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Just heard on the radio a lovely discussion about how to deal with rich people who are apparently a problem because they own too much.
They discussed one of them, a Jewish guy, Nick Hanauer, who is apparently woke enough to advocate for higher min wage, etc. I think his grandparents had a bedding company in Germany before Nazis, then his parents built a company here. Then, crucially, he noticed a young guy Jeff Bezos and said – if you planning to start something, call me, and he invested in Amazon. Not sure whether he was the first or just an early investor, but it went unmentioned that without Nick and people like him, possibly there will be no Amazon, and the whole pandemic people will be standing in line to buy things in Sears …. Of course, Nick himself wants to re-distribute Bezos money to amazon workers.
I wonder why Nick did not put it as a condition for his investment. And, I wonder, whether Bezos would have agree it.
MA > easy ways to calm any uneasy feelings we might have that forty-five people were killed in one night. If this was a natural event, why should we feel bad
We should shudder that while Israel is getting saved from the pandemic tragedy, it gets into another one. This is not derech hateva .. some sources say that typically Jews in Israel, or in a fully Jewish city, would get a message from Hashem, but when Jews live among the nations, we sometimes do not hear the message – whole city/country/world sis punished, so it is not our fault. Seems like in current Israel, the situation is like the latter – there are others, politicians, police, whose fault it is, it is not a message for us …
I think we can feel for the tragedy even when people did something inappropriate… when a child hurts himself, you don’t start chastising him for not following safety rules, you first take care of his pain….
what is not appropriate is blaming others – government, police – or even say “we do not understand your ways Hashem, but we accept it” rather than looking at your own behavior. It is understandable in the face of the tragedy, of course.
R Avigdor Miller talked about a parent who let a strange poor person in, gave him hot tea, then went to bring another cup of tea, while leaving a kid in the room with the stranger who poured hot tea into the kid’s face.. do not say “I do not understand this tragedy while doing a mitzva”, do say “she did an aveirah of leaving a kid with a strange while doing a mitzva and was punished for that”…
Yserbius > Does this mean that you are against any socialist policies?
ont sure who you are asking but every policy need to be evaluated against the damage it brings. Even libraries, for example, prevent authors from selling books, and thus reducing incentives for writing books. Obvious, for welfare. Welfare reform in the 90s showed that poor people benefited from being encouraged to work without increasing poverty.
We have example of R Huna throwing away leftovers from the market – so that he helps by decreasing market prices. Similarly, we allow competition between Torah teachers to make teaching affordable. Another lesson that comes across that Talmidei Chachamim were empirical – they institute a policy and then change it if society does not react the right way (first fathers were teaching Torah, but not everyone was capable, then they sent teenagers to Yerushalaim, but not everyone could send, etc)
Yoma 22-23 – two incidents, first one kohen knifing another to death, then one breaking a leg. In first case, the father notices that the son is not yet dead and thus the knife is still tahor …. that it got to that people cared about bein adam l’makom and were not sensitive to lives …
the system was changed from competition to lottery after the second, leg, incident. After the first grave incident, committed out of anger, people understood the averah and possibly did teshuva. The second one, an “accident”, would not lead to teshuva, so the Talmidei Hachamim closed the games.
there are other halakhot where inability to connect the dots makes an avera more serious (for example, insulting people). Shows that we need leaders to step in specifically when people cannot connect their behavior with the damage they are doing …
if you file on paper, you’ll be waiting for a long time.
it is also not a mitzva to have a refund. It means that you volunteered to pay in advance to the government – money that you could have spent on tzedoka or your family – and now you are nicely asking to please give it back to me. IRS is surely following a halokho that in a case of sofek, the money stays in place, at least when it is you asking for money. So, plan accordingly for the next year.
huju > If you don’t follow the testing, you don’t know economics.
a good point. USA is a great place to do economic theories: we have states with similar economic structure that sometimes have different policies, or sometimes implement similar policies with a time lag. For example, if California or Vermont can build a great free medical care system, we will learn a lesson and other states might follow – or their population will follow. It is a unique system where state governments are forced to compete with each other, not just businesses. There are other countries with federal systems, but not to the size and mobility as US.
For some reason, some Vermonters prefer to insist on installing their policies at federal level instead of demonstrating the capability in their own state.
>> issued an issur against their talmidim going to Meron
Do parents have any influence on where their children go or is it all in loco parentis?
@ctl, thanks for the correction, July 2020 memo excluded illegals to be counted. Biden on January 20 rescinded order on “unauthorized” immigrants… Is the rest of the timeline ok by you? I think it is clear that census slowed down on purpose waiting for the change of the regime. Technically speaking, if Trump banned illegals but Biden allowed, lashon naki, unauthorized, does it mean that the order on illegals is still active!?
ctlawyer >Trump’s directive to only count citizens was ruled unconstitutional by the Federal Courts, repeatedly. The Census Bureau did not sabotage anything.
Haredi ani entering a discussion with an esteemed CT lawyer, so please correct my understanding of the events:
– commerce dept tried to ask a question about citizenship. court said their reasoning was arbitrary, asked for a better rationale hat never came. this is not yet declaring unconstitutional
– Trump then issued a memorandum to cunt only voters in July 2020.
– states sued and NY District found in their favor.
– President appealed to SC
– SC had hearing on Trump v. New York in Dec 2020 vacated district ruling and dismissed the case as the Census was not ready yet and possible lack of standing by States
– meanwhile Census delayed delivering results multiple times from July to October to January and eventually to Biden.I admit that Constitution seems to count residents, not citizens (“except Indians not taxed” – maybe giving a case for not inclduing those who do not pay taxes, but I digress). 14th Amendment article 2 is contradicting a little – excluding from the count rebelling citizens, seemingly assuming that citizens are close enough to residents.
At the same time, it seems absurd in modern reality to given incentives to the states to bring non-citizens. Imagine, Texas, Arizona, and Florida let in the whole Central America for one year before Census. They then get absolute majority in the House and Presidential elections. They then direct US Army to send those illegals back home. Then, only Senate and Court could save Yankees 🙂
Health > Stop defending Kerry!
I am not defending him, the words fit the pattern of how he talks.. just saying what potential arguments could be.
> Zarif is repeating what the Israel Finance Minister Israel Katz said
Even if info was in public domain, confirming it by an official is a big deal. It may educe a potential jail term, of course.
Syag, RebE, ATTENTION! maybe you misunderstood symbols on CDC website? or are you reading tem somewhere further on the site. I just looked at the front page and clicked “choosing safer activities”
the symbol for (fylly?) vaccinated people – outdoor activities without masks, for small indoor gathering – with masks.
common, thanks for an invitation. I’ve been to more exotic and scary places, so I am fine staying with civilization for now (or staying 6 ft from it, to be precise).
participant> “haham” as a “rav”.
I am referring here to a Sephardic position of a Haham (turban) which seems to be an equivalent to the Rav. See here https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/are-sephardic-rabbinic-leaders-called-rabbi-or-chacham
>> While it has been an unbelievable brocha,
this looks like an USDA program, originally (Truman) targeting poor people and expanded during COVID to cover closed school with emphasis on poor areas but without requiring strict certification and identification of incomes. guidelines say – don’t ask individuals for their income, just try to locate distribution centers in poor areas. So, the intent is to target the poor, but to expand it to make sure children who are out of school, etc are all covered. Seems like a good program that allows for some overuse to make sure everyone is covered, but I don’t think the intent is for people with reasonable income to pick this stuff up in large numbers. We have the same program here locally, and I don’t think any of working people pick that up. Seems like distributors are trying to increase their business and making people feel comfortable when using this charity.
ujm: CTR: Emunas Chachamim isn’t merely a “phrase”
ujm, I think CTR is asking you to define the notion precisely from the sources. If it is a Torah obligtion, you need to define what the procedures are.
not a Dem, but here are potential arguments:
how do we know that Kerry passed the correct facts and that those facts were really unknown to Persians?
Maybe he wanted to leverage possible threat from Israel to pressure them
Also seems like the prime minister was complaining that his intelligence services were keeping him in the dark.Some of the increase in TX, FL and maybe others are due to both legal & illegal immigration. The (Bureau)crats sabotaged and ran the clock on Trump’s directive to count only citizen for the purpose of counting Congress seats. But it looks like immigrants understand that economic policies in TX and FL are better.
Redleg > At least in Shaas, Artscroll has better peirush
The problem is that their translation is BETTER than the original ….
They smooth any controversies and insults … all big questions are made smaller and nicer. Great to learn background to halakha, but not on understanding worldview of the Tannaim and Amoraim
CTRebbe – recall a case within last month of Daf Yomi, must be Shekalim, when someone not satisfied with a person passing halakhic story from a traveler, went to the original source and asked him.
There is also Rav Yehudah disapproving a visiting youngester, told to be a Haham, when he turned out not to wear a kippah/turban because he is still not married. This sounds like an example of unsolicited advice from a Gadol to a person he does not know. But maybe we can start with Gemora examples when someone asks a Rav permission to get married and see what the discussion leads to?
On the opposite side, I saw an interview of R Gifter in the 60s where he says most marital problems are due to marrying too early.
RebE >> chasan and a bar mitzva
I heard it from a lady who is old enough to have been there, so this might be true!
Syag,
your actions are very commendable, but I am confused by the source of this mystery food:>> This food is a bit different because it is coming to people from the school distribution packages. That means it is given to everyone without financial constraints, and it is funded by the government, not tzedaka money (or intent of feeding the poor).
You are telling me that government gives away food to everyone in private schools? Maybe this is OK and a substitute for “school lunches” and, commendably, applied to private schools by your state? Is this COVID emergency or courtesy of Betsy DeVos or state? This is great. I am just not used to seeing free (kosher) food given away that is not targeting poor population.
It may be that the school has to be qualified as serving poor under Federal Title 1? Does it then get funds for everyone at school or only those who qualify for Title 1? I am not sure
>> As Torah Jews we shouldn’t be having “our” political party
Indeed – after he moved to Israel, one Rav was asked which party he support. He replied – party of Moshe Rabbeinu
>> , yihay mechanecha kosdosh … nowhere in the torah does it say we need to reach out to non frum.
This is exactly why Hashem sent Moshe to gather all 36 tzadikim and made them march to EY, rather than bother wiht millions of Amei Haarertz!
There is a fine difference between dealing with Jews who are against and those who are lost. R Salanter moved from Litva to West, saying that you can’t stop the guy going down the slope but you can talk to him at the bottom.
So, while the desire to keep the camp holy is understandable as self-protection, it is definitely a perversion of Torah to say that we don’t care about other Jews. Early advocates of the self-preservation system, like Hazon Ish, surely undertood the trade-offs but it seems that this is leading to kefira after several generations of self-preservationists teaching each other.
I think someone here quoted already a discussion between Satmar Rebbe (who was for earlier marriages) and a dayan who was not. The latter explained that the Rebbe is invited to weddings, but he has to do divorces … maybe there is a similar difference of experiences between the Gadol and the Rebbe?
Analyze – did you say something hat lead Gadol to mention the idea or is it something he recommends everyone? maybe you said – I have too much time on my hands, FB timeline is endless, etc? And then reflect whether your statement was a good indication of your state of mind … That the two disagree is a good reason to thorough analyze where you stand
from personal experience, decades ago, once a Rav visited for a wedding and had a short conversation with me and another of his former students. We had very similar backgrounds, age. I was in a PhD program, my friend was in a not-very-rewarding profession (still is). We compared notes afterwards: he told my friend to move to the yeshiva, and he told me to add a class learning with his Lakewood friend who just moved into town (I am still in that class).
dag1, judging from your posts here, you probably do the same elsewhere.
You are discussing what you are looking for – sales, ignoring what potential readers are looking for – insights. You need to change your attitude selling your sefer, maybe find a mentor who can help.You need to let people know your lomdus, bring example, have people use extracts in their classes. Send lechem in front of you…
participant >> comes/went to a dif background.
TLIK, you are right – some are paying too much attention to the dress codes. Do image search for, for example, Slabodka Yeshiva – they all seem to come from a “different” background. I imagine when you see a Haham in a turban, you would fully freak out.
common >> @AAQ, here is your proof that you can know how to learn and be a goy gumer even a missonary.
Maybe it means that the community has a dress code, but can’t find missionary thinking too unusual? Again, we don’t know details – whether he was Goy Haaretz or Goy Haham.
>> PS he was very vigilant about using a mask and keeping social distance beause R Meir Twersky said so
here you go again attacking daas Torah for no other reasons than that it hurts your opinion.
As R Akiva commented, “I would bite like a horse”Can someone clarify halakha regarding “checking” people out – I thought that it is normal to assume someone is Jewish based on behavior for the purposes of calling to the Torah, etc but there is a procedure requiring witnesses to be recognized as a kohen
RebE > who provided interesting anecdotes using the words learned.
agreed. Yes, using in context rather than memorizing. May depend on a person though.
bk613> AAQ, I have no clue what you are talking about – 95% effective …
sorry for short-hand …
I took it conservatively as 90% (depending on what the protection is for, level of uncertainty of the “95%” estimate, and lower numbers for variants). 90% is exactly 10x lower risk. Phase 3 was run blinded, that is people with or without vaccine are presumed to behave the same. That is 90% – under assumption of the same behavior. If a person after the vaccine has 10x more interaction with
potentially effected people, he has similar exposure to what he had before the vaccine with less interaction.BUT WHEN most people around him also get vaccinated and reduce transmission, as you rightly say, THEN there will be a MUCH lower risk of meeting someone with COVID, thus leading to a VERY LOW risk overall.
So, there are 2 questions: personal vaccine/interaction status and PREVALENCE around you (infected, not necessarily sick or dead). For the 2nd one, you can look up numbers for your country/state/city and see where they are.
Current daily new cases per mln (source ourworldindata)
US 175, (was 750 in January)
Israel – 16 (was 950), UK 36 (was 880)
Germany 260 (was 300 max), France 440 (650), Sweden 540 (740)You see that US left the European group but did not arrive to Israeli/UK level…
Interestingly, US line drops parallel to UK and Israel, but then got stuck at current level from early February while the other two dropped down further. Suggestive of the O’Biden effect…Maybe Zohar is too controversial for the Artscroll … (With all due respect, really, but understanding limitations)
MadeAliyah >> are you seriously suggesting that masking and social distancing are as effective as getting vaccinated
yes, if you are the only one vaccinated in the same risky environment. Vaccine reduce risk by a factor of 10-20 (aka 90-95%). So, does keeping whole family out of public places. I am thinking, I was in unsafe places before COVID ~ 10 hour a day (work/shul/stores). Now, maybe 5 minutes total. That is 100x reduction(aka as 99%).
now, you in Israel have, B’H better protection because everyone’s protection decreased overall infection level to 50x from the peak, and 10x from USA.
I posted several posts about this, I need to add some caveats to the analysis:
1. When we say 95% protection, need to differentiate – protection from any infection, from transmission, from serious sickness, from death. For early Wuhan virus or from British etc variants; may change with vaccine type and time passing after vaccine.
2. Not clear to me, what 95% protection means – is it 95% of people 100% protected and 5% unprotected due to weak immune response, or is it 100% of people at 20x strength – that is 20x more virus load is required for the same sickness level? probably, something in between. maybe, doing an antibody test can show how much/less careful a person needs to be after the vaccine
3. when we talk averages, these are your “local average” of people around you. If you surrounded by older people (Florida?) with 90% vaccinations, you are seeing this effect even if whole country is at 10%. Conversely, if you are surrounded by 15-40 y.o. who are least in vaccination and highest in transmission, then you can be still in danger despite your own vaccine
RebE > I don’t know enough from Israeli affairs to criticize ir.
RebE, you are really muzzling all of us with your admirable attitude.
Yserbius, there is an interesting question re:pandemic aka “summer travel”. I quoted before R Meir Twersky last April that this is a time of great uncertainty of science, so it is not enough to listen to just “one doctor”. So, Rav MT essentially tells you to listen to your doctor l’humrah, but not l’kulah.
Yserbius? this story is about a guy not listening to the doctor, and the wife needs even to ask Rav to convince him… common apparently thinks he is a great guy listening to the Rav … there is so many times I will explain the joke before I quit the internets
and Mother
I wonder how these people existing in the community? Did the guy daven with others, discussed casually a sugya in Gemora? Was anone suspicious when he quoted Chumash too well with King James translations and without Rashi? Either he became a talmid hoham as part of his mission, or his lack of Jewish education was not at all noticeable to people around him … Same question for the kids unless they were born in the community. Did Bais Yaakov have less standards than usual?
Dovid, what does your Father think about it?
Read about Jewish German patriots, such as Nobel winner Fritz Haber, and their experiences in 1920-30s …
Haber was visiting Atlantic City before WW1 and was appalled seeing a “No Jews” notice. His host assured him that this is about “other” Eastern-European Jews, not people like them. Still, he remarked – I can’t imagine anything like that in Germany.
Syag> If having a vaccine leaves you in the same place as you were before you had the vaccine
Let my clarify – if you have vaccine that reduces risk 10x and at the same time increase your risk 10x by being less careful, all while everyone around stay the same – you did not change your risk, you simply enjoying partying with your friends.
only when most people in your environment are all vaccinated, then there is a larger than 10x effect.
participant> 8in bold
I didn’t care about specific personalities, just the issues themselves.bk613: How much longer do we say this?
CASE 1: assume you are one person (say an older one) with a vaccine in a group of unvaccinated (say, college or high-school students). Your chance of meeting a sick person is the same as before, but your risk ~ 10-20 lower than before the vaccine. If you remove mask and SD and start partying, you easily increase your risk back to the one that was before you had the vaccine.
CASE 2: you and almost everyone in your environment is vaccinated (like in Israel now, not counting children). Then, transmission decreases in the whole group. Your chance to meet a sick person decreases (in Israel it is now 50x less cases than at peak 4 months ago) + your own 10x lower risk, this is making a difference.
CASE 3: reality is somewhere in between if you live around many non-vaccinated people …
and uncertain future given that the virus continues going thru millions of people worldwide and mutating on the way.
but at the end the question is childish: some people are expecting some servants to tell them to take the masks of because they are inconvenienced. I think, it is more about a public emergency
and what you can do to help. Not just you personally having a mask, but can you help an elderly person so that he does not need to go to a store, or organize young people so that they do not have to mix with hundreds of others, or shlep to another side of the world to learn. Such an easy opportunity to do so many mitzvos.common, not a kasya – this story is NOT about daas Torah, as the guy presumably listens to the Rav – perfect by you, right? the problem is that he is not listening to the doctor and to his wife and lacks common sense. So, kashya on you if you think that it is noirmal for the wife to call on Rav to pasken every time she wants her husband to take out the garbage.
Yserbius >> If you want to be a GREAT writer, go to college.
not sure this is a reasonable path. College is a good direction for technical and medical professions. Writing? common undergraduate classes give pretty trivial info. Going to a good liberal art college specializing in writing? you will be immersed into super-liberal topics – or maybe into super-religious topics if you go to a conservative college. Maybe YU offers something reasonable?
22/7 is not an approximation, but an upper bound. Archimedes had it
223/71 = 3.1408 < π < 3.1429 = 22/7
Ptolemy had it already 3.1416
By the time of Gaon, 100 digits were already knownOn PI, See also Eruvin 14a and a gematriya from Melachim hinting 3.1415926 – so Hashem thought it important to code it in ..
I heard that Rashbatz explains R Yohanan in sukka 7 is using better values for pi and … sqrt(2) in his calculations, but does not explain it, preferring teaching in a simple way. Seems like “math is hard” was not invented by current generation of students …
Health, I did not even express an opinion, just asked you to support your argument with sources rather than just state it multiple times. Even gave you a page reference.
Kotzker, I think, might support you. He asked why Hashem threw Emes to the ground when he had 2 melachim for and 2 against creating a person. Why not sholom who was also against? Because without emes, sholom is not a problem.
RebE, exactly, re: Pi. Will Moschiach reveal all number of Pi? Or will he just ask us why we did not see Hashem in Euler’s formula or in E = mc2?
At the same time, look Prof/Nobel winner in economics Robert Aumann on yerusha of three widows in Baba Bathra 107a. He shows that the accepted opinion there corresponds to his economic theories. I had an explanation of two other opinions there, but I won’t post it here, as I could not explain to Prof. Aumann, and now don’t understand it myself.
Sometimes there is a difficulty: if you find an excuse for a person, you are shifting the blame to someone else. This person does not know halakha because his parents and teachers, and is community did not teach him well …