Always_Ask_Questions

CTL, I also have relatives who never voted for Sen Lieberman, but respected him personally nevertheless. Interesting that despite all talk of independence and anti-partisanship he is lauded for, all dignitaries were Democrats. Al Gore sounded like a real friend and addressed their profound disagreements…
Maybe Bush or Cheney or some Republican senators could have added to the memorial.

As George bush X-ed: our country and for the dignity and patriotism he brought to public life. As Laura and I pray for Hadassah and the Lieberman family, we also pray that Joe’s example of decency guides our Nation’s leaders now and into the future.

Kuvult, as much as it makes sense to measure reshayim against each other (is there a gemora measuring Haman v Pharaoh? We compare Lavan w/ Pharaoh in Hagaddah, but somewhat rhetorically), Soviets were worse for multiple reasons.

First, way more victims of Communism – more than 100 mln if you count Chinese communists, see “Black books of communism” for details per country.

Second, they came earlier and made mass murder a reality (WW1 had a lot of people killed, but at least laws of war were mostly followed). They killed and exiled millions, including Yidden, while Germans were still having rock-n-roll in the 20s. Nazis came to power in response to Commies and were able to get more power in divided Europe.

Third, as you are saying, their effect on all people, including Jews, was way more profound. With all Nazi unimaginable cruelty, the horror lasted for several years. Those who were lucky to survive recall those years or even months (like Hungarian Jews) for years. Soviets affected Russian & Ukrainian Jews for 70 years and Litvishe and Latvian for 40. When you see Rusim in Israel or on Brighton Beach, these are people whose grandparents did not get Jewish education …

Ned Lamont in his eulogy in Stamford shul that when he lost to Sen Lieberman, he liberated Joe to his real self; in essence Ned acknowledged Joe’s integrity and him being out of place in the Democratic party.

yankel, avirah, so this is a great opportunity to increase chesed – towards other groups – that will be a great step towards reconciliation. Let’s not hang on the “compulsary” and “government mandated” – increase volunteer contribution and, ,I am sure, it will be recognized by the society at large. Maybe not by the most anti-religious groups, but there are plenty of traditional people who will judge favorably. Maybe the barrier to that is the self-aggrandizing attitude that prevents people from seeing what others do to them. So, if you then conclude that your own community is a priority, do not be surprised that others see their communities as a priority and do not want to pay taxes to support yours.

yankel berel, thanks for correcting my sloppy reference to knowing all poskim instead of being able to navigate them (Hashem somehow wanted me to acknowledge this at least twice as the first one did not show up). Not relying on my own reading, I searched how others understand this Ramo, and it seems that it is understood as a pretty high requirement. also, someone mentions that Ramo brings this solely as a criterion for someone not to pay taxes in a community, while it is Hazon Ish who is elevating the criterion to a general definition of a Talmid Chacham.

So, I would be interested in seeing an exam that verifies learning qualities according to Ramo’s definition.

But maybe it is all in vain. I see in R Twersky a discussion about who is a chossid (in my eyes, a mailah higher than T’Ch):
A: the one who wants to be a chossid
Q: but who does NOT want to be a chossid!?
A: the one who thinks he already is a chossid.

I had to scroll up to see if that was some other yankel berel who wrote that these are young vulnerable kids who learned for 4 years, but already learned rov geonim veposkim.

If you are really serious, maybe this is a good time to define a psychometry type test to measure learning, and those who pass can somehow justify an exemption, charedi or not.

It is also scary then that someone with such learning can fall vulnerable to tzahal… as we know talmid chacham will do teshuva in the morning if you see him doing an aveirah in the evening. So, if you send someone to tzahal and he comes back and continues learning, it was wrong to send him; but if he comes back otd, then he wasn’t talmid chochom to begin with, and he was justifiable drafted. Sort of a breira.

>> “if you know aleph teach aleph”
> cliff in pitch dark.

I heard the same admiring expression about aleph used by R Mordechai Shapiro Z’L. Of course when appropriate. I don’t think either speaker meant anything kabbalistic or set theory of Georg Cantor.

Market-fare v law-fare. Getting interesting.

Anon, right answer! DaMoshe B+ on a harder question. Also r Salanter. R Kotler is the one not like others.

Common and Besht attack litvishe rabonim for not having fun, fathering phds and otds. I didn’t study whether these two degrees have correlation or causation or neither. Chofetz Chaim blamed the Times: whwhis daughter asked for a brocha to have kosher children, he gave her one to have many children.

RebE > Trump, according to a book by chief of staff

Right, Mordechai also had people saying things about him.

avira > rav shach received a lot of criticism from brisk

here we go again. If someone else disagrees w/ Rav Schach, then he is an apikoires. But my group can. Can we all have equal rights here?

Like Trump, Mordechai was under-appreciated despite his service to the country; he rejected conventional courtesy and annoyed his enemy to no end; tried to overturn appointment of his nemesis; he was sued and gallows were prepared; everything he achieved involved charming women; and, at the end, he was favored just by “bare majority”.

Avira > Rav shach said in the 80s that this psak no longer applies. Under Menachem begin, things were different.

Note that Rav Schach advised against an agreement between Haredi politicians and Begin to have fully gov-funded haredi schools in order not to lose ability to maintain private support.

Hakatan, you can disassociate from groups you don’t like, it is fine by me. But then you need to make sure that you live an honest life without taking more than you are giving, whether you are in EY or in Stamford Hill. If you don’t want to rely on idf, negotiate with the government to move to an area adjacent to the border and organize your own self defense, either train fully chareidi militia, or pay Wagner group, or daven. Same for financial support. If you push for such resolution politically, you may not get immediate agreement from most ardent Zs, but you will get a lot more support and respect from regular Israelis.

@yankel, you mentioned menorah against haskala, I am just saying that not everything that was appearing at the time was wrong. It is possible that immediate reaction to close the gates of the ghetto, yes helped to keep many inside, but also left others permanently outside. We are somewhat better now Dealing with modern world, and both haskalists and traditionalists made imperfect decisions at the time. Not blaming anyone, it was an unprecedented challenge.

Chaim, I do understand that there are cases of unfair prosecution and other injustices. I am just suspicious when a member of a certain group considers most prosecution of his group unfair. What are the chances that every black arrested by police is innocent? same for the Jews …

This attitude is just creating a license for the group to misbehave further. If we could stay away from helping illegals getting fake documents; keep one set of books; do not commit wire fraud and use welfare programs beyond the bare minimum, those anti-semite will have a hard time building a case against us, right?

All sides of this discussion of the conditions in EY omit the question – about all Yidden who found refuge there from Russian and Turkish Empires, then Russian revolution, then Stalin, then Nazis, then commies in Eastern Europe, then from Arab revolutions and mullahs and terrorists. Imagine Jews in Aleppo staying there until ISIS arrived … It is not just about 100 people who could beg the locals to put chairs near the kosel.

Answering that they could have gone to USA, British Empire, South Africa & America does not fully answer – not everyone was able to travel there, and many rapidly assimilated. Those who came to EY even under most hardened commies, had Jewish grandchildren, who still have a chance to do teshuva. And many Rabonim did not recommend going to the golden medina either.

Yidden who moved from Europe to EY pre ww2 escaped commies and nazis. Did old yishuv have a plan to absorb all these people without zionim? Did they have funds to feed them or to create jobs for them?

Zionim were at fault diverting funds from donors from tel Aviv manufacturing to kibbutzim. Manufacturing was able to support more jobs in tel Aviv and would enable more German jews to come. Kibbutzim were ideological goal but didn’t create enough productive jobs, limiting lives saved.

Avira, Jews were not taking EY by force. They came as farmers or city dwellers (with a big machlokes between the two groups, first more ideological, second – more practical, first one won and less people came before WW2). Yidden in Eastern Europe were collecting money in their shuls for “workers in EY”, not “fighters”. Fighting was in self-defense as you suggest.

> punishment for some of these piety crimes are mortally wrong.

Indeed, we learn from the Megilla that an insurrection is punished mortally. Even when they are undocumented Persians speaking in foreign language!

CTL, refuah shleima. I am happy to hear that you are reasonable here. There is another problem here – criminal/civil charges are inevitably comingled with political ones. Political ones are subject to constant lies from the media. So, inevitably, law is losing respect of people who see the political mud fight. Chaim shows us a good example how people can nullify the legal system this way.

Lost, Obama presided over post-crisis economy. Growth rate was lowest comparing with similar recovery periods. Possibly, he did not bother growing it to make sure no new downturn comes before 2016 elections?

Obama had forces in ME, but we were not winning. Obama’s policies were restricting military. Each strike had to be approved from the White House legal council. Read it up. Read, for example, about Gen McCrystal who had a distinguished career … Maybe let’s look at contemporary reports:

CNN December 7, 2016
SIS’ march across Iraq and Syria – a campaign that’s forced President Barack Obama to return small numbers of US troops to the region, even after touting an end to the decade-long ground offensives there – came as a surprise to US intelligence, the President told CNN in a new special report.
..
As Obama’s presidency concludes, it’s clearer than ever he’ll depart the White House with Syrians facing nearly unyielding misery.
..
Avoiding a large scale ground conflict in Syria “is the smartest decision from a menu of bad options that were available to us,”
…
Some of Obama’s generals wanted to keep 10,000 US troops in Iraq to maintain stability in the country as it emerged from a decade of war. But …
The efforts have squeezed ISIS on the battlefield, reducing its territory and taking out key figures in its leadership. A campaign to retake Mosul, the group’s base in Iraq, is making progress.

Those who want their own protection should negotiate with any surrounding country or polity to allow them to settle there. Maybe Egypt will be interested in settling Sinai with Jews. This is a place of history of Jews learning under Hashem’s protection. Hizbollah is also very religious and they might be interested in having a buffer between them and Zionists.

> they just usurped the NK name

who stole the original ones? or they had no followers except the usurpers?