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So, if I watched it and gave them a glowing report how it doesnt offend, belittle or in any way trample on chazal they would issue another statement?
see, and that was what I was afraid of. And now I am even more afraid because many people will a) watch it anyway or b) bad mouth the people who banned it
I do find it hard to believe that they didn’t think about the importance of looking into that while putting it together.
I’m told that they did get approval from rabbonim before doing the video. What we have here is a machlokes. Nothing new; healthy for Yiddishkeit, as long as people don’t bad mouth either side.
just look into the basic story line!
in the story(from what i gather from the trailer- don’t worry i didn’t watch it!) this lester kid convinces vashti to go the party so she doesn’t get killed so there’s no esther as a queen to save the jews when haman comes to power.
?i?d?i?o?t?s?!?
not very smart people!
if vashti doesnt die then esther doesnt become queen right?
well, as its famously explained, when esther became queen, achashvarosh wanted to show her how special she was to him, so he wanted to honor her people but she wouldnt tell him which nation or province she was from. soooooo, he did the next best thing (in his eyes) and raised up the person who caused her to become queen, hoping she would appreciate the gesture. who was this person???? HAMAN! since haman convinced achashvarosh to kill vashti, it paved the way for esther to come into his life!
this is why it says ” ??? ????? ???? ??? ???? ???????? ?? ??? ” in perek ?- “after these” particular events of the last two perakim- the death of vashti and the subsequent instillation of esther as queen- these things are what caused achashvarosh to give haman his position.
so basically, if vashti goes to party… she doesnt die
if she doesnt die… esther doesnt become queen
if esther doesnt become queen… haman isnt raised to a more powerful position
if haman isnt rasied to a more powerful positon….HE DOSNT MAKE THE DECREE!!!!
how can they have haman making the decree if his vehicle for power got stalled back in chapter 1 ????????? how does he get to such a high position? he was the lowest of the ministers in the beginning!!!!
maybe someone can explain this -and please dont say “its a made up story” because if you are trying so warp the magillah story… at least let it make sense!!!!
1) It’s a made up story
2) In the made up story, Doniel Lesterovich didn’t know that medrash
3) Made up stories are supposed to be entertaining, not make sense
4) Please forgive me for not listening to you
People should not assume that Gedolim make decisions based on hearsay. I was with one of the leading Roshei Yeshiva while he watched a video – twice – to determine if it was appropriate for a specific audience.
that isnt the only medrash. There are shittos that hold memuchan was daniel or another character entirely. go through the targumim and medrashim again.
@Menachem Melamed
If you honestly think Rav Dovid Schustal, Rav Yerucham Olshin, and Rav Yisroel Neuman sat down together to watch Megilas Lester …
3) Made up stories are supposed to be entertaining, not make sense
made up stories that are distortions of true torah stories may not be healthy for children. If there is even a 20% chance that it is unhealthy, isn’t that enough for you? I personall try very hard not to take chances like that with my kids spirituality. But feel free not to listen, “everyone else is doing it and they turned out just fine”.
jbaldy – Rabbi Zucker didn’t sit and listen to the Purim story tapes either, I remember being told he diligently reviewed the scripts. When something involves the chinuch of our children, you would be surprised what people are willing to do to make things safe (well, lets just say SOME people)
TV, Videos and the Internet can be dangerous because it is escapism, putting your reality to the background and losing yourself in another world, if done in small doses its not terrible but it can become highly addictive. Bill O’Reilly who’s Fox News show i watch every day (yes i see the irony I am watching tv everyday ha ha) often laments on both children and adults who get lost in the technological age creating a pseudo life for themselves whilst avoiding their own reality.
Am I addicted to television and the internet? yes i am, however I really needed to escape my reality both as a child and as an adult.
syag
I am aware that there are rabbonim who do that. My rosh yeshiva has asked me questions about technology a bunch of times and I know that I am not the only person he has asked. That being said I dont think thats what happened here. I am curious to know who actually wrote the letter and if anyone has actually confirmed (besides for a sign in the BMG coffee room) that this is actually what they hold. As was stated before Rabbi Kramer ran the script past his rabbonim. I guess we will agree to disagree on whether allowing exposure to a somewhat inaccurate accounting of the purim story is spiritually damaging. Your approach has its risks too albeit in a slightly different fashion. As long as you are following your rav I have no problem with you following your mehalech. You should just be aware that it is not the only legitimate one.
jbaldy, I never knew he ran it past his rabbonim, I just heard that someone said they thought he did. And I don’t have a problem with it if he indeed did so. But I still would not take those risks with my kids, and I disagree that this derech has brought risks. I will say, however, that I had no intention of implying this was a hashkofa I expect others to follow, it is just my mehalach. I only brought it out because I felt others were saying there were NO risks. If you tell me you are giving underaged kids booze, I will say you are doing wrong, in this specific situation I feel it is not healthy, but I also feel it is your choice. I don’t know if that makes sense or not, it is easier to explain IRL when you can see it in context.
as an aside, I wasn’t responding to a letter by rabbonim, I haven’t read it and didn’t even know about it. I have always made a habit of looking into the stuff that comes into my kids brains (when it is my choice), just being jewish doesn’t mean it’s okay, and being “secular” doesn’t rule it out.
The guy who made it (Chanaya Kramer) is just known to be humerous. He used to carry the nick name “Shluffy Boker Veker”
I seriously doubt children or adults of ANY age or intelligence will conclude that the “purim story” as portrayed in the video is based on anything other than the imagination of the videos creators. sure some ideas are based on midrashim, and actual pesukim as described in the megilla, that is to be expected. If anyone walks away from the video thinking that the reason achashverosh was awake at night was due to an upset stomache or that he wore fluffy bunny rabbit slippers or that mrs haman and vashti went to get their hair done at the mall I would worry about him/her. Of course it “distorts” the purim story, thats why it is a work of fiction. Is it any worse then “purim torah”?
I seriously doubt children or adults of ANY age or intelligence will conclude that the “purim story” as portrayed in the video is based on anything other than the imagination of the videos creators. sure some ideas are based on midrashim, and actual pesukim as described in the megilla, that is to be expected. If anyone walks away from the video thinking that the reason achashverosh was awake at night was due to an upset stomache or that he wore fluffy bunny rabbit slippers or that mrs haman and vashti went to get their hair done at the mall I would worry about him/her. Of course it “distorts” the purim story, thats why it is a work of fiction. Is it any worse then “purim torah”?
I agree.
whats troubling is not the ban itself. the rabbonim are certainly entitled to their position. what saddens me is the language used in the ban “divoeineninu vedivoin eneinu” calling the script “marid” and using the term “racmunu litzlnun” isnt that overkill? wouldnt it be more rational and measured to simply state – we dont believe you should buy this. why all the drama? at some point people are going to stop running to the call of wolf.
Those who run, run. And those who consider it Wolf have never run.
1)I didn’t read it that carefully, but I’m pretty sure there was no ban, but rather a strong condemnation. A ‘Ban’ takes on different meaning, and it shouldn’t be referred to as such if it wasn’t.
2)As far as I know, this letter was not spread outside of BMG. In which case it was simply Roshei Yeshiva telling their yeshiva their opinion – which is exactly what everyone here always advocates being the way to go about things.
Those who run, run. And those who consider it Wolf have never run.
Is there no one in between?
As far as I know, this letter was not spread outside of BMG. In which case it was simply Roshei Yeshiva telling their yeshiva their opinion – which is exactly what everyone here always advocates being the way to go about things.
I agree.
Logician: you are probably right.
apushatayid – you are right, the fluffy slippers will not pose a problem, which is why silliness is not the problem here. The purim story tape adds much of that same type of silliness.
I haven’t seen the lester movie so I cannot bring examples from there, but I know that seeing the portrayal of the subtle things does paint pictures in your mind. Why do you think so many frum yidden believe that the luchos were a single grey stone with arched tops? Or why the Teivah is so often drawn as that boat looking thing with the little shack top. I know I learned inside the chumash that there were 7 of each of the kosher animals, but as a kid I still thought there were two of each, just like the songs and pictures and books always portray.
Those are the types of inaccuracies I, myself, am referring to, and if you spend enough time with kids, you find out that what they hold on to may be very different from what you, as a writer, would have expected. So I try to concern myself with what they will most likely hear, instead of what the writer intended.
popa – exactly right! And that probably extends to first grade as well!
Popa, have you seen it?
Syag, I assume that for the sake of consistency you believe the same thing about the 613 Torah Ave series and pretty much everything R’ Shmuel Kunda Z’l ever released.
I wouldnt worry about a kid growing up thinking for the rest of his life that Vashti was killed by a bomb dropped by Haman any more than I would worry about a kid getting up at his Bar Mitzvah and talking about his poppa eating pasta or conversing with the lamp post on the corner. I guess you do in which case I guess you should make sure that those whose chinuch you are responsible for stay far away from this DVD.
“you might also no longer know what the morah in nursery told you is true.”
It’s a good thing purim comes around once a year. We get to learn the megilla all over again, hopefully on a level higher than the previous year.
OTOH, I know some kids.
I’m pretty sure that I do too. 🙂
Purim must be coming! Syag agreed to something Popa said!!
Apushatayid – yes I do believe the same about 613 etc. but I must not have made my point well. As I said above, the fluffy slippers and silliness were NOT the concern, and the bomb and pasta very clearly fall into that same category. And I think I was pretty clear about the stuff I felt WAS problematic, and the difference between them. So, no thank you for your implication that I’m stupid enough to worry about my son talking about lamp posts at his bar mitzvah. Feel free to disagree (not that you seem to have understood what you are even disagreeing with), but try to be a bit more respectful about it.
Midwesterner – I had the same thought!
play no games – like I was saying . . .
This thread needs spoilers tags.
Syag: Sorry, I’ve been gone for a while- why don’t you think that it’s true that the problem with videos has been the content? The fact that frum people, who would otherwise not watch TV are buying Megillas Lester, frum exercise tapes, Step It Up, etc. would seem to indicate that that’s the case…
At least that’s the impression I’ve gotten from the (many) people I know who are raising their kids without TV- they just don’t want their kids exposed to shmutz, though they’re thrilled that they also won’t “loll and slop and lounge about and stare until their eyes fall out” (per the words of the great Roald Dahl) at some screen.
And I’m not using the fact that (I think that) I turned out fine as an argument for anything- I’m simply stating it (for what it’s worth) in case someone will point in the direction of my scarred and tumadik neshama and use THAT as an argument. I absolutely don’t think that EVERYONE turns out fine- I just don’t think either that EVERYONE doesn’t.
As far as the whole thing about “who am I to think I’m better than my parents,” a) trust me, I know the difference between what my parents watched and what they’ve got on today (which is why I don’t watch very much popular TV at all yet I can sing you the Gilligan’s Island theme song) and b) I’m not saying that if my parents did it I should assume it’s the best and I should do it too, I’m just saying that as I’m sure my parents weren’t thrilled with the amount of TV I watched, I can’t be all self-righteous and judgmental and go on about how “I’ll never be like my parents and let my kids watch TV- my kids will do developmentally stimulating activities in a constantly wholesome environment as I serve them gourmet suppers, toilet train them at ten months and play them Mozart in the womb,” because I know enough to know that man plans and God laughs. I’ll try to keep TV at a minimum, but that doesn’t mean that I think that my parents were bad parents by any yardstick.
Oh, and as a sidenote, I LOVED 613 Torah Avenue when I was a kid. I’m actually in the background of a scene, and I know a lot of the kids who were in them.
writersoul – I get what you are saying, and my kids never watched tv or videos of any kind but I still don’t hold a candle to my own parents!
As an aside, even if I DID let them watch, it would never have been 613 torah avenue for reasons that aren’t worth bringing up. Apparently some people get bothered when I say that I was careful about what I exposed my kids to even if I make no comment about what they do with theirs.
So I sat down with my boys to watch the film. Absolutely brilliant. The music was incredible. The storyline was genius. The script was fantastic. The only negative thing I can say is the animation was not perfect but knowing how time consuming and expensive animation can be you can’t blame them. And it genuinely seems like the producers considered the possibility that kids will be influenced negatively and made a concerted effort to avoid the problem. The film was an absolute home run and I hope it becomes successful enough to warrant further productions.
I haven’t seen the movie but from reading this thread I would say that fluffy slippers are not a problem but Achasveirosh having a stomach ache is. I always wondered, did Bigson and Seresh really use a poisonous snake? Or did they stam try to poison him and the snake part was possibly made up. Also, was Seresh really Bigson’s boss?
Another point: If I were a kid, I think it would be better for me to be known by Daas Yochid then poppa bar abba 🙂
If you were a kid? You mean you’re not?
So, syag, exactly WHAT in the video concerns you? We know it isnt the slippers or the bomb. Then what, please share it with us,
edited
gosh apushatayid, it seems to really bother you that I have set standards regarding what my children see or read. Care to share with all of us why you need to put me down for trying to be consistent in my parenting?
bother? im just curios what you find objectionable in this particular video since you are badmouthing it in a public forum.
nice try but that obviously makes no sense since I stated above;
“I haven’t seen the lester movie so I cannot bring examples from there”
“I never knew he ran it past his rabbonim, I just heard that someone said they thought he did. And I don’t have a problem with it if he indeed did so.”
“I will say, however, that I had no intention of implying this was a hashkofa I expect others to follow, it is just my mehalach.”
If you really were “just curious”, you would have found a lot less obnoxious ways of saying so.
you havent seen it, but are against it. ok.
popa: no but he did seem to speak yiddish which is just as fictional. the film was not a telling of the purim story nor was it an attempt at one. i wont dare tell someone else what to watch or not watch but i, personally, did not see anything in it which would be objectionable. in my opinion, it was a beautiful form of art, a chuchmu we do not often (ever?) see from the heimishe world.
I am assuming you know how to read yet you don’t seem to be retaining much of this thread. I never said I was against it. I JOINED a conversation about showing videos to kids and about giving kids inaccurate information WITHOUT rabbinical approval. Perhaps you hold stock in the film or are married to the writer, I don’t know, but you are way off and rude. Drank too much perhaps?
besalel – thank you for your mature contribution to the conversation.
so, in summation, what video is showing kids innacurate information (with or without rabbinoc approval)?
Another good point.
Also, I changed my mind about it, and we’re no longer showing it to our kids.
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