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@n0mesorah I suppose that individual who wrote a glowing article in a mainstream frum paper on LT about 8 years ago, including rationalizing child marriages and taking children from their parents, would count.
What are terroists and how is Israel funding them?
The pro-COVID crowd has a difficult time separating things health officials have said two years ago with more up to date things they are saying today. That’s probably why they claim that the communication about masks is “confusing” as they think that something said by Fauci in February of 2020 is still nogeya despite him having explicitly retracted in multiple times.
The valve mask thing was said in mid-2020. I believe it was retracted later that year. So if you’re wearing an N95 or KN95 mask, it’s fine if there’s a valve on it. However, valved masks are more expensive to manufacture so you don’t see them often (or at all).
@dr-pepper Very well, there are circumstances where an automatic weapon is useful.
Now let me ask you a completely unrelated question: Are there circumstances common enough to warrant an individual civilian to own an automatic weapon (specifically an automatic, not a pistol, or shotgun)? Follow up to that: If the answer is yes, does legalizing automatic weapons do more good (like in the situations in the previous question) or more harm?
Your explanation of US violence rates is amateurish and in direct contradiction to pretty much every study ever done on the topic. Furthermore, your criticisms of US policing and prison should apply doubly to liberal European countries like France and England. And yet those have less violence than the US and a lot less gun violence.
The problem is that the guns will be removed from the hands of innocent people that had them legally and the remaining guns will be the ones obtained illegally.
If I could point and go “NU!” I would be doing so. That’s the NRA rhetoric I’m talking about. Their unofficial motto since forever has been “If we criminalize guns, only criminals will have guns”. Time and data have proven again and again how false this statement is. If there are less guns, less criminals will have guns. One reason the US has so many mass shootings is that it is so easy for criminals to get guns. Sure, if someone was really intent on committing a gun crime, they would find a way to do so illegally. But as things stand, they don’t have to be really committed to it, they just need that spur of the moment desire to shoot up a school and they can have their weapons in hand within minutes.
I question the statement that “people consider guns to be a necessary evil”. Every piece of gun propaganda out there, from magazines I see in Rite Aid to Deep South Congressional testimony speaks about the “right” to own a gun. As if it’s something that everyone must have and is required to have. I’m not scared of people having their legally owned guns taken from them. Why should I be? Fakert, I would welcome it. These people sadly bought into the ridiculous pro-gun narischkeit and are so utterly convinced that they need their guns that any attempt to limit the danger is seen as equally evil as genocide.
Now on to your questions:
- It would be a long and slow process to get all the illegal guns off the streets and into scrap piles. The government should start programs to destroy any illegal gun or any used in a crime. Then they should start severely limiting the number of guns allowed to be manufactured, bought, and registered. It would take years, even decades, but over time the number of guns will hopefully drop to a level where a criminal will have a hard time getting one
- First off, I have my doubts if criminals refrained from breaking into homes out of fear of guns. Break ins happen in trigger happy cities too. Second, mace, tasers, baseball bats, and alarm systems work fine. I would even possibly consider that a small caliber limited capacity pistol (.22 with less than six bullets before reloading) would be useful. I see no logical reason why anything more is necessary
- How many dangerous weapons are flowing across the Southern open border on a daily basis? More or less than are bought legally at gun shows?
- “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. “If we criminalize guns, only criminals would have guns”. Don’t you understand how serious this is? You didn’t even realize it, but at some point in you educating yourself about firearms you’ve absorbed literal corporate propaganda into your psyche and are convinced that you came up with it on your own!
- It’s not a zero sum game. You can take guns away from people and help with mental health. In both the long and short run it would help. If you think that you need an AR-16 machine gun to protect yourself from someone with BPD having a bad day, then that says a lot about the state of both mental health and gun control in this country.
I read the column too and I was almost laughing out loud the whole time about how an avowed anti-frum leftist has somehow come to the same conclusions that the frum oilon had been saying since the 1920s.
@emeslaamito An electric motor than can manage an ambulance hasn’t been invented yet. Not only do ambulances have to have great speeds and acceleration, but they also need the power to run a whole lot of electronic equipment. That’s why there are no fully electric minivans or busses yet.
You’re making a logical error which I’ve heard called the “People Live in Cities Fallacy”. The biggest cities have the biggest number of crimes because there are more people there. So yes, more people are murdered by guns in New York City than in Yehupitzville, Iowa. But the rate of gun crimes (per 1000 individuals) is actually highest in places with lax gun laws, like New Orleans and Jackson, Mississippi.
I think the problem with gun laws is that almost anytime Congress tries to impose better restrictions, like wait periods, better background checks, gun show loophole closures, better registration, etc. the NRA and all of its unwitting goons jump all over it “The Democrats are taking our freedoms!”.
I never thought I’d say this, but I agree with @UJM
I thought I was clear that my comment about the use of an automatic weapon implies that it’s a situation that an individual can reasonable expect to encounter. Such a situation simply doesn’t exist in the US. So you’re example of a wild gun-wielding mob is simply ridiculous and doesn’t answer the question.
Regarding “stopping the Holocaust” I also thought I was clear in my comments about a revolution in the US. Namely, that not only will guns be ineffective against a military armed with attack planes and nuclear weapons, but also that guns present a very real danger today which you’re weighing against a potential unlikely danger in the future.
Again, the US ranks exceedingly high in terms of violent crime related deaths per 1000 people. Gun violence being one of the leading causes of violent crime-related death. It’s more likely for someone in the US to die of a gunshot than someone in Ukraine. If the violent death rate were only slightly below countries like UK and Japan, I would agree with you that you can’t compare. But the fact that gun violence is so bad in the US compared to every other country with similar socio-economic makeups, you have to find the one factor that’s so different than other countries. What do you think that factor is?
If we ban certain guns and confiscate said guns there will be less guns. Period. People won’t be able to sneak them across the border in nearly the quantity needed to make them as readily available as they are now. There are right now more civilian owned guns in the US than people. It’s relatively easy for criminals to get their hands on one or two. If there were one one hundredth as many guns, it would be much more difficult for criminals to commit gun crimes.
In 1994, a Chabad Mitzvah Tank was shot up by a machine pistol on the Brooklyn Bridge and a bachur, Ari Halberstam, was murdered. In response, the government put much stricter restrictions on automatic machine pistol sales and use which caused their use in crimes to drop dramatically.
You understand that smoking is dangerous and the benefits to nutrition and digestion are negligible compared to the very real dangers of lung cancer and emphysema. That’s because you live in 2022 and not 1922. Hopefully one day people and people like you will also realize that guns are dangerous and the benefits of personal safety and hunting are negligible compared to the very real dangers of gun violence. And someday soon guns will be looked at like cigarettes’ are: a danger to one’s self and to those around them.
Only the Teimanim held of polygamy in recent history. And even among them, it wasn’t too common. So yes, “exceedingly rare” in the sense that it was something practiced by a minority of one single Jewish ethnicity.
There’s a reason it was exceedingly rare in communities that didn’t have the Cherem and there’s also a reason it was so rare even before the Cherem.
@dr-pepper I’m basing my opinions on actual statistics. Like how the USA is most comparable to Somalia in terms of gun deaths per person. You can’t just say “Well you can’t compare…” when literally every developed country not at war does so much better than the US in terms of violence. If you say it’s because of the easiness of the US prison system, then you have to bring some really really good stats and professional opinions to back that up. Like how does that explain Scandanavian countries whose prisons are basically hotels and barely have any gun violence? Because the US is so atrociously bad at not letting people die from bullets, that can’t be all. The simplest reason is probably because there are too many guns.
The fact that you cannot even think of a single situation that actually happened where a person was saved because they were holding an automatic weapon means that such situations are too rare to warrant allowing everyone to carry automatics. That’s an opinion, sure. But one that I cannot think of a logical reason to disagree with.
Different cities and states having different gun control laws is pointless when a quick jaunt over the border will allow someone better access. Or send a shaliach. Or a gun show. Facts remain that most mass murders in the US happened with guns that were acquired legally.
Im Yirtzah Hashem, just like average people figured out that cigarettes are bad for you and smoking dropped dramatically, so to should guns and gun ownership.
@aviradearah We’ve established that guns are extremely dangerous and kill hundreds in the US every year. I have yet to see an argument as to why we even need so many guns. If the number of guns in the US went down by 95%, we would still have more than enough for security purposes and criminals will be far less likely to have them.
So please tell me your rationale why we need so many guns and such big guns at that. What’s wrong with one .22 six shooter for every five US citizens?
Veiter on a semi-related subject, for some reason US politics is extremely polarized. You’re either a Democrat, and hate guns, hate Israel, love gender confusion, and hate business. Or you’re a Republican, and love guns, love Israel, hate gender confusion, and love self-opportunity. For good reason, the frum oilom allied ourselves with the Republicans. But why does that mean we have to swallow their whole schtick hook, line, and sinker?
@dr-pepper Let’s simplify things: The advantages of banning all automatic weapons far outweighs the disadvantages.
To get to your points specifically: Are there situations where a civilian wielding an automatic weapon is useful? Yes. But those situations are extremely rare. The single example you gave is something that literally never happened (Rittenhouse could have used a .22 pistol. Or just no gun to begin with, the reason he was attacked was because he was visibly armed). It’s rare enough to quantify: the number of lives legal automatic weapons save in a decade is probably less than 10. On the other hand, fully legal weapons are used all the time in murders, possibly dozens of deaths annually.
Basically, what I’m saying is that there’s no good reason to have so many big guns.
You say you don’t know much about the NRA, yet you repeat their talking points near-verbatim. I guess that just shows that how much of the pro-gun “culture” is controlled by them and the weapons lobby.
So banning all big guns is by far the best way to go about things.
In 20 years, cigarette smoking went from being the cool thing that every teen and adult does, to something frowned upon and heavily regulated. In 20 years marijuana went from being synonymous with heroin to something you can find at a corner drug store. Maybe in 20 years from now, automatic weapons will be seen as illegal and become rare and difficult to acquire. And maybe in 20 years from then so will semi-automatics. Perhaps another 20 years later we can even rethink the 2nd amendment.
Which means that the disadvantages of banning big guns is that some people won’t feel safe but a whole lot of other people will feel much safer and that’s something I can live with and so should you.
And I can compare the US to other civilized countries. Rates of violence in the US are comparable to Somalia. And gun deaths (excluding suicides) top the list of violent crime-related deaths. No other civilized country even comes close.
The availability of guns makes people who would otherwise not commit gun violence, be more prone to committing gun violence. It’s simple logic. The more guns there are, the easier they are to acquire. How much armed robbery or mass shootings are there in places with strict gun control laws? Furthermore, someone willing to commit mass murder without a gun will have to carefully plan things out, like the Boston Bombers. But if they have a gun, there’s barely any planning at all required, just head to a crowded area and open fire. Which is probably why out of all the mass murders in the last 20 years, only one or two were committed without guns. The rest? You got it! High capacity high caliber high rate firearms!
What I’m trying to say is that I have yet to hear a convincing argument why the USA needs so many guns.
On the subject of mental illness. You seem to vastly underestimate the sheer amount of invasive power it would take to find dangerously mentally ill people before they commit crimes. The systems you describe are already in place. Just try opening up a Facebook or YouTube page with pictures of guns and hints that you plan on using them. You’ll have police at your door within the day. But that doesn’t cover everyone. Most mass shooters didn’t really have any major red flags. It’s basically impossible to get everyone the help they need, and to force someone to get help will only work if you’re absolutely certain that said individual is violent. You know what’s not impossible? Banning big guns so that mentally ill people are much more limited in potential for violence.
In conclusion: No guns. OK, maybe some guns. But only small ones.
Electricity is such a difficult question to begin with. I do believe that most poskim quietly agree that there’s no general issur of using electricity since neither the act of boneh nor aish occurs in many modern uses. Sephardim, including the Ben Ish Chai, used electricity on Shabbos for decades until Chacham Ovadia Yosef ZT”L paskened to not turn on lights. But since aish and boneh do commonly occur it’s far simply to just assur all electricity.
What I mean is that it’s quite possible that driving a Tesla may only incur an issur of breaking a minhag or universal chumra.
@dr-pepper What you’re saying is that there are some very specific and rare scenarios where an automatic weapon in civilian hands is useful. I disagree. The fact that those scenarios are so specific and rare means that automatic weapons should not be in civilian hands because their only use is in specific and rare scenarios that 99.99% of people never experience. Hence my charging pack of rhinos.
I’m not delusional to think that guns will disappear overnight, but I do believe we have to make a very strong effort to start that process. Perhaps if the effort is strong enough, in another 10-20 years mass murderers won’t find their weapons of choice so easily. So yes. Let’s ban all guns.
Let’s say they do go ahead with the ban and forcibly confiscate all guns from registered owners- do you think the country would be safer or more dangerous
Safer. Much safer. You keep just paraphrasing the NRA line, “If we criminalize guns, only criminals will have guns”. Except that’s not true as evidenced by literally every developed country in the world. The thing is, if guns aren’t criminalized, they become really easy to come by. So if a criminal wants an illegal gun in the USA they have about a thousand different options. Furthermore, if someone without a criminal record wants to commit a crime, they are much more likely to buy a gun if they can just walk into the local Murder-Sticks-R-Us and pick one out.
If someone wants to commit mass murder without a gun, they have very limited options. As evidenced by the fact that gunless mass murderers aren’t common and kill far less people than those with guns.
If these people are adequately looked into and put away where they can’t harm others I think the mass killings would drop significantly.
Do you think that mentally ill people will just disappear overnight? It’s really really hard to find the needle in the haystack that is the fellow that’s about to go over the deep end. It’s far easier to simply deny them access to the tools of others destruction.
@dr-pepper Because your scenario is so unlikely to the point of being ridiculous. Out of the thousands of massive riots that swept the country in 2020, how many times did a mob descend on an innocent person to kill him or her?
You know what else is useful? A .50 cal automatic would be great if a herd of rhinos were charging your house. So maybe we should all set up machine gun nests in our upper floors!
My point is, that no matter how much protection guns offer an individual, a much better protection would be having no guns to begin with.
Let’s say all guns in the USA just disappeared tomorrow. Now let’s take a quick metric a year from now. How many innocent were lost because people didn’t have guns to defend themselves? 10? 20? OK, now let’s look on the flip side. We continue as we are. Now how many innocent lives are lost because some maniac got their hands on a high capacity high caliber firearm. It’s way way WAY more than 10 or 20.
@dr-pepper More realistic scenario: Let’s say you had an automatic weapon with dozens of rounds and you were being chased by a furious mob of rioters wielding automatic weapons with dozens of rounds and screaming for your death?
Would you even have a chance?
No more guns. Period.
I’m not expecting the gun nuts in the US to just get rid of their big weapons tomorrow. And I’m not expecting everyone to suddenly be against toevah marriage, public pritzus, or a million other things. But we can at least speak up about it and how we want the world to be. Who knows? Maybe it can make a change.
If someone needs a gun for personal protection from wildlife, perhaps we can set up a system where they can petition a judge for it. If gun laws are as strict as they should be, people wouldn’t need guns to protect themselves from other people with guns.
@ray-kaufman That’s nice I don’t care.
Big guns should be illegal. Period. There is literally no valid use to your average person for a weapon that can shoot more than six .22 bullets without reloading. I’m not the greatest fan of small guns either and I look forward to a day where security guards can carry nothing more than tasers because the fear of a bad guy with a gun is so extremely unlikely.
@ujm I don’t know of any specific anti-Semitism within the NRA, but they are extremely popular amongst the KKK and other Neo Nazi groups in the US.
@always_ask_questions You say “myopic” I say “Incredibly dangerous and stupid”. You say “emotional state” I say “appealing to nationalistic feelings”. You say “increase long term risk” I say “greatly decrease short term risk”. At what point does the clear and present danger of weapons in the wrong hands outweigh the nebulous threat of a revolution?Using your logic, in order for the people to effectively fight against the government, we will need a lot more than some AR-15s and Desert Eagles. Maybe everyone should stockpile RPGs? .50 cal machine guns? Tanks? Nuclear weapons?
Also, why is the US the only developed country in the world where people are expected to be prepared for a violent revolution any day? What about England?
@moishekapoieh Koichi v’oitzem yodi usuh es ha’chayil ha’zeh?
The flag parade is a meaningless celebration that does nothing other than to antagonize a nation who barely needs an excuse to murder Jews.
Agreed. The whole concept of “The State of Israel” is k’negged the Torah and antagonizing goyim. Now that it exists, we have to try and make the best of it, which we have Baruch Hashem. Only too many Jews, unfortunately, forget that Moshiach hasn’t yet come and insist on pretending to be some Koichi Voitzem Yodi conquerors pushing goyim more and more.
@tunaisafish Less than 10 people died by George Floyd, including Floyd himself over six months of rioting. This was 20 people in an hour.
The shooting event should be blamed on politicians that have been having their strings pulled by the anti-Semitic NRA since forever.
@syag-lchochma I think that mental health is too difficult a metric to pin down. It’s really hard to tell the difference between the guy having a bad day and the guy who’s one wrong turn away from cracking. We absolutely must address the mental health crisis in this country, but I doubt it will be more than 25% effective at stopping mass shootings.
@Pekak I’m not sure nor do I care what “AR” stands for. (I think it’s “Armalight”?) It shouldn’t be in civilian hands. Period. I don’t know why gun nuts think that everyone has to know every aspect of deadly weapons before commenting that the situation in the US is out of control. Does it matter if it uses “clips” or “magazines” when it fires two bullets a second for thirty seconds before needing to reload? Should I worry if it’s being loaded with a “bullet” or a “cartridge” that’s strong enough to stop a charging bison? Can I not be upset if I can’t tell you that the gun is “burst fire” or “automatic”?
@always_ask_questions I am far more worried about random shootings by maniacs today than I am about some far off imagined potential revolution.@tunaisafish The Maiseh b’Poel is to get stop guns from being so readily available to every criminal and nutjob. That is a political matter so the zach is political from the get go. Unfortunately, there are people screaming and crying about their “rights” to own dangerous weapons that serve no purpose outside of a warzone and unfortunately many people in power in the US listen to them.
Just today I was reading an article on a popular conservative blog about red flag laws. A red flag law is a proposal to allow people to snitch on weapon owners who could be problematic which would allow the police to confiscate their firearms. The blog stated it “would do more harm than good” because it would allow people the power to get their neighbors guns taken away. Let’s absorb that for a second. The good: Less people dying from guns, less mass shootings, less murders. The harm: Some innocent people will loose their firearms.
@SyagLchochma “That is as ignorant as saying car dealers support drunk driving.” If getting a gun was a difficult as getting a car, this would be a apt comparison. As it stands, carrying a gun while drunk isn’t illegal, shooting a gun while under 16 isn’t illegal, shooting a gun without insurance isn’t illegal, you can buy a gun within five minutes of turning 18, you can use a gun for years without it getting checked on etc etc etc. Getting a gun either legally or illegally in the US is terrifyingly simple. No mental health checks are going to stop the black market. The US has to make guns rare and difficult to get and hold on to.
Furthermore, cars serve a very important purpose in most people’s lives. I fail to see what purpose an AR-15 serves in the life of anyone not trying to kill as many people in as little time as possible. You want personal protection? Get a .22 pistol that can fire six bullets before reloading. You want to hunt because you’re a shikkur goy? Get a bolt-action deer rifle.
When the reasoning for similar tragedies to happen over and over again is political, then it’s not “politizing tradegies” (sic). It’s being frank about what needs to change.
What if we rephrase this entire conversation to be talking about the Ubbar when it is less than 40 days old? What shteit in halacha? What about US law?
They have that hilarious story about the Rebbe (I think it was the Tzemach Tzedek ZT”L) taking the koach ha’tumah away from Napoleon before he invaded Russia by making the French national anthem a niggun which they still sing today.
Speak to a therapist and find the best way to get them into therapy. OCD can seriously ruin a persons life and they may be in denial that they have a problem. Therapy is absolutely necessary.
The fact that you can be in any inhabited area of the world and find a kosher meal and possibly even a minyan is amazing and speaks so much about Chabad and Rav Schneerson ZT”L.
Out of all kiruv organizations, I feel that not only is Chabad the most successful in terms of numbers, but in terms of acceptance also. How many other Ba’alei Teshuva find their kids in the same schools as their Rabbonim, or that shidduchim marred by their past?
I wonder why anyone thought that Republicans would ever vote for an accented Turkish immigrant with a Muslim name.
Better idea.
No one gets guns. Not the hunters, not the people who want home security, not the “firearm enthusiasts”, not the sharpshooters, not the snipers. Only police and military.
The Second Amendment is so anti-Torah it’s sickening. “A RIGHT to bear arms”. Where in the Torah does anyone have a right to anything? Holding a gun is a priviledge. And it should be an exclusive privilege to those who show that they are willing to put their own safety above others. Not the privilege of those who want to kill a deer.
Struckes!
People’s lives are literally at stake and the House is playing stupid STUPID tipshus partisan politics. The Democrats introduced a bill called “The Infant Formula Supplemental Appropriations Act” and almost every Republican voted against it. In contrast, the GOP introduced the “Baby Needs Formula Now Act” and the Democrats are expected to kill it in Congress.
No one in Washington cares about the people. Politics has devolved into a sports rivalry where no one can dare allow the other team to score a point.
This reminds me of the famous story about the Bais Yaakov convention in Toronto. There was an announcement that all in-town girls should stand up and go to a certain person, so all the Toronto and Flatbush girls got up.
Not sure what you mean, I don’t see any traffic in town.
Do you take Zelle?
@mdd1 It’s a machlokes Rishonim of Xtianity is A”Z, so I would say that there very much is a debate. There are some that say that the machlokes is based on how it was practiced in different parts of the world (like some forms don’t worship a man or think that he’s a god). That still applies today since that religion is pretty diverse.
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.
Because, to quote every Western Communist ever, “sTaLiN waSn’T TrUe comMuNiSM”
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.
Someone in my neighborhood is a beekeeper. Just a hobby, though, it’s not his career.
@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.
@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) ten 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.
@AviraDeArah The Likutei Sichos of Rav Schneerson ZT”L are just collections of divrei Torah, no more no less. They should absolutely be treated with the same respect given to any sefer.
But not the level of respect that many in Chabad give them. They do not contain the answers to all of life’s questions. Yeshivos setting aside a long seder every day to go over them is time better spent learning Gemara or Rishonim. They do not need explanations. One cannot divine inner meaning from apparent contradictions or mistakes. The late Rebbe of Lubavitch was a human being and the transcriptions of his writings are just the writings of an Acharon who himself is Basar V’Dom. Not (Chas v’Shalom) Torah m’Sinai, nor even Shulchan Aruch.
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.
@ujm Currently in Texas and Oklahoma, any DNC is treated like an abortion. So if a fetus is not viable, or if a woman’s life is in danger, she still has to jump through a lot of hoops to get the medical care she needs.
@aviradearah I agree that by goyim it’s 99% of the time an issue of lack of self control. But there’s still that 1%.Rav Moshe considered abortion to be similar to retzicha, but I believe he also did not like the so called “Pro Life” movement since he felt that there are instances where halacha compels a women to get an abortion in cases where Xtian activists would not.
Personally I think that the “Pro Lifers” can learn a thing or two from their compatriots in Eretz Yisroel. The frum anti-abortion activists there are focused very little on legislation and 95% of their efforts and money go to making sure that the baby can be born healthy and raised by a healthy family (either biological or adopted).
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.
@commonsaychel I don’t agree. I know of many many older frum people who are doctors and nurses. I think it’s just that there are more frum people today than 30 years ago so you see more frum people in medicine.