Volume 31 Number 98
Produced: Tue Apr 4 5:09:45 US/Eastern 2000
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Cosmetic Surgery
[David I. Cohen]
The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (2)
[Yisrael Medad, Jeanette Friedman]
Number of OJs in USA
[Chaim Mateh]
Tanoim (3)
[Jeanette Friedman, Esther Zar, Gershon Dubin]
Who wants to marry a multimillionaire (3)
[Rena Freedenberg, Esther Zar, Gershon Dubin]
Women Pray with Minyan vs without Minyan
[Rena Freedenberg]
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From: David I. Cohen <BDCOHEN613@...>
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 08:50:16 EST
Subject: Cosmetic Surgery
<<In other words, unless you happen upon surgeons practicing under a very
different set of ethical principles from those who produce most of the
scientific research in this area (and perhaps even then), you're highly
unlikely to encounter anybody who will perform bariatric surgery for
"purely cosmetic reasons." >>>
What about liposuction? Now that's really big business in the States,
with many MD's using the procedure to supplement income which is down due
to managed care.
David I. Cohen
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From: Yisrael Medad <isrmedia@...>
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 22:16:14 +0300
Subject: The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch
Shlomo B Abeles <sba@...> wrote:
>There is a very harsh warning (Sakono CV) in Kitzur Shulchan Oruch (198:10)
>against men and women seeing each other during and after funerals.
Somehow, there is an echo in the back of my mind of one of my Rabeiim
muttering something about "if there was bookburning in Judaism, the
Kitzur would surely be a candidate". I can't remember specifics but I
recall someone pointing out extreme regulations adopted by Rav Ganzfreid
which didn't receive total approbation.
Has anyone out there felt the same way?
Yisrael Medad
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From: Jeanette Friedman <FriedmanJ@...>
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 12:03:34 EST
Subject: Re: The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch
<< There is a very harsh warning (Sakono CV) in Kitzur Shulchan Oruch (198:10)
against men and women seeing each other during and after funerals. >>
On what basis? jf
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From: Chaim Mateh <chaimm@...>
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 23:17:42 +0300
Subject: Re: Number of OJs in USA
Not a one single person has stated _where_ this "well known" statistic
(10%) comes from. Can't someone give this information, and perhaps the
list could discuss how accurate the source for this number is? How were
the statistics gathered? Did they reach all the Orthodox groups
(Chassidish, Yeshivish, Young Israel, etc) or just the ones that publish
statistics of their numbers? My gut feeling is that there are much more
than 10%. As a former New Yorker, I wouldn't be surprised if today
there are 1 million frum Jews in the greater NY/NJ area alone.
Kol Tuv,
Chaim
>> <<Now the US has less than 6 million Jews. I know that less than 10 per
>> cent call themselves "Orthodox" (and not all of them are shomer mitzvot-
>> they just go to Orthodox shuls). That makes aprox 300,000 frum Jews in the
>> US ...>>
>>
>> And from where do you "know" that only 10% of American Jewry is Orthodox?
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From: Jeanette Friedman <FriedmanJ@...>
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 12:05:36 EST
Subject: Re: Tanoim
<< The Chassidishe minhag of writing Tanoim at the Vort/engagement, is not
my custom - although in a way it makes more sense than writing Tanoim
immediately before the Chupa - which seems to me to be a 'Yotzer zein'
act.
Can anybody suggest any sources for this minhag - or any particular gain
or benefit that it provides - spiritually or practically >>
Yes, because if someone wants to break an engagement before the wedding,
the taanaim makes it more difficult--that's why you write them just
before the chupah, and that's why it's called a VORT you give your word,
not your contract.
jf
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From: Esther Zar <ESTABESTAH@...>
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 22:42:24 EST
Subject: Re: Tanoim
<< The Chassidishe minhag of writing Tanoim at the Vort/engagement, is not
my custom - although in a way it makes more sense than writing Tanoim
immediately before the Chupa - which seems to me to be a 'Yotzer zein'
act.
Can anybody suggest any sources for this minhag - or any particular gain
or benefit that it provides - spiritually or practically.>>
Although it is "not your minhag" to have a real Tno'im now it was your
minhag once upon a time. The halacha is that one can't be mekadesh a
woman without shidduchin first. There has to be some type of
preparation before the kiddushin so the act and documentation of Tno'im
is what makes it official since in the Tno'im is listed what takanot
there will be, provisions, etc.
As the Ba'al Shem Tov and Gra rule, Tno'im is considered a vow and
therefore is prohibited to be broken. That is why you will find at such
a ceremony (tno'im) that a kli cheres (nowadays a china plate) is broken
to show that just as the plate can not be fixed so too this vow can not
be broken. And that's why you will find amongst those who still do
Tno'im in the traditional sense and take it seriously, that they will
get married anyways (I doubt it would be a big bash though), even if
they would normally break the shidduch, and then write up a get (bill of
divorce) in order to avoid the severity of breaking a vow. That is why
nowadays, non chassidim do not have Tno'im in the traditional sense, in
order to avoid such issues. Instead they have a vort/engagement.
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From: Gershon Dubin <gershon.dubin@...>
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 19:38:55 -0500
Subject: Tanoim
> From: Stephen Colman <stephen.colman@...>
<<although in a way it makes more sense than writing Tanoim immediately
before the Chupa - which seems to me to be a 'Yotzer zein' act.>>
The halacha is that one may not marry a woman without both sides
agreeing to the proposal, which is what is codified in the Tnaim. True,
we make all the arrangements well before the Tnaim are written at the
wedding, which makes the language of the Tnaim sound irrelevant or
worse.
Rav Moshe Feinstein, z"l recommended a revised version of the
Tnaim to take into account that all decisions and agreements had
essentially been concluded before the date of the wedding. His version
strips down the Tnaim to simply an agreement to marry.
Gershon
<gershon.dubin@...>
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From: Rena Freedenberg <free@...>
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 01:01:56 +0200
Subject: RE: Who wants to marry a multimillionaire
> From: anonymous
> > No, not in the USA. In Israel. In Israel, the parents on both sides meet
> > and discuss the financial arrangements and a "good boy" can and many
> > times does demand a Yerushalayim apartment [instead of one in an
> > outlying community] and a certain amount of money for at least a certain
> > amount of time to stay in learning. If you don't have money, don't plan
> > on getting a "top boy."
>
> I think this is not true, certainly not as a general 'rule'. My married
> daughter and her husband are renting a tiny apartment (outside of any
> major city).
>
> My son in law is definitely a 'top boy'. Having finished Shas, and
> knowing large amounts of it by heart, I have yet to vaguely remember any
> quotation that he cannot tell me daf and amud right off the bat. (After
> years of daf yomi I am good at vaguely remembering things. This Shabbat
> he took me straight to the correct place in Zevachim, when I mentioned
> something there during our discussion of the Sedra.)
>
> He also is quite expert in halacha and other Torah fields (but my
> daughter claims he asks her about Tanach).
I would never ever doubt that it is true that your son-in-law is a top
boy in midot and learning. However, I put "good boy" in quotes for a
reason. There are some very bright boys whose families have the proper
ancestry to feel that they can blackmail others. This does not make them
tops, but society feels that if you have important-sounding ancestry and
you can learn well, then these things are magia lecha.
I actually have a true incident that I think takes the cake. The son of
a friend of mine was engaged to be married. Of course, my friend had to
go out to buy for the bride the pearl necklace, the gold bracelet, the
huge silver candlestick set, the rings, the real leather
siddur/machzor/tehillim set, the solid gold watch, etc.
Well, she bought a gold-plated watch instead of solid gold [eek! How
dare she] and the bride's family demand that she exchange it for real
gold. She balked, and the "other side" started to question her yichus
and say that since she was a ba'alat teshuva, maybe there were some
mamzeirim in her background and maybe they had better do a more thorough
check on her yichus. My friend [the chicken :-)] backed down and went
out and spent a king's ransom on a gold watch for the kallah.
I think that this shows greed and terrible midot more than anything
else.
> > Personally, though, I think that any boy gaivadik enough to demand an
> > apartment or anything else really has a very poor spiritual yesod to
> > build on, but that is only my personal opinion.
>
> I definitely agree. Maybe it's time to let these 'top boys' in on the
> secret, that gaiva and gadlus just arent the same thing.
It's a good idea, but I feel that it will be implemented about the same
time that the Va'ad ha kabala of the Bais Ya'akov seminaries stops
refusing very aidel girls with good midot and good grades just because
they lack yichus or their fathers work, chas v'sholom.
---Rena
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From: Esther Zar <ESTABESTAH@...>
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 22:14:59 EST
Subject: RE: Who wants to marry a multimillionaire
<< a couple went out no more than two or three
times before getting engaged and didn't (or almost didn't) see each
other between the vort (engagement) and the wedding. You can probably
tell if the chemistry is *definitely not* there, but I think there's a
real possibility that you think it is there after two or three dates and
discover after the wedding that there is no chemistry R"L. >>
<< Maybe David Cohen is right. But if he would like to see statistics to
show that the divorce rate has really risen, well, it would make sense
to demand some statistics that young marriages end badly more often than
more mature marriages. >>
<<Deception is the rule not the exception, in so many cases!>>
I don't know if it's fair to say that the increasing frequency in
divorce can be attributed to the above comments made by the posters. I
would view them more as correlational in nature rather than inducive.
Perhaps we should take a look at today's disposable generation. We have
disposable cups, plates, pillows, so hey why not marriages. This
attitude that pervades society as a whole today gives people the option
to call it quits rather than work it out.
I would say that dating 2 times or 10 times will not change things. We
put in our efforts (in this case, by dating) in order to provide G-D
with a kli (vessel) to give us our husbands/wives in a natural manner.
Dating would fall into the category of hishtadlut (our end of the deal,
AKA effort). But aye now you will quote Rabbenu Bachye who writes that
since hishtadlut is a mitzva we must put in our very best hishtadlut
which requires us to do whatever it is that is in our hands to ensure
success. I would then question you as to whether our effort lies in
other areas rather than frequency of dating, etc. I only have to look
back as far as my grandparents for just one example, who have one of the
best marriages I have ever seen. They viewed each other from a
distance, did some checking out, and got engaged the next day. Although
this is not what is normally done today I would say this can lead us to
at least partially conclude that divorces, "bad dates", and the like are
symptomatic of this generation's "very original" attitude. I heard from
a close teacher of mine that it says in the seforim (he didn't tell me
which) that one of the biggest tests and sufferings of ikvata demeshicha
(the heels of the Messiah / end of days) is that shidduchim will be
extra extra extra hard and things will peculiarly "just not go".
Judging from what I've seen and experienced I would definitely agree.
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From: Gershon Dubin <gershon.dubin@...>
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 19:41:50 -0500
Subject: Who wants to marry a multimillionaire
>From: anonymous
<<I definitely agree. Maybe it's time to let these 'top boys' in on the
secret, that gaiva and gadlus just arent the same thing.>>
Very few of the real top boys in any Yeshiva are such baalei gaava. They
are really top in every sense of the word, including midos.
Gershon
<gershon.dubin@...>
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From: Rena Freedenberg <free@...>
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 01:02:01 +0200
Subject: RE: Women Pray with Minyan vs without Minyan
> On 15 February 2000, Chaim Mateh <chaimm@...> wrote:
> > Women are also required to daven (at least once
> > a day, short tfilla if they are busy with the kids, or
> > longer if not).
>
> I have often wondered what the case would be if, for some reason, a
> man's wife died, G-d forbid, and he becomes responsible for taking care
> of his children. Is he exempt as women are for this reason, or will he
> need to insure his attendence at all services and tend to his children.
> What of hiring a baby sitter on Yom Tov? This is not permissable. So,
> what of his obligation? Would it be the same which exempts women the
> daily services, from time bound mitzvoth?
Actually, if the situation were such that, say, the mother had to be out
of the country and the father was left caring for several very young
children the halacha is the same for him as for his wife. He must daven
at least a short prayer, and whatever else he can.
In other words, the obligation to pray is on everyone equally, as is the
halacha if one is busy with caring for children.
Women are not obligated ever to daven with a minyan, but this has
nothing to do with child-rearing obligations or a lack of them. It has
to do with the fact that women bring the shechina with just one person,
while men need 10 to do the same.
---Rena
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End of Volume 31 Issue 98
