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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.
> shomayim, they will demand a din vecheshnon on bitul torah be’kamus and b”eichus
I thought you first need to pass the question on whether you were honest in business?
Maybe you know of a separate gate.
Health > Maybe he feels betrayed?!?
> They don’t know about Torah, Mitzvos & Olam Haboh.
well, it’s mostly our fault, not theirs. Maybe less in US where people can disappear, but surely in Israel.
In truth, what is demographics of Russians in Israel now? Are there more non-religious among them than among sabras? haver knesset Zeev Elkin is Russian, Ithink, and in a kippah. Maybe you are already used to Tel Aviv Israelis and recognize them as Jews, but not with the ways Russians behave.R Steinsaltz Z’L writes that Israel is always on edge because people feel annoyed by the mannerism they are not used to (Chasidim coming late, Yekkies coming on time …) and in Israel you are daily confronted with multitudes of other cultures.
Health > They took a pole of the Voters that went for Yamima, and 2/3s wouldn’t vote for them again, because of his actions to join Lapid.
Agree. I don’t think he is crazy (for power). I think he plans to earn his voters back, acting accordingly. Thus, I presume that his future actions will represents his community. I am not sure of that, we will see.
> [Lieberman] hates the Frumme, because his Son became a BT.
I don’t think so. He joined Israeli politics a while ago, his son was probably a kid. What is the back story – how did his kid do teshuva? did he let him go somewhere? did they argue? did something in the family values helped him?
L seems to be an example of a politician changing voter base – I think he was first a Likudnik, then started representing Russians in general, mostly economically, and later turned more to opposing Haredim. Maybe because Russians who were assimilating either into religious or secular cultures were switcing to other parties, and he ended up with the “core” un-assimilated group and also added other anti-religious? I wonder whether he can sit down with his son and develop a positive program for Charedim – focusing on literacy, work, doing it gradually without oppression, and less on “hot” issues for his supporters – shabbat, kashrut.
ujm, you are right – Lieberman probably does not represent all olim from Russia. It looks like Rusim are 15-20% of voters, that would mean 18-24 seats, or say 15 seats as they probably vote less than others. So, L gets not more than 50% of the Rusim votes and maybe less as probably at least some of his current voters are anti-religious sabras. So, it makes sense that he would represent the more anti-religious and non-Jewish Russian population. Still, not all Russians are like the gentleman I described in another thread. It may be that you are looking at these people and you just can not imagine a Jew behaving like that and you conclude that they are not Jewish. I can see a lot of Jewish Russians being non-religious or anti-religious – they spent 70 years in anti-religious environment. And I don’t think they even intermarried more than American Jews through the same time period. I admit I do not have hard numbers on all of this, if you have different numbers to support that his voters are all non-Jews – please post.
Syag, look at what a “metaphor” is. I am just thinking for myself.
As an analogy, I was driving on a road where my car was kicking stones to the side, and there is a sidewalk below the highway that I can not see. So, I don’t know whether I killed anyone, but newspapers say that there are people killed by those stones every day, and I can compute probability of my stones killing someone. I would not be able to sleep at night, or continue driving that road, or say “funny, I do not know anyone hit”. And if other people can, I do not understand why.
good question. I presume extra piutim were said by those who finished early, while they are waiting for the rest – otherwise, there is no purpose. People should not leave even without piyutim, it is an aveira to leave someone daven by himself and expose him to dangerous (or improper) travel. Piyutim just help ensure compliance according to my imperfect understanding. For a similar reason, there are mirrors near elevators in high-rise buildings. Waiting for an elevator is a tircha, and people notice it less if they can spend it checking themselves in the mirror. This may be outdated in the time of cellphones.
Kiddush will be after everyone is finished, unless you are suggesting doing Kiddush while others are finishing.
Also, I think, your family will feel differntly waiting for you engaging in davening and a mitzva of securing walk for the friends, rather than in drinking and eating while they are waiting, even as you are engaged in a mitzva (that they are waiting for). Not sure about halakhic category here, but it just does not sound right.
bk613 > You should read up on the topic a bit mor
people often make sincere arguments without knowing that they are not right. There are 2 issues here:
1) need to know basics of sciences. R Avraham Twersky Z’L suggests learning physiology to appreciate the beauty of Hashem’s creation
2) how do we operate in the environment where our knowledge is incomplete:
how do we evaluate our (lack of) chochma; what authority we trust and how do we evaluate quality and biases; how do we treat cases of safek; how do we make sure not to create danger to others and hillul Hashem by our incomplete knowledge.In theory, Gemora and halakha education should prepare people to answer such questions. I once attempted to repeat one of the Kanneman/Twersky experiments on biases due to anchoring (one questions leads person to think a certain way, and this affects an answer to a second question which has a totally objective measure). From a small sample, it looked like people who learned Gemora had smaller bias than professors, software engineers, and undergrads. But I realized later, those learners were pre-selected from a group I interacted with, not average learners.
And as we see in some cases, the result might be opposite: we feel that after resolving macholkes bein Abaye and Rava, we can decide medical and public health issues without Biology 101 or bothering to look up statistical sources. See Maharal Netivos Olam on Bavli as we discussed some time ago for explanation of this unfortunate phenomenon.
> they should have learned mussar.
They did learn mussar.
When pointing a particular mussar lesson during Daf Yomi, the Rav referred to a story of someone asking a shailah of R Salanter and getting an unusual Mussar response.The person wondered – Kavod HaRav, where is this psak come from?
– From Gemora
– from Gemora? I did not see that [that is, person asking question knew whole SH’S – AAQ]
– It does say so in MY GemoraSo, you just need to learn with a particular eye
Specifically, in Shabbos Maariv, we have extra piyutim to make sure that the late-daveners (or long-daveners?) can finish and walk back home together with others.
Syag > Or a retraction of calling people murderers
According to all statistical information I have so far, people who were not careful lead to extra deaths. I acknowledge that I owe you a more specific analysis.
I also did not see any scientific argument that proves that it was safe to behave that way except anecdotal references that nobody died on this or that shul. Most of the proponents of this theory usually resort to “your argument is incomplete”, “why do we trust XXX”, etc.
A chareidi Rav I know, when asked by married people, recommends to go first on a solo trip, arrange for parnasa and place to learn, and only then move the family
3 yo…. Teach letters using 3d toys or just pointing in the text. Build something from sand or papers. Point to things and name them. Speak a different language on different day.. get him a little sibling, this will entertain everyone. enjoy that the kid is still listening to you rather than texting his friends, it will pass fast.
Syag, the Rav made a logical argument, not a halacha miMoshe mSinai, so I can try to use logic to further his statement. This is a normal thing to do. I clearly give a source and, separately, my thoughts. Everyone here can point that my logic is faulty, I will listen with interest. I suggest you ask your halakhic authority whether it is preferable to rebuke people from discussing rabbinical statements. None of the rabbis I know get offended if I suggest a collolary to their statement.
>> let’s see what happens now that the idf hit Hamas,
interesting indeed. But BEnnett can not go to elections until he has some tangible achievements. He burned the bridges, he will get 0 votes.
Abbas showed himself fully assimilated into Israeli culture – he out-bargained Bibi. So, he also will not quit until he gets shekels for his community and increase his share of arab votes.
this could be a good multi-player chess-like strategy game. Is there a kness-election game on the market?
Greater Lita, if you wish – from Latvia – Riga (more Yakkish) and Zhagori on Lithuanian border, as well as Minsk gubernia.
That elderly gentleman was, I think, either from Moldova or from Western Ukraine. You tell me which dialect it is, but he did say “buru”. I can’t forget this moment.
> Kiddush at night is part of the service.
How is it helping people who are waiting at home?
There is a story about one of the baalei mussar, who started a complicated class after maariv, until his wife told him “they have wives”. He stopped in the middle of the sentence and dismissed the class.
>> is that they all hate the Frumme.
Health,
while there are some groups in the government that it is right to oppose, there is something wrong with the picture that you feel opposed by Bennett, who represents shomer-shabbat Jews who are riskign their lives for Eretz Israel, and Liberman, who represents survivors of Soviet and Nazi occupations that were miraculously saved at the last step before total annihilation and assimilation. If Hashem had your attitude, he would end up leaving us in Mitzraim with all the despicable habits we picked up there, and just started a new nation with Moshe.ADHD, try engaging kids on shabbos. Then, you can play some simple non-computer games with words, numbers, books, and things.
philosopher, DNA/RNA/ARR – we clearly do not know what we are talking about. Let’s just acknowledge a legit fear of unknown. There is a lot to feat – there is a plot of COVID R0 rate – gradually growing from < 2 for the original Wuhan, to 2_ for Alpha and 4+ for Delta and would be expected to grow while there are billions of untreated people available for experiments. Plus, what if some lab will decide to experiment further. It is much easier to improve existing thing than create a new one.
I agree w/ kollelman on despicable delay of reporting vaccine trials. There were already a lot of indications that things are going well, but nobody could believe that it will that successful. I don’t know whether Phizer CEO is (completely) at fault. Maybe FDA insiders forced him or changed the rules. Hard to argue with the government.