akuperma

1. We are in a period of low inflation (though tuition and medical costs are an exception). Getting minimal interest in a low inflation period is better than getting much interest in a high inflation period (e.g. money market accounts paid 9% but inflation was 15%). Eretz Yisrael often had inflation so high that it wiped out the currency’s value (that’s why 10000 of current shekels are equal to one lira, which in 1948 was worth several American dollars). Be happy to be in a period of price stability (cf. Pirke Avos on how is rich)l.

2. The more you want to risk, the more higher the return. Right now Venezuelan and Puerto Rican bonds give a very high rate of return, along with high risk they will default and you will lost your money.

People trick or treating want candy, not an arrest record. Leave the porch light off so they won’t come. If you live in an area with many frum Jews, the goyim know who not to waste time with.

While the Seven Years War is a reasonable starting date, it is wrong to leave out the Dutch. Much of New York’s character related to the fact that it started as a Dutch colony, as that led to a much greater degree of religious and ethnic diversity (or rather toleration of religious and ethnic diversity) than the other colonies. It also leave the Indians who had a big impact on 18th century history in New York.

One can only under “why” if you know what happened, and if you know “what” you’ll know why. The issue is whether there will be “right” answers to many subjective questions, as that gets to be a “hot” issue the closer you get to the present.

“Rings” have always been worn by men.

The picture is of a wedding/engagement ring. Among Christians, women give men a ring as part of their sacrament of marriage, so for a Jewish man to wear such a ring would be a question of “avodah zarah.” The response is most goyim no longer see marriage as having anything to do with religion, but it would still arguably be the “dust” of “avodah zarah.” When asking a shailoh, make sure the person answering is aware of the religions significance of marriage rings among the Christians.

RebYidd63: Tell that to Microsoft. They pushed for adoption on unicode. Here on Earth people write at least 70 languages. Anyone who knows only one language is probably bit intellectually challenged (most frum Jews know at least pieces of several, though some of the goyim are less clever and are only monolingual).

“militia”, by definition, consisted of all FREE (as opposed to slaves, serfs, indentured servants, Jews and in some years other religious dissenters) MALES, who could be called to defend the kingdom, put down rebellions, etc. The right to bear arms goes along with being FREE. Those who couldn’t bear arms, were un-free.

One could argue that the 2nd amendment protects the rights of all citizens to be in the militia (cf. the Asher Levy case), butr that issue has never been litigated

The original language, back in 1775, was that all free Protestants belong to the state church and loyal to the king were allowed to bear arms, and could be called upon to defend the king and country when necessary. Everyone else was subject to gun control, the better to know their place in society. Owning firearms was a privilege for the “right people”. People like us had to whine and sue (and in fact the first civil rights case in what is now the United States involve a Jew wanting the right to bear arms).

When some fool wants to tamper with the Bill of Rights, you should see what life was like before they were enacted.

At one time it referred to someone who believed that “white” was a distinct sub-species (rather than a pigmentation) consisting of European whites but excluding non-European whites (e.g. Jews, Arabs, East Asians etc.) and who also believe that the “white race” was superior to any other. A variant of this was the Nazi movement which tried to link the Indo-European (Aryan) language family to a purported “white race”. Note that many ethnic groups have “white” skin but were excluded for cultural or political reasons.

Among Democrats, it means anyone who disagrees with them.

Re: Yichus

Gerim (converts) are “בן אברהם אבינו”. Can’t get better yichus than that.

Though as I said before, frum Jews (no matter how much they see yichus matters) place greater value on how frum a person is. Plenty of Reform Jews have great yichus, but that counts for nothing among bnei-Torah.

No earlier than the earlist zman for davening, and no later than the last time to daven b’zman.

Frum kids tend to know little about actual firearms, at least in the United States. Most goyim learn about guns by learning to hunt, but of course we never do since that would treff the animal. There are only a handful of frum Boy Scout troops, which is another place to learn about guns. Few frum Jews serve in the military outside of Israel which reduces interest in firearms. Target shooting is not a popular sport in urban areas. Obviously frum Jews frequently see guns in the USA since the police routinely carry firearms.

1. They already are illegal. Is it semi-automatic weapons you want to ban? Perhaps breech-loading weapons?

2. One reason for private gun ownership is to allow self-defense against the government, and the government has fully automatic weapons (of you say the government is a bunch of saints you don’t need to protected against – perhaps you should the super-blues protesting at football games )

You are confusing “style” with “halacha”, though a strong halachic argument can be made for dressing to conform to the community you associate with. If you view Hareidi clothing over time, you realize they evolve just like all fashions but largely independently of what the local population does .

1. Until relatively recently, frum Jews didn’t date. Restaurants (kosher or otherwise) are a 19th century invention. “Courting” (as it was called in the English language) traditionally was done at home, with watchful parents present. Going to restaurants or other public places is not a custom based on halacha.

2. In western cultures, the man is demonstrating his ability to support the girl in the style to which she is accustomed. Traditionally the boy would probably find a way to show off his Torah learning in front of her family (which would demonstrate ability to earn a living, traditionally). If she is living at home (as was the case traditionally) she would want to demonstrate her skills.

3. If a man is looking for a “modern” girl who believes in “equality”, he expects her to offer to pay for things and would drop her if she doesn’t.

The NFL owners would be free to fire the players, however the NFL owners are supporting the players. It is clearly the right of the owners to express their political opinions. Note, that is why the owners could fire Alejandro Villanueva for not joining the owner-endorsed protests. Earlier protests were tolerated by the owners, the one’s this week were endorsed by (and in come cases, directed) by the owners.

And of course it is perfectly legal for fans to refuse to buy tickets or watch the games on television for the same reason – or to buy an Alejandro Villanueva jersey . The unknown in the equation is to what extent football fans are “blue” or “red”, and how that affects the teams’ bottom lines.

I myself prefer baseball, a game involving more intellects, more skill and less brute force — and in which almost half the players on American teams are from foreign countries (and with less overrepresentation of African Americans, which is also a factor in the protests), but if my favorite baseball team started protesting against my country, I would stop going to their games.

Freedom of Speech applies even to rich athletes (and team owners). They have the right to express opposition to the government. And fans have the right to not go to their games or to refrain from watch broadcasts of their games. If someone can’t live with all this freedom of expression, perhaps they should move to Cuba or North Korea, where no such nonsense is allowed and athletes who opposed the regime see their careers terminated (with “extreme prejudice”).

While I didn’t vote for Trump (I’m big on rule of law, civil liberties and fiscal responsibility), I’m curious what horrible things he’s done, other than speaking a lot of loshon ho’ra (or more typically “tweeting”) – but since Trump is a 100% goy he isn’t covered by the halachos of lashon ho’ra. He is standing up to tyrants such as Putin and Kim and to the various “radical” Muslims who seek to schecht us – unlike Obama and Clinton who wanted to avoid confrontations with dictators. On issues such as “due process” or “civil forfeiture” he’s no worse than Obama. He is no worse than his predecessors of the last century in ignoring the constitutional restrictions on the president (only Gary Johnson would have been better). Whereas the Democrats are supporting the terrorist “Antifa” groups, he is standing up to them. He is spending public money without any regard to the long term solvency of the country, but that seems to be the “minhag ha-makom” inside the Washington beltway. It would be nice if the president was more mentschlicht in his public comments, but we Yidden don’t look to the goyish rulers for lessons in midos, and since he has been “good for the Jews”, we shouldn’t complain.

Not to mention, would it be parve?

However most if not all poskim are not “into” science fiction, or at least do not write halacha books on inventions that have yet to be invented. So we’ll have to wait untiil lab grown meat is commercially available before getting an answer.

Lab grown meat could in theory be a lot cheaper. Presumably if grown from a kosher (with good hecksher) source it would be kosher. Some might argue that isn’t necessary. At present, it is neither cheaper not better than meat produced by raising and slaughtering the animals.

“Aren’t we raising a generation of poor, barely employable generation by sending them to schools that barely, if at all, teach English, math and how to write?” — Well, that is a problem with American schools (not just Jewish ones). At least in the frum schools they get a good introduction to language (learning a foreign language gives you a much better perspective on thiings such as grammar and syntax, I never understood what a direct object was until I learned about את) – most Americans are infamously monolingual. More importantly, our schools at least train students (without them realizing it, which is feature) to work independently or with a fellow student which is a very useful skill, unlike American kids who need to be “spoon fed” by the teacher and can’t learn otherwise.

1. Trump is not an idiot or a fool, no matter what the liberal media claim. North Korea is at most an annoyance to the US, even if it is a real threat to South Korea and Japan. Killing tens of millions people is not something one does without thinking, especially if there are less messy ways to accomplish the same result.

2. Anything bigger than a tactical nuclear weapon would seriously endanger the South Koreans and the Japanese due to radication. Much of the US arsenal designed for “end of the world” situations is not useable.

3. The South Koreans want to take over North Korea with its population and economy intact. That is the best solution from an American perspective as well.

4. One should remember that unlike Japan and Germany in World War II, whose decision to go to war was made by leaders they elected, North Korea never had a free election. The only crime of the North Korean people is they got conquered by Kim and his family. No one elected him. Hitler, on the other hand, was a democratically chosen leader, as were the Japanese and Italian leaders in World War II.

Humans do affect climate/weather, and that is beyond doubt since it can be observed without needing to fudge data (e.g. compare the temperatures in Lakewood and Monsey to Manhattan and Philadelphia – cites are warmer, which is people of all types prefer to “go away to the country”).

The issue is how much of climate variability is natural and how much is due to humans (and in particular, due to industrialization). The climate alarmists like to assume that the 1600-1700s were normal, but there is strong evidence that was one of the coldest periods in human history (sort of like looking at February and freaking out since it is warmed in August). While thermometers were invented only a few centuries ago, there are records of what rivers frozen and when, and what crops grew where – and these suggest the medieval period (time of the Rishonim) was even warmer than today. Similarly the “classical age” (period of Bayis Sheini) was warmer than the period that followed.

If the goyim’s scientists are to be believed, Long Island Sound used to be dry land, and it used to be possible to walk from England to France, or from Siberia to Alaska, without getting your feet wet – and all those changes did not involve humans messing with the climate.

So the question isn’t so much “do you believe in global warming” but rather do you believe that the primary cause is human activities, since if not, there is nothing the government can or could do about it. This doesn’t address the question as to whether global warming is good or bad, though given the large number of climate refugees fleeing to Florida every winter, I tend to think that warmer would a good thing.

All Ashkenazi and Sefardi clothing with a few exceptions are copies from the goyim. We have are own fashion sense, but it is largely based on the goyim’s. We take what meets our needs. No one today dresses like people did 500 or 1000 years ago. Even such “Jewish fashions” as a streimel, or a black fedora, or a white shirts, are goyish fashion items that we co-opted for our needs.

The only exception is the tallis, and there is every indication that our tallesim look just like those of our ancestors (though they wore it a bit differently, especially when goyim wore cloaks all day, and we wore our tallesim which were our cloaks – but cloaks dropped out of style a long time ago).

The term has many meanings, depending on context, cf. Nuclear families as well as Nuclear weapons.