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Dor, why do you think that the world is black and white? Guilty and innocent can have many shades of gray. To my (non-professional so CTL can correct me if I am wrong) knowledge it is a breach of legal ethics to plead “not guilty” for a client one knows is completely guilty or to prosecute someone one knows is completely not guilty. However, often there are mitigating and/or aggravating circumstances.
JJ, what is a “real” bet din? Toanim rabbani’im have been around for almost 2,000 years. If you are interested in how this developed there is an article in Techumin on this. Ido not remember which volume so you will simply have to do so work yourself. Here in Israel they even have their own professional organization.
CTL,
1. Yasher koach on your attainments regarding gittin.
2. L’chatchils wills must be written in a certain manner to have halachic validity. There is an organization called “Bais HaVaad Institute of Talmudic Law” which has an e-booklet on the subject. They also give CLE courses (albeit in Brooklyn). suing a jew in secular court.
3. You are correct that non-observant Jews do not care about the prohibition but they do care about time and money. If the local bet din is professional and arrives at a decision in a much shorter time and at much less cost a non-observant Jew might be willing. Here in Israel the Eretz Hemdah-Gazit network has earned such a good reputation that even non-observant judges refer cases for arbitration (they are very anxious to do this as their caseloads are impossibly heavy).MTAB, i see that you are a baal hotza’at shem ra. In other words, you have an ownership interest in HST.
Avrohom, in the wedding cases the police and everyone else knew beforehand so they could prepare alternate routes. However, I do agree that the blockage should be kept to a minimum. Other demonstrations that block whole areas should also be dispersed forthwith.
Why should someone expect a one hour delay because of hooligans? Not to mention the cases of people who suddenly became seriously ill. These thugs say that they will literally fight to the death rather than serve. Apparently they mean other people’s deaths as they could just cut off their fingers and be exempt. The police should disperse these demonstrations as quickly as possible and by any means necessary.
שולחן ערוך חושן משפט ס, קסג סע’ א
כופין בני העיר זה את זה (אפי’ מיעוט כופין את המרובין) (רבי ירוחם נל”א ח”ו) לעשות חומה דלתים ובריח לעיר ולבנות להם בית הכנסת ולקנות ספר תורה נביאים וכתובים כדי שיקרא בהם כל מי שירצה מן הצבור:
הגה: וה”ה לכל צרכי העיר וע’ בא”ח סי’ נ”ה דין שכירות חזן לבני העיר גם סי’ נ”ג שם וכופין בני העיר זה את זה להכניס אורחים ולחלק להם צדקה וליתן בתוך כיס של צדקה (מרדכי פ”ק דב”ב ותשובת מיימוני ספר קנין סי’ נ”ט) וע”ל סי’ ד’ וסי’ ז’ בני העיר שיש להם דין עם יחיד אם יכולים לדונו ואם נקראים מוחזקין דין שכירות למניין ע’ בא”ח סוף סי’ נ”ה ועל הוצאות שהוציאו לבער מסור כל הדרים בעיר חייבים ליתן לזה (הרא”ש בתשובה כלל ו’ סי’ כ”א כ”ז וכפול לקמן סי’ שפ”ח) כל צרכי ציבור שאינן יכולין להשוות עצמן יש להושיב כל בע”ב הנותנים מס ויקבלו עליהם שכל אחד יאמר דעתו לשם שמים וילכו אחר הרוב ואם המיעוט ימאנו הרוב יכולין לכוף אותן אפילו בדיני עכו”ם ולהוציא ממון על זה והם צריכין לתת חלקם והמסרב מלומר דעתו ע”פ החרם בטילה דעתו ואזלי’ בתר רוב הנשארים האומרים דעתן (תשו’ מוהר”ם ספר קנין סי’ כ”ז והגמי”י פי”א דתפלה) וע’ בי”ד סי’ רנ”ו אימת חייב ליתן לכיס של צדקה:
Each voter (and someone who does not pay taxes has no right to vote) gives HIS opinion (not his rav’s opinion) L’SHEM SHEMAYIM ׂׂ(and not for some personal interest). Neither Rav Kook nor Rav Soloveichik would give advice on these matters. They would only set forth the alternatives and their ramifications. Rav Tzvi Yehuda would not even reveal for which party he voted and gave a beracha to any party that asked for it as he felt that each one had something to offer.
MTAB,
1. You are right. Chareiidi is a new religion. For one thing, full-time life-long learning was never for more than a small elite. This is the resolution of he famous disagreement between Rashbi and Rav Yismael. This is already changing because a mass of non-workers cannot be supported.
2. David HaMelech also used weapons. What do you make of Shmuel Bet 1:18? Tell me,do you do hishtadlut for other things, like parnassa?
3. One can even be motzi shem ra on a land as were the spies.
4. We do not hold by the Brisker Rav but like Rav Kook, his son and continuation Rav Tziv Yehuda and a long list of gedolim who supported the establishment of the State.Joseph, according to what I heard Rav Chaim was referring to someone who suddenly realized that he forgot his hat. This made him so flustered that he would not have been able to daven properly.
Yoffi, the protests in PT are not on Shabbat but Motza’ei Shabat and they are subject to the11PM noise curfew as well as other generally applicable laws (such as not blocking traffic, which they don’t).
Joseph, reply #1387649 is hilarious but don’t give up your day job.
Yitz, civil disobedience is OK if the law is manifestly unjust but one who engages in it must be prepared to pay the price. Otherwise there will be anarchy (see “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”). However, taking action, such as blocking streets is not civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is passive, such as refusing to register for the draft. Thoreau did not block the entrance to the tax office. He simply did not pay the tax he was assessed.
MTAB, you are motzi shem ra on the State and its functionaries. How is religious freedom being abridges? Do you believe that it is absolute? For example, if some “rav” would demand a human sacrifice would you allow it?
BK, I would not consider them gedolim.
Joseph, blocking roads, burning garbage, etc. are themselves forms of violence. Attacking soldiers who are minding there own business (another one of their activities) certainly is. These hooligans should be cleared out by any means necessary. They should then be transferred to a tent city in the Negev and forgotten being that they do not want to have anything to do with the State.LU,
I am quite sure that ypu misunderstood that rav. Hashem “allows” peopole to sin in the sense that He gave us free choice. However, how we use this is totally up to us (see Berachot 33b and Rambam Hilchot Teshuva 5:1). We even control if we get sick do to not guarding ourselves from weather conditions (Ketubot 20a).
As for your ice cream story, I heard that the Chatam Sofer said that a person who is shogeg on a d’rabbanan does not need to do teshuva as the aveira is not listening to Chazal (see also Meshech Chochma on Devarim 17:11 and Baal haNetivot quoted in
“What is the nature of דינים דרבנן ?” – online).Yiddishekop, Swiss-German is not rare. In fact, probably more people speak it than Yiddish.
GG, is “foreung” something before an ung? Is “hoovering” acting like Herbert Hoover or perhaps vacuuming the carpet?
YK, I slightly correct my previous post. There is a long list of Sephardic Achronim as well as Ashkenazi Israeli gedolim who did not use teach in Yiddish. I simply do not have the time to list all of them.
Dovid, forget it. Antisemitic websites are full of English translations along with “commentary”. Anyway, I have it on the authority of the wife of a friend who is from Switzerland that someone who knows Swiss-German can understand Yiddish.
Yiddishekop, I am quite certain that the Ben Ish hai did not give shiurim in Yiddish and I know that Rav Ovadia did not. Rav Soloveichik switched to English at some point when he realized that talmidim were not understanding him. I could go on and on but I have other things to do.
Yekke, unless your nom de CR is sagi nahor you should know that it is never Shabbat everywhere in the world as both clock time and Sunrise/Sunset are different. In fact areas above the Arctic Circle have six months of day while areas below the Antarctic Circle have six months of night and vice versa.
The parts that are not in Shabbat are being recreated while those that are are not.
Hashem did not create reshaim. Every person has complete freedom to be a rasha or a tzaddik. This is a basic tenet of Judaism.
At least at one time a “rabbi” in nYc political parlance was someone who gave a person protektzia for a job. Perhaps a woman would be a rabbit.
RY, did you spend all day figuring out that introverts are introverted? Dr. Miriam Adahan says that introverts do not even necessarily prefer to be alone. We can be alone whereas extroverts feel crushed if they are alone. Moreover, introverts like small groups of long-time friends whereas extroverts like large groups.
Froggie,
1. Does your shadow know what lurks in your heart?
2. How will your voice be heard when there is no audio?Isn’t a group for introverts an oxymoron? It’s like the speaker who opened the atheists’ convention with the words “Thank Gd there are so many atheists”.
Being a victim is greatest honor one can get in the PC world.The greater the victimhood the greater the right to do what one pleases and shut up anyone who disagrees.
AY, these issues have not exclusive to. Yiddish vs. Hebrew was also a big issue among the secularists with the Bund favoring Yiddish as the “language of the Jewish proletariat” (Lenin and, at first Stalin ym”s, even established Yiddish schools while suppressing Hebrew schools and a “Jewish autonomous region” in Birobidzan with Yiddish as the official language. For that matter, various German Protestant groups tried (and some, like the Amish, still try) to preserve German as the group’s language. In fact, a legal battle was fought over the right to teach in German when some states tried to ban instruction in languages other than English. SCOTUS overturned it in Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923) – which was fought over a $25 fine! I suppose that the same battles were fought when the Jews in Bavel switched from Aramaic to a Arabic.
ZD, the Chatam Sofer wrote that in response to the Neolog (Reform) who were “more Hungarian than the Hungarians”. In fact, the story goes that Franz Josef favored the Orthodox because after he was forced to compromise with the Hungarians he had to agree to speak in Hungarian whenever he went there. Hungarian is an extremely difficult language and in the end he simply rattled off scripts that we written for him,. The head of the Neolog spoken literary Hungarian, which very much annoyed FJ. However, the Chief Rabbi (Koppel Weiss) interrupted his script and said in German (in Pressburg they earned external baccalaureates in exchange for draft exemptions as theological students) that he did not understand Hungarian. FJ was overjoyed, patted him on the back and said “We are two old gentlemen. We will never learn this language”).
Dor, do you daven for Hashem to return all of Am Yisrael to the USA? Do you think that the Bet HaMikdash will be built in Brooklyn, Monsey or Lakewood?
Actually the Anglo-American political and legal traditions are based on a Xtian understanding of Tanach. All of the British and American philosophers were lovers of Tanach. John Selden even learned from Rabbi Menashe ben Yisrael. Atthe time ofthe Revolution every American college required students to learn Tanach in the original Hebrew (Madison, BTW, was fluent in the language). The argument over slavery was largely an argument between Protestant missionaries over the Tanach’s attitude towards the peculiar institution in general and black slavery (because of Ham’s curse) in particular.
I personally have no problem with this. A Xtian America would be much better for Israel (as well as Jews in America) than a secular America. Personally though, I am hoping that the interface with Islam will bring both closer to the sheva mitzvot.
AY, I agree. Those dialects are all museum pieces. They were useful in their day their time is past.
LY, what Sepharadim and Eidot HaMizrach? BTW, CTL is right. Just to give one example, the German word for “jewelry” is a vulgar word in Yiddish (yes, the holy Yiddish has vulgar words).
ZD, the above frum Jews do not use Yiddish words except where they crept into Modern Hebrew
Joseph, I seriously doubt that there’s even a single frum Jew in the world today who (“who” refers to a person whereas “that” refers to a thing) has never used Hebrew words interposed casually in a conversation.
RY, according to the Wikipedia it is an antelope but according to the Google translator it is a deer. In any case, it plays.
770. you have it the opposite. The Baal HaTanya thought that Nikolai I ym”s would be better for ruchniyut because Napoleon wanted to make the Jews equal citizens on condition that they renounce national aspirations. In the end the aforementioned rasha instituted the Cantonist program. So we still have Chabad dancing at two weddings.
Mod, I was trying to think of how to put it delicately. Of course, if my name were Tzvi he could call me “deerest”. I, in fact, knew someone named Tzvi who received a letter addressed “Dear Deer”.
Joseph,
1. I think he he has a problem. However, it is not even an aveira to do it.
2. Once he becomes an eved that is something else. However, he can even be freed to complete a minyan. So just find eight other men and decide to daven. Rav Moshe says (IM YD 1:162) that one may even buy him in order to free him and then do so.770, how do you do that when the Baal HaTanya supported the Tsar?
Joseph,
1, Dearest? How did that get past the Mods?
2. Please state your source for a mere desire to be prohibited. I will state my source for it being permitted and even desirable:
ספרא על ויקרא כ כו
ר’ אלעזר בן עזריה אומר מנין שלא יאמר אדם “אי אפשי ללבוש שעטנז. אי אפשי לאכול בשר חזיר. אי אפשי לבוא על הערוה” אבל “אפשי ומה אעשה ואבי שבשמים גזר עלי כך”? תלמוד לומר “ואבדיל אתכם מן העמים להיות לי”– נמצא פורש מן העבירה ומקבל עליו עול מלכות שמים.
3. Does a goy not have to be a servant of Hashem in his way (keeping the sheva mitzvot)?Wrong again, Joseph. Hashem is the master. We are His slaves. Therefore it is improper to desire to be a slave of a person. It would seem that this is also true of a gentile. He should either be a Ben Noach or a ger. However, Hashem gave an out for people who have a slave mentality or are gravely financially embarrassed.
770, you wrote that Chabadniks continues to speak the Yiddish they spoke in Russia. I was wondering if you continue to support the Tsar (“yarum hodo”, which means “may his glory be magnified” was typically added to the names of rulers in teshuvot for the benefit of the censor. BTW, is it true that one of your zemirot uses the tune of La Marseillaise? If so, you are apparently dancing at two weddings.
Kop,
1. “The” Jewish language? What about Ladino, Judeo-Arabic and other museum pieces?
2. Who says that it is not respectful? In fact, Chazal say in Esther Rabba that Lashon HaKodesh is the most appropriate language for conversation.Dor, what does one have to do with the other (although there is summary capital punishment – the ba b’machteret and the manslaughterer who leaves the city of refuge, for example)? The fact of the matter is that there is a form of slavery – prisoners are put to work (the Thirteenth Amendment even makes an explicit exception for ” punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”). The fact of the matter is that many ex-cons commit crimes in order to go back inside. There they room and board plus work and society. Wouldn’t it be better to give these people the opportunity to sell themselves to a frum Jew and get all that plus Shabbat, Yom Tov, Chol HaMoed, a wife, etc.?
Joseph, actually almost all produce in Israel has had terumot and maaserot separated as having a certificate widens the consumer base. For the same reason even HaShomer HaTzair kibbutzim have kosher guest houses.
Akuperma,
1. Time crowned him “King Bibi”.
3a. Apparently it was economically feasible as some people had them (e.g. Tabi, Rabban Gamliel’s slave). One could not “work them to death” as they kept Shabbat, yom Tov and Chol haMoed.
b. A mamzer is allowed to be with his shifcha kenanit – and Rabbi Tarfon even advises this (Kiddushin 69a).Joseph, please cite the places along with sources. As for the metronome, there is another issue – the noise it makes could very well disturb other daveners.
This was about ten years ago. Since then they have been using Ukrainian hair. Of course, according to some opinions a woman can have one made from her own hair (Mishna Berura 75:15).
ZD,
1. A language is a dialect with an army and a navy (the adage was popularized by the sociolinguist and Yiddish scholar Max Weinreich).
2. Actually, you used that term once. However, upon further examination I see that Yiddish is actually a creole language. “A creole language is a stable natural language developed from a mixture of different languages. While the concept is similar to that of a mixed or hybrid language, in the strict sense of the term, a mixed/hybrid language has derived from two or more languages, to such an extent that it is no longer closely related to the source languages. Creoles also differ from pidgins in that, while a pidgin has a highly simplified linguistic structure that develops as a means of establishing communication between two or more disparate language groups, a creole language is more complex, used for day-to-day purposes in a community, and acquired by children as a native language. Creole languages, therefore, have a fully developed vocabulary and system of grammar.” (Wikipedia)
3. In fact, Chazal take a shot at the Romans for not having their own language and alphabet.770, do you also celebrate the birthday of the Tsar yarum hodo?
RY, I am presently studying German (and French) on Duolingo. Actually the relationship to English (and the few Yiddish words I know) make it easier (so sayeth The Foreign Service Institute of the US Department of State, which ranks both Germna and French in the easiest learning category for English-speakers ) and more interesting.
In any case, I still see no value in studying it, much less speaking it unless one wants to be an anthropologist or historian.
770, someone who speaks Yiddish n fact speaks pidgin German.
JJ, so if he wants a Rolls Royce he should give one to a poor person?
I see no reason for studying pidgin German unless one wants to teach the literature in a college. After learning English and Hebrew kids should learn a language which will be useful in business such as French, German (both similar to English) or Russian (less so but not completely different as for historical reasons it has French, German and Greek influences).
Yytz, what happens if she moves more slowly and refuses to go to the mikva when he realizes how serious that is? As for Shabbat, in the uS there are anti-discrimination laws. While they have loopholes for employers who need people to come on Shabbat (very few in office jobs) they often only need a limited number of people. If he has a good relationship with his boss and fellow employees (which he should strive to have anyway) he can most likely get a non-Jewish employee to cover for him. If the company pays extra for weekend work the non-Jew will jump at the chance. Of course, the Jewish employee should also meet his employer half way. For example, at one of my jobs I informally agreed to work extra hour Mon-Thurs in order to leave early on Fri in the winter (we so did not have to punch a clock so it was not a problem). Today many offices have compressed time for all. Local governments even encourage it in order to relieve transportation congestion. This is how the real job world works
Yitzchokm, was there mixed seating at the frum weddings in Woodstock? Did it lead to problems?
Joseph, your posts beg for leitzanut.
Joseph, there is a couple in my community who came from the former Soviet Union intermarried. The husband converted and they are now fully observant.
Yytz, he can’t demand that she become a BT overnight or else? What about kashrut and taharat hamispacha?
Por, so speak to them in Hebrew. If you really want them to be different (Pidgin German is close to German and I’m told very close to Swiss-German) speak to them in Aramaic.
Joseph, how did you develop such a knack for being wrong? Being with a gentile for marriage is a lav that isn’t explicit in the Torah (the peshat is that it only applies to the seven nations) so there are no malkot d’Oraita. Being with one for other reasons is a rabbinic prohibition (Chazal decreed that they have the status of zavim). It is true that the Zohar very strongly condemns a man (but not a woman) who does this but only because his biological children will not be Jewish (so if she can’t or won’t it would seem not to apply).
KJ, don’t give up your day job.