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Sometimes it is not the Yetzer Hara that causes problems, but the best of intentions that parents have when raising their children. Not every child can be raised in a “best” yeshivah, and not every person is meant to follow the path that every other child in the family does. For every Yissachar who learns, there is a Zevulun who perhaps does not, but helps support the learning done by others. Maybe this brother does not have a head for learning. That does not invalidate him as a good Yid, and should not impact negatively on his sister’s chances for a shidduch of her choice. It is because of this type of thinking that people are not often upfront about issues in their families.
To me, boxing has always been the same thing as the Roman Gladiators. People are paying good money to watch two guys beat each others’ brains out. Wrestling is only marginally better, but both are bad for us to watch, as it desensitizes us to violence.
I have added her name to our community Tehillim list. May she and all cholei Yisroel have a speedy and complete recovery.
Moshe, you are absolutely correct, in my humble opinion. Anyone over 25 who needs mommy or daddy to make their decisions for them, is not ready to get married. I have been saying that for years. I don’t even like when people call to speak to me about my daughters, I always hand the phone to the girls and let them speak for themselves. In fact, it is crucial for the caller to have a conversation with the girl or boy, so they can personally assess if that young person is able to carry on a conversation with someone. JMO.
“I must have missed something.
Did any poster here say that you should ONLY look at a girl’s brothers and ignore her middos and values, the rest of her family and all other information? “
As in all things, we have to use our seichel (as Mod 80 pointed out so aptly). Although no one said to look only at the brothers, there was a between the lines undercurrent that this is and should be a MAIN concern.
(BTW, isn’t it better to see a thread full of arguments against NO one, than one filled with acrimonious words towards SOMEone?)
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I agree with Yiddishekop. I also believe that chazal had many important lessons to impart, but that does not take the onus off us for considering all aspects, not just one facet of a family. And if the boy is OTD (not the case in the scenario which we were presented), but the girl is ehrliche frum, then whose influence on the future children will be more strongly felt?
I was told by someone int he know, that the band plays loudly because it SOUNDS more lebedig, and makes their musical ability sound more exciting. I answered back – if I get deaf from this music, I won’t be listening to ANYTHING, exciting or not.
Only one of my five children shares a trait in common with one of my brothers – his love of chazzonus. A brother and sister can be very different types of people. If they are both raised with yoshrus in a loving home, the fact that the boy is not a “learner” at age 19 does not mean the sister’s children will be that way unless SHE raises them that way. I think Chazal should have looked more closely at the GIRL, who will do most if not all of the child-rearing, and be concerned with HER hashkafa towards support of learning, both her future husband’s and her children’s.
We should consider ALL members of a family and how they interact with one another, in assessing a potential shidduch – not just look at the brothers.
It WAS a great idea, one from which I benefited. We couldn’t hear ourselves think, much less have a conversation, so it wasn’t even RUDE to plug up!
A very considerate baal simcha supplied his guests’ tables with earplugs at his daughter’s wedding. They had a band known for their excessively loud music, and he wanted to give people a safe and enjoyable time.
“She once told me she would never consider a BT. I replied, “Really? It’s a good thing your father didn’t feel that way.”
Although I do think this was a good answer, I can tell you from experience that marrying a BT can be a huge challenge, and I would NOT bedavka seek out that shidduch for my children. I am married to a phenomenal man, a truly ehrliche frum man, whose middos of chessed clearly derived directly from Avraham Avinu. He became frum in his 20s, at least 5 years before we met. His parents were wonderful people and I dearly loved them (no in-law jokes in my household). BUT, there is no question that it took a lot of work to make it work, and I was very fortunate. My in-laws had GREAT respect for my husband’s decision to be frum, and were very supportive of him.
Many parents of BT view the change as a rejection of their own values, and they do not emotionally support the decision of their child to be religious. If the child is young, they don’t want to hear about Yeshivas and tuition, or kashrus, or no tv on Shabbos. In some cases, they actively seek to discourage the religious forays that their child is making, or put down frumkeit.
And what happens when there is a (non-kosher and R”L non-JEWISH) celebration in the family? As loving and supportive as my in-laws were, when a very close relative married a non-Jew, they were VERY hurt that we did not go to what they viewed as a family simcha. There was great machlokess for almost a year, where the family member did not forgive us, until there was a death in the family, and it became less important to them to continue a grudge.
And what happens when the grandchildren can’t eat (without great preparation in advance)in the treif home, or don’t understand why Grandma and Grandpa (as opposed to Bubby and Zeidy) really have no interest in attending their siddur party? That was very hard on my kids, even with my in-laws being so wonderful. My shver, who was a real tzaddik bein odom l’chaveiro, did not attend the 8th grade graduation ceremony when my son received the highest Talmud award (and my parents O”H were long gone, unfortunately), because he was also invited to his great-granddaughter’s first birthday party. He did not “get” how important it was to my son for his only living grandparent to see him receive this award, and watch him graduate. Had he been Valedictorian, he would have attended.
It is not so “glatt” to say go out with a BT. If you do, it has to be with eyes wide open, and anticipating the possible pitfalls, i.e., people who flip in and flip out or people who put too much emphasis on the tafeil, and not enough on the ikkar. It is not for us to decide if someone should marry a BT. Only each person on an individual basis can make that determination. Knowing what I know, though I would not STOP such a shidduch, I would not deliberately look for it.
Devil’s Advocate, I don’t really agree with the idea that there is an equality between observance of Shabbos and sitting in BEsi MEdrash and learning (notwithstanding the fact that we DO say that Talmud Torah K’neged Kulam). The frum velt really needs to take off its blinders and recognize that sitting a learning Gemarah is NOT for everybody. Everyone has different intellectual strengths, temperaments, and patience, and not all guys are cut out for the type of learning that we usually think of when we say “Sitting and learning.” That is a far cry from saying, “not cut out for Shabbos.”
This young man clearly is committed to OBSERVANCE of the Torah, if not the actual formal learning of it. Maybe he goes to a Shabbos shiur (or would) or likes to go over the parsha with the help of Artscroll. Maybe he would enjoy reading English language books about Halacha or Hashkafa. These are all forms of learning. I know a lot of frum men who rarely open a sefer. But they keep Shabbos in every detail, they are kosher to the letter, their wives all go to the Mikveh, and they are raising a generation of kids who are all in Yeshivah.
We really need to stop stereotyping what is frum and what is not. NOT all guys are cut out to sit and learn, and they are honest enough to admit it, yet they are committed to Yiddishkeit. That says a lot to me. There are lots of guys doing little more than warming the bench in the Beis Medrash, who ought not be there. So are they more desirable as an asset to their sisters’ shidduchim?
we need to vote our congresspersons out of office. They ran right over us, probably were coerced by the president, but nevertheless are royally squashing those of us who will be forced to pay ever-increasing premiums for ever-decreasing services.
cholent doesn’t HAVE to be brown, but it is more aappetizing to me when it is. I recently saw a whitish cholent, and could not bring myself to taste it at first. When I did finally take a bite, it reinforced my original assessment. It was vile.
Silly Rhymes II
These were a bit harder, I couldn’t get many of them
1) Electrified footwear. (juice shoes?)
2) Boring cholesterol.
4) Arab ruler who fell into a volcano. (sheik peak)
7) A royal scrooge. (mean queen)
13) H-shem allowed it to give Billam a piece of its mind. (a-s sass)
15. Computer from USA Nation’s Capital. (DC PC)
What if the wife HAS no brothers?
I once had a similar type of experience. The school next door broke ground for expansion one summer, and one rainy night I went into my bathroom (the light was off) and I heard a PING PING PING sound. I was sure that there was a leaky roof from the storm and it sounded like the dripping was coming from the vicinity of my wastebasket. So I reached into the basket to see if it was wet and felt something very much alive, very warm, and very furry. I screamed so loudly, I woke up the entire household, and made my husband run out of the house in his PJs to empty the garbage pronto. I really wanted him to do away with the mouse, but he let it go. (yes, it came back in the next day, but I put out poison by that time and never saw it more than once after it came back).
OY OY OY OY! I am officially totally grossed out now! I could never bear to touch one of those things, nuch less kill it by twisting its neck or cutting with scissors.
How about the Ish/Isha one. The Hebrew word for man (Ish) is spelled Aleph, Yud, Shin. The word for woman (Isha) is spelled Aleph, Shin, Heh. If you take the Yud from Isah and the Heh from Isha and put them together, you spell a Name of Hashem (Kaw), and this serves to remind us that when man and woman come together in kedusha, that the Shechina rests with them, and Hashem must always be part of a Jewish home. As soon as the Yud and Heh are removed, however, when there is no sign of Hashem in a Jewish household, all that remains is the Aleph-Shin or Aish (fire).
Davka nafshi is also beautiful. Anything by the Rabbi’s Sons or Dveykus, also makes me cry.
Yuck. I would put out the glue traps around the doorway to each bedroom, so they can’t get inside (they can easily fit under the narrowest space between the door and the floor). There is nothing that eckles me as much as the thought of a mouse in my room. I don’t love the traps that I recommended, either, because I feel for the tzaar baalei chayim, but if no one invited them into my house, all bets would be off.
There was a time when the Gedolei Hador of Europe wanted to pasken that POTATOES were kitniyos on Pesach, because flour can be made from the potato starch and it resembles regular flour. However, when they realized what a full-scale rebellion they would have on their hands, because potatoes are such a staple food item, they retracted their views. Sometimes chachomim do re-think their positions and have charatah on their p’sak halacha (I have experienced that myself with a rov who first assered and then mattired something that I asked him about). R’ Moshe ZT”L may have been aware of SOME of the dangers in smoking, but it is only in recent years that the medical community has recognized the life-threatening danger of SECOND-hand smoke to innocent victims who never lit up even once in their lives. Even if someone feels you have a right to risk your own life (and that is a big IF), they certainly would not espouse the belief that it is ok to harm another person. Let’s move on already.
I think we are overthinking this to death. If someone says ANY pleasant greeting to you, answer back “to you, as well.”
SJS, how are you doing? You have been missed. (Yes, we noticed).
And there are still Jews who think Obama is the best thing since sliced bread. What a joke! How are we allowing our congress to vote for this?
I merely stated that only a smoker could find a zechus for smoking,and I stand by that. Most non-smokers do not find anything good to say about smoking. It literally stinks, it causes cancer, emphysema, bronchitis, heart disease and stroke, and it is a vice that affects not only the person using it, but also everyone around that person, as well as our environment at large. I may never smoke in my life, but if I live or work with a smoker, I can also get those diseases.
Babies who have a parent who smokes, have statistically higher rates of upper respiratory infections compared to those raised in a non-smoking environment. These are not my own stats, it is common knowledge. In this day and age anyone who fails to grasp that very simple fact is sorely in need of a visit to any lung cancer ward to see what that heter has allowed to happen. I have no doubt that were he still alive, R’ Moshe ZT”L would reverse his original decision.
If you are kosher, there is no need to brine anything.
Jamie Geller wrote a book for the Bride who knowws nothing about cooking. Great.
” if I can smoke on Purim -I’ll see smoking isn’t the greatest thing since sliced bread. :”
If it isn’t, then why waste your time, lung capacity, and money on something that unimportant? Only a smoker will ever find a zechus of any kind in smoking. Most people have learned it is a painful and ugly death waiting to happen. Smpking once in a while still pollutes the air the rest of us have to breathe. I would have more respect for a smoker who simply admitted he is too weak to overcome his taivah, but not try to justify his smoking with what amounts to very weak arguments. And to try to attribute halachic heterim to it is beyond the pale.
I thought of Boris bore us, too, but it’s too many words, as was already noted
How about a Boris snoreus? (cheating a little, here)
or Boris Taurus (’cause he’s full of bull).
AZOI you are absolutely right – it makes no difference who the source of the shidduch is. Very few people whose names are given by the boy or girl are going to be candid, though. if you have heard of such people, then they are the exception or had reshus from the family to speak candidly. Most people like to put their BEST foot forward, so they choose references who will bedavka enhance their image, NOT speak candidly about their flaws. Kind of like a used car salesman. I myself do prefer to network, but I don’t necessarily know people who live in the communities of a proposed shidduch.
I would have no problem with this healthcare bill, as long as the President and entire Congress would also have to utilize it for their own families. If it’s good enough for us, it should be good enough for them.
“You should know crossing a street is dangerous -I think there is a pedestrian accident every 45 minutes in NYC. “
Poor shlemazel – you would think he would have learned to stay off the street after the first few times! 😛
Seriously though, smoking is NOTHING like crossing a street. You do not injure other people when you cross a street – unless you cross carelessly and cause an accident, when someone swerves to avoid you.
There is a major problem with so-called references. Who would give out their friend or neighbor’s number as a reference without being sure that the person has only nice things to say? Do you really think a reference is going to tell you ANYTHING negative?
On the rare occasion that the person would be 100% candid about something less than stellar about the proposed shidduch, it could get back to the person who gave that person as a reference, and cause machlokess.
“a man handed an antique dealer a gold coin marked “70 BC” and asked him to appraise it. the antique dealer took one look at it and knew it was fake. any guesses how? “
Well, duuuuuh!How could it be marked ANYTHING “BC” if it was before….
“Silly Rhymes:
(each of the descriptions below matches a two-word rhyming phrase)”
I actually am stumped.
4) Recovering a set of false teeth from a shark tank. Denture adventure???
8) Performer who doubles as a matchmaker. It doesn’t rhyme, but “yentateiner” comes to mind.
10) Cave exploration while inebriated. Drunken spelunkin’
“When you smoke it’s to enjoy the smoke.”
Not always – sometimes it is merely to look “cool” in the eys of other kids who smoke, sometimes it is to keep one’s weight down, and very often (especially with people who have emphsema and /or lung cancer) it is because they are so highly addicted that they suffer when they don’t smoke. When they are coughing their guts up, they are not enjoying the smoke, but they still have the need to smoke. It is because of that addictive quality that smoking should be assur, because it can cause harm in any amount. The first puff taken into the lungs causes damage to the lungs. Would you stand near a burning building and deliberately inhale?????
And for anyone who wants to compare smoking to alcoholism – if it becomes such a problem for someone to refrain from excessive use of alcohol to the point where it is destroying his liver and causing harm to others (due to his impaired judgment), then he should not drink anything stronger than grape juice. In fact, the nazir cannot even do that, because he recognizes in himself that he can be nichshal. Once we know of the danger inherent in a harmful action, it is an aveira to persist in doing it.
So here is a theoretical question. If you knew with 99% certainty that someone had been arrested for a heinous crime, and a person by that person’s (unusual) name was in your community – would you speak up about it?
Maybe we are upside down….
My husband.
My pleasure, best bubby (though I CLAIM THAT TITLE in my family).
This is a terrible rachmanus, and I wish there were a magic pill to give them. I have much respect for same gender CELIBATES, who like unmarried frum and celibate straight people, live a moral life in spite of their physical desires. It is the AVEIRA that is the toeiva, NOT the person, which is something we tend to forget.
EDITED
I’d be happy with the interest!
“Like crossing a street, even though it’s somewhat dangerous”
Health, you meant well, but your analogy is not a good one. People NEED to cross the street most of the time, in order to get from point A to point B, so they have to learn how to do it safely. That’s why we have traffic lights and stop signs. They most certainly do not EVER need to smoke.
This is a question to all the shadchanim? How well do you screen the people whom you recommend as shidduchim? I know someone who went to an event recently and met someone, only to find out the next day that the person has a very unsavory past. Nobody at the event, including the person who brought him there, were aware of a very,very serious problem that would make him completely un”redt”able. Obviously, I do not mean something like a past illness, or that he was temporarily OTD. It is something far more serious. So how do you verify that the the profile someone gives you is not completely bogus and they are not axe murderers or such?
BB, Tilex is made by the Clorox Co. so maybe you can order the product from them directly. After going on line, I do not recommend going to a chemist to get the solution. The WD-40 Co. in San Diego, California 92110, makes a similar product called X-14. Try writing to them for info.
I thought this was closed. I am actually glad you opened it up again (if you did), because we cannot hide our heads in the sand and make believe this is not a real problem in the frum world.
happy girl, that has been my daughter’s exact experience, paying hundreds of dolalrs for Shabbos getaways, where the boys paid NOTHING, and are the same guys each time, over and over again. She only continues to go to these events, because you never know when a particular event WILL yield a new group of people who show up. But generally, it has been a very unfair situation vis a vis the girls.