Always_Ask_Questions

Gadol, a good point.

I don’t know whether Putin will drink a wrong tea or will fall from a balcony while going to the bathroom, but I can predict that Putin will die on a yom tov.

We should also stop lobbying for an interest of a small group of people IF it negatively affects a lot of other people. Unbecoming for religious people.

Btw, it is shown that people who live in the Eastern side of the time zone have higher IQ and income than people in the western part. This is shown by comparing nearby cities on the border of time zones.
Presumably because people in the East get more sleep in the morning, and in general.

let it be our biggest challenge. Just learn chasidus for 3 hours before.

There is a gemora maybe in a couple of places about Israeli Rabonim coming to Bavel and eating sweet and cheap figs – and praising Bavel same night. And cursing it next morning – after having stomach problems.

I lost the count – how many votes for or against stone-drinking. I am for and against Avira’s notion of turning around “common sense”. On one hand, my father A’H used to say similarly “if majority is for this, this is (probably) a wrong thing to do”. [not to reject, but to investigate].

On the other hand, depends how you define “common sense”. It indeed could be based on assimilation of foreign ideas and wrong as described, but sometimes common sense (aka “peshita”), when well grounded in facts and logic, is a good defense against pilpul that can lead you afar. Or a shorter version by R Twersky: hard to heal a smart alcoholic, who fools himself.

In this case, if one prefaces his halakhic pilpul with middos and detrech eretz, then you can easily conclude that it is very possible to fulfil mitzvos of Purim without getting drunk, and given the negatives, one should do exactly that. Then, you don’t need to throw Sh’A quotes at your learned teen, but just tell him – continue being a mench.

There are reports from Poland that when Nazis were burning shuls, some Communists will run in and were killed trying to take the Sifrei Torah out.

Gadol, you are right. So, the smart chusid who ate gebrochts could have done grudgingly bemoaning that he is breaking his minhag, or he could said – I am doing kavod haTorah and shalom u’reut. Same goes for lighting fire on shabbos to save life; not going to shul when coughing; etc. From daf – a yibum performer could be lamenting that he is getting involved with his brother’s wife that was asur to him …

Gadol, I partly agree with Barr –
Trump was and probably is more electable than many other R-s who do not fight back after being attacked with dirty tricks. Somehow we all are more outraged by Trump’s antics than by how he was attacked. I guess “man bite dog” …

But I also think that his policies are better of many of R-s who might talk well but lack skills. I am afraid the new R- fashion is exactly to talk like Trump, but not to perform like him.

Frankly, given that Biden is still somewhat sane, he should do the right thing and hire Trump as chief of staff and let him deal with Ptutin. Also, Germans should hire Merkel back (reportedly she was the last politician Putin respected).

warning to those from Lemberg and Chelm who are machmir on drinking – this year you can’t fulfil it on Stoli from moris ayn. It is actually owned by Laplandians but amei haaretz think it is m’Rashayim.

Beruria would tell you that you used too many words. You could have asked
teenagers to drink? or
to drink excessively?

huju >Be careful with your money

you don’t have to be too careful, just a little bit more than with your own money. You would not buy a house based on such representation without doing home inspection, so don’t do the same with porr people’s money. Shmuel’s father was putting orphan’s money between 2 layers of his – to keep from water on the bottom and robbers on the top

Gadol, I presume that at the time of the psak, selling of matza was much closer to the women who were baking them – and maybe even cheaper and better than the early machine matzah. And it is better to give someone a job thn tzedokah. I do not know what percentage of current matza price goes to poor women in Yerushalaim or Lemberg. If it is high somewhere, I would advocate buying from there. Anybody knows? Any company volunteering this information?

2011 > Is $18.50 a pound very expensive
2022> At $32 / lb (where I live) is considered mid rang

this thread should be useful for economists to track inflation (or affluence of Yidden). Assuming 2% inflation for 10 years and 10% last year, the price is still 30% higher. So, B’H, Yidden are ready to pay for mitzvos.

Is anyone promising any Uman davening lately?

Syag, I considered the points, did my research (17 days, etc), and concluded that I don’t see how it can be connected. I am open to other possible explanations if you have them. Then, the next question who would send around rumors that seemingly have no basis under them, so that OP thinks that the book is wrong?

lostspark > so I guess I’m ignorant as well.

I think objection is not to you eating handmade matzah, but to considering those who do not wrong.

The question of requiring being meikel on matza may be only for people who live off charity, they may need to ask the sponsors whether they approve the etra expense. I wonder what is halakha id the sponsor thinks that handmade matza is a luxury, while the recipient think it is halakha? Especially if Issahar considers himself more learned and frum than Zevulun. Can he lie l tzoreh mitzva? can he redirect funds from buying clothes, and walk in old ones, and buy matza instead?

Anyone learned by Immanuel Kant? Maybe he witnessed Moses Mendelsohn visiting the philosopher? Someone recorded how the door of the auditorium opened and suddenly a very inappropriately dressed Jew with a hunchback entered the room for some reason. Before students were able to shoo him away. Kant stopped lecturing and ran to greet MM.

Syag > – there were people who died from covid that they coincidently got very shortly after the vaccine with no exposure to covid.

I see what you mean now, thanks.

I do not discount that a vaccine can be a stress on the body and in some marginal cases make someone’s condition worse. As I suggested before, and CDC now says the same, people should have more than 2 months between vaccines.

Now what is the physical explanation of this hypothesis – of getting covid after the vaccine? It is not physically possible to get for the vaccine, this is not live vaccine, or do you question that? maybe vaccination procedure be unsafe, exposing a usually careful person to unvaccinated? if a room is not ventilated, then coming after a sick person may lead to exposure. Could it be a case of covid tester doinf or interpreting antibody test incorrectly – one test is sensitive to vaccine, another is not? doubtful, but possible, I guess.. other than that, I am at a loss what would be the explanation be other than a random coincidence. Maybe this (again, assuming there is statistical association which I am not aware of as of now): a person has weakness after vaccination, that causes him to get tested for covid, so gets diagnosed with a higher chance than otherwise,.

particular case sounds even more doubtful – the Rav was diagnosed 17 days after the first vaccine; documented heart problems were in days 2 to 5, 17 sound like a stretch; and for the first vaccine, age groups starting from 30 see no increase in myocarditis cases.

I am also not sure why those concerned with vaccinations are focused on the cases of covid after vaccination. I would think they should focus on cases when someone was vaccinated and did not have covid; unless they are suggesting that vaccine causes covid in some way.

RR44, if I understand your posts right, you think that he was possibly niftar due to the vaccine. Publicly available information seem to suggest that he got covid and was sick for a week from that. Unless you have some definite information that the above is incorrect, then – my opinion – the rumors that you quote were generated by people who have some agenda. It does not mean at all that the Rav or people around him had the agenda.

I am glad everyone here are too truthful to take the job! (or at least those who said so).

On the other hand, sometimes you need to do something on behalf of the tzibur (Mordechai being an example).

At the end of Hagigah, there is a statement that Gehinom does not burn Talmidei Chachamim. The question is – what are they doing in Gehinom in the first place? some explain that they are there to help others, which does not seem to fully rhyme with an unqualified statement of the Gemorah. [I did not have time to look it up “thanks” to daf Yomi, if someone did – please post!]

I think here is the connection: A story goes about a group of Rabonim riding a train in Poland in 1920s. They would come out at the stations to meet local Jews who came to greet them. (elderly) Chofetz Chaim stayed inside. (a youngster) R Meir Shapiro (Daf Yomi connection) asked him why he is not coming out. Ch Ch said – it is asur because it is gaavah. R Shapiro asked – and what is the punishment for gaava? Ch Ch thundered: GEHINOM. Oh, said R Shapiro, and is this too much of a punishment to withhold a pleasure of seeing a tzaddik from thousand of Yidden who came to the train!? Ch chaim agreed and started coming out for the rest of the trip. I think they both relied on this Hagigah Gemora that they’ll not get burned. And this also rhymes with the explanation above – that they get to Gehinom because they were doing something for others and, in the process, did something not fully proper.

coffee, jackk would say that D-s would always save us from a depression – just give them enough years and they eventually will (like FDR and Obama, the latter tried to spend 6 years growing slooowly out of recession), or by saying that things would have been worse otherwise (same Obama claiming that 2008 was “great recession” to justify his approach.

Of course, evaluating policy effect is very complicated. Maybe the best one would be to compare educated forecasts with later performance. In recent history, Biden was expected to do even better than Trump, no inflation risk, then temporary inflation, then inflation. Trump was expected to ruin economy and he did not. Obama was expected to improve economy quickly – and he took 6 years.

I read about tzaddik who was in Soviet GULAG when he heard that Stalin is sick. He went to say tehilim asking Hashem to have the rasha died and, in his words, “did not stop until I was told that he died”.

With this maaseh rav precedent, FaceMeta usually forbids calls for death to invaders (and Putin himself?) on the territory of Ukraine, Russia and several countries around it. It is revealing that the list only covers Eastern Europe and Caucasus, the rest of the world can not fully express themselves on meta…

> All people are responsible for the sins and crimes of their ancestors so long as they have not taken any steps towards teshuva.

what is the source of that? I learned that when people continue aveiros of their parents, then they are punished. It is, of course, often a case when a nation continues on the same path as usual, taking previous attitudes for granted. Still, post-Soviet countries went through a lot of changes and they might not have kept same attitudes. I think when we talk about a fully autonomous aggressive nations, like Germany, Russia, then they can’t be treated normally unless they did a formal teshuva, reparations, etc even if this cannot return the lives lost (something Germany did and Russia did a little in the 90s), but it is a different thing when you talk about countries that were subjugated themselves, like Ukraine. If they changed their attitudes, then this should be enough. I am not saying they did, I don’t know enough, although electing a Jewish president with 80% and fighting Russians like they do show something.

Avira, I think, common uses “frum” as a short form for charedi, he is not including regular shomer shabbos Jews.