Yes, of course it’s l’toeles. That’s what he said— he needed a call service. Unless it was for someone else, in which case it WASN’T l’toeles.

The daughter of Kalev. What’s her name. Achsah. I always forget it. I always think it’s Asnat or something.

Who wore horns (artificial, and NOT ‘karan or panav’)?

Why not?

But as a Monsey resident, I agree it’s boring.

Personally I’m beginning to think that a big problem with today’s generation of Jews is their ga’avah— they HAVE to think we’re the worst ever.

Only partially tongue in cheek.

The problem with these programs is that they’re not attracting the kids who need them. Case in point: I went to the free bowling at Kiamesha Lanes in the country on Motzaei Shabbos. I went with a bunch of girls in my bungalow colony who all wanted something to do, and if it was free, why not? We went, and half of the people there were chassidish. The other half were people like us who decided to take the free bowling and pizza. I met other girls I knew there and trust me, they are NOT the type who would be hanging out in mixed places if they weren’t there.

Which isn’t to say, R’ Wallerstein, that you should stop doing it!! 🙂

BTW about my question about the way to distinguish the kings of Yehuda, yes, longarekel, you’re right, but followup: where did the crown come from and how did it fit them and not other people?

I don’t know, I personally think it’s hard to say whether we’re the worst because we’ve got a skewed perspective, having (naturally) only lived in this generation. I can only say that it’s probably true due to yeridas hadoros and our being one generation further from Har Sinai.

Wasn’t he not supposed to get married?

However, I think I heard somewhere that his wife was Chuldah. Kinda out of thin air.

What was the distinctive physical feature of all kings descended from Dovid Hamelech, used to help determine if they were worthy of being king?

BUMP!!!!! This thread needs revival!

Who was Chushai Ha’Arki and how did he prevent a tzaddik from doing a great sin?

Thinkfirst: That’s controversial?

Mine is that I think that girls should not be tested on Jewish studies and if they have to be they should be able to choose whether or not it goes on their permanent record. You don’t need tests to absorb the material and in fact many friends of mine have told me that they would appreciate inspirational classes much more if they weren’t stressed out about taking notes and being tested— they could otherwise just let the inspiration come and wash over them and it could stay with them forever, without all the stress from testing.

Also that (commuter) college is not a bad thing (though this is by no means from personal experience). Boys and girls alike.

I am really confused. Is this how many dates they go on with the girl before committing or the amount of girls they go out with before finding their bashert? Those are two totally different questions.

My parents dated 10 and 12 years respectively before meeting each other. They found each other in the end, and that’s what’s important.

If you’re discussing pickiness, then you’re bringing up a topic that has already been wrung dry.

Just a story of what picky means: a 45 year old guy asking that he date nobody BELOW age 30. This is a real person. My mom hung up on him. (She’s a part-time shadchan.)

Dear Noah,

We could have sworn you said the ark wasn’t leaving till 5.

Sincerely, Unicorns

Dear math,

Please grow up and solve your own problems. I don’t have time for yours AND mine.

Sincerely, a student who has enough issues that he/she couldn’t care less what “x” is

Dear Americans,

We totally agree with you about illegal immigration. Please allow us to show you to the nearest airport.

Sincerely, Native Americans

Dear people who complain about our generation,

Remember who raised us.

Sincerely, your kids

Dear 2011,

We thought you would have flying cars and robots by now, but congrats on the backwards robes and rubber bands shaped like animals…

Sincerely, 1950

Dear Board of Education,

So are we.

Sincerely, students everywhere

PS Learn how to spell

Dear SuperGlue and NonStick Pan,

One of you is lying…

Sincerely, here goes nothing.

Dear person reading this,

You’re here because you’re actively procrastinating or avoiding real work, aren’t you? It’s OK…me too.

Sincerely, I’ll work tomorrow

Dear you,

After reading this you will realize the the brain does not process the second “the.”

Sincerely, cool, eh?

Dear People who say money is made of paper which is made of wood which is made of trees so money grows on trees,

Money is actually made of cotton.

Sincerely, you fail at life.

Dear you,

After reading this you will realize the brain does not process the second “the.”

Sincerely, made you look!

That’s funny— I’ve never known anyone who’s had a gift registry. Then again, maybe they just don’t do it where I live.

What about simply doing what Monsey Trails does and having men on one side of the aisle and women on the other side of the aisle. Very easy, there’s no concept of ‘moving back’ in a negative way, etc.

Personally, as a ‘spoiled suburban kid’ I barely ever take the bus, but it seems to me that the way things that are gender separated and stuff like that are done is by mutual consent. I know before I buy a ticket on the Monsey Trails that when I get on, I’m going to need to sit on the right-hand side on the bus. If I didn’t want to do that, then I would find some other way to get where I want to go. The difference here, on a public bus, is that unless there is MORE THAN ONE bus, going the same route as the gender-separated one, to give people the option of sitting as a family or something, or it is obvious and known that this is a gender-separated bus (as this one seems to be), it really can’t be sustainable. A non-frum Jewish woman may want to sit with her husband/boyfriend/older son in whatever section of the bus, and I don’t know how the system works in Israel, but it seems as though she has that right, especially if Egged is a city bus service that they’re paying for with their tax dollars/shekels.

It’s a similar reason (according to this theory which I’m not going to swear to due to possible lack of understanding) that there’s no religion in schools. Everyone, of all different ethnic backgrounds, pays taxes that go to the school. If that’s so, then it’s not fair to force the child of a taxpayer to conform to the religion of a different taxpayer who’s paying the same taxes.

So Health, sure, go ahead and ask the non-frum lady next to you if she’d mind moving. But it’s quite within her right to refuse without it being called charedi discrimination.

Give them a gift certificate. That way you can just relax and let THEM figure out what they want.

Goq: Thanks for the welcome! (sort of belated, seeing as I posted on this thread about three weeks ago, but whatever). 🙂

I personally sometimes feel a bit strange commenting sometimes a) because most of the posters on here are older and (possibly (: ) wiser than me. I feel like what I would say would be redundant and/or just plain stupid. Even so, I do stand by what I said on the medina thread.

Also, if all the posts I wrote and then just xed out of without posting them were posted, I’d easily be the most prolific poster on the whole site :).

I was babysitting my cousin, who was 3, and we were in my basement, which has a few phones that are disconnected. She picks one up and starts to “talk” to her mommy at work. When she “hangs up”, I pick up another phone and say, “ring ring ring, Esti,” and she immediately says “You can’t call me! You can see me!”

The same cousin also came over to me when I was at her house and says, “My morah’s name is morah Etti! Just like me!” So I assumed that her morah’s name was Esti. The I read her newsletter and on the bottom it says, “love morah ETTY.”

It took a while to convince her that her name had an S in it.

A friend once told me that her niece told her that her best friend’s name was Sardine. My friend said that she nearly choked when she heard that. (Her name was Sara Dina.)

I have one major issue with what you’re saying—- that who says that they in particular were meant to be the vehicle for our punishment?

There were plenty of Germans who weren’t anti-Semites, and plenty of anti-Semites who weren’t (and aren’t) Germans. And while I don’t know how bechirah works as far as non-Jews go, if it’s like with Jews, then they could have chosen not to. It may have taken more effort, the environment may have added pressure, but nobody was manipulating their brains.

This is from the Jewish perspective of bechirah though. I don’t know how it works with non-Jews.

Well, it’s been done more than a few times, to say the least.

Someone I know went out on her first date about 15 years ago— they went to the Twin Towers to the observation deck. This guy takes her up, and is evidently enjoying himself enough that when she complains that she has a fear of heights, he REFUSES TO GO DOWN!!! She was wearing a flare skirt which was poofing in the wind and apparently keeping the skirt down luckily occupied enough of her energy that she was distracted at least a little from her phobia. They then went inside and got sodas, and when they finished them the guy ASKED IF THEY COULD GO BACK ON THE DECK. She refused.

They did NOT get married, obviously. That was the first and last date.

She went on another date— they went to the Empire State building observation deck, she told him about the phobia, and he promptly took her back down and they went to Central Park instead.

They did end up getting married.

sam4321: Correct- and yes, as you probably have been able to tell my brain is fried. Midterms will do that to a person.

longarekel: I like your new screen name! 1) He was a ger from Edom 3) because if he had built it, it could not have been destroyed— we would have been destroyed instead if we deserved a punishment 4) Shmuel was a nazir

Abelleh: No, Herod rebuilt Bayit Sheni.

9th Grade Historia 101: Ezra and Nechemia built it. Later on, Herod was horrible to the Jews, and killed many chachamim. Then he went to Bava ben Buta, who was blind, and tried to trick him into telling Lashon Hara about him (Herod). Bava ben Buta refused, and Herod decided that if talmidei chachamim are this honest he shouldn’t have killed them. He asked what he could do to atone, and Bava ben Buta told him to rebuild Bayit Sheni so it would be more elegant.

This didn’t make Herod good. He was still horrible to the Jews after that.

Health: I quote: when asked why we should give Israel to Turkey, you said, “Why not?”

Why not go swimming in the Arctic Ocean? Why not drink spoiled milk? Why not go into Times Square (or Thirteenth Avenue) and play the tuba while balancing on a unicycle? A) because it’s ridiculous and B) because it’s dangerous. Just because Turkey was good to Israel in 1918 doesn’t mean they will be now. In 1918 Turkey was under the Ottoman Empire— in 1923 Mustafa Kemal Ataturk launched a full-scale secular revolution in Turkey. That was still 90 years ago. The country has been getting more religious in recent years, and it’s been targeted as a potential trouble spot as far as Israeli relations go.

Things change in different countries.

Bear in mind, too, that Israel was a totally different thing then. There had never been a state, the Ottoman Empire had owned it for centuries, etc.

In short, I repeat, why Turkey?

Chassidishe Gatesheader: I only meant in the sense that you agreed with Health on that post. Sorry.

Health: I have a whole megillah of stuff I want to say, but I’ll keep it short.

First of all, I’m not trying to push a Zionist agenda. I don’t have a Zionist agenda, and I’d appreciate if you’d stop twisting my words to that effect.

Second of all, I apologize if I misunderstood you. I understand now that you meant that you blamed the past Zionists, not the current ones.

However, what do you want to do now? Give Israel to Turkey? (not Iran— I stand corrected.) Why would that be a good idea? Perhaps they USED TO like Israel but who says that will hold?

And why Turkey anyway? Just curious. Why not some other (at least relatively) more reliable country?

Whether we like the status quo or not, is there any other PRACTICAL thing we can do to help the situation besides davening for the well-being of our brothers and sisters of ALL different backgrounds?

That was my point in the first place. Nothing more. I’m sorry that it escalated like it did.

Health: “A good portion of the bloodshed lies squarely on the hands of the Tzionim. They Raitzed on the Goyim by making a Medina -thereby increasing their hatred and subsequently their violence ten-fold!”

Oh. My. Go- um, Goodness.

That goes for both Health and Chassidishe Gatesheader.

What do you want to do now— give Israel to Iran? Oh, sure, they’ll welcome you with open arms.

NOTHING can justify the cold-blooded murder of our own brothers and sisters— whether you approve of their political beliefs or not.

This must be the kind of sinat chinam that keeps Moshiach from coming.

BTGuy: Thanks! 🙂

I’ve decided that there’s no point in my thinking about it if I can’t vote.

What’s scary is that at the next election, I WILL be able to vote.