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AAQ Please do read the ‘whole long post’ if you want to understand what I am actually saying.
AAQ: So, Jews – and non-Jews – serving in the American army deserve their level of respect. How does this contradict the fact that IDF protects Jews in Israel?
It doesn’t. But American GIs aren’t “kedoshim”. They do deserve “their level” of respect. But the “sheep to the slaughter” (including the עשרה הרוגי מלכות for goodness sake…) deserve MUCH MORE respect than them, not less.
AAQ: I did not read this whole long thread, so I may be not following this. Are you in the camp of “Jews could have lived in other places”?
This isn’t at all the subject of my post. ZSK went back “2000 years”. Including ALL the REAL קדושים of all time, and threw them under the bus of כחי ועוצם ידי machismo.
AAQ: This is not true historically – before WW2 and after WW2, there was no place in US or UK for all Jews of Europe. Same for Sephardi and Soviet Jews, majority of whom found a save place in Israel. Undoubtedly, early zionists and state of Israel saved Jewish lives.
(Note that this has nothing to do with anything I wrote, but if you asked already…)
Baloney. There was much more infrastructure and local Jewish wealth in the US and other places than there was in ‘British Palestine’. It would have been easier and safer for Jews to go to other places. The Zionists (including Stephen Wise who advised Roosevelt on “Jewish matters”) wouldn’t hear of it. You also seem to assume that any Jew who wanted to move to EY during the 30s could do so freely. That was not true. Mainly because of the Arab backlash to Zionism and the resultant British fear of unrest in Muslim parts of their empire.
AAQ: Furthermore, in terms of assimilation, Israeli Jews are fairing much better than those who settled elsewhere. Even those who are not religious, have a high chance of marrying someone Jewish.
So what, that has nothing to do with who is or isn’t a קדוש, and what Judaism says about the value or lack thereof of “going down with a fight”. Someone pointed out yesterday that Ben Gurion’s own son managed to marry a shiksa and live with her in Israel. So “stopping intermarriage” wasn’t why they made Israel, was it…
@AAQ –
1) Re Charedim being the majority and what to do – it’s a very good question. The RZ community actively discusses how to deal with a religious majority state in journals such as Techumin. I’m not aware of any current Charedi discussion because it isn’t practical at the moment.Taking the most strict position and guessing that is the general position of the Charedi community, I would think they would shut it all down. That would be based on a view that public order or public necessity isn’t under the category of Pikuach Nefesh. However, if backup systems could be used or Grama technologies were implemented, that might not require a full shut down. But even then you may need someone there overseeing the systems and a significant percentage of the population here isn’t going to necessarily trust a non-Jew with overseeing the operations, even if they aren’t doing anything. So you’re going to end up with someone possibly violating Shabbos on some level.
2) I thought I presented a pretty good synopsis of both RZ and Charedi positions. The Charedi positions were Chazon Ish, RZSA and R’ Asher Weiss as well as R’ Shternbuch, with RSZA being the most lenient but the overall position being that it is prohibited. RZ positions were Rav Herzog and Rav Yisraeli, and Rav Herzog was initally closer to the Charedi position. I can search for more Charedi opinions on the matter, but it won’t be until some time next week.
3) Re Solar panels – yes, it does send power back to the grid. I have no idea if anyone – Charedi or RZ – has addressed solar panels generating electricity and the direct use thereof on Shabbos. Again, I can check next week. But I presume the same problems with the grid would apply to solar panel systems because it is essentially its own grid. The only way to get around it would be for the solar panels to charge batteries that would be used on Shabbos. That’s definitely doable (there are “tiny homes on wheels” that make use of them regularly) but the question would be technical scalability for an entire neighborhood or even country.
@YYA –
I was telling off SJ. I think you can cut me some slack here, all things considered.Shimon> There are more Halachically and technically viable solutions now than there ever were, which could be applied nationwide
great that this is happening. You can also probably remotely control the grid – one Yid in US and one in Australia might cover the whole shabbos.
YYA> BECAUSE OF OUR SINS, … Where is there ANY Torah source of any kind that faults the Jewish people or blames their suffering on their failure to have an army?
this is a great question.
Maybe Saul and Yoav not finishing off amelikites?
Deborah chastising Barak (not Ehud or Hussein) for not going into the fight?
Implicitly, Shimshon and Yiftach are imperfect leaders leading the fight when proper leaders were afraid, maybe retired to beis midrash
Jews asking Shmuel to appoint a king, as they were not satisfied with weak leadership in front of enemies
Plishtim capturing Aron, maybe because Eli’s sons were not good leaders.
Apocrypha about Macabees not fighting on shabbat
Most importantly, I think, Jews most of the time did not think about submitting to the enemies when it was possible to fight, so praise to Yehoshua/David/Deborah etc for fighting shows that having army is ok.YYA> that way are just copy-pasting Goyish kefirah ideas into a pseudo-Jewish context to ape the secular Zionists they hold dear
I partially agree with you here, and that is why we need to review all kind of claims. R Soloveitchik was unhappy when RCA distributed Mizrachi ideas about new holidays and such, saying that Rabbis are responsible for that, and political organizations should not be in the business of guiding observance. I think this is the same sentiment as you express.
I would note that Judaism reacted to non-Jewish ideas and pressure in various ways in history – sometimes copy-pasting, sometimes opposing. Would you suggest any correlation between R Gershom ban on polygamy to Europeans not liking it, while Sephardi Jews had no problem with it? Rambam borrowing greek and arab philosophy and science. Overall, developing of Spanish Jewish philosophy in response to xian attacks and persuasion. One could say that Yidden don’t need no philosophy. Or, as R Soloveitchik remarks – if such philosophy was developed during Greek/Roman times and Jewish ideas would be fully absorbed, then non-Jews could have had a better religion than what they got by trying to adapt Judaism on their own.
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