AAQ – “I agree, except disagreeing with MORE or LESS (putting aside Chofetz Chaim who said – people say that in our time, one should be frum/frum/and then klug, but I say klug/klug and then frum).”
I wasn’t making a value judgment on who is truly more frum, just noting that people in general (myself included) have more difficulty liking people who’s superior conduct makes them feel less comfortable with their own ruchniyus. That’s human nature. I used the term ‘frum’ but what I really meant and should have said is ‘ehrlich’. ‘Frum’ is usually understood in terms of measurable and visible things. “Ehrlichkeit’ is about pnimiyus, and only Hashem really knows.
‘Klug’, in the sense you refer to, is a metric unto itself. It is entirely possible for someone to be genuinely frum, and even ehrlich, without being very bright… It’s also possible to be very clever, even ‘religiously’, but not ehrlich…
“Chabad Alter Rebbe once went down to his son’s apartment (future Rebbe, I presume) and saw him deep in learning while a baby left by the wife to be watched was crying. Rebbe reprimanded his son for not paying attention to the baby.”
The young father in the story was Rebbe Dov Ber, the second (‘Mitteler’) Rebbe of Chabad. The way this is usually understood is that he was so intensely focused that he literally didn’t hear the baby. He wasn’t indifferent to his child’s cries. (This isn’t far-fetched, Both Rav Elyashiv and Rav Ovadiah Yosef zt”l were filmed on video deep in learning and completely oblivious to noisy groups of people who entered the room with flashing cameras etc., until they finished whatever it is they were focused on.) The Baal HaTanya, who did hear the baby despite his own awe inspiring level of focus, taught him that a Tzaddik needs to reach a level that no amount of deveykus and concentration can stop him from feeling the pain of a Yid in distress…
“Metaphorically, not paying attention to your brothers, to your own obligations, to Hashem’s world is not necessarily more observant.”
Our own obligations, to ourselves and to our brothers, need to be defined by the Torah. If someone (for example) doesn’t go to the army because his Rebbe holds that is not good for him, then he is DOING his obligation, not IGNORING it. If you or others hold of a different system, that doesn’t make HIM not ‘ehrlich’ within his system. You bring up frequently ‘paying attention to Hashem’s world’. This is an interesting subject, but you are using this idea not in the traditional understanding of the term. You seem to refer to various phenomena (‘Modernity’ etc. and all that entails) as ‘Hashem’s world’, when they really are the world of בעלי בחירה who use their בחירה badly… This is like those who saw (for example) Zionism and its founders as a Divine phenomenon because some good things came of it. On a deeper level, everyone is a שליח of Hashem’s Providence, whether they like it or not. Without Haman and Achashverosh we wouldn’t have Purim. Without Pharaoh we wouldn’t have Pesach. But we wouldn’t go to Haman or Pharaoh to learn about Ratzon Hashem… We would go to Moshe Rabbeinu or Mordechai. Fast forward, there is no question that Herzl was a tool in Hashem’s Plan. So was Marx. So was Hitler for that matter… But despite them indisputably being part of Hashem’s world, we don’t look to them for guidance… We look to the Torah and the teachers of Torah. This also has nothing to do with being ‘observant’, except maybe being literally ‘observant’ of what is going on…
“I learned sometimes with charedi type people and sometimes with “modern”. Yes, there are more rishonim quoted in charedi discussions, but there is way more in depth discussion of the sugya in the “modern” shiur, where participants include top engineers/doctors/college professors – both by an occasional Aristotle or Josephus quote, but also by applying their seichel.”
There are different calibers and qualities of sechel, both among doctors/professors and among kollel yungeleit… Anecdotal experience with a non-representative sample doesn’t constitute proof. Ask a professor to do a comprehensive statistically sound comparative study… There is also a difference between a ‘deeper’ understanding of a sugya and a ‘flashier/more exciting’ understanding. Why would quoting Aristotle or Josephus add ‘depth’ to a discussion of Gemara? That would only add ‘flair’ among people who value secular sources more than Torah itself. This is also ignoring the issue of who has true pshat in the sugya and who does not. Rishonim dedicated their lives to toiling in Torah and living Torah. So, it follows, their opinion is more valued than that of Aristotle…
“It would laughable to consider first group frummer than the second.”
What does any of this have to do with ‘frum’?
“I was discussing someone with a Lwood person (ltoeles) and started mentioning, admiring that that person was at YU (at a top shiur by a R’Y) and then in Lakewood and now in another place – really very broad horizons. I could not finish my sentence though as the response came “YU is not a problem for him”. I frankly presume that the speaker would not be shining at that top YU shiur, but I don’t think he understands it.”
I don’t know what that proves. I know closely two choshuv Yidden who were genuine Talmidim of Reb Yoshe Bar Soloveitchik z”l. One of them is a prominent MO Rav, the other is a family member of mine, a learned and ehrlich person, but not a Rav. They were chavrusas back in the day in RIETS. When I say ‘talmidim’, I mean that they actually asked Reb Yoshe Ber for guidance in life and followed it, whether convenient for them or not. Both of them are exceptionally ehrlich people. The one who is a Rav resigned from a very lucrative MO congregation because they wanted to institute a ‘women’s prayer group’ and other such deviations. How many people went through YU and did not come out with such fortitude? IMHO, it is their personal kesher with Reb Yoshe Ber that built them into what they are. On the other hand, there are people who cruise through the ‘right’ places with the ‘right’ Roshei Yeshiva etc., but they never really were mekabel anything… And of course many cruised through YU and לכתחילה didn’t look for anything. But these two did. (I’m not saying no one else did, but these two I know did.) This is what Daas Torah/Emunas Chachomim really means. When someone defers to someone bigger than him ברוחניות, Hashem helps him grow. It’s a matter of humility and sincerity, that begets סייעתא דשמיא.
WRT why, for example, Sarah Shenirer and not the Chafetz Chaim started Beis Yaakov, there is a concept that each נשמה has a שליחות in this world that no one else can accomplish, even someone bigger. We find in the Gemara תענית כד that לא מצית למיעבד כעובדא דאבא אומנא. See ליקוטי מוהר״ן סימן לד for example, although this isn’t exclusively a Chassidish concept by any means. That isn’t a חיסרון in the Chafetz Chaim ח״ו, but the initiative had to come from the one who was zocheh to it.
With that I will sign off for now. I won’t have time next week to post. Take care and good Shabbos.