Tuesday, July 19, 2022

Hashkafa Q&A

Hashkafa by Reb Gershon Ribner
Mingling in the workplace: We are outdone by the Chasidim! Uniting kehila members who drastically differ on religious issues The Mashgiach's unfulfilled wish to improve the Yeshiva

40 comments:

  1. A person is allowed to ask a female employee to make a coffee. It isn't half znus or a quarter znus.
    The issue in these cases is not national, it's not public. Each person has to increase his/her own yiras shamayim to see their own actions in a correct light. Everyone who chats with a woman in his office knows what they are really doing. But they cover it up with nonsensical ideas. More Yiras Shamayim will help.

    How do women increase their Yiras Shamayim? Maybe learning a Sefer, maybe a close connection with a choshuve person.
    How do men increase their Yiras Shamayim? Men need to learn Mussar, more kvi'us itim, learning with a greater iyun, and shmuessn from their Rav.

    But not through a citywide campaign, takanos, or embarrassing people. These things don't work in the long term.

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  2. What did you drink today?

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    1. Coffee from a female employee

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  3. No it is not appropriate to ask a woman to make you a coffee, this is basics. It’s not his chiddush.

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  4. Our offices would be way worse without frum woman, most people do the right thing most of the time...the nature of working together hours a day brings a closeness..as long as both try to be good and make a cheshbon hanefesh from time to time to re calibrate

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    1. How is having women in the office a good thing?

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  5. Chazal say אין אפוטרופוס לעריות and there's a reason for takianos and gedarim. Some offices are lax and have a friendly heimish matzav. Don't be a fool thinking that people are not weak and susceptible. The yetzer Horah is smarter and chazal new how to outsmart him but you have to do what they said

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    1. Your logic escapes me. אין אפוטרופוס לעריות means somehow that we should make up our own takanos?!
      Everyone is susceptible, but that does not mean that we make up ideas. The Torah has a solution בראתי יצר הרע בראתי תורה תבלין, the only eitza is to increase learning. Anyone who thinks he has better eitzos is arguing with the Torah. The Mesilas Yesharim writes a mashal of a maze to show the fallacy of such thinking.
      See the Rambam in הלכות איסורי ביאה how he explains this point of תורה תבלין.
      The Chassidim constantly make this mistake, thinking they can outsmart the Yetzer Hara with their own ideas, without looking to the Torah for ideas. היא לא תצלח

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    2. Harbeh Asu k'.. and for whatever reason weren't successful
      Gedarim of some sort are part of Torah

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    3. Mr Cohen, are you suggesting that most people in mixed offices end up misbehaving with members of the opposite gender?
      Because if you are, you should really get your head out of the gutter. Yes, it probably does happen. But rarely and only after multiple safeguards are breached.

      Chazal knew better than your הרבה עשו כן, and they told us that only Torah is the Tavlin.

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    4. States otherwise for at least some explicitly there
      ad loc.

      Metzius also sadly on occasion proves against you and is a part and parcel of Torah

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    5. Hirrur aveira is still a big deal. The ערוך השולחן said that a meaningful part of hilchos yichud is to prevent hirrur! All the belittling notwithstanding.

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  6. Mamash incidents of aishes ish? Hard to believe

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    1. Wake up and smell the coffee

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    2. That the eishes ish made for you

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    3. Probably not likely. But certainly hirrur.

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  7. Oh please. When there is a rare incident of aishes ish it creates a major tumult and it’s known. While unfortunately it happens it’s not common bh.

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    1. My wife’s experience with men is that non jews and secular jews are the most appropriate and as the men get more chareidi/chasidic the more problematic and less respectful of her marriage and strictly business nature of the interaction they become with a good portion of them openly lascivious with her and her obvious status as an eishes ish a non issue in terms of physicality

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    2. That's very much not my experience nor is the experience of any of the many, many people I know.

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  8. Sounds like your wife should find a new job

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    1. She tries to minimize interactions with frum men as much as possible

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  9. There is physical interaction and you’re ok with her staying there? Sounds like a serious problem..

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    1. Maybe I wasn’t clear

      There was never any physical contact but only because she did not allow it

      Her status as an eishes ish and them being married does not stop the guys from attempting physical contact vchooloo

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  10. Attempting physical contact is pretty serious too. You are ok with her facing such a test every day? What’s if one day she doesn’t have the koach to stand strong?

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  11. Attempting physical contact? And you have no problem with that? You must be a troll

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  12. My point is that in the course of her work many “frum” fellows attempt to engage her in a personal relationship with the hope of a physical one - not actually attempting contact as in battery
    If she didn’t clearly message to them that she’s not ok with it many would proceed right along despite them both being married
    Her experience with less religious folks is much more normalcy and respect of her as a professional (married) person with them not trying to put any moves on her

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  13. Something is very weird in your wife’s office, that’s definitely not the norm. I wouldn’t want my wife in such an office.

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    1. It’s not an office she’s a business owner interacting with other business owners vendors suppliers clients etc

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  14. How is it those who have their head in the sand attack a reasonable person for having a head in the gutter

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  15. She’s probably dreaming. Most are not like that.

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  16. Feel free to minimize it. Whatever makes you feel good

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  17. You should be running the business

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  18. More like we need to stop overemphasizing how potentially dangerous normally interacting with women is with the concern for hirhur basically objectifying them in our boys heads with guys coming out of system with the approach that merely talking with one in a proper way will lead to all sorts of aveiros (eg the recent complete erasure of them from written pubs) even though they’re very much involved in the workforce

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    1. Un PC and inconvenient it likely may be, but we didn't make it up
      the source is SH"A .
      We further trust for the longer run both genders of society will be healthier and better that way. In countless nuances (eg lack of relationships in Japan)
      Second, on the contrary your parenthetical assertion is false. The religious publications these days more and more on the sly are inserting all sorts of female photos in . And to inform the record, in the old days the only picture of females were black and Whites . The ONLY color photos back then were movie advertisements or the like -and to the older generation those things were the epitome of treife Amerika!

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    2. The Shulchan Aruch says nothing about printing pictures of ladies. Especially headshots of tzniusdige ladies.
      When the non-Jewish newspapers had black and white pictures of people, Jewish newspapers had them. Up until the 80s, it was not a problem. Der Yid, the Jewish Observer, and many others. This 'issur' is nonsense, and it should be stopped. Just because it's nonsense, no other reason.

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    3. Misleading, conflating, and intertwining
      2 separate issues
      Raising young galant gentlemen
      With propriety together somehow with magazine newsstands
      And one of all things is not the cause of the other.
      Assuming your ilk accordingly presume then we're supposed to go along with everything else that non Jewish publications have since evolved also..

      And our Judaism does believe in evolution. When the rest of the world is (d)evolving one direction (Modox persuasion -undercover in this town-included, justifying, contriving, and condemning those who don't)
      We evolve- if/when necessary and with proper judgement - the other direction. Growth is what it's called.
      p.s. the JewishPress is still around for those who need to get your color fix.
      Charedi publications in Israel didn't have and most of the publications originate from there

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    4. I see them as very much connected
      Underlying postulate for both is the clear messaging to our teenage boys that potentially every interaction with a girl/woman, no matter the context or appropriateness of attire, will most probably trigger lustful thoughts, feelings and actions and is something to be avoided
      That does not engender healthy mindsets when inevitable interactions eventually occur
      Only logical conclusion is to remove women from the public sphere entirely which the community won’t do as amongst other reasons they’re the primary breadwinners in the current system
      Reminds me of the pickle the leftists find themselves in with feminism on the one hand and transgenderism on the other as they relate to womens sports

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  19. Maybe the women's place is in the home as spoken about by the Rambam. Its up to the men to ensure parnassah.

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  20. Mark him for an outlier. In good company.

    The Modox who claimed him for their own mantle, overriding regularly those were greater,
    Chucked him as an outlier when his position regarding abortion doesn't fit their zeitgeist . They've done that for other big issues quietly as well before..

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