That doesn’t really say very much that we could help with (as even if you were better at golfing than Tiger Woods, I wouldn’t advise making it a career).

1) What were your favorite subjects in school?

2) Have you had any other ideas that you were considering but you thought were “too crazy”? This can give some indication of where your interests lie.

3) What are your hobbies?

4) How long do you want to be in school? Do you care what college you go to?

5) Are you driven by peer pressure? if you took too weird a job, would you be embarrassed?

6) How would you describe yourself (personality-wise)?

I see people made it here before me. Nechomah is right, and I should have mentioned that- nifterah is the correct word.

The question still remains: what is the point?

If as DY says it really is for frum Jews, then didn’t everyone and his next door neighbor’s brother-in-law already discuss this with the guy next to him in shul?

If not, why do they think they can convince people of something without a foundation? It’s illogical.

Health: “You’re so blinded with your hatred to Antizionists you missed my point. My point wasn’t reiterating what I’ve said a thousand times before that it should be given to Turkey, my point was if the ideology of Zionism is dead -why are they still hanging onto the State? Now I understand the “religious” Zionists -somehow they were Krummed up that having a State before Moshiach is a Mitzvah, but why are the Non-religious still in Israel – if there is no more Zionist ideology? Let them all pack up and move to the US or anywhere that will take them?”

You’re right- I misunderstood you, and I apologize. However, I still uphold what I said. First of all, you’re right that many young secular Israelis are disenchanted with the whole idea of Zionism, which is why Zionism is dying- there is no second generation. But why should they leave? Israel is a country with first-world amenities, a growing economy, their native language, their native culture- everything they want from life. Even if they don’t believe in any idealistic dream, Israel is still a great place for them to live. Why should they leave? I’m sure you disagree with American politics in some respects, but that doesn’t mean you need to leave. Not uprooting yourself from your home since birth should not need to be excused. It should be a given, as long as you live according to the laws of the country. There is an astonishingly large (to me, maybe- I’m sure it’s completely obvious to YOU) number of pro-Palestinian Israelis- does that mean they should leave? You can’t force them or blame them for not.

HaKatan: Israel may retain socialist aspects from its beginnings (like Kupat Cholim, etc.), but you should hear my grandfather talking about when he was a kid. (He grew up on a kibbutz.) There’s been a growing inclination in the younger generations towards more capitalistic views. SO much of the socialism that defined the state in its inception has been tremendously toned down.

I can, however, see where you are coming from. While most religious Zionists I know focus more on the chibas ha’aretz rather than the whole government thing, I’m perfectly willing to accept that there are people who are more into the governmental part. I’m going to assume you’re talking about them, and I’m going to just say that I’ll agree to see your point while others may be more amenable if your language is moderated.

Previous post ETA: “Right now, the US has a clear stake in keeping the only country IN THE MIDDLE EAST with even something close to a functional democracy going.”

Sam@: No more- in Monsey, half the stores are shrinking their pies to 15-16 inches. 🙁

But I’ve wondered- if you make a mezonos on one slice, intending only to have one, and then immediately afterward decide to have another, what do you do?

OOM: I haven’t listened to any specific things by people on purpose- I put a Piano Guys channel on Pandora and her stuff came up :). The a cappella definitely sounds cool- and I really DO need sefirah music… I’m going completely nuts.

The fact that NJ is called the Garden State has always been a crack-up to me.

It’s actually because when it was under the British that’s where all the fancy people had estates with gardens, but I feel like the most populous state per square mile has abandoned its green and spacious heritage :).

Well, I guess the difference is that I didn’t like Renee. You’re not meant to like Paloma, at least not in the beginning, so since your other alternative is Renee, whether you like or hate her is whether you like or hate the book.

I felt more sorry for Paloma than anything else. She was obviously deluded.

A TEENY bit pretentious?

It was a bit too much philosophy delivered by elitist people who think they’re smarter than everyone else, but that’s my opinion. Good writing, if a bit flowery.

This is written by the preschool-counselor me, not the high-schooler me.

1) If it’s a familiar environment (their home or a home they know their way around in) and they’re in shouting distance, I’d say fine (though I’d be neurotic and magnetically attracted to their cuteness and just go watch them anyway 🙂 but that’s just me).

2) As above, I’d probably end up on the floor playing with the kid, but as long as you’re eye is more than half on the kid, I’d do it. What gets to be the problem is when the watcher is texting while the watchee is toddling off into an unfamiliar hotel where it’s mere chance that walking towards her is her loving cousin (me) to help her. As long as the watcher is RESPONSIBLE, I think that’s fine.

talmud: ???

HaKatan: The notion of Zionism to which most frum people object, the Zionism from Herzl to Ben Gurion, is largely extinct now. There are very few who believe in Zionism as its own cause, as an independent state for its own sake- the nearest possible belief would just be simple patriotism and pride in one’s country, as many Americans, Britons, Mexicans, etc have for their own countries. The belief as it was thought of by Israel’s original settlers is pretty much dead- think of its great symbol, the kibbutz- it’s pretty much dead. There are almost no (if there are any at all) traditionally-run kibbutzim in Israel right now- most of them now have families living together, with personal possessions, much higher living standards, and residents working outside the kibbutz (they hire foreign labor to work the fields). The socialism that birthed Zionism is dead, which means that most of the MO (and not) Jews who celebrate Israel do not come under the label of “Zionist” that you revile so much.

Sam2: From my impression of people I know who are affiliated with YU and celebrate Yom Ha’Atzma’ut (though the person I know does not say Hallel, so far as I’m aware), they celebrate Tuesday.

AND IT DOES NOT MEAN I’M A KOFER!

OOM, jmh: I was just reading that one! I’m going through all the Watch ones in order. Except Snuff, which is dumb.

What’s cool about Descartes’s point of view, to me at least, is that according to him, as jmh pointed out, it doesn’t matter whether you truly “exist” or not. As long as you feel like you exist, and you’re able to think about it, meaning that you have a consciousness, from his perspective, nothing else matters- you could be living as an experiment in a lab with everyone else fake to see how you react, or by yourself with everyone else as hallucinations, and it doesn’t matter, because realistically speaking we can only understand what is in our realm of experience. If we feel like we exist, then we exist, because something is doing the thinking, and that something thinks that what it is doing is existing.

Why do I feel like the entire above paragraph was a waste of virtual paper?

I guess it doesn’t matter, though, as long as my fingers burned calories writing it :).

drovi: Did you read what I wrote? There was access, but not anything like we’ve got now.

Gamanit: Life in eretz Yisrael in Ottoman and Turkish times was not always a bed of roses. Access to many mekomos kedoshim was either forbidden or extremely dangerous. The kosel was a tiny area, filled with garbage and up against a house, that was very difficult to access. In the Ottoman times, at the very least, there was certainly a draft (while we all know of people who changed their names at Ellis Island, we don’t hear about those who changed their names to avoid the Ottoman draft) to an army which was a lot more of a sonei Yisrael than the Israeli army, believe it or not (and the fact I have to point that out is a bit sad). The Chevron massacre and massacres in Yerushalayim, Tzfas, and elsewhere all took place in the times of the Ottomans and the British.

We won’t have perfection until Moshiach, so since we know that, why blame Israel so much? At least Israel gave us some benefits like I mentioned above, and is a country of Jews. Kol Yisrael areivim zeh lazeh- why shouldn’t I celebrate with 6 million of my fellow Jews that they have such a uniquely Jewish place to be? (And yes, it is uniquely Jewish, even if it’s not as Jewish as many would like it to be.)

Why do people seem to underestimate the amount of Jewishness in the running of Eretz Yisrael today?

While yemos hamoshiach it ain’t, it’s still a lot more Jewish than a country run by people “who happen to be Jewish.”

And I love ItcheSrulik’s halachos. I experience the shaving one every yom haatzmaut if you substitute “say hallel” for “shave.”

While it could be that he’s a troll, it could just be that he was looking for a forum of people who might know the answer to his question and therefore created an account.

Even if he is a troll, this is a question I’ve wanted to know the answer to for a long time, so…

Ohhh…. gotcha.

Well, I for one don’t hold with Israel being “what we’ve waited for for 2000 years”- I’ve been waiting for Moshiach, personally.

However, I do believe that the State of Israel has brought some great things to us, such as increased ability to learn Torah (something taken for granted until it was threatened recently), access to the kosel and other mekomos kedoshim, and a place for Jews, ALL Jews, to live if they so choose. I don’t believe that these are yemos hamoshiach, but I don’t believe that they’re sinful or anything either.

That is why I’m going to be a semi-passive observer to Yom Haatzmaut- I might wear blue and white if I remember, and I will have nothing negative to say whatsoever to my friends who do observe it more than I do. I wear an American flag tshirt on July 4th, also. Israel is a country that is close to my heart because of all of its Jews and its uniquely Jewish character (even if it’s not as perfect as you’d all like it to be). But I won’t celebrate it as more than a regular anniversary day.

Oy, popa. ‘Sgotta be annoying.

I know how you feel- I’m home sick today, which is why I’ve been lurking here nonstop and refreshing the page every five minutes the whole stupid day.

I’m starting a new thread- details to come.

PS: What have we waited 2000 years for in particular?

Vogue: As a result of reading Torah’s list?… 🙂

Either way, if you ever do decide to apply for a government job, if you have anything even theoretically objectionable online, DELETE IT or you may not get the job. Someone was telling me (not Jewish- her [stb-] husband works for the FBI) that she knows of people who were turned down for government jobs because of college pics on FB- admittedly not a problem a Bais Yaakov girl is likely to have, but you never know what they may object to. If you have a blog post somewhere about how you want to kill your teacher for failing you on the midterm that you were too busy playing computer games to study for (even if you weren’t doing drugs or anything illegal), no matter how jokey it is, or how legal it is, they will still get quite a bad impression of you.

bp27: My cousin was named after my grandfather’s stepmother whose name was Tehilla. She lived most of her life in pre-Holocaust Poland. You’d be surprised at how many people had non-Yiddish names.

If now people were starting to commonly name their kids names out of the gemara or something, like Nehorai or Huna, then okay, maybe I could see your argument. At least when we use Yiddish names, we’re usually naming after people. But Hebrew names (at least from lashon Hakodesh) shouldn’t go out of style or be a fad. They’re eternal. In the end, yes, maybe Yiddish names will die down. DO people still call their sons Adda and Ravina? It was perfectly common in Bavel. DO people still, as a matter of course, call their kids Astera and Regina, which are perfectly accepted names in Ladino, a language used by thousands upon thousands for hundreds of years? What is the essential difference between these and Yiddish?

By me, though, and by most people I know, it’s a taste issue. You can ask why I don’t like Yiddish names, and I’ll tell you I like some, but I like the sound of other names better. It just happens to be.

Okay- so I’m irrational- happy?!?!

🙂

Nothing against you- that’s just my impression from reading it and absorbing other people’s responses (usually angry when they find out I didn’t like it).

And as I’m definitely in the minority here, I should probably just throw in the towel.