I just made a spreadsheet with all the books and chapters in Tanach with a link to the Chabad.org Tanach, with showrashi enabled. docs.google.com/spreadsheet/… -- This should make it faster to link to specific chapters. Assuming I did it right all the links should be correct
5
Does anyone know how to make a google form (or any kind of form) that will let me chose chapter and book from a drop down menu and present me with a link to that book and chapter? Even better if I can input verse and get that added to the link.
As described more fully in a very informative post on meta.stackexchange.com, which I recommend you check out, we're going to lose these two closure reasons:
off topic
Questions on Mi Yodeya are expected to relate to Judaism within the scope defined in the FAQ. Consider editing the question...
@Menachem Thanks for your hard work! What you want to do should be very possible in a Google Spreadsheet (but not a form, per se, based on one). To make a dropdown, use Data/Validation . You can assemble URLs by concatenating using '&' and using things like IF and VLOOKUP to translate user choices into URL text pieces.
I went to the first chapter of every book and downloaded the html source. Then I ran a little shell script that isolated the lines that contained "Chapter_Combo.Add", then inserted the pageid listed on that line into a URL. They appear to all be sequential except for Bereshit that skips a chunk in the middle. The lines look like this: Chapter_Combo.AddItem("Chapter 1", "15785"); Chapter_Combo.AddItem("Chapter 2", "15786");
@Menachem Cool. You can make a lookup table using this data with two columns: a concatenation of book name and chapter number, and the page ID. Then, you can do a VLOOKUP that takes a concatenation of the chosen book name and chapter number and returns a page ID, which you can use in building up a URL.
@Menachem Whoa. I propose some sort of award for unsurpassed contributions. Ani Yodeya, anyone? This would be my nominee for 5773. (cc @IsaacMoses @DoubleAA @MonicaCellio @msh210 @Daniel @HodofHod @CharlesKoppelman @all_regulars)
@IsaacMoses Since I've already created the full URL, I think it might be easier to have the lookup just display the correct cell. I don't do a lot of spreadsheet scripting, so I'll have to figure out how to do it.
@Menachem To add a rashi switch, you'd have to build up the URL. Also if you want to eventually generalize to offer Mechon Mamre (or other) links with the same framework. The correct way to do this, of course, would be a real online webapp backed up by a little database, but a spreadsheet is much easier to prototype, especially for one who knows spreadsheets but not web programming. It may be some time before I can get to it, but I'd be interested in hacking together a nice spreadsheet...
... version of this, unless someone wants to go the webapp route.
(Making such lightweight spreadsheet tools for internal use is part of what I do for a living.)
@msh210 ... and the Living Torah. @Menachem, I think the existence of this (which I also forgot about) may supplant the spreadsheet idea. Maybe we ought to make a community promotion ad for it.
(There is the problem, of course, that most of the content it offers is Christian.)
@IsaacMoses Aye. On the other hand, he allows people to copy & amend it ("Free for distribution and derivation, but if you think it's that good, please cite the author!"), so if anyone has a stable URL with good connection and wants to host it.... :-)
@msh210 Related: meta.stackoverflow.com/a/49101/179 I suspect that SE feels more "ownership" and desire to monetize over the actual content offered on the sites than for anything else. Also, the number of views for site content vs. chat content is probably different by orders of magnitude
@IsaacMoses It is a great idea, and one I'd love to see. I made this because I like to look up the pesukim when learning gemara, and it was taking forever clicking through chabad.org's interface (not to mention adding /showrashi/true every time I changed the chapter). Since it fills my needs, I'm not sure how much energy I'll put into adding other sources...
... I like to see Rashi, so I just enable it by default. I would like to make a dropdown selection, since I think it will be faster than going through the spreadsheet. If I figure out how to do that, it shouldn't be an issue to make rashi optional, and add verses.
@Menachem Do you learn g'mara in the same place every time, or in various places? If the former, it might be easier to have a hard copy of chamisha chumshe Tora at hand to look up p'sukim. Just an idea....
@msh210 I have a Chavruta I learn with over the internet. We use the daf from hebrewbooks.org/shas . We have a google spreadsheet where we add words we want to look up and translate, as well as link to and display all the pesukim quoted in the Talmud. Also, it takes forever to lookup a pasuk in the Sefer.
@MoriDoweedhYaAgob not angry, but annoyed. Are you incapable of using a standard transliteration scheme, or do you think you'll get people to learn yours (hint: you're making yourself look worse, not better), or are you trying to annoy people, or what? I don't get it. I assume you want to participate in this community, which would seem to include making yourself understood.
@msh210 do it for your own benefit then. At least you hear the real loshon haqodosh
@MonicaCellio my transliteration is proper. a cheth is not transliterated as a cheth. But a hHeith or h with a dot under neath or in fast paced typing, a 7
@MonicaCellio It's called being an obstinate stickler for what one perceives as right, and I recognize it because I am one myself. When transliterating, I write Tora, not Torah -- a foolish consistency, the hobgoblin of small minds. The New Yorker includes the dieresis over the second e in reelect (and no hyphen before it), a style that has otherwise been out since the 1260s or something.
I'm not sure how I just noticed now (and nobody else seems to have noticed yet) that this question's title is grammatically incorrect/impossible. (How) should it be changed?
@Menachem My name is Michael and I write sometimes to someone named Michal -- but not often enough to affect my muscle memory. I don't know if I've ever typed her name correctly the first try.
@MoriDoweedhYaAgob I didn't say "proper". You (alone among Yodeyans?) appear to believe yours is; others of us believe ours is. You can't settle an argument about "proper". I said "standard". You may as well be writing in pidgin-Swahili as far as I'm concerned. And my reaction to that is not to "work harder to figure out what Dhoweed meant", just for the record.
@msh210 I can be pretty particular too; for example, I don't use singular "they" even if others do, nor will I put terminal punctuation inside a close-quote (or close-paren) if it isn't part of the quoted/parenthesized text. If I had a habit that impeded communication, however, I would have to consider the effects of my decisions.
@Daniel that's what grade-school English teachers teach (or at least taught; no handy kids to check current practice with). But in technical documentation doing that can sometimes introduce errors (like if you're quoting string literals). My desire for precision (even when it doesn't introduce an error) trumps what I was taught about "proper" English style. (Also, I'm told that this is a point of difference between US and UK style.)
@CharlesKoppelman To the extent it asks about Judaism, it's not off-topic. Note: "What did a typical day look like for a woman living then and there? Did she pray (how?), participate in education (e.g. as a teacher), study (what?), interact with men in the community (how?), interact with non-Jews (how?), have any leadership role?" Probably some of those should be removed and the question recast. IMO. cc @MonicaCellio
I think the main difference between these and the FAQ no-go questions are that the FAQ no-go questions have a broader interest than folks interested in Jewish things (modern Israeli/American politics; general WWII buffs)
I think my rule of thumb is that if it's an aspect of Jewish history that doesn't have a large non-Jewish following, it might belong here.
@CharlesKoppelman You're saying that is off-topic under current practice, is off-topic under current list (in the FAQ Help Center) of topics, is off-topic under the newly proposed off-topic closure reason, should be considered off-topic, or what? I'm sorry, but I'm not sure what you're getting at.
... In particular, I don't think anyone is proposing that we do or should exclude all history questions. Does your impression differ?
@msh210 I'm saying that the policies I see being practiced do not follow the guidelines expressed in this off-topic closure reason and that the examples given in the history section of the canonical in/out list are a little too single-subject to be clear
sorry
i meant to say this
no, that actually is what i meant to say'
:)
I also want to say that I really appreciate the policies in practice and don't want "history of Jewish life" to be exclusively about halakha
@MonicaCellio that being said, I do think the edits you made to that question make it more answerable, and if those are the questions you meant to ask, you just made it much clearer, so ...yes, better :)
@msh210 I'm trying to say that given the information we would provide someone whose answer we close with the "No Jewish history" off-topic reason, it would seem to me that judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/10008/… is off-topic for this site. However, I see several questions in that category that have decent upvotes
@CharlesKoppelman [Just catching up on backread.] The policies in practice match that off-topic closure reason AFAICT. Did you not see the "except as related to Jewish life and learning" part of the latter?
@DoubleAA Good point.
Also, how about replacing all instances in these of "Jewish life and learning" with "Judaism"? After years of seeing the former phrase around, I have trouble seeing what it adds that the one word lacks. — Isaac Moses6 hours ago
@MonicaCellio It is indeed a US/UK difference. The US rules are very simple: the period (or comma) always goes within the quotation marks. The UK rules for the positioning of full stops and commas around quotation marks are more logical, but also significantly more complicated. I like them.
@MonicaCellio I understand that this community (and the general Jewish community) understands "learning" in a very specific way, but that is not clear to anyone else. "Jewish learning" can easily be interpreted as "learning about things Jewish", which is very broad
@msh210 I don't think I understand exactly what is meant by "JL&L".
@msh210 and it certainly isn't clear to "those wanting to learn more"
@Daniel I don't know. I don't think any non-SE-employee knows.
@CharlesKoppelman AFAICT.
"If you have a question about... " Jewish law or practice (what to do or why) " Jewish philosophy " a Jewish text (explaining a passage) " history of Jewish law or of Jewish life " language used in Jewish life and learning " general knowledge (science, etc.) as it relates directly to Jewish life and learning "... (examples) then you've come to the right place."
@Daniel Things definitely happen to different sites at different times. For all I know, the various closure-related changes may not happen at the same time, either. (On any one site, I mean.) But I don't know that.
@CharlesKoppelman You mean like bagels and skullcaps?
What about colors that different Jewish groups have proscribed? If it's done in the name of Judaism, does that make it different than if it's done in the name of something else?
@CharlesKoppelman I don't know why names would be in scope. Let's leave that alone for the moment if you don't mind. I know we have a bunch of name-relatd questions.
Wikipedia lists a number of different Chabad groups including:
Chabad-Lubavitch
Chabad-Bobroisk
Chabad-Kapust
Chabad-Liadi
Chabad-Nezhin
Chabad-Strashelye
I was told that these different groups were all formed when the sons of the Tzemach Tzedek created their own Chasidic groups. But today, I...
@msh210 what did they eat in $location at $time by itself, no -- that's too far removed from Judaism. What would you think about a question about Shabbat meals, or a reputed Yom Tov tradition, or redactions of recipes from Jewish sources (c.f. A Drizzle of Honey)?
What are some really old recipes that Jews are known to have used (actual recipes that say how to make the dish, not just names or descriptions of what was eaten like צלי קדר)? I'm seeking specifically recipes for food, not for medicine.
And if you've tried one of the recipes, or know someone wh...
@msh210 @CharlesKoppelman This has nothing to do with halacha or texts. But it's definitely (IMO) on-topic in that it's about a group of Jews which is defined by a Judaism-related inclusion-in-the-group rule.
@msh210 Since that was something Jews were excluded from as a class (or something else Jews as a class were included in... like pogroms!), is that on topic?
@msh210 close reasons are limited to (IIRC) 500 characters, but if they link to something that covers it in more detail, like our on/off-topic meta posts (or help center or whatever), we can be succinct in the close reason. "Judaism" should work there.
@CharlesKoppelman There is no subcategory of on-topic topics at meta.judaism.stackexchange.com/q/1473 that clearly includes this question, yet I'd consider it on-topic.
@CharlesKoppelman (2 of the 5 listed history questions are about Israel.) What else are you thinking should be listed there as off-topic?
I think one day @IsaacMoses came down and said the "How do I wash my tzitzit" sort of thing was exactly the question he had in mind when he founded m.y 1.0
Does Mi Yodeya offer personal guidance in response to practical questions about Jewish law or attitudes, as a rabbi would?
Wikipedia lists a number of different Chabad groups including:
Chabad-Lubavitch
Chabad-Bobroisk
Chabad-Kapust
Chabad-Liadi
Chabad-Nezhin
Chabad-Strashelye
I was told that these different groups were all formed when the sons of the Tzemach Tzedek created their own Chasidic groups. But today, I...
