oomis

WIY, I never tasted a toothpaste that even remotely resembled rootbeer. And if I did, I would use it.

If you are in a situation where wearing them out can cost you your parnassah, there is no chiyuv to do that. Even the WEARING of Tzitzis is not the actual mitzvah. The mitzvah is that IF you wear a four-cornered garment, you must put tzitzis on it, so that when you look at it you will remember all the mitzvos. In order to ensure that men can be mekayeim this mitzvah we deliberately fashion 2 four-cornered garments, taleisim and a talis kotton, so that men would always have a specific four cornered garment to wear with tzitzis on them.

So it stands to reason that if blatantly displaying the tzitzis in the workplace could be harmful to someone’s parnassah, he should save that display for a place where it will not cause controversy and possible Chillul Hashem (“look at those Jew slobs with their underwear hanging out”). The ikker of the din is to look at the garment and remember the mitzvos. That can be done privately.

Thought it was worth printing in its entirety…About the resilience of the human spirit in the face of great challenges of life.

“Invictus” – by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

MAZEL TOV TO ALL on your various beautiful simchas!!!

I vote with my conscience. I am sure that my conscience, having been raised with Torah ideals, is secure enough to pick a candidate who most rabbonim would agree is a good choice. I do not require a Rov to tell me how to think, B”H. I do require a Rov to tell me how to be mekayeim mitzvos in which I do not know the clear derech. That is why I ask Shailas from time to time.

But my Rov’s political beliefs do NOT have to necessarily be in concert with my own, though they MIGHT be. He could be a political Liberal and I might be a Conservative. So should I follow his liberal views and ascribe them to Halachic mandates???? (FTR, my Rov is not so liberal these days).

Rationally thinking adults can all arrive at the same conclusion without the need for a Rov to decide for them, though a discussion with him could surely help concretize our own thoughts, and I think that can be a good thing.

If we read the paper, listen to the candidates as they debate, look at their voting record, etc. we can make up our own minds. I do not believe that it is a given that all political decisions should be in the purview of Rabbonim. If they are politically aware, they can surely help to guide the thought process, but that is a far cry from demanding absolute fealty to their opinion and calling it Halacha.

Harotzeh… I think you speak a bit harshly. FTR, however, this forum is open to all of us, even those with whom you may disagree, as is your right. As long as we respect each other’s points of view and respond in a b’kovodig manner. we can dialogue about this issue. Once people are disrespecting each other…well… you cannot have a conversation about anything at all.

Chaverim (and Hatzalah) ARE malachim, IMO. We once broke down in an area of town that is not known for being frum-Jew friendly, on a Sunday around 5 PM and could not reach AAA. I called Chaverim, but they were on several other calls and could not reach us. Our battery had died for reasons unknown and all we needed was a boost, but we were reluctant to try flagging anyone down to ask for help.

To complicate matters, we also both have a sugar problem, had not eaten in a few hours and had used up the emergency snack we left in the car(lesson to be learned, folks), and had no idea how long we would be stuck where we were.

All of a sudden, a Hatzalah ambulance pulled up. It seems that CHAVERIM had notified Hatzalah of our situation and told them, if they were not needed on another call, could they stop by and give us a boost (and see if we needed any medical help, which fortunately we did not, as yet). They had jumper cables, boosted us, and we were on our way in a few minutes. We were only 15 minutes from home, during this entire event (no one was home to come help us, or we would have called them). Like I said – MALACHIM. And that’s why I regularly donate to both organizations.

I don’t believe he is halachically Jewish. Funny thing, he resembles a young man I know, one of my son’s friends from Yeshivah.

MDD, respectfully, I feel fairly certain that if most poskim agreed that a certain candidate was a better choice, that most of us would probably arrive at that same conclusion on our own. I don’t need to be given a p’sak for my voting choices.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the question, I would probably think she would say thanks but she’s ok (unless she REALLY needs the help). I don’t think there’s anything wrong with offering to help someone with a burden, male or female, if you are comfortable with making the offer to someone of the opposite gender. The Torah teaches us that when we see a man’s donkey has fallen beneath his burden, we are obligated to help pick it up. Why should a human being be less choshuv than a donkey?

How old are you (that might be part of it)? If you are a teen or adolescent, many kids are embarrassed much of the time, just as a matter of course. Truthfully, if you were doing good things specifically in order for people to see that you were doing them, I would wonder if you wanted their praise and were doing it for “show,” so doing them more privately is not a bad thing necessarily.

Davening should not be in that category. We all daven, and we all have to and need to. So unless you are shuckeling a little too fervently or davening in a very loud voice both of which would make people stare, I think you can safely do it even when other people are around.

Thanks! Women tend to like that one over the aveirah and chumrah song. I haven’t actually ever been on a shidduch date yet, so it may have been a little inaccurate 🙂 “

Nope, I actually went out with a guy like one of them, and that was forty years ago!

In matters of Halacha, I defer to my rov and/or Gedolei Hador. In matters of politics, I think for myself. Chances are that if a Gadol has very strong feelings about a given politician, I most likely already share those same feelings, but that is not Torah m’Sinai.

Even a rov can have a personal bias that might influence his decision to prefer one candidate over another, and that bias might not always necessarily be for the general long term good. I would want to know WHY the Gadol chose that specific candidate for endorsement, if I did not care for the same person, and perhaps my opinion would change, if there were a compelling reason.

Though a female, I have always preferred to PLAY sports, rather than watch someone else do the same thing. Football totally turns me off (too violent), baseball is more fun when I am up at bat or center field (those days are LONG gone), and ditto for basketball. I absolutely LOVE volleyball, and was a pretty decent server in my day. The only sport I can stand to watch (if you call it a sport) is gymnastics or artistic iceskating. Sorry, guys, but I have no idea why sitting for hours and mindlessly watching this stuff appeals to you. But hey, I am not the sports police.

As long as it is not caffeinated or has some other diuretic, why not? the idea is to hydrate, not hydrate temporarily with something that will cause it to get lost too quickly. Water is still best, though, ot seltzer, IMO, though many people do poorly with carbonated drinks.

Shopping613 – if you feel you MUST drink cola, at least make it Diet Coke. I drink Diet Peach Snapple or water on Shabbos,and mostly water during the week. If you are trying to lose weight, water is your friend. Sugary cola is not. Not only is it a diuretic that dehydrates you (the caffeine does it), but it has absolutely no nutritional value.

When you load up regular cola, you are adding useless calories, when for the same money you could drink it sugar and CALORIE free. The taste IMO is better (or maybe I just got used to it). You might ask your family/friends to help you by cutting down on the amount of “way too much cola to ignore” that is around, and substituting either the diet drinks or water for some of it.

Try getting into water – it is so much better for you than soda. Vegetable juices (like V-8) are also low calorie AND have the added bonus of giving you some servings of vegetables and fiber, which is helpful to dieting. Fruit juices OTOH, are heavily loaded with calories, so though they are very healthful, it’s actually much better for you to just eat the piece of fruit, rather than drink the juice (though the juice is still better for you than cola).

In the end, this is your personal yetzer hara, and you need to find the way to overcome it on Shabbos (and every day). I speak from experience. Good luck.

How is niche pronounced in Canada?

Have you been to an ENT or even a Gastro-enterologist (you could have serious esophageal reflux)? And no, it is not always post-nasal drip. My daughter had strep even though the doc thought PND, and it took two days for the culture to come back positive.

Good going. Nice way to start Elul. Hatzlacha rabbah in the coming year.

IMO – no. BUT

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NO one should enter their room without knocking and without permission, unless there is a serious and well-founded concern of some type. Kids need privacy, but there has to be seichel involved as well. The ones least in need of locks, are the ones who are most trustworthy. If they “need” a lock, they are possibly up to something, or know that their PARENTS are not so trustworthy and are snooping.

So if the meat, coming from properly shechted kosher beef, were not considered basar, theoretically we could finally eat a real cheeseburger?????? (Because that’s all we are missing in life, right?)

The sugar and drinking water tips are both good but I have recently discovered a way to stop them that works almost instantly. Pour a glass of water and have someone ELSE hold the glass as you drink the water. For some reason, the way you swallow when someone holds the cup of water for you, is not the same as when you do it for yourself. I tried this out myself and was ASTONISHED at how well and quickly it worked. It was even faster than when I drank the water down by myself.

The only reason I can think of that a parent would disown a child if if that child is a true ben sorer umoreh. Joining the nachal chareidi does not fit that category. Shame on the parents, and shame on anyone in a position of leadership who would tell a parent to give up a disabled child as a matter of course. I am not mekabeles that.

I don’t think MOST people are ready to get married at 18. Some may come for a cultural environment where it is accepted readily, but for many of us, our kids were not emotionally mature enough to make the right decision for the right reasons in getting married. We change a great deal from our teens to our early 20s, and what may have seemed like a good idea at 18, might be a “what was I thinking???” moment at 21. It shouldn’t be a magic number that determines marriageability. Each shidduch should be determined on a case by case basis IMO. Some people are ready at a younger age (though I doubt many boys are) and some need to wait a little longer.

I had discussed with the shadchan that I was gonna propose that night. So he told her my plans. When she got in the car that night, she said YES, before I have had a chance to pop the question! SO I told her to hold that thought, we went out to eat and then to the place I planned to ask. By then it was somewhat anti-climatic. At least back in the olden days when that happened, we did have time to savor it ourselves, as no one had cellphones back then!!”

And THIS is why the shadchan should be completely out of the entire inyan once the couple is dating….