Always_Ask_Questions

A report of one Sephardi school in their native country:
classes every day (including Shabbat when the only change was not writing)
main focus – mikra, not tosfos.
A person who was in such school until 12 y.o. in his later years was quoting Tanach by heart. That is, if someone starts saying a pasuk from anywhere, he would be able to finish it.

RebE,
thanks for the reference! Note that the author is niftar 6 years ago. The English sefer is a translation by a student of the original 2009 sefer. So, unless there are fault by the translators, someone is now attacking a Talmid Chacham who is not able to answer ..

I can only add here a minor personal edut. I know some members of the extended family and they are big baalei chesed and ehriche people, making a difference in lives of many people, some of whom I know personally.

Btw, could you find the name of that banned book in my previous post?

Who is asking my opinion? I did not read the book, thus
Making it difficult for me to comment. Although, out
Of the curiosity, looks like I would need to buy this one.
Gadol is asking whether we can rely on the names.

I know at least one example of a very decent book written by a reputable Rav that was banned for an inexplicable (for me) reason. I am glad I was able to read it.

Thanks to jackk for translating the letter. It is understandably generic. I wonder whether you guys can find a specific example and explain what is wrong there. Otherwise, everyone is talking to their prejudices.

They may have had education (some of them), but they did not live in the western world, surrounded by opportunities that required leaving Judaism.

RebE > Maybe they are taught to look down, so they don’t see the person to tell one good morning.

interesting, this contradicts the idea of greeting people first. How do you indeed greet people first while looking down?! Unless, both are looking down, and you greet him right before bumping into him.

Avira, I am not arguing w/ Chazon Ish – when sephardim got exposed to modernity quite suddenly when moving out of their countries, they needed to use the tools that, lucky for them, ashkenazim developed over last several centuries.

Ashkenazim did not learn in yeshivos until modernity. They learned locally and yehidim would travel to teachers in other places. Vilno was a place of a lot of learning, of course. Would be interested to hear what you are reading in the pinkasim.

moishek > and yet rarely so much as say good morning. And they are so so so frum.

why are you calling such a person “frum”?

Agency relies on the owner?! Thank you very much, I can rely on the owner myself, why do I need an agency for that?! The agency, I think, is supposed to provide independent assessment.

Interesting question about geneiva. Yes, such a person can testify about kashrus – but would this only apply to someone else? If it is his own business, then he has monetary interest and that is why we have an agency to begin with. So, not sure this would work.

In general, our generation is more careful about kashrus than geneiva, so we need to be more careful and check our biases. I already recounted here a story about a visiting speaker who went thru lots of business halochos: very machmir on kashrus and yichud, and very meikel on very basic geneiva where there is no need to be meikel (can you double bill your clients for a trip? not really, but sometimes …). I was embarrassed to ask about this difference publicly given enthusiasm of all listeners and was relived when Rosh Kollel picked up on this and started shouting – geneiva! geneiva! I asked the speaker later in private and he explained that he is strict on problems that sometimes lead to family breakups, but wants to let yidden have it easier when things are not that serious …

so, ironically, I presume if you find pork in the store somewhere in the corner, it will lose certification because of a hashash; but if you find wrong weights – isur in the Torah – he may not!?

Sephardim did not have the Ashkenazi system because they did not (yet) encounter haskala and threat of assimilation. They lives, like Ashkenazim lived before haskala, in communities that consisted of both learned and not-so-learned Jews, without separating in different groups (in the same place). They benefited from what Ashkenazim built when they came to Israel and to US, but you should not use this as a sign of inferiority. It is like a handicapped person who got crutches thinking that he is superior to the guy who walks with his own feet.

common, I am not sure how I twisted your words. I understood you saying that you would not accommodate someone requests that you think are not reasonable and are not convenient to you. For me, it contradicts all kind of halochos and agadta how we need to help people even if they are not, from our point of view, reasonable.

common, not sure what your perception of states is coming from. Here are numbers up to April 2022
Texas is n4, Georgia 15, florida 31 … the highest of the stringent places are, I think NY and NJ 18-19 that had lots of early casualties.
1 Mississippi 465 476
2 Oklahoma 426 435
3 Tennessee 404 409
4 Texas 340 406
5 Kentucky 400 404
6 Alabama 410 403
7 Nevada 374 396
8 Arkansas 387 376
8 Indiana 368 376
8 New Mexico 390 376
11 Louisiana 356 371
12 North Dakota 380 370
13 Arizona 388 369
13 Ohio 388 369
15 Georgia 319 364
15 West Virginia 415 364
17 South Carolina 371 362
18 New York 381 361
19 New Jersey 373 360
20 District of Columbia 295 349
21 South Dakota 361 341
22 Missouri 350 335
23 Pennsylvania 378 332
24 Michigan 337 322
25 Rhode Island 355 317
26 Montana 344 316
27 Kansas 319 313
28 Idaho 292 309
29 North Carolina 294 299
30 Wyoming 293 294
31 Florida 349 292
32 Iowa 319 291
33 Delaware 317 289
34 Connecticut 321 287
35 Illinois 283 283
36 Colorado 243 277
36 Maryland 270 277
38 California 254 270
39 Nebraska 268 264
40 Massachusetts 278 262
41 Virginia 244 255
42 Wisconsin 265 252
43 Alaska 187 244
44 Minnesota 240 236
45 Utah 169 225
46 Washington 174 184
47 Oregon 189 183
48 New Hampshire 194 179
49 Maine 201 168
50 Puerto Rico 156 135
51 Hawaii 116 103
51 Vermont 118 103

” that makes me uncomfortable just to make someone suffering from [whatever] happy?”

thanks for the honest explanation.

Common,again, a mazik is not an insult, it is an estimate of your causing nezek. Thanks for your explaining your position though. This is interesting. I don’t think we should engage, again, in a science debate. If you prefer listening to political blogs who are misinterpreting statistics, it is up to you. Trying to find common ground here: so, there are masses of people who are convinced that (proper) masking saves lives. So, given all uncertainties, let’s say there is a sofek. The law says so too. Why would you not accommodate both the anxious human beings and the law? Would you drive on red light if there is nobody on the other side? probably, not. I am just trying to see how a human being, not a political being, would not do chesed to humanity.

A heksher is a private recommendation business (at least in the US) and can choose their standards. People are relying on it for reputation. Try getting a different heksher and see if people will trust it. The questionable area would be if the agency uses pressure to not let competitors in.

Syag,
I am bringing you sources that demonstrate that taking actions is the right thing to do – together with the right hashkofos. And these are far from exhaustive sources, just on a surface. IF you can offer an explanation why Rava’s closing windows is different from covid isolation proposal, please do. Otherwise, you are asking your listeners to choose between your quote and a Gemora, and it is not very convincing.

Maybe, the author’s point is about people who focus their blame primarily on easy political targets – Trump is wring here, Fauci there, it is Xi’s fault etc. That would make sense. But I don’t see how this covers individual (ventilation) or collective (vaccine distribution) action to fight the disease.

Maybe we can understand this book better if we can understand where the limits are: I presume he and you would endorse an effort to get off the bed and make yourself a breakfast, rather than waiting for Hashem to feed you directly. Then, there are clear cases where a person is full of himself – as in the joke “thank you I found parking by myself”.

Still, there are people who make an effort with the right attitude. One person told me that he was asked to come to a business HQ and say tehilim for a couple of hours. At the end, the boss came in, thanked him, and gave cash. The person was surprised by the cash offer and also wondered – what was happening that required tehilim. The boss said, nothing unusual, simply, the guy whom he hired to say tehilim daily was off on that day.

So, there is some point where your effort becomes illegitimate. What defines that? I would agree that saying that our army/our doctors will save you, so no need for religion, is obviously the wrong attitude. What else?

I think we defined well several positions regarding acting on our own, and at least it is clear that one should not rely on ourselves, excluding Hashem from the picture. Masechet Taanit, for example, focuses more on davening as a response to natural calamities. Maybe, we can get some inspiration from people who focused more on davening and learning. What changes were introduced during covid, what additional tefilos were said … please

Ok, you did not take the bait 🙂 the suggestions above are straight from the Gemora Bava Kama 60b: “The Sages taught: If there is plague in the city, gather your feet, i.e., limit the time you spend out of the house, as it is stated in the verse: “And none of you shall go out of the opening of his house until the morning” (ישעיהו כו, כ)… and “Outside the sword will bereave, and in the chambers terror” (דברים לב, כה). Then Gemora explain we need two verses to make sure we don’t go both in the morning and at night. .. And even when there is “fear inside” (pandemic is already in the community and houses ? AAQ), still do not go outside.

Rava would close the windows of his house, as it is written: “For death is come up into our windows” (Jeremiah 9:20). (that is Rava paid attention to air propagation also AAQ).

Now Rashi on Yeshayahu rhymes with your allegoric approach: Go, my people, enter your chambers:… enter your houses of prayer and study. Another interpretation: reflect upon your behavior in the chambers of your heart. So explained Rabbi Tanchuma.

But this does not, I think, rejects the pshat of pandemic prevention. (the context of the Gemora – next line is how to act during famine – like Avraham, leave the city).

So, to summarize, there is enough support for several things: doing practical things, praying, learning, and reflecting on your behavior.

thanks for explaining your position!
the difference here is a highly transmittable disease. So, you are ok with eating vitamins yourself, but not ok with doing something to protect the community. So, I see the priority here as opposite: someone eating unhealthy hurts primarily himself. And even as much as it is a Jewish thing to worry about each other, somehow we do not snatch the unhealthy food from our friends (maybe we should, and this stand-offish approach is goyishe influence). With Covid, behavior of one person affects health of others. So, if you are running a shul, you should do something to protect your kahal rather than ignore the issue. If you did not, then you have some responsibility for what you did not do. How is it caring about other people even controversial? Maybe that was the challenge that Hashem sent, some passed, some failed …

Just take this outside of politicized covid discussion. Was the person with strep that you described was an erloche yid walking around in public places, presuming he was contageous?

thanks. Your interpretation of his words does not match anything I learned from multiple sources – that we are not supposed to rely on miracles and deal with issues in our world. During each calamity, we had leaders who would try to deal with issues. R Yannai would review psukim of encounter between Yaakov and Esav when going to Rome, but went there instead of staying in EY davening. R Yohanan confronted Vespasian near Yerushalaim (and was not sure till his death whether he spoke the right words).

The author’s criticism (and similar one historically) may be directed towards those who deny Hashem’s role in the world and apply efforts that are contrary to Torah. This is totally legitimate criticism. Here, we are talking about a mitzva of protecting human lives and some people say: never mind, this piece of cloth is bothering me, I am running to the vasikin.

you would need to expand on what he is actually saying for me to understand this intriguing quote.

what is it about vaccine met with “flaming rhetoric” – by whom, flaming which way. given that the whole world is flaming one way or the other, I am not sure what is he saying.

Common, you are focusing on apparently one person who attacked you for not wearing mask. Think about probably hundreds of people that you encountered while being a mazik. Most of these dignified people walked around you (and possibly murmured something anti-Semitic). This still does not explain why you were behaving this way..

then why some Yidden wear hats and coats in the style of old-times non-Jews?! What is the original Jewish levush anyway?

common, if you were doing it in violation of state low, then the irony of you complaining about someone else’s behavior is too much here …

but let’s ask the serious question – what is halakha when 2 people have different opinions and need to act together. Say, you invite me to your house and your food is perfectly kosher by you, but I hold by some chumros. Would you feed me the food according to your standard or mine?!

another way to look at this: you treat the person according to what he needs/wants. If you like to tell funny good-natured jokes, but you know someone is a sensitive person and will get offended – then, you do not tell him the joke. You do not say – my jokes are good, and he had to deal with it … Similarly, we support a poor person according to his former standard (if we can). Same thing here, you have a person who is afraid of something – why would you not accommodate him just because you have some machlokes with the government. Just show some chesed.

RebE, unemployment is not a handout, it is a state-run insurance funded by your employer as percentage of your salary.