I noticed that the Yale university logo has the Hebrew letters "אורים ותומים" on it, i wanted to know two things:
1) Why is there Hebrew on the logo in the first place?
2) Why the words אורים ותומים (loosely translated: light and truth)
here you can see the logo clearly http://he.wikipedia.org/w...
So, for anybody who's following along and wondering, I checked with the Academia mods but they said it isn't a good fit for them. They're more about academic life than about specific academic institutions.
We all know the classical meaning of the words אורים ותומים (loosely translated: light and truth), referring to the Choshen Mishpat, I was wondering if there is another accepted meaning of the words when I noticed that the Yale university logo has the Hebrew letters "אורים ותומים" on it,
You can...
How well received would a question on how well known parts of Judaism is go down?
Let me rephrase that: Some parts of the religion & tradition would be known to all practitioners and even to many who have only a passing acquaintance with Judaism; others are far more arcane, known only to the particularly learned. And there is much in between. Such is always the case for any religion and/or rich tradition.
How could I phrase a question about whether practice/belief X falls into one camp or the other?
For a simple example, how well known is the Jewish calendar? Would you expect pretty much anyone with a nodding acquaintance with Judaism to know what year it is?
(Quoth Dara Ó Briain: It's the Jewish year of the Rat.)
@DoubleAA Meet the asker where they're at. That's a reasonable thing to include in an answer, it's not a reasonable thing to include in a comment to a beginner's question
regarding the Hillel/Shammai question
@DoubleAA It's hard to say, too, coming from the inside. Ask a biologist what parts of biology laymen know, and you will get a very different answer than if you ask a layman cc: @TRiG
@Shokhet Actually, if you read the Little House books, you can see that in the past (1700s?), the Christian Sunday was actually observed like our Shabbat.
@TRiG That's possible, but by then the question has changed slightly. Has there been any studies on what parts of Judaism people are familiar with? But i'm not 100% sure it's on topic then either.
@Scimonster I didn't know that; my sisters have read the books, I haven't
@TRiG I know people who have been denied life-saving medicines in a pharmacy due to Sunday Blue Laws in upstate New York -- apparently you can't sell something to save a life.
(the pharmacy sent them to the hospital. I told him to sue, but he wasn't interested)
@Scimonster Blue Laws are actually pretty common around my area -- some people who live in areas where there are a lot of malls like having one quiet day a week, when the malls are closed. Blue Laws for non-religious reasons.
@IsaacMoses Yup. He even had a prescription on him and everything.
@Shokhet Very hard to believe. I'd believe that the store was required to be closed or that an open store was prohibited from selling liquor or something else that may offend church-going sensibilities, but I've never heard of and cannot fathom an American blue law that specifically prohibits the sale of medicine.
@Scimonster Yeah. My understanding is that the laws were made a long time ago, and each place repealed them if they wanted -- most repealed, some didn't
@IsaacMoses Could be. This was a few years back.
I do know that if someone walked into a Jewish store for life-saving medicine on Shabbos, he'd get it -- whether he's Jewish or not.
@IsaacMoses Although that's a new level of malevolence.
@IsaacMoses I was just about to do that edit!! ....although I would've linked to an HB pdf; I didn't know that Sefaria had MB
@IsaacMoses Thanks for telling me about the Sefaria MB linking -- just used it in this answer (almost used a pdf link, but HB's MB is very fuzzy)
@IsaacMoses I wrote up a Q/A set on that idea, because I always wondered about that, and I learned that Mishna Berura for the first time today. I searched for that question, didn't find it on the first pass.....but I decided I'd check again before posting. Good thing too :)
@IsaacMoses What do you think about this question? What can we do to make it clearer, given the information now in the question?
@TRiG Fair enough. I do know that the Jewish pharmacist in Quik-Chek where I live tells the guy behind the counter to give people whatever they need on Shabbos, and they settle payment afterwards.
@IsaacMoses That's what I'm thinking also -- but the rules are as long as it isn't explicitly asking for a psak we'll leave it open.
If someone left something at the dry-cleaners', for example, and later returned to pick it up, but it seems to not be the same item that they left, what does halacha say about resolving it?
Both the customer and businessman insist they are in the right - the customer that the item is not theirs,...
If I manually reply to my own chat message, by copying the message ID, it sends me a notification anyways. Thing is, I already know that I've replied, as it was me doing the replying.
If it's not too much work, could this be special-cased to not bother me about it?
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@Shokhet blue laws are very much alive in some parts of the US, despite separation of church and state. The Christian idea of Shabbat AFAIK doesn't extend to melacha, though; watching the Sunday-afternoon game is common, for instance. They just don't want people to go to work, because they should be home with their families. But cooking a big dinner, relaxing in front of the TV, etc are all fine.
In PA until fairly recently, liquor stores and I think beer distributors were not permitted to be open on Sunday. Fortunately the kosher grocery that also sells wine is allowed to be open then. The state liquor control board (yes you read that right) is now experimenting with limited Sunday sales; a few stores are now allowed to open. (All wine/liquor sales are through state-owned stores.)
@IsaacMoses huh, that's not the expansion of "RFP" I'm used to. I was like "wait, where's the proposal?". :-)
@Scimonster yeah, it uses the API, which people can get away with because it's relatively rare compared to page loads. (Only on user demand, only by users using this script.)
@YeZ oh, does Maryland have alcohol-related blue laws too?
@YeZ or you meant the state-control thing. I assume that we get an exemption because the state stores don't carry much kosher wine and we'd like something other than Manischevitz.
@MonicaCellio I don't actually know if it's just Baltimore, because I think some other places in MD don't have blue laws. It could also be that at some point they ended them but 7 Mile decided not to change.
I don't know how it came about, but I'm glad to be able to get a bottle of something nice without having to special-order by the case.
(The local Judaica shop also carries wine; in fact, the grocery might just be a satellite for them as far as wine is concerned. So whatever the exemption is, it's not just for kosher groceries.)
@MonicaCellio I always thought that the Jewish gift stores in PA (I used to live in Philly) could sell wine on the the basis that it was for sacramental purposes
@MonicaCellio And i had the good luck to answer a question (on SO) that later showed up in HNQ. Earned me 021 badges, and maxed me out of rep, and then some. :)
@IsaacMoses maybe, but I assume that if any old wine would do, there might have been more pushback to buy it from the state like everybody else. I suspect that kashrut matters.
@IsaacMoses by the way, one thing changed in the last decade (not sure when or why). I used to be that when I bought wine at the kosher grocery I had to fill out a form with my name, address, and congregation. Then one day that stopped.
@MonicaCellio Wow. I left PA before I could legally buy my own alcohol, so I was unaware of that procedure. That would seem to support my theory that it's supposed to be sacramental wine.
@IsaacMoses my understanding is that in Catholicism sacramental wine is used only in church (not at home), so regular people wouldn't have the need to buy it. I don't know who supplies the churches.
@IsaacMoses true. I don't know what people who aren't affiliated, but keep kosher, did -- if leaving that line blank was ok.
@IsaacMoses I don't see communion wafers there either, at least not on the "communion stuff" page that has the bowls and challices and stuff. So maybe they don't do consumables?
@CharlesKoppelman there was talk of maybe doing something more if people come in for it. @IsaacMoses have you gotten nibbles on that? (I'm not asking you to reveal anything private, of course.)
@IsaacMoses if there's going to be a celebration I'm contemplating driving down for it. Driving myself would probably mean staying until Sunday morning (because night-time driving). If it's just me I wouldn't want to create an awkward imposition, though.
If I manually reply to my own chat message, by copying the message ID, it sends me a notification anyways. Thing is, I already know that I've replied, as it was me doing the replying.
If it's not too much work, could this be special-cased to not bother me about it?
Screenshot
About
The vote counts are a great tool to determine whether an answer is disputed or not. Unfortunately, not many of us have enough time to join all Stack Exchange websites and get 1000 reputation.
This script unlocks the "View Vote counts" feature for those who are not logge...
