be observant, then it is impossible to convert him because it is not in his best interest to be Jewish. (Unless the biological father wishes him to be Jewish, in which case it’s not a matter of zochin.)
laskern, I know this is all tongue in cheek, but I have come across people who seem to seriously think that “hak’he es shinov” means “knock out his teeth”, or at least that it means some sort of violence. Where on earth could this idea possibly have come from?
My teory is that it comes from Yiddish speakers unconsciously associating “hak’he” with “ois’hakn”. Of course these two words in completely unrelated languages have no connection at all, and “hak’he” has no violent connotations whatsoever.
Now here’s something really unacceptable. The official English name of BMG in Lakewood contains a blatant error: It should be Govoah, not Govoha. (It should also be Midrosh, not Medrash.)
midwesterner, If the title is based on that posuk then it’s certainly an error. In the posuk the feminine יתד is being put in a מקום נאמן; since מקום is masculine, the adjective is too.
Talles is not feminine. It’s not originally a Hebrew word, and therefore does not need to follow Hebrew grammar, and does not need to be categorized as masculine or feminine. The nekuda on the lamed is not a chirik but a tzeireh or a segol, because in the original Greek that vowel is an epsilon; Ben Yehuda was the one who unilaterally changed it to a chirik.
BTW, Yabia, do you say tehillim or tehilloth?
LIY, why would it be more controversial than electric lighting in general? Lights at the amud (except for an avel/yartzeit) are for kavod, and to give the chazan light to read by, so why would electric be less suitable than candles? When the chazan is lighting for the elevation of a neshama, because ner Hashem nishmas odom, many/most still use candles.
No, Rebbetzin, Korach did not ask “lama”. Nor did he even ask for anything in particular; his entire manifesto was “Rav Lachem! Madua Tisnas’u?”
Laskern, nobody disputes that the “bochur hazetzer” has been responsible for many mistakes. But this is not one of them. It is simply not possible to argue that the Beis Yosef did not really mean to write that there is a danger in eating fish with milk. What is arguable, and the Ramo does argue, is that he made a mistake, that he got confused, that he didn’t really hold this, and had anyone pointed out his mistake he would surely have corrected it.
The difference between Korach and the others is that Korach came with demands, not questions. The others came to point out a problem they were having, that Moshe may not have thought of. They asked why they were left out, but they were prepared to accept an answer, including “This is what Hashem wants”, if that were in fact the case. All they wanted was for Moshe to please check with Hashem whether that really was what He wanted.
What is “not eidel” about “pupick”? What else can one call it, either in a bird or on a person?
Is there such a thing as a “warmplate”? I am looking for something cool enough that I can put hot food in plastic containers on it before Shabbos, and it will keep it hot until dinner, or that I can put cold food from the fridge on it on Shabbos day and it will warm it up but never come to yad soledes bo. Does such a thing exist?
In the Jewish groceries they sell lima beans for shabbos, by themselves and in a “shabbos combo” with chickpeas. Does anyone have a recipe for those lima beans? I have searched Jewish cookbooks and cooking sites, and not found one.
NC, where did you get the idea that I thought “achronim never hold that something in the S”A is a copier’s mistake?”
But this is definitely NOT a copier’s mistake, or a typo, and there is no such “shita” that it is. The Ramo certainly does not say such a thing. There can be no doubt whatsoever that the Beis Yosef himself wrote it, and that he meant what he wrote when he wrote it. He didn’t simply write “milk” while thinking “meat”; he meant “milk”. The Ramo doesn’t call it a typo, he calls it a “thinko”. He says that the BY confused milk with meat; that he misremembered the danger of fish with meat, and temporarily thought it was about fish with milk.
REALLY? Do ANY Chabd shuls cater to ANY other customs/practices of other Yidden mispallelim?!
Example; Do they sing Akdomus (which is in the Nusach Ari Siddur but not said)? Do they say V’Shomru Frinday night (again it is in their Siddur)?
Absolutely, if there are enough ballebatim who want it. Anim Zmiros too, if there’s enough demand. I’ve never heard of a Chabad shul that has leining on ST night, but that’s not all that common a custom, so there’s unlikely to be much demand for it.
In case you think I exaggerated the state of yiddishkeit in Georgia before the Lubavitcher shluchim arrived, they reported that the local Jews would attend goyishe feasts, bringing their own bag of rice which they would put into the pot to cook together with the treife meat, absorbing its flavor. They did not know that this was not allowed.
The first one to send “shluchim” for kiruv purposes was the previous Rebbe
Not true. The Rashab sent shluchim to Georgia, who were largely responsible for reestablishing yiddishkeit there.
Before that I can’t think of any individuals who could be called “shluchim” in the current sense, whose entire purpose of moving somewhere was to bring yiddishkeit there, but as a previous commenter pointed out this is a matter of geography, not focus. When Jews were more geographically concentrated it was less necessary to relocate in order to reach them.
The Baal Shem Tov’s work was certainly “kiruv” in the current sense. He reached out to those who were neglected and in despair, whom the maggidim were telling that they were worthless and headed for gehenom and had no reason to serve Hashem, and he fought the magidim and started a whole movement to tell these people that Hashem valued them and they should serve Him and do mitzvos.
And yes, that absolutely did include those who were publicly eating treif or were intermarried or converted, but mostly it was people who were outwardly observant because there was no real alternative, but who were not observant in private, or not committed to observance.
“It’s not Shabbesdik” is the last resort of someone who has no argument.
No, Rebbetzin, we don’t all know these things intuitively. They are not universal truths, they are your personal preferences and prejudices which other people don’t share. There are more ways to celebrate Shabbos than are dreamed of in your constrained vision. More ways to dress, more ways to eat, and more ways to spend the day. Not everyone has to be the same.
The origin of not eating fish with milk is definitely NOT a typo. It is an explicit Beis Yosef, and there cannot be any question that he meant what he wrote when he wrote it. The question is what is source could possibly have been, and whether he was right.
Almost all Ashkenazim rely on the Ramo, who says that the Beis Yosef made a mistake, נתחלף לו בשר בחלב; he momentarily confused the danger of fish and meat with fish and milk. Therefore there is no problem.
Sefardim and a few Ashkenazim reject this possibility and say the Beis Yosef must have had a source, and he meant that just as it is dangerous to mix fish with meat it is also dangerous to mix it with milk.
However, since no other source is known, they tend to limit it to the BY’s words and avoid mixing fish only with actual milk, or things close to milk, but not cheese or butter. Thus many of them permit cream cheese and salmon.
The answer is that Chabad has been focused on “kiruv” since its very beginning, and in fact even before its beginning, since the Baal Shem Tov focused heavily on this.
Indeed the dairy industry is trying to get the government to ban the term “almond milk”, claiming that it’s misleading. Unfortunately for them, this term has been in documented use for at least 800 years, so I doubt they will get their way. But you can’t blame them for trying…
the law is unethical. US law isn’t Torah. Jews cannot treat it as non-dairy and vegans can’t eat it, so what is it accomplishing other than tricking people?
It is accomplishing exactly what you claim to want — not to trick people into thinking that it is dairy.
What I wonder is how they get away with “creamed corn”.
Neville, things that the consumer would not think were dairy don’t have to be labeled non-dairy. But “creamer” sounds like it would be dairy, so they must label it.
“Ice cream” can’t be used at all, even with an explicit “non-dairy” label, and even with an explicit label of its origins such as “soy ice cream” or “coconut ice cream”. If it’s not dairy it cannot be called “ice cream” at all.
Harding was actually one of the best presidents. “one man band” is lying. There is no indication that he was an alcoholic, and he is only known to have had two affairs in his life, one of which was before his presidency.
Worst presidents: Woodrow Wilson, James Buchanan, Barack Obama.
This whole thread is ridiculous.
1. The OU does not control what is on the product label. The OU cannot tell a company what to call its products. If it tries the manufacturer will tell it to take a hike. The only thing the OU controls is its trademarked symbol, and the symbol on non-dairy creamers is OU-D.
2. Even if a manufacturer were willing to accommodate the OU’s request, they can’t. They are legally required to label these products “non-dairy”, because that is what they are. As laskern says it’s unlawful to mislabel something, and therefore these products cannot be labeled “dairy”. That also answers NC’s concerns about ethics.
Joseph: 2. Does Chabad believe we should conquer these days parts of Eretz Yisroel that’s Arab controlled?
No, it does not, just as it believes that the state should never have been established in the first place.
The basic difference between Chabad and Satmar’s shitos is that Chabad does not believe in “maaseh soton”. If it happened, Hashem wanted it, and we have to deal with it. Satmar seems to believe that since the medinah is treif it must be dismantled, even though that would endanger millions of Yidden. We should daven and hope that they will be miraculously spared, but we should accept that al pi derech hateva they will be slaughtered, and we must accept that as the consequence of violating the shevu’os.
Chabad says that is insane. Whether we like it or not, the medinah is the only thing that stands between millions of Jews and Holocaust Part II, r”l, so we must now support it exactly as we would support the USA if it were in danger of falling to an enemy who would r”l wipe out its Jewish population. In fact the gemoro which is the basis of the Rebbe’s shita on territories is not talking about Eretz Yisroel, it’s talking about Nehardea, a province in Iraq that had a large Jewish population and some degree of Jewish autonomy.
Rebbetzin: The issue came out in returning Land for Peace. Chabad view of “not one inch” especially since “Hashem gifted the Land in a miraculous way, we must not squander this gift”, which is a Religious Zionist/Nationalist view, while our Gedolim held there is no problem to return Land to avoid pikuach nefesh (and saving one soldier’s life that would be r”l lost in a battle is an olom malleh).
This is a completely misstatement of the Rebbe’s position. In utter contrast to the Religious Zionists, whose opposition to Camp David was based on the Ramban’s shita that the mitzvah of kibush ha’aretz (which obviously overrides pikuach nefesh) is noheg bizman hazeh, and therefore territory must not be given away even if it were to save lives, the Rebbe explicitly based his opposition on pikuach nefesh, and on the explicit halacha in Shulchan aruch which defines that it is pikuach nefesh to allow foreign armies to occupy territory from which it will be easier for them to threaten any area with a Jewish population.
Joseph: 1. If it were certain that giving land away world save more lives, would Chabad support giving the land?
Yes, absolutely. The Rebbe said so explicitly, and not just any land but even Yerusholayim itself.
He was clear that just as when deciding whether shabbos needs to be broken for a sick person you ask doctors, so when deciding whether a piece of territory counts as “a border city” you have to ask currently serving military officers.
But we have to be clear about the question we are asking them: the only question is whether withdrawing from this territory creates a risk. Just as we are not interested in a doctor’s opinion on whether the spiritual benefits of fasting on yom kippur justify the risk, we are not interested in military officers’ opinion on whether the potential benefits of giving away territory are worth the risk. In both cases the Torah tells us no benefit can justify the risk, if there is one.
No, we will notbring a Pesach Sheni this year. אין ציבור נדחין.
Coffee addict, no ashes required. When the whole tzibur is tomei the Korban Pesach can be brought betum’ah. Therefore it stands to reason that if it were possible for a tzibur to bring a Pesach Sheni we could do so betum’ah. But in any case we’ve got three weeks till Pesach Sheni, long enough for the new kohen godol to bring a poroh adumoh and have everyone tohor. Again, however, this is all hypothetical because אין ציבור נדחין.
There’s no question that if it had been possible for us to bring the Korban Pesach two Fridays ago we would have been obliged to do so. But as Ysiegel points out this is irrelevant to Pesach Sheni.
Ysiegel, yes, if an individual missed Pesach Rishon he has a chiyuv to bring a Pesach Sheni, if he can. Unfortunately we will not be able to, even if Moshiach comes.
Coffee would be ho’etz if one were eating the coffee itself. It’s only shehakol because one throws out the coffee after cooking it, and one drinks the water, which is halachically considered not to contain any of the coffee’s substance (ta’am ein bo mamosh).
Which leads me to consider the odd question of what exactly is in a jar of instant coffee. It is simply the “ta’am” that was infused into the water when it was brewed, so if halocho considers it not to exist then the jar must be empty! And if it doesn’t exist then how can there be a problem with cooking it on shabbos?
DovidBT, mushrooms are not plants. That is a biological fact. You are not entitled to your own facts. They are fungi. They grow on the ground, not from the ground. And that is why lechol hade’os they are not and have never been pri ho’adomo.
when one specifically appoints HIS rov, he expects his rov to be the selling agent.
Since when? Who is this “one” who has such an unreasonable and unrealistic expectation? It so happens that my local rov does do his own sale, both for his own people and for other rabbonim, but most don’t.
You made the rov a shliach to sell the chometz, and to buy it back after Pesach if it’s still available. If you don’t want to take possession of it you don’t have to, but you’re not getting any money.
Neville & Ubiquitin, first of all the repurchases I’ve seen absolutely were exactly that, the rov explicitly offered to buy the chometz and the goy agreed to sell, and they did all the kinyonim. But according to you, how is it that the goy walks away with a profit? How could he make a profit if he didn’t sell anything? If he is simply allowed to back out of the original purchase then he should be lucky to walk away without a loss? And yet he must make a profit, or else why would he agree to participate in this whole rigmarole in the first place?
This proves that what is happening is a genuine sale, followed by a genuine resale at a profit. The goy buys it in the first place, not for his own use but in the hope of flipping it at a profit. A week later he has not yet found a buyer, so we offer to be that buyer. That is all.
In other words, your claim that “there is an opinion that coffee (made from coffee beans) is kitniyos” is false.
Just as it is false that there exists an opinion that potatoes are kitniyos. There is no such opinion, no rov has ever forbidden potatoes, and anyone who claims otherwise should cite a primary source. Secondary sources do not count. And if you cite the Nishmas Odom you automatically lose, because it will prove that you’re citing a secondary source and didn’t bother to look it up yourself.
RG, the Shaarei Teshuva does not cite any opinion that coffee is kitniyos. On the contrary, he says it definitely is not, and the great person who was cited as refraining from it did so because he worried that ignorant people would think it was kitniyos, and if they saw him using it they would think kitniyos are permitted.
Rebbi is just Rebbi, without the definite article. “The rebbe” depends on the context, exactly like “the rosh yeshivah”, “the rav”, or “the president”. Why do you not ask about those?
Type with a shinuy. Hunt and peck instead of touch typing.
Chometz she’ovar olov hapesach is a kenas, so in circumstances where a person did what he was supposed to do Chazal did not punish him.
The Noda Biyhuda says if someone’s chometz was stolen before Pesach and then it was recovered after Pesach, he can use it because he did nothing to be punished for. He says when the thief says “harei sheloch lefonecho” it means “go ahead and use it”.
Yabia, mushrooms have always been shehakol. It’s got nothing to do with hydroponics. And no, mushrooms are not grown hydroponically; they’re not plants, so I’m not sure the concept even applies.
Laskern, Mordechai on which mesechta? Pesochim?
There is no such opinion. Both coffee and chocolate grow on trees, and therefore by definition cannot be kitniyos.
There absolutely is a buying back. I’ve seen it myself. The goy comes after Pesach and the rov reminds him that payment is due, and asks whether he’s found a buyer, or otherwise come up with the money. The goy says he has not, so the rov offers to buy it himself on behalf of the original owners, for a price slightly higher than the sale price, so he will make a profit. They make several different kinyonim just as they did on Erev Pesach (kesef, sudar, tekias kaf, signatures, drinking).
ubiquitin, I said I have not gone through the whole discussion, so I’m addressing general points, not necessarily what any one person has written.
May I also suggest that those who treat it as a ha’rama, or as less than a 100% legitimate sale, are the same ones who don’t sell actual chometz, whereas those who treat it absolutely seriously are the ones who do sell real chometz, because they’re completely confident in its validity.
And yes, if the chometz is destroyed during Pesach it is the new owner’s responsibility. He has to pay up, and we can absolutely sue him for it. That is why insurance was invented. The insurance policy transfers to the new owner, so if the stock is destroyed the insurance will pay him, and he can pay us. We can even put in the contract (though I haven’t noticed it done) that in case the stock is damaged before it can be appraised we will accept the insurance payout in lieu of an appraisal.
Also, if there’s an Arev Kablan then instead of suing the buyer in court we can sue the AK in beis din, where we know the verdict will go to us.
I’m not going to address individual posts because there are too many of them, but if you structure the sale so that if the buyer doesn’t pay it reverts then retroactively you owned chometz on Pesach. That is not the way it should be done, and not the way I have seen it done.
The sale is a 100% sale, and ideally should be structured so that even if the buyer never pays the chometz is still his, and he can be sued for the money. That is the way every sale I’ve witnessed has been done. And no, there is no guarantee that we will buy it back, but we can give him an informal assurance that if he doesn’t find a buyer in the next week we will find him one.
In the case of individual householders, of course we want to buy our former chometz back, because it would be inconvenient to have to go shopping to replace it. But in the case of a business, on the contrary, we would be delighted if he decided to take it all and pay for it.
The reason we buy it back is very simple — if we don’t, then next year we will not be able to find a goy willing to buy it from us.
A blech, by definition, is tin. That’s what the word means. If you make it out of copper then it’s a cooper, not a blech.
There is plenty of punning and wordplay in the Chumash itself.