- This topic has 13 replies, 13 voices, and was last updated 10 hours, 34 minutes ago by .
-
Posts
-
What moment specifically was it that the worlds started to separate for good? There was a time when people who became Gedolim went to Yeshivas RIETS. Was there a specific thing that YU did?
Easy one. Separation happened when Rav Solovetchik refused to join with the other Rosh Yeshivas to sign the ban on joining the Board of Rabbis. The final straw, was when Rav Solovetchik wanted to be maspid Rav Aharon at his levaya, and was refused.
Probably those individuals learned under Rav Moshe Soloveitchik the Rav’s father. Another turning point might have been the famous letter against joining the Synagogue Council of America which Rav Soloveitchik didnt sign, approx 1956. Even in his own Hamesh Drashot he writes/speaks that he feeld like Joseph against his Haredi brothers in his support of Mizrahi
You are not interested in an answer. You just want to ignite a controversy.
Here’s some free advice. Go learn. Then you wont be bored and you’ll stay out of troubleHagaon Harav Elchonon Wasserman hy’d already wrote (the Ksav Yad is available), as far back as in 1940, that it is better to physically die at the hands of the Nazis ym’s rather than be saved from physical death by Yeshiva University and then be spiritually murdered by YU.
Yes, think of all the Gedolim to have come out of the Greater Yeshiva World (from a pool of many tens of thousands as opposed to YU RIETS’s a few thousand) in the past 40 years.
Oh, sorry.
Who are they, again?Many people are not old enough to remember that
when Rabbi Moshe Feinstein ZTL ZYA was alive,
he was universally accepted as the ultimate authority in Torah,
by the Chareidim and also the Modern Orthodox / Religious Zionists.When he died, there was no longer any Torah leader who united
both the Chareidim and the Modern Orthodox / Religious Zionists.YU still has talmidei chachamim, you can read and listen to their divrei Torah on yutorah.org and make your own conclusions. As everywhere, some are better than others.
If you know people who refuse recognize talmidei chachamim from other schools, maybe you need to check what happened to them.
when other yeshivos were started in america like tora vodaas chofetz chaim and bmg
They still do. HRH”G Rav Hershel Schachter, Rav Mordechai Willig, Rav Mayer Twersky to name a few.
There was a time when there was simply almost nothing else in America. So whoever was born in America, or had to flee to America (and needed a visa affidavit with a job offer) ended up there, regardless of whether they agreed with every aspect of their hashkafah. At that time, prior to Bernard Revel, RIETS was closer to being a regular Yeshiva. It would be inaccurate to say they ‘separated’ from the Yeshivish Velt, because they were לכתחילה catering to an American audience at a time when the mainstream Yeshiva world was still located in Europe. Post WWII, when thousands of survivors arrived in the US, regular Litvish Yeshivos were also rebuilt in America in a somewhat modified form, and RIETS itself remained more or less what it was beforehand. Once other options were available, parents and bochurim could choose where to go. It’s not like RIETS was once an integral part of the European Yeshiva Velt and then split off and went its own way…
Yes. When Dr. Belkin began the secular studies program. The Gedolim you are referring to learned there when it was only a Yeshiva.
Always_Ask_Questions and shebbesonian:
Unlike everywhere else, the ones in YU are potentially contaminated with the idolatry and heresy of Zionism and the heresy of TuMa of YU.
For example, Rabbi Schachter wrote already half a century ago that the Zionists had the halachic right to send Jews to die on the altar of their idol – not because of pikuach nefesh but rather – solely because a “Nation-State” is an integral part of a Nation and that losing the Nation-State would be a lethal blow to the essence of the nation and therefore sending Jews to die for that Nation-State is like a doctor needing to amputate a limb R”L L”A.As another example, his student Rabbi Lebowitz a number of years ago tweeted that his “Mori viRabi” holds that the mourning of sefirah is suspended to the extent needed to feel the “simcha” of the day of the Zionist “Independence” Day.
(And that’s despite that even his teacher’s teacher, Rabbi Dr. Soloveichik, did not consider the Zionist “Independence” Day to be an actual holiday (which of course it is not a holiday). The Steipler held that it should really be a fast day, but that’s almost besides the point.
Oh, and once someone believes in even a drop of heresy, you cannot rely on anything he says. As well, Shulchan Aruch Y”D: “Talmid chacham haMizalzel biMitzvos…harei hu kiKal sheBaTzibbur”.
Those are all important points to consider when comparing scholars there to scholars in the frum world.
Sad.
To clarify on the differences: in 1940s, R Soloveitchik indeed focused on working with American Jews. He writes that these educated young Jews are not getting help from either reform, for obvious reasons, nor from recently arrived European Rabbis, who are not able to relate to American Jews, including those educated in sciences and philosophy. Wider, his goal for YU was to train in an organized way congregational rabbis who can deal with local issues: marriages, davening, kashrus, parsha dvar Torah and in this way raise the level and prevent assimilation among American Jews. He even suggests to Mizrachi to change their effort in America from collecting money and people for EY to helping educate American Jews. Reasoning: Jews in Israel will stay Jewish, but next generation of American children will assimilate unless an effort is made to teach them. He was not thinking that only his approach is the right one. He is very appreciative of Chabad efforts (under previous L Rebbe) to send shluchim to small towns all over US.
I don’t think there was nothing objectionable in this activity for anyone who cared about Yidden. Possibly later when YU approach attracted also those in the orbit of other rabbis who worked with “frum” communities only, then these rabbis became not comfortable and had to convince their students that R Soloveitchik approach is not appropriate in order to protect their own path.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.