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Charlie, you post that as if there is something negative about it, unless I misunderstand. There is a big difference between the concept of immodest behavior and the concept of untzniusdig behavior. Though it is true that a woman giving birth is baring all in that delivery, she is NOT being untzniusdig, though her personal modesty is being compromised. She is doing exactly what Hashem created her to do, and she is fulfilling a mitzvah. Would anyone say that is negatively immodest? Untzniusdig behavior involves actions that are unquestionably NOT l’shem Hashem.
BTW, when most women are giving birth, I can absolutely guarantee that the LAST thing they are thinking of is anything to do with modesty. They just want that baby OUT!!!!!!!!!!!
“Is there ever a point where a parent doesn’t want to hug their child? That is awful in and of itself.”
Unfortunately it is more common than you think. There are many abused kids out there, R”L.
“Your trust in them is greater than the Shulchan Aruchs and the Gedolim”
That’s because the mechabeir and the Gedolim never met my kids! 🙂
1) I believed this to be a thread about the evils of L”H, the risk part being that we would be getting mussar about our own inability to refrain from L”H.
2) Are you not guilty of lifnei iveir lo tetain michshol, if your intention was to entice us into opening something that you thought we would take to be L”H?? NOT NICE!
I just find it so telling that so many of the CR members seem to assume that getting together in a mixed group AUTOMATICALLY leads to sin. I think first of all, that some people’s minds are too troubled by the fear that our kids are so poorly brought up that they have absolutely no way to go but to SIN. That says a lot about how confident we are that we have brought them up properly, Yeshivah education and our own teachings.
Second, I think that if our children are old enough to get married or date altogether, they are old enough to exhibit a little self-control, which they seem to show quite well on their shidduch dates. A date is a date. If the boy and girl are emesdig frum menschen, they will act properly wherever they are. OTHERWISE, they might be phonies and hypocrites, who can only be trusted when they are on a halachic leash. The true eved Hashem is one who learns to controls his taivahs in spite of himself, not one who needs to become a “nazir” in order to have self-control.
I trust my adult children to behave with derech eretz and halachic propriety, because in all circumstances to date, whether in one-gender or mixed-gender events, they have ALWAYS shown me that they are trustworthy. I am saddened that so many appear to have no faith at all in their young people. Maybe that is because the young people might feel like kids being let loose in a candy store for the first time. These are just observations on my part, whether or not you might agree (and I am sure many of you will STRONGLY disagree, but it does not make me wrong, necessarily). In any case, I express my own feelings, obviously, based on my own extremely subjective observations of my own teenage years and those of my children and my friends’ children. I mean no disrespect to anyone here.
“Another good litmus test: watch his driving habits. Tells you loads about his personallity. “
The best indicator, if it gets to a restaurant date, is how he treats the wait staff.
Rnrsr, THANK YOU! I am still laughing.
MW13, Doctors make horrific mistakes ALL the time (they usually bury them), so I think this analogy is not the best one to use. I would never take a doctor’s word for anything that sounded “wrong” to me. I would check it out, do my hishtadlus, and see what OTHER doctors are saying about the same issue.
“Imagine if one gets a string of no’s after a single date. The person may think they are ugly and totally lose their self-esteem and confidence. This overrides any consideration of tznius and any other stuff. As somebody said before, menschlachkeit is the ikar and the only purpose of the Torah.”
Beautiful. To me this is the essence of ahavas Yisroel, worrying about another person’s feelings.
You are welcome. Sometimes, as with ANY parent, kal v’chomer with haKadosh Poruch Hu, we must do things just because they said so. We have many mitzvos that are chukim, that fit that category. Parah Adumah, Shiluach Hakan, are but two that come to mind.
BTW, it actually was a rov who told me what I had posted about the shaitel or head covering being for the benefit of reminding the woman herself of her married status, because it is a permanent physical change that she must accept upon herself.
“Everything else that SJSinNYC and OOmis assume that I think, Please don’t make up things so I won’t have a need to respond, going back and forth for nothing.”
I assume nothing, and I don’t think I made up anything about you, but if I did, I am sorry.
smartcookie, if my husband or I would see you coming down our street WE would wish you a good Shabbos.
“Their is very good reason for the PRE research, and risking a shidduch going through without the research is not something most parents or children desire. And rightfully so. “
Boy oh boy! If my parents had done research of ANY kind, I would not now be married to my unbelievable husband. He is a BT, his parents were not frum, his mother had a stroke at age 42 that left her blind and crippled for the rest of her life (35 years more), plus she had rheumatoid arthritis. Had anyone talked about the externals about them, it would not have been considered a good shidduch on paper. B”H nobody did that type of checking in those days, but judged people on their merits and middos.
The point I was making is we do not need to search for the reason (and possibly come up with an erroneous one in the process). The reason is that Hashem said so.
I love ALL the pictures, but I am partial to sunsets over the ocean.
Good question, bbyg.
“However, to expect the father to “watch” the children in shul while he davens, so MOM can get some rest at home, or prepare lunch without the kids bothering her is not a solution. To bring the kids to shul because they are just so cute and doesn’t everyone want to enjoy your kids as much as you do, is just plain outrageous. And to bring the kids to shul so they can absorb the atmosphere and somehow just feel the kedusha doesn’t work either. Chinuch needs to be really thought out and planned. And you can’t ignore the fact that you are teaching a positive thing on one hand while teaching a very negative thing on the other. The negative being to have the chutzpah to ignore the people around you that you are disturbing and the kavanah that you are literally stealing from them. “
Do we know each other – I could have written that myself!
Only a married woman’s actual hair has the status of erva. A wig does not. I even heard, but cannot assert that it is correct, that a wig made from her own hair is also not erva.
No, the halachic reason for covering the hair (NOT necessarily with a sheitel) is that Hashem commands it.
ABSOLUTELY STUNNING! More, please. And just as an aside – did you run for cover after the bee discovered you invaded its privacy?????? I would NEVER have been brave enough to take such a photo.
“WW1 set the stage for WW2, because the Germans were embarassingly defeated, and forced to disarm and abide by various humiliating sanctions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. This caused Hitler to steam and stew, and he looked for a scapegoat. He invented the concept that it was not the Germans that lost, but rather that the Jews in Germany had betrayed Germany and stabbed them in the back. It was an internal collapse. WW2 was to get “revenge” on the Jews for this defeat. “
Thanks Pashuteh, this is what my Rov told us, and I was confused on the date, but you are correct, WWI broke out on 9 Av. THAT is no coincidence. And it certainly is part of the Three Weeks.
And I heard that the purpose of the head covering (shaitel or otherwise) is to remind the WOMAN herself that she is an eishes ish, so she will not behave in an unseemly way. If that is true, then it makes no difference how realistic the wig looks. She is well aware of it at all times. Even the most comfortable wig is still REALLY THERE. We are always aware of it.
Not everyone’s experience will be the same, and that is true for ALL aspects of life. My husband was set up with a frum girl who knew he was a BT and she accepted the date. She cancelled the date two hours before he was to pick her up, saying outright she didn’t think it would work out. He took it in stride, but was hurt more than he would have been had she not agreed to the shidduch in the first place, because she was not even giving him a chance. When he told me this story, I told him that I was very grateful to that girl, because her loss was definitely my (and our children’s) gain.
Great thread idea! I think technological and scientific advances have made certain halachos subject to re-examination. IN E”Y, I have heard there is a “kosher phone” that technically is not mechallel Shabbos when used (it is used for by doctors, I am told). We have the kosher lamp that can be shaded (which effectively renders it turned off), and kosher alarm clock. The simple Shabbos clock timer, that can turn lights on and off is an example fo something not in use during the times of the early talmudists.
We now have halachos pertinent to in vitro fertilization, genetic testing, organ transplant both from cadavers and live donors. These things were not done centuries ago, because the technology did not yet exist, though our chachomim did discuss many things in the Gemorah, that we now know of scientifically, today.
Halacha (ACTUAL halacha, not chumros upon the chumros), does not change with time. Our need for interpretation of a specific halacha might be necessary, as we learn things that seem contradictory at first. The laws related to Chalav Stam are a good example. We know that in the USA ONLY cows’ milk is stamped USDA Grade A milk. Therefore, it is not halachically necessary to have a chashash that the milk is mixed with unkosher animals’ milk, because such milk is not used and certified in this country. That being said, many still prefer to only use Ch”Y and i respect that (I domn’t want to turn this into a Milk discussion again, it’s been done to death in the past). So if in European Shtetls it was NOT acceptable to drink Ch’St, it might have been because there were no strict controls and mare and pig milk were also drunk by the goyim. The halacha is that the milk has to come from a kosher source and where it cannot be verified, only Ch”Y is permissible. That halacha doesn’t change. But the interpretation of acceptable guidelines in different places, might cause a re-examination of that position elsewhere.
Pashuteh, your version actually IS the original story I heard, before the variations, I just did not remember that version at the moment. Your points are very well-taken.
“Then don’t expect people in a MO community to stop saying good shabbos to people on the street. Its disrespectful to come to a community and expect them to adhere to your preference”
Extremely well said! Someone was visiting in my shul and I sit in a downstairs ezras nashim behind and separated from the men’s section, where we can pull aside the mechitzah curtains during the Rov’s drasha(they overlay a wooden mechitzah, that has an intricate design that by itself prevents men from easily seeing women, the curtains are an additional measure). I pulled aside the curtains as the Rov began to speak (I hear better that way, don’t ask me why), and she immediately pulled them back closed and hissed, “We don’t do things like that.” I said nothing at the time, but after the davening, I said good shabbos to her and then said, “I understand that you don’t do things like that in your neighborhood, but you are in (my neighborhood)… now, and we do things a little differently here, with the Rov’s haskamah. ” To her credit, she apologized for her presumptuousness.
Please don’t excpect a chassidishe man to say good shabbos to a MO woman on the street or in Shul.”
It is rare for a MO woman to say GS to a chassid. Only someone who really does not understand the “etiquette” of this would say anything at all spontaneously to a chassid. But being a bulvan is being a bulvan. If someone greets you, you can respond quietly, briefly, and in a low voice. Otherwise, it is mevayeish someone in public, and THAT is b’feirush a Lav D’Oraisah, whereas saying Good Shabbos to an opposite gendered person is NOT, NOT, NOT. And if you believe it is, show me the exact makor that is accepted by all frum Jews, that specifies that saying Good Shabbos is assur.
“It is rude and a chillul Hashem to greet the opposite gender, even if not an issur. “
Did you actually read what you wrote? If it is not assur, then by what right do you call it a chillul Hashem?
Umm, you reminded me of a boy I went out with also five times,knowing it would go nowhere, because he was a very nice person, and I simply was inexperienced with breaking up with someone. I kept thinking, give it a chance. But I was not attracted in any way to this nice person, and I could see he was starting to be emotionally attached. So very reluctantly I had to bite the bullet and tell him that I liked him very much as a friend (the kiss of death in any dating relationship, because it is code for : No way, no how). I learned a very valuable lesson from this incident. No matter what anyone tells you, if after three dates you still feel ABSOLUTELY no shaychus, it is 90% certain there is no point going out again. It is rare that it works out after that, and that’s why there are stories about it.
“I would probably deck a person who threatened my child. [And that women wasn’t disciplining, she was just talking] “
And promptly get arrested for assault 🙁
But yes, I agree. Still the point of that story was that the mommy was coddling and cajoling her clearly out of control child, when STERN talk and fear of reprisal was all that was needed. Look, I agree with you that potching is not something to be done – as a rule – but sometimes it IS necessary, and as I said, I hope you never find a situation where it is warranted.
I believe that a kiddush Hashem, other than doing all the mitzvos we need to do, involves doing something that makes people look at Jews and say, “Wow, that is the right way to be.” Making a chillul Hashem cause people to look at the Torah in a derisive and hateful manner. “Look at that holier than thou Jew, who cheated in Medicaid.”
Obviously there are forms of kiddush Hashem that require self-sacrifice, but generally we can make a K”H simply by doing the menschlech thing at all times. People DO notice. And more important, they notice when we don’t.
Mexipal, it actually was told to me that something very significant related to the Holocaust, did in fact happen at the start of the three weeks or the nine days (not sure which, but I believe it was 17 Tammuz). Help me out, historians.
“I question whether an 18 month old who doesn’t have the impulse control nor the proper understanding should be given the opportunity to run into the street”
Of course they shouldn’t. That’s why when it happens, it’s called an accident. But even very small children (once they understand the relationship between an action and a consequence of that action, even if they cannot speak)will understand danger, when it is associated with a negative action, like a potch. I can see that your parenting style works for you, and I wish for you that you never are faced with a need to potch for any reason. I still believe there are times that it is necessary.
There was a story told (and I am a lousy storyteller, so be forewarned, I am about to mess it up), about a woman whose young son was being a royal brat, screaming at the top of his lungs running amok in a store, knocking things down, etc. The mom kept trying to “reason” with her little tateleh, but everything she said was falling on deaf ears. “It’s not nice to speak in a loud voice, shepseleh.” “Please climb down from the counter, yingeleh.”
“My special little tzaddik shouldn’t throw things like that…” etc. etc. as he continued to wreak havoc.
Finally some other mother who was really tired of watching all this, pulled him down from where he was getting ready to throw canned fruits and said in a very firm voice, “Young man if you don’t stop what you are doing this instant, you will be getting a really big potch!” Thus ended the siege. Sometimes the threat is enough.
I understand where you are coming from, and you are certainly a generation younger than I, but believe me sometimes the old methods worked better in the long run. Kids were way more respectful of their elders in my youth. That being said, no one should ever hit a child at the height of ANGER, because then the potch is a release for that emotion and not a learning tool.
“(to prove my point, how many very very high up private goyish schools have separate classes? a lot, exactly because of this.) “
True indeed, but the SCHOOLS are not necessarily separate. The boys and girls have mixed events, might lunch together, have mixed school activities (actually called MIXERS)in the form of extra curricular activities. They just do not sit in classrooms together. They are also very young. When kids are in college and/or grad school, presumably they have matured sufficiently to know it’s important to become educated in school. And if not, then they are not ready to get married, anyway, even were they only in single gender schools.
Poppa, I know someone to whom this actually happened. They thought the person liked them, but they were wrong. I know, because I was the other friend of the family who was called for info. The mother of the boy who was asking about the girl I know, told me stuff she had heard from the other “reference” (OY, I hate that word), and I had to play spin doctor (the negative info was about a family member, not the actual girl being redt), because the girl is an absolute doll, and a wonderful shidduch for some lucky boy, but the family member is problematic in some respects, at times. The shidduch did not go forward beyond one date, unfortunately, but it was not because of any information given out by “references.”
“Can you name a situation where spanking is necessary and there are no ways around it? So far, no one has been able to. “
SJS, yes we have. A small child runs into the street. That is a potch moment in my book. You cannot reason with a child 18 months old, or with an older toddler who doesn’t comprehend the concept of safety. My granddaughter DOES understand, and she has never been potched, B”H. She is not a perfect little angel ALL the time, but she can be reasoned with, and she knows that NOT SAFE means something that will cause a big booboo on her. We have taught her concepts that she understands well, but it helps that she is kinehora a mature child. Many bright children are still not so mature, and they do not necessarily obey. In a dangerous situation, potch first saying NO in a firm voice and ask questions later. They will remember that potch, believe me. And it will not scar their little psyches, I promis you. We are talking about a potch on the rear or hand, not a beating. Timeout only work with children who will obey the timeout rule. And yes, my little angel has had a few timeouts, but much fewer lately.
I admire your resolve to try to impart these rules with love and without resorting to corporal means. But sometimes it is the only thing that works, and a parent does not totally close off that unpleasant option if it can help. And you DO know when it is necessary.
Are you looking for a job – then it is a resume with references. If you are looking for a shidduch, then it is your personal profile and people who know you. I apologize, but this is a real pet peeve of mine. I LOATHE when people treat shidduchim like another job hunt.
For all people who think that eye-catching is the issue in tznius, there are plenty of very tzniusdig women who are eye-catching and attention-getting for other reasons: a) They are dressed all in black b)they have a LOT of kids with them c)they are obese (that goes for their husbands, too) d) they are trying to show how tzniusdig they are – it backfires. You get the idea.
Eye-catching is a very ambiguous expression, it can mean many things. People are tzniusdig or not, but other people will look if they want to look, no matter what others are doing or not doing.
“According to some there is only one life cycle event that a woman is allowed to be the center of attention:
The Levayah (funeral) “
Squeak, somehow I feel that in giving birth she is ALSO going to be the center of attentiion – at least until the baby comes out.
“My son knows we don’t throw toys. This morning, I saw a toy and tossed it into the appropriate basket. I was far enough away from it, that it was a “throw.” One of the next things my son did was take a toy and toss it also.”
This made me smile. I babysit for my just turned two year old granddaughter every day, B”H, and when I do something like that, which I have taught her is not proper to do (and it happens to be specifically tossing something when I told her not to throw things), she says to me, “Bubby, you not a MITZVAH girl to throw toys!” They ARE little sponges and tape recorders, too.
“And to go on a date where you are already certain it isn’t going to be, is an extreme lack of tznius. “
How? I am sure it is many things, but tznius has nothing to do with it. EVERYTHING is not about tznius, btw. Sometimes it is about common menschlechkeit, gneivas daas,etc. but not tznius.
While my personal feelings understand your point, the only way to de-stigmatize something is for people to start doing it. If more Yeshivah kids would start going to those colleges again (even at night when a more Yeshivish crowd traditionally is there), people would stop having anything to say. Just my humble opinion.
Poppa, while I understand and can even appreciate your thought process, you are holding that process at the expense of other mispallelim who cannot concentrate while kids are running around during the time that they cannot reasonably sit and daven. I think it is wonderful to expose kids to shul, but not on the plaitzes of other people.
I stayed home for several years until my youngest child was old enough to go to Shabbos davening groups. There was many a great drasha that I missed, not to mention my father O”H davening for the omud before he was niftar, when my parents spent a Shabbos or Yom tov with us. Disruptive kids do not belong in Shul, no matter how much you would like it to be a good idea for chinuch. Unless someone is there to remove them the second they become “squirmy,” it is not derech eretzdig to everyone else OR to kovod Harav and more important, Kovod haTorah.
There is no such thing as Torah True Jews Against Zionism. The entire name is contradictory. There might be TTJ against rebuilding the Medinah (though I personally fail to see that as being a Torah concept), but Zionism, which has come to reflect a political ideology, IS a Torahdig concept – that of yearning for Tzion. When we sing Im Eshkacheich Yerushalayim, or Al Naharos Bavel, we are expressing our Zionism. The NK and their ilk are a disgrace to Klal Yisroel. And I would not feel that way, were they to keep their beliefs to themselves instead of holding Am Yisroel up to public ridicule by embracing our enemies.
“People wouldn’t go to a mixed college because of the stigma involved. “
There is only a stigma in the minds of some people because THEY stigmatize it. I have no problem with mixed colleges. Two of my children met their wonderful zivugim there, and I could not be happier. There was a time when there were no Touro Colleges with separate schedules, and all the frum kids went to Brooklyn or Queens College (otherwise to a branch of YU). They are the parents of the generation that now does NOT go to mixed college. Should anyone have a chashash on those parents? They seemed to turn out well religiously.
Vitamin D IS very important, along with zinc, C, and B12. Studies are suggesting that K is also showing itself to be helpful in a good diet.