Always_Ask_Questions

You seem to have 2 concerns:
1) taking away business from the company. Chofetz Chaim would tear up a post office stamp whenever he would send a letter with someone travelling to the same destination. So, this is definitely a valid concern but also a hiddur. Furthermore, in his case, this is an ongoing and self-initiated problem – if a lot of people will stop using mail, the losses will disrupt the service. In your case, it is a once-a-year thing and they made the rules.

2) appearing to be scheming. How about you just tell them your plans and ask their opinion? Only you had to ask an owner, not an employee who does not care. Maybe suggest a small extra fee to make it agreeable.

actually 3) doing business with non-Jews around their holidays. If nobody comes, and here is their regular Jewish customer who helps fill the season, will they praise whoever for that?

Syag, are they now sequencing for individual patients? I thought it is done only “on average” for like 1% of cases. Interesting.

It makes sense that communities that had previous waves will be mostly affected by omicron, plus also high propagation in schools. By the way, we can also learned from the ways of non-Jews: see what propagation is happening when they celebrate and travel and then they stand in long lines to test? Similar things were probably happening in our communities during holidays, it just did not get in the news.

ujm, I just quoted a psak by R Grodzinsky that uses profound (long term, for others) priorities that evaded the Rabbis who were asking the question (who looked at short-term risk to the people themselves). This should make you think and research what else is out there.

You need to be careful evaluating halakha in some cases. If it was looking at an abstract case dealing with just one parameter – status of people involved – then it does not mean that decision might not be different in other cases. I just brought a psak, there may be more complexities here. Feel free to expand.

Have a check-out system like bottle deposits:
you take a book, put a dollar. you return a book, take a dollar.
if someone does not care and leaves a book, someone else can put it back and take a dollar.

Use tokens on shabbos. Use same tokens for aliyot. You run out of tokens, no aliyot.

yehudis > can be truly heroic .. And on the flip side …no one is intrinsically better than anyone else

I agree and disagree. Truly, a moment of challenge reveals a lot. Gemora defines these moments as “kiso, koso, vekaaso”. And in this case, we had all of this – a lot of financial issues clouding decisions; anger at others for whatever reason, and, I suspect (supported by purchase stats 🙂 – some drinking also.

I disagree with “kulanu shavim”. People whom I respected and looked up to mostly continued doing good things, often more than usual; and those whom I avoided before, it is now easier to keep 4 amot/6 ft away. What was interesting, the Syag’s “third option”, beinoni, I guess, which was the majority of people I know. Many of those revealed to belong to one of the 2 groups Either I did not notcie before, or their character revealed in crisis.

n0 > Modesty is the opposite of needing attention

when a certain senator was trying to define tznius into legislation, he was asked to give a strict definition of what lack of tznius is. He answered: I know when I see it.

RW > psychological reason that they don’t see the actual money leaving their hand

exactly! Paying with a card requires higher psychological efforts to limit yourself from over-spending. Any invisible object is harder to perceive and react accordingly. Same with virus (v. wild animals). Same with Hashem (v. idols).

Rw > how do you explain math of a 100 cents equate to a dollar,

you won’t. With Brandon’s inflation, dollars will be new cents soon. Italians used to pay in “milli-liras” (one word) rather than liras.

Kuvult > treat everyone like a Mensch.

HaGaon Henrich Heine gives a practical advice – try everyone once, just make sure that if someone breaks your trust, make sure you don’t give hi a second chance (this is what we call now “abuse”). you will have some losses, but you can live carefree with some minor losses.

YWN, it is hard to change yourself, but it is almost impossible to change others. So, start with an “easier” task:
– learn the next week parsha and the next masechet for daf yomi.
– have an alternative sefer that you can learn when you can’t find the current one. Something that is not likely to attract attention: uktzin, halakhos emes vesheker, humros in bein Adam l’havero, yiddish edition of Artscroll.
– bring your own sefer
– learn mishnah by heart like in good old times
– just actually daven.

Orange > Users could report tzinius violations while driving

“report while driving” is not safe, unless you meant ” tzinius violations while driving”. This is done better automatically. Online platforms already have skin detectors to censor inappropriate images, just add two lower notches, one for Jews and a lower one for Muslims.

amom, I apologize and sorry for using wrong assumptions. Anyway, for teacher’s salaries – did you look at starting a class teaching in a town that has ore working people and less people capable/having time for teaching. As I put above, $5K x 15 kids = $75K – $25K expenses would give you a salary higher than now. With 2-3 friends and a shul that is willing to give you use of the building, you can thrive and use your talents.

n0, the point was taking public money to support Torah learning when it was not the taxpayer intent.

We had these discussions before. It is obvious that this was not an ideal in olden time, then it becomes an “emergency measure” for the times when community is in danger. But by mow, it is becoming accepted as core value to the degree that here is resentment to people who disagree, do not sufficiently support, and a challenge – support my Torah or some homeless dude.

I am afraid we are losing our values – while trying to preserve them. Again, let’s presume we still need these emergency measures, but somehow we need to ensure that this emergency character is remembered – and, when possible, moved towards a better one. Can a talmid chacham spend two hours a day working, or training to work? If not, maybe one hour? Do we have economic disincentives – he will lose gov benefits and stipend doing that?

amom, you got to take the whole package. These are same democrats that bring all government programs that help you. More “law and order” republicans tend to tie public assistance to work encouragement/requirement. Current welfare work requirements are due to mid 90s Republican reform that reduced number of people on welfare from 13 mln to 3 mln.

amom > Years ago I think it was more common, but today

I think this is because a couple of generation ago, there were working families that spent their meager earnings to send their kids to yeshiva and then even kollel out of love of Torah and out of fear of devastation that was happening with the Jewish community in America. Currently, you often have (statistically, I am not trying to stereotype) parents who do not have serious earnings with, Baruch Hashem, large families, and they are not able to support everyone. Others, and this sounds like your MiL, discovered that there is now a strong community that can support ehriche yidden who earn a living and stay true to Torah, and so they see that their children can combine both. This is a difference of opinions and everyone can easily bring proofs for their side and the answer may be different for different people.

amom > AAQ has equal preference for his taxes helping a T”Ch or a homeless beggar.

I don’t have “equal preference”:
1) There are taxes and rules that democratically elected government designated for poor. Usually, the more poor, the more money. So each person who needs charity, gets it from people who work. So, if people (through their elected representatives) say that they are ready to pay X to each poor person, I do not think it is kosher to pretend to be such a person if you are not. As UJM mentioned, if there are programs that designated for anyone who prefers not to earn money, then, of course, it is more ok to take those.

2) when you present it as a choice, I also do not understand. So, you will not do whatever needs to be done to a homeless person in order to support Torah learning by someone who is capable of working?

> means they are making very little money for a non frum lifestyle and a frum lifestyle is way more expensive

these are all legitimate arguments when you talk to a willing donor who wants to support Torah learning. You tell him what is your “expensive frum lifestyle” and he will tell you what he is willing to support.

Avira > most people would be fuming at their mother in law

I am not sure why we are going into someone’s family, but this is very puzzling. M-I-L supports the family, albeit less than others. In-laws seemingly raised multiple children and made them productive members of society. Fuming at parents for having an opinion (caring) about your life path is not something that a T’Ch would do. Again, I don’t intend to put my nose into someone else’s family.

interesting poll results from Israel, not new just happened on an article. If this contradicts some other numbers, please post!
80% of Jewish Israelis believe in G-d,
another one: 65% convinced of His Existence (60% in US, 40% Italy, 20% UK)
65% consider him author of Torah and mitzvot

Immigrants from FSU:
55% believe in G-d (70% second generation)
24% keeping kosher home (50% second generation)

> Hashem tilted the axis after the mabul.

This can be tested by looking whether older trees have rings, as rings come from seasons.

While concerns about internet are important, we might have acquired enough computer literacy in some pockets in the community, so that a much larger group can now benefit from it. There are now Rabbis with kosher phones that run regular zoom classes, enjoying ability to travel more without breaking the class schedule and have former students who moved away joining the class. At least adults can now start using internet responsibly and carefully introduce it to kids where appropriate.
First advise is to use desktops in common areas with screens towards people rather than laptops and phones.

coffee > because they didn’t teach it is wrong properly

I think Gemora in Makkos 7 says that it is a teiku whether executing 1 in 7 or 70 years makes a court “murderous” due to excessive execution (you can see the reason by the way it asks from 7 to 70 and not other way around). Then R’ Akiva & R Tarfon suggest not executing anyone, and R Shimon b’ Gamliel retorts that they’lll also increase number of murders.

> When Tattes were Tattes

Most people used to have choices within their town and maybe a nearby. A T’Ch may have choices from some other T’Ch and gvirim in a larger area. Now, you have choices all over the world and padded descriptions of each that require FBI investigations. Too many choices lead to unhappiness. There are experiments that having 3 yogurts to choose from makes people happier than having 20.

> How can this be changed?

a Rav or an older respected person should mention this in his speech.
Number bookshelves and attach notes to some seforim on which bookshelf they live.
Also, if you are learning a specific sefer and it is regularly misplaced, put it somewhere hard to find 🙂 Either the other person does not need it much and will take another one, or will spend some time looking and hopefully will understand the problem.
Not for shabbos – you can use RFID.

CTLawyer chose to mention public schools. Situation that you mention about Jewish schools is akin to what was happening in US schools up to 19th century: educated women had only limited work opportunities, so they worked as teachers for low salary. Seems like you moving to other jobs is a similar economic decision. Still, it is somewhat sad: while Lakewood may be full of qualified teachers, I am sure there are lots and lots of Jewish children in the country that do not get good Jewish education. So, maybe there are jobs for Jewish teachers in less Jewishly-educated communities where you can both use your talents and support your family at the same time.

If you can find an area where they are, say, 15 kids you can teach, you can charge them modest $5K / child and seemingly earn more than you do now.

> You mentioned it was tiring

But I used to write a lot before computerization and it did not bother me. Now, if I make written notes, I then transfer them into computer anyway.

Coffee, our schools did not take Zelle! Maybe they do now.