YWN is right and this was discussed at the time of the Ami article. Ami is desperate to steer clear of controversy, yet equally desperate to find materiel to write on. So they promote cults like Lev Tahor and the Burka Ladies as some sort of misunderstood extra chumra.

@yechiell Amongst the many MANY issues with the gender discussion in the secular world is that there is a lot of two faced hypocrisy. The same people who will swear up and down that treatment isn’t being done and shouldn’t be done without extensive therapy and parental consent, will also turn around and criticize the government for not allowing people to change genders on a whim, or get laws passed that allow kids to hid gender changes from parents.

@chabad-shlucha You understand that the criticism of Chabad from the other 95% of frum Jews (which is probably noticeable even to you in things like how little space frum publications give to major Chabad events and personalities, if they are mentioned at all). It’s not about the last Lubavitcher Rebbe ZT”L, like you are saying. Sure there was criticism against him when he was alive, but most gedolim respected him as a leader and gadol b’Torah. However, he’s been dead for 30 years. The problems that the frum world has with Chabad (and believe me, it’s the entire relevant frum world) aren’t about “mivtzoim” (whatever those are) they are about the way in which Chabad is accepting of very problematic practices, like asking bakoshois from dead people, claiming a dead person will come back to life and be Moshiach, and saying that a certain man is infallible so therefore everything he ever wrote or said is no different from Toras Moshe M’Sinai (C”V), and many many many other practices and beliefs that have nothing to do with shluchim and Mitzva Tanks.

Thanks @daas-yochid for saying what I was going to say. @chabad-shlucha did answer my question, in a way. She confirmed that Chabadskers are unaware of how they are perceived by the other 95% of frum Jews. Like I said, it’s not just like how a Chussid may view a Teimani, or how a Lakewooder sees Teaneck. It’s straight out unanimous from the highest Rabbonim criticism that what they are doing and believe in is wrong and should not be emulated under any circumstances.

@menachem-shmei How does that shtim with the philosophy I’ve heard from many Chabadskers that they don’t need a Rebbe since there are enough writings by Rav Schneerson ZT”L to answer anything that may come up? Furthermore, the concept that Rav Schneerson ZT”L said that his answers are personal and don’t apply to everyone flies in the face of normative Chabad religious practices, like studying his letters and speeches and basing life choices on what he said to other people at other times.

@neville-chaimberlin-lo-mes Ulricht facilitated thousands of sales of drugs and took a cut of each. That’s a felony. I’m not sure what the average sentence is for facilitating a single illegal drug deal, but I imagine that doing it thousands of times leads to a pretty hefty sentence.

Alaska, where Mt. McKinley is, has called it Denali for decades. So has the National Park Service, unofficially. Obama just made it official. Trump was just being ridiculous. Look I’m not going to argue as to what the mountain should be called, only that Trump making it a Top Priority to pointlessly rename it is ridiculous and makes me nervous for the next four years.

While I agree with you that the Democrats had spent most of 2020 telling people that riots and violence are fine way to express ones opinion, then acted all shocked when the Republicans decided to do it. However, the people rioting through the Capital (many caught on video saying they are planning to kidnap and/or murder) either knew %100 they were committing a crime, or have the IQ of a baby water buffalo.

@ujm and @neville-chamberlain-lo-mes One of the several ways that lead the FBI to Ulricht/DPR was that the first mention of Silk Road on the internet were posts he made on drug forums talking about it being a good place to trade in drugs. It had a specific category for drugs which was the most popular filter on the site. If someone facilitates a drug trade between two people and takes a cut of the money, they are committing a crime. Which is what he did, thousands of times a week for several years. So if a drug dealer is convicted for five years for a single trade, I don’t think a near life sentence for someone like Ulricht is so unreasonale.

I dislike how Trump tried to leverage his authority in a very scary way right out of the gate and I think using that authority to pander to some ridiculous demands (no one in Alaska has called it “McKinley” for decades, the park is called Denali, it’s been Denali on park maps long before Obama) is dumb. I do like that he at least used some of it for his good promises, like enforcing illegal immigration. But then there are some very troubling bits, like the federal back to office mandate which was Elon Musk using his big money to settle a personal gripe. Which is probably unenforceable, because the unions are fighting it, and the offices don’t have the physical space for people.

Regarding the January 6th riot, the arrests were absolutely politically motivated. But that doesn’t change the fact that what these people did was 100% wrong and they all knew it. I can’t imagine a scenario where people violently push their way into the Capital literally screaming for blood that would result in a light sentence. They all deserved to get arrested, the only question is if their prison sentences should have been a little shorter.

@CS If you want me to be more specific, let’s take the idea that Rav Schneerson ZT”L watches everything his Chassidim do from his place in Olom Haba’ah and therefore he can answer bakoshos. Although there is some basis to this, it’s considered highly irregular by frum Jews and you will not find a non-Chabad Talmid Chacham who would recommend keeping a dead man in mind when davening. And that goes even more so to the people who direct their teffilos to using a dead man as an emmisary instead of talking directly to Hashem, which is something considered acceptable in most of Chabad.

@commonsaychel Don’t forget about niggunim during davening and singing and dancing on Yomim Tovim. Side mention that the standard pronunciation of a cholom in the Litvish Yeshivish world somehow became Chassidish with “choilom” as opposed to “chailom”.

@neville-chaimberlin-lo-mes Good to see you’re being reasonable about the situation, but I have to disagree with you on some points. Trump has an enormous amounts of power, and right out of the gate he leverages said power to do what, exactly? Rename a mountain and free a drug dealer? I think his executive orders were a combination of “This makes sense and is in line with his campaign promises”, “This makes no sense and is questionable if it can be enforced”, and “This is just baffling”.

@ujm Knowingly trespassing in a very secure location with intent to do violence to very important people. I don’t think they “didn’t know it was restricted” since (A) it’s always restricted and (B) stupidity and ignorance is no excuse.

DPR’s sentence was perfectly in line with what other people who made millions off of facilitating international drug, weapons, and child exploitation trade. (the other guy says there was no child exploitation on The Silk Road, but I seem to recall that they used codewords like “hard candy” while the moderators looked the other way).

@ujm and @neville-chaimberlin-lo-mes You are both doing exactly what I was calling you out for. Just cheerleading for Trump. Defending every one of his mishegasim and hypocrisies.

@ujm How many people died because of the Silk Road gun and drug market? How many people would have died in DC on 1/6/2021 had the people Trump pardoned not rioted and invaded a federal building? And the murderer Biden pardoned had already finished his sentence for murder. All Biden did was release him from his drug charges a couple of years early. Hardly a good comparison.

@neville-chaimberlin-lo-mes If you want to be technical Mt. McKinley was referred to as Denali for longer that it was called Mt. McKinley and in Alaska, they hadn’t used the McKinley name for decades. Trump re-re-re-named it.

I was actually cheering when DPR/Ulbricht got arrested a decade ago. He absolutely deserved a long long prison sentence. He ran a dark web drug, child exploitation, and gun market that did something on the order of several million dollars in business weekly. The bitcoin he made off of those illegal sales is worth billions today. How else would you describe him?

I am a tad liberal leaning, but I hate admitting to it because then everyone thinks I hate Israel, want mishkav zachar and related mental illnesses to be normalized, want communism in the US etc. I just think that a lot of what Trump is doing falls way outside the norms of conservative politics, yet people who are avowed Trumpists are bending over backwards to excuse him and shouting RINO to all who disagree.

Personally I think a lot of the “terrible things” the media is accusing Trump of trying to do aren’t really that bad. Oh boohoo, he’s taxing Chinese imports, we’ll have to pay more for consumer goods and increase manufacturing in the US. On the other hand, I think he gets way too full of himself to be a good president. He would rather tear the Constitution to shreds than accept the slightest dissent from his people and I find that scary. I think some of his cabinet appointments are terrible. Pete Hegeseth has no business running our military, for one.

Sorry in advance if this is a little aggressive.

Are Chabadskers in general aware of how the rest of the frum world views them and their beliefs?

To clarify, on the Moshiach question many Chabadskers would cite numerous practices and statements from gedolim. However, their actions (and their acceptance of the actions of others) are not viewed as within the boundaries of normative Yiddishkeit by the vast majority of frum Jews, especially Rabbonim and Roshei Yeshivos. Like, a Livak may criticize how a Satmarer loves his Rebbe, and the Satmarer may view the Litvak as someone who doesn’t find joy in teffilah, but both of them will be in the same boat when they come across a yellow flagger.

@pekak I know the President has so many convictions and indictments it’s hard to keep track of, but in the court of law it was determined that he forced himself upon a woman (E. Jean Carrol) and is therefore liable in the defamation suit.

Can we all at least admit that Trump was convicted (and basically admitted to) paying for a zoineh, then later paying her more money from campaign funds to keep her quiet? Not sure why he bothered, the whole world knows that he cheated on his wife with a zoineh and now all his defenders don’t seem to have any issue with it.

Oh, and was also convicted of being m’aneis a woman (though what exactly he did to her may not “technically” be called m’aneis in modern legal terms).

@Neville-Chaimberlin-Lo-Mes Eh, you’re just using the same argument greasy US college “communists” have been saying for years, “It’s never been tried for real”. You’re also being very disingenuous. Libertarian ideals, such as allowing “the people” or “the economy” full power to decide certain major life altering complex decisions is never a good idea. And that includes having the government back off of medicine. If companies like Mercer would have their way without regulation, certain treatments would be too expensive for anyone other than the exorbitantly wealthy and non-profitable things like certain vaccinations, would be left to die along with millions of people.

@Always_Ask_Questions Believe you me, if 7th graders would be able to cause a ruckus about a teacher driving a car without it being obvious that they’re just fooling around, they would.

@amom No one is hiding anything. The drones were never real. Now the hysteria ended, people got bored with taking pictures of everything go in and out of Newark, and lives went on just the same.

As a former 7th grader, catching a teacher doing something the Yeshivish velt considers wrong and causing a ruckus about it that results in missed lessons, is something that never seems to change.

What is it with New Jersey and mass hysteria over flying saucers? 1938, 2024, nothing has changed.

There’s definitely someone out there flying a few large aircrafts, either an unlicensed carrier drone, some sort of light wing, or military tests. However, after the first few sightings were publicized, every yutz and schmo up and down the Turnpike are calling 911 every time a plane flies overhead.

Why, in the age where everyone has a high speed high zoom camera on their phone, do we only have a handful of blurry photos? If they were super secret Iranian spacecraft, why are they using standard airplane warning lights?

If you’re worried about non tzniyusdike pictures, you shouldn’t be on the Internet. It’s like kvetching that you’re trying to walk down the street but cars keep getting in your way.

If you are worried about seeing inappropriate things but ABSOLUTELY need the Internet, the TechLoq filter blocks all pictures of people (and reads all your passwords, but that’s another story for another time).

@1 Shaychus? COVID was a massive hatzalos nefoshos issue at the time that could be mitigated by small easy things vaccines and masks, yet some people were religiously motivated against them.

Ozempic is a drug. Is it a miracle drug against weight loss? Ich veis nisht. Hopefully it will help people that have psychological difficulties with dieting.

According to several Tzioni news sources, the plan was never to explode them all at once like this. They had intelligence that a Hezbollah terrorist was suspicious about his pager, so they hit the button before he could tell everyone else.

Rav Falk ZT”L always went with the most machmir opinions in his seforim and it was written for Gatehead Bais Yaakov girls, who may have different shittos of tznius and different minhagei hamakom.

Anyway, that’s as specific as I’m gonna get. I don’t think men should be commenting on this thread. An ehrliche mensch should not know much about woman’s clothing and minhagei tzniyus have always been determined by women.

@Kuvult Last year, I read a short biography of the Rav in Louisiana in the mid-1800s. I found some of his writing online and realized that he got the position because his predecessor was thrown out of the shul for being an abolitionist and he was willing to talk about slavery as a good thing.

Yeah, I’m out. I think people on this thread know my opinions on the subject matters being discussed. However, IMO this has gone way to far with people being really nasty and taking things way too far.