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I cannot believe that this is anything other than a troll.
My principle teacher has not listened to music for himself in nearly 20 years, since his own rebbe muvhak died. He made a neder not to listen as a sign of personal aveilus until he found a new teacher of equal or greater caliber in all respects, and he hasn’t found one, so he hasn’t listened.
I am a huge BBQ (not grilling, BBQ – there is a difference!) person, and was actually rather perturbed by the name of this place.
That said, there food is not bad. Ribs are excellent, and their brisket is smoked really nicely and very consistent. Not a huge fan of their sauce – far too sweet and tomato-based for my taste (I prefer Carolina style tangy mustard and vinegar based sauces that use fruit for sweetness), and I prefer pecan wood smoke to the cherry and apple that I believe they usually use, but the meat itself is really great.
Seems to me that there are two focuses in Torah study: (1) Study in order to know how to relate and respond to your circumstances (i.e., practical study of both halacha and hashkafa in order to act properly in a God-focused, God-like manner in all situations); and (2) Purely theoretical study.
It seems that while men have a duty to engage in both kinds of study (though theoretical study can never replace or make up for a lack of practical study, since without practical Torah knowledge you won’t be able to act as you should), women are obligated only to engage in practical study (limud al minas laasos), in order for them to know how to act in every situation in which they find themselves.
In times past, the very limited role of women meant that they were unlikely to encounter any great variety or complexity of situations to which they would have to respond in a way informed by knowledge of Torah. They had to know how to keep a kosher home, keep shabbos and yom tov, daven, ect. This could be accomplished with rudimentary halachic instruction, mostly obtained without book learning by watching their own family while growing up. Of course, as the world became more complex, and a woman’s role became more varied and public, women became more likely to find themselves in real-life situations similar or equivalent to those face by men. Women thus needed to have a borader and deeper Torah-knowledge base on which to draw in order to know how to deal halachicly and hashkaficlly with all the circumstances that they would encounter. This cannot be accomplished by learning a little kitzur shulchan aruch, chumash with ramban, and some mesilas yesharim. It requires serious study of a broad range of text in order to inculcate the rules, principles, and methods of halacha, as well as the Torah values, ideals, and objectives worked out in hashkafa.
Why does the fact that the minhag not to shave during sefira is overriden by concerns for parnassah mean that “all the halachos and minhugim (sic) in Shulchan Aruch fall away because of business reasons”? First, there is obviously (at least to anyone who learns halacha) a major difference between a “halacha” and a minhag, even if both are recorded in shulchan aruch. The pedigree of a particular rule makes a major difference in what kind of factors may suffice to permit a lenient appraoch to that issue. Whether something is d’oraysah or d’rabbanan, gezeirah or takkanah, minhag hamakom, minhag hasochrim, minhag hamedinah, minhag yisrael, ect., are all important distinctions. Also, hefsed m’rubah (not just trite “business reasons” is a major tzad l’hakel for just about anything other than an issur d’oraysah.
Talmud: No chiddush there. That argument is basically a summary of Aristotle’s metaphysics.
I agree with you. Not sure what that has to do with Pascal’s Wager, though. In any case, my point was that “believing in Hashem” likely consists of very different things for very different people. I personally prefer to focus my energies on understanding and following halacha rather than on theological speculation about something as amorphous as “belief in Hashem.” That may work for some, but it certainly does not for all. Each one of us is wired at least a little bit differently, and each needs to find the approach that enables them to move forward as a productive human being and Jew.
Of course. And . . . ?
OP: It really depends on what is bothering you, what kind of personality and thinker you are, why this is bothering you, your level of education, ect.
Different thinks speak to different people, and oftentimes, things on emunah that don’t speak to a particular person will actually have the effect of creating an even greater crisis in emunah.
For example, I can handily deconstruct and destroy just about everything Lawrence Kellerman writes on emunah, find R. Avigdor Miller’s writings to be polemic and completely unconvincing, and think that R. Arush’s (and R. Lazer Brody’s) books are actually rather laughable. Additionally, I find that the philosophical works of most Rishonim (Moreh Nevuchim, Chovos Halevavos, Abarvanel, ect.) are dealing with questions and are giving answers that are completely irrelevant to my considering my own experiences and education in the contemporary world.
By contrast, I find R. Samson Raphael Hirsch’s ideas to be absolutely compelling, although in large part he mostly ignores the issue of “emunah” (in its usual sense).
Each of these kinds of works were written to speak to certain kinds of people.
You should try to talk with people who are broadly knowledgeable about many areas of knowledge, and they may be able to steer you in the direction of works that are more likely to appeal to your own unique intellect and sensibilities.
Veltz: Also to consider is the fact that the study tracked the law school careers – grades in all courses, awards, law journal placement, clinical performance, ect. – and post-graduation employment stats for every Fordham BTL that attended the school over more than a decade. I doubt very much that any individual here or anywhere else could make an assessment based on such comprehensive information, which may explain the difference in the results produced by this study and everyone’s own anecdotal impressions based on their friends, friends’ friends, and family, often based only on what these people choose top relay to others.
Veltz: Fair enough. I don’t really have a good answer. Just relaying what I have seen, and anyone here can choose to believe an anonymous poster or not.
Also interesting, I think is the relationship between a BTL’s success in law school and his ability to learn well, and the type of learning he tends to favor (pilpul, halacha, gemarah, shulchan aruch, ect.).
In my experience, I don’t really see that “good” learners necessarily turn out to be good law students, or vice versa. Though I have found that people who’s learning is heavily focused on halacha and psak seem to do very well in law school.
akuperman: I agree with you. It makes sense that some BTL guys really are just that smart and talented and hard-working, so they succeed brilliantly by either excelling in some respects despite poor writing and speaking abilities, or learning what they are lacking.
Nevertheless, from a statistical standpoint (and I doesn’t understand the science of statistics that well) it seems that yeshiva guys who take the LSAT and go to law school should be a fairly evenly distributed sample set of the general population who fall on a bell curve of ability to succeed in law school. It is statistically strange that 80% of them end up on the extremes and only 20% exhibit average abilities to adapt to their new environment
True. That was so in my case also.
Popa – I believe they thought that releasing such data would be too politically sensitive. Obviously it doesn’t look very good for a law school to be conducting studies about the performance of particular religious groups, though I personally don’t have any problem with it.
The phenomenon you describe with respect to Fordham’s BTL dynamic, is correct, I think, but I found from my own limited anecdotal experience at Fordham (admittedly because of my relationship with the Dean, my view may have been a bit more overarching than others) that this dynamic is generally true of all of Fordham’s student population. a very large part of the student body is comprised of people who “just missed” Columbia or NYU, either due to borderline LSAT scores, or just barely inadequate GPAs or “softs.” I beleive this is likely true of a number of other schools – Emory (where I am now doing graduate law degrees), BU, UCLA, and some others – that don’t have any particular draw as first choices for anyone, but often end up as the fall backs for people who just missed getting into T14 schools and want to be in a particular geographic area.
When I was a student at Fordham, I worked very closely for the former Dean, Bill Treanor on a number of projects. He showed me the infamous Fordham study on BTLs and asked me for my impressions – not because I was a BTL myself, but because I was obviously orthodox and learned (we discussed halachic perspectives on various legal issues often).
Anyway, I can confirm that although as Popa said the study’s conclusions seem strange, the study did indicate that BTL’s LSAT scores or “undergrad” grades were poor predictors of their law school performance, and that 80% of BTL law students over a period of over a decade had placed either in the top 10 or bottom 10% of the class, with no apparent way of predicting were they would end up, and without any equal distribution between those two percentiles. Consequently, the study recommended severely curtailing acceptances of BTL, and certainly to avoid offering them scholarships because there was little way to predict that any particular BTL student would end up doing well and getting a good job after school, thereby extending the schools alumni network, ect.