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Syag, LOL
I almost posted that I indeed was in two masks and whether the guy who was coughing near me was your husband
But then I thought this would be too cruel to ask in case he was, and in case he wasn’t! And now you posted this yourself. Refuah shleima to your husband.> Did he tell you that directly, or are you assuming that?
I applaud you going for primary sources. response from the state Edu committee staffer forwarded to me by another staffer:: as the funding will go from districts, depending how it will be handled, could face resistance from the local level (and not just from teachers).
This was early in the pandemic, there is more activity in many states this year. I hear that Florida Virtual School franchises their online system to other states.
for now, some states have state online schools that, as mentioned above, are seen as competition for funds with local money pits. A promising trend seems to create virtual schools per district, i.e. money do not leave the district.
To what degree do hasan and kallah have to come from the same shita? Is the ideal where both come from the same shtetl and have all same minhagim?
There used to be an idea that rich people should marry daughters to students. Is it harder now, when everyone is looking for someone with the same opinion on everything, including how to work and what to learn.
Common, thanks for the elephant story. It is indeed relevant to the state of art in knowledge transfer. The correct “big picture” algorithms would then consider – how is it likely to have a spear, a snake, a wall and a rope all in one place? If not, then they need to be substituted by other things that fit together. Some ascribe this approach to Mishna Berurah – let’s resolve the issue the best way possible (while respecting sources the best way possible) v. some previous codes that focus on resolving the shitos on their own. Not my thought, so don’t flame me.
> my nomination is for Candyman of the CR
So, even if I get through the mods, I am then censored by the .. candyman. Sweet!
Mod-29, if you send me a collection of rejected articles (and I can scrap accepted ones online), I can see if it is possible to help automate your work. Or I can simply keep track of my own postings and see which one you reject. It will not be a one-time thing though because as you are training the robot, we will be inventing ways to go around the robots, or training our own robots. Chinese already do that trying to go around great firewall of China.
> How will a school deploy online learning to a student body that largely lacks internet connected devices or even an internet connection at home?
A good question … Many cities provided funding for laptops and internet.
> You can’t just throw them in front of a Chromebook
> If parents, what if they need to work?I do not deny the challenge. I am just saying that one would need to start with existing resources.
Online schools have systems that allow parents easy view of what was done and what will be done. There is also a councilor that looks at all grades and talks to each kid for 15 minutes weekly to make sure kids are on target. Many of the quick tests are multiple-choice and both the kid and you get answers immediately. So, you can quickly see what is going on and the kid knows that too.
From our perspective, ability to monitor classes is a great way that allows using this great public resource. For example, one woke teacher used an anti-Israeli material instead of a standard one. It was “balanced” – an anti-Jewish Pali article was balanced with an anti-Jewish Israeli article … So, we learned the sugya in depth, brought all other materials, and discussed what motivated the teacher to show material like that, etc. Even in good Jewish schools, you may not have such blatant stuff, but there will be lots of narishkeit in general studies [of course, some would say – why social studies].
Another useful trick – sign kids for hard online classes, so that they’ll require your help. If you know the stuff, you can direct them and connect general studies with the Jewish POV. If you don’t, you can bond by studying together.
> who says the majority of goyim are mayshiv aveidos? I believe that they don’t.
you live in NY. I once left a purse at a busy building in the South. Came back a week later and retrieved it. Even in NorthEast, we had people calling us up after finding an ID in the purse.
Again, ma nafka mina? The only way not to do Kiddush Hashem is to return anonymously. One Rav told me that he specifically invited the person to come to his shul office to pickup the lost item to increase Kiddush Hashem.
common > How about this for a novel conspect, if you have no clue about the subject refain from commenting about it,
hey, when I am commenting without admitting that I know nothing, you are also not happy. I am ain’t votig for you as a Ruv of CR: if you limit posting only to those who know, you might severely damage YWN ad revenue.
I am simply asking questions and suggesting general ideas for consideration. It is called in modern math “knowledge transfer”.
> Gutting a school’s experienced staff when the students might have been returning to in-person classes fairly soon might not have been a good idea
Not suggesting gutting staff, but if you concur that there were better educational options that were not applied in consideration for staff, a better solution would have been to let teachers collect unemployment for a couple of months till summer and then later possibly join a quality online program with your staff. this is sort yom sheni boker quarterbacking, it is of course time of uncertainty. I specifically refer to my discussion with a local lawmaker – I gave him a very clear picture what needs to be done, it was pretty simple, he bought into that, and had to back up due to people who care about their money more than what the kids learn. There are often such illuminating cases in messy life, like greenees who cry wolf but would not accept nuclear energy in order to save Florida from sinking into the ocean.
emes > people promoting fraud, before the election said that if Trump loses it must be fraud
You may not convince some people, but there are always moderate reasonable people – like me, who can be either convinced or at least pacified not to protest. I try not to pay attention to all protestation because these are like one witness in beis din – what do you do with that unverified information? But there are some things that can be improved or should not have happened.
Surely, all changes made in the name of pandemic raise suspicion. Just making election a multi-day affair is a force multiplier for the activists: in one day, they can approach so many people. in 10 days – 10 times more.All the polls that were claimed to be “suppression” are now evaluated to be worst in 20-40 years – 4-5% towards Biden and Ds in general. So, claim confirmed, the question is only whether it is mazid or not.
Pfizer delay of vaccine results after election: I ran numbers this way and that and I do not see what was the reason for the delay. The only charitable explanation is that someone strongly preferred to have a sample larger than initially agreed to exclude a chance of data looking not-so-good.
Suppressing NY Post article about Hunter, while at the same time not disclosing (both officially and not) fact of active investigation.
Making fun of Trump for blaming virus on Chinese and now agreeing that this is reasonable.
Not challenging Biden on what exactly is his Federal plan is to distribute vaccine better. (He still keeps it secret while vaccination rates declined).
All together this creates a very bad vibe of unfairness that enables even craziest conspiracy theories. It might be better for moderate Dems to make some conciliatory steps and admit some problems.
GotAPoint, I hear your bitterness and I am familiar with all the issue you are raising from R Wissmandel to Sephardim. At some point, worked with my kid on an essay describing how Begin looked differently at Sephardim addressing them as heirs of Rambam, rather than poor cousins. Another example of ideological bias in Zionist development was emphasis on kibutzim pre WW2 v. development of Tel Aviv manufacturing. Sochnut inserted itself between donors and recipients who wanted to support T-A as manufacturing was providing additional jobs and thus a place for immigrants to come, while kibutzim were providing land and otherwise was a bottomless pit. I saw research computing how many would have come pre-war from Europe and did not, sad…
Still, I think your recounting of Haredi contributions is way biased. Again, I understand pretty much where this coming from and is passed along for several generations already. For one, there is no reshus to disregard your obligations just because you think you were cheated somewhere else. See Rav Huna with his spoiled wine who did not want to pay workers who already “helped themselves”, was rebutted by other chachamim and deserved a miracle for teshuvah, either open (vinegar -> wine) or hidden (vinegar price up).
We in America also pay taxes, while murdering less, paying for schools we do not use, and sometimes have to move to a different neighborhood when government policies lead to disaster. Most of us do not see this as a reason to cheat or hate the country. So, I surmise, your bitterness is more due to the fact that these are specifically Jews who are in power and do think that you disagree with. It is, of course, understandable. The closer we are, the more we expect and the more we react to problems. So, you just need to acknowledge that.
No, I was in one light mask out of respect to the locals. I just stood far away from everyone and in the corridor when sneezing people started trecking to the tissues and back. Emunah peshuta is something to respect and kept Jews going for centuries. I was in this shul before and they’re great baalei hesed and tefilah. One of the congregants wrote a heart breaking account of his sickness
edited- it is confusing to be disrespectful while describing being respectful, no? Perhaps we’ll wait til further from tisha b’av.
I’ll skip the rest of it, as you would not believe me.
When another guy in a mask came, we looked at each other as we came both from the same planet different from localsMaido, I also understand more on add v autism of which I know nothing. There are good reasons for add people to at least avoid authority figures who try to break creativity and force them to be like others. I am not sure whether the alternative would be to put all such kids together.who will manage such balagan!? So, the question on autism seems to be: do they really need a support group of like people, or simply adults who understand them and help them following their path
Others consider the view that Meiri wrote his major work to appease non Jews not very credible. How many rishonim advocated consistent positions just for such reasons?!
You seem to follow no true Scotsman fallacy: if a sefer contradicts your teachers, then it’s written for non Jews or by a zionist and thus not a true talmid chacham. This way you eliminate everyone who disagree with you.Also, it seems that Meiri was not widely printed until 1900s and thus was not as embedded into mesorah as other rishonim, and as you are saying.
Re: being thankful to everyone, I finally had an experience I dreaded davening in a shul with emunei peshuta, who live blissfully in a world without covid… thanks to all my cr friends who prepared me mentally for such experience.your descriptions were very much on target.
Ujm, I did but quite some time ago. Is this a prerequisite to be taken seriously in cr? I can as well say that those who live on an island connected to American continent don’t understand the country. I once interviewed with a big five consulting company o’h. They suggested one of two departments: nyc and the rest of the country. You had to choose, ad these are totally different worlds According to them
Ujm, here you are talking about a so called blind man…. And in the cynical context of busy NY that is hard for me to imagine. I got a similar advice from a haredi Rav after giving tzedoka to a visiting blackhated young healthy looking person who after collecting spend the rest of davening communicating on his impressive cell phone…. Rav said, just give a dollar. Then I realized why the Rav always gets a stack of money out of the table for such cases…
Avira, a very good point on different motivation for tzedoka and influence of pluralistic society. Just don’t throw the baby with the bathwater… Derech shalom and Kiddush Hashem are not something to disregard v “real mitzvah”
I also thought that Sephardim had it easier – until I talked to those who have both direct memory and historical knowledge. Not much love lost. And Sephardim proper ended up in Muslim lands only after being kicked out of Spain. Ashkenazim on the other hand moved to new lands volunteerly. The real answer is probably that there is no average experience. There were good and bad periods and aspects in different places. For example, Jews had unbelievable autonomy in polish lithuanian commonwealth via vaad arba artzos…
Also, we know more of history of arab countries than in 1950s:
Could you imagine if Jews of Aleppo stayed until islamic state and russian carpet bombing?Also, destruction of european jewry didn’t start in 1939.. numerous communities were already destroyed by Soviet communists by that time at no fault of zionism
People use the word “News” liberally… News can not be fake, these would not be news. If you hear some claims – whether from your friend, from a box in the corner of your room, or streaming from your pocket – just go look up something resembling facts. for example, there are sites with detailed crime reports for many neighborhoods for several years, you can check that.
PS I heard R Soloveichik, I think, quoted as: “why there is no word for “politics” in Hebrew? It surely existed. There is one – sheker. ” So, don’t peddle in one.
> Three Mile Island incident having nuclear physics background.
hm, that’s not peanuts. Maybe he can convince the weather-fighters that nuclea are green?
It may be an issue that families indeed do not want to disclose such thing. Where it is really detrimental is when families do not use medical help from fear of disclosure. At the same time, I am not sure whether it is a necessity to bring everyone together, and seems that various organizations feel the same way. If you have some friends, families, teachers around you who understand and support you – do you necessarily need to be with other people suffering from same things? As Avira testifies, there are lots of people who would be willing to help. Maybe, some are not sensitive because they are ignorant. I have no clue, for example, of the issues involved and maybe my suggestion above is not shaiach.
PS There are cases where people seem to benefit from talking to people in similar conditions. R Twersky Z’L for example highly recommended AA meeting to addicts (even despite christian roots), but this seems to be especially important when a person needs encouragement to change their behaviors. I did not hear, for example, that, say, people with casts on their hands would need others like that around them.
Yaakov chastised the shepherds at the well who did not trust each other and directed them to work honestly. He was on the way from the yeshiva to shiduchim, why didn’t learn Mishna and not waste time on the goyishe problems?
A midrash also says that Yaakov “established markets”, that is create right market conditions for economy to work.
Can we work on the moris ayn principle here? Why not try to have an election that has less chances of being SEEN as fraudulent? this will benefit everyone.
We already have some such features, like electoral college: accusations are limited to several close states rather than whole country. I think last time Cook County could have cooked their books to affect Presidential was during Kennedy-Nixon …
there are (were) others – most voting on the same day, paper ballots – that are now being disregarded and the risk of having election revolt is too high to have. Maybe Democrats can agree to a risk of some of their illiterate voters not voting without extensive help to safeguard the integrity of the voting system.
I skipped Avira’s snide remark on Israel that others are protesting because it is off-topic and he mentioned his position before. Combining multiple threads, I have an impression of Avira’s deah (ad presumably his teachers) is being rich on detail, whether halachik or factual, but somehow veering away from important central issues. I hope this is not what Brisker method evolved into.
Complaining about the Rebbeim forced to teach zionism, you somehow ignore the fact that these Rebbeim and students got a chance to walk streets of Yerushalaim in relative safety instead of dying in Camps and Gulags. The animosity is understandable historically and was pretty reasonable when the Zionist experiment was unsure to survive, but at this point seems most of religious Jews appreciate having a country, imperfect as it is. And you yourself proposed a simple solution to the Rebbe’s dilemma – do not partake funds from the Zionist entity, as you surely wouldn’t in Ottoman empire.
>> Do the moderators consider the Torah as explained by HaRav Avigdor Miller zt’l to be unacceptable?
> No
al pi Yinglish dikduk, this answer means that the nistar Torah is not unacceptable, i.e. it is acceptable. given that the torah is not niglah in the post, the moderator probably meant the opposite.
PS This is not a disrespect to the hard-working mods, but if you become part of the discussion, you are a fair game 🙂 Just showing respect to the non-Jewish language.
I may have missed the answer, but I did not see it – if someone is scared of mRNA, why don’t you take J&J or old-fashioned Sinovac or Sputnik that are not worse than placebos! Are you afraid that Sputnik will launch you to space?! If this would help end the thread, I am ready to take sputnik myself.
on other notes:
>> Native Americans were exposed to European diseases hundreds died instantly. And then the infection rates went down until herd immunity was acheived.It seems that majority of population died before the herd immunity was achieved … Those guys were at further disadvantage – they did not have domesticated animals and, thus, no zootic viruses at all. So, their immune system was totally unprepared. Those of us who had kids in schools or went there ourselves, were, Baruch Hashem, exposed to enough viruses to begin with.
>> However, they will need to be repeatedly injected every half a year or so, like flu shots are
I don’t have numbers but qualitatively, the first shots are way more important than the latter ones. Most immediate research measures antibodies in blood, but long-term protection is due to B-cells that will start fighting virus after being infected. so, getting those B-cells informed about a class of viruses is more significant step. This probably explains why vaccine against a new virus achieves 95% hard reduction, while flu vaccine only 70%. for a person who never had a flu, the reduction would be higher too. There is very limited medical data on B-cells so far, like tests with tens of people, so we will need to wait to see real life effects.
Peanuts? Usually a person appreciates what he is baki in, like the peasant who is not interested in a princess. And if you catch yourself thinking, I wish an honest peanut farmer was a president, sigh.
There is also troubling singing of Hashem giving us Torah Torah at the opening of aron. Some might enjoy a hint to oral Torah, but I prefer to think of seeing Hashem’s teachings as a joint unit, so I just sing aiaiai for the second instance.
There’s though an argument for the double. One opinion is that two tablets had ten commandments each, and they are two copies as any legal document, for both parties to keep
Black in nature? Night? That would be half of the world. Maybe you are thinking modern world where there’s ambient light all the time even away from the cities. Think being in a totally dark country side on a rosh hodesh…
Jews always saw black as a sign of mourning. As rabban gamliel explained to some people who mourned constantly, it is not appropriate
Avira, thanks, I had some questions on your position and you responded to them while I was formulated the questions. I agreed that going to a random Chinese citizen and showering him with tzedoka funds is inappropriate, and you agree that we should honor police and ww2 veterans. We just disagree on the facts on between. I think you taking a very narrow view of benefits. Any us veteran took upon himself to risk his life and be sent to whatever place is required. Just that determination is sufficient. Esther becomes Mordecai’s rebbe when she decides to risk her life, not when she actually goes to the king. Any US politician who voted to support freedom ( that excludes some…) benefits us, and Hashem’s will overall. By extension, maybe even those who voted for such politicians have zechus, and this would be a majority of voters, and given that older people vote more, any older person should have zechus
FDR with multiple shortcomings played a major role in both making us fight the war and in prosecuting it successfully. Often at high pain, such as when traveling to see Stalin.
Without his effort, the survivors of the war would be speaking german or russianPhilosopher, we more and more sound like children, or more harshly peshaim. Hashem sends us certain realities and we deny them and complain that he is bothering us with changes in our way of life up to such miniscule inconveniences as wearing masks and traveling for vacation. Compare current cases and death rates with previous waves and ponder how many lives would be lost if the death rates stay prevaccine. And ponder that increased cases are due to combination of delta and relaxing of behavior.
As a couple of people already posted, I also found it amusing that one of the first things administration is worried about is that Cubans should not try to get to US. I believe it is part of the airport security training that you look at first reaction on person’s face. Similarly here, first reaction is indicative of what these people are thinking about. So, we will now start catching people at the border and checking if they are Cubans before releasing them into US? Would Cubans be faking Mexican accent now?!
Avira: There are deos yechidim that for goyim shituf is not assur,
I don’t think this is yehidim, I recall it goes back to tosfos, am I wrong?
> As for veterans vis a vis hakaras hatov; we don’t find a source in chazal
A related sugya on respect of zekinim in Kidushin considers whether we really respect Tal,iei Hahamim of any age, or really any old people. My rav concludes that Gemora is purposefully vague on the conclusion and both should be respected, and an elderly Aramean surely had some experiences in his life, and veteran status surely increases a chance that a person did something worthy in his life.
Generally, when you look at Gemoras re:nichrim, we probably need to look at pre-censored sources to see whether we are talking A’Z, minim, etc. Even when talking about christians, it may matter whether they are Jewish/minim, and what the current relationship with them is.
Also, none of the religious concerns would apply to free-thinkers and Muslims
> Was the entire shiur about the Internet?
no, discussion was about covid in general, this was just a couple of weeks in, and one speaker, out of 3, I think, focused on Hashem’s sending us message re: Internet sins, and another mentioning it in part. I think 1 of the 3 speakers, sadly, later passed away from COVID, I am not 100% sure if I recall correctly.
> Hindsight is 20/20 as they say, and it’s a lot easier to say what should be done than to try and do something.
I myself could have done more, of course, but I set my family studying fine and distributed info about online resources and helped a school both setting up schools and COVID safety. Many other people acted too. The issue was reasonably clear. And as Syag mentioned, there were a lot of dedicated teachers who spent a lot of time and effort.
> Such things cost money, and to outsource would likely mean letting some staff go
This is a valid point. And this is where we get lost same way as public school unions – are schools for teachers or for kids. If kids were in dire situation, everything should have been done to help them. This is halakha – we allow unlimited competition between teachers, contrary to other businesses where livelihood of store owners is a valid consideration.
> Why would a school not accept a child
a long story that I partly discussed here before. Same as you mentioned above – if school let’s someone do something against their general policy, then they will be under pressure from other parents to allow something similar that might benefit kids, but will make life difficult for the school.
Syag > Pretty good for disorganized archaic inflexible orthodox people, no?
I am glad to hear this. If you re-read my post, I was quoting a school head who called full-time online program “home schooling”, and then turned around and provided the same himself. We all are not perfect and need to carefully see whether our positions are driven by objective information and not self-serving.
Avira > The state only funded torah because menachem begin – the closest thing we’ve ever had to a religious prime minister – was very friendly to and respective of charedim, especially rav shach.
Many charedim, including my rebbeim in bais brisk, refuse any and all money from the government.Not taking money from the government is a respectful position comparing with those who disparage but take (more than fair share). I am not sure how logical it is – it is very hard to deny that having Medinat Israel, and simply millions of Jews in Israel, has no significance. Just think of all Sephardim, Yemenites, Russians, Ethiopeans who escaped prosecution and found home in Israel. Would they be in good shape during Iraq-Iran war or under Asads? And even the Kibutznikim – would they have been better of, if they joined Bund in Poland or Communists in Soviet Russia?
You seem to compare against an ideal, while you need to compare against realistic alternatives.
Listened to R A Leibowitz discussing Bava Kamma agada about R Eliezer Zeeri arrested by Resh Galuta for the hutzpah of wearing black shoes as mourning for Yerushalaim. R Eliezer puzzles him with the question – how much you pay for cutting down the palm tree. Resh G first offers just the cost of the tree. When asked – what about future dates, then he offers tree + future dates. Correct answer is in between and estimated using market value – ask for a price of a whole field with and without the tree, and damage is the difference.
R Leibowitz darshens: Resh Galuta = someone who is comfortable in Galut.
First price of just the tree – discounts the future produce (potential), sees only current sorry state of Yerushalaim and does not appreciate the miracles that grow there (see Avira above)
Second price – tree + dates – assumes as if all the dates are surely going to grow as if they are already here and, thus, can be charged for. This is over-optimism and not realistic.
Real price can be seen in the context of the value within the whole field – appreciate the potential but be realistic to what you have now.
> Lots of claims about what is going on in our communities and not only are those claims heresay, but they actually aren’t happening
if this refers to my post, I heard it with my own ears and I was not searching for it. If you do not hear ot in your shuls, maybe you are also an outsider and are not privy to these Roshei Yeshovos 🙂 [you always claim that your community is “actual” and others are not somehow]
> Galus Yavan did not involve ANY geographical displacement
a good point. It did not involve political subjugation. Do we count times when Jews had political power, such as Herod and Yannai times, as part of galus? I don’t think so, do we?
> Meshech Hachma and Chasam Sofer say, in a small measure anti-semitism is good for us to protect us from assimilation.
Rav Schach writes that if there were no Arab hate, then early Zionists would quickly go study at Uiveristies of Beirut and Cairo and assimilated. So, Hashem protected them thru these hate. Side note: this means that r Schach clearly cared about those Kibutznikim.
> What drew you to tune into that particular talk?
I wanted to hear Talmidei Chachamim opinion about the pandemic, as advertised. I was not looking specifically for hizuk on internet issues.
> brick and mortar schools did not have the ability or resources to convert instantaneously into online schools.
If they would have been slightly creative, they could have. There are a lot of online resources available. Schools could have outsourced to the experts, for example. I hear Florida virtual school, for example, outsources their curriculum to other states. There are also lots of specialized sites on specific subjects that online schools bundle. One of the Jewish schools my kids attended gave group subscription to some of the math/English sites and gave homework from there.
I asked my local rep to allow increased enrollment into online public school as an emergency, and he first was interested but then said “there is local opposition” … instead director of the online school gave a couple of talks to the local districts. One irony, shortly before the pandemic, one of the schools was, Baruch Hashem, not interested in one of my kids because he, inter alia, attended online school for half a year, which the principal persisted calling “home schooling” despite all the info I gave him. I did not hear him giving tuition discounts, though, when his students were “home schooled” over the phone.
Avram,
I heard this talk myself firsthand online, I am ashamed to say.>> Do you think the Zoom classes held by schools were an adequate substitute for their in-person classes? I think education was devastated last year.
Many zoom classes were not good. Same as, to go with GH examples, a donkey driver had hard time feeding barley to his first car. You need to know what you are doing. Especially when both teachers and students are not bakiim and there is no computer support, the result will be sub-optimal.
Real online schools do not have all classes on zoom. They have some classes live through systems that do not distract when students log in (or not), and then they have online curriculum and list of materials you can access and tests, many with automatic grading. Types of classes and tests are structured into several types and kids learn to navigate and know what to expect – which tests just check what you remember from the class, others have harder problems and larger part of the grade.
I agree on fear. But it seems that translation of sholom as “welfare” is not accurate. We care about peace and tranquility of the government – but not necessarily that they get rich (at our expense).
ctlawyer, I fully agree with you that social programs should not be conflated with support for murderous regimes. In fact, the correlation might have been forgiven in the naïve 19th century, but it is astonishing that same people in US that try to help poor people, also support communist countries.
This is not helping the cause of the poor with the rest of the population. If you know any of these activists, tell them!As to Biden’s position, my info is from trusted lefty rugs, here is what they say:
March Psaki: A Cuba policy shift is not currently among President Biden’s top priorities
almost identical response a month later when pressed for reaction to Raul Castro stepping down as head of Cuba’s Communist Party.
while Biden voiced support for the protesters, describing the protests as a “clarion call for freedom,” much of his policy toward Cuba remains a mystery
questions on Cuba policy come as Biden has left largely intact Trump’s high-pressure, sanctions-heavy campaign against Cuba’s regime, despite campaign promises to the contrary.
They are concerned about the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Cuba and the possibility that it could spill over into a migratory crisisdress british think yiddish, you can’t go wrong then
In all such middos, you only need books and lomdus if you want to skirt the line, such as (example from an old mussar sefer) “Q: the train ticket to my parent’s town is expensive, and halakha is that you don’t have to spend money on parents, am I exempt? A: yes, you don;t have to take the train, you should walk)
If you rather dress impeccably, be nice to everyone, don’t take OPM, you’ll rarely need a book to consult. I am not against learning about middos, of course, just saying lack of the books should not stop you from behaving properly.
> weakened their values.
Is attitude towards internet is really a community “value”. Internet is a protocol. It can lead to dangerous places, sure. You can argue who and when and how should or not using it. but a “value”. So, someone who wanted to learn during pandemic, would have to limit himself to conference calls. What if he wants to look up a sefer that he does not have at home. Should he have a conference call with Ramban?