Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
RebYidd23,
What do U.S. residents have against tomatillos?
Unfamiliar and unwanted are not the same thing.
President Obama’s first address to a joint session of Congress in February 2009 was also not called a “State of the Union.” Neither was President Bush’s in February 2001. Perhaps it’s minhag 🙂
lightbrite,
Someone does not need to be visibly drunk to be impaired and have brain damage from consuming alcohol… especially a teenage or young adult whose brain is still developing until mid-20’s.
I don’t think anyone in the medical field (at least that I’ve heard) worries about a bit of kiddush wine at a Shabbos meal. Regular consumption or binge drinking are the bigger concerns.
If you cannot understand that, then I feel sorry for those who look up to you as you serve them alcohol.
To whom is this comment addressed?
RebYidd23,
I want to grow them in my garden, but I’ve never heard of anyone else doing that. Why?
Because most hobbyist gardeners plant things that they eat, and tomatillos are not typically eaten or found in grocery stores in most of the U.S.
So it was Friday and we hadn’t made any challos yet, so I sent my kid to the bakery with some money to get challos for us. A little while later, the phone rings, and it’s the bakery. They say my kid cut to the front of the line, pushing an old lady in the process, was loud, and treated the cashier disrespectfully. I lectured them about how important the mitzva of kibbud av v’eim was, and how much merit my dear darling got for going out and bringing challos home to his family.
Now, everything I said in my lecture was true, but did I still miss the point?
bmyer,
Boys will be boys.
Indeed. Which is why, despite the fact that making an effort to collect tzedaka for someone needy is a tremendously meritorious act (and despite the straw man you and Joseph are putting forth, I doubt The little I know, Syag Lchochma, et al. disagree with that at all), it’s probably not a good idea to have unsupervised boys go into a shul or beis medrash during davening. And to be very clear: I’m not even implying that any organization is encouraging boys to go into shuls. But if it’s a known problem, the organizations leading the tzedaka fund have an obligation to properly instruct the boys where not to go.
The fact that they act a certain way does not mean their rabbeim / yeshivos told them to do so (this may come as a shock to you…).
Certainly not, but fairly or unfairly so, the behavior of children while “on duty” for an institution can result in a favorable or unfavorable impression of the institution. Therefore, the boys should be instructed and supervised.
And why the parenthetical snark?
Maybe yeshivos should REITERATE to be more respectful
It seems like you agree with the OP here.
but we’re talking about children they’re not mechuyav in mitzvos for a reason.
That does not mean we turn the other way if a child does something wrong.
apushatayid,
Google – “The Tefillin Jacket”
LOL, I can’t tell if that’s a joke or not, but it’s definitely a solution. Does anyone sell these?
Lilmod Ulelamaid,
Avrum – what do you see most people in your shul doing? What did most of the other guys do when you were in Yeshiva?
The majority of jacket-wearers in my shul leave the arm out of the sleeve. I never went to Yeshiva.
Lilmod Ulelamaid,
According to what Avrum wrote, it sounds like it’s almost impossible to do so halachically
I haven’t figured out a way… but a way must exist. DaasYochid knows his way, though I couldn’t figure out from his description how to make it work for me. Also, some people, e.g., Chabad, Sefardim, wrap their tefillin differently than I do (I wrap towards my body when the strap is over the arm), which may make it easier to keep the knot and box together while shoving the arm into the sleeve.
Is it the bottom of your heel that hurts? Is it worst in the morning, with the first steps you take after getting out of bed?
lightbrite,
DY: So the tefillin goes over the jacket cover? Like if a guy is wearing a white shirt under a black jacket, the tefillin is wrapped around the outside of the jacket?
So confused. I thought that tefillin goes on a bare arm. Like a blood pressure monitor.
The tefillin is placed directly on the bare arm, and then the sleeve(s) are pulled over the tefillin, covering them from view. The tefillin shel yad (I belive) are actually supposed to be covered from view, and they come with a black cover that slips over the bayis to fulfill this for those who don’t cover the arm with a sleeve.
The problem I had with my jacket personally when I tried putting my arm in the sleeve is that the tefillin shifted on my arm due to the effort of sticking the arm into the jacket sleeve. When I removed the jacket after davening, I saw that the knot and bayis were not touching (they are supposed to). DaasYochid was bentched with a third arm that he uses to hold the tefillin in place while he slips his jacket on and off.
Avi K,
A non-Jewish supervisor e-mailed a Jewish employee that he was working like a Hebrew slave. The employee filed a religious harassment claim and recovered $10K in damages plus $10,980 in attorney’s fees. How would you feel if you were the employee?
I have no idea. Context matters.
Joseph,
Bad comparison. Refusing to bow down to a getchke, even if that brings the spotlight, is the correct thing to do.
Absolutely, I certainly would never think that that was the issue. I was talking about the fact that Mordechai spent a lot of time near the king’s gates, which increased the potential for publicity and a negative reaction. He could have stayed home and not bowed to the getchke.
WolfishMusings,
I don’t know why you have such a burning desire to host a pity party for yourself at the expense of the honor of your parents, but please try and be sensitive to the feelings of other posters in the CR. You are not the only BT or child of a BT in the universe, and your publicly aired extrapolations of the words of the Chofetz Chaim to your personal situation can be hurtful to other BTs who have equivalent situations.
If you are truly worried about your spiritual standing, pour out your feelings and specific case to a trusted rav. Don’t ask him generalized, obfuscated questions and then extrapolate the answers to your specific case. That’s not fair to him, or to you. You wouldn’t handle a medical, plumbing, or electrical question that way, how much more so a spiritual question? Yes, we have the mishna, gemara, rishonim, and achronim, and those words are true, but Torah is best found in the mouth of a living and breathing rav. That is the proper way for the wisdom compiled over generations to be applied to you personally.
zahavasdad,
Someone explained it to me as this.
Alot of people are blaming Trump for increasing Anti-Semitism , which Turx did not know. When Turx asked the question, Trump took it differnetly thinking Turx was blaming him for Anti-Semitism, which is not what Turx meant
I think Turx knew very well that “people” were blaming Trump for an increase in anti-Semitism, and purposely tried to assure the President that he did not agree with the accusation. I think his question was an attempt to give the President an opportunity to undercut those accusations. Rather than taking the opportunity, the President poured gasoline on the issue and lit a match.
Joseph and FuturePOTUS,
I understand the concept you describe. My problem, however, is in defining “taking the spotlight” by the response rather than the act. If the CR was around 2500 years ago, would you be castigating Mordechai for arousing the wrath of Haman against the Jews? What business did he have hanging around the palace “taking the spotlight” anyway? And in this case, had the President responded magnanimously and rationally to the question, would this thread exist?
BigGolem,
Shame.
How elitist and insulting to the rest of us.
Lol, are we going to have to define an extension to Poe’s Law, where, instead of being unable to distinguish between sincere extreme opinions and parody of those opinions, we’re unable to distinguish between true outrage and a parody of outrage to those opinions?
misteryudi,
Third – The moon’s gravity does indeed protect the Earth from incoming space debris, including asteroids. Just look at how many impact craters it has.
The moon has so many impact craters because it is much less dynamic than the Earth, with no atmosphere/ocean system to burn up smaller incoming debris and cause erosion of impact craters that do occur, less volcanic activity, etc.
Joseph,
He probably shouldn’t have been there asking questions. And the same would apply to the previous (or any previous) President.
Ok. So “lechatchila” you think that a frum reporter should not attend a press conference held by the President. But, “bedieved”, what should a frum reporter do if called upon by the President?
I primarily look at the most recent threads and don’t use the categories below.
If he’s so perfect, why is he not married yet?
Joseph,
Who here ever said that the question was antagonistic?
DaasYochid did. He wrote:
From a journalistic perspective, perhaps, but it’s not a good idea to antagonize the president, especially since we know how volatile Trump is.
The fact that the second part of the question needed a disclaimer should have been reason enough not to ask it at all.
Fair to assume that DaasYochid feels that the question was antagonistic.
DaasYochid,
You shouldn’t be so surprised that Trump reacted the way he did. That’s who he is.
I wasn’t surprised.
Joseph,
Avram: DY’s underlying point is that Trump is the President of the United States. So even if he’s wrong and the Jew right, the Jew shouldn’t antagonise him, even unwittingly and unintentionally, since he’s the head of our government. (Or even if he were merely an influential governmental official.)
If that were his point, then his problem should have been with attendence at the press conference at all – not the question itself. Once called on (and did he really expect to be called on?), what should he have done? Refuse to speak?
Also, would you hold this same way if it were the previous president we were discussing?
DaasYochid,
There would not have been an answer had there not been a question.
And John wouldn’t have screamed obscenities at Richard had Richard not happened to be in front of him on the expressway.
Trump chose to call on Turx, and the question was such a softball that it could have only been “nicer” to the point of ridiculousness, like asking, “Mr. President, given how extremely awesome you are, how do you not make other people in the room feel so lowly in your presence?” Had the president just responded something even simple such as, “I think anti-Semitic acts are terrible”, there would have been no story.
Clarification on planting: spring crops are planted around Sukkos time in the southern hemisphere. Winter crops (e.g., hard red winter wheat) in Eretz Yisroel that are planted after Sukkos are planted around Pesach time in the southern hemisphere.
“Center” is a relative term. The relationship between Hashem and the Jewish people is at the center of Torah, even though the Jewish people are a tiny fraction of the global population. Yerushalayim is the center of much of our mitzvos, even though it is not at the Earth’s (or even today’s Jewish) geographic population center.
misteryudi,
As Jews, it would be problematic to our theology if any exoplanet is found to contain intelligent life forms, since the basis of our creation beliefs focus solely on Earth being the center of the universe, for all intents and purposes. Plant or animal life may not be as big of an issue.
I disagree. The Torah does not openly inform us whether there is “intelligent” life on other worlds or not. Why should it be problematic therefore if it were so? The basis of our Torah beliefs focuses almost solely on the Jewish people and the environment of Eretz Yisroel. Were Native Americans a challenge to our “theology”? Or the southern hemisphere, where planting happens around Sukkos time and harvesting around Pesach? Or northern Alaska, where during the summer there is no shkia at all?
Also, there are many additional criteria that must be met in order for an exoplanet to be able to contain life as we know it, such as having a large outer planet being able to deflect most space debris that comes your way, having a moon to control tides and also deflect debris, having the exoplanet tilt on its axis to allow for variations in climate, and many others. So just finding a planet in the goldilocks zone is not enough.
Much life on Earth requires seasonal variability because that life was designed to live on Earth. Why project that criteria elsewhere? Do tubeworms living by deep ocean vents need seasons? Also, the presence of high gravity planets in a star system is not the only way to reduce impacts. And how does the Moon reduce impacts? And would alien life living in a subsurface ocean environment heated by tidal expansion/contractions care about impacts at all?
The question did not cause the controversy, the “answer” did.
rebshidduch,
Avram, he already is frum just modern. He would become much more religious than just mo is that okay?
I cannot answer that question; only you can. Why does he want to become “much more religious”, and are those reasons ok with you?
<joke>Long rambling posts are endemic to Facebook, and we don’t want any non-Jewish Facebooky stuff over here. Twitter with its 120 character limit is the official social media platform of the Jewish people.</joke>
truncated
lightbrite,
According to Torah, a unanimous vote against or for something does not count. If it’s unanimous, then the trial lacked intellectual honesty because at least one judge would have looked at it from another angle.
I think the ruling that crabcakes are unkosher is unanimous, and it still counts.
I don’t think rebshidduch can determine whether someone “deserves” rebshidduch or not. This “guy” may be good for rebshidduch, he may not be. However, Avram in MD is concerned about the idea of “trying” to be frum “for” rebshidduch. If a “guy” tries to be something he does not want to be for rebshidduch, he may CV”S come to resent rebshidduch down the road.
WinnieThePooh,
It’s not the yawn that is rude. It is the “I would rather be sleeping than paying attention” that could be perceived as rude,
For me, I yawn when I am tired but trying to stay awake. A good yawn infuses my brain with oxygen and actually helps me to stay alert. I think a yawn would only be rude if it was loud.
Lilmod Ulelamaid,
Did you cover your mouth?
Nope. But I didn’t make a loud ho-hum noise, which is the only aspect of a yawn that I think is rude in public (particularly during a drasha!).
Were your kids or parents present?
Nope.
I yawned three times while reading this thread (seriously). It’s hard to witness a yawn or talk about yawning without yawning myself.
DaasYochid,
Me. I put my arm through the sleeve.
The one and only time I did that, when I took the jacket off to remove my tefillin, I noticed that the knot and box had separated quite a bit (not good). How do you prevent that from happening?
Joseph,
I don’t see a good reason that it should be that binary choice you presented.
Understood. I set the binary choice up because I wanted to better understand your reasoning for the necessity of a jacket. Your OP essentially made a “nice clothes” argument, which others were responding to exclusively; but I figured there was more to the jacket than just nice or formality.
RebYidd23,
Why not? We do every year when Parshas Noach is leined after Simchas Torah.
Joseph,
Sincere question: Which do you think is preferable – to wear a nice shirt and pants to shul with no jacket, or more regular clothes with a windbreaker thrown on as a jacket?
lightbrite,
Do humans feel shame when animals become instinct?
There have been several mass extinction events in planetary history – potentially caused by substantial environmental changes. Humans are causing substantial planetary changes now (as we have for much of our history), which is partly causing a new mass extinction event. Should we be ashamed? I don’t think that environmental changes intended to better human living conditions are wrong. I do think, however, that we should become more aware of and smarter about the changes that we are making, as many of them are random and unintentional. A huge depletion of biodiversity is probably not good for humanity in the long run – it limits our ability to adapt to change.
Not realizing that the world was more species diverse at one point.
It’s been more, it’s been less.
rebshidduch,
Did anyone here get a speeding ticket? If so how much was it and how many points if any? Was it by a speeding camera or a cop?
Not sure if it is this way everywhere, but in most locations, violations caught by camera without police involvement do not result in points on your license, or get reported to your insurance. Also, if given a police citation for the first time, many jurisdictions allow you to take a remedial driving safety course, which allows you to avoid points on your license, but you still have to pay the fine (unless you contest it and win in court).
lightbrite,
Someone suggested a way to protect a baby boy’s neshama from sin early on.
Hooray for anonymous sources! “Someone” suggested to me that tying chicken leg quarters to my pants pockets is a good way to repel dogs.
It includes covering the baby’s crib with a kol ha’ne’arum tallis.
What’s the difference between a “kol hanearim tallis” and a regular tallis?
Not having any nurses.
Huh?
And have the baby listen to Duvid Chaim every day.
Who is Duvid Chaim?
Assuming this person is serious
I don’t. I think you got BT trolled.
is a female nurse a threat to a baby’s neshama?
No.
Would he have a more difficult time guarding his eyes as an adult if he had a nurse take care of him once in a while?
No.
And about covering the crib with a tallis…
How do you know he’s okay and still breathing?
Exactly. And what about dirty diapers?
HaLeiVi,
If I were a child that got therapy for any whimsical statement I uttered, I’d be scared to open my mouth again.
Ummm, wut
Where did anyone suggest that a child get “therapy” for any statement he makes, whimsical or not?
I (think I) understood the rules clearly enough. The only suggestion I have for your description of the game is to clearly separate between setup (equipment, layout), and play, and to describe them in that order.
My thoughts (and you can check that my interpretation of the game is correct)…
Setup
Number of players: 2
Equipment needed:
1. 22 pieces for each player. The player must be able to distinguish his own pieces from his opponent’s. Also, the pieces must be stackable on top of each other. Checkers, playing cards, etc. are good for this.
2. A 5×5 grid. The grid squares must be large enough to fit stacks of players’ pieces
Play
Goal: To accumulate stacks of 5 or more pieces. The first player to obtain 3 stacks wins.
Rules of play:
1. Players alternate turns (arm wrestle for first turn, or youngest goes first, whatever), and can take one action per turn.
2. During his turn, player can take one of the three following actions:
a. Put a piece down from his hand onto an empty square
b. Move a single (unstacked) piece on the board to an adjacent empty square or on top of another piece/stack (I’m assuming this is legal based on your description)
c. Remove any number of pieces from an existing stack and put them on an empty square or another piece/stack that is at a distance from the original square equal to the number of pieces removed from the stack. NOTE: Pieces can be moved horizontally, vertically, or diagonally across the board, but only across empty squares. They cannot “jump” over occupied squares. Entire stacks can be transferred and placed on other stacks in this manner.
3. When, at the end of a turn, a stack has 5 or more pieces in it, it is removed from the board and awarded to the player whose piece is on the top of the stack.
Shopping.. Are you sure you’re in a Jewish school?!? What in the world is wrong with the first two posts your teacher bashed?!?
Straw Man, let me introduce you to Mr. No True Scotsman.
mentsch1,
Example of non-frum job;
Veterinarian
Neutering is assur
Very interesting response, thank you!
Aaaaaa! It’s winter! Whatever shall we do?