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“veltz meshugener- sorry, i actually love challenges, and love cracking tough cases. i was one of them myself.”
I am glad to hear that you don’t give up the minute a student is challenging. I still think that my post was relevant based on the OP and on the way that you responded.
You don’t need to “crack” anything. It seems that you think of her as involving some sort of quirky complication, and as soon as you get to the bottom of it she will be just like everyone else and she will come give you a hug at 2 am before she sets off to BJJ after a marvelous epiphany. But outside of Rabbi Krohn books and Chicken Soup for the Soul that is not how problems work. People are complicated and improvement is a progression, and the goal shouldn’t be for her to be like everyone else. Figure out what *she* needs and work on improving it.
Happy ending: Turns out the kallah was also a mamzeres.
Appliance repair! Throw out that old greasy appliance and replace it with a modern one!
Sounds like you are all set to teach the easy students who would learn with or without a teacher, but not the students for whom a good teacher will actually matter. Stop complaining about how awful she is. You get paid to get results.
1. Assess her current situation, including strengths, weaknesses, and areas where improvement is likely. Be careful not to substitute your judgment for hers, your boss’s, or her parents’.
2. Figure out what a reasonable goal is.
3. Figure out what steps would move toward that goal.
4. Implement those steps and a bit more.
Apushatayid: It is not a new trend although it may be becoming more common. China has always been cheaper, but it has also been a bit more unpredictable and requires much longer lead time. If the book requires a larger investment, and/or is ready for print long, long before it’s going to be shipped, it is more likely to be printed in China.
There are lots of different complaints about the frum publishers, and they don’t all have the same explanation or excuse. Here are some:
1. They don’t print the truth. Explained by the need to cater to their entire customer base. Alienating even a part of the ultra frum community would make it impossible to turn a profit.
2. They print terrible books. If this refers to poorly written and edited novels, it can be because novels are profitable compared to other kind of books. They wouldn’t be profitable if they would require highly talented authors and editors.
If this refers to well written and edited novels without a moral, like those of Yair Weinstock and similar, the reason is that they are perhaps the most profitable at all, but only Artscroll pretty much can afford to create that product. The reason they don’t have heavy handed morals is because that would ruin the books.
3. They don’t print enough hashkafah/torah type books. That is because these books are almost always money-losers. When you see them, it’s usually because the author paid to publish them. And even then, they take up valuable retail and warehouse space.
Is pretteens a portmanteau of pretty teens? If so, it shouldn’t be on yeshiva world.
Most Jewish publishing companies are run on a shoestring. When someone comes to them with a book that is not embarrassing and is willing to pay for printing, then the publisher will put their name on it and take a middleman’s cut for distributing it because they can only gain and not lose.
I’m not saying I disagree with you, Live Right, or that your business model is worse. But this is the way the frum market works, as a perusal of any publisher’s lineup (except for Artscroll) shows.
Live right: The bad books were self published – the author footed the bill and the distributor put their name on it and distributed it.
Google says that they claim to pay their artists but the artists differ. It might be stealing, but OTOH, you could say the same thing about Apple’s claims (which succeeded in Court) that Motorola was stealing their technology. I guess there are varying degrees and individuals have to decide what is appropriate for themselves.
Also, I’m not so sure why streaming should be stealing at all. I can play you my CDs; why should it matter that we have found a new way for me to play it to lots of people at the same time? And before you argue that if the law had conceived of this technology it would be illegal, the same is true of a million ways that corporations (such as the record companies) make money. The only difference is that they have the clout to actually make laws that protect themselves.
I can’t help you. When I did research into it, I was looking for a mediocre teacher with little experience and few recommendations, mostly negative.
Legitimate websites pay for the songs they play.
The way to get people interested is to have some way to foot the bill. But with all due respect, nobody is interested in hashkafah or self help books. If they would sell, there would be more publishers looking to invest in them.
Why not just jump straight to the Holocaust, Lev Aryeh Boy?
Jewish feminist, I am sure there are some non-frum Israelis who know a lot about Judaism, but there are also many who don’t. I was at a Rosh Hashana meal a couple years back with an educated Israeli who literally did not know more about the Yom Tov than its name. And this is after getting degrees from two Ivy League schools, which are rumored to be empty on Rosh Hashanah.
There’s an app for that.
I agree with Torah613torah about all the top law school students being on YWN coffee room. The only real question to be sorted out is whether there is anyone here who is NOT a student at a top law school.
The Ibn Ezra is not only in one place. It is in five or six, IIRC. Also IIRC, the most revealing occurrences are in Yeshaya at the beginning of perek mem, corresponding to the suggestion by bible critics that from that point on, Yeshaya was written by others.
I’m not certain how controversial this even is, since the gemara says that Chizkiyahu and his disciples wrote Yeshaya. I just took a quick look at the gemara (BB 15a) and the Gemara and Rashi are using (heaven forbid) historical evidence to support the authorship of certain seforim.
(Note: I looked into this a few years ago and I think what I’ve written is accurate but it’s been a while.)
Gotbeer, I am not sure which quota you are talking about but I am pretty sure you must be mistaken. There is no requirement for Orthodox Jews and top law schools are about 20% Jewish almost by default. Also, while I don’t think diversity is a requirement of private schools (like almost all top schools except Berkeley, Michigan and Virginia) and even at the public schools would not require frum people, the schools like to have diversity so that they have a wide spectrum of viewpoints and experiences among their students.
I heard a story years ago and while I’ve forgotten the details, the gist was something like this. Perhaps someone else can fill in the details.
When R’ Chaim Brisker was a kid his father sent him to learn under a local melamed. At one point during the day, the melamed went out of the room for a few minutes, and some minor crime was committed. When the rebbe returned to the room, he placed the blame on a poor boy, whose father was unable to pay much for his son’s participation, instead of a rich boy whose father paid well. Chaim stormed out and refused to return. He explained to his father, the Beis Halevi, that he could not learn under someone who perpetrated such injustice, and his father did not send him back.
Unrelated, but another good story about R’ Chaim as a kid:
Once, he had an altercation with another boy. It was reported to the Beis Halevi that Chaim had struck the boy two times. The Beis Halevi asked the boy why he had done that, and Chaim explained that the other boy had hit him first.
“But he only hit you once,” the Beis Halevi objected. “Why did you hit him back two times?”
“I had to hit him twice,” Chaim explained. “One time to pay him back for hitting me. And the second time because he had hit me for no reason so I had to hit him also for no reason.”
Not sure about Keser Chaya… My sister didn’t go there, and she’s insane.
Wow, how did I miss this topic?
My sister went to Nachalas, and she’s insane. But she’s not there anymore.
LevAryehBro, you have no idea what you are talking about. It’s frozen yogurt.
In the few hours since the article went up I’ve heard a lot of criticism about how the Lakewood system is unsustainable or how it’s an innovation that’s not true Judaism. Others say that claims of unsustainability have been around forever and Lakewood marches on.
Both sides fail to acknowledge that this is the way it has always been – no, not the system as conceived in Lakewood, but a general Jewish community with varying levels of observance. Those at the center of observance have always thought that everyone else is essentially goyim, but have always looked to those same people for support. Meanwhile, the people at lower levels of observance have always thought that the people at the more intense levels were nuts, but also understood that they were necessary for the continuity of Judaism.
While the specific expressions have changed – Reform, Conservative, and other categories of Jews who engage religion less intensely now lean on ideology; and Charedim rely on re-imagining the history of Orthodoxy, the practical roles are essentially the same.
In response to some responses to my post:
1. The Kollel in Boston is not in Cambridge, it’s in Brookline. While some yeshivish students at all the local universities go there to learn, most frum people living in Cambridge don’t even know it exists. There is Chabad and some kiruv organizations at Harvard, but they have a bit of a problem in that the students are too smart and focused to fall for the regular kiruv shpiel. The only students in Cambridge whom anyone has a chance at being mekarev are the Lesley University students. They turn up for the events, like the purim costume parties, but the non-frum students stay non-frum and the frum students go off the derech.
2. I have a close friend who got an online degree and went to a top law school. My impression was that online degrees are less valued than yeshiva degrees though.
At most schools you choose your own classes after your first year. There are rarely classes on Friday afternoon – even in the first year nobody likes them and after that, no one would sign up for them. The biggest issue can be yom tov, but those usually are at the beginning of the semester. Schools usually make allowances for frum people, though the degree to which they make the allowances differs. some schools will video the classes on request. Others will only tape it. Some schools make a big fuss about not recording class for travel days – i.e. erev yom tov. I actually know someone who was refused a recording when he had to miss class for a funeral, because he wanted to leave in the afternoon and the funeral wasn’t until the next morning.
My understanding is that there is not a large frum community near Stanford. Frum people at Yale associate with the Waterbury community (in addition to whatever frum life is around Yale’s campus). Frum people at Columbia/NYU can live in Brooklyn. Frum people at Harvard tend to go off the derech.
You are doing a terrible job of valuing your options. You think that this person might potentially be immensely valuable to you as a shidduch, and you are considering abandoning the opportunity because some people might think that asking someone to redt it is “not done”. Imagine the following hypothetical valuations:
Perfect Shidduch = 1,000,000
Odds that this is the perfect shidduch = 10%
Expected Value of Dating = .10*1,000,000=100,000
Cost of doing something that isn’t done = 50 (but that’s an over-estimate)
Since 100,000 is more value than 50, it makes sense to have someone suggest it.
if you were an applicant to seminary last year, and you are now a happy mommy, then you must have gotten married quickly. that is all.
Yes, there are frum Jews in top law schools. Their backgrounds vary. Some have yeshiva degrees. Some have Touro degrees. Some have online degrees. Some even have degrees from real schools like Queens College or Brooklyn College. It’s probably worth pointing out that outside of the frum community, it is not common for people to go from Touro or even Brooklyn College to a top law school. Most people at top law schools went to top undergrads as well.
Grades-wise, my perception is that there is no trend among frum students at law school. We’ve discussed the rumored Fordham study, and a friend even tried to get hold of it. Nothing I’ve seen leads me to think there is any truth to it though. The frum students I know might trend slightly higher than average, but that is mainly because I don’t know anyone who was at the very bottom of their class.
Actually come to think of it I just remembered that the top graduate at Harvard a few years back was a frum guy. He went on to be a Supreme Court clerk and is now at a big firm. He worked on the metzitza b’peh case pro bono. Poor guy – they never had a chance.
I don’t know how much of this the mods will let through, but I learned there and it was an incredibly unhealthy place. There is immense pressure to conform in things like clothing, speech, mannerisms, even haircuts; there is crazy pressure to learn all day regardless of one’s mental/emotional ability to deal with it, the idea that the yeshiva and the rosh yeshiva are the center of the world and nothing and nobody outside of it are worth anything.
Some of the rebbeim are nice enough, though even the ones who are not hateful and manipulative are not really capable of helping the talmidim deal with the intense emotional trauma that everyone else is engaging in.
edited. If you can rewrite this in more general terms, without specifics, it can get posted.
Also, we had mice in the dorm all the time, and squirrels too. When we would complain about it, we were told that it was our fault because we had food in the dorm.
The answer to all problems was to forbid things. If the rosh yeshiva didn’t like someone’s shoes, the rebbeim would all disappear during first seder one day, and then that afternoon we’d hear that those shoes were now assur. The meetings were for more important things too, like when someone was caught smoking. One boy in my class was caught, and he was left hanging for weeks while the rebbeim had meeting after meeting in the rosh yeshiva’s office. As this went on, the entire yeshiva knew what was happening and rumors flew about the consequences. Finally, he was suspended for a week.
Of all the things that were discouraged, prosecuted or straightforwardly punished, perhaps the worst offense was having a personality that the yeshiva frowned upon. Regular offenses like smoking, staying up late, even adult magazines, they could deal with. But if you were not the kind of person who could just turn the other cheek to this sort of treatment, or even if you were a “shtickmacher” who pushed the lines a bit, then the most minor offenses would result in you getting kicked out for good. IIRC (this goes back some time…) a friend of mine was suspended for listening to the Yankees on someone else’s radio, while the owner of the radio was not punished. I’m not 100% if the reason was that the owner was wealthy or that he had no personality to speak of, but neither difference speaks well of the yeshiva.
As I type this out, I realize that it seems like the kinds of things that I would think must be embellished if I were hearing them from someone else. I assure you that they are not exaggerated at all.
If there is anything good to be said about the yeshiva, it’s that they do try hard to be super elite. The result is that each shiur has a few boys, sometimes as many as five or so who are truly special. On the downside, the really gifted ones mostly leave. If you come across someone who was in Telshe Riverdale for a couple years of high school, and left after 11th grade or so, odds are good he’s a special person – or was before his capabilities were beaten out of him.
Stop trolling bro. I was on here once last year trying to have a serious discussion on the topic and everyone else was a bunch of yeshiva guys in class at NYU Law School.
jwashing – not harsh at all. I’m being caring and sympathetic.
The pasuk says that Noach was tamim “b’dorosav”. Rashi says: Some of “raboseinu” infer praise (of Noach) and some infer criticism. Those who infer praise say that if he was so great in *his* generation, when he was alone, imagine how great he would have been if he had been around people like Avraham! Others infer criticism – only in his generation could he have been considered great, because there was no one truly great. But if he had been in a generation with people like Avraham, he would not have stood out at all.
The question is, why are these p’shatim mutually exclusive? Likely both are true – “ba’asher hu sham” he was not on the level of Avraham’s generation, but if he had been in Avraham’s generation he would have been far greater.
Looking more closely at Rashi, perhaps this is what he means to say: there are two aspects of this word that one could choose to focus on. Those who focus on the positive aspect are Raboseinu. Others, people of little significance, focus on the negative aspect. This is what Rashi means when he uses the word raboseinu only for the first inference.
Wait, you went through this last year and you’re already a happy mommy? Are you rich, or is the shidduch crisis overblown?
Do not, under any circumstances, go to Yeshiva of the Telshe Alumni. Do not allow anyone you know to go there either.
Turns out the more ignorant you are, the easier it is to determine that someone else is an apikores.
The main problem with the shutdown is that it’s all the wrong parts of government that are shutting down. We still have to pay taxes but the IRS doesn’t have to answer our questions. We can’t go to national parks, which were there before there was a government; but the NSA is still groping grandmas.
As I’ve posted (on other forums) in the past, I believe that in a past gilgul I was the son of a hardworking farmer who worked in the fields his entire life. He was a serf and had no hope of ever advancing his station. I was killed when I was twelve in a freak plowing accident, which was a good thing because I wasn’t much for farm work. My parents were very sad for a few weeks, but after a while they got used to it, and the fields weren’t going to harvest themselves.
$30 is cheap? I’ve heard good things and had limited good experience with A.I. Stone shirts. They sell online for more, but I believe that some of the frum stores sell them for $30-ish.
My dear beloved chosson,
I cannot believe that we are finally about to embark on our lives together. I am so lucky to be able to marry someone who fit all of the criteria on my checklist, even the part about being tall, which I was embarrassed to tell the shadchan. Well, I really didn’t tell her that because Duvid Weissman wasn’t engaged yet then, and he’s short. But once he was engaged and I knew that I wouldn’t have a shot at his family’s money anymore, I was hoping that you would be tall. Not only that, when I showed my friends pictures of you before the vort they are all so jealous! Even after we got engaged you got me the best jewelry, better than any of my friends got from their chassanim. Except for the earrings, which I left home when I would get together with them.
Anyway, this is totally bashert, and I hope that you are as excited as I am. I want you to know that I plan to have a TON of shalom bayis and as my kallah teacher and rebbetzin both advised me, I am not going to try to be your mashgiach so you are going to have to be very careful to be on top of your own ruchnius. Like no missing shachris or seder or anything, because if you do, it won’t be my place to say anything and then it will ruin our shalom bayis, which I may have mentioned is going to be AMAZING, or at least better than Ruchel and her husband Yanky’s, which is going to be hard because they really seem to get along.
Anyway, I have to go because I need to get my nails done so that they will be ready for the re-doing before the wedding. I am getting them done in baby powder white with a tiny tint of pink so that my gown will look whiter.
Toodles,
Your beloved Chana Pretzel
It’s true that a lot of what we consider Orthodoxy is a reaction to Reform. Perhaps the most relevant is the exclusion of people who are not on a particular level observance-wise. Witness the difference between non-observant Ashkenazim, who most often have no connection to Orthodoxy, and non-observant Sefardim, who are perhaps less affiliated than observant Jews, but are adhering to essentially the same ideas.
Hundreds of people die whenever I miss a plane.
Also, b’makom sh’ein ish, hishtadel lih’yos ish.
Come to think of it, it’s like chazal was written for people stranded in Toledo.
Im ani kan, hakol kan.
I think that the posters in this thread have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a “friend” is. To be honest, I don’t have any friends, so it could be me, but my impression from books and the like is that friends are not so much selected as uncovered and evolved. If you bond with someone and care about them, you don’t turn it off because it suits you.
I know people who went to Georgian Court when they were single. Not sure what you mean by a “good place”. If you live on 8th and Forest, it’s pretty convenient. But I wouldn’t commute from San Francisco.
I feel like the second question is one of those riddles the answer to which is a pun. But I can’t for the life of me figure out what the answer might be.
I am skeptical of any field in which the examiners are the same as the service providers, and in which the customers are completely unsophisticated.