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Avira, I said I wasn’t learned enough to know where to find the Rambam without a citation, which is true. I’m much more interested in hearing your explanation on how to get to the correct pshat in the Rambam than in your guesses about how much experience I have or don’t have in learning (nobody else here cares!). But thanks for the mussar. I really should spend more time learning instead of posting things here.
Reb Eliezer, good job catching the joke.
Avira, thank you for posting the source in the Rambam. I notice it says יש למנוע, which means it’s advisable for the husband to discourage his wife from going out excessively, not that it’s mandatory, and not that he should force her, chas veshalom. It’s very important to present halachos correctly, which UJM did not do.
Ghd, it doesn’t really matter whether times have changed, I’m not convinced that there was ever an inyan at any time in history for a man to require his wife to be confined to her home, as UJM seems to misinterpret the halacha to say (as if such a thing is even possible). There have been (and probably still are) many tzniusdike women who have chosen to stay home when possible, and the Torah may encourage such a choice, but that’s very different.
I also feel bad for the wives of any men who feel upset when they open a frum magazine and don’t see pictures of other women.
UJM, I’m actually a man too, but I feel bad for your wife if you’re married. And while I’m not learned enough to know exactly where to find these Rambams and Shulchan Aruch’s that you quote without citing any siman or s’if, I have never heard of any godol b’Yisroel, either in our times or earlier generations, who was known to lock his wife in his house against her will.
Lakewhut, I have a strong suspicion that you’re a man.
UJM, I have a strong suspicion that you’re a man as well.
Jews are allowed to live anywhere in the US only if they are US citizens. Jews and Arabs are allowed to live anywhere in Israel only if they are Israeli citizens. Both countries have a right to exclude anyone who is a non-citizen, as does every other country in the world.
So the real question is whether Gaza is rightfully part of Israel, in which case Jews should of course be allowed to live there, or whether it belongs to “Palestine”, in which case the Palestinians of course should have a right to exclude anyone who is not a citizen or their “country”. It seems that Gallant (as well as the Biden administration) holds that Gaza doesn’t belong to Israel. If you disagree with them, you need to explain why the State of Israel should have sovereignty over Gaza (there are of course many arguments to be made both in favor of or against such a position).
Since so many of us realize this whole website is bittul zman at best, what are we still doing here? Go grab a gemara! (that question was for myself too)
Haimy, I think you’re absolutely correct with respect to most Frum communities. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t cry for the other 10%, though.
Lakewhut, that’s not how marketing works. If you advertise in a publication that has tens of thousands of readers, then depending on your profit margin, your advertising investment could easily pay off even if just 1% percent of the readers buy your overpriced meat board. If you don’t believe me, look at all the ads in Jewish newspapers and magazines for luxury apartments in Eretz Yisroel. Do you really think more than 10% of the readership can afford to even think about such a thing?
Every time there is an effort by the anti religious forces in Eretz Yisroel to attack Shabbos, kashrus, the kedusha of the Kosel Hamaaravi, etc, the anti religious leaders warn the government that if they resist, they will “alienate” the Jews of the diaspora, by which they mean American Jews, who they assume to be overwhelmingly secular and liberal. In reality, we know that although the frum Jews are still a minority of Jews in America, we are not a tiny minority like we used to be, and we are much more likely to have visited Israel and care about Jews in other countries (see the 2020 Pew study of you doubt this).
A large turnout of frum, and especially chareidi Jews at the march could help dispell this dangerous myth, and will בע”ה help our brothers in Eretz Yisroel see that America is full of frum Jews who care about all Jews everywhere and are willing to come to support them.
Avimi, I suggest visiting a different website. For starters, try
https://www.chabad.org/asktherabbi/default_cdo/jewish/Ask-the-Rabbi.htm
A couple questions:
1) Does the Torah give a Beis Din have the authority to punish people for private behavior, meaning not b’farhesia?
2) Does the Torah require a beis din to investigate and pass judgment *all* suspected violations of the Torah within its authority (rather than having discretion to enforce where it seems likely to have good results)?
If the answer to either of these questions is “no”, then it would be incorrect to state that the Torah requires a beis din to force people to be frum.
To be clear, I have no love for BLM or Antifa or any of the other thugs, and their actions should not be minimized. But it’s easy to look in retrospect and say that the storming of the capitol was no big deal because only a couple people got killed and the only damage was to public property, when actually we are very lucky that’s all it was. It could easily have been worse, but that outcome was avoided because the capitol police showed restraint against the rioters and got the lawmakers out before they were seriously threatened. History has shown that attacks on centers of government power usually result either in anarchy and violence (Rwanda for example) or in a government crackdown on freedom and consolidation or power (the burning of the Reichstag for example). So while we were lucky in January 2021, I think the potential negative consequences were even worse than those of the BLM riots.
Smerel wrote :”Given the choice between the capital riots happening again or the BLM riots happening again I’ll take the capital riots any day.”
I think you are actually doing the same thing that you (correctly) accuse the liberals of doing, by having a different standard depending on one’s political beliefs. Why do I say that? Because I think if BLM stormed the capitol in January 2017 to prevent Trump’s inauguration, you would agree that it was worse than other riots.
Thought experiment: what would have happened if BLM and Antifa rioters had attacked the Capitol in similar fashion?
n0mesorah:
“See the committee for misuse of capitol letters.”“Capitol” letters – hahahahaha!
See the committee for “pun”-ishable offenses.It sound like maybe the religious beliefs caviat is also about protecting women having abortions before 40 days, where there is more room for leniency in halacha, especially since this was in the context of a law banning abortion from the moment of conception.
I don’t remember but it was discussed in a tshuva from one of the gedolei poskim. Maybe the yaavetz, but I’m not sure. I also don’t remember what the final psak was, but it was not as poshut as it might seem.
I believe the tzitz eliezer was matir abortions for babies with Tay Sachs if I remember correctly, though this was controversial.
Gadolhadofi, it sounds like you might know the gemara better than I do. Please let me know which daf I should be looking on.
“our bubehs and zaydahs* would be infinitely more shocked at the actual discussion that frum jews are having about baby killing. They’d recoil in horror at the shattering of skulls, dismemberment and brutal torture that abortion often entails. And they would scream “murderer!” Without getting into any shailos if it’s *really* murder or not.”
Possibly, but the poskim in the times of our bubbes and zeidesand even before found it necessary to discuss this question in their shailos and tshuvos, because there are situations where there is a nafka mina. A famous one was a case where a woman knew that she was going to give birth to a mamzer and wanted to do tshuva for what she had done.
On the other hand, there is the idea that when a prohibition is being treated lightly, it’s necessary to be extra strict, so maybe such a law would be a good idea. Tzarich iyun…
Ujm, I would be curious to know what the opinion of gedolei Yisroel would be on this. My guess is that there would be serious practical issues with enforcing capital punishment for a crime that a large portion of society doesn’t consider to be a crime at all. The result might be selective and unfair enforcement. Where it was enforced, political opponents of the law would turn executed offenders into martyr figures. It would be better to work on changing public opinion, from a practical standpoint.
Gadolhadofi,
I think that method was used in only a few exceptional situations, and shouldn’t be taken as an example of how things were done then.
Philosopher, the gelolei haposkim put a lot of thought and argument into determining whether abortion is murder so I think the question is legitimate. But I think you are correct that it should be obvious to anyone straight-thinking person that it is terrible and immoral except in rare, extreme cases. I would also add that in a case where there is hefkerus and lack of respect regarding a particular mitzvah, it makes sense to be as machmir as possible, and this would be one of those cases.
Remember Chazal tell us it was gezel that ultimately caused the mabul, so stealing a candy bar is not a small aveira, and the fact that many people nowadays think it is just tells us how low things have fallen.
Obviously no court is enforcing the death penalty on 7 mitzvos bnei Noach today, but the fact that certain aveiros would be chayav misa should be a warning to us that they are more serious than we might have otherwise thought.
If there were courts enforcing the death penalty on 7 mitzvos BN, it would be in the context of a society that has as a whole accepted those mitzvos and understands their severity, so the application of misa would be something that happens rarely and after a lot of deliberation, hence the Robespierre analogy does not fit. But the fact that the death penalty does not exist today in practice for 7 mitzvos bnei Noach (except for murder in some jurisdictions) should not lead us to think that prohibitions are less severe.
Moishekapoieh,
I now and then meet people who are big proponents of your idea, and I suspect that most of them are motivated less by a desire to really help the shidduch situation and more by a desire to be imitate the goyim – as if the secular people with all their singles hangouts are so much more successful than us at getting married and staying married.
Also, it’s cute how you insinuate that anyone who disagrees with you has a dirty mind – an argument I hear a lot from people who have dirty minds against anyone who advocates for tsnius. Nobody is concerned that singles events with ehrliche men and women is going to suddenly degenerate into debauchery, the concern is about singles wasting their time flirting with people they have no intention of marrying, which contrary to the beliefs of some, is not condoned by the Torah.
“Which means if it is a self-abortion, such as the over the counter or prescription medication she takes, the mother would be chayiv misa.”
Correct.
The use of the term “side wife” in this discussion is a great example of why we have the cheirem of R Gershom.
“Why would it be more strict by a goy?”
In Halacha, I believe it is because the prohibition for a Jew and the prohibition for a Ben Noach are derived from different psukim, but I don’t remember the details. I would suggest listening to some of the shiurim that discuss this topic. In hashkafa, I don’t know the answer and would be interested in learning, but I would be wary of having that discussion on this forum because it not such a politically correct topic and there are a lot of nuances, so it’s likely that some readers will be offended and take it the wrong way.