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Romain, not sure whether your English is first or second or more language, but your writing is very hard to understand. If you improve your spelling skills, you can contribute to improving your own standard of living. Try using grammarly or some other tool to check what you are writing.
> Undeserved or underserved?
None of the above! R Zusia and R eliezer (brothers) were sleeping in an inn while drunkards were dancing and kicking R Zusia who was closer to them. His brother suggested switching, while the drunkards said – why are we hitting the same Jew all the time, this is not fair and equitable! so, they switched. you get what Eibeshte plans for you.
I also do not recall women doctors in Gemora, mostly witches or similar type healers.
Halakha requires women to not be idle. In good old times, women spent time doing necessary work of laundry, cooking, carrying water, making clothes, and teaching kids manners and emunah. due to our sins of insatiable curiosity, men invented lots of machines that wash clothes, microwave food, and make clothes; kids are sent to school at early age to learn alef-beis and not to listen to parents. In response, women raised their standards of required home cleanliness, fashions, and food quality. Good. Now, we have illegal immigrants doing the rest of the chores. What are women supposed to do? The only remaining task is to teach kids emunah, but kids are at school. They can’t be reading CR the whole day.
One side effect is that in some communities the only accepted job is teaching. This is good as it creates a pool of cheap teachers, as it should be (same was true in pre-industrial US in general). But then some who do work as teachers do not really want to do it, but have to. And this crates terrible effect on kids. Merit-based hiring could solve the problem, but often prevented by preference for hoshuve families.
I don’t think it is reasonable to assume that Brisker Rov was not aware of the Rambam, unless it was in some obscure Arabic letter from a Genizah.
Furthermore, in the relationship of old texts, I think we hold opposite: if we discover a new text by a Rishon, or by Rabbi Akiva, or by Melech Shlomo, this will not have a definite effect on halakha: one of the reasons we follow a Rishon because it was scrutinized by later generations.
I agree that one should be careful with orally reported opinions. first, they may be incomplete, second, the author did not put it in writing for some reasn, third, related to 2, the author may have intended it to a specific time and person. For example, in this case the Rov is saying it to a Brisker student, so presumably, in his view, the hishtadlus of being a Brisker student is sufficient enough.
I don’t think Rov advocated quitting learning and sitting in a cafe on Ben Yehudah waiting for the shidduch to show up.AreR > between 2/3 and 3/4 of his members are men.
So, maybe his organization is a good place to call for shidduchim for girls? 🙂
so for 12% of Litvish leaving O-, this would be an extra 4% inbalance. I don’t think this rule would apply to the 30% Sefardim, as the number above that I saw quoted, as these are less dramatic cases of parents moving from traditional Sephardi to “haredi” lifestyle, and their children relaxing back to some degree.
Bangladesh & India had 2+% growth 20 and more years ago, but 1% now, although their age gap may be larger. Israeli growth rate is 1.6% and 5% in Haredi community.
Another possible factor – dropouts from Haredi community among 20yo is 12% (influx 1%) – 5% in Hasidic, 12% among Litvishe and 30% in Sephardi. These are not OTD, mostly people who associate with orthodox in general or traditional. I can’t find numbers but it is possible that more men are leaving than women.
I wonder whether the open market resists a solution: as it is beneficial for a boy to have more choices, so it makes sense for them to wait and have a “stronger hand”.
Are R, I take it back. With Haredi growth rate of 5% a year, you can indeed have a 20% imbalance if hatanim are 5 years older than kallot. That is indeed significant.
Among other reason, I would suggest rather than 1/0 “OTD” rates, maybe Haredi boys may be more open to marry someone who is slightly less “haredi” than them.
Avira > Nazir 59
thanks. I don’t think this is a full answer. Gemora learns that women should not carry weapons because men go to war in the context of prohibiting cross-dressing both ways. So, this is not saying that women should not go to war, but it is about dress code under assumption that weapons are for men. if a society has women in the Army, then this might not apply. And if Norks introduce longer skirts for their warriottes, there will be even less of a problem!As to Yael’s choice of a peg, Gemora again means exactly that – she did not want to violate Tzniyut rather than prohibition to fight. Otherwise, she would not be allowed to hit him with anything. Pshat seems to be that Yael is sure of her ability to bring her peg from outside and use it, while not having her own sword (see above), she would need to get access to Sisra’ sword (who might wake up hearing the sound of his weapon) and then risk using a long heavy sharp device she never used in her life. Lesson – know yourself and use what you know. Maybe she did not want to steal from Sisra for no reason also!
Ober > it teaches us that women are the house, meaning they take care of the house. Men go and make money.
There are plenty of examples and halochos how women in business or with inheritance are treated in. I am not versed well enough to give a general expose, but it is respectful rathe than telling them to go home and give the keys to their husbands. Maybe some more learned people here can help us with sources.
yitz > The American Founders rejected the concept of “daas Torah”
what they set up originally was a “meta community” to borrow from FFB (former face book): rules to govern multiple societies coming together. CT had a full right to have their own religion, and if you didn’t like it, you had to move to RI… We do not need US laws to tell us how to build our schools or communities, we just need them to give us freedom to do what we want and reasonable opportunities for others to build their lives so that we do not get destroyed by murder and immorality in the overall society.
Yitz, one question is how are school governed. When they encounter challenges – what is a control mechanism to correct them? Maybe in some closed-knit communities, there is centralized control with the Rav/Rebbe of the community getting to decide. In many cases, school is in charge on their own. This is a distinction Bava Basra makes about butchers: they are OK to have their own democratic rules unless there is T’Ch in town, then tey need to ask him to resolve disputes.
In a discussion with one school rep, he described lovingly how he went to Steipler to ask a question about his child education. When I asked him what Gadol was consulted by the school in our case, or in other such cases – he did not have an answer …
So, in cases, where there is no accepted halachik supervision, the other option is market and choices. The question is then how to increase them.
Re: parents v yeshivos. Bava Basra is still correct in the conclusion that most parents are not capable and we need public (Jewish) education. So, I am not talking about wholesale abandonment of a working system for something else unproven. Still, modern society allows personal flexibility in a lot of fields and it is natural to do same with the most important – Jewish education – where possible. If this would work for 10% of population, it will be huge for those kids, and then you’ll see what to do for net 10%.
In this sense, this is the same issue in both general and Jewish communities. And obstacles are often similar. In our experience, we were first simply monitoring quality of the process and schools admins would react when we had reasonable issues with teachers, either by dumping bad teachers or moving them to less complaining classes. When we felt we need additional changes, there is a roadblock that principals were frank about: “what if everyone will ask for that”. So, it is institutional aversion of risk v. parental concerns about the kid. Both can be unreasonable. Maybe we need batei dinim that will determine what is reasonable. When I consulted several Rabbonim, not being sure that I am right on insisting on something, they often just commiserated quoting their own school experiences.
Avira, I agree on the Army, I do not recommend an Army career to girls, of course. I just brought this as an extreme example of a UAV pilot who sits on an American base and goes home to kids every night.
what is the nature of Isur handling guns, I am not familiar. Can a Texan maidele open carry or does she need to limit her self-protection to mace?
takah: in my experience, most kids are inspired in Jewish schools. It works well at elementary level if you get a decent principal who weeds out bad apples from teachers. I would send my kids again to the same schools they were going. As kids gets older, there are more failures in what and how they teach.
I do not understand how age gap contributes to any imbalances. At the end, one boy matches one girl, whatever the age. Some societies, like China. that get rid of girls – post-birth or thanks to new technology pre-birth, have real imbalances with more boys. Historically, wars are the major reason for having less boys and death from childbirth for less girls. There is also migration, such as in certain periods boys are first to move away from villages to cities.
There is also an observation that morals in society are determined by this ratio: society with more boys is more moral. That is, girls have more bargaining power and insist on marriage, etc.
Furthermore, if you want to increase girls bargaining power – you do not insist on boys marrying early. Then, when a girl has a relatively smaller time period when she wants to marry – she has a choice of boys of multiple ages in front of her.
Take a limited-age group, such as a college: freshman girls have most choices, and so do senior boys.
USA Today yesterday: Over the past year, two-thirds of those surveyed say, their opinion of Trump hasn’t changed. Fourteen percent say their view of him has gotten better, 19% say it has gotten worse.
So, there are people who now think worse of T, still not necessarily saying they will not vote for him. “Only” 58% of people do not want T to run – 66% do not want B ..
Yitz, the reason we compare public and Jewish schools is that they have same goal – educating a mass of population. Also, Jews in America obtain both benefits and shortcoming of the country. Many things that are “natural” for us are based on that influence. If you compare with previous times, you should be able to understand what is new and what is old. Unless you simply project your current system onto the past as you just did. There was no yeshiva curriculum before Volozhin, so by your definition, there was “no yiddishkeit”?
Yitz, could you please comment on Bava Basra that has no problem with fathers teaching children, except that many fathers were not capable. Nowadays, when many communities have fathers who learned for many years, it is hard to argue in favor of disenfranchising them: either yeshivos teach well and then father are now certified to teach their children, or they do not teach them, and then there is no reason to send kids there! In truth, there are a number of pro-active parents who are in chinuch who try to teach classes with their own kids.
For a general picture, I don’t think we are an “autocracy”, I think we are a distributed system that includes respect for learned and moral authority. Those Rabbis who set curricula get funded by parents and donors, who choose who to sponsor. Our most venerable poskim acquire that position by the virtue of you asking your local Rov, he sending some of the harder questions to his Rosh Yeshiva, and Rosh yeshiva sending his hardest question to whomever he considers most appropriate to ask (that particular question). They are not (currently) appointed by a Sanhedrin.
We need to be careful when we argue with official positions based on media reports. Here are NIH covid guidelines, they are pretty level-headed:
There is insufficient evidence .. to recommend either for or against the use of ivermectin .. Some clinical studies showed no benefits or worsening.. whereas others reported shorter time to resolution.. greater reduction in inflammatory marker levels, shorter time to viral clearance, or lower mortality rates.
There is insufficient evidence ..to recommend either for or against the use of colchicine
etc …Also, what do you guys think about new drugs from Merck and especially Pfizer? Seem pretty useful for remaining vaccine holdouts. Not sure why it again takes weeks and weeks to allow full use.
This ties into shidduch crisis explanation that I find most plausible: a boy tries to be a T’Ch, while a girl wants to marry a T’Ch. Current educational system is great at inspiring everyone – boys to learn and girls too, but it can not miraculously make everyone into a T’Ch. So, naturally, less boys are successful in becoming a T’Ch than girls developing an interest in marrying T’Ch… The only way out of this, without changing attitudes, is dress code and grade inflation – making everyone look like a T’Ch so that everyone is happy.
I understand what you are saying about Florida governor, I do not know much about him, heard some good things he is doing re:education. Still, so far there is a difference between T and R- politicians, he showed business skills to tackle multiple very hard issues while all of them are good at talking about those issues. It was a promise in 2016 and it is a track record now. So far, someone who negotiated Abrahamic accords, moved embassy, funded 10 different vaccines over FDA slowness, put tariffs on China, broke ISIS, sent weapons to Ukrainians is still preferable to someone who is suing Joe Biden.
Most jobs that both men and women used to do are currently done by machines and computers. most of the jobs we have now, did not exist before. A modern soldier running a drone may require more “feminine” fine motor skills manipulating the joystick, patience to select the right shooting angle, and multi-tasking skills to chat with her superiors and review old videos while killing the enemy.
Rav Yohanan would sit near a mikva so that women look at him, while they were for him “like white geese”. He still did not pretend talking to women same as to men.
In truth, this is a little inappropriate. You should talk to each person in his ways. You talk differently to a T’Ch or to a farmer, or to professor, or to a professor T’Ch … So, talking to women same way as men is also inappropriate (“if you had a sister, would she have liked gefilte fish”).
anonJ > how the mother’s name is a tznius issue?
How do we say misheberech lately? In my shtetl, they still use mother’s name of the choleh. How do they do in your enlighted lands? Reminds of a shidduch date between TalKa and EliKaKu
In defense of Esav: he came with a load of fresh meat and was envious of a plate of lentil soup. That means he knew Gemorah from Beitza about not eating raw meat and agreed w/ Rabbi Akiva hat derech eertz is min Hatorah. And he kept it (in Eretz Isroel?).
In praise of Yaakov – he knew how to cook (both lentils and later meat), despite being a learning boy in a well-to-do family. Probably cleaned his tent also.
If Trump runs against Biden –
do you know anyone who voted for T who will vote for B or not vote? I don’t
do you know anyone who voted for B who will change his vote or not come? I know some as of this point. If there are 50K of these in the right states until election day, Trump wins even with all his negatives.We had here reported multiple areas having schools distributing free food. I think it means that the areas or the schools had substantial number of students qualifying for some poverty levels, at least as far as the government is concerned.
Amil, maybe I am not clear – the shtick was not that the guy was able to carry a plate, but that he was humbly serving last rows instead of sitting at the head of the table where his father was sitting.
bored teen, to clarify – we expect our kids to clean their rooms and do other things also. This is not good chinuch to tell the kid to take care of his territory only, as if he is not part of the family.
To clarify further – does not mean that they actually do any of it! But at least, when they grow up – they’ll tell their kids to do chores also (I am paraphrasing a saying “a father who tells his son to learn [rather than learning himself] will raise a son who will tell his so to learn [rather than learning himself])
> and boys usually have the upper hand in shidduchim.
that is before they get married
Zugger and R Dessler > He may have good role models, but he must make sure not just to become a copycat.
This ties into our other debate on FFBs and BTs. If you agree that times are pretty turbulent right now and things change quickly, FFBs sometimes are resistant to change as they are content following what was before. This works when this inertia is the right response to external change, but creates a problem over multiple generations of tzadik ben tzadik ben tzadik ben tzadik not being aware of what is going around him ….
Amil > Scrub floors?
I did not ask him, but he was very good carrying plates around. I did not know he is not from the catering service until someone pointed him to me. I did not realize that an idea of having kids do chores is so controversial here.
> EVEN if he runs around naked, that doesn’t disqualify him
what if he was walking on the street in his golden and purple clothes, got to a wrong neighborhood, not being familiar with NYC, got robed of his clothes on the spot, and now called police? Show some dan zchus ….
> ths loss by the Democrats was due to racist voters.
In addition the Lt Gov, the argument is specious. With their premise, all racists already voted for Trump. Where did additional 10% of population of racists come from!? And also many happened to be women and minorities. People whom RebE was watching are in denial that there are people out there who do not agree with them.
> This seems very different from fake reviews to me
They are saying they’ll pay her for a more detailed POSITIVE review, and presumably not saying that she is paid. The questions seem to be
1) would she exaggerate due to a payment, even unconsciously. this is similar to the judge/bride problem
2) it is implied here that the review will look like a freely written one. Gnevas daas? Or just expounding on what she said for free already?
3) I alluded above to Yevamos 63 where R Hiya lies to his mother to give the correct soup to his father Rav and we learn from there that even when lying is allowed l’derech shalom, the children should not get used doing that.I wonder whether an erliche solution would to be post a better review and finish it with thank you to the nice company providing me with funds to spend time writing this longer article.
> it unless you have 10 kids
CTL > Why is cleaning the house myself good ​for our wallets?Especially if you have kids, you should show them working ethics in person and then involve them. This would bring both physical and spiritual segula, as mentioned above.
As a yeshiva bocher, I was sitting at the back end of the table honoring a billionaire philanthropist, who was sitting at the other side with the Rosh Yeshiva. We were served by the philanthropist’s college-age son.
Charlie, last time you posted – Trump lost Loudon county by 24 points (17 in 2016), so it seems that the school board issue worked, l’zhut parents. Note that given that only some citizen really care about schools at particular times and general polarization, a 10% move in population is dramatic. Still Youngkin and school boards need to acknowledge help from Presidents Biden and Obama whose visits and visions contributed to this victory.
GH > with your 7 figure income, multiple vacation-home deductions etc, you get to deal with a higher calibre of IRS agent in your compliance audits.
I only had a pleasure to meet compliance agents from other government departments, they seem to be of higher self-esteem. I only met IRS guys virtually, B’H, and share your views.
> It is a democracy since people are the deciding factor as to which party should be in control.
It is not a democracy, but a representative Republic. When are they gonna teach modern civics in the yeshivas.
Avram > as people catch on to the more rudimentary ones, they become more elaborate and advanced.
Indeed, My good-hearted kid just left a nice review and soon got an email suggesting a payment for a longer one with a video or something. This is a smarter semi-ganav. Our halachik analysis so far is that this is akin to bribing a judge to issue a correct verdict – still osur. Or maybe it is simply a payment for the labor to express exactly same opinion in a better video form? Then mutar. Or maybe mutar aval asur so that the child is not getting used to sheker? please advise.
Gadol> I trust that most IRS agents have never read the works of a famous 19th century mathematics professor
Do you think they are chopped liver?! or undocumented migrants? I picture most of them being under-employed graduates from humanity departments from Yale and Columbia … I met auditors (not IRS) face-to-face and they present themselves as highly educated people who have to go down a level to waste time listening to excuses of simple folks running the businesses.
Avram, I think we subconsciously elevate as markers of observance things that make us “special”, “different”, thus kashrus and not middos (the weighty ones). Others observed also, for example, that we elevate action over “faith” as a counter-argument to religion that insists on “faith only”.
I would argue that “subconscious” decisions are, in other words, decisions that we did not examine with our logic. Logically, foundational ideas that are shared by the (good part of) humanity are of most importance, and then you build on them with additional refinement. Would people listen to Avraham, if he were obnoxious, rude, and a cheater?
Avram > are the only reasons for adhering to such a disciplined way of life.
I think you are saying that we use the “frum” definition between really observant Jews who do everything l’Shem Shamaim from those who behave nicely out of other reasons, either being non-religious or superficially religious. This makes sense, and started making sense from the time of Haskala, and served to make a protective line between “them” and “us”.
Let’s move to today’s observant community. I would argue that in many places number of people who seriously stumble in Kashrus & Shabbos is way less than those in geneiva and sheker.
Can someone enlighten us (pardon the word) what was Chofezt Chaim’s thinking about priorities between Kashrus & Shabbos (that he writes a lot about in books for less-observant people) and lashon harah? Does he see connection? same audience or different for these admonitions?
> Does Cherem D’Rabbeinu Gershom apply in the metaverse?
Oh, did you mean another one – about not hacking another person’s email account?
> Like putting a giant evil statue next to an image of the Luchois at a state capital
Rosh Hashona yesterday says it is OK to put a statue of a king near a shul – as nobody will suspect the community of AZ, but don’t try it at home!
> putting a Hebrew date on a check.
probably misspelling, but just warning you – if you put a Hebrew date on a check, it may not be cashed before Moschiach comes. Maybe a maschihist yeshiva will accept this check, to tie it back to the thread.
Which reminds me of a local Rov who told me that he went to a school Principal before the beginning of the year, asking: who is teaching 6th grade this year? P says “Hashem knows and will help”. Rov: then, He will be holding my check for now.
Froggie, please appreciate that Reb E went to yeshiva when Jack Kennedy was still alive. Learn as well.
It is very confusing, mr agent, today your tax is one height, then it is different. One day you are allowed SALT, another you are not, and now it will be again for two years. It is very confusing.
Agent: eat from this side of the mushroom – and hangs up.
Which side?!?
Avira > one of the most esteemed experts in chasidus
I think one problem with Chabad is insularity of their education: many do not appreciate Torah coming from other sources. This may be side effect of preparing bochrim for action early. Someone who is going to build a Chabad House in Iowa may not have time or focus to learn deeper. But this has to come with appreciation what the movement achieved. If you sit and learn all meforshim, while disparaging all other movements, you may not be on a greater maalah. There are a lot of sources saying that mesiras nefesh and involvement in community matters is worthy even if that decreases your limud (starting with Mordechai’s downgrade).
I found bringing up Vilna Gaon (as little as I know or understand him) works perfectly in increasing their awareness of the world :).
It is very impressive that election was won davka on the topic of education. So, the governor has a mandate to deal with education, which I think we all can agree is a critical issue for population, even if we do or do not care about public ed, and on specific methods. It is much better than people roused by passions about walls, black live matters, etc.
Seems like “white women” moved 15% towards R-. I would guess that mothers specifically were involved.