charliehall

John Coleman is not a meteorologist; he is a television personality. To become a meterologist you need extensive knowledge in physics, usually a doctorate; Mr. Coleman not only does not have that knowledge, he sneers at those who do.

Some real meteorologists have questioned the association between the warming and human activity and or the need to take drastic steps. One of the more prominent is MIT Professor Richard Lindzen, who was one of my undergraduate professors a very long time ago. But he agrees that the warming is real and has said so publicly. (Lindzen has also questioned how strongly cigarette smoking has been linked to cancer, but that may be because he himself is a nicotine addict!) Another of the more prominent scientific so-called skeptics, is Bjorn Lomborg in Denmark, whose training is in economics. But Lomborg himself also says that the warming is real. And these are the two most prominent scientists that the global warming deniers cite! Coleman doesn’t analyze data, he instead engages in *ad hominem* attacks. That is not scientific discourse.

EDITED

“Dr. Hall: you say that there are a lot of 20ish kids who shouldn’t be in school yet, and make the case for going to school when older. How practical is that? A lot of kids these days ARE deferring school, for when they’re married with a few kids, etc. The logistics can get pretty hairy.”

Thanks. Great question. I will respond after I have time to think about this, hopefully tomorrow.

Thanks!!!

myfriend,

No lies. The earth got a lot warmer between 1880 and 1940. It then cooled a bit between 1940 and 1980 hence the concern about cooling. (And that was 30-40 years ago, not 25.) 1980 to 2000 saw the most rapid increase in global temperatures ever seen; that rise may have leveled off since then. Global warming is a fact, not a lie, and there is no dispute whatsoever among scientists or anyone else who has looked at the data (and you can find some with a quick internet search); the disputes are as to the degree to which human activity is responsible and what should be done about it. And anyone who rejects scientific facts has nothing to add to scientific discussions.

tzippi,

I’m not sure I understand your question.

Many “Jewish Centers” are Orthodox, but not all.

I am renting an apartment and the landlord refuses to keep the apartment in satisfactory condition; in fact, conditions are bad enough that under secular law I can create an escrow account to put my rent money and sue the landlord in housing court. But the landlord is Jewish so I have to take him to beit din instead. Halachically, do I still have to pay him the rent pending the beit din proceeding (which can take a long time) or can I set up an escrow account? Or do I have to pay him at all pending the beit din proceeding since the landlord is not doing what he agreed to do in terms of giving me the quality of apartment we had agreed to?

Thank you for the opportunity to pose these questions; I understand that this is a learning opportunity and does not substitute for consulting one’s own Rav for a psak halachah.

I understand that the ocean is considered as a spring and is therefore a kosher mikveh. Under what circumstances are any of the following kosher mikvaot:

(1) Tidal estuaries such as Long Island Sound

(2) Navigable rivers such as the Hudson that have a direct connection to the ocean

(3) Fresh water lakes

Thanks!!!

kvod hatorah,

I think it is wrong to force anyone to go to college, just as it is wrong to deny anyone that opportunity if that is right for them. And delaying college is not a bad thing, especially for frum Jews; every Jew I’ve found who went to university prior to the 19th century had extensive Torah education and many of the most famous examples had already earned semichah. I used to teach a lot of 19 and 20 year old undergrduates and many were frankly wasting their parents’ money. And one can do well with delayed education. My wife was 30 when she earned her undergraduate degree, 40 when she completed medical school; I was 37 when I earned my doctorate.

If she is willing to marry a modern orthodox guy there are at least two options in the US: Yeshivat Chovevei Torah and the YU-affiliated Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Theological School give generous stipends to their best students. But they are not for everyone.

And Rambam was the greatest gedol of the last thousand years. (We don’t follow all his halachic positions, though.)

Herman Wouk’s three works of non-fiction: *This is My God: The Jewish Way of Life*, *The Will to Live on: The Resurgence of Jewish Heritage *, and *The Language God Talks*. (His novels are also worth reading but they aren’t Torah.)

HaKatan,

Correct, we need government regulation of all pharmaceutical manufacturing including vaccines, and that is the one area in which the FDA has done a good job. There are some people for whom vaccines are contraindicated, mostly persons with allergies to eggs, but for almost everyone else, the recommended schedule can and should be safely followed. Almost every pediatrician and family doctor will have the recommended vaccine schedule on the wall in his/her clinic/office.

Rambam says they don’t exist, so you don’t have to worry.

Tam Mahu Omer,

While there was certainly a decline in observance in American, it was far less than 99% who stopped keeping kosher, and far less than 80% married non-Jews. And we forget that before WW2, Jews were going off the derech in droves even in Europe.

ramateshkolian,

I can’t post external links because of YWN rules. But there are hundreds of clinical trials on vaccines that are available in medical journals; you can use the pubmed search engine to find them. The Centers for Disease Control also has a lot of information that it has compiled and placed online.

ICOT,

You mentioned both my career (medical researcher — trained as a biostaistician) and my wife’s (physician). I can say with confidence that we both love what we do and that we are well compensated for our hard work.

And you can do it with a late start. I started graduate school at 32 and finished at 37; my wife started medical school at age 36 and finished her residency at 43. And just because you might have gone to a charedi school does not mean that those kinds of career options are perpetually closed off to you; I know several people who went to Bais Yaakov schools and later graduated from medical school, and my wife had taken no science courses in college. The training will take longer, but if you have the ability and trust in HaShem, absolutely anything is possible.

philosopher,

The Shulchan Aruch and the Mishneh Berurah, among others, pasken that women are required to recite the Shemoneh Esrei every day. I’ve seen one Acharon — the Magen Avraham — who disagrees.

That said, I (a guy) can relate to the difficulty of prayer — and I absolutely LOVE the Jewish prayers. Getting to minyan helps, particularly in the morning, when praying in a sanctified space helps me to focus; on the rare days when I can’t make it to minyan such as when I am traveling I very often find it very difficult to concentrate and often find myself procrastinating with my prayers almost to sof zman. Personally I prefer the Metsudah siddur because the line breaks are in meaningful spots and it is easy to see how the Hebrew translates into English.

All the best to all for increased connection to our Creator!

philosopher,

A frum Jew can own a store that sells non-kosher products, even a non-kosher restaurant. What do you think happens to meat that after shechita turns out to be treif? It isn’t all fed to dogs!

I have another question for the thread:

There are clearly challenges facing frum students at secular universities: Philosophies contrary to Torah (I can’t believe how many supposedly frum Jews I’ve met who admire Ayn Rand), licentious lifestyles (not a new thing), etc. I have listed a number of gedolim who attended secular university and could have listed a dozen more. My question is whether there is anything that any of these gedolim have written regarding those challenges. I have seen nothing about this in the works of Rav Hirsch or Rav Soloveitchik.

Rav Hirsch in his own writings clearly indicated that secular learning was a good thing in and of itself far beyond its utilitarian value. See for example, “The Relevance of Secular Studies to Jewish Education”, in *Collected Works*, Vol. VII.

Kasha,

You are being highly disingenuous when you cite Rambam in support of universal full time learning. Here is what he actually said about it (Hilchot Talmud Torah 3:10):

“Anyone who decides to be engaged in Torah [study] and not to work, and will be supported by Tzedaqa – this person desecrates God’s name (*Chillel et Hashem*), degrades the Torah, extinguishes the light of our faith, brings evil upon himself and forfeits life in *Olam haBa* (The world to come); since it is forbidden to derive benefit from the words of Torah in this world. The Rabbis said (Avot 4:5): Anyone who derives benefit from the words of Torah in this world, forfeits his life in Olam haBa. They further commanded and said: (Avot 4:5) Do not make them [the words of Torah] a crown to magnify yourself or an axe with which to chop. They further commanded, saying: (Avot 1:10) Love work and despise positions of power (*Rabbanut*). And: (Avot 2:2) Any Torah which is not accompanied by work will eventually be nullified and will lead to sin. Ultimately, such a person will steal from others. “

I perhaps should add that neither my wife nor myself had watched television in years when we met.

Kasha,

Rav Moshe z’tz’l was VERY learned in secular subjects even though he never attended college. So were Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach z’tz’l and Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg z’tz’l.

Rav Soloveitchik earned a Ph.D. in German Philosophy at the University of Berlin. His wife, son, both daughters, and both sons-in-law all earned doctorates. Among his fellow students were Rav Hutner z’tz’l and the Lubavicher Rebbe z’tz’l. The Rebbe later earned the equivalent of a B.S. in electrical engineering from a well respected engineering school in Paris.

Rav Herzog z’tz’l earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of London. His doctoral dissertation identified the source of the techelet dye.

Rav Hildesheimer earned a doctorate at the University of Halle-Wittenberg; his dissertation was entitled, “On the right kind of interpretation of the Bible”.

Rav Hirsch attended the University at Bonn.

Sforno earned a medical degree at the University of Rome.

Rambam is considered an alumnus by the Al-Karaouine University in Fez, Morocco.

I could list many more, but you get the point. The list of gedolim who attended university is indeed quite long. A ben Torah who desires university education can rest assured that he is following in the paths of giants.

Max well,

You wrote,

“Once they violated halacha ipso facto, they lost any right to recognition by the Torah community.”

In fact, much of the Torah community does not consider the creation of the medinah to be a violation of halachah. Some of the greatest rabbis in the world have been religious Zionists.

Furthermore the alternative today to “no medinah” is rule by Hamas. Do we really believe that instead of Israel having been created, we would have preferred that Palestinian Arab rule been established over Eretz Yisrael in 1948? We should all be grateful that the medinah prevents this even if the would have preferred that the government be more sympathetic towards our concerns.

You also wrote,

“No American court ever threw fathers and mothers in jail for sending their children to the school of their choice. “

There were threats of prison during the “massive resistance” days when the courts ordered the end to the racist separate but unequal school systems in the US South. However, the racists backed down in every single case and nobody actually went to prison. The court did not prevent anyone from getting a Torah education; it did, however, put an end to certain discriminatory practices *contrary* to halachah like mechitzahs between Ashkenazim and Sefardim and mandating pronunciations not based on ones’ own mesorah. We should be saluting the court and the religious judge, Hon. Edmond Levy, who promoted the settlement, not trashing them.