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No doubt, he keeps going further and further… over lines that are made up and have no meaning. Take the sushi thread as an example. Imagine he started as a nice boy in New Square, eating cholent. Then he wanted to taste stew. Fine, it’s not cholent but he can experiment a little. But before you know it, he’s eating things like feta cheese and salmon. This is totally different from the foods we know and are used to, like cottage cheese and lox. And you know what I heard? I heard that he was seen eating sushi. I mean, how far is he going to go? The rabbonim were right to hound and persecute him that time when he put ketchup on his kugel. You see, they were on to something, but only now do we know how right they were!
Why are designer clothes so expensive?
Abra Cadabra, did you notice the rest of the article on Snopes, about how this legend goes back decades, and has been told about many celebrities or rich people, and was similar to the plot of an Oscar Wilde story? How about the part of the article that talks about Trump lying about other things?
He should not be allowed to exist near poor people, since they may get offended.
But seriously, you did the right thing. There’s a chance that it will be a positive and little chance that it will be negative.
There’s no way that story is true.
WIY: Read this carefully:
Multiple posters have established that frum organizations give massive amounts of assistance before Pesach. We know that they give massive amounts of assistance throughout the year as well. Countless g’virim in the frum world open their door countless times every day to meshulachim answer the phone to countless fundraising calls, and in fact support schools, shuls, Hatzola, etc. You don’t even offer ballpark numbers on that. I suggest (invent?) that it’s in the area of $1b.
You’re repeating a question that is not well conceived and is also inappropriate. The numbers you gave don’t really mean anything without context – how big is R’ Landau’s minyan? How much do people in his minyan spend on Pesach “programs”? The second post is even more vague. Multiple posters have established that frum organizations give massive amounts of assistance before Pesach. We know that they give massive amounts of assistance throughout the year as well. Countless g’virim in the frum world open their door countless times every day to meshulachim answer the phone to countless fundraising calls, and in fact support schools, shuls, Hatzola, etc. You don’t even offer ballpark numbers on that. I suggest (invent?) that it’s in the area of $1b. Why should anyone care if those g’virim have $200,000,000 left over to spend on Pesach programs?
I don’t know why you would have such an urge to be melamed chov. From the context, it seems that you’re talking about entertainment type stuff, which is just part of people keeping their minhagim over pesach, spending time with their large (ka’h) families, and doing the mitzvah of simchas yom tov, which, contrary to some people’s interpretations might involve happiness.
Besides, of what relevance is what one shul raises in light of the massive amounts of chesed that Klal Yisroel does before Yom Tov? How many people work days and weeks to provide the non-profit yom tov sales so that families with less means can get chicken, potatoes, matzah, etc at a good price? And how many of those people shop at the same sale as everyone else but aren’t allowed to pay? Have you seen what Tomchei Shabbos does before Pesach? I used to volunteer (a small amount) and before Pesach especially, their warehouses were full of insane amounts of food, which was bought with tzedaka, and packed and delivered with chesed. Klal Yisroel has no shortage of altruism, and while I understand that someone experiencing frustration might in a moment of weakness forget about that, the suggestion that we are bad because we don’t do enough with *our* money is preposterous and should not have made it from the initial thought to a post on YWN.
My wife went to Seminar and anyone from any Yeshiva would have been lucky to date her. But they didn’t so ha! edited
Or when yeshivas pass rules against bachurim driving because it’s inevitable that the first thing they’d do is drive to a girl. You reap what you sow, I guess. Now he can’t drive to a girl.
Not sure what the question is. Would it be better for him to pick her up on a bicycle?
Old Man, that was a wonderful comment. I agree with you completely.
Comes from the Hebrew “LeDavein” which means to Daven*.
*Note: This was a joke**
**Note: A lazy one***
***Note: But it’s getting better and better
Lately I’ve been enjoying Scottish fiddle instrumentals. Otherwise, I have a Pandora station that started with Yanni about a year ago, and it’s really starting to ripen now. Most recently, I added Dave Brubeck. Other artists on the feed include John Tesh, Apollo 100, The Piano Guys, and Natalie MacMaster (all instrumental).
Google for Piano Guys videos. They’re really cool.
Akuperma wrote:
Needless to say, most YWN users probably are more likely to find themselves going to Brooklyn College, a community college, or piecing together secular credits for a BTL – than they are to be seeking admission to an Ivy League type universitiy.
Just checking in to be offended. I don’t always go to university. But when I do, I prefer Harvard.
1. Determining whom you should target for kiruv.
2. Figuring out whether kiruv is to you a bein adam lamakom or bein adam lachaveiro.
3. Discerning the true motivation of the people being “mekurav” and how it affects the kiruv worker’s methods and goals.
4. Dealing with negative aspects that sometimes are associated with the frum community.
Sounds like The Red Headed League, Snowbunny. What was going on in your apartment while you were out?
I think it’s a leverage thing, or a perceived leverage thing. In most cities, it probably would not take much for a few baalhabatim to get the school to open their books. But good luck getting it in Lakewood, where few people pay significant tuition and everybody lives in fear of not having a school.
In general, I think it’s a good idea for several reasons. It would cause the school to only incur justifiable expenses. It would assuage the people who wonder where all the money is going (again, more of a concern where tuition is $18k rather than $4500.) It does stand to reason that if people are not given a choice where the money goes, they at least have some way to know where it’s going. And perhaps some more enterprising parents could make useful suggestions to a school that is doing a poor job of budgeting, or volunteer more when they realize that the school really needs the help.
There are maybe four or five acceptable jobs for Jewish women.
1. Housewife
2. Homemaker
3. Stay at home mother
4. Raising children
5. (B’doichek) Stay at home housemakerwife.
TKND: I still don’t understand how you define belief. Does it mean knowing that something happened factually? Does someone who simply takes someone else at his word without any investigation “believe” it then? Or does he just fail to disbelieve it? Shouldn’t belief imply some level of affirmative knowledge? If not, then what is it except a failure to disbelieve and a willingness to act in pursuance of that? And what distinguishes the guy who thinks that he can reconcile the scientific and Torah accounts of creation? Even if he’s wrong, as long as he doesn’t know he’s wrong, he thinks he knows that he believes in the Torah version.
TKND:
1. What does probably mean? What do the Ani Maamins mean? One could envision a Reform Jew believing all of them in some sense, and one could equally well envision rishonim not believing in some of them.
2. If it’s true that someone who is not smart enough to harbor doubts is better than someone who is, then Emunah doesn’t sound like such a good idea. It promotes ignorance, since people who are too ignorant to know what questions there are can never explore those questions. Furthermore, it calls into doubt the very meaning of the word belief, as illustrated by the other questions. (I would also posit that your answer is the Chassidic one, but that Litvaks might answer it differently.
3 and 4. So comparing the two, you are saying that it is better (at least for purposes of being a viable baal tefilah) to take some random version of events as true with no basis at all in fact, than it is to believe in something because it is proven? How can you make value judgments based on what people believe, if all you want is that they suspend judgment and take someone’s word for it? And what about all the other versions of history that are vying for this dude to believe them? Why do you privilege the biblical version of History over the others, if not because you think there is some way to say it’s objectively better?
5. Question 5 really relies on a particular perception of questions 3 and 4, i.e. that belief must mean either being able to prove it, or believing it without being able to prove it; and that either version is not tenable as a religious requirement.
6. This guy doesn’t actually think that as an empirical matter, these things happened, but he does believe that he needs to believe they happened. Again, it’s the logical outcome of questions 3 and 4. You can either prove something or you can’t. Inasmuch as someone can prove something, he doesn’t “believe” it. Inasmuch as someone can’t prove something, he can’t be required to believe it in the sense that he actually thinks it happened, but he can Believe it to the extent he thinks that as a matter of religious practice he needs to believe it.
1. What does someone need to believe in order to daven for the amud?
2. Is someone who has doubts about certain of those things better or worse than someone who is not smart enough to have those doubts?
3. If someone thinks that all of the facts in the Torah are empirically provable, but thinks that if they weren’t he wouldn’t believe them, can he daven for the amud?
4. If someone believes that none of the facts in the Torah are empirically provable, but thinks they happened anyway, can he daven for the amud?
5. If someone believes that nothing in the Torah is true, but keeps the mitzvos anyway for social and family reasons, and also believes that the people around him are in the same situation, can he daven for the amud? What if he believes that the people around him conform to scenario 3 or 4? May he daven in that scenario?
6. If someone believes that nothing in the Torah is empirically true, but believes it anyway because he thinks that that’s what Hashem wants, may he daven for the amud?
I’m trying to think whether there is a worse place to ask this question that the coffee room, and the only place I could come up with was [a white supremacist site].
Nobody here knows you. I was about to start listing all the relevant things about you that we don’t know, but it’s really just all of them. You have to ask people who know you and are also wise. Those people are hard to identify, but if you can find one, that would be the right move.
[edited]
What does it mean to be a believer? (hint: this question is impossible to answer in a meaningful way.)
You seem very proud about your thesis, Mobe, but I’m not sure what you are suggesting or what you are trying to prove. Do you think that the main reason why people wear baseball caps is because they think that they’ll come across a ham sandwich while hiking? We’ve already determined that your claim wouldn’t apply to windy days, or activities that involve running, or sunny days. Also, you seem to think it’s a bad idea, to the point that they “only wear it because they are conditioned to have their heads covered.” But given a choice between not covering your head so that you don’t look Jewish while eating the ham sandwich; and covering your head in a way that at least your head is covered during the time that you think you might encounter the ham sandwich, it’s definitely better to wear the cap.
Assume that every time I go outside, there is a 95% chance that I will make a positive impression on the public by doing such things as feeding the sick, healing the hungry, and helping old women across the street. There is also a 5% chance that I will inadvertently bump into someone, fail to notice the middle aged man who doesn’t have a seat on the bus, or drop something out of my pocket. The expected gain from someone judging all Jews positively based on observing my positive behavior would still be lower than the expected loss of people judging all Jews negatively based on observing my negative behavior.
Therefore, it makes sense to wear a cap.
However, an argument can be made that in those situations you look more Jewish with a cap than with a yarmulka, because obvious Jews with Yarmulkas can be anything from MO to Eida Hachareidis, but obvious Jews with caps all look chassidish.
Mobe613: I was about to be cynical, but instead I decided to make a serious point.
Harvard/Michigan/Chicago and other far flung schools are like GPSs and/or the internet, and/or Facebook. If you use them to get what you want within the context of a frum lifestyle, they are an incredible tool. If you want to escape the frum lifestyle, they are great ways to do that. I know people who went to law school to run away. Those people are not frum. I also know people who went to law school without any intention to run away. Those people are frum.
1. BTLs have and do work in V10 firms.
2. Popa, I do think that there’s something to the idea that yeshiva guys don’t do as well in terms of employment. It is somewhat true that the V10 tend to be super conservative and that definitely doesn’t weigh in favor of yeshiva guys.
3. On the other hand, the people I know who went to top law schools and got jobs in all kinds of firms outside the V10 are taking advantage of opportunities that they would not have been able to sniff outside of that world. The distinction between Cleary Gottleib and Fried Frank is a lot smaller than the distinction between working in NPGS or working at Fried Frank.
TIDE: While there is a poster here claiming to have seen the study at Fordham, there are lots of other posters here who know lots of other law students and it doesn’t seem to hold true at other schools.
I don’t know if it’s true that the MO guys look down at the Yeshiva guys, but I would not go to law school hoping to impress the MO guys anyway, so it wouldn’t be a major factor. I have heard that some MO partners can be a little uptight about it, especially when people try to use titles like “rosh chabura” on their resume as “fraternity leader”. I would also imagine that in the current poor job market, people who have a strong knowledge of finance or business will have an advantage over Yeshiva guys. But as AKuperma said, good grades in law school can overcome almost anything. The bigger the problem, the better the grades need to be, and you shouldn’t assume that just because 70% of the class gets a job that you will, because you are in fact at a disadvantage. But that doesn’t mean that it’s insurmountable, it just means that you should be aware of the issue and figure out how to deal with it.
DY: Since in the scenario, her teacher had said that it wasn’t necessary since Moshiach wasn’t coming, I interpreted it to refer to specific halachos that are not relevant until Moshiach comes.
Popa: I have my suspicions not only about the shul but who it was who shushed you.
Snowbunny, I hope that you are not considering as you are being wrongfully evicted that you should be spending what limited money you have paying your “debt” to the people who run this institution. It sounds like a cross between a scam and blackmail. Get out, get on your feet somewhere else, and figure out whether you have to pay them at all. If they are charging you for your spot during time that you are not there, tell me who they are and I’ll put out a hit on them.
Gamanit; I don’t want to be too much of a devil’s advocate here, but if you had learned, say, hilchos lashon hara or tefillah instead, you’d be using them already for years; whereas in a best case scenario, you’d be able to use hilchos hafrashas challah for the very first time sometime later today.
Thank you, Truthsharer I will be sure to make that argument in the future. In fact, I will go to Kabbolas Shabbos just so I can make that argument, loudly.
1. Rabbonim have a selection bias – they only hear about the problems. Nobody goes to them to tell them that they use Facebook to keep in touch with their relatives in EY.
2. As with most discussions on YWNCF, if it’s not black and white people ignore it. Also, people make up stories so they can have black and white reasons to be machmir on things. Not about Facebook specifically, but my extended family, who live in various places, use the internet to share details about our daily lives, mail baby pictures, purim pictures, wedding details to relatives who couldn’t make it, etc. Who’s to say that Hashem doesn’t want that? Why should I forgo that because R’ Aviner claims to know dozens of people (whom nobody else has ever met, and whose experience no sane person could replicate) who are “addicted to” and “got divorced because of” the internet?
Claiming that Facebook is terrible is not only ridiculous on its face (lol) it diminishes other messages that might actually be worth spreading.
I’m talking about times where there is not much halacha, if any, about it. Like during Kabolas Shabbos.
Also, people need to be aware that there can be conflicting ideals; even when one ideal is clear and the other is nebulous. “Frummer” is not always better. In some (many? most?) situations, it might make more sense to not be medakdek k’chut hasaarah on a minhag tov even if it’s written in hilchos beis hakneses; if it means making people uncomfortable.
If you sleep in your bedroom, where do you put on your pants?
In that case, we are all off the derech anyway so we shouldn’t care that Popa heroically pretends to be frum. And to people who literally never talk during davening, that is irrelevant and if you want to express it, do it in some manner that doesn’t respond to my point. But if you are a reasonable person, you understand that while it may be against halacha* to talk during davening, there are also other concerns with putting up a sign that says that people are not welcome in your shul. Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
*Also, be careful about making up halacha, which is arguably more assur than talking during shul. Almost all mention in halacha about talking during davening refers to talking during actual davening. Almost none of it talks about Kabbolas Shabbos.
Really, funnybone? They were going to be frum but they couldn’t find a shul where people were quiet enough? That sounds somewhat implausible.
It’s an interesting point but it’s also a straw man. When people say that they went off the derech because of the way that frum people behave, it’s often in reference to more endemic or widespread behavior; or behavior that is sanctioned by rabbonim. Just as an example, at my parents’ shul, there is a sign that says “If you think you might talk during davening, choose a different shul.” So I chose a different shul. I’m sure they’re very proud of themselves, but my parents aren’t thrilled that I’m not allowed to daven in their shul. And at some point it becomes reasonable to judge frumkeit by those who determine what frumkeit is.
I don’t see any reason for the Fordham study to be true and it definitely doesn’t fit what I know of my friends. Like I posted above, of all the people I know who went to law school, I can think of maybe one who spend any time at the very bottom of the class, and one who spent time at the very top. But ended only refers to 1L – neither finished law school that way. And all the other people were somewhere in the middle.
For me the problem was the opposite. I was a big fish in a small pond, and nothing was worth working for because it was all small pond stuff. Not sure that I got out, but I think I may have.
More on admissions: The numbers phenomenon is not unique to BTLs. It is well known that law schools perversely prefer higher GPAs from schools that inflate their grades to lower GPAs from schools that don’t. Of course, BTLs are extreme but it’s a matter of degree rather than a difference in kind.
Also, I find it hard to believe that BTLs generally do noticeably worse than others in law school. I have heard the rumor about Fordham’s study but of the people I know there is almost no trend at all. Since this topic began, I’ve thought through all the people I know who went to law school with BTLs and they either dominated at lower ranked schools or did fairly well at higher ranked schools. Out of the 7-8 people I’m thinking of, from HLS to Touro, I don’t know anyone who ended up at the bottom of any class.
LSAC has a policy of including all credits that you have before getting your degree. Harvard, like all schools, gets the credit information from LSAC. It is possible to game the system a bit that way, but it is harder than it would be if they allowed you to only count your degree GPA because then you could just drop any credits you wanted and have it not count.
Of course, LSAC does have to find out in order to demand it from you. But if they do find a record of your attendance and realize that you haven’t reported it, they will not allow you to complete your applications until you report it. As an example, I know someone who had Mir mentioned on his transcript from another yeshiva which gave him his degree and LSAC would not process his applications until he got a transcript from Mir Jerusalem.
Congratulations on your good score. You must be very smart.
I was not the one who said that the guy was a slacker; that was the impression that the questioner gave by thinking it so odd that this fellow could get into HLS. Otherwise, the question is not so confusing. He was a brilliant, serious guy, and when he decided to leave yeshiva, his brilliance and seriousness paid off in his application to HLS.
Frumnot: He posted later that his friend took college as a joke.
I don’t see any purpose in arguing whether you did or didn’t score in the 170s without major studying. All I know is that the people I know in real life whom I thought were smart before they applied to law school spent significant time studying and scored in the 170-180 range, but mostly closer to 170, after having studied a lot. Also, I can’t tell from your post what conditions you got your score in, but there’s an exponential difference between getting in the low 170s while meandering through four sections one at a time over the course of a day, and taking five sections consecutively under test day conditions.
If it’s true that you did it under the right conditions, then I would suggest you study more, get your 180, and go to Harvard.
Eat protein.
Also, I find that taking a day or two to drastically reduce intake can reduce my appetite generally, as long as I plan for the immediate desperate starvation in advance.
Frumnotyeshivish: Anything is possible. But I spent a lot of time preparing for the LSAT, and discussing it with others who were preparing. I also know a number of people who went to and succeeded at top schools. None of them were smart enough to score a 170 without studying long hours. And a 170 is not really enough for a Yeshiva guy, generally speaking.
FWIW, I have met one or possibly two people in my life who had the sheer mental acuity to get in the mid-170s without trying. I guess it’s possible that OP’s friend was such a person. But if that were the case, he would not have been slacking in college – just getting A+s without needing to do work.
A lawyers duty is to keep on reading and sending emails until he falls asleep in his office.
Thank G-d for direct deposit.