@H'Gabriel In asking the question about how to respectfully determine if someone is Shomer Nagiah, I did not ask for personal opinions about my actions. I found it offensive that my respectful question was not treated with respect for my actions. By "condemning" me for my action, you've made it clear that you believe I am not a welcome member of the Jewish Life and Learning site.
If the purpose of the site is to educate both Jews and non-Jews, then I would request that any discussion of the actions of any site members be couched in respectful language.
@IsaacMoses Thanks! I was mainly trying to make a point about the importance of respect to those who do not follow the same traditions. I appreciate your quick actions and your response.
I never meant to offend anyone, I was just trying to warn about the Isur. I couldn't really think of a better word so I wrote "condemn" I think I should have wrote "warn." My sincere apologies to anyone who offended or unwelcome by my comments.
I wasn't necessarily talking to you. Once again I apologize. However, my apology does not change my opinion and the Hachamim's opinions on the subject.
@HGabriel I take your apology in the spirit it was meant. I would warn you, however, that taking a negative view of the actions of others is likely to discourage those who are not orthodox from wanting to participate in the site. As I said above, I believe that the purpose of the site is to educate people on the rules and traditions of Judaism.
Rather than making a comment about the actions of another, I think a more effective way of teaching about the traditions would be to use the strengths of the site. A question about "why do people keep shomer nagiah" would be a much more effective tool.
Tell you truth, this is one of the subjects that sometimes hurts me to talk about since so many people fall into the sin. I didn't mean to do any harm, just this subject is a very sensitive one. You are correct.
In other words, assume that the person is ignorant, not willfully transgressing what you believe. That way, you can address the issue without attacking the individual.
And if it's a sensitive subject, that would be even more reason to educate others, yes?
The question is removed. The original is in http://freemarketforever.com/2011/12/24/is-it-a-sin-for-jews-to-buyrenthireacquire-palestinians-concubinessex-workerssugar-babies/
I guess it's a bad joke.
The reality is I was sick of violent and wonder whether economic competition can replace false ...
Avraham Yitzchak has a good point in a comment here that we are talking about advertising our site in Jewish venues, yet we are from time to time plagued by offensive questions (e.g. the Baal and sugardaddy questions). Jews aren't afraid of difficult topics discussed respectfully, of course, but...
@msh210. My latkes and doughnuts were mediocre. Although bh, I have been enjoying Chanukah in ways other than food, too. Learned some Torah, played some guitar at a few Chanukah parties, helped an old woman light Menorah, gave out some Menorahs, more general pirsumei nisa. All in all, its been wonderful! Looking forward to three more days!
@HodofHod The first of your four questions was "What's the source for this?", andthat answer directly answers that question -- part of it. (The part that discusses being "cut off", not the cherem.) I am inclined not to delete it. That said, you can always flag something if you think it's deletionworthy (or if you think a question is closureworthy). But do check out the faq re what's deletionworthy/closureworthy.
Ah, yes, hi, @NeilFein; happy Chanuka. I wonder whether, comparing SE chat rooms' traffic today and other Sundays, this room has relatively more this week than other rooms.
@IsaacMoses Right, of course. When I said @HodofHod can flag such posts, I didn't mean that post specifically: that one he already flagged (so to speak) by mentioning it here.
@IsaacMoses From the Facebook page of a supermarket: "If your near our FAYETTE C&R location you should stop in and check out their holiday samplings. A few of the samples are crab rangoon and egg rolls". Apparently, Chinese food on Christmas is not just for Jews any more.
But I suspect that the kosher Chinese restaurant will be majority Jews. Mainly because it's half a block from a non-kosher one. Next to a sushi place. And the other direction is a Thai place. A surfeit of choices!
@IsaacMoses - We have a non-Jewish friend who used to work at a supermarket chain in the art department on the circulars, and she comes over on most fridays for shabbat dinner. She knows the drill in our kitchen quite well - which dishes are which, etc - and the stuff she's caught before going to press in their circulars... oy!
I'd be happy to offer y'all some of my potato, onion, and mushroom hash, though. (We're having a late lunch with leftovers from last night's baked potatos.)
@MarthaF Yeah. Here, we have two kosher restaurants: one is Indian (easy to make kosher, as it's vegan), and the other is open until, I think, 5pm daily and has little to offer. One drawback of living out of large Jewish areas.
We have three in our tiny town -- chinese, dairy, and burgers. Plus another one (upscale deli type) two towns over. (Not to mention all the supermarkets with kosher food sections -- even including prepared food.)
I figure that hash browns are fried, so they're close enough to latkes -- especially since my latkes never come out right.
@msh210 - There was a kosher meat Indian place in northern NJ, but I'm not sure if it's still around. I've actually never had chicken tandoori, not even in the days before I kept kosher.
For all of you who are newish to chat: You can reply to a chat message by hovering over it and clicking the arrow that appears on its lower-right corner; your message will then have an arrow to its upper-left. For any message that has an arrow to its upper-left, you can click on that arrow to know which message it's a reply to.
Of course, we've also been spending the day listening to "Christmas music" -- we started with The Nutcracker and now are listening to Beethoven's ode to joy
There have been a few questions recently regarding techelet. They are tagged with both techelet and tzitzit [FORMATTING HELP]. They don't seem to have to do with tzitzit per se. Should we remove the tzitzit tag from these questions or maybe merge the tags as there aren't so many techelet questions?
@MarthaF They're all great, but the ones that express themselves without actually saying anything intelligible are the most hilarious, i.e. Swedish Chef, Beaker, Animal.
@HGabriel, Happy Chanuka! I wanted to point out to you that your comment to Dave's question about nekudot having kabbalistic significance is a very interesting topic in itself, discussed at length by Shadal. See his wiki page.
Allow me to announce, just because eight people are here, a reminder that (a) anyone with sufficiently many reputation points can vote to close a question, (b) anyone with sufficiently many reputation points can vote to delete a post if its net votes are negative, and (c) the guidelines for what posts should be closed/deleted are in the faq.
@msh210, Is there any reminder about the weekly topic challenge besides the post on meta? I'm not sure if this week's is not getting any questions because poeple don't know about it or just can't think of any questions. Either way, I posted one myself about an hour ago.
I still find these useful, because rather than complain about jargon, I can just look it up in the site glossary and edit links into the question. I've learned something and helped improve content.
Pending more technologically advanced solutions (such as those mentioned in the answers posted here), I've started a manual glossary. Please contribute to it!
A glossary!
This is for Judaism-related terms that come up on the main site whose meanings people may well not know.
I'm envisioning this question as having one or two answers, one a list of English terms and transliterations and the other a list of Hebrew (or Yiddish, etc.) terms. Each term sh...
@msh210 I can't write answers, but I could suggest some initial terms that might get it started. For example, in my question about shomer negiah (judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/12578/…), some terms that I was unsure of came up: heter, mahaloket, deorayta.
(And I went to Jewish day school for high school -- admittedly many years ago.)
@MarthaF I started writing a couple of definitions and then realized I don't know the format we want. If I do it the way I (think I) want it -- one answer per initial letter -- then that mght wind up enshrining that method even if others don't want it. So I'm wary.
@msh210 Ah, gotcha. I suspect it would depend on how many entries we end up having. If there aren't too many, then individual ones would work. If there are lots, then grouping by initial letter would be better.
@msh210 Maybe we should combine the transliteration with the Hebrew into one answer -- that might be less confusing than trying to maintain separate entries.
@MarthaF and @NeilFein, well, if we wind up with a separate answer for each term, then yeah IMO combine them. If we wind up with a separate answer for each letter of the alphabet then of course Hebrew letters and English (Latin) letters will have to be separate.
@msh210 Well, it'd make that clearer if we have more than two terms, right? So can you think of anything else that might start with an M, a Mem, an H, or a Hay?
@msh210 Within the current ones. We're trying to get people to believe that you don't need two separate answers for each term. (We can always change it later.)
@msh210 Which would make it a great example of something where there is a different letter in each language. If there were one-to-one correspondence, we wouldn't need two answers.
@jake Depends. If we're having one answer per initial letter then naturally we have to have separate Latin/Hebrew-alphaet answers. If we're doing one answer per glossary entry, then we can lump Chanuka and ×—× ×•×›×” together
How about, instead of splitting by letters of the alphabet/alephbet, it's grouped instead by category: legal/gemara terms, biblical terms, names, and so on? Or would that
@NeilFein We may not need definitions for terms that are already in use as tags. Those terms could just link to the tag wikis. (Which would encourage people to edit/create tag wikis.)
@NeilFein Do you mean terms found in legal arguments and the like (like "migo", which means an argument for believing someone's claim because, had he wanted to lie, he would have told a lie that would be better for himself and he'd be believed at at it)?
@msh210 A general "halachic" category could include terms like "molid", or a special shabbat category, or a shabbat subcategory within the halacha category.
Why will people use the glossary? <-- that should inform how it's organized, I think.
If people will look up a word at a time, then all we need is good links to individual entries. The best way to do that is probably through one answer per entry.
Personally, when I see a term in an answer I don't recognize, I'll go to the glossary and look for a definition. Also, people can use the glossary to define terms by just linking to them.
@msh210 I'd probably use it if there is an unfamiliar term used in a question or answer that I want to understand. So I'd be looking up one term at a time.
@jake Sure. -- I mean, if we're going to have one word per answer, then of course its transliterations should be in the same answer. (At least, I would think so.)
@NeilFein Well, that could always be an issue for later, when the glossary grows. We could simply start out that way, and let the thing grow organically.
@jake If we put something in the comments about how people can request definitions by simply adding a blank entry, then we can let it grow on its own without too much initial work.
@jake Well, it's a glossary for the site. IMO put in only terms that are on the site. Either comb, or remember words you've seen, or just put them in as you find them.
@MarthaF I've undeleted one (and will the other if it's okay) as they can easily become other entries. (Deleted entries still appear for their authors and high-enough-reutation users, so they'd justtake up space that way.) Is that all right?
@ShmuelBrill Any time you post an answer (or question) with a term, instead of defining it (or, worse, not defining it), you can link to the definition.
@NeilFein Maybe draw it up once yoru predicted "people will ger tired of adding to the glossary eventually. It'll stabilize to the useful answers" has occurred then.
@msh210 @IsaacMoses - I did a quick definition of CYLOR. Did I hit good, inclusive balance? Please feel free to edit if I'm off-base. (Or is this already defined elsewhere?)
The question is removed. The original is in http://freemarketforever.com/2011/12/24/is-it-a-sin-for-jews-to-buyrenthireacquire-palestinians-concubinessex-workerssugar-babies/
I guess it's a bad joke.
The reality is I was sick of violent and wonder whether economic competition can replace false ...
Pending more technologically advanced solutions (such as those mentioned in the answers posted here), I've started a manual glossary. Please contribute to it!
