Askmoses.com experience

amother

Wed, Mar 26 2008, 6:17 am

I've only used it once and hada bad experience. I was double checking on a halacha issue (a realtively simple yes or no question, if that's even possible) because it was late and I didn't want to bother our Rav but I was curious to know the answer asap.

The answer they gave me was that whatever I had asked was absolutely not permitted, so I asked (knowing that askmoses is run by Chabad and I am Litvish) if that was coming from a chabad minhag or chumrah of it was jsut stam halacha. He answered me that it was halacha that the answer was no.

The next day my rav said that whatever I had asked WAS permitted and those who don't it's just a chumrah but not halacha. So I found it very frustrating that Iw as answered wrongly. I'm glad I had other resources, but what about people who don't, and askmoses is their only resource? In that sense I found it very misleading because it's not applicable to all frum Jews, just Chabad.

amother

Wed, Mar 26 2008, 6:24 am

I once asked a sensitive question, I dealt with Mrs. Bronya Schaeffer and not only was she extremely thorough and caring, but she even went and called a rabbi on my behalf to double-check and got back to me, all very fast. I was very impressed and has a great experience there.

amother

Wed, Mar 26 2008, 8:07 am

amother wrote:

Iv'e spoken with her directly, and she's an amazing resource.

amother

Thu, Mar 27 2008, 7:57 am

I don't know if I should post this really, but just to kind of give some insight as to what goes on there, many of the people who sign on to ask questions are pretty rude. You would think that when one is asking for a favor, they'd be nice about it and not demanding or insulting, but go figure.
Then you've got the weirdos of the world who are bored and want to talk explicitly about subjects we would usually discuss only if completely necessary in a modest way, and the Jews for J who sign on only to convert the scholars- you could only imagine what kind of conversations go on with them, plus the kids who for some reason think the scholars are going to run and open up a sefer to give them the answers to their Chumash or Navi homework they are expected to do by themselves.

Don't get me wrong. There are lots of nice people with genuine questions who don't have access to a Rav because they're not-yet-religious or want to discuss lofty topics such as creation, good vs. evil, and more. But as far as my understanding, the site is not meant to be for people who have a Rav but don't want to ask them for whatever reason. It is not meant to be used for getting a personal psak, like: "Can I take the morning-after pill now, we didn't mean to do it, it just happened, and I can't ask my Rav because I did it with his son."

I just wanted to give some perspective about what goes on there. The scholars have a hard job and the ones I know personally on there do their job well.

amother

Thu, Mar 27 2008, 8:55 am

I had good experiences with the website, but also had the same experience where the lubav point paskin was given and represented as the only view. Other than that, it's a great site. I use it as a resourc sometimes to answer questions I don't exactly know how to answer to secular Jews.

mumoo

Thu, Mar 27 2008, 10:40 am

amother wrote:

I didn't want to bother our Rav but I was curious to know the answer asap.
The answer they gave me was that whatever I had asked was absolutely not permitted, so I asked if that was coming from a chabad minhag or chumrah of it was jsut stam halacha. He answered me that it was halacha that the answer was no. In that sense I found it very misleading because it's not applicable to all frum Jews, just Chabad.

first bold: no one should count on a website to posken

second bold: there are many psakim that are not applicable to all frum Jews- that's why- see above