@Neville ChaimBerlin: Your statement is just a brag about how ignorant of science you actually are. Is this what Yiddishkeit is about? Being proud of ones ignorance of secular sciences?

@coffeeaddict Einstein was very open about his beliefs. He maintained that it’s possible Hashem exists, but he refused to believe in Him. He really disliked religion in general too.

For all those calling him a kofer, nu. That’s unfortunately most of the world these days. Good thing it’s not the kefira that would be chayav misa like Hinduism or certain aspects of X-tianity. If he were a X-tian would that automatically make him a better person? Hitler Y”S was an X-tian last I checked.

As for his “anti-Semitism” that’s everyone getting offended over nothing. He expressed neutral support for the Israel-Palestinian conflict in order to keep away from political discussion. He did a lot of work with Israeli scientists, but he also one time may have caved to BDS pressure. Since it’s a hot topic, neutrality is impossible and he got blasted from all sides for “siding with the Zionists/Palestinians”. You guys sound like all those liberals who get all offended when a person states that there are only two genders or whatever narischkeit it is these days.

Nah. He means Hubert Blaine Wolfe­schlegel­stein­hausen­berger­dorff Jr.

Top five reptiles?

1. Komodo Dragon. No explanation required
2. Boomslang. Because of its name
3. Skink. They can be used as earings if you handle them correctly
4. Anaconda. For being the apex of the Amazonian food chain
5. Marsh turtle. I like turtles

@GAON

Sure there are people who wouldn’t carry no matter what, but I mean that many people don’t hold of the eruv period.

The issue with “קרפוף” is by far new, and all achornim managed to deal with it.

There was an issue in Monsey over סוכות where the eruv around the קרפוף was found to have fallen down and no one was able to say how long it had been down for as that part wasn’t checked weekly. This upset a lot of people as the reliance on the קרפוף to begin with was done in a way that relied on קוּלות.

it has never been done

And? Treating everything a Rov once said like it’s Torahs Moshe leads to some very questionable life choices, as has been demonstrated by many different people and communities. If it’s not written down as a פסק הלכה for that particular situation, like Rav Moshe ZT”L did with the Brooklyn eruv, it’s meaningless.

When Rav Aharon Kotler ZT”L first established a Yeshiva in Lakewood, he was insistent on several things to make the city as much of a מקום קודש as possible. Some examples include no secular studies in Yeshiva high schools, no sit-down restaurants, and no eruv. Lakewood has ברוך ה׳ grown far beyond even what R’ Kotler ZT”L could have imagined it, but his influence was so strong that even his opinions that were clearly meant for a small town of 50-100 Kollel yungerlite are treated with great care. So people are very hesitant to establish an eruv, as it would mean going against what is perceived to be R’ Kotler ZT”L wishes.

My parents survived a decades long marriage with open windows all winter long. My mother learned to sleep with multiple blankets and not go into my father’s study from November through April.

The Israeli government is the single largest supporter of Torah in the world and possibly in the history of galus. That’s a fact.

What I never understood is the individuals who claim that taking money is assur, then use the socialist healthcare of the government.

If anyone here is really interested, look at the end of a משניות סנהדרין יכין ובועז for the sefer אורח חיים‎‎ also written by the יכין ובועז. It’s fairly short, only about 5 pages, and he describes the concepts of the five worlds before מעשה בראשית and the עולם שכולו שבת after the year 6000. He brings down some rather difficult Kabbaladicke topics, so you should have a Rov close at hand to talk things over with. Now days, the sefer is probably most well known for his mention of scientists finding an iguanodon fossil in Baltimore and his explanation that this is proof that Hashem created worlds before the Torah.

The Maggid Mishna’s name was Vidal, no Hebrew name. Rav Shamshon Refoel Hirsch is another well known example. “Shamshon” is just German for “Sampson”, his Hebrew name was not Shimshon. He added the name ben Refoel to his signature after his father (Rav Refoel Hirsch) passed away presumably to give himself a more Jewish name.

You’ve all brought up the sichos and iggros a few times, can we talk about those? Rav Breuer ZT”L once said that any psak halacha that is not explicitly written down and published is a Horo’as Sho and cannot be relied up except for the specific person it was given to. Most Chassidish, Litvish, and Sephardish Rabbonim hold of this to varying degrees. The most well-known example is probably “Iggros Moshe”, 8 chelakim were edited and compiled by Rav Moshe Feinstein ZT”L himself and people still rely on them for piskei halachos. One chelek was put out by his children and is still a massive point of controversy as to whether we paskin like it or not.

But by Lubavitch, it’s the complete opposite. Every letter of inspiration written to some Russian apikores, every burp during a speech, every “Mazal Tov” given at a chasuna, is scrutinized and analyzed like it’s Torahs Moshe l’havdil. Furthermore, it’s well known that after he had his stroke, people claimed that Rav Schneerson ZT”L was saying all sorts of things, each one more outlandish than the last. I personally heard from one of his frum doctors that on his deathbed, they had a difficult time dealing with the constant stream of Chabadskers who would put their ears to his lips and run out crying because they took a subconscious mumble to be an admission that he’s Moshiach.

So sure, you can state that certain practices and beliefs are acceptable because the Rebbe said this or that, but don’t get upset when we call it problematic because you chose to interpret his letters in a certain (probably incorrect) way. What he allegedly said in sichos about “Navi HaDor”, and what he may or may not have written in letters about davening to dead people, is nothing more than an interesting vort at best, but more like a historical curiosities and הפקר ובטל כאפרא דארע.

Weird. I just got a call last night asking if my wife were interested in Madison silver dollars, because for some reason she’s on their list as being a coin collector.

My father has a not-insignificant collection. He has a few things of Yiddish interest, like coins from the time of the Beis HaMikdash, and a few gold coins he considers to be in case of emergency investments.

A bigger I issue, I think, should be about mistreating animals so that they’ll taste better. Like veal, which comes from 2 year old calves grown up in essentially boxes.

@CTLAWYER
Does your mothers’ family do the yekkishe minhag of throwing challah at the Shabbos table?

Personally, I just tack it on to the list of bizarre Chassidishe minhagim, with no mekor in Chazal, that I am at a loss to understand. Included in that is the concept of the men and women spending Rosh Hashonna separately (men at the Rebbe/Uman, women with their mother and sisters), the light off-hands discipline when it comes to kids making trouble, the nepotistic patriarchal leadership (as opposed to the Misnagdish meritocracy), women shaving their hair, men getting the “tennis ball” hair cut, etc.

Well, since this is back in, I guess I should chime in.

It’s not true

A few years ago, when the story was making the rounds, I did some private research. I spoke with some Koreans who live in Korea and one Chabadsker living in Japan, I searched on Naver (Korean equivalent of Google) for words I got translated from Google Translate (words like “Talmud”, “Jewish”, and “Torah”). The result? Several decades ago, a Rov in Japan published a series of Mashals and other stories from Bavli in Japanese. More recently, a Korean Christian publisher had the book partially translated to Korean and published as an illustrated children’s book simply called “The Talmud”.

Not in the classic Harlan Ellison novel “A Boy and His Dog”.

Because women are stuck with everything else.

Multi level marketing scam. Very common. Keep away from them, Vector Marketing, Mary Kay, Ambit Energy, and Amway. They all use different terminology and slightly different business models, but they all boil down to the same things.

To become a seller, you have to “buy in” at a few hundred dollars. You then have to make dozens, possibly hundreds, of sales just to turn a basic profit. They will tell you that the “real money” comes from being a distributor, where you get a cut of every sale and every initial seller buy-in. But most of <i>that<i> money comes from the buy-in, as most sellers end up dropping out before they turn a profit. And you’re not even making all that much, and a large cut is still going to a guy above you. So you push to get more sellers, and soon <i>you</i> are that guy, hence the term “multi-level”. In the end, only about 15% of people near the top of the food chain end up turning a profit, and that profit is built on the failures of all the little individual sellers. And the worst part of it? You aren’t even an employee. You have zero protection, and you need to take care of your own health insurance and retirement plans.

And they all have this weird cult-like attitude. They will push you to try and set up parties with your friends to guilt them into buying the product. They have these weekend retreats where they get the top distributors to talk about how rich they are and look at all those silly people with their jobs.

My advice? Get some nice part-time job paying minimum wage. It’s a lot less stress for a lot more money.

Not often. I’m not a big drinker and I try to keep my Tylonel/Advil/Aspirin consumption to a minimum.

Joseph: No, you conveniently “forgot” all the pertinent portions of the article. Specifically, on the third page, about halfway down and right above the picture of a smiling little boy, Frankfurter asks this guy about the allegations that kids would be taken from their parents and the guy responds with “Not anymore”. He further inquires about teenage marriages and the response is “A gadol is someone over 13”. You also conveniently have no way of explaining the bizarre behavior and dress of this group. Nor can you name any of these defenders you claim exist.

yehudayona: A guy I know went to Harvard Law School with just a BTL and good LSAT score. A few get accepted every year. I know plenty of other people that got into law school with just BTL and LSAT.

Joseph: Did you read the שטרות and קול קורא? I think it’s pretty obvious that this is a cult operating outside the bounds of Torah.

His sons will probably run the show from here, but I have a feeling they will no longer be able to sustain themselves and be unable to recruit new members.

Where is his/her father incarcerated?