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So conclusion on the TV seems to be that it may be OK for some. I would just quibble with the rationale: it is not like matiring drugs to an addict, but simply acknowledging that a mature person who watched it for 60 years and maybe even knows how to extract information from it l, can continue watching it. Same in this generation, an yid who works in politics or stock market may get a eter to watch Bloomberg terminal and wsj …
I am shocked, shocked that I am learning details of these books right here on ywn especially from posters looking down at others for various hashkafic issues… maybe need a trigger warning
I understand some did teshuva already. I am thinking if you are spending time ⏲️ on goyishe literature, why not read something more mature.
I think some gemoras put down Aramaic as an impure mixture v pure languages like Greek. Maybe in discussion on what language are kosher for megilah reading
Could it be not just lack of numbers, but quality ? Lomdus subpar, job prospects nonexistent? Girls are looking for someone who can support the family and lead it, are all the boys ready ?
Concerns about evangelical love are justified, and historically many Philo semites turned into anti when we didn’t play along, from Hadrian to Luther.. still it is way more comfortable to complain from your current position than from catholic Spain or from soviet Russia. We need to acknowledge the positives while staying vigilant.
R Soloveitchik was for dialogue and cooperation on practical matters, but not on theology. Even when catholics decided to overturn their anti Jewish positions in 1960s, he suggested not to cooperate: it is their own problem and they are dealing with it.
On the other hand, straight teaching our position may be different, despite the gemoras ^. we are well past septuaginta, protestants allowed everyone to learn Bible 500 years, and nowadays anyone can read artscroll gemora with meforshim.
I am not saying that this easily justifies any particular interaction, but it at least opens a discussionLots of interesting opinions but underlying facts are still unclear.
Could someone find a syllabus for these classes at least? Fluffy articles about the program may just be writer’s opinionsI think Avira is right about mishna berurah. I understand that it was Chofetz Chaim intention to create a uniform halacha for modern times
I believe that women follow their mother’s minhag in women specific mitzvos such as candles 🕯. But overall an kind of difference is a potential source of irritation, so it may be a good idea to be more accepting, doing it during shiduchim may be too late if a person was taught at school that chasidim sleep late and working boys don’t learn …
I think the difference in our time is that everyone has a siddur and can read, so noone is relying on the Schatz. I don’t remember where I read this.
We shouldn’t be too proud of ourselves, of course. The reason everyone can read in shul is because those who can’t read simply don’t come..
Moses Mendessohn lead first response to an extraordinary challenge of the modern world. I don’t think we had similar challenges from the time of Rome and beginning of Xianity. A typical view is that Moses lead jews into reform and conversion…but do we really think that his German Bible made all Yiddish speakers proficient in high German? Jews assimilated in other countries too. Maybe we can admit that he was looking for a right response, whatever the results are. And from current hindsight, unfair of course, the rest of the community didn’t respond either. Even later, when Chofetz Chaim in 1920s laments about polish jews assimilation, he is not proposing a lot of solutions… for one obvious example, Sara S proposed BY school, not any of the leaders… those were extraordinary challenges and many people tried to address them in a different ways, and no reason to denigrate those who earnestly tried
Ps as Hazon Ish refers to Rambam’s idea of going to the desert 🏜 when there are no other options, he eem to admit that this a temporary extraordinary measure. Involvement with Hashem’s world 🌎 is the norm
There is nothing modern in modern… Avraham Avinu dealt with people and norms of his time, Moshe Rabeinu went to Pharoah,
Tannaim addressed Greek influences, Ramban disputed apikoirosim of his time… As r Soloveitchik wrote, quoting from memory, we are not going to fulfill our mission in the world by hiding in caves. We can have legitimate debate on specific positions, and many issues are complicated, but a tradition of being modern is pretty old.sechel, I am telling you that R Salanter and R Hirsh did open miracles (and they did), are you going to read all volumes of their writings or will you say – who are these people?
sechel, yes – generally things written by Moshe Rabbeinu are accepted.
And this Litvishe approach is well documented, starting w/ Mishna that meticulously documents multiple opinions. Somehow tannaim and amoraim did not follow one rebbe.
And as if “chasidishe” velt has such a sefer. Each of the groups have their own Rebbe.
We had some kosher organizations investing with Bernie Madoff. Did the boards ask a shailoh before, or while, doing that? Or in other financial matters?
A friend of mine volunteered his time to go thru financial statements of several long-established kosher organizations, most lead directly by Rabonim and he said that it seems that he was the first professional going thru this.
common,
(1) sounds like your answer is “no”, please explain why
(2) I do not understand what is the taava of motzi shem ra about an anonymous opponent? during our discussions, I quoted a number of responses to my shailos.you need to check when and to whom Chofetz Chaim wrote this pamphlet.
Chofetz Chaim lived a long life, starting under the Czar, then, during WW1 and communist revolution, then in free Poland while things were changing quickly. His letters change from 1910s to 1930, starting with diukim of halocha, then to encouraging people not to overcharge refugees during WW1, and at the end, deploring people to have at least one kosher cheder per town and asking women who know how to read to teach the rest of the women basics of halochos niddah.
ujm, and on a positive side, you are engaged in a bunch of mitzvos while employing your plumber – chesed, tzedoka, kavod/love of talmidei chachamim. I hope you pay extra, but not so much that he notices that this is tzedoka. Maybe throw napkins into the bowl on purpose to increase his income.
ujm > My plumber got smicha too. Does that mean I need to say “Rabbi
!? Look up gemora and tell me whether tannaim and amoraim who were in various professions were denied their titles?! In some cases, I see questionable characters without smicha usually because they are doing something not kosher in their activities (whether Aher or those who are not honest)
Avira > This was before the internet; information traveled slowly.
This is questionable. You are suggesting that gedolim were making judgments about major current movements lead by other gedolim without investigating the matter properly? We had a question whether one should trust a gadol in stock picking, but surely evaluating hashkofos _is_ what a Rav is a boke in!
show of hands: anyone asked a Rav about investments and what were the returns?
Simcha > But so many aspects of our life are not directly and explicitly dictated by halacha
There is a difference between halochos towards Hashem and towards a person (havero or oneself). In the latter case, you still have a halakha, but it may depend on the personalities of people involved. What is an appropriate challenge for one person, might ruin another. So, if you are asking for an advice, you should preferably ask someone who knows people involved or provide such information.
Menachem, this Gemora does not explain when Yehudi started to be used like that. Avraham clearly was not a Yehudi :).
Turns out there are pre-Ester references: references in Yermiyahu sound like referring to the tribe. but Zacharia 8:23 seem to refer to Yehudi in a religious sense in the context of nations coming to learn and this is how Gemora Shabbos 32 seems to understand it.
I once witnessed an earnest BT asking a chabad shaliach a shaila – where to go to grad school for a CS degree. His choices were agonizingly difficult – Ivy League or MIT. I was very interested how the Rav will handle that .. He did pretty well. He walked the guy through possible considerations and suggested making a list of pros and contras and then look at it. I heard this guy ended up being successful both in Torah and parnosa.
We do have sources though for going into business with a talmid chacham. Then, you do the hard part and you also benefit from the talmid chacham’s advice!
Just be careful how you run the business. In Gittin in the discussion of darchei sholom that someone comes to Abaye and asks him to teach him, Abaye has no time because he learns during the day and works his field at night, so the student suggests that he works the field – and he does it by telling people at the bottom of the river that halakha is that top goes first to fill in cisterns, and to the people at the top that bottom goes first, and proceeds to fill in Abaye’s cisterns in the middle.
Abaye did not teat his fruit that year and, I presume, did not teach the student either.was there a machlokes between Litvishe Rebbes? I think most of them, traditionally, did not advise on stock selection. Although they did value chochma. R Salanter would show people some ship plan that included a new element that his son invented, and he was both proud that his son did that and also that when his son showed him the pan, Rav identified which part was the invention.
Avraham was indeed “Ivri”, Hebrew. Mordechai seems to be the first person to be called “Yehudi” and yamini at the same time, that is yehudi being used as a “Jew”, not as a tribe. Are there earlier references during 1st BM?
There are different ways to learn. If you are uncomfortable with certain style, you might consider other ones, especially if the style includes rudeness,, however excusable as listed above. This difference goes bacl to Bavli and Yerushalmi, with those from EY, like you, being less argumentive.
huju > “Jew” has been pejorative among gentiles since we left HarSinai.
it is somewhat cultural. For example, Zhid (Yid) in Polish and Lithuanian is not pejorative per se (although some might use it), but it is in Russian.
n0 > There was no intentional assualt on the k’hal in this battle.
Are you suggesting that attack on kahal was b’shgaga? If you separate the davening, meat, taxes, etc – what do you expect will happen? I would agree that political considerations were not usually primary, they were “for the higher goal” on both sides … for example, power struggle in Vilno with appeals to Russian government, where probably Russians succeeded in using the machlokes to weaken Jewish self-government more than each side benefited from trying to align with the government.
ujm > Which filters have a goy manually look at each picture
simply use Mechanical Turk to hire someone in India: explain to them what images you object to, give them some examples, and they’ll be happy to collect samples of un-tzanua and avoda zora that you can then feed into deep learning and train your personal filter.
Neville > It is not the normative stance of the yeshivish world that learning all of shas is “not worth a lot.”
This was an objection when Daf Yomi was starting – that participants will think they now know the Shas ..
Jews were previously said to earn like Episcopalian but vote like Puerto Ricans. The charedi vote seem to reverse that: while most individuals “self-identify” as Republicans, communities often are in favor of Democratic policies – increased welfare, various subsidies, and often pragmatic support of Dem politicians as most O- Jews live in blue states. Florida is an exception. Maybe NY/NJ Jews should move to PA to affect another purple state.
part of the chassidi innovations was breaking up a town kahal – shtibles and especially different shechita, given that kahal was typically supported by taxes on meat and candles, I believe.
Don’t want spoil a good story, but who are the 5% of O Jews who do not eat kosher? Either they are fasting or just pressed the wring button
you can probably use Pew numbers of intermarriage going back to the 50s to model what percentage of people they ask are actually Jewish.
but Pew is not the only one playing these games. One Israeli politico told me that he gets briefings from US federations over years that always show about same number of Jews – except their criteria of who counts as Jewish is being relaxed. He asked to use any criterion they want – and show him how numbers change over time according to that fixed criterion, but got no answer.
common, I let my kids read some of these stories, and I recall commenting on Goldilocks and bear behavior in a similar way. If I would be sure that they’ll never hear any goyishe narratives in their life, I could have skipped it. I think kids need to learn critical thinking and be able to look at “accepted” narratives and see through them.
As to Jewish stories, kids loved many of them. Some of their favorite ones, they, with sadness, put away in the basement after more information came out about the author.
A good Jewish book on developing critical thinking is “another side of the story”. IT consists of short vignettes describing a moment where someone clearly looks guilty and then explains it. You can use it like Harvard Business Review cases – read the first part, and then try to find the explanation together.
Also, many people question “stories of tzadikim” that whitewash lives of gedolim and create unrealistic expectations of how making of a Gadol happens …
Pew has nothing to do with Forward, they do respectable polls of US population.
Of course, numbers are skewed based on who they count as Jews, given intermarriage rate in previous generations, nebach. So, now “75%” includes many legit marriages between two upstanding bnei Noach who are confused to think they are Jewish. Maybe, we can, l’tzad schus, think of Reform as a bnei Noach movement. Although, they may be struggling with ever min hachai from the time of the treife banquet …
We also need to downgrade 7.5 to some actual number, making Israel a place of most Jews (I presume Israel uses halachik definition in their count excluding non-Jews who came under the law of return).
But the bottom line from Pew is that:
R- intermarries dramatically
C- ages and has no children
O- world grows fast, but organically only. Not many switches from R, C to O, despite Chabad and yeshivot for BTs, and Kars for Kids heroic efforts …
maybe someone can look and compare changes between denominations in previous Pew reports.
I skipped “unaffiliated” here, don’t know how to analyze themSo, would Chabad hold a veto over Hashem’s decision and even, Ch’V, delay a non-Chabad Moschiach?
What if, Ch’V there is another group who only accepts Moschiach from their dynasty – will the world be stuck until they climb down?
Abba, this sounds like a good idea, indeed. One problem is that all Israeli parties loath to cut budget from anyone – as this could also happen with them later on.
I also used OpenDNS.
I am not sure that it requires installing something on the router, maybe I do not remember.
You can do whitelisting – allowing only specific sites or groups of sites.Also, whether it is for yourself or a kid – make sure there is a positive motivation in using electronics: learning, taking classes, and focus on expanding these positive activities. After you do work for 10 hours on a computer, you may want to do something else for relaxation.
yechiell, we just witness a very minor attempt at a rebellion in Russia – that involved heavy weapons, shooting a couple of military planes – and even that was a joke. For whatever reason, Congress and DC mayor decided not to protect themselves against an angry crowd. Whatever position you take on all these issues, there was no threat to democracy except by people who are using it as an excuse to curtail civil liberties. Ever heard of Reichstag fire?
the tutor story requires clarification: why not simply fire the tutor?