Going back to 1800s- what would you miss most

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ss321

Mon, Jun 22 2009, 6:58 am

entropy wrote:

DevorahMonsey wrote:

I'd miss knowing that I was 200 years closer to Moshiach by living now!

Actually you wouldn't have to live with the knowledge that Mashiach is 200 years tardier than you now know he is. you'd be expecting him in 18xx whereas now you expect him in 2009.

my thoughts exactly.

and chanchy123, are you sure that jewish women were taught to read and write? at least in Europe, before Sarah Schnierer and the BY movement, I dont think they were on a large scale.

chanchy123

Mon, Jun 22 2009, 7:07 am

ss321 wrote:

entropy wrote:

DevorahMonsey wrote:

I'd miss knowing that I was 200 years closer to Moshiach by living now!

Actually you wouldn't have to live with the knowledge that Mashiach is 200 years tardier than you now know he is. you'd be expecting him in 18xx whereas now you expect him in 2009.

Davka Sarah Schnierer didn't come to replace ilitiracy, she started BY because boys were sent to chaider and girls were sent to secular or government schools (albeit, in the late 1800s).
I think most women could at least read well enough to daven and any good Jewish lady had her handy tzeina uraina. Many women worked as the bookeepers for their family business. I vageuly remember hearing (no source though) that Jews used to get inot trouble for teaching their girls to read and write. Perhaps this was way in the Middle Ages thought. Jews in general were a lot more educated than non jews, as were Jewish women.

ss321

Mon, Jun 22 2009, 7:34 am

interesting. I guess I pretty much stand corrected. well then if what you are saying is indeed correct, you can knock the "not wanting to be illiterate" off my list of things I wouldnt like about living in the 1800s, lol!

sarahd

Mon, Jun 22 2009, 8:35 am

entropy wrote:

DevorahMonsey wrote:

I'd miss knowing that I was 200 years closer to Moshiach by living now!

Actually you wouldn't have to live with the knowledge that Mashiach is 200 years tardier than you now know he is. you'd be expecting him in 18xx whereas now you expect him in 2009.

On that note, one thing I wouldn't miss is knowing that there would be such reshaim as Hitler ym"sh who would destroy a whole world and murder most of my family.

Tehilla

Mon, Jun 22 2009, 9:01 am

sarahd wrote:

On that note, one thing I wouldn't miss is knowing that there would be such reshaim as Hitler ym"sh who would destroy a whole world and murder most of my family.

incomparably true, although to note places like czarist Russia were full of tragedy also...Cantonists, Siberia, cruel poretz...

sarahd

Mon, Jun 22 2009, 9:04 am

Definitely, but on a completely different level.

Tehilla

Mon, Jun 22 2009, 9:06 am

(that's why I prefaced with incomparably true)

greenfire

Mon, Jun 22 2009, 9:14 am

I wouldn't miss the phone, not lights, debating about a car - as they had horse & buggy, hot water could always be boiled on a fire,

hm I'm thinking maybe a refrigerator ... yup that would be the most missed ...

chanchy123

Mon, Jun 22 2009, 10:13 am

sarahd wrote:

entropy wrote:

DevorahMonsey wrote:

I'd miss knowing that I was 200 years closer to Moshiach by living now!

Actually you wouldn't have to live with the knowledge that Mashiach is 200 years tardier than you now know he is. you'd be expecting him in 18xx whereas now you expect him in 2009.

On that note, one thing I wouldn't miss is knowing that there would be such reshaim as Hitler ym"sh who would destroy a whole world and murder most of my family.

Not to depress you, but you have no idea what Hashem has planned for the world in the coming 100 years. There could just as well be another catastrophe waiting around the corner to take place (N. Korea, Iran, or something we can't even imagine). The thing is that you should live in the present and have bitachon in Hashem that all will be well. You can't sit and worry about future or past reshaim. live your life the best you can in the present without thinking it all might crumble down in less than a decade.

ChossidMom

Mon, Jun 22 2009, 3:17 pm

Air conditioning and toilet paper.

ChossidMom

Mon, Jun 22 2009, 3:20 pm

Ima2Netanel wrote:

has someone been reading Outlander????

Is Outlander one of the books by Diana Gabaldon? I ADORE her books.
For those that don't know, she has a series of books about a married woman named Claire who lives in the 1960's but goes back in time (by mistake) to the 18th century in England. There, she meets a man named Jaime with whom she falls in love and not knowing that she'll ever go back to the future (so to speak) she marries him to get of a quandary. Claire is a nurse by profession and she winds up being the medicine woman for the Scottish clan she's with. It's a fascinating, fascinating series and it's entertaining to see how modern day people manage back then. She didn't seem to miss too much... I think she grew her own mold for antibiotics!

Raisin

Mon, Jun 22 2009, 4:49 pm

ChossidMom wrote:

Ima2Netanel wrote:

has someone been reading Outlander????

well, yes going back in time but with modern scientific knowledge you would certainly do well.

One of my favourite books is a science fiction trilogy written for children/teens by someone called John christopher. In the trilogy aliens have invaded and have taken over the world. Everyone is living a rural agricultural existance as if back in 1800 or so. no electricity, all the big cities are in ruins, and everyone is mind controlled by the aliens.

one of the characters has bad eyesight and has got hold of some old books and learnt how to make himself a pair of glasses.

sequoia

Mon, Jun 22 2009, 10:53 pm

Indoor plumbing. I am still not sure how room-sharing (whether with siblings or couples) worked before indoor plumbing. Did people kick their spouse out of the room when they needed to use the chamber pot?

DevorahMonsey

Tue, Jun 23 2009, 12:33 am

sarahd wrote:

On that note, one thing I wouldn't miss is knowing that there would be such reshaim as Hitler ym"sh who would destroy a whole world and murder most of my family.

I remember reading once, that although you can't say the individual pogroms were on the scale of the Holocaust, if you lived in a shtetl and that was all you ever knew, and everyone was killed and everything was burned to the ground in a pogrom, that's your Holocaust.

sarahd

Tue, Jun 23 2009, 6:49 am

chanchy123 wrote:

sarahd wrote:

entropy wrote:

DevorahMonsey wrote:

I'd miss knowing that I was 200 years closer to Moshiach by living now!

Actually you wouldn't have to live with the knowledge that Mashiach is 200 years tardier than you now know he is. you'd be expecting him in 18xx whereas now you expect him in 2009.

On that note, one thing I wouldn't miss is knowing that there would be such reshaim as Hitler ym"sh who would destroy a whole world and murder most of my family.

Sure, but after seeing what the Nazis did, I know that there's no evil beyond the capacity of man to execute, so probably nothing would shock me anymore.

Mama Bear

Tue, Jun 23 2009, 9:53 am

Like cat said, I probably wouldnt have children (CHV) and I would die in childbirth too, being that I had a placental abruption and breech presentation.

Or I would die from the flu as a child.

Mama Bear

Tue, Jun 23 2009, 9:56 am

btw, most of us would die in some pogrom or other. or of starvation and poverty.

then again there were so many amazing gedolim and rabbonim back then, that we dont have now. that woudlve been cool to live with.

gryp

Tue, Jun 23 2009, 9:59 am

Quote:

I think she grew her own mold for antibiotics!

LOL, my science teacher in elementary would bring moldy sandwiches for lunch and tell us there's penicillin inside.

Raisin

Tue, Jun 23 2009, 10:05 am

Mama Bear wrote:

Like cat said, I probably wouldnt have children (CHV) and I would die in childbirth too, being that I had a placental abruption and breech presentation.

Or I would die from the flu as a child.

come to that any of us could have died in childbirth, just because the mw forgot to wash to her hands. Or didn't wash them properly.

JollyMommy

Fri, Jun 26 2009, 12:34 am

my father told me that when he was in dental school at USC (in the 70s!) he was taught a theory called "dark drawer" sterilization, in which they would put instruments in a dark drawer and they would be sterilized. and- they thought wearing gloves was for wusses. gloves only became regulated with the outbreak of AIDs.

so we've come a long way with knowledge of infectious diseases- even within the last 30 years!

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