TOTALLY agree with you SarahD in regards to playgroup!!
maybe im just a mental-stimulation-addict, but I get bored very easily, and as a result I put a lot of value in social + educational environments for both kids and adults
PinkFridge you are totally funny 8)
Saw50st8s, I agree with your assessments regarding a healthy marriage
Chairs - It is derived from the line "al kiso lo yeshev zar". A stranger may not sit at his place. And yes, no one including a wife is allowed to sit in a husband's seat unless receiving permission.
Can someone give me the source for this halachic derivation?
HY, I didnt forget that you asked for the source. My husband cited the basis as the Rambam, Hilchos Ishos, where it discusses respect between husband and wife, but the specifics are not written there. He is supposed to find me the source where it lists specific examples of respect/yirah. Unfortunately, he doesn't care as much about this thread as I do, so its not at the top of his list. But I respect that
I think I recently went through what the Rambam said elsewhere on this board and I don't remember seeing it...
Thanks for keeping it in mind...my husband is quite curious as well
You'll never guess what happened to me! This topic was removed from my watched topics. I didn't remove it myself. And I didn't see it come up on the home page for a while. How does such a thing happen? Is it a form of moderation? Dear thread, I thought you had gone to sleep.
Even this is happening to me all the time as well. I don't know if it is moderation or what but it doesn't stop me from going into past 24 hour threads and looking for it!
I think FS is correct about halacha re men being HOH and certainly about inheiritance laws. I have serious difficulties with these halachos.
Sure, we should only marry mentschen. Sometimes we make mistakes, sometimes we are fooled, sometimes we are very young women pushed into a marriage. Sometimes people change, men and women. Most people are not the same at 20 as they at 50 - sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Fact, many husbands (not just frum ones) pull the "I'm the big boss" card.
Inheiritance halacha. Good thing there is a way around it. Can you imagine a 45 year old widow being at the mercy of her 20 year old son? Hey mom, sell the apartment so I can get my money. (or half if we are going by Israeli law). What, you won't have space for the 5 younger kids? Tough, it's halacha for me to have the money and I don't feel like giving anything to you or the other kids.
So what will you say FS, should have raised the bechor better? You know that's not always how it works.
Many of us have a dilemma of believing in halacha but finding some of it quite oppressive, especially the things affecting personal status. We try to overcome these feelings in order to continue being shomer mitzvot.
I don't consider my dh to be the absolute HOH but he does sit at the head of the table whenever he eats with us. I don't generally sit in his seat out of personal preference. I do demand that my kids show him respect and do my best to show him respect in front of the kids. He is their father after all. He does the same for me. We make decisions together. Sometimes he asks me to make the final decision sometimes I ask him to. I don't see how this is against halacha.
Listen chazal weren't stupid either.
There are ways around most things if a man turns out to be a nogoodnik.
meaning this "head of the household business" isn't absolute if he turns out to be a despot, had a personality change, etc. there are ways around everything.
The problem is that many dayyanim are too chicken to use their dayyonus powers to defend women in such situations.
Just like halochically there IS hafka'as nisuin, and it has been used in the past and I'm NOT talking about Rav Rackman and Morgenstern's late beisdin but in the 19th and 18th centuries and before. But today dayyonim are afriad to enforce it. Just like they can command a man to be beaten within one inch of his life to force him to "desire" to give a wife a get. But they don't.
Which is why my late father z"l, a whiz in halocho's ins and outs, always quoted the rebbe who said "heye chochom, heye tov" - be smart be good. But first smart.
Know the laws, and know milechaschila how to take care of yourself.
1) Make a halochic will for both partners as soon as you have any kind of equity, whether real estate or a bank account.
2) Make an agreement with your husband before marriage that he relinquishes his absolute halochic claim to your earnings.
3) Have a knippel, before you get married a sum of money either that your mother or parents hold for you or your brother or whomever holds for you that is put aside and is yours and no one knows from it. Why? Because you never know when you will need money of your own. So many women are stuck in bad marriages because they have no funds of their own. And on a nicer side, so many women get stuck in a good marriage but economically stuck and would need a "lifesaver" put away to save the family. And on the nicest side....do you really want your husband to know that you are buying him the biggest surprise present of his life??? And how much you paid for it?
4) have a profession. Every woman even if she never works should train for something so that she has a skill that she can earn money with if she has to at some point.
5) Be very careful who you marry. Check him out as much as you can, raise potential situations and see how he feels about them (let's say that our 14 year old daughter was raped. You are against abortion. Would you force her to go through with this pregnancy? kind of question)
6) Always have access to and copies of bank and financial family records
7) Have a marriage based on trust and strength. Strength doesn't come from verbal equality or sitting in your husband's chair. It comes from self esteem, knowing that you have a trade or a profession and aren't dependent on anyone for your bread, and it doesn't hurt to have your own money either, even a little bit.
8) Love your husband more than yourself and just remember to take care of yourself as well.
The Camp thread makes us ill. We hope our husbands are not camp. We must be careful not to emasculate them. Husband emasculation 101: Sit in his chair?
I actually thought I learned that a wife was allowed to sit in her husband's chair, although I don't remember where I saw/heard it.
And another thing I thought differently about: I heard a knowledgeable Rav explain to his daughter, when the family bought new chairs, that now that they had new chairs that are meyuchad for the parents, it's ossur for the kids to sit in the chairs. He explained that if the chairs the parents use are just like all the other chairs, then the kids can sit in them, but if there is actually a meyuchadike chair, that's when the halacha applies. He seemed to be saying that the place at the table is not such an issue, but a special chair is. Until those new chairs were purchased, that family had a homogenous set of chairs. It could be that he meant to imply that if the chairs are not distinctive, then a child could sit in such a chair provided that it is currently positioned in a different place than the father or mother's kavua place at the table, assuming they have kavua places at the table.
I just want to point out, once again, that dysfunctional marriages are far from exclusive to the frum community. Amother, I understand your gripes with halacha. I think most of us feel that way about some halacha or other. What comforts me is the knowledge that all of Torah and halacha is actually a protection and a benefit to me, given the big picture. The details can be fruatrating, especially when less than respectable people are involved, but I'm in this for a reason, and for the long haul. I do bug my dh a lot with questions, and he does his best to find me satisfactory answers. If you have someone you can ask, it may help you too.
MommyZ, it sounds like your family is doing great. Why would you think any of that is contrary to halacha?
The Camp thread makes us ill. We hope our husbands are not camp. We must be careful not to emasculate them. Husband emasculation 101: Sit in his chair?
I actually thought I learned that a wife was allowed to sit in her husband's chair, although I don't remember where I saw/heard it.
And another thing I thought differently about: I heard a knowledgeable Rav explain to his daughter, when the family bought new chairs, that now that they had new chairs that are meyuchad for the parents, it's ossur for the kids to sit in the chairs. He explained that if the chairs the parents use are just like all the other chairs, then the kids can sit in them, but if there is actually a meyuchadike chair, that's when the halacha applies. He seemed to be saying that the place at the table is not such an issue, but a special chair is. Until those new chairs were purchased, that family had a homogenous set of chairs. It could be that he meant to imply that if the chairs are not distinctive, then a child could sit in such a chair provided that it is currently positioned in a different place than the father or mother's kavua place at the table, assuming they have kavua places at the table.
Maybe he meant the chair itself, not the specific position. In other words, someone can take his chair from the head of the table and move it to another room and sit in it, since it looks like all the other chairs anyway. But it isn't allowed to sit in it in its position at the head of the table. A chair that is immediately recognizeable as his may not be sat in anywhere.
Sounds right from what I learned. If you have a special chair for mother and father, wherever those chairs are moved, they are ossur to the kids unless given special permission.
To this day my mother still has my father's desk chair in her house, almsot 20 years after he is gone and the kids still remember him putting them in his chair and turning them around and around as kids. I remember him telling each one "you are allowed to sit in my chair when I'm not sitting there and when I am you can sit on my lap"...and we have one precious picture when my little father (five foot nothing) was sitting in the chair with the two youngest on each knee and the others sitting on the arms and dh, and me behind him...
I just want to point out, once again, that dysfunctional marriages are far from exclusive to the frum community. Amother, I understand your gripes with halacha. I think most of us feel that way about some halacha or other. What comforts me is the knowledge that all of Torah and halacha is actually a protection and a benefit to me, given the big picture. The details can be fruatrating, especially when less than respectable people are involved, but I'm in this for a reason, and for the long haul. I do bug my dh a lot with questions, and he does his best to find me satisfactory answers. If you have someone you can ask, it may help you too.
MommyZ, it sounds like your family is doing great. Why would you think any of that is contrary to halacha?
Thank you. When in doubt I ask our Rav or my therapist. It seems to help a lot.
Back to camp. When I don't see a post on this thread for a few hours I get nervous.
Do these mothers who have their kids in camp all summer really have them in ALL summer? Because around here there are no such camps that I know of. They end usually by this week unless you are talking some really special expensive out of sight program.
And for those mothers in America who kept writing that in America kids have between 10 to 11 weeks off, hate to tell you but it's no different here in EY. June 30th to Sept. 1 in most regular schools up to sixth grade, June 20th to Sept. 1 after that. by my count that's 62 and 72 days or which is nine or ten weeks, not that different. So...do parents have their little kids in camp all that time? If not, how do those same SAHMs who can't cope, cope during that time?
I'll tell you, we were coping fine, but as the summer progresses and the kids are unscheduled, it gets more annoying. Today a lot of people in the family were kind of on edge. I'm kind of wiped out from taking my four youngest kids on a two-day vacation to Tzefat.
The married couple is coming for Shabbos and we always enjoy that. Next week my 18 year old dd is running a kaitana, and hopefully two of my younger kids will help her, and one will attend. It will also be Tisha B'Av, sigh. At least (unfortunately) we have a tradition for that - lay out all the sad books, and watch the Chofetz Chaim video before DH screens it at the Kollel. The kids are into the egg and ashes thing on Erev Tisha B'Av. Sad but true.
Two older sons need yeshivos, and have not managed to find good matches as far as that. my 17 year old took and passed his driving theory test today. We applaud his working towards and meeting a goal. DH bought a box of sushi to celebrate, and we all had a piece.
Back to camp. When I don't see a post on this thread for a few hours I get nervous.
Do these mothers who have their kids in camp all summer really have them in ALL summer? Because around here there are no such camps that I know of. They end usually by this week unless you are talking some really special expensive out of sight program.
And for those mothers in America who kept writing that in America kids have between 10 to 11 weeks off, hate to tell you but it's no different here in EY. June 30th to Sept. 1 in most regular schools up to sixth grade, June 20th to Sept. 1 after that. by my count that's 62 and 72 days or which is nine or ten weeks, not that different. So...do parents have their little kids in camp all that time? If not, how do those same SAHMs who can't cope, cope during that time?
I work, so camp isn't really an option. That being said, my son ended school 2 weeks ago (Thursday). Friday he went with my middle 2 to "help" their babysitter.
The following week, he had a round robin camp.
This week there was nothing. Monday he stayed home with my husband (first day of bain hazmanim). My sister in law came in town for a little while, and he's been tagging along with her boys since Tuesday. I have no idea what he'll do when they leave. School starts late this year -- it's 4 weeks away!
Camp in the US is 8 weeks maximum. Some sleepaway camps have reduced their session to 7 weeks in the past few years because of variation in school schedules (don't know if any frum camps did this). Some camps let you send for part of a summer, and some specialty camps may only run 1-2 weeks.
PinkFridge
