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Burnt Steak, there are few such areas, and it is hard to make a living at all in those areas. Sure, if you’re a dentist, you can move to Detroit and save $20,000 a year in housing over Monsey but there are not many jobs like that, and there are not many cities like that.
Ender and Popa, I don’t get what you are saying. There is no free lunch. If the average property has to support a third of a child in school, then property tax is $3500 on the average property. If the average property has to support seven children in school, then property tax will have to be $70,000 on the average property.
My impression is that in Monsey and Lakewood, busing, textbooks, and remedial programs alone were enough to basically double property tax, even as the public schools shrank dramatically.
How are school vouchers going to solve anything? All it’s going to do is make people pay property tax rather than tuition. That brings along a whole new set of issues, like lower property value. It will just drive Jews and non-Jews into separate communities, as well as resulting segregation of older and younger families. If anything, the current system is better because at least tuition can potentially be alleviated on the basis of need, whereas property tax is unlikely to be allocated that way.
They would rather you have a new car, but would have been willing to live with an old one. And by “would have been willing” they mean, if they want the new one. And the explanation is, it’s a lot easier to would have done it than to do it.
Just want to mention that even the poskim who are machmir on taking pictures of someone so that you can find out who they are and see if you can date them; are maikil if it is at Amuka.
I baked coffee cake. I don’t know how it came out. It’s in the oven now, but I can’t check on it because just after I put it in, my wife, Popa bar Abba, kicked me out of the kitchen so she could make picklebeer.
Dash, if you were with her until she mentioned 50 Cent, you weren’t with her at all.
Takahmamash, legit LOL.
Vogue, most pop hashkafah is just blather concocted by people who wish to avoid the responsibility of thinking. I don’t know if you are smarter than that but at least you’re more likely to be than the people who create a hashkafah out of thin air and then assume that Hashem conforms to it.
It’s a constant problem in the yeshivish world that everyone has to pretend to be something they’re not. It guarantees that while people can be many things, one thing they cannot be is honest. For example, when I was in shidduchim, everyone knew that if you wanted to learn for a couple years, you would say, five years. If you wanted to learn for five years, you would say ten. If you wanted to learn for ten years, you’d say forever, etc. If you watched movies, you’d say you like to play ball, and if you liked to play ball but didn’t watch movies, you’d say you wanted to learn for ten years. That would be fine except that there are other interests that people have and the rules are not as neat for those things. If you wanted to portray yourself as being no-nonsense and straightforward, you were out of luck.
“Haskafically- What’s the difference between these boys/ men?”
Chofetz Chaim has a central ideology that believes that they have the one right answer to all of the world’s challenges. Ner Yisrael does not have a distinct, singular hashkafa. Thus, what you said, OP, was right on – Chofetz Chaim are boys, Ner Yisrael are men.
Children don’t have bechira. There is no “good” or “bad” behavior in a moral sense; the question is how you can take control of their behavior. I recommend “How to Talk So Kids Will Listen, and Listen So Kids Will Talk”.
The only thing that this will do is cause tuition to rise.
Notasheep, Holiphornos was not a general in the times of Antiochus. Nor was he a Syrian-Greek, or even Hellenic. Sefer Yehudis, which was the source of the story, was set at the time of Nevuchadnezzar. Later interpolations changed the time to the time of the Chanukah story, but that is unlikely to be accurate (if the story is a true one at all.)
The point is not to “be”, the point is to “do”. It’s not the destination, it’s the journey. You’ve already accomplished all that time that you worked on things, and continuing to work on them is its own goal.
Syag, no one debates whether every single person in the history of the world ever suffered as a result of forces outside their control. What people are saying is that people ought, within reason, to control things to the extent they can, so as to maximize their chances of success.
HaLeiVi, do you know if the Zohar quotes are from the Greek version or the original Hebrew?
Fkelly and Writersoul: If you were tamei, you would say it, which means that tamei people and non-tamei people both say it. Writersoul counters that if she were tamei she would know that that is what she’d be expected to say and would avoid saying it, but that would be a bad decision because since people who are not tamei say that they are not tamei, the only people who could say something else are tamei people who realize what they ought to say and diverge from it. But by diverging, she’d be giving away that she’s tamei and thus would not say it.
My point wasn’t that she should say something else, my point was that since tamei and non-tamei people both say it, saying it is a waste of words.
Writersoul said “but I can tell you that personally, in my unbiased opinion, I am not tamei”.
That is EXACTLY what someone who is tamei would say.
They’re really hard to get? I had no idea. Where I went, we didn’t discuss grades with friends and I always assumed that everyone got them.
I don’t know much about seminary but IME high school girls with internet access are usually undercover cops. DON’T FALL FOR IT!!!
Kaput ha’ir means the end of civilization.
Shopping 613 said “A shabbos camp is like where the entire high school does a shabbos together in the mointains and are all hyper and crazy all night and sleep all day…..I heard its not kavod to Shabbos to do such a thing…than why does the school HAVE it?”
What does it mean that “you heard it’s not kavod to Shabbos to do such a thing”? Kavod is a subjective concept most of the time, and one person’s sentiment doesn’t create a halacha. Whom did you hear it from? On what basis? What is your opinion?
I think that Yitzchak Rabin was also known as Shalom Chaver.
Jewish Feminist said: “Are there other inequitable laws or other ways that people can be mean which prevent the flourishing of families? This is rightfully termed a “Crisis with a capital C” because it prevents women from remarrying and raising more children. For a different perspective, try comparing the agunah crisis to the shidduch crisis. They’re more similar than you might think.”
Why are you so hung up on the law? There are a million tools for inequity, from breaking someone’s window when you know he/she won’t retaliate to spending endless amounts of money in court when you know that the other party can’t match to alleging abuse in the course of divorce proceedings. The law is what it is and it maybe a bad thing on net, but that has nothing to do with individual people using it to their advantage. Why are people making a fuss about random people behaving badly, and why do people choose sides on the basis of one fact?
Popa, I agree with you. I would even go further and say that the cases that people hear about are *least* indicative of what really goes on, because the average Joe (or Jane) doesn’t have access to newspapers and influential people, nor does the average husband have the resources for a heter meah rabbanim. Whenever an agunah story hits the news, I assume that at least one family is either very wealthy or related to an influential person*.
*v’hamaskil yidom
Click Vegetable, you have to understand my literary method. Referring to you as Ms. Bassara did not necessarily indicate that I actually thought you were Ms. Bassara. Nor does this post necessarily indicate that I think you’re not.
In Europe, the yeshivas were not intended for everyone. Today they are, at least nominally.
Also, in Europe, the yeshivas had secular studies. Not only Volozhin, which was known for opposition to secular studies despite having them; but some lesser known yeshivas were not even opposed to secular studies in principle. I have a niggling semi-memory that Telz had secular studies and that R’ Leizer Gordon supported it, but I can’t back that up.
Getzel, you raise an interesting point. Two points in response:
1. The Torah and Rabbeinu Gershom arguably don’t express a preference for remaining married; they express a preference for dual consent. It’s not clear that the desired outcome was more refusal to divorce, it’s possible that the desired outcome was an autonomous participation in divorce.
2. Regardless of what the law says and what “rights” it represents, the law is forced to apply indiscriminately (although R’ Gershom left an “out”.) The women who demand divorces might argue that the law cannot help them because the law gives a “right” to all the nice men out there. But their husbands should still not be jerks.
UNRELATED: I don’t understand why this has become a “Crisis” with a capital C. There are a lot of ways that people can be mean to each other, and a lot of ways in which laws are inequitable toward men and women. People should always be menschen, but there is nothing unique about “gets” that should arouse such an outcry.
Radcliffe
I am having trouble rustling up an opinion on this, perhaps because I don’t hang around nashim tzidkanios, or perhaps because I am not checking out what they are wearing. I would be glad to stick in a joke about tearing off any leather clothing that I notice.
Getzel, does that mean that Popa’s wife wears pants outside the house?
I have heard a ton of good reviews for “Sun Inside Rain”, and I understand why people are looking forward to the author’s future releases. That said, Ms. Bassara, you could have been a bit less transparent in promoting the book on this website. Let the conversation develop a little before you start selling.
It is worthwhile to get into Harvard even if you have no intention of going because you can use the acceptance to negotiate scholarships with other schools.
Popa, that’s two wife posts in a row. You have to be less consistent or people will think they’ve figured you out. It’s time for a hiking trip in the Himalayas.
Hang it in your office.
I do it because my father gets upset if I come to family simchas without it and I suspect that my father in law would prefer I wear it when I visit him as well.
If there’s a rabbi who can resolve emunah doubts in three hours, I’d like to meet him.
I have a female cousin who went to college. She is now a Reform rabbi, but she makes good money and is supporting her husband in kollel.
Mr. Sfardi, we’ve had this discussion a thousand times before. We’ve conclusively decided that there are very few students at Harvard these days who don’t have a BTL.
PBA: And in case the names Wachtell and Lipton were ambiguous, (they’re Jewish) the other two name partners are Rosen and Katz.
You should go to Harvard. They are notorious for grade inflation, and having their name on your resume and their degree on your wall is invaluable. Also, if your parents make less than $100,000 a year, it is basically free.
Shul? The mikva?
Too much for what? If you studied 20 hrs and got a C, by what measure can it possibly be too much, especially if you consider yourself smart? Oy, I fell for it. Oh, well.
Marbeh Shalom, those are not questions, they are terutzim.
Just to reiterate what Marbeh Shalom and Moron are saying, so that I can help to help Yungerman from Lakewood:
YFL, Of course you have sefeikos! Because you went to a yeshiva that was slightly to rigid! Or slightly too flexible! But of course there are no real sefeikos, because my rebbi even told me! Are you saying that you’re smarter than my rebbi? You’re just saying that because you once had a rebbi who hit you and you couldn’t handle it!
But you could learn on the bus, Popa! I had a friend who got a heter to do that!
Oh, BTW Popa, I thought you were going to find a job and make lots of money. How has that been working out?
Popa, even if you could get into law school, you would never pass the Character & Fitness part of the bar.
Moron: LOL.
Bubby E: There is of course no threat to the sustainability of our people because whatever version we survive in will become the surviving version.
Yungerman from Lakewood, it’s not true that all meaning must be rooted in belief. Just as an illustration, there are lots of Jews who observe different parts of Judaism despite not believing that it is required. It is difficult for those who grew up frum to recontextualize everything, but on some level it is possible to relate to almost all frumkeit as purely meaning without necessitating belief. V’hamaskil yidom.
If you make it perverted to talk to the opposite gender, only perverts will talk to the opposite gender.