@ujm Women driving isn’t controversial. Either you hold that the Vizhnitz and Satmar Rebbe’s psaks are still chal, like Vizhnitz and Satmar do, or you don’t.

What’s controversial is this: Should I be responsible for picking up the slack because you’re women don’t drive? L’Moshol, there’s a family near me whose mother doesn’t drive. They have many kids and there’s no decent local frum taxi service. So when the mother needs to get the kids somewhere, she relies on favors from neighbors to take them, even if they are women. Is that right?

I read a recent article that did some investigation into the popular tzeddakas that run ads all over the Chareidi world. A lot of these are less than fully yoshor and you really need to check in to what you’re donating to. Like, one organization only gave about 10% of the money collected to the family in need and used their own protectzia to garner a few endorsements from leading Rabbonim.

A friend of mine decided to, nebbuch, no longer be shomer Torah u’Mitzvos. He was nervous going to a small family simcha last year, but relieved and weirded out that he got more comments about his mask than lack of peyos.

And yes, I noticed it too. In some communities, wearing a mask is an open invitation to sarcastic comments and people trying to get overly physical.

@always_ask_questions The Baltimore Rabbonim took COVID very seriously. The Star-K and the Va’ad HaRabonim of Baltimore under the auspices of Rav Moshe Heineman SHLITA and Rav Yaakov Hopfer SHLITA have issued numerous proclamations and guidelines for people and shuls to follow and they were unanimously signed by all the frum shuls and schools. This included masking, vaccines, quarantines, and closures when appropriate.

Even though now life is mostly gone back to normal, people don’t get funny looks and weird comments if they choose to wear a mask in shul (which many still do).

I think it’s the lack of respect that many people have for the law that leads to things like this. The bachurim who were in prison in Japan were told that they were smuggling seforim. Similar things happened to many other people in many other less high profile cases (“I just need you to take these diamonds hidden in the lining to my parents”). People simply have a disregard for governments and don’t think about the consequences when breaking the law. We need to instill in ourselves that we are still in galus and we can’t just flaunt around pretending that goyim are only here to be tricked.

One thing I would mention to people when the Japan thing was ongoing was this. When the kids were sent to prison, the drug dealer was put into cheirim by his community and vilified as a rasha. Had the kids not been caught, and the dealer freely admitted what he had been doing, would people have been upset at him? What if he was honest, and really just trying to smuggle diamonds or seforim, would he still be in cheirim?

“Not guilty” just means “Kyle Rittenhouse did not commit intentional homicide” which I think would be obvious for anyone paying attention. It does not mean that he isn’t a blithering idiot who thinks he’s some sort of Batman that’s going to jump into the middle of a riot and protect… something… by waving a rifle around hoping that someone will attack him so he can shoot and declare self-defense.

@gadolhadorah I didn’t think that the CDC recommendations to (A) wear masks if your not vaccinated and (B) get vaccinated would be so contradictory and confusing. What part of it did you not understand?

@rightwriter Those dog whistles are blowing strong, not enough to bring the whole pound running, but my neighbor’s hound just perked her ears up. All the things you are saying, the Fauci hate, the repeated references to some fantastical “New World Order”, the ridiculous Bill Gates hate, throwing terms like “gain of function” without a clue as to what they mean, etc. It all smacks of someone who got most of their information from some questionable sources, like maybe InfoWars or Stormfront.

@klugeryid This part of the comment:

The smart amongst us knew from the start that things didnt add up

This isn’t about the vaccines, but about COVID in general.

I would love to argue facts and logic, but other than the first sentence, the entire post is completely bereft of either. What it does have is a lot of Q-Anon dog whistles. “New World Order”, “sheep-minded liberal”, etc. It makes me wonder if @rightwriter isn’t just some anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist taking a break from InfoWars to troll CR.

Pretending that there’s no such thing as racism and any discussion about it is only a ploy to brainwash kids into submissive little liberals is like half the GOP platform right now.

@rightwriter I was with you until “sheep”. There’s a balance between being safe and being so ridiculously over cautious that your ruin peoples lives. You are criticizing one extreme but then immediately jumping to the other. Frankly, your whole comment smacks of Q-Anon narischkeit and I would kindly recommend you take a breather from social media and the internet in general.

My family was on vacation in Alaska and we stopped at the side of the road in Denali Park to look at a beaver dam. There was already a man and his son standing there wearing the uniform of Yidden on vacation everywhere (man in a taxi driver hat, son in a baseball cap not covering the peyos behind their ears). My father ambled up and casually asked “Nu? Any chance we can get a minyan for mincha?”

Last week I drank too much at a chasuna. I felt really awful, but confident enough to drive home. I got home OK with only some minor bumps and scratches on my car. No one died or was even hurt. Why should I be forced to subject myself to going teetotaler or paying for taxis all the time?

This is the most Chassidishe thing ever and I’m loving it.

The minority who protest are supported and encouraged by the majority. Except for those that throw rocks or protest narischkeit, like an elementary school for girls. Those don’t have any support.

@ts-baum Not to Chas v’Shalom diminish the numerous accomplishments of Rav MM Schneerson ZT”L, but you have a very “Chabad-centric” view of Yiddishkeit. After the Churban in Europe Hashem sent numerous gedolim to the US to help bring Yidden back up to our feet. The Satmar Rebbe Reb Yoel ZT”L, Rav Moshe Feinstein ZT”L, the Alter Vizhnitzer Rebbe ZT”L, Rav Yaakov Kaminetzky ZT”L. I don’t want to start an olympics about which post-war Rav was more influential, but Chabadskers kind of have this tendency to ignore everyone except their late Rebbe and pretend that there would have been no Torah in America without him.

(also 300 volumes isn’t that impressive when there’s a huge team of people who did nothing for decades but write down and publish every thing he said and wrote, long past his petirah. Kol HaMarbeh bi’seforim etc.)

Slight edit

Community splits is one I have a hard time with. I was involved with one many moons ago. From my perspective, it was abundantly clear that one side was acting like childish buffoons and the other side was just trying to live their life. But I can understand how people outside may look at both of us as just a bunch of yutzes making a huge chillul Hashem. In hindsight, it’s nice to see that the Rabbonim that were involved with and supported “our” side are now world-renown in very important positions while the one Rav on yenem tzad had his shul fall apart.

But then I look at other community splits where clearly both sides are acting in a manner more akin to street gangs than Yidden. Full-blown fist fights in shuls. A guy hospitalized when a molotov cocktail was thrown into his window. Cars overturned. People running into shuls to grab sifrei Torah. Brothers that refuse to speak to each other. I don’t see any way to be dan l’kaf zechus on these manners, it’s just machloksim she’lo l’sheim Shomayim.

@HaLeiVi Even when many prominent Chabad people actively practice things that are in direct contradiction to Yiddishkeit?

Ernie. No question. I’m the one who refuses to take anything seriously and I used to have a habit of laughing through my nose.

@aviradearah I think Rav Schneerson’s letter denying that he’s Moshiach is well known amongst Chabadskers (as all of his letters are). Perhaps someone from Chabad can shed some light on it? All I know is what anti-meshichist Chabadniks have told me, that it exists.

@AvriaDeArah I do believe that Rav Schneerson ZT”L denied being Moshiach on several occasions and I think there’s a letter where he criticizing a Lubavitch rov for claiming that he’s Moshiach. It’s likely that the extent in which people believed him to be Moshiach was kept from him and he simply didn’t know how widespread it is. The last few years of his life, he had a stroke and was unable to communicate much. During that time, the meshichists became a lot more brazen and would openly sing “Yechi” in front of him to the anger of the agudists. His inaction was taken to mean that he accepts their beliefs. I’ve heard that one of his doctors, a frum Talmid Chacham, had a difficult time keeping meshichists away from his bedside. He said that they would ask their Rebbe questions and take every mumble and grunt as they chose to interpret it.

@Health You’re right, just because I can’t find it doesn’t mean you’re wrong.

However, you own admission of ignorance coupled with the vague statements you are calling “facts” does. So you’re wrong.

@Health There isn’t a single shred of evidence that there is, or ever has been, some massive underground cult of Satanists that routinely murder people. The Satanic Panic was merely a blood libel with different targets and different window dressings (although many did attempt to attack Jews as complicit in this alleged child murder ring). Most of the child witnesses from places like the McMartin Preschool recanted their testimony when they got older, and a lot of the testimony was re-examined and found to be either contradictory, implanted by the interviewer, or both.

@ujm Halachically, the Salem Witch Trials involved the murder of 20 people. (The one person who actually may have practiced some form of kishuf or Avodah Zara survived.) There’s nothing else to it. If you want to discuss halachic points, a goyishe court can’t just wantonly kill people for suspicion, they actually have to show proof. There was no proof for any of the 20 people executed, therefore they were all murdered.

@ujm I forgot to elaborate on Giles Corey. He was one of the accused and he was tortured for a confession by having rocks put on his chest. He grinned at his molester, said “More weight” and died. By their own admission of the Salem court, Corey was completely innocent and still died.

So all else aside, the Salem Witch Trials absolutely murdered at least one innocent man.

Just to pick on one point:

Lubavitchers believe the Rebbe is alive

There absolutely are Lubavitchers who believe the last Lubavitcher Rebbe ZT”L is alive as evidenced by numerous pamphlets, websites, and other paraphernalia that they have produced. They have made it abundantly clear that they don’t believe he ever really died.