WinnieThePooh

whether there is a crisis or not, whether it is due to a an age gap or nor, whether we can fix it with some simple solutions or not, there is one thing that we should not forget during these discussions:
There are PEOPLE out there, women and men, girls and boys who are suffering because they want very much to be married but have not yet found their bsherts. They may have emuna that it will happen at the right time, and that Hashem wants them to be where they are at that particular moment, but that does not take away the pain of davening for something, only to be told “not yet.” And it is not just the frustration of wanting to fulfill an important tafkid but not being able to, it is also the feeling of not really being part of society, being marginalized, no longer being a child, but not accepted by others as an adult, having to tolerate (with a smile, no less) people’s judgmentalism and personally invasive questions. Put yourself for one moment in the shoes of someone going through this nisayon, and then go daven that no one should have to feel such pain.

vestin- You asked for clarification. I don’t think any Torah authority would encourage following the Avos/Imahos examples when it comes to marriage. Their situations were unique in that they were forming Klal Yisroel. Maase Avos Siman LBonim does not mean that we are supposed to conduct our lives exactly the way they did, but rather that their actions/experiences foreshadow the experiences of their children and is the spiritual foundation of their descendant’s future actions (e.g. Avraham went down to Mitzrayim, so did Bnei Yaakov, etc) (at least that is the way I have always learned the phrase).
You claim that we can learn from the Avos that boys should marry younger girls. Let’s see exactly how that worked- Yitzchak got married at 40, Rivka was 3. hmm, are you advocating a 37 yr age gap between couples? Yaakov got married at 84 (he had a really long “freezer” period in Yeshiva Shem V’Ever, apparently), and had a 7 yr engagement to Rochel (ended up being Leah). I don’t think anyone even thinks we should follow the Avos’ lead in these matters. (not to mention marrying more than 1 wife). How does a 24 year old boy marrying a 19 year old girl fit what the Avos did any more than a 24 year boy marrying a 23 yr old or a 25 yr old?
Except for the Avos, I don’t think we even know what the trend over history is in terms of ages of the couple getting married. An exception is Amram and Yocheved- Amram is not listed as one of those going down to Mitzrayim, so he was born in Mitzrayim, Yocheved was born as they went down, bein hachomos, so she was older- by a lot, even, since she was 130 when Moshe was born, and Amram only lived 137 yrs, and at least according to Rashi, there were many years of overlap between Amram and Moshe after Moshe was born.

All our clothes are non-iron, actually they are made from cotton, polyester, etc. And button down shirts are easy-care/wrinkle-free, they come out good enough from the dryer if I remember to take them out right away. Practically the only time I iron is when my husband needs to wear his kittel, twice a year.

I always thought that davka because Shindler was an amoral degenerate makes his acts of saving Jews even greater. It means that someone did not have to be a “saint” or super-human to stand up to the Nazis; if someone with very questionable ideas of right and wrong can have so clearly seen that sending Jews to slaughter was wrong, then what can the rest of the population say?

people are forgetting that there are so many frum programs today for women to attend, giving full BAs, or training in a particular field, there are online programs, so they can totally avoid the dangers of a liberal college campus. Yes certain professions will require graduate schools and more exposure, but in general these programs are very focused. A mature girl with a strong seminary background who knows what she believes in and why she is doing what she is doing should be ok- I have seen many girls do this and come out just fine, even stronger once their beliefs leave theory and are put into practice. For a girl who cannot handle this, then there are many professions and training programs that she can take and avoid exposure to a college campus at all. So getting a degree/professional training does not have to have any impact on a girl’s ruchniyus. And getting a degree and a decent job does not mean a girl is a feminist whose only goal is a career.
As to Joseph’s second point about the longer a girl waits, the more her ruchniyos drops- I would disagree. Women are inherently spiritual, even without formal learning in a school or seminary. From all the older single girls that I have known, I have seen tremendous growth in them spiritually as the years advance- in emuna, tefilla, chessed, for example. the 18/19 year old straight out of seminary can’t even hold a candle to these amazing women.

when is the last time you saw a kid dressed as a pumpkin delivering mishloach manos?

I’m pretty familiar with the schools in RBSA, mostly from word of mouth and investigations.
For standard Beis Yaakov, students go to the one in their neighborhood- the schools are large, many classes in each grade, with very large class sizes and they won’t take a student from out of the neighborhood. So If you live in the Sorek/Uirah/Kishon/Lachish area you send your daughters to the Mishkenoas Daat BY on Sorek. If you live on the other side of the Ayalon Park, to BY HaRama on Nahal Gilo. If you live in Gimmel, you go to the newly opened BY in Gimmel. There are other BYs as well- Darchei Rochel is private (you pay a nominal tuition), so you can go there no matter where you live. It used to have an advantage of smaller classes, but that is no longer the case. I think it has a reputation of being more chareidi than the standard BY. Then there are the more “American” style BYs- Magen Avot and Bnos Malka.
As far as chaderim, there are so many- I couldn’t possibly answer all your question for each cheder.
You have the elitist ones where you need pull to get in (or have a brother already enrolled). There are the more accepting ones that look at building the child as opposed to what the family is like. There are chasidish leaning ones, more Israeli ones, more American ones, some where they take their secular studies seriously, some where it is just a formality or barely given. Some where student body will be mostly from kollel families, others where parents are working, others a mix or don’t care. There are Zichru ones as well.
Here’s a list of what I can remember:
Noda Bshearim
Ateres Shlomo
Zos L’Yehuda
Toras Chesed
Beis Sholom
Aviezri
Beis Eliyahu
Toras Sholom
TaShBaR
Toras Eliyahu (Zilberman)
Toras Moshe
Magen Avot (boys)
Darchei Noam
In general, the more Israeli/exclusive/mainstream chareidi chadarim are towards the top of the list, while towards the bottom, are the more American style ones, with more limudei chol, a bit more out-of-the-box.
There are also some Sefardi chadarim, although you can find sefardi kids in the other chadarim as well. A few new ones opened in the last year or two in gimmel that I don’t know anything about- some are branches of existing ones in Aleph- and there is an equally long list of chadarim in Bet, mostly chasidish.
How about if you describe what you want, and then I can try to figure out which will be the good fits. Or you can try speaking to some of the local Rabanim and ask their advice- like R Kornfeld of the GR”A shul (English speaker)l. He is involved in several of the chadarim.

Many yeshivah ketanas in any neighborhood with a large percent of English speakers will have English speaking students. But will that help you? In these yeshivios the shiurim will be in Hebrew, and staff most likely to be Israeli, although I can think of some that are run by Americans. Also the level of learning may be very different from what you would find in a mesivta in Chu”l. Or do you mean a place that specifically has a program for chutzniklim with shiurim in English?

Once you put the cleaning solutions, etc up high, and put away breakable coffee-table things, you get used to them there, and they just end up staying there, even when baby is no longer a baby.
Also, there are all types of babies/toddlers. For one of my kids, I had to close up/lock up everything – including the toilets, even stove-top knobs were removed. He climbed out of his crib at 14 months, and figured out how to get past the baby gate by his door soon after. For the other kids, keeping chemicals and sharp objects out of reach was enough.
By the way, in Israel, the outlets are high, around midway up the wall, not low on the floor, so they are not accessible to crawling babies, or even standing toddlers, although of course an enterprising toddler can always pull up a chair…

the locks and gates come off when the kids figure out how to take them off.
the house never really reverts to pre-baby days, even when babies grow up. it just gets filled up with their stuff instead.
And then the grandkids start coming over…

The military probably prefers the younger recruits – they are more likely to be molded and influenced by their superiors, making a better soldier who will do as he is told and take orders without question. The older and more educated, and more opinionated the recruit is, the harder it will be to train him. So it’s not about trusting him with a weapon, it’s about the ability to turn him into a non-thinking, follow-orders soldier.

Thank you for the compliment Ub, but I still feel uncomfortable. If I am quoting a meforash, I will repeat what they say definitively. If I am saying my own thoughts, even if those thoughts are based on all the Torah I have learned over the years and make logical sense, and explain the peshat well, I will still qualify my statements, as being a possible explanation. Simply because there is so much I don’t know, plus things I did know once and forgot. Even bigger gedolim than little old me use terms like “Lfi Aniyus daati”

Ubiquitin- I did not use the word concept to suggest someone is pretending to be a kohein but is not, rather to refer to kehuna in general without directly meaning a kohein who is a descendants of Aharon Hakohein. Aharon earned the kehuna, so from then on all kohanim descend from him, but kehuna preceded him. In the time of the avos, they had a kohein, he just was not from Aharon and he did not serve in the Beis Hamikdash, but he did teach Torah and bring people closer to Hashem. The passuk clearly calls MalkiTzedek a Kohein, and rashi uses that term too, and not stam a kohein like Yisro, but a Kohein to Kel Elyon.
I think we agree that for some mitzvos, the form probably differed from the literal sense that we are familiar with now. That does not mean they did not keep the mitzvos.

There may not have been kohanim from Aharon in the time of the avos, but there was a concept of kohanim- Check out Parshas Lech Lecha. Shem (MalkiTzedek melech Shalem) was a Kohen to Kel Elyon. Avraham gave him maaser from the spoils of his war with the 4 kings. Rashi says that it was because Shem was a kohein.
Also by Yitzchak, Rashi states that when he measured his produce and found that it had produced 100x more than he expected (Meah Shearim), he was measuring it to give maaser. Does not say to whom, but we know Shem was still alive. When delineating the mitzvos, the Rambam attributes maaser specifically to Yitzchak. (I don’t know how he explains the above episode with Avraham).

Mechiya amalek- we can’t do this mitzva now either in its literal sense. We fulfill it the best we can, for example, by reading parshas zachor and “klapping” out Haman’s name during the megilla. The concept of amalek exists even when the nation itself does not. I would suggest that perhaps the Avos were able to fulfill the mitzva in a non-literal sense, by blotting out the concept of chance and denial in Hashem’s hashgacha pratis tha Amalek represents?

“Im lavon garti” cannot possibly mean literally all 613- besides all the other examples, we know that Yaakov married two sisters, davka when he lived with Lavan.
Bottom line, as ubiquitin said (I think we are actually on the same side here), we consider ourselves shomer torah umitzvos, even though none of us can possibly do all 613, and even though we sometimes mess up.
So why is it so hard to accept that chazal said that the avos kept the mitzvos? why does it have to be all or none? And why assume that they kept them in the exact way that we keep them after receiving the Torah?

Don’t forget that young couples don’t stay that way for long. The whole equation can change after a year, once you throw in diapers and babysitting costs.

The Sefer Haachinuch explains that he gives the taamei hamitzvos- not the sibas hamitzva- it’s just a taste of what the Mitzva means. The true meaning/reason is beyond our human comprehension. Torah and MItzvos are Divine, and we are mortal. To some degree we can give “reasons” that make it easier to do the Mitzva, but these are just superficial understandings of why Hashem gave us that Mitzva. As much as we can understand and it helps us to do the mitzva, then we should delve into the mitzva. But ultimately, it comes down to one thing, we are doing the mitzva because Hashem commanded us.
For example, we can say that we have a mitzva of eating matza on Pesach because we ate matza in Mitzrayim, and because our dough did not rise when we left Mitzrayim. Sounds reasonable, makes the mitzva meaningful to us. But we also know that Avraham kept the Torah and ate Matza,. The “reason” for the mitzva is not relevant to him, since it had not happened yet. This shows us that there is more behind this mitzva than we see at face value.

To continue inspiring, and to make it easier to have that emuna and positive attitude, let’s take the next step- let’s post things that show (to paraphrase oyyoyyoy) how the Am Kodesh is flourishing, things that are hopeful, positive, about Am Yisroel, as a whole, as a community, or as individuals. No negative comments, no bashing, no talking about heads in sand. Just be melamed zechus. We can sure use it.

Here’s an example: our local phone book has a whole listing of gemachim- where people all over the neighborhood lend out for free everything from Bris pillows to nebulizers to baby supplies to Purim costumes. Our communities have perfected chessed!

I knew somebody would bring up viruses and cancer. (I also was afraid that someone would start ranting about how cancer is all a conspiracy made up by the greedy drug companies, in cahoots with the FDA and the cancer researchers who are growing rich on NIH and NCI grants).
Viruses take over the host cell. Some can insert their genetic material into the host’s DNA. They produce proteins that can interfere with many cellular processes, including the cell cycle and cell death. Some of these viral proteins are oncogenic and can transform normal cell to become cancerous, similar to the way genetic mutations, say caused by UV radiation of cigarette smoke, can affect these same pathways. But no competent scientist or oncologists would state that all cancers were viruses and can be treated, for example, by locally heating the tumor to high temperatures since high temperatures can kill viruses. As ubiquitin said, tumorigenic viruses are but one cause of neoplastic transformations. And the cancer is neither a fungus nor a virus.
I gave into my curiosity and went to the guy’s website. He claims that all cancers start out as fungal infections, and that because of their fungal origins, they can be treated with baking soda. His use of the world “all” is the first alarm trigger- besides that cancer is not a single disease, no way he could have examined all cancers all over the world for all times, so he is making an assumption but stating it as a fact. A decent researcher would have said something like “of the 200 cases I have examined, 89% started as a fungus.” And even if there is something similar to viruses- where the fungus is triggering a reaction in the cell that triggers neoplastic transformation, the cell would still be a complex cancerous cell and baking soda would be as effective as the sugar pill placebo. Actually, I don’t think even fungal infections are treated with baking soda.

Ok, so he is more than an idiot trying to promote his book. Charlatans who play on desperate people, raising their hopes falsely and stealing their money should be locked up. And what about all those campaigns to raise money so that ill patients can travel to some far-flung place and pursue an unlikely, unproven cure as their last and only chance? Are we helping them by feeling bad for them and giving money, or are we accessories to the charlatan?

I don’t have an opinion of whether it is a good idea or not, but one thing I’d like to question- you are concerned about a potential drinking problem or behavior that might to lead to one primarily because of how it would affect their image in shidduchim, but not how it might affect their health?

Iloivar

Na, you are not old. Your children are!
Old is whatever age our parents are.

Unfortunately there are people who go and use “prayer” to promote their agendas and gain publicity and legitimacy for their personal definitions of what Judaism should be, irrespective of Halacha.

This situation is such a complex one, and each of the sides has important points, there is no real simple solution. In fact it really is a very old argument- is Torah learning for the masses or for the elite?
I remember learning about Avraham’s Eshel, which chazal explain either as a tree (pardes, orchard) from which he fed his guests, or as an inn (pundak) to receive guests. The Pundak would be open for all- Torah for the masses. the Tree was more for the elite. So even Chazal disagreed which was the best approach to spreading Torah learning.
To add to the mix a few things to think about (applicable to America, not to Israel where army service/laws against working also play a factor in the length of learning).
People raised the point that only the best and brightest should be supported in learning (Pardes approach), as in the past where the great Yeshivos in Europe had strict entrance requirements and so only the best stayed in learning.
1. We are far wealthier today as a whole than the Jewish communities of Europe were in the past, so the model of only being able to support a small few in learning is not comparable.
2. One of the problems with the old system was that Torah became an exclusive right of the elite, leaving the rest of the population disenfranchised, and with only a weak link to frumkeit. Chasidus stepped in to give alternative means to become close to hashem even for the non-learners. So perhaps the danger is minimized today, with other means to develop in ones’s avodas Hashem, and because the general population has far more opportunities to learn Torah today even in a non-Kollel environment than the typical Cheder boy of yesteryear who stopped his learnings at a young age to work. But we would still be wary of a scenario where Torah is only for the elite. Also there is another danger- If full-time learning is reserved for a minority, that minority might lose its standing and respect (as has been true in the past, say mid 20th century America), so that the best and brightest will not turn to Torah learning.
3. How many need to learn in order to continue to produce gedolim b’Torah? The gemara talks about 1000 in entered the Beis Medrash to produce 1 gadol. There is a concept that you need a critical mass of Torah learning to create an environment that fosters gadlus b’Torah. Torah greats will not be produced in some ivory tower of elite learners only.
4. As Joseph said (one of the few times I actually agree with him), it is hard to predict who will be the future gedolei hador- IQ and brilliance is not necessarily a predictor, hasmada and desire to learn can often overcome lesser intellectual skills. We’re not talking about those who are breaking their teeth trying to understand and see no success in their studies. Long-term learning is somewhat of a self-selective process. Those who can’t learn for whatever reason will not be sitting in kollel for 10+ years. At the most, they will stay in Yeshiva because of shidduchim pressures, and maybe 1-2 yrs after marriage, but at some point their self-esteem and other interests will override external pressures and they will leave learning. So really the “controversy” is about those who stay 3-10 years, who can learn, although they may not be the best at it.
5. The model of yesteryear when one could work and learn at the same time (think cobbler learning as he fixes shoes, milkman discussing Torah with his colleagues as he delivers the milk) is sort of obsolete. Not too many laborers and craftsmen these days. The well-paying jobs that frum people tend to go for require many years of study and then involve many long hours of work which involve total concentration, leaving not too many hours left for learning, even if he can muster the intellectual stamina to do so. There aren’t many openings these days for shepherds.
6. If one waits until he needs parnassa to get one, then there will be long schooling delay that he cannot afford. If he gets his degree/training before his kollel years, then by the time he is ready to/needs to work, his skills will be obsolete and his job opportunities limited due to the gap. So he needs to get his degree/training as he learns, but that distracts him from his learning, with one foot constantly out the door… What is the solution? By the way, there are training programs in place – even in Lakewood. They help the men earn BTLs (for whatever they are worth), there are accelerated accounting programs, kiruv training programs, and others.

Whew (long)!

The Yeshiva guys out there will better answer your questions- but in general, most people learning in Yeshiva are not learning for semicha- they are learning gemara, not shulchan aruch/halacaha. there are special programs/kollels for those who want to study for semicha, for example to become a Rav or Rabbinical Judge.
Generally, yeshivos for adults are not structured like college and don’t have grades and tests or official courses. The day is broken up into 3 parts- or sedorim- morning, afternoon and night. Most of that time is spent learning a specific tractate of Gemara in pairs with a study partner. There can also be a daily shiur given by the Rosh Yeshiva on the Gemara that the pair prepared. There are some kollels that do have some sort of test and will give a stipend or bonus based on performance. And there are global organizations, like Dirshu -not affiliated with a particular yeshiva- that encourage men to learn independently according to a certain program, and then administer tests periodically. there is usually some sort of financial reward for those who do well on the test.