Always_Ask_Questions

Menachem
> I would DEFINITELY add extra tefillos for you – regardless of your ideology.

A good question that people need to confront. I am thinking of those who are adding tehilim but avoid any mention of soldiers. Say, you are jumping into a fire to save someone’s child and the parent says – thank Hashem for saving my child, would you appreciate his deep religiosity, and will Hashem ?

Menachem, thanks, so Lubavitcher shita is to do as locals do … what do shluchim do in Russia or Muslim countries or in EY?

I found an interesting idea in R Soloveichik letter about our relationships with nonjews: if we were more open about Jewish ideas during Hellenism times, then the world would have accepted these ideas from us rather than seen them as Chiddushim of a new religion.

I once jokingly asked a Chinese restaurateur whether he finds it hard to deal with such clientele. He said – no, it is great, customers do not get into fights and pay their bills …

But, seriously, hope everyone here behaves so that their non-Jewish neighbors invite their friends to see what real chesed is.

I understand why people want to get to the higher level quickly, but you may be underestimating prerequisites … people talk about age, knowing halocho, but look at Kiddushin 71: The forty-two-letter name of God may be transmitted only to one who is discreet, and humble, and stands at at least half his life, and does not get angry, and does not get drunk, and does not insist upon his right

Are you even at minimum level in these middos? Are you saying that your rebbeim figured out shortcuts to skip these? If yes, why are you so interested in taking these shortcuts instead of working on yourself? This is like running a marathon and getting a ride for a part of it.

not my idea: we eat oily burned food to show that we are not going to stay in shape to run in Olympic games

my idea: we are rejecting greek idea of determinism by playing random games. So, dreidel looks like a perfect symmetric polygon that greeks loved so much, but we ten take it for a gut yiddishe spin – in circles – with irrational lengths and, most importantly, into an predictable trajectory destroying the idea of determinism. In the simplest and most visible way.

It is like Albert – “G-d does not play games” Einstein visits Nils Bohr for Chanuka and Nils, instead of spewing quantum formulas, simply spins the dreidel and asks Albert to predict the letter. Tiuvta Einstein Tiuvta.

A modern version is low predictability of weather despite all sensors and computers we got.

> “Sin” is the word for China

and WAR is short for Wa-gne-r – disbanded russian militants who probably helped out also

> SINWAR = Sin + War

and if you remove capital letters from above, you get iran in atbash.

> so you could use it l’chatchilah.

this is a great goal, but we have to be realistic and balance with conflicting goals. I read about someone asking a shaila of a rav and then expressing concern that the permitting psak is based on b’dieved considerations. The rav sighed, pointed to seforim in his bookshelves and said – all of these are also b’dieved (ie written v oral)

sechel v common sechel … exciting …
common asked you a common sense counter-question about your erudition in non-chabad seforim. you seem to ignore that and continue pressing yours. please respect the age!

Is flag such a goyishe idea? Shvatim had flags. We didn’t need flags for a long time that we didn’t have an army so the idea became foreign. Also, we should appreciate tzionim for their position:
1. Original flag had 7 golden stars for a 7 hour work day… at least not 7 work days … I guess they couldn’t agree on number of work hours, so then they grasped for talles colors
2. Compare with bundists who were as non religious sans EY
Their flag was half red, half black, a bilbul of communists and anarchists

Being in business is great, but there are a lot of nisyanos. It is much easier to be in a business as a doctor, an engineer, a lawyer. Much harder to run an honest and profitable business selling online what everyone else is selling or having medicaid pay low rates for cheapest service provided to poor and elderly. I am not saying it is impossible but it is hard to compete honestly and provide quality work that you can be proud of when you are in industries that are full of fraud, illegal workers and untaxed payments. But you would know this if you learnt Kiddushin.

Average income mixes up different populations and income sources. Maybe compare government payments, including to single mothers, free lunches, title 1, etc

Lighting in your home is supposed to be done in a public way, right? that should at least cover cars with menorahs, not that I have one. In general, if this will help to wake up some Yidden, this should be done. If it is going to annoy locals then not. So, yes in Manhattan, no in Alabama and ask your local rav in between

Follow, we need to be more specific what we mean by college. 1950s – something rich and aspiring people go to. 2020s: a way to get a middle class job. If you live on a goyishe campus, then impacts are similar and this may be a justifiable source for opposition, and other reasons are brought to avoid this direct path to assimilation and intermarriage. If you avoid it – live at home, in a Jewish college, online, etc, then discussion will be different.

most important: kavanot for this year. Tal umatar should flood Hamas tunnels and keep Russian tanks stuck in the mud.

Menachem, because he cares about you and is concerned if he thinks you are doing something fundamentally wrong and he tries to understand related halachik concepts. As Chabad seems to care about other Yidden and wants them to learn and care about other Yidden – mission accomplished.

Mod > I wrote a disclaimer, instead of deleting,

Thanks, appreciate it! I think you are concerned that I propose a straight vote by amei haaretz, I did not mean that. I meant that we, as a community, need to deal with these issues, without really going into the mechansims, whether it is a Moetzes, a Sanhedrin or a Knesset that will decide. If you feel that “lay people” should not concern themselves with overall direction of the community at all, I don’t think this makes any sense or this is what Hashem wants from Am Isroel.

As to direct participation in the direction of the nation, we have, for example, Yidden coming to Shmuel demanding a melech, and both Hashem and Shmuel reluctantly acquiesce.

They approached their rav, and received a psak. Exactly.

I found this from R Miller: TAPE # 58 (March 1975)
Q: Should I discourage my son from going to Yeshiva University? 

A: It depends. It depends where else he wants to go; what other places are under consideration. If he wants to go to a worse place, then don’t discourage him from going to Yeshiva University. But if he wants to go to the Mirrer Yeshiva then by all means you should discourage him from going to Yeshiva University

A good illustration of different opinions on participation/interest in political events (hope I recall the story correctly):

During WW2, someone sent R Soloveichik an article written by a British Jew who encountered religious German Jews in a British internment camp. The author was shocked that these Yidden were discussing for days events during wars in Roman empire, while completely ignoring current events in North Africa, Normandy, etc that were affecting their own lives. The author contrasted Jews of the past – from Avot to Tannaim who dealt with events of their time with the current reluctance to face reality.

The sender hoped that the Rav will respond publicly to the article. He did not at the time, but he remarked maybe 10+ years later: I hope that the author of the article is still alive and can observe Israeli politicians so that he does nbot worry any more that Jews are not capable of active politics any more.

When you use a gmail account, you cxan use this trick:
say my account is [email protected]. Then I register with [email protected], and different ones for differnt sites. Then, this email still goes to aaq, but you can search gmail for aaq+ywn. Then you can find out which promotion emails come from ywn and can also filter them in and out. For example, you might want to davka go to these advertisers to help ywn mods with parnosa.

Mod,
1) there are different views on these issues among Rabonim, so there is room for debate here. If you feel that certain Rabonim you trust and others are not legit (just an assumption that might be wrong), then you are essentially claiming your own opinion of who is to be trusted. For a,hopefully, non-controversial example – there are/were people who felt strongly for/against L Rebbe, R Moshe
(less of), R Soloveichik. As far as I know, they themselves were respectful of each other.

2) My regular circular reference to “my Daas Torah”. According to him, what Rabbis (over centuries) write in teshuvos depend on what people ask in their shailos. So, if you ask your DT how you could contribute to unitu of Am Isroel and whether you should/could daven for safety of Jewish soldiers fighting terrorists, you will be – indirectly – affecting the debate among poskim. Don’t be shy.

I wrote a disclaimer, instead of deleting, to your implication that these issues are ours to “decide as a group”. Period.

qwerty: it was to teach us how to prepare when we have to deal with Eisav and, of course, his descendants. Neither you nor I are on the front lines, so our responsibility is different.

You may be right regarding the actions, but we Jews, as a group, need to somehow agree on what is important. There are people/groups that emphasize “self improvement” as an explicit alternative to supporting those who are fighting. I hope we come closer to a joint view here. And it is probably a big source of frustration for many people in US that there is not much we can do. Still, people find opportunities – some places packed/donated for the gear for soldiers, others went on tours packing and doing other jobs in Israel where usual workers deployed.

Disclaimer: there are halachos and daas torah who make these decisions, not “we as a group”

Looking again at Yaakov’s behavior that was copied by Tannaim – there seems to be that Yaakov does something before doing “3 things” – “vaishlach” fisrt messengers is not part of those 3. This seems to be a preliminary step, that we now call “intelligence” – finding out the number of terrorists Esav is bringing and what is on their mind. This intelligence drives war/prayer/gifts steps.

If your Jewish store offers fair prices and fresh merchandize, then you should support him. Otherwise, if you buy kosher items from a chain, the chain will quickly figure it out and bring more kosher products and create a competitive environment. In my area, chains react even to asmall Jewish neighborhood offering products different from a block away.

Qwerty, yes I agree that we should introspect and try to correct the errors. I am just a little weary of people offering quick answers, as common seichel just said in another thread. Theoretically, I learned that we lost access to direct info from Hashem, we can still use (carefully) mida kneged mida approach. I also favor looking for factual rational explanations and then see if they can be further extended into the moral ones. As R Avigdor Miller said, if you put your hand into a fire to save a kid, your hand will still be hurt.

Along these lines regarding the recent events, I heard several people mentioning increased machlokets in Israeli politics with groups relating to others as enemies. I would add possibly a moral hesaron of pragmatically relating to the Russian aggression against Ukraine. This connects factually: hamas used some of the tactics that became established in last 2 years, and Israel didn’t assimilate these lessons, and hamas being supported by Iran, while Iran is exchanging technology with Russia, and on moral side also – ignore atrocities towards others … as r Soloveitchik wrote, when there are historical perturbation. Jews should not think that we will not be affected.