Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
> working person” is someone who learns 8 hours a day
a very relevant quote, even if not fully accurate. Rambam says MT 1:12 “for example” and mentions “baal umanut” – a craftsman, a person skilled/educated in a profession. Reading between lines, this seems first like his ideal case that he wants people to strive for. He is not bringing an example of a merchant traveling or a sheep-herder … So, it seems that he will also not approve so much of people working overtime and then sleeping through classes. As to actual halakha, he requires a set time both during day and during night, without specifying amounts. Books depicting pre-war Lita mention how poor Yidden will change their look into a more dignified one by the end of the work day when they go to shul and then learn with kavanah between mincha and maariv (satisfying above Rambam) after a tiring day.
Another difference might be how society views images at a time: a golden calf was a sensation, but might not have been in Manhattan with all the gold on display … During early internet times, I was helping a Rav to make a webpage and a mailing list. We had an idea to put a picture of the family but Rebetzin said her kids will not be on the “Net” for vague ayn hara reasons. Nowadays, when everyone has their pictures on instagram, things are different.
RebE > היו עיניך רואות את מוריך you should see your teacher or rebbi.
So, this means zoom and video classes better than phone or recordings? And oen should actually look at the Rebbi during zoom class?
As Avira says, this may depend on what the purpose is. A testimony from some Yerushalmis whom I encountered at the Wall: Scandinavian tourists wanted to make a photo with them, they flatly refused in broken English. When tourists left, I enquired about their view. They responded in excellent English (maybe they did not want to talk in modern Hebrew) that the tourists will take photos to their church, but if I want to make a picture that might inspire some American Jews, they’ll be happy to oblige.
if you see certain kashrus issues as chumra rather than halocha and you are in financial difficulties (get tuition discounts, collect government tzedoko, your wife has to work, can’t afford a good esrog, etc) – would it make sense to get hatarsas nedorim and save on chumros (if you saw a Sotah lately and feel like you need nazrut to save your neshomo – take cheaper chumros instead).
How do you know that you di9miss 5 guys on the previous train 🚂?
> , there was no defendant, no prosecutor, no lawyer defender and no judge either.
> Besides, there are a gazillion exceptions to the hearsay rule.
~~~~~~~
and this is why they are called _hearings_yes, every wife needs her own house. Do people learn marital halochos before the chuppah?! Maybe you need to learn in a Sepahrdishe place, their Rabonim know these halochot better.
so, either the husband needs to qualify for 2 mortgages, or the 2nd wife needs to come with her ketubah from her previous marriage.
> Do kollel men or Torah teachers not have wives?
Indeed, these exact words is what a Mussar rebbe’s wife whispered to his father when he attempted a mussar shmooze after Shabbos Maariv 🙂 The difference is that the working man’s wife can tell her husband to go work harder, look for another job. Wife of a person with limited work prospects has it harder, especially as she initially signed up for it. Let’s even say, she is ready to continue live in poverty provided he learns, but she sees that he lost interest and is biding his time. Of course, she can read him some mussar, but can she make him to love learning again to be worthy of her hardships?!
> if we were talking about a family struggling with the idea of taking their kids out of public school to put them into a frum school
you are right. For me it was shocking because the parents are both learned and at least one has great middos. They understood what the kid needs but felt trapped. I would be indeed less shocked knowing what some am haaretz would do. I think you are kind-off see my position as corrupt learners v. honest amei haaretz. Not so. I am suggesting that learnt Jews should grow in their middos (and learning) not that they should lower themselves.
I think I posted one part in a different thread about comparative ethical behavior in chinuch and general jobs. A lost post, $1 reward for finding it …
another aspect – comparative effect. An accountant may lose some money; a doctor – someone’s life, teachers/Rabbis – someone’s neshomos … To invert a famous comparison that respect to a Rav is more than to a Parent: giving olam habo v. haze: then a bad teacher is worse than a bad parent; if a mother is tired and does not want to feed the kid, or father watches TV all evening, the kid only loses out some olam haze; but a teacher who is not inspiring loses the kid.
To admit, a part of current system of keeping low salaries is designed to only keep dedicated teachers. As one principal argued to me that his teachers might make mistakes, but at least they are not malicious: “they are not here for the money”. This might have worked earlier, but now there are so many people who do not have other job prospects that they are going into chinuch out of necessity. Again, maybe OOT gets it worse and things are different in the heart of Jewish civilization.
market forces: seems that easier to be an honest doctor than teacher. I am aware that I am contradicting R Salanter here: someone said that he is burnt out in shechita as he is afraid of aveiros and wants to go into business. R Salanter said that there are more potential aveiros in business.
Still, most jobs in free countries are competitive and regulated. So, outside of actual fraud, most people do their jobs decently even if their yetzer harah tells them otherwise. At the same time, “Jewish” jobs are more protected, medieval style, and hinge on diligence of principals and Rabbis. When raising questions about chinuch, I often heard “trust me” or “trust Hashem”, in one extreme case, “where else are you going to go now”. I quoted already a Rav here who was told to trust Hashem on who the 6th grade teacher will be next year, replied that his check will meanwhile be in Hashem’s escrow .. R Kamenetsky and R Ruderman recalled their 2nd grade Rebbe and blamed him that “only” two of them became T’Ch from their class … I am not saying that everyone is like that, H’V. I am saying – the system allows that. There are good reasons for this, as our current system is an emergency response to Shoah and assimilation and a lot of good results were achieved, but we are living in this emergency for 80 years already.
Maybe we can think how we can introduce right social measures – accountability, transparency, competition – to make systems work better. This is not new – halakha specifically allows unlimited competition in chinuch to make it affordable. That might mean, for example, breaking up big schools into smaller classes; online options; making schools less ideological so that people can choose different school without fear of indoctrination into another hashkofa; “rate my rebbe” .com, publishing test results (both Torah and secular) …
but I digress. The relevant point here is that the less competitive nature of chinuch allows for less ethical behavior. Allows, nit requires, but some people might take advantage.
This is a good question on difference between Torah and general jobs, thanks to both of you for raising it. Again, maybe I am too sensitive here to the holiness v other jobs, following rambam .. let me try to clarify where I see differences:
Maybe those yetzer tov verah? If you get another person with his two personalities to join in the debate, then it will be 2 against 1.
Yetzer tov cares about 2nd person but not yetzer ra
This is a good lesson in halochos edut … Some witnesses are called, others are not.. with all the excitement, I am not even sure what is a potential charge? Assault on the secret service? Attempted driving without a license? Hate crime?
I am also reminding that Trump was previously accused of lying to his supporters that he will go with them. Turns out he actually tried.
Yes to observing people when they were young… You can do this for free as you are getting older and you can compare people in the younger and older ages. Now you can look at youngsters and predict where they are going
> you cant know what someone would say i
There are gemoras wondering “what would Rav say here”, most likely meaning that they re deducing his decision based on known positions. Same could be done here – as lng as you fairly take into account known positions. My guess that R Ahron would have moved is based on him saying that he established Lakewood on purpose far enough from the main community.
Reb E, there are (were?) some expectations in the society:
Yevamos ~110 talks abut a (rich) blind person who volunteered 400 zuz for a bride, saying that having a wife is a better idea that just hiring a maid .. (thus, he pays twice for getting both in the same person)>> MAJORITY OF BAVLIIM WOULD COME TO THE YESHIVA FOR 2 MONTHS
Kallah was in Adar and Elul. See, for example,
Brochos 17, Rav Ashi on Mata Measiya, see Rashi & tosfos
Bava Metzia 86 about Rabba, see Rashi> Burnout is not exclusive to klei kodesh.
I may be too sensitive here. When someone is burnt out by being a merchant or a doctor, he can still work to provide parnosa to the family and, hopefully, does quality job selling or x-raying. If he is failing, there are systems in place – competition, management that will push him out. When you are learning or teaching (and I lumped in teaching as it is _sometimes_ a consequence of learning and not having other job prospects) – you are failing in Torah or in raising young neshomos. do we have modern mechanisms of quality control here? tests? transparency?
> Why is that shocking?
That a learnt couple of teachers can not get their own kid out of bad situation… other people are not in the position where they are tied to a school job (evek avdut?). The context was that the lady thanked me for taking my kid out – turns out that helped her to convince her husband to do the same (and she previously was a great teacher for my kids, btw)> Do we have mechanisms to prevent workaholic husbands
yes, it is called a wife. A workaholic has a chance to work less. Someone without an occupation and with peer pressure has harder time to change his ways.> How are they not doing it of their own free will?
They may have signed up out of free will, or out of community pressure. They may think it is time to change, but expectations are set and alternatives are scarce. Good tzedoka collectors are sensitive to the customers and try not to pressure people beyond what they really want to give … works well in a long term.you can use Karl Popper’s definition of a “theory” – it has to have plausible data that would disprove it. If a theory can “explain away” any data, it is not really a theory.
In this case, T is accused of “trying to go with the mob”. Previously, when everyone assumed it was his decision not to go – he was accused of provoking them and not even joining them.
Cacn they be hevrusos? Or do different personalities share memory?
Wolf has a good point. We lost neshamot, and we later gained neshamot… Maybe current neshamos are some substitutions for the ones that were lost? Maybe the originals were better? Not sure how much qabalah is allowed in CR.
Also, if you are concerned that your father is from Vilno and mother from Budapest – who says that your father would not have travelled to Budapest during peaceful 20th century and met your mother anyway? bashert is bashert …
for 7 to 10-y.o.s, I was able to claim for several years that you go to sleep at the hour according to the age, so yes, their older siblings stay till 12, but they are “only 8” so should go at 8….
yaakov,
all prices are going up, some may be faster than others, that may be the only difference.maybe more competition than price controls? Or a traditional boycott? Ask your Rav to authorize drinking chalav stam (or rent-a-cow) until prices drop.
It is an interesting illustration – when government distorts the markets, people immediately ask for more regulations to save themselves from previous government mistakes. Hashem yerachem.
Avira, I am not standing by any of the authors or publications I am quoting. So, if you want to perform letzinut b’humra, you would have to contact then directly. Sevorot stand on their own. Feel free to reply on substance.
Avira > chazal’s authority in all areas
you have to be more specific on what you mean here. chazal’s authority is collective, of course. We have amoraim presenting a position, but then rescinding it when someone else brings a baraita. This is normal. There are many social takanot that hinge on the result.
Say, R Huna would buy leftover vegetables at the end of the market day. But, now farmers have cellphones and abuse it by quickly sharing the news and bringing more vegetables to sell to R Huna. Will R Huna insist on his minhag or change his policy?
Avira, as I am not always up to detail of kollel lifestyle, you have outdated info about working yidden: a day of 9 hours working and 6 hours sleeping leaves 9 hours daily, that may or may not include – 2 hours of learning-while-driving; 30+30+15 minutes of the minyan; 1 hour learning w/ kids maybe while eating dinner or driving them; there are 4 hours left for learning at kollel. This is not counting 18 extra hours per weekend and vacations.
That said, I agree that full-time work is overkill. A real baal middos should work maybe 4 hours a day leaving plenty of time for learning & chesed. This would be Rambam’s middle way, but I do not know people who follow it.
Avram > . I also find it interesting that the CR is not full of angry kollel wives bemoaning their fates.
A fair point. I saw a number of people of all genders working in chinuch who are burnt out with the lifestyle. As a shocking illustration, one complained to me that her husband did not want to move the kid to another school for several years because they both worked in the current school and it was “free”. But you are right, a lot of kollel wives are nashim chayil and do not complain here (although they have their own site).
And I am not at all claiming that something is majority or typical. I am asking – whether we have mechanisms to prevent abuses, however rare they might be. Gemora brings examples of women upset by away husband, so it is not unthinkable.
I out in-laws on the list of possibly non-kosher funding for the reason that if the in-laws are not doing it fully out of their free will, there is avak geneiva here.
Suggestion of working less is accepted, Avira already mentioned that. My understanding that majority of Bavliim would come to the yeshiva for 2 months and go work the rest of the year while reviewing the masechet on their own.
ok, then, I’ll go to the time when I was younger and review all the learning that I already forgot. This is what we will be tested for, not what other generations did.
Avira, gemora generally respects facts and logic. To understand your position better, I would like to see your examples of, say, Amoraim, researching facts and then paskening against the facts. I am sure there are some examples when we “do not believe our eyes”, but let’s analyze what are limits.
For example, there is a discussion between Jewish and Greek scholars whether the world was created and seemingly Greeks won the argument, but Jews are staying with our position due to the strength of the tradition (some of the conclusions may be Tosfos, not fully in Gemorah times).I understand that this is due to the incompleteness of the Greek proof. Were they to be shown a video recording of the eternal world (I guess this would have been an eternal video), they would have agreed.
n0, great, they could not find retzicha and geneiva, now let’s do thought crimes…
Korach also davened, I presume.
the question is asked on the right day:
I would go to Sarajevo, June 28th 1914. Would park my horse on Archduke’s path to the assassination, possibly preventing terrible WWs. Nobody would say thank you, but that’s ok.Alan Jotkowitz in The Intersection of Halakhah and Science in Medical Ethics, Hakirah 19, 2015 compares Tzitz eliezer with R Moshe on several other topics – time of death, eod of life care, artificial insemination, .. and conckudes that Tzitz Eliezer leans towards more conservative positions relying on classical halakhic decisions without taking modern science into account, while R Moshe is more “modern” (my words, not his). For example, he rejects paternity disproof by blood type, relying on Gemora’s position that all “red” (including blood) comes exclusively from the mother.
n0, so he fulfils his ketuba, what is your issue with him?… Is he depressed? Maybe you should not try to put him into a (learning) institution, but find something that will excite him to learn?
> what do you say to someone who is just sitting and not learning?
you don’t need to say anything to him, except a polite hello. At some point, he’ll get hungry and will have to get up.
n0 > how can one be ‘holy of holies’ and the other an embarrassment to religion?
Maybe you are mis-reading the Shmita Rambam through your own reading (“Yaakov wearing hat from yete m’BeerSheva). He is saying that the ideal T’Ch should follow derech Levi, being a giving teacher… Did Leviim only sang and taought? They had their cities where they probaqbly grew cucumbers and radishes for themselves … yes, they collected maaser, but I am not sure Rambam includes that in his ideal. Maybe you see more in close reading or commentaries
The most effective way woudl be, to quote Reb Regan, “for Jimmy Carter (3rd) to lose his job”. Reduce problems that government creates for businesses, make sure people expect that their businesses will not be vilified and regulated.
As expected, the issue is now back part of public discourse, after being frozen for 50 years by the courts. I don’t know whether it will lead to some mature conclusions or will be ugly. I guess, Hashem gives people bechira hofshit .. for now, some arguments are somewhat inartful – one article bemoans that colleges are concerned. I thought they are concerned by a need to reduce “fun” on campus, maybe making them less popular. Turns out their concern is even simpler – they are concerned that mothers will have hard time studying and will drop out.
Daas, if you were to drink the same good stuff I do, you would notice that I referred a _greater_ r Moshe – son of Maimon. I am not trying to rank Rabonim, I am just replying to those who do it as a way to quash other opnions. I am also in no way support Roe, just trying to understand the range of halakha that is absolute and what are the social components. As Gefilte mentions, it is possible that R Moshe was reacting to the social conditions (and I have no problem with that too).
Sometimes we want to understand what is the range of acceptable opinions especially on controversial social topics that are not yet fully resolved. No need to shortcut the debate by saying that nobody could argue with r Moshe. Same way so many found ways to go directly against an even greater (with apology) r Moshe’s position on Shanda of getting $ for Torah teaching, not even learning.
Avira > Americans are wildly against most of the 7 mitzvos being capital offenses.
Actually, I did rough estimates, 5 out of 10 comm on the havero side are ordered according to popularity in current society if you take them literally: a tiny percentage of people kill, with increasing frequency going further.
Reb Clarence Thomas has a new book out. In excerpts he quotes his grandfather who looked at the newly constructed “projects” and remarked – they are building houses, not communities. It is not enough to wish away helping poor – you need to actually know how to achieve it. See Rambam’s priority list.
Syag > Danger has criteria
Right. I was just pondering this. We can put some numerical values on mixtures – 1/60, 1/100 and on preponderance of evidence (50%), but I am not seeing good definition of “danger” or just “this might happen”. Anyone knows?
Gemora has a lot of discussions weighing dangers of missing out on something v. remote risk (not necessarily to health, maybe just of public confusion). On the current page – should we allow yibum under some confusing and rare circumstances when someone somewhere might see that and not realize what exactly is happening and learn halakha incorrectly. While the weights are not clear to me, what is clear that every time we can avoid risk, we should consider it seriously. Very common solution in Yevamos – do halitzah instead of yibum, something you would not do if there was no risk at all.As to socks – what if a shidduch date is already driving? what if she is gonna steal socks from her sister or even brother, risking lives in the upcoming fight? what about mental stress on her mother?
So, I usually take such calls at work (btw, my kids consider calling rude, they text) – at least first 2-3 per incident.Try lending money for free, Chofetz Chaim considers it a bigger mitzva.
A couple of halachik reasons:
– people in need of loans are more limited in their choices. You can go to multiple places asking for $20, but to get a serious loan, you can only go to people who know you or are willing to do due diligence
– loans are often for people how are temporarily down and see a way to get back on their feet. It is a great mitzva to help thme now before they become totally ruined.You also have a great feeling of relief when you are finally (after some delays) get paid back, and the other person stops avoiding you. And you can lend that money again!
If you don’t get paid, consider that you finally did what you tried to do to begin with – to give tzedokah. (just do not lend more than what you wanted to give).
No price controls. He is simply printing money to give to those who are lacking and forcing companies to produce formula or whatever other markets his decrees destroyed.
ujm, a good question:
most increase will be in the most restrictive states and those are very pro-Republican, so it should not dilute much. Economic migration from high tax states to the free states is a bigger threat. Maybe states can introduce taxes on new arrivals only if they vote same way as they voted before, although there are some technical problems with this approach.n0mesorah, thanks a lot. I did not know that Sefaria’s gemora is using R Steinsaltz! Woe to me for not recognizing it … I think I looked up what Seforia sources are before 2017. I don’t recall whether they had Bavli then at all. Also, they are using mathematician’s Heinrich Guggenheimer 2015 translation for Yerushalmi.
Edited
Jackk, I looked up polling about the committee:
45% of independents approve their work and 20% of Repubs, so not much traction with Indies, but some with anti-Trump R-s.on hearings (literally sheni vhamishi – June 13 and 16):
20% of Ds listened in full, 8% of Is and 5% of Rs did
44% of Ds did not listen at all, I 68% R 75%
they do not seem to have data on the rest of hearingson minute details:
Only 40% of Dems heard nothing at all about some lady paid $60K for a short speech, 60% of R-s and I-s did not hear that.
30% of Ds did not hear anything about a judge talking about “war on democracy”, 50% of the rest.
30% of Ds did not hear about email asking T for a pardon, 50% of Rs and Is did not
for comparison:
40% of all group did not hear that some Elon M. voted R first time in his life
only 20% ! in each group heard nothing about some doctor getting positive for Covid
13% of Ds and Is and 10% of Rs did not hear about inflation (no car?)
50% of all groups did not hear that border Patrol arrests on Mexican border are record high