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The answer is that the person who eats cholov stam gets more gan eden, but he gets his gan eden in olam hazeh. Aaah, Breyer’s Vanilla Bean!
I thought for a few minutes about how I could answer most offensively, but I could not come up with anything that met my standards. If you chose a name you heard a couple times because it sounded cute, R’ Chaim Kanievsky’s advice on legitimate names should not be your concern.
I have a similar disagreement with yeshivas, but a lot broader.
Many (even most) yeshivas in the charedi world do not tolerate even harmless activities that are not learning. Bachurim should be encouraged to have hobbies like music, sports, building, etc. because 95% of the male population is not cut out for full time learning to the exclusion of all else. If yeshivas understood that, then not only would their baalhabatim be more connected to yiddishkeit, but the yeshivas would also direct many more talented people toward klei kodesh.
Joseph and Neutiquam: The reason you’re wrong is not because ta’us akum is assur. The reason you’re wrong is because you think it’s a kiddush hashem to make the cashier go to the manager and get you a gold star.
“Don’t do it for attention, do it for the kiddush hashem” is a non-sequitur. Do it because you are not entitled to the money, so your only option is to return it.
Frum music is going through more of a renaissance than a demise. Youtube is full of new songs, music videos, and clips from simchas, which makes it possible to enjoy much more of the Jewish music “world” than was previously possible, when all you could do was buy CDs and go to concerts.
Some of my favorites:
Freilach Orchestra – they’ve been getting better and better as they matured as musicians. Nachman Dreier (guitar) and Avrumi Schreiber (drums) are particularly good.
Malchus Choir: a Chassidishe choir – I know nothing about them but it appears they are from Israel. Check out their songs, “Zechor” (don’t know where it’s from) and “Beshoh”, which is a cover of Shwekey.
There are a bunch of great clips of Motti Steinmetz singing classic yiddish and chazzonish songs with various men’s choirs.
Lots of “highlights” from weddings with Shloime Daskal, Sruly Werdyger (there’s a great clip of Sruly Werdyger and the Shira Choir with Yanky Briskman (one man band) and Shloimy Cohen (saxophone – I think he played a lot with Evenal); if you search -Yisroel Werdyger second dance- it should come up.
And the above is just my taste – I’ve watched the videos I mentioned dozens of times. There are also a ton of Yehuda Green, Eitan Katz, etc. type videos from live kumzitzes etc. or more traditional chassidish singers at weddings, chuppas, events, etc.
Jewish music is something that people like to kvetch about for some reason. Generally, it’s people who like Carlebach forcing themselves to listen to MBD so that they can rant about it self-righteously. But in the internet age, it’s crazy for someone with a modem to claim that “modern offerings” are worse somehow than what came before.
If you are really the rosh yeshiva, you should get them from the thrift shop.
To maximize you’re chances at BJJ, you should demonstrate broad knowledge on the subject of hidden haskalic tendencies of accepted rabbinic authorities.
I once went to a fascinating presentation on the issue of copyright on sefarim. Unfortunately, I didn’t pay any attention.
Yichus is a great indicator, insofar as you are looking for the right thing. As nolongersingle points out, ehrliche grandparents is wonderful yichus (if you are looking for an ehrliche spouse).
The problem with that point is that it is meaningless. When people say they want yichus, they mean “IMPORTANT” yichus. Importance is not indicative of anything and I would argue that there is zero correlation between IMPORTANCE yichus and anything other than self-importance.*
*This is not to say that people with important yichus are self important. It is just to say there might be a tiny correlation because some people might use yichus to expand their self-importance.
2cents: So we don’t disagree. I’m not saying the MMR vaccine is bad. I am saying that like most people, including doctors, I don’t have an accurate basis of information on which to draw. My argument is about the system, not the facts. You cannot assume that the CDC or the vaccine companies or even your pediatrician have the same interests you do, and when those interests are at odds with your own, you would expect them to protect their interests at the expense of yours.
For example, imagine there was a disease called “meamembella”. The disease can cause lasting damage to those who contract it, and it is highly contagious. The vaccine saves 5000 people a year from this lifelong damage. The vaccine itself has bad side effects in a very tiny minority of patients, and the effects appear to run in families; i.e. if your first child had the ill effects, your second child has a 50% chance of having them as well. Imagine the CDC knows all of this and is acting in the best interests of their constituents.
One day, news breaks that a child has these terrible side effects from the vaccine. You are the head honcho at the CDC. If you concede that some people get the side effects, hundreds of thousands of people will stop giving the vaccine, reasoning that if “only they” don’t vaccinate, they will be protected against both a breakout and the side effects. If you don’t concede, people will continue to get the vaccine, and the same tiny, tiny minority will continue to get these terrible side effects. In carrying out your job to the best of your ability, how do you address this news?
Profound: Another choice would be to explain what you think I’m wrong about and why you think I’m wrong. Honestly, I doubt you even comprehend what I wrote.
Zahavasdad, the reason most people in the groceries are paying with EBT is because the ones who pay cash are at work and have their groceries delivered.
I am not someone who gets into vehement arguments about vaccines, either pro or anti. However, I have something important in common with the people who do: I possess literally no objective or accurate information about vaccines.
The vaccine controversy is real and it is the fault of the medical establishment as much as it is the fault of a few flawed studies. Because of the stakes involved in public health, nobody ever gives a straight answer to questions about vaccinations. Moreover, you can believe that the doctors, the government and big pharma are acting totally l’sheim shamayim (they are not, BTW) and still believe they are lying. Their job is to support the public health. If vaccines caused any ill effects, their job would be to weigh the public benefit against the public costs, and make a decision whether to be open about the costs if it may result in fewer vaccinations. But an individual should care about the individual costs and make a decision based on his or her personal circumstances.
Here are some examples that support what I wrote above:
1. We are nagged endlessly every year to get the flu shot. Few doctors will tell you the objective fact that the flu shot is directed only at a few strains of the flu, and that it has side effects. They will tell you that the flu kills 35-50000 Americans every year. Assume the number itself is true (it isn’t); they don’t tell you that the overwhelming majority of the victims are elderly or infants, and that the flu vaccine is only designed l’chat’chila to address about 50% of anticipated flu cases in the first place. So you’re taking a vaccine with a high chance of side effects, to protect against a disease that would be incredibly unlikely to harm you at all, and the protection is only 50% better! NONE of what I wrote is remotely controversial. It happens because ten thousand people getting minor side effects is nothing to the government, while 20 lives of elderly people and infants that are saved is something to them. So forgive me if I am skeptical generally of the government’s claims about vaccines.
2. A similar situation is true of the chicken pox vaccine. I am old enough (and I’m not that old) to remember doctors directing parents to seek out chicken pox for their children. Now there is a vaccine that provides dramatically less protection against chicken pox than the old practice. The vaccine needs to be renewed every fifteen years or so, and therefore makes it more likely that people will get chicken pox as adults, when it is serious, rather than as children, when it’s not. Oh, and shortly after the vaccine was approved, we started to learn that chicken pox in children is often fatal and our doctors started to tell us that only negligent parents would question whether to vaccinate against chicken pox.
3. The HPV vaccine. Enough said.
In short, I can’t claim to have knowledge about the “important” vaccines. Because I do believe that of all the terrible sources of information we have, the government is the least-worst, I vaccinate my children. But you have to be completely credulous to think that just because the government supports it or just because the guy who initially published the study was “discredited”, vaccines are an unmitigated blessing.
I meant to make both claims. It’s pretty obvious from what I’ve seen that the frum students at any top law school have better numbers than other students. I have less evidence to suggest, although I believe it is true, that generally, yeshiva graduates underperform in law school as compared to their classmates with similar numbers. This second point comes with the caveat that I believe, although with even less evidence, that the difference is explained when you account for other relevant factors. For example, I believe that if you look at people with semicha, the difference would disappear, because yeshiva graduates with semicha have experience regularly and systematically studying for tests that involve application of law to facts. As I said above, if you don’t have the “procedural” skills, you will underperform regardless of what your raw intelligence allows you to get on the LSAT after a few months of studying.
You know you’re beyond hope of ever returning when you buy a striped or colored dress shirt
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with French cuffs.
I feel so relieved at having told the truth about my real identity that I am going to share a couple things I gleaned from reading law school and law firm message boards and blogs.
1. Confusing Penn and Penn State is an old meme and it did yeoman’s work for Brony, getting the law students to laugh and everyone else to think he was misguided.
2. In some ways, it’s a hundred times easier to go the yeshiva -> law school route. Ivy league (& equivalent) students other than yeshiva guys have survived a culling process that eliminates people at every stage for having a bad semester, taking the wrong courses, not having enough “extracurriculars”, even in some instances not having enough family money. Contrast that with the average yeshiva guy, who, so long as he stays enrolled, can maintain a good enough GPA.
On the other hand, I don’t think admissions offices are stupid, certainly not once they Google search and hit this thread. Nor are firm recruiters stupid. Anecdotally (though I challenge Brony to disprove this), yeshiva guys need an LSAT 3-5 points higher to get into school. They also need to do better in school to get jobs.
Moreover, while yeshiva -> law school seems like a bit of a loophole, there is no free lunch. If you haven’t learned to study for and take exams, then, all else being equal, you will need to work harder and it will take some time to learn. If you don’t have the social experience of your classmates, or the vocabulary, or the polish, you will be at a relative disadvantage. This is why yeshiva guys underperform their admission numbers in law school admissions and underperform their grades in firm hiring. This is also why people who have semicha (again anecdotally) do better in law school while people who slacked in yeshiva do worse. And to wrap things up a bit, the successes almost universally come at the higher tail. Yeshiva guys who are substantially more gifted than the median T14 student can hope to do as well as the median T14 student.
There are as many people in this generation with ruach hakodesh as there were in each previous generation. –Guy with ruach hakodesh
Before you have this virtual dance with the women, you should make sure the men are not virtually peeking over the mechitzah.
I divorced my wife by texting…
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The shadchan
PBA, if I am already a patent troll, in that I spend most of my time patently trolling. How do I start making money off of it?
Benignuman, pretty sure that pote was exposed as fraud. You should not rely on anything he says.
Michael Jordan was not cut from his high school basketball team. IIRC, he was invited to try out as a freshman because the varsity team needed one more player. Another player was chosen over him.
There’s a Yehuda Glantz song (I don’t know the source of the lyrics) that says “A person tends to get depressed periodically. You need to remember not to stop being happy even when you are depressed.”
Pretty sure it’s avodah zara and will distract boys from learning and lead to pritzus.
Alas poor Yorick, I knew him so well.
Without joining the debate over whether Obama has done a good job, OP’s point is correct but the family reason is only a tiny slice of it. In order to become the president, you need to be among the best and luckiest in the world in an area that does not bear any relationship to being a good president – political campaigning. It’s like choosing a tax planner on the basis of running races. People who would be good at governing are not found within a thousand miles of a political campaign, because they are busy running stuff. Why would they get involved in an entirely unrelated arena with a 10% chance at most of having it pay off, assuming they even think the presidency is a payoff?
I have been following Lebron pretty closely since before he was drafted, and he has always been fairly menschlich by the standards of the hand he’s been dealt. I don’t imagine that he’s a legitimate tzaddik but when you compare him to people of his celebrity who have no positive family influences (he basically acted as his mother’s father for at least a while) and no authority figures, that he is not a total mush-ches (that’s a fun word to transliterate) is a miracle.
I also think people are giving him too much credit for this decision and letter. I am jubilant as a Cleveland fan because he is the best player in the NBA by head and shoulders, but he wrote the letter together with an experienced columnist and obviously calculated how to express his decision in the way that would most benefit his image. Even still, as Vonnegut said, “you are who you pretend to be.”
Very good, PBA. There should also be something about no prosecution of the people who brought the economy down, but I guess there isn’t enough room for everything.
I don’t know the words of the rational anthem, but I suspect that the general themes are about individual rights, and how the government is obligated to provide police protection of rich people’s property but not basic necessities for poor people. How regulation is stupid because it hinders the free market, but we should still have a mortgage tax deduction. How people who make $100,000 a year should pay 25% in taxes, but people who make 150,000,000 should pay 15%, or nothing at all. That the way to stimulate the economy is to give massive handouts to corporations, so that they can give the money to their executives as bonuses, but not to give the money to poor people or unemployed people, because they would just spend it.
1. It is a fair point that he will make some of it back. Also note that the money he makes back is not taxable again as income as long as you have more losses than winnings. So if he goes to Foxwoods with $1100 dollars one month (because he had $200 left from last month plus some birthday money and also you forgot to get him an afikoman present last year) and he loses 1000 but makes back 300 (so that he comes home with $400) you only pay tax on the initial $1100 when it’s earned from your babysitting*, but not when the $300 is earned from gambling.
2. That it’s cheaper than therapy shows how foolish women can be. Why would you go for therapy when the solution has a greater cost than the problem? The same is true, BTW, of internet addiction. We chose to maintain our internet connection because what was my twelve year old son going to do without it? Little league is not free, you know! My wife thinks that internet addiction is ruining are marriage, but the answer is the same – it’s not the internet that’s ruining our marriage, it’s her distaste for it.
3. You should also take into account the possibility that drinks are actually cheaper in the casino. Often they comp you drinks because that is part of what it takes to make sure you keep gambling. So you should increase his gambling allowance to reflect the drink savings. Moreover, they are likely to have drinks that you don’t have at home, so you should take into account that you get yet another thing of value – variety.
*Note: if you’re babysitting business is illegal, you still have to report it for tax purposes. If you have to pay fines for operating an illegal babysitting business, they are not deductible, but if you have to pay legal fees to defend your conduct in court that is generally deductible.