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again, you don’t like mRNA, you can take J&J, AZ, Sinopharm, Sputnik, wear full N-95, or just stay home. If none of these choices are good for you, then this is not a rational, but a religious position. You are simply refusing to accept reality that Hashem put you in.
This reminds me of a discussion I had with a friend some time ago who brought up multiple reasons for not eating kosher meat. Most of them did not stand scrutiny, but he settled that it will cost him too much. I then offered to pay for his family’s meat. Everyone got interested in this insult – I was a grad student and he had a very high-paying job. He then switched saying that it takes too much time to go get it. I am embarrassed to say that I was not tzaddik enough to offer deliveries, looking back at that, I probably should have. (that was before Amazon and UberEats)
I am not sure which exactly schools are discussed here. but I think a number of such schools have kids from less observant families to begin with – who view a Jewish school as a good prep school with Jewish kids, with varying attitudes towards religion. Of course, we hope that these kids will be affected by the school to the better, but it may not be the case. So, we need to count outcome separately based on their family history. This is similar to some teacher/school evaluation metrics that look at the improvement by the school comparing with what kids were before, rather than looking at current grades.
philosopher, people who take vaccines and are careful are not negatively affecting anyone, except that you feel you are surrounded by sheep, and we probably also give you an ayn hara.
people who do not take vaccines and/or are not careful contribute to continuation of the pandemic, causing damage to the society, and dead and sick people. Even people who are vaccinated can still be infected. As we talked before, 95% protection from infection is based on the same behavior with and without vaccine. If you take a vaccine and relax behavior while being in the same treat environment, your risk is still high. For example, if a person is in the group of unvaccinated uncareful people and is close to them for a sustained time period, he will get infected, even as his chance of getting seriously sick is not high. Still, it is possibly some damage to health that we do not know well enough. It is seen now in Israel – even with very low overall rates, the moment rules are relaxed, one person can infect tens of people.
Most significant benefit from the vaccine comes from the group effect – R0 <1: each person infects on average less than 1 person and soon everyone around is clean. Currently, US R0 is just lower than 1 – 0.85 – it achieved lowest point of 0.75 on May 25 and went up for the two weeks after that, when everyone started relaxing the rules. Most Europe (except UK) and Canada have now R0=0.5 that is decreasing dramatically. US also now vaccinating 0.3% of population per day – as much as under Trump, while Europe does 0.8% per day.
RebE > . A responsibilty on the public is a responsibility on each individual of the group.
I think Sam is pointing out that when the tzara is for a group, then it relates to the problems of the whole group. [see Pharaoh’s dreams when he was not satisfied with explanations that were personal and not communal].
And if the group ( a gantze velt in this case) includes Jews, then Jews might be the problem [see Yona on the ship]. So, maybe anti-semites have a point blaming Jews for all kind of problems [See Beitza 25, why Hashem gave Jews Torah to protect the world from us]
coffee > got “reparations” technically from מצרים look at the midrash
I was thinking about it too – notice that Jews used the reparation idea only in defense against Mitzrim claiming money from us! We remember Mitzraim but not because we are looking for their payoff. Otherwise, every Seder would include a list of things Mitzrim owe to us. We do not. The trap of former slaves may be partially explained by selection: everyone except them (and natives) volunteered to come to America, whether legally or illegally, under duress or lured by the riches, every American packed suitcases and got moving. So, everyone has a certain attitude passed on in their families and was somewhat unusual among their peers. Slaves did not have that and, in addition, all their families were destroyed.
> , a few months in a dorm destroys everything the kid picked up in yeshiva.
While I do not want to underestimate the challenges, should we not ask – what is the value of 12+ years of Jewish education that is destroyed in a few months of a dorm?
Disclaimer: my kids are packing up right now for the (online) college.
> And when it will be His Will then the virus will become extinct
So, it seems to be His will to create a vaccine so fast, but some rebels refuse to take it preventing all of us from return to normal life – and have hutzpah to complain.
to previous questions from Participant, according to my limited understanding:
vaccines increases immune response. Yes, it may move someone from symptomatic to asymptomatic, but at the same time, it will prevent someone else from asymptomatic transmission at all. Very weak vaccines, like Chinese, seem to be creating problems on countries like Mongolia, possibly because of immediate relaxation of rules. Vaccines create 2 responses – antibodies and T-cells. Antibodies prevent transmission and also decrease with time and possibly with variants. T-cell take time to respond, so they prevent serious illness but not transmission. T-cell response may even improve with time and is covering more variants. In the same Mongolia, cases skyrocketed, deaths increased way less, at least for now.there are lots of lessos learned from this pandemic and new questions:
– need to monitor for outbreaks and react to them in real time (closing borders was considered impolite, not anymore)
– domestic (or democratic) production of medicine and other strategic goods (not just USA, EU is looking at that also)
– quick vaccine development (mRNA) and methods to do Phase 3s quickly (Trump’s achievement)– accountability (not solved). Would we allow someone to claim a mistake for a minor nuclear explosion or would we invoke MAD doctrine? should the same apply to bio-weapons?
– decoupling of virus protection from politics (not solved)
Participant: 1/3 were vaccinated, 1/2 were children, 70% were Delta. While the level in the country is low, the cases seem to be connected with arrivals, some from low-risk Cyprus. Israeli gov is asking Israelis not to travel for fun. They are not saying it to visitors from Chutz, but think for yourself.
MA > Please explain.
people were exposed to transmittable diseases all the time. They either took protection or not, and contined living (Obviously, we are coming from those who did). For example, Newton did most of his work on physics after abandoning Cambridge for his estate for a couple of years during a bubonic plague pandemic.Health, there is this attractive idea of “them” – Tzedukim, Reformim, Tzionim who created some problems. Well, all these movements started at some moment from inside of Jewish community – in response to some other test that Hashem challenged us with. Of course, everyone has a free will, but it is fair to ask whether Jewish community as a whole didn’t fully stand to the test, not just the peshayim. To again quote R Salanter – when someone does not learn well in beit midrash it affects a professor in Berlin. Anther example – Chofetz Chaim not greeting a melamed who did not accept Trotsky as a kid.
To your example, R Berel Wein traces zioni-religious fight in Israel to the animosity between kahal and community coming from the tragedy of Cantonists that Russia forced the communities to provide – and the choice would often fall on poor and orphans. And while the Czar has most of the blame, many kehilot, such as Vilna, were weakened by chasidim/misnaged split that Russian government exploited.
tocho k’voro just showed up In Daf Yoma 72b – both Rava and Abaye say that this is a requirement for T’Ch, or (Abaye) it is a toeva. Nobody seems to contradict here. Maybe the opposite opinion was OK for Tannaim in EY, where they can control behaviors better, but would lead to abuses in Bavel?
> What’s the halachic basis for Yekkes only waiting three hours
what’s the halakhic basis to do only 6 hours?! really menchen did 24 hours according to Gemora.
Avram, he sounds ambiguous:
>> We do not require masks or 6 feet separation because we are totally outside.which I read that he prefers outside without masks to davening inside with masks. But later he says that he somehow likes his new minyan. What I am saying, there is no reason to argue about this during the transitional period, hopefully to the better. We usually don’t fight about other issues where there is a range of opinions, same here.
Maybe the OP can clarify, but here are some possible reasons he might have, consciously or not: there is a mutual good feeling between mispalelim who literally went thru heat and cold together; there might be people who go to the main shul who were disregarding safety rules; they may not have liked something in the shul atmosphere to begin with …
Note that there are now reports from multiple areas that post-pandemic lead to many people re-evaluating their lives – jobs, work-home balance, education .. there are always people like that, but now we had a moment of a collective world-wide teshuva movement. Hopefully, we all utilize this moment for the better.
> who sometimes do the Yekkishe washing … also sometimes eat milichigs three hours
is this a major kulah? you make Kiddush, you wash, you eat challah, just in a different order. You also make kiddush with clean hands. Just had in the daf, Kohen Godel reads one of the parshiyot by heart instead of a scroll to avoid tircha d;tziburah, surely you can say kiddush with clean hands. I’ve seen people doing it not as a routine but in certain circustances, say in a sukkah where coming in and out takes long time.
lowerourtuition – a good question. How do you think Isroel Meier HaCohen would say it?
btw, NYT obituary says Chofetz, they should know! NYT wished him long life so much, they listed his as 105, not 95.> “Kulahs” – That is reserved for you M.O. Guys!
why is this lashon hara on BMG? Greater greatness is required for kulos, are you saying none of them aspire to that?
and how about kulos on protection from covid? someone paskened on that
a hard question – as many minhagim may be influenced by cultures we lived in. One example from the Torah would be Hashem insisting on hatzot for yetsiyat Mitzraim – and following up on his threat. So, apparently, He considers important to follow up the time, even when the other side does not insist on it. In other cases, “boker” or “erev” seems to suffice.
Maybe, the bottom line is that you don’t have to go crazy about timing. Asa Avira is saying, depends on the person. One may need a precise schedule, another can dedicate an afternoon to a topic… but if you did make an appointment or a schedule, then you should follow up.
Note that computer culture promotes the Yekkesh attitude: taxes are due until 12:00, same goes with online exams and proposals. Is it the same everywhere or just in US? Do online systems in South America allow for late returns?
Avram,
if the question is should temporary minyanim become permanent, I am on the side of “no” with possible exceptions where people discovered that main shul was not for them for a very serious reason. This is not a new issue, chasidut started with breaking up communities like that.from my point of view, it is still an issue of COVID. US is behind Israel and on par with UK and both of these countries are starting or considering rollbacks of relaxing. Delta’s R0 ~ 7 invites frequent burst that will helpfully be contained. Still with current decreased case levels due to vaccinations, both sides now have on what to rely, that is why I consider it not so important. Compare to good old times, when someone comes to a minyan coughing and sneezing. Some will offer an abi gezund and a tissue, others would move away and give him a look, and both responses are within reasonable limits.
I am not an expert on biology, but I can use statistics – if there are at least 3 different technologies for vaccines 1) mRNA, 2) J&J, AZ 3) Sinovac, Sputnik – and someone finds different flaws in all of them, maybe there is no point in arguing each of the points separately, as there is obviously some other objection.
that’s not all of Munkatz – I recall they are also in Petach-Tikwa near rehov Chafetz Chaim (that was named for the apartment bought for Ch. Chaim)
when a sefer becomes a personal name, should we use it correctly? Maybe, when the naming happened during their lifetime? There were no such people as Beis Yosef or Chafetz Chaim – only Beit Yosef and Chofetz Chaim …
It is amazing how well written Hebrew survived comparing with Oral (and with other languages). Maybe the point is that we can see how reliable written tradition is comparing with Oral. I may not be able to converse with someone from Munkach, whatever country it is, but I can read Rambam (in Hebrew translation)
philosopher, there was no Moscow Russia 1500 years ago, you might be drinking too much vodka. Kiev Rus existed ~ 1000 years ago, that’s where modern Ukraine is. Pale by definition was areas previously belonging to other countries. Lubavich become pro-Russian, rather than Russian during Napoleon wars, still it did not move them from Belorus, which used to be part of Lita.
Somehow, we need to both recognize that we are still in golus and recognize the miracle of beauty of Eretz Israel full of Jewish people and Torah.
We were davening for centuries to be able to return to EY, and when it starts happening – excuse me Hashem, this is not the way I thought this should happen. 0
So we easily recognize idiosyncrasies of yekkes, Russians, Galicians, including how they reflect surrounding societies, sometimes for good, sometimes not … but can we look at ourselves and recognize what looks normal to us, but is not – for american and israeli Jews especially?
Acura, yes I find it a sign of great integrity when a Rav guides the student according to student’s path, not Rav’s, whether in learning style or minhagim. Goes back to Elisha bAbuya riding a horse and telling R Meir to turn back because of tehum shabbat, and Hillel quoting Shammai’s position first
Avram, you are somewhat quick to dismiss avot and for hamidbar. Most of the Torah is about them. For some reason, Hashem gave us Torah, rather than handing us down a shulchan oruch, or Rambam to teymanim! It is not a dispute that davening in shul is preferable, but current circumstances added a twist, and outdoor minyanim served their role. As we went through both heat and cold, those who were there definitely did it not out of desire for outdoors. I personally miss the shul bookshelves and have to concentrate on davening more 🙂 the question when exactly to end them is transitory and not very important, I think.
common, most my information usually comes from research articles or raw data that I analyze. And it usually takes several sources to recognize a trend. I do not see any value quoting MSM as everyone gets enough if it. But I do understand now why you are dismissing what I propose without bringing any numbers in response. I guess you are presuming that I am quoting someone you dislike.
Speaking of “value” of MSM. One consequence of the public show of tzadkus by FDA when they paused J&J vaccine, and then publicly allowed it, without even for a moment refusing l’havdil between different groups of people – now everyone in the country saw the headline and do not want this vaccine that was supposed to be useful when going to small and remote settings.
There was an easy solution – limit J&J to men and older women who had no problems at all, and take time to analyze for the rest. But those wise guys wanted attention and did not want to “discriminate”.
The way public reacted may be an all-American trend, parallel to what we discussed in Jewish education. General population is superficially “educated” – that is they can read news headlines on Fbook, so they are now confident to make decisions based on those headlines.
philsopher, I do not understand what you are saying. 10 Jews might have lived in Moscow in 17th century, this does not make a community. Until 20th century, those who could settle beyonf the Pale were merchants, former cantonists, professionals. Some were illegally, of course. They mostly continued minhagim of where they came from – Lita or Ukraine. Restrictions were lifted by liberal Russian revolution, but then religion was banned by the commies same year, so there was not much time to develop “russian” minhagim or yddish dialect. what we call “russian Jews” is a combination of previous minhagim with Soviet lifestyle and propaganda.
information now is accumulated, used, and sold. I am getting calls from some Jewish place saying whether I want to match what I paid last year. So, places you give to may expose you to additional fundraising. A friend of mine once gave generously to a visitor. Next week, someone else knocked on the door and was offended by the offered amount.
Same way works for recent ransomware attacks – companies that pay out are immediately attacked again as they become known as good targets.
This may be a new interpretation of the goodness of giving in secret – you do not get on the list.
> Try naming a yeshivish gadol that has no ties to any public fundraising.
R Kotler is quoted that he was concerned why Hashem punished him that he has to travel so much in order to fundraise for his yeshiva. He concluded that he probably was not careful with the honor of his students and insulted some of them without noticing.
philosopher, I don’t think I ever quoted Fauci. You need to widen your education beyond what facebook recommends you. go check out scientific papers and preprints. Some are freely available, others require subscription. go to a local library or university if you want to read more. If you find some difficult to process, post it here and we can all analyze together.
btw, if you have concerns about mRNA vaccines, there are lots of others available already. J&J is available everywhere now, it is a more traditional technology, previously tested. You can also try Sinovac or Sputnik, those are even more classical, and probably well tested on prisoners and soldiers.
meirG, sorry for imprecision, my math mind does not distinguish between A = B and B = A. As your quotes point out, there is a difference between trying to have inside to outside and other way around.
I understand the merit of the idea of keeping outside appropriate and then inside will follow. Still, you need to be careful with that. When everyone focuses on the outside as a routine, then there is less impetus to work on the inside and you are throwing overboard those (the best) who focus on inside. This would affect shiduchim, yeshivos (“which one is hardest”). This makes Satmarer’s quip a little troubling, hard to judge out of context, I presume it was humorous, maybe based on his prejudice.
I am may be misremembering, I think in Slobodka they dressed casually, and Novordok innovated dressing up yeshiva boys as if they were talmidei chachamim already, a forerunner of modern “positive”, self-esteem improving education.
@waterbury – I heard good things about it from graduates and read a short book by Rosh Yeshiva, he sounds like very much a mench.
health > So how could you even think that it is possible that we have anything to do with their Observance of Judaism?!?
I can resort to R Salanter who said that the person who is not learning well in Lita affects non-observant professor in Paris … What I mean is that in US, people often do not meet. In Israel, non-observant people can observe observant one closely. There was just in the news – that several haverim knesset, including an Arab one, praised R Gafni’s performance as a finance minister, who apparently worked not just “for his sector” but everyone. This affects people, and there are many other cases like that. Specifically, Russian olim came from their own tsoros, they were not part of Ben Gurion’s government. If you speak Yiddish, you could go and try to talk to those who do.
philospher> Why do you think one side is more knowledgeable than the other side,
> you can decide who and how people can come to conclusionsI hear your concerns about government, and I agree with them. Every politician’s judgment is suspect, and every gov administrator is a politician, working and keeping his way up. I am all for skepticism, but it does not mean that we just need to weight equally everything you can google.
I personally have expertise and training in data analysis and that is what I am trying to judge.
>> “controlled studies” of medication takes years before it is allowed on the market while these so-called uncontrolled “studies” (they are certainly NOT controlled studies- the average Joe is the studied specimen) are merely months old
again, good questions that I am also concerned about. I reviewed history of multi-year vaccine controlled studies and follow-ups after that. Most of side effects are discovered early.
Uncontrolled studies seem to be strong, I read several. They work the following way – you match every vaccinated person to a similar unvaccinated one and do pairwise comparison on million of pairs. It is good technology. It is not as good as controlled study to get one single answer – 94% or 80%, but it is very good at fishing out multiple potential correlations and problems. This approach is more likely to generate false predictions that have to be later validated by controlled studies than to miss one. Note also that there are studies from different countries now – Israel, UK, EU. They all have governments, but still there is some diversity of views here, and many published as preprints before they get reviewed.
Most important, there are cases of caution and there are of trade-offs. For example, mask wearing, SD, online learning, outdoor minyanim are no-brainer from public health prospective – even when the government says – don’t worry, spend money, I want to be re-elected, we now can handle number of patients, you can be a little more cautious not to be one of those patients.
But, with vaccine, you have a trade-off: you risk either a vaccine or a virus. One is made in Western countries trying to save people, another – wild or made in China trying to hurt people. I am more worrying about the second. So, you need to weigh your exposure risk: if you have high chance of being exposed, I would choose vaccine any time. If you are not exposed and a teenager, the numbers are not so clear to me.
Participant, I am saying that Rambam’s approach, being focused on rational, can be studied accordingly as a way of thinking. (I may be re-using Maharal’s paradigm that Bavli creates a method and that is why it is useful for future generations)/ I did not say anything about “conclusions”, I am not a Teimani.
Avira> Learning superficially, in many cases, is a form of chutzpah – it makes Torah out to be simple, robbing it of the divine wisdom that is gained from learning Torah be’iyun.
I think you are right. On one hand, it is wonderful that so many people have access to learning, on the other hand, it does indeed create attitude that we are all now Torah mavens, and then teachers, and then teach students for whom this will be full Torah.
Do we have any way to measure quality of Torah learning, outside of being a full baki yourself? Torah SAT and GRE? Rich people used to be able to hire a talmid chacham to go examine a potential hatan, but now whom do you trust to be an examiner?
I had this discussion with the person and the son I mentioned about davening mincha. The father raised the question what Rav I should be learning with back at home. The son gave a great suggestion: ask his yeshiva Rav whom he is asking shailot in Israel, then go up to the top, then ask this top Israeli posek who is his counterpart in Western hemisphere, and then go down – ask that guy to recommend whom he knows in my country, then in the city. My counter-suggestion was (and still is) – ask the Rav (or listen him discuss) the sugya I know well (I do not mean ust Shulchan Aruch, could be historical, etc) and select based on that.
Jews were allowed in Russian Empire inside the “Pale of Settlement” – former Polish and other territories – Belorussia, Baltics, Ukraine. True, they understood where they are. During Napoleon wars, most Jews were pro-French, while “Alter Rebbe” bet on the Czar, not just because he did not like modernity”, but presumably he understood that his territory will still be part of Russia. He died while running away from Napoleon, I recall… Jews were allowed fully inside Russia proper after Czar.
I suggest focus first at what you are good at and use your talent to contribute to your family/community/world. But maintain your negatives at minimal level so that they do not stop your progress or find way to avoid the problems. for example, if you are great coming up with new ideas but do not know how to write well, then you can send your ideas to a lot of place and never get a response to your wonderful ideas. Your choice would be to either study writing a little, or get a partner who can write.
Later on, when you succeed in things you are good at, you can challenge yourself to things that are hard. Hashem’s tested Avraham to behave against his hesed nature, but only in the last tests.
Rabban Gamliel’s yeshiva. Tough entrance requirements that are impossible to fake: your outside = inside. Not sure whether this requirement was both for the Hebrew and Greek departments.
RebE > You know that the Ravad used a very strong language against the Rambam by discouraging people from just learning it as they used to before the SA.
So, who won the argument historically? is SA a compromise: it is a systematic work but with references that Rambam omitted and paying more attention to practice? Would Raavad be happy with SA or still argue against?
Am I following well Rambam/Aristotle’s “middle path” – as one person seems to attack me for disregarding authority and another for not allowing independent thinking?!
there is no one answer here:
> People are followers or independent thinkers.
you can’t be a thinker if you do not have information and do not know how to process it.> Covid-19 has a 99% survival rate while we are getting no numbers on the supposed “vaccinations”.
There is a lot of research on vaccines, both Phase 3s and now uncontrolled studies. These numbers seem to be more reliable than COVID analysis: we know exactly whether and when someone got a vaccine, while we often do not know whether and when someone got COVID. I recently posted an estimate of vaccine side effects and compared them with COVID side effects. Decision may depend on how old you are, and whether you actively mix with other people, esp unvaccinated.> it’s important to trust Rabbonim, doctors, and community organizers over doing the research yourself.
As I said, it depends on your capabilities and of those you are asking. I can make a professional judgment in some aspects, I can then ask those in other areas, in some areas I use my professional contacts to get information from researchers rather than “community organizers”. One of them walked me thru difference in technologies of different vaccine types and I indeed “trusted” her – because the explanation way beyond my knowledge. And nobody is perfect when you are asking, it is just a nature of things… I was on one mass zoom call where the person went through sanitary measures and I had to chat him privately, as he forgot to mention a couple of important things …
philosopher, we are talking about areas that changed hands a lot…
Moldova is more or less Romania, Western Ukraine (ie Lviv) used to be Poland or Austro-Hungary, they are Russian-speaking as much as Soviets moved population there. I don’t think there is “Russian” Yiddish as much as Russia proper did not allow Jews into the country. After Russia and others divided Poland at the end og 18th century, there was a Pale … You got to be a merchant, a doctor, or a Rabbi to be allowed in.coffee, a good question. First, Europeans have different voters.
2nd – their life is more homogeneous and less eventful. If you can have a machloket in N dimensions (economy, religion, Arabs, etc), then you get a chance to create 2^N + 1 parties (one in the center) ..
3rd – who said European system works? Weimar republic fell, French are already on Fifth republic, Italians are having same balagan as Israelis. Brits seem to figure out parliamentary system.common, you are just looking for a fight for no reason. I did not use Fauci as information source. Let me know if you caught me doing it! you are attacking a strawman.
Can’t speak for Gadol though, maybe you are talking to him.