Ethics

Boys & Girls & Maturity

י״ג באלול ה׳תש״ע (Monday 23 August 2010)

When I was a “pre-teen,” I was informed multiple times by adults in my vicinity that girls matured faster than boys (now “pre-teens” don’t even exist any more, having been replaced by “tweens”). Some evidence around me seemed to support this contention. By all accounts, the girls around me matured physically a year or two [...]

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How to Cheat on a Test

כ״ד בתמוז ה׳תש״ע (Tuesday 6 July 2010)

If you came here looking for instructions on cheating, you won’t find them. I am a reformed cheater and think cheating is despicable, so please don’t do it. In my high school, virtually everybody cheated (I know of two students who didn’t), but in retrospect I would have been much better off if I’d not [...]

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Tipping for Bad Service

ל׳ בסיון ה׳תש״ע (Saturday 12 June 2010)

I was recently out to brunch at a well known restaurant in Tel Aviv. When my date and I ordered our meals and drinks, we also asked for glasses of water. Water should be brought to restaurant tables – clean, cold and free of fruit wedges – as soon as patrons sit down and they [...]

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Helen Thomas

כ״ז בסיון ה׳תש״ע (Wednesday 9 June 2010)

I’m a Jew and a Zionist (in some sense of the term), but that doesn’t mean I can’t get along with people who dislike Jews and Zionists. In my experience, a person’s feelings and opinions about Jews and Israel don’t correlate strongly to any positive or negative character traits, and they don’t tend to indicate [...]

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Compulsory Charity

כ״ט בטבת ה׳תש״ע (Friday 15 January 2010)

When the state tells us that we must give such-and-such a percent of our earnings to charity, in our disgust, we simply let the state confiscate those earnings and use them as it desires. That is taxation. How is it any different – how is it not taxation – if Goldman Sachs compels its employees [...]

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Text Messages & Genital Adjustment

כ״ה בטבת ה׳תש״ע (Monday 11 January 2010)

“Dear Prudence” is not my favorite advice column by a long shot, but it’s the one that I just happened to read, so I’m going to comment on it now. One woman writes that she is “28-year-old single woman, … tired of being asked out on dates via text message,” and goes on to explain [...]

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