Therefore the best piety is home piety. To learn at home Gemara and Musar and Rav Shach's Avi Ezri. Institution based piety seems to have major flaws.

I was in Shar Yashuv in NY and then in the Mir and in neither place was it very easy to get to meet women. In the Mir there were no official channels for dating. On one hand it was kind of frustrating. But on the other hand it made for a kind of environment where one is motivated to get married.
To meet a girl one usually had to wait until some shiduch was offered by the girl's parents. It was nothing like what is usual in Western Society. But who can say? I generally approve of places for opposites sexes to meet. The more strict approach seems to be too heavy handed to me.

That is I think the real reason for the enlightenment. I think at some-point, people got tired of religious leaders telling them what to do. Especially when it seemed clear those leaders themselves had no idea of the difference between right and wrong. And that situation I think has remained in place. 

Recently I was looking at the trial of Joan of Arc, and it seems to me to reflect very well on exactly why the Enlightenment happened. People got sick and tired of religious authorities and princes acting in ways that were heavy handed, and unjust. 

Therefore the best piety is home piety. To learn at home Gemara and Musar and Rav Shach's Avi Ezri. "Institution based piety" seems to have major flaws. 

NASA projects

My learning partner said the NASA projects like the moon etc were scaled back because they were forced to hire blacks and Muslims that were incompetent and causing disasters. Diversity killed the Mars project.

medicine

My parents said not to take medicine unless it has been on the market for 50 years.
I should mention that modern medicine has two aspects. One is proved and tried techniques. The other is speculative and presented as true and tied but it is not. It is important to discern the difference.

Gemara, Musar, Physics, Math, Music and Survival

The reason my idea of a yeshiva having Gemara, Musar, Physics, Math, Music and Survival Skills, is to some degree based on the Rambam but also experience. [The Rambam's opinion about the importance of Physics is well known but ignored. So to bring it up would make no difference. If they ignore the Rambam already then why what I say make any difference.]
But the experience I have shows me the Torah alone approach rarely results in any kind of decent person. Sometimes you will have elevated people like Bava Sali, but that is rare. The general result of Torah alone is not very good. Religious fanaticism at the cost of being decent human beings seems like a bad trade off.

Plus the religious fanaticism does not result in Torah anyway, rather in fetishes like "zniut" and obsession with sex of other kinds of religious obsessions which have nothing to do with Torah.  And then they expect to get paid for their religious fetish and idiotic behavior. And then condemn anyone that does not conform their their confused sick ideas of what Torah is about.
Ultra-religious does not equal righteousness nor holiness. It just results in sanctimonious jerks.
I am not saying one should interrupt his Torah study to make money. Rather if one is in a situation where he can sit and learn Torah, then he should do so and trust in God to take care of his needs. [However I do consider the above six subjects to be a part of a Torah education as the Rambam also held.] 

excommunication that the Gra signed was valid.

In terms of getting ahead of the curve ball, I went to two yeshivas. [It was clear to me the secular world lacked numinous value]. It was not to get a living or anything but for the sake of Torah. But I thought also that it was important to be part of the Torah world. 

For all I knew this would have remained the case as long as I was part of the Torah world. That is the social context made a big difference. Somehow we left the Lithuanian yeshiva world and then the context changed. The world we joined was low in IQ and character. And certainly not moral. That caused everything to fall apart. And then all my ex wife could think about all the time was how to get revenge on me and hurt me and talk about how all that matters is money to the children. So the children grew up in a kind of low environment--very different than the kind of world I had hoped to raise them in. What to do about it now? 

Of course all the trouble could have been avoided if I had simply assumed the excommunication that the Gra signed  was valid. Problem solved. Don't associate yourself with lowlifes and criminal scum that pretend to be holy.

Someone noticed that Deuteronomy 22 in fact seems to imply that simple sex with an unmarried girl makes her one's wife.

Someone noticed that Deuteronomy 22 in fact seems to imply that simple sex with an unmarried girl makes her one's wife. If you read it with no thought in mind about the gezera Shava "devar Erva" al kal devar."

That is you have the guy coming to court saying he did not find his bride a virgin. If the parents can't produce the sheet with blood, then she is stoned. We have the Sages that depend on a drasha that she can't be married without two witnesses, but still the simple explanation of the verses seems clear. Add to that the end of the Parsha when a girl is raped and she thus has to be the wife of the person that rapped her. It does not say he has to marry her because she is thus already married. Rather it says he can not divorce her. Looking at the simple Peshat of the verses clearly indicates that there is no reason to stone the poor girl simply because she was not a virgin. Rather the stoning is because she is considered married to the first gut that had sex with her. Thus a married woman that intentionally had sex with someone else later.

Thus question: is there someone else in the Old Testament that would seem to contradict this?

The girl friend thing we find might mean no ketubah. There is a hekish between marriage and divorce so like one needs two witnesses so the other. still I wonder about a drasha that seems to be contradicted by the simple explanation of the verses.


(Of course even of it would mean she is married he still could be required to give a divorce document that would set her free.)

The idea of a זונה would seem to contradict the whole idea also.

Men in the USA have trouble with women. on the site Dalrock I saw someone mention about the Ukraine [and Russia] and that seems right to me. [My impression of women in China and Japan is also very positive but I have no experience in that area. On the other hand with Ukraine and Russia, there is no question.]






Here is a comment  that I think is 100% correct:

"Eastern Europe: I first went to Ukraine, to see for myself if the marketing hype from the various “foreign bride” service companies had any truth to it. Although many/most of those companies are in fact primarily interested in your money rather than helping you, they can be successful because the claim that many women there are vastly superior to western women is in fact true.

Learning Russian is fine, but it will probably be a long time before you are proficient enough to not need a translator. So learn 3 to 5 hundred words, and consider that good enough to make a good impression, and to be able to navigate (find the bus, buy food, etc.). Translators are $15 an hour, so not a big deal.
I would advise you to focus on getting debt free so that you can afford to take 3 months to go there. Slavery to money/debt is SO bad for us.
You cannot expect to start a decent relationship in a couple weeks, so having at least 6 weeks there would be good. Especially since the first woman you pick to pursue may not be appropriate/serious anyway.

When I was there, women actually made an effort, or gave openings, to spend time with me. And these were women upon whom I had spent very little money, not even dinner, so there was not an immediate gold-digger motivation. For example, one woman went for a walk with me through her city. The only monetary benefit she received was the rose I gave her. And she wanted to get together again.
Another met me, and I paid only for a few flowers, a salad, water bottle, and a couple games of ping-pong. After that, she really wanted to get together again.

If you are really interested, just go. Trying to find/communicate with a woman before you get there is just a way to line the pockets of unethical companies. As a guy who will get no financial benefit from you regardless, I can tell you: Many women there ARE in fact vastly superior. It is not just marketing hype.
I am thinking of going next spring, so if you want company/help, maybe we can arrange to go at the same time. Most companies that offer to help are massively overcharging, or are outright frauds.

One problem you will have that you do not have in North America is that the women are very feminine/beautiful, so this will be very distracting for you unless you firmly hold to your reason/mind. (At least, it was a problem for me.)
Have a short list of what is important to you, and then you can run through the list and pass on the women that, while strongly emotionally/sexually appealing, are not appropriate for marriage with you. E.g., I want:
– woman not married to her career; if she’s not prepared to ditch school/career so she can invest her time in our children, I don’t want her. Similarly, she must have investing time in her marriage as a life priority.
– she accepts that we will read the Bible together almost daily and obey it. (As opposed to churchians who say the right “Christian” words, but do not live it out — read Matt 21:28-32. I am not too concerned about her past “religious” experience, just her obedience.)
– 2 mandatory physical characteristics that are important to me. Tough beans to the feminists/churchians who claim that we are all equal and the outside should not matter
– feminine in the areas of her appearance that she can control (clothes (deut 22:5), hair length (1 Cor 11), not fat (Titus 2:3-5))
– easy to talk with and pleasant. Able to have fun with me.
– under 29, preferably about 25, give or take a few years. I want kids from my new wife, not menopause. Plus the “wife goggles” would be a benefit to the marriage.

Oh, and living costs there are very low. A private apartment is about $33 US a day, less if you pay by the month. A week’s worth of groceries is maybe $26, if you plan to eat “high on the hog”. Six games of bowling, with shoe rentals, is about $5 US."

 Human relations are in God's hands as far as I can see and rules that apply in one case change for another. No two people are alike. Still as far as the general nature of that comment about the Ukraine and Russia I have to agree. The women are far, far, superior to anything one can find in the USA in character and looks. Just avoid those dating sites at all cost. Learn Russian and go there. Period.

I mentioned before this the various reasons why this is allowed even if not preferable. The basic reasons are: the incident with Rav Asi in Avoda Zara. There was a woman that people were saying that she was not Jewish. Rav Asi said did not she go to the Mikvah? Rashi says it is enough to go to the mikva for the sake of marriage to become Jewish.

My other reason is the Raavad (and most of the Baali HaTosphot) that a girl friend is permitted. See Chronicles II 2:46.