Always_Ask_Questions

We had before a hypothetical discussion what will happen with Rambam in our generation? Will he go to Lakewood or/and MIT and what will happen after. We probably have some of the answers in the case of the Chacham.

Chofetz Chaim seemed to avoid machlokes in many issues.

I went through 2 volumes of his letters and public speeches in 1920s Poland and he calls on people not to send kids to non-religious schools, namely cultural and such, and talks about various anti-religious movements in Poland, but he has nothing to say about Zionism as such.

Other sources say that he did not publish anything about Zionism until he saw articles saying that one can speak Hebrew without Torah and it is a maala, etc and Chofetz Chaim finally responding publicly saying that it is a mistake to think that EY without Torah will work. As to RZ, there seem to be multiple quotes of CH.Ch. welcoming R Kook’s son, of him refusing to sign up to denunciations of R Kook, they do not like they are made up.

I think, whatever the disagreements, we should at least take to heart Chofetz Chaim’s attitude of not loving machlokes.

One problem with trades – in some countries – that some of them are built on illegal or immoral activities. You should research that. Construction and meat processing may hire illegal workers; other businesses do a lot of chas business and do not fully report earnings; others – get profit from skimping on stuff (nursing homes), etc. You may intend to be ehrliche, but you sometimes simply will not be able to compete.

“ironically”, there are less claimants to Caribbean slavery – as most of those slaves were dying quickly and were substituted with new arrivals.
Slave descendants in US are probably from the times when importation of slaves stopped and, thus, existing slaves were treated as a multi-generational investment.

I mentioned West Africa as a comparison base. A modern US citizen of African descent changed his destiny from being a poor person in West Africa to US. So, white people technically – al pi din? – owe him the difference. This sounds crude (as any exact din) but it is not new thinking, this is thinking behind creation of Liberia and sending freed slaves there.

Seriously speaking, every modern affluent society has an obligation to provide members with opportunities to develop. As it is possible to move up quickly within 1-2 generations, there is no need to look too far back as long as your current society is just. More importantly, provide your help in a wise way that helps people develop, instead of developing dependencies and bad behaviors.

yya > but it’s not MY logic, it’s a Gemara in Kiddushin 71a, which is brought להלכה למעשה in detail in Even HaEzer Siman 2.
of course

coffee > You don’t know of any goyim that have good middos?

the way I understand it – if you find someone with bad middos among Jews, you should suspect them. Does not say anything about some gyyim being nice. It relates to intermarriages – Jews who marry non-Jews did an aveirah; non-Jews who marry Jew might be a tzadik who tries to find his way to Torah, or just in general hold Jews in high esteem (credit: my FIL). So, ironically, those children who are halachikally non-Jewish might have a tzaddekes for a mother.

> G-d does not permit women to learn gemara

back to sq. 1? We have here classical sources saying that such women will get sechar, but not as for the mitzvah. You may have other sources but, you are just slandering all these rabbonim and have no hesitation to do that?

And what is your explanation on R Moshe’s granddaughter learning Gemorah? R Moshe did not raise his daughter properly? R Moshe himself proposed the shidduch (sort of, probably manipulated somewhat by said daughter) – you are saying he was not good at selecting the son-in-law? R Moshe’s sons became outstanding Roshei Yeshivos – and everyone knows that there is no guarantee in our generations on how children grow up – and selection of a son-in-law is a much easier task – you are looking at the already formed person. Please explain to me what is your explanation here.

none > think some of these appliances should be 50 bucks everything is overpriced. I think a Jewish company should open and sell things by the actual price it should be or make quality products for same price

Gemorah already did this experiment: chachomim davened for Hashem to take yetzer harah away. Next day, nobody went to work, nobody got married, and even hens stopped laying eggs…

Most of these products are available from multiple companies. Is there fair competition? If there is, you can be sure you are getting good price. Otherwise, there will be a company with lower price. If the company is public, then you can read about their profit margins. You can also open your own company and sell things for cheaper. If you don’t have money, you can borrow from investors who will jump to get extra profit. This is how it works. So, rest assured that savings from using tighter specs are going to benefit you.

The main reason for overpricing would be lack of competition, such as government regulations (that is necessary in defense industry but rarely in others) and business constrains, such as cost of laying cable for the whole string leading to one dominant cable company. This can be sometimes remedied. For example, long-distance calls and phones themselves were part of AT&T monopoly – until they were separated by regulation.

ZSK, thanks, I just noticed that the thread is deleted – where we had a scholarly discussion about Rabmam!? This is the strangest decision I saw here. Hope our esteemed mods reconsider and focus on posts that are using inappropriate language and slander multitudes of Jews for no good reason.

I think it was ben Azzai who was thinking Hashem for so many people working hard to make his breakfasts – farmers, traders, marketers …

In our times, thank Hashem for chinese workers putting your phone together, American engineers planning obsolescence so that your fridge will be cheaper to make (and thus cheaper for you to buy in a competitive economy), for those who put money into retirement funds and thus indirectly invest in the most successful companies, making those companies to quickly get capital to create new fancy products for you. Literally, billions of people support your existence. Be grateful, do not complain and apply yourself to Torah and mitzvos. The same way, the cow gets fulfilled by your kosher eating it, the phone assembler gets fulfilled by you learning tosfos on that phone.

Gemorah describes Jewish nationalists who rebelled against the Romans and inability of Rabbonim to control them (R Yochanan b Zakkai and his nephew).

You can read Gemora Gittin as how inter-Jewish fights bring external attacks when one side appeals to them against the others. As Henry Kissinger observed “Israel does not have international politics, only domestic”.

For a more learnt discussion, I suggest looking at R Berel Wein who brings both Jewish and non-Jewish sources.

ujm, there were multiple mysterious posters at the beginning of Russian invasion into Ukraine with such views that then disappeared. You got some very chassidishe people not only writing in Yinglish, but having impressive history knowledge correlated to soviet textbooks. I presumed they were part of Russian cyber war where they went into all kind of online publications. Are you their long-term resident and got new orders?

There is more historical anti-semitism in Ukraine (and in Poland, and in Lithuania, and in Germany) than in Russia – for a simple reason: Russian empire did not allow Jews enter it, with few exceptions. Even after Russia conquered Polish areas with large Jewish population, those were limited to beyond the “Pale” – previous borders of Russia (incidentally, “beyond the Pale” is something that applies to your posts too!). As to current population, a large swath of Ukraine is Western-oriented (and many are currently in Europe). They can’t be that antisemitic as they voted for a Jewish comic as President, however assimilated. Russia mostly stayed the same it was under Czars and Commies.

But I will give you. As much as I think it is reasonable for Ukrainian Jews to defend their country against an invasion, it will be reasonable for Russian Jews to defend their country when Chinese attack it. As to participation in an invasion, directly or indirectly, see writings of Abraham Heschel who cryptically writes in 1930s, under Nazi censorship, that Sephardi Jews were prosecuted but avoided being victimizers themselves – as they would have been during La conquista de América if they were to join the invasion. This was written for those German Jews who lamented that they were not accepted as true german nationalists… Same applies to nebach russian jews

I am with none the 2nd for delegating cleaning to the family. Amom, it might drive you insane first to force your children to clean after themselves, but this will pay off longer-term.

It is a mitzvah for parents to educate their children in Torah, middos, jobs, and work ethics. Especially for girls, Gemora in Kiddushin calls to beautify them for marriage. So, teach her beautiful middos and prepare her for a job that will let her buy herself jewelry.

Find your daughter a job in your town, make sure she works honestly, find a private teacher or teach her yourself in things she needs and wants to learn; compensate her lack of fun with trips to EY and other places. Explain to her that the name of the seminary is used in shidduch resumes to reject people who go to a “wrong” type. Instead, she will be asked “why didn’t you go to seminary” – and you’ll explain and refer to the Talmid or Talmidah chachoma that taught her and knows her so well, and families who do not understand this will happily reject themselves, reducing your workload.

ujm >Are you open to hearing and potentially accepting the view that Zionism is diametrically opposed to Judaism

I think we all here spent some time patiently listening to these positions. If some, sometimes, inappropriately responded in less than polite way, that was after that position was repeated 100th times same way ignoring all the opposing arguments. And, in truth, this is not what arguments here were about. Nobody here would argue that anti-religious Zionism is against Torah, as any anti-religious movement is, by definition. The question is about how to relate to such Jews and how to cooperate or not with them in politics, and how to relate to other religious Jews who find zechut in non-religious Zionists.

HaKatan > None of your arguments about how they need to better understand hilchos basar viChalav are in any way relevant to all of that. Let them understand basar biChalav as well as they can. But they do not need to learn gemara just like the men do.
amom> my father would pull out the Artscroll Gemarah, and I would do it with him… masechtos in Succah, and the masechtos that have to do with the moon’s cycle

HaKatan, maybe I was not clear. This educated women need to have access to Judaism at comparable level they have to other areas of knowledge. In amom’s case – she is teaching math, so her father wisely showed her where Judaism uses math. It helped her integrate her knowledge of math with Judaism. And maybe answer silly students who would say – Rabban Gamliel did not know math, why should I … (the answer to the silly question: R Gamliel had 1000 students in his household learning Torah and 1000 learning Greek, whatever that was. Note that numbers are symbolically the same).

So, ladies who learned philosophy, economics, educational theories (hope these mean something to you) would surely benefit from knowing Jewish sources on these subjects, whether they are super-frum or whether they are marginally affiliated. I once attended a lecture by a super-frum psychologist. She made a great effort integrating Jewish traditional views on child education with her practice and tracing it through century. I was so impressed by her effort that when she made a mistake in her math that undermined her core argument, I did not raise the question 🙂

Well, there is such thing as national unity and, therefore, obligations. We have this discussion in Gemora about Egyptians suing Jews in greek courts for stuff we took out and Jews countersuing for slavery. So, the subject itself is legit. Did white Americans compensated former slaves sufficiently? If not accounting for deaths and sufferings, then probably the appropriate measure would be – were they given sufficient property comparable to current West Africans, such as Liberia (that was founded by freed American slaves).

Satmar Rabbi by the way of katan> verything (infrastructure?) the Zionists made will be destroyed and that, yes, if the

Ponevezher Rov disagreed: as he was building yeshivos, he became a bohen in construction. As he was passing a construction site for a Histadrut building, he reprimanded the builders for not using reinforced steel. They were amazed at his knowledge of the trade and also wondered why he cared about quality of a Histadrut building. He replied that he believes that there will eventually be a yeshiva there too, so he does not want it to have a shaky foundation.

> For those without a smartphone that they check frequently,

Put your sefer there. Or get into habit of talking to the kid and have them on your mind, so you’ll notice that he is not answering.

Another trend that I read about several years ago, but should still be on presumably: rise in number of child injuries, esp in the parks. As nothing is happening, parents or babysitters look at the phone and sometimes at the kids. Turns out something might happen when the caregiver is looking at the phone … This is clear halocha for a worker to pay 100% attention to his work, kal vehomer to your own kid. See also the story about Mittele Rebbe so engrossed in his phone, oops sefer, that did not hear little Tzemach Tzedek crying.

> I did not argue that women cannot be doctors or the like. Regardless, as mentioned, it is still an MO delusion/modernity to decide that girls “need to learn gemara” regardless of, liHavdil, how much secular knowledge they do or don’t have. One has nothing to do with the other.

It does. And the parallel to BY is here. Arguably, there was no urgency in women’s Jewish literacy pre-modern era – they learnt halochos from their mothers and did not have other options. And they obviously learnt – as their heilike learnt husbands and sons were eating food from the kitchens. During 1900s, those women went from families to cities, got exposed both to education and other things and they were quickly losing their connection to Yiddishkeit.

Jump to now. You may not know many Jewish ladies who became doctors or lawyers or, lo aleinu, professors. We don’t even need to argue whether this is a good thing or not. It is what it is. So, these ladies can discuss philosophy at the level of R Soloveitchik or more. They might know psychology, literature, and math. They are not satisfied when they are given a quick review of kitchen halochos. They might be mostly ordering food or letting their heimishe husbands cook anyway.

Now, you might be confused what “gemora” they should be learning. I wrote before but nobody is reacting, maybe I am belaboring am obvious point. Gemora dies not have to be daf yomi or tosfos. Gemorah (al pi Rambam) means understanding of reasons behind halochos and ability to derive decisions. So, these women who have capacity to make medical diagnosis should be able to understand what happens when her coffee spills into her cholnt.

We have an example of this: Drisha quotes his mother on saying brocha before lighting yom tov candles. A poshute woman might get confused by the difference from shabbos, but this learned lady had no problem understanding interplay between several halochos here. That’s “gemora”.

This is not the first time when Jews were found on two sides – there were Jews in Austrian and Russian armies during WW1 (aka Great War). There were reports of Jewish soldiers seeing tzitzis on the niftarim and wounded in the enemy trenches.

In the case of Jews in the Russian army, if they are there against their will, maybe we should include them into tefilos for shevuyim? If they are there voluntarily, then maybe honen hadaas, ask Hashem to give them sechel, and if they are real reshayim then in minim. I doubt, though, that there are many – It seems that most of russian army recruits are contractors from prisons and remote areas.

none2: weight loss everyone is different and every person has value.

of course. But given weight statistics of the population, we can conclude that a large portion of the population is not in control of their urges or do not care about their health and marriage prospects. Same goes for men who have no job prospects. A specific person might have his own reasons, but statistically speaking, they do not care about supporting their families or expect government, whether zionist or goyishe, to take care of them. Short men are somewhat different, unless their parents starved them. Some people anecdotally reported seeing much shorter population in Jewish enclaves, possibly due to diet and lack of vitamin D, but as it would affect both boys and girls, this might not be a source for a shidduch problem.

Can we step back for a second. Looking at all the proofs on both sides of this well-documented and exhaustive – and exhausting – thread.

So, the proposition is that Jews as a nation are not allowed to do certain things. The material for that is one agadta with several commentaries, mostly in the 20th century. I do understand that a national state was not on a horizon for many centuries, but still the issue of such national importance would deserve larger halachik attention over time. And if we conclude that the issue is important but was neglected over centuries, then we need to sound an alarm and devote more resources to this analysis, and maybe in a more serious and honest, less-partisan, way rather than relying on several Rabbonim who issued their opinions on this important topic on both sides. I am not dismissing those opinions, just saying more is required. Compare, for example, with early teshuvos on electricity and such questions as opening a fridge on shabbos. Early teshuvos are by now totally forgotten when people got used to devices in homes and Rabbis learned a little more about physics.

Here is an anecdote from early Israeli life that illustrates how view on halocha changes when there is a state (legitimate or not). Israeli police had to deal with genavim and gazlonim who would steal cars on Shabbos. They asked a shaila and a Rov explained that this is just property, so obviously you cannot drive to catch them, but, for public policy reasons, you can do midrabonans such as use a bike. You just need to picture yourself mishtara following on a bike the thieves in the cars. Another rav allowed the cars in order to prevent all cars being driven into Jordan.

> is talking about a band of violent non-Jewish troublemakers, whose defeat by local jews would certainly be fully endorsed by and praised by the non-Jewish authorities.

Russian word “pogrom” is defined as an attack by troublemakers who are implicitly supported by the government. Would you endorse organizing a response in this case?

What if my ancestors were the unlawfully seized property? Can I sue for the right to reside at the houses of the former owners?

> MO’s claim to “need” this for their women – when no Orthodox women needed this

Somehow, before Chofetz Chaim and Gerer Rebbe endorsed BY – nobody was teaching women Chumash and Prikei Avos – or even reading Hebrew. And “nobody” includes Chofetz Chaim himself. In his writings in 1920s, I found a lot of laments about non-Orthodox and cultural schools for boys, and only several mentions of women’s education: one said “do not send girls to gymnasiums” (i.e. there were even no non-O schools to oppose, only Polish ones) – and no alternative suggested, just “do not send”, and then an article about halochos of mikva that he suggests that women who know how to read teach to those who do not. He is not suggesting teaching them to read … So, were you to live in his times, you would say “no orthodox women need this” – and you would be able to quote lots of rabbis to support your position.

As to Jewish women having great general education and knowing sciences and being doctors – being a “problem”: (1) of course, it is not, (2) even if you are successful in keeping “your women” away from the books, it is a reality that there are a lot of Jews already exposed to general culture and one should try to educate them in their Judaism. This was understood before R Soloveitchik. For example, Ponevezh Rav opened a school for girls in Ponevezh, Lithuania (1930s?) that out-competed a non-religious school by offering high-quality secular school. That is, local gvirim did not mind giving their girls Jewish education – but they wanted to first ensure genEd. Only combining them together worked.