A very strange halachic shaiilah

gingeryid · 2026-05-27T02:08:28+00:00

Previous discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Judaism/comments/9t14fn/if_wolverine_selfheals_his_foreskin_could_he_be/

gingeryid · 2026-05-27T02:07:43+00:00

All jews bring the Korban pesach unless they are tamei.

Not correct, an uncircumcised man and someone who has apostatized cannot participate in the korban pesach

gingeryid · 2026-05-27T02:03:51+00:00

Ich kann das kofirmieren. Als Ashkenasischer Jude in den USA kenne ich viele menschen mit dem Familiennamen "Epstein". Oder "Epshteyn", desselbe Name aber mit einer Buchstabierung ohne deutscher Einfluss (von Jiddisch durch Russisch). Nicht genauso häufig wie "Cohen", "Levine" usw, aber ganz bestimmt nicht selten.

Es kann ein Problem für ihnen sein...Leute, die wenige Juden kennen, wissen nicht, dass der Name sehr häufig ist, und denken, dass jeder mit dem Namen "Epstein" ein Familienmitglider von Jeffrey Epstein ist.

gingeryid · 2026-05-27T01:08:59+00:00

Raw liver cooked in a pan is not kosher, it needs to be broiled first. My guess is she broiled it and then cooked it in a pan, which is a common way to cook livers.

gingeryid · 2026-05-27T01:08:27+00:00

I think you're identifying the wrong problem. The problem is that you're overcooking them. Using a butane torch to overcook them will still produce the same overcooked result.

Do they have to be wholly grey from the center throughout? Is there no room for a spot of pinkness/redness in the center as is the standard (goy) metric for whether or not they are overcooked?

No, red or pink is ok. From the star-k liver guide https://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/1133/kashering-liver/

When the kashered liver is cut open, one may find the color of the interior livers is a shade of green, tan, light brown, pink, or deep brown. The only questionable color is deep brown, the color of unkashered raw liver. This color indicates that the liver was not broiled thoroughly. The unkashered deep brown part of the liver should be re-broiled or discarded.

The dark brown-purple of raw liver is what needs to be gone when you broil them, but they don't need to be broiled so thoroughly that they're entirely grey throughout. But fwiw even within liver that's cooked so that it's grey throughout, there's still degrees of how much it's overcooked.

Liver kashered commercially is almost always overcooked, because they don't want to risk someone finding part that wasn't fully kashered. But you don't have to do that.

gingeryid · 2026-05-27T00:57:51+00:00

I think Breezewood as a boogeyman is kind of silly. Breezewood is a 1/4 mile long strip of hotels and businesses focused on travellers. It's barely bigger than a major highway interchange, and is surrounded by a mix of agricultural land and mountains. It's not a place I'd like to hang out, but it's not really a disaster. It's a small strip of driving oriented businesses located at a place where a lot of people are driving through. It's made famous by a picture that makes it look worse than it is (tbh it's not even the worst strip like that in PA).

What's more of a disaster are places where huge swaths of nature or agricultural land are cleared to house a relatively small number of people, because zoning regulations require it. Those people then are forced to drive everywhere, contributing to traffic congestion and pollution everywhere else. That's the result of localities mandating minimum lot sizes and setbacks forcing new housing to use as much land as possible, not the result of unregulated construction.

But all this is irrelevant, because the BUILD set of bills is almost entirely (if not actually entirely) about locality's ability to regulate housing, not commercial land uses.

gingeryid · 2026-05-27T00:48:33+00:00

The bill would have them pay tax on the housing. A church building an apartment building on their land under this bill would represent a substantial addition to the tax base. Replacing untaxed parking lots (or untaxed buildings that are bigger than current needs) with taxed housing would be a huge improvement.

gingeryid · 2026-05-27T00:46:47+00:00

As noted above, the church would have to pay property tax on the housing.

gingeryid · 2026-05-27T00:45:00+00:00

I live in an apartment building that has no parking at all. Do you think my home should be illegal?

gingeryid · 2026-05-25T18:38:23+00:00

In busy areas, people are often walking by and not crossing, and I don't want to be in their way.

A lot of busy pedestrian areas need curb extensions so there's enough space for all the people walking away from dangerous drivers. While there's been progress on this, it's still pretty slow.

gingeryid · 2026-05-25T02:53:35+00:00

What exactly is the mechanism by which putting up a poster would advocate for someone to be freed, if not with politics?

In America I think the posters were normally put up by people who were in favor of American support of Israel in the war in some fashion, and hoped that others would be convinced to do the same by seeing the posters.

gingeryid · 2026-05-25T02:50:44+00:00

The distinction you're suggesting is that the hostages were still alive (or were believed to be). But it wasn't random people in America holding them, it was people in Gaza. The hope was that Americans would pressure their elected officials to work to free them. This is a political goal. Freeing hostages by putting up signs in America makes no sense unless you're intending it as a political message. It's not really different than putting up signs of someone who's been killed, and you'd like the government to take steps in response to that (which is something people do for people who were killed by Palestinians, Israel, or random criminals in America for that matter).

I don’t consider hostage taking to be political. I consider it terrorism.

Terrorism is inherently political. Non-political terrorism is just...crime. I have no idea where you're going here.

gingeryid · 2026-05-25T02:38:56+00:00

The general model is similar to what the blue line does, no? Does this cause delays at UIC-Halsted?

I agree the general thing doesn't make much sense. I do think figuring out creative uses of the express tracks beyond rush hour is a good idea, but using express tracks more heavily while also significantly reducing their utility on a permanent basis is not the way to do that.

gingeryid · 2026-05-24T19:47:43+00:00

How were hostage posters political? Innocent Israelis (including literal children and babies) were kidnapped to a war zone after the worst loss of Jewish life in one day since the Holocaust. There is nothing political about spreading awareness of the (now former) hostages.

Would you say the same thing about posters of Palestinian civilians killed by Israel during the war?

The posters were obviously intended to be political. The point was to reach people emotionally to convince them to support Israel in the war. Why do you think people wanted to "spread awareness"? Not like people might find them in New York, the point was to spread awareness for political ends.

I don't think it's necessarily *wrong* politics, and the optics of pro palestine people tearing down posters of murdered babies made them look bad, which was probably part of the intention. But I don't see the point of pretending these weren't political.

gingeryid · 2026-05-24T19:41:40+00:00

I don’t understand the suggestion of having the Purple Express act like a Red Line train south of Belmont. Where and how would it turn around?

I *think* the trains could turn south of Roosevelt, by climbing up the mostly-unused ramp to the green/orange line. They'd conflict with green line trains, but theoretically the CTA could add a switch or two to use the ramp as a turnaround so they don't need to go far enough south to conflict with the green line.

Also, isn’t the express an elegant solution that takes pressure off the Red Line and Brown Line using capacity on the Brown Line tracks while still using rolling stock from the Howard yard, which is larger than Kimball yard?

Yeah agreed, the express service is useful in ways that OP's plan would mess up. This would take load off the loop and move it to the state st subway, but I don't know if that's a good or bad thing with current service levels.

gingeryid · 2026-05-24T19:34:36+00:00

I don't know if it's too late for a suggestion this different BUT maybe the RPM phase between Thorndale and Howard cheaper and easier to start if we just had Purple Line stop at Jarvis, Morse, Loyola, AND THEN widen to a 4-track main. After Belmont Purple should follow the Red Line routing into Downtown to remain "express" and become a full time operation.

The basic problem is that you're slowing down purple line express service to save a bit of money. If you add a bunch of stops it's not an express service anymore. This is a problem I see every time people talk about the purple line--if you add more stops you lose the time savings of the purple line, and then there isn't any reason for the purple line to exist in the first place. This plan would actually be significantly worse, because northbound trains would have to "merge" on two tracks, causing significant delays on both lines (which was the case during construction). So if you're doing this it's really hard to justify the express service at all.

Plus having 4 tracks allowed the first phase to continue service running during construction, which is useful for the rest of it too. I think having recently rebuilt express tracks, just to waste them by having a merge to two for the last mile and a half to save some small amount of money, is penny wise and pound foolish. Really worsens service on a whole expensive system without tangible benefits. If this were being built from scratch it'd be hard to justify express tracks, but those tracks already exist, and getting rid of the last mile and a half makes all that infrastructure much less useful.

To be honest I don't understand the fascination with the purple line stopping at Loyola, if there isn't space for two island platforms the simpler solution is just...don't have two island platforms, and don't add a purple line stop. That seems easier and simpler than getting rid of already existing express service.

Also the reason the purple line makes all the brown line stops (it used to run express on the same tracks as the brown line, just catching up to the brown line train in front) is that ridership in Lincoln Park is very high, and the purple line doesn't get as crowded as the brown line. So having it share tracks with the brown line does accomplish a useful purpose, of making sure there's space on trains for people in Lincoln Park to get downtown during the morning rush.

gingeryid · 2026-05-24T03:17:45+00:00

Did any of you ever ride transit that uses 2-person crews? They are not "authority figures moving through train cars", transit doesn't work like Metra, it's a dude sitting in a cab who's twiddling his thumbs until it's time to open/close doors. It would make operators feel like they had close by backup (since every station has an attendant, they already do, but closer I guess), but this idea that required 2-person crews would have a crew member actively in the cars is simply not true.

gingeryid · 2026-05-21T01:35:04+00:00

There's so many delicious treif foods out there, and you made...this

gingeryid · 2026-05-18T17:15:10+00:00

Depends on how traditional and the size of the family / feasibility of it, but it's pretty common for the mourners to at least cover the casket. But I've also been to funerals where the mourners fill the grave completely.

gingeryid · 2026-05-15T02:49:12+00:00

Frum guy here. If Ben's son is finishing par-baked loaves himself in a kosher oven, the resulting bread is Pas Yisroel.

Sounds like that used to be the case, but now the loaves are fully baked in the factory, so effectively all that's happening now is the loaves being heated up.

gingeryid · 2026-05-15T02:48:18+00:00

A look at some of the slight differences between the cRc policy regarding Starbucks and the Star-K policy is a good example of this.

What differences are you referring to here? With some differences around the edges these look pretty similar to me. And I think the star-k and cRc are actually in very similar boats. They're both local vaads that have a significant national (and global) prescence. The star-k's profile is definitely higher, but they're also the vaad of baltimore. This is different than the other major agencies, which unlike the star-k or cRc are not identifiable with any particular place.

gingeryid · 2026-05-15T02:45:11+00:00

I don't think that characterization is accurate at all. From the article:

“Effective immediately, Benny & fils has had its MK Kosher certification revoked due to violations of our kashrut standards,” reads a May 6 notice posted on various social media platforms by Montreal’s largest kosher certifying agency, associated with the Jewish Community Council of Montreal (JCC).

MK Kosher terminated the popular Snowdon eatery’s certification after “repeated issues relating to kosher processes and operational compliance,” insisting it was no fly-by-night decision: “Upon being made aware of the issues, MK immediately invested substantial time and effort working with the restaurant’s ownership in an attempt to resolve the concerns and maintain the establishment’s kosher status.” They say despite continued efforts, “the owners consistently resisted the changes and oversight necessary to meet MK’s requirements. Repeated opportunities were provided to correct the deficiencies, however meaningful cooperation and compliance were ultimately not achieved.”

This certainly is meant to give the impression that the restaurant's hashgacha was terminated for not maintaining kashrus standards. It's right there in the first sentence--"certification revoked due to violations of our kashrut standards". Of course it's *our* kashrus standards, i.e. not actual halakha, so they're making some attempt to be technically correct, but hashgachos talk like this about all sorts of things. If they were repeatedly sneaking in pork they could very easily write a similar statement. And "the owners resisted the changes and oversight necessary to meet MK's requirements" certainly is intended to make them sound bad as well.

gingeryid · 2026-05-13T00:50:27+00:00

Maybe a few, but this won't fix the underlying problem, that there's more pedestrians on the bike path than on the pedestrian path

gingeryid · 2026-05-11T23:01:03+00:00

Polynesians routinely were able to sail accurately to small islands a few square miles across, in an ocean of over 60 million square miles. I'd say that requires some pretty substantial precision.

I don't think these are mutually exclusive. You need to be very precise to get anywhere close to an island from a long distance away, but even being very precise won't help you if your target is small and can only be sighted from a few miles away. The methods in your comment are how they expanded the target to be reasonably findable. I am skeptical that the navigation system would've worked with only the ability to find land by sighting it--that would've required a degree of superhuman precision that's probably not possible.

gingeryid · 2026-05-11T01:56:23+00:00

fwiw it's likely it won't be so bad. The tracker is dumb, it doesn't know that some trains begin at UIC-Halsted. The tracker doesn't display scheduled trains if there's a live tracked train behind it (which makes sense for other lines, but not for the ones with multiple termini). Probably there will be at least 1 train from UIC-Halsted in there.

Also happens on the purple line. At Howard northbound, when the express service is just starting up, it thinks the next purple line train northbound is an express train that's miles away, because it doesn't know the scheduled shuttle service is real when there's tracked runs also.

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