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newbee,
I dont generally see this and it is usually a subtle thing known but not discussed. But its very possible others do discuss it.
For me personally, I discuss how I feel Hashem’s presence extensively with my wife, rarely with my Rav, and pretty much never with anyone else (except my post above, and even there I described things vaguely and briefly).
newbee,
Also, do some people feel nothing at all and only relate to mitzvos out of a sense of intellect or obligation?
Sometimes. I tend to have varying degrees of experience in my relationship with Hashem.
Once on Yom Kippur during Mussaf, when the kohanim began their bracha, I sensed an intense energy radiating from their hands, somewhat like the feeling of direct sunlight on my face when my eyes are closed. Although there were no physical sensations, I would have feared to look directly at the kohanim had I tried to. Emotionally I felt very protected. Other times I do not feel anything special during bircas kohanim.
Once I was davening very intently for the success of something I was trying to accomplish, and if I was successful, it would have helped me Jewishly, so I thought Hashem would surely help me. Instead, events seemed to conspire to thwart me at every turn, and I was ultimately unsuccessful. I felt dejected and rejected. Several months later, however, a new opportunity came up that was far better than what I was previously trying to accomplish. Had I been successful previously, the new opportunity would never have come up. I once again felt very protected. Other times I have a more difficult time seeing the good in disappointments or frustrations.
Sometimes when I am learning Torah I get a sense of awe that what I am dealing with is not of human origin, but is in fact Divine. Other times, while intellectually aware of that fact, I don’t attain the sense of awe.
I have been slowly learning that kavannah is important, not just in davening, but in everything that I do.
newbee,
So not one person can actually describe what it feels like to come into contact with God and what a personal relationship feels like?
Perhaps it’s not an issue of ability, but rather willingness, since you are asking a rather personal question.
Instead lets have another 5 thousand conversations about cholov yisroel, talking in shule and shidduchim.
Note that the CR is not full of threads discussing people’s feelings and experiences regarding their relationships with their spouses either. It’s too personal.
RebYidd23,
They are not suicide bombers.
Give a dog the ability to be one and tell him there’s a big box of dog biscuits in it for him, and I’d bet he’d do it.
RebYidd23,
Plants are very active.
Depends on your definition of active.
Animals do not have any impulse to do anything that harms others without benefiting them in some way.
Have you interacted with animals? That is a big underestimation of their impulses and intelligence. Animals feel jealousy and rage. They overeat, get fat, and get heart disease. They sometimes bite for little or no reason. They can be psychotic and anti-social. They can be lazy.
RebYidd23,
Animals don’t lock up animals in cramped space and deny them proper food and companionship. People do.
Cats torment mice and birds. Feivel can tell you about a wasp that takes over the brain of a spider and drives it around before eating it alive. Dogs sometimes shun other dogs at the dog park.
By acting like a plant, a human being confines his neshama, keeping it from rising, deprives it of companionship with Hashem, and fails to keep it fed via spiritual growth. That doesn’t make plants evil or make it an insult to call a person a plant.
To willfully act like a plant would be evil; however, we tend to be more repulsed by active evil, e.g., harming others. And the vast majority of plants are not active.
The sins for which people are called “animals” are not of the types of actions that animals do. They are of the exclusively human evil variety.
The exclusive human evil variety is a toxic gumbo of animal impulses and human intellect.
DaasYochid,
I don’t think this was talking about unzerer.
Correct. I am referring to legally entitled recipients of government aid.
Avram, was this what you were referring to?
Yes, that thread has factored heavily into my responses to this thread and the one in which I was OP.
squeak,
The equivalent example is someone who burns down his own house to get insurance money. Charity is a safety net, but it is not insurance.
Fine, poor choice of analogy on my part. Have a good Shabbos.
squeak,
it was pretty obvious that you were trying to engineer someone into setting you up for your coup de grace,
No, I was interested specifically in zahavadad’s answer, but since I won’t get one, I used yours as a proxy.
and I was pretty disappointed in your hand once you played it.
Well it’s a good thing I don’t exist to satisfy you.
You are way off topic if you believe that we are talking about the generic US welfare program receipient in this conversation. They typically are driving old pickup trucks not lexuses.
You obviously don’t interact with typical recipients. Poor purchasing decisions are extremely common among all Americans, impoverished included. And I don’t really believe the Lexus shpiel anyway; zahavasdad made that one up and I was just asking him a question on it.
This conversation is about unzerer welfare receipients, who by and large live upper middle class lifestyles made possible by having discovered the absolute best possible way to maximize benefits and have succeeded tremendously, with a great deal of “credit” due to entire organizations dedicated to this goal.
You may want the conversation to be about your fictitious Welfare Queens, but it is not. Reagan’s Welfare Queen bogeymen were engaged in illegal activities, e.g., being eight people (identity fraud) as he said, not legal recipients, which I am addressing alone. I do not think it is possible to truly live an upper middle class lifestyle and be on assistance simultaneously and legally. Sorry, but your unzerer is an enforcement problem, not a problem with the assistance.
I don’t think I used the word lazy
No, but it was strongly implied.
If you can’t see how that can drive an average person crazy, then you are not nearly as level headed as your years of posting here indicate.
There’s a difference between understanding that an average person would be driven crazy by it, and why that is so, and even feeling that way myself at times (which I do), and accepting it as a correct and valid response.
Disclaimer: wrote this response very quickly with little proofing.
If you’ve met Joseph, how many posters do you count?
🙂
RebYidd23,
How is walking around on four legs and eating grass evil? Stupid if you’re human, but not evil.
Suppose you lock up an animal in a cramped space, keeping it from roaming and devoid of companionship, and you feed it inadequate food until it dies. Is that not an evil thing to do?
By acting like an animal, a human being confines his neshama, keeping it from rising, deprives it of companionship with Hashem, and fails to keep it fed via spiritual growth. Is that not an evil thing to do?
squeak,
But there is no tayneh that the money is being taken from hard working people under the guise of desperation for charitable assistance
Hence my recent ranting OP. Why think of government programs as charity, as opposed to insurance, or a safety net? Yes, hard workers pay taxes that go towards these programs, but if one day Heaven forbid that hard worker gets sick or injured, or gets laid off, or whatever, those programs are there to ensure that they and their families do not starve, have access to antibiotics, and can keep a roof over their heads.
flatbusher,
What’s more the assumption is one going to grad school is gaining knowledge and training that will qualify them for employment and in effect they will “repay” what they have gotten through taxes of earned income.
Based on this reasoning, would you advocate for universal free or heavily subsidized college or university education for all US citizens? After all, a few years’ investment would eliminate the need for low income assistance, and thus it would ultimately pay for itself and reduce the Federal budget beyond that, right?
zahavasdad,
Is it legitimate to claim government benefits so a person can raise a family while going to grad school?
Just because others are doing something wrong, doesnt mean we should copy them. We should be on a higher level
You think that is a wrong use of government benefits? I spoke to a social worker who was involved in processing applications for these benefits who said that that is the “poster child” case for these programs. What on earth do you think is a legitimate case?
squeak,
Why should I work so hard and have no disposable income while this guy [on government assistance] gets to take it easy and have everything I have plus more?
Aha! Thank you for this speculative answer. This is the type of answer I was anticipating from zahavasdad to my question, although he refuses to answer me. My response to this line of thinking is that its root is a sentiment (born partly from Puritan theology) that effort and wealth are directly proportional. This sentiment has some good to it: it is motivational and a pillar of the American Dream. But it also can result in an attitude towards poor people that their poverty is their own fault. Because if they just work harder, then they wouldn’t be poor. And the fact that they take government assistance instead of lifting themselves out of poverty by their own bootstraps demonstrates that they are lazy. This may be true in some cases, but it is certainly not the rule.
If I see people on government assistance driving a Lexus, I can make a number of either favorable or unfavorable assumptions based directly on the observation. They were recently well off but fell on hard times, the car was a gift, they have poor budgeting/spending habits and therefore bought something they couldn’t afford and are hurting for it, they have poor impulse control, they have deep insecurity and desire a fancy car as a status symbol, they stole it, they’re kleptomaniac millionaires who hid their wealth from the government because they love Medicaid more than their employer’s insurance benefits, etc. etc. But lazy? That not logically follow from seeing a Lexus. That assumption is born through the prejudice of the observer.
When an animal acts like an animal it is not evil.
When a human acts like an animal, it is evil.
flatbusher,
OK, so is it legitimate to claim government benefits just so a person can remain in kollel? If a person is able to earn money by working, is it right for a person to use food stamps and get section 8 just to support their kollel lifestyle?
Is it legitimate to claim government benefits so a person can raise a family while going to grad school?
newbee,
There is only legal and illegal. Smelling does not matter. And a judge determines if it is legal or not in this country.
I agree. And to a large extent, the “smell” says more about the smeller than the doer.
This thread is getting really off topic and silly, I wonder how much longer its going to last.
Do you think this digression is sillier than the OP??
zahavasdad,
Look we all know …
Look, are you ever gonna answer my question? Why can’t a person receiving EBT own a nice car, or wear nice clothing, or have a nice bag?
Nobody really knocks people who speed, however you hear alot about people who get unwarranted Food Stamps, Section 8 and other government money.
We are not talking about unwarranted assistance, but rather legally received assistance that you happen to have a problem with simply because the recipients are Jewish and in Kollel.
And it’s funny to me how one moment you decry the evils of even coming close to the legal line, and the next you out-of-hand dismiss an outright illegal act. Speeding can kill people, by the way, whereas a Jew in kollel receiving food assistance is pretty safe for bystanders.
And I said a Nice car not a car.
Umm, I said nice car too.
You posted before about a Honda Odeyseey. That is not a nice car.
What? I guess you haven’t been in one lately. A new Odyssey runs around $30 to $45k, which is right in line with the Lexus ES (sedan) or NX/RX (SUV) series.
people need a car to get around.
Right, so if a man with a good job and a Lexus suddenly becomes unemployed and needs government assistance, would you demand that he give up the Lexus?
zahavasdad,
Obviously you dont get my point, A person who is a Kollel person should not just study torah, he should live torah and people should be able to look at them and say What a Kiddush Hashem they are.
Actually, I get your point, and it may surprise you, but I agree.
What I am disagreeing with is your arbitrary definition of a “legal yet still gray” area.
When people have to do things to surive to learn in kollel that are bordering the fence between legal and illegal it does not create a kiddish hashem.
So a while back you stated that a person receiving EBT benefits should not own a nice car. I asked for an explanation and didn’t receive one. You are making the same type of case in this thread, so perhaps you can explain to me now why owning a nice car is a “gray area”?
The ‘Smell good” term was used to describe this greyish area of legal vs illegal
That’s different from what you wrote above. Above, you stated that something could be legal, both from a civil and halachic standpoint, yet still fail some sort of arbitrary smell test. I think we can agree that it’s not a good idea to flirt with illegality, but who gets to be the arbiter of what wholly legal activities smell good or bad? What if I decide one day that Kollel people shouldn’t drive red cars on Interstates, because people who buy red cars must be speeders. Just doesn’t pass the smell test. ?
With enough chrain the fish can climb a tree.
squeak,
its stated openly in the HUD contract that the owner is not a family member of the renter.
Thanks, good information. Zahavasdad assumed it was legal, e.g.,
its legal and not against Halcha, but it certainly doesnt smell good.
and thus I took it as a given. My question to him still stands, even if the example employed in this discussion does not.
It’s breach of contract. Which may or may not be illegal.
Is it a breach of contract (not illegal, but could result in termination of arrangements and/or financial penalties), or is it providing false (or witholding) information on an application for funds, which would likely be illegal?
zahavasdad,
Like is it Ok to use section 8 to pay for rent on a house owned by your father-in-law, its legal and not against Halcha, but it certainly doesnt smell good.
Can you explain to me why it doesn’t “smell good”?
Joseph,
The point certainly does have meaning once you understand the underlying message. Namely that learning more Torah is better than learning less Torah.
What do you mean by “the point”?
As for your second sentence, I agree 100%. But as I wrote to DaasYochid, learning Torah is an act, whereas the OP is referring to the inherent value of a person.
DaasYochid,
It is functionaly meaningless (or worse) if used to justify life choices, and especially if to be haughty.
It is not functionally meaningless if the values and prioritization of values are used to make life choices.
In your response to me, you’re discussing the value of an act versus the OP, who is talking about the value of a person. In my mind these are two very different things. We can definitely rank and compare actions and lifestyles, but not people, unless perhaps one is a navi.
Avi K says everyone needs to do their job. Okay, but what if someone has the ability to do either? Should he choose to spend most of his day learning Torah or computer programming?
Learning Torah.
flatbusher,
In some recent threads that I’ve participated in, I get the impression that there are people out there who seem to suggest that somehow people who are in kollel are better than Jews than the rest of us frum people. Is there any basis for believing that?
Wait a minute, you mean to tell me that there are people out there who justify their own life choices by insinuating that they are better? I am shocked. Shocked, I tell you!
Welcome to humanity 🙂
Joseph,
The teretz is that all other things being equal, a person who learns Torah more is better than a person who learns Torah less.
I agree; however, it is fundamentally impossible for two separate people to have “all other things” be equal. So this answer is functionally meaningless.
Neville ChaimBerlin,
How can a person argue that a candidate who gets the nomination by popular choice would fare worse in an election than some RNC crony forced on us?
Because in the general election, the “us” expands from just registered Republicans to the entire American electorate. And in a recent Quinnipiac poll, 50% of registered voters indicated that they would be embarrassed by a Trump presidency.
Ubiquitin: “If say, Rubio is forced on them what do you think will happen, they will vote for Hillary? “
I would.
Really?? Seriously? You’d cut off your nose to spite your face like that? And here all this time I thought you were a conservative on principle.
zahavasdad,
There are 2 seperate issues, Preventing a sin from happening and what to do AFTER sin happens and there is nothing you can do about it, and how to react to the aftermath of the sin
So I’ll repeat what I wrote in response to WolfishMusings: After the fact, if “containing the damage” was Hashem’s top priority, why would He permit mamzerim to marry at all?