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1. He is very good for investors. To make money investing one needs to buy low and sell high, and Obama will be creating new and improved opportunities to buy low.
2. It will encourage the Israelis to rely on themselves and Ha-Shem, instead of praying to the Americans to bail them out of their messes.
3. His support of abortion, contraception and homosexuality will encourage the “left” to engage in behavior that keeps them from having children, so perhaps they’ll go extinct eventually.
4. His personal life is exemplary and sets a good model, unlike the previous Democratic president.
You ban new refineries for years.
You ban pipelines to bring gas from other parts of the country.
You ban ships from carrying gas from other parts of the country.
You restrict drilling for oil anywheres near New York.
And you have a storm that disrupts your local infrastructure – and of course all the “green” decision come back to bite you.
1. We agree on the British non-claim to Palestine. Actually, so did the British government. Only the original poster thought otherwise.
2. The Ottomans usually claimed and had some control of eastern Arabia (where Mecca is). They nominally claimed the west (from which the Saudi came) but until the oil discoveries, that part was basically “hefker” from the point of view of national governments.
3. Balfour never promised an independent state. At most, contemporaries thought it might involve a self-governing entity similar to what Canada or Australia were at the time (no control over military or foreign affairs, financial matters controlled from London, judiciary controlled from London, all decisions subject to review by London’s governor). Given that at the time, Palestine wasn’t British territory, the concept of a “homeland” wasn’t tied to sovereign status in any form – only a place where Jews could move with no guarantee of political control. They also promised the Arabs a state in the region, which led to the famous Faisal-Weizman agreement, and also to De Haan negotiation with Faisal (the idea being the autonomous Jewish homeland with a large Arab state – sort of a Dhimmi/ghetto on steroids – but enough so Jews fleeing Europe could have fled, and the Brits and Americans would have been less resistant to helping Jews flee Hitler).
There were no “Palestinians” before 1948, only a group of “Levantine” Arabs including all of modern Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Israel. It would have been a lot easier for a country that was 90% Arab to tolerate a Jewish minority that wanted authonomy and economic freedom, than for a small Palestinian entity to accept being part of a country with a probable Jewish majority – Muslims don’t take kindly to being a minority – something that the rabbanim realized which is one reason they opposed zionism (if we try to boss the Arabs around, it guarantees war).
#1- The British claim on Palestine was very weak. It was never even officially annexed to the British Empire (it was a League of Nations mandate, on whose behalf the British administered it). The British had promised Palestine (along with what is now Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabic and Jordan) to the Arabs as a large Arab state under the family of the current ruler of Jordan (whose ancestor was quite willing to have Jewish immigration into this large country), but the Brits double-crossed the Arabs. Had the Brits not broken their deal with the Arabs, The Arabic world east of Suez would be one large country, led by the moderate dynasty now ruling Jordan, with a very large autonomous Jewish population (perhaps extremely large since Hitler would be remembered for the “expulsion” of European Jews).
Obama was elected because: he got more votes than Romney
Among Romney’s problems is that he (and the country) were distracted by fringe Republicans who are obsessed with sex and openly anti-Hispanic prejudices. Romney should have stuck to economics and his “making America great” themes, which would have one. He needed to repudiate those Republicans who focused on non-economic sexual issues (which most Americans feel should be private matters not subject to government regulation) and the nativists (who seriously insult all Hispanics, and much of the non-WASP population). There is a strong pro-immigrant wing of the Republicans (Wall Street/Country Club Republicans are pro-immigrant, as are the religious right since they see the Hispanic immigrants as people like themselves), and there is a strong libertarian wing who favor small government staying out of people’s personal lives. These issues suggests that Rand Paul may be the way of the future, as well as the several second-generation ethnics (Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindahl, Nikki Haley).
Have you seen anyone doing adultery with witnesses (being respectable people, whose presences are known). The only ways any halachic capital punishment came into play was if the person was making an effor to publicly flaunt their behavior – which in the real world doesn’t happen.
Great buying opportunities for investors who follow a “buy low, sell high” strategy.
Enjoy WIC and SCHIPS, but don’t plan to open a business (well, great for a kollel family, so why complain).
Obama’s more liberal on immigration, so they’ll let in the frummies from Eretz Yisrael if the zionists start kicking them out (and without a strong exceptional America, this may be a good time to start shorting Israeli long term bonds). Expect better relations with the Christians as they start adjusting to being a fellow persecuted minority, rather than an persecuting majority.
It’s a government agency. The former private sector Long Island Lighting Company (LILCO) was nationalized 25 years ago. Not only does the government need to consent to be sued, but the damages come out of the taxpayer’s pocket. So score one for quasi-socialist Democrats. It was “big government” running the power that messed up.
The problem is all along the coasts. People like to live near the water. The sea is pretty. The climate is more moderate (cooler in summer, warmer in winter). The only problem is that every so often you get a big storm. In theory the area should have been zoned for parkland – but that never worked out. The result is that even as storms are less frequent and milder than in the past (and they have records going back to the 1600s), the damage is worse.
Meaning the Democrats (hear that Mr. Hikind, Mr. Greenfield, etc.) will be targetting groups that don’t approve of “transsexuals”. We are not in their bull’s eye.
crisisoftheweek:
I tend to believe that in many places outside New York, the Democrats are afraid that if they alienate the “holy people” they might not be able to permanently buy their support. In fact, that may be true in New York as well (considering two recent wins for Republicans in super-blue Brooklyn – you do know that Dodgers/Met “blue” is the official borough color).
From an East Asian perspective, we are quite different than the western Euro-Americans whom we live among. Similar to the East Asians, we value scholars over warriors (i.e. father look at their newborn sons and dream of learning with them, goyim is the same situation dream of teaching the kid to toss a ball or shoot a rifle). We also use “indirect” speech (this goes back to ancient times – and it drives most Americans crazy). We have a very long time frame of looking at history, unlike most westerners who “forget” after a few decades.
You do realize the initial poster significantly misquoted Rabbi Pruzansky’s statement (at his website), and that almost all the Loshan Ha’Ra in this discussion is based on the misquote, not on what he wrote. All he was saying is that parents should make a point of being frum in front of their kids in ways such as how they dress and spend their Shabbos.
It’s messy and undignified, and there’s a halacha we’re supposed to be menchlicht.
1. If they have a commercial “wedding venue” that isn’t tied to a single religion, I could imagine how that would violate the discrimnation law.
2. Maryland is both super-blue, but much less hostile towards religion. I suspect it is because the the Maryland Democratic party is heavily dependent on the state’s socially conservative African American community, whereas New York’s Democrats are dominated by “frei” Jews and a much more ethnically diverse crowd, none of which are especially known for their religious piety.
Who did the study? Where is it published? Define “Modern Orthodox”? In many cases, a “modern orthodox” high school is one in which the majority of the families are not strictly Shomer Shabbos and Shomer Kashruth to begin with. If 50% are Shomer Shabbos after high school in spite of 40% of the parents having been Shomer Shabbos, the school is doing quite well.
Was he talking about a school of “penguins” who are considered “modern” by virtue of the fact they celebrate Israeli Independence Day and don’t learn Yiddish? Or was he talking about a school that is serving a wider community and in which only a minority of the familes are frum.
1. The debate over whether a child of a Jewish mother is Jewish, as opposed to requiring both parents to be Jewish, has long been settled.
2. I’m curious for a source for the statement that a a kohen can only marry someone whose mother was married to a Jewish father. As long as the mother is Jewish and not a mamzeris, why should the mother’s status matter?
There aren’t any halachic issues, but there might be some tricky social problems especially if her parents are dismayed at her becoming frum and would be scandalized by a frum wedding.
1. Why isn’t a hillul ha-Shem for an obviously frum Jew to go into a treff restaurant and sit down in the place where people eat? To any casual observer the obvious conclusion is that this a place where frum kids go to eat treff when their parents are looking.
2. Since the restaurant require those sitting down to purchase a certain minimum, and as long as the minimum is applied to everyone, why shouldn’t the restaurant remind customers of the minimum if they notice that a certain type of customer may be unware of it (i.e. a kosher customer, who is agreeing to pay the $25 minimum by merely requiresting a soda or a glass of water).
3. It would only be discrimination if they only had a minimum charge for Jews and not others, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. It seems the issue got in the news when a frum couple didn’t realize they had to pay $25 for a glass of water due to the minimum charge (probably written clearly in a menu, which, since it was all treff, they ignored).
That is a shailoh for the local posek. The word “local” is important since it would all depend on local conditions. If a community can easily support competition, competition is good. Where it is a problem for the community to support even one kosher grocery store, it might be a problem.
In Boro Park, opening up a frum supermarket is probably never an issue, whereas in a small city it is more likely to be an issue. Similarly, opening up a unique business (consider a supermarket selling only organic foods with good hecksherim) next to its competitor, that is to say another supermarket selling only organic foods with good hecksherim, may be an issue.
Since there are all local factors, you can’t rely on predcedents from other situations and places.
Coffee is a new invention. They’ve only had it for the last few centuries. The world got along fine without it before that. While most American goyim can only imagine time in years or at most decades, our perspectives are in centuries or millenia (note how we call the Amidah the “18” even though it has been “19” for for over 1500 years).
The current theories are that the “dinosaurs” were actually big birds, are in no way extinct, and most of us eat them on Shabbos. Animals frequently change size and shape, and this has been observed even in recent years (for examplemedieval cattle were only the size of large sheep, and the variety of dog breeds are quite recent).
There are all sorts of traditions of multiple worlds, so almost anything is possible. The whole concept of “time” is discussed in kaballa (and physics), and is very unclear.
The genre of “lives of gedolim” is supposed to inspire. They aren’t attempts at critical biographies. It’s quite rare that someone write a critical biography of gedolim, and they don’t sell many copies.
We should also learn from zoology that HaShem can and did create creatures that can reproduce unisexually (i.e. one gender), and that we can assume HsShem has a good reason in requiring human to reproduce sexually (two genders, totally dependent on each other, and incapable of long term surival if they don’t cooperate).
English is a very hard language to spell. In part since whereas most languages are spelled the way they are pronounced, English sort of reflects pronounciation in the 15th century, when Normal French and Anglo-Saxon were still merging into modern English. Also English’s power comes from its ability to absorb many words from other languages, together with their own spelling quirks.
In all fairness, yeshiva graduates are just as good at spelling as most other people. It would be nice if we all had “posh” language skills, but that’s not realistic. Actually, given that the typical hareidi kid in the USA is trilingual (English, Hebrew and Yiddish), he’s in a good situation to develop serious linguistic competencies if he needs to.
So what is the objection to an iPhone as compared to any other brand?
Cost? Internet access (then the objection is to internet access, not to any specific hardware – a netbook or tablet is just as problematic)?
I can see reasons to object to portable phones, or to computers, but why a specific brand? If a hot dog is treff because its made of pork, it’s still treff if instead it’s an expensive pork roast.
What can you do with an iphone that you can’t do with a PC and a regular landline telephone?
Stick it in your pocket
BUT THAT’S TRUE OF ALL MOBILE PHONES INCLUDING “KOSHER” PHONES
What can you do with an iphone that you can’t do with a PC and a regular landline telephone?
In the feudal system, everyone had a duty to obey his/her overlord/master. A wife owed a duty to obey her husband, just like a knight to obey his baron, or a serf to obey his overlord. Jews were not part of the feudal system, so we never had a duty to obey anyone (we also had no rights, but that’s another story).
Do frum familes, almost all of whom have small children (or grandchildren visiting) actually use drinking utensils made of glass? For most people the shailoh will never arise.
There are some communities that do use glassware, and would allow having milk from it one meal, rinsing it out (but not kashering it), and then having chicken soup out of it. Most people would insist on not mixing milkig and fleishig utensils regardless of what they are made of.
???? ???
Until recently, the typical problem were grandparents
complaining they could not eat or drink anything at their
children’s houses (“not even the water, unless they get
a paper cup”) and seeing their grandchildren grow up acting
like (or even being) goyim.
Just tell the kids that the family is moving upwards, and their
job will be to reach even higher level of yiddishkeit.
popa_bar_abba:
Bobcats are indeed small and cute. The feline type are nice to watch, preferably at a distance – not suitable for petting. The other type (found in Brooklyn, even in frum communities if you look hard enough) are also quite small and cute, and remain so until they turn into teenagers whom we then then try to eat us out of house and home until we find a shidduch for them.
1. A cat. Cats are cute and scare mice. If you have cats that weren’t fed mice as kittens, they won’t even eat the mice, though they might kill them. When the mice smell the cat, they leave.
2. Bobcats are either: 1) large wild cats that could attack children and not domesticatable; 2) very small Cub Scouts who tend to leave lots of crumbs, which will attract mice (unless there are cats around, infra)
Because we wrote the bracha. Frankly, Men have a good deal. We not only get lots of fun mitzvos the women don’t share, but to be honest, the whole business of life is having children, and I’ld say men have a good deal (details left out since this is a family website).
In our language, the word is ?????.
Things like eating, going to the bathroom, earning a livlihood are important (try living without them), but in the final analysis, they really aren’t all that important. They pertain to the waiting room we are stuck in, but no more. Also note that while we have brachas for eating and going to the bathroom, we don’t have a bracha for earning a parnassah.
When I was single, I always to be eating by people with my minhag (in house at night, kiddush in sukkah, lunch in house). If one doesn’t like not following the host’s minhag, find a different host. It isn’t like there’s a shortage of hosts.
Believe there is a shidduch crisis when you start hearing about frum schools closing due to lack of students, and wedding halls looking for new events to host. Everyone you have met, not to mention everyone you haven’t, has a shidduch crisis before they get engaged. And someone, people always manage to get married. The proof: the human race is still here.
There really isn’t much correlation between being a “liberal” or a “conservative” on economic, social and international issues. It’s not just orthodox Jews who often don’t fit into the 2-party holes since we tend to be liberal on economic issues (we like getting stuff from the government), but are conservative on social issues. A large amount of the African American community has a similar problem (they like handouts, but don’t approve of homosexuality, and aren’t happy that aborted babies are disprortionately from their community). Many gays have a problem since while they are social liberals, they tend to be economic conservatives (remember that their “community” lives only for this world, so why pay high taxes for things like educating children or supporting families). Being isolationist or internationalist correlates with nothing else.
If we has an Israeli style proportional representation system, we would support a party favoring social conservatism and economic liberalism, along with a strong foreign policy. In America, there are never more than two meaningful choices since we have a two party system.
So when the Israeli Lira collapsed, and soon thereafter the original Shekel, were the zionists overthrown??????
IF a government prints lots of money, the currency collapses. No hiddush. One can live with it (by indexing, holding physical assets, etc.).
WolfishMusings: The law the was received by the United States was the law of the Church of England, which was derived from the Canon Law as it existed at the time it split off (as the Catholics claim, the English officially maintain they are actually good catholics but the pope is a bit confused about his role). Therefore American marriage law is derived from pre-16th century canon law, received via the Anglicans (who made very few changes that affected marriage and divorce – Henry’s infamous divorce was an exception by all standards – America didn’t allow divorce except by act of the legislature until the mid-19th century).
It is pathetic that someone would see the prospect of “dating” (as we call, the term means something different in American English) as so mournful as to be inappropriate for a time of simcha. Perhaps the person who asked the question believes that “dating” is only appropriate for Tisha B’Av?
Except for things like wearing a kittel, “Shanah Rishonah” (or “being a newlywed” in American English) is not a legal concept. It’s more like saying your just got married and you don’t have to act like grownups yet (since marriage is, in our community, what makes you an adult and gives you adult responsibilities). Of course, when she starts to “show”, that sort of ends being “Shanah Rishonah” since you move up (higher social status) to being a parent (and be realistic, only parents have meaningful social status in the frum community).
“Don’t worry, be happy” – Remember that being overly obsese proves your faith in HaShem since you are so how anxious you are to arrive in Olam Ha-Ba. Whether this appeals to women will depend on how whether they look favorably on the idea of widowhood. The reality is that a serious overweight person in their 20s (when most people get married), will probably make it to 60, by which times the kids are grown, and the family probably can do just as well with an inheritance rather than a steady income (and especially better than a steady income undermined by health issues).
Remember, we are supposed to look at the bright side and be happy.
“i said so” – the reason many states (and many Christian countries) restrict marriage between cousins has to do with the way in which canon law (the law of the Roman Catholic Church) was assimilated into the local legal system. Canon law restricts marriage of cousins, which is why many states/countries do. It has nothing to do with genetics (there are situtations where cousins are at a high risk for genetic disorders if they marry, but the law on the books dates to well before genetics were discovered).
We should be less critical of overwight people. They tend to live quite nicely through middle age, meaning they don’t expire until they are in late middle age – when they would retire anyways, and when their children are married off. By leaving early without spending a lot of time in old age they save society a lot of money since old people often need support. Obesity will help reduce the problem of poor elderly (by removing them from society just at that point that they start needing financial aid).
YehudahTzvi:
You are aware that the daughter of a giyores is perfectly kosher for a kohen to marry????
Halacha only require a kohen to marry someone born a Jew – it is irrelvant what the persons mother or grandmother is. That’s why the search for a “kohen” genetic pattern focuses on part of the the male chromosone unaffected by the female genetic materials.
When they distinguish genetics in a way that limits it to male and female ancestry, it turns out that their were probably a lot more female than male converts (logical for many reasons, conversion didn’t mean the same loss of legal status for women since women often had limited rights, mikva is less scary than a bris, when Jews migrated to a new area men were more likely to go than women, and in the case of Ashkenazim many if not most came to Europe as Roman prisoners – men were more likely to survive captivity). It’s also interesting that the evidence is that conversion was very rare after ancient times – which matches what our historians have claimed.