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yankel, even if Israeli police are not tzadiqim, this does not make non-emes emes. I could not find more info about the arrest, seems like nobody in the english press outside of those who wanted to say “arrest for blowing shofar” cared. Maybe, you can check what was the official reason for the arrest.
yankel> if he did not go to the midbar , MUST BE that his generation were not a generation consumed by sin ,
this is what rambam actually says
וְאִם הָיוּ כָּל הַמְּדִינוֹת שֶׁהוּא יוֹדְעָם וְשׁוֹמֵעַ שְׁמוּעָתָן נוֹהֲגִים בְּדֶרֶךְ לֹא טוֹבָה, כְּמוֹ זְמַנֵּנוּ
~~~~~~somejew > “zionism is the movement which advocated for establishment of an independent ‘Jewish’ state anywhere “.
maybe. Early pre-Hertzl Zionism – Odessa and such, were focused on EY. And so was Hertzl. True, his primary motivation was fear of anti-semitism in Europe (pretty prophetic, unfortunately), and when things did not develop as fast as he expected, he proposed Ua=ganda – and the idea was soundly defeated.
Ironically, it seems that Uganda would be OK with you, not (or less) against 3 shevuos.
Haimy > Having a filter lowers your nisoyon to be over the lav of lo sasuru.
absolutely. First, start by changing filter options in your google search: https://www.google.com/safesearch. There is also google family link that allows to lock safesearch for your children.
There is also openDNS that allows blacklisting and whitelisting sites on the network, that can be separate for differnt computers.
So, if you have limited number of sites you need, you can just whitelist those.coffee > Or a lady reform rabbi singing while half unclothed trying to stop a slaughterhouse
Are you sure you didn’t consume some edibles with your coffee?
> Chabad is unlike other Chasiduses.
If a not-very-observant person in US comes to almost any non-Chabad shul, be it chassidish, yeshivish, MO, he’ll very likely be ignored or looked at suspiciously. Not so @ Chabad.
Very visual picture for me: I was staying for several months at a small midwestern town in the 90s. The shul consisted of old locals and similarly old Russians who lived in a nearby subsidized housing. The latter were sitting by themselves in a corner not really understanding the davening. Once a gabbai was out of town, and a loal chabadnik was substituting. He called all Russians for leining, spending several minutes reading brochos with each of them. All locals were totally confused why their usual order was not honored.
> an otherwise “charedi” person who considers current political events as “aschula d’geila”.
can we stop using “charedi” as some sort of synonym of normality or exclusive holiness? There might be good rationales for belonging to a group, but is no extra zechus in belonging to a political faction. Tell me a person is an erliche yid, a baal middos, don’t tell me what hat he is wearing.
yankel> no rav no dayan , no bet hora’a anywhere on the globe ever considered a get with fully frum RZ witnesses as pasul
it is astounding that people do not see the difference between a disagreement within halachik Judaism and other religions. It seems that appeals to emotion using such disparaging language leads to that. Again, I am very curious to hear whether Chofetz Chaim used similar language. I could not find examples so far – can anyone help me?
yankel> zionism was one of the most potent driving forces of pulling the youth [and older people too] away from yahadut before the war in Europe
> as it was with the sefaradi immigrants to the newborn state
these are two separate issues:
1) in Europe, I don;t think I have all info but my assumption is that majority of anti-religious zionists were from those who were non-religious lehathilah.
some of the religious Jews were attracted more to RZ which did not mean they were becoming non-religious. If you have better facts, please bring them. It might have been something in between – people who were on the border of leaving religious community moved to Zionism, so it looked like they became non-religious due to Zionism, when in reality they were destined to some non-religious derech2) with Sephardim – I would agree that the sudden switch from a sheltered to a non-religious environment, together with the government pressure, lead them to less-religious behaviors. But the move was necessary due to physical sakanah, and they probably faired better than if they were to go to other Western countries. At the end, a lot of “non observant” Sephardim are masorti and pretty respectful of Chachamim and Torah and are not joining fights against religion.
xCTL > I‘Ll defend you in court on that charge that violated the First Amendment
thanks for the offer. I do appreciate that right to speak my mind in case you didnt notice yet.
Is it mutar to propagate something that is not emes? “arrested for blowing shofar” is clearly a guzma. It sounds great but are we really ready to say anything, emes or not, in order to cause outrage in gullible readers? As it is not clear from the article, what the reason for the arrest were, L’tzad zechut, I can only think that blowing shofar was a violation of noise ordinance or something, so the headline is not a 100% lie. The worst thing that this is done “in support of bnei Torah”.
Dovid, I am not sure what you mean – do you mean that it is wrong that they are not criticizing the students? Why should they as long as they are able to teach?
yankel> it is ideal to follow rambam’s advice
this is a good question – how long would Rambam suggest staying in the desert. I can’t find any commentaries on this Rambam (MT Deos 6:1) discussing this issue. Can you?
Maybe we can surmise from Rambam himself, as he says “like in our generation” but does not spend his whole lfe in the desert. He runs away from the prosecutions, then lives in a college town for some time (Fes), and then worked in the City as a doctor, having a house in Jewish suburbs.
Insisting on having a hired security guard is somewhat elitist. Not every shtibel or kollel can afford that. Given that threat level is, thankfully, low relying on trained members of the congregation seems reasonable.
There were stories in the news in other places of worship where congregants stopped the massacre. Are there negative examples – someone getting upset at the boring speaker? I see this as a real threat in some shuls.
yankel, flaws in the system don’t have to show up at the beginning. If they were to be foreseeable, they would have been fixed. In the American example, FDR attempts to pack the courts 100+ years later. Also, Israel was more or less a one-party state for the first 30 years, so democracy moved forward from those times.
Maybe during your free time, read about roman republic – they had lots of different rules and diffused centers of power – dictators elected just for a year; tribunes representing lower classes; etc. And everyone was always scheming to get more power. This is nothing new. So, as much as I agree with you that SC is wrong, I suggest that you try to build a broad coalition with others. That might require putting aside some of your demands that others see as extreme.
katan > Believing that the Zionists provoked Hitler
I am not sure what the source of this historical fact, but if you think of East European Jewry, the prosecution already started with the russian revolution, with so many Jews either killed or prosecuted, Yiddishkeit destroyed, remaining Jews in total assimilation. Was it also provoked by zionists?
I think it is less on our minds because of the horrors of Shoah after that, same way as WW1 is rarely mentioned after WW2. Imagine Hitler not killing the Jews during WW2 and no Zionists at hand. Most of Eastern European Jews would end up under Stalin, their fate would be same as rest of Soviet Jews – arrests of all religious and intellectual leaders; full assimilation and mass intermarriage. From the point of view of Yiddishkeit, this would be almost same outcome.
XCTL, thanks for sharing this information. Glad your in-laws saw the danger in time.
To add to that, it does not mean that all donors were political Zionists, Somewhere in late 1920s, I think, Sochnut centralized donations and, thus, funds, would flow only through zionist organizations.yankel> impossible to verify what would have happened if not for the zionists …
you would need ruach hakodesh to be able to answer such a question accurately .True. We can have bitahon that Hashem will help us when there is nothing we can do to save ourselves. But we can’t rely on miracles when making decisions. As we discussed at length, middle east in general was a bad place to be in the last 80 years.
For a contract – compare with nationalists at the end of 2nd BM. The zealots acted against the facts, they burned food to make people go into a fight. R Yohanan b Zakkai acted rationally – he asked Vespasian for the minimum to make sure Romans accept it. In our case, it seems, at least a posteriori, that zionists had a rational position and maybe got help min hashamayim also, and anti-zs did not have a rational way forward.
chief > You believe that Charedim shouldn’t go to the IDF, fine. It’s understandable. Just don’t treat Religious Zionists who do enlist as Ovdei Avodah Zarah.
Unfortunately, as we see in these discussions, it is hard to maintain respect to others while advocating isolationism. If you recognize value of soldiers, then you will have to allow at least some from your community to join. In other words, to maintain strict boundaries around your community, you need to convince people that everything outside is treif. So, we have a method that works in social terms, preserving community from assimilation, but it leads to creating philosophy that does not always reflect Torah values.
yankel on mitzrim – exactly, you can have hakarat hatov and still have other restrictions. You can have appreciation to what Zionists did without becoming a chosid of Ben Gurion.
But your underlying premise seems to be that zionists brought damage to yirat shamayim. I question that. I think most of early non-religious zionist followers were either non-religious already or on the way of becoming such. In other words, without zionists, most of those Jews would have been communists, culturalists, converts, bundists, etc. That was the reality of the times. And while zionist propaganda sounded awful to religious ears at the time, in political reality, they guided these multitudes to be savevd both physically and spiritually.
I appreciate if someone could find what Chofetz Chaim wrote about zionists and RZs.
yankel, a fair question on who is a talmid chochom. Your definition are the right ones. There are mentions of T’Ch that describe his behaviors, which can be considered definitions. For example, if you see a T’Ch going somewhere inappropriate at night, you don’t have to tell him in the morning because he surely did teshuva. So, this means, T’Ch may do an aveirah, but he reviews his actions daily.
The problem with these definitions is that they require close observation and our own judgment. Sometimes, you can make the judgment from the stories. for example, about spare time and priorities, there is a story about R Soloveitchik getting into analysis of a Rambam during a Thursday afternoon class when he was usually flying from YU home to Boston. When someone reminded him that it is time for him to fly home, he said – nobody is leaving this room until we understand this Rambam …
So, correlation between different chachomim seems like a reasonable method to me. There is nothing new here. This is how haskamos work!
This method relies on halochos – how one T’Ch should relate to another. And it is observable – there are witnesses that saw meetings and talks, and books where Rabbis mention or give haskama.you need to start with why you need internet.
If you don’t need it, don’t use it, with or without filters. This is like everything else in life. If you don’t need a boat, don’t buy it.
When you, or your family, need certain activities on internet, like learning Torah or umanut, focus on that task. I am sure if you are searching for laws of shehitah, the worst you are going to see is pictures of cut cows.
My observations are
– OOT move to in town or suburbs, wanting to be near shuls and schools
– in town moves to greater lakewood/monsey to get a bigger & cheaper apartment and get away from gangsters
– lakewood moves oot to get jobs in jewish schools
– some lakewoodians get richer and moves to Toms River and then correct you when you mention that they are from lakewoodyankel > who said that without the zionists the haredim coming after 1948 would not be able to enter EY ?
without zionists, EY would have been under an Arab rule, I think we agreed on that. Look at all neighbors and take your chances: Jordan, PLO, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iraq. Which of these countries would invite any outsiders? Maybe UAE …
so, in 1948, all Jews from eastern europe would be sent back to Soviet area of occupation – poland, hungary, etc. Several millions of anti-soviet russians were sent from western occupation zone and went straight to Gulag.
then, all Sephardi Jews would have stayed under Saddam, Assad, Homeini.
yankel > the fault lies exclusively with the illegal judicial overreach …if parliament and the politicians would call the shots, as should be
and again:
> was the elected parliament who voted for the tal law … and it was the unelected clique which canceled it …I am trying to point out to you that this is how modern systems work (post-Athens) – not every element of the system is based on voting. There are various mechanism to limit direct vote because it is so unstable. Courts specifically are indirectly elected. To my uninformed eye, Israeli system seems too indirect – you have totally unelected organizations voting; and you have do not have a good constitutional system that can be used by judges to use. These flaws are good arguments for reform, but they are not good arguments to call current political situation “illegal”.
yankel > that clearly puts OTD in a whole new and different category to stam issurin
Well, you are comparing with physical danger at the same level (while gemora compares unlikely sakanah with unlikely issur). But again the worst attitude is to not do anything to deal with the danger.
yankel > for the simple reason that not less of a personage than the rambam is the one who advocated for relocating to the desert….
this is exactly the point of the discussion. Rambam offers midbar as an option when other options are not working out. Stands to reason that this is not the ideal lifestyle for generations. I wonder whether any commentaries on rambam discuss that.
The pro-midbar position seem to be that the problem is still out there, so we need to stay sheltered. True, modernity created this new spiritually unsafe environment that does not go away. So, is the answer to stay in midbar until Moschiach comes or humanity rejects modernity and goes back to a manageable state? As Einstein predicted that WW4 will be fought with sticks and stones … This position seems to originated pre-Chazon Ish, when Alter Rebbe took a pro-Czar anti-Napoleon position contrary to most other leaders: danger of modernity v. old-style oppression. (He had a reason though – his hassidim were further east than most others, so the chances that they’ll stay under the Czar were higher). Did he expect that modernity will go away under Czar’s rule?
So, if we accept that it is not ideal to stay sheltered for hundreds of years, then the question is – when and what exit strategy. Hope I explained this better now.
google and AI are trainable. If you don’t look for inappropriate material, then when you do search for appropriate material, inappropriate stuff will not come up (especially, if you have filter on in google search – put that on if you did not do it yet).
> Anyone who came pre-48 generally did so without their emigration being facilitated by the Zionists.
it was not separate also. Growth of the community, increase in money and jobs, and security allowed more people to come even if they were not party members.
cheifsmerel, I think you are right – everyone who came after 1880 was in some sort of cooperation with Zionists. Maybe not direct. Sochnut took over donor funds somewhere in 1920s – and redirected them to kibutzim from Tel Aviv area manufacturing (this is where Zionists indirectly contributed to loss of life in Europe – manufacturing allowed for more jobs, more jobs would invite more German and other Jews to come). But even those who came with the help of non-political money (from Montefiore to simple people like my great-grandfather who were funding through funds) – those people were sending money to settling EY even when they were not so political. And yo can argue that Montefiore trying to create jobs in old yishuv contributed to those charedim who joined there. So, maybe confusion is that there was no such demarcation between political zionists and other Yidden as we view it now.
The captcha thing is discriminating against illiterates.
Dovid > How is Chabad different from other Chasiduses? Is it their acceptance of different levels of observance?
But being actively involved in teaching those people. This was already a thing under the previous, Fridriker, Rebbe who was sending his students to small communities for several years only before the current system when shluchim settle in one place.
> that Lakewood has been draining the frum populations of most out of town communities
I think proud Tom’s River residents are mostly refugees from in-town or around-town communities. I did not see a big aliya from Topeka to Jackson.
I wonder what would R Kotler do now? Probably move the yeshiva to Topeka.
late 19th century movement was usually supported by Zionists and general Jewish public, not just the several rich people who usually get credit.
I found a somewhat-modernishe (but not socialist or zionist) newspaper from those times, where my great-grandfather is on the list of people at a wedding who contributed to a fund supporting Jews in EY.
political events that affect multitudes and, in this case, public opinion in US deserve attention.
> A] Non haredi rabbis have no business at all stepping into haredi institutions , let alone administering tests …
This is another feature that I see throughout charedi culture – resistance to any kind of transparency. I understand that it worked 300 years ago and we had shtadlanim who quietly pressed our case. But in our days, resisting any kind of objective measures creates an impression that there is also lack of honesty.
Again, bringing a US example so that we can see that this is not Israel specific – NY yeshovos are accused of subpar teaching of general studies and the response is – look at these ones with good studies and look at Mr X who is an accountant. I am yet to see someone showing here are Regents exams and here is percentage of our students that pass comparing with others. Would have been a simple argument to make.
yankel > The Israeli SC on the other hand, sees itself as its own source of power.
As all SCs do everywhere. US system is a little better defined than Israeli, but issues are the same. For example, US SC early on created a “judicial review” that is not in the constitution and it is now an established minhag. Lots courts and individual judges tried and often succeeded in going over their boundaries. Bottom line is – if you build a a strong political opposition (stronger than 51%,) than you’ll win the argument eventually,
> your suggestion re building ‘big coalitions’ is as naive as your other suggestions and not based on hard reality at all
I fully understand that this is not Israeli thinking, but this does not change the fact that this is the way to solving political crisis. The alternative is what you demonstrate here – stand your narrow position and shout that it is not fair.
xCTL > I consider a shul a place of peace where guns don’t belong.
that is what I thought. As I said before, this shitah definitely has basis in how Beis Hamkdash was built. Still, we have brochos in the Torah that say that say that large enemy forces will be running away from our forces. I dare to venture that our forces there are armed. So, maybe the right arrangement would be for the packing person to stay outside while others are davening and then switch with someone else. So, you can pack while he is davening.
in regards to your question, I explain that I am not a follower of Greek avodah zora that believed in fate. So, if there is an issue at hand, you need to
(1) provide valid data – I don’t think you asked your rosh yeshiva yet about numbers from your yeshiva, or at least you didnt tell us, maybe you can do it over yomtov
(2) think about counter-measures, again I’d like to hear what your teachers are doing about thatyankel > You are not addressing my point .
I only addressed the point of difference between physical and halachik sakanah. Did not try to argue anything more than that.
> Would katan use the services of any atheist/zionist/reform top surgeons
This is not a astrng kasha. According to R Soloveitchik, even the most observant communities in Lita usually had a non-observant doctor and pharmacist – because their services were needed (Rav used this to explain that YU medical school will produce doctors who are familiar and hopefully sympathetic to halakha, even if not fully observant themselves).
katan > If not for the wicked Zionists, those “survivors” would not have gone through the Holocaust in the first place. And the sephardim would have remained living peacefully AS JEWS in their home countries rather than being shmaded (at least three generations now) by the Zionists. And on and on.
I don’t think this has historical basis (other than saying without a proof that Hashem made it a punishment for XYZ):
– Nazis and Commies achieved their power without any connection to Zs (arguably, assimilated Jews played role in both countries, but this relates more to Reform and socialists, not Zionists)
– So when so many Jews perished after following advice from their Rabbis to stay in Europe, it is quite a hutzpah to blame other movements for what happened. Those rabbis should have clarified: you are all tzadikkim and if you stay you will perish because of the zionists who urge you to leave.
– we discussed sephardim already when we discussed arab countries. Yes, at the time, one could hold a view that it would be possible to live peacefully under Hashimites and similar kings. History showed that most of these countries went through periods of socialist and islamist brutality. So, syrian and Iraqi Jews would have gone through the prison in Damascus (when that prison was opened this year, there were people searching for hidden rooms, refusing to believe that all those who were not yet found there are not alive …) and ISIS (look what happened with yazidis, for example). So, all those sephardim were destined to live through this horror. So, maybe Moroccans did not benefit.
– Polish Jews after WW2, if they were not to find a place to go, would have been sent back to Communist Poland
– Soviet Jews who were already prosecuted by the time Israel was created, so not Israel’s fault, would have been fighting now in Russia-Ukraine war, walking on the battlefield hunted by drones.> “You cannot find even one charedi Gadol
This is a more accurate statement than ““You cannot find even one Gadol”. So, you gained in your growth in honesty, I give you a brocha for the next year to grow in shalom and kavod so that you stop dividing chachamim by their political affiliation or by the presumptions thought that only talmidei chachamim that agree with you are the right ones. I suggest first look at who is a talmid chacham by an objective criterion – level of learning, respect from other talmidei chachamim (that includes those who disagree with each other, or those who are respected by only some of the other talmidei chachamim), and then take in all the opinions of the selected group. Shana Tova.
somejew, all I asked was for you to ask a current-day legit rav about how we see those choices in 1920s from the point of our knowledge of history – from holocaust to middle east politics to the fate of Sephardim and Rusim, and how this reflects the shevuos.
you are entirely focusing on what they said then. This is like we were to evaluate success of Moshe’s mission in Mitzrayim after the first 3 makkos. No, we are looking at the whle yetziyas mitzrayim and even on the centuries after that to see the full impact. Same here – let’s look at those events and see it as much as we can through our knowledge. So far, we have a couple of suggestions from the posters here – Brits could hold it; Hashem would have figured it out… I am wondering what the rabbis of our generation say, especially those whom you are learning from.
katan > It’s not that the gedolim argued; they did not argue. No gedolim agreed with the heresy and idolatry of “Religious Zionism”.
You are bumping into our conversation. I was clearly talking to someone who recognizes gedolim when he sees them. You are free to stay with your presumptions.
There is a difference between not recognizing something as legitime Judaism and excluding from amitecha. R Soloveitchik was once invited to an opening of a synagogue where his personal friend was a Rabbi. He wrote a respectful letter back that he would be happy to attend a dinner in the honr of the Rabbi and that those who made effort to build the synagogue should proud of his achievements, but that he is not able to associate with the place that does not have a mehitzah, etc and why exactly he disagrees with that.
katan > therefore, there obviously must be a better alternative. Decades ago, the Satmar Rav noted that if the Zionists wanted, that they could approach the nations to have them figure it out. Only a Zionist idolater would definitively state that it is impossible to have anything other than Zionist rule.
So, you conclude, as we do, that there was no logical alternative for a goyishe government in EY, only smuchim alhanes. Again, this is in retrospective, SR did not know that. But if you are willing to rely on the nes, you should not limit yourself to Zionist restrictions. Maybe organize your own state in the area – PA, Gaz, East bank? Maybe a realistic approach right now would be a buffer state between Israel and Lebanon or Syria? Syrians are very eager to show their tolerance, so a mixed Druze/Satmar state could work.
While looking for Chofetz chaim quotes disapproving RZ, I found this in his speech @ Agudah convention in 1930 – someone recommended a village to install water filter because there was sediment visible in the tea they offered. Next time he came there, the city was burned down. He inquired what happened. They said – the filter was not producing enough water to put down the fires! The nimshal is that when the fire is burning, you shold not be a purist but use all means you have.
Rav Elchonon was student of the Chofetz Chaim. So far, I was not able to find in Chofetz Chaim expressions similar to R Elchonon. In many articles and letters, he is using clear language of disapproval of various groups, but I did not see RZ among those groups. Did you see any?