"Using any birth control pill ... is widely considered safe."
Never ever rely neither on "wide acceptance" nor on a "medical proof". Consult your own common sense. And then bring your thoughts to your wise orthodox Rav.
Pills tamper with the way Hashem intended our body to work. And the fac...
@NoachmiFrankfurt downvotes don't auto-delete answers. (You're probably thinking of downvoted closed questions, which can be auto-deleted eventually.) Answers can be deleted from review or by three 20k users casting votes. This old answer has never been through the LQ review queue. (I don't remember, but that review queue might not have existed back when this was posted.) A low-quality or NAA flag should send it to the review queue.
A score of -9 does send a pretty clear message about how the community feels about an answer, which helps. :-)
@MonicaCellio I wasn't sure if I should also flag it as LQ, but I've seen threads about how downvoting is a better tool (although with 8 pre-existing, there's a fairly clearly opinion)
@MonicaCellio I fixed that. It should appear in the queue soon.
@NoachmiFrankfurt if you see something that you think needs attention, feel free to flag. If you see something that needs a downvote, feel free to do that. You don't have to choose one over the other; they're related but independent decisions. Thanks for your help in maintaining the site!
If a Cohen married a giyores (convert), they had children born after the conversion of their mother, and the children had to do a geirus lechumra because the mothers' conversion was not done by reliable rabbanim, can the daughter marry a cohen?
^^^ This was put on hold as asking for p'sak, but I don't think the current form of it is. In fact, it follows the style we tell people with p'saky question to follow -- generalize and depersonalize. Should this be reopened? If not, what's still wrong with it?
@MonicaCellio I thought that this question was written to standards, even in its original iteration. I agree that if it is a real occasion, then a rav should be consulted, but that is a given within our framework.
@NoachmiFrankfurt but can you imagine the responsibility this site and its writers take if someone follows the answers without knowing the full context? Maybe a rav would have thought of asking questions this site won't ask (typical example: were the witnesses at the wedding of the kohen and convert kosher witnesses?) This might create loopholes that completely revert the situation. Who wants this sort of responsibility without the training and experience?
from the number of questions of that user, it is clear this is a real situation, and I feel for her. But I do think that the proper way is to ask a rav. In a similar question today, I asked if she needed help to find one, but I think the question has now been deleted (cc @MonicaCellio)
@mbloch this is a risk we take with all questions about halacha. If an answer here about kashrut or melacha or t'fila or shofar is incorrect or incomplete, and somebody "did what he read on the internet" instead of asking his rabbi, that would also be bad. We don't give personal advice but we can't prevent people from using what they learn here for personal application; what could we do differently to lessen the chance of that?
@DoubleAA How about you give me proof that it's an oversimplification of the law as a heuristic
@DoubleAA And when you provide me a written source for that, then you can edit my question title and i'll leave it be. But until that point, please stop editing my title, as the title is not against any rules, and as far as the evidence presented thus far, my title seems to be more factual with the word myth or misconception
If you are leaving open the possibility of finding more info, then you agree it may not be a myth. and hence the question. questions that assume answers are usually called 'rants'. "XYZ, am I right??"
@Aaron I've been editing to improve it. I don't only edit things that are against the rules.
@DoubleAA Well as the OP i think your edit isn't improving my post. i think it's better the way that it is. And i've let the title be "idea" for over 4 months, allowing anyone here to answer, e-mailed Rabbeim, and no one has provided me a source yet. So i'm putting it into the myth category
@DoubleAA If i asked you where the myth of Jews controlling the world banks come from you wouldn't say "we don't know it's a myth, that's putting a cart before the horse, use the word idea"
@DoubleAA So please stop editing my post. Because while i kind of agree with you, i don't believe you are being altruistic in editing my post. You don't want people to think there is a myth of 18 minutes running around. And that's understandable. But if no one can provide a source, then it's a myth, or a misconception. If you or anyone provides a source. Then i'll happily edit the question, or accept the answer
@Aaron 1) that idea is literally dangerous to be left unqualified 2) it is generally accepted as a myth 3) sourcing it as a myth would be excellent if not basically required 4) most importantly, that question isn't asking if it's real. yours is.
@Aaron You aren't very good at divining my intentions...
Please don't go editing every unanswered question here to include the word myth.
@MonicaCellio of course you are right. I just feel that the topic under discussion is so personal, and requires so much context, that we are best closing these sort of questions as any misreading of the Halacha could have lifelong disastrous consequences. Much broader and deeper consequences that kashrut or melacha. I'm only saying this to explain why I felt like closing the question and wouldn't vote to reopen
@DoubleAA i won't. This isn't a slipperly slope thing. i'm still looking for a source to my question. If i find a source on my own i will edit my question back to the word idea
@DoubleAA Because as of right now, the evidence points that this idea is a myth. The evidence points that Paleo Hebrew is the original torah script. If someone knocks down a wall in Ethiopia and finds the luchot written in Ashurit then i will change my mind, and change all the answers i've posted on this forum
@DoubleAA If you want i could post a separate question asking where did the myth that matzah needs to be finished comes from given no one could answer my original question.
@Aaron calling aspects of halacha, torah, and Jewish tradition "myths" is not the best way to make a good impression. A question asking where the idea comes from or how we know this is an honest question; the "myth" version feels more like an "I'm right, aren't I?" opinion post. I upvoted an earlier version of this when it read like an honest question, but I've removed that vote pending a change.
@MonicaCellio Because now the evidence points toward myth.
@MonicaCellio Before it seemed like there must have been a source out there that i hadn't heard of. But now it seems possible, there is no source. But as DoubleAA points out, if i ask a separate question, then it would probably be a dupe
@Aaron why not lay out your evidence in an answer to the original question?
@Aaron are you concluding that lack of answers means there isn't any evidence? Questions can go unanswered for much longer sometimes; that doesn't mean an answer doesn't exist. It just means that somebody who knows the answer and who sees the question and who cares to spend the time writing up that answer hasn't come by yet.
@MonicaCellio i'm continuing to search for answers. But i'm hoping that by changing the title, it might get more people interested and have more people searching. As many would never even know that there is a large discrepency between the idea and the sources
@DoubleAA The idea that matzah has to be finished baking in under 18 minutes, and the idea that one could be kneading matzah for over 12 hours and still have kasher matzah is not a little descrepency
@Aaron "idea" is a superset of "myth"; if you're trying to get more responses, you should opt for the broader term. And that's without even considering the perjorative wording here; "myth" comes across as dismissive of torah, as almost insulting, and I suspect that it does not make people want to engage with the question.
If I knew an answer I would be much less likely to post it on the current form of the question, because I'm here for honest knowledge-sharing, not arguments and debunking of strongly-held views.
@MonicaCellio i could use the word misconception, which might be better
@DoubleAA It does happen somewhat, machine matzah factories rely on that halakha to not have to clean certain moving parts every 18 minutes as the dough is always in motion
@Aaron "myth" and "misconception" both assert. They say "that idea is wrong". "Idea" is neutral. The more neutral your phrasing the more likely you are to have a good experience here.
@DoubleAA i can come up with many more cases, such as yemenites and sephardim having one dedicated kneader for a big batch of dough and passing off small chunks of dough to be made into matzah
@Aaron it is not against the rules, which is why I haven't taken moderation action on it. It is distasteful to me, and I have tried to offer advice about how you could get what you're looking for without coming across that way.
@Aaron If your argument is "technically this post doesn't break any rules or present technically false data" then I think we all see where this is going...
@DoubleAA @MonicaCellio i think you both have a very valid and real place to feel concern with the phrasing of the title. It is not my intention to make light of Torah, or of common ideas. But i do feel strongly that if a lot of misinformation is being spread, then it might be a good thing to identify it and bring attention to it, and address it
@Aaron but we're not a blog or an opinion forum; we're a Q&A site. The place to present your conclusions is in an answer. This question could be asked much more simply: ask the question in the question, and present your argument in an answer.
I am not conceding "misinformation", by the way; Isaac's answer seems pretty clear that we do actually have halacha about this.
@MonicaCellio i've offered to write a separate question asking if this idea is a myth, if you guys are willing to understand it's not a duplicate, but is a follow up question, then we can work from there
@Aaron one question asserting that it's a myth and another asking if it is? Sounds like the wrong order. If you'd asked the latter first and gotten an answer that it's a myth, then a followup question asking where that comes from would be fine. What you propose sounds like a duplicate to me.
@Aaron "I've heard that the whole process needs to be done in 18 minutes, but it sounds like (stuff about kneading, or stuff about baking -- I haven't read the latest version in detail) suggests otherwise. Is the 18-minute limit correct? If so how do we know? If not where did the idea come from?" -- if you asked that, you'd get everything you're looking for without denigrating anybody.
@MonicaCellio i'm saying i would edit this first question back to idea. Then ask a separate question of "as a follow up to other question, there is the idea that x, but the closest answer provided doesn't answer the question, therefore is the idea that everything needs to be done in under 18 minutes a myth??
@MonicaCellio "
@MonicaCellio @DoubleAA And just to be upfront. i'm not sitting here looking for technicalities, i've been calling the OU, asking for sources, being told information is classified, asking local Av Beit Dins and being told it's better not to question the received tradition, all without being provided a source.
@MonicaCellio And we end up back in square one. Tell you what, how about we leave the title as is for now, and if it doesn't fulfill my intended purpose of getting more people interested in it in finding an answer, i will edit it back, and try to answer it that it's a myth
@MonicaCellio If my investigations prove it's a myth that is. i'm drafting a letter to a very well respected posek in jersusalem who is very knowledgeable and doesn't shy away from hard questions
@Aaron I'm not going to force you to change it, but I still think what you're doing is disingenuous. You don't edit questions to match answers; you ask the question you want to ask and wait for answers. Or provide your own. This smells more and more like soap-boxing the longer we talk about it. I've explained where I'm coming from I've apparently been unsuccessful.
2
I hope that others who disagree with this change will express that disagreement with votes.
4
@TRiGaccidentalsecondaccount you know you can ask the team to merge your accounts, right?
Basically, my login was through Google, and I didn't want to be logging into my personal Google account on my work machine, so I made a new one, which also lost me access to SE. I should have just added my new work Google account as a new login, but I'd cleared all my cookies, so I was too late. Nevermind.
Printing that thing now, then taking it out to dinner with me.
@MonicaCellio i can understand why you feel that way. Unfortunately after having knocked on multiple doors i feel that the idea of everything being done in under 18 minutes is disingenuous, and that people are all too willing to promote it without actually looking into it, and that they hurt klal Yisrael in the process.
@Aaron two examples of where I heard something, thought it must be a myth, and used a genuine question (albeit one that exposes my expectation a bit) to help me and the reading public learn whether it was in fact a myth:
I've seen and heard a story about the Rambam told multiple times along the lines of this particularly concise retelling:
There is a beautiful story of a disagreement that Maimonides had with a philosopher. The philosopher claimed that he could change a cat and make him act like a person. Maim...
@IsaacMoses So you shifted the claim of myth from title to the body? i don't see a difference? DoubleAA's and Monica's point was that you shouldn't presuppose the answer. And i didn't do that for 4 months, i didn't even hint to it being hard to believe anywhere, whereas you did in your question.
The consequences of depressed childhood vaccination rates in some American communities, in the form of a building measles outbreak, have been in the news lately.
All public schools and most private schools in the United States require children who will attend (and who are medically able to recei...
@IsaacMoses So while i think it's clear Monica and DoubleAA think i'm being disingenious, i also notice how they haven't shown as much vigor in editing your, or even this blatant myth question, which was not only not edited, but protected by Monica judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26155/…
@mbloch (I'm catching up on backread here in chat....) I agree with this, which is why (although I didn't mod-close it), I wouldn't cast even a nonbinding vote to reopen. That is, I think it's technically openable, but would not open it. (So sue me.)
@Aaron I didn't make any assertion of its status; I gave the reason for my suspicion. If someone provided a manuscript of a contemporaneous eyewitness account as an answer, that wouldn't change the question.
@IsaacMoses Sorry if i'm coming off as combative, it's just difficult that i've been looking for a source for this question for 4 months, and no one's been able to provide a source for something that everyone refers to.
@IsaacMoses i believe you were in the chat when DoubleAA kept harassing me to provide proof that this idea of 18 minutes even existed. So from beginning to end this hasn't been a smooth process in the least
@Aaron It's hard to prove a negative, but I think that you're pretty much got your answer. My answer goes so far as to say "here's the best source I could find for as close as I could find to what you're asking about." What more do you want? Halacha, personified, to post an answer saying "You're right, and every time someone says that thing about the baking, I feel pain."?
@IsaacMoses No, but if DoubleAA is saying what is being said is a heuristic to help explain something simply, then provide a source. Or a source saying "we give this general non halakhic opinion for x reasons" but not even that has surfaced. Instead i get daily updates from the OU sent to my inbox about how everything needs to be done in 18 minutes with no source, and a refusal to provide one when i ask. If there was at least someone being straight forward, that would help immensely
@IsaacMoses But it's like everyone is dancing around an issue, rather than just being upfront with it. Even if you were just say flatly that you don't think there is an actual source, that would be straight forward! But everyone is so carefully not answering the question, nor providing a source.
@IsaacMoses And there's no fault in that. But when i'm contacting a kashrut agency, who makes money on their expertise on knowing these things, i start getting disconcerted.
@Aaron no, they're very different. Isaac's question says "this is what I've heard, I find it difficult to believe because..., is there a source?". You instead ask "where does this false claim come from?". Can't you see the difference?
@Aaron No one here is that agency. I'm sorry that you're frustrated, but as I guess you're seeing, taking out your frustrations on people who are trying to maintain a Q&A forum is not going to be helpful to you or to them.
3
@Aaron It already says that, plus it asserts that it's a myth.
@IsaacMoses Part of my frustration was from DoubleAA. Which i didn't find helpful. If i didn't have a rough start then i would probably feel different about this whole process
@MonicaCellio Your suggestion didn't posit that the idea was hard to believe, or myth like.
@MonicaCellio So if i posted along the lines of Isaac Moses vergage of "I find this story difficult to believe, given the claim of extremely high-level animal training that the Rambam's disputant was able to achieve. I find it hard to even picture a cat with the physical, much less mental, ability to serve a meal as a waiter would. "
@MonicaCellio It's particularly jarring to hear a story about the Rambam, in particular, that features apparently supernatural feats performed by random philosophers, given his own rationalist bent.""
As for this question, the difference is that nobody here seriously thinks that's true, same as false claims about Judaism from the "protocols" people or certain newer religions. You have to be careful when using words like "myth"; the negative reaction is in proportion to the size of the group who disagrees with the claim. Plus what I said before about tone.
@Aaron Try just looking at the current situation. The problems from the original few revisions (unsupported claims, imprecise references, mistranslations, multiple questions) are mostly sorted out by now.
As per the title. The tag myths seems inherently opposed to the site's identity as one which is aligned with traditional Judaism, which does not generally view traditional Jewish beliefs as being mythological. Is there a better word that might be used for the concept being conveyed? Should the...
@Aaron explaining why you find something hard to believe is potentially a statement about either you (maybe you're missing something) or the thing. Calling something a myth is a statement about the thing only.
@MonicaCellio "After having looked into the laws of this matter, i find this idea difficult to believe because it goes against all of the rishonim and the acharonim. Given the claim that the claim would prevent the average person from being able to bake matzah when originally everyone did. I find it hard to picture that this could be anything other than a myth"
@MonicaCellio This IS about the thing only. And if the difference between a myth and truth is the amount of people who believe in it, then what's the point of even having two different words
@MonicaCellio People used to believe Jews had sex with a whole in the sheets, so it's only a myth now because less people believe it's true?
@MonicaCellio I understand that no one here likes the word myth in the title. But it's the actual word to use if there is no source for this idea and yet everyone believes it, because Myth means: a widely held but false belief or idea.
@Aaron better to say which rishonim and acharonim it goes against (which ones did you check?), but along those lines, yes.
@Aaron I didn't say that the number of believers determines truth, just that the more people you're going against, the more work you need to do to substantiate your claim -- because you're asking those people to help you.
@MonicaCellio This is a very widely held belief, but as far as i can tell, it's false. And if anyone provides even one source that proves it isn't a myth, then there is no problem. Which is probably why you (or anyone) wasn't worried about the title of the myth of the hole in the sheet
@MonicaCellio Because we can provide lots of sources to show it isn't true
@Aaron you are asserting "false" when what we seem to have is "unsupported". In general, I find it helpful, when dealing with other people, to make the mildest claim that gets the job done. I ask for sources instead of saying that something is false, unless it is important for me to specifically make that assertion. It's a practice I recommend.
@MonicaCellio If it's an unsupported claim that goes against all major Rishonim, then that's false. This "idea" contradicts the halacha.
@MonicaCellio This isn't an unsupported idea that can kind of exist without contradicting something. If this idea is true, then it means that if you follow the Rambam, or Caro, or the Rema, then you are sinning
@MonicaCellio Which is a big deal if you are baking matzah.
@Aaron I don't know about "against all major rishonim", nor do I know the halacha. This isn't an area I've looked into.
Saying which rishonim in your question helps, and in general it's a good idea to include what you've already tried in a question so people don't duplicate your work.
@Aaron then "all the above sources" instead of "all of the rishonim and the acharonim" perhaps
@Aaron Oh, please. Modern matza bakers follow those sources, too, much as I'm doing when I type these words. I'm doing more than they said to do (they never mentioned computers). Modern matza bakers also follow them and do more than they said to do.
@Aaron Everyone here thinks your tone is too strong in the post. We are a community of different people with different views. You aren't participating in it constructively with posts like that.
You should stop using "buzzwords" to make your points, and instead just use rational clear accurate language. You shouldn't be trying to fix the world here. Just asking an answering honest questions. If something is inflammatory it is almost certainly counterproductive. Saying things louder doesn't make them more convincing. Rational argument does.
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You can tell us all day here in chat how you know it's a myth. But that's may not be constructive participation on the site. No matter how technically correct you may (or may not) end up being.
@msh210 Matzah bakeries do follow these actual halachot, i agree, and the mashgachim let them know what the actual halakhot are, but yet the overall agency prints and e-mails materiels counter to the halacha for the average person.
@msh210 If you can find me a modern source that actually says finished in 18 minutes, i wouldn't care if it was a halakhic work that was printed 5 minutes ago. Show me it
@Aaron I think everyone's been getting at that all along. You kept telling me how things weren't technically illegal and I kept telling you how that didn't matter.
Monica spent plenty of time explaining to you about how you have to have more backing to dispute more strongly held claims. Isaac gave you examples of how to phrase such issues.
I and msh210 keep noting everywhere you exaggerate claims.
You've all been hinting at that while claiming it was for some other reason, which is what has been bothering me about this whole process the entire time. If all of you want to go on record and say you are not comfortable with letting something untrue be called a myth because of the amount of observant Jews who believe it, then that's fine
@DoubleAA And how many sources would i need to provide for it to be backed up enough? 20 rishonim?
@DoubleAA If it would make everyone here feel better then i will change the title, then i'm willing to change it. But don't disguise it as something other than what it is
@DoubleAA No one else here was calling it a rant until i changed 1 word. If changing one word after 4 months is a rant, then i think that says more about everyone else here than it does about my post
For example, try rereading everything @DoubleAA has said from the beginning, while imagining that his entire motivation is to get posts on this site to be as valuable as possible.
Imagine that @DoubleAA is a Jew who knows a great deal of Torah and who tends to bristle, as you and I do, at popular misstatements thereof, and that he's not a member of some OU conspiracy. I can tell you from years of observation that the former is the case.
@msh210 @Aaron Plus it is obvious that the point of the comic applies to various levels of offensive action. It's not like that fallacy only applies to people who are being critiqued for that one specific reason.
I wanted to say there how I don't like passing horseradish to others at the seder for fear of the passing being a hefsek, being completely unrelated to the mitzva at hand :) (related judaism.stackexchange.com/q/11732/759)
(which itself is ironic given discussions we've had elsewhere about that topic @IsaacMoses; goes to show you can't always tell what I actually think about something)
@IsaacMoses We all bristle on occassion, but it's been a hard battle for one question, and you are the only one that came close to answering it, which is more than i can say for my local Rabbeim
@DoubleAA No +1 from me. Not because it's a rant but because it asks for "a different variation" of the R. Willig document without explaining what would be considered a variation versus something else entirely.
My problem with riddle questions is that they are, in a way, the opposite of the kind of questions we want here. Generally, we want people to include as much relevant information in their question as possible, both so that people can learn from the question and so that answers can be well-suited ...
That's our canonical post on "put the question in the question post and the answer in the answer post".
Which is what you're (or were, I haven't checked recently) violating here.
Perhaps we need a more canonical post on it. Anyone wanna draft one? :-)
@Aaron I don't know what tone you approached your rabbis with, but if it sounded to them like "Why are you/The Man promoting this myth?", that may explain lack of productivity.
@IsaacMoses Sometimes it was e-mailing asking for a source, to which i would receive silence. Sometimes they would reply with the siman from the SA, i would point out it doesn't say everything has to be done in under 18 minutes, then would get silence. Then i would try bringing all my sources to ask the question, and would be met with a response along the lines of "you're some know it all trying to ask a question!"
@IsaacMoses Some of the ones i know more personally would pass the buck and say they aren't familiar with kashrut and dont know enough about the issue, but that they encourage everyone to only eat matzah that finished baking in under 18 minutes
@Aaron Which stands to reason. I mean, if that's what the kashrus experts advise, then an inexpert who doesn't know particularly otherwise should so advise also.
@Aaron Thank God for Mi Yodeya, and @DoubleAA in particular, for helping you phrase your question more constructively than your initial impulse, and bringing it to the attention of someone who happened to come across a relevant footnote in Peninei Halacha shortly thereafter.
@Aaron when approaching an expert (or anybody whose help I'm seeking, but especially a busy expert like the rabbis you asked), I try to be humble and assume I don't know as much as they do. Instead of "but this source says the opposite of what you said", I say "you say X; I've seen this source that says not X; I must be missing something. Can you help me understand?" This is a lesson I've learned the hard way, having once suffered more from know-it-all syndrome.
Unrelated: excellent article about Karpas and Berakhot (though I think it's clipped at the end) bmgasaf.org.il/lesson.asp?id=159 Highlights the weakness of legal codification via cases instead of principles.
@MonicaCellio THe opening paragraph for my next e-mail to a rav
@MonicaCellio Long time no talk! I hope your Blue Snowball Mic is still working well for you :) i have a question that my local Rabbeim haven't been able to answer, and the OU has refused to answer. I was speaking to a mutual friend of ours. Rabbi Menachem Mallinger, and he suggested i send the question your way. So there are two parts to this, my first question is asking for the source for an idea that is commonly floating about with very real implications. "
@MonicaCellio The second part is asking for a p'sak for a difficult question. i will provide all the details that i've been able to discover on my own, notas an attempt to show that i know anything, but because i've been searching for answers and have come across lots of information, much of which is very conflicting"
@Aaron looks like a good start. I would change the "refused" part; you've been unable to get an answer from them. No sense derailing your question with a discussion about them and why they didn't answer you, after all. What your rav needs to know about it is that you tried asking them and didn't get an answer.
(In case someone wants to compare in an effort to answer that for me, I currently see "when approaching", "I don't", "...The more", "judaism", "you'd do", "You should", "you are asserting", "ditto" in that order.)
"Using any birth control pill ... is widely considered safe."
Never ever rely neither on "wide acceptance" nor on a "medical proof". Consult your own common sense. And then bring your thoughts to your wise orthodox Rav.
Pills tamper with the way Hashem intended our body to work. And the fac...
If a Cohen married a giyores (convert), they had children born after the conversion of their mother, and the children had to do a geirus lechumra because the mothers' conversion was not done by reliable rabbanim, can the daughter marry a cohen?
As per the title. The tag myths seems inherently opposed to the site's identity as one which is aligned with traditional Judaism, which does not generally view traditional Jewish beliefs as being mythological. Is there a better word that might be used for the concept being conveyed? Should the...
