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The invitation should not be issued in such a way, IMO, regardless of OOTC’s lengthy explanation (thank you for it, though). And the person who thus invited me, was a longtime close (I thought) friend, whom I had seen and helped through a very bad time. I stand by my original impression.
Where shall I begin?!?! The first part of your sentence should have FOLLOWED the second part, not preceded it. My Bubby O”H used to speak English in that way. (Is it a subjective clause?)
Yes, Wolf, yes you are 😉 , perhaps you should re-think your position and do teshuvah! It’s not like it was…say… P’TCHA!
Of course you are right to pursue it. You were CHEATED, and if you let him get away with it (he is not so heimische in my book, btw), then you are actually encouraging him to keep cheating others. Take him to a Din Torah. It is YOUR $1,300. These thieves count on people like you not making a fuss, or giving up after time, so they can continue in their dishonest business practices. Shame on them, but shame on ALL of us, when we encounter someone and allow him to get away with an aveira that shows him to be just as treif as if he was eating mamesh tarfus.
I understand you just had a baby and you find this unpleasant. It is not merely unpleasant, it is dishonest, disgraceful, and despicable behavior, but especially so when it comes from someone others look at as frum.
“Actually, that thread got me thinking that maybe I should serve our tuition bill on Yom Tov. Or at least for dessert.”
No one could choke that down. 😉
I would never attend ANY simcha to which I am invited, for a few minutes and then leave.If someone thinks enough of me to invite me to stay for a meal, I think enough of them to want to be mesameach with them.
What I really detest (and forgive me in advance if any of you is guilty of issuing this type of invitation, but I think it is really rude), is getting invited to a shmorg and then to the “simchas chosson v’kallah,” which is specified for around 10 PM on a 5 or 6PM kabbolas panim. Does anyone really think it is polite to invite someone to get dressed for a simcha, come all the way down for the K”P and chuppah, then GO HOME (not invited to dinner, obviously) and RETURN HOURS LATER to dance the second round of dancing??????????? If you want to argue that the families cannot necessarily afford to include everyone, then make a SMALLER wedding of people you really want there, or do without some of the expensive trappings (a one man band can be fine, fake flowers can be fine to rent for tzedaka (I prefer to do that), and make a simpler menu and cake and fruit instead of a shmorg. But PLEASE don’t make some of your guests feel like they are on the “B” list. And also, if the baal simcha thought enough of you to invite you to the whole thing a) send back the reply card ASAP and b) show up if you said you were coming (unless there is a great emergency, and you should call the hosts as soon as you can to tell them). I cannot tell you how many seating cards I have seen left on the table that clearly were not even looked at, much less taken by the proper guest. The host still has to pay for you. It feels like gneivas daas to me to say you are coming and then be a no-show.
OK, done with my rant. For now.
“No one said that the greatness of women is at odds with the Torah “
Perhaps I misunderstood, but what I inferred (possibly incorrectly) was that the LEADERSHIP ability of a woman in her household is at odds with the Torayh. I was pointing out cases that the Torah specifies to teach us that sometimes the ezer must be k’negdo in order for the home (and marriage) to work properly. The Torah surely was not putting up these examples as “gnai” to the women mentioned.
Funny thing is I answered “juncture” in my head to the question about a point in time (thinking, “at this juncture,”) but I still typed in junction, which I know is not correct. Pass the Ginko Biloba, please.
I would have said “enjun” but I was wracking my brains for a REAL answer about the car. NO FAIR!
“That’s at odds with the way the Torah dictates a marriage is to be run.”
Why “at odds?”
If anything the Torah specifies SO many cases where the women of the household were the voice of the marriage (and the voice of Klal Yisroel):
Sara telling Avraham to send Hagar away with her wild son, and Hashem ratified her decision and told Avraham to do whatever his wife tells him
He told Avrohom, who would make the decision, to listen to Sarah, he didn’t tell Sarah to go ahead and do it herself, which would be unthinkable
Rivka superceding Yitzchak’s intention to bensch Esav, because she knew Yaakov spiritually deserved the bracha and Esav did not,
She could not tell Yitzchak to bentsh Asav, since he would not listen to her and it was obviously his decision.
Rochel Emainu’s removal of the teraphim, so her father could not have them for avoda zara (although Yaakov ended up inadvertently causing her early death, nevertheless, the teraphim were never found and her will prevailed in that regard,
She did not tell him because he would not have allowed it, clearly it was his decision not hers that would prevail and she also determined in whose tent Yaakov would sleep on a given night when she “sold” her night to Leah in exchange for the dudaim. Even thought his was not regarded as a praiseworthy action, to make light of a Tzaddik, nonetheless it shows that women had a serious say in fundamentals of the marriage
Tzipporah was the moheles of her children, where Moshe Rabeinu had not done so. Are we to believe he did not know the halacha? Nonetheless, he did not tell her to do it, it was she who was spurred to action and thus saved HIS life.
In Tanach we see, Devorah haneviyah, Yael and Siserah, Rus, Chana, etc. etc. etc. and although these women were not being depicted in terms of marriage, they nonetheless achieved greatness in Judaism, that surely is NOT at odds with anything in the Torah.
No one said that the greatness of women is at odds with the Torah
conjunction?
What Is So Rare…
answers to the clues below all contain the letters J-U-N in sequence
1) The second of the same name. Junior
2) Twain’s villainous Native American. Injun Joe
3) A type of boat.
4) An overgrown tropical area. jungle
5) A promotional trip. junket?
6) A point in time. junction
7) A type of evergreen. juniper
8) An assistant. adjunct ?
9) A key automobile component.
I think that is the wrong message to use tznius as a reason (and what tznius issue is there with the young male children talking to another male). It is not a matter of tznius. It is a matter of safety. And btw, relatives can also be problematic. There are many predators in the world, and some are family members R”L. BTW, female strangers can also be dangerous. How many children have been led away by a friendly-looking woman. Take the tznius issue out of the problem for the moment, and call a spade a spade. It is a concern that children should not talk to ANY people whom they do not know well, when their mommy or daddy or safe adult is not with them. Sometimes, they should not be talking even to people they HAVE met before, learn with, or are related to, without supervision, even if they look frum. We live in a terrible world right now, and this has not so much to do with tznius, as it has to do with protecting our kids from sick people.
“I think you are missing the point. The point isn’t to “have a good time.”
I respectfully disagree. The point of a first date is NOT to make wedding plans – it is to see if two people are sufficiently comfortable with each other to enjoy spending an amount of time together (e.g. have a good time together). I think you and I are not semantically on the same page. Perhaps what you mean by “good time” and what I do, are two very different things. Why on earth would ANYONE want to go out with someone more than once, if they had a bad time? First meetings are crucial in that two people have a chance to see the potential for them to want to spend more time together. If that first time ends really badly for one or both of them, a second meeting will probably not ensue. That IS tachlis.
Take a secular tune and elevate it with some tehillim, I always say.
“Jews don’t date to “have a good time.”
They should. They should date for tachlis, but the tachlis should also include having an enjoyable time on that date. If two people cannot enjoy each other’s company (which is the very definition of having a good time), then how can they enjoy sitting across from a table from each other for fifty or so years, G0d willing?
What you said is like saying people don’t eat to have a good meal.
It’s true we need to eat to continue living, and we need to date in order to meet our basherten, but that does not and should not preclude our enjoying the meal (in fact there is a halacha that a man can divorce his wife if she burns his food, is there not?). Hashem does not want us to live our lives without fun and simcha. If we do, He wants to know after 120 years, why we didn’t enjoy the world He gave us. Dating for frum Jews IS for the purpose of finding our life’s partner, but that does not mean we should not enjoy the process.
EDITED
I was just reminded of my own experience when I was set up (maybe 35 years ago or more) with a very nice young man who was extremely overweight, I went out with him as a favor to a relative of his, knowing he was obese. I knew immediately that I would not be attracted to him at all, but I was a pleasant date and we had a really nice evening. He also was a very pleasant date, though hashkafically very different from me (and that is something my friend, his relative, should have told me in advance). I did not go out with him a second time for that reason, but nothing I did or said on that date would have led him to think that it was because of his weight. And I think that is at the core of this. Treating people with sensitivity is not always easy, but it is a fundamental principle of Torah. To react negatively to someone’s looks, to the point that he/she realizes it, says something more about the looker than the lookee.
“that closet joke is awesome! lol and it worked out better then they had planned! wish i couldve seen it! “
Are you SURE you weren’t in that class?
A member of my family just told me a story that happened to her when her adorable son was born. He really is a very handsome child, bli ayin hara, and was a gorgeous baby with deep dimples and a cleft chin. Someone actually had the stupidity to say to her,”But you know the dimples and chin are a facial deformity, don’t you?” Even if this is true, the fact is that dimples and cleft chins are extremely attractive to most people,and how on earth does someone tell a new mother that her new baby has a facial deformity, EVEN IF THE BABY DID HAVE ONE (i.e. a cleft lip and palate)?
I understand that attraction is an important component of a relationship. That being said, there is overweight and there is OVERWEIGHT. If a girl is more generous of figure than a size 2 (which I personally do NOT get why a guy would find to be attractive in a girl, because they look like sticks), then that does not make her overweight. If she is in fact a size 24, then yes, she is severely overweight. I have seen tall young women who were size 16 and did NOT look heavy. It is all relative. Size is a number, it is not a person. And people tend to gain weight after they are married, and can also lose weight. Men gain weight, too. But the sloppy guys who only want models, never seem to own a mirror. (Not saying Yeshivahguy is a slob, personally, I think you have a more sensitive approach, though I wish you would have given that girl the second chance that you contemplated, to save face for her — you might have liked her better the second time, since she had other maalos).
Dr. Pepper, please do not do that. it really is not funny.
Re the hilarity of school pranks: Some of them are not so funny. My husband was teaching in a “Choshuvah Yeshivah” in a class filled with obnoxious fifth graders. The nicer he was to them, the more chutzpahdig they became. This was especially unfortunate as he is a Baal Teshuvah with the idealistic notion that unzereh students are tzadikimm because they grow up in Torah-filled homes with derech eretz. He was sadly disillusioned both in this yeshivah and elsewhere. But I digress…
The boys thought it would be a real hoot to remove the pins from the hinges of the closet door where class supplies were kept. They reasoned that the next time my husband opened the door, the door would fall on him. HAHAHAHA!!! What a laugh riot that would be! Unfortunately, they did not count on the PRINCIPAL coming into the classroom, and for some reason HE needed to open that closet, so you can guess what happened. My husband was flabbergasted and very embarrassed, and the principal, who fortunately was not hurt, just very startled, became enraged. Although it is clear it was the fault of those students who did this, it reflected badly on my husband, as well. It really upset him that frum kids should do something so mean-spirited and think it to be a joke. Plus they were LUCKY no one was injured. it could have just as easily gon the other way, and it could have happened to him.
I don’t like practical jokes that potentially can cause harm to someone or embarrassment, which is a major aveira.
ChCh – I NEEDED that!!!!!!
“Snowback – For getting physically too close to the women alone this guy crossed all red lines. Getting close and starting personal conversations with customers is not the behavior of an ehrliche yid. “
If that is what he did, you are right. But many people have different levels of what they consider their “personal space,” and for some, it extends to a much further area than you might think. So where I might feel someone standing six inches to a foot away was getting in my space, another person might feel that three feet or even 6 feet was too close, if the person made them uncomfortable for some reason.
“What exactly is that if not as a wife and mother?” (to be a good role model as a woman)
Apparently not, as so many of the women who SHOULD be role models at home for their children, are forced out into the work force by a society that teaches them that the ideal is for THEM to support their families while their husbands sit in Kollel. You cannot have it both ways. And I have seen the difference in the children raised by babysitters versus those whose mothers put their complete hishtadlus into the raising of their babies.
Ann Landers used to say that the proper response to someone who asks an inappropriate question is, “WHY would you ask me that???” That usually lets the asker know he or she is out of line.
EDITED
Trying my best, my friend’s minhag was not a minhag. One side of her family comes from Ireland, as I said, and there is a halachic p’sak that the particular tuna from that region is NOT kosher (or there was when her mom was growing up there). Not a minhag, a halacha. Her minhag, however, is that not only does she not eat tuna from Ireland, but extends that to ALL tuna, even that which is unquestionably kosher according to the simanim.
I would not want it on my conscience that I got someone fired in today’s economy. The wife is an adult. If she feels uncomfortable, she should simply tell him so. HE may be completely unaware of how he is coming off to others (flirtatious people often have that problem). But unless he actually said something TRULY offensive, or touches her, you have no right to cost someone his parnassah. She should tell him straight out (not you – she is not a baby and she should speak up for herself, because that EMPOWERS her), and say, “Listen Chaim Yankel, I realize it is your job to be friendly to your customers, but I personally feel very uncomfortable with men who are overly friendly. So let’s just stick to the price of eggs (literally) and cut the chit chat, my husband is waiting for me to get home. Thanks for your cooperation. ” Stop worrying about his conversations, because you (the wife) have the control to NOT speak with him. If he continues to make a pest of himself, then just tell him very quietly (don’t embarrass him in public) that you feel bad about having to do this, but if he persists, you will have to speak to his boss. Keep in mind he might be a relative of the boss, by the way. Don’t engage him in conversation after that. period.
“A worm is either assur or muttar, as a swordfish is either a dag tamei or tahor, neither can be kosher some places but not others. “
Sorry, but I believe you are wrong about that. My friend’s mom came from Ireland, where the locally caught variety of tuna fish is NOT kosher (question about the scales). So her family has never permitted the eating of ANY tuna fish, even with a reliable hechsher, in the USA. Some things CAN be kosher in some places but not in others.
mt mehdi – off topic, but why did you choose to call yourself by that user name? I was present at Queens College when Dr.M T Mehdi spoke viciously against the State of Israel and the Zionists. He deliberately sought to incite a riot, and he knew that the Jewish college students who were present would be getting all their buttons pushed with each word that spewed from his toxic mouth. It just seems to be a little inappropriate, like calling yourself Louis Farrakhan.(I don’t mean to insult you, I am just curious about this odd choice).
I have been told that both Miller and Migdal are owned by the same company. Miller is NOT C”Y. How can that be, if they are both Jewish-owned by the same Jews?
Esther, to say we wish you a refuah shelaima, is redundant and unnecessary. You know that already. I have been through some serious health issues this year as well, and B”H my surgery was a good one, so I wish you a healthy outcome from your treatment. By this time next year, may all the “stuff” you have gone through, be a really distant memory for you. I wish you arichas yamim in the best of health. Our tefilos on Shavuos night are especially meaningful. I try to stay up all night going to shiurim in my shul, and have done so for the last five years, and always try to go outdoors for a few minutes at midnight to daven when Shamayim is really open to us. I heard it said that is one stays up learning all night on Tikun Leil Shavuos, it is a zechus for arichas yamim, so if you have the koach to do so, maybe try to do that, too. In any case, have a wonderful yom tov, in the best of health.
BTW, the comment casting aspersions on the frumkeit of Rabbi Weiss, is one of the more typical remarks made by people who are otherwise fine people, but seem intolerant of people whose share a differing view of Orthodoxy.Not everyone who is frum is chareidi, or yeshivish frum. THAT DOES NOT MEAN THEY ARE NOT FRUM, EHRLICHE YIDDEN. If someone is 100% shomer shabbos, strictly kosher, and the woman he married goes to mikveh regularly, he is frum. If he is also careful in his financial and social dealings with people, he is frum. He may differ in his approach in some areas, may or may not have a beard, may or may not have the same hashkafa that you do, but that does not lessen his frumkeit.
The negative judgmentalism that is marchik one Jew from another, is IMO a more serious problem facing Klal Yisroel today, than whether or not a woman is capable and deserving to be respected for her knowledge of Torah. Rabbi Weiss made a mistake by taking his opinion in that area a little too “out there,” but he realized it, took responsibility, and rectified the mistake, and I respect him for that (it had to be very humbling for him). I would like to see some of the more chareidi people admit when THEY have gone too far (like shoving a woman around on a bus).
FTR Rabbi Hoffman is a respected rabbi in the Five Towns, and writes regularly for one of the local Jewish papers.
“oomis: I don’t understand your point. Hashem also says we may eat lettuce, but the the bugs on them. Eat Norwegian Salmon and you’re safe. “
Let me clarify. Bugs on produce go onto the produce themselves. Bugs walk onto the lettuce, and lay eggs, etc. Fish, may ingest these worms as part of their food chain. Do we check poultry and meat flesh for these worms, as well (if so, then of course, it should be checked in fish)? If it is known that the worms are in the fish’s intestines, the intestines should be discarded. But if Hashem gave us fish to eat, the presumably He knew that fish ingest worms and they might be hard, if not impossible to remove from them. Yet, He did not say, eat the fish with fins and scales, but not if they have worms. Anyway, this topic is for discussion by rabbonim, which I am not, and I go by what my poskim tell me is muttar or assur. So far, I am having salmon and blintzes (not mixed together) for dinner tonight, BE”H. And cheesecake.
Cholov is cholov. If it comes from a cow, it is kosher. If it comes from a goat, it is kosher. Milk that is stipulated as Grade A milk can ONLY come from a cow, by the laws in this country. It is not MORE kosher because a Jew owned the cow and watched the cow get milked, even if it IS called cholov Yisroel. If we choose to drink cholov Yisroel, kol hakavod, but don’t put down those frum Yidden who choose to spend less money for better-tasting and longer fresh-tasting milk that is NOT cholov Yisroel. As long as it is 100% kosher, it is nobody else’s business. Have you any idea how many people claim to be cholov Yisroel, but eat Entenmann’s cake?
You know when there will be real achdus Yisroel? When every single frum Jew respects and embraces the differences among us and realizes that we are all eventually arriving at the same destination, even when we travel by different roads.
“Rabbi” Avi Weiss is not orthodox. “
careful, that is motzi shem ra.
“A shul filled with many doctors. ” LOL
Did Hashem not put these parasites IN the fish, and did HE not give us guidelines for what constitutes fish kashrus?
All this disgusting and gross talk about worms in fish, has seriously put my yom tov menu in jeopardy.
“oomis, thanks for making me smile 🙂 “
Squeak – my work here is done…. 🙂
“The magiority of women today, are very careful about Loshon Horah. “
THE MAJORITY???? Seriously?????
“lifnei iver”
I mean no disrespect, but I simply could not resist responding to this particular phraseology. So keeping in mind that this is tongue in cheek, if the person is an “iver,” then I doubt he is bothered much by the girl’s short hemline.
OK back to our discussion…
“Yet I have never seen a heter for saying it, based on everyone having to “struggle with it”.
You are absolutely right, and yet, somehow that does not seem to stop the yentas of ANYWHERE, New York, from speaking it on a regular basis. Do we say they are not frum? No, we say, it is wrong to speak loshon hara, Hashem has specified in so many ways and places that it is a terrible aveira, on par with eating treif, btw, but no one wants to put them in cheirem, as far as I know. The issue of tznius, while it has certain components that are absolutes, it has other gray areas, and though we are all so sure we “know” what the halacha is, some rabbonim hold a mekeil view in some things (i.e. the stockings issue) so there ARE some issues that are not absolutes. I have seen some incredibly tzniusdig young women (in demeanor) who were wearing clothing that some people here would feel was not “modest” by some standards. Halevai that ALL bnos Yisroel were as modest and aidel as they. I have likewise seen young women (and men) who looked the part, talked the talk, but did not walk the walk of aidelkeit.
I am not saying in any way that we should not adhere to standards of propriety. But I do think that some interpretations of propriety can be expanded a little, to include people whom others have formerly discounted.
“I could argue that I would not do those things and let those who would, learn to control themselves, but it’s not “my problem” and
thus I should be able to ride and swim all I want, even on Shabbos”
SJSinNYC is right,and this other poster misunderstands my point, obviously, because he or she compares apples with oranges. There is NO question that doing certain things were feared by the chachomim to lead to chillul Shabbos, because in fact those things DID lead to chillul Shabbos (the mikoshesh aitzim, for example).
The issue of a skirt length being a half in longer or shorter (AND I remind you, I believe it should be longer, but that is my personal derech), is not the same inyan. If you really want a woman to be completely “tzniusdig” in dress, you may as well outfit her in a burlap sack from head to toe, as the Arabs do (and btw, they are among the MOST immoral of people). It is high time, in my opinion, for men to stop laying the blame for THEIR imnpulses, on women. Just as we have to refrain from eating certain foods, whether or not we have a taivah for them (AND WE DO REFRAIN EVERY SINGLE DAY even if it just to wait between fleishogs and milchigs), and just as a wise employee refrains from telling his boss what he REALLY thinks of him sometimes, even though said boss is a jerk, so too must we learn self-control in all areas of life. We are not little children with poor impulse control. We have to start acting like adults and not behaimas. And the half inch of skin is NOT the issue, though our women have been made to feel that way. When all is said and done at the end of the day, we alone are responsible for how we act. I applaud women who want to dress in a modest way that does not reveal too much, but I do not condemn women who dress in shorter sleeves or a skirt that skims the knee, as being “not frum,” as some people have implied them to be.
Mazal, when there is a breach in tznius in the summer, it is often because the men are home alone with too much time on their hands, while the wives go to Bungalow colonies. They are only together for weekends, and from a halachic standpoint, that is not such a healthy thingfor the men OR the women.
“unless you are a guy, which I remember from way back you are not, you cannot possibly understand anything about a man’s taaivos or nisyonos, just as it wouldn’t be right for me to make a statement as if i understood the struggles of being a religious woman.”
There is no question that taaivos are an issue. However, the Muslim response to that is to put women in a chador or burquah, and only allow her eyes to show. So maybe the problem is with the man, and not the woman. Maybe men need to learn more self-control. I love the smell of a BLT, but I am not going to eat it.
“No offense but the women who defend not being dressed tzniusdik are Nogeah B’davar. In my professional experience it usually stems from a low self esteem and a need to be looked at,
get attention, be the center of attention. “
Unless you are a woman, and from your screen name, I get the feeling you are not, you cannot possibly understand anything about a woman’s sense of fashion and desire to well-dressed, which has NOTHING whatsoever to do with lack of self-esteem, and everything in the world to do with wanting to look pretty. If you ask most women, they are dressing to impress other women, not men, because most men are clueless and don’t even notice when their wives are wearing a new dress. Women who come from frum homes but dress like a zonah, are possibly suffering from low self-esteem.The typical girl who wants to wear a pretty dress that does not quite measure up to what we perceive as 100% tzniusdig standards in the Yeshivish world,however, just wants to look nice. Maybe they should not wear makeup, either, because it shows a lack of confidence to not be satisfied with the face Hashem gave them.
” there is a difference between a person that’s not frum period, IE doesn’t cover her hair “
Chesedname, are you saying that a (married) woman who does not cover her hair, is not frum, period? There are many, many frum people who would strongly disagree with you about that. They all go to mikvah, keep a strictly kosher home, are mekadeish the shabbos and yomim tovim, say Tehillim on a regular basis, daven every day, and do great chesed (with or without the name). Do you really feel that they are not frum because of that one reason?
“Where does this idea come from that wearing tsniusdic clothing is less of an obligation then keeping kosher? “
I don’t believe it to be less of an obligation – only that it is NOT equivalent. If someone eats treif in his home, you cannot eat in his home. Period. If his daughter wears a skirt that covers the knee but not when she sits down, do you truly feel she is treif? If so, I respect where you are coming from, but there is nothing further to discuss.
Aidle, take your salmon slices (I use fillets) and poach them in a seasoned broth with water,lemon juice, white wine,salt and pepper, and sliced onions, until the fish flakes easily (about 20 minutes should do it).Taste the broth to see if you like the proportions. I don’t have a set measured amount. Chill thoroughly and make a sauce to serve along side or on the fish, with mayonnaise,a little lemon juice, garlic salt, and dill weed. I like to sprinkle a little paprika over it, for a little color. It is best served cold.
Artchill – I like that answer. I would go one step further and add, if the people there are actually DAVENING and not talking to each other, instead of to Hashem, that to me is a kosher shul.