Novelty

Yehudis,

I disagree with your premise about the neshama. Just because it has neither form nor physical matter doesn’t mean its anthropomorphic. It is a spiritual substance, which has a finer type of matter that we cannot perceive.

You can’t get away from the pshat when it says that Hashem blew in the neshama through the nose.

Feminisim is, at its core, the most denigrating movement to women.

It’s all about proving that women are as good as men. It’s about out-manning the man.

In other words, it says feminity is not something worthy in its own right. Feminism seeks to break down the divide between the genders, not celebrate them.

It’s a tragedy that has even seeped into our communities.

And I say this as a woman.

ujm: No clue. Practically speaking, there aren’t many slaves around these days, so no clue what the practical halacha is…

Please, please do not tell a girl you are “willing” to go out with her again. That would make her feel horrible!

How about a text that says: “Hi, It was a pleasant evening last time we went out. Would you be interested in meeting again?” Or something like that.

Don’t make her feel like a nebech by telling her you are “willing” to meet her.

Oh, I thought you were rejoicing over a raise at work… Your superiors finally noticed your worth.
Can totally retire now. 😉

(And at the Coffee Room.)

I’m a writer.

Syag: Problem is that I don’t remember!
Stepped away from internet use for a good few years. Probably best to stay away even now, but my job requires me to use it. And so here I am.

If you can remember any one particular topic you posted on, or a fight you may have had with someone, you might be able to search some keywords. Or you could give us a few hints and we can look for it at this end

Of course we should be teaching our kids to not do such things. However, kids very frequently believe they are infallible. “It won’t happen to me; I won’t get caught!”
Kids think they can get away anything, not realizing that there may be severe or long-term consequences.
I guarantee you that the kid is regretting his mistake now. Let’s not be so quick to condemn.
People do stupid things. They take risks. It doesn’t make them b’etzem bad; it makes them human.
Yes, it was wrong. But at the end of the day, that kid was used as a pawn by people who were intentionally evil. It’s very sad.

I think women will certainly be busy learning plenty in the Messianic era.
We have so few mitzvos that we can keep without the Beis Hamikdash, and once the Beis Hamikdash is built, there will many, many halachos that all Yidden will have to know, and know well.

Depends on what a person is going through.
When a person is feeling particularly frail, mussar might not be the best approach.
Though I’m generally more a mussar person, I’ve a big need for chizuk right now, so I’m swinging that way.
There’s a time and purpose for everything.

Unfortunately, the missionaries target our weakest elements, such as the elderly or teens who’ve had a hard life and haven’t yet “found themselves.” There have been a two conversions to Christianity in my state that I am aware of in the last 5 years.

Are the missionaries wildly successful? No, baruch Hashem, and they never will be. But their tactics have changed over the years. Instead of trying to convert Jews to “Christianity” they now train their missionaries to speak in Jewish terms, trying to convince people belief in Yoshke is supposed to be the most Jewish thing to do… They have whole trainging manuals on how to talk to Jews. They will twist and twist the Torah and confuse people in their attempt to convince them that belief in Yoshke is kosher and, in fact, what Hashem wants.

So many Christians now walk around with a kippah and tallis and speak in Hebrew or Yiddish in order to woo people to their movement. They distance themselves from the crimes of Christianity, saying that it wasn’t Yoshke’s intent for that to happen.
Anything to get Jews to “believe.”

As for alternative medicine, it’s a very iffy area that many people aren’t aware of as being dangerous. Rav Belsky was very against many forms of alternative medicine.

Philosopher, I did answer earlier. I am in my mid-30’s so I’m not very old, but I did become frum in my teens, so it more than ten years.
Whether or not my story is reflective of general societal trends, there will also be roses among the thorns.

Of course it was. Kayin was the first murder, and he admitted his sin and was punished for it.
There’s a very good reason that the dor hamabul was wiped out: because they abused each other. The dor haflaga was only dispersed, because though they were evil, they played nicely with one another.
Free choice has always been.

In fact, have you ever wondered why we don’t have strong nevuah these days? It’s because the yetzor hara for avodah zara was destroyed. Hashem creates and even playing field to allow room for free choice.
Avodah zara was a intense level of connection to idols, whereas nevuah was the intense connection to Hashem. In order to remove the yetzor hara for avodah zara, the level of nevuah had to drop.
If it didn’t we would all run to choose Hashem. That’s the no brainer. Hashem wants us to actively weigh the consequences of our actions and then choose him.

I was brought into the chasidishe world and I married a very normal chasidishe person who was always frum. A little bit of an interesting family history, but a healthy, normal person.
Wasn’t dropped like a hot potato.
I think the generalizations should just stop…

That’s a great question. I’m not positive I know the answer, and I suspect that the answer actually has multiple levels. Here are some thoughts:

1. All people were created b’tzelem Elokim, with a body from below and a soul from above. That soul is what separates us from the animals. That soul was put into Adam HaRishon, who was not a Jew, for he was the root of all humanity.

Adam HaRishon and Chava were given free choice to follow Hashem’s commands or not. They didn’t have a yetzor hara until eating from the Etz HaDaas, but they still had the ability to sin, though they didn’t have the inclination for it. Theoretically, they could have rebelled for the sake of rebellion, but it was like a person who knows he CAN run naked in the street but has no desire to do so.

Animals, unlike humans, have a different type of soul — one that craves comfort, good food, procreation, etc., but it is not a soul endowed with free choice, for it runs only on instinct.

Human beings have the ability to override instinct for the sole purpose of doing what Hashem wants. That goes for all of us… However….

2. Here’s where I’m venturing a tentative guess: I think that people can lose free choice when they’ve pushed the mitzvos far enough away. But to be clear, I haven’t actually studied this inyan. I just know that Paroah’s heart became hard after he rejected Hashem’s words one time too many.
I may be wrong on this entire premise.

3. That said, from what I’ve heard is that when a Yid does a mitzvah, it creates a natural consequence that affects the non-Jews, de-activating, on some level, antisemitism.
Hashem created this world with many laws, and one of them is that when the Jews behave corruptly, the non-Jews retaliate with hatred. I THINK this is more of a klal aspect, but individuals within that Klal should retain free choice until the point that they forfeit it.

Every person — Jew or non-Jew — has the ability to turn to Hashem and serve Him.
Or not.

Hmmm. So Rabbi Yekusiel Farkash, originally from Satmar, made beautiful shidduch for his children. One of them married the daughter of one of the original shluchim…
I guess your theory isn’t totally watertight.

Hmmm. I differ on this one, Avira. People choose others similar to them not because there is supremacism, but because different groups value different things. Some people run after money and smartphones, others go for learning and higher levels of erlichkeit.
A rebbish family taking a modern boy for a rebbish girl just makes no sense. They wouldn’t be on the same page, wouldn’t understand each other, wouldn’t want the same things.
It would be introducing conflict where there should be none.
I get the divisions in shidduchim, even though I didn’t when I was in shidduchim. I wanted rebbish… And now, I realize that I’m pashut not on that level. That’s fine. I wasn’t created to be the same.

I guarantee you, if they want in badly enough, they’ll get in — without or without the kiruv movement.
Do you not recall the story of the “kohen” who wanted the fat tail of the korban?
There was no kiruv movement then… Unless, of course, we’d like to call our naviim as kiruv leaders, which they were.
They may not have been inviting people to their Shabbos tisches, but they were spreading the word of Hashem in a dark and sinful world. The entire Nach is about people who were worshipping Baal and committing the most heinous of averos.
Eliyahu HaNavi had to orchestrate a drought in order to for the people to be willing to listen to his words, and then he had to demonstrate the greatness of Hashem.
He didn’t just ignore the Yidden who were far away.

We Jews are one organism. You can’t let the foot get cut off and expect the rest of the body to not suffer. At the same time, you can’t let gangrene spread up and affect the rest of the body.
Kiruv has to be done carefully, with guidance. But it has to be done.

Music has tremendous koiches. It is a powerful spiritual force, hence the reason that music plays such as a massive role in Yiddishkeit. From the Beis Hamikdash to the Shabbos seudos, music plays a major role. From what I’ve learned, the Heichal Haneginah is one of the highest heichals in shamayim, and for that reason, one is really playing with fire when he listens to non-Jewish music. Non-Jewish music takes it’s koach from tumadiga forces.

This thread is heartbreaking.

While I agree that one in kiruv has to be extremely careful about what his family is exposed to, that doesn’t mean one should avoid kiruv completely. Let’s get back to Skulen. I’m rather familiar with the family, and back in Romania, they adopted more than a 1,000 war orphans. Their doors were open to everyone, whether or not they were frum. Even now, Chesed L’Avraham takes in so many Jewish kids that even the secular authorities don’t want to deal with, raising them up into fine, erliche Yidden.

There’s a fine balance between protecting one’s family and ignoring the plight of tinokei shenishba. There’s a time and place — and a way — to do kiruv rechokim.

Back to Avraham Avinu and Noach:
Who cares if there were no “Jews” as that time? They still had the obligation to bring creations close to the Creator. Kal v’chomer, how much more do WE have to be mindful of those who ARE Jewish, helping them to return home?

As for me, I’m not so old — only mid-30’s — though I’ve been fully frum since I was a teen.
So it has been a while since I’ve been out of the secular world, however, I don’t believe for a second that the because of the changes in the world there is no hope for Jewish souls.
To say so it to say that Hashem is not stronger than the forces of tumah, chas v’shalom.

Kiruv has been a concept since the days of Avraham Avinu, and Hashem even had Noach build the teva for 130 years in order to give people the time to do teshuvah. Noach, despite being a tzadik in his days, did not go out and actively encourage them to do teshuvah. He should have.

It is wrong to put blame on people who are m’karev other Yidden. They are doing what we all should be doing on some level. To blame those in kiruv is to blame the Skulener Rebbe zt”l, Rav Meir Shushter zt”l, the Lubavitcher Rebbe zt”l, etc. One who is not on the level of a gadol should never open their mouth against one is.

I, for one, know that I would have benefitted tremendously from those who put themselves out there for others. Where would I be without them? My Torah, is their Torah. My family, is their zechus. I became frum because of those wonderful souls who shared their love of that which is Pure and Perfect.

The real answer to why there are missionaries sneaking into the frum community is that we are very clearly in the Messianic era, and the Sitra Achra is upping its battle, trying to prevent Yidden from cleaving to Hakadosh Barush Hu.

Missionaries have been developing apologetics and tactics to worm their way in. You can blame Artscroll just as much as you can blame those putting tefillin on people; the doors to our Torah became open to them. Is Artscroll wrong for helping those who want to learn able to learn in the language they know best? Of course not.

The missionaries who go undercover are just following the teachings of their religion, which instruct them to present themselves as a Jew to the Jew, and a gentile to the gentile. It’s evil and corrupt, and sheker v’chazir. Like a pig, they stretch forth their feet — in this case, a tallis and peyos — and claim kosher. But inside they worship a man-made man-god.

Don’t blame the kosher for the unkosher who worm their way in.

Philosopher, I just want to point out that wearing a long wig and wearing a nose ring are two very different things.
A nose ring was a normal, Jewish part of life. Rivka Imenu had a nose ring!
A long wig was never considered an acceptable practice of the Jews. Only in recent years when people are pushing the boundaries can anyone even think that such a practice is in any way Jewish.

I think your issue is that you are thinking of this in English terms.
In Lashon Hakodesh, the word “banim” can mean “sons” or it can be inclusive of both genders, meaning “children.” For an example, “banim atem l’Hashem — you are children of Hashem.”