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PBA, you’re an elitist snob. Not everyone wants to work at a fancy wall street law firm, and schools that cater to other needs are much cheaper. Well, you might be correct about Cardozo but Rutgers costs about half of what Cardozo does.
Z-dad, FWIW you can get a college degree from yeshiva and go to law school. I know some people who did that and make a decent living today.
(fails negotiation workshop)
PBA, I concede that the acceptance for certain immoralities among even the higher classes can be directly linked to the search for reason stemming from critical thought and perhaps the self-indulgence that comes along with creativity and expression. I have two responses to that (without taking my actual position that it’s certainly not the government’s business).
1. Just because there is a negative effect in some places doesn’t mean that we should lose all of the positives and subject ourselves to all the consequences of a total failure of education.
2. Instead of being afraid that we will all become kofrim, we should have bitachon that the Torah’s morality is correct and defensible even in light of other educational influences, and we should pursue that education so that we can explain why.
Akuperma: You might be right about the positive effects of learning Hebrew or Yiddish, if frum schools would teach them in a meaningful way – as an example, the fellow who taught in Philly and published frumspeak did a wonderful job. But Philly is unique. Other yeshivas just learn Gemara in yeshivish and expect people to pick up the Yiddish or Hebrew.
Also, there is more to learning how to think than languages. Jewish schools don’t teach math, science, or history at all, nor can you propose teaching those in a meaningful way from a specifically “Jewish” perspective the way you could with Yiddish and Hebrew.
And it’s a huge oversimplification to blame immorality on secular knowledge; especially since almost all the things that I assume you’d point to as immoral are far, far less prevalent in the upper, more educated classes.
The fact is that a failure to teach secular studies works well for the 5-10 percent of the students who are going to become rabbonim and rebbeim, but at the expense of a tremendous handicap to all the others who won’t.
Jews were always admired for their intellect and for their respect for education, which resulted in tremendous accomplishment. Now, many brilliant ex-yeshiva guys are struggling at borderline manual labor because they can’t operate a computer. The level of discourse in the frum arena suffers because people know nothing about statistics or about government or about science. Even successful people are relegated to doing “gray market” type things to make ends meet and to function in the general world.
AKuperma, it seems like Orthodox Jews like to believe that secular education is a monolithic exercise, in which there is one school with metal detectors at the door, pervasive immorality, social promotion, skyrocketing failure rates, and overwhelming malaise. But there’s not just one goy who’s getting one education. High-level academic performance at good schools develops specific skills as well as specific knowledge, and the people who would like to see more secular education aren’t arguing in favor of terrible secular education but in favor of good secular education. But even if the cost of going all out doesn’t justify the return, it doesn’t follow that the frum world should expend no effort at all on secular education.
Besides, you’re extrapolating from a few individuals who are by definition gifted, to reflect on everyone. Possibly the person who will go on to be history’s greatest economist had an affinity for economics so strong that he could have taught it to himself; although arguably there were fifty other potential greatest economists who were never introduced to economics, spent four years in kollel, and ended up working in a grocery. Either way, the average person stands to gain from education, both as a general matter and as a method of earning a livelihood/developing interests/succeeding at life.
Re: Whether secular studies are “necessary for life”, it would be silly to claim that each individual “fact” is an absolute necessity, but education is not learning a set of facts, it’s engaging material in different ways, learning how to think critically and creatively, and so on. If you don’t learn how to do that in elementary school, the odds are that you never will. And no, you can’t get it all from gemara, and certainly not from gemara as it’s taught in yeshivas.
PBA, the communities are not a monolithic bloc. I haven’t studied this but I would suggest that the interests of the parents and of school administrations are not completely aligned on this, especially in yeshivish, as opposed to chassidic schools.
This is a terrible idea. I know someone who did this, and while he was doing all kinds of terrible things to get the woman he was dating to dump him, she was doing the same to him. They were unsuited before they each decided to induce the other to dump them, so you can imagine how bad it got when they were both being deliberately awful. Neither would capitulate, and eventually, there was no choice for them but to get married. It was the worst wedding I ever went to. Pictures dragged on for hours, the main course was served during the first dance, and they barely had a minyan for the sheva brachos. Fortunately they moved to a state that allowed for no fault divorce.
Akuperma: The point of school is to get an education. It’s absurd to defend a school system that doesn’t educate because the deprived students can always educate themselves.
Bava Metziah. Only mesechta I had a good rebbi for.
One solution that nobody has mentioned yet is choosing a work name. It is easier if you have a distinctly Jewish name and will be working with non-Jews but even if the company is frum and the clientele is all frum, your boss should have no objections if you either a. choose a nickname that you don’t go by, and without explanation, tell him that’s what you’d like to go by at the office, or b. tell him that you are uncomfortable going by your first name, but don’t want to make waves, and would like to choose a different name for work.
I think I must be missing something about the question.
It’s terrible that people wear sweatshirts, and baruch hashem the coffee room provides a forum for me to express my opinions about what other people are wearing. A good solution to the shidduch crisis would be if we simply stopped redding shidduchim to women who wear sweatshirts, so that there will be enough men for the women who properly don’t.
If you drove the getaway car for a murder, you should probably feel bad. If you drove a kid to get cigarettes, get over it. But don’t do it again.
This is surprising? It happens all the time between gedolim of different factions. But since you like one and not the other, you don’t think it’s trash talking. When it suddenly it happens between gedolim both of whom you like, it shouldn’t be that surprising.
Say Shir Hashirim while baking challah at the kosel and while 40 women are simultaneously wearing a magic ring and doing shiluach hakein at kever R’ Yonoson Ben Uziel.
It would not be assur. It would, however, be assur to have a poorly run establishment, since that is basically stealing money, stealing “daas”, and causing grief to other Jews.
I am not aware of a provision in halacha that allows the public constantly to reevaluate other people’s frumkeit.
Speaking of which, on shabbos we were discussing how strange it is that Eliyahu Hanavi is going to appear riding on a donkey. It doesn’t seem tzugepast for a navi. We concluded that it probably means a Bugaboo Donkey, which is luxurious and fit for a king.
@147: You live in Lakewood, where all the men converge (or possibly in the tri-state area where they come home from Thursday to Monday). If you lived outside the tri-state area, where yeshivish, marriageable men only appear for Pesach and the first days of Sukkos, you’d only know of women.
This issue needs to be reframed in order to better deal with it. The root of the problem is being mis-described as boys dating too late. But that is only one (arguable) aspect of what the “shidduch crisis” is.
The “shidduch crisis”, if there’s such a thing, is really just a small part of series of effects that comes from a series of practices in the Yeshivishe community. In a world without these practices, there might be people ending up unmarried, but it wouldn’t be a “shidduch crisis”.
As with any commodity, regulation creates inefficiencies. For starters, in the Shidduch system, 1. All the males are pretty much in one place, or at the very least, in one region; while the women are spread throughout the country 2. The instrumentalities through which men and women can end up together are highly limited; 3. The criteria through which men and women define the subject of their search are limited and poorly chosen both in terms of creating and then defining a meaningful objective; and do not account for anything outside a set of predetermined types.
This creates major problems for women who live anywhere outside the tri-state area. While almost everyone would admit in theory that they would prefer to marry someone with whom they “click” over someone who meets a set of criteria; in the current system, not only to men and women never get a chance to meet each other, but even people who know men, like their friends from yeshiva, their roshei chabura, etc. never meet people who know women, like the principal of a Beis Yaakov in LA. So we’re stuck here with a system that essentially demands representation. But there are lots of people who cannot have meaningful representation – quieter men; people with particular interests and hobbies that the “professional shadchanim” have never heard of; women who have lived in Montreal their whole lives and aren’t particularly beautiful or wealthy.
Focusing on the “age problem”, if there even is one, is not likely to do much except make some people feel good because they got a sign posted on the BMG bulletin board. But in order for something meaningful to change, there must be a systemic change in the makeup of the yeshiva system, in the way that men and women meet, and in the expertise of the people involved in the process.
Took a while to find online, but boy was it worth it. Would look at it again.
I have met Popa in person and I agree that he is a few different people.
In terms of religion, there is nothing that is reasonable for you to expect of another person’s individual religious experience and connection.
Generally, in order to have a happy marriage, your expectations should be limited to expectations from yourself, and you should trust that your wife expects things of herself.
If you are concerned that your children will be negatively impacted because of a discrepancy between yours and your wife’s observance, I suggest that you take that up with a marriage counselor, or lower your religious level so that it will match your wife’s and protect your innocent children.
Furthermore, which normal person already knows the English date of Purim? Even worse, sounds like he was already pregaming.
Homelessness is a terrible problem that the people who live in warm houses nearby must struggle with terribly.
She should use her voice to not sing and thereby be mekadesh shaim shamayim. Boy am I clever.
(Goes back to thinking of important ways for other people to work on their middos)
I don’t understand the bageling hate. Jews want to connect with other Jews and you call it names and mock it. Maybe kiruv needs a few less free trips to Israel and a little more indulgence of bageling.
I don’t know, it seems pretty clear to me that we live in a time of unprecedented famine, based on the tzedaka letters I get and tznius speeches I hear. I hope that in addition to sending letters to America promising to daven for forty days and nights at the kever of R’ Elazar b. Durdaya in the zchus of Americans with Iphones, the tzedaka organizations in Yerushalayim are spreading the lesson of the gemara in Taanis.
If someone talks during davening.
Minhag oker halacha
Hey brodudes, I’m making a shalom zachor on account of having a baby boy. It’s at my house on friday night. Come have beer and stuff. The Bris will be in a few days.
Later.
happy* papa
*mood may be amended as needed.
(Mocks people for asking about tablecloths)
(Asks about yichus)
Dear Popa Bar Abby:
I LOVE your column! Each question that I read seems so baffling and then you answer it so wisely and so concisely that it makes me want to run home and read it to my cats, but I don’t have cats. (That is not what I wanted to ask you about).
I have exams for school coming up. I have one next week Thursday, one that I can take at any time next week and I’m choosing between Wednesday and Friday, and one that I will take two weeks after that, in early January. The problem is that I don’t know any of the material for the last test. Should I take time off studying for next week’s tests to study for that one, even though I have two more weeks afterward to study for it? Or should I rest secure in the knowledge that I can learn all the material in two weeks, which will actually be closer to a week and a half because my kids have vacation then?
Oh, important point: In case it wasn’t clear, the story above about killing someone from Amalek was made up.
When he was still in Europe, he suspected that a certain official was from Amalek because of some evil personal characteristics that the person had as well as something about his origin. He killed the man, because he held that it was a safek d’oraysoh and should be decided l’chumra, as long as he was sure that he wouldn’t get caught. He was correct about not getting caught – the story only came out when he related it at a yeshiva shalosh seudos in America (passaic), long after the statute of limitations had passed.
Interjection, considering the way they present the rules, I don’t think we ought to trust them for the hashkafah.
Dressing to kill likely involves camouflage and would be inappropriate for a date unless you were in the deep south. Also, it raises questions of chukas hagoyim and pikuach nefesh.
OP: You shouldn’t worry about being the child of baalei teshuva. FFB people don’t have a mesorah of shidduch resumes either.
I think it should be something like a job resume. You put in your basic information, like your interests, what you’re looking for, the people you’ve been married to before, and why you think that you’d be a good match for this position.
This story is embarrassing because it portrays the government’s highest actors caught up in high school shenanigans, not because one of the women involved is of Arab ethnicity.
FWIW, the past was no better. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and other presidents were known to be fairly immoral as well. At least in this case it’s not the president.
The only way that I would support vouchers is if the government were able to crack down on the frum schools and hold them to a reasonable curriculum and decent achievement standards. I don’t want my taxes paying for religious studies.
Didn’t hear the story. But if he could be Rebbe, why can’t he be a billionaire?
On the screen, the images of Brodrick and the innkeeper’s head faded, and words began to appear, letter by letter, clicking like an old time laptop keyboard.
Is the innkeeper really dead?
Who is this mysterious Vadim?
What are the poritz’s men after?
Your first mission: Capture and interrogate Brodrick.
The words faded, and Henry shut the screen off with a wave of his hand.
“What do you think?” he asked, turning to Mohammed, his tall, dark complexioned companion.
“I don’t even know what I’m looking at!” Mohammed exclaimed.
“It’s a prototype of our next big release, Shtetl II: Baalagolah’s Triumph, for Xbox and Playstation.”
“Shtetl II? When was Shtetle I? Did this title come from another developer?”
“Shtetl I was in Eastern Europe from about 1200 to 1938.”
“Oh.”
(this story got good in a hurry)
nothing tastes as good as skinny cow ice cream
Farrocks, it’s impossible to say that without knowing what his SAT and LSAT score was. What we do know is that he graduated Magna Cum Laude, which means in the top 10%. Race does not play a role in that.
You can bury your head in the sand and claim that he’s not intelligent, but if you’ve read his books or spoken to people who understand politics, even his opponents, you would have to concede that he’s an incredibly smart person. You can disagree with his politics all you like, but if you refuse to acknowledge that there’s really no point in arguing.
LOL RebDoniel – Below mediocre student? He graduated two of the most prestigious universities in the world, from law school Magna Cum Laude (which means roughly in the the top 10% of his class.)He made the Harvard Law review, and became the first black person to become the president of Harvard Law Review. Even if he got a “race bump”, he was still better than anyone else before him who would have been entitled to that bump. He did such a good job editing one judge’s article that the judge offered him an appeals court clerkship – one of the most prestigious jobs that one can get upon graduation. But he turned it down to go into public service.
(Note: I assume that you were happy with President Bush II, who couldn’t get into the University of Texas when his father was a Texas Congressman, and basically admitted to getting mostly Cs at Yale.)
“Veltz Meshugener” – please agree that the following type of attitude, a lack of respect of Yiddiskeit, is the predominent cause of OTD-“going off the derech”:
“Probably the biggest benefit to reading is expanding your horizons and encountering new ways to think of things” -your words from another thread in the coffee room.
No. First of all, the statement said nothing about how I feel about expanding horizons, it simply said that that is the purpose of literature. If you think that expanding horizons in antithetical to yiddishkeit, then it follows that you shouldn’t read literature, not that you should find literature that doesn’t expand your horizons. As it happens, I do think that expanding horizons is important, and I don’t think expanding horizons is antithetical to yiddishkeit. But the statement leaves open the possibility that expanding horizons is antithetical to yiddishkeit and should be avoided.
Jewish horizons are “state of the art” there is none better.
The goyim have some chochma, mostly technology and similar, but the seven pillars of wisdom are still Torah which INCLUDES all wisdom including that of the goyim. I don’t know what you mean by “state of the art”. Do you know of viewpoints outside of your own through Torah? Are you implying that your viewpoints encompass Torah and Torah encompasses your viewpoints, and that nothing outside of either is worthwhile? Then don’t bother with outside literature. I don’t believe that I know everything, and i don’t believe that I personally will be able to gain all of my potential knowledge from Torah, so for me, outside literature is important. And if I chose to avoid outside information, then of what significance is my adherence to Torah? It would be ignorance, not knowledge, that defined my adherence.
Why then glorify that which is not glorious? The Torah says what is forbidden, and reading “most secular literature” is one of the things that are forbidden. “Forbidden” is just another word to say something is on par with a toxic substance, which can affect the body AND the mind. Give it up.
I don’t know where you see the Torah say that most secular literature is forbidden. The only way I can possibly understand what you’re saying is if you include the statements of certain gedolim against general outside literature as Torah, and exclude the statements of other gedolim permitting it from your definition of Torah. But that’s a conclusory statement – it defines Torah based on what you want the Torah to be.
While it may be compelling to blame people going OTD on secular influence, that is like saying that you know the cause for the plane crash – gravity. Yes, when people go off the derech, by definition they are more caught up in secular influences. But why did that plane succumb to the forces of gravity under those circumstances? Why do particular people born into frumkeit succumb to the lure of total secularity more than other similarly situated people? For that, the answer needs to come from some cause external to the effect. And many people suggest that it is factors such as abuse, chillul Hashem, and so on.
I posted an eminently reasonable list of good things about Obama, but apparently the mods want to cultivate the appearance that no one can think of anything, so it hasn’t been posted.