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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Rabbis declared shemen akum asur and rescinded in a year when people did not follow.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.
jackk does not have no business references, businesses are for profit and evil. He has two government references and they’ll stop by to check on you shortly.
As I mentioned before, my daas Torah does not believe in daas Torah, so I will have no problems to square the posts with the daas Torah that does not exist.
I think mathematically, my daas Torah is a portion of my teacher’s DT, somewhat a Bayesian DT:
that is DT (AAQ) = DT (AAQ / teacher) * DT (teacher),
where DT(teacher) = DT (teacher/ his teacher) * DT (his teacher) ad Moshe Rabeinu ..so despite DT (AAQ / teacher) hovering around 0.5 (sometimes yes, sometimes no),
DT(teacher) seems to be 0, so DT(AAQ) is 0 also.Note that your DT is 1 only if DT of everyone in that chain is 1. Even if everyone in your chain
is holding by 0.99, the whole product may be around 0.5Avira, thanks for answering my question and sorry for the scolding you are getting…
I see that you are somewhat in a pickle: you proclaim and teach importance of the truth but then have to say things to your students that are appropriate for the school. I don’t think it is wrong per se, just an intellectual contradiction that I am sure you have a resolution for. It does not look like you are doing it just for financial reasons also.
What I am not sure though whether your declared behavior is always what actually happens. As others mentioned saying, for selected ones, that some Jews are cut off, even if they can come back in not what a serious, non-LW, MO Rav would say .. so, it is probably similar with many other issues that you may not even notice consciously. Also, with sending kids to “frummer” places – I hope this is with agreement of the parents and your school administration. This might be a geneva otherwise.
JJ Herman sent a kid to a yeshiva and then went to tell his parents. I think we would have been arrested in our days.So, back to putting myself into the shoes of the parents – I presume my kids are serious enough to hear the “truth” for you and I would probably inform the administration when I find out that teaching is not as expected from the school. And I would when kids start calling their cousins not part of am isroel or something like that. In the ideal world, I would also go to beis din to recover tuition and bitul zman.
to reduce social pressure we ALL should act accordingly.
I know Rabonim who only come briefly and never it – even if they are in charge of kashrus. If more people will limit their attendance to dancing and mesameach hasan v’kalah, there will be food – AND DRINKS – left after every wedding, then maybe people will start scaling down. Or at least, the hasan vekallah will have enough food for a month.
As to collecting for life after the wedding – that is why we had in older times a year when the hasan was supposed to find a place to live and the kalah get her dresses in order.
So, one, not the only, way mesirah is bad – non-Jews will typically inflict harsher punishment than this Yid deserve. A thief can get a long prison sentence or have his hand cut off, instead of monetary payment by us. In this case, kidnapper is hayav misa and non-Jewish punishment is milder.
Gadol, your question requires possibly that the abductor be more likely to be Jewish or not.
So, if this is happening on Rt 9, simply count whether it is closer to Lakewood or Tom’s River …
or maybe what is the car direction (from which town it is going).On the other hand, in laws of iyush for the lost item, it is possible that there is “rov goyim” even for an item left in a shul – as Jews are there to daven, so a non-Jew is more likely to find it. So, the same thing here.
But the real question is that we do we do if H’V abductor is Jewish? As the punishment is misa, do we keep him until moschiach comes, or do we transfer him to Texas for the punishment?
> I recommend that you never look at a child for more than 2 seconds.
you are evidently struggling with the fact that this person was reported. If he was reported, that means his actions were not appropriate, whatever faults you can find in my logic.
Avira > I’m sure some parents here would be terrified at the thought of me teaching their children
I have to admit to that, indeed. As much as I am ok discussing issues with you and many others with whom I disagree, whether they are Neturei Karta or members of Bund, I would not want my kids to be exposed to that, at least without ability to know about it and respond. So, I wonder whether
1) do you expose your students to your views (possibly subtly and without malaise)
2) do parents know your views
3) would they keep kids in class were they to know your view/ or were you telling them that/provided they have easy alternativesGadol, welcome back. Do we have here posts from the icebergs!?
Just because we need the government sometimes, does not mean we need it to do everything.
Mr. A got himself a private insurance. In a rare case that you describe, the government can come in and charge all of us for the mishap. This is not an excuse for creating rules such that Mr. B can make a rational choice of freeloading.
I actually need your help guys. I explained these ideas to my kid, and he immediately said – and who will pay for that? I said – some people think that it is not a problem to give people more money. He laughed and asked – little kids? I said – no, adults. So, my kid refuses to believe that there are adults who do not understand that it is ok to give away “free” money. So, if any of you who believe in this, can swing by when you are in my area, so that I can prove to him that such people exist. Thanks in advance.
The “only” problem with E-sts is that they mix up priorities making Earth into an idol, and in misusing lofty far-away goals in order to extract money frmo us today. Nothing new here. Christians, Communists, etc did the same
Dr P > why don’t you open an insurance company that has affordable rates for quality dental care and then you’ll see why it’s not feasible.
why discourage him? I heard from one Rav that he re-sold for some time reliable kosher food without profit in order to raise the community standards, and his prices were lower than less reliable competition. So, someone might want to open a cheaper insurance company and provide good service. Don’t stop people.
huju, what are you questioning? Are you served gefilte fish for breakfast?
Gadol, marrying younger does not eliminate Rambam’s suggested order – work -> house (or prequalified for mortgage, I guess) -> marriage. A 17-y.o. can go get a job and earn enough to use Uber.
why “gezera” when it might be possible to do something? At the yam suf, Moshe is told not to daven, but to act. Maybe, you don’t need to run away from the meteor, but simply shoot it or send a rocket to confront it and redirect with a magnet – even a small change far away will be enough to save the planet, or maybe just EY … Same as when a person is sick – is it a gezera or a cure is possible? A poshute yid and a Rabbi Dr may come to poosite conclusions …
Maybe, you have a similar cognitive dissonance with the meteor: you clearly need to know physics and engineering to confront the meteor, but this would require you to admit that going to college is useful, and you would rather have the whole world destroyed than admit you were wrong. Understandable.
this is a very self-centered argument whether the Tam behaved appropriately. This episode is a simple proof that such behavior is not appropriate as it may cause moris ayin and a long prison term.
Maybe, just maybe, there is room to permit when there is a camera that will help during prosecution. Even then it is a big bitul Torah for the Tam, the youngele, his ima, dayan and lawyers, most of whom might be Jewish. And the camera may be off.
To sum, staying away from questionable behavior that might cause a problem is an etzah tova. If you don’t want to walk between two nashim tzadkiyos, just get out a sefer and wait until they finish the conversation. At worse, you’ll do an extra siyum.
Why not – what is more important – mitzvos bein adm l’Hashem or l’havero? (or l’ atzmo as some also count). I don’t have enough time to do all of them, please advise should I drop the tefillin or the grandma?
Yes, we sometimes have emergencies when one needs to prioritize – and possibly inward approach was appropriate in pre-WW2 Europe and post-WWs US and Israel. Other approaches, including some non-extreme MO types led to assimilation. But, we can’t continue an emergency for more than 100 years. Many, not all, maybe a minority ( should be a respected minority) is capable of walking and chewing gum, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Just because your kid is not capable of handling college and having a profession, does not mean that you should teach him to hate the doctors and engineers who help you have a comfortable life.
> at which point he didn’t have to walk between women, and he exited alone.
Just browsing here, finally a reason for this bizarre episode. Maybe, this should be called
Tzaddik Shoteh (paraphrasing Gemora about someone not saving a drowning woman as chasid shoteh).Dr. Pepper, of course – Mr. A shows his lack of bitachon & emunah, and relies on himself too much, leading him to a life of geivah, letzonus, and bitul Toirah. He probably comes home for shabbos only 2 hours in advance.
Hashem sends the govmt shlit’a to re-apportion his wealth earned in aveiros to a worthy recipient whose emunah is strong. So, in one shot, Hashem protects the health of a tzadik and provides a rasha with an opportunity to perform a mitzvo of tzedoka.
PS I once overheard someone who tried to look for a middle ground between Mr. A and Mr. B. So, this Mr. AB almost found a job, but unfortunately the anti-semitic employer refused his request to leave every Friday at 2pm (including during summer) – a time this person required for adequate cooking and showering before shabbos koidesh. Hope, now with WFH, Mr. AB found his niche.
emes, you are right to consider issues on their observable merits. Then, there is a hope to figure them out.
for example, fossil fuels made our cities so much cleaner – comparing with the horses that previously occupied and polluted the streets. When you have something even cleaner – and cheaper – everyone will switch to that. “Cheaper” is important – expensive means spending more resources on producing that thing.
And also need to take reality into account – look at Germans who went off their gas and coal, and clean nuclear energy and depended instead on buying cheap Russian gas while growing their “clean” resources – while also enjoying cheap dirty energy that was critical for their manufacturing exports – and not spending enough on defense. I think their behavior is more dangerous to the world than eating from plastic plates.
similar thing may be with some recycling: China used to buy it, now I think it does not, and there is no reasonable way to deal with it. My info may be outdated though.
Thanks all for explaining how to understand gedolim talking about each other. I don’t think this is anything new, we have strong machlokets all over Gemora and history.
a couple of side comments:
Chumros are nedorim, stay away. Note that none of the chumros mentioned are bein adam l’havero or personal middos. If there are any at any part of your head, pls quote them, I am interested.> Now you can switch your kid’s rebbe, but as long as he’s in the class, he needs to have a high impression of the rebbe, as representative of Torah.
This may be true in a free market environment, when you freely choose a yeshiva. But when there is a limited choice of schools and school chooses teachers, I am not sure it is correct. I tried to follow that to the “T”, and it may lead to bad results. In some cases (and ages), it may become healthier to set boundaries. for example, if Avira were a teacher, I would tell kids – listen to your teacher about Rashi and brisker, and bring everything related to Zionism and college back to me so that we could discuss.
The main motivation behind kesuba and a large party is for the hatan to take the wedding seriously and not, h’v, be ready to change his mind and divorce first time kallah burns his porridge. So, _hatan_ spending some serious money on the process is OK. 200 zuz is an bligatory amount, at some point bnei kohanim asked for 400. Whatever the market will bear. But there no reason for kallah to do that.
On the other hand, we mentioned before about cheap medieval weddings. Turns out, in 1930 Mir yeshiva, they also had weddings 2 hours before shabbos, then close relatives having a shabbos dinner, and then whole community coming for sheva brochos (just the brochos, not food).
> [Rav Feinstein] says in America you do not need college to make a Parnassa,
I addressed this before – R Feinstein correctly says in 1950s that one does not need college for median American lifestyle. At the time, I think 10% of _men_ in US went to college. Look up my old post for exact numbers. Currently, 50% and more of both men and women in US go to college, so median lifestyle requires college.
Also note that Rav’s daughter met her shidduch while studying chemistry at Brooklyn college. This is not a contradiction, but a difference between communal and individual advice. Some people could handle college at that time. Similarly, Chofetz Chaim in 1900 advised masses against going to America, but was OK for specific people.
I think I saw this quote in Rambam who did not bring his sources as usual, but I traced it to Zohar.
if there is C corp income that is not reported as personal income, it will be reported as C-corp income, presumably in the same zip code.
I think the argument about maskilim is somewhat outdated. It was relevant to University of Berlin 100 years ago, but I don’t think anyone’s observance is threatened in our days by exposure to python programming or even Calculus, lo aleinu. Medical education is obviously a study of Creation.
Is it different in other circles? Anyone went OTD after he/she learned to code? (I am separating actual chochma from social effects of putting bunch of teenagers on campus)But even in earlier times – if you read Chofetz Chaim, he is warning in multiple essays and letters in 1920s against anti-religious schools who perverse Torah, and to lack of Jewish education, but I don’t see where he says that math and science are bad per se. Maybe I did not see the right letter. Does he
Daughter of JJ Herman order US gov pamphlets to be sent to Mir when she gave birth to a baby. She learned from those about Vitamins A and D and started giving cod liver oil to her baby. While she writes that local yeshivish people were generally laughing at her American minhagim, in this case, other mothers immediately followed and soon whole town smelled fishy. Tells you about both lack of knowledge and also interest and respect in scientific facts.
> when i was a kid, the scientists were saying that in 10 years, coastal cities would be submerged
The scientists I know spoke about different things, and achieved many of them. That includes plastics. btw. I know a little from my father O’H how difficult it is to develop a new type of plastics that fits a particular purpose and can be produced commercially.
Just do some meta-thinking. Imagine you talk to someone whose knowledge of Gemora is based on NYT or some more intellectual magazine. You would not expect him to have a clue, right? So, if you are learning about science from similar sources, do you think you know more?
I had once an experience that I hopefully learnt from. A local rov in a small town decided to write a small article about what I was doing there in a local Jewish publication. We sat down and he asked me a bunch of questions and wrote down the answers. When I read the article, the number of errors was astounding. Whatever was the source of misunderstandings, it taught me to take any published info with a grain of salt.
I need to bring my apology for putting a stumbling block l’fnei as poster here:
I was kinda putoff by the baseless attack above alleging my maggid shiur is drinking coffee during the class and does not know what he is teaching … but then I realized from a post in another thread, that the poster probably presumed that the maggid is “MO” and, given poster’s opinion of “MO”, he sees it as a mitzva to say something bad about that “MO”.
I am usually sensitive not to mislead people into learning something their Rebbe told them not to, so I usually preface the Torah I learned from someone non-charedi by saying who, or what derech, he is. So, here, I unfortunately mislead the poster into thinking that we are talking about an MO person, and so he committed his verbal aveiros against a pure charedi Talmid Chochom…
I am not sure I need to apologize as he is not aware of the insult (Rav, if you are reading this, please accept my apology), and if the poster decides to ask the mehilah – I am not sure I should pass it for the same reason. So, maybe the kaporah is to go to all OOT Dapei Yom and buy them coffee.
Great, people are now alluding to various statistics sources. Now, start making your case quoting those numbers.
> the people are who subscribe to your heresy.
cool down. As I said I am for environment, for good Jewish environment.
And please don’t throw everyone with a pen into the same bin as “scientists”. Same as putting Rabonim and Reform Rabbis in the same “clergy” category.
The klal is that the closer a researcher is to reality and experiment, the more yashar he is. Physicists are rarely know to fake nuclear experiments. Nuclear bomb worked as predicted … Satellites fly, GPS takes you to your destination without you even knowing how it is being done. It is worse when it comes to economics, and worse to obvious political areas.
Avira > that we have the ability to destroy or help it without it being Hashem’s will.
this is nothing new and applies to everything. We go into business and deal with people whose only goal is money, into medicine where everyone feels they are in charge of health. So, you first make sure that your motivation is correct, protect yourself from bad influence, and then try to make them see the better side.
Avira,
I would not defend all things that happen in MO world, and probably many are not defensible, but this is a fault dichotomy “prioritize SAT scores”. Getting a decent SAT score is a normal thing for a kid who speaks/writes English and took a good math course, and then spent a couple of months looking over SAT-specific material. This is not making people OTD or forcing them to miss a masechet. Not saying everyone has to do that, just that in certain circles, this is not a such huge effort.There are mitzvos to teach the kid Torah, profession, and swimming, and you pursue all of them. Profession requires training. There is nothing political here, even if some make it – on both sides.
We read in another thread that charedim do not need no state and no taxes, and in another thread that charedim do not need no education because they are successful businessmen. So, just call your baalei tzedoka and start these worthy infrastructure projects.
Avira > the apikorsus, unadulterated anathema of yiddishkeit that you so nonchalantly throw around,
Maybe I was not clear – I brought these as examples of perversions these ideologies take them, similar to Nazis and Commies – and to Christians before them – who committed their crimes in pursuit of “higher good”. As Russians are now saying to Ukrainians – “we need to kill you to save you”.
We should of course care about the state of the olam haze that Hashem created for us. There are a lot of non-controversial things that we do: do not things away, fruit trees, city layout, not damaging property.
The problem start with philosophies that make hard-to-prove claims that require, somehow, for money to flow from us to them. So, it then becomes entirely possible to pursue these goals at the expense of simple things we are required to do. Say, decrease population or at least have less kids to save the planet; close down nuclear and coal powerplants to increase dependency on Arabs and Russians.
Bottom line, we are for environment – goodm healthy Jewish environment.
So, then women should be doing it too for health reasons.
I see also a health benefit of separating meat and milk. Iron is not recommended to be taken together with milk. This would have huge impact on human strength at the time when the only source of iron was meat.
Avira,
who do I believe – you or my lying eyes? I saw a number of mainstream yeshivish and chasidic (non-chabad) Rabonim sitting at the same table with the Rav, teaching with and under him, showing full respect. Why do you feel a need to insult other people’s teachers, I am not sure.Most magidim shiur that I know are excited when a student asks a question. And so am I when the kids do. You got me with the 30 (well, 90) minutes. It is the first time I got involved into Daf Yomi, as my previous maggid shiur used unprintable jokes about this approach, his question was – what page are we on this month?
what? we have people here discussing a topic and bring opinion of a gadol while not mentioning the other ones who disagree?! unbecoming.
Everyone here seems to think that they can convince the other based on his own wishful thinking.
We have counties and zip codes that are majority charedi and some maybe even many-MO, why not compare their incomes, family sizes, welfare rolls, school enrollment, etc. Yes, census may not capture all sources of income, but still it would be a good start.
This is discussed in the end of Nedarim: a guy makes a neder not to get benefit from anyone in the world if he were to marry until he finishes learning the whole mishna. Apparently, marriage in those times required people to work, so he wanted to learn first full time and used neder to strengthen himself. Apparently, he needed chizuk as it was not “a thing”…
Then, turns out, he is not that capable, so he was not able to finish Mishna so far. Apparently, there was no social promotion at the time.
So, now he is sitting and “learning” and not able to get married. Apparently, learning to avoid social obligations was frown upon at the time, so all amoraim rush to trick the guy into marrying and then throw dirt on him, so he now needs a cleaner (apparently, he did not learn cleaning skills also), so he goes to do hatarat nedarim.