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Mechitzot being used for the sake of tzniut and preventing kallut rosh is very acceptable. A wedding seems to be the type of event where kallut rosh can be a real concern, and as such, I wouldn’t think a mechitza would inherently be a bad idea in these contexts.
I use the term, even though its use reflects superstitious attitudes and idolatrous tendencies.
We brought ethical monotheism into the world. Our faith is that of patriarchs, prophets, and priests. We preached a G-d of justice and eternity and love in a day when others believed in capricious and fickle deities. That’s an awful lot to be proud of.
G-d is described as being the One who pardons all our iniquities and is slow to chide and swift to bless (as in the yud gimmel middot).
Our mission in this world is to strive to emulate Him. Being godly and having a godly soul mandates that we be like G-d in our actions and dealings with all people. Since G-d’s forgiveness and love are without limit and have the potential to radically transform lives in ways beyond our comprehension, in emulating Him, we are duty bound to forgive. Without offering forgiveness to others, we are living lives that do not witness to and reflect G-d’s nature.
There’s a chashash, one totally justified and corroborated by evidence and reality and the experiences of many people, that people are judged unnecessarily negatively for being either gerim or bt’s. The frum Jew by choice, born to the “wrong” family, whether they be Reform Jews or non-Jews, or an interfaith family, suffers and is tormented by racists and xenophobes.
Don’t be a wisenheimer. You can use your head and figure out the point of what I am saying.
As an overweight/obese young man, I acknowledge a powerlessness over food, and as such, have recently recommitted myself to the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous. 12 step groups are very helpful, and are very much compatible with the spirituality of the Mussar tradition.
I think non-Jewish music that uplifts HaShem is most appropriate. Bava Batra 15b, Rambam, and Netanel al Fayyumi, among others, affirm the fact that G-d chooses prophets from among non-Jews. I think that dignified music without any christological references is non-problematic; the Kerakh Shel Romi says as much.
I think all of us struggle with staying tahor in a world that is increasingly tameh. I think constant prayer helps, personal, non-liturgical prayer as described by Reb Nachman and others. The key is to avoid any possibility for being in impure situations. Perhaps a filter on the computer, such as Covenant Eyes, can help.
I pray wholeheartedly for peace. May our prayers and dreams come to fruition.
Forgiveness is difficult, but it’s a necessary part of finding wholeness in life.
I’ve learned to forgive those who have hurt me, because I believe that those who have hurt me did so out of their own callous disregard for other people and their feelings. I believe that those who hurt me will have to answer to G-d on the yom hadin for their sins, and I think that if you could commit others to the judgment and mercy of G-d, then you’ve done a good job of letting go.
My negative experiences largely come from having dated. I dated some real losers over the years, including those with defects of character and mental illness, but I think that you live and learn. I’ve had the opportunity to witness the ugliest aspects of human nature in those situations, and I’m glad, because now I know to not be as trusting and accepting as I once was.
He also sings a song called Here I am Lord, that is beautiful. The lyrics are taken from Yeshayahu 6:8 and 1 Samuel 3.
Different sodas go with different foods.
Coca Cola goes well with cholent, but I generally only drink it during Pesach.
Dr. Brown’s cel-ray goes well with liver, cream soda with pastrami and black cherry with corned beef.
I don’t know if this is a soda, per se, but the Baltika “lemonade” goes well with Bukharian food, and San Pellegrino Aranciata goes well with Italian food.
I said that I put that Simon and Garfunkel song and You Raise Me Up in the same category of spiritually-uplifting music, both of which are a pleasant relief from the junk that secular music produced.
His father is Jewish and he was raised Episcopalian.
He’s one of the most gifted singers out there. Regardless of his singing Christian music, which I think is tragic, he nonetheless has had an uplifting effect on countless people.
“You Raise Me Up” is one of the most spiritual songs out there. I think of HaShem uplifting me, loving me, and caring for me when I listen to that song.
I’d put “Bridge Over Troubled Water” into the same category.
Many poskim are categorically more lenient regarding electricity use on yom tov than shabbat.
The hallot and desserts are baked Thursday afternoon, the table is set Thursday evening, and all food is done cooking by Friday around 3:30ish.
Funny, because I’ve heard of Bukharians and other Mizrachim use Mashiach as a name for their boys. And, le havdil, Greeks often use the name Christos for their boys (both loosely mean “anointed one.”)
There are places in Boro Park that advertise buffet dinners for men for like $14- they advertise in the Weekly Link and other publications.
With rennet, they argue that it’s davar chadash. Cells do not become davar chadash. You’d need to begin with cells from a cow that has been slaughtered properly, and whether or not the ensuing product is considered meat or not is questionable, since there is no bitul be shishim with a davar ha ma’amid.
One of the advantages of visiting Rome is that Rome has beautiful synagogues that are Nusach Italki. I don’t think one can experience this in any other place (with the exception of EY, perhaps), but it definitely would be a draw for me.
These poems are beautiful, and as a single man who seeks his basherta, and has experienced much pain and sadness and heartbreak along the way, I can definitely relate to these sentiments.
May HaShem our G-d bless all of you with simcha, with shalom, and with a sweet year, and may He lead you to your soulmates in His timing, speedily in our days.
I texted the Mishmeres Chaim number and got a response back that the number was inoperative.
There are a lot of picky people on both sides of the fence. Many people in the parsha actually have a desire to be lifelong spinsters of bachelors, in my experience.
If I were to go to Europe, I’d initially see Rome and Paris. The Jewish life and food scene is remarkable in those cities, and they are both immersed in history.
I cautioned people that it was the website for a choir at a Reform Temple, but it is still a good resource.
Hirschian anti-Zionism isn’t the same as Haredi anti-Zionism, because Haredim reject universalism. They don’t care about the Fatherland or its inhabitants. They care about themselves. That’s not Hirsch’s derech at all. Rav Hirsch saw Jewish nationalism as an obstacle to the type of unity he sought with all people.
And there have been TIDE Zionists, such as Poalei Agudat Yisrael, which was under the leadership of Rabbi Isaac Breuer, and was also part of the Histadrut, Israel’s socialist trade union umbrella. An analysis shows that this TIDE-oriented party had little problem with neither Zionism nor socialism.
There’s an issue with Davar haMa’amid BIG TIME.
Looking into scenarios where shechita isn’t a necessity is more feasible, IMHO.
This is not an Orthodox website, but HBT Temple Singers (Toronto) has a bunch of good stuff: Lewandowski, Carlebach, even some Hasidic niggunim.
For Haredim to quote Rav Hirsch as a rayah against Zionism is ridiculous, because Rav Hirsch dealt with a different worldview and approach to Judaism than do the Haredim.
For Rav Hirsch, Zionism was ill-fitted not merely because of the reasons he gives in his siddur (i.e. that he believes only G-d can restore us to the land), but also due to his universalism and humanism. He saw Jewish nationalism as being in direct conflict to his own sense of loyalty to the Fatherland.
At 18, I wasn’t ready, and at 23, I’m not ready. Parnassah is important, but so is the ability to properly care for another person, children, etc.
Hazal’s dictum to marry by 20 was rooted in a different social reality- most people died much younger back then than nowadays. Even 100 years ago, many people didn’t live past 50.
I don’t think most people are ready for marriage at such a young age. Before you can know someone else intimately, you need to know yourself.
LIU has a great program. It’s a great profession. Solid, steady, and lucrative.
I worked in a very black hat yeshiva as a social studies teacher.
A kid, kind of OTD, asked me if I thought Taylor Swift was attractive. My answer was that I’m not into shidduchim with shiksas, nor women that are hipsters. Needless to say, his mother got a call home that night, and so did the rosh yeshiva.
Carly Simon, Carole King, James Taylor, etc. are among my favorites.
And for the person above using the “No True Scotsman” fallacy in reference to this thread: there are many who would say that a person who uses the internet is “no true frumme yid.” Where does the buck stop?
I think this must be a period to make amends with G-d, ourselves, and others. Kol shofar and the sound of selichot calls us to do exactly that: to recognize we’re sinners, often wretched, in a world that is characterized by brokenness, sadness, and yearning. May our teshuva and our sincere desires to reconnect with the RBSO result in a better world as we approach the new year.
I can’t take it, either.
I love all Jews, but hate a lot of what they believe and stand for, because many Jews don’t live lives of emet v’shalom, and where there is no emet v’shalom, G-d is not to be found in such places and among such people.
This seems to be a dinner cruise. $600 for a dinner cruise is outrageous. If it were for a night or 2, that would be a different story. But a dinner cruise should be no more than $250-$300.
I’d never drive a Ford or a German car. It’s too soon to forgive them for what they did to us. BMW, Mercedes, and VW were all companies complicit in the Final Solution.
There are demons everywhere we turn. Some of us have our own demons to battle on a daily basis.
Note that I never said Syrians were dumb people or less intelligent than others. I did say that culturally, higher education isn’t valued the same way it is in other groups, since business and money making, rather than philosophizing, is their emphasis in life. I know many, many Sephardic hakhamim, and my approach is all based in Sephardic thought I acquired from my teachers.
It’s been a bad month for me, also. Very painful times.
Av is a month of bad tidings.
I wouldn’t say drug addiction is a small problem in our midst. Most OTD cases involve drug abuse. There are scores of drug addicts in our midst, as well as drug pushers (often in Chassidishe circles).
When Palestinian Muslim mothers have a kid that blows himself up, they shrug it off, saying that they have 8 other kids at home.
Let’s hope Jewish mothers don’t take a similar attitude when they lose a child and have many other kids. Each child is precious and a unique gift from the RBSO.
There is a cadre of more black-hatted laymen in the Syrian community. There are those for whom figures like R’ Mansour and R’ Harari Raful are tremendous mashpi’im, and as such, they’ve adopted more Litvish manners and have thankfully, become kovea itim, albeit in a distinctly Ashkenazic model.
However, I don’t believe the rank-and-file are such lamdanim. Culturally, for Syrians, there simply is not the same emphasis on learning and cultivation of critical thinking faculties as among Ashkenazim. Men of the stature of R’ Uziel, R’ Nissim, R’ HaLevi, R’ Yosef, R’ Messas, R’ Hazzan, etc. haven’t generally been produced by the SY community.
R’ Abadi in Lakewood is a tremendous posek and talmid hakham. R’ Elie Abadie is rabbi of the Safra Synagogue in Manhattan, a product of RIETS, and a medical doctor. The Sephardic Institute has been fortunate to have the leadership of R’ Dr. Shammah (an expert in Tanakh) and R’ Dr. Hidary (who has now gone onto Shearith Israel, and is an academic of repute).
Someone suggested to me that the band is a “machshir,” a means of helping you change your relationship with food. I think that psychologically, one needs to change their relationship with food. I’m doing that myself. I’d suggest people check out Overeaters Anonymous. It’s a great self-help group, and the 12 steps and traditions will help you live more abundantly.
As someone with family in that community, and as someone who is very familiar with the dynamics of that community, I know what I’m talking about. I’d venture to say that most posters here are Ashkenazim who lack any deep familiarity with the SY community.
The point I was making was a cultural and sociological one. The Syrians simply do not prioritize learning in the same way Ashkenazim do. Syrians are into family businesses, in most cases. All types of Ashkenazic Jews, secular to Haredi, emphasize learning, whether it be Gemara, or law school and PhD’s. Zev Chaffets emphasizes this in his NYT article on the Syrian Jews, and it is a point which is backed by nothing short of reality.
While there are scholars like R’ Hidary, R’ Shammah, H’ Faur, H’ Sassoon, R’ Abadie, etc. with postgraduate education, academic credentials, and rabbinical credentials, they are the exception, rather than the norm. In many cases, Syrian synagogues had to import Ashkenazic rabbis, due to the dearth of talmidei hakhamim produced by the community (just as Syrians use Ashkenanzic doctors and lawyers, due to the dearth of these professionals among their community). Anyone familiar with R’ Abraham Hecht, or R’ Zvulun Lieberman?
While classic Sephardic Judaism does include very intellectual, open-minded, and forward-thinking rabbis and leaders, this heritage is lost on the Syrian community of today. Anyone familiar with history would know that while AIU, for instance, was embraced by the hakhamim in Morocco, in Syria, there was much opposition to efforts to provide proper education, opposition to Zionism, and an overall retrograde agenda that was generally unseen elsewhere in the Sephardic world.
You can always try the Men’s Wearhouse and take it to a shatnez tester in Teaneck or Lakewood.
Most Sephardim aren’t particularly intellectually-inclined. The Syrian community in NY, for example, hasn’t produced many talmidei hakhamim or doctors or lawyers (although this may be changing with the newer generation). Business and making money, rather than pursuing emet, chochma, and maddah, is their typical raison d’etre. While historically, our tradition was a rationalistic one, most Mizrahim nowadays are into vernacular religious devotions and superstitious practices. Some of Hannah Arendt’s observations on this are entirely factual, unfortunately.
I’d be the first to say that the Judaism of the Rambam, Grace Aguilar, Rav Uziel, R’ Sabato Morais, Rav HD Halevi, R’ Hazzan, Hakham Faur, Rav Kapach, Jacques Lyons, and other luminaries of the Classical Sephardic tradition is very different from the Judaism of Shas, R’ Amnon Yitzhak, Deal, Avenue T, and hamsas.