Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
“And I thought this was the Yeshiva World”
And I realized this is mostly a moshav leitzim, not in a clownish way, but in the fullest sense of Rashi’s pshat on ?????? ???? ?? ???.
GAW, oh yes, there’s good reason for me. It’s really convenient for my work, but not absolutely essential. It’ll be pretty hard, but I feel the sacrifice is worth it.
MorahRach, you’re right. Sorry, everyone.
“and if I don’t, what are you going to do, throw me out?”
Your answer should have been an emphatic, “Yes!”. I feel terrible giving this painful advice but the situation in your home sounds spiritually dangerous. Please, please save your other kids before it’s too late ch”v.
Wow, beautiful thought.
Correction: Don’t ignore Elik. Follow his advice if you understand Yiddish, or get the book.
Ignore everyone. Read Dr. Sarno’s book, Mind Body Prescription. His method stopped my TMJ pain in a few days for good.
I’m getting rid of my internet but I need a few weeks to download everything I’ll need, like books and software to use instead. For example, I ordered encyclopedias to use for research and instead of dictionary.com. Any other ideas are welcome.
R’ Yosef Chaim Zonnenfeld told a boy who held cards in his hands to go to the mikvah.
Keep’em coming, this is fun!
Wow, that’s wonderful news! Keep us posted, we care.
@tt3: Nonsense. Does ANY other religion make the claim that G-d gave them the Law in front of millions of people? No. If JC had said, “Hey, looky here, this book says you and all Bnai Yisroel saw pigs flying on Sunday, remember that? Well, the Invisible One who made those pigs fly, he wants you to eat pig every Sunday.” He’d be laughed out of town. In fact he made much lesser claims, and he was still laughed out of town by Jews. Only the superstitious pagans believed him.
But you’re right, OTD kids who are looking for excuses instead of answers will come up with the most senseless “refutations” which geniuses like Uri Zohar (who started out looking to disprove the Torah) couldn’t come up with. This is why I prefaced my post saying that this is only for serious teens looking for answers.
@tt3: First of all, I was responding to a poster who is (genuinely, I hope) looking for answers.
As for, “All you are “proving” to an OTD person is that the Torah authors(s) had the skills of any good narrative fiction writer” – how and when did this “good narrative fiction writer” (or anyone else) convince ALL OF KLAL YISRAEL to accept the entire Torah to the point of mesirus nefesh? I’m not talking about ???? ?????, but your and my and all yidden’s ancestors following the Torah since… WHEN?
WOW, I agree with SC. Does the menahel know the whole parsha? If not, you must be upfront with him. He doesn’t have ruach hakodesh.
interjection, you didn’t get my point. The question is not why the Yidden accepted the Torah, but whether the stories (a) are true and the mitzvos (b) therefore binding. Since the Yidden accepted “part b” (the mitzvos), “part a” (????? ?????, ????? ?? ???, ??? ????)
must be true. Which means Hashem gave us the Torah and we’d be as foolish to ignore it as a druggie or shikker who feeds his addiction.
@EzratHashem: Here’s my own synopsis of all the books I’ve read on this subject, shared successfully with teens who were looking for answers, not excuses.
All we have to determine is whether the Torah is true. If the Torah is true, Hashem exists and the Mitzvos are binding. Now, why would an entire people, a smart and stiffnecked one at that, accept a Torah that tells them BOTH:(a) You KNOW/SAW/HEARD ????? ?????, ????? ?? ???, ??? ???? etc., AND (b) Thou shalt… Thou salt not… 613 times, countless difficult commandments — unless they knew it was all true?
There are many other proofs, but this IMO is the most simple and irrefutable one.
Now for ???? ???? ?? – one proof and one example out of many:
Proof: the Torah doesn’t tell us how to shecht, only that we are to kill kosher animals “in the prescribed manner”. There must have been oral instructions for that.
Example: What’s ??? ?? ???? A beautiful bunch of grapes? A perfectly bright-maroon pomegranate with an intact crown? Perhaps the fruit of a beautiful tree, say the date palm? Why do all Jews, including ??????, ????? and others who mocked Chazal, take an Esrog? There must have been an unbroken oral tradition specifying what the Torah meant by ??????, ?????, ????? etc.
I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know why life has to be so difficult or why we have to do certain things. But since I KNOW that the Torah is true, and the Torah says many times that the world is good and life is good, I believe that everything has a good reason.
Once we have this straight, we can explore the meaning, beauty and joy of Yiddishkeit. Even if you haven’t found meaning, beauty or joy yet, that doesn’t free you from the obligation to keep all the Mitzvos. Sure, you have the RIGHT to live as you please, just as you have the right to become a druggie or shikker. Since the Torah is true, we know that the consequences are so severe, and the rewards for keeping it so great, that we really have no choice but to make the right choice.
WT, have you read Permission to Believe and Permission to Receive by Rabbi Kelleman?
Thanks, WT. I guess we guys will never understand you completely, but you did help me understand WHY I don’t understand. I wish you all the best. If you have anything else to share, I’m all ears.
One more point: Your kids should get the message loud and clear that good behavior gets your attention. Those who take part at the Shabboss table get more attention than those who disrupt it. (att. is att. whether positive or negative.) Read – no, LEARN – The Delicate Balance, a parenting bible stressing this point.
How will I ever repay the kindeness you all have shown me?
By helping others. ?’??? ?? ???????? ??? ??????.
This lovely piece of news somehow reminded me of Yom Ha’atsmaut:
Now we have… a California Planned Parenthood’s “Forty Days of Prayer.” As PJ Tatler explains, they are “literally making a sacrament of abortion.” The “prayers” include thanksgiving for the availability of abortion services, abortion’s legality, and the “sacred” nature of the care that abortion providers offer. There are even prayers against pro-lifers. Another “prayer” is offered for “…the families we’ve chosen. May they know the blessing of choice.”
Wandering Teen, if you’re wandering in here one of these days, please scroll up to see my post to you. I’ll be looking for your reply until this thread falls off the page. Thanks!
Does the Ponevezh Rosh Yeshiva fly a flag from his home?
“I dont see how zionists try to rub it in anyones face”
Right here. It’s like me posting anti-Zionist comments on Cross-Currents etc., only the “open-minded” rabbis running those sites would never let them pass.
Wrong, ZK. The flag means one thing: $$$.
That’s a good question for RZ. For us, it’s a question of emunah, bracha levatala, ?? ????? – no simple matters and far from 5-6 hour questions. Even if you’re RZ, in this case ?? ??? ???? wins hands down. We talk halacha while you talk politics.
WT, thanks so much for responding candidly (Hashem’s reason for the internet!) and respectfully. But I’m afraid I still don’t understand. You say you’re confused while you seem to trust your parents. So why don’t you just follow their ways blindly for the time being, without understanding why, until you figure things out? If you were lost somewhere and you knew someone trustworthy who knows the way, you wouldn’t hesitate to follow them. Is it that you’re not sure theirs is the right way? Still, isn’t it worth it just in case it’s all true and we have to give din v’cheshbon at the end?
Ugh, I must sound like one of those musser zogers. Please understand, I’m not trying to lecture you, only trying to understand teens, especially my relative, who’d never grant me such an enlightening discussion.
Another thing. You feel terrible about being a bad influence on your siblings, and you don’t want to hurt anyone (your parents I assume?). Yet this is not enough to keep you on the straight and narrow. Why? You’re not even enjoying what you’re doing! And you don’t seem at all spiteful or bitter. Now I’m even more confused than you are! Do I make sense?
Loyal Jew, the truth is that WE shouldn’t be posting here. If this is the Yeshivah World, the yeshivishe velt has become Mizrachi. Just read the news page – almost all Israeli news either bashing chareidim or applauding our precious ????? ?? ??????. Face it, we’re on a Religious Zionist website.
ZD, did you attempt to answer my question? I can’t see how. What’s your point?
Wandering Teen, thanks so much for sharing your insights with us. Perhaps you can help me out here so that I can help other parents and understand OTDs better, including my relative. My daughter once told me that even if she had wanted to go OTD, she could never have done this to us, her parents. My question is, what makes OTD kids different from her? I’m not at all the huggy-kissy type, though I’m a very caring parent. You seem to be a thinking, feeling person who loves and respects her parents. Do you feel that being lax in Yiddishkeit is the worst thing you could do to them? If so, do you feel your enjoyment is worth their pain, or is it just too difficult to control yourself, or you just try not to think about it, or is it something else? I’m not judging you or trying to pry, just trying to understand something I’ve always wondered about. TIA for your reply.
So the first women-inducting army in the world is a kiddush Hashem? One of the higher-ups in the Israeli army said, “The men are there to fight. And the women – everybody knows why we need them in the army.” How about Israeli brothels servicing the soldiers – would they also be a kiddush Hashem because they give our troops the energy to protect Am Yisrael?
IO3, Agreed.
“Tell me msseeker, if someone chas v’shalom has a child with cancer, do they kick the child out or put them away in an institution?”
No, but if someone chas v’shalom has a child with a contagious fatal illness, they put them in quarantine with a bleeding heart in order to save their other kids.
WOW, I understand your point. Just be on guard, talk to your kids a lot and listen to them closely. Keep the atmosphere happy, as difficult as it is. If your son will see what he misses by rejecting our way of life, he might reconsider. Much hatzlacha.
IMHO your first priority is to save your other kids. They need you now, emotionally, spiritually, and physically, more – not less – than before. Saying that something is unacceptable and then accepting it is gornisht verd. Find out what the law is about taking care of a 16-yo truant. If you provide a place for him to stay and pay for it, did you do anything illegal? Don’t give him leverage to threaten you with. If he wants to stay home (which shows that you’re doing something right) use it as leverage against him! If he doesn’t find a school or a job, or his behavior affects his siblings, out he goes.
My heart breaks giving you this advice, but I feel achrayus to mention it because someone told my husband he has an OTD son and everyone told him to keep him home, and it had a terrible affect on his other kids. May you have only nachas from all of your kids, ????? ?? ???? ?? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?????.
PBA, this thread is hysterically funny! Thanks for the well-needed laughs in this busy time. Keep it up!
(Sigh) Priorities, priorities.
Did it! Hint: move away a bit from the screen.
MP, it seems you have reached the ?????? of ???? ??? ???? ?? ???? ??? ????? ?? ????. You’re a great man. May you find your zivug soon. (Segulah: saying sefer tehilim birtzifus on ????? ?? ???.
“My friend is a shadchan for a well known yeshiva and she told me that the 3 things boy looks for/demand for her to find is, size 2-4 girls, blue eyes, longer then shoulder length hair.”
There’s something terribly wrong with this yeshivah – or the whole yeshivishe chinuch system.
“it’s hard to see how any divorces could be caused by having allowed the couple to date rather than beshowing them.”
One word: Infatuation.
“With a Beshow are the young people allowed to say no?”
Of course. That’s what it’s for.
“but they do say however the amount of HAPPY litvishe marriages outweighs the chassidim by far!”
How is this possible to know?
Kosher Computer?
Are Essenes ??????? or ???????
“DF was abused when she was about 12”
And I should believe this because…?
Big Deal, right on. This is why I stopped commenting here. Just one point: DF has announced to all the world what she is, while the guilt of molesters is difficult if not almost impossible to determine. What stops any kid from falsely accusing any adult he wants to get back at?
“rav Miller pointed out that the sinas chinam referred means the sinah of the prushim for the tsedukkim!”
Terrible mistake. Rav Miller pointed out that the sinas chinam referred means the sinah of the TSEDUKIM for the PRUSHIM! He explains that the Rabanan did not want to eat with a rasha. This is not sinas chinam! ??? ?????? ?’ ????. Chas veshalom to say that ??”? were ???? on ????? ????? ????.