Marx had some admirable ideas. He was living in a time where the rich were exploiting the poor working class in a manner far worse than nearly any other time in history. So he envisioned an ideal world where people working to produce food and necessities didn’t have to be poor and classes in general could be fully eliminated. Unfortunately there were many consequences, both forseen and unforseen. Marx and Engels were products of the 19th century Enlightenment movement which (I shouldn’t have to tell you) absolutely hated Yiddishekeit (and culture and religion and ethnicities) with a passion. Marx wanted not only to abolish Torah and Avodah, but also the whole concept of the Bnei Yisroel, taking things even further than Haskalah wanted. It’s no wonder the early Tzionim loved him so much. The unforseen consequences is that “Das Kapital” and “The Communist Manifesto” were far too ideal and assumed the absolute best in people, which allowed evil doers to continuously take advantage of Communism and steer it towards being one of the most terrible forms of government imaginable.

As someone who avidly uses WhatsApp and yenner social media, there’s a huge difference between the two, but if you’re not careful, that distance can lessen.

If you’re on Facebook, reddit, YouTube, Twitter, GitHub, Orkut, Myspace, or whatever, you have little to no control over what content you’re seeing and who you’re seeing it from. Everything goes by “the algorithm” which claims to know your every thought and feeling and tailors an endless feed of content accordingly which can contain all sorts of random people and things. WhatsApp on the other hand is user controlled. You can only see content from the groups you’re a part of. There are no adds, and if someone posts something from a different group, there’s no link back to the source. So if one is not careful, they can absolutely get sucked into the same social media gehinnom by joining random groups and accepting every message. But the default is still a big wall around your personal stuff.

@AviraDeArah The correct way of condescendingly sneering at the last chelek of Iggros Moshe is to call it “Iggros Moshe Dovid”. And Rav Reuven and Rav Dovid were also editors on it and signed off on the whole thing. I’m curious what makes you think he would be pro-toevos considering his very harsh words on the subject (“depraved society” were I believe part of it) twenty years ago. But Rav Tendler ZT”L is an easier target, so by all means continue.

@daas-yochid It’s something I’ve heard b’shmo from multiple sources. I thought it was in his teshuvos, but I’m not certain and I don’t have an Iggros Moshe in front of me. Please respond to the rest of my comment instead of nitpicking on the one thing I admit to not being 100% convinced about.

Also the Agudah and its Rabbonim has in the past been very openly opposed to some of the more extremist anti-abortion laws, such as the Oklahoma Heartbeat Law.

I know a frum woman who is a professional wine taster. I believe she’s a ba’ales teshuva but she was already considered a major expert in her field and had jobs with some really big wine companies. So she got a heter that she can hold yayin nesech in her mouth and spit it out as long as the purpose is for work and not enjoyment.

Why do you think that the medical profession is unusual for frum people?

Yes we should. But it’s a very difficult thing to do. Many Mashichists and Elokists (and by here, I’m using the definition of a person who believes the following: “Rav Menachem Mendel Schneerson is or can be Moshiach and he can hear and fulfill our teffilos so we pray to him”) are very set in their ways and surrounded by many people who look like Erliche Yidden and are similarly convinced that this is how to follow Hashem’s Torah.

I think the best we can do is be open and inviting to Chabadskers and show them how we daven (with only Hashem in mind) how we learn (from many Rishonim and Acharonim) how we listen to Da’as Torah (not every cough or sneeze from a Rov is something that needs to be written down and treated like Torahs Moshe m’Sinai C”V) and how most of the frum and even Chassidish world just lives and believes very differently than they are used to.

I read something once by the guy who ran the anti-cult organization “Jews for Judaism”. He said that a religion allows you to choose to what extent you want to be part of it. You can be frum, but no one is forcing you to be frum, and if you choose to no longer follow certain mitzvos, you can do so with little consequence (at least in Olam HaZeh). A cult on the other hand, is ruled by an enigmatic leader or leaders. You cannot choose your level of involvement. You are either all in, completely following the Dear Leader’s every word, or out.

For all these people saying “trust in Hashem!”. What do you do when you break your arm? Daven extra hard?

@moishekapoieh The Tiferes Yisroel (who wrote Yochin U’Boaz on Mishnayos) has a sefer at the end of Mishnayos Sanhedrin called “Or HaChaim” that answers some of your questions.

Rav Chaim’s stories aren’t about moifsim. They are about Torah. For the last decade of his life, knew more than (probably) any individual alive. People would come to him with shaylos about rare situations and he would immediately answer by pointing out where in poskim this was discussed before. There wasn’t a piece of Shas he couldn’t immediately recall. And he was pashut in that regard.

Everything to him was about Torah and Avodah. When people would ask for eitzas his answer was always to daven and learn. He never worried about the future because he always had full bitachon that Moshiach is just around the corner. He was simply baffled sometimes when people didn’t grasp that “Why does it matter who to vote for? Moshiach is coming!”

Once after an anti-Semitic attack in a Yeshiva, the Lakewood Rosh Yeshivos asked him what they Yeshiva can do to protect themselves. He said that they don’t need protection because everyone is learning. They were forced to admit that perhaps not everyone is learning all the time, and people sometimes take phone calls from their seats in the Batei Midrashim. This upset him greatly and he said that it made a hole in the protective barrier so the Yeshiva may need physical protection.

In the 1960s there was this growing fear of a “population bomb”. With medical advances ensuring that almost all children live to adulthood, the population exploded. Which was a great thing. Until people realized that there all these extra mouths to feed and just as much arable land as there was before. Panic set in and charts predicted that it will be twenty years until we can no longer feed everyone and be forced to resort to drastic measures.

Enter Norman Borlaug.

By genetically engineering food crops, like corn and wheat, Borlaug invented a way to produce far more food on just as much farmland as before. The crisis was solved and this unassuming Norwegian-American scientist quietly saved the world.

Let me summarize the following massive thread about the fraud that Trump alleged took place during the 2020 elections. Nothing was found showing that there was fraud. That is all.

If we are taking CDC data as something we can learn from, CDC data also shows that people with three COVID vaccine shots are not only far far less likely to get hospitalized and/or R”L die from COVID but also far far less likely to pass COVID on to someone else.

Legality aside, why the big fuss? If someone tells you to put a mask on, put up a mask, get your nose swabbed, and stop crying over it. It’s really not such a big deal that we have to involve lawyers.

Chalopshitz

Can we at very least agree that for the amount of money seminary costs, the sem should at very least supply three full meals a day and a full Shabbos? I know this was the case in 2021 when sems were forced to make girls stay in all the time, but did it continue?

Don’t quote me on this, but I believe that the Ben Ish Hai held that electricity as a general rule can be used on Shabbos (provided it doesn’t heat up, like a lightbulb or oven) and that bikes can be ridden. Sefardim are much more meikel on electricity because of this.

Anyhoo, staying home every time you don’t feel well isn’t an option. Sure I’d stay home if I were running a fever, but most “not feel well” is much more mild. There are winter months where I can barely go a full week without developing a cough or sneeze.

edited

It’s currently culturally acceptable to wear a mask. I hope that continues. It’s crazy to think that if we just had a bit of a fever, or a little sneeze, we would walk into crowded supermarkets and shuls with no difference.

We do not discuss the Thing That We Do Not Discuss on this place where it is not discussed.

@ bored_teen (AKA @trump-2024) To be fair, I said that this should be a topic decided on only by women and girls.

@always_ask_questions I never liked the Turing Test. The current biggest candidate being hyped all around is a piece of software called GPT-3. Even though it has a massive vocabulary, rarely repeats itself, and writes in clear English, it only takes about 2 paragraphs before devolving into pure narischkeit.

I remember Yeshiva World posting about Mendel’s petira. I was embarrassed because it was the first time I learned his last name.