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is that a new one? never read it before
I am no longer arguing with you. You have insulted a very special person several times over without even knowing who she is. Perhaps you would be shocked if you ever found out, but in the meantime you continue to make judgements on people you do not know. Like I said before, I am neither modern orthodox nor baalas teshuva, and the sem I went to has a very chashuv hanhala, many of whom would agree with much of what I have said over the course of this thread. Can I drop you some names? Rabbi Dovid Kaplan, Rabbi Zev Leff, Rabbi Elimelech Meiesels, to name just a few. I doubt they would agree with your position that reading works of fiction is totally assur. I thank you for wasting much of my time, since you are never going to admit that you are ever wrong.
I bet it would have helped though. Maybe not violin, that was a little ambitious, but piano if you learned from young enough…
someone ought to make a movie of this…
SM, I once worked on a couple of his poems to try and make a tune to come up with them. And JMH, you have the talent, you just never really had the lessons (not that I did either, but had you been taught something other than violin and really had some serious lessons you would also be very good). The being able to make up a tune as you go along – you know who that comes from!
I have read many Jewish books. Rabbi Paysach Krohn is one of the few talented Jewish writers. However, you have still missed my point and still failed to recognise that in my original post I very clearly wrote than it was my sem teacher that I asked. You would not judge me if you really knew me – nothing I have written in this thread has ‘exposed’ me, as you write. I am true to myself, I always have been. Yes, I love literature and fiction – how can you ask someone with a vivid and colourful imagination not to read fiction? And don’t tell me there is decent Jewish fiction because there is not. Trust me. However, if you were ever to come to my house, you would see a great ahavas torah u’mitzvos. I play my part in our nation with pride, I teach my child how wonderfully lucky we are, I sing to her, I look forward to Shabbos and Yamim Tovim with joy and enjoy every single moment of keeping the Torah. I am also, by the way, a kindergarten teacher and I love my job, being able to pass our heritage onto even more children. I don’t think that my love of well-written, suitable fiction is in any way affecting me as a person, and I do try to stay away from novels that are unclean. However, if the book has no adult language or content, is not heretical or atheistic and contains no avoda zara then it is perfectly acceptable to read.
On the other note, there are many gifted Jewish artists who are frum (Gadi Pollack, for example???). I happen to know quite a few personally. By the way I also paint, although I don’t sell my paintings. However, what you said about being a mentsch can extend to our book issue. I am a mentsch, have always acted in a way that can only be described as honest and hardworking. I have a family. I teach (which is likened to Torah learning for a woman), and my reading does not contravene any halachos – since I steer clear of those questionable issues that can come up in literature.
Ready now, I see that perhaps you sincerely pity me since you feel like maybe I am either a misguided modern othodox person or baalas teshuva who finds it difficult to let go of past enjoyment. I am neither, and am proud to be part of a yeshivish community. And really, I pity you more for your inability to be honest and open with all of us on this thread.
I am a gummy bear, oh yes a gummy bear,
I’m a something something something kind of gummy bear..
I very clearly said in the first post that it was my sem teacher. If sem teachers don’t teach hashkafa, what DO they teach?
And you are still not acknowledging the fact that you grossly misquoted me and are now trying to cover yourself up by likening a well-respected person’s views to actually teaching the subject.
Anger is only likened to avoda zara when you lose yourself. I have not lost myself, I have not lost my temper, I am merely expressing my deep frustration at having my words twisted by someone else and then not even bothering to back down when they have clearly shown themselves to be in the wrong. You cannot justify misrepresenting someone in order to suit your own very warped sense of thinking. I would still like an apology.
On a different note, I would like to ask a question, and would love to get a straight, non-avoidant answer. You laid claims to certain books, saying that the content in them was questionable (I am referring back to Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and the like). If books are so forbidden, how do you know the content of them, other than what you may have heard from others, which of course could have been exaggerated or twisted round – unless, of course, you have read them? If you have not read them, then with all due respect, you have no idea what you are talking about. And if you have, then please refer to my previous post on the causes of OTD.
Looking forward to your reply. And please do us the favour of thinking very carefully before you do so.
I have a great respect for Yiddishkeit. I love Torah and mitzvos and all things that come with it. And I have seen firsthand that it is those closed, narrow families who try to fit their kids into a very tight box of what is allowed or expected of them that end up with their kids off the derech. Seen it too many times in my community. Those families who are slightly more open and understand that their children cannot be squashed within boundaries end up with their children remaining close to our roots. The predominant cause of going off the derech is actually refusing to see what our children really need from us since we are all individuals. Telling a gifted and artistic child that they are not allowed to paint cause it’s ‘not what we do’ or showing signs of hypocrisy in behavious – that is the problem.
And I see that you declined to either acknowledge my post or apologise to me for what you said. That is a direct contravention of halacha (you falsely accused me of saying something I did not). I am still waiting for my bracha from you, though I am not sure what you could say to me that I would consider a sincere one.
Ready now, you have just made the most laughable yet sad mistake in your reply to me. I asked a teacher in SEM, who teaches HASHKAFA her opinion on literature. Please read things properly before you reply because that will get you into trouble worse than this forum. You are really getting a lot of people angry.
I come from a land down under…
SM – I LOVE music. I sometimes think that it’s a part of me, without music I wouldn’t be able to express myself as well, or let out my frustration or simply disappear to another place. I find the three weeks and the omer the hardest time of year
Everything in this room is eatable, even I am eatable but that, dear children, is called cannibalism and is frowned upon in most societies
not posted for a bit – here is something I wrote a few years ago. I love going to the park and my favourite time of day is just before dusk, when it’s almost empty…
I sit by the lakeside
Nature at its best
A cool breeze ripples the water
And ruffles my hair
Another answers.
Ducks play in the water
A mouse scurries
I see a mother pushing a pram
Hear a child laughing
These moments are precious
To just sit here and watch
The sky on the horizon beginning to turn pink
Two birds race across the twilight sky
The clouds are tinged with orange
Trees rustle gently
Its music vibrates through me
I am lost in its song
Here, in this twilight moment
Sitting by he lakeside
Return to life and its challenges
And in my mind I will return to this moment
This calm and tranquil state of mind
Sitting by the lakeside
I think we are all wasting our time and our words on ready now. He is just not going to change his opinion and it really is like talking to a brick.
For all those who really are interested, I once asked a teacher of mine in sem what was her position on literature (her being well-read and also a writer), as I have always enjoyed writing, yet it is difficult for someone with a wide reading background to break into the Jewish literature market since my English is too good for them and also there are really only three main storylines that are used (shidduch, someone off the derech or finding out they are Jewish, or the holocaust).
She told me: it doesn’t have to be set in a Jewish community, or have protagonists with Jewish names to be a kosher novel. It just needs to follow basic Jewish values and not have Apikorsus. Let me define ‘Apikorsus’ – this means that if it speaks of so called other gods (plural) and this can be taken seriously by the reader, or if the author is trying to put his own atheistic views heavily into the storyline (think Dark Materials trilogy) then it is Apikorsus. If there is only a single deity ever referred to in the story (whether it is called Hashem or God or something else) then it is acceptable. Monotheism doesn’t care what name you call it, as long as it is recognised as being only One, Who created everything.
Magic and the likes: Rabbi YY Rubinstein has an excellent shiur called ‘Harry Potter and Torah’. The fact is that many people today don’t realise that magic exists, and is forbidden to us. That does not mean we should not read stories about it – as long as the magic involved does not come with paganism or Apikorsus added into the story. In many fantasy stories (including Lord of the Rings) magic is merely an ability that some people have and most of them are trying to use it for the good. Referring to above example, there are no pagan rituals involved in the using of Gandalf’s magic, no animal sacrifices or dances round a fire. He simply waves his staff. Also in Harry Potter (what on earth is Hairy Porter? – Never heard of that book!) they wave their wands and say a few words, which by the way have been taken from Latin. There is no connection between the magic portrayed in these books and the black, pagan magic that is forbidden to us. I doubt anything would happen if I took a bit of wood, waved it and said ‘wingardium leviosa’.
Food for thought…
and JMH, you really are weird
I want always to be a boy and have fun
COWER, BRIEF MORTALS!
HAVE YOU BEEN NAUGHTY OR NICE?
indeed, yesterday I was not born!
(or as mrs c would say, ‘I weren’t born yesterday!’)
there is an inn, a merry old inn, beneath an old grey hill
and there they brew a beer so brown
that the man in the moon himself came down
one night to drink his fill
sorry!
mah nem iz inspecteur cleasaeu
yu ar brekking ze lew
iz ziz yur munkeh? yur munkeh iz brekking ze lew.
you touch-a my car-a, I break-a your face
now how about a little bit of pandemonium around here?
Bonzo – he perfect, he so precise, he…
and you can finish off the sentence yourself if you know what it is
In sleep he sang to me,
in dreams he came….
whoooo, it’s the opera ghost!
It’s made from apples – well, mainly apples…
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a large fortune must be in want of a wife
(and now this thread has progressed to Dsicworld related quotes)
anyone ever read The Joye of Snacks?
see the little goblin, see his little feet, see his little nosie-wose, isn’t the goblin sweet – YES!
Look, do you lot want to hear about this goblin or not?
I know who you are! You’re Merlin the Happy Pig!
I am being attacked by a naked baby!
I have often walked down your street before, but the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before…
but I like this version better:
you have often bought treife meat before,
but I’ve never seen you be so indiscreet before,
on your plate a find strips of bacon rind,
and that’s eating the meat from a pig.
You don’t keep shabbat,
I could cope with that,
If you fasted on Yom Kippur I would eat my hat
And I’ve realised that you eat pork pies,
and that’s eating the meat from a pig
(this is not a post, it’s just a comment that there are three dr who related posts on this page alone)
SM – beautiful! I love the rhythm
VM, thanks for clarifying. I just wasn’t sure which direction your comment was coming from
I WANT MY MUMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
this topic doesn’t really apply cause I am already married but I think it really depends on the situation and has to be considered
sorry JMH, I suppose this one is at the forefront of my mind at the moment. Not that I forgot about them, you understand. It’s a difficult situation… you know what I mean, I hope… b’ezras Hashem they should all find zivugim at the right time.
I think I am gonna be sick
Veltz Meshugener – Jewish literature (novels, that is,) don’t do that either. And there is a lot to be learned from the classics. And like I said, if you’re in England then there is certain type of book they like you to read for the exams.
oh shrek, my phone has turned into a cabbage and my network told me that they cancelled my contract cause they were building a rocket to get to pluto
tirza tova bas sara malka for a shidduch. thanks so much
Just one more thought that came to me – the internet is so much more dangerous than a secular book since it has no limitations, whereas a book once it’s finished that’s it. If secular literature is so evil, why would someone with those views deem it ok (and approriate) not just to use the internet, but to have a profile on a forum where they can converse freely with both men and women?
Just a thought.
think first can I ask you to add another name?
I have a cunning plan
And as long as the syllable count in each line matches (or are close enough) a poem will flow – please tell that to the people who think poems have to rhyme and as long as they do it doesn’t make a difference how long each line is.
As JMH knows, I love the sea. So here is one that I have tried to bring the rhythm of the waves into the flow of the poem:
The waves coming, crashing, against the shore
Steady, relentless, breaking on the sand
The smell of sea salt filling the air
The feel of cool water against my hand
The sound of gulls crying, far overhead
Steep ragged cliffs, towering tall
The light from a boat, far in the distance
And always, the waves that never stall
Soft white sand beneath my feet
Pieces of seashell scattered here and there
The endless beach, stretching before me
And the smell that lingers upon the air
The soothing, calming, neverending sound
The feeling of ultimate peace and calm
Blissful tranquility, wonderful solitude
Here by the seashore the world knows no harm
I don’t exaggerate when it comes to these things, SM. I tend not to mince my words since I am also very particular when it comes to use (or misuse) of the english language. If I think your poetry is good, that means it is good. (Coming from someone who reads pretty much only secular literature, having long ago despaired of anything decent to read from pretty much all frum authors… please let my comments boost you up instead of making you feel like they are not deserved.)
Thank you JMH! you know that one is my favourite… now how about Purple?
SM, I can vouch for JMH’s previous comment, since you are clearly not one of those writers he is talking about. there is no way I would call the level of your poetry amateur – your sukkos poem was beautiful and once I caught onto the rhythm it flowed wonderfully. it just doesn’t follow most convential A,B,A,B rhyming poems thats all.
and you have to understand, his head really is a strange place to be and I know that cause I have a very similar imagination!
Could we have the tomato stands alone please??