Always_Ask_Questions

> True kenoim who know what Chabad stands for do not use their services or interact with them.

This is not true in my experience. I’ve seem yeshivish and Satmar travelers staying at Chabad houses. Maybe they check it out and avoid crzier ones, I do not know, do not go there either 🙂

Guys, go google for images of lithuanian jews / mir yeshiva/ teltz yeshiva … and you will see how Jews were typically dressed both in the streets and in the yeshivos.
I tried to put a list of broken links but they did not show up.

Coffee, you had to take _some_ English classes … I did not take any legal ones, only business 🙂

> if someone doesn’t say just the right thing.

hopefully, standards for Yidden talking to each other should be higher than for American politicians. We are all affected by this plague, but maybe, D- posters are generally more assimilated, or more attuned to non-Jewish discussion style, so it looks so ugly here. In other venues, I see both sides having obnoxious posters in equal proportion.

> unsuccessfully assassinated

OXYMORON

Dofi, you are out of line. Cool down.

Rocky,
I said “if there is competition”. Book and bookstore market may not be so good, so you might be right. But also keep in mind, costs of developing a book, especially with a translation, are high. So, maybe sponsors enable publishing more books than would otherwise published.

If you are looking for affordable English seforim, search amazon books and click on “used only”. You get good conditioned books at < $10 each. I found out about this when the kids gave me a present of multiple of my favorite seforim and I wondered how they were able to afford that 🙂

Rocky > The printing company is going to print it and make a profit; no matter what, all the donors are doing is giving the printer more money.

If there is competition, then the printer’s profit will reflect the donations and the sale price will be lower.

Probably, a more effective way to do tzedokah would be to donate money directly to the buyers – a voucher upon presenting a receipt for the siddur.

yechiel > he did EXTREMELY WELL at that news conference. Ignoring that, eh?

At the first glance, I thought this was sarcasm and double-checked whether I was the one who wrote it. I actually watched this conference to do my own diagnosis. Even at 2x speed, President’s thinking was painstakingly slow. I felt bad for the old man embarrassing himself. Someone @ WSJ tried to defend Pres B by describing how Reagan was deteriorating during last year. This op-ed has about 2,000 comments all saying the same thing: Reagan stepped down from the high level, Biden is sliding from the unremarkable level he was when he was younger.

Also, NYT headline writers are off their rockers. Latest one: Dems push Biden to xxxx – Last thing a stumbling old man needs is a push!

How could R convention be preceded in a short order by – an opponent bumbling debate and a half-hearted attempts to fix them; a failed bullet producing an iconic defiance picture; and a prosecutor dismissal? It is either a well-timed conspiracy or a yad Hashem ….

the only argument against the conspiracy is the near-miss of the bullet, who would risk that even if Wilhelm Tell was shooting. Unless, it was paint and not blood. Your thoughts?

Show of hands – anyone here who plans to vote for a different party this year? Or change between voting and not voting.

ExCTL > The descendants of slaves idea is one only considered by the elite, not the masses

So, you are saying masses are plain racist? It could be, but more likely simply emotional and following the flow.

As an example, gallup has a “poll” about “immigration” – scary quotes because they do not use “illegal” in most questions, conflating legal and illegal immigration, while clearly referring to illegal in other questions, like “closing the border” . So they have these 2 questions, approximately:

1. would you give citizenship for the immigrants who are already in the country if they follow certain (undefined) conditions – yes 80%
2. would you agree to immediately deport everyone who is currently in the country illegally. yes 40%

So, at least 20% answered yes to both questions, although these answers are incompatible. Well, maybe they just want any resolution, just want to debate to end?!

Sir, when you have a 50% chance of divorce for _a_ wife, your chance to keep at least one out of your three wives is staggering 87.5%!

This presumes independent interaction with each of them. But if you are not able to afford three houses, then they might all walk out as a group on you.

However, we are still very far removed from the ideal. And so

are all other yeshivos and mesivtos which employ for their “English” department non-Jewish or irreligious Jewish teachers. If only the secular teacher would be endowed with ידבוע become toneshamos Jewish mechanech and desire to be hashkafaha proper ! Then he or she would not only manage to impart a masterful secularםשה education with results which would impress the parents as well as the authorities, but every secular lesson could be turned into a genuine Jewish experience. Rather than subjecting the students of a yeshivah to the schizophrenic jolt of switching over in the afternoon from kodesh to chol, and exposing them to the fascination of a foreign culture and non-Torah values, the ideal Torah im Derech Eretz teacher of the secular department would be capable of serving the whole . ןילוח לע תרהט שוקה to the students as menu of secular knowledge First of all, the secular teacher would impress his or her students with the concept that a first-class general education gives the student the wherewithal to make a kiddush Hashem in the outside world. Secondly, as a true mechanech, he or she would control the library, and all required reading of English literature would be discussed from a Torah viewpoint, clarifying where our Torah ideology differs from the philosophy of the author. The compositions written by the students should discuss the ideological Jewish interest contained in the literary masterpieces: what we can accept, and what we must reject.

A good example is R Huna’s intervention into malfunctioning food markets:

farmers were bringing food from villages and then whatever is left at the end of the week was lost. So, the farmers started bringing less to avoid losses, leading to shortages and higher prices. Classic market failure.

R Huna started buying leftover food at the end of the week to increase supply. But he did not give away the food for free – this would create a “great society” welfare system, with poor expecting handouts, not buying, and destroying the market again. Instead, he sent that food down the river – not to be destroyed, as this will be asur, but to be picked up by downstream poor who will not distort the local market.

I wish Pres Johnson learnt this Gemora …

R Schwab (what year?) > break off your professional relationship with those who, for instance, consider Yishu HaNotzri merely a failed moshiach

Great language on unity in these words, but can someone clarify when did RCA have such a relationship with other religions? R Soloveitchik paskens that it is possible to meet with other religions to discuss social/political/world issues, but _no_ discussions about theology. When someone asked about an invite to the Vatican congress where they decided to rescind their anti-Jewish doctrines in 1960s, he paskened not to attend: if they want to do teshuva, great, they should deal with that. We have nothing to do with that and should not even come and thank them for that.

maybe Dean Philips can win CT primary absent other contenders and get a leg up on delegates?! Any other primaries left?

Thanks for these quotes. I think they are railing against something what was MO in 1930s to 50s. I never heard a “modern” MO quote Graetz or Dubnow or having O-R collaboration in issues of religion (R Soloveichik paskens that it is osur to enter a non-O place of worship even at the expense of not fulfilling mitzva of shofar).

There are articles now how power people around the world are preparing for T presidency, which they didn’t do last time around. Their biggest concern is unpredictability that they don’t like in their nature. Their preparation includes (1) doing things T might like and that they found made sense – increase NATO budgets (2) find contacts close to T (3) try to create defenses against decisions they don’t want in case T goes there – transfer Ukraine support from US to NATO. So, the world seems to learn how to live with T, so I suggest you do too.

would Josh Shapiro be a centrist candidate who can carry PA and out-of-nowhere become a first Jewish Pres?

That Bava Basra gemora raises a lot if questions. One would be – what kind of T’Ch are deserving such protection in terms of learning and behavior.

Maybe we can use Ravina’s approach when he tried to force his poor neighbor Runia to pay up for the fence: he sent a worker into Runia’s field to prentend to pick up dates, and when Runia started shouting at him, Ravina said – so, you do need protection?! So, if we have T’Ch who showed that they do not need physical protection or financial support from amei haaretz, then they should be left alone. As in Bava Batra, when T’Ch refused to pay up a Roman tax (which was more like a one time gezera rather than dina d’malchuta, if this matters) and merchants threatens to leave the city, T’Ch saud – ok, leave and this worked out. So, current T’Ch should be ready to live near the border and refuse protection from Tzahal.

Ubi, yes.
I don’t know what BY thinks, but I external (in power in other countries) and internal (useful idiots) commies are the same danger. The weaker a country is internationally, the easier it is for internal commies to become popular.

Note that US was very much an outlier in 20th century in terms of lack of popularity of commies comparing with European countries, and heopfully will stay this way.

I think jackk needs to take a break from politics and get involved in some pareve discussions on parsha and daf yomi. You can be 200% shomer kashrus, but if some solid Jewish texts do not enter your mind, you can’t expect to have “Jewish” opinions on contemporary topics.

Right, I am of the same opinion as your professor. JP might have had best (or at least good) intentions, but he did grave damage to US security; to Israel-
US relationships (and, thus, to Israeli security) and to Jews who work on security issues. One thing to note that, as much as he believed that his contacts were from Israeli services, it is entirely possible that they were not, or that Israeli services were infiltrated. He played the game that was way over his head, did not and still does not admit to what he did.

Ubi, President needs to lead, especially in international crises. See the discussion between Yidden and Shmuel regarding the King.
So, when President can not act, commies and other enemies can use it to their advantage.

RebE, it is a zechus of Moshe that he did not push his children into leadership, and did not go to them for the advise.