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RebE > why didn’t Shlomo Hamelech, who was smarter than anyone, think of it?
Kli Yikar sounds like something Aristotelian to my untrained ear. Melech Shomo was smartest before Aristotle, so there is no kashya.
> So why is gold a commodity and silver the currency? People don’t want to spend the more valuable but hoard it.
Just had a simillar statement in Ketubot ~ 70: when a kalah brings cash int the family, it is added as 150% of the value as the husband will use the money to invest [it is not ribis as it is a present, not a loan]. This works for silver, but gold may not qualify for a 50% mark up because it is usually not used for transactions, but only as savings.
> they were being taught chumros that put their own parents observance in question
Adam taught Hava a chumra as halakha and now we need to work for a living … I learn with a number of Rabonim yasharim who do, and teach, chumros and I have no problem learning from them. So, teaching Torah in a way that distorts halakha and middos may be done out of good intentions and even a great need to keep people committed to Yidishkeit, it is just not my family mesorah. Mine is closer to what CT described here before. I may be too pushy here for this approach, as I feel there are people who will benefit from it if they were aware of such derech. Not dismissing that some people will benefit from a more closed approach.
maskil > is a fallacious argument .
I agree. I did not mean that one can do an aveira because someone else did. I am saying these things are connected: we are trying to establish a Jewish chinuch system in a challenging environment. Both systems are dealing with the same issue – accept some government support and avoid demands we do not like. As we use roads and bridges and, hopefully, pay taxes, everyone has to deal with that.
So, my point is – different approaches choose different ways to deal with the issue and have different population they address. Each of them has their own challenges. No reason to denigrate another group for having an issue to deal with. Just ask a question – are they helping some people, to which extent. You will find out that there are pepole who benefit by going to YU instead of Penn State, to Touro instead of Podunk U, and to Vizhnitz yeshiva instead of Brooklyn high.
nisht > That’s actually the law in NYS outside of NYC.
There is a nasty follow-up to NYT article by a so-called “rights organization” describing the plight of pupils in a majority-Jewish district. They don’t mention “Jews”, they simply explain how “white people” oppress the “not English-speaking people” (sic!). Funniest numbers there is that average district spends – gasp – $26K per pupil, while these poor souls get “only” $23K and, thus, are failing schools in huge numbers. Still, some of their allegations might have regel l’davar. They are admitting that transportation and textbooks to all students are legal, but they hint that the district increased eligibility – possibly in a legal way, as you say. They also imply that there is something funny going on with contracts given to the bus companies. While the source is totally treif and manipulates numbers even worse than NYT article, they obviously have some information that this is based on.
Mdd can also calm down. History is an interesting topic, but not really relevant when discussing current atrocities. Russia violated international law multiple times over the years. If she did not have nuclear weapons, a UN veto and a pipeline, it would have been punished long time ago.
Ukraine is a reasonably democratic country, so if a majority of Ukrainians wanted to join Russia, they would have. Even a tiny non-democratic Belorussia, almost surrounded by NATO and Ukraine, is not joining their Russian brothers. Furthermore, Russians made a silly mistake – Ukrainian elections used to be 50-50 between corrupt pro-Russians and corrupt nationalists. When Russia got spooked by their side losing elections, they occupied the most pro-Russian areas – and the rest of Ukraine is now voting decisively pro-West, not even pro-nationalist. This is similar to US civil war: North and South had equal representation in the Senate and guarded that while adding new states. As a result of the hostilities, South forfeited their voting power for the war and some time after that.
chief > And on a side note, does anyone think Russia was kinder to the Jews than Ukraine?
yes and no. At the times mdd pines for, Russia proper did not allow Jews into their country, so they did not do anything bad to the Jews. Jews were invited into Poland by the Kings and then were opposed by competing burgers. Then, Jews figured out that they can work for Polish aristocrats by supervising their remote Ruthenian villages and bringing income back. Obviously, this created tensions, culminating in Khmelnitsky pogroms. Parenthetically, it would be interesting to see teshuvos from that time: how did Rabonim react to people leaving heilicke communities of Warsaw and Krakow and moving to Uman or Lubavich. This is like going to Texas ourdays.
common > I see frum Lawyers, Doctors, Judges even cops who wear a yalmulka,
Did you einekle steal your account?! Lots and lots of lawyers and doctors in previous generations walked barehead, while being fully observant and learned. Also lots of Sephardim did, depending on location. You should remember that. Not sure it is still not happening. In fact, once my chasidishe kollel hevrusa was genuinely surprised when I told him a story that implied that I wear kippah in public work meetings. His presumptions were from other professionals he learns with.
akuperma > rabbanim cited in the Talmuds
with all seriousness, there should be no question that all of this is permitted for some. Raban Gamliel had same number of students learning Torah and Greek. I presume the equal number is symbolic here, same as 10 commandments divided in 2 groups of 5.
It is really a practical question – how much of including non-Torah material will destroy Jewish life as we know it. The answers swing over time.. When our communities were secure, you can do more; when not, you need to protect more. Unfortunately, both sides sometimes do not talk directly to the issue but try to strengthen their rhetoric by claiming that something is verbotten or, opposite, a mitzva.
Avira > they only shut down when it was time for reading/writing.
I don’t have inside experience in fully insular schools, maybe they are conditioned to reject foreign culture so they react that way? But I observed a different thing: math and especially science in high school is taught by people with some background in the subject, maybe even a normal science teacher. We do not expect someone who is good at teaching Parsha to go do algebra, at what3ver dumbed-down level it is taught. On the other hand, English can be taught by a regular “frum” person who is either not teaching kodesh this semester or is someone’s relative. After all, the person speaks passable English and is a teacher in general, what else do you need?! So, no wonder these teachers are not generating enthusiasm. I don’t know how widespread this is.
“All hat, no cattle” is a better version… Yidden used to do shehitah right in NYC, so it would be possible to get some cattle going. Deep South might be a more heimishe place. From my little experience, there are people there who are very excited to see Jewish people outside of the pictures in their Bible class. The biggest cultural problem though will not be hats but drastically different speed of speech, A NYer will not be able to stand there for 10 minutes waiting for the local to finish the greeting.
What do you mean, you don’t know what they learned today? Hope not. Please share.
Maybe I was no clear why I brought this example. The chol subjects are not a substitute for kodesh. What I wanted to illustrate that these subjects are not all shtuyot. They open a way for a different discussion. The kid himself flagged the issue, we discussed that, he is not going to confuse aseres hadibros with the school version, but he now understands how the world sees it, how they transferred some Torah values into modern “weekend”, how they lost part of meaning because they do not know the Hebrew original.
Of course, if this would be done outside of supervision, the results will be negative. For example, some of my kids had pretty liberal chol teachers, who blew up over Trump and probably wasted some of the class time on that. I don’t think they affected the kids, as the kids were making fun of them, probably not to their face, but it could have happened, I presume.
RebE, could you clarify what your Rebbe said – was he concerned with learning material? grades? just general attitude? school overall test (I don’t think there was this pressure on schools at your times)
To the OP question: we have a definition that Torah is someone’s occupation meaning a person spending all available time off work in learning. So, if he comes home from work and watches TV for an hour, he is not. If he stayed an extra hour at work instead, then he is.
So, same for a student: if he is busy learning material relevant to parnosa, ensuring that he will not join listim, then he is a ben Torah. If he wastes time in some way, then he is showing that he is not.
> and anyways their wives do laundry
Ask your rov, but a psak from mine is that the husband should not let the wife to launder husband’s clothes. Maybe not everything is included, I did not ask to clarify.
We actually learned a chumra today – everyone is talking about the NYT “investigation” and we related that to Moris Ayn and how anything Jews do “can and will be used against us” (something I learned from my grandparents based on their old world experiences) and that we should be erliche and yashar in what we are doing. What chumras did your kids/grandkids learn today?!
Kiev Rus, I think, got swept by Mongols like everyone else up to Hungary. Moscow somehow emerged as a new player later on under Mongols – some say that Moscow centralization and cruelty are coming from their Mongol origins, this is not a fact, but an opinion that might come from their enemies as you are saying. But the fact that area of Moscow (probably a village at the time) was a remote part of Kievan state does not make Russians the owner of that. If you wish, this is like Canadian appointing a new King because they used to be part of the Empire… In fact, if you insist that there is a kesher, then Ukraine should be in charge of Moscow.
The analogy with Palestinians makes a lot of sense though. As my Israeli friend quipped about some peace negotiations: why do I want to be a cousin of people who kill their own brothers. Same, if Russians are claiming that Ukrainians are their brothers, then why do they send Chechens to kill 10,000s of the brothers, and now destroy power for millions. This is not the way we generally understand “achicha”.
I think some of you have perverse view of what is going in public schools, focusing on the most outrageous aspects. Not saying that the outrageous parts are not dangereous, but still. Just a random day today: high school world history, teaches various MidEastern cultures, including “ancient Israelites”, with their Torah being one of the influences on modern civilization. A table of 10 commandment confuses my kid: why do they say “4 commandments” about religion and 6 about society, when it should be 5 and 5!? So, turns out the chachamim took Catholic version of 10 comm – skipping first one, and dividing 10th into things and wife separately. So, we learned about that, pondered whether it is good or bad for non-Jews to know 10 comm, noticed that Shabbat became “day of rest” in English, losing connotation to a specific day of the week, etc. Plus couple of Naviim that were relevant to history. Granted, not every school day is a Jewish history day, and trains still need to get from A to B on most days.
Dems recently admit to encouraging extremists. They were recently paying for ads to ensure that more extreme Republicans win in primaries, while at the same time claiming that extreme Republicans are a danger for the country. So, they may be also using government actions as a tool to get Trump more active. for example, there is a “tradition” for the government not to do things that might affect elections a couple of months before. Mar-a-lago raid happened despite that and will probably continue through this period with not much protest…
Adaraba, they are getting precious chinuch in how to relate to chol subjects. They get to understand that only loser goyim can speak English and math & science are worthless and incomprehensible (admittedly, you can learn same lesson in many public schools also). As one Rav who happen to teach history for one year instead of limudei kodesh, introduced himself when we met (again): “Hi, I am a goyishe teacher” – in the words of his students, despite his kapota and untrimmed beard.
mdd1, very interesting. I googled Daniil Galickij. This is the confusion I mentioned:
They were “Rutenian”. This has nothing to do with modern “Russia”. Google “Moscow” – and see that Moscow kingdom started way after that and it will take centuries until it will get to western places, primarily through Ukrainian Khmelnitsky who rebelled against Poles (and Jews) and tried to “partner” with Moscovites and got rolled over, of course. After that, Russia went to fight Turkey and small nations to take over Crimea and other places in the South. At the end of WW2, Soviets expelled Crimean Tatars to the Gulag (with huge life loss, as usual), and populated it with Russian peasants. These re-populated peasants are now the “natives” that Russia is “protecting”. Please add this piece of history to your puzzle.For Polish _Lwow_ itself, 100 years ago, 20% of the city belonged to Ukrainian Catholics, 30% Jews, rest – Poles. 85% spoke Polish, 10% Ruthenian. This was typical for cities at that time – Poles and Jews were in the cities. Possibly, peasants around were more Ruthenian.
> Are you living off of $12,000 a year to maximize your learning? And since when did you get the authority to create shittos?
I did at some point, at exactly that amount actually for a couple of years. Right now, unfortunately, I do not stop at that. My business is such that my success is dependent on the totality of effort and supervision of others, so it is really hard to limit myself, especially as I enjoy what I am doing and, hopefully, bringing something useful to the world. I wonder whether I could work 2 hours a week as you are suggesting if I were in some per hour profession, like a lawyer, a plumber, or a surgeon?! I am afraid that I would not (and most other people are probably in the same position). Feel free to criticize me further or give me hizuk ideas.
re:authority. As with everyone, I get my masorah from my Parents and Teachers. Most of them encouraged independent thinking and asking questions. In a proper way, of course, they’ll correct me if I ask questions in a wrong way. R Steinsaltz z’l used to say that Arabs have 100 synonyms for sand, Eskimos for snow, and Jews – for the word “question”. R Shapiro z’l said that while it is normal for people to learn for many years and only then teach, but, when needed, it is a mitzva for one who learnt alef-beis or chumash or mishna, to teach that (and he actually pointed to a couple of people in the audience who were doing that).
Dim your screen.
For those who are not sure of the news, keep in mind that this terrible war is the most transparent war: it is happening with both sides having cellphones, speaking same language, being right in Europe, and with large armies marching in the full view of drones and satellites. Sides can blame atrocities on each other and argue about history and who is a bigger Nazis, but it is well documented where the troops are, what is being bombed, and where the mass murder victims are buried.
> city of Lemberg
this ain’t the only one. We were just learning in Ketubot about a miser who has property but asks for government subsidy, whether trying to cheat or out of insecurity. The answer is – we give it to him now, and then subtract from his estate.
Russia has the same insecurity – they own so much real estate and they still want someone else’s, even as they are barely managing the one they have. They even want real estate in the past, claiming that Ukraine is part of Russia … because original “Russia” was in Kyiv a 1,000 years ago. This is like some Arabians moving to EY, calling themselves “Palestinians” and then saying that they have yerusha as Philistines (and with the capital in Mecca).
> such as double parking on 13th Ave erev shabbos
R Avigdor Miller says that when Moschiach comes, beis din will punish double-parking with malkos! If you think this is extreme, this is a bad sign. Maybe you need to go back, learn some seforim until you align your thinking with the gadol. That is, I don’t think you might be lacking stam in halochos of sakono, I am sure you know what happens on the street, so there is a bigger hashkofo problem here.
> and going to a different school is not easy.
This is the problem. We need to have competition between schools or teachers. It is _literally_ the halakha.
It is business 101 for competitors to create differing products instead of competing on price. This works well for products you can not easily evaluate. So, if a mattress company creates a “unique” mattress (mostly by having a unique product name), they win. If consumers or government force a standard (such as USB, where U stands for Universal), then you can suddenly pay $1 for a disk that was previously $50 when each disk had a unique interface.
So, if we can several yeshivas, or just teachers, teaching stam Chumash and Gemorah and compete with each other, all Yidden will benefit.
thought experiment: what if the heilicke East Ramapo school board open an actual public school? They can hire teachers, control curriculum, establish dress code, expel for using bad language. Can they avoid coed? Maybe they can make limudei kodesh in the morning and chol in the afternoon. Imagine a kiddush Hashem when the next generation of Hispanic politicians, proud graduates of Monsey Elyon, in suits and hats, will speak Spanish with light Yiddish accent.
As RebE, you can pass GED. How much effort is really needed to pass _minimal_ requirements for an American high-schooler?! Maybe you can teach math and American history in Yiddish – or Aramaic? Bein Adams vehavero: Inyan of machlokes Yefferson ve’Adams vedrakei shalom. Vemetu b’yom ehad. Elu vElu …
We live in a complicated world; and no man is an island, even of they are an island like YU … You get some entanglements. Is a threat of some marginal club worse than some other monkey business currently in the news, like getting paid for transportation “regardless of distance to school” and transportation contracts that the state wants to oversee for some reason, according to some questionable reporting. You can’t have an absolutist position on one tiny issue. Need to look at benefits and shortcomings of the institution as a whole.
How about putting a dorm in Boro Park and see who stays.
RebE, I think, these are different organizations. Note that some other yeshivot register in a similar way, judging that they publish their graduation statistics as required by Ed. Dept, see another thread. So, theoretically, a similar club can be attempted, h’v, in other places, unless YU wins the case, BEH.
Gadol > I can’t recall the last time I needed a “pen”
Strange for a thinker and a traveler like you! Rogachover used to put a wet towel on his head to cool his thoughts down. I am using a pen and paper in my pocket to write down thoughts when travelling (you can recognize me this way). Maybe, you just post on YWN immediately and you need to keep your thoughts organized.
ujm > mdd, are you suggesting that we need to thank Stalin?
USSR murdered Jews – rabbis, businessmen, anyone who was against communists, introduced shmad in Russia, Ukraine. When they started WW2 together with Nazis, they did the same in Poland, Lita, Latvia, Bessorabia killing & arresting both Jews and non-Jews … Maybe Sara Rifka need to read or talk to those who survived (like R Feinstein, Menachem Begin, Mir Yeshiva, etc). A lot of people, including Rabonim, including did not talk publicly about it but their views are known. When they were consulted about activities to support Jews left in Russia, R Teitz, R Feinstein, Lubavicher Rebbe all favored secret activities or private agreements and were afraid of angering NKVD with public actions. As you see, so many people drink bad tea and fall from windows even in our days. Think, how this was probably happened when Stalin/USSR was in full power (Trotsky, for example).
In terms of improving things, I think having very large schools is a problem, leading to low responsiveness. I am not sure why we need such. Take a small group of kids of same age, hire 1-3 teachers and have a class in a house or a shul. Next year, you go to another teacher. This is how, for example, R Ruderman and R Kamenetsky learned in Lita. They did complain about one teacher who did not respect students enough, so presumably the rest were fine.
eddiee > I only question anyone’s right to demand that they change the way they operate.
This is an interesting point to discuss. While, yes, school is a private business, both American law and halakha treat education differently from food. In halakha, usual competition restrictions and neighbor rights are suspended, for example – you can open a new school right new the old, and you can have kids making noise in the yard. So, when a school becomes a community institutions, they become responsible to the good of the community and have to take kids’ interests into account. So, if you feel schools are under-performing in some aspects, you should have a right to (respectfully) voice your concerns both privately and publicly and deserve to hear an answer.
common, thanks, omen. I need to wrap my head around these multi-tier takonos. I guess it is due to our Rabonim not really having full jurisdiction over kehilos. I would go back ask the Rav who explained the system to me, maybe he meant that this is propagated in his sub-community.
Another thought on “top yeshivos” from another thread. In Europe, you did not have to learn in a particular yeshiva, you can just visit a Rav, he will examine you and give you a semicha. Maybe we need to ask Roshei Yeshivot to provide a similar service and/or have standardized Gemorah test that someone can pass. Anyone does it?
L’havdil, you can go to a 3rd rated college and then pass GRE or LSAT, and then even bar. So, even when you have credentials, you do not get full monopoly and corresponding side effects.
anon > is the lack of non commissioned officers.
This is not a bug, but a general feature of communist regimes, whether USSR, Norks or CCP: you are supposed to follow the party line. If you do something and it works, your bosses will own it (cf. Obama’s “you didn’t build it”. If you are wrong, you go to Siberia. No incentives to do anything unless told and then, only when forced to.
Ray > how is chasing away the mother for no tachlis showing mercy?
How is this mitzva is so special, as it is one of the 74 mitzvos in Ki Tetse. More effort is required to catch a girl in the war, raise a glutton kid, lo aleinu, hang stoned criminals, build a fence on the roof, get married and then tell lashon haro about her, then divorce her, and then not divorce her depending on circumstances, buy a portable toilet before a trip, get interest from non-Jews, do halitza and remember Amalek.
common > feel free to join the conversation
middos alert. Why not help educate me and others.
It is a business trivia – you can not improve what you do not measure. Thus, tests should be first step that will motivate to go further and free us from positive and negative biases.
Maybe Israeli school have some basic literacy tests in Hebrew and Chumash? Maybe those can be adjusted for generic observant public? I think every parent should get access to test results for his own kid and for the class in general, both in kodesh & chol, to make rationale decisions.. There is also research how to evaluate teacher quality using test results: you don’t look at just the class test as it is affected by who goes to that class, but you measure comparative improvement for each students from year to year.
anon, thanks, I guess my sources are too optimistic
common, you probably see from my questions that I am only planning to. On masechet Ketubot right now 🙂
are there any tests for Torah subjects that allow comparing schools and monitor student progress?
ymribiat, yes, these numbers require more to be analyzed. These are just the first I found.
yes it is 0-1 share.more from the same list.
SEMINAR L’MOROS BAIS YAAKOV 0.215
TALMUDICAL SEMINARY OHOLEI TORAH 0.336
UNITED TALMUDICAL SEMINARY 0.223a note o the term – “Secular” means unrelated to religion. I think this is coming from a different religion and is apikoirosus.
Hashem created the Newton’s apple and Mendel’s peas and taught us to count days. A legitimate discussion of whether we should spent time marveling at Hashem’s creation, finishing what he gave us l’asos, or just focus on the seforim that he gave is should not confuse us about the Creator of the World.
Yserbius, the changes in economy in last 100 years are such that rather than having a small number of business parnasim and lots of poor yidden, we have a large group of middle-class self-supporting people who are not ultra-rich, unless they are in high-tech or finance. More observant community kept more of the old structure. I don’t know what would be the totals. Census numbers might tell you some of the story.
Lost > it happen to a Shul nearby where every young family is working themselves into the ground trying to make ends meet
In my areas, there are schools where both modern professionals and Jewish professionals sent their kids. I presume about 40% of modern family tuition is paid to support the other group. Jewish professionals contribute by working as teachers for low salaries, and during summer – for camps.
Avira > i was there – go teach in satmar and find out
Right, but we need to learn to defend ourselves without experiencing everything ourselves. Your arguments are full of self-confidence, but YSerbius disagrees. Any possible way you can construct a verifiable argument?
Lost: A yeshiva with a staff for secular studies is twice the budget, or the MO dayschool model.
Your following description is similar to what I see in MO model. It is (also) not sustainable. Both parents exhausted working full time to pay for schools, kids seeing this are not so excited, and all other problems given that not all kids are observant in school …
As to the cost of general studies in schools, I think it can be gradually improved at limited cost, provided there is a will and recognition of the problem. Use computer-based classes, focus on those kids whose parents want to give them extra general studies, obtain government funds for general studies.
LostSpark> if there is a long game strategy to undermine the yeshivos that lay hidden behind the idea of compulsory education.
I doubt that. Idea of universal education arrived to US with Puritans and worked well (comparative to the alternative). I listened with kids to Ellis Island recordings of Jews saying how happy they were when they were able to go to a free high school (one girl’s father was saving for years for her high school back in Poland). Jewish schools in NY area were able to not be fully complaint due to their political efforts. When you rely on politics, there is always a political risk, especially when you are still a minority…