Always_Ask_Questions

Maybe Republicans should be more positive when doing that. Explain to everyone that they send them to good states, warn those states when the buses are on the way (or almost there) – or are they afraid that Dems will not let them out of the bus? Make sure the driver gets out of the bus with keys. Maybe have a remote control to stop it from moving.

could you guys be more specific with numbers? It is an interesting discussion and you are waving your hands around. You need to bring specific numbers, see what they mean, possibly adjust for family and location, etc. You will not convince each by who shouts LOUDER (or anyone else)

ujm > we both know that there’s more cash income not reflected in the statistics.

I thought we were discussing religious communities. According to many authorities, the above means such people are not religious and should not be counted for this discussion.

> self-sufficiency of the Amish community is a key element as the court

I did not read the case, just the editorials about it and those also think that self-sufficiency was the crucial part of that decision.

> they can still be earning more INDIVIDUALLY,

this is a very good point. I am sure there are ways to include child raising as part of the value to the society.

Sorry, so hispanic is not inner. I am not a boke. Anyway, I am more concerned about Jewish school, how do we show their quality. Your kids are there.

Do you know of any fairly administered standardized exams in any of your schools? I know you can send a kid to a public school to do evaluation, but that is mostly psychology and abilities rather than knowledge. Maybe anyone here wants to do some online tests for their kids if the school did not test them?

how many account do you have parroting same statements and why are mod asleep at the wheel?!

wearing a headcover would be one thing. It is mefurash from the Gemora that _married_ men were supposed to wear a sudar (at least Talmidei Chachamim in Bavel).

Some other changes are documented in Gemora. Kesuba was assessed only on real estate. Later on, it was also assessed on movables. This confirms that “original” is not necessarily the “correct” one, especially when there was a beis din ruling to change it.

Days of the week when we do weddings changed a number of times.

CS, I do the same re:kippah as you do (except I was not elected or worked for civil service, you seem to have an interesting career), but somehow I do not have such visceral reaction to those who do not, even in our, supposedly more tolerant, times. Esav soneh Yaakov is still the halocha and some people feel it more than others. In some cases, it might be a menchlich thing to do. Say, you are a lawyer representing a client and the jury may be negatively affected by your yarmolka. I would think that your responsibility to the client would be to not wear it. Or, you are a doctor in an area, where people think Jews have horns. You may find that patients trust you more if you don’t have to show each of them that there are no horns under your headcover.

You did not answer, though, how is it tolerable to take Avira’s smicha away for the sin of teaching maths.

ujm, yes, but it is a center of many other things also. Maybe Lower East Side was more Jewish, but not the rest of it.

YU does have a Bronx campus for grad schools and Touro in Brooklyn, so maybe the change is gradually happening.

I very much hope that Jewish schools produce better education than the most failing inner city ones. We just need to turn these anecdotes into numbers that can be published in the press. Do Yiddish school in IL teach maths? Can we translate a standardized test into Yiddish, administer to a school and show those results?

Opps, I did not realize mdd is your yet another account..

> That would take him out of the line to be king then…

THAT behavior would probably invalidate lots of kings along the line … Maybe a good reason for a sofek and saying brocha bli shem when meeting a Monarch?

CS, R Meir Shapiro et al did not “serve” in the government. Do you understand the difference between elected and civil service? Elected officials represent their voters, so even a frei Jewish politician might put a kippah once in a while. There is no downside. Maybe it also says something about Polish state during the interwar period where ethnic activities were in the open even if under some pressure, contrary to other states that were trying to erase those. I presume institutions in EY were under political control, so one had to deal with it. Note, that even Avira here says that he is called Rabbi when teaching kodesh, and Mr when teaching chol. Would you say he should stand up for the honor of his Rebbeim who gave him semicha or stick to his parnosah?

Avira, yasher koach.

Gadol > You cannot keep the next generation in a cave forever.

But define “forever”. 20 years sounded reasonable, is 200 more “forever” than 100? Many of the functions you mention can be fulfilled within the community with a Yiddish speaking travel agent or a website (der vebsait?). You don’t need to be extreme here, it will be rejected anyway, just try different pathways for some people who can handle it, and see whether the community is ready or not.

Hope YU will stay without clubs. I am not sure why parents and tax-payers spend ridiculous amount of money on institutions to provide social life opportunities. Separate clubs from YU. If someone wants to sponsor those clubs, separately from tuition, gezunte heig. If YU can lower tuition based on that (not holding my breath), then it will make YU more attractive to those who now send their kids to “goyishe colleges”.

Avira, maybe Ubiq patients are not the readers of Yiddish magazines. They used to be mostly socialist, do we have mostly religious yiddish papers?

RW, in most cases, the best minhag is from your family, unless it was clearly off “minhag shtus”.

Sephardi Torahs seem to be easier to handle and store upright. Also, their minhag is to do hagbah BEFORE the reading, which seems to make a lot of sense: you demonstrate the text to the kahal and then read it. If someone sees the problem, he can point it out beforehand. What is the explanation for the Ashkenazi order?

> ONE OF the methods a school can demonstrate public school equivalency is by administrating the Regents exams to their students

and then you have a theory that equivalency include also music, art and more…

Would then these regulations be good for many mosdos – you pass the regents and there are no other requirements? Is regents just math & science, or do they go into inappropriate material? Even if they do, they should not be _that_ hard – just score higher on math and instruct kids not to even open inappropriate subjects.

Avram > than if the benefits help Jews learn Torah than they are fulfilling their purpose even in eyes of the government

I do not think it is kosher to take someone else’s money and decide on our own what is a better way to spend it. This is no different, conceptually, from the communist shitah that they know better than the property owners how to manage it. Government provide funds for English textbooks, and we should take those. They provide transportation and let’s take it, and government has no hesaron if students have Torah classes in addition to English, as cost of transportation is the same. Government gives out child credit, so we can take it. This is different from government (presumably reflecting common sentiment) provide funds to help poor people, and we say, fine, we are not gonna working and use those funds. I do realize there is some politics involved here and, maybe, there are some people who will be happy for everyone to get “helped” but, in my – possibly biased – estimate, most people do not support “welfare volunteers”.

I looked up comments to a WSJ OpEd responding to the NYT article. A Cathlic writer is generally sympathetic to yeshivas and so are many comments. Putting aside occasional anti-semites, who, as you are saying, are always happy to blame Jews and occasional philo-semites, who are happy to give money to Jews, most other comments revolve around getting government funds and performing what is required by that. Most are fine with Jews living their own self-sufficient life and most are not fine with whole communities receiving a lot of government funds to support their own lifestyle.

The article also mentions a relevant Supreme case in 1970s where Amish got away with less number of years at school, saying that their kids work and do not need calculus. Part of the decision looks at the facts – that Amish community is decent and self-sufficient.

Avram > . You spent much of this thread decrying learners taking benefits they are entitled to by law by erroneously calling it tzedaka in order to bring in your Rambam

If there is a stirah between AAQ and AAQ, go by the later one! He took into account your lomdishe comments and modified accordingly. I am here more to learn from other POVs and discuss ideas with people with different opinions. In R Yohanan’s derech, I’ll go mad from posters agreeing with me.

But I looked up above and I stated at minimum thta I am OK with in-laws and gevirim supporting learning and you stam responded that you don’t believe me.

Where your observation is correct – I do have problems with multiple steps in the justification of the current system, some more questionable than others: taking tzedoka in general when one does not have to, taking tzedoka for learning, taking non-Jewish funds (that I agreed not to call goyishe tzedoka according to R Henneman even if the source is bery brief and not very convincing), taking non-Jewish funds not designated for such purpose (that is, yeshivos taking transportation money v. putting learners on welfare). And I do not make any representation about how widespread each practice is, I am looking at what is kosher and what is yosher (2 separate questions really). Hope this clarifies, but not holding my breath.

Avira, right, I heard, I think, from R Nosson Sherman that multi-culti philosophy is generally a disaster, but allowed up to build a better community comparing with previous “melting pot” pressure. So, maybe for every NYT article, we need to thank Hashem for how comparatively easy we have it, comparing to other times and cultures.

> are you aware that many people in southern and Eastern Ukraine do want to join Russia?

Yes, a decreasing number of them. There are legit public surveys and, if I recall correctly, even areas with lots of ethnic Russians are slightly pro-Nato. You can also have multiple election results over the years. There were lots of corruption, but you had a lot of candidates that were clearly pro- or anti-Russian. As you seem to know the area better, could you please look into this and give us some numbers. I also wonder, closer to home, what are American and Israeli “Russian” Jews think about it (some are of course Ukrainian). Are there any surveys on that?

> If you kill civilians you better be ready to show the world that you tried your hardest not to kill them

Again, this might be how beis din rules, and how NATO and Israel try to behave, but I don’t think it is an international chovah. I think – as long as you can claim that you had a military goal in mind, it is sufficient.

> Remember Tach ve’Tat massacres? The Petlura pogroms? Most pogroms in the Russian Empire were carried out by Ukrainians in Ukraine.

These are a lot of things here. Again, reminding, this is a nice history discussion, no interpretation of these events justifies murdering probably already over 100,000 people. If you are a Russian who cares about saving people, just allow Russians from other countries to immigrate to your country. This is what USA did for Soviet Jews and some other people. This is what Israel does. Is this something Russians discussed between each other? You got tons of space. Use it.

ymribiat, i think RebE’s Rebbe answered the question – if you are in limudei chol and not doing anything, this is Bitul Torah. Does this answer the question?

Extending this approach makes it difficult for others:
– if one works well beyond what he needs, is it bitul Torah?
– to what degree you need to build up 401k or should you just have bitahon?
– if you eventually need to start working at low wage, is it bitul Torah that you could learn to do a better job and work less hours?