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This last point by chassidish theorist is so true, for multiple reasons:
1) Ask around the right way and you’ll find that there is a very large contingent of frum women who just don’t believe any longer. They go through the motions, but they were disenfranchised so they no longer care.
2) Women, in practice, learn better than men when given a chance. Compare your average 17-22 year old women’s knowledge of Halacha to your average man of the same age. It’s shameful that the girl will be able to run circles around the boy. And it’s not just because focus isn’t put on Halacha in boy’s Yeshivas. both genders learn Chumash and what the females learn is miles ahead of the boys. I love hocking in learning with my more modern female cousins because they have a tremendous clarity and desire to know, which I see less by men, who are mostly learning the maarei mekomos their magid shiur put up. Once they get married they get shunted off into the mommy role so they don’t have as much opportunity, but if they would, they would be the top kollelim.
I think we should be teaching gemara to girls. No reason not to. In the 100 years of organized women’s learning, they have shown that they are a benefit, not a liability. It is currently just a system trying to protect mediocre men that is blocking it now.
@UJM, at this point? no. The guy who started HN has that kind of attitude unfortunately, once you treat him terribly, he will never forgive you. But initially? Of course he would’ve. That’s what the community was begging for from day 1. Take our members into Hatzalah, even though they are chasidim.
@UJM, I fail to see your point. Hatzalah of Lakewood changed their name to Hatzala of Central Jersey for political reasons too.
As someone who spoke to the guy whose son choking was the catalyst for HN being opened, it is true that the then Hatzalah of Lakewood had a huge issue of not having enough members to cover the area, despite fully qualified members who had moved into the area requesting to become members. I’m not getting into the “why” of it. If you want to believe it’s because of the levush/lifestyle of the person I’m not going to stop you because there is some evidence of that, but it’s beside the point.
Reality is that the person who started HN is known to be a doer, and also known to respond to threats, put-downs, and attacks by becoming more determined and not backing down. So when Hatzalah responded to them opening by complaining and attacking him, he went further and made sure to really make it a big project and yes, also did some things that were petty. But anyone who knows him would’ve told you that.
Hatzalah begrudgingly put one, then another bus in the area, which wasn’t nearly enough. There wouldn’t be the amount of Hatzalah coverage in the outer communities if not for HN. It’s just a shame that Hatzalah’s ego didn’t allow them to swallow their pride and work together with the new neighborhood members.
I need a vort as well, but I can’t find a girl
Herr Doktor, methinks thou dost need to chill
The Gemara in Kesubos, (תניא הכל בידי שמים חוץ מצינים פחים, see tosfos amud beis) states that when one puts themselves into a dangerous situation, knowing that it is dangerous, they lose that protection. You need to be a bloody dingbat to even think about going, regardless of what happened last year..
Waaaaaiiiittttt>…….. You think OP is talking about the Motty Illowitz song “Berel”? It could be, although no one hates it, everyone loves it. It’s a sung version of the famous Reader’s Digest joke where the lady in the grocery keeps saying “Calm down Susie” as her kid acts nuts, and then when a women compliments her about how well she parent’s her daughter Susie she says “My daughter’s Rachel, I’m Susie”. It’s a nice song, not sure where OP gets his agenda nonsense from.
I want @zuberman back
@fandango, The Iran deal was a terrible deal. It let Iran off the hook just as sanctions were really starting to hurt. Had they waited longer, Iran’s position would’ve been weaker. Trump blew Putin’s Wagner Group to pieces in Syria, and unlike Biden, Trump had world leader’s respect. Just watch the video of Trump discussing Iran vs. Kamala Harris. Trump says something concrete, Harris says “just don’t”. Seriously, I’m sure Iran is so afraid of her.
He’s also gone the longest of any president before pressing for a cease-fire, including Republicans, and has given an insane amount of munitions. We’ll both have our talking points and go back and forth forever. He’s not the best and he’s not the worst, just like Trump
With all due respect sir, I don’t think anyone knows what the dancing donkeys you’re talking about. I googled both “Ich Bin Berel” and “I am Berel” and found nothing. But I would admit that posting this is a halfway decent job of advertising, if that was your angle. So kudos to you.
And to expand on @philosopher’s point. Most music nowadays is just inane electric dentist drill sounds with a few catchy words on repeat, instantly forgettable once the next catchy boom boom comes out. Oh, I forgot the copy/paste insertion of “Thank You Hashem” somewhere in the lyrics.
@coffee Addict, the oly questionis whether modern-day politicians are more dangerous than the listim that endangered Reb Tarfon!
Sinas Chinam is by definition not something that I hate
I go to vote as a civic duty, to show my children that it is important, and to lift the numbers of votes in frum neighborhoods for the purpose of local and state political clout. I see no reason, especially in a state where my vote won’t matter in terms of the Electoral college, to give my presidential vote to people who don’t reflect my values. I will write in someone that I admire or think is closest in terms of values. Either that, or I’ll leave it up to my kids to choose someone and get them more involved.
REALITY: Donald Trump is going to lose if he continues to waste time on fake conspiracies about AI crowds. He wins if he talks policy. JD Vance tried doing that in the Dana Bash interview. Problem is that Trump cannot be told what to do, so he’ll continue to seize on the stupid, and the sycophants following him will continue to copy him, and egg him on. Enjoy President Harris
“The rebba is alive now more than he was 31 years ago”- That’s evading the question, he is in fact no longer alive, no matter what he wrote in a sicha
“A rebbe is mashiach by definition”. That is ludicrous on it’s face, and doesn’t really deserve a rebuttal. But for entertainment value I invite you to walk into 770 and yell ” Yechi Hamelech Mashiach Admor M’Satmer Lolam Va’ed”.I agree with OP to some extent.
It’s a day of mourning, and not for “Inspiration”, do that Yud AV. Our society has gotten wrapped up a little too much in the AREN’T WE SO AMAZING AND SPECIAL AND WE NEED TO BE HAPPY!!! ATZVUS IS TERRIBLE!!!” That’s all true, but not what TishaB’Av is. Tisha B’Av is for you to feel sad, and broken. And try feeling that all day. Tisha B’Av is meant to suck. Mourning sucks.
Weren’t we taught that a dor in which the Bais Hamikdash is not rebuilt is a dor in which it would’ve been destroyed? i.e., the point is that on Tisha B’Av we need to focus on the fact that we still hate each other. “But that’s depressing?” Yes, it is. It’s meant to be. People are way too afraid of experiencing negative emotions.
I know links aren’t allowed, so I’m going to try posting this as a non link and if you’re interested just fix it. . But this from Dovid Orlofsky is something you should be watching on Tisha B’Av. I know it’s Orlofsky, but there isn’t a joke to be found. Just pure Mussar,
https: //torahanytime.com/lectures/ 20692
I don’t get the Women argument though, that’s not the issue.
@Dr Pepper and @Froggie, what happened? did it happen during one of my long hiatuses?
My first account I asked the mods to block/ban me because I couldn’t stay away, and this second account I only used sporadically at a certain point because it became a bit of a boys club. I felt left out of a lot of the inside jokes and didn’t feel like using the CR to feel even worse about myself
@Little Froggie I used to be 2 be or not 2 be, or some iteration of that. I loved the good old days with SiDi, ARWSF, and all the others. Did I become older and more jaded over the past few years? probably. But I was jaded then too and this was my escape. Nuu.
But if this place becomes fun again? I’m not posting anything else in politics or religion. They’re weird circular arguments anyway. (Sorry for using the word weird. I’m Center-left politically, and we’re now contractually obligated to use it)
@Dr Pepper
I wish this place would be more like the old days, I enjoyed them under this and my earlier screen name. I actually made a color war once, though it didn’t last that long.
@Always_Ask_Questions, I was trying to be tzanua but I’ll say it straight out. The reproductive system is entirely enclosed. It doesn’t connect to the mouth. So there is absolutely no way to smell a woman’s breath while she is sitting on a barrel of wine to determine whether you can smell the wine through her. The Gemara says you can.
@Pekak, as many mentioned, No one else asks to remove shoes. But maybe, the reason you guys do it is because you want to incorporate Islam into your cult
Don’t let facts get in the way of a good talking point
@pekak I have never seen that by any other kever. It’s not admas kodesh, it’s a cemetery. There is a holy person buried there
@always_ask_questions, My strong position on this is knowing basic anatomy, just in case @UJM asks.
The second point can be “somewhat” answered by saying that Chazal were infallible back then, but now they aren’t. But the “No True Scotsman”argument is definitely the way most people would argue and in fact lead their lives. Although we need something better than “No True Yid”. No Emese Baalabos? As in, “No Emese Baalabos would make a kiddush without a charcuterie board”
Whoever the Democratic nominee is, they’re going to win if Trump keeps taking the Dems bait and gets triggered the way he has
But now you’re going in circles. So we both know where each of us stand, now answer my question
He ShOoK HaNdS WiTh ThE ReBbE So hE’S MaShIaCh……..
You Chabadevangelsits sound like you’re 5 years old. it has the same energy as my son “My tatty is a policeman and could beat up your Tatty!”
And @UJM, you still haven’t answered the question you were asked originally. How do you explain gemaras where chazal were just plain wrong? I offered a few explanations, which work according to my shitta (and likely yours as well if you thought about it), but according to you, in which chazal were infallible and knew absolutely everything, how for example could they think that having a women sit on a barrel of wine and smelling her breath is a way of being able to tell that she is still a besulah? It just isn’t!
@Always_Ask_Questions. I agree with everything you’ve said. My point from the beginning was that it is a problem that people like OP and UJM were raised thinking that anyone who says like you did is an apikorus. It is a shittah borne out of ignorance of anything other than what was taught to you in Yeshiva or a shiur, and it’s a huge shame that actually learning differing shittos has been so abandoned by the Hamon Am of the Torah velt to the extent that they’ve ceded it to “apikorsim” in their view.
@UJM, it’s the same Rambam you learn, the same Ben Ish Chai. The same Rashbam, Ritva, etc. You just never learnt it, and you were never taught how to react when confronted by it so you react by yelling “HERETIC!!!!”I chose examples that were in my mind because of the thread regarding nusach and tefilah. I’m sure though that your usage of the internet for entertainment is ok with you and your posek, but there are credible poskim who hold that it is not only yehereg v’al yaa’avor, but that your wine is yayin Nesech. I trust that you tell your guests that before you serve them.
@lostspark The Rebbi died before fulfilling what mashiach is meant to do, therefore he wasn’t actually mashiach.
And don’t say Second Coming, that excuse was already taken. You want your new religion to be original.
@UJM, “Personally, I wouldn’t want to have a belief that many shittos would deem the person an apikorus — even if according to another shitta he wouldn’t be deemed an apikorus.”
This is what we call a bad argument. I am absolutely certain that I can find certain things you do that would be deemed apikorsus by somebody….
To borrow from another thread, anyone who davens with a chassidish havara, and prononounces words in ways that change the meaning may have never davened in their lives… Again, according to some shitos, and why would you take the risk?
Do you daven “Rabeinu Tam”? As in, the made up zman of rabeinu tam of 72 minutes in NYC? DO you know how many shitos there are that would consider every mincha you’ve davened after the zman to be a tefilas shav? It may not be your shita, but why take the risk? I wouldn’t want to have that belief….
I can go on for hours.
@Always_Ask_Questions I was responding to the statement made above that there is an inherent difference to Jewish biological makeup in regard to medical treatment, as attributed to the Chasam Sofer based on a gemara regarding Jewish vs. Non Jewish zera. I agree with what you are saying, there will be basic differences between ethnicities and groups based on diet, geography, lifestyle, etc. But there isn’t much of a biological difference between Ashkenazi Jews and say, Middle-Eastern Non-Jews.
We have surprisingly little shared DNA with Western-Europeans. Most is from Italy and Germany, which is where most of us “shtam” from. As persecutions happened we moved Northwest from Italy and Lower Germany but did not have as much mixture with non-Jews
That isn’t to say we don’t have distinct DNA, we do. In fact, most of Ashkenazi Jewry can have their DNA traced to about 350 people in Germany in the 1300-1400s. Which is why there is a relatively high number of Recessive diseases among Ashkenazi Jews. Be that as it may, we still do not differ much from the Non-Jews of the Mediterranean area. (arabs, etc.)
The point I was making about converts ws that according to what @UJM said, there should be a genetic change when someone becomes a Jew, That is to say, a doctor who is treating a recent convert shouldn’t assume that what worked earlier would work now, because the man has changed from Non-Jew to Jew.
@ipchamistabra I can promise you that it is extremely unlikely that someone will go off the derech because he used proper dikduk….
It’s probably more likely that he’ll go off because when he asked why we don’t follow dikduk he was called an apikorus
And there are those who say not. Nu, so we have a machlokes…
Le’maysah, how do you, according to your shita, explain how modern medicine DOESN’T show any difference? That Modern women’s anatomy DOESN’T look the way the gemara says it does? (To be matir a woman no less) How would the Ran explain that?
Far be it from me to dispute a Gemara. I’m not sure what the gemara means, maybe it’s esoteric, maybe not. but I do know what modern science says, and there really isn’t a difference between two people, one Jewish and one not Jewish, where the only difference is their religion, in regard to medical treatment. Does a Ger’s physical biology change when they become Jewish? Sometimes even in halacha seforim you see errors. The Aruch Hashulchan said that one of the issues with drinking milk in America is that they are “known to mix milk of pigs into their milk”. Someone obviously told him that, but it isn’t true, he was misinformed.
Rabeinu Avraham Ben Harambam, who was a Rishon writes this:
א נתחייב מפני גודל מעלת חכמי התלמוד ותכונתם לשלמות תכונתם בפירוש התורה ובדקדוקיה ויושר אמריהם בביאור כלליה ופרטיה, שנטען להם ונעמיד דעתם בכל אמריהם ברפואות ובחכמת הטבע והתכונה, [ולהאמין] אותן כאשר נאמין אותן בפירוש התורה, שתכלית חכמתה בידם, ולהם נמסרה להורותה לבני אדם, כעניין שנאמר “על פי התורה אשר יורוך” וגו’.
“We are not obliged, on account of the great superiority of the sages of the Talmud, and their expertise in their explanations of the Torah and its details, and the truth of their sayings in the explanation of its general principles and details, to defend them and uphold their views in all of their sayings in medicine, in science and in astronomy, or to believe them [in those matters] as we believe them regarding the explanation of the Torah… we find that they made medicinally related statements in the Gemara which have not been justified or validated…”
The point is that this approach isn’t Apikorsus. You may have been taught differently, and if you were taught that it is apikorsus, you were taught wrong.
But back to kuvult’s question, if you are a surgeon and you are about to treat a patient, what are the differences?
@AAQ, the Eliyahu question isn’t a question, because he only ever came to my rebba. The stories about other rebbas are made up
Why is it that with such brilliant, important things to say, has the rebba not issued a single sicha past 1994? How is it that I’ve never been asked to say tehillim for such an elderly man, he never even catches a cold? Get this, LostSpark, when speaking to a Chabadevangelist, the majority of us feel like Avraham talking to the people coming to his father’s idol shop.
@UJM Which things? Also, in regard to the point you made to @kuvult about medicine “What that means is that you can’t automatically assume how a Goy reacts to a treatment will also be how a Jew reacts to it. It doesn’t necessarily either automatically imply that it won’t work for a Jew.” Is incorrect. If you were a doctor, you WOULD assume that it would be the same, because there isn’t a difference physiologically between a Jew or a Non-Jew.
Christianity also started with a group of Jews gathered around a “holy” figure, who couldn’t handle the loss of him dying so they decided he’s first Messiah and then god. It’s Chabad job to make sure that the irresponsible Mashiach talk not escalate into them making him god 200 years down the line. That starts with them answering “no” when asked if he’s mashiach rather than engaging in mealy-mouth double tlak
@UJM Then we may not be arguing, just talking past each other. The point I was trying to make is that it isn’t correct to fault Chazal for not knowing about electricity, vaccinology, anatomy, anything really the way that we know today. They didn’t know about those things, because their scientific knowledge was limited to what the secular world knew at that time. Whether they got it from studying the Torah or from going to Greek medical school is a different item entirely.
What @kuvult said above is correct. It is not a pgam in Chazal that they did not know everything about science. It doesn’t take away from their gadlus in Torah and kedusha AN IOTA. Some of us have been taught that Chazal knew EVERYTHING, and that’s a bad thing to be told, because the reality is that they didn’t. And if you tell someone like the OP “Actually Chazal were right about lice” or “You could be matir a woman if her breath doesn’t smell like wine, that’s how the body worked in those times” You’re setting them up for failure
@UJM That the extent of Chazal’s knowledge includes things that weren’t possible or knowable at the time is in fact mostly without merit. Chazal didn’t invent vaccines because they didn’t have the knowledge of vaccinology. They didn’t understand electricity not because they were deficient, but because they didn’t have that scientific knowledge.
There are examples in Gemara of Chazal using methods of being matir women using methods that are anatomically perplexing knowing what we know now about the human body, but the reality is that Chazal (I believe it was R’ Gamliel in that case although I may be wrong) were experts in THE SCIENCE OF THAT TIME. Either that, or he knew the reality and decided to concoct a excuse in order to be matir a woman who he knew was pure but who might not have had any proof to that.
@yserbius You are right about those, but stainless steel? I’ve heard 2nd hand in the name of R’ Shlomo Zalman that it is only assur because of Minhag Avoseinu. R’ Hershel Shachter as well. Reality is that these things are made much better than in the old days, and it isn’t bolea as it used to. But that is irrelevant to halachic ta’am
@kuvult 100%. Take the gestation period of a snake for example. Chazal says it’s 7 years. It’s just not. There are two choices, either Chazal was working with the knowledge of the time, and that was the scientific answer of the time, or they were trying to make an esoteric point and couched it in the scientific language of the day, even though they knew better, in order for it to be understandable to people.
You could say that there is some sort of snake that had that long of a gestation period that is now extinct, but there is no record of that and it is unlikely that such an anomaly would go unmentioned- The Gemara was written at a time when these things were studied.
Another example would be Ta’am. The walls of modern-day pots and pans are not going to absorb and expel flavor the way pots and pans 2000 years ago. Food molecules are too large to get absorbed into stainless steel to the amount Chazal say it does. But in regard to Halacha, it doesn’t matter. There is a concept called Halachik Ta’am, and it is negated by 1/60 mixture.
Oh please, lets stop with the gematrias and remazim that are just made up fluff. They go both ways, קאמאלא is Gematria 173, and there are 173 words in the Aseres Hadibros! That must mean she’s great, right?
@Always_ask_Questions Very true. I know quite a few people (as I partially exist in the Marrano world of Frum Jews who are center-left/left-wing) who were not voting for Biden because of the absolutely tremendous level of his inability to be president, who are now in her camp because she symbolizes status quo and normalacy, unlike Trump who they were going to vote for begrudgingly/ not vote at all.
Trump has 44% of the vote from his base, those aren’t going away. Will the in-betweeners who were more than happy to vote Democrat in 2022 stay with him, or switch back to Kamala? If she sounds strong, and the GOP continues to focus on dumb attacks like “The Democrats are cutting out the voters who voted for Biden!” or “She laughs funny!” She has a strong chance of winning. Al she needs is a decent convention and she might even be in the lead by Labor Day.
Firstly, @squareRoot, do you have a mind of your own? Just write what you want to say and finished. These Copy/paste excerpts from writers is frankly annoying. And none of us care about the attribution, especially since 90% of the time you preface it the way you do here: “Jonathan Tobin said” etc.
Here is the big problem the GOP has. Trump barely won in 2016 because he was running against the most hated politician ever. People DESPISED Hillary, even dyed-in-the-wool Democrats. Come 2020, even though he was a decent (in my book, I know a lot of you have a different metric and that’s ok) President, people were in my opinion so sick of the constant circus, whether legitimate or blown out of proportion, that they voted for Biden, simply because they wanted someone that represented “normal” which Joe Biden was. Thus, the aberration that was 2016, in which centrists and the few remaining Blue Dog Democrats voted for Trump, was “corrected”, and they voted for the person they most likely would’ve voted for anyway.
2022 showed that. The Democrats managed to gin up enough anger about the Roe V. Wade repeal to stave off the promised GOP Blue Wave that never materialized, and regained the votes of whit working-class suburban women, which is a key demographic for them if they want to win.
Now we get to 2024. The media restarts the Trump is Hitler train, begins protecting Biden as in 2020, and the Democrats get cocky. Biden challenges Trump to a debate, thinking that Trump will say no and look weak, or accept and look like a maniac so that they would have campaign rhetoric about how unhinged “Orange Man” is. Unfortunately, just as in 2016 when the Democrats believed their own hype that Hillary would beat Trump soundly because he was so terrible and took their foot off the gas, they believed their own rhetoric that the GOP claims that Biden was deteriorating mentally was just classic right-wing misinformation. Biden walks in and gets his doors blown off. The cat is out of the bag, and the emperors lack of clothes is there for all to see. Now all those voters who voted for the left in ’20 and ’22 started telling internal Democrat pollsters “Yeah, I know he was the normal guy but….oh my god did you see that!?”. They panicked, especially once they realized that he was so far gone that he was convinced (or Jill was, same thing) that he would stay. What I believe happened is that they didn’t give him a choice. told Jill and Joe that if he didn’t voluntarily step down they would “25th amendment” him.
Now the question is how many of those in-between voters, naturally more inclined to vote Dems as in ’20 and ’22, were in the Trump camp long enough to resist the next few months of “Trump is crazy and Kamala is “NORMAL”.
“The Man from Vilna”
And I believe that money that has been pledged to Biden-Harris campaign can only be transferred to a ticket that has one of them on it. So Harris would have to be the nominee for the DNC money raised so far to e used by the campaign