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I guess the cheese stands alone. While I am not 100% sure yet, I am leaning towards Obama. I feel like with respect to the Israel issue, the State Department basically dictates the relationship between Israel and the USA and all presidents are more or less the same.
On domestic issues, I consider myself a liberal and Obama comes closer to being progressive than Romney.
I also like some of the things Romney has to offer like an expertise in handling the economy. So I dont know yet.
That being said, I would vote in a second for a Guiliani-Bloomberg ticket!
We twice had the same situation. We ended up getting a double (and a single). The double was for long walks especially on shabbos or for days at the park/outings. When the situation first came up, I was against it and my wife was for it. Turns out she was totally right (what else is new?). We would not have been able to make it without a double.
aaah details details details. this is not the place for such details. just remember when the system is in place that some idiot on YWN once mentioned it a long time ago.
fed ben fed – lets first start conceptually. if you believe that jewish education is a right then that means it should be readily accessible to everyone. if you believe that it is a privilege, like say, college education is, then if you can afford it you get it and if you cannot you do not. (also see the rambam, hilchos talmud torah, who places the obligation upon the entire community).
lets now talk chomer – i wholeheartedly agree that we should be pushing advanced degrees etc etc but practically speaking, if a person is paying 4 yeshiva tuitions, he needs to earn $70,000 or so just to cover those expenses. It is unreasonable to expect growing families to commit that much earning power to cover education. even with advanced degrees we cant expect such a thing. and when will they save for the future? and when will they buy a house? (in fact, i suspect the great hesitation we see from some sectors in joining the work force is the realization that even if they work hard they will never be able to come close to cover expenses – with tuition being a great burden).
alternatively, we can expect frum families to limit themselves to 2 children spread many years apart. not a choice that hashem will want.
instead, if people pay a yeshiva tax the way they do property/school tax or the way the archdiocese does it, it will place the responsibility upon the community (the way it is done among chassidic communities, the catholic school system, the public school system).
patri: we are headed to centralized billing one way or another. it sounds impractical now but it will be the way your grandkids pay tuition. i see it maybe evolving as follows: a large endowment will be established to support paying tuition. schools will want to get some of that money. people will want to apply for that money. the larger it gets the more muscle it will have in dictating to the jewish community what it needs to do in order to be eligible. shuls add a yeshiva tax upon their high holiday seats, or something of that nature. of course there will be many that will be exempt from such a tax; the elderly living on a fixed income, for example.
i posted the framework for a solution but it was censored off. i am not sure why. i am not going to go through the whole thing again. bottom line: it costs $10k or so to educate a child in a typical NY area community or similar metropolis. It is unfair to expect only parents of the educated to contribute to education (thereby converting education from a right to a privilege). Even the public school system and other religious school systems rely heavily upon the general populous to fund education. If we are to take this problem seriously we need to begin considering centralized billing. Maybe all the detail i gave last time got me censored so i will just throw that concept at you. A centralized system into which everyone pays whether or not you have kids in yeshiva. most of what you pay into it ends up being tax deductible too (added benefit). its obviously complicated but i believe we are headed in that direction.
fed ben fed, i have sadly given up any hope of ever buying as house because i feel the need to meet my tuition obligations. that being said, you are incorrect in your assumption that the reason yeshiva tuition is so high is because of the cost shifting. this is simply not the case. if you simply take a look at what it costs to educate a child in the public school system you will see that the yeshiva tuition is really not much more than the actual cost. the REAL problem is that the yeshiva system is the ONLY school system that relies entirely on the parent body to financially support the education of the children.
Nechomo, thanks for your really insightful posts on the subject – how refreshing!
Logician – being a housewife is an important full time job. Like being a lawyer, a doctor, a plumber, a bricklayer or anything else. Some of these jobs require more brain use and some less. Even a bricklayer or plumber can go home after a long hard day of mixing cement or unclogging sewers and read Plato and study Latin but at the end of the day, being a plumber is not an intellectually stimulating vocation.
Same for being a housewife. It is an important role that is the right job for some people and not the right job for others. One reason (among many) someone may not want to be a housewife is because she wants a job where she will need to use her mind as a part of her job on a continuous and regular basis. Housewife does not offer these opportunities.
Like Nechomo said, each person should really do what fits them taking their whole picture into account. Just like I would not recommend that anyone become a doctor ONLY for the money but rather I will suggest looking at many other factors, most importantly what is it you WANT to do, i would also not recommend that a woman become a housewife just because she is a married orthodox jewish woman with a family.
While i believe a family that can have a housewife has many advantages over families that do not, each woman must make an independent choice (after reviewing the TOTAL picture).
rav ovadia paskens like this for single women as well.
gavra,
when people belittle rav lamn or rav schachter you are not insulting a person but also all the torah they carry. even if you have little respect for the person (which is mum in you not the person) please do not place in such little regard the torah they have learned and teach. the torah is special enough that even when carried in a keyli you dont approve, should be given a certain amount of respect.
it doesnt sound like you have a case at hand and you are just asking theoretically but if you have suspicions of a serious crime you should report it to the police or to the person responsible for the victim (like a parent or teacher).
My wife asked me if I enjoy a good cry sometimes. I told her no but I do enjoy a good sneeze. She told me I have a non-existant emotional gradient.
lightitup, you have to leave these things aside. judiasm does not call for you to psycho-analyze under a microscope such dim concepts such as basherts and worthiness and true zivug and yetzer haras. we are not meant to understand nor do these things work in a scientific way that allow you to work equations and get answers. in fact, there is no human that give you right answers to these questions. in the end, trying to figure this out will make it harder for you to get anything done and can also drive you insane.
i suggest you work on being the best you can and then follow your heart, your brains and the people you trust (in that order). anything else said on the topic is a complete waste of time and can only be detrimental.
correction, hershi is not entirely correct: there is no prohibition to go to the parties as hershi suggests but you cannot drink alcohol (presumably because that is taking closeness/socializing to a new level).
also, hershi is incorrect that ONLY touching is assur because of the issue of socializing – in truth, all yayin “nesech” is assur only for socializing reasons and the term “yayin nesech” is a misnomer.
sam2: see, also Yoreh De’ah 114:1. Sepharadi Jews who do not hold by the leniency of the Rama there indeed hold like the Rambam as hershi states prohibiting all drinking at bars/clubs and non-jewish parties. See, also, the Beis Yosef on Yoreh De’ah 112 which proves the Rambam from the gemuruh in avoyda zuruh daf lamed umud alef.
you can do what you please but i believe hershi’s logic is spot on and that it is indeed ussur to drink at bars/clubs/goyesh parties.
what about the red bull shots? any reason to believe it contains anything different than the carbonated drink?
hershi: indeed, the rambam holds exactly as you state. you cannot party with goyim or go to their clubs/bars even if youre drinking kosher.
sam2: he is not making it up, it is haluchu mefurush.
hilchoys machlos asuroys, yud zayin, tess-yud
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? ????: ?? ???? ??? ?????? ?? ?????, ??? ?? ?? ???? ??? ????? ????? ????, ?? ???? ????? ????? ????; ??? ??? ??? ?????? ?????, ????.
if geula is based on level of observance and affiliation with torah judaism, in order to make up 20% you would probably have to include all denominations of orthodox jews and a large portion of conservative jews and some reform jews as well.
Take the US as a base. Eliminate 10% of the jewish people in the united states who are jewish but do not know it because their mother was completely unaffiliated. Eliminate another 30% or so atheist american jews and youre at 40%. Eliminate another 20% of jews that are not atheists but not affiliated with any synagogue or organized religion and inter-married jews and youre at 60%. Now eliminate the 20% most extreme non-observant jews of the reform movement and conservative movement and youre at 80%.
i am not sure that the other jews would even be interested in joining a jewish people in the middle east living by jewish standards.
jewish music that sounds as if they did not even try (which sadly encompasses much of the jewish music scene today).
more: your comments are extremely uncalled for and are also wholly untrue. the reason the chassidishe schools charge less for tuition is not because it costs substantially less to educate a child in that system but rather because in chassidishe communities the ENTIRE community gets involved in supporting the educational system. This is not dissimilar to the catholic school system which relies on funding from the Archdiocese which is supported by all Catholic and the public school system which relies on taxing the entire community. The non-chassidic schools expect only the parents of the kids in the school to support the system thereby converting the right every child has to a jewish education to a privilege that you are entitled to only if you can afford it. Our schools have a lot to learn from the chassidim and apparently, so do you.
it was not done to out-pray jews – it was actually done to imitate the jews. on yom kippur. on yom kippur we pray five times and bow with our knees to the ground and head down. they copied our holiest day and made it every day.
yungerman: you should hear my rabbeyim. i dont think they believed that they were moytzee laaz on anyone practicing judaism. i once asked one, “if rav yoel was a mechalel shabbos befarhessia are you saying deenoy kegoy?!?!?” he said “lav dafka. he is a tinnik shenishba.” meaning, the the satmer rebbe, in this rabbis eyes, was no different in his level of observance than the hollywood unaffiliated jews. i dont think he saw satmar as practicing jews.
nu, im more tolerant i guess. i dont look down on satmar, lubavitch, “modern orthodox” or any other label.
it is well known that rav yoel tietlebaum used the “rabbeinu tam shkia” to accept shabbos until rav aaron kutler told him not to do so in america.
i have been taught that the “rabbeinu tam shkia” has no halachic basis and cannot be relied upon even beshaas hadchak. accordingly, my rebbeyim have taught me that anyone that uses “rabbeinu tam shkia” to accept shabbos is a mechalel shabbos.
This is what the professionals use:
1. Do you lose time from work due to your drinking?
2. Is drinking making your home life unhappy?
3. Do you drink because you are shy with other people?
4. Is drinking affecting your reputation?
5. Have you ever felt remorse after drinking?
6. Have you gotten into financial difficulties as a result of your drinking?
7. Do you turn to lower companions and an inferior environment when drinking?
8. Does your drinking make you careless of your family’s welfare?
9. Has your ambition decreased since drinking?
10. Do you crave a drink at a definite time daily?
11. Do you want a drink the next morning?
12. Does drinking cause you to have difficulty in sleeping?
13. Has your efficiency decreased since drinking?
14. Is drinking jeopardizing your job or business?
15. Do you drink to escape from worries or troubles?
16. Do you drink alone?
17. Have you ever had a complete loss of memory as a result of your drinking?
18. Has your physician ever treated you for drinking?
19. Do you drink to build up your self-confidence?
20. Have you ever been in a hospital or institution on account of drinking?
If you have answered YES to any one of the questions, there is a definite warning that you may be an alcoholic.
If you have answered YES to any two, the chances are that you are an alcoholic.
If you have answered YES to three or more, you are definitely an alcoholic.
Avg family with 4 tuitions being paid requires at least $150k a year to make ends meet.
logician says: sorry besalel, but by adding your “morever”, you’ve entered this ridiculous debate 🙂
you are 100% correct. kibalti.
i guess thats why youre the logician.
health, im afraid youre missing my point. i very much would like to see all jews keep 613 mitzvoys and i fully support private organizations that work hard at spreading the beauty of our torah to all corners of the world and i fully support private organizations that try to help gay jews live a torah lifestyle but i do not believe that my religious beliefs should be the guide by which laws of the united states are legislated.
nor do i see anything in the torah that requires me to insist that the torah be implemented as law in the united states.
just when you think the ridiculousness of some people hit rock bottom you encounter a debate between health and think first over the nature of gilgulim.
i suggest that you take any saifer that discusses gilgulim and put it aside. pick up a gemarah.
how in the world would anyone know the “science” of gilgulim?
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Moreover, the Yismach Moshe claimed he was a gilgul of a sheep. argue what you may about the sanity of someone who makes such an outlandish statement, i find it difficult to imagine that someone who believes in gilgulim can believe that you can come back from sheephood but not womanhood. i would imagine that if a saifer existed stating that women cannot come back, it was written by a misogynist in order to attract the attention of fellow misogynists.
mz: you are probably right. if my children were to leave the fold, id probably be very sad about it. and we jews should feel like family with one another. so youre probably right that we should feel bad. i simply dont. i am not saying that everyone should feel the way i do. i am just saying that this is how i actually feel not how i should feel.
health: it is not a crime to commit adultery and it is not a crime to be christian. i wish people did not commit any adultery and were not idol worshipers. especially other frum jews.
i also do not think there should be a law criminalizing adultery or being christian.
in todays society adultery is prevalent. we had two us presidents (kennedy and clinton) that were quite open about it. and indeed, the openness in which american society treats adultery is disturbing and not one i want to raise my kids in. so is Christianity. my 3 year old knows way more about christmas than id like.
i still do not want adultery to be a crime. same with Christianity.
quite the opposite, id like to see laws that are guided by principles of fairness and progressive democracy which respect all people no matter their color or creed and allows them to worship as they please or not worship at all. this is the medina shel chessed that we jews have been given the right to flourish in.
the statement below is not intended to be about the woman in question as she claims she is observant and i am not about to question her on that.
but…
i know i am not particularly liked around here for this opinion but my view has always been: if someone wants to leave the fold then just let them.
judaism is about quality not quantity and has historically been that way. id rather have a powerful torah observant jewish nation than one diluted with the drek that is the american jew.
they are happier leaving, we should be just as happy. you want to intermarry? go right on ahead. marry the same gender? mazal tov!
i dont see the point in keep unaffiliated jews tied to a religion they will come to hate. hashem gives them bechira why should man take that away from them? trust me, the jewish nation will survive and flourish beautifully with or without garbage jews like noam chomsky, norm finklestein, elmer berger and similar anti semites. i wish these people were not jewish. what good does it do for anyone (other than having a nice channuka song come out once every few years) that all these hollywood guys are jewish? why should i want all these people to stay jewish?
being jewish is a privilege and an honor and if someone does not appreciate that privilege then quite frankly they shouldnt have it.
id very much love to see a jewish world which is 75% observant with zero reformed temples and the best way to get to that dream is intermarriage and gay marriage. i support them both.
People’s knee jerk reaction reminds me of the mattisyahu deal. Hey just because someone is no longer chassidish doesn’t mean they are no longer frum. In some cases it could be they leave the rote of non thinking robot behavior and find a true kesher to hakadosh baruch hu.
As for the original question: perhaps if you see a young beautiful 18 hear old being arranged in marriage to an abusive man with the face of a horse you can safely predict this may not go so well in a few years.
There are many faults with your backwards thinking but at the most basic is the twisted idea that but for gay marriage we Jews can live comfortably in regular society. Fact is gay marriage or no gay marriage the American POP culture society is no place for raising kids. I am far from being a hareidi but it has now become increasingly clear that exposing our children to what the world has to offer unfettered is a horrible idea.
Instead, we frum Jews should do our jobs raising our kids frum and let gay men and women live their lives without our involvement.
The idea that this is our fight is ludicrous. It is just as stupid as asking America to ban Christianity because it is idol worship.
We have been given the great privilege of living as we choose in this great country. The idea that we can now come to them and say live by our rules is so chutzpadik it is repulsive. Be a liberal or be a conservative or be anything else you want but leave our Torah out of it.
littleapple: i dont think someone will, for one second, reconsider being gay because he or she cannot get married.
but i will go even further: who cares. Vachamushim Aloo Benei Yisroel Mimitzrayeem. Only 20% saw the geula, says the medrush.
The jewish national was ALWAYS about quality and not quantity. If the non observant are happy being gay or inter-married and wish to leave the fold, then who are we to stop them.
I’d rather have a jewish nation with a great majority of observant jews than a larger jewish nation diluted with the likes of the american jew.
let them go. we’re happy, they’re happy. just let them go.
i suppose youre right in that these things ended up getting bunched together, however, a mitzvah is a mitzvah. im not going to give up the possibility of doing a mitzvah simply because it became associated with a certain hashkufu.
as for gedolim who wear techeiles, i hear your argument and completely understand why someone would be completely in the black if he chose to follow this path. i, however, am more convinced by the arguments presented from the text (as related by chacham) which suggest that maybe i can be zoiche to be yoytzey a special mitzveh that no one in family has fulfilled in hundreds and hundreds of years. wheres the harm in trying?
Gatesheader: you do realize that most observant Jews are not anti-zionist right? I mean there’s much you can complain about with the zionists but most frum Jews have rejected the satmar approach (even though we completely respect the non-zionists and their view of the halacha).
Doswin: I was talking about free speech not gay marriage. In any event I have no problem with conservatives and I respect their views (even though I am a liberal) I just don’t like seeing our Torah getting dragged into the middle of it.
Our Torah is waaaay above the petty nonsense of the liberals versus conservatives.
Doswin: I am glad to be living in a country where people who think like you are a tiny fraction of a small minority.
Doswin: you are not being sincere. It is also an issur for the goyim to “bless” hashem but you will never advocate a law that says anyone you does so should go to jail. It would be great if all the goyim kept the 7 laws but since when is it our job to force them to do so in their own country?
Bottom line is the goyim on the right are trying to goad religious Jews to support a cause that has nothing to do with us. Let them fight it out and keep your nose out of it (from a religious perspective. If you want stam to be a conservative then all the power to you but leave our torah out of their politics.)
im with the gatesheader on this one. the definition of marriage, for me, is controlled by the torah and always has been and always will be. what the politicians do with this law has zero effect on my life so why should it bother me?
i guess its true: there is no theory too dumb to be defended by somebody out there.
The idea that you need a mesorah in order to do a mitzvah is one I find quite silly. Put aside everything for a second and think about it. If the Torah says do something then its a mitzvah to do it. It’s really as simple as that.
However, in order to passkin lehalacha that one is obligated to do anything you MUST follow the structure and rules of halacha which may very likely require case precedent. The evidence of techeiles is purely scientific. there are no halachic tools available today to poskim which allow them to weigh this science. Therefore there is no way, without what you call mesorah, to pakin that one must wear techeiles.
Since there is no aveira involved in wear blue and science suggests you are doing a mitzvah then why not take the chance that maybe you are doing one?
Poppa bar abba: why is such a pious holy man such as yourself paying such close attention to the woman’s section?
Sam: thanks for cite. Interestingly, Rav ovadia holds that sticking your tzitzit out your pants if you are sefaradi can be an issur too.
Sam: I also heard of such a shitta but was never able to find one. Can you please direct me?
wandering chana: most sepharadim also refrain from eating chudush. also, the sefaradic standard for glatt is more restrictive than the ashkenazi. also, their stance on bishul askim make most kosher restaurants off limits (although rav ovadia does say that bishul akum may not apply to restaurants at all so sefaradim can rely on us for restaurants). also on peysach, some sefaradim (afghanis and some bukharians and iranians) wont eat sugar, believe it or not, on peysach.
on the other hand, most sefaradim eat gelatin (as permitted by rav ovadia). they eat some kitniyos (there are few sefaradim that eat all kitniyos). sefaradim never considered gebruchs on peysach to be problematic. sefardic poskim allow swordfish while ashkenazi do not. sefaradim eat egg matzo on peysach while ashkenazi refrain.
what is wrong with the posters here? there is no such thing as a bad language. every language that you learn is good. yiddish is good. ivrit is good. hebrew is good. man alive.
as for the “jewishness” of each language, it all depends on what factors you use to determine jewishness of a language. both have many non-semetic words as part of their vocabulary but yiddish is mostly non-jewish words while ivrit is mostly jewish words. in fact, there are probably more “jewish” words in other semitic languages such as arabic than in yiddish. that being said, yiddish is only spoken by jews so it gets some points for jewishness for that. but then again, so is ivrit.
mamashtakah is absolutely correct but if we were to apply his standard to this place most posts are in violation.
the thing with techeiles is as follows: there are no halachic tools available to poskim to assist them in determining whether one should go out and wear it. the reasons to wear tekheleis are purely scientific.
that being said, it is clear among all poskim that there is no halachic violation in wearing blue non-tekheleis.
The kabbalists, however, caution against wearing blue and believe that in galus we must wear white for kabalistic reasons (something to do with blue bringing middas din on us which we cannot handle in galus).
the kabbalistic interpretation is troubling in some respects as it appears to use kabbalistic reasons to nullify a mitzvah de-orayssa
the kabbalists can maybe be understood to mean that the tekheles is surely not genuine because hashem has a reason to hide it from us.
in any event, since all of us wear blue shirts, suits, socks, etc., we do not live by the words of the kabbalists anyway.
maskunu: there is no way halacha can obligate us to wear it but it does not hurt to do it.
its in the beis yosef on the tur but not the shulchan aruch (which was written later). the kabbalists give it credence.
funny that the best known ashkenzi dish, bagel with cream cheese and lox, is deemed unfit by these sources.
some sefaradim do not eat it based on this beis yosef and the ben ish chai’s kabbalistic analysis of same. most folks do not live by the kabbala but by halacha. since its halachic origin is murky (some reputable poskim hold its a TYPO in the tur and it should have read meat and fish) they eat it.
MSS said: “the recent NASI offering which was nausea inducing for many normally very tolerant and easygoing ehrlich people.” AZ, called the statement, “so totally out of line, motzei shem ra, libel.”
I cannot speak for MSS, but most people i have spoken to from a very wide spectrum of the frum velt, indeed, viewed the NASI initiative very harshly. I have heard it been called rishus and a scam, among other terms.
on a personal level, the NASI initiative seems to me – at best- no different than someone brokering kidneys – which most people do indeed get nauseated by, even if they understand the need.
perhaps the initiative is a good one that needs to marketed differently to reduce nausea. maybe we are all judging it harshly because it was presented poorly not because it is really a scam or rishus.
BY guy:
NY law defines a yellow light as follows:
(i) Vehicular traffic facing such signal is thereby warned that the red signal will be exhibited immediately thereafter and such vehicular traffic shall not enter the intersection when the red signal is exhibited.
(ii) Pedestrians facing such signal are thereby warned that there is insufficient time to cross the roadway, and shall not enter or cross the roadway. Pedestrians already in the roadway shall proceed to the nearest safety island or sidewalk.
Therefore, your answer is more correct than the cop’s. if you already entered the intersection you can go but if you have not then you cannot enter the intersection on the yellow.