theprof1

Nuts. Every single invention, unless specifically made to destroy, is to better our living. Cell phones are fantastic, whether for business or personal use. You just about can’t along in business without a cellphone, or possibly a smartphone either. Are there abuses, sure. Let’s get rid of cars because kids take them for joy rides and hurt or kill. Let’s get rid of fire because some are arsonists. Or how about a famous one, let’s get rid of religion because it’s the opiate of the people. Don’t get rid of anything. Learn how to use it. Learn from other people’s foibles and be good. You don’t be rude. I’ll bet that most people who say cell users are rude are probably rude themselves.

That kind of stuff is ridiculous. Some sem teachers think that the only way they can inspire girls is by giving them ridiculous goals and the best carrot is a shidduch. If you daven you’ll get engaged, if you take challah 613 times, if you are diligent in making 100 brochos a day for 100 days. (by the way i’m being facetious. Please dont quote me). didu just be a good yiddish maidel. Daven what you have to daven when the time is. Oh and you can help your mother too. And when Hashem has decided the time has come for your shidduch, you will get engaged. Of course you can daven and say tehilim asking hashem for a quick and good shidduch. But don’t place your trust in segulos. Place your trust in pure Hashem.

The consensus in the Gemora is that Moshiach will bring back Jewish national sovereignty with all the nations of the world agreeing and nobody ever making war with Israel again. He will also make peace between all the various factions within klal yisroel. This is according to Rambam. This means that each faction will go on serving Hashem with their traditions. Everybody will recognize each other’s right to serve Hashem in accordance with their heritage. The Bais HaMikdosh will stand and serve as a central point for Klal Yisroel. Moshiach will rule in accordance with Torah law. The Rambam does not mention whether you lose your head if you answer your blackberry email while in audience with Moshiach. You may have to give your blackberry to an attending Levite before entering the Bais HaMikdosh. During the times of Moshiach we will all have bodies, live and die and be born. We have no idea how long this will last. After Zman Moshiach will come Techias Hameisim. Stick around.

Generally if there isn’t a financial agreement the shadchan butts in. In practice though, most of the time the shadchan has already worked out tentative financial agreements and it all goes smooth. But yes, once in a while things don’t go smooth and the girl and boy do not get engaged. Rarely happens but can happen.

The problem with the stigma attached to therapy of any kind is that people don’t realize that the person in need is actually ill. There’s a saying in yiddish, if meshuga would hurt, he’d be screaming in the streets. Truth is that sometimes it does get that bad and then it’s quite late. Kind of like stage 4 cancer. Post partum depression syndrome is an age old problem which immediate therapy would help fairly quick too. Many young children can receive behavioral change therapy instead of taking various ADHD etc drugs. Job related stress and tension can be alleviated through therapy. So many types of problems and issues can be treated effectively and often quickly, yet are not because of the stigma attached to any therapy. And this stigma won’t change any time soon. Too bad.

Arc, absolutely right. I don’t kid myself with the problems of American Orthodoxy in general, chasidish, yeshivish, modern, whatever. But BH chasidish girls don’t generally go to Israel and BH those who do go to seminary here are wonderful girls. I think that’s what this discussion was about, going to seminary here or Israel. I don’t see that the BY seminary of BP girls are on a lesser yiddishkeit madreige nor learn less than their Israeli educated counterparts. This is not a case of “you get what you pay for”.

Tuition at BY Seminary in BP is about $6,000 a year. The other Brooklyn seminaries are similar. “poppa bar abba” seems to be a virulently anti chasid which is OK with me. You can go ahead and pay $40,000 a year for your daughter in seminary while I pay $6,000 for the same education plus the additional satisfaction of knowing on a daily basis that she and her friends are acting like fine yidishe maidlech. You can allow your highly Torah true values Israeli seminary educated daughter to go out with bunches of boys all over the city trying to find Mr. Brisker Right while our daughters get engaged to a nice chasidish bucher who will sit and learn in kollel for a year or two. Your daughter will finally let you meet the guy after 7-8 dates while you don’t sleep nights worrying. After 2 dates and my daughter saying yeah he looks good, I’ll ask my rebbe and if IYH he says yes brucha v’hatzluche, we’ll make a l’chaim. And all this by the way comes from my yeshivish friends who say they envy my derech.

First of all I think it’s ridiculous to buy a set for a 4 year old. True it’s chinuch but the actual mitzva of chinuch begins at 9, not at 4. Yes we do chinuch much earlier but these are chinuch things directly connected to the person, such as tzitzis and brochos. The general minhag is one esrog and lulav for the entire family. Chinuch therefore is having him do the mitzva like everybody else. Most boys don’t have their own set until they get married. Buying a set for him will make him different and in a spoiling way. OK that said, if you do buy it should definitely be a kosher set, albeit barely kosher for $15 or whatever erev succos.

The comments are interesting to read. Some say shuls shouldn’t sell anything, some say that shuls should sell. The ones who say to sell kibudim all do this because it’s a prime source of revenue. In my shul the month of Tishrei brings in just about 80% of our annual budget in a good bidding year. Add membership dues and we are OK. I think that the comments not to sell have no idea of how their shul’s budget is covered. Maybe if they cut out selling and raise the dues by $500 a year, these comments would change.

Yes I’m sorry I wasn’t more specific about only selling the bliah in the keilim, not the actual keilim. However, Charlie seemed to say that he makes no mechiras chometz contract at all. This would mean that the bliah of chometz in his keilim is oiver al pesach and ossur.

Wow thanks so much, that was beautiful. Happy and healthy. And may you be zoche lilmod ule’lameid all your life.

I’ve explained kavua and kol deporush from statistics. In statistics there’s also such a concept. Kavua means that you’re interested in determining if an instance occurred or not. So the statistical treatment is that this instance either did occur or did not occur. That’s yes or no, in other words kol kevua k’mechtza al mechtza al mechtza, yes or no. In kol d’porush we have an instance that comes out of a population of many, for example teisha chanuyos. Which of the 10 stores did it come from. So we say that it came from the roiv. Why, because in a population of many we statistically decide that it came from one of the total population. The chance in a population of 10 that it came from any is 1 in 10. So in halacho we say that it came from the roiv.

I came to a girl’s house and her father said she’ll be right out. But meanwhile, what mesechta are you learning. I told him. He took out the gemora and wanted to farher me. So i looked at my watch and said oh my, it’s almost 8PM and i have ashiur now but I canceled it. But if you really are insistent about a talmid chochom, I’d better get back to my shiur. And I walked out. The shadchan was not very thrilled.

Vitamin D3 1000 to 2000 units a day. Plus Vitamin C 2000 units a day. Plus flu shot. And last but not least a bissel tehilim praying to Hashem that you don’t catch anything. Truth is that C and D do protect very well against the common cold.

Chocolate

HIE: Yes Torah Vodaas is prime proof of what I said. Rabbi Rabinowitz said this to my father and I in 1967. The situation today isn’t good, granted. But there are still many wealthy people around. If a wealthy man sees a yeshiva that has students and functions, he’ll donate funds. To Gavra: the chasidic system only works for them? It’s not good here? Where is here? Is it because chasidim have the achdus to maintain a community based system of paying? Whereas the yeshivishe community doesn’t have enough ahavas yisroel achdus to accept a child from a talmid chochom father who is out of work? If so, that “It is a good system for them, but is not applicable here”, wherever “here” is, you have a much bigger problem erev Rosh Hashonoh than a tuition crisis.

I once heard from Rabbi Rabinowitz zl who was the controller of Yeshiva Torah Vodaas that yeshivos don’t close because there’s no money. They close because they don’t have students. That in turn causes a lack of funds. Nobody will donate to a dying yeshiva or a yeshiva known not to accept children because they don’t have money to pay tuition. Of course the yeshiva can’t normally have too many such non-payers. But yet this seems to be only in non-chasidish yeshivos. Almost all the chasidish yeshivos and bais yakovs accept every child from their sect, with or without funds. And make up the difference from the rich members of the chasidic sect.

What people generally forget is the origin of segulos and simonim. The main point of tefilah is not the actual act of prayer. It’s the making yourself ready to pray, the work that goes into bringing you to the point of prayer, and then the aftermath of the prayer session. This is the concept of becoming an oved Hashem, of serving Hashem. The idea of making Hashem’s rotzon as your rotzon. Then when you have a rotzon, Hashem gives it to you. Pirkei Ovos. A seguloh was doing something that showed openly your desire to do something that would make Hashem kaviyochol “happy” with what you did. And the seguloh was similar to the idea of what you wanted to accomplish. The seguloh worked because you exhibited clear intention to be an oved Hashem with the act of doing or having the seguloh. That avdus is what made the seguloh work. If not, if you just do segulohs, then you’re in the rut of “mi bikeish zohs miyedchem ramos chatzerei”. Your olos and korbonos are too much for G-d to tolerate.

Lap band is exactly what the name is, a bandaid. Yes you’ll lose weight but you must completely change your eating habits for the lapband to work without complications. You can’t go on eating the way you ate to get you fat in the first place. If you start eating normally then you almost certainly won’t have complications. Hatzlacho.

Not bad, takes getting used to, figuring out where everything is.

I think Landau’s shul on Ave L and E 8.

Why has this issue come up this year? Camps and day camps have always ended about August 24-27 and school has always started the day after Labor Day. And those parents who have a sense of responsibility for their childrens’ material and spiritual welfare have always ensured that they had something to do. When will parents realize that the yeshiva or day school is not a babysitting service nor are they responsible for instilling midos tovos in the children. These are things that should come from the home. I fully understand the plight of parents where both parents work, especially given the economic situation today. But the other side of this is that given the bad situation, yeshivos are happy that they have a 2 week grace period of less expenses. So many yeshivos are cutting salaries because parents aren’t paying tuition and donors aren’t giving funds.