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Isn’t there a saying that you should talk about friends, food and philosophy.
So one person asked the girl, well, what foods do you like? So she said, nothing really special.
What are your friends like? I don’t have too many.
Then he asked, well, if you would have friends, what foods would they like?
In the USA, we follow Reb Moshe who permitted shaving with a machine.
At any rate, does anybody know of a good picture that shows exactly the 5 spots which are considered pe’as zekanecha according to the various rishonim? Maybe one of our ascii artists can draw one here.
Mosh3, May you and your entire family have a refuah shleima and may your lives be filled with simcha.
I don’t allow my kids any gadgets with video capability. However, I get complaints from one of them who claims that they all have screens now except for the lowest one (Ipod Shuffle), and he can’t see or control what song plays on that type of model which he has.
Anyway, I tell him that unfortunately, many kids have far worse problems to deal with R”L, such as health, parnasa, being an orphan, so that should be the least of his worries. Second, I tell him that when I was growing up, we also had no way to see the names of songs or effectively control the order on our LP’s, cassette players or CD players, yet we all survived, and were very happy kids.
As others have noted, Reb Moshe is matir trimming and even shaving. He says that kimat all the gedolim before the time of the Arizal would trim beards. The Shulchan Oruch in 181 as was also noted by others says it is only those who follow the Ari that are noheg not to trim, and that there is no reason why one must adopt this chumra.
A sefer recently came out with a title like Beards: Halchic Imperative or Kabbalistic Stringency. What I found confusing was that while clearly it is Kabbalistic, as the Shulchan Oruch says, the book seemed to be trying to make a case that we are obligated to follow this chumra, i.e., that it is halachic.
One final question I have is that there is a well-known Mishna that says Eilu Megalchin Bmoed, etc. (Gives exceptions for those who may shave on Chol Hamoed, such as those who were released from captivity, and could not shave before Yontof.) The gemara says the reason for the general issur of shaving on Chol Hamoed is that one should not enter Yontof while he is a menuval (unkempt).
Doesn’t that clearly indicate that A) there is no issur the rest of the year, and B) that it is actually preferable to shave or trim, as it is disgusting to walk around otherwise, especially on Yontof.
Similarly, the fact that an avel Rachman Litzlan is forbidden to shave, doesn’t that indicate that the rest of the klal is allowed?
How is kabbala allowed to contradict an open and shut gemara? We go like the gemara.
If you look at the last volume of the Igros Moshe in Yoreh Deah section, he has quite a long arichus on college and medical school. He conceded that we can’t assur college, and that each situation is different. He also says it is not bitul torah to go to work; and one is even allowed to work to get richer, if he already has enough to live on.
He says that the ideal way to be koneh torah is what the Rambam calls acquiring Keser Torah, where one avoids as much as possible, anything that is not learning. However, he says that in the past, there were only 3 generations that ever did this. The Dor Hamidbar, the Dor of Yehoshua, and the Dor of Chizkiyahu (which really was only two shevatim). All other generations had many people who worked for a living. He says that we need first rate talmidei chachamim who must devote all their time to learning. However, this does not obligate any specific yochid to become a full time learner, although Reb Moshe certainly encourages it.
In addition, the Aruch Hashulchan says in Orach Chaim that today, it is not possible to make melachto arai. The average person needs to make melachto keva and be kovea itim. Only Rabbanim and full time yeshiva students need to make torasan keva.
Furthermore, as stated earlier, trying to make parnasa without advanced training in today’s world is being somech al hanes.
I would add that if one wants to go into learning, he should have the personality to be happy with his learning.
Kasha, you quote the Rambam for one thing, but you don’t quote his halachos in Talmud Torah that it is assur to take money for learning, and that it is a mayleh gedolah to go to work.
SamShark, elsewhere you posted that Zionism is an Issur D’oraisa. That is a very interesting claim. Could you kindly post the verse from Chumash that says so?
Can one be banned from the main YW news board, and not from the CR?
Do people get banned altogether? Can one tell if that is the case?
I personally don’t let my kids have any electronics with video capability, or to have cell phones. Until they are grown, they need guidance, and giving them the ability to download anything anytime any place, or speak to or text anybody without my knowledge can easily cause them to go astray. Yes, they get upset with me sometimes, but the overall results have been that they have not gone OTD.
Learning and secular studies can be very interesting, but only if kids have a chance to concentrate and absorb it. If they do not concentrate because their minds are on other things and they are distracted, then of course schoolwork will seem boring.
Of course they need entertainment, but there are plenty of opportunities for family activities that are healthy and wholesome and do not have risks associated with them.
Chance, your denying that vaccines have eradicated many diseases is ludicrous, as Charlie Hall indicated.
Second, your claim that nutrients are different than chemicals is also strange. All the vitamins are chemicals, so does that make them bad for you? They are made from the same chemical elements as the things you call chemicals. We can produce many vitamins in the lab and there is no difference between the original and the lab product.
As far as whether natural products are better than synthetic products, there are harmful natural products as well, such as poisonous mushrooms, snake venom, poison ivy, etc.
All things are made from atoms which are all made from electrons, protons and neutrons. It takes great chochma to understand what combinations of atoms are good for you, and what are bad for you.
Is sodium good for you? Absolutely, as it functions in ionic transport which is how the nervous system conducts impulses to and from the brain.
Is nitrogen good for you, absolutely, as they are the components of amino acids which are the building blocks of all proteins which do all the important work in your body, such as construct the lens of your eye, the retina, transduce light into nerve impulses, replicate DNA, digest food, etc. etc. etc.
However, mix sodium and nitrogen, and you get sodium azide which is a deadly compound that is used as a preservative in labs.
Only expert biochemists can know for sure what is good for you and what is not, and they only know a small part of the story so far of how the body works, because it is so complex.
So while science doesn’t have all the answers, the quacks certainly don’t. Science has done great things so far, but has a long way to go yet.
The FDA tries its best to throughly test any product for safety and efficacy using sophisticated statistical methods and trials. While they may be wrong on occasion, it is far better than having a bunch of new-age food-fad gurus who do not know biochemistry making these decisions.
As far as socks go, Reb Moshe says it is not necessary to cover anything below the knee. Therefore, he says socks are only a chumrah and can be made of anything, since they are not really necessary at all.
As far as women who wear above the knees or elbows, I am not condoning it, nor do my wife or daughters do it, but perhaps we can me melamed zchus.
The halacha is tefach b’isha erva. An exposed handbreadth (4 inches) of any part of the body that should be covered is considered ervah.
So if the entire area above the knee is shok, then one would not violate it until a tefach was exposed, meaning 3-4″ above the knee, and the same for the elbow. (Note this assumes the tefach is a measure of length, not area as in square tefachim, since then, even a centimeter above the knee may expose more than a square tefach all the way around.)
If this is true, then perhaps that is why many frum women with tichels let it uncover an inch or so above the forehead, since one does not violate until a tefach of hair shows.
I do not believe we must conform our scientific investigations to arrive at a result that we might believe would be more in accordance with the Torah. Rather,, the Torah wants us to seek the emes, period. See the Rambam in Kiddush Hachodesh (17,24). Anything proved mathematically or scientifically even by a non-Jew, carries the weight of Divrei Neviim. His source is probably the gemara in Pesachim where Rebbe Yehudah Hanasi was not ashamed to say that the Chachmei Umos Haolam were more correct in their understanding of nightfall than were the Chachmei Yisroel.
ZachKessin, while at first relativity seems paradoxical, as how can a moving light source emit light at the same speed as a stationary light source (which we know is not true if a person on a train throws a ball, the ball will travel at the sum of the train’s speed and the speed with which it was thrown from the hand), maybe the following makes it more understandable.
Remember that in Electromagnetics, one can either use a field formulation, or an action at a distance formulation. If we think of electostatic interactions as action at a distance, then it makes sense that the speed with which another particle finds out about the existence of a first particle (feels its effect) should only depend on the distance between them, not on how fast one is moving with respect to the other. Does this make any sense to you?
The gemara says one must see his wife before marrying, so looks are important. Therefore, won’t a picture save a lot of time if somebody is not attracted? Especially if they are coming from out of town just for this date.
BTW, for a girl to see a guys picture is in some ways less relevant. My understanding is that women judge guys by their accomplishments and confidence which you can’t get from a picture. If women judged by looks, then half of the yeshivishe oilam would be without wives, since there are so many shlumpy, unshaven, mismatched guys walking the streets of heimishe neighborhoods. It is a miracle that women are so forgiving.
Mod-80, while over and over you will hear in drashos that the Torah way is not the politically correct or liberal or what have you way, in fact, the current norms of our society come from the Torah. I.e., the American way now is to be kind to all handicapped people. In the Torah we find that one does not call up a handicapped person to parshas hamumim (the requirements for a kohen) in order not to embarrass the handicapped person. Today, we have all kinds of euphemisms for handicapped people instead of older terms which were hurtful. This came from Jews and others who pressed over and over again for proper sensitivity. Remember that most non-religious Jews are liberal. They got this as a yerusha from their Torah-observing ancestors, even though they don’t realize it.
The common manners and menschlachkeit of day to day American society does stem from the Torah. Those rabbonim who put it down, are putting down the Torah. Clearly the proper thing to do here is to help without even being asked. The entire Torah is only about menschlachkeit.
Best Mussar Sefer is the second volume about Reb Aryeh Levin in Hebrew titled Tzadik Yesod Olam by Simcha Raz.
These women are all tzidkaniyos for working so hard with the cooking and cleaning. Of course the men help, but the women’s effort into each dish is unbelievable.
Regents are now completely watered down. I believe they should be made much more rigorous. BH at least they are a minimal standard to show some competence in the subject. Things would be even worse without them. Yeshiva kids would goof off in English even more than they do now without them.
Years ago in chem or physics, one had to solve the entire problem. Now they usually do about 90% of it, and you only need to finish them. They also include irrelevant info that was only needed when you actually had to solve the entire problem. Some of the Bio questions border on, Can you circle the earthworm in the picture? How do you feel about pollution?
If you want a more challenging assessment you should have the kids take the SAT subject tests. These are nationally administered tests that seem to better gauge one’s knowledge, and are required by many colleges for admission (usually three in the subjects of your choice).
Note, I am speaking about my recollections of a while back when I took them, and comparing them to my kids’ review books. I hope the subject tests have not been watered down, as well.
What also annoys me is that this bare-boned 150 page softcover NYS regents review in Bio, Chem or Phys, has become the actual textbook used by many yeshivas. It is a complete joke, and was never designed to be a textbook, only a short review.