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The only thing I like about the Boston area is the houses. They’re charming, historical, and beautiful, but probably cost an arm and a leg. Although for a cheap Chinatown bus ride, going to Boston can be a fun day trip.
That seems very silly. We have top cosmetic dentists here in NYC. A Columbia or NYU dentist is just as good as a Harvard or Tufts dentist.
I’m grateful I am relatively intellectual, but I’m working on improving appearance and health through diet and exercise. Hence the dearth of recipes lately.
The state of Israel is no unique salvation. While we have the benefit of a country under Jewish sovereignty, applying messianic or prophetic significance to the secular state of Israel is dangerous; who are any of us to know that the medinah is reshit tzmichat geulateinu? None of us are prophets.
There’s a reason why even in Yerushalayim they say LeShanah haBah. The Jerusalem envisioned by our neviim (see Yeshayahu 65, for instance) is a place and time where all illness, injustice, and inequality will give way to a peaceful, joyful world order where we enjoy perfection. That is a world we hope and pray G-d will deem us worthy of soon. We still live in a shattered world devoid of redemption. and while the founding of the Medina seems to be a step in the right direction, the world has only succumbed to more violence, more injustice, more poverty, and more suffering in the past 60+ years. It’s obvious we’re still a long way off from the geulah.
He feels that it’s probably not a real name.
I’ve felt that for frum Jews who never get married, the option for 2 friends of the same gender to live together and share expenses, assets, etc. should be an option. Such a situation would be strictly platonic, but would afford such individuals the comfort of friendship and companionship, as well as stability.
G-d helps those who help themselves. The idea that the Mashiach will drop out of the clouds on horseback is a Christian one. The Jewish concept of redemption posits, as says the Rambam, that humans will act as partners with G-d in bringing about geulah. As much as we seek G-d, G-d seeks us.
Some raisins in this would make it a good hallah for the high holidays.
There are many fiduciary incentives to being married, tax breaks among them.
The Rema was an example of a posek who ruled in accordance with the perceived needs of the Jewish communities he dealt with.
The responsa give us a vivid picture of what Jewish life was like and offer a lens into the needs of the human condition in different times and places. While one, as a matter of policy, shouldn’t drink gentile wine or get married on the Sabbath, it’s interesting to see how these poskim dealt with such scenarios.
Halakha can be flexible within the parameters of what has been codified and received from the Talmud.
If a Jewish couple cohabitates, there is strong grounds to require a get, should their relationship break.
That is my exact point, Oomis. Giving someone a hand up or helping someone is not lewd or licentious. The laws of negiah are intended to guard us from lewdness and licentiousness. Hence the fact that many poskim permit handshakes, which wouldn’t be in the category of the type of improper touch these halakhot guard us from.
American immigration law is supposed to keep illegal immigrants out of the workforce, where they offer cheap labor, such as domestics, baby nurses, short order cooks, day laborers, pool boys, etc. Due to the cheap labor our failure to enforce the law creates, Jews now generally don’t hire other Jews, since Jews generally are in this country legally. Why pay Tzippi a minimum wage to watch your kids, when you can pay Lupe $5 an hour? Why pay Moishe to make bourekas for minimum wage at a kosher pizza place when Juan will do the same for $4 an hour?
What Oomis described is beautiful. To have a rebbetzin of bubbe age look after your child, feed them kosher home cooking, give them a sense of varmkeit, teach them tefillos and zemiros, etc. is precious.
R’ Yisrael Moshe Hazzan, though, explains in his Kerakh Shel Romi that the very function having an organ filled was to emulate the dignified mores observed among the general society; he writes that halakhically, Jews must take cognizance of the standards of the society in which they live. Allowing the organ, for these Sephardic poskim, was an exercise in the more worldly and humanistic attitude inherent in the Sephardic approach.
And, I highly doubt people at JTS care what you think, MDD. While I never attended JTS, there are quite a few frum people who study there, as there is no better institution in the US for the critical, academic study of texts than JTS.
I don’t see how ROB’s reading of the teshuva (or mine) is erroneous, Sam2.
Take the question of weddings on the Shabbat. To avoid loss, and to promote human dignity, the Rema was matir it. Poskim being responsive to human need is not inherently a bad thing. (I don’t see how making a kinyan, in any event, violates shabbat. BM 9 says that while making a kinyan on shabbat isn’t desirable, a kinyan made on shabbat still takes effect).
A piece of leather halakhically is like a piece of dried wood. It’s not food, just as many would pasken that gelatin is like a piece of dried wood.
Not per se. In fact, maybe many kids are better off with one widowed parent than 2 parents who hate each other’s kishkes.
But, research does show that children raised by 2 parents who are stable and committed in their marriage do have better outcomes than those who don’t. A certain Lubavitch celebrity rabbi to the stars is often quoted as saying that “the best gift 2 parents can give their kids is to love each other.”
In my experience, just about everyone I’ve known from a broken home, or a situation where there was no shalom bayit, has turned out to be affected adversely or to have mental or emotional disturbances of some sort, whether it be a diagnosed illness, selfishness/narcissism, or other personality and character defects.
ObstacleIllusion,
I’ve recently changed my lifestyle (accounting for the dearth of recipes on my part) in order to avoid a situation like that of the poor hatan in your story!
One tactic that has been observed by many of us is that when well-documented arguments involving traditional sources are presented, and if the results/outcomes aren’t the way people on the right would like them to be, instead of actually offering a rational answer or explanation, the response is ad hominem attacks. You can call someone an apikores, or accuse them of being “Conservative,” (anyone who understands my approach to halakha understands that it is quite the opposite of what the CJLS supports!), or whatever the insult may be, but that doesn’t change reality.
There are many psakim I’ve read in the teshuvot which fall out of what we think of as “Orthodox,” because “Orthodoxy” is a novelty in the history of the Jewish people. Not allowing what is permitted al pi din for sectarian purposes defines much of the policy stances taken by today’s Orthodox rabbis.
I’ve been looking into the organ issue recently, for instance. While Ashkenazic rabbis opposed its use on the grounds of chukat hagoy (if having instruments during tefillah is chukat hagoy, then I guess all of the Carlebach minyanim are sinful) and shevut.
I discovered that R’ Hayyim Ayyush, grandson of Rav Yehuda Ayyush, and son of the Rishon LeTzion in the late 1700s, approved of a decision by R’ Ya’akov Recanati of Verona which allowed the organ.
Also, the Egyptian posek R’ Rafael Aharon ben Shimon paskened that a gentile organist could be used on Shabbat because music connected with a religious occasion is mutar on the basis of ahevut de shevut le shem mitzvah mutar. The Nehar Mitzrayim, R’ Ben Shimon, (15-19) says also that it was a widespread practice to do so among the Sephardim, and the Chida himself even notes (without objection) this practice.
Nowadays, such a posek would be laughed out of Orthodox Judaism (so too would Rav Uziel, the Vilna Gaon, the Noda be Yehuda, and all other poskim throughout the ages who paskened in ways that don’t perfectly satisfy the Orthodox status quo of the past few decades).
The Rambam outlines his methodology at the beginning of the MT. He clearly says that he will pasken based on midrashie halakha or even the occasional Yerushalmi.
His claim that women cannot serve in positions of serarah, for instance, is based on a Sifre (Devarim), albeit most likely a corrupt manuscript.
Likewise, the Rambam paskens that we lay tefillin on Hol haMoed, since the Yerushalmi says so explicitly, whereas the Bavli is ambivalent (the Kesef Mishne, IIRC, argues that because the Bavli says we don’t write safut on Hol haMoed, this should mean we also don’t lay tefillin then).
I do believe that statistically, there is a good percentage of Hispanics, Poles, and Italians with Jewish ancestry.
Still, though, I think having your kids raised by gentile women is a bad idea. A better idea is to have kids that you can take care of; if you cannot properly take care of your kids, have 3 or 4 instead of 9 or 10.
And don’t talk like a baby either. Your date will think you’re a mental case (although maybe if you talk like a baby, you can find another mental case to be happy with).
No, because the goyim eat leather pieces on a roll with American cheese and ketchup at Mickey D’s.
If you want your kids to be fluent in Polish or Spanish, go right ahead. This is another casualty of American immigration policies. At least with the Artscroll Shas in Spanish, Lupe the nanny can help Yanky with his homework.
DY,
Thank you. That was a totally unintentional pun.
My father’s name is Shlomo ben Shoshana.
I’d also suggest reading what Jacob Katz has to say about this teshuva (#124, which was omitted from later versions of the Rema). The outcome was that drinking the stam yenam shouldn’t be seen as something that makes the Moravian Jews sinners. The Rema does, in fact, cite as a reason for writing the teshuva that evildoers are likely to point out that the Moravian Jews are not being punished by the Almighty for their deeds, and use this fact as “proof” that drinking stam yaynam is in fact permissible! It’s an interesting case study, but one which demonstrates a creative halakhic approach to save Jews from being cast as sinners.
Someone above accused the poskim I cited as being “YU/JCT.” I don’t make up these facts, but observing the motivations and outcomes of these decisions shows that great rabbis have exercised creativity and flexibility in addressing these concerns. I don’t always agree with the arguments or the psakim, but this is an undeniable fact about the history of halakha.
Parents are to blame for many people’s problems. Kids who grow up without a mother or father, or whose parents have a miserable marriage generally grow up to model these same dysfunctional behaviors.
It amazed me, for instance, how a young woman who lived in a rather affluent suburb, with frum family considered pillars of the community, with a father who made a high salary, still grew up to lack morals, stability, and mental health.
The Rema finds reasons to permit the drinking of wine made by Gentiles, but it is not because he thinks that the practice is indeed permitted. As he says there, he was faced with the fact that the Jews of Moravia drank wine produced by Gentiles and that their rabbis permitted it. He therefore wanted to show that there was a “slight” reason to permit the wine, “even though it is not according to custom and law,” so that other Jewish communities
would not classify the Moravian Jews as sinners and so that their rabbis would not be those who knowingly lead others astray but
rather those who stumble in understanding the words of the Torah.
Furthermore, even then the grounds for permitting wine made by
Gentiles were specifically in regard to a case when all other drinks were contaminated.
I should have been more precise in my wording above. The teshuva nonetheless does demonstrate a sense of dynamism and responsiveness to the needs of the Moravian Jews.
I was typing without my glasses. The lower case h isn’t too far off from the n on the keyboard.
Thank you for your tefillot, above.
The guy in the OP who didn’t help that poor girl is a Hasid Shoteh, or maybe just a rasha (hard to tell the difference between the two sometimes). A complete lack of regard for a human life or awkwardness should never be justified through the laws of negiah, which were intended to protect us from lewdness and arousal, not normative, day-to-day interactions with people. In such cases, these people make the Torah into a mockery and a laughing stock, r”l.
That last line is a classic, I must hand it to you. After breaking things off with someone who turned out to be a mental case, dealing with a father with the yeneh machla, and a widowed aunt, that brought me a laugh.
Syag, LOL.
I think that weight and shidduchim is obviously a very sensitive area. But, do keep in mind, that there is somebody for everyone. I’ve recently made great efforts to change my habits (hence the dearth of recipes. I’ve lately been eating simply) for my own sake, but also to facilitate shidduchim, so as to not be limited to heavier women.
My humble opinion: Why do you need to go to special lengths to get a 3/4 sleeve top or a knee-length skirt? Plenty of non-Jewish women wear this type of stuff.
ROB is correct in a sense. Halakha does contain meta-halakhic values, which poskim do operate within. Torah is perfect, but the human condition is not perfect. People are imperfect. We’re fragile, we’re weak, we succumb to temptation and changing tides of social mores. Our most courageous poskim found ways to enfranchise all and give all of klal yisrael a place at the table, so to speak. Some of these approaches go a little beyond what we may believe to be correct, but nonetheless, they reflect a degree of being attuned to needs and realities.
The Rema allowed Moravian Jews to consume gentile wine.
Rav Chaim Hirschensohn allowed Jewish men, otherwise observant, to shave with a T-Razor.
Rav Yosef Messas argued that a mechallel shabbat can still be trusted for his kashrut, among other psakim many of you would call him a Conservative Jew for.
The Rambam allowed a man to convert his gentile lady of the house to guard him from the sin of intermarriage, even though she wouldn’t be observant.
Perusing responsa demonstrates that poskim were often unafraid to test the limits of the halakha in such a way as to make it relevant and accommodating to the needs of the human condition.
Rationalfrummie, If it is G-d’s will, and if it’s kedai, may it come to fruition.
And my $0.02 here: Because we’re concerned with making a berakha levatala, and because birkat hamazon may be a de oraita for a woman, but nonetheless a safek, a woman should not recite it again herself, but should instead listen to Birkat Hamazon being recited by a man or woman who have eaten bread and have not yet recited it while having in mind to fulfill her own obligation. The other person should likewise have in mind to exempt the woman listening with his/her recitation.
There are communities that have a Young Israel or Habad or other Orthodox shul that have certainly gone through the extent of building a shul building but not a mikvah (contra the halakha that a mikvah takes precedence). There are places in NJ and also Long Island that have a shul and even an eruv but no mikvah, but a person could drive to a mikvah within a reasonable distance, as Yehuda Yona stated.
There are communities that have a Young Israel or Habad or other Orthodox shul that have certainly gone through the extent of building a shul building but not a mikvah (contra the halakha that a mikvah takes precedence). There are places in NJ and also Long Island that have a shul and even an eruv but no mikvah, but a person could drive to a mikvah within a reasonable distance, as Yehuda Yona stated.
I saw a halakha (maybe in the Maharil) that says that the chazzan on the yamim noraim should try to cry or at least sound as if he is crying when leading the tefillot on such days. Wailing sounds, I suppose, are seen as appropriate and effective on these occasions.
Certainly, much of the Ashkenazic nusach sounds mournful and tearful (even on a Yom Tov), such as for the piyut Le El Orekh Din. In this vein, it would then be appropriate for the hatah to cry. I know that should HKBH bless me with finding my basherta (Please, G-d, may it be soon!), I’d be emotional under the huppah.
There are lots of places with an Orthodox shul, an eruv, and maybe a mikvah in our region. There are only a few actual substantial communities with adequate conveniences.