Joseph

limud, let’s even put dating aside, since your (and gaw’s) response to the question I posed to apy related to allowing women first on dates. Let me ask you about in general.

Do you have a logical explanation for why one way is better than the other, i.e. going first or who opens the door for the other, in life in general? IOW, when you pass a stranger of the opposite gender, do you think the gender should play a role as to who goes first or who opens the door?

To her credit, Syag allows posts that she violently disagrees with.

DaMoshe: The Rambam writes that a “working person” is someone who learns 8 hours a day and works 3. Not works 9am to 5pm. What in the world does that have to do with today’s working man’s lifestyle where he works 8 hours a day and almost never even learns 3? It proves nothing that Chazal endorsed working, since working in those days meant learning 8 hours a day.

The Rambam praises those who learn all day and don’t have jobs, as the elite “Shevet Levi” of our days. Clearly, even if working is endorsed, it is inferior to those who learn. To reconcile the Rambam with the Chazals, you can choose any of the commentaries available, some of which explain it similar to the above points.

If learning in Kollel is against the Chazals about Melachah and Derech Eretz, then so is being a Rebbi or a Rav. See the Rama YD 246:6. He brings your Chazals and says that therefore nobody can be a paid Rebbi or a Rav either, since he relies on the congregation. But then he brings dissenting opinions, and rules that the custom is that Torah scholars do benefit from their learning, by support from the community. Then he brings other opinions that the community should support its Torah scholars even to the point of affluence. The Shach points out that the Halacha always follows the Minhag and the Minhag is like those opinions that one may depend on the community to support him in order to learn. He says that this is because of the Halachah of Ais La’Asos, meaning, even if it is theoretically prohibited to rely on the community, but because nowadays we cannot do both, become great in Torah and make independent livings, the right thing to do is to learn Torah and be supported.

Yserbius: You’re hanging around the wrong people. You have a very skewed and unrepresentative view.

lesschumras: Just the women move aside for me? Hah! You have no idea who I am. Even the men move aside for me.

(Now waiting for Syag to backhandedly accuse me of being a baal gaaiva.)

I had an arranged marriage, lilmod. (I also happen to think they’re the best approach to shidduchim.) There were no doors needing to be opened at the beshow. 🙂

I think your wife has the wrong friends, Yserbius. That is very atypical of the vast majority of Kollel families. That is also what is probably leading you to reach the mistaken conclusions on the things that you say “What I also find”.

I still don’t see why he can’t avoid the problem by letting her go ahead and holding the door open for her without walking behind her.

I still don’t see why she can’t avoid the problem by letting him go ahead and holding the door open for him without walking in front of him.

I would like to know from the male posters here: If you had never heard that there was any halachic issue involved, would you consider it a problem in terms of tznius?

Yes.

lilmod: You now have a direct, to the point, response to your question.

Completely absurd, gaw. A woman outside the four walls of her home, with the shades drawn, is absolutely required al pi halacha to be fully covered per all the requirements in hilchos tznius.

And if her shades are open into her home, she must be dressed tznius even within her home when people in the public can see her inside. Same is true if she has guests in her home who are not immediate family members. (Even if they are spouses of immediate family members.)

As to your question in the OP, of course men walking behind women is a tznius problem. That is the very reason why Halacha prohibits it. Halacha didn’t create the prohibition of men walking behind women for another reason. Rashi in Eiruvin 18b explains that a husband cannot even walk behind his wife.

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/chivalry-038-yiddishkeit-a-foreign-concept

… said the false convert of Mr. Avi Weiss.

Which “rabbi” or rabbah did you ask – Weiss or Lopatin?

The Chazon Ish was far more capable of applying Halacha to countries he didn’t live in than any rabbi you ever met in your lifetime.

It’s assur to sit on a jury on a case between two Jewish litigants.

And it is certainly assur to sue a Jew in court after tripping on his sidewalk.

Charlie: Try to find a single case where anyone was prosecuted on that archaic section that has long been rendered legally moot. It happens multiple times every day that mesader kedushins do not even inquire whether a marriage license was ever procured. I know some of the most prolific mesader kedushins in New York, that have for decades been conducting multiple marriages a week, who don’t ask or care about the status of any civil license.

Just because a parent uses government funds to pay for his child’s schooling, funds that are taxpayer’s fund not some nebulous entity called “the government’s” money, that the taxpayers themselves gave to the government to fund their children’s schooling, does not give the government the right to dictate to the school how to educate the children against the parent’s choices in education.

Can we get an early start this year or must we wait a few more days for Rosh Chodesh Elul?

What were those unavailable names, lilmod?

That’s what the French call “ah kasha oif ah maaisa”.

lilmod, I had defended you rather strongly in a contentious conversation fairly recently but the powers that be didn’t see it fit to print. Make note.

Are you sure a vote of confidence from Joseph will improve her image 😉

It is worthwhile noting that time has proven correct the rabbonim who banned Lipa. In recent years he has turned out to publicly be mevaze talmidei chachomim and gedolim on a regular basis, aside from the drivel he produces.

The rabbonim had the foresight most of us do not posses.

The same has proven true with rabbonim who banned Slifkin’s book. He, too, today regularly is mevaze talmidei chachomim on a full-time basis.

Where do you get neckties for $2? Love isn’t priced in dollars and cents.

Here is RSZ’s response:

http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14508&st=&pgnum=208

“Bshas Had’chak”

DY: Note the Chazon Ish’s language in referring to Jews who serve as judges on non-Jewish courts as “Jewish judges who have traded away a Torah system for a worthless, vain system.”

Secondly, and more importantly, a Jew who accepts a position as a judge in a non-Jewish court, especially in an area where Jews live, will unfortunately face many Jewish litigants, whether as plaintiff, defendant or both in the same case. And the Jewish judge is then halachicly prohibited from adjudicating that case involving Jews by applying non-Jewish laws. But his position as a secular judge requires him to judge the case using non-Jewish laws and non-Jewish standards of judging. Thus he will inevitably be forced to violate halacha when faced with Jewish litigants.

Virtually none of the Jewish judges on the non-Jewish bench recuses himself from all cases that he is assigned that are involving Jews. If a judge were to recuse himself so many times it would be obvious to the public and press that he is doing so for that reason. It doesn’t happen. And very frequently one of the Jewish parties filed a case in arkaos, contrary to halacha, and shlepped the other Jewish party to arkaos unwillingly. Then they face the Jewish judge who will unhalachicly adjudicate the case via non-Jewish laws and standards, against the will of one of the parties – because the other party refuses to withdraw the case and go to beis din. (Note, though, that even if both Jewish litigants were willing to have the case adjudicated in arkaos rather than beis din, it is still prohibited to do so.)