@MonicaCellio Hah. .....it's important to know when buying eggs in the supermarket -- you think quail eggs are kosher, but you have to know what type of quail made these eggs.....see this article by my rebbi for more info
@Shokhet ah, that makes sense. I haven't spent a lot of time in either Trader Joe's or Whole Foods (both of which we have here); I do most of my shopping at either the kosher mart or the fairly-generic grocery store across the street (Giant Eagle).
It's not a valid marriage (so you're right; family purity doesn't apply since that's not her obligation). But if she is going to do this thing anyway, then better -- while she rejects the halacha about intermarriage -- that she still keep the halacha she does care about. So rather than doom it to failure, saying "won't work; may as well give up" and have her joining him for the bacon cheeseburgers, I think it's valuable to still try. Anonymous people on the Internet aren't going to convince her to give up the marriage instead, after all. — Monica Cellio ♦13 hours ago
My mashgiach told a story......
Where a boy he helped with different issues had a girlfriend, and things started getting serious.....he asked Rav Mattisyahu Salomon if he should tell him that if he ends up getting intimate with her, if he should tell him to tell her to go to mikvah first, so that the aveirah done would only be a לאו (negative commandment) versus a חיוב כרת
......Rav Mattisyahu told him that he absolutely should not do that, even though he could save this boy from a חיוב כרת, because as soon as he tells him that one way is better than another, he has (between the lines) allowed him to do a serious aveirah
So your above comment may not be so true, even though it sounds right....איסורי עריות are very serious things, and, as @Nafkamina says:
I suggest this question should be posed to an orthodox rabbinical authority in your area. — Nafkaminayesterday
.......whether that story and this question are the same, I cannot tell you; but definitely צריך שאילת חכם on how to proceed
Thanks. In the case of a rabbi I can see that reasoning; a rabbi is in a position to (appear to) condone something that ought not be condoned. In the case of just plain Jews, I guess I lean more toward the kiruv approach: I'd rather keep the person connected to some torah (in hopes that we can do better later) than seem to give license to throw up one's hands and say "it's impossible anyway, so I give up", and then the person walks away and is lost to us.
I don't want the intermarriage. If I knew the people involved, I'd be counseling against that. But for a stranger, better to help the person hang onto some kashrut while, I hope, she seeks rabbinic guidance about the larger matter.
And I did say to consult a rabbi. (Err, I think/hope! Let me check.)
Yes. Ok, thought so - just needed to make sure it got out of my head and to the keyboard.
It's hard to know how to respond properly to different questions in different contexts....I just wanted to get the idea out there that what makes sense isn't always the right answer [note: I was thinking my rebbi should have advised mikva, but that wasn't the correct דעת תורה answer in that situation]
These questions always are very difficult to deal with
@MonicaCellio @msh210 before I go on a retagging party, I just created the "shnayim mikra" tag and see lots of related questions. Do you think it's a valid necessary tag?
(Inspired by this question)
Can one get a head start on Shnayim Mikra? Would it count if someone either started early (perhaps during the weeks with no Sedra in Tishrei), or just had some spare time and went on to the next week's (and then the next and the next) Parashah?
It does seem like a tag is probably reasonable. Otherwise we get a mix of targum, torah study, and others. Please don't take me as authoritative, though; @msh210 and @IsaacMoses and others know our tags better than I do.
We recently passed 10K (Questions - Unanswered Questions), but given that the former includes closed, etc., here's a Number of Open Answered Questions query, which currently returns 9345, FWIW.
(Not caught up here yet but) Could anyone interested please see the info wiki for torah? I just wrote it and want to make sure it's reasonably in intent and in execution.
@YEZ I think we can delete that question. I mean, judaism.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/moderator-tools says "Closed questions that are of no lasting value whatsoever should be flagged and deleted." and I think this qualifies. Thoughts (anyone)?
@MonicaCellio (Just catching up on back-read here.) Beats me. I've reviewed it as "keep open".
@msh210 I assume you just deleted it. The one problem is that now your tag wiki is gone, and someone may come along and not see the big all caps warning to not use such a tag.
or does that not happen when it's deleted?
(I can't vote to delete because when I open it, it takes me to the migrated to location)
@MonicaCellio (Really a reply to your comment rather than to your chat post.) Re "It's not a valid marriage (so you're right; family purity doesn't apply since that's not her obligation).": I don't get the "since..." part.
@msh210 Well, nothing really, but it sounded much more dramatic that way. When I open the question from judaism.se, it takes me to the BH manifestation of the question.
What does Paul mean when he says
They want to be teachers of the Torah, but they understand neither their own words nor the matters about which they make such emphatic pronouncements.? — 1st Timothy 1:7
What does he mean by this (in context), and who/what is he specifically refering to?
A question was migrated away from Judaism.SE. Now it is sitting in the archives of closed and locked questions, with an obsolete tag. I want to delete it, and purge the obsolete tag from the face of the planet! But (I assume because it is locked) I can't vote to delete it.
Why is a migrated q...
Can somebody help me out? I've been wondering how to find a reliable source by which I can rest assured everything about The Holocaust, including its authenticity, the time and the place of this event and so on. I'm really confused because I've been hearing lots of things recently concerning this...
@msh210 sorry for the confusion. Having relations with a niddah is a violation of halacha for a man. The man in this case isn't Jewish, so he's not obligated. Even if the Jewish woman in the pair goes to the mikvah every month and observes all the other related laws, it doesn't change anything. That's all I meant.
@msh210 just in case you don't already know: we moderators see the local page for a migrated question (with the migration link), but everybody else gets the redirect. I believe the Roomba will automatically clean up the local copy at some point since this one is downvoted. (I don't know if it does migration "stubs" anyway, or just if downvoted. Most people will never see them anyway.)
@AndrewGrimm sounds like he's probably trolling, yeah. I mean, if you follow his argument, most of history is highly suspect because he can't talk to an eyewitness -- but I'll bet he doesn't believe that. (Also, there are still eyewitnesses around.) Good luck in dealing with him.
@YEZ that's what I thought too, hence my original comment (on the post) that niddah concerns didn't seem to apply in a mixed marriage. But it was a passing comment, not an answer, and I'm glad to have had the further discussion here. (I may go ahead and ask the question about this case.)
Besides, my Workspace rep is again threatening to overtake my Mi Yodeya rep, so I need to do something. :-)
@MonicaCellio I think it was a misunderstanding (or a mis-statement) of your point. You seemed to imply the prohibition is restricted to men. It is not. But it is, IIRC, restricted to Jews.
@MonicaCellio Yes, I recalled correctly. Rambam, isurei biah 4:4.
@YEZ I think I also had some misunderstanding, now cleared up -- I thought that for a Jewish marriage the transgression was on him (not on her) if they had relations, but if the man isn't Jewish then there is no transgression. The second part of that is correct; the first was apparently mistaken.
@MonicaCellio That's what I thought happened. I was actually going to point out that you were correct despite your mistake, but I wasn't sure what you meant.
I know that per torah, if a (Jewish) man has relations with a woman who is niddah he is punished with kareit. I have been told that in this case the woman is also punished with kareit.
Is the woman's kareit dependent on the man's, or independent? If a Jewish woman (who is niddah) has relations...
@AndrewGrimm @Monica I'm not sure the user is trolling, at most they may be asking rhetorically, for the purpose of convincing (though I doubt it). Ultimately, the "doubt history for lack of eyewitnesses" argument is a slippery one, as you said, because it applies to everything, and before you know it Descartes is looking over your shoulder going "hm?"
@HodofHod and if the user really has a general "how do we know what's true if we can't directly talk to witnesses?" question, then I'm a little suspicious that he chose that particular example, especially coming from a user with that name and that list of SE accounts. Yeah, maybe I'm profiling, but it sounds like a question designed to evoke the "answer" that certain groups teach as "true" despite all evidence -- which will prompt responses, and then you have a flame war.
@MonicaCellio No, I profiled similarly, but think about it this way: The reason they don't have the question about the rest of history, and don't see how their logic causes problems there, is because this is a specific event that is at least somewhat commonly denied or "revised" in Arabic culture. So they're not "choosing that as an example" - it's the one that they've been taught and that they may even be questioning (or that they're trying to push)
Ultimately, this pattern of questioning a specific, while not realizing the much greater question that it implies, is common of those who are asking based on second-hand "education", or an agenda that they're trying to push.
@HodofHod true. I do wonder, though -- if all the survivors, all the testimony, and all the physical evidence won't make a dent in their myth, why asking unless you're trying to get somebody to say "didn't happen"?
@MonicaCellio I suspect that many of them simply haven't been exposed to the evidence, or were only exposed to it after they had been indoctrinated with the whole conspiracy.
@HodofHod ah, that's a good point. I mean, if you've ever seen Palestinian children's TV, for example, you've got a sense for the kinds of propaganda they spit out.
For example, I've seen a fair number of questions to religious people that ask why G-d wants humankind to do something specific (e.g., teach about G-d) when He can do it Himself? It's the agenda of not liking how religion is "pushed" that leads them to miss the much better and broader question: "Why does G-d ask anything of humankind?"
This is a question that most people probably never think about, because it's an every-day thing. But for many of us, such as myself, who grew up in more western cultures, with more modern conveniences, visiting places that don't have hot water can be quite an adjustment, perhaps even more diffic...
@HodofHod thank you for pointing that out; I had not seen the thread. I'm glad the people involved got the misunderstandings sorted out (maybe I should delete some of those now?). And I share your concern about the underlying issue, as you know.
@MonicaCellio I've been thinking about deleting mine. It has some useful stuff, but I think the later comment suffices.
But on that topic: There's some sad irony there that the first time I thought I'd be confronting some else's tone issues, it turns out I was the one causing them. :(
But! There's a good lesson or two for me here. 1) I need to be more careful about how I request more info. (Usually, I do explain better than that) 2) Better to point out that something could come across as aggressive than assuming it is, and aggressively calling it out. I ended up causing the very issue that I was trying to fix.
@HodofHod in your חצי defense, the way the original comment was worded was not misunderstood to be aggressive - it was mis-typed to be aggressive. He was accidentally aggressive, not you mistook nonaggression to be aggression.
@YEZ Thanks :) This is true, but ultimately, I did end up misunderstanding the intention, and for this reason I need to be more careful. Also, using this guideline in other places, where the person may actually have been insensitive to their tone, may be the best way to point it out without causing further offense and aggravating the situation.
(This is all kinda obvious, and I've been careful about this stuff in the past, but this was a great reminder for me to remember that I still have to work on it.)
@HodofHod I have had a few comment wars during my time here. If its with a vet, I can be pretty frank with them, (Monica deleted like 60 comments over two questions between a user and I about Oral Law origins xD, also <3 DoubleAA). With newer users, I try to spend a sentence or so welcoming them, then another sentence that compliments the question, answer, and then I get in to what I think could be improved. That tends to not offend them.
@BabySeal I've always been careful with new users, and I'm usually good with suggesting improvements, but I have more work to do with regard to people who come across as aggressive.
@MonicaCellio Yep. I like to think I'm usually better at couching my words, and that this was not typical, but either way, it's clear I've more work to do :)
@HodofHod it does not strike me as typical of you. In fact, when I saw one comment I double-checked who it was from because it didn't seem right. So I assume you were having a bad day or something.
I have trouble with people who are being rude or aggressive, too. It's so natural to be a mirror, to reflect back the approach that the other person is taking with me, and I have to keep telling myself that if I want to fix the problem rather than just fight, I'm going to need to repress that urge no matter how frustrating that is. Sometimes I muster tact; sometimes I just walk away. I'm still learning.
@MonicaCellio Yeah, in my earlier days here, I did do that with some users (the conversation referenced in the Isaac Moses quote above), but I don't think I'd repeat that mistake again.
@HodofHod now that I've looked at the beginning, I'm reminded that I had some frustrating interactions with that user too (and I don't mean Issac, or you :-) ).
@BabySeal is that a baby? It doesn't look like one, but I'm hardly fluent in phocine development.
@MonicaCellio It's a shame he left. The truth is (and I told them in TL when they asked me) is that he was a knowledgeable and potentially very valuable user. He did need to learn how to better fit in the SE framework and how to tolerate divergent opinions better.
@MonicaCellio ...says the woman who knows the word "phocine"
Is there any Siddur on Google Play Store for Android, that is Nussach Ashkenaz for the Diaspora. One that gets this right/in this form- Shacharit-sim shalom. Weekday Mincha-shalom rav. Weekday maariv-shalom rav. Shabbat Mincha-sim shalom
I don't know if I can ask that on the site, or if it would be closed as a shopping question?
@HodofHod favorite the room, look at your favorites every now and then, and when you see the "N days ago" message for last post reach double digits, pop in and poke it.
On one site I've had to do that with the moderator room at least once, by the way. :-)
@MonicaCellio I wouldn't keep on top of that. But you've given me a good Idea. What I should do is write a script that reminds me. That should be quick and more reliable.
Anywho, looks like SE has a small bug reading dates when new feeds are added.
@HodofHod no problem (she says, returning the favor :-) ). Yeah, check the TOS; nothing stands out in my memory, but I certainly wasn't thinking about user scripts when I last read them. Besides, CYLTOS-Advisor. :-)
Can you say Shnayim Mikra for Parshas Breishis prior to Simchas Torah?
(Inspired by this question)
Can one get a head start on Shnayim Mikra? Would it count if someone either started early (perhaps during the weeks with no Sedra in Tishrei), or just had some spare time and went on to the next week's (and then the next and the next) Parashah?
What does Paul mean when he says
They want to be teachers of the Torah, but they understand neither their own words nor the matters about which they make such emphatic pronouncements.? — 1st Timothy 1:7
What does he mean by this (in context), and who/what is he specifically refering to?
A question was migrated away from Judaism.SE. Now it is sitting in the archives of closed and locked questions, with an obsolete tag. I want to delete it, and purge the obsolete tag from the face of the planet! But (I assume because it is locked) I can't vote to delete it.
Why is a migrated q...
