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Most people who can’t afford dental insurance also can’t afford to fly out to Budapest on a whim. Just saying. If you mamesh can’t afford it but are too wealthy to go on MedicAid, then check healthcare.gov to see what plans your state has in place for subsidized insurance.
Because it’s all about economics.
Way back in the 80s, the Yated Ne’eman decided that they aren’t going to be the arbiters of what is and what is not tznius and decided to make a blanket prohibition on printing pictures of woman. Flash forward to the 00’s and the explosion of frum newspapers. None of them wanted to be the paper on the shelf that people will pass over for being “less frum” so they all had to accept all the ridiculous chumras of all the other papers and then add some. There are maybe 5% of readers who will consciousnessly choose a paper without woman over a paper with woman in it, but those 5% are a big market share and all the papers have to market accordingly.
However, the same 5% are also the people who will either not have Internet access, or not admit to having it. So pictures of women on the web won’t deter them from spending their money.
@syag-lchochma Right now are people dying and getting hospitalized at the rates they were in late 2020?
On another note, going back, who is Rav Sorotzkin and Rav Dessler? The only individuals I know that bore those names passed away long ago, YBChLCh. I’m curious as to what exactly it was that they said, especially considering how it conflicted with many things I’ve heard from Rabbonim who I know and trust.
Being a mazik because of being uneducated is wrong. Being a moser is wrong. I was saddened to see how many shuls and other institutions flagrantly (or secretly) ignored all COVID restrictions, even at the beginning when people were literally dropping like flies, but it was even more saddening to see how many of these places were raided by the police because of a fellow yid who massered on them.
Ignorance leads a person to being a mazik. Back in the day, people refused to refrain from drinking before driving because “I can hold my liquor”. They were mazikim and caused untold amount of death and destruction to others. So too with people today who refuse to give their children proper healthcare and instead subject them and others around them to diseases like measles and whooping cough. The ignorant mazikim in question are those ignorant of how contagious diseases work and how dangerous COVID is, thus causing hezik to many around them.
Can we at least all agree that the current trend of Shadchanim and parents encouraging girls to get professional pictures to send around is absolutely disgusting and violates so many tzniyus issues it’s not even funny?
If I wouldn’t be wasting time arguing on here, I would be wasting time arguing on Yenner Website.
This is my way to blow off steam during work. I don’t think of it as a waste of time, unless I find myself spending more than just a few minutes a day.
@AvirahDeArah I knew about the Ba’al HaTanya’s imprisonment, I did not know that it was also a yartzeit. Still, I’m not sure if that answers my question? Like why did this event, out of all other wonderful things that happened to Klal Yisroel, warrant a special Yom Tov for Lubavitch? And why do Chabaskers assume that everyone should celebrate it?
I’ve never seen a Yud Tes Kislev event that wasn’t organized by Chabad. I think it’s just that many of them have more funding and are reaching out with bigger campaigns.
No stupid questions, but can someone remind me of what the significance is of 19 Kislev?
Some guy is going all blitzkrieg on this random sefer. Dude, seriously. Did Peshuto Shel Mikrah hit you as a kid or something? I mean, there’s a million seforim coming out every year and I’m sure there are plenty that people can find fault with. Does this one sefer really warrant the number of Roshei Yeshivos this guy got to sign a petchkvil about?
During the times of the Bais HaMikdash, we were on a much much higher madreiga and there was a halachic rule over the land. Yet it still didn’t stop hundreds of thousands from being open avaryanim in some of the most disgusting ways possible. This resulted in the worst punishment in history of having our Bayis destroyed and exiled to galus.
Who are we to think that a “Jewish Israel” would some how not suffer the same fate?
I think something that needs to be said is that a kashrus agency often relies on the honesty of the owners to keep the food kosher. And they cannot rely on an owner who is not yashrus themselves.
Mr. West has been saying and acting like a mentally unhinged individual for well over a decade now. His political opinions were never consequential because who cares what a crazy person thinks? So now his particular brand of crazy aligns with the crazies who openly hate us and want to kill us. Nu nu. Next week he’ll be saying he’s the president of Madagascar or something.
This is a good question and leads into a subject that a lot of liberal Jews are talking about. Namely, should a kashrus agency certify a company that engages in tza’ar ba’alei chaim? There are Rabbonim who say that we shouldn’t eat veal, because the calf needs to basically be tortured to produce it and regular beef is just as available.
I have seen far more people “attacked” for wearing a mask than people were for not wearing one. Perhaps the COVID amnesty is that I need to forgive the guy who walked over to me across shul and made snide comments about how silly I look?
@ujm I have no love for Democrats, but as Yidden we shouldn’t support baseball teams nor political parties. Both parties are bad. Here are some example headlines:
“Congressional Republicans on Monday… demand a slew of policy changes… including Medicaid funding cuts that could result in millions losing coverage.”
“Why are Republicans attacking WIC: GOP finds new scapegoat for baby formula outrage”
“GOP failure in Congress boosts Medicaid effort in Kansas”
“GOP senator considering blocking school meal funding deal ”
“What happens to the expansion of Medicaid? It would be phased out under all of the Republican bills.”
I’m sure you’re also conveniently forgetting 2014 where the Affordable Care Act was supposed to be the biggest federal medical aid to people who coulndn’t afford insurance and was relentlessly blocked by the Republicans over and over again.
@ujm Republicans have consistently voted against anything that gives poor people money for decades. Consider literally every healthcare law, from Medicare to Obamacare, that is supposed to eliminate medical debt. They’ve all been pushed by Democrats and fought against by Republicans. Federally funding colleges (which include Yeshivos), increasing handouts like Welfare and Foodstamps, have all been Democrat votes with the GOP firmly standing against it.
Also, if Republicans fully get their way, it would completely gut the Kollel system which survives in a large part due to federal handouts like FAFSA, Section 8 HUD, Wellfare, Footstamps, and MedicAid. All of which the GOP has a consistent record of voting against since their belief system is that people should work instead of relying on government aid.
I would rather that some goyishe school teach immoral goyishe things (like they’ve always done) than our Yeshivos require beefed up security guards and armed teachers.
@SyagLchochma Point out to me where he didn’t say that.
@commonsaychel I don’t understand your logic. Hundreds of thousands of people died because of COVID which was made worse because of the huge initial wave and lack of knowledge as to how to treat it, and you’re saying that somehow we should have made that wave bigger and allowed more people to catch the virus by not locking down?
For all of those kvetching about the billions going to Ukraine, mistomah you have a similar issue with the billions going to Israel, no?
@common-saychel That’s a terribly dishonest way of putting things. The people that died because of COVID rules still died from untreated COVID due to overcrowding hospitals, etc. The reason they died was because of how poorly understood the situation was initially. Which only goes to show how important it was that people followed at least the basic COVID precautions, like wearing masks in public not going to crowded indoor places, or staying away from people when you felt sick.
@AvriaDeArah On that we will have to disagree. I know of few good women who agree with the more extreme ways in which tzniyus is sometimes taught. It’s not Torah, it’s not yiras Shomayim, it’s just scare tactics by lousy teachers who don’t know how to explain something in a way that makes it beautiful. I don’t know how much Gemara I would have learned if my Rebbeim would have focused on “Learn Torah or BURN IN GEHINNOM FOREVER!!” instead of instilling the geshmak and beauty of it.
I don’t know if there’s a connection between body acceptance and gender confusion. I don’t. But telling kids that they don’t have to starve themselves or work out like a Yivoni to be beautiful is something most Yeshivas and Bais Yaakovs teach.
@AviraDeArah I think @SyagLchochma is getting at the overzealous way in which some people teach tzniyus. Like there’s an old story written by a Yiddish maskil about a girl who was being dragged by Cossacks and pins her skirt to her legs so that she bleeds to death rather than be un-tzniyus. It was written, like the Chelm stories, as a way to sneer at those crazy fundamentalist frummies. Unfortunately, I’ve heard that there are places that teach it as a lesson to aspire to.
I didn’t want to get involved in a discussion about gender but here we are. My two cents on this are that the medical community has been bullied by certain individuals and groups to accept some things when there is little to no evidence behind it. Like the whole nonsense about “non-binary genders” with people saying “my pronouns are they/them” or whatever. It basically started ten years ago as a fad among teens and younger adults. Now, doctors are ostracized if they dare go against the idea that a six year old child whos parents insist “they don’t identify as a boy or girl” isn’t just a little confused kid.
@philosopher The surge in ADD/ADHD diagnosis is a thing of the past. Doctors have recognized for the last 20 years that not every hyper kid has an attention disorder and Ritalin and Adderal were overprescriped.
If you speak with a modern psychiatrist, they will probably echo similar things to what you are saying. Medication for mental illness is usually the last line of defense. Doctors, psychologists, and other therapists usually go for months of therapy and only medicate if the patient is showing little improvement (or if the patient has a very clear diagnosed and dangerous condition).
@commonsaychel There are probably about a hundred thousand frum Yidden in Baltimore who are members of shuls that followed the psak of the Va’ad HaRabbonim. Unlike New York and Lakewood, it was a unified front of the Rabbonim and Roshei Yeshivos of Baltimore putting out very clear piskei halacho and guidelines about COVID. Because of that, many shuls outside of Baltimore in smaller affiliated communities followed it too. There are plenty of Rabbonim in New York and Lakewood that took the psak and actions of the Baltimore community to heart. About half of Lakewood reopened Shavuous, but many more did not. And of those that didn’t, many kept closed because they listened to the Baltimore Va’ad. That is all.
There are kids who literally could not function in a school environment unless they were medicated, after which they thrived.
There are adults who cannot find the energy to pull themselves out of bed every day and went on to live, happy, fulfilled lives once they found the right medication.
And there are literally millions of similar cases, from schizophrenia (where people have disturbing hallucinations) to manic disorders (where people cannot control their actions caused by powerful emotions).
Are you saying these people shouldn’t get the help they need?
@common-saychel @Avram-in-MD Virtually all of the Rabbonim were part of the decision, and their vote was unanimous. I think those that were not involved were places that don’t follow them anyway, like the two Open Orthodox rabbis, or the one Chassidish place. This isn’t just the Agudah, this is pretty much the entire frum community of Baltimore. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of Yidden. And it influenced many other places, including a large percentage of the New York and Lakewood shuls. The earliest Baltimore places opened was Elul of 2020 and every shul had masks and social distancing for at least the first few months.
@common-saychel
You seem to be unaware of who Rav Heineman SHLITA is if you think he has a following of 800 people. Besides, “his” pandemic decisions were the unanimous decisions of virtually all of the several dozen Rabbonim in his community.
@Avram-in-MD If the shul took precautions but did not enforce them, I would not say they were careless. And I would not defend the people that snitched on them to the health department. However, you and I both know (and there’s no use in denying it) that plenty of shuls just went “Oh well nothing we could have done” to all the dead, hospitalized, lung, and brain damaged people and opened up in the early summer of 2020 with zero precautions and completely defying any health department regulations.
@common-saychel What guilty feelings do you think they have? I’m not familiar with the individual views of individual CR users.
@coffee-addict Look, we can spend the next ten years discussing every Trump supporter who claims to have undeniable evidence of wrongdoing. But that would take too much time and not server much purpose. That’s why I picked one particular example (the Georgia statistics) to discuss. Mainly because it was used in an official capacity on one of the most contentious elections. So far not one person on this thread has given a response on that other than “Well I don’t believe statistics”.
I’ve looked into multiple proofs that Trumps’ team has discussed and haven’t found one with a leg to stand on. So I’m extremely skeptical that Mr. DiSouza’s movie and book contain better facts and information than those officially brought in front of judges. Now let me ask you something: Is it better to disbelieve something that you haven’t seen proof of, or believe something before you’ve seen the proof?
Baruch Hashem! I was getting tired of lukewarm air. And it means that snow season is almost upon us!
I don’t like Stacy Adams, but she stood up for Israel and against anti-Semitism in ways that her progressive fanbase did not. For that alone, I don’t think we should talk bad about her.
@Always_Ask_Questions I’m not sure if it was @common-saychel, but a while ago I was in an argument with a user about COVID restrictions. This user promoted all sorts of dangerous nonsense, including the idea that there should be zero COVID restrictions and that masks are physically harmful. He/she kept on referring to myself as part of the “pro-mask” or “pro-vaxx” group (one of those, I don’t recall). In return I said something along the lines of “If there are two groups, one is pro-mask the other is pro-death”. I think think that was the conversation and that is what @common-saychel is upset about and does not want to give me the mechila I don’t need.
@common-saychel @Avram-in-MD
I see now that I referenced the wrong user. It wasn’t @goldilocks, it was @always-ask-questions
The difference is noticeable. In one shul I daven, there are people who were mostly careless. I feel sometimes that I am at a smoker’s club as every couple of minutes you hear a chronic cough, mostly young men. In another shul, where people preferred vaccines to natural immunity and this happens way less.
@syag-lchochma claimed that was a lie. Lying about what? That there were shuls who were careless and rife with Corona? We all knew these cases, even if some of us chose to block it from our memories. There were definitely shuls I saw where no one wore masks, and people were walking around coughing, while the mispallelim of the more careful shuls stayed home if they had any sort of illness. I’m not sure what part of the line I quoted can possibly be untruthful.And for those who chose not to be moichel me, I do not believe I require mechila. There are people who demanded that everyone return to normal mere weeks after the virus started raging and long before anyone knew anything about the virus. These individuals insisted that wearing masks is more dangerous than walking around with asymptomatic COVID and that the vaccine is a lie and should not be given to anyone. I can only assume that these people saw Pesach of 2020, where multiple frum papers had to add extra pages for shivas and levayas, was some sort of peak that klal Yisroel needs to aspire to. So yeah, pro-death. I guess in hindsight it’s a little harsh, but I fail to see how it’s inaccurate.
@Avram-in-MD I define careless in way that @Goldilocks described his/her shul.
@coffee-addict I’m not going to watch a whole movie and pick apart every claim to see if it’s true or false. Can you pick a specific piece of evidence the movie mentions and we can talk about that? I wanted to talk about the faulty numbers Trump’s team used as evidence in Georgia. Does the documentary mention it? Can you talk on it?
@philosopher I am extremely skeptical of the claims of election fraud in 2020. You took that to mean that I am a liberal. That’s ridiculous and bordering on childish name calling. If people were a little more open minded and willing to investigate outlandish things they hear and read about, we would be in a much better state.From a Torah perspective, it’s the challenge of modern “civilization”. Three hundred years ago, and all the 5400 years preceding that, war was the glorious conquest of the barbaric enemy by our heroes who may heroically die in battle. People with different looks were inferior to us and they would probably serve best as eternal slaves. In that sort of atmosphere, Torah thrived. We were forced to fight for our survival day to day and every ounce of mitzvos was precious to us.
In modern times, civilization has long reached the point were we don’t have to worry about our children reaching adulthood, nor about droughts making food scarce, nor roving gangs grabbing our possessions and leaving us penniless. In that type of world, art and philosophy thrived since people were able to afford to sit and do something that’s not immediately productive to society. Philosophers realized that in modern times, wars are stupid an unnecessary and we’ve spent too much time and energy on murder and ignoring science. This is the Enlightenment and is the basis for our current secular society. This of course led to the Haskalah Yidden, nebbuch.
So now we are faced with a different challenge. Baruch Hashem there are very few countries were people are forced to celebrate a bris in a candlelit basement, or play dreidle to confuse the soldiers. But with all this food and luxury, time to listen to Hashem is no longer precious. It’s easy! And so we no longer value it like we once did.
@syag-lchochma I don’t understand. Are you saying that you don’t believe that a shul exists where the klal was careless about Corona during the height of the pandemic?Why does the Democrat insistence of allowing mail-in-ballots as an option cause “distrust” more so than the Republican insistence that there’s widespread voter fraud before a single ballot was counted?
@lakewhut In 2020 it took a week to fully declare all the results. Now, with many results being much closer to 50/50 and you’re complaining after two days?
@coffee-addict Sorry I’m unfamiliar with that term. What is 2000 mules?
@1 I really really dislike the modern political climate, especially in frum communities. If you’re not 100% on board with every bit of zevel that comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth, you’re a liberal anti-Semite.Maybe I’m just a conservative voter disillusioned by the insanity of US politics?
@coffee-addict Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I really don’t get why you’re so certain that voter fraud happened considering there isn’t a shred of evidence. And no, “they didn’t see if there was fraud” doesn’t constitute evidence. Lemme give you a farinstance. “I didn’t see Ploni on July 7th 2016 so it’s possible he burglarized Moishes house that day. Moishe is pretty sure he isn’t missing any money, but we can’t prove that Ploni didn’t steal the money that may or may not be missing. Therefore Ploni must be a ganif.”. Veiter noch, the evidence that Trumps team tried to push had more invented numbers than Madoff’s accountant.
@lakewhut This happens by every election. The electronic ballots are counted immediately and then verified. That takes hours. If the race isn’t close, they declare a winner and they count the mail in ballots and unclear ballots being counted later. If the race is close, then they don’t declare a winner until all the other ballots are counted and verified.
@akuperma I hate that ever since the Bush-Gore election of 2000, every political loser claims election fraud or voter suppression.@philosopher I think the argument over voter ID laws and mail-in-ballots is a smoke screen. Republicans wanted voter ID laws to convince people that voter fraud was happening. In response the Democrats pulled that old chestnut of saying that voter ID is racist. Truth is, there’s never been any significant fraud around voter IDs. Illegal immigrants aren’t voting en masse, and making people prove they are who they say they are hasn’t made an ounce of a difference in black voter turnout. Same with mail in ballots. There was no significant fraud. Democrats were just pushing for mail ins because of the COVID lockdowns. In response, the GOP claimed that mail in ballots were fraudulent.
It’s just the same stupid sports rivalry where one guy says black and the other will say white just to spite him.
@coffee-addict But that wasn’t what Trump was claiming in Georgia! He claimed that the statistics proved fraud. Statistics that were wrong! And they did watch most of the counting, as evidenced by the testimony of the Trump poll watchers. They were there for 95% of the time. And that 5% they missed did not have any significant changes in the numbers. So Georgian poll watchers were there the entire time the mail-in “bump” happened!
@Always_Ask_Questions The problem is that it’s never enough for some people. And there’s a fine line between “transparency” and “letting idiots run roughshod over a delicate process”.
@syag-lchochma You’ve been posting angry and bitter comments directed at me this entire thread most of which I just ignored. Not sure what I said in the past to make you feel that way about me, but the word sinah certainly comes to mind.@AirOfTheLand I was just saying it in context of a way to end the argument. You can discuss sugyos all tug unt nacht, but no one alive will be able to discuss them the way the pre-WWII Acharonim did. So we are arguing a moot point since the issue is settled. Either you’re an Edahnik, Brisker, or Satmar-adjacent chusid. Or you hold it’s important to vote in the Israeli elections. That’s all.
@coffee-addict I don’t really have a “side” in politics, unless there’s a local politician who happens to be pro-Jewish, conservative, and sane (very short supply these days) so I can’t honestly tell you how I’ll react if someone I really wanted to win, lost. Look, I’ve heard the argument that poll watchers weren’t able to see everything everything and it just doesn’t hold water, to be honest. “We weren’t able to see any fraud, therefore there must have been fraud” isn’t evidence, it’s just whining. Especially since that wasn’t the argument Trump’s team was going for in Georgia, they went after the statistics. Mail in ballots “pop-up” in literally every election since they’re the last to be counted. And, like I’ve shown, the statistics were amateurish and wrong on a very fundamental level (confusing total population ratio with partial population ratio).Oh, and there was one individual who is recorded as having asked the governor of Georgia to “find more votes with my name” after the results were in. Can you guess who that is?
@syag-lchochma To be honest, I don’t keep track of usernames on this forum. I think I recall a conversation we had from a while ago, but I’m not sure. I may be thinking of someone else. You seem to hate me though and are unwilling to engage honestly (although you are perfectly willing to engage in childish taunts and insults). So whatever.