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>real Ben Torah with a smartphone
> what do you think he does with it?I would first need to know who is BT? (dubious acronym, that I need to clarify with even more dubious: Ben Torah, NOT Baal Teshuva, to which Gerer Rebbe would answer – “why NOT”). I see multiple references to BT – from R Feinstein to R Lamm, but I do not see a clear definition. I am guessing this is a slightly lower level than Talmid Chacham: TC someone who strives to be a full Chacham, but is humble to call himself the one – and BT is someone who seems to claim that his behavior is fully guided by Torah, but not ambitious to become a Chacham? Sort of a Talmid who is on non-degree path?
So, if we were to talk about TC, halakha is clear: you presume the best. So, I would think that his wife is expecting or/and his mother is not feeling well, so he needs a call. Or he is a doctor or a real estate broker and the phone is part of his parnosa, or he is learning off YUTorah site (or is this l’gnai?). Of course, none of this releases him from other halochos – greeting people first, not bumping into them while walking or driving.
So, if BT is a lower level than TC, I am not sure whether we have to give hum same benefit of doubt. Possibly, we give it to TC because he is constantly reviewing his behavior (do not question him in the morning about aveira he did yesterday night, as he surely did teshuva). If BT is not doing that, then he may not deserve the benefit, and if he does – then he is TC!
This article has 3 references to Haaretz out of 282, and they are more anti-Polish than anti-Jewish, so this is not a problem for this article at least.
Possibly this article have changed but current Wiki article on Holocaust in Poland looks reasonable (and you can see that many carefully worded phrases probably resulted from long discussions, as Wiki is supposed to work). See below a couple of references to Communist Jews that indeed reflect Stalin’s policy of appointing Jews and other minorities as fronts of his regime exploiting and increasing the tension. We know similar things from our internal strives in 19th century, when Misnagdim and Chasidim in Vilno appealed to new Russian occupiers for support and were ultimately used by Russia to weaken the communities, or even going back to Pompeii invited to solve fighting between brothers. Hopefully, all these fight focus on real criminals – Nazis and Soviets, rather than creating fight between Jews and Poles who were both the victims.
Antisemitism …
Joseph Stalin’s occupation of terror in eastern Poland in 1939 brought what Jan Gross calls “the institutionalization of resentment”,[169] whereby the Soviets used privileges and punishments to accommodate and encourage ethnic and religious differences between Jews and Poles. There was an upsurge in the anti-Semitic stereotype of Jews as Communist traitors; it erupted into mass murder when Nazi Germany invaded Soviet eastern Poland in the summer of 1941Local people had witnessed the repressions against their own compatriots, and mass deportations to Siberia,[228][229] conducted by the Soviet NKVD, with some local Jews forming militias, taking over key administrative posts,[230] and collaborating with the NKVD. Other locals assumed that, driven by vengeance, Jewish communists had been prominent in betraying the ethnically Polish and other non-Jewish victims.[231]
Of course, Jews knew Karen first – she is one of the 4 types of Nezek, the aggressive one. If Karen tries to pay only half of her damage, she needs to prove that her mother is Jewish. In this case, she is called Karen bas Karen (like mother, like daughter)
Ben Torah had to worry about consequences. It is called Moris atn
CTL, thanks for a free consultation. I am ready to sign up as your client!
Are you getting a subsidized ACA plan as you are “cash poor”? That seems like a undesirable feature.
If ACA gives you a reasonable non-subsidized plan, essentially giving you a group-plan option without having a large employer, that would be a good feature. It would be even better if government enables private plans to provide unrestricted plans, possibly directly subsidizing those who need it.CTL, while you have a point about the need of insurance, still:
1) DR P is correct about prevention. I think 2 largest medical expenses are end of life (that you wrote about) and chronic diseases – many of the latter are lifestyle-based.
2) you should notice a seeming paradox – a well-off person like you can not afford medical care. Someone is paying for it, right? Is it that the most filthy-rich pay so much taxes that they pay for insurance for all of us, including you? Probably, not (at least according to people claiming that rich are not paying their share). The other option is that your own taxes are paying for it. Say, you earn modest $300K/year (in current year money) for last 40 years. So, you paid income tax $80K*40 = $3.2mln i just federal taxes. This is not counting 3% medicare tax, $400K, FICA 15% = $1.8 mln, + social security + cap gains + CT tax + medical insurance that you were paying … It is way possible that if the government were to give you a modest discount on your generous donations, you would be able to afford your own healthcare. Instead, government made you (somewhat) poor and then comes to help you.
I am less familiar with Israeli demonstrators, but in the US context, wherever there is a group complaining about double standards from police – they might be right, but they should not have been doing what they were doing in the first place.
Coffee – because I am familiar with the technology and how it is tested.
Can someone ask the GPT:
– do we pasken like Beis Shammai or Beis Hillel?
– do we pasken like Rav or like Shmuel?
– do we pasken like Avira or like AAQ?
– what did Chofetz Chaim said about Rav Kook?
– what did Chofetz Chaim said about Rav Kook ZT’L?ChatGPT, welcome to CR. You will fit in well here.
> That is just the environment that is most conducive to do so and just happens to be in the public eye.
there is no invasion of privacy here, all you see is black hats and dark-colored dresses, almost impossible to know who that is! The only people to recognize would be parents (who should not be there) and friends (who are on their own dates at the same time)
> until the shidduch is signed-off on by the shadchan,
if this were the requirement, Yaakov Avinu would still be an older single … I actually saw a sefer referring a certain gadol who would refuse a shidduch unless thru a shadchan. At the same time, private advice I am getting from Rabonim with successful shiduch experiences if double-digits kenehora is …. “shadchanim did not work out for us”. Don’t know who to believe – a sefer or my own ears.
> One such obligatory cause is giving people to continue living how they are accustomed to.
Load the animal “with him”… if a person is not doing his part, I do not think there is an obligation. Please check if this is discussed in the footnotes to your favorite halachik source and let us know what the answer is.
Rocky > I agree that the ideal would be to give to family that I know personably and can attest to their genuine need. However, I would guess that most donors are not in that position…It should not be too difficult in many (not all cases) for an organization to contact a reputable Rav
One way is for you personally to ask someone who you consider a reputable Talmid Chochom and who lives modestly, not involved in official fund collection, to distribute your funds. One Rav I know collects funds in US, calls his personal friend in Yerushalaim, who distributes amount he is told the same day.
Every time you give to organization, whether it is CJP, shul, school, you empower that institution. I would do this only when 100% aligned with the organization.
When Avraham Avinu was confronted with this problem, he answered simply “my sister”.
n0 > what do both bring to the table?
right, I think this the right question.
YV is definitely better at producing large families and large number of cheder teachers, and keeping young people away from trouble. MO is better at producing people with balanced lifestyle that integrate Torah into normal life, being able to apply Torah concepts to finding time to learn, doing business and paying taxes, and relating to the world knowledge.
In terms of best Teachers in the higher sense of this world, then I find people who combine both approaches are the most successful. This include either more “modern” Rabbis, like R Soloveichik [who actually says that Jewish community is organized around a Teacher, not around political party], who at the same time have solid learning, or more traditional Rabbis who to some degree interacted with the modern world, such as Lubavitcher Rebbe. I find similar characteristics in Teachers I meet personally – they are either Modern with solid yeshivish background or Yeshivish who experienced modern world in some way.
when asking openGPT shailos, don’t forget to specify what your nusach is.
uniq, I agree re: market distortion in healthcare, and I also mentioned transparency regulations by Trump. The answer to that is improving the markets as much as possible – publishing prices, enabling competition.
I did not study healthcare, but I studied defense industry under Reagan – who introduced competition by partitioning weapon development into R&D and production, and bidding them separately, with government fully acquiring R&D results of the bidder after Phase 1 and making them available to all competing companies. During Phase 2, several companies get part of production, and deciding on one contractor after a couple of years of competition.
coffee,
hevrusa could also get some savlonus, and they could learn on the phone. And what kind of tzaduk does not have a mishna with him or can’t learn by heart?! I think there is an attitude problem.coffee,
I don’t think I saw a response to my suggestion – simply wait them out, while learning. Maybe google for kulos in this predicament.Another option – direct the women to where the kiddush is.
jackk > The insurance companies are part of our capitalistic system. There is nothing stopping them from raising premiums and lowering coverage. All this was happening before Obama. Individual Americans have no recourse. The insurance company lobby will destroy all dissent.
jackk, do you have your degree from Havana University? Competition is the “thing” that typically stops suppliers from raising prices. Econ 101. It is harder in some industries than others, but it works better if you increase fair competition by providing markets (midrash says this is what Yaakov did, forgot exact citation). Excessive regulation and government intervention limits competition and allows near-monopolies to raise prices indeed. This way, it seems that the progressives are sneaking in their market-destroying policies in order to then tell people – see, the markets do not work. I think freedom, like education, are expensive – but cheaper than slavery/ignorance.
> My grandfather’s yeshiva town was one such place, until the last few years when the children joined hashomer hatzair and left Torah.
Right. And when you rightly say that a lot of MO now going OTD, you might ponder why people in a small shtetl on the banks of Neumunas “suddenly” went to Shomer Hatzair. Maybe, their “yeshivish” education did not prepare them sufficiently to the onslaught of modernity? I am not saying it as an accusation, but as consideration that maybe the “ideal” past was not ideal for the new circumstances and both “modern yeshivish” (this seems like a right term) as well as “modern O” are different reactions to modernity, trying to keep Yiddishkeit going, and given both are still searching for an answer, we should look what both bring to the table, rather than fighting.
This is like two people on a sinking boat, arguing whether to sail to the shore or to try to close the hole. Try both and see what works.
Rocky > would be to have a larger tzedka organization weed out the Reuvens from the Shimons with investigations as to who is who
this probably worked when communities were stable and many people knew each other for many years. Now, we do not often know what “large organizations” are doing, and it creates a field for abuse or at least for lack of urgency. You might do better by prioritizing people you know personally or those for whom people you know personally can vouch for.
It may be worth reading R Pliskin’s books earlier on.
> Poor people are just as obligated in getting married as anyone else
I am guessing, he was not disparaging poor people in general, but he meant that the hatan needs first to make an effort to earn a living,
there are 2 questions here:
1) why healthcare is so expensive
2) how to pay for itfor one, US spends more than others, but not astronomically (I recall 17% of GP v 12% for other OECD countries). This is not that bad. And other than Torah learning and defense, what else should country spend on? Even if some of that is waste, still it is an indicator that the country throws money at people’s health.
2) You can’t convince me that a fully socialized medicine does not create moral hazard – for not taking care of themselves and not working to cover expenses. When we show kids dental bills – they start brushing more often for a week or two. So, covering catastrophic cases and showing chesed – yes, but making it free-for-all – no. One less explored direction is to make capitalism work rather than trying to socialize it –
allow insurances compete across state lines
transparent pricing rather than secret bargaining between large groups. Under Trump, there was a new rule requiring hospitals to post their prices. I believe it went into affect at the early months of Biden, and that was the last time I heard about it. Not sure what happened.besslel > Eddiee: you wrote: With regard to Shemen Akum, it is still assur. they were only matir it for that year.
who are you to attack people’s chumros and burn down someone’s parnosa of selling shemen yisruel. But if you are on the sugya – could you please clarify the turn of events and what was the reasoning and any commentary on that so that we can analyze how halocha changes (or not).
> desantis as Trump without a lot of baggage
on the other hand, DeSantis and some others are talking like Trump but do not have same experience and track record. DeSantis is doing something with education, and I am interested in seeing results, but not much that. He might be a great candidate or Sec of Education or something. There are others, like Pence and Pompeo, that have better credentials even if they do not speak like Trump but more like him in their achievements. Pence in particular, I hope learned some real-life tricks from Trump and might not be as square as before.
> If you can’t afford a chasunah, you should not be in shidduchim.
why not ask the question – why can’t they afford?
if parents and chatan are working and still can’t afford – then, it is the problem with the price that needs to be controlled.
if parents and hatan chose not to work, then it is the problem of whoever wants to provide chesed for them, not the community.
on care for environment:
I recall reading about R Kamenetsky encountering some insect. Someone suggesting stepping on it. Rav inquired whether the insect is dangerous. When told that it is creepy but not dangerous, he stepped over it. I hope I got the details right.But, then, R Kamenetsky would not authorize driving around a bus, so I know many do not hold by his shitos.
Avira > global level theoretical ideas which even if proven, are outside our purview. We have no mitzvah to investigate them, and if we’re made aware of them, we should say it’s up to Hashem.
I agree that there is a moment where speculation starts and pseudo-scientists misuse it.
But, still, purviews are different. Probably, easiest to see in medicine. Should we still recommend bloodletting for most diseases, or is it OK to use MRI to diagnose and then treat accordingly? Is MRI going into something that is up to Hashem? don’t know your opinion, but most people seem to accept such things, even when they have no idea what it does. Now, many of these instruments are not 100% correct and predictive, but, on average, they are helpful.
Avira,
you might notice that there are several people, coming from different perspectives, who have hard time believing that your disparaging attitude towards any group that disagrees with you does not translate into how you are teaching kids and that you are transparent with parents about it. I do think it is possible that you limit yourself. I myself have no problem talking to anti-modern people in person, and usually do not point out their hashkafic problems to them. And if I were in a position to teach, say, math or history in a chasidishe school, I’d probably also sneak some of my hashkofas here and there and make them realize that not knowing where Mitzraim is on the map is silly, and working for a living is how most Talmidei Chachomim spent their lives.I don’t know what Orach Chaim says about girls learning Gemora or having unfiltered phones (not that I fully disagree), but I would have half of shas at my disposal discussing all kind of business and work issues.
Dofi, I understand you are trying to save the kids, but Amazon is actually firing right now, not hiring.
so do not mislead Avira into unemployment. You’ll have to pay him then!If I understand correctly, Dems recently established a precedent of taking members of other parties from the committee, and Reps are retaliating. Whatever it is, yes, people are entitled to have their rep, and Congress as a whole is entitled to limit their powers. This is not a bad rule in terms of dealing with extremists and keep Congress somewhat “centered”.
Note other similar events in recent past – Dems changing Senate rules for district judges, and Reps responding by changing Supreme court rules.
Note that this is not fair warfare – Dems are usually the first to move and Reps are playing defense.
Eventually this will cause even higher outrage and Reps will start pushing for starting out with their own changes. This is not going in a good direction. I hope they all stop.Centrist > i think the only BIG mistake was made by the reporting of the story before the facts were clear.(small mistake done by the man,slightly bigger by the woman, slightly bigger by shomrim)
There is just one person in this story who could have behaved like a mench – and NONE of that would happen.
He could have read a sefer or engage someone in divrei Torah and let ladies finish their conversation in dignity. Why going between any two people who are talking, whatever gender or combination thereof they are? And bother someone’s kid for the whole six seconds. Imagine now, 100 people need to leave and the kid is being walked back & forth for an hour!?
It all started with his gaava that him getting on time to watch the football game was more important than the divrei chesed and Torah that the ladies were having.
eddiie, right, this is 2 methods of chinuch – in different times, what was appropriate in one, not appropriate in another because people now generally have different sensibilities.
Kesubah – the takana was first for husbands to have ketuba money in the house. When rabbis so that this leads to quick divorces – “get your money and get out of here”, they started changing that until settling on mortgage on all real estate.
Avira,
I was not clear on your position – so you would agree on pollution, but not with “climate issues”?I don’t think our positions differ much then. I also think that most of the climate hype is an aveira, with people pursuing their political instincts and/or financial interests. It is easier to scare people by some future unknown threat into taxation and submission than solve actual problems.
I think I disagree that this highly visible group of alarmists represent “scientific community”. Most of the latter continue solving world’s problems and do not get into NYT unless something bad happens.
Historical example I used before Fritz Haber got a Nobel for contribution to fertilizer process, saving/creating billions of lives, but lost world recognition, and his wife to a suicide, for inventing poison gas for the German army. World is not paying attention to important things both in ruchniyus and gashmiyus.Dr Pepper,
I think you can still have private insurance? Are yo saying that ACA distorts the market to such a degree that it makes insurance impossible? I am not a baki. I believe large companies, like walmart, self-insure – does their method work?Is it possible to create an association of responsible daveners who also do not smoke and machmir in middos and pool an insurance coverage? maybe, self-insure? As an example, R Avigdor Miller mentions that shabbos saves us from risky saturday driving and other risky behaviors – we should be able to get better rates…
My mesroah says that there are at least 36 potential members in every generation – is this large enough for a pool?
why not just use a wired telephone? problem(s) solved.
Correcting ending of the story: the son says to the Rebbe – do not worry, I’ll be saying kaddish for you whole 12 months.
Avira,
it seems that most people here have hard time believing that you can be so partisan and biased in this forum and more reasonable in the classroom. I can believe it, although not fully. I’d like to address 2 issues:
1) when you discuss an issue – do you present all sides or just the psukim/opinions you prefer? how much do you discuss inyanim related to helping all yidden, including those who are not frum by your standard (maybe not all of them).2) doing the job parents paid for honestly. I presume that parents are not coming to school for your shitos. If they were, they would send them somewhere else. Pls correct me if I am wrong. At best, they are saying – ok, the school is great in maths, sports, and last year chumash teacher was great, so there is nothing better than that. At worst, they are not aware that you are not holding where other teachers and parents are.
That is, you are teaching kids not in the way the parents prefer. That is, they hire you thru a shaliach (school) to do a job and you are not doing it the way they want. Either they have iyush because there is effective monopoly in the segment of the market or they are not expecting what they are getting. Let me know if you disagree with this premise.
You say it is 1%. There is 20% margin for sending wrong amount of shmata, but this is in the case of error. Not sure what is halakha when you are using bad weights on purpose. Also, it is a human brain you are operating on. Damaging 1% is often killing. Also, some do not believe here that is “only 1%”. Anyway, why go into chinuch when you are cheating by “only 1%”. Go into diamonds, 1% stealing with at least make you rich so you can give tzedokah.
Let me give you an example. Say, the father is teaching his son to become a doctor while at the same time learn a couple of hours a day and do chesed. Then, the boy gets a 7th grade rebbe who teaches him, unbeknownst to me, that those who go to college are mevatel Torah, involve in pritzut, etc. The heilieke Rebbe is totally unaware that the kid has 5 generations of doctors, none of whom went off the derech that way. Can the father sue for lost wages, including unrealized tzedoka and chesed for this and future generation of lost doctors? Or should he wait until the old Rebbe has a heart attack, calls the old father, who says sorry, I do not operate any more, call my son. The son comes and says – no problem, Rebbe, I’ll say kaddish for you with kavanah.
Avira > do we have a pasuk and a command from Hashem to exercise hishtadlus in climate issues?
Elisha providing environmental cleanup in Yericho – I suggest drink there before Hudson.
The bears who ate the business-men (boys/naarim) who were upset that they lost lucrative water delivery business.
Meam Loez, based on Yaakov’s behavior, says it is etza tova when you are visiting a place, find something that you can improve in that place to make people’s life better.
numerous Gemoras that discuss how to make people healthier and more prosperous.
eddiee > you can’t say that since people would be insulted the halacha changes.
halochos ben adam l’havero definitely depend on the havero. Saying something that insults or offends the person depends, in part, if the person is insulted. You can’t tell him that you would not be insulted and, thus, you can say it. It is his sensitivity that matters. And sensitivities change between people, also between cultures, and between centuries.
I heard about 2 identical stories of a bochur saying out of turn “there is no tachanun today”. In pre-WW2 Europe, the gabbay “kindly” asked everyone to stay to the side and invited the bochur to the front row as the “new Rebbe” to teach him a lesson. In Israel, R Ouerbach whispered to the gabbay “skip the tachanun” …
eddie, Gemora says that ketuba was first kept as cash, then as money deposit, and then as a mortgage, like now.
Rabbis declared shemen akum asur and rescinded in a year when people did not follow.
Eddie > My question to AAQ is, why is MY action obviously inappropriate, because YOU reported it?
If you do something that causes adverse effects in the universe, just stop doing it. Safety achieved
by a further step – investigate all cases where you got close to a problem and learn from that. Feds investigate all “near collisions”. Best predictor of car accidents is number of times a person brakes abruptly… But if, to the opposite, you focus on finding blame in others, there is no hope for improving your midos.Here is an example to illustrate: I was coming to an intersection and thought that I can enter it safely. Then, while I was closing on it, I saw a car going extremely fast, so at the last moment I stopped to let it go. When I moved forward, I saw the fast driver stopped in the other lane. I also stopped, thinking that he needs to change lanes. Turns out, he stopped his mad rush only to wait for me to show me a finger for daring to come so close to his path – and then took off again…
Was he mad? probably. I still made a note to myself to evaluate what is happening before coming too close to the intersections.
Gadol,
you should really expand on what you learned from this awesome experience. Were you the first to celebrate shabbos in Antarctica or was there a Chabad house already? And which way do you turn to daven at the South pole?Dr. Pepper, this is how free market works – people are trying to do things, some more, some less risky, and some of them work out. You mentioned insurance problem. We, “the people”, had lot of unsolvable problems – horses were hard to feed, wheat was hard to mill, houses were only 2 floors high, and cows were killed to write on scrolls… somehow, people solved many of these problems, so don”t be so upset about the remaining ones.
Thanks for everyone trying to help my kid to become smarter. Thanks a lot, government educational system and papers provided already enough material! B’H, kids did not buy into that. I worked hard on that – we watched Bernie-Hilary debates so that they can see an unabashed socialist in the wild, and before listened (sic!) to Obama-Romney debate. For O-R debate, most kids did not know my preferences, and Romney won by a knockout after Obama promised hiring 100,000 math teachers.
For B-H debate, the risk was too high, so I was providing running commentary and it seemed to stick.Also, when kids finally learned numbers, I showed them the salary I draw and asked them to compute the size of the paycheck, and then showed the paycheck. They felt robbed and started studying all the taxes and fees …
Anyway, all I need is for someone to show up here so that the kids see that such believers exist and I am not making it up. Thanks!
I found that kabbalists were using Hashmal. Good enough for them, good enough for me.
Oy, this information was worth subscribing to this blog! I am gonna install a filter in my Israeli apartment to filter out electrons that were mined on Shabbos. Given that no milk & meat mixture was involved, I presume they are not asur l’hanaa, so I’ll give the electrons to the non-Jews. Maybe the simplest, I’ll put the wire across the highway to sonei isroel and direct it to an exposed pole that any passerby might touch.