Always_Ask_Questions

Obviously, it is OK for a person to go to learn and for his wife to support that. Starting from R Akiva …

I think Yabia is asking what is the social background here. If a girl is pressured into the arrangement in some way, or if she later changes her mind but is reluctant to speak out – does the husband have sensitivity to notice or the kollel a way to find out. Otherwise, this is similar to why we do not accept gamblers as eidim – because they “steal” as their opponents do not have full mind in accepting possible loss. Similarly, someone using pressure system to keep the wife “agreeing” may be guilty of theft from her.

Also, anyone claiming that wife can be satisfied by illicit funds, whether taken from in-laws, unreported income, or inappropriately obtained SNAP is really adding to the abuse of the lady – she does not have to be forced to be part of such aveiros (if they happen)

RebE > Rambam in Hilchas Talmud Torah says that the support he lives on is theft and he is ashaming the Torah.

This was brought before. CR consensus is that we don’t pasken like Rambam, and – in this case – all the great people are meikel by definition. If you are so super-frum and follow this Rambam, I am with you.

Yehudis, we don’t always know where to go from common sense. Need humility and bitachon. See Europeans who put their trust in wind and sun, and became hostages to Putin. Not only their 20th century did not teach them humility, they still do not admit their errors and continue their self-righteous behavior. So, if we change our lives in pursuit of some lofty goals, we need to make sure that these goals do not lead to corruption. If you make goals simple – be honest, help others a little, and then pursue your own interest, people will do that. If you lure them tofar-awy goals, you never know where tish will lead.

common > look at the signs of acher and R Meir that really one shouldn’t learn Torah from apikorsim

due to my sins, I could not see to which post this relates, but this is an interesting topics in itself. Rambam seemingly ignores Gemora’s permission for “gedolim” to learn from “acherim”. Some (Rav Shach?) explain that he felt that in his times, there were no gedolim any more (sic!), others – that he is writing general advice or talking about public teaching. This is interesting in light of Rambam obviously learning (maybe not torah but Chochma only) from “Acherim”, at least Muslim and Greek ones.

Clearly, R Meir’s situation is pretty exceptional. I do not see this mentioned, but he apparently started ldearning from Acher before Acher went OTD. So, there is an issue of attachment and all Torah that he already learned.

R Soloveichik has a talk in 1991 about Acher and how he is a complicated personality who misunderstood himself

repaired

It is right to be conservative in using new things.

Moses Mendelsohn was very enthusiastic about new things, others – opposed. Is it intrinsically bad to read Chumash in High German? So, many people read ArtScroll now (ok, it may be High Yinglish), but at the time, it directly assisted assimilation.

Founder of Chabad opposed Napoleon and supported the Czar with spies, in part because of fear of modernity; others, including Chaim Volozhin – disagreed, even if they saw that Czar is likely to survive. Maybe a closer case, but still.

Still, sometimes one needs to act boldly in view of external changes. See Rabban Gamliel, writing of the Mishna, etc. Claiming that “power of meikel” is mis-understood by serious opponents is as credible as to claim that Chasam Sofer was talking about grain when he re-prohibited “chadash”.

With understandable opposition to ideological Zionists, was there a specific point on insisting that they do not go to EY? Same people will lead irreligious life in other countries and be a cause of trouble for those communities.

There could be a purist view that we want to keep EY populated by tzadikim only, and the rest can go to South America, but I don’t think this was a majority view. So, otherwise, we have an issue of Torah v. modern ideologies, but no specific reason to object Zionist settling davka in EY.

I also presume that R Aharon would welcome advent of, at least, email and Zello. He wondered what was his punishment that he spent so much time travelling to fundraise for the Yeshiva and attributed it to possibly not being sensitive enough towards his students.

Avira, while I agree that sometimes “modern” movements create bad ideas that we should not follow, still we can’t deny that humanity is creating useful things and ideas sometimes. I understand that one might be careful with internet, music, cars, or COVID vaccine. But I wonder whether we need to insist on things like slavery. We already use many social norms that the world adopted – one-wife-only marriages, elections, corporations, welfare, summer vacations, two-day weekend …

others who were elected in Sejm:
Alexander Zusia Friedman, R Rabbi Yosef Nechemya Kornitzer of Kraków, Leib Mincberg. So, we have 5 out of 6-7 that probably served in Sejms. R Mordechai Dubin served in Latvia.

Polish 1922 elections: 35 Jews (10%, about percentage of Jews in general population), of which 6 Agudas Isroel, incl R Shapiro. Apparently, he worked on his Polish a lot, not just Daf Yomi, while serving in Seim.

In 1922, 65% of Jews voted for minority parties, in 1928 – only 33%, 49% for Pilsudski’s block, 7% for Communists. 44% of Orthodox Xians voted for Commies. 16% of majority Catholics voted for Pilsudsky, 45% for left, 15% for right, 4% for Commies

As to attitudes to EY, someone asked Satmar Rov when he was leaving EY – who should I now give my kvitelach? The Rov said – go to any shul, see a person who puts a tefillin and has numbers etched under the tefillin; you can give your kvitel to that person.

My guess, R Aharon would be looking at google maps, planning a remote location for a place where Torah learning can happen without distractions. Maybe WV or KY.

As an insight into his thinking, one prominent South American Rav was thinking about moving to Israel. He asked R Aharon and he replied: I think the Jews in your country still need you. Maybe later, we will both go to EY … When many years later, that Rav finally decided to move, he encountered R Aharon’s levaya joining him on the flight from Paris to TLV and recalled that conversation.

Of course, there was anti-Semitism in Poland, but it has to be put in the context of alternatives – Prussia, Russia …. Jews willingly moved to Poland when invited as described above. Jews had their own government – Vaad Arba Artzot that was a pretty powerful entity for some time and declined in parallel to the Polish state itself. Poland fell behind economically – while other countries industrialized, Poland was charging them high prices for (in large part, Ukrainian) wheat, but this wokred only for some time. Politically, Seim had a 1 vote veto power leading to worse filibusters than US Senate, especially when Russians were able to buy off a couple of members. After Poland/Lita was divided by Germany/Austro-Hungary/Russia in 17xx-s, Jews mostly supported Polish rebellions against Russia. The short period of independence in 1920-39 had lots of stuff happening with both Polish and Jewish nationalism, socialism, and external attacks by Germany and USSR. A lot of Jews complained, but also a lot were pretty pro-Polish. When religious Jews in Warsaw saw planes over the city, they were sure, like all Poles, that these are mighty Polish planes on the way to repel German army. So, the bombs were a complete surprise. Turns out, Poles (and Jews) took years after WW1 to fight against each other while maintaining cavalry, and Germany and USSR were building tanks and planes together.

Avira, you are right that Zionists have their Jewishness at the center of their agenda, while other non-religious Jews did not. Still, many Bundists, Socialists considered themselves Jewish. Also, even many German Jews who converted did this out of convenience and felt some affinity to Jews and often married other Jewish converts. From Henrich Heine to Fritz Haber, they experienced their Jewish affinity at times of trouble.

The Madame speaker went for a day to give a speech at Brown, can’t leave a husband for a day without a drunken accident!

A good question, whether Rambam would live in Tel Aviv … On one hand, he suggests emigration and even desert if you are in a bad community (as Chazon Ish quotes him); on the other hand, he moved several times himself: from crazy kind of Muslims in Spain to Fes, a place of the first dual-track school (medrasa/university); then to Mitzrayim under Muslims with who he interacted daily, and with Karaims. None of these places had perfect communities at the time, and he did not go to Sahara. Maybe, he was satisfied by having some community in the location? So, he might be able to find a minyan in Tel-Aviv or even in Bnei Braq (if he were to accept modern psak allowing shanda of taking some else’s money). Need to look more into this.

For those who hope to convince the other side that there is fire behind these smoke signals, you are confronted with powerful psychological barriers: there were so many promising leads that most convincible people in the middle checked out already. We all worried about pings @ Alpha bank and read Mueller thriller, including footnotes (and I am skipping 100 stories in between). Most turned out to be untrue provocations or just disappeared from public view. Turns out Mueller could not even see that his sources were paid by Hillary and making “typos” on affidavits. This is not unusual for American politics, just more intense and one-sided with Trump. So, my free advise is to stop trying throwing more accusation and just wake us up in case you found something material. I am frankly shocked – shocked – that none of the unseemly claims about T were not proven yet. Given his middos and type of business he was involved in, there should be something. Look harder.

Avram
>> FIRST ARE THESE COMMERCIAL OR MEDICAL? COMMERCIAL ARE NOT THE RIGHT ONES.”
> Why not?

My understanding is that medical standards call for different filtration. Masks include special materials, such as electrostatic layer. I did not study this in depth. Look it up.

Overall, I agree that it looks like there are enough cases where wearing a valve makes sense. Maybe worth to revisit the original message. Tzarich Iyun.

I am confused – melech David was able to fight for a Jewish state, but somehow a modern Rav supporting that is an apikoires?

Our petty concerns about non-religious Jews in Israel, about zionists not funding our schools as much as we ask for, about clown scenes in Knesset obscure a miracle of massive Jewish settlement, including religious life, in EY – after several catastrophes, both military and spiritual.

If you were to say to, say, Ramban, that at the place where he was trampled by a knight, there will be Jewish police standing post, would he be upset?

Just because Reformim abuse tikun olam, does not mean that we should go destroy the oilam.

Avram,
first are these commercial or medical? commercial are not the right ones.

2nd, one common use of N95 is for people near someone immunocompromised or elderly. In this case, you would need a 2-way protection.

3rd, there are enough people around who use them and also those who should even if they don’t (elderly), and settings where enough people use it, like medical, so you would need to wear/change different masks.

4th, just because many people do not use, doe not mean you should not be courteous towards them.

I understand, though, if you have to sit whole day with Bigbochur and chaverav, you may want to wear big exhaust, dark glasses, and noise-cancelling headphones.

> shidduch crisis for men.

are you sure that men will see this is as a crisis? You can always regulate it further by increasing age difference in the marriage. Presuming continuing high birth rate in the community, ken irbu, if men will marry at 50, then they’ll probably have 3-4 wives to support their learning, as mentioned above. Someone can do the math. More than 4 may be not OK, we need to be yasharim at least in the eyes of Muslims who see that as a limit.

Re: Mormons, I don’t think they do this openly in US, some moved to Mexico to avoid Uncle Sam/Rabbeinu Gershom issues. Maybe we can do it also, as Mexico was under Spain, so Sephardi halochot apply.

You guys have some circular logic here: if someone is quoted and happen to confirm with your exact position, then he is a tzaddik gamur; if he disagrees with you on one item, then he is a rasha gamur. And you are confused if someone happened to say two things, one in each category. Why don’t you give some benefit of doubt to people with different views, try to see where they are coming from, and see how we can all live – and think – together.

Yserbius, look at my stats: there are a number of states that have relaxed gun laws and number of deaths are comparable to Europe. Looks like these are Northern rural states, maybe with older population and less urban crime areas.

Note also that the murder problem while bad is not getting worse (except maybe last 2 years due to society upheaval in general). Some of the stats may be mildly misleading – you need to look at murder rate rather than gun-murder rate: less and less people axing each other and switching to guns does not affect the crime rate!

But, again, even reasonable reform will be seen as “attack” of anti-gun to pro-gun, especially when using biased arguments. hopefully, someone can come up with measures that have both restrictions and giveaway to gun owners? could you come up with a list of things you can include that gun owners will like? say, a federal law allowing most reliable gun owners (by time of use, test results, psychological testing, military training) to have a federal license that they can use in other states? and, if it works, continue expanding this program in return for restrictions on the most dangerous groups?

A segulah for parnasah on erev Shavuos: in the remaining 15 hours, send out 104 resumes. After yom tov is over, you might have 104 job offers. Please let us know whether this worked or not.