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Avira > there are a ton of pitfalls in which a therapist who means well can damage a client
I agree. When a more modern therapist says: I am not imposing my belief, all beliefs are valid, he is at the same time give the patient encouragement to see all beliefs are valid. I saw some suggesting that therapist work in tandem with a Rav to discuss what is possible. Here, I noticed a constant theme going through R Twersky’s books that one needs a Rav who is bokeh in these issues, not everyone with a smicha and a shul contract qualifies.
At the end, this discussion underscores a need for observant and well-trained therapists. Is there a place that trains for that and do we send anyone there? Another avenue – make sure families and schools teach musar and other ways to make people leave healthy lives, and hurt the kids less, so that there will be less need in therapy.
Syag > I said you don’t like frum. I didn’t say you don’t like the terminology.
I usually avoid personal remarks, but this one required clarification. My perception may be wrong, but I often see people using this term usually do it to – arbitrarily – exclude large swaths of Torah observant Jews from their notion of “amecha”. This may not be true for native Yiddish speakers, but often looks so for those who throw the term into English discussion. Especially here, we now have a full text of the teshuva, thanks RebE, and Rav Moshe, a Yiddish speaker, is clearly NOT using this term, yet everyone mis-quotes him. I may be oversensitive here.
Even Chofetz Chaim, in more “frum” times, when community was besieged by haskalah, had reservations, saying: people say: in our times, you need to be “frum, frum, and klug”, I say, you have to be “klug, klug, and frum”. So, I am pro-klugkeit.
RebE, thanks for the text. It looks like Rav Moshe would approve of Jewish psychologists!
YM, I think you can read this that expertise matters, which is a usual attitude in medical matters: shomer Torah is preferred, but if the only one available mumhe … I imagine if Rav Moshe would advocate going to a non-expert may be an option, he would say that.And both of you, could you do me a favor. As Syag noticed, I don’t like loaded terms like “frum” that everyone interprets as he wants, usually to exclusion of others. Rav Moshe says simply “shomer Torah”.
ujmI understand that if you have a dispute with any Jew, you need to invite him to a BD first before going to UN. But Romain can simply move to any of the neighboring aniti-zionist countries
TLIK, I hear you, still as relevant to this discussion, it is preferable to have a Torah observant therapist. That would mean it is laudable to be such therapist, despite the nisayonim. We were thinking about this issue in regards to possible career path for kids. The problem we see is that how would a Jewish therapist treat non-observant clients: what kind of perverse issues you can encounter and need to deal with? And how would you give them an appropriate advice? It may be a great place for a serious expert, and r Twersky brings a lot of exampels from his non-Jewish crazies and alcoholics, but not sure that you can say le’hathila that someone can thrive in this work. So, if not treating general public, you are left to pray that there are enough crazy Jews (and they realize they need treatment) ….
Syag, > should go with a frum psychologist as opposed to not but that a non frum psychiatrist is okay.
Thanks, this is what I was trying to say, but maybe did not phrase accurately. Now, I am looking further, I am not sure this is the full picture.
The source is Igros Moshe YD 2:57. Can someone with full text access look it up please. It seems that the question was about doctor who is a “min” or “kofer”. He says it is incumbent to go to someone who is “shomer Torah”, but if not available, negotiate with the doctor not to discuss beliefs.
Shabbos 146 has some discussion about the issue. The kids/young rabbanan give aq silly answer – why Babylonian T’ Ch (at least they acknowledge that there are some!) wear special (nice, Rashi) clothes: because they are not “bnei Torah” (I presume it means that people do not see them as such for their behavior is not special as of “bnei Torah”). Awaken R Yohanan corrects them that they are in galut and, thus, need to show to people that they are learned by externality. It seems from this that T’Ch in EY were not dressing like that and also that if everyone dresses special, then it defeats the purpose of separatding T’Ch from the rest.
> Indeanapollis, Indiana
I am surprised you don’t know where you live yet. This should be Indeana.
176> parents of girls going to male therapists
I would think that girls going to therapists may often have problems at home to begin with, so relying on parent supervision may not work well. Do we have places that teach therapists and halakha and hashkafa together, so that graduates can be relied upon?
n0 > they have to be open to a lot of criticism. .. There is zero reason anybody should mind teachers getting paid more.
They should be, given the importance of their job. Nuclear plants have a lot of oversight, and so should teachers who affect young neshomos. I am not sure though whether we use right tools for the criticism – meeting teachers twice a year and expressing displeasure with end product would be frustrating for everyone involved. There are lots of tools that could be used: standardized tests with published results, student evaluations, glass doors with occasional parent accees, easier ways to switch between classes, more competition, paying good teachers more ….
Let’s apply poasts to posts that boast.
Gadol, chicken used to be way more expensive. Maybe it is cheap now due to industrial methods raising them. So, when we say that men need “basar” for yom tov, we are saying that they should be OK with just meat, without the chicken. Rav, who offered beans, meant – I can give you what I eat myself. An interesting nekudah is the sister that appeared with the chicken: she was travelling for days, so Hashem gave her an idea to prepare the chicken for the poor man who will come to Rav several days later, anticipating his response.
Syag, my last point was that glass and sunshine are helpful in many aspects, literally and figuratively. For the record of my fairness, that was a MO school.
I think protecting religious people at Baba Sali is more important than the NY goers, so they are doing the right thing. Not only because Baba Sali attendants are likely to be more religious, but also
– NY goers are probably younger
– those who party at NY, will party anyway. Those who go to Baba Sali don’t do it daily, so protecting them will be more effective!
– They can well daven to be protected and we do not want to rely on miracles that will diminish schut of these people in olam habo!> No adult should work secluded with a child
glass doors and windows would help. In one college, a Rav designed a new building with his whole wall to the busy street being of glass. Some years later, a new Rav put curtains …
Windows in classroom doors are also helpful for parents. I was once on a tour, with a school admin inviting us to seat in several classrooms. I managed to also quickly peak into small windows in other classrooms that we were not invited in and saw a more realistic picture of the classes.
Nothing wrong enjoying the food, just check whether it affects your decision making:
if you are choosing between staying home or going to a dvar Torah, you hesitate and a kiddush after that makes you go – that is fine at some level. But if one shul has a better dvar Torah and another – better food, and you choose food, maybe this is not fine. If you go get “free” food because you are hungry – fine. If you get it because it is tastier than what you wish to spend – then, less so. There are though several agadot about poor people who demanded “stuffed bird” (a delicatessen of Gemora times) and being offered beans instead .. Conclusions seem to be inconclusive, but generally supportive of the demand – one guy choked and died without favoring food, in another case, Rav’s sister suddenly comes in from faraway and brings the stuffed chicken.ym> You dont find alot of Orthodox veterinarians
A good point. You want to select a profession that is helping the world in some way. With all due respect to animals, being a psychologist is way more important.
Syag> who told him he needed to be true to himself
yes, this is type of advice that we need to be careful about. R Feinstein says that non-Torah psychiatrists are preferred to psychologists – they just give you pills and do not mess with the values.
Get yourself books by R Twersky to understand a Jewish psychologist.
Furthermore, R Feinstein at some point paskened that it is ok to use a non-observant psychiatrist – who is prescribving drugs, but not a psychologist, who “fixes” your mind and may propose non-kosher attitudes. This means it is so important to have learned psychologists to address the needs of the community. I don’t know whether a combination of psychology/halakha/hashkafa is taught anywhere, though.
Edited
On one hand, we have so many brochos on food, and one for Torah, and also several for natural events. Seems like Hashem gave us a variety of products to enjoy them.
On the other hand, they say that as Aron did not take space in B’M (20-10*2=0), so shoudl T’Ch not take much space. Taken literally, a T’Ch who eats a lot will take too much space.
Gadol > Rs can move beyond Trump (and the Trump waanabees) and find a principled conservative
I think you are right on D “free stuff” context and I also do not see how it can be avoided, once the sharks smell the (free) blood in the water already, but I think you are misreading R- direction. Trump disturbed R-s rules of the game and was proven right in most cases: discarding polite campaigning and not responding to lies by Romney; fear of recognizing Yerushalaim; free (one-sided) market with China; ISIS; Ukraine; 5 years for vaccines, taxes, making D- into a pretzel by eliminating SALT; increasing Spanish vote. So, any future R leader has to integrate these new ideas somehow, it is impossible to go back. Even Biden recognizes it and continues many policies whenever he is not pressed by Commies.
Avira> most who go to work don’t go off, but a significant amount do, and a much bigger amount have a yeridah.
I do not observe this among young professionals I observe, whether yeshivish or MO. Where I saw problems, they typically manifest in high schools or shortly after, due partially influence of school atmosphere, teachers, and parents, but not after. Could you clarify: what is the source of this yeridah, as you observe? what is a typical job, home lifestyle and how does yeridah manifest itself?
re: working conditions, both of you seem to simplify the other side. Most teachers are always busy and have to prepare classes and deal with parents and do not charge per hour … But many other professionals spend too many hours and have to deal with unruly people and are devoting evening hours, although may be not as unruly as children. The biggest teaching perk, of course, is not just reduced or free tuition, or shorter hours, but an opportunity to lead meaningful/Torah life during working hours. When a builder have a problem, he calls a plumber. When a teacher – he calls his Rosh Yeshiva and enjoys a discussion. In the working world, too many people treat their workday as just wasted time in compensation for money and see no mitzvos and growth opportunity there.
therapists are somewhat different from lawyers as they are dealing with people who have psychological problems and are, thus, prone to be abused, and may have limited support and care at home (where psychological problems might be coming from).
Ubiq, you are right that this is machlokes between stam amorah and Avira. Avira has good arguments for his approach and has modern authorities to support this. I used modern on purpose, as some people like to blame others for deviation from heilicke tradition, but then ignore other aspects of Torah.
In this case, I already said that the current system seems to be justified at the time, but gemora warns us of long term damage. As R Avigdor Miller says, if you go into the fire to save a baby, you will still have burns. So, we need to acknowledge and deal with side effects. Whether my solutions are too radical for some is a separate issue.
Participant, I don’t know much about desantis, but I liked Brandon shtick. Funny and harmless. Less sure about his COVID policies, some sounds good, others may be political at the expense of health. His educational policies look good. Yes, he might have some governance experience but not as sharp as Trump’s.
Agree on prevention. If you establish safety rules: glass doors in key areas, etc, then any behavior that deviates from transparency will be noted early on. And possibly training of principals on such systems, and kashrus type certificate that principal implemented such a system
Maybe the important question to ask is: do people see possible signs of abuse and ignore them as this sounds unlikely or too difficult to get involved? Did any institutions have relevant information and let it pass? Sotah and halokhos yihud teach that nobody is above suspicion in these issues
Avira > currently a great number of those who claim to want to follow rebbe yishmoel go off entirely or partially in trying to do so, while almost none of their learning counterparts do.
This is the danger, and it was surely happening across the board 100 years ago. I am not convinced that this is the case now, though.
Judging from your writing about “MO”, you are usually talking about people who were not/not very observant to begin with. I see a lot of observant young professionals who went to MO schools and had observant parents. When I see a parent a child together, they see to be on average equally learned – in some cases, the father is more learned, in some cases, the son. I, of course, do not see those who do not come, but my impression is that those from MO/community schools who come from observant parents stay that way, and those who were sent there to be in a private Jewish school also stay that way, sometimes being more observant than parents. Does not mean there is no downwards pressure – I heard from such parents about pressure to be less tzanua and go to Ivy League instead of more Jewishly appropriate schools, but many seem to withstand the pressure.
DY > In many countries, items such as basic food, housing, and medical care are subsidized
Right, Cubans do! OK, EU does it too. But notice that the most basic products are provided by the market, starting with food. Yes, there are subsidies but, as much as possible, they should not distort the market. Thus, foodstamps and vouchers are preferred solutions.
So, what happens when you provide direct funding to schools? You give more power to school administrators. You hope they’ll pay the best teachers more. But what if they pay their friends more? What if their understanding of what makes a good teacher is not perfect?
Why not have a combination of parents and _independent_ Rabbis/chinuch experts provide additional funding to best teachers directly? The funding will follow the teacher to another school or if he starts his own class.
Syag > These parent put more emphasis on the academics that their children learn, then they put on the hashkafos they learn.
I think I understood you. I agree that this problem exists. I just don’t agree that it has to be so bad. I presume, you go to stores, cook your food, and have more than one change of clothes. How much are you fretting that your family prioritizes food over learning Torah? I presume that someone in your family goes to work? Is he/she prioritizing work over learning? As I said before, our community did admirable job counteracting assimilation and desire to be “like Joneses”. This was appropriate, following Rambam’s approach – if you have a wrong midah, you need temporarily (sic!) go to another extreme until you train yourself and then return to the “golden middle”. Same with the community as a whole – in the process of defending from assimilation, our communities became distorted not just economically, but also hashkofically in terms of how we live our lives. Gemora already said that “many followed Rashbi and were not successful”. So, if we have already 2-3 generations that have distorted values, we will not preserve the Torah of previous generation, but a perverse version of it.
Gadol, I have no problem with private business building any car they want, electric, gas, even nuclear. As long as their doing so is not distorted by the government too much (for example, I think the abovementioned Ford needs “green” vehicles to counter-balance their very profitable trucks and still satisfy the gov requirement “on average”)
user176 > I imagine that teachers usually do not do it for the money
This is true – and one wonderful principal frankly said exactly these words about the teachers she hires … What I see, though, in latest couple of generations is that there are too many people who have no other work options except chinuch, due to their own education. When they grow up, some of them discover passion for teaching and others – do not, but they are expected to go into chinuch. [ Maybe in some larger communities, they can go work for some “frum” businesses who will not be afraid to hire and teach them the business]. So, they go and do the best of it, without much passion.
In some elementary schools, you have one main teacher for at least half-a-day. So, if you get an inappropriate teacher for a kid for the whole year, it is difficult. The fact that the last year teacher was a tzadekes is not helping at that moment… Here is where free market could help. Quoting a Rav who told me of a conversation he had with a principal:
– would you know already who is going to teach 5th grade this year?
– Hashem will help
– So, He will be holding my tuition check for nowSyag > level of academics than the hashkofos. And don’t think their kids don’t pick up on it.
They absolutely pick up! We are teaching kids that academics is hashkofa. Some people prepare for lifetime chinuch and this is great, especially if they understand what is required and ready for it. This would typically be people from families with such traditions. Others prepare to work be erliche yidden in what they do, do chesed, learn, etc. Our family has at least 5 generations of engineers/ businessmen/ doctors and the kids understand that academics is required to follow this derech. They understand that academics is not a goal to supersede others and none of them was interested in going to schools with good academics but compromised behaviors.
Syag, beyond personal experiences, I researched all local frum and even modern schools, and heard from other people about other places. I spoke with a number of Rabbis and teachers both working in those schools and those who were just customers. I do understand that my knowledge is limited, of course. My suggestions are based what I know of halakhic approaches, and you are welcome to bring your own knowledge also. If you are not denying that halakha wants unlimited competition between teachers and all that is implied by that, then the question is how exactly this should be applied.
Well, you may think that this is an inappropriate topic, then, where should I look for suggestions what to tell the kids, who are already aware, and who grew up with these books.
Raising salaries may not solve the problem. As it is, many working families that pay full or close to full tuition find it hard to pay and spend their lives earning money to pay for, edited schools. They have less time to spend with kids and thus have to rely on schools to do more and more of chinuch. Look also at public school system – generally, “taking care” of teachers lead to an expensive system. Furthermore, giving charity funds to schools makes them even responsive to parents (same as in public schools)
Gemora and later halakha provides a carve out for teachers for unlimited competition – so that prices will be lower and parents could afford it. This does not mean “do not pay teachers well”, it means enable true competition and market – enable many smaller schools that parents can easily switch between, encourage transparency of school budgets and educational outcomes, enable parents to use part of the school program, etc. Maybe the generous donors can leverage their funds to move the system this way either directly or by a voucher-type system where parents direct the funds.
For a simple example, why not parents decide which teachers will get additional funds that are coming from outside schools. This will ensure that good teachers stay and not so good leave voluntarily.
> Many teachers give their lives to their students and work 24/7.
I find this more true for the (way) older generation, either because of the harder times they grew up, or maybe just because of natural selection and only great teachers stayed in profession that long. Among younger ones, I see (often, not all of course) more pragmatic interests – feed the family, spend reasonable time/effort, this is the only job she is qualified to do… This may be in part as the only challenges of latest generations were such (pre-covid) or maybe, it is just a phase and they’ll grow up, I don’t know.
Studies, studies – you and government will produce a lot of studies, and then legislate them, and then discover failures. If you are able to create a market for something, then thousands of smart people motivated by profit will solve all those problems for you. When was the last time (before recently), you worried about supply chains, figuring out where to find a gas station, making sure tires fit the car, etc? Millions of decisions made by businesses. You only find out about them when government intervenes and has to solve it. See how now inflation is being blamed on big businesses and will lead to further legislature to address it.
I remember watching House of Commons where prime minister was asked – why there are not enough hospital beds in some small English town, and he was able to recite numbers of current beds and how many they will build soon. This is nonsense when you get when politicians are trying to do what businesses should.
Problem with people like Cruz that they are talkers. There is no evidence that I know of that he can manage anything. Same as Barack or Brandon.
Joe Lieberman just had an oped in WSJ that Senate should go back to regular order and deal with issues instead of playing politics. Maybe he can run, from either party.
GH, that wiki page looked like an objective source, thanks for pushing me to find it.
As to sarcastic point, there are definite perceptions about parties. In addition to crime – based on all the defund police calls, the same small business survey says that 87% of R businessmen think that their party is good for business, while only 63% of D think that theirs is … But I don’t think these perceptions will convince you or, more importantly D- politicos. Most of them seem to think that their only problem is perception – that they don’t explain their wonderful ideas, they just need to explain better (and “educate”) the stubborn electorate. Sad.ujm > That’s really the entire case
I don’t think you proved that. Here I am suggesting to consult actual free Cubans, many of whom have relatives back on the island and know the situation. For some reason, they seem to be adamant to be against supporting the regime. But maybe, as in other cases, we can come up with approaches that are both helping Cubans and not supporting the regime? Maybe beaming free internet, increasing information services, sending food & medicine directly to dissidents or just random Cubans? For example, parachuting food, clothes, and unlocked phones? US is pretty close to Cuba to be able to do that.
Gadol > a disproportionate percentage of those convicted of corporate bribery and violations of the FCPA are also self-identified Republicans
What are the numbers, specifically. Anecdotally, I do not see different attitudes towards honesty based on party affiliation. Here is what I found:
A wiki page listing convicted politicians has 73 Rs and 58 Ds after 1990. All republicans in early 1900s. Starting 1960 to 2000, and looking just at Congress – 2 to 1 Ds, and after 2000 about equal.
here is some data from 2020 small business survey: 40% are R, 28% are D. Other surveys have 40% R and 22% D. Bigger difference among bigger business CEOs – 60% donated to R, 20% to D.
So, if politicians belong to parties in the same ratio as either small businessmen or CEOs, then D-s are more corrupt.
I am afraid that there will be lots of R-s that will talk like Trump but without his business and negotiation skills. We don’t need that, but it could be popular. I would then vote for a more mainstream R- like Rubio or even Romney, despite the latter showing bad judgment in last 5 years.
Maybe bias for “no sanctions” is due to modern era of “free trade”. This is reflected in statements “sanctions do not work” that are to be proven or disproven. This free trade era is due to having a large number of countries that are not at war with each other. This bias is not applicable to unfriendly countries, and we need to analyze the issue on merits. In your life, when you have a choice between a nice store owner and business partner and a bully, you would surely choose the former.
What is the reason NOT to have sanctions and strengthen a bad regime?
Cigars? You need to vacation there? Access cheap health care? Drive a vintage 1950 car?
A possible case may be made that trade will make life of Cuban people better and, maybe, eventually a better regime. Here is where I would trust the Cubans on what is a better option.ujm > Cuban-American man on the street demands sanctions
I would trust his opinion. A person who knows what he is talking about. OK to layer it over with some foreign policy wisdom, but not to reject it.
YS> fear of nuclear power
I agree. It would do the world a lot of good if people trying to achieve something propose reasonable measures that appeal to others at the top of their list. I may vote for reasonable subsidies to electric cars, coupled with new nuclear plants and favorable leases or pipelines for oil & gas to make us stronger now viz. our enemies. I would also support more money for public schools, if it were coupled with vouchers to charters/religious/online schools. Instead, we are getting push for expensive policies that only appeal to extreme people.
Ctl All new residential (1-4 family) construction will be required to have one rapid charging station for each two units. Again, all at no cost to the owner
Please clarify how it will be at no cost: town will provide land, equipment, and electricity? And Chinese will pay the taxes? And of course, poor people need to have affordable housing now, but we will do sun powered cars first
As an illustration, how great government helps people – Jeff Bezos is donating $130 MLN dollars to help poor communities write GRANT APPLICATIONS so that they have a chance to receive money allocated by Congress in recent giveaways. They do not stand a chance of getting the money without the assistance. That is, in addition to millions of dollars we pay to support the gov employees, we now need $130 mln dollars to get that money back from them.
>> “The best economy is capitalism, free and mostly unfettered and ulittered with corruption from government handouts.”
> Our entire street and highway system was built by the government.
And we have government running the Navy also. There is no contradiction. Whatever is impossible to be done through market means, is done by the government. And, in US, should be done by appropriate government: your street should be built by the town and highway by the state.
The only reason we have so much enmity in federal, especially Presidential, elections, is the multitude of issues that the President is responsible for. Medicine, tax credits, building roads – all of these should be done by states, and everyone can choose a state to live in at minimal cost. Presidential debates should be limited to foreign affairs and defense budget. Boring.