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Dear Km,
Learning Tanach had fallen by the wayside well before Mendelssohn. Chumash and to a lesser extent the megillos had a revival. It started in Germany and spread all over. It wasn’t a reaction to Haskalah.
Dear Avira,
This thread is to krum to correct. It is weird that you are such an authority on someone you never read his writings. I doubt you ever learned Moreh Nevuchim either. And you do not research the ‘history’ that you were fed.
75 years ago in the USA, almost every orthodox jew was really MO. Women didn’t cover their hair unless in shul, they wore short sleeves everybody hate cholov stam, nobody learned in kolel, everybody went to college and work, all had secular names, mixed seating by simchas (aguda convention use to have mixed seating) no shtreimels or beards etc. The world moved more to the right as the years passed. The MO believes if it was frum enough for 75 years ago its Ok now too.
Side note, the idea that a rav is someone who i ask anything more than halchaha aka das torah is also a new phenomenon that started roughly with R chaim ozer Z’l. The idea of das torah in litfisha circles is new. It used to be that you just worried about halchaha. (The chasam sofer and hungarain jewry had more since it was kehila based.)
Ujm, what was it then? Forgery?
Chaim, American jewry 75 years ago couldn’t read chumash and rashi. What was “frum enough” then included going to public school. We don’t decide halacha by what ignorami do in a country bereft of yeshivos.
Josephus writes about how chazal appointed the political leaders and led the nation in all matters, even mundane.
When it comes to things they don’t like in the torah world ,MO put on big yarmulkes and say “tradition!!” When it comes to things they want to change, it’s “get with the times!”
So incredibly disingenuous.
AviraDeArah,
I have news for you. European jewery was the same way. My hungarain grandmother had shortsleeves and went to Public school too. My grandfather went to work at like 14 and barely knew how to read gemara. yet they were super erhlich despite being “MO” although they davened in an oberlender shul.Furthermore, 75 years ago there were plenty of yeshivas in the NYC area. And yes plenty chashuvim went to yitzchok elchanon.
I don’t know about Josephus, I mean we do know that the jews didn’t listen to chazal much during Josephus time nebach either. (look at the baryanim and all the others, then corrupt Kohen gadol etc.) But thats history. pre war Europe and the USA nobody aside for chasidim really had a thing to ask “das torah” every move. This is a new thing.
PS I don’t suggest that all this change is bad. its beautiful to be better jews. But don’t make it sound like MO is some kind of reform movement. They aren’t open orthdoxy CVS.
Avira, try explaining your “history” to the American Jews 75 years ago who learned Chimash with Rashi.
The current kolel system did not exist in pre war frum Eastern Europe there was no social welfare system to support it and Jews by and large were poor. The vast majority of Jews basically had a cheder education and then , except for the superstars, had to go to work. The average shtetl Jew did not have much knowledge and this was evidenced by how many , in Post ww1 Eastern Europe abandoned Yiddishkeit willingly. Prior to 1800, this was not a problem the gedolim had to face as Jews were barred from universities and many professions and ” non religious ” was not an option as the only way to not live in jewish areas was to convert. The gadolim were not prepared for a world that afforded Jews options and entry into the secular world. . The Misnagdim and Chassidim were so busy fighting each other that they didn’t realize, too late, that more Jews were becoming not religious.Reb Akiva Eiger was listed in the back of a 19th century printing of the Biur as one who subscribed for a copy. The Biur was widely used until the printing of the Malbim Chumash. Most of the commentaries of the first half of the eighteenth century used the Biur and borrowed liberally from it’s content.
Dear Ujm,
Mendelssohn was not the father of the haskallah movement anymore than The Maharal or The Eybschitzer. Many known Maskilim were contemporaries or even older than Mendelssohn.
For the record Mendelssohn had six adult children. Two remained extremely devout. Two converted to Christianity. And two assimilated with Protestants.
Dear Avira,
The Chassam Sofer was against Mendelssohn. But he was not outspoken about it. It wouldn’t have been tolerated. Mendelssohn was still a shining paragon for yidden throughout Europe.
Dear Avira,
Mendelssohn rejecting the Chukim? He explicitly writes that he would reject reason first. But he doesn’t have to as he explains at lentgh.
You know nothing about The Moreh Nevuchim and why it was written.
Dear Ujm,
Haskallah thrived in the frum world until we got too fat from luxuries. It still exists in Eretz Yisrael.
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