n0mesorah

Quick quote from Reb Yehudah Jacobs zatzal. If you can’t afford a chasunah, you should not be in shidduchim.

It’s embarrassing to be so personal about this stuff. Some people are different. Now what?

Dear Dr,

That was not an opinion. It’s somewhere between a literary fact and an imaginary fact.

Dear Amirican,

The hefkeirus comes from being more independent and mature. It’s called post-adolescent.

BMG has a strong mussar regimen?!?

That out of the way, I think your right that there is more to gain by staying by the American Rosh Yeshiva for five years instead of learning in Israel.

Dear American,

Is this about your boys specifically, or today’s generation?

All trolling should be this much fun!

Could I get the job being anti leftist only? Without the Torah angle, I’ll be much more extreme.

Dear American,

You still did not elaborate how Brisk delays bachurim from starting to date.

“A question that probably some of you are thinking of if you’re totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So, supposedly we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you’re going to test that, too. Sounds interesting, right?”

“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning, because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that, so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me. So, we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That’s pretty powerful.”

Dear Reb Eliezer,

You fought in the Alamo?

Dear Zushy,

“NO ONE approves …….”

Except the people who believe they did the right thing.

“EVERY single gadol……”

Except for those who did not join in forbidding technology.

So…

Denying that a problem exists is not a solution.

Calling it fake news does not make it untrue.

Way to go, Josef!!! L’chaim!

Dear Zushy,

Both points are doubtful.

Dear Avira,

Bereishes Rabbah22; 12 רב אמר כלב מסר לו

Dear Always,

Your stretching things.

According to his bio he should be ashamed.

How could there be an echo in a black hole?

“What would the ancient Rabbis say…”

Your implying that they would be listened to.

Dear Avram,

Thanks for taking the time to work through my posts. I’m using this minute to respond to the simple stuff. Hopefully I’ll get to the real stuff before shabbos. So, just some bullet points.

-I was intentionally vague because I’m not aware of what this is all about.

– What paragraph? The one you asked me to clarify. Sorry for the confusion. Please reread that post.

-Later we can discuss if my distinction about religion not being for one person is correct. I was trying to say that religion is not just a purely philosophical exercise.

-I’m aware of the contradiction. Later.

-About the OP. I’m not sure if this is an imitation of those other attempts, or is it an attempt to be more orthodox. Also, it seems pointless to have to go back to ethics to simply say, “what so and so is doing is unacceptable”.

-He has excluded those who are unethical. My question is if he has religious conviction in his own philosophical conclusion.

– I equate personal religion with syncretism.

On the last three points:
1. We’ve debated this before. I would love to continue it with you.
2. What people think is religiously important, has an outsized impact in how the people form the community. But what was or is critical to the religion, is not the communal part. An example. Our communities revolve around the imperative of having yeshivos. It affects so much of our lifestyle. But the goal is not to be a ben yeshiva. The goal is to be a ben torah.
3. A true religion wouldn’t permanently shift it’s goal because of the failings of it’s adherents. The religion is more vibrant when the group unifies to participate in the religious goals.

I think I got to everything. I’m not convinced I’m right about all of it or even most of it.

Dear Avira,

That’s a good question and it cuts to the heart of the matter. But its not clear to me why it helps. The answer to me is a clear NO. But if it was an orthodox conversion it would also be a NO.

Dear Avram,

It’s hard to be specific on this thread. I never heard of this specific label [EO] before. It was all a lead up to the statement in bold and the question. As in, does the OP feel confident about adding a clause (ethics – or whatever they think it means) into something (Judiaism – as it was Divinely given) that will eternally outlast them?

The paragraph is about all religions. Religions are not for one person. They are only for people. So what the people as a group think of their religion tends to make up what their religion consists of. But that is not the religion itself. It is only how they relate to it. It doesn’t go by what people claim they think of their religion. It thrives off of how they perform as a religious group.

Dear Avira,

There you go again! Equating shuls with davening……

Now to be a bit serious, your talking about a halachic system. Anybody who can learn, (Conservative, Reform, or even Athiest.) is aware of the systems running throughout our Torah. The supposed schism is how much weight does the individual Chacham’s understanding have on the system versus the context that gives that understanding. And after several tries, there is no apparent answer. So while maybe if we think hard enough we can come up with a clear response, it is very likely that this has nothing to do with the break that actually occurred in the past century. I’m not assuming that Conservative and Orthodoxy are only different associations and nothing else. But it is clear to me, that it is not about something that could ever be debated.

Dear Avira,

Why don’t we have a cup of wine for bentching?

Dear Ujm,

Shaddchanim are not statisticians. It is more likely that their statements imply their reverse. Because this may eclipse your fields of self taught expertise, I’ll tell you a story.

A company has a reputation of their employees remaining single. So the CEO hires Zalman as a shadchan for their employees. He makes a list of all eligible employees. He notices that the company has far more single girls than boys. After a year of unsuccessful matchmaking, he starts looking for a cause. He goes through all his ideas that started of promising but did not end with a match. On each one he recalls the underlying reasons that the company employee would not continue. Zalman became convinced that the employees were more attached to the company then their own lives. He decided to talk to the CEO about a coach to for a healthier business setting for their single employees. The CEO calles in Joseph to go over Zalman’s notes. Joseph turned to the CEO and said, “there are far more girls on this list than boys. I know of a company that has many single boys”. The CEO proclaims, “as a business man I always go by the data. The data clearly says there are more girls in my company, so Joseph must be right.”

Dear American,

Sorry for going so tough on you. You deserve a better welcome.

The topic you started here, is not coherent. If you have an issue with the Brisk factor, than discuss that. If you want to insinuate that learning boys are destroying their lives because their are not groveling to marry at 17, than join the choir. If you hate that so many active minds are in service of their Roshei Yeshiva, then meet with YAFFED. Or go real extreme and meet with LIBBY.

I’m responding to your theory that boys are delaying moving on with their life just to get into Brisk. While some may wait an extra zman, most won’t pause endlessly just to get into Brisk. Your whole theory is shaky to begin with. But at least start of with a true reckoning of the facts. The amount of bachurim that spend two years just waiting to get into Brisk, is miniscule.

Dear Avira,

There have been several attempts to delineate the schism along those lines. It’s not so simple. Even if you throw out large chunks of orthodoxy with them, there will still be enough conservative thinkers on the your side of the divide.