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Avi, that apocryphal story, even if it is half true, is said to take place in the CC’s home at his Shabbos table. NOT at a public gathering with masses of both genders in attendance, with music playing and the women dressed to be noticed.
Catch, that was only at the Tendler wedding, who was much more modern than the Feinstein family, and it was his decision to mix his friends and others. Not Rav Moshe, whose sons’ weddings had separate seating. Dr. Tendler met his wife at the New York Public Library, the shidduch wasn’t made through Rav Moshe.
These conversations about “tolerance” always amuse me. Odds are that if we were talking about MO/DL instead of Chassidim, most people would be saying the exact opposite of what they are saying now.
Avi K:
the reason why the majority in Lakewood are no longer learning full-time is that budget cuts forced the yeshivots to give exams and cutoff those who were not up to pa
Never happened. Don’t know where you’re getting your info on Lakewood from, but I would suggest that you double-check it. (Anyway, it’s not like anybody is living off just a kollel stipend of a couple of hundred bucks.)
DaMoshe:
yytz: Rewriting halachah doesn’t always need to be allowing things which were forbidden. It can go the opposite way as well.
True, but that only applies to passing off a new chumra as halacha. And while that does happen, these things usually understood to be a chumra/minhag/hanhagah tova, wich is not only not problematic but actually admirable. There is no issur against an individual or a community doing anything that is not absolutely mandated by Halacha.
K-cup:
I’m assuming that’s the wrong way to understand Rav zadok.
+1
Hoping g someone here knows what Rav zadok was actually saying, his writing is difficult and as I’ve tried to go through his seforim on my own.
Doesn’t look that way 🙁 This place is not exactly known for its depth of understanding of difficult pieces of Chassidic thought.
Joseph, in full honesty, I was born long after Rav Moshe’s children were married, so I do not claim to have been there.
I was told by someone who said he was at both Rav Dovid and Rav Reuven’s weddings that the seating was mixed.
In any case, I refuse to believe that Rav Moshe would allow mixed seating if he felt it was not appropriate, regardless of who “the other side” was.
(I know the conversation has moved on, but just to clarify something…)
Mods, I was not objecting to his presence, just wondering why he wanted to be here at all.
Avi K, It is not necessary to insult anyone, nor any segment of Klal Yisroel to be an upstanding member of the CR. At least I am clear now, which way your bread is buttered.
? You know that’s a reference to payment, right?
Avi K can be rude to entire segments of the frum population, and make specific attacks (yes, specific now to ZD, who I think was on his side).
Yet, strikingly the mods only jump in when people criticize Avi K… The basic assumption that this site caters to the religious right time and time again is shown to have no basis. I’m not saying whether or not it should, but it’s definitely a misconception.
Besides that being a dramatic overstatement of fact, who defended Avi K.?
Additionally, I use a goral to decide which faction of klal yisroel I support on any given day so any patterns you notice are coincidental.
Before this last comment, there were at least 3 moderator comments in this thread, seemingly from at least 2 moderators. Two of these comments sounded like attacks on Avi K, imho (I don’t necessarily mean that as a criticism) and the third could be called a mild defense (although I think it was fairly neutral).
I suppose NCB was referring to the third comment. He probably felt that it was out of character for the moderators to give such a defense. I’m not giving an opinion here; I’m simply responding to the above post. I haven’t been here long enough to analyze moderator’s comments to that extent.
I do agree though that the site doesn’t seem to cater to the religious right (although I suppose that would depend how you define your terms.), but I’m not sure that I see this thread as a proof of that.
“In any case, I refuse to believe that Rav Moshe would allow mixed seating if he felt it was not appropriate, regardless of who “the other side” was.”
There is a difference between “not appropriate” and assur. You are right that if it assur, he would not have allowed it. But if he felt that it is appropriate to have separate seating but not assur to have mixed seating, it makes sense that he would have allowed it, at least in certain cases.
My impression of the halacha (based on conversations I’ve had with knowledgeable people) is that it’s not assur to have mixed seating at weddings (at least not according to all accepted opinions) but there are very good reasons for not doing so. One reason is, as Joseph mentioned before, that there may be a problem with saying “simcha b’mono”.
The other problem is that I have noticed at mixed seating weddings (or partially mixed seating) that there is very little room for the women to dance. I know this is a practical problem not a halachic one, but it is an important issue, nonetheless.
“Rewriting halachah doesn’t always need to be allowing things which were forbidden. It can go the opposite way as well.”
MW13: “True, but that only applies to passing off a new chumra as halacha. And while that does happen, these things usually understood to be a chumra/minhag/hanhagah tova, wich is not only not problematic but actually admirable. There is no issur against an individual or a community doing anything that is not absolutely mandated by Halacha.”
Maskim.
Mod, you use a “a long-haired goat-antelope with backward curving horns, found in mountainous regions of eastern Asia.*” to moderate?
That’s amazing! I didn’t even know goats could have backwards horns. Reminds me of how the water flushes the opposite way in Australia.
*Google quote 🙂
LB, goral (????) is a lottery.
Ooops… I guess I’ll just return the 16sqft of bluegrass that I just purchased at Home Depot to send to YWN.
DY +1 Thanks!
“Additionally, I use a goral to decide which faction of klal yisroel I support on any given day so any patterns you notice are coincidental.”
lol. good answer.
Joseph: Is there ever a time in this world when there is no evil inclination, on any level, amongst a number of Jews?
LB: After Moshiach comes. The evil inclination the kitzur s”a quoted is referring to is that which is present when men and women converge together in a party atmosphere.
Joseph: Thanks for the clarification.
So the mechitza defends against that specific type of active evil inclination “that which is present when men and women converge together in a party atmosphere” (Joseph).
However the mechitza does not eliminate the other types of evil inclinations that may be present for other reasons, etc. Thank you. I was wondering how a mechitza could cure every yetzar hara (because I seriously would mechitza my whole house if it worked). Clearly that was not what you meant.
Thanks again 🙂
In response to the opening post….no, Rav Tzadok and the Izhbitzer are not valid sources for OO changes. There are controversial concepts in this line of chassidus that are misunderstood and misapplied by many people. Most is due to a combination of (1) a failure to read very carefully and connect to related pieces elsewhere in the writings, and (2) people’s desire to find what they want to find. This has attracted a lot of attention in academic works with wildly incorrect interpretations. Shaul Magid’s book “Hasidism on the Margin” is very thorough and goes through the controversial parts (e.g. can it be Hashem’s ratzon for a person to violate halacha), and connects the different pieces in the seforim very well. After arriving at his conclusions, he notes support from the simple fact that communities following in the ways of the Izhbitzer-Radzyn hoshkafo have existed for 150 years and there have not been any deviations from halacha.
Remember that so many chassidic works were not written as seforim – they were compiled from talks, often linked to parsha. It is only from the totality of these writings that you can really understand the hoshkafic system. Even then, it often takes additional writings from disciples and successors.
Neville, look in the mirror when you write statements like that. if i am sometimes sharp I am only following a hallowed Jewish tradition. See on this Chavat Yair 152, generally printed after Sefer Chafetz Chaim.
I didn’t say the other side is any less sharp. I was commenting on the assertion that YWN is not supposed to be for those with your opinions.
Can’t take the heat when people do the same to you, Avi? Let’s see if the mods jump to your aid on this post.
Does commenting on your tone or choice of words automatically translate as jumping to his aide?
If I am allowed to ask, would “not supposed to be for those with your opinions” mean that we should delete his posts? mock them? Make sarcasm emojis under them? Laughing at your claim is not a defense of Avi, it is just something brought on by years of reading what is posted here and who usually runs off crying/sickened.
Umm… so this is kind of late, so awkward…
But maybe by “fat fingers,” Avi K meant figuratively.
I just reread that post. It followed the part about kollel wives working and supporting their family and husbands. We learn from Torah that “fat” represents an abundance, such as with the fat cows and thin cows. The fat cows were years of plenty. The thin ones foretold of the famine.
Here, perhaps Avi K meant that the husbands are living via the earnings of their wives as they study. Granted, that’s not to say that their families are raking in dough. Still, it is another interpretation.
Initially I was offended, and it sounds any sweeter to the ears now because the word “fat” has a negative stigma (now that we’re not living in the 1600’s). Even so, maybe this wasn’t a take on one’s physique. Dunno if it makes it better, just thinking.
Neville, I can take it and I can dish it out too. Be warned!
Lightbrite, TY for the commentary. Once when asked what he meant by something he wrote Agnon told his questioner to ask a certain literary critic so I am in good company. However, as an man ofd truth I must admit that I was referring to literally waving their fingers during a discussion. This is an expression in yeshiva circles for pilpul with nothing behind it. BTW, according to the Urban Dictionary “When you interface with any kind of computer that requires manual input (whether by keyboard, or a touchscreen) there is the chance for making a mistake. Such mistakes are playfully called ‘at Finger Disease’.”
Ha, the mod took “not for those with your opinions” out of context to make it seem like I was arguing the exact opposite of what I was.
Someone ELSE (not me) asserted on this thread that YWN caters to the religious right. I rebutted that the mod’s constant defense of Avi shows this not to be true.
Mystery mod: Would you say that those who criticize Israel’s every action but are silent at all acts of Palestinian terror might really be unbiased, and the fact that they “happen” to only criticize one side has no implication? Give it up! We all see who’s side you’re on!
#1 it definitely caters to the religious right. But, as I was trying to point out, that does not imply other’s aren’t given a chance to post.
#2 I think anyone who is silent to Palestinian terror is also a pera odom. But that has no bearing on my comments. I didn’t read Avi’s posts nor yours beyond the surface. My comment was purely to the point that it is a joke to think those with opinions like Avi are supported just because they as people are supported. That is a sad error on your part. The other point was that you said more than once that he is constantly defended. Which is silly.
#3 It is appropriate, when asking a question, to wait for a response. Not to shut it down with a 5th grade retort. I am not on a SIDE. I am moderating posts. And I rarely read the name of the author when doing so.
I agree that there is no implication in the fact that Avi is supported as a person. I DO, however, think there is an implication when he is supported EXCLUSIVELY against character attacks, but those on the other side (specifically ZD in this case) are not [not that ZD is generally on the “other side” from Avi as far as I can tell]. Hence the analogy that apparently was lost.
For point 3: clearly you’ve been reading the names. Clearly, at this point you have a side, which is perfectly OK in general. If you would like to jump in to the thread in the conventional way, I would not have a problem. I don’t agree that it’s appropriate to use means specific to being a moderator to support one side in an argument; and, the bold text is just that.
If you say “clearly” does that make you right? I don’t read names before the post. Whether or not you believe it is really your issue, not mine. And not only do I not have a “side” (again, whether or not you believe it is your issue, not mine) I don’t even know what topic you two are talking about. Which is one of the non-technical reasons I wouldn’t “jump in”. By the way, if you ever feel like having a give and take, instead of a dictate and deny…you know where to find me
And, for the record, if this Mod does eventually snap with me, and I finally earn my subtitle, I would like it if there were a way to preserve the username (for someone else of course). It would be such a shame to see the pun go down in flames like that.
The fact that you think I would block you for having a different, but non-threatening or insulting opinion is just more proof that you may not clearly understand what we do here
“It would be such a shame to see the pun go down in flames like that.”
What is the pun? I’m quite curious now.
Neville Chamberlain/Chaim Berlin.
One of the all time great CR names.
Thanks DY!!! Didn’t realize this was a human and the Blocked was such a statement.
DY – thanks. cute.
I’m with NC on this one – I do think that the mods here have recently been quicker to criticize the posts of the right-wing posters than those of the left-wing ones.
Although in all fairness, this could be due to the fact that there are more right-wing posters here than left-wing posters.
Or it could just be because they don’t like us.
Whatever…
I’m confused. You bring a post from 7 months ago and a post from last week to show something happening often? And in both of those examples, it was a comment about the tone of the poster, not the content, politics or religious viewpoint of the post. Which has been my point all along.
mw13: “I’m with NC on this one – I do think that the mods here have recently been quicker to criticize the posts of the right-wing posters than those of the left-wing ones.”
Actually, to add to his defense, I don’t think he even said that. He merely said that it doesn’t “cater to the religious right”. His point was that they will defend people on the left, and he felt that it’s inaccurate to describe the CR as “catering to the religious right” when they do defend people on the left.
The moderators may be defining the term “catering to the religious right” differently than NCB is, since it’s not such a clearly defineable term. Both the terms “catering to” and “religious right” can have more than one interpretation.
Personally, I would probably also disagree with whoever said that the CR “caters to the religious right”. From what I’ve seen, it seems to me that there are times when they let negative comments about either side slide by or they themselves come out in favor of or against one or the other. I don’t know if one happens more than the other, but I have seen both.
If I am understanding you incorrectly, NCB, you can feel free to correct me.
“Although in all fairness, this could be due to the fact that there are more right-wing posters here than left-wing posters.
Or it could just be because they don’t like us.”
Or it might be that Left leaning posters are more savvy and articulate , and are better at gaming the system
The yetzer Hara is usually a step ahead
Eh.. is there any other site on the planet where
1)the Mods write talkbacks so much?
That’s because mods are your friends
2)the Mods are so annoying?
3) is this a recent development here
Someone should start anew thread about this
P.S. Hope you don’t have much first hand knowledge about the other sites on the planet. Many of them are dangerous
Mod-XX:
I’m confused. You bring a post from 7 months ago and a post from last week to show something happening often?
It’s certainly anecdotal evidence, but I don’t have the time patience or interest in doing a statistical study on what (or who) the mods do or do not criticize. Suffice to say that I do feel there is an appearance of bias here.
And in both of those examples, it was a comment about the tone of the poster, not the content, politics or religious viewpoint of the post. Which has been my point all along.
And yet, there are often comments from the left-wing posters that have a tone that is at least as disparaging, and no criticism is leveled.
If you need any evidence of that, just re-read this thread.
If somebody criticizes one particular group of people for any nastiness, but does not criticize a second group of people when they do the same thing, I think it’s fair to consider that an appearance of bias despite the fact that no “content, politics or religious viewpoint” has been criticized.
What you are saying would only make sense if I was reading and modding all posts and always on a device that allowed posting. It is a fair point but due to the reality of the situation you cannot judge by that.
Which I think has been NCB’s point all along.
Perhaps. You may be comforted to know I will not be available for in post comments for a period of time so enjoy the quiet. But please understand that the flip side of that is sometimes (not always) just plain deletion.
I wonder which “side” I’m on in the minds of the posters who are divvying up the CR participants into teams. Do we have to choose?
Avram that has got to be the world’s best line. where is that awards thread??
i don’t understand the teams so well, i know i once supported a statement (or a person who made a statement) and for the next three years i had certain posters making all sorts of assumptions about my life.
all i can say is, if there are teams, i pick blue.
I, too, agree that mods should not be inserting their opinions or other non-administrative comments appended to the bottom of other posters comments. They should only post personal opinions as a separate comment of their own.
And even then I think if it is only their opinion of a general matter under discussion, and not an administrative note, it would be more appropriate for them to post it under their non-mod username rather than relying on their moderator authority to post personal opinions on general issues. But even if they post it as a separate comment under their moderator login that would be a far better alternative than sticking their opinions attached to the body of other members’ comments.
We know, you’ve mentioned this before. Feel free to set those parameters on your own site 🙂 VhM”Y
Joseph, you said the story with the Chofetz Chaim is “apocryphal”, and wondered if it’s “half true”.
The story was written by R’ Pam zt”l in his sefer on the Parshah. You can look it up.
Personally, I trust that R’ Pam wouldn’t have said/written something which wasn’t true.
DM: Rav Pam did not relate the story as the poster recited it here with details not mentioned by Rav Pam. Hence the half true point.
Breaking News:Rev.roger hambrick and the green pastures-baptist-church-choir perform at avi weiss shul on mlk day 2017
Would anyone wish explain the real difference, between Open orthodox , Conservatism and even Reform other than cosmetics?
I also think Mods should not <<Edited>>
“What you are saying would only make sense if I was reading and modding all posts and always on a device that allowed posting.”
Curious about what this sentence means. I get the second part, although that was a chiddush to me. I actually have been meaning to ask about why the moderators just delete without commenting.
It bothers me because: 1. I don’t always know if something was deliberately deleted or just didn’t go through for some technical reason. 2. If it was deliberately deleted, I would want to know why/which part, so I could rewrite it in a fashion that it wouldn’t be deleted.
It seems at least part of the answer is that the moderators are not always able to comment for technical reasons.
I’m not clear on the first part of the sentence though. Are you saying that some posts are just put through without being read and moderated? I was also wondering about a previous moderator comment on this thread about having wanted to edit a post. If the moderator wanted to edit the post, why didn’t he/she? Was it an accident?
I also would like to respectfully request that moderators use their moderator names when they moderate, so we can know who we are talking to and when we are talking to the same person and when we are not.
I’m also curious as to how many moderators there are. There are only 2 or 3 who use their moderator number, but I have no idea if there are others. LB seemed to think there were at least 5 or 6, although I don’t know what she was basing this on.
I’m also wondering why some posts take so much longer to moderate than others. At first, I thought it had to do with how long or complicated the post was, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. One of my posts on the 7-letter game took many,many hours to moderate even though many later posts were moderated meanwhile.
Lilmod ulelamaid, to address some of your questions:
Aside from which device a moderator is using, it is also more time consuming to edit than to simply delete or approve. Sometimes we have time to edit/comment, but sometimes we don’t.
Everything is read before being approved.
Sometimes posts are too long to read and are simply skipped due to lack of time. When this happens, a moderator may decide to moderate using a screen which shows more recent posts first, so an older, even short post, may temporarily get lost in the shuffle.
Word game threads can be tricky to moderate because it is better to delete some answers which were posted after others, but we don’t always have time to view the whole thread.
I hope this helps.
(I am not the moderator who commented earlier.)
Moderator 100- thank you for taking the time to read and respond to my post :).
That’s interesting about the word game thread – I was trying to figure out what was so complicated about moderating a word game 🙂 At least, it helped me to realize that I can’t take it personally when a post takes a long time to moderate!
“Everything is read before being approved.”
In that case, I don’t understand the previous moderator’s comment.
btw, are you a senior moderator? Is that why you have the number 100?
I believe the other moderator meant that different moderators approve or delete (or comment on) different posts, and therefore no assumptions should be made about the bias of the moderator(s). We may just have a slightly different threshold for approval on the questionable posts.
My number has nothing to do with seniority. It was chosen by the Editor.
I didn’t actually think you were a senior moderator because of your number. It was really because of the air of authority/manners/maturity that you seem to exude.
How many moderators are there, or is that private? Does more than one moderator work at a time? How do you decide who moderates which posts? Does it go by time/topic/poster/luck of the draw/first come-first serve/other? And do moderators read all of the previous posts in a thread they are moderating?
If different moderators moderate different threads, how does a moderator know if a poster is making a reference to a previous thread and how would they know how to relate to it (I think that I have experienced moderators misunderstanding comments of mine for that reason; that is why I am wondering).
Of course, I understand if you are not allowed to answer any or all of these questions. I appreciate your taking the time to answer my other questions.
“I believe the other moderator meant that different moderators approve or delete (or comment on) different posts, and therefore no assumptions should be made about the bias of the moderator(s). We may just have a slightly different threshold for approval on the questionable posts.”
Thank you for explaining. Now, that makes sense the way you explained it. But I’m still not sure that it contradicts NCB’s point the way I understood it.
More than one moderator can work at a time, and we moderate posts as we see them.
We don’t usually moderate by thread, but by post as they come in. It might be better to moderate by thread to avoid the issues you mentioned, but due to technical issues that is very difficult.
um… MOD100 are you perhaps leaking.. whew!!!! you divulged here more than all my years posting… (quite a lot). They used to be VERY secretive going about their business…
So now that you’re leaking… could you answer a few of my own???(quietly.. so the Russians, CIA, FBI, Dems won’t hear)
Thank you for your answers, Mod- 100.
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