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Syag, on the other hand certain professions like health care workers, and perhaps yellow zone schools, are required to test frequently, resulting in repeated negatives. The point is not that positivity rate is a perfect metric, but that it helps spot trends. If an area was at 1% and has steadily increased to 6% over the course of several weeks, and neighboring areas have stayed at 1%, then it’s a concern.

If the positivity rate fell, but positive cases and hospitalizations rose, don’t you think the health dept would adjust the criteria for what constitutes a problematic area?

If you’re serious about trying to mess with public health data, then you want sick people to get tested many times over using disguises and aliases if necessary. This way the cases and the positivity rate skyrocket with a comparatively small percentage of hospitalizations, leading to the mistaken conclusion that the virus is now weaker than it really is. If more people die as a result, well then, as they say, it is what it is.

Ben Levi, I understood what you wrote. However you seem to be laboring under the mistaken impression that one Midrash cancels out another. That’s not how Midrashim work. The Midrash you cited is followed by a number of commentators. Other commentators follow the plain meaning of the Pasuk. See Radak for example including both as alternate understandings, as he often does.

The Midrash I quoted above from Kohelet rabbah has nothing to do with with the Midrash you quoted. These are different drashos, with different messages. Midrashim do not have to be consistent, and they are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Pirkei derebi Eliezer doesn’t shlug up kohelet rabbah. They offer alternate explanations. As to the question what the purpose of physical work would be, there are several ways to understand the Torah’s purpose of telling us about gan eden. If you want pashtus, the netziv writes that although gan eden did not need work as it was created in a perfect state, it did need cultivation as time went by. Kohelet rabbah seems to be understanding gan eden as a microcosm of the entire world as it transitions from the trees of gan eden to all of creation. Also as I clarified above, the Midrash doesn’t explicitly read it into לעבדה ולשמרה. That was my addition. If you don’t like it, I won’t be insulted.

All of this is interesting, but to your original point, chazal do indeed mention the obligation to protect the natural world.

To clarify, the words לעבדה ולשמרה are interpreted by some commentaries to refer to spiritual work. Others interpret it to refer to physical work and guarding. The midrash (Kohelet Rabbah) I quoted above does not reference the words לעבדה ולשמרה, but it clearly states that Hashem warned Adam about destroying the world. If you want to explain that as spiritual in line with commentaries on Bereishis, go right ahead if that fits with shmuessen, but you need to first acknowledge the plain meaning of the midrash. See Etz Yosef who understands the midrash as referring to the destruction of the physical creation.

You said in passing that nothing you have learnt includes environmentalism, so I thought you would appreciate having the midrash pointed out to you. If you knew it but disregarded and/or reinterpreted it to fit your politics, then as I said, I’m not the orthodox police, but don’t act like you are either.

“We are witnessing an unprecedented chillul Hashem…”

The entire city, if not the whole country, is looking at the orthodox community and wondering why and how it justifies exempting itself from emergency rules of general applicability designed to protect all people during a pandemic. Because we are dealing with a community whose outlook on life is dictated by the Torah, the assumption is that this widespread breach of derech eretz and disregard for other people lies in some interpretation of the Torah that escapes everyone else. If that is not a chillul Hashem, then what is.

רְאֵה אֶת מַעֲשֵׂה הָאֱלֹקים כִּי מִי יוּכַל לְתַקֵּן אֵת אֲשֶׁר עִוְּתוֹ (קהלת ז, י״ג) , בְּשָׁעָה שֶׁבָּרָא הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא אֶת אָדָם הָרִאשׁוֹן, נְטָלוֹ וְהֶחֱזִירוֹ עַל כָּל אִילָנֵי גַּן עֵדֶן, וְאָמַר לוֹ, רְאֵה מַעֲשַׂי כַּמָּה נָאִים וּמְשֻׁבָּחִין הֵן, וְכָל מַה שֶּׁבָּרָאתִי בִּשְׁבִילְךָ בָּרָאתִי, תֵּן דַּעְתְּךָ שֶׁלֹא תְקַלְקֵל וְתַחֲרִיב אֶת עוֹלָמִי, שֶׁאִם קִלְקַלְתָּ אֵין מִי שֶׁיְתַקֵּן אַחֲרֶיךָ

( I tend to hold the view that the Orthodox Judaism is pretty specific about why the world was created and what our purpose here is and nothing that I have learnt yet includes environmentalism).

לעבדה ולשמרה

Midrash says that Hashem showed Adam all of the trees in Gan Eden, told him all this beauty was created for Adam, and warned him to not destroy His world because if he did no one would repair it after him.

Learnt something.

Fake news. The cdc website says:

“CDC recommends that you wear masks in public settings around people who don’t live in your household and when you can’t stay 6 feet away from others. Masks help stop the spread of COVID-19 to others.”

Fred trump had a middle name.

Yserbius – I agree with that. “Stand by” means either “show support” or more ominously in this context “await further commands,” but I don’t think Trump meant to say either. He wasn’t helped by his pivot to insisting that the problem is antifa because it made it sound like he was telling his troops to be on stand by, but again, he didn’t seem to mean it that way. Truth is, “stand down” is not the appropriate phrase either. It implies that proud boys are your thugs that you can command. He should have been asked to condemn them and disavow their support, not give them orders to stand down.

The real problem is that Trump craves adulation and has shown time and again that he cannot bring himself to disavow the most odious supporters. It takes a lot of blowback and follow up lies until he can utter the words, which then comes across like a little kid being forced to say sorry when not at all sorry. In the meantime, his kkk and white supremacist supporters see all of the delays and hesitancy as proof that he is on their side, which by the way is on him. As with everything Trump, it’s hard to say for sure when he’s intentional, opportunistic, ego-driven, or just plain lucky, or all of the above. I would bet he doesn’t know either. He’s not exactly the self reflective kind.

Interesting variant on the nusach in aleinu is “לתכן עולם” which would give it a very different meaning from the way the phrase is used to promote social causes.

“Vote for Biden if you hate Jews and Blacks.”

Is Trump’s base in play?

What would be the point of a wire? A wire usually refers to a microphone or recording device on the body, which obviously wouldn’t help Biden. He supposedly needed to get help not secretly transmit audio of a live debate. If you’re speculating that the wire was related to some kind of receiver on his body that relayed someone’s voice to a hidden earpiece, that sounds like 1980’s radio shack era technology. Also, if Biden was in fact wearing some kind of hidden device with a wire, wouldn’t someone think to put it under his shirt rather than over the front of his shirt where it could be seen if his jacket shifted. And also, a campaign with 500m on hand would probably spend the additional $20 to get the wireless version of whatever the device was.

Since Rav Shmuel Kaminetsky supposedly endorsed trump before the frum second wave, we don’t actually know if he still holds of the endorsement. Specifically, his basis was hakaras hatov, but does that still stand considering how trump misled us? Unless Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky reendorses trump, then we have to fall back on the halachic principle of safek derabanan lekula (even assuming that a rav’s political endorsement is binding in halacha).

Nomesorah, I don’t know how useful it is to list the opinions before figuring out what people even mean when they talk about Zionism. Is all Zionism the same for the purpose of this exercise? Other than for a few fringe anti zionists who condemn it all with no nuance (or knowledge of facts, history or politics, and a world view that precludes them from examining their world view), what you mean by Zionism matters.

Syag, what is the difference between supermarkets and any other place? Either way, according to your logic, you are highly unlikely to infect anyone, so why ever wear a mask?

The problem with going maskless is that even if you are correct that won’t be reinfected and won’t infect others, unless someone knows you or you wear a sign that announces you as a covid survivor, other people see you as yet another maskless person. They can’t separate you from all the other people who rationalize without evidence that the frum world has herd immunity; or who get deeply scientific and argue that if there was no mass outbreak over the last three months, then obviously it’s over; or who cite various third hand reports of rav such and such who told someone the mageifa is over; or because deblasio and cuomo are untrustworthy idiots anyway. It becomes a self reinforcing cycle of communal complacency and includes people who can and probably will spread the virus. I know plenty of people who do not have antibodies but do not wear masks because no one else is, so (as they explain) obviously one or more of the above theories are correct. They do not differentiate between venues except maybe to the extent that some stores insist that customers wear masks.

People who are concerned about getting infected are then faced with the unfair choice of taking additional risk when they go to public places or alternatively of not participating in something they have every right to participate in because no one else is taking precautions.

It is hyperbolic to say people with antibodies are murderers for going maskless. At the same time, they are contributing to an environment that unnecessarily increases the chances that people will die and/or that unfairly keeps people in lock down to avoid other people. What gives someone the right to prevent someone else from going to shul or to work. Contrary to what is being promoted on these message boards, it’s not at all an exercise of personal freedom. It’s an aggressive act that prevents someone else from acting freely. It’s not like drinking cholov stam because you hold cholov stam is ok. It’s like pouring your cholov stam in the communal vat of cholov yisroel milk because you hold it’s ok.

What I have a hard time understanding is that much of these debates are over masks. It’s uncomfortable, but wearing one is not exactly mesiras nefesh.

Put it in the oven on the self clean cycle, or grill it on high for an hour with the grill lid closed.

I’m not here to argue about hydroxychloroquin. I commented that trump supporters have blind belief in positions he takes (hence obsession with hcq despite global medical consensus that it is ineffective or at least that potentials risks outweigh potential benefits), so when he minimizes the virus it has real world impacts. Someone way up the thread asked what should trump have done. I said he should at least stop lying to his supporters. You don’t calm a nation in crisis by denying the severity of the crisis. That leads to reckless behavior, especially by people who are inclined to believe him. You tell it as it is while reassuring and demonstrating that you are doing everything in your power. Trump chose the route he knows best – he saw it as a PR issue, not a time for leadership. The best spin he could put on it was that he was being a cheerleader. As inadequate as that would have been, it doesn’t even square with the way he unofficially undermined his own health officials and the efforts by governors to get the pandemic under control.

As to your recital of what you said when, you seem to acknowledge that you did in fact agree with my sarcastic portrayal of hcq conspiracy theorists, then called me a liar while simultaneously walking back half of what you said. That doesn’t make me a liar. At most, it means I’m not a mind reader.

@gadolhadorah – I object to calling cult members “sheeplach”. It makes them sound cute.

@health: “That’s definitely True! Unless you have a logical reason…”

No one other than trump and his cult says it’s a wonder drug. Thank you for demonstrating my point.

It was directed at you and others. This analysis of her racial and ethnic background is bizarre. Jamaica is part of America and was a British colony whose economy was based overwhelmingly on African slave labor. According to a petition sent by the Jamaican assembly to the king in 1775, there were 200,000 slaves in Jamaica at the time and very few white inhabitants. Before the u.s revolution South Carolina and Georgia has more in common with Jamaica than New York and Massachusetts. Jamaica remained loyal to England because (or in part because) they were afraid revolution against England would lead to a slave revolt and they needed British protection. Throwing in the possibility of an Irish slave owning ancestor, which is an unproven piece of trivia, is meaningless as way to claim she isn’t what she claims she is. Many slave owners raped or had illicit relationships with their slaves (would also be rape by today’s standards for what constitutes consent). Children born from those relationships were not white. Parsing her dna or reading her fathers Wikipedia page is not only not research, it is completely irrelevant.

I assume you know all that because you intercepted her 23andme test results. Did you also happen to see the amount on the check George Soros sent her for world domination?

I’ve been wondering if Trump’s opposition to voting by mail has more to do with ruining his October surprise than with laying the groundwork for an assault on democracy.

As much as I despise him and his authoritarian loving instincts, it has occurred to me that he is really a second rate authoritarian anyway, too gullible, too insecure, too disorganized, too vain, too weak, too lazy. He can talk about not accepting election results, but I wonder if he could really pull it off. On the other hand, he does excel at the whole television president thing and getting attention. He is all surface, no substance. Notice how he tells everyone to “enjoy” coronavirus briefings, talks about his “ratings” incessantly, nominates people from “central casting”. No doubt, he would love a last minute plot twist not only to win, but also to further cement the narrative that the media is against him, the deep state in conspiring against him, and that the supposed “silent majority” does indeed love him. The biggest political hack of all loves to brand himself as the political outsider.

The problem with a last minute plot twist for Trump is that it needs to be close to election day for maximum impact. He needs something like Comey’s 10/28/16 letter. A September plot twist will be old news by November. But with mail in voting, a large percentage of Americans will have already voted by late October.

Ben Levi – if that was addressed to me: my issue was with what trump failed to say, not with the fact that he referred to freedom of speech (not that someone who wages war on media can ever be said to be champion of the first amendment, but I digress)

As far as BLM and marxism goes: I don’t know what that means exactly. I suspect you don’t either as this thread is full of copy and paste jobs about the soviet union and genocide. I’m no expert on Marxist thought, but it seems more likely that they refer to an academic view of marxism — Marx having been an economist, philosopher, historian, after all, not a soviet dictator — and view history and politics through the prism of class. It’s possible they believe that real societal change happens quickly by revolution (whether ideologically or by physical violence, although I haven’t heard anyone advocate for violent revolution) rather than evolution. This is all very speculative, especially since the context of what you posted was that they were asked if they have any particular ideological direction, none being obvious beyond the immediate goals, and they said yes, they are trained marxists. Just saying the word Marxist doesn’t mean much, at least not to me, other than give a very general idea of the type of influences. Maybe you could explain what about the word Marxist you find scary instead of posting about Lenin. Maybe you could explain why you’re ok with the president giving a pass to racism by focusing on the legality of the speech itself, rather than his views on racist speech, but wouldn’t afford the same to self identified marxists.

Som1 – problematic, not necessarily scared or offended. You should find it problematic if anyone in a position of power cited the first amendment, and nothing more, when asked for his or opinion about something widely understood to be racist or anti-Semitic. This is the same guy who had a problem with the Obama administration’s avoidance of the phrase radical Islam. The issue is not whether racists and anti semites have a constitutional right to their views, but whether he has the ability to call it by what it is when asked for his views. He would not infringe anyone’s constitutional rights if he repeated the statement he made years ago, that the confederate flag should be relegated to museums. You have to ask yourself what holds him back.

If car exhaust spread fatal car crashes, I would be in favor of tailpipe masks.