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The tax is a “sales and use” tax, so if you use the goods in New York you have to pay the tax. Many states are cracking down on people who have been evading the tax by buying out of state and having the goods shipped to New York. The state hopes to get lots of revenue by forcing out of state merchants to collect the tax when they make the sale, rather than expecting people to voluntarily pay the tax when the merchandise arrives. The state needs the money to pay off everyone who needs to be pacified.
Trees do bump into buildings, and will even grow through a building if able to do so (depends on how strong the building is).
Trees have some senses that let them know when to shed leaves, etc., but nothing resembling vision.
It’s the way the English and Americans do things, and in their countries it is useful to follow their minhagim. Traditionally, Ashkenazi Jews didn’t have surnames, and both men and women always went by their patronymic (Piloni/Pilonis Ben/Bat Piloni). At this point almost all rabbanim have adopted the custom, so it is mutar (similar to males wearing pants, which once were a goyish minhag, but eventually were adopted and now almost all rabbanim wear them).
The New York Times is owned and operated by secular Jews. They are our mortal enemies. Our existence is an affront to them. From their perspective, our disappearance from society would be boon to them. Their ethical rules reflect it. While it might be good to read the newspaper to keep an eye on what our enemies are doing, no frum person will see it as a newsource anymore than (NOT le-havdil) the infamous Der Sturmer (whose editor Julius Streicher was hanged at Nuremberg for excessivly bad journalism).
It’s not a humrah. Normal Americans (that pretty much leaves out New Yorkers – I”m referring to the vast majority of Christians) consider shopping for Christmas to be part of the observance of how they honor what they believe to be the birth of their diety. Ask you posek:
“Such and such is considered by the majority of goyim to be part of their religious holiday – Am I allowed to participate?” . Unless your posek is uber-Reform, I’ld be embarassed to ask such a dumb question.
Many rabbanim may not be aware that the purchases of presents is part of the Avodah of the holiday of Dec. 25, or that this holiday is truely avodah zarah. That is why we need better secular education in yeshivos – and not from frei Jews. If you hold that Dec. 25 is an avodah zarah holiday, and you realize that most Americans observe this holiday by shopping for and giving presents – it isn’t a shailoh that “Black Friday” is something frum yidden shouldn’t participate in. Do we want goyim to look and say: “Oh, those Orthodox Jews are out shopping for christmas Presents just like us – isn’t it good how they’ve come around to our way of thinking and are honoring “yeshke” (as we call him) by giving presents”.
Wasn’t that a similar question to the dispute of India (South Asian) hair for wigs. If the avodah of the Christians is to go shopping in a certain way, we shouldn’t join it. Of course, the mere act of shopping is mutar. The mere act of going door to door asking for treats on the eve of “All Saints Day” (Oct. 31) is mutar. Giving gifts in December is mutar. If a sale is part of the way they honor their avodah zarah, it probably is better not to participate.
Considering that Jews don’t have a gift-giving holiday in December, there’t no need to imitate the goyim on this one. If there were big sales (a lot of studies suggest there isn’t any real cutting prices), we would want them preceeding our holidays. One might argue that since “Black Friday” is part of the preparation for the holiday the Christians celebrate on Dec. 25, that particpiating in it verges on Avodah Zarah.
Reasons why we don’t want to be like the Catholic schools:
1. Many of the Catholic schools have endowments.
2. Most of the Catholic schools are going broke anyways.
3. The Catholic schools are usually co-ed, and try to get non-Catholic students. If we wanted goyim in our schools, it would be easier to get funding. That’s also the problem with
a Jewish charter school since a public school can’t discriminate in admissions. In truth if we set up a multi-cultural, multi-religious school with a joint secular curriculum and separate religious curricula for each group, we probably could get funding for the secular part.
4. The religious part of the curriculum is small (perhaps an extra subject or two), whereas
the religious part of our curriculum is typically 60% of the day, and sometimes much more. If we wanted to run what is basically a public school with one or two periods of Jewish subjects, it would be much cheaper.
He who pays the fiddler calls the tune. What if the government says that those who accept our money have to teach the subjects our way? What if they insist that 17 year olds be vacinated against sexual diseases (note: pregnancy is a sexual disease from the government’s perspective, and they have long term vacines)? What if they insist that the school teach that “gay” is normal.
Our ancestors always had the option to accept government money in return for raising our children the way the government wants. We always said no (at least, our immediate ancestor said no – our cousins who said yes eventually assimilated into the general population).
You think it was different in the past? While there have been exceptions, the only difference in the past it was hard to get caught “with your pants down”. Indeed, now with DNA testing we can uncover all sorts of things in history (none of which we would be allowed, for good reason, to discuss here).
And yes, frum Yidden are different. We were, and will always will be. It even shows up in scientfic research (e.g., a major factor in determining that one form of cancer was sexually transmitted was the discovery that the disease was very rare in our community). But again, that’s not a hidush either.
The Israeli goal is to stop the random rocket attacks. Occupying Gaza would work, but would claim many Jewish lives. Continuing to trade rockets doesn’t work for several reasons (cost – Israeli rockets are more expensive as well as more accurate; public opinion issues- since Israel has superior rockets they call far more Palestinians than the number of Israelis the Palestinians can kill with their inferior rockets). Getting to Egyptians to in effect reoccupy Gaza makes the Egyptians liable for any future rocket attacks, and only the Gazans, Egypt has a lot to lose in the event of war.
It is interesting that the big ingredient involved is cafeine. At least one religious group (Mormons) ban it. Of course, cafeine in large amounts can be dangerous (which is probably true of virtually anything, even bread and water). But is adopting a quasi-religious objection to cafeine (a major ingredient in coffee, chocolate, tea and many soft drinks) raising a shailoh of avodah zara?
Environmental and health nuts are fine when they stick to science. But their enthusiasm tends to blend in into a mystical faith in their positions, and that raises shailohs.
“Jews pay more taxes…”
Frum Jews certainly don’t. We have large numbers of children (few of whom have trust funds are anything else to pay taxes), a large number of people with low incomes (kollels and yeshivos pay lousy salaries), we have many people who give up much income in order to have jobs that won’t cause hassles with religious observances, we have many women who choose to be unemployed or underemployed in order to take care of children. Any Jews who tries to maximize parnassah quickly learns that most paths to maximize parnassah create a conflict with being frum.
Frei Jews are probably among the richest group in America, and they don’t seem to mind paying high taxes (note that they overwhelmingly vote for the party of “tax and spend”). Frum Jews are more likely to be in the 47%, than the 1%.
At the time a Palestinian with some British rights. If you left prior to May 14, 1948, I suspect that you wouldn’t have qualified for Israeli citizenship. Unless you immigrated to the United Kingdom by a certain date, you would have lost a claim for British nationality but quite qualify for a British passport saying you are a British national without right of residence in the UK.If you moved to the US pre-1948, but neglected to pick up American citizenship, and it turned out weren’t eligible (say, if you are a felon), it would be an interesting question whether the Israelis would let you in when the US deported you as an illegal undesirable alien.
Free government program used by many frum Yidden with good results, no shailoh of taking tasadakah from the goyim:
uneeq:
1. Secession requires at most a 2/3 vote in the Senate to ratify a treaty, and probably only a majority vote in both houses of Congress. At worse, it requires a constitutional amendment.
2. Certainly states such as New York (and most of the states with large Jewish populations) would be bankrupt almost immediately, and would enter a full fledged depression, similar to Greece, often combined with hyperinflation.
3. The withdrawal of the United States from world affairs, as no state would have the capacity of raising sufficient military force to project power abroad, would probably be no worse than it was before the US started interfering in other country’s affairs (we remember the 1930’s, they were a good time, weren’t they?).
Nothing is free. It’s paid for from taxes.
I assume you are talking about programs such as welfare, food stamps, WIC, SCHIPS, etc. These are very popular even though one could argue they are accepting charity from the non-Jews.
One program that costs nothing to participate it is called JOBS. The government is a leading employer. Generally particpants in this program do quite well.
rebdoniel:
1. Many frum Jews are speaking Yiddish, not Hebrew. Various vowel and consonant shifts occured, as they have in German.
2. What defines proper Hebrew? Certainly it requires careful differentiation between ? and ?, and respect for the dagesh in all letters where it occurs (including daled and gimmel). The accent of Jews from Yemen might be the closest. The multiple “S” and “T” letters are all mistakes (natural ones, as many language evolve along similar lines) — note how all American mispronounce the gutteral “gh” as in how we would have written Ghanukah had there been any English-speaking Jews in the middle age.
3. Had the Jewish people been wiped out, Hebrew would have been frozen and there would be a “right” pronounciation. But we surived and have been writing, and speaking, Hebrew for millenia, and like all languages, it evolves.
4. Obviously the correct pronounciation is the way Ha-Shem spoke to us at Sinai. If the correct pronounciation was of any halachic significance, I’m sure that Torah would have been given on CDs so the matter would be clear.
1. It’s a joke. A stunt. A protest.
2. A very small 3% change, and Romney would be doing a transition and looking forward to both houses being Republican. It’s only when your region is getting whooped that you consider leaving. THen the “blue” would be screaming the country is going downhill.
3. Given that any state to leave would take its share of the national debt, but not the ability to print dollars, they would be an instant “Greece”
Since they are goyim, we apply their law. This is an area where everyone would hold the Dina Malchusa Dina applies to goyim.
When the creditor sues the debtor, the debtor has a way of saying that the evil third party is really at fault and should pay the claim. It turns out that most legal system find a way to deal with the situation, since it is quite common. What is usual is that the evil third party may be insolvent (happens to evil tortfeasors a lot), though the debtor probably has a way to declare bankruptcy (which would leave the creditor going after the debtor’s debtors such as the evil third party).
If the case involves goyim, let us hope they have Jewish lawyers, who on taking over all sides’ property (that is what lawyers do) will support our tasadakos.
Because in a living language, people pronounce things fast and naturally. It’s a sign you are alive. In a dead language, such as Latin or Sumerian, everything is pronounced correctly all the time since the forces that affect living languages no longer are at work.
If the Germans won the war, their scholars studying Judaica (who were building up a massive library by pilgering sefarim all over Europe) would have pronounced everything exactly and correctly, unaffected by any living people who really cared about the materials.
Are there any statistics on percent of “off the derech”, and how do you define “off the derech”?
If I wear a fedora or a homburg, and my son wears a knit yarmulke, is he off the derech? If someone isn’t going to work on Shabbos, eating pork, and marrying a non-Jew, are they really off the derech? A frum juvenile delinquent is still frum. In the past, most orthodox synagogues in America had trouble finding a minyan of Shomer Shabbos, and parents routinely were asking how to act when eating in their children’s home (as in “is it okay to drink water in a glass cup?”) – and you don’t see that any more.
The issue is how to pronounce the “A”, and it varies based on dialect.
Unless you: 1) are an electrician or a plumber; 2) anxious to find out how much your share in ???? ??? is — AVOID downed electrical wires
One should also remember in discussing the British (and to a lesser extent, the Americans), that contrary to a myth put forth immediately after World War II, the British had full and complete knowledge of the holocaust from the onset (since we now know they broke the German codes by 1940, and had detailed reports of what was going on), so that British (and to a lesser extent, American, since the Brits shared intelligence) activities that made it hard for Jews to flee Europe were made with full knowledge that any Jew trapped in or sent back to German controlled areas would be murdered.
Chareidi is broader. Yeshivish is a type of Chareidi. So is Hasidisch or Sefardi.
The terms are ill defined. Most human beings tend to fit into their surroundings. If you hang out in a hareidi environoment, you wake up one morning and discover and go to work and notice the people in the “normal” world all seem to be a bit strange, and when you get home you feel relieved to be back when everyone is normal.
Obama may be annoying from a lot of perspectives, but we’ve seen a lot worse. Indeed, most Jews voted for him, and his party (the party of Greenfield, Hikind, etc.) is still the dominant party in the frum community. His economic policies are very good for large families and persons with limited incomes (such as kollel families). His impact on Eretz Yisrael is probably minimal (Ha-Shem and the Jews living there will decide their destiny – not the Americans). His views on moral issues are reflective of those of the non-frum Jews and of most New Yorkers (and note that most frum Jews choose to live in New York in spite of it being the leading city when it comes to immorality).
Obama’s win may be bad, but it is hardly the end of the world.
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).