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I believe that Bnos Sarah is 10 years old, but I’m not sure. (I know someone who went 2006-7 and I don’t think that she was there the first or second year but I could be wrong.)
I go to a seminary that has been around for a very, very long time (seminarily speaking, at least- I know a girl who was the third generation there in her family) and it’s a fantastic place, but I also know of girls in much newer sems who have had a wonderful year. Machon Raaya, for instance- I’m not even sure if it’s five years old but it’s now really put itself on the map and all my friends there love it. And then there are older sems that have sketchy things happen (like Pninim- whatever you may think about that whole thing, it was still an established sem that went through a very rough period). You really just have to know what you’re getting into. Perhaps a sem that’s not in its first or second year would be better for you, but an arbitrary cutoff like “10 years” is probably unnecessary.
For #1: She’s actually a genuinely nice person and if I wanted the clothes (which, incidentally, would be a bit too big on me) she would gladly give them to me- she was being completely serious. I just don’t think that she was thinking about how it made me feel- and I think it made her feel good about her weight loss as well, which isn’t something I’ll begrudge her.
The yearbook picture thing is just funny. I don’t think it looks like me either, to be honest. My grandmother has it in her living room and shows it off to everyone who comes in- one time I had to drop mail off by a neighbor (in a maxiskirt, braid and no makeup, more pimples) and the neighbor gave me a long look when I said who I was and the lightbulb immediately clicked on- “oh! You’re [writersoul’s mom]’s daughter! Tell your sister that her yearbook picture is beautiful!” I sort of just smiled politelyish and left.
Also, Aaron Tzvi, this feels a bit like a contradiction:
“Are you aware that Rav Dovid Soloveitchik asked Ami’s head personally to convey his views through their magazine. They are the only Jewish magazine that truly will not bend over backwards for agendas”
I am not defining R Dovid Soloveitchik’s view as an agenda- I am defining an agenda as a preexisting template or mindset on the part of those producing the magazine.
And on this rare occasion I agree with Lior- do NOT base your life off of the hadracha of a $3.99 (or however much) magazine.
And, with any magazine, the number of people at any given period (even in the same ISSUE) who could be featured and diametrically oppose/disagree with each other is very very large.
I have one friend who constantly tells me about all of her clothing that she “just lost so much weight and now simply can’t fit into, they’re so big- writersoul, you should really try them on!”
And the tone of surprise when people see my yearbook picture is priceless. Yes, as a matter of fact, I was wearing makeup, thanks for asking.
Yes, my point being that currently, there’s more information there than you’d find on this thread. Even if it might rank higher on Google.
It happens to be very helpful.
People get turned down for a lot of reasons. I, for example, if I wanted a certain kind of guy, would have a much easier time getting a date with one if I hadn’t gone to seminary than I would have after going to the seminary I’m attending now. (The one that, y’know, is letting me be on the internet right now.)
I personally think that on a klali level I don’t think that it’s good that seminary is seen as a must- however, I think that for most individual girls it happens to be a wonderful thing to do. But just see my subtitle for that.
An interesting question is what about American/Canadian sems (for Americans/Canadians- I won’t equate with, say, Gateshead in the UK because from what I’ve gathered attitudes are somewhat different there about this) and half-day sems- are they a midway point, or do they gravitate toward one end or the other of this (supposed) sliding scale of respectability and shidduchworthiness? (FWIW, I know someone who went to sem in Toronto and loved it except that a quarter of girls weren’t at graduation because they were already MARRIED. She was late to the game by getting engaged the October after sem ended.)
YAY! I FIGURED OUT ALLOWED MARKUPS!
Sam2: I saw that and literally banged my head against the nearest wall. It still hurts, just like the article.
UUUUUrrrrgh. I mean, just, no. The CNN headlines were bad but this is just unbelievably iufgase;koaeofh;aowieish.
Wait, you also figured out who edited is? Awesome! It’s so cool to hear that someone else knows. We really need to discuss him more behind his back and stalk him. Otherwise it’s just not fun knowing.
Google the yeshiva and check for the judaism.stackexchange result- it helped me a lot when I needed background info for a family history project.
Lior: ?!?!?!?!?!?
Letakein Girl: Teen magazines are ridiculous- worse even than the kids’ ones (because at least the kids’ ones don’t make any pretenses at being targeted at a certain age). I started getting Mishpacha in 2005- so I was nine- and I read it cover to cover. When they started with Family First, I read that too.
Now I sometimes feel like I’ve grown out of it…
Anyway, in general, Mishpacha is for the whole family and Family First is meant for women. My dad actually thinks that half the time the really interesting articles are in Family First, but for what it’s worth, that’s what the publishers have in mind.
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
I loved this one….
He was a math professor for much longer than he was a singer…
I love National Brotherhood Week. Featuring, of course, the immortal lyrics:
Oh the Protestants hate the Catholics/and the Catholics hate the Protestants/and the Hindus hate the Muslims/and everybody hates the Jews….
And, of course, there’s his shortest song, the Aristotelian Elements Song.
I was just in the shuk and absentmindedly tried to pay for my produce with my Rav Kav…
Speaking of Rav Kavs (for the unaware, they’re Israel’s answer to the MetroCard used on the bus and light rail), on chol hamoed Sukkos I was taking the light rail to Geula at about eight PM (NEVER EVER DO THIS). The train was packed to the gills and my friends and I were jammed against the back wall. There was no room to breathe in the train, but people kept on trying to pile in because the next train was due in another ten minutes. When people are jammed in the doorway the doors can’t close and the train can’t move, so after a while the conductor announced over the loudspeaker in Hebew, “Will the blond girl in the black sweatshirt please stop trying to push her way onto the train- it won’t work!” Naturally the whole car starts cracking up, and a few seconds later the train moves.
Three hours later I was waiting for my bus back to sem and a bunch of girls from a different sem right near mine were shmoozing and one of them, a very nice-looking girl with a blond ponytail and black sweatshirt, starts telling her friends about how it was so funny on the train, the conductor had made an announcement over the loudspeaker at her!
And, last but not least:
When my dad was a kid, he lived in Brooklyn in a house that only had a front porch, so they’d always build their sukkah on that porch. It was canvas, and it always was a challenge to tie it down so that it wouldn’t blow too much in the wind. One year, he was sick on chol hamoed so he had to stay home from his family’s trip. He was sitting in the kitchen in his pajamas when suddenly he heard a big crash and looked out the window to see what it was- and saw a familiar-looking sukkah flying down the sidewalk. He ran out of the house to try to catch the sukkah, which had made its way down the street to the main intersection, and just managed to catch it before it flew into the main street. His neighbors never let him live down the memory of running down the street in his pajamas after the sukkah and shlepping it back home.
That’s correct.
It was on the Lower East Side and moved to Brooklyn when it merged with Chasan Sofer.
It was a boys’ elementary school with both limudei kodesh and limudei chol, including such classes as music instruction. My grandfather attended in the late thirties-early forties (continued to MTJ) and remembers it as a great school.
RebYidd: Ha
Lior: It’s really not- depends on your neighborhood, I guess. (If all you know of Monsey is 306/59, then yeah. But even the big chassidish neighborhoods are nowhere near BP levels of congestion, and most other neighborhoods cannot even be compared.
“R’ Moshe was Mapkid to never have his picture taken…”
There are, however, several pictures of him from his younger years (including a family picture just before his family came to America).
The story is, however, very like R Moshe the way my grandfather (a ben bayis and talmid of his) remembers him.
oyyoyyoy: wow, blast from the past…
I still hold by everything I wrote in that thread, BTW. Saves me having to post on this one.
streekgeek: Thinning is not always good. My sister had her hair thinned and it was as poofy as ever and very itchy as it grew back in. She regretted it for a long time. (My mother’s sheitelmacher described her hair as the second worst she’d ever seen. Beautiful, I mean, but very hard to deal with. She now gets keratin- not enough to keep it always straight but enough to keep it manageable.)
Did anyone ever try the Curly Girl method? My friend swears by it, but I’ve always been a bit too chicken to try it.
Syag: Absolutely. There is a difference between sensitivities that can be compromised on and cut-and-dry halacha.
That’s not what I was saying, however.
What I was saying was:
1) He is not the right person to say it to her.
2) He should ABSOLUTELY not frame it in terms of the shidduch.
3) If she were to change for his sake and not because she thought that it was the right thing to do, it would not be an altogether good thing and it would probably cause issues. (I’ll get back to this.)
4) He seemed like he had an attitude like, “oh, one quick word with a rebbetzin will solve everything, the question is whether I bring it up,” and I just wanted to make it clear that this was wrong wrong wrong.
Back to #3- Yes, it is better to fulfill halacha, obviously. And yes, even if she were to change for his sake, every time she would overcome her instinct to do the right thing would be a mitzvah and a prevention of an aveirah. I still don’t think, however, that this is the ideal scenario, given what I wrote in the last post. The poster who mentioned his wife’s case was not dealing with someone who would change for the sake of the guy she wanted to marry- she was already inspired, already working to change herself. If this girl is the same then that would be great. If not then starting from the bottom up would be much, much better.
That’s not to say that she can use “I haven’t found the right inspiration yet” as an excuse for not acting in accordance with halacha. Definitely not. The problem is specifically tying this particular practice with a specific tenai, a specific tit-for-tat. I just think that that’s a very unhealthy attitude to bring into a marriage.
(Though, of course, you’re talking to Little-Miss-Marriage-Expert here. As Linus Van Pelt would say, we all know about unmarried marriage counselors…)
oyyoyyoy: I’m agreeing that as far as the status quo is concerned, the kind of boys who are coming out of the current Israeli yeshiva system would probably not do well in the army, from the way they’ve been raised.
Note that I’m wording that very carefully. I give no definitive opinion and make no judgments.
viyoel moshe: Nobody in Monsey or Monroe cares either, so even if there weren’t…
zdad: Don’t see the connection- you mean, at least they’ll be able to text?
I thought this was a joke for a very, very long time, and I’m still hoping that it is. Just read what they have up under the haskamos- hyperbolic (and factually incorrect) comparisons of themselves to the Rambam (and the exposers of child molesters- I mean, SERIOUSLY), extremely misleading juxtaposition to and conflation with the Sabbath Mode oven setting that makes it seem as though R Moshe Heinemann endorses the Shabbos App, and using adjectives such as “pig-headed” to describe rabbonim- really not much to make people take them too seriously.
As a girl, I’ll say:
Do not expect her to change after a quick talking to. Let’s say a girl was dating a guy and she was annoyed/worried because he seemed to be slacking off in going to mincha. (The exact thing isn’t important, just that there’s something he does that she doesn’t like/believe is correct.) Should she assume that you will hear a nice shmuess from your rebbi and immediately change? Same in this case. No change should be made for anyone but oneself or it will never stick and will never give real satisfaction. Imagine (assuming, for the moment, that the problem is that her skirts are too short, just ledugma) that you somehow get across to her (already difficult to do without potentially being very offensive and judgmental but definitely possible) that the skirts are an issue that is holding you back in the relationship. She really wants this to happen, she thinks you’re a great guy, so she says yes, I’ll change. There’s a sale on tea-length dresses and calf-length skirts and she immediately buys out the store. If she is ONLY changing so that you’ll move from date four to date five, and then eventually to proposal and wedding, then what happens in a year (if that long) when the whole glow wears off, there are bumps in the road, and she thinks to herself, this is the guy I changed for? This change will be entirely tied up in externals and if the externals seem no longer quite as worth it, only resentment can come. Or, even if you are idyllically and peacefully married for many years, she will not feel that the new longer skirts are something that she wants to wear, something that she chose because it was intrinsically important to her- they will be something that was placed on her as a burden and from there, resentment can build up as well. Unless she can summon up real desire to change that has NO connection with the guy she’s dating, no change will last with good effects.
It is very possible (though only after you know each other quite well, as in mft23’s case) that you can broach this topic in a way that will be well-received. It will be difficult, though, and even afterward, you can’t rely on a bandaid solution to erase the issue from existence.
Good luck!
As a born-and-bred Monseyite, I don’t even pretend to understand this.
How do people even breathe in Boro Park?
Someone just told me I was delusional.
I nearly fell off my unicorn.
I’m really sorry that I can’t give immediately helpful information, but I do know that Passaic is a wonderful community for young couples and that there is an active housing market for apartments in the area. I believe that there are Passaic internet boards- if anyone has the information about one, it might be a good idea to join and ask there.
Good luck in your move!
I only just re-found this thread where I realized that I became the subject of the “Writersoul Issue,” which has basically nothing to do with me but just sounds so cool that I absolutely had to mention it.
And speaking of Halakhic Man, I just dared my friend to use the term “ontic dualism” in a research paper.
Anyway, carry on with what you were doing.
I know people who go to yeshivot hesder (I know one at the moment who is actually a chayal boded who is in a yeshiva regiment) and then are all together in the army and from what I’ve heard it can be a fantastic experience. (I was watching the hashvaah for this soldier’s regiment, specifically the part where they all swear allegiance to the army and the state, and you can hear regiment after regiment say “ani nishba!” and then, all of a sudden, one that says “ani matzhir!”- the yeshiva regiment. They’re very accomodated and are doing something that is important to them.
A pretty major point in general in this discussion is that people are going to have varying opinions about the viability of the army for frum kids because people have different opinions about the things that frum kids need to make the army spiritually good enough. Someone who needs a black suit and hat and 24/7 learning will obviously not have that and perhaps descend as a result, as they are used to nothing different; someone who grew up expecting to go to the army and expecting to make things work will have more of an ability to do that.
GAW: Thank you for using the proper title. Professor Hicks would approve (even if Professor Flead may not…).
Haifagirl: I absolutely see your point about the name thing. My mom (who was an older single and whose close friends were older singles as I was growing up) always referred to all of her friends by first name, whether they were married or single, in order to prevent any disparity. She felt that Miss Plonit was stuffy and that we had our own aunts and uncles, so for her this was the best solution. And it worked- the only reason why I referred to my mom’s friend ever as Mrs Plonit was because she was also my classmate’s mom. And now that all of my mother’s friends are married we’re still on a first name basis.
HIE: And that means that the rabbanim to whom Dati Leumi look to for guidance are what?
Just regular Joe Shmoes?
Apikorsim (ch”v)?
Because most of these people whom you disdain have more Torah in their pinky toe than you’ll likely ever know. And I don’t mean this personally- this probably applies to the majority of us on this board. The amount of Torah that they know is staggering.
Will you say that they are misapplying it? That they were misled in some way? But why shouldn’t some gedolei Torah be given the same latitude given to other gedolei Torah in making a psak?
Perhaps you are merely saying these things about these rabbanim because they don’t agree with YOU or YOUR rabbanim.
(Just BTW- I’m not NECESSARILY stating my opinion on this subject by writing this. I’m just trying to make a point.)
I never called my aunts and uncles by titles- they were always called by their first names. I did grow up with a lot of respect for elders- my neighbors and friends’ moms were always “Mrs X” and my parents were incredulous when they heard that some of my teachers in sem want to be called by their first names (I still have something holding me back from using them)- but my aunts and uncles always preferred to be called by their first names only. Just as a parent can be mochel on their kavod in any ways, kal vachomer an aunt or uncle, no?
“For a real in-depth analysis of this, read Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.”
I almost loved this one. The first ten chapters or so were fantastic. But he took it too far and it felt like it got very boring and dry very quickly (which is a shme, because he can be hilarious when he wants to be…).
While I can’t pretend to be nearly as good at this stuff as all of you folks, a possible explanation of the Marauder’s Map thing: the map could obviously tell who was reading it- we know that from when it insulted Snape. (Of course, it’s possible that this was specifically written for Snape, but let’s pretend it wasn’t, because I want to pretend to be smart here.) It’s possible that the map could tell that Fred and George were the “right sort” and therefore it trusted them and somehow gave them the ability to access it. I can think of two ways- either it wrote it on the parchment (the way stuff was written on it for Snape) or the phrase “I solemnly swear I am up to no good” wasn’t even the original password- it was something that Fred or George happened to say that the map happened to like and trust and that it opened up to them for, and Fred and George, being intelligent, figured out that that was a kind of password for them. The people to whom the twins gave the map could obviously be trusted- not to mention that one of them is the son of one of the people who created the map in the first place.
PAA: It was a long Sukkos, what can I say…
Very interesting, but (as a whole) I find myself uncomfortable with it in some ways.
As far as this is concerned, I’m not sure how comfortable I am with the idea that learning about middos and self-improvement a) could ever be a bad thing or b) could ever be completely replaced by gemara learning, etc.
PAA: Completely coincidentally, I actually read Halakhic Man over Sukkos and found the relevant paragraph. By the time I got there I was already so drowning in that sea of vocabulary-bee words that I barely noticed :).
And the book was translated from R Soloveitchik’s Hebrew by a third party. I want to read it in Hebrew as well just to see how the translation compares to it.
And I appreciated a lot of his points, but this particular one I didn’t really get so much. But I do see where he was coming from.
(There is definitely a distaste for death in that book in general- especially toward the beginning- maybe the two ideas are linked….)
“If that vile wretch meets you, and if you are sound in spirit and soul, if your consciousness and character are still whole and intact, then occupy yourself with the Torah, drag him to the study house…..However, if you are spiritually sick, if a fit of madness has seized hold of you, if some psychic anomaly has put forth its diseased tendrils in your inner world, then you must use more powerful drugs, those that are designed for the very ill – the remembrance of the day of death.”
Is that really how he put it?
Because, like, wow.
Putting that aside, I really don’t understand it. Why would it be harmful to learn how to be a better person?
If his point was that learning Torah is BETTER for you, then you could make a comparison to taking penicillin when you have a cold or something like that. But what about mussar could be bad for someone?
“I love writersoul’s new st!”
So I saw this, and I was like wait, what new subtitle, so I checked my subtitle and it was as true as ever :).
A bit confused- was it changed and changed back while I wasn’t on?
Though if anyone has a cute idea for mine, I’m open to ideas- a new subtitle for a new year and all.
How’s this?
David’s driving school is very good; sorry, I don’t have contact info, but it’s run by David Dahan in the Main Monsey area (on Highview or Remsen or one of those blocks- don’t remember, it’s been a bit). There are group driver’s ed classes on Sundays (basically all teenagers) and private driving lessons (you get six free if you take the driver’s ed classes, which if you have a competent person outside to teach you to drive is more than enough).
I’ve also known people who liked Dana’s driving school, which is more in the Rt 45 area. Don’t know much about it.
PAA: I wish I knew- I obviously don’t by definition. Have I been missing some really juicy stuff? Has PBA become a maharat? Have girls been getting shidduchitis vaccines substituted for their HPV vaccines? (Wow, many many moons have passed…)
My friends are in Machon Raaya and seem to be really happy. I actually visited the building and it was so nice and way better located than where I am (which per the mods’ admonitions I will not tell you- they actually edited a statement about it out of my previous post. That said I’d really rather not put it on the thread). Being right in the middle of Geula is amazing.
There is a lot of work from what I’ve been told- while my school’s been starting us off slowly, they seem to be working hard from the get-go. But everything I’ve heard has been that the classes and the learning are very, very good and the girls seem really sweet. (Especially my friends.)
I have friends at Nachlas and Meor but I haven’t talked to them recently so I can’t really say anything about them.
Good luck and chill out!
To go slightly off topic here-
One thing that I’ve always found troubling (setting aside the whole issue of women dancing with the Torah and whether or not it’s permitted) is that Simchas Torah seems to be a non-event for women in general. I know that in my shul it’s dead as a doornail. A couple women come and socialize. Even fewer girls come and socialize. I come and give out candy. The kids come and eat candy. I don’t see why women, as jfem says, can’t also derive joy from the Torah, celebrate, maybe do our own dancing- even without a sefer Torah- and just elevate it for us beyond just a reason why we can’t start lunch until really late in the afternoon.
tcim: The quote about David sinning- I could easily be wrong, but didn’t that apply to very specific situations (like Batsheva, etc) and not to his entire life? There are people quoted in the gemara as never having sinned (Binyamin is an example) but I don’t believe that David is one of them.
Well, I don’t go over to the computer guy and ask, hey, can I go on YWN? Cuz that would be a bit embarrassing.
I have filtered internet at my seminary. Edited
Yes, I believe that’s the case.
He was also a Levi, but that doesn’t really come up past his childhood either.