Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
@MadeAliya
Found it
https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/anti-face-mask-ywncr/page/2#post-1930828
How can anybody demand that people should wear a mask to protect others?
“How can anyone demand that people should drive the speed limit to protect others? How can anyone demand that people should stay inside when the have the flu to protect others? How can anyone demand that people should put fences around construction to protect others?”
If this is your mindset then I don’t see how any conversation with you can possibly be productive.
@torahvaluesoverparty I see no logical reason why we have to devote time, energy, and resources to every claim by every guy standing on a street corner and shouting. For the Shouting Man, it’s a win-win situation. Either they find evidence to back up his claim, or they waste time looking for evidence and make it look like his claim is actually legitimate.
@mbachur @coffee-addict Because it’s hypocritical to say that the impeachment investigations of Trump are illegitimate due to lack of evidence, but investigations into voting fraud is valid.Sorry all, I misquoted. Someone on this thread made a comment on another thread saying something along the lines of “Why should I sacrifice my comfort for your safety?”. The individual knows who they are.
That may be a quote by a single person, but it’s that mindset that the pro-death crowd has. Masks are “uncomfortable”, social distancing is “difficult”, vaccines give me a “headache”.
As to answer the original question, “How does this pseudo-doctor have any credibility?” I don’t believe there’s much to answer over here. The wording of the question is already showing a massive bias and outright hatred towards medical professionals who (as I’ve said before) are almost in lock-step with the CDC and Fauci. Furthermore, all they are really saying is that we shouldn’t drop our guard and keep masking even when vaccinated until the data shows a dramatic decrease in cases.
I don’t need to answer the question, I reject its assumptions outright.
@Participant OP is cherry picking one quote by Dr. Fauci to try and deride him and his policies. Not only that, but he and other like minded individuals have a history of unhealthy mockery of healthcare proffesionals summed up by the phrase (and I quote) “Why should my comfort take precedence over your safety?”
So it isn’t just about answering this “one question”. It’s addressing the whole insanity of regular Am Ha’aratzim who suddenly think they know better than every single doctor on the planet. Dr. Fauci may not always be right, but as the mouthpiece of the medical establishment, he’s certainly worth listening to.
Jokes on you, my political party is already turned against Judaism!
The pro-death crowd, such as @MadeAliya, speak Dr. Fauci’s name like Chabadskers talk about Rav Shach ZT”L lehavdil.
Both are incredibly important figures that have done a ton of work in helping the tzibbur and both have been the public faces of a series of opinions held by the vast majority of experts.
Chabadskers choose to pick on Rav Shach ZT”L and deride his memory because it’s easier to attack a single man’s opinions than admit that he was far from alone in what he was saying.
So too pro-deathers have Dr. Fauci as their target. It’s hard to admit that virtually every health professional and organization in the world has been saying the same things as Fauci (or at least when the argue, it’s only on small issues like double masking) and that you know better. It’s much easier to just pick one guy and call him a nut.
@torahvaluesoverparty I claim that Donald Trump is guilty of inciting a riot and should be held responsible for the deaths of five people, the injuries of more than 100, and millions in property damage. Why not try him in court? If by the end of the case, no guilt is found, then he’s innocent!
@always_ask_questions If your Rav tells you not to listen to your doctor, you need to find a new Rav.
Rabbi Dr. Lamm ZT”L had a Bachelors of Science, a PhD in Jewish philosophy, and a very long history of writing well-researched and well-regarded books and articles. He most likely got his start early, and in his college years his schooling required him to be very well written.
So if you want to be a decent writer, read a few books on writing and write a lot of articles. If you want to be a GREAT writer, go to college.
What is a Trump are how are there multiple Trumps in the CR?
Because it lends legitimacy to the idea that the election has been stolen. The people calling for the audit are exactly the type of people who we need out of Washington: arrogant fools who will adamantly deny reality even if it’s shining in their faces. By giving in to them and performing an audit, it will allow them to waste valuable time and resources, not to mention they’ll probably pick up a few facts out of context and use it to convince fools of their legitimacy.
“If you have nothing to hide, why oppose?” can almost be the motto of totalitarian regimes everywhere. It can be used to justify almost anything. And it’s a terrible idea to base a pointless audit on.
@mbachur @coffee-addict The irony is that it’s working both ways. Either CNN is all fake news and only NewsMax is accurate, or Fox News is all fake and only Vice News is accurate. Why can’t I be critical of views that I don’t like and praising of views that I do like, no matter who it was that said them? Both the Democrats and Republicans, Liberals and Conservatives, hold of multiple opposing views that I find abhorrent, and also views that I agree with.
@torahvaluesoverparty Can we back up a second? What’s your issue with climate change?I have a recording of Rav Moshe Heineman SHLITA where he was asked this question. He quoted a Gemara in Berachos, which names stars that have a beracha because the residents of those stars came to help the Bnei Yisroel in a milchomo, as a raya that there can be aliens.
Lehavdil BChLCh, Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm wrote an essay discussing this topic at length. It was published in a book called Challenge. He concludes that there are Rishonim who would accept that the existence of intelligent aliens is possible.
I know in the Torah we say “Yom oh yomayim”, that if a person dies from a medical complication then the attacker isn’t chayav misa. But I don’t think that applies here. If someone mugs and attacks an elderly man, causing him to have a heart attack, do we say that the mugger is innocent because the man had a bad heart?
If it’s not wrapped in foil and warmed overnight in the cholent, just cook it regularly.
Modern gebroks chumros is a minhag, not halacha. The answer depends entirely on what your mother or community does.
Is a deli matzah sandwich problematic? What about a cheese melt? Do you put washed lettuce leaves in your Korech? Fruit juices? Is it OK if it’s within 18 minutes? Every question has its own answer and none of these answers are found in halacha, nor should they be.
If what you’re saying in your first paragraph is true, Baruch Hashem for that! I hope soon we can all adopt some measure of immunity passports, so we no longer have to fear spreading COVID by getting on to a plane, or attending a large simcha, and slowly but surely return to 100% how life was before 2020.
Mods don’t moderate over Yom Tov. shrugs
@torahvaluesoverparty Looks like we are in agreement then. Listen to the experts. And those experts say that it’s better to get vaccinated and face the very slim odds of problems than rely on untested therapies in case an individual C”V does catch COVID.
Also, the test groups have had the vaccine for close to a year and so far no more issues than the control groups. So I’m not . 100% what “long term” effects means, but I’m pretty sure that if the FDA sees nothing in a year they are OK with saying that it’s fine.
I simply don’t understand why you’re angry at me for calling out @TristateJew’s dangerous inaccuracies and fallacies and not at those who are promoting dangerous inaccuracies and fallacies. Especially since, by your own admission, @TristateJew is wrong.
@torahvaluesoverparty The death statistics are flawed and continue to be flawed because they only focus on the individual, not the danger that said individual presents to others. Meaning, if a 30 year old perfectly healthy man lives in a box, it’s unlikely he will contract a serious illness from COVID. The issue is that we are communities, and for every person that doesn’t take the vaccine that’s another person spreading a dangerous virus. And this virus can spread. Like really really fast, much faster than most viruses we are familiar with.
Furthermore, even by your own reasoning everyone over 40 or with any sort of chronic health issue absolutely should get vaccinated, which is in direct contradiction to your previous blanket statements telling people not to.
Finally, almost all of your reasoning rests with the idea that the vaccines are “untested”. Not only is that blatantly false (at this point far more people have had the vaccine shots and for far longer time than FDA approved testing groups) but it was never true to begin with! The FDA fast tracked the human testing, meaning that they allowed vaccine manufacturers to test on humans before they were convinced that it was safe. And guess what? The four approved vaccines passed the human trials.
Now let’s get back to HCQ. I am not a doctor. You are not a doctor. You aren’t even a scientist with regular experience reading and deciphering scientific discussions, papers, studies, medicinal fact sheets, and research. So neither I nor you can say what HCQ does or does not do. But my doctor said it doesn’t work. And out of all the many many doctors, nurses, PA’s, epidemiologists, and other healthcare workers I know, not one thinks another HCQ study will yield significantly positive results. (A doctor I know did recommend vitamin D and ivermectin, but specified that it’s far from a sure thing) And I’m willing to bet that, unless you lived in Kiryas Yoel a year ago, you don’t have a personal physician who recommends it either.
But we can put all of that to the side. Even assuming that your numbers are 100% correct, people are simply not getting treated with HCQ. You have also made it clear on multiple occasions that HCQ should not be taken instead of the vaccine. So that settles the matter. You agree with me that people should be vaccinated and are arguing with @TristateJew who says that more people should just die.
@ujm In my opinion, if a Rav I trust says that a man is a Get refuser, with or without a siruv, I will take a side against him.
@lakewhut Again, case by case basis. If some shady Beis Din that the man doesn’t recognize issues a siruv it doesn’t bear a lot of weight.
@torahvaluesoverparty I’m not saying that the vaccines are perfectly safe. I’m saying that taking a vaccine (any vaccine) is a thousand times better than not taking one, considering that an individual is far more likely to contract COVID and be hospitalized that experience any major adverse effects from the vaccine.
This is a dangerous opinion because it pushes the fiction that there are a significant amount of doctors who don’t want people to vaccinate. You can’t say “There are two sides, immunize or not immunize” when one side has the majority of the medical establishment, and the other side is a guy who graduated last in his class in 1975 and has been running an accupuncture clinic ever since. It’s like lehavdil the equivalent of saying that you can eat pork because your friend from high school told you that chazer doesn’t mean pig.
@torahvaluesoverparty Furthermore, @Tristate-Jew is explicitly arguing with you, saying that people should take the (unproven) HCQ cocktails instead of getting immunized. Nu? Why aren’t you saying anything to him/her?
I don’t know what the situation is right now. I know, like the Rabbonim in this video explained, that 15-20 years ago it was extremely difficult for school aged children to make Aliyah. My question is this. One of the biggest issues that people faced is the two tzedadim of frum Israeli life. Either you live as a Chareidi and all that entails, or you live as a Da’ati Leumi and all that entails.
There was simply no room for someone like your typical kid from Torah Vodaas who wears a hat in shul, plays basketball during recess, learns most of the day, follows the Yankees, and will eventually learn in kollel for a few years before going to college and working as an accountant.
Has that changed and how?
@torahvaluesoverparty Writing a small snippet of a fact sheet without an expert opinion on the matter is out of context. I can pick up any random chemical or machine in my house and make it sound scary by writing out part of its fact sheet. Context and expertise are important. A doctor or other medical expert understands the risks and benefits of the vaccine and can give their opinion in a much more informed manner than “This fact sheet scares me”. And the alleged miscarriages is total bunk. There have been no statistically significant increase in miscarriages for pregnant women taking an mRNA vaccine.
So we have a dangerous fool holding a scary looking fact sheet and then one-upping that by outright invented facts.
As for your tireless devotion to HCQ, it is merely one of many thousands of claimed COVID cures that doctors all over the world have observed in their work. Many have been tested and none have found anything even close to success. The fact that protocols very similar to the ones your doctor friend claimed 80-90% cure rate were tested and found lacking is enough to say that there’s little hope that this observational study will bear any fruit.
As a man, I feel like I shouldn’t have a say in this matter. But it’s my understanding that tzniuyus tights are a minhag ha’makom and vary greatly from place to place. What’s standard in one community is unacceptable in another, and vice versa. If you have a question, ask your local Rebbetzin.
@torahvaluesoverparty Sorry I missed that comment of yours in which you explicitly tell people not to take mRNA vaccines. That is wrong. Not everyone has a choice as to which vaccine to take. If they do, they should speak with their doctor. Better to take the 99.999% safe mRNA vaccine than to risk continuing to spread a dangerous disease.
@loshenhora It’s a risk that everyone knew when trying to get from Israel to the US or vice-versa this year. I have a hard time finding compassion for people who knew exactly what they were getting into and are now sad that the situation has come to pass.
In most cases of get refusal, the Beis Din has already issued a siruv and cherem against the husband. Then it’s perfectly justified to call the man a rasha and protest at his house or whatever. In the small cases where Beis Din did not pasken against the husband, those have to be taken on a case-by-case basis before forming a lynch mob.
@torahvaluesoverparty We’ve discussed this before. You can’t say with total honesty that “just posting the facts” out of context with an uninformed opinion is fine. @Tristate-Jew is clearly trying to push people into not getting vaccinated and you are standing by him. Please don’t insult the intelligence of everyone here by claiming otherwise.
As for your HCQ+Zinc claims, you aren’t following debate protocol. In a debate, you can’t bring up “facts” and demand the other side disprove them. You have to back your facts up. Right now the only evidence that HCQ+Zinc cures 90% of COVID patients is one extremely questionable study published by people who have what to gain from it.
I’m not saying that it doesn’t work, only that there’s no evidence that it works as effectively as you claim. And saying it’s a miracle cure is a convincing argument for people to follow dangerous fools into not getting vaccinated.
@always_ask_questions You’re conflating healthy skepticism with unhealthy skepticism. Sure any establishment needs to be questioned and criticized. But that has to come from a place of equal standing. You can’t just say “Doctors are stupid because I watched a YouTube video that said so”. Right now the frum oilom is in a bit of a crisis because of that. People are not listening to doctors or Rabbonim when it comes to health, and it’s causing illness and death that could have been prevented. And the reasons are because of outlandish and false claims like people in the thread are making and you are encouraging.The inherent problems with social media means that it’s almost impossible to have a true frum social media site. The best option is a closed WhatsApp group.
My 1.5 year old’s pants acquire more chametz over the course of a few hours than my masks do over several days.
@torahvaluesoverparty There are not “thousands” of professionals who claim that, as you do, HCQ+zinc can cure COVID and results in a 90% decrease in mortality. There are thousands of professionals who say that it can be used as a treatment for COVID, but it’s not a miracle drug and there are only a small few yechidim of experts who claim it is. You say people should get vaccinated, but you are simultaneously giving a lot of credit to dangerous fools like @Tristate-Jew who would rather we lose R”L thousands more to COVID.
@always_ask_questions The problem with promoting HCQ isn’t the question of how effective it is, it’s the issue of promoting it as a replacement to vaccination, which a lot of frum people unfortunately are. Furthermore it seeds distrust in doctors and experts and leads to situations where people will refuse doctor recommendations in favor of Biorhythms, essential oils, dowsing rods, or whatever fakery is popular today.When I have a kashe in Torah I don’t presume that the sefer I was reading is wrong, I ask a Talmid chacham. If I have a kashe in medicine, I don’t presume that everyone is doing the wrong thing, I ask a doctor. Please stop posting about secret magical snake oil to treat COVID.
Whatever way you cut it, a random healthy individual is far more likely to contract COVID-19 and die than get some form of serious health injury from one of the vaccines.
Please get yourselves vaccinated.
It’s a good question and I don’t think there’s a simple answer to it.
According what organizations and activists like the ADL have considered anti-Semitism, we would have to include many frum Jews under that umbrella.
According to what more extreme activists have considered anti-Semitism, Hitler yemach shemo was only criticizing the Zionist movement.
I think the answer has to be looked at on a case by case basis.
It’s a rumor, one I’m inclined to believe. For example, there was a Lakewood paper that printed several pages of obituaries last year for Pesach because of all the COVID deaths. Then they stopped printing obituaries.
I’m curious why now you demand a high standard of proof for everything people say, when previously you were quick to disregard any expert opinion on the topic of Coronavirus and base your actions on things that you heard.
@syag-lchochma @commonsaychel I’ve heard that many communities that had lax COVID standards have been keeping quiet about the true toll it’s taken. The large simchas, packed shuls, no masks, testing only healthy people, and other violations have actually killed and hospitalized many many people. But since it causes such a geshrai, they just go on as if life is normal and say “Well, that guy was old anyway, we’ll just say it was a heart attack”.
Pretty much every processed grown food contains a certain percentage of bug parts (not just coffee, orange juice, sugar, wine..). I don’t know the exact numbers, but the FDA rate of acceptable bugs is very very battul.
Remember what Chazal said about nevuah these days and to whom it was given to.
@madealiyah Two questions:
- Why are you so against wearing a mask?
- Do you believe what epidemiologist have been saying that if 90% of people would wear masks when around others, we could have prevented most COVID deaths?
@MadeAliya The problem is that זכות doesn’t mean “right”, it best translates to “privilege”. The difference between the two is that a “right” is something that everyone can do and it cannot be taken away, barring extreme circumstances. A זכות is something that you are awarded. So what you’re saying is that we can only earn the זכות of walking around without face masks and social distancing.
At the end of the day while every life is precious, there is a cheshbon to be made as to what an individual’s responsibility is in saving lives. Like how we weigh driving against deaths by vehicle. Or mentally ill people owning firearms against firearm deaths by mentally ill people. Or wearing a mask against deaths by COVID. Or wearing a mask against deaths by the flu. Or opening schools against deaths by COVID. Everything is a calculated risk and we have to calculate if the risk is worth it. In some cases it is, in some it isn’t. We can’t equate every risk.
A part of me believes the flu comparison is a red herring, but I do believe your disregard for the developmental and emotional damage these restrictions have caused/are causing is criminal.
Eh. I only brought up the flu because @MadeAliyah keeps harping on it. I’m not disregarding the bad parts of the restrictions, I’m saying that you and others are exaggerated the damages caused by wearing masks and de-emphasizing the advantages. You’re viewing this as a binary choice, like the other guy. That either we lock everything down, or we just let everyone do what they want.
I mean, for example, closing schools is a very extreme restriction that has very bad effects. Even though schools being open leads to COVID hospitalizations and Chas v’Shalom even death, it’s simply not worth it to keep them closed. But simple things, like wearing masks, or splitting a minyan up so there will be less mispallelim in each, those should be done since the tradeoff is so minimal.
@madealiyah I love your translation BTW. Though I did notice something missing. Like the word “right”.
You say that I don’t care about influenza deaths, but then you’re the one who doesn’t care about COVID deaths. OK, I’ll take that. I’ll agree to not caring about the one person out of 3 million who die, if you can admit that you don’t care about the one person out of six thousand who die.
@madealiyah You made aliyah, so (unless you live in Ramat Beit Shemesh) you probably speak some Hebrew yes? Please say the statement “It is my right to not wear a mask” in Ivrit.
It is important to act in a way that will save people’s lives. It’s less important to always be careful on the off chance that one person in a thousand can be saved. Wearing masks saves many many lives. That is fact that you have yet to dispute other than baseless claims of breathing restrictions and comments about how an individual’s comfort takes precedence over someone else’s health.
All the best
@daas-yochid @syag-lchochma Why? Because the shuls that decided to ignore COVID restrictions which resulted in 90% infection rates were mostly in large communities? That doesn’t sound good at all.
@daas-yochid If 90% of the shul became sick in the same three month time span, then they were either on the receiving end of some insanely bad mazal, or doing something wrong.
@charliehall Said vile racist caricatures were pretty standard at the time, just open up any Time-Life from the 1950s. It’s hard to say that his were the worst. Dr. Seuss recognized them for what they were and moved away from racial stereotypes in his art by the 60s.
@madealiyah I pashut don’t understand why you keep bringing up the flu. Everyone wearing masks to stop the spread of the flu may help save a dozen or so people a year. That’s a very hard number to justify. But we are not experiencing the flu, we are experiencing COVID-19 where masks can help save hundreds of thousands a year. Do you not see the difference?
It doesn’t take a year to go from initial findings to a published paper. It can be done in weeks, as we’ve seen by the thousand thousand other papers published on COVID. And Dr. Raoult benefited from its publication so the paper being in a journal connected to him casts suspicion on how emesdik it is.
HCQ was exhaustively researched in mid-2020 as a possible COVID cure. Various different formulas and mixtures. Very few doctors saw anything more than a small bump. So you can’t claim that this one or two small parameter was what they were missing to go from a few people cured to 90% cured. It just makes no sense. Your claim of “thousands around the world” is also narischkeit I believe. I don’t think there were more than a handful of doctors and institutions trying out HCQ cocktails with any sincerity.
I explicitly said that these Rabbonim (who have no problem with an unmasked indoors crowded minyan ) are aware of the CDC guidelines. They just choose to ignore them. And their reasoning for ignoring them is extremely disturbing. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for even extremely intelligent people to believe patently false information. Especially these days when it’s very difficult for someone unaccustomed to modern media to know what to believe.
A shul where 90% of the people have had Covid, and the other 10% are spread out,
OK, hold your horses over here, this is a big change of pace. At no point did you say that we are talking about cases where there’s herd immunity. Because that’s a whole nother ball game. I do know that many shuls have rules about when people can take their masks off, based on when they had COVID or a vaccine. I’m not thrilled with it, but I’m not against it either. Was that what you were talking about this whole time?
My issue is most shuls do not have 90% infection rates. There was some thought that back in June of 2020 that COVID ran its course in frum communities and herd immunity was reached. That turned out to be wrong when Elul came and brought a horrific din v’cheshbon on many many people.
Furthermore, you say “90% had COVID”, but when they had COVID is extremely important. Within the last 3 months, fine. Six months ago? Not great, but OK. Earlier? Most people who had COVID lose their antibodies after six months. So a shul where everyone had a fever in Av and decided to unmask now has to go back to acting as if no one is immune.
@daas-yochid Chas v’Shalom! I would never insinuate that any Rov is incompetent (unless I’ve heard it from a different Rov whom I trust). Please stop putting words in my mouth. What I am saying is that the reasoning that I’ve heard from the Rabbonim and other authorities about allowing unmasked crowds is, well, lacking.
Mid 2020 there was no end of letters in frum magazines and papers from doctors and organizations begging people to listen to the guidelines, and the response was non-existent. It’s not even a question of knowing the guidelines, it’s that the seem to know the guidelines but then ignore them. The best reasoning usually boils down to what you said about forcing people to do something they find uncomfortable. But that’s something that is a major part of a Rav’s responsibility, so it’s disturbing that they draw the line here. Also, it makes no sense since there are plenty of communities that are more than happy to mask up full time in shuls, schools, stores, and simchas.
All this leads me to one conclusion: The Rabbonim (at least those who pasken that masks are optional) don’t believe that there’s anything to be done about COVID. That masks, social distancing, testing, travel restrictions, etc. won’t prevent people from getting sick. This flies in the face of not only all conventional logic, but also what pretty much every expert on the topic is saying. So they Rabbonim aren’t trusting the experts. Why not? Perhaps because they are being fed faulty information. Maybe people are being told that the experts are far from certain (they aren’t). Maybe they think that it’s still a matter up for debate (it isn’t). Maybe they just think that all the experts are anti-Semites seeking to destroy Yiddishkeit (including the Yeshivish ones?).
Kids are getting destroyed by staying home from school
Exactly. Unintentionally, you hit the nail on the head. That is why masking is important. Like I said many many times before. We can’t lockdown until COVID goes away. What we could do is try and follow the guidelines as much as possible so that we can still live mostly normal lives and not have a dangerous virus run unchecked in our communities. Out of all the guidelines, one of the least disruptive ones is to wear a mask. Do that (along with social distancing, etc.) and the COVID risk from school will be minimal enough that we don’t have to weigh one against another.
Which begs another question. You are against wearing masks. Are you also against the more difficult things people have to do in these times? Are you against families quarantining for weeks if one member has COVID? Are you against small simchas? As you against preventing people from traveling? Are you against isolating and getting tested every time someone has a fever over 100?
@madealiyah I’m still baffled by your reasoning. If everyone wears a mask (and social distances, etc) it can help prevent thousands of deaths. The negative effects minimal, at absolute worst. Why shouldn’t we wear masks? You keep mentioning “rights” but your definition is unclear. What “right” does an individual have to drive without a license? What “right” does someone have to fire off a gun in a public area? What “right” does a person have to not wear pants in public? You are ironically correct in one way. We do lose our freedoms. When said “freedom” can cause millions of deaths. So yes. COVID is causing thousands of deaths a day. If we take away people’s “right” and “freedom” to go to a store without a facial covering it can drop those numbers significantly.