Always_Ask_Questions

ujm > Republicans should double the size of the federal circuit courts,

note that R- are relatively restrained here (as it fits “conservatives”). It is usually D-s who break the rules/tradition, like filibuster for judges, and then R-s get one chance to retaliate. This is a losing game – both for the country as safeguards are thrown away one-by-one (who remembers now that Senators were supposed to be appointed by State legislation?) ; and also it is always advantage D-s when a next breach will occur. One of Trump’s attractions was that he is capable of fighting same level as opponents, without restricting to an honorable but losing position.

Syag > I don’t think finding out the truth is as easy as clicking a link. I believe clicking the link is what fed them the garbage.

I agree. It is not easy to figure out what is true on hot issues. I sometimes read a pretty convincing claim (yesterday: there is British report that shows that masks at schools did not help) that I am suspicious of only because it contradicts my prior views. I actually go to this 20-page report and it says mostly the opposite several times on page 1 and an ambiguous caution note at p. 15 that was (mis)quoted. Now, if I would not suspect it, I would buy the argument. If I would not read the report, I would have partly discounted my previous views.

This is a total failer of free speech. The original American idea was let’s everybody say whatever they want, so that the public can evaluate their claim. By now, free speech is weaponized by references to pseudo-statistics, and the public now includes people with no ability to analyze those claims.

ujm, what is your principle? There is a clear difference here: either you trust majority and then you are in favor of pure democracy, or you want to be more conservative and create various entities and slow-down rules that require super-majorities and agreement across different geographic areas and social groups for law-making. There was even an original proposal to introduce the same in the executive (3 co-presidents representing north, middle, south). Polish seim used to have a veto system – where one member was able to block legislator and this eventually failed the country, including due to foreign (Russian) influence who could always buy off a couple of members.

So, if you are looking for a middle ground, you need to look at it empirically – did we go too far in one or another direction? Looking over 200+ years, US seems to be doing not bad comparing with peers. Looking more at the downside – US escaped a lot of social turmoil that grappled Europe and corrupted government of South America. Maybe England, Canada, and Australia have comparable success, but they can’t defend democracy in the world lately without US. Is the secret simply in speaking English and being separated y water from Europe?!

How do general rules work? Rav Yehuda is not dismissing Beruriah just because an average lady is not boke in shas. As my first statistics teacher, my grandmother O’H who never took a formal course used to say: a cow drowned in a river that was on average up to her knee.

Gadol, sounds like the J6 reruns worked as sobering medicine for your tds, or should we just call it a “retroactive vaccine”? great news

re:vaccine, let’s do retrospective review: original ph. 3 results were:
20x reduction in transmission 2 weeks after 2nd vaccine, assuming same behaviors.

what changed or is better understood now:
for getting infected:
1) effect gradually decreases from 2 weeks, so several months later it maybe 5x not 20x
2) did not change: effect is roughly the same for all age groups, with similar decrease for all
3) variants decreased effectiveness
4) there seems to be a conclusion that 3-4 weeks between doses is too short. Better to have more time between them to get longer immunity that is now being improved by boosters. The idea was to get to full 2-doses faster. I think Brits are doing 2 months now, but US still does 3 weeks.
Here, as in other aspects, the big guy dismissed former guy’s successful team and also his own advisors who were useful for pre-election PR and relied solely on government thinkers, severely limiting new ideas, so public policy flows by itself uncontrolled.

5) mixing mRNA and JJ/AZ seems to work well (JJ first), but not tested/advertised enough – companies do not care and gov did not pursue

6) kids were underestimated. They were first presumed not to contribute to transmission.

for serious sickness:
1) immunity seems to be holding against variants and time pretty well despite variants
2) vaccines were not optimized for long-term T-cell production. There are several vaccines in development that try to focus on that. Maybe months away from production

crazy,
people used not to have information, now they have too much information. They clearly can not process it. It did not sgtart now, maybe 100-200 years ago with mass propaganda – newspapers, then radio, Tv, etc. We got anarchists, communists, nazis – all masses of people following crazy ideas. So, maybe things are not getting worse, they were bad for quite some time!

So, when dealing with issues that are understood for some time, like taxes and schools – society has established positions and most people can navigate between them. Suddenly with an unusual situation, people lose ability to navigate situation as their reasoning abilities were never high.

TS Baum, I hear you, but we should take that learning mood and project it to the rest of our lives.

coffee > why you are asking the CR instead of a rabbi

if you discuss first with hevrusas, then you can clarify your question. Furthermore, I once asked a Rav what is important in answering questions (it is his main occupation, after all). He answered – most important is to help the person clarify his question.

There is no doubt that the concept of a gadol/gaon/etc existed in various times, but to what degree it matters might have changed. I am wondering whether litvishe world got influenced by chasidim to some degree – having an identifiable leader seems to be popular.

In general, it is a republican idea: you ask a shaila of you rov, he asks of his rosh yeshiva, and he asks someone higher. This graph generates one or more figures at the top. Some may be specialized in certain areas, others – more general. Say, Rav and Shmuel were both gedolim, but we accept their psak based on the topic. Not sure whether the difference of expertise was apparent at their time or established over time. We see something similar now – there are people for whom Rav Chaim is a posek for learning, but for covid halokhos they don’t hold by him and go to ploni ben shapiro.

>> and my 3rd answer, Rav chaim, made him very settled… I have never met Rav chaim, but I knew it would make him happy to say it.

maybe this was not worded accurately? What is the heter to change words even if you are speaking to a drunk, and even if he is a husid. Or was he physically threatening you?

Re: Ravina,
front page article provides this explanation for a more drastic case:
> there can be a complete disconnect between an individual’s talent and the evil that he commits

I don’t agree with this. I think this is downplaying what a Talmid Chacham is.

Avira, why are you questioning someone’s ability based on a klal and a book you read. This is unbecoming.

If you think Maharal is so awesome, you should cling to each of his words. Let’s raise hands here – how many books by Maharal did you learn?

same article on applicability of the Harayot priorities:
Rabbi Auerbach states it is impossible to apply these rules in our times.Rabbi Feinstein seconds this approach.
Minchat Shlomo, 86:60
Iggrot Moshe Choshen Mishpat 2 73:2, 75:2
Along these lines the Mishnah Berurah states that we have no Torah Scholars in our time and this cannot be used as a way to decide, which person should be saved fi rst (547:12), the Magen Avraham states this as well.

quoting from a secondary source Rationing During a Pandemic Flu Aryeh Dienstag (this is pre-covid article!). There are multiple reference to value of people to society

Horiyot 13: men over women (in saving, but not in ransom), kohen over israel over mamzer, but Talmid Chacham before Am Haaretz, even if a King [T’Ch is irreplacable, King not]

Mishnah Berurah (OC: 547:22) – there are no Talmidei Chachamim at our times [AAQ: this might have changed 🙂 seems not to be the current opinion, though]

Rambam on Mishna Haroyot 3:8 – we do save King before Talmid Chacham because people need him

R Tendler: human life is infi nite and therefore cannot be prioritized objectively. Practically, however, society may need certain persons more than others and therefore prioritization can be used

R Oshry (Shoah, selecting people to send to die): duty of community leaders to take courage and operate in any way they saw fit to save as many people as possible

R Auerbach: age does not go into the equation of whom one saves first. What one should only look into is the level of danger and the chance to save the most people

private communication with Rabbi Daichovsky he told the author that there is a value in saving people whom society needs in order to preserve a functional society

a MUCH more problematic case is a story about illiterate peasants coming to a Jewish mill. The miller will count the sacks by putting a penny for every sack. Then, the miller will go to the back to get the money to pay. The peasant will see the pennies and steal them …

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.