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RebE > What has the Senate done lately?
RebE, did you read Federalist 62 or 63 lately? [sorry for answering question with a question]
Syag, I agree that in many circumstances there is no need to test, especially w/ latest variant. I did not test so far. The reason to do home test would be if one heads to a meeting with either many people or an at-risk person and are going to be in close contact there. Then, a positive test – right before the meeting – would prevent risk. Not fully clear what does negative test mean. On one hand, stats say that those home tests are detecting 60-90% of cases. The claim on the other side is that they detect those who are most infectious at that moment, i.e. they detect the most dangerous ones.
There is an article on front page about the Rav who tested positive before his son’s wedding – after symptoms? Now, say the test would be negative – how would the grandfather pasken? Or maybe the father would not have even asked? Maybe they should do N-95 veils for kallot.
A week passed already – any good news?
Now you need awareness campaign for people who are “having a flu” to use the tests. Free might help. Maybe give prizes to people who get positive tests, or will this cause them to go out and get it? Get an extra aliya to say gomel?
We are not allowed to wear fully black, which is a non-Jewish minhag. Overall, there were different minhagim in history: in Israel, men would buy line for their wives; in Bavel – coloured clothes, if I remember correctly. Red was not OK. None were black.
Hashem sends medicine before the sickness. Not so (current) US government: it waits for a crisis, then starts sending out tests. After that, masks. After that, they’ll start working on speeding up medicines.
Gadol > there are multiple Republican leaders in the state and federal government whose policies are generally aligned with Trump but whose persona,
There are lots of leaders on both left and right who are “aligned” with the right policies, but are not capable of implementing them in real world. Say, Obama genuinely desired to have peace with the Muslim world, but ISIS refused to cooperate and Obama did not know what to do. Trump was actually able to do a lot of things he talked about, often in unusual risky ways.
Moishe, you are right that ISIS started to retreat by the end of Obama. But “started to retreat” does not mean it was “done” or that people expected it to be gone soon. See below a quote from foreign policy paper by a liberal prof. He mostly blames Obama for failure with Assad and initial ISIS growth, but you can see there that the expectation was that ISIS will keep territory and continue projecting terrorism threat to Europe. If you search news in 2016, you can see more of similar. Some specific action taken by Trump were: providing actual weapons to Kurds “as they were” instead of training some future pure force; allowing shooting targets without spending hours vetting with the White House; working effectively with Iranian militias in Iraq (thru Iraqis, without any formal partnership).
Syria Will Stain Obama’s Legacy Forever
Yet a third result of Obama’s ineffectuality lay in the rise of the Islamic State, a terrorist organization even more bloody-minded and bent on conquest than the al Qaeda fragments from which it sprang. Obama obviously did not create the Islamic State, contrary to Donald Trump’s absurd campaign-trail slanders. But his administration was laggard in countering its gathering strength. Although the terrorist outfit is on the defensive now, it continues to orchestrate deadly strikes in Europe, and, indirectly, to inspire lone-wolf attacks in the United States, guaranteeing that terrorism will remain a major threat on both continents for years to come.Avira > Rav belsky would tell some talmidim
And I believe the same is true for many other Rabonim, including R Feinstein, that their private advice depends on a person, including Rav Pam’s advice to someone NOT to go into teaching. I’ve seen some who did not ask R Pam. Obviously, only the best should go into teaching, and traditional halakha approach of allowing unlimited competition between teachers works towards same goal.
I understand the idea of learning without thinking of college. This is fine as long as there are responsible adults who will direct the turn when appropriate. But where the focus is on learning and discarding those who do not keep up, may work well to train talmidei chachamim, but less so to develop a healthy community.
Gadol, I know a number of people going this way, I just don’t know how prevalent it is, maybe others can enlighten us. Even when I was looking for a shidduch in the previous millennium, one shadchanit was musing about Lakewood bnos figuring out that learning SW in a small local college ad working as programmers is a great way to support their kollel husbands. But if this is under-radar and b’dieved, this is probably not done the best way. Kids have limited community support and insight into what they are doing and probably getting more of a diploma mill. For example, it is rare when people complain about English education, but English skills on average are horrible. It is just everyone feels inadequacy in math or science, but it seems to many that as long as you can talk in some English, this is enough. I would guess inability to write well is a barrier to a lot of jobs. You will just not be told after you send an email.
Avira
Rav Moshe re: “bnei yeshiva”
this is an important distinction that is somehow lost in translation. For me personally, it is obvious that someone going into Rabbonus & Chinuch should spend 110% of his time on limud, and maybe another 10% on getting some general knowledge so that he can apply his learning to current life and relate to his students. You don’t need to become a boke in science, but you need to acquire enough worldview to be able to learn later in life.Now, for the rest of population, we currently have multitudes going to yeshivos (parallel to masses going to college) – which is a good thing in general, but we need also to train them to earn an honest living. They do not need to go to Ivies, but they can go to local/Jewish/online colleges – and the question should be how to make it safe, not whether. For example, use yeshiva classes/CLEP/AP for humanities to avoid indoctrination, do not dorm in strange places, have hevrusas, combine w/ learning (when R Twerski wrote to Steipler whether he can go to Med school, Steipler replied – with daily hevrusa, mussar/chasidus learning, mikva, I think). I believe this is actually happening under the radar, with people using small NJ colleges to pass at lowest requirement level.
ujm, note that R Moshe is writing about 60 years ago. A lot changed. Threats changed. At that time, a college was a direct path to assimilation. Nowadays, it is still for some, but there a lot of observant professionals who have no such problems. The balance for “need” of college to earn parnosa also changed a lot. Lots of jobs that required high school only are not there any more. This caused a lot of social problems not just in a Jewish world. Note that people did not become noticeably smarter, so a lot of current “college” is really remedial high-school with credential for an office job, and not the high end college that R Feinstein was talking about (and that BY aspires to).
before election day:
61% of Ds, 64% of Rs and 63% of others planned to be vaccinated.
right after, Ds jumped to 75% Rs stayed the same. This is when a gap started.more fun stats on effect of media:
More viewers of Newsmax (40%) and Fox News (34%) correctly estimated the COVID-19 mortality rate than viewers of CNN (22%) or MSNBC (24%). Twenty-one percent (21%) of One America News (OAN) viewers correctly estimated the coronavirus mortality rate. Among Americans who say they don’t watch cable news at all, 38% correctly estimated the mortality rate as less than 2%.and some other covid numbers from the survey that some might be curious about:
those not vaccinated: 30% were positive
those vaccinated: 17%
keep in mind that 1 out of 2 years were before vaccine and number of deaths is same by year,
then year 1: 15% both groups are positive, and year 2: 15% v 2%. This may be an over-estimate but points that the difference is drastic.even better predictor of who is likely to get covid:
answer to “Which is more effective in preventing COVID-19?”
Natural immunity – 36% got it
Vaccination 14%
Equally 18%
Not sure 11% (maybe these are those who thing that none are effective and are careful?)jackk, here are self-reported numbers from Rasmussen – 26% of Rs report being positive for Covid, 21% of Ds and 18% of the smartest ones – independents. So, from this sounds like there will be indeed less R voters, although knowing age distribution by paty would help.
Other interesting stats of self-reported covid:
22% of men and 20% of women
22% married and 20% not married
24% children at home, 19% no (hey, kids!!! but could be also age)
(these 3 may explain some of the of R/D difference – R are more men and married)
13% for age 65+, 23% before
19% white, 18% black, 27% other, presuming mostly Hispanicvaccinated:
D 80%, R and independent 60%BY, I see where you are now – already away from home and looking for an Ivy.
I think your choices are
– large MO school – NY, Atlanta, Boston, LA. Each of them have strong communities and kollels where you may find a family that will help you stay strong.
– small yeshivos in same type of cities. They are often started by people who want same as you. In those places, they would know what quality secular education is and somewhat compete with those MO schools
– go back home and together with your parents organize your own education – possibly Jewish one in one place and general in another. Be creative – find partners for each of them. Say, one semester/year in a yeshiva, and one semester/year in general studies, plus summer. Tutors. Summer schools in colleges. One resource that I am using for my kids – online state schools. My older kids did this for just two last years and went to a mid-tier (online) college, having 4+ GPA and access to AP classes. Maybe more than 2 years would be needed. If your parents have time to engage with you, you can achieve a lot. My kids are saying that they are 2x more efficient when they don’t need to treck to school a t a certain time, can skip or repeat classes as they need. They are having less fun, but I don’t think that is what you are looking for.Gadol > For less than $30,000/year
Others called you on too many lawyers, but I’d like to question this fantastic number. How did we get there? For even a family of 3-4 kids, that is $100K a year – post-tax. So, for many people this means two parents working hard full time just to stay even and spend 3x time of college for 12 years of school while still facing semi-observant classmates and other problems. I know kids are priceless, but l’maaseh this means stressed unhappy families teaching kids the same.
ujm > a preferable situation if we would indeed not learn English even at the HS level
I’d love to see a pasuk that proves this. Also, who were those apikoiresim who served in Sanhedrin and knew 70 languages. Also. when Rabban Gamliel had same – 1000 – people studying Greek, as studying Torah. And how you call “non ideal” situation where we have tens of thousands boys and girls learning Torah, when 200 years ago, the only Yeshiva, Volozhin, had 400 students. (I am putting aside social issues related to assimilation, just purely focusing on learning per se).
ujm, who are those evil Ballei Batim who pay for the school but have chutzpah to insist on secular studies? At this point, they are not recent arrivals from secular Poland, but most likely graduates of the same yeshivos. Somehow, the yeshivos did not manage to skip Kiddushin so they learned that they need to teach their kids professions. The question is, if your picture is correct, and schools provide general studies reluctantly – how good they are at that, or is it really waste of time to calm down the parents? I suggest test kids where they stand in their general studies and then maybe send them somewhere else to learn those in the afternoon if ujm’s theory is right.
> Pythagorean Theorem in Kilaim 5,5 in the name of Chachmei Hamidos.
a good call not quoting in the name of Reb Pythagoras – there is no proof that he actually is the author of the theorem.
TS Baum,
you don’t need to be something just because someone else is. My personal opinion is that it is preferable to do something that you find meaningful, enjoyable, and fits your skills. For many people, a job is a way to earn parnosa, and then, after work, his “real life” starts – family, friends, learning, mitzvos, whatever.This is OK if you have to, but you are throwing away 8 or more hours a day. It becomes a real nisayon then – do you need to work so many hours just to earn money for, say, vacations, schools, house, clothes. You literally paying with your life for any spending. You can still console yourself that you take care of negative commandments – not stealing, yuhud, kahsrus, etc but not much positive.
At the same time, if you do something meaningful – being a teacher, a doctor, etc, then you are involved in mitzvos and helping people all day round. You can really enjoy that vacation (or choose to stay at work). These choices can be within a profession – you can write software for medical applications or for entertainment companies.
And enjoying and matching skills will ensure that you are successful at your job.
BY,
you first need to consider whether it is worth getting away from your parents. If you hopefully have good environment at home and your parent are supportive of your goals, you will achieve more while staying there. I heard it both from Mark Twain (“When I came back home from college, I saw how much smarter my father became!) to an O- Rabbi who spent years dealing with O- students at an OOT Hillel and penned an article calling parents to send kids to college close to home (undermining his own job). Kal vehomer for high school.So, then, find a high school in your area that is solid religiously and makes some moves towards college prep. Then, you or your parents should talk to them and see how to enhance it, or let you learn on your own for some classes. Maybe take some enhanced classes somewhere else, possibly in college.
jackk, I admit that we are losing voters with Covid. Mabe that’s why Biden is so strategic in waiting when to send out tests and masks?!
I am not sure though that your numbers add up, unless you bring some proofs:
Most unvaxed R-s are in remote areas, most unvaxed D-s are in dense cities. It may be that most of them never voted in their life. “All talk and no cattle”.On a more cheerful note, Gallup averaged their surveys over whole 2021 and concluded that country went from being +9 D to -5 R during the year. almost 10 out of those 14, though, were gained around and after election to J6. so total, it seems that R-s stand 4% higher than before 2020 elections.
Chicago has U of Chicago, Northwestern, nearby: Urbana, Indiana U/Purdue and Bloomington. Depends on the course: U Chicago is place of world-known economists, Purdue – engineering, Bloomington – business.
jackk > Palestinians knew that Trump wasn’t a fair third-party so they completely ignored any overtures for peace that he proffered. For 4 years , peace in the ME was not on the table.
You are just ignoring everything Trump actually achieved in ME, just because he did not achieve it thru the way preferred by you (and tried by others with no success), from ISIS to Abrahamic accords to Yerushalaim to pressure on Iran
> Putin is still in Crimea and is poised to go into Ukraine. Trump did zilch with him.
Trump started giving actual weapons to Ukraine and stopped further losses. Ukraine’s democracy continued to become stronger, NATO troops now “rotate” to Baltics. He send envoys to Europe to fight Nordstream 2 and also blocking Chinese participation in telecoms irritating Europeans.
>> President’s shouldn’t react to the media . They should be level-headed and listen to their advisers and decide on the best course of action.
R- presidents can’t rely on media to reach the people, unless they already chose, as you said, to listen to Fox. Trump was able to reach a lot of voters outside of traditional R-s, such as Hispanics, both by his policies and messaging.
jackk > Can you bring a single proof to these 2 points
Most thoughtful republicans and a number of moderate D-s, when interviewed at length, agree with most of Trump’s policy positions and achievements. Another experiment that you can make yourself to avoid bias: look at what was said about Trump’s ideas at the beginning: vaccine, pressure against Nordstream2, Israel-Arab talks, economic policies, stay in Mexico, tariffs on China, Covid stimulus … all were laughed at. Then, after a success, “everyone would do that”. Look how many are still in place or repeated by Biden. Yes, he did not buy Greenland yet, and HCQ did not work out for everyone, but the list of successes is impressive.
BY, you need to define what is a “good” university that you will want to attend and plan accordingly. Gadol seems to think that this got to be an Ivy. On many other places, you can get solid education as long as you are taking a harder version of each class in a non-fancy school.
Are you are looking for a career path where you are super-employed full time at a law firm or a trader? Then, you probably need to go to an Ivy. Are you planning to learn a trade, like software developer or a nurse, or an engineer? Then, you can do well with a state school or an online school if you don’t want to dorm in a non-observant place. Also, take into account our family finances. If your parents work and are paid well, they better be prepared to pay a lot for luxury colleges like Ivy or Jewish ones, it would be more rational to go to a less fancy college. If your family is not well off and you get great grades, you can get a scholarship and plan to get to MIT or Columbia.
smerel > ENDLESS investigations and allegations
I am very surprised, if not in owe, that so far none of them showed any results. Given type of businesses Trump is involved, you would think you can find enough underpaid contractors, illegal gardeners, shady tax loopholes. Remember some women nominees who turned out not to pay taxes for babysitters. So far, current worst is that T paid tzedokah to Jewish schools that were actually an indirect payment to his accountant, so the accountant had to pay taxes.
Would you eat “Esav-K” (looks like a K with hairy hands)? It was good enough for Yitzhak-avinu.
amom > Why would anyone want to go to Montreal now- they have strict covid rules.
Maybe that could be a reason? Someone here vacations in your place annually to visit family and both last times came back coughing.
akuperma > without going away on vacations.
Doctors told Netziv to take a vacation on Lithuanian lakes. He sneaked away back in a week as he felt miserable. On the other hand, there were towns in Lita where many Rabonim, including R Chaim Ozer Grozdinski, would go during summer. He once took one of his students to the forest and showed him simanim which berries, grasses and mushrooms are edible. The student was not sure why, but later was able to survive during WW2 in the forest due to this.
jackk > Trump was and will be the only president who responded daily to very single criticism of him.
jackk, first I hope you will agree with the premise that R- presidents are in a much worse position. It was way worse before talk radios and cable TV and access to multiple papers online. Even now, most media is left-wing.
So, Trump responding on Twitter directly is a revolutionary way to respond directly without being misquoted and “put into context”. Obama did not need that. Papers created a favorable environment for him.
MO schools obviously have their own drawbacks: hashkafa (although, not all are left-wing) but most important – kid environment. Frankly also for those who pay close to full tuition, the prices are ridiculous because they are trying to provide all kind of options and entertainment. You are better of hiring a full-time PhD tutor for the tuition for 2-3 kids. Probably two part-timers, one for math, one for English
Practically speaking, I think, it is possible to have quality general studies in a yeshivishe school. Your biggest challenge would be that many families are not interested, and so do principals. Try finding a couple of other families interested in higher quality studies, talk school into letting them do this extra program, or go home for those hours. Use online curriculum and old-fashioned books.
Also there are several yeshivos and BYs that even successfully integrated online public schools into their day. I think, a yeshiva in LA sends kids to a separate floor where they have computers for general studies, and then they come back to a normal yeshiva floor. See Avi Chai foundation site – they sponsored several schools on doing this “blended” approach and have reports with all details.
I don’t think there is one answer for everyone.
First, there is an issue of teaching an honest trade (Kiddushin 30) as Avira is mentioning. Some may want to become plumbers and electricians and may not require a lot of time in high school. Other professions require more. As one Rav taught me – everyone needs to grow up a substitute in this world – a Rav needs to grow a Rav, a plumber – a plumber, a scientist – a scientist, as the world needs all.
Second, there is an issue of appreciating science. Avira is against, but R Twersky is for learning, as an example, physiology to appreciate wonders of the world that Hashem created. Some tietch Borchi Nafshi that it includes appreciation of wonders/gadlus and vastness/rabot of Hashem’s creation. Maybe initial reluctance comes because initial effect of learning science (and as was presented by haskala) is decrease of wonders – hey, we can explain rainbow, seasons, aurora, viruses, etc. At the same time, more mature understanding of science leads first to more appreciation of vastness of Hashem’s creations – in the air, under the sea, on other plants, and at the next level of wonders – how atmosphere and earth orbit, and even gravity constant are such that makes the world and our lives possible.
ujm, predictable nitpicking! I should have said “up to M”, but did not want to ruin the quote
coffee, my forecast: the lefties get excited about Bibi’s fall, right gets majority based on anti-Bibi voters, Likud fires prosecutors, finds errors and Russian disinformation in case 1000, cancels Bibi’s plea deal, Bibi becomes prime minister for life.
we missed an obvious connection between rumors and hashgaha:
R Ralbag (senior?) is quoted somewhere regarding kashrus mossdos mutual attitudes: “I think it’s sometimes more important what comes out of someone’s mouth than what goes into it.”ujm, looks like 2004, not yet “decades” yet
conspiracy theory: maybe Biden is actually governing to the center by trying all crazy lefty ideas one after another and demonstrating that none can pass the Senate. His inaptitude serves as a good excuse, and Manchin is on the game, promised a VP slot on the losing 2024 run with a potential to run in 2028. Trump is also on it, promising amnesty to Hunter.
jackk, most of what you are writing is pure propaganda and you know it: spending other people’s money is easy, the question is always – what was the alternative. And even those that you mention are mostly in the future or past – nothing new on vaccines; covid tests during next 6 months when crisis was last month; roads will be repaired in the future.
what is worth noting is your view of economy – by unemployment rate. Please take a minute to study “labor participation rate” that is a better measure that includes people who stopped (or started) looking for work. For a big picture:
Carter 2% up 62 to 64% (1966 to 1989 grows at almost constant rate)
Reagan – 3% up from 64% to 67%
Bush I – 1% down
Clinton 1% up
Bush II 1% down
Obama 3.5% down (decline 2008-14 then constant) – 63% – 1% lower than at start of Reagan
Trump 0.5% up, 3% lost to Covid, 1.3% recovered, for a total -1.2% down
Biden so far 0.4% up (1.5% below pre-covid)so, on this measure Biden’s continue recovery similar to how it was going at the end of Trump term, not bad, not exceptional either. Overall trend after Reagan is down, with Clinton a little up, and Obama most down.
Syag, follow the grammar: and, OMG, xxxxx
OMG is for the latter part, not for the previous ones. I am saying that I see a mix of issues here, some sound concerning (before OMG) and others sounds suspicious (after). I see reasonably reputable sources listing specific halachik issues that should stop some people, and then I see a sea of innuendo that is hard to evaluate. For example, I understand that TriK took over HNs. HNs were totally unreliable before, and he seemingly made it more so. Seems like a good thing in general and yashar koach on taking on such a risky (reputationally and halachically) venture (unless you hold that eating unhealthy food is not a mitzva :), but would reputation of HN add to the doubters who prefer play it safe? I don’t know enough of kashrus business to understand all of this. Maybe someone from a meatpacking city can enlighten me 🙂
Montreal. Closest place where they speak and serve French this side of Mississippi.
ujm, this is a good example. In addition to some specific leniencies and non-glatt, there seems to be other issues involved: HN reputation from before Tri-K, overall reputation for leniencies, sometimes lack of transparency, and, OMG, seemingly lack of cooperation and piety towards other authorities… I can not determine exact weights of each part of this semi-kosher mixture, but it seems that all are present to some degree.
Maybe one way to be yashar about your preferences is statistical: admit that any kashrus supervision has a reasonable chance of being non-kosher and then view some agencies more likely to provide a kosher product due to more supervision and chumros providing geder around other issues. In theory, this would mean that mashgiach tmidi with lower standards would be more acceptable that OOT Super-chareidi one, Not sure if such situation exists in practice.
GH > Moishiach will come before HC gets nominated again
Finally, Gadol made a testable prediction and might know his ability to be a navi in less than 2 years. Frankly, if we trust your naviyut, and you’ll call to nominate her to hasten the geula, many people will hesitate. Maybe she is from shevet of Gog.
smerel > I know I’m in the minority
You are one of 20%, maybe even less – 40% are always D-, 40% always R-. Your 20% believed Biden’s positioning and now abandoned him in droves. Currently, you are the majority within that 20%. I would not say he deceived that he is moderate/consensus builder/competent. First, he believes it himself, 2nd, his main inclination seems to be moderate in many cases. There were some flattering articles before elections quoting Israelis saying that he was an only one on Obama’s team who did not see Israel as an aggressor, bur remembered Yom Kippur war, etc and understood Israeli challenges. It might have been propaganda, but it ringed true. I am not sure why he is choosing to behave differently. Partly, it is advisors that control him and his message (during some recent Manchin’s weekend surprises, insider talk about how “white house got angry, called him”, “he notified white house only 30 minutes before”, some confusion, etc, all implicit that these were staffers, not President, involved. Was he was fishing, sleeping, watching Fox? Maybe J6 commission can find out. But maybe also power went to his head, he was always slighted – from nuns to mediocre law student at a mediocre law school to being a barely tolerated VP for 8 years and ignored in 2016. So, he wants to be a transformative president and people around him flatter him?
So, it sounds like Trump started losing antivax vote, so Gadol you need to come onboard. Otherwise, if there is movement in the center towards him, Trump will have to pivot back towards to fruitcakes.
RW, re: connection on Trump and vaccine. How did I feel you are going to mention vaccines there? It seems that his pro-vaccine position (obvious for two years) somehow jarred you.
What is not clear why you are making such a big deal on “mandates” v. vaccines. You are happy to discuss this mandate issue that is something that government does, while there is a simple thing that each of people could do to protect themselves and others, and everyone from R Kanevsky to, l’havdil, AAQ, to Trump, to hospital statistics are telling you the same thing and you are still worrying about a government policy. Fix yourself first before pointing at others.
Gadol, sounds Hillary is the great alternative. Can D- run Manchin or Liberman or Romney?