India has a bill of rights for cows.

I would like to nominate Moq for the Most Courteous (and Intellectual) Poster of 2010. Anybody second this?

I agree with PBA; alcohol is fine in moderation.

I recently heard that R’ Ovadya Yosef passkened that one is allowed to sell non-tzniyus clothes even to jews, since they could get the same style clothes elsewhere. But as always, all halacha li’maseh shailos should go to a qualified Rov, not to anonymous bloggers who may or may not have any idea what they’re talking about.

PY:

“Another problematic area is Kabbala. The Yeshivishe hashkafa says that the mekubalim have deep and secret knowledge of how Hashem runs the world and how to predict the future and intercede in the mysteries of hashgacha pratis to change the outcome. But many of these people have been shown to be fraudulent, or simply to be unable to produce results that differ in any way from what one would expect in the natural course of events.”

Then these people are not real Mekubalim. Kabbalah itself, however, is still very real.

klach:

“women are more natrualy loyal, and thus are far less likely to run off with someone else, then are men. Thus they are far less likely to be drawn to mess around the internet in the first place.”

I’m not sure it’s a stronger sense of loyalty as much as it a weaker temptation… after all, single women also tend to be less “drawn to the mess” then their male counterparts.

“Neither gender is “better”… this is a strength of women. Men have their areas where they excel more so than women.”

Agreed. As a matter of fact, that is precisely the point I was trying to make.

Pashuteh Yid

“I doubt YWN has reporters all over the tri-state area monitoring the trains and airports at this hour.”

True. weather.com, however, does.

“In addition, in any type of emergency, there could well be important info on TV, like where to evacuate, chas vshalom, etc.”

That is also on weather.com. And not only weather alerts, but all alerts. Actually, I once saw an alert for a kidnapper on the lose at a certain zip code.

I do not own a TV, and I never plan to. Just watching people sit and watch those things for hours and hours every day, with little to no physical and mental activity, was enough to scare me away.

aries:

“One cannot and should not judge their fellow Jews especially not by questions such as the original posted.”

Who said anything about judging people by whether or not they have a TV?

Taking this one step further, why isn’t assuming that people are judging others jumping to conclusions and judging itself?

I suggest Strive for Truth (R’ Dessler in english).

I would imagine one of the reasons women tend to take the get is because they can usually get most of what they want in the American courts, which tend to favor the women. Therefore they have less of a need to blackmail their ex-spouse.

The pull of the CR is intelligent (most of the time) discussions that go on here on a wide range of topics, with people from every background, group, age, and gender. It’s not often that that happens in the frum world.

Ken Zayn: Morzilla’s Firefox browser has an automatic spellchecker (among many other useful features), and can be downloaded for free.

Today, it is generally accepted in the Chassidish world not to learn nittel night, while the Litvaks do learn. Both have their own Gedolim to rely on, and zeh v’zeh divrei Elokim chayim.

“Creation

Didn’t happen as described in the Bible. Irrational.”

What?! Creation by a Higher Power is the most rational theory of how the universe came to be, far more logical then saying “it just appeared in a big bang”.

In general, I really don’t like this attitude towards reason. The only religions that require one to check their brains at the door are those who need to hide from the truth. We, on the other hand, have nothing to hide – we have the truth, and we can prove it. Therefore, Judaism has never advocated its followers to stop thinking. Just the opposite – one of the loftiest goals of Judaisim has always been the intellectual, rational study and comprehension of all the Torah’s complex laws, and of the reasons behind them.

The Chovos HaLevavos, one of the earliest Mussar/Hashkafa seforim we have today (written by one of the earliest Rishonim) says that “Nefesh” that Hashem gave to humans which distinguishes us from the animals, is actually the intellect, the power of reason. It is through the intellect that we grow closer to Hashem.

The Rambam, the Chovos HaLevavos, and many, many others proved intellectually that a Higher Power created the world, and that He gave us the Torah. They were all avowed rationalists, and they proved beyond a doubt that Judaisim is quite rational.

Derech HaMelech:

You make a fine satirist. Thanks for the grins.

Selling food (danishes/candy/soda/etc) to fellow bochrim.

Yes.

10-Luchos: How do you know all these usernames are one person?

aries2756:

“I usually think it is not by business and don’t jump to conclusions. My best suggestion is to stay out of it. Whether they are inappropriate or not, mixing in is also inappropriate.”

I believe this whole “mind your own business” attitude has its roots solely in the permissive secular culture around us, and is not at all how the Torah would have us think. The Torah tells us “Kol Yisroel arevim zeh la’zeh” – “All of [Klal] Yisroel is responsible for each other”. Just like we must rescue a fellow Jew from physical or emotional harm, we must do our best to rescue them from spiritual harm as well.

Furthermore, the Torah tells us “hochaich tocheeach es amisecha” – “rebuke you shall rebuke my people”. We have a direct commandment – if you see something, say something. (Obviously this must be done in a way that will be effective and not just push the person further away, but it must be done nonetheless.) The passuk continues (“rebuke you shall rebuke my people,”) “v’lo sisa aluv chait” – “and you will not bear a sin”. However, if one could have stopped somebody from doing an aveirah but did not, they will have to give a din vi’cheshbon for it.

“The usual rule of thumb is if someone is doing something inappropriate in public they don’t care what other people think, so getting involved and mixing in will not help the situation.”

Not necessarily; the person simply may not realize what they’re doing is wrong. If somebody explains to them in a calm, polite way why what they’re doing is wrong, they may very well stop doing it.

“Giving tochecha to someone who doesn’t want to hear it and will not accept it is pointless and therefor only makes it worse so you are not allowed to do it.”

100% true. However, I don’t think we should always just assume that the person will take (correctly-given) mussar the wrong way.

“So maybe you jumped to conclusions and there is a viable explanation for what you saw or think you saw.”

Then the person will explain why they were doing what they were doing and (assuming that you were nice and polite) no harm done.

(PS – Please note that these are all calm, rational arguments about the issues that you have brought up. There is nothing here even vaguely reminiscent of a personal attack. Please, please let’s not have another wave of hysteria and accusations. Let’s stick to the issues, shall we?)

aries:

“Wrong again, What I said was, that if I had actually bashed Rabbonim the Mods would not have posted it!”

I was referring to a different comment of yours, in which you caomplained that the Mods don’t post your comments attacking Rabbonim but allow others to attack you.

“MW13 and the other two who keep harping on this. I’m done with this L”H.”

I do not believe Lashon Hara applies to anonymous internet usernames.

“None of you can prove that I did it because I didn’t. And I have already proved it because it is against the CR rules and it would never have been posted.”

It is also against the CR rules to have more than one username; Yet the YW Editor himself has written that several usernames here are one and the same, and they are all still posting. The CR rules aren’t always so strictly enforced.

TheGoq:

Whoa. Helpful showed no indication that he was about to “denigrate them for their upbringing or for not being as frum as you” or that he had “any idea how frum they are”. For a post blasting assumptions, you seem to have made a fair amount of them yourself.

musictomyears: Do you think Hashem is looking down, listening to this song, and frowning? What exactly is wrong with it?

Hmm… not sure ice skating is such a good ideas, some not so kosher things tend to happen in ice skating rings on motzai shabbos(os? es?) these days. But swimming sounds like a winner.

havesoemseichel:

“I was tired of the blame being put on women”

Again, exactly who is putting all the blame on women?

“I have a right for people to see I am not a size 63”

True. You do not have to wear a size 63. But you also have to comply with the laws and the spirit of tzniyus. Its a fine balance, and not one that easily lends itself to across the board rules.

mosherose: How would you define a kofir?

eclipse, it seems that I may have misunderstood you. I thought “trapped in the house” was referring to being trapped in the marriage; but apparently, you were trapped in the house quite literally.

“It is the ABSENCE OF HALACHA which has caused so much Chilul Hashem.

I truly believe that the Torah is “d’roche’ha darche noam”.”

Glad to hear it. All too often, people who see themselves as taken advantage of by the system tend to reject the good with the bad and develop a disturbing (if understandable) lack of respect for the halacha and those who decide it. Glad to see you didn’t allow this to happen to you.

“Now unless you know my story personally(which you clearly do not),may I ask how you became so aware of exactly what happened?”

I did not and I do not have any idea of what happened in your life, and I apologize if I accidentally made it look like I did.

Let me put it this way: in Jewsih law, the only way to break a marriage is for the man to give a get. There are exceptions to this, but this is the general rule.

eclipse:

“I have zero mechila for every single person who forced me to stay married to my ex and allowed him to stay and torture me all those extra years…”

First of all, I am truly sorry that you had to go through a (by the sound of it) messy divorce.

That said, nobody needs to actively force a woman to stay married; by default, she is stuck where she is. Therefore, these people didn’t actively force you to stay married; they just passively did not break the marriage.

“And what Torah-abiding(?) men are doing to Torah-true women…in court,in bais din…I’d write a book but it’s all Chilul Hashem.”

Two wrongs don’t make a right. The halacha is what the halacha is, whether or not you like its messengers.

HindaRochel:

“The beit din is unlikely to just order her back to her husband, unless the beit din actually doesn’t care about a stable marriage.”

The question is not if the marriage is stable; the question is if the marriage is still applicable. Whether or not a marriage is in the best shape has no difference on its halcachic status. If the woman would go “marry” (for lack of a better term) somebody else, she would still be chayiv skliah, and her children would still be mamzeirim. She is still married, whether she likes it or not.