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Joseph – No, the OP did not ask about giving food to someone who smokes. It was about giving tzedaka to someone who buys cigarettes. And that makes two out of two attempts to twist around a legitimate question into something so not what was asked.
I have been fortunate enough to distribute food, money and other things to people who need (as the middle man, not my funds). I would not think twice about giving shirts and food to poor people who smoke, we still have an obligation to supply them their needs. Would I give them money? Probably not. I refuse to supply someone with their cigarette money. I would pay a bill for them or give them store money to a store that does not sell cigarettes.
I have been responsible for supplying things to individuals who are poor because they and their husband embezzled money and he got arrested. The family was left with no assests and no income. I asked if there is a question on giving them things paid for with maaser money if the situation was self made and I was told there is no question.
thanks Sam – I think that’s the first time someone besides me noticed 🙂
Been there done that. You’ll survive.
I thought Goq was making the point that there is nothing really funny about being drunk. Knowing Goq, I am sure he wasn’t trying to be funny. Right bud?
golfer – are you a storm chaser?
my son is dressing up like a character from a book he read. it happens to have been a movie as well but we’ve never seen it.
I’ve read two novels recently involving this and my thoughts were:
(in the case of a girl switched at birth) oish, all the accidental violations of yichud and negiah over the years . . .
(in the case of the boy raised by his uncle and aunt unknowingly):
how was he called to the Torah?
*snicker*
I assume you realize that there is no connection. You are asking if those who oppose to over focusing on health are opposed to people wearing clothing that lacks tznius. Were you really trying to ask if those in the first catagory oppose overfocus on dress?
CA – that comment didn’t really come from you, did it? It really makes me uncomfortable . . .
so when NY was expecting 20 inches it made every news website 24/7. we just got 19 and it seems to be business as usual (except all the schools being closed) I couldn’t even find a final tally anywhere until I literally googled the question.
GO CHICAGO, WE ROCK!!!!!!!!!
Yayin – no idea who your response is directed at. You are 100% correct that the media would like to show that we are no holier but you are so wrong about the fabrication. And the saddest truth of all is that hearing it from leading rabbanim and askanim is no proof of any such fact. There may have been some fabrications, I don’t know so I couldn’t say, but the honest truth is that the politicians are still letting them free. They are NOT being arrested because the victims don’t want their houses burnt down. I appreciate your desire for it to be so but the facts speak otherwise. Are you speaking based on one or two friends? talk in shuls? word on the street? if you want to know whats really going on, speak to the survivors, their parents, the administrators who had to face the test of making choices.
(And I would not speak more globally than my daled amos, just as I have asked of others not to, if I was not genuinely in a position to do so)
yayin – based on experience I would seriously challenge the truth of your last post if this was a person-to-person conversation. What you have posted on this thread displays tremendous naivete (I’m being generous) or wishful thinking. Not that I don’t join you in that dream but the facts prove otherwise.
no, that wasn’t. But thank you for proving my point.
well you obviously didn’t understand me. I was talking about this thread, not his work.
give it up zdad, they are better contortionists than you and there’s more of them.
PAA – you don’t really think I was asking that, do you?
ish – is that the yeshivish version of eesh?
haifagirl – I happen to think you are wonderful and terrific (and that is WITH knowing who you are) but I HATE when people take experiences they have and decide they are ‘frum’ things. I don’t share those experiences with you at all. Not in my own home, nor in any of my friends homes. The only people I know who are frum who use first names for their aunts and uncles are those who are 2 years apart in age from them, or older than their aunts, and are in elementary school together.
(hope you don’t mind that I borrowed your soapbox)
You speak about this as if it is some sort of poison. Any new situation that emerges that isn’t spelled out black and white somewhere in the gemara or what not presents such a monstrous threat to hashkafa…
There is a lot of emotion in that response but it is not what he said. Taking his specific ‘complaints’ about women taking on men’s roles en masse, and calling it “any new situation…not spelled out. . .” is a gross alteration. You obviously have a great dislike toward his opposition but in regard to your attack on his viewpoint I would certainly say that if anyone here is doing this: and the gut reaction is to fight without even thinking about what you’re fighting. it aint him.
just as a side bar to frumguy, yes, you did NOT say anything about women who don’t nurse being lazy. I believe I understood what you meant because I have made the same statements. I just know how easy it is to mis-hear those statements (as you see) and mothers are often very fragile.
I do remember hearing two comments almost decades ago that still ring in my ears. One mom friend said to me, “I am DEFINITELY not nursing this baby, why would anyone want to be tied down like that?” another was “I don’t want to nurse this baby because we will be moving and it is such a pain in the neck to nurse when you have other things to do”. Yes, I know that we can’t judge etc etc, but those were friends of mine and I am pretty clear on what they meant and said. But my point is that that is NOT typical, and even if that is more along the lines of the thinking frumguy was referring to, most mom’s, Thank Gd, have a much different attitude.
lior – before going off on a tangent about emotional damage, you did hear the part about physical danger and potential drowning, right?
lol, charlie
popa – sure men can have opinions on epidurals but they’re meaningless. Much like most of their opinions on stuff (other than football and pizza)
MDG – excellent response!
frumguy – while that may be the truth, there are some very pained mothers who wish they could nurse but can’t and may be very hurt by your comment.
NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!
I was so hoping that golfer and oomis would weigh in since I wasn’t near a computer 🙂
I second everything they said except that you may argue that if you do it just once or twice it may not hinder their development. The biggest problem with this, that trumps all and hasn’t been mentioned, is that a baby could ch”v DROWN! If you are propping a bottle, you are talking about an infant under 6-8 months. If you prop the bottle in his mouth and he starts coughing or doesn’t want anymore, he will start to kvetch and cry. This crying will bring more milk into his mouth and he will have nowhere to turn. It is really a terrible practice, VERY dangerous. Unfortunately there are lots of people out there who did it successfully who will tell you they lived thru it just fine. As if that is a raya . . .
unlike the kj’s who seem to be remarkably individualistic
SomeoneMe2 –
I wish so much I could meet with you. Maybe you would have some information that would help me help my students!
I just have a question about what you said, if you are able to explain it. It hurts me very much (maybe it shouldn’t, but it does) when you say we don’t try, why can’t we just try. I don’t think you realize just how hard some of us try. There are so many times when my student is being unsafe but he doesn’t know it, and he is angry at me for standing in his way or depriving him of something.
There are so many times when I have to worry if the tablecloth will be just right, or the new pants I bought will fit just right because if not there will be a major meltdown and things will be thrown and broken. Of course I want so badly to make the child happy, but I also need to keep my house/class safe and the other children safe. And I need to be able to get to work on time which I can’t do if today is a day when the shoes are not tied evenly and now they are thrown across the room and the rest of the clothes follow.
I don’t know if you realize just how hard some of us try, and it’s because we care. There is a very difficult balance sometimes between giving a child what he needs, and functioning as a mom, teacher or therapist. It isn’t always possible to ‘just let him be’, but it ISN’T because we aren’t trying or because we don’t appreciate him for who he is. If a sudden noise jolts my student and it sends him into hysterics, I will hold him away from the noise even if he claws at my skin til it bleeds. Because his safety and comfort come before mine. And because I care.
I want to make his pain go away because I totally understand what those sounds may feel like. But if I have a way to make him less sensitive to those sounds so he won’t have to suffer like that every time, I will do it. And it isn’t to “fix” him. It isn’t because I don’t respect his quirks. It is because I don’t want him to suffer daily and I don’t want him to have to stay home all the time to avoid them. I want to give him some freedom from the anxiety and pain he lives with.
Which brings me to my question. When you say you try so hard to use my language when you talk to me, “don’t you think you could reciprocate when you talk to us?” What does that mean? Could you give me an example of something so I can learn it and use it in my own world? I have so many questions and would love anything that you think I could carry over to other aspies or non-verbal kids I work with.
Thanks so much for your side of things – it means so much to me.
fascinating
allegedly
the only positive aspect to yiddish, in my experience, is that Russians who have zero connection to Judaism will connect with you by speaking yiddish. Other than that, I don’t see any reason to do CPR on it. if it lives, fine, if not, also fine.
I wasn’t sure if I should say anything here or not, I know how hard it is to speak out without being misread on internet posts. Just to say where I am coming from, I have been working with (as a TA, teacher, counselor, mom, friend, OT) children and adults on the spectrum or with sensory processing disorders for about 30 years. I have a lot of sensory problems myself and I believe that that has made it much easier for me to relate to what many of the kids around me are feeling. I have spent my time with kids who are severly autistic as well as those who are so high functioning that we often argue about whether or not they were disagnosed properly.
It is very hard to be misunderstood and very hard to live with people who don’t understand you. It is also very hard to have no real way to express yourself. I do understand that very well. I have seen kids struggle so hard to say something that it has brought me to tears. I must add tho, that as someone who does everything I can to make life good for these kids, it is very hard to hear them say we are trying to fix them and we don’t accept them for who they are. I think it may sound that way to you, but I don’t think that is what is always happening. I am not sure that people are so mean and unnaccepting, sometimes it may just feel that way. Yes, I know that I don’t live your life and I don’t know your friends, but speaking as someone who has heard those words myself I wanted to tell you that most people are doing the best they can. I think that it is hard to know what people really mean so it sounds like they are being hurtful but they may not be. For example, I think OURtorah’s post was very thoughtful and supportive, I am not sure why it made you so upset but it is possible that these types of misunderstandings happen often.
Without being able to understand how you look to other people, it is hard to know what their response is supposed to mean. That is one of the reasons I work with a group of kids to tell them what their words and behaviors look like to others. For instance, if you sometimes have outbursts, or stim, and want very basic information explained then an outsider might think of those things as little kid behaviors and they may think that speaking to you as a kid is being thoughtful. They don’t know what else to do with that information. Give them the benefit of the doubt, it is VERY hard to interpret many of things that spectrummy kids will do, or people with sensory problems, and the more you can explain the better.
I don’t think people are looking down on you, maybe they are but why would they? Maybe they just need help understanding you. You have to realize that if a kid drools, it is something people can learn to deal with. But when someone breaks the social barriers, acts in unpredictable ways or has unpredictable outbursts, it makes it very hard to “just act natural” around them. It doesn’t mean they aren’t respecting you, it just means that they may not understand what is going thru your head, and you may not understand what is going thru theirs.
Lior – your last post explaining how extremely scrutinizing a person must be when dating someone from a divorced home because of all the statistics sounds very seriously void of what we Jews call bitachon and emunah.
Do you really think that Avraham wasn’t affected by the astrology, but these young people should worry about statistics? Let them worry about the person’s yiras Shomayim, their ameilus baTorah, their middos toward self, family and Rabbeim and then let them daven their heads off that they have Shalom Bayis. Really? I’m surprised and disappointed.
Oh, I see. We can have a discussion about being in a mikvah with a man observing, but we can’t SAY it. Got it.
monroe – you sound very familiar
Sidi – he reposts that under different names on this and other news sites on every article involving a tragic death. I have been noticing them for months already but since I rarely read the comments I have no idea how long he has been writing it.
was that less insensitive?
hashtagposter – I just went through the same earthshattering, mindblowing experience you did and it shook me down to me very foundation. (both your first problem, and your second) I said the exact same words you did as well, that if my yiddishkeit was not so strong due to so many hardships, I would have lost faith. It is sooo unbelievably painful, and I live in a town small enough for everyone to know exactly who I would be speaking about, so I can bearely even go to anyone for support. It has been an excruciating recovery, and I am not there yet. B”H you found someone, anyone, to validate your feelings. I am working hard on trying to figure out where to go for help to get through this without pulling someone else in (by sharing the information I have)so I can sleep at night.
Whatever the purpose for all of this, just be glad you arrived to the other side and think how strong you will be for the next person who comes along and needs help.
Much much much hatzlocha!
No LF, I was not responding to you, I was resonding to the comments being posted. And BH it is not my child I spoke of. But how sad for those like you, DY and CY to wish so hard that it was rare that you would actually say so, even tho so many people can tell you it isn’t. And this was NOT one of the abusive rebbes. This was NOT the rebbe who is sharp and condescending, turning boys cheeks red with comebacks. This was the loving and caring Rebbe who was almost always there for his talmid.
The Rebbes catch yourself spoke of are the gems, the ones we all know about and fight to have. In a school of 20 teachers, even if they are half, that still leaves hundreds of students who don’t have them.
No, I don’t think that these rebbeim are the explanation for the OTD problem, I never made that claim, but to say these rebbes are RARE or not the norm is a joke. Would you really be so bold as to sweep this problem under the rug, and with it all those who have suffered? Is it possible (tho I don’t suspect so but how would I now) that you are a father who poo-poos your kids claims of being hurt by saying he just doesn’t understand discipline? I have seen parents respond that way to kids who are crumbling.
Perhaps you are defining abuse so specifically that it cannot include the commonplace embarrassment, subtle put downs, dismissals that seem like nothing but dig into the child. And you are only thinking of horrible things that really and honestly would not be happening.
Don’t be so quick to make all these hurting children invisible, it just adds to their pain. And since this can’t be a discussion when the people arguing it are telling me I made it up, it isn’t really happening (hmm, sounds familiar), I will keep myself out of it.
You are forgetting that the whole point of this was to keep yourself from being mechalel Shabbos. If you have brought your nail biting to your consciousness, then you are still ahead!!!! Don’t you see, nothing is ever for nothing.
Everyone is right, but I think “the little I know” is the only one talking reality instead of theory.
Yes, if your son stands for an old man and you tell him to sit down (which I believe is a very rare occurrence if it ever happened), you will be setting a bad stage. I feel the same way about the (less rare)”tell them you are only twelve, it will be cheaper” and “tell them he is your brother so he won’t have to pay”, or “tell them you are returning it because it didn’t fit, they can’t tell you wore it all shabbos” Those people are doing a horrible thing.
The real reality, however, is that there are MANY, MANY, MANY parents who would not only have encouraged their child to give up their seat, but would have even offered to pay the old man’s ticket if need be. And invited him for shabbos as well. And those wonderful, middosdik, ehrlich parents who did NOT sow those bad seeds STILL ended up R”L with a child with serious questions. Or a child with chutzpah, or a child who ch”v turns away. You are correct that we need to do those right things, but you are wrong to think that it will have those results you dream of. Your job is to do what is right for your child, Hashem will put your child on the derech that is right for him.
Regarding the schools, only in a dream. You are speaking of discipline, we are complaining about abuse. And no school is free of the abusive rebbes, some more, some less, but they are everywhere. Sorry, but they are. And not all children can shoulder or observe the abuse and come out strong. Even if 50 of their classmates did.
My children have a wonderful Rebbe who was willing to acknowledge that the menahel was emotionally and verbally abusive to select students. He handled the situation by giving over very little information to the menahel, buffering the reports and handling all discipline directly with the parents. He was a life saver to several boys who were broken and battered. But one of those boys, who trusted this rebbe and no other, once caught rebbe on a bad day.
One of the impulsive kids in the class got in his face and made fun of him about something personal. This boy told him to shut up. The impulsive boy RAN for the Rebbe to say, “so-and-so used bad language”. The Rebbe walked over to the boy and grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him up against the wall and said something to him about not even being able to make it through a morning without bugging people. That was the end of this boys trust (this rebbe was the only one he trusted), the end of his effort, and the beginning of a difficult road. The Rebbe’s response over the next few weeks was to tell the mom that he put loads of work into the boy but I guess the boy is just beyond help. No idea the damage his own words did. And the mother was too embarrassed to speak up.
And unfortunately, this story repeated itself with two to three boys in the class each year. And each time Rebbe would shake his head thinking that it was so sad that all the effort he put into the boy just didn’t help long term. Never a question to his own behavior.
So is this abuse? Does this boy suffer from the “bad seeds” his parents sowed? Does this mother have a right to complain? Do you know that an apology from the Rebbe would have turned it all around for many of the boys (I can only speak for the one’s I have worked with).
The theories are wonderful but the Rebbeim are over worked and underpaid. And not given the kavod they deserve. No question about that. But please don’t act like our boys don’t face humiliation constantly. Either they themselves, or their friends. And I DO believe that THAT chinuch has been the most damaging. Because the children will even opt to look up to crazy, materialistic, or overindulgent parents who are safe, over an ehrlich Rebbe who isn’t.
LF – very respectfully stated but my guess (don’t know for sure) is that your kids are still young.
since i don’t know you, this comment is not to indicate i don’t believe you. if you know for a fact that he rebbe is being abusive and that you are not exaggerating the facts due to emotion (could be both), you may want to tell the menahel that either:
1) Your son will apologize for chutzpah ONLY AFTER the rebbe apologizes for his abusive comments
or
2) your son will apologize for the chutzpah ONLY AFTER the rebbe admits to you what was said, and apologizes to you for the way your son was treated.
But don’t forget I’m from out of town so things work differently around here . . .
Hatzlocho, I feel your pain and I wish you a swift and complete yeshua for your son and you from this painful experience.
it is probably more appropriate to report him than to talk back.
sounds like it might be worth your while to wait 15 minutes before posting.
Oh please, golfer, I hope you are joking. I was being sarcastic in the same vein of ridiculous stereotypes. And I am still sad that such derogatory comments are invisible to so many people, and instead they’re all over me for saying so.
“I think I just found a way to express sarcasm without an emoticon.”
apparently not
That’s really sad.
I can’t even cut and paste the rude lines because none aren’t. Do you believe it is respectful, or even considerate to say someone wears Tzitzis to their ankles, a domed keepa that would fall off if not for the chup, clown socks? That wouldn’t insult someone reading that? How bout, “just a bunch of naarishkiten”?
Maybe you are used to people talking about others like that but, thankfully, I find it rude. And I know that modern yeshivish friends would find it insulting as well.
I’m sorry it works for you.