Inverse relationship between time spent multitasking on social programs & social problems

CNN

Tween girls who spend much of their waking hours switching frantically between YouTube, Facebook, television and text messaging are more likely to develop social problems, says a Stanford University study published in a scientific journal on Wednesday.

Young girls who spend the most time multitasking between various digital devices, communicating online or watching video are the least likely to develop normal social tendencies, according to the survey of 3,461 American girls aged 8 to 12 who volunteered responses.

Attention deficit drugs are not effective in the long run

NYTimes

Attention-deficit drugs increase concentration in the short term, which is why they work so well for college students cramming for exams. But when given to children over long periods of time, they neither improve school achievement nor reduce behavior problems. The drugs can also have serious side effects, including stunting growth. 

Sadly, few physicians and parents seem to be aware of what we have been learning about the lack of effectiveness of these drugs. 

What gets publicized are short-term results and studies on brain differences among children. Indeed, there are a number of incontrovertible facts that seem at first glance to support medication. It is because of this partial foundation in reality that the problem with the current approach to treating children has been so difficult to see.

Rabbi Pinto's Followers raise questions about Congressman’s Fund-Raising

NYTimes

Soon after he began running for Congress in 2009, Michael G. Grimm, a Staten Island Republican, needed to convince party leaders in Washington that he could raise enough money to become a viable candidate. Seeking help, he turned to an unlikely source: followers of an Orthodox rabbi and mystic from Israel. 

Mr. Grimm, a former agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a Roman Catholic who regularly attends Sunday Mass, traveled around the New York region with one of the rabbi’s top aides, Ofer Biton, to raise campaign money from the rabbi’s followers. In all, the Grimm campaign collected more than $500,000 from the followers, according to numerous interviews and an analysis of Mr. Grimm’s campaign records. 

הסודות של חסידות גור נחשפים

 Understanding the extreme views some chassidim have about women

Haaretz

תקנות מחמירות האוסרות על גברים לדבר עם כל אשה - כולל זו שנישאו לה; חתנים שמגלים רק לפני חופתם את סוד הכלולות; והשיטות להסחת הדעת מכל מראה שעלול ליצור גירוי. כתבה ראשונה מתוך שתיים

Maharal explains why Moshe had to marry a giyorus

Maharal(Gevuros HaShem): Why didn’t Moshe marry a Jewish woman from birth with pedigree like Aaron? Don’t think like the fools that this just happened because that is mistakenly dismissing foundation principles. Therefore it is important to explain itdsf because this is one of the reasons that Moshe’s children were inferior to Aaron’s children. From here our Sages (Bava Basra 109b) learned that one should always attach oneself with a pedigreed family. If so what was the reason that he married a woman from another nation? This is truly a very great question but if you think about it intelligently you will realise it was not done for nothing but was for a extremely important issue. Firstly you should know that Moshe was equivalent to the entire Jewish people because he was in fact the completing factor for the entire Jewish people. That is why the Torah (Shemos 18:1) writes that Yisro… heard all that G‑d had done for Moshe and for Yisroel. We thus see that Moshe is equivalent to all the entire Jewish people… Therefore it makes no sense that he would marry a woman who is one of the 600, 000 Jews when Moshe was equal to the 600,000. In contrast gerim who are outside of the Jewish people and therefore are not included in the 600,000 are capable of matching Moshe. That is because Moshe was not included in the 600,000. Thus the soul of the convert if she merited was more appropriate for Moshe who transcended the Jewish people. It is important to understand this amazing thing. Consequently Moshe married a woman from a different people even though the Jewish people are the essence of the world and the other nations are merely additions and supplements. Thus gerim when they convert become additions to the Jewish people. This is the reason that Moshe married a giyorus.

Rav Kook supports Argentine rabbis' measures against insincere conversions

Rav Kook(Daas Cohen Y.D. #154): [Written to the rabbis of Argentina] Even though the halacha is that those who convert for ulterio r motives are valid gerim (Yevamos 24b) and this includes a man who converts for the sake of a woman and a woman who converts for the sake of a man, it appears from Tosfos (Chullin 3b) and Yevamos (24b) that this is only if the conversion involves a full commitment to keeping the mitzvos. But if the conversion is not complete –meaning without full observance of the mitzvos and also the motivation was not proper – then they are worse then regular lion‑converts that are mentioned there in a braissa. There is one opinion that these lion‑converts are genuine gerim but they are like the Kusim because according to the view that they are lion‑converts they are considered according to the halacha as total non‑Jews because there are two problems. 1) the conversion was not for the sake of Heaven 2) they don’t fully observe the mitzvos because as a minimum they worship idols through shituf as is learned from the verse “and yet they still worship their gods.” The language of Tosfos in Chullin is that they didn’t convert completely and thus it was not only idolatry that they violated. Thus in any case where the mitzvos are not observed properly and the motivation wasn’t proper – then there is no conversion at all. We see this in the language of the Rambam and Shulchan Aruch (Y.D. 248) that a person who converts for ulterior motivation, we are concerned about him until his righteousness is established. In other words if we see that he is not conducting himself properly according to the halacha and he had ulterior motivation for conversion – this is not considered complete conversion. In fact by accepting a ger who is not going to be observant, we transgress the prohibition of placing a stumbling block before the blind in any case. For if we say that the conversion is not valid even bedieved and yet we accepted them – then that causes problems for society because they are treating non‑Jews as Jews. How many snares and destructions results from that – especially concerning kiddushin, gittin and yibum. The Jewish husband will mistakenly view their son as his son and if he has a Jewish wife afterwards and he dies without other children, his wife will be mistakenly allowed to remarry without chalitza even if he has a brother. There are many other harmful cases that can result. On the other hand if they are truly gerim then bedieved they are fully obligated to keep the entire Torah. Then the beis din causes the gerim problems because they are now obligated in punishment because of all the Torah prohibitions they are violating. Prior to conversion they were not obligated and not punished for transgressing the Torah. We see this in Yevamos (47a) that we are to instruct the candidate for conversion the punishment for not keeping the mitzvos. We tell him , “you should know that before you came to convert, if you ate chelev fat there was no punishment of kares. If you transgressed Shabbos you would not be punished with stoning. However once you convert , eating chelev fat is punishable with kares and profaning Shabbos is punished with stoning. Thus we see that we are commanded about lifnei ivair (placing a stumbling block before the blind – even for non‑Jews. This is stated in Avoda Zara (6b): How do you know that you should not offer a limb from a living animal to a non‑Jew? Because the Torah says “do not place a stumbling block before the blind.” And it is a kal v’chomer concerning our case because he causes him to be have a great obligation as a Jew and he will be punished for his transgressions of the Torah. Therefore it is wonderful what you and the other holy rabbis [of Argentina] have done in making and strengthening the boundaries in Argentina where there is a great breakdown in the walls and there is a great number of gerim who are not sincere – and you have decided not to accept gerim at all. Whoever genuinely wants to attach themselves to the holy Jewish people should come to Israel where they will carefully be evaluated by the Jewish courts. Only those who are genuinely committed to converting for the sake of Heaven and will be fully observant - will be accepted…

Rav Reuven Feinstein prohibits proselytization

http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2009/10/rav-reuven-feinstein-kiruv-and-mixed_18.html

http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2009/10/rav-reuven-feinsteinkiruv-mixed-couples.html


http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2009/10/r-tropper-is-transcript-of-rav-reuven.html


http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2009/06/ejf-attracting-non-jews-to-proselytize.html


http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2009/06/rav-reuven-feinnstein-kiruv-and.html