Million Man March

Axiom: when all gedolim of one generation gather on one street of Yerushalaim and daven together, Moschiach will come [anybody knows the gemora page? It might be in Sanhedrin.

Do not know what you are talking about. Maybe you think there is some Tzaddik Nistar hiding in a cave somewhere who agrees with your Hashkafa? So you don’t have to listen to 99% of the Gedolei Hador? Don’t think so. If Hashem doesn’t wan’t the Geulah yet who can force His hand?

AAQ changes the subject of the argument

original statement was re comparing enemy civilians’ life vs own soldiers life

so AAQ changes that to own soldiers life vs other political or personal objectives

like getting to berlin before the US or a competing soviet general ….

this is happening too often …
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YYA> wise. When all three Moetzes, plus the Eidah, plus Rav Thau and a few RZ for good measure, all agree on THE CORE ISSUE, even if they disagree on political details etc., so you have a VERY SOLID CONSENSUS of Torah leaders. Don’t tell me stories about deceased Gedolei Yisroel from decades ago. Tell me why you feel entitled to disagree with ALL the above Gedolei Yisroel.

You are provoking me to list RZ and MO rabbis who disagree. I don’t want to go and start studying these machlokets in depth and get into shouting match. I just quoted in another thread – I asked a couple of serious rabbonim in person and they both sounded very conflicted. Could you make a similar effort and ask in private some of the non-extreme rabbis that I think you have access to, and elicit their balanced opinion that you can then quote without attribution.

UJM said:

“The Zionist army deserves no hakoros hatov whatsoever.”

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MY RESPONSE:

Rabbi Lazer Brody taught:

“…HaShem should protect the soldiers and the police…
we have to express our thanks to every Israeli soldier and police-man…”

SOURCE: lecture titled: “The Protective Force” by Rabbi Lazer Brody, 2015/10/25

NOTE:
Rabbi Lazer Brody has been a Breslov Chareidi Rabbi for many years.
He became a Baal Teshuvah when he was serving
in the Israeli Army, in an elite combat unit.
He is [or was] a Rosh HaYeshivah in Eretz Yisrael.
His sons – all of whom are Chareidi – served or serve in the Israeli Army.

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PS: UJM has made more false statements,
but right now, I do not have the time or the patience to correct more
of his stupid, wicked, ignorant, hateful, fanatical, intentional mistakes.

Especially considering that he has been corrected many times,
and he wickedly refuses to listen.

Instead, he insists on provoking machlokes, at every possible
opportunity, by making needless inflammatory attacks against Jews.

After 120 years, he will be sentenced to eternity in Gehinom,
as a rodaif and a mosair and a constant Baal Machlokes.

Amazingly, he seems to *** NEVER *** criticize Arabs or Muslims,
even after all the murders they committed!!!
Like the true bully and coward and Baal Machlokes that he is,
100% of his criticisms and trolling are aimed at Jews.

@AAQ

aaq, I am disappointed that you repeatedly non-respond to me. ignoring the issue raised is NOT an acceptable response to a clear fact . If you have an answer , gezunte heit, let us know what your answer is. Simple ignoring or change of subject might work when you talk to your close friends, but it is not bringing any clarity to an online argument with people you do not know. Try harder.

YYA> between what the Chofetz Chaim was dealing with then, and what we are dealing with now.

I did not really make any conclusions from Mahane Yisroel – I brought the quotes that might be relevant. Feel free to interpret them according to what you think. I am all ears.

yankel, I am sorry of I missed your substantive question, please repeat it.

Aaq,

The Gemara might be referring to davening for moshiach, not davening for hatzalah from a problem (forced conscription)

The problem is we focus too much on the symptoms and not enough on the disease (galus)

AAQ – but because it is impossible to resolve issues so close in time – and this is view of R Steinsalz on similar topics. He remarked that Gemora gives reasons for destruction of beis hamidash – but it took some time after the event to formulate them.

So therefore there cannot be real time Daas Torah solutions for anything because “oh who can know?”. Get real. That isn’t even what R’ Steinsaltz meant, let alone the actual pshat. We understand enough, with the help of Gedolei Yisroel, to have Bechirah and make correct real time decisions.

AAQ – I just suggested that you have a frank discussion with some Rosh Yeshiva and qualified that I mean a non-extremist one.

I have my own Rov who I ask my shailos to, including this, so I don’t need to go shopping around. All the Gedolim who I ever spoke with or heard in a private forum off the record are even more strongly opposed to serving in the IDF then they say in public…

AAQ – So, anyone can support or disprove this suggestion that there was no general agreement and therefore focus was on tehilim rather than a keynote speech.

No agreement on what exactly? Nah, those Gedolim don’t REALLY mean it… Stop playing stupid.

@AAQ

I will repeat :

you change the subject of the argument

the original statement was re comparing : enemy civilians’ life vs own soldiers life

so you changed that to : own soldiers life vs other political or personal objectives

like getting to berlin before the US or a competing soviet general ….

—

was the conversation changed in your post ? yes or no ?
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YYA> News flash. We are currently in a different generation… There is something called hindsight…

Maybe I am not explaining myself well enough. Let me try again… [as Bobover Rebbe would say every time his neighbors upstairs will pick up their joint phone, breaking Rebbe’s conversation in the middle, before going to remind them of phone etiquette]:

I use benefit of hindsight, as you mention, to analyze machlokets of 100 to 50 years ago – close enough to be relevant but far enough to provide hindsight.
There are many conclusions from that, including one that R Soloveitchik shitah has a lot to offer. Maybe not to everyone, but a legitimate Torah-based view.
So, if someone says to me RJBS was correct about X, but this does not apply to group Y, I’ll listen.
if someone says it does not apply in our times because of this and this – I’ll listen.
But if someone says – R Soloveitchik was wrong then, and we need to only listen to someone else who was always right, I won’t value opinion of that person (I’ll listen to the factual info he is giving, of course).

YYA> Where?

that’s part of my question 🙂 I heard it from R Steinsaltz, his “drash” was obviously tongue-in-cheek (an example of why Horayos recommend to look at the teacher’s face – to know by the smile whether he is serious or joking), but the gemora reference had to be genuine. I did not see this reference in his books, maybe the joke was too risqué to publis. Can anyone help find the source?

AAQ – was there a general statement signed by everyone there? Maybe I missed. And I am asking questions about something I have only 2nd hand information, no need to be hostile.

There was a general statement read publicly at the conclusion of the Atzeres, summarizing the united position on the issues. You missed it. Again.

The mere fact that three very different groups of Gedolim, each one itself comprised of different shittos, ALL TOGETHER AS ONE agreed to set aside their differences ON OTHER ISSUES, and focus on this issue THAT THEY ALL AGREE ON, itself should indicate that YES, THEY REALLY MEAN IT. ALL OF THEM.

Maybe you should get some first hand information, a little goes a long way.

his “drash” was obviously tongue-in-cheek… but the gemora reference had to be genuine…

So you’re quoting a joke, by a colorful and insightful person who did a lot of good things, but he wasn’t generally considered to be a Gadol, against several dozen leaders of thousands each. Um, OK.

btw steinzalts was controversial

I myself remember many prominent rabanim coming out publicly against his bonafides

on thev other hands many prominent rabanim did defend him

so in other words – he was controversial ….
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YYA> There was a general statement read publicly at the conclusion of the Atzeres, summarizing the united position on the issues. You missed it. Again.
> Maybe you should get some first hand information, a little goes a long way.

Thanks, I am exactly asking you for 1st hand information! I heard about the statement but did not read it. So, this general statement feels like a joint statement, shoin.

YYA> So you’re quoting a joke, by a colorful and insightful person who did a lot of good things, but he wasn’t generally considered to be a Gadol, against several dozen leaders of thousands each. Um, OK.

I think I found a good use of his tongue-in-cheek in my tongue-in-cheek! And his jokes usually had a point, not like mine! And unless a young AAQ grossly misunderstood, the gemorah was quoted seriously.

It might be that AAQ comes from Rav S’s saying – Each language has more words abot what is important for the people – eskimos have 100 synonyms for “snow”, Arabs – for “sand”, Jews for “question”.

AAQ – If someone says, like it seems you do, that he sees some emes in the RJBS position at the time, but things changed now, I am interested in the discussion. This heuristics, unfortunately, saved me a lot of time.

That RJBS was a Talmid Chacham is beyond doubt. To say he was the preeminent Daas Torah to measure everyone else against is something else altogether.

I’m not comparing the two, but rather making a broader point. Saul Lieberman was also a so-called “talmid chochom”. Yet Mr. Lieberman was an apikorus. Being very book smart (in Jewish holy books) doesn’t mean much in some cases.

ujm – I’m not comparing the two, but rather making a broader point. Saul Lieberman was also a so-called “talmid chochom”. Yet Mr. Lieberman was an apikorus. Being very book smart (in Jewish holy books) doesn’t mean much in some cases.

Are you sure he was? From what I understand, he personally was fully Orthodox his entire life, but he thought he could keep the Conservative movement close to Mitzvah observance. That project obviously failed.

YYA, I don’t think this is the answer. You are looking at it from the benefit of hindsight. As we discussed many other cases – it is not always known what the right course of action is. Mendelsohn, R Hirsh, Besht, Chaim Volozhin, R Salanter, R Kook, Saul Liberman, R kotler – my list is on purpose in no order – they all tried to address urgent issues with some approach.

As one American gadol said: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”. So what unites all of them:
1) they actually tried to solve problems
2) they were criticized for that

I am not a baki on Lieberman, but it seems that he, and many in his time, were under assumption that Conservative movement will be dominant among those who keep some idea of adherence to “halakha” – way larger in numbers than Orthodox in America., so it is vital to work trying to bring that movement closer. This was not a crazy idea. I heard from R Nosson Sherman that his father was urging his elderly congregants to continue coming to the shiur through rain and snow – “because who knows what will be after you”. He did not know that his son is going to publish so many biographies of gedolim that the problem now is not lack of information, but our inability to figure out what is true among so much published ….

And as we see from this apparently recently uncovered letter, Lieberman consulted some unnamed rabonim about this decision.

@AAQ

I did not like your list

you include mendlesohn

so why did you omit other ‘action takers’ ?

you omitted shabtai tzvi

he also ‘took action’

so did herzl

he also ‘took action’

so did marx

he also ‘took action’

so did trotsky

he ‘also took action’

and the list is endless …
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Just throwing this in for a second to correct ujm, despite it probably being a waste of my time:

First, Let me be extremely clear: Any twisting of what I have to say by ujm and my lack of a response should not be taken as me admitting that his is right. It is not. I am simply refusing to engage with an individual who questioned my yichus in a public forum and was slapped down for it, and who additionally is the worst troll on this forum.

In no way is what I’m about to say making a statement that JTS was a good place overall. It was initially – when Sephardic Hakhamim, and specfically Sephardic Hakhamim were at the helm. It was no different than YU. It may have stayed that way had Sephardim remained in control. Once Ashkenazim took over, specifically after Louis Finkelstein, it very quickly in went downhill. It *may* have been okay while Lieberman, Dimitrovsky and Faur were around. Those three were probably the last bastions of actual Orthodoxy at JTS (Weiss Halivni barely counts as Orthodox). Once they were gone, that was it.

ujm declared Lieberman, Faur etc. apikorsim simply because of their affiliation with JTS. Education would remedy this – even just reading publicly accessible resources like Wikipedia or simple Google searches.

My point:

1) For most of the 1900s, the overhwleming majority of American Jews were part of the Conservative movement. Orthodoxy was relatively small. Reform Judaism wasn’t as large either. Historical documentation shows this. It cannot be denied just like the reality is that the European Shtetl was an extremely difficult place to live despite Artscroll and other publishers’ attempts to romanticize it.

2) It is likely that Lieberman and those with his background level were – like AAQ very correctly stated – trying to literally conserve some form of what would be called traditional/orthodox Judaism – because it was at risk of going extinct in the USA. Again, this is plainly obvious considering the churban in Europe, the lack of powerful Orthodox Jewish institutions at that time and the general refusal of Orthodoxy to transplant itself to the USA. (I’m not questioning the Rabbonim of that era – I’m pointing out reality and its consequences.)

3) In hindsight, Lieberman was fighting a losing battle – as were his colleagues. That’s obvious.

4) Lieberman – for all his shortcomings – was not an apikoros. He was most definitely orthodox in practice in belief and would not deviate from halacha. He prohibited the conservative prayer book; he made sure the mechitza stayed up in JTS, he certainly opposed the ordination of women – among many other things. This also applies to other figures at JTS at the same time – such as Faur, who also most definitely was not an apikoros by any stretch of the imagination.

Anyone who has read anything either of those two individuals have written (or the others) knows this because it’s plainly obvious. There’s no shittuf, krumkeit, avoda zara in either individual’s writings, just like there isn’t anything krum about Rav Kook’s writings, despite certain individuals claiming as such without ever having cracked one of Rav Kook’s sefarim.

Should they have all moved to YU? Yes.

No one is seeking ZSK’s “admission”, as coming from someone with demonstrable krum worldviews, it wouldn’t be worth the paper (or pixels) it is written on.

ZSK even got the very basic facts wrong. The Sephardic rabbis leadership at JTS was quite brief. It completely ended in 1902 when Solomon Schechter, another non-Orthodox apikorus, took the leadership at JTS. Yes, that was 1902; and no one ever considered JTS to be Orthodox any time thereafter. That was long long before apikorus Lieberman joined that openly treif institution.

Faur was a marginal figure in JTS (who quit it in disgust); he and Dimitrovsky (who was not Orthodox) were simply professors there and neither were part of the leadership.

Reform was dominant already in the 19th and early 20th century. By time the Conservatives became larger than them (much later; and which only lasted a relatively brief period), both movements were fully apikorsum.

The European Shtetl may have been materially a difficult place to live, but spiritually it was far far above and beyond any alternative. Better spirituality than materialism. And the churban in Europe was a physicaly one; spiritually it is the direct and unambiguous cause for the renaissance of Torah Judaism in America with the arrival of the European Torah sages to the shores in America.

AAQ – Yya, I am glad that you criticized just one person on my list! Or maybe you are just starting..

I had no intention of criticizing the rest of your list, although I don’t think it’s derech eretz to mix together like that (not to mention without proper honorifics for anyone).

By the way, you may be surprised to find out, Rav Shamshon Refael Hirsch זצ״ל is highly respected by – Satmar… He was very tough on Reform, Maskilim, etc., his Austritt/separation policy had much in common with the Hungarian/Satmar approach to similar issues, and (although this is less known, and deliberately ignored by some of those who like to quote him) he was strongly opposed to Zionism…

the reason Mendelssohn is first on the list is because he was earlier.

He wasn’t. Learn some history. The Baal Shem Tov זי״ע was born 31 years earlier and was already active long before him. הקדוש ברוך הוא מקדים רפואה למכה. The rest of the list isn’t in chronological order either.

Is downfall of his generation his fault?

The consensus of Gedolei Yisroel then and now is yes. And it is considered HIS PERSONAL fault – על חטאות ירבעם אשר חטא ואשר החטיא את ישראל

Mendelssohn tried to offer something to respond to the situation the best way he knew. Those who did nothing didn’t really help more.

You keep on mixing up the chicken and the egg. Before addressing this upside down and backwards statement, it is necessary to lay down the facts of what was going on, and in what order.

You repeatedly portray Mendelssohn as “trying to solve a problem”. First of all, what “problem” was Mendelssohn trying to “solve”? When he came on the scene the vast majority of German Jewry was still loyal to Torah. There were individuals, mainly from the wealthy class in the big cities, who flirted with secular ideas and philosophies already then, but not in large numbers. That is not where MMD began his career, and he most certainly didn’t see such activity as a problem, because he himself took it to a far “higher” level. He was an ilui from a poor family who learned in the Yeshiva of the great gaon R’ Dovid Frankel זצ״ל, author of Korban Ha’edah on the Yerushalmi. When his Rebbe became Rov in Berlin he moved with him. The move to the great intellectual and cultural center that Berlin was (at the age of 14…) afforded him opportunities to “broaden his horizons” behind his Rebbe’s back, and he studied many fields of secular knowledge, eventually befriending many of the local intellectuals. (At some point in this process he left the Yeshiva. When exactly is not clear.) He ended up growing to become a very brilliant (both in Torah and secular wisdom, but unfortunately without putting a להבדיל in between…) scholar, who was “Orthoprax” in his behavior, but had very krum hashkafos. Unlike the ordinary assimilated Jews up to that point, who possessed little if any Torah knowledge and had little in common with the as-yet “Heimishe” (even in Germany) Yidden, MMD was a brilliant Lamdan who was fully versed in the world of the Beis Hamedrash and the Torah observant Jews, which is the world where he came from in the first place. He wasn’t content to keep his ideas to himself, and he thought of ways to “enlighten” his erstwhile brethren back in the Chadarim and Batei Midrashos he grew up in.

Stopping the narrative here, to give you a moment to pause and think. AT NO POINT EVER DID MENDELSSOHN DO ANYTHING TO BE “MEKAREV” THE ASSIMILATED JEWS OF BERLIN. That was never the point for him, and no one then or later, religious or secular, ever claimed that he was even trying to do anything of the sort. The whole idea that he was some sort of “Kiruv” figure is purely a figment of your imagination, because you seem to automatically conflate any figure “straddling two worlds” with other (later) figures who DID do that לשם שמים in order to be mekarev people.

So what was MMD actually up to? (This is agreed upon by all accounts, contemporary and later, religious and secular. The only debate between the religious and secular contemporaries and historians is whether this was a good thing or a bad thing.) HE WAS TRYING TO BE “MEKAREV” THE FRUM JEWS TO SECULAR KNOWLEDGE AND PHILOSOPHY. One of the projects he undertook In order to achieve that goal, was to translate the Chumash into German (transliterated into Hebrew letters…) That raised a huge furor. To your mind that sounds no less innocuous than ArtScroll, making Torah accessible to the masses etc. BUT THAT IS NOT WHAT WAS GOING ON THEN. The Jewish masses then, even in Germany, were perfectly capable of reading Chumash in the original, or with the help of Yiddish “Teitsh”. Assimilated Proper German speakers typically could read the secular alphabet. So who exactly needed a translation in Proper German using Hebrew letters? אלא מאי, the whole point was to TEACH THE SHTETL YIDDEN PROPER GERMAN, so they would eventually be able to read Goyish books on their own, which is how MMD himself began his own voyage of discovery to the “wonderful world of knowledge” he sought to share with his former brethren.

He also wrote a “Biur” on the aforementioned Chumash, where he cleverly blended together the classic Meforshim, while omitting those aspects of Emunah he didn’t quite feel comfortable with. For example, on those Pesukim that Rashi explains as referring to Moshiach and the Geulah, he switches to the Ibn Ezra. But where the Ibn Ezra learns is the source for Moshiach etc. in Chumash, he switches back to Rashi… So the reader can go through all of Chumash without seeing anything about the Final Redemption (one example, there are others), yet TECHNICALLY every comment in the book TAKEN BY ITSELF is word for word from Kosher sources… Sort of like SQUARE_ROOT writing a Yalkut of Chareidi Zionism… but far more clever. This was a whole new level of trickery, which MMD apparently held was a justifiable means to be “mezakeh” = mazik the “poor benighted masses”.

If there was any doubt during MMD’s lifetime as to just how bad an apple he really was, you can easily read about what happened to his family and followers within one generation… I will not pollute this site with the details. Much in common with Herzl’s family, except Herzl ימ״ש was an open atheist from the get-go, whereas MMD was ostensibly Shomer Mitzvos his entire life, which makes it more shocking. Actually, it would have been far better for Klal Yisroel if MMD had in fact “done nothing”, which unfortunately was not the case.

Maybe those rabbis who opposed him but didn’t offer better solutions are also at fault?

Again, MMD was NOT trying to “solve” the problem of assimilation or “confronting modernity” (which didn’t exist yet for 95% of German Jews). He was trying to SPREAD modernity and secular knowledge to Jews who still had no access to it. Thanks to him, within a generation it would become necessary to come up with “better solutions”. Some of the other names on your list did just that. You forgot the Chassam Sofer, born in Frankfurt, who was one of the biggest opponents to MMD and his projects, and built Yeshivos and taught Talmidim who revitalized Ashkenaz/Oiberland Jewry. So, yes, that was a “better solution”. Chassidus, which began to take off at that time, was a “better solution”. The Volozhin Yeshiva was a “better solution”.

So, I think then that the next part falls apart ממילא:

“Mendelssohn tried to offer something to respond to the situation the best way he knew. Those who did nothing didn’t really help more.”

The VERY BEST thing he could have done AT THAT POINT IN HISTORY would be to do nothing. He anyway did nothing to be Mekarev those few who were already assimilated, and his entire focus was on spreading “enlightenment” as an ideal, to people and places where it had not reached yet.

If you or I were there, we would not do better.

It’s hard to imagine how it would have been possible to do worse. If you mean his personal nisayon as a super-ilui who lost his father at a young age and found his own way in life, so yes, that’s a tough nisayon. Whether that somehow mitigates his matzav wherever he is now, is Hashem’s business. But I don’t think that’s what you are referring to.

Just try to put yourself into that situation without your current knowledge.

What you are actually doing is “projecting”, i.e. putting your “current knowledge” of a post-MMD world “into that situation” to create an imaginary anachronistic “problem” that MMD was כאילו “trying to solve”. You then try to tell me to “put myself into a situation” that didn’t exist at that point. Try to brush up on the actual history without injecting your current knowledge. It is actually a damning testimony to MMD’s “success” that so many people can’t imagine that there once was a world where the vast majority of Jews were Shomrei Mitzvos, and that is how it was for most of our history. Weaknesses and Yetzer Hara always existed. Individuals or even movements who went OTD always existed. But the bulk of Klal Yisroel remained loyal to the Torah. It’s hard to find any parallel to MMD since Yeravam ben Nevat, but the Ovdei Avodah Zarah back then kept the other Mitzvos, they just indulged in the Taavah of AZ which we no longer have, so it isn’t a full comparison either. We see from the Gemara that Achav’s kitchen was Glatt Kosher.