Always_Ask_Questions

RebE, thanks for the story.

CS, if we are doing Yichus here, when my grandmother O’H was in Petersburg Empress’ school for girls (before going to college in Germany), her father arranged for a Rabbi to come and teach her when the school had their religious studies, and other Jews there joined also.

> asinine to think that the a vaccine gives you greater immunity then natural immunity.

I respect you asking the question and approaching it with the research attitude. Could you quote what you found regarding antibody serology tests a couple of months after the COVID and after the vaccine? This will help you convince RebE to let you into CR minyan!

In addition to those numbers, there are additional questions to consider, though:
– how much COVID you have? probably best is to get your own serology test. You probably already had – would you mind sharing it with us, given that you are anonymous here?

– possibly (sic!) disease gives broader protection via other mechanisms, not captured by serology

> it needs to be attacked by different ways. The fact that the Government focused only on one way, is Very suspicious

It is attacked in different ways. There are 100s of ongoing studies of all kind of medicines. Tracing teams work daily to identify new clusters and warn as many people as possible. Testing is done in many businesses to prevent outbreaks.

Still, it appears that Trump vaccine and moderation in partying are best response to Wuhan virus. Possibly, as virus rapidly damages multiple systems by the time most people get to the hospital, it is very hard to contain the damage. As we know, Hashem sends cure before the disease, the way vaccine does.

Avira, I agree it is legit, especially in our days, not to learn philosophy. Philosophy used to include all sciences (I am a D. of Ph. but did not have to learn Plato, just to come up with some new math formulae). So, at Rambam’s time it was the best science available. As your example shows – Rambam learned from Aristotle, liked his general wording, connected it to relevant chazal, corrected it, and it sounds like not even always quoted explicitly.

But in our times, we have an explosion of general knowledge that is very practical and specific and not speculative. Do you think Rambam would not attend a medical school now, when you don’t have to pretend to be a Muslim to get into first in the world university/madrasa in Fes? Obviously, we don’t need Talmidei Chachamim to drop their learning and all get into math and chemistry, but we need to stay connected with the world knowledge and have some Chachamim who can know enough to be able to converse with experts. And for those who have no clue of sciences, have decency to respect, and not disparage, those who do.

for a contemporary example, just heard a Rav describing what was lost/gained from Corona and he mentioned loss of respect to Rabbis as he said “while health departments were running schools”. I think this is abdication, talmidei chachamim should havev been in the forenfront of solving problems (and some were), and those who do not may have lost that respect for a good reason. And same happens in other cases. Let’s say a Rabbi does not understand how Gemora in Sukkah compute PI, is this good? It actually seems to be the case there – that Tannaitic computation is very precise, but Amoraim do not understand the Mishna and use more complicated solutions (inside circle, outside circle).

> vaccinated don’t get as sick to end up in the hospital and die

the risk is proportional to exposure. 95% efficiency quoted from Phase 3 were under condition of “sort of” blind test – ostensibly, the subject did not know what they got [we know now that many of those who got a real vaccine felt it, but still …]. so 95% [20x] is under assumption that people behave same way. If you used to keep SD and now dance at the weddings, then your reduction is less. And may decrease with time. On the other hand, T-cells, etc seem to offer long-term protection against worst outcomes.

on a stupid side, CDC, and doctors who “follow their science”, recommends against doing antibody tests to see if antibody levels are holding because “it is not yet approved”, despite papers showing serious correlation between antibody levels and protection on average. CDC explains, in their usual amateur social engineering style, that they do not want people to see high antibody results and then behave irresponsibly. Of course, as now 50+% are already irresponsible, there is value to identify people who have low levels and are at highest risk and, thus, should be more cautious.

we learn that women can not stay idle at home and are supposed to be busy at something, right?
Eshe Chayil lists lots of things to do in a normal household. By now, men, with Hashem’s help, automated most of these activities. Women world over, follow the halakha above, increased their standards of cleanliness and tideness to the level that never existed in history, but still … So, if women are to only stay home and, in many Jewish families, send kids to schools and often using household help (sometimes cheap even if not very legal) – they should be doing something useful. They could teach their kids at professional level, for example. If not, then there is a question about even volunteer stay at home. [My wife did while kids were little and she was fully engaged with them].

As to women who want to work outside, I agree with Gadol here, there are plenty of precedents of women working and having businesses. It is possible that some Rabbis give public advice as a desirable social policy, but that does not mean that specific individuals can not balance home and work.

Also, notice that “not leaving home often” in old times does not mean that the woman will be doing only housework. People were running businesses from their homes all the time. She could be weaving baskets, running a school, a restaurant, while infrequently going out. Being a traveling salesman (and still is) not a good job choice. Now, with WFH, we came full circle and frumme women can do heart surgery online without leaving the kids.

like normal midwestern driver, maybe? not like normal NY driver …
Can someone look up safety metric by state? and per mile driven as Europeans drive less.

There are various defensive driving skills – do not try to outrun others, stay away from huge trucks and cars with mattresses on top, do not stay in blind spot…

And then there is courtesy, some halakhic: do not overtake the bus (a number of Rabbis are quoted on that, although I take an exception when I have more kids in the car than there are people in the bus); buy a drink in the store on the highway if you are using a bathroom (R Yaakov Kamenetsky)

I also try to see how many people I can waive through while driving somewhere – the more the better, a good game for the kids. You end up coming 2 minutes later but in much better mood.
Sometimes there are hard choices – you may let someone in, but the guy behind you is fuming…
This may require a shaila..

A general problem with courtesy on the road – people do not see each other’s face, so they forget that these are people, not self-driving cars. Ever tried to cut someone off and then recognizing the driver?

Avira, fair re: R Meir – but what was the fruit? What was he learning from Aher that he would not learn from others?

re: Rambam & Aristotle.
I am not such a boke on Aristotle, but it seems that the middle path on midos is taken from Aristotle with minor, but significant, corrections to discount Heroism/Gaava. This seems like a reasonable critical approach of keeping the fruit. It is impossible to take other than a polemic all the interpretations of Rambam that basically discount all his work. The logical conclusion would be taht Rambam would have approved burning his own books, so Rabbeinu Yona was wrong on his teshuva?!

another issue on science is that it developed tremendously from the time of Gemora and Rambam. for example, Gemorah often asks for experimental proves, and science now has great protocols to carry those experiments. I would think that most Tannaim and Amoraim in our time would be scouting internet for recent medical and astronomical views. As R Twersky Z’L suggested – to appreciate Hashem’s chochma, study physiology. don’t ahve to do it in yeshiva, do it after hours.

>> catching corona, wouldn’t they also be worried about catching apikorsus

agree here too. But what is the defense: either complete isolation, that I find easier to do form corona than science, or vaccination. For kids, I see isolation working till mid-middle school, and after that vaccination – studying science/history/literature in the Torah context before they encounter these subjects without parental/school supervision.

Avi, I never looked into what was R Meir’s motivation to learn from Acher? Did Acher have Mishnayos that others did not? Did he have his own logical approach? Maybe he was quoting Aristotle and R Meir found it as interesting as Rambam did?

> what Pythagoras and Euclid believed?

Personalities would not matter in pure math. A proof stands on its own. But other sciences are not that simple, especially in pre-experimental times.

RebE Rambam was like Rebbi Meir who learned from acber but we are not on his level to learn from an atheist.

Are you quoting someone here? It sounds like an easy rationalization, you can always say that Moshe rabeinu didn’t misuse public money, but we are not at his level …

I think there are a lot of misconceptions here re “300” years ago, or before haskala. There was mostly one Jewish community, of which a typical member was a tailor or a peddler, not necessarily learned, or looking for humros. BUT, all stayed in Jewish community, and their children were still Jewish. Modernity created a challenge where uncommitted would leave, especially when there were economic incentives. We seem to have found two ways to deal with it: learn how to confront modernity on its own terms, or create a community that is totally separate, knows Jewish law and ignore the rest of the world. Both approaches are new, there is no reason to pretend our great grandmothers went to bays yaakov, both have pluses and minuses, and I don’t think we found the full response to modernity. Those who pretend that they did, whether super modern or super chareidi are both wrong.

And, yabia, Sephardim mostly avoided haskala, so you don’t recognize all these new movements as authentic.

Cdc seems to be very rigid in their decision making. Recently, they first announced full unmasking without any caveat and are changing back only after delta is proven to be everywhere. With several countries on front of us on the same trajectory, they could have been more foresighted

Gadol, you are right. It is a sad thing that destroys society from inside. Neither vaccine nor masks are right or left wing (I am skipping the virus itself until we find out what lab it came from). In US, israel, UK, France, governments were blamed for being too restrictive or too permissive, with opposition being against just because they see an opportunity. We just need not to get caught up in to this.

Even if a child had its own board, the parent is ultimately responsible for making such an arrangement, letting every Ben, Tom, and Jerry child run around with a knife

> We are, at times, forbidden

ok, so when you now qualify with “at times”, hopefully everyone agrees. Not sure what others are argueing, I am not so much for altruism, I am more arguing that derech shalom, properly understood, in most cases will make you do the same things as you would do out of altruism. Shalom is not a downgrade from a “real mitzva”.

Maybe relevant to the topic is Netziv’s Hakdoma to Chofetz Chaim Ahavat Hesed where he talks about Hesed being a fundamental part of the world applicable to all nations, and similar ideas in Haamek Hadavar on Yaakov and Yosef

Avira is using a phone that capitalize after a period. Like this. As caps are reserved in the Humash for only special occasions, Avira is too traditional to use caps where he doesn’t have a mesorah. Even if some non Jews invented the language, he thinks darkei shalom do not apply between the Jews. Rak Emes.

Gh, there’s a simple way to test your fellow progressives on sincerity of their concerns about the poor: education. They should be in the front of the movement to test school performance, close non performing schools, open charters, if not vouchers for private schools. If they do not, then they care about politics, not poor people. Side note: president is proposing flat federal budget for charters among adding money for everything else, House changed it to reduce amount.

RebE >> sometimes we rely on emunah and we stop asking questions.

get it. When is sometimes? and why? A git shabbos, as you might say.

RebE, I am not sure we argue here. Maybe I was not clear. I am for people following their minhagim and singing their .פיוטים I have an opposite problem with those who say that their 13th gate can be a substitute for the 12th particular gates and inviting those from other gates, or without a gate, to go through the 13th instead of the gate of the person who asks.

RebE, yes, some teich people to follow minhag of the one who asked: “we do this, and you do this”. I am very comfortable asking such Rabbis shailohs, as I know they’ll answer according to the one who is asking. See example of R Feinstein advising someone to follow person’s Rebbe, r Soloveichik, on an issue, on which r Feinstein just signed a public letter opposing that position.

The other shita – everyone has its gate, but their gate is bigger than other gates and open to everyone, is more problematic, as when many groups start claiming their gates … I am not even sure whether this shita has a history in Gemora or Rishonim, or should be considered a modernishe one.

It is a hard question when someone is sneezing occasionally or all the time. The guy I mentioned at the beginning made like 3 trips for tissues during just one shmone esre (normal speed) sneezing all the way through, without even having a foresight to grab more tissues in one run. Maybe we should measure sneezing old fashioned way – in beitzim or handkerchiefs (anyone remembers those, spellchecker just did). I would say if a person runs out of one handkerchief, he needs to go home.

Other than kids at school, at shul or business meetings, I don’t recall seeing people with constant sneeze except rarely. Maybe it is a matter of minhag hamakom. We did not send kids to school when they were in constant use of tissues. My mother later admitted that she would sometimes (not often) tell me that I was coughing at night and should stay home when she judged I need some sleep and rest. She did not want me to think that school is optional.

to the question that we discussed – report makes no attempt to separate R- and D- leaning polls. They took all public polls on realclearpolitics, 538, etc and lumped them together.

They compare accuracy by type of polling: joint online/phone polling is only 1% off, while pure online and pure live polls are 5% off. 50% of these joint polls are by one company that they do not identify, so it seems that this one company has good methodology. I looked up realclearpolitics:
final general results are Biden +4.5, and closests polls are IBD/TIPP, The Hill, Emerson, sounds like one of them is that great poll. Rasmussen biased 3.5% towards Trump, the other TEN polls are 2.5 to 6.5% towards Biden.

So, no conclusion can be made about different polls in this report, except the above, because the report does not address the question. The expert who was quoted did not have any data to support in this report.

Report underestimates the level of the problem – polls showed 11% preference for Biden in October and then paddled down. So, I think, reasonable Dem voters should understand frustration of the R- voters at these polls (together with other media influences) that undoubtfully affected voter enthusiasm – given how narrow the election was (50K votes in Presidential, 50-50 in the Senate and the House)

jackk, the report goes through a lot of stuff and is inconclusive, indeed. Their main supposition is that some of the Trump voters were under-sampled. That is they sampled Republicans in general, but not the most ro-Trump ones that also happened to be distrustful of the government, pollsters, etc. We see similar in vaccination, so this rings true. Here are characteristics that were undersampled in the polls the most when tried to re-match regression of the population data to election results by counties: solid Republican, white, less populated cases, more covid cases.

Another interesting item: a very high number of “new voters” – who did not vote in 2016. Pollsters struggled understanding how many of these voters are and what their preferences are, as they often relied on previous data to stratify voters. These new voters went +14 for Trump in Florida and +10 to 20 for Biden in many other states. There is a lot to unpack here – enthusiasm, groups that started to care, early voting. I imagine this is where suspicion about dead voters and vote harvesting will from. Some of the numbers for new voters and confirmed voters are way abnormal for Georgia and Michigan (see Table 11, for example), I did not try to understand whether this is due to their data collection or something else.

Syag, I gave you just one example where a Rav applied Hillul Hashem broadly to a person not wearing a mask. But maybe either you or other posters can help us with their definition of moris ayn/hillul Hashem.