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To me, this issue becomes a Brisker question. Is zdakah a din in the gavra or in the chefttza? If the mitzva is on the gavra then fine, I give my donation! If the mossad or the meshulach are crooked or are con men, that’s on their heads. If, on the other hand, the cheftza of zedaka is the mitzva, then I, as an apitropos of Hegdesh, must take due diligence to assure that the donation is to a person or organization that is on the up and up.
I agree with APY that is is extremely distasteful and disrespectful to feature Gedolei Yisroel as shills for this or that organization.Note to Milhouse: Some citations would lend verisimilitude to your blanket statement.
The interesting thing about Miller is that the court actually erred. In 1835 the U.S. Army did, in fact, issue Baker shoguns with 12” barrels to Cavalry troops.
a couple of things to consider.
1. Keeping and Bearing Arms is a Constitutionally guaranteed right, no less than freedom of the press or of speech. While none of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution are absolute, I.E. freedom of speech does not include incitement or treason nor does freedom of assembly include riot, those rights cannot be abrogated simply by governmental whim or popular demand or even reasonable suspicion. The operative Amendment isn’t the 2nd , it’s the 5th, something about due process of law. To do what has been proposed above and nationally, for that matter, would violate the aforementioned 5th amendment unless upon issuance of a legal warrant or by adjudication by a court of law and, as a matter of fact, the NICS data base includes only those whose prohibited status has been so adjudicated.2. For those who maintain that the 2nd Amendment doesn’t protect ownership of AR and AK style rifles:
In United States v Miller, 1939. SCOTUS ruled that the 2nd Amendment specifically protects “arms suitable for military formations”. You can look it up.Repeating common knowledge is not lashon hara. Saying something uncomplimentary about a particular Jew which may not be generally known is clearly assur, saying that one Ploni was caught selling treif chickens as kosher is common knowledge and permitted. (i guess y’all know who I’m talking about)
There is no reason to believe, either from Jewish sources or contemporaneous Gentile sources, that the Beis HaMiqdash was anywhere but where the Dome of the Rock now stands. Also note that Bayis Sheini, as rebuilt by Hordus, was also bigger than Har HaBayis. That’s why he had to build the retaining wall (Kosel).
I’m with Joe on this one. Rights aren’t free. They come with responsibilities. The rather modest effort to acquire a photo ID seems well worth the right to vote that it confers. I can see that, in earlier times, it may have been a significant imposition to obtain a photo ID (Heck! in really earlier times, they didn’t exist) but now they are easy enough to get that, barring severe disability, no one really has an excuse not to have one. It’s difficult to conduct normal life without one. Never mind opening a bank account, you can’t check into a hotel or cash a check without one or do a myriad of other things without a photo ID. Why should anything as important and significant as voting be different.
There is nothing particularly sacred about the third finger of the left hand in halacha. It’s status as the ring finger is just a convention and a non-Jewish one at that. When Choson presents the ring under the chupah, he places it on the Kallah’s right index finger. I could see that it might be awkward to wear it there permanently.
Never mind a lion. It’s illegal to have a pet ferret in New York
Adocs, Al pi Halacha, Yaakov Avinu did, in fact, do something wrong. There is a well known kashea is to the effect that, if the Avos were mekayem Kol haTorah Kuleh, how was Yaakov Avinu allowed to marry two sisters which is specifically forbidden. One answer I remember was the Avos were only mekayem kol hamitzvos in E”Y. Yaakov Avinu married two sisters in chutz la’aretz.
Also, in my and my parent’s generations, formal shadchanus as practiced today, was quite rare and confined, almost entirely, to the Chasiddishe Veldt. Most couples, including including those from rabbonishe (Litvish) families, met by introduction by friends and family or they met socially.
Don’t get the”hate”. There are people in my shul whose demeanor and attitude rub me the wrong way. I don’t particularly like them but I don’t hate them. i just have nothing to do with them and, There must be something else going on with the guy in the OP. Wonder what it is.
What’s wrong with Bridge?
MDD1, Sorry, I can only post periodically. With regard to my post, a previous poster opined to the effectthat the fair skinned Ashekenazim came about due to environmental conditions in northern Europe. to which my post was directed. Since the Dor haMabul was several thousand years prior to the migration of Semitic (remember Shem?) Jews to Europe, my post is still relevant. Note that that Yefes, the progenitor of European races, may very well have been blonde, blue eyed and fair skinned, while Shem, our progenitor, possessed dark hair and eyes along with an olive complexion. Anyone who took tenth grade Biology can, then, figure out what happened.
Monseyopoly
Here’s another thought about giving money to random strangers: Is zedaka a din in the cheftza or in the gavra? If it’s a din in the gavra, I.E. I am commanded to give zedaka, then I have fulfilled my requirement with the donation. If the recipient is a fraud, that’s his avla. On the other hand, if zedaka is a din in the cheftza, I.E. the donation is mammon shel Hegdesh, the donor is responsible, as an apitropos of Hegdesh, to ascertain that the recipient is legitimate.
1500 years is far to short a time period for natural selection to produce significant numbers of blonde, blue eyed, fair skinned Jews. That so many Ashkenazik Jews match such a description is most likely the same reason that there were no red-haired Irishmen until the Viking invasion, i.e. interbreeding with Northern Europeans through conversion, annus, and shmad.
Jews who are known by their non-Jewish names, Hmm, let me see. Abaye, Rava, Ulla …
The interesting thing about the Miller decision was that the Court erred in stating that short (less that 18″) barreled shotguns were inappropriate for “military” use. In 1835, the US Army issued Baker double-barreled shotguns to Cavalry troops. The Baker had 12″ barrels.
Slonimer, you seem to be deliberately misquoting me. What is ok with me is not the issue. The point was that the community practice works for each community. The Rav mentioned is someone I know for years but do not necessarily follow. as I said in the case cited, a member of that community davening in the presence of a woman so attired is not sinning, in your community or mine, we would be oiver aveira in such a situation.
Sorry Modesty, You’ll have to make inquiry on your own. Given the vultures on this blog, I don’t want to engender mother shem ra.
P.S. i bet you couldn’t find Slonim on a map,
Akuperma, The so called Little Ice Age began about the 1100s of the Common era and by the late 129th early 20th century we were coming out of it. As an idea of the conditions, in the winter of 1763 (or 1768) New York Harbor froze solid enough that a person could walk from Manhattan to Staten Island.
Slonimer, sorry I could’t get back to you sooner. First, let me remind you and others that this is a hypothetical discussion. So, to continue, without getting too far into specifics, there are certain female characteristics that all agree constitute ervah and some that none (except the burkha nuts) consider so. There is a fairly broad middle ground between the two end points. It is in this middle ground that the controlling factor is community practice, supported by legitimate psak. For instance, I have heard a Rav, of whose bakius and yiras shamaim I am certain, opine that armpits are ervah and they only must be covered (that would rule out tank tops). You or I may disagree and, as you mentioned, we may not be allowed to daven in their presence but members of that community may, indeed, do so and are not sinning if they do.
Mitzvas HasShem are absolute and immutable but their application is, in large part, dependent on community standards and practices. Even the great Hillel is recorded as basing a psak on what he observed the general practice to be in the case in question.King D, the fact is that this hurricane season isn’t really so unusual. To respond in order;
1. Hurricane season runs from August 1 through October 30 every year. Atlantic cyclonic storms (hurricanes) that occur at other times of year are what is unusual.
2. while it somewhat unusual for two Cat 5 storms to make landfall on North America in the same year, the number of named storms this year is about average. the last eleven years have been fairly slow years hurricane wise due to extreme drought in North Africa. Dust blowing east from Africa had a tendency to attenuate storms that form annually in the vicinity of the Cape Verde islands. The breaking of the drought resulted in less hurricane weakening dust.Slonimer, exactly! Your community standards apply to you. You are entitled to disapprove of other standards but as long as those standards have some reasonable rabbinic support, even a das yachid, they are still within the daled amos of Torah.
For instance, it is well known that many frum married women in Lite did not cover their hair which would, in our communities, constitute erva. The limud sechus on them was that in general practice, married women routinely went without hair covering so uncovered hair no longer constituted erva.randOm3X
1. That particular pasuk in Micah is often quoted as source text for the subject discussed in this thread. “Tznius” I.E. female modesty.
2. The Halachah is contextual as well. In the community described, it may very well be assur to daven in front of a woman with an exposed forearm. Likewise, in a community where women only cover the shoulder and top of the upper arm it would appear to be muttar to daven if front of a women so attired.I grew up in a home where Yiddish was spoken as well as English so I did not encounter much difficulty in understanding Taitch. The problem these days is that most American born Rebbis (except those in Chassidishe communities) don’t really speak Yiddish very well so most of what they teach in is “Yinglish” (sometimes called Yeshivish). I maintain that Instruction should be in English. English has, by far, the largest and most nuanced vocabulary of any language, enabling precise translation of the most complicated concepts. Of course, the problem with that is that most American born Rebbis don’t speak English very well either.
P.S. RMF maintained that all Ashkenazi Jews should learn Yiddish as a Minhag Kadosh.
Not dressed to kill. Only dressed to wound.
as I’ve posted on another thread, men looking or not is a halbe tzureh, at best a shvus. An immodestly dressed woman is oiver an issur D’Oraisah of lifnei iver regardless of whether or not men look or have, C”S, improper thoughts.Some random thoughts on tznius:
1. When the Navi says,”…hatzneiah leches im Elokechah.” He isn’t talking about women’s hemlines. For that matter, he isn’t talking to women. He is telling all of Klal Yisroel to eschew arrogance and ostentation in their service of HaShem (“look how frum I am”) and in their daily lives.
2. What constitutes ervah is, at least in part, determined by community standards. For instance, in a community where women wear sleeves to the wrist, a bare forearm might very well be ervah. Whereas those communities that only require the arm and elbow be covered would be perfectly okay with bare forearms.
3. The prohibition that a women violates when immodestly dressed is Lifnei Iver. The thing to remember about Lifne i Iver is that the issur is not causing someone to stumble but placing the michshol itself. Therefore telling men not to look or to control their thoughts is meaningless. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of men can and do control themselves. That doesn’t mitigate the issur in the least.Sorry, Joe. I intended those as two separate thoughts. I did not mean to conflate the denim of avdus with mythology. But as far as mythology goes, we certainly have, and continue to, mythologize our history. A trivial example of which is the Artschroll Gedolim series. I’ve always felt that if Abaye and Rava could, somehow, be transported to present-day Lakewood, they would not recognize the Judaism being practiced. Well, they might recognize the Beis Medrash and that the bachurim were doing something resembling learning. But much of the current practice would be unknown to them.
“Let’s all agree to mythologize American history”
Why not? We’ve done a pretty good job of mythologizing our own history.Re Slavery: Two types of slavery were practiced in the Colonies (later States).One type was Indenture, in which an individual was sold (or sold himself) to serve a master for a fixed period of time. to learn a trade or pay off a debt or any other cause of need, the terms of which roughly correspondto those of an eved Ivri.
The second type, and the type of slavery usually referred to, is chattel slavery in which the master actually owns the physical person of the slave, much as one may own a horse or a cow, the terms of which pretty much correspond to those of eved K’nanni.The U.S. Marine Corps is, in fact, part of the U.S. Navy and does not have a separate Secretariat as does the Army, Air Force and Navy, the Marine Corps being under the latter.
If the rav said that “he would take care of it”, It seems reasonable for the OP to follow up in the issue, I.E. ask what, if anything, the Rav found out and what, if anything, he “took care of”.
Meno, some engineering protocols do, in fact, use decimal inches which works very well but, again, one needs to be familiar with it to us it naturally. What size open end wrench would you need for a nut that measures 0.3125″ across the flats?
Any measuring system works when one is sufficiently familiar with it so as to be able to visualize the measurement and think in those units. For instance, If I tell you that someone is 6 feet tall, you probably have a good mental picture of about how tall that is, but if I say that he’s 1.8 meters tall you generally have no mental image at all. Likewise, If I tell you that it’s 21 degrees Celsius out side, you don’t know how to dress but if I say that it’s 70 degrees F you know instantly what to wear.
Besides the fact that it takes some getting used to, there are, in my opinion, two significant deficiencies in the metric system.
1. There is no metric equivalent for the the imperial foot. The existing metric units are either too big or too small for convenient use.
2. While this doesn’t actually effect every day use, Metric countries also generate electricity at 50 cycles instead of the 60 cycles we’re used to. This is completely silly because. even in the metric system there are 60 minutes in an hour, not 50, and 24 hours in a day. A circle still has 360 degrees not 300. back in the days of analog electric clocks, it was physically impossible to make an accurate one on 50 cycle current. It would run either too fast or too slow.They usually burn it in a high temperature furnace
The unveiling of the Kallah is not only for the Choson. The Eidei Kiddushin must also get a good look at the Kallah or their eidus is not valid. How can they be mayid that Plonis bas Ploni is married to Chaim Yankle Plonawitz if they don’t know what Plonis looks like?
It is also possible that many of today’s Palestinians are descendants of Jews who had been living in the Land since Bayis Sheini and were forcibly converted to Islam during the Arab Conquest.
My family did not eat milchigs on Pesach. Also, my Zeidies only drank white wine at the Seder because of the blood libels. I personally do not follow that custom as it was done out of fear of the Goyim at that time and place.
“So apparently someone does not believe In hashgocha pratis…”
Nisht, I never worried about a “bullet with my name on it”. It was the ones addressed to “Current Resident” that I worried about.
There is a kuntres by the Chofetz Chaim, ZTL, called, if I remember correctly, Machaneh Yrhudah which covers how one should conduct himself when drafted into the Army. He was referring to the Russian or German armies. I read it when I was drafted into the U.S. Army and found it very helpful as it did point out leniencies that one could use in such circumstances.
It seems to me that corn being considered kitnios is due to language confusion. In Yiddish (and German), KORN is the word for rye (or a generic word for grain) which is one of the 5 minim (Kornbroit is made from rye flour). While corn meal can be and is used to make baked goods, one can easily distinguish American corn bread from regular bread made from wheat or a corn tortilla from a flour tortilla.
Re legumes. Bad translation. Legumes are a class of plants that add nitrogen to the soil. The class includes most bean varieties including those that cannot possibly ground to flour like string beans and others (if you grind up peanuts, all you get is peanut butter) and some varieties that no one considers kitnios. For instance. corn, which is generally considered kitnios, is not a legume while alfalfa sprouts, which is, in fact, a legume is not kitnios.Based on the reasons quoted above and others, can someone explain why potato starch ISN’T kitnios?
Just a note To Nechama about Klal Yisroel at Har Sinai. The 600,000 were just the men between the ages of 20 and 60. R’ Moshe ZATZAL, estimated that the actual number of witnesses was around 2,500,500.
What does Ad d’lo yodah have to do with Pesach. The mitzvah of Pesach is zechira which clearly requires the Seder participant to be awake and cogent. The daled cosos, as every one knows, are keneged the four lashonos of geulah and are part of the the zechira. Those individuals who cannot drink four reviis size servings of normal wine over the course of a several hour period without nodding off have a couple of eitzehs:
1. Low alcohol content wine. Normal wine is 12-13% alcohol. Low alcohol wine, very much like “new wine” which was drunk in antiquity, is about 5% alcohol and modern pasteurized grape juice has, of course no alcohol. Note that many poskim hold that using grape juice is a b’dieved at best.
2. While the largest shiur of reviis that I know of is 5.3 fl oz per the Chazon Ish (N.B. 5 oz is a normal serving of wine in the U.S.) there are recognized poskim who hold that s reviis is considerably smaller. One man d’amar, I forget who, holds that a reviis is only 3 fl oz. While it is, of course, preferable to be yotzei all shitos, it might be wise to use a smaller reviis in order to stay awake and and be mekiyaim the main mitzvah of the seder, zechira.
Some of the previous posters are demonstrating my points about
misunderstanding, miss-information and obsession. PS Joey, you are just repeating my advice. The SA is not advising not to speak to women in gantzen. There is no question that sichah letachlis is permitted. So many people simply don’t understand the concepts of what is to be avoided.
Hey, Mods. How’s that for a circumlocution (Am I allowed to say that?)
🙂
Sichah for tachlis perfectly OK. Just keep it short and to the point.
This belongs on the “Heroes” thread
LB, there seems to be some confusion over a definition of heroism. Some previous respondents want to conflate heroism with being a good role model. While there is, of course, considerable overlap, not all legitimate heroes are suitable role models. Likewise, many truly excellent role models may not be particularly heroic.
Not believe in heroes, LB? Preposterous! Thank G-d there have been heroes in Yisrael who arose in time of need and did great things. There are heroes among us now who are moser nefesh for Torah and Klal Yisrael and G-d willing, new heroes will arise when we need them. You could be one of them.
Vide Irma Bombeck “The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank”
The Hamsa seems to be a general middle east/arab symbol that has been adopted by Jews. I don’t know what, if any Kabalistic significance it has.
P.S. The hamsa is a flower, a lily, not a hand with two thumbs.
Which brings us to my candidate for Worst President in my Lifetime, I give you the man who cured me of voting Democratic, James Earl Carter. He helped create and presided over what was thought to be an economic impossibility, double digit inflation with double digit unemployment. 1n 1979, he single-handedly created a gasoline shortage where none actually existed. His foreign policy made America the laughingstock of the international community not to mention a punching bag for every two bit dictator and mullah who wanted to show off their toughness by beating up on the U.S. Add to that the fact that he was a not so closet antisemite and you have the absolute quinella of Presidential rottenness
Nice to hear from you!