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After all the goyishe holidays, I purchase kosher candy on sale (most of it has OU-D), and use it for Purim and whatnot.
Jewelry would have been ideal, but obviously, this isn’t an option for you. Perhaps a watch would be appropriate.
Iron Penguin has a point. We live in a day and age where a household needs 2 incomes to make ends meet. A frum lifestyle especially has many expenses associated with it, such as the higher cost of kosher food, seforim, Pesach, shabbat, yom tov meals, wigs (if that’s a particular community’s practice), yeshiva tuition, etc. Halakhically, a ketuba enjoins a man to provide for the kallah. Many families where the husband does not work are on welfare, which is a busha, and immoral.
I hold like the Rambam 100% on the issur of taking compensation for learning torah. If people learn full-time and have the desire or capability to go into chinuch, kashrut, the professional rabbinate, become a mohel, a shochet, etc., then this is acceptable, since they’re not strictly profiteering off the torah.
I learn in the evenings in a kollel program for an hour and a half and I also go to a daf yomi shiur, full of men who work or go to school during the day. They’re a fine group, and when they can be out schmoozing with their buddies, or playing computer games, or watching tv instead, the fact that they use their evenings to learn is inspirational and powerful.
There is plenty of bad and ugly in the world, but there is also plenty of good, and more often than not, goodness emerges from otherwise bad situations.
R’ Yehuda says that both mesahakei de kubla and mafrihe yonim (people who gamble by wagering on pigeon races) are pasul when this gambling constitutes their sole livelihood. The mishna (Sanhedrin 24) says explicitly that people who have a profession and aren’t professional gamblers are not pasul.
Rashi explains that the professional gambler (as JF02 says) isn’t involved in improving society or doing anything useful, and as such, they have no familiarity with business norms, and have no aversion to illegal activity.
In the gemara, there is a machloket R’ Sheshet-R’ Rami bar Hama on why the dice playing makes the gambler pasul. R’ Sheshet says they’re pasul because they don’t contribute to society; R’ Rami bar Hama says that they’re pasul because gambling is an asmachta,(the loser did not resolve to pay if he loses, for he expected to win, and as such, the one collecting money from the bet is stealing, which makes one pasul). For R’ Sheshet, being a gambler is operatively what makes a gambler pasul (he says gambling is not an asmachta, because to be an asmachta, the player has to rely on their own ability, and a gambler is knowingly relying on chance, not ability).
Rif and Rosh both say explicitly that a dice player is pasul due to the fact that he doesn’t contribute to society. The Rambam says that gambling, even when it is stipulated that the winner will take a particular amount, is gezel me d’rabbanan (even if the owner lets the winner take, the winner is collecting for frivolity, as this is gezel). Rambam therefore forbids all gambling, not only professional gambling. And gambling is generally believed to be a davar mechu’ar (Rivash paskens as such), even if you don’t hold like Rambam (and R’ Rami bar Hama that gambling constitutes gezel).
Rabbi Wallerstein’s comments hold correct in a certain sense; gambling is a bad thing, whether you hold le ma’aseh like Rami bar Hama/Rambam, or Rif/Rosh/R’ Sheshet. Whether you hold that a gambler is pasul due to the act being gezel, or due to the fact that a gambler is a miscreant, certainly Judaism views it negatively.
Akuperma,
So R’ Avraham Pam, zt”l, was oiver on avodah zarah, chas ve shalom, since he joyfully gave candy to trick-or-treaters?
It’s better to understand what you’re praying than to mutter words in vain that you don’t know the meaning of.
Many years ago, one of the first things I ever learned thoroughly was the siddur and machzor. I went through all the tefillos line by line, learned the meanings of these prayers, perfected the correct phraseology of the words (listening to proper chazzanim), and went through a good perush on the tefillot. That has helped me enormously, and every summer, I generally do a study of the nusach for the high holidays and look through a good explanation of the tefillot so that I have better kevah and kavvanah.
Whiteberry may be correct. It’s unclear whether our secularized American holidays bear any semblance to pagan roots.
Without getting into that issue, I’d say that if the saintly R’ Avraham Pam and others made a kiddush hashem by being kindhearted to non-Jewish children, so should we, by offering them candy.
What I’ve actually began doing in recent years is purchasing Hershey’s chocolate items after the gentile holidays (Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day) when they go on sale 50=75% off and I’ve used them for shalach manos and our shul gives this candy to kids on shabbos morning (I buy whatever is OU-D, or Kof-K D, and since our shabbos kiddush luncheons are always dairy, I don’t see a problem giving a kid candy in the shape of an egg, pumpkin, or tin soldier).
This sounds like it can describe men, too. I found that after breaking off things with someone, I typically take extra solace in religious matters, and increase learning, etc.
I think the same to myself.
But we need to be worthy of Mashiach. Geulah is partially dependent upon our own actions. The world and especially Klal Yisrael need to make the world ready for Mashiach.
As bad as the world seems, things will only get worse prior to geulah.
Chutzpah klapei shamayim seems to be a pretty well-documented inyan to me.
The MHK Ritva is by far the best one, based on the best girsaot.
It’s klar that HaShem gives yissurim to those He believes can handle them; suffering is seen in the Torah as something which increases faith and builds character.
My dad’s mother is Syrian; his father, Yemenite, which means that I’m “supposed” to follow Yemenite minhagim and nusach hatefillah.
Bukharians aren’t Sephardic; they’re Mizrachim, descendants of Persians. And thus, having them check a racial box that doesn’t apply to them is patently absurd and dishonest, especially since most of their surnames end in -ov or -ova, which are very Russian sounding.
A huge issue and problem is that the Ashkenazim and the rabbinical establishment they upheld in Israel basically lump together any Jews who aren’t Ashkenaz as Sephardic, which is grossly inaccurate.
Mizrachim are Jews who lived in the Near East since the time of the diaspora (70 CE).
Sephardim are those Jews who have a documented origin in the Iberian Peninsula. Halabi Syrians, Turkish, Greek, Western European Spanish and Portuguese, Bulgarian, and other Ladino-speaking Jews are Sephardic. Their roots are in Spain.
Persian, Bukharian, Gorskiy, Yemenite, Shami Syrian, some Morroccan, Libyan, and other Middle Eastern Jews are Mizrachim; they’re not of Spanish and Portuguese origins.
The greatest absurdity in the current 2-rabbi system is that Ethiopian Jews are considered Sephardic! (Which is an utterly ridiculous preposition to make).
And wallflower, having a paternal grandmother whose parents emigrated here from Aleppo, I can make such claims with full confidence and with full knowledge of the realities at play.
Racial identification is highly subjective.
Sephardic Jews are Spaniards by origin; we branched out to the Near East and to many nations in Latin America. In fact, many Hispanics are really bnei anusim and are of Jewish seed (Hispanics with last names such as Abreu-which means Hebrew, Benzaquen, etc. are Jewish, or at least, mi zera yisrael). And Benjamin Cardozo, a”h, is considered the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court.
In the case of what this principal did, I oppose it 100%. Also, Sephardim in this country are enormously wealthy, and predominately Syrian. Many Syrians aren’t Sephardic, but are Mizrachim; i.e. they have no origins or roots in Spain. Also, they’re loaded and have no right to take advantage of scholarships that are owed to poor and disenfranchised kids. These are people whose fathers are involved in all kinds of commerce and businesses, including Duane Reade, Jordache, Crazy Eddy, Century 21, Strawberry, Conway, and others, and not always honestly, as you can recall from the FBI raids on that community in 2008.
You definitely need to crawl before you can walk
1) Learn how to read Hebrew. Learn the dikduk, grammar, vowels, etc. Study both Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew.
2) Learn how to read Chumash with trope marks. Incorporate Onkelos. Learn Tanach, as well.
3) Learn Mishna.
4) After getting down the ability to read Hebrew and after learning a good command of vocabulary for Chumash and Mishna, find a teacher who will help you with Aramaic for Gemara study.
5) Learn how to learn gemara.
6) Start learning Rashi script and approach Rashi on Shas. After Rashi, incorporate Tosafot.
You should be able to accomplish the above with diligence, hard work, good teachers, and at least 10 years or so of study.
I taught social studies to 7th and 8th grade boys in a black hat yeshiva last year.
Worst experience of my life.
These boys had no respect, some of them knew plenty about pop culture, one had cigarettes (in the black hat world, I suppose smoking isn’t seen as a sign of deviance, since plenty of “frum” men smoke), and plenty were violent and abusive towards the teacher and themselves. I also found that they couldn’t write an essay if their lives depended on it.
In many cases, the problem is the student, not the teacher.
For someone on your level, Lost`1970, I’d start off learning Tanakh, more specifically, Chumash with Onkelos. Really, before anything, you should learn Hebrew and dikduk.
So the problem is less about intellect and more about attitude, you’re telling us. In that case, perhaps this is an issue a psychologist should deal with.
Sandwich bags and tupperware have hechshers here, too. I was in Waldbaum’s tonight and saw America Choice’s freezer bags with an OU.
If you’re a BT, stick to the more MO circles, which also tend to have more singles your age.
Build self-confidence. Learn a few jokes, pick up a new language, learn to play guitar, memorize some poetry, work out. These are all things I’ve been doing, and they will make you more attractive in the eyes of the opposite gender.
And find a good shadchan on Saw You at Sinai and try out JWed/Frumster. Many people have had success that way nowadays.
And remember, yesh tikvah. A friend of mine, 37, just married a woman of 40. Her family was misyaesh and ready to write her off as a spinster, but there’s hope for all of us.
I’d seriously answer her questions to the nest of your ability, or refer her to people who can actually answer her questions.
A huge reason why people raised in Orthodoxy reject religion altogether is that they had teachers who refused to answer their questions. I assume you teach limudei kodesh; your training may have included teaching the finer points of dikduk, hilkhot shabbat, etc., but more likely than not, you didn’t study sifrei machshava or the pratim of Jewish theology. This girl may benefit from a meeting with someone who is well-schooled in the fundamentals of emunah, since it seems she may not be convinced of the Torah’s veracity and whatnot.
If you look at his life and work, he taught at JTS, but didn’t adhere to that movement’s ideology (think Lieberman and Dimitrovsky, both of whom none other than R’ MM Schneersohn held of). Times changed for the worst.
I can attest to the gadlut of CC guys. They’re beautiful bnei torah, and if I were a woman, I’d see them being great husbands.
The late gaon Louis Finkelstein, zt”l, used to say “When I pray, I speak to G-d, but when I learn, G-d speaks to me.”
I think the concept of hitbodedut is very important. Unless a person can speak to G-d like a parent or a friend, they don’t have an intimate relationship with G-d.
I look forward to the day when all Jews keep shabbat. Kudos to the SA community for pulling that off.
A handheld device commonly used to make cattle or other livestock move through a relatively high-voltage, low-current electric shock.
How is that not a double standard?
Aaron Chaim,
If you look at his approach, it is a very sensible one. Halakha can either be used in a way that emphasizes gevura, or in a way that reflects hesed, and the Sephardic tradition to which he was an heir most certainly was one of hesed.
Hesed, kocha d’hetera adif, and the emphasis of codified law over pilpul define the Sephardic approach in its purest glory, and there was no greater exponent of these principles in modern times than Hakham Ovadia.
Scarecrows have no religious significance at all.
I’m in a state of avelut of sorts, myself.
He was the one of the only Haredi gedolim whose psakim I find to be grounded in a very sensible approach to halakha; instead of sowing the seeds of enmity through his psakim, his psakim sought to uphold the principle of kocha d’ hetera adif. His psakim on conversion, agunot, gelatin, bishul be shabbat, and so many other issues are obviously at odds with what most Haredim believe, but there was probably no bigger baki than Rav Ovadia, zt”l. We’re all the poorer now, and I for one will be making an effort to learn Yalkut Yosef every day, bli neder.
Sam2, you make too much sense. Being too logical is a no-no. People will accuse you of being a kofer.
Any time Jews who keep shabbos or kosher get arrested for doing things that are against secular law, it should serve as a warning for us to embrace the message of ethical conduct that is incumbent upon us and stress what those obligations are.
a wicked person; the opposite of the “Tzaddik,” the righteous person. This individual rejects the Kingship of HaShem, rejects the Mitzvot, the Commandments, and rejects the Morality of the Torah, thinking he can define it on his own. Generally, the “Rasha” is concerned only about his own interests, rather than about the “zulat,” the other. He or she remove themselves from the larger community, be it the Jewish community or the general community.
When I settle down, I’ll be looking at OOT communities within 3 hours driving distance of NYC. My rationale is that this would enable me to partake of the amenities without the high costs.
Scranton and Allentown are good examples of this. Both places are about 3 hours from NYC, yet I know people living in these communities who drive into the city for shopping and dining every week.
Zionism shouldn’t even be seen as something which divides us into left vs. right, and I’ll explain why.
There are a few people out there who are principled Hirschians. Rav Hirsch is inaccurately seen as a pillar of MO, when in fact, Religious Zionism tends to be rooted in the uber-mystical, particularistic views of Rav Kook. Rav Hirsch was not a mystic, and he was a humanist and a universalist who saw the role of Jews as being a people who dwelled among the broader society, incorporating its merits and aesthetics into the ranks of Jewish life (TIDE). Zionism, by definition, is not compatible with Hirschian ideals. Jewish nationalism would raise questions of dual loyalty; Rav Hirsch was very much a patriotic German. He devotes a long section of his book Horeb (pp. 460-461) to the obligation of Jews to seek the welfare of their government (Yirmiyahu 29:7). If this applied under the Babylonians, who exiled the Jews by force, all the more so in our current countries of residence, in which we settled by choice. If this applied in Babylonia, where Jews were sent for a pre-specified period of 70 years, all the more so today, when the length of our exile has not been revealed to us. For hundreds of years, Jews have honored and loved the rulers of the countries in which they took refuge, and followed all their laws faithfully.
The Torah united all the individual Jews and made them a nation, and therefore even after they were distanced from their land and deprived of sovereignty, they are a nation, not primarily because of their past, nor because of their future, when they hope Hashem will return them to their land, but because they are the bearers of an eternal tradition, a people that fulfills its covenant with Hashem. It was thanks to this identity that they have been able to maintain their existence despite the destruction of their land and sovereignty.
When we mourn the destruction of the Holy Land, Jerusalem and the Temple, we are not mourning any physical weakness that led to our defeat, but rather we affirm that the destruction was a punishment for our sins, and it is over those sins that we cry. Whatever tragedies befell us, we accept lovingly, knowing that they are the chastisements of a loving Father to induce us to improve our ways.
But this Torah commands us that as long as Hashem does not call us back to the land He set aside for us, we have to remain living in the countries Hashem has chosen for us, have a love and loyalty to those countries, and dedicate all our powers and money to the welfare of those countries.
The Torah obliges us, further, to allow our longing for the far-off land to express itself only in mourning, in wishing and hoping; and only through the honest fulfillment of all Jewish duties to await the realization of this hope. But it forbids us to strive for the reunion or possession of the land by any but spiritual means.
In 1864, Rav Hirsch wrote to Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Kalischer, founder of Chovevei Tzion: “My mind is too small to recognize the good and truth that will result, according to you, from your efforts in colonizing Eretz Yisroel. What you consider a mitzvah and a great obligation, does not seem so in my humble opinion. I have no knowledge of secret matters, and I see nothing better than to continue on the road paved by our fathers and predecessors, who made it their goal only to improve our Torah observance, and to look forward to the redemption, which might come any day, if we only listen to G-d’s voice. They never approached redemption through the improvement of the Holy Land, only through the improvement of our hearts and deeds.” (Shemesh Marpei, p. 211)
Likewise, many people who are perceived as on the left end of things are Maimonideans, whose view of Eretz Yisroel is very much in line with that of Rav Hirsch. Rambam believed that the land of Israel has little inherent sanctity on its own merits; rather, he says that a person should live outside of Israel if that would more positively influence his spirituality. He also omits yishuv ha’aretz from his taryag.
I, for one, when saying the prayer for the state of Israel, do not say reshit tzemichat geulateinu. None of us living are prophets and we have no way of knowing that the modern state of Israel is the beginning of our redemption. After 60+ years of violence, immorality, and the other problems that other states deal with, I think my point is especially salient. We’re still a long way’s off from geulah.
If wearing a long tallit katan or wearing big tzitzis, or a wide-brimmed hat, or whatever externalities, will help a person in their avodat hashem, I’m all for it.
I want to add that my deepest and most sincere prayer for myself, and other “special” cases (kids born to broken homes, converts, baalei teshuva, people with medical conditions, etc.) is that all may find their zivug speedily, in HaShem’s timing, and thus be zoche to be boneh a bayit ne’eman be yisrael.
Factory Eyeglass Outlet on Nostrand and Quentin, across from the Madison Jewish Center, has glasses for really cheap prices.
I can teach you nusach, plus operatics and recitatives.
It cannot cure the yeneh machla, but a healthy diet based in fruits, veggies, whole grains, and legumes can certainly help prevent cancer.
Family dynamics in the hone growing up largely determine, or at least, influence, developmental outcomes.
Children of divorce are deeply affected, and suffer from far more emotional and psychological issues than children from stable, loving homes with a mother and a father. It takes a mother and father to raise a child properly and impart the lessons of family life. Those who grow up without observing and witnessing a productive marriage generally will struggle with marriage when they grow up, since they don’t have any strong models to emulate.
Of course, we wish everyone would have a good shidduch. I certainly wish the same for myself, and I also know that some of us do have “special needs;” as someone raised without the benefit of an Orthodox family and years of day school education, I would most likely best relate to someone who grew up in a similar type of home. Likewise, 2 products of a broken home would probably be able to better relate to one another.
In my own experience, kids from divorced homes (particularly girls, but males, as well), are generally diagnosed with a form of mental illness and suffer from intimacy problems.