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imho> the girls did not want to marry yeshiva bochurim, (it was a new concept)
Not because it was a new concept, but because they were not ready to provide for the family. I think it is a Slabodka story when a bochur lost a button from his nice suit he was wearing for the shidduch. This one did not work out, so when the next guy went out with the girl, she returned him the button and, not surprisingly, it matched the suit…
Kuvult> How could all these converts to Chasidism change so many minhagim?
Because it wasn’t long after the Kehillas existed & you switched based on where you live.
So coming from that culture joining a Chasidic sect & adopting their Mesorah was really not as difficult or stressful as we would view it today.I am not sure I understand your argument. Putting aside the possibly valid reasons for people interested in chasidism and not happy with the existing communities – this change drastically affected communities, shul attendance, tax collection (most communities had meat & candle tax and suddenly a large part of the town shifted to their own shochet …). It was not “easy as moving to another town”.
IMHO> compromising on yiddishkeit, that is not helpful for our kids, you care about them? You want to spend more time with them? Compromise on your selfish spenditure,
I think we presume here that people here are not buying fancy cars and then complaining about high tuition.
But a genuine question for those who pay tuition and know their school finances: how much of your tuition is paying for reasonable expenses for your kids – teacher’s salary, building and how much is paying for others, admin expenses? would you save significantly if you organized your own small school with one rebbe for say 10-20 students?
Chaim > Boys should be banned from being on that floor.
I’ve seen one billionaire when he was honored in our yeshiva at a dinner, his 20 yo son was serving food to the bochrim at the other side of the table.
asher> minhagim are passed down from father to son unless a “Gadol” or community whom one associates himself with has a different minhag.
you can have your own minhag different from the community, you just need to conform to the community minhag in public.
Minhag is essentially a neder, and changing a minhag is equivalent to hatarat nedorim. It is possible when needed. The most danger to minhagim is that they all get destroyed by uniform approaches when people start following what is popular or what their yeshiva is teaching.
phil> frum women in the medical field wearing pants and wigs. It is a lav in the Torah that women can’t wear mens’ clothing, it is insane that they ignore this halacha and call themselves frum.
Slow on this point. These are not necessarily men’s pants. One of our daughters looked once into wearing pretty tzanuah pants for skiing, and the psak seems to be that it is easier to permit pants for lawyers for work purposes than for leisure event.
R Miller
Rocky, I think the main reason for low self esteem for bochrim that they were from poor families to begin with and were not earning anything while learning. You are right, it was to counter-act the low self-esteem, not to grow gaavah over the regular Yidden. And their dress was respectable by the standard of the time, not “over the top”. So, let’s not blame Alter from Slabodka who was very sensitive to middos and was paying attention that every student grows appropriately for the current excesses and uniformization.
Echo, why wear hat, unless you are a Rav? Why can’t you wear a cap or a turban like you zeide or sabah did? was he not frum enough?
Suit is ok, the whole world wears suits for important meetings.kuvult> Did Jews not move back then? Now you know why. Jews switched from Mesorah to Mesorah based on the Kehilla rules where they lived.
most people did not move. at best, they would travel to sell something. even in modern Israel, it is hopeless to ask a random person in the street about an address in the neighboring town.
fake, I am glad you seem to be on the right derech.
When I was growing my business like you, my motto was like the proverbial Store 24 that was found closed: “we work 24 hours, but not in a row!”. You just need to be flexible to find time for the family – drive them to/fro school, let them do homework near your work. Try finding a partner, rather than employees, there is no substitute for someone who also feels responsible. for the business.
On yomtov, still not sure why it is so taxing – you are taking a vacation, like everyone else in the whole world. You are still eating every day…
On schools, you are scaring me – you are saying that limudei chol are such a minor part of the curriculum. Try to interest your kids. There are tons of online resources, some are more serious – khan academy, melamed academy, IXL, edgenuity, others are more fun – beast academy, kahoot, brainpop, codemonkey (my list is a couple of years old though).
> Torah life and learning began growing in the United States and – despite ongoing Zionist shmad – in E”Y as well
Oy, so modeh es haemes, just calling it “despite”. Karl Popper defined a “theory” as something that is falsifiable. That is, if I claim that temperature tomorrow will be higher than 20C, this will be true or false. But if I say “tomorrow will be a good day” without defining what is “good, and then say that nice rain is a good day for agriculture – then this is not a theory. Rambam’s definition of a navi is similar – negative predictions are not falsifiable, as Hashem can rescind them, but positive ones should be verified.
An example above shows that some opinions or even “nevuos” are no theories – when confronted with reality, the reality is explained away. To show that my position is not correct, maybe you can show an explicit line is Rav Elchonon where he says – yes, zionist rule in EY will allow numerous yeshivos, and the non-religious government will subsidize their learning, kindergarten and housing, and protect them from sonei yisroel – but it still will be a bad thing.
DaMoshe> actually had someone who works in a kiruv organization once say to me, “You need to take that silly colored thing off your head, and replace it with a plain black one!”
You should kiruv this guy too! (is kiruv also a verb?)
When my kids run kiruv events, they sometimes get “frum” kids coming, attracted by fun and food. Some/not all of these kids are also not demonstrating good middos in general and towards less observant kids especially. My kids were pondering whether it is a misuse of sponsor funds to feed them. I suggested that I’ll sponsor that food if they do kiruv for these kids and train them in middos!
My inspiration is an apocryphal story about a gerer chosid coming to the Rebbe and mentioning, inter alia, that he goes to a certain “baal teshuva” shul, although he himself is not a baal teshuva. Rebbe raised his eyes and said – and why are you not?!
As is his minhag, rescuah puts some good thoughts into an objectionable levush.
fake, let’s do some financial planning:
yes, some articles do cost more but what is so expensive in your yomim tovim? an above-average esrog for every boy in the family, kyh?
I agree that public school is not an option for most folk, but an online school for secular subjects should work for families who can guide their kids through that. The benefit would be that your children would be able to earn more per hour and work less hours and spend more time with their kids! I, byh, was able to drive my kids to cheder and back (best time to have a good conversation with them all is when they are buckled up and nowhere to go!). The downside is that they don’t appreciate the effort I put in order to organize life that way, so they are less motivated in their college studies 🙂
So, that would save 20-50% of tuition depending how much your school actually spends on limudei chol. Now, if your schools charge you more to pay for those who chose not to work enough, organize your own small cheder with paying parents. Chayecha kodmim. You paying salary to a rebbe for the kids would be sufficient support of lomdim. That would save another 30%.
Now, use one esrog for the family. Sell expensive yom tov dishes. Maybe do hatarat nedorim (you did not know that food prices would go this high, right?) and switch to cheaper, while still kosher, food. You will not be meikel on being frum, you will be machmir on the mitzva veshinanta levanecha.
For those who are hesitant to not spend their best on their yiddishkeit, see a precedent in Maseches Menachos, somewhere in the 80s: we use best oil for public offerings (only the best – grade alfa, not sure why Gemora is switching to greek here) and for personal menachos – grade beta and maybe even gamma (these are still above average, just not the top shekel) are OK – because we do not obligate tzibur to continuously spend beyond their means.
what is the problem with “secular subjects”? Is it exposure to non-Jewish society or there is something wrong with becoming a doctor or an accountant?
R Kotler had a sister who was enticing him top leave yeshiva and go study math. At the time, it was one or the other. R Salanter’s son became a mathematician and stopped being observant. I am not sure when and how things changed, but Rebetzin Soloveitchik studied in the same University of Jena and was able to find a shidduch from University of Berlin. Maybe after WW1, when Germans were paying tuition for some students as part of reparations. One of my grandmothers used that path.
user > your problem really has nothing to do with early Zionism it has to do with supporting Israels right to exist because you believe it is against the Torah
but his argument is not genuine – as you are saying, there was initial opposition to the anti-religious groups, and Zionists were “closest to home” comparing to communists and bundists, so that opposition created the arguments, and now several generation later these arguments are being taught to children who then post it here.
I don’t this is a problem or even a plague. It is a symptom that there is something wrong with a community supposedly based on idealism, and with those gevirim making decision where to apply their community funds.
It may have been in the past that being well-off was rarely compatible with great middos as pursuit of being well-off was something a tzaddik would not pursue. Things seem to be different now – it is pretty easy to be “well off” by applying oneself to a profession or even a business – with some risk to ruchniyus sure, but not to the degree it was when people travelled for years in pursuit of money and at high risk. Thus, ironically, many people who are “comfortable” (posts about $200k not enough notwithstanding) and do not care about being over-the-top or by whatever excesses others are doing , and then there are those who were persuaded to follow Rashbi, but were not taught the gemora that “many followed his path and did not succeed”
chaim> The yeshiva world for sure was less yeshvish. Lately It became chasdish and more closed off.
R Gershon Kamenetsky characterized Lakewood some decades ago as “litvishe teachers of hasidishe students”. I presume that the students are the rebbeim now.
I think it is kefirah to claim that the velt consists of Satmar Ruv, Brisker Rov and “all other gedolim agree with them”. Saaying it once is ok, but saying it all the times means this is how he sees all Talmidei chachomim.
Not only it is bizayon to “all other gedolim” but also to Satmar and Brisker who would not say so themselves.
You probably heard Reagan’s story about a boy who was selling chickens near a Democratic convention “Democratic chicken .. Democratic chicken $1 only”. Next week, he was standing there “Republican chicken .. Republican chicken $1 only”
Someone called him on the inconsistency. He replied – last week they were just born, this week, their eyes opened.
Dovid, the person who asks you to check with your Rabbi, did not respond when I asked him to check whether his views are kosher. So, take his criticism lightly.
> a secular anti-Judaism movement started in the 19th century to disconnect the Jewish community from religious Judaism and replace it with a secular new identity, called the “Hebrew” or ”Israeli”.
putting aside weird views of the posters, this sounds like a genuinely held belief. Of course, it does not cover “dati leumi” except thru “guilt by association” but it also projects it’s own fears (of 100+ years ago) on the reality. Early Zs, especially Herzl were not in the position to disconnect Jews from Judaism, he lived in the already totally assimilated society in Vienna, not in Lita. He tried to disassociated Jews from their non-Jewish neighbors whom he found to be dangerous, using the tools he had.
The view above is like blaming a person who jumped into the water to save someone (to borrow on Chofetz Chaim’s metaphor about need to save so many Yidde) that he did not feed them and taught them Torah. He saved their lives so they can do the rest.
wise> This frum couple has one house, buys a house in the mountains, buys a house in Lakewood and is currently shopping for an apt in Israel
This is different. They are not throwing away money for silly things, they are investing into houses. Of course, one can be obsessed with that, but one can also be normal about it. He might plan to have his children live in these houses eventually. Ok, I am biased here. But just earning money and then having them is not an aveirah by itself
.Kuvult, interesting, I forgot who said that Kant came to the htreshold of Judaism, but did not cross it. But you can have “mesorah” from Rambam that allows reviewing Mesorah while keeping it. Or, to quote myself, “my daas Torah is against daas Torah, what do I do”?
user> Just looking at all the different kehilot and their minhagim it’s clear that the mesorah of certain things develops and changes over time.
the way mesorahs developed changed over time. It used to be that a place had a mesorah. A Tanna was creating a mesorah in his place. When people started moving around and exchanging information and coming up/get influenced by new ideas, things changed. Book printing and shulchan oruch made things way more uniform. I understand the goal of Mishna Berurah was to create more common halocha for lita-connected Yidden.
In our times, when we have multiple kehilot mixing on the same block things are much more flexible than they were before. You like seuda moschiach – you go to a chassidishe shul even if you were munching on gebrokhts the whole week.
With flexibility, there is pressure to conform. Some in the direction of general society, like equally divided shul instead of classical balcony where women got good view on prospective shidduchim (how many have neck problem because of the new design!?), others – take up every minhag to be seen as “frum” as all shuls around… Those who follow kulos of both B Shammai and b Hillel or chumros of both – you know how they are called …
People who can’t quote all kosher opinions on one narrow topic are now able to explain how Hashem runs the world. what are you qualifications guys? semicha from a hoshuve rav? phd in history? 1600 SAT? please elaborate so that we can trust you on such big issues.
qwerty, I am not equating anyone. I am adding them up.
If you want it is
\inf + 2 * o(1) on the left and \inf + o(1) on the right, which is equal, of course. If it is a machlokes with solid names on both sides, no reason to call names but a good reason to look deeper at what drives the differences. One possibility, as I mentioned, that Maharal is sensitive to emerging shitah that everything can be explained mechanically… I think the time for these ideas has passed already, at least among Jewishly educated, so those here who harbor the same concerns could relax a little and get back to Rambam’s attitude of “acknowledging the truth regardless of the source”.NOYB, > Even assuming the spending on weddings, etc. is foolish, given how many wonderful organizations and institutions there are,
Again, H’V I’ll be counting someone else’s money and diminish their zechus. But my point is – ideally, they should use their best judgment in allocating their funds. I think all would agree that someone good in business would be qualified to allocate for social needs.
Giving for more learning/spiritual needs might sound controversial. In fact, many rabonim are probably annoyed when baalei tzedokah press them how to run the institutions. But we live in the world without recognized leaders, and someone has to decide – if not how to run a mossad, but which mossad should be supported. If you are simply giving to a particular rosh yeshiva, you are still making an implied decision to support this yeshiva and not an another one. So, baalei chesed are making such decisions – so their judgment is important.
So, presuming large weddings are not reasonable (which is subject to debate), this shows that they might make same mistakes in distributing chesed – probably affected by which institution gives them a bigger “honor” or how flashy their booklets are. This is affecting whole communities! So, see if you can help your local gvir.
I do know that some gvirim take their responsibilities seriously. I know one who gave a small building to a mossad to run a specific type of chesed (a very reasonable one, in my estimate), and later found out that the mossad rented out the place and used the funds for general revenues. He sued and got his money back eventually.
NOYB, thanks for a vivid description. A related question, not taking away the zechus, but if the same people who spend silly amounts on silly weddings, howeve justified – and these are same people who do great tzedokah.
BUT, if they show questionable judgment in the simchas, what kind of judgment do they show in their tzedokah? Can we hope that they’ll fulfil what Hashem wants them to do – not just spend money but direct it to the right institutions and right teachers?
Haleivi, so we seem to agree that it is ok to look for reasons, or maybe a better word, for lessons, in the mitzvos as long as we don’t say these are the only reasons.
As to difference of opinion, it is Maharal and you guys against Ramban/m and rescue. Pretty solid machlokes. Maybe we can say that Maharal is stricter becomes he lives at the time when people figured out the elliptical planet paths and this cleared up centuries of obscure Ptolemian spheres so scientists became full of themselves thinking mechanics can explain the whole world, so Maharal is pushing back on them.
you can use them to make noise when demonstrating near the mayor’s residence.
user> I’m telling you that saying that anti Zionism is a requirement to be considered a Torah Jew
It is not just the intolerance itself that it is a problem, but underlying intellectual approach. In order to support this position, these people continue quoting several rabbonim they “chose” to follow (they simple selected rabonim who fit their views, of course) and disregard not just pro-zionist T’Ch (that could be forgiven as a partisan weakness), but even vast number of rabbonim who are not pro-Z but are reasonably tolerant at various levels. So, this is bizayon of majority of Torah in our, and previous, generation.
> quewrty
a side note – there is no easier name that qwerty. You just move your paw to the right. How can one be misspelling that.
I think this double-dipping poster is using language unusual for us, but he is looking at reasonable issues.
It is reasonable to consider “religiosity” and where it is done right or wrong way. As R Berel Wein writes – world is better of when Jews are religious, and non-Jews are not and worse of when it is other way around. Meaning when non-jews are “religious”, they destroy things in the name of their religion, and non-religious Jews “leave no place for other nations” (Beitzah 25b). Similarly, we have a notion that after BM1, both nevuah and avoda zorah left – these ideas are connected.
So, we should definitely continue checking ourselves, as baalei mussar suggest, that we are doing it the right way. As the story of students of R Akiva indicates, it is possible to do it the wrong way .. and so do many CR posts.
questionable coffee, Beitza 25b, 7 lines above wide lines, R Meir
your quote Megilla 25 _a_ is also good and looks like a source of different views. for example, Maharal in Tiferes Isroel ch.6 quotes that and similar gemora in Brochos 33 – where he argues with “rationalists” of his time that mitzvos are gezeros – while disagreeing with Ramban on Dvorim 22:6 who says shiluach haken _is_ to teach us not to be cruel, and also quoting Rambam on the topic.
Maybe, Maharal means that the _main_ source is gezerah arguing with those who insist on _only_ rational explanations. It is an interesting discussion and we can contiue, but at minimum we can see that either position has support in mesorah, maybe with sufficient guardrails.
haleivi> Also, it may be that anything for a medical purpose, not just פיקוח נפש as in your case,
yes, I just overheard someone asking a rov about this, and the answer was “everything medical is permitted”
Haleivi> Hardly would you get a reason of health benefit. … Giving medical justifications usually time out very fast, and then it leaves you with big holes.
I agree that usual suggestions of reasons are about improving personal or societal behavior, but there are sugyos in Gemorah discussing medical advice and behaviors and avoiding physical dangers. At the level probably good enough to be published in medical journals of the time. So, we are not ignoring desire to live long and healthy lives.
So, I would venture to say at minimum that mitzvos are not hurting your medicine. Bris milah does not lead to worse health, and even puncturing the ear of the eved who does not want to go free. Eating kosher will not make you sick and there are no ingredients in pork that we can’t find in other sources. I think there is gemora saying that for every forbidden item there is a permitted one that should satisfy you.
amosak, exactly! refuah shleimah.
user> And there are anti zioni people who aren’t filled with hatred and would associate with “Zionists.”
right, some time ago, I saw one pretty haredi rav being asked by not-very-observant people, whether he is a Zionist. He responded: yes, as it says “hamehazir shehinato b’Zion”. He explained to me later that he wanted to give the positive answer in the name of unity of Jewish people rather than dwell on differences.
yechiel > “The Torah was created to teach you how to live” Please explain how korbonos, nazir, sotah, slavery etc. jives with the above sentence.
see, for example, Moreh Nevuchim – korbonos are in order to teach and train us to deal with idolatry
nazir – see Gemora that discusses the – rare – case of “proper” Nazir who realized his own narcissism (pardon my Greek)
sotah – explicitly a public procedure to impress people not to do as she did
slavery – see commentaries that a thief is sent to live to a proper family to learn how to live ehrliche life
funny you did not start with parah adumah
qwerty, beautiful example! I know a pro-Z rav, current in chutz, whose S-I-L is yeshivish in Israel, so when Israeli haredim participated in crane=climbing demonstrations, the S-I-L described the beauty of the event asked – Tati, would you have participated. The F-I-L was not sure (really).
Just visiting, right, my kids tried their hand with fake money at a high school class. But an adult could use some modern platform that allows small-scale investments. Otherwise, he might not feel it is “real”.
R Twersky reports that when he a psychological support group for CEO-level people, where many would be habitually late because they are so busy! So they established a rule that the latecomers put $20 in the pushka. And even that small – but real – amount solved the problem.
AAQ> … still, would be nice if you can quote, say, R Feinstein, Chofetz Chaim, Hazon Ish, R Soloveitchik other rabbis of different shitot.
Katan> No, there is no dissenting rabbinical opinion,thanks for your answer.
qwerty quoting> But others need to have more in depth understanding of life in order to be happy in their circumstances
note that he is saying he needs it “to be happy”. He is not saying that he won’t do them otherwise. Some people are ok just following the rules and others are not happy until they figure it out. This is my projection, of course, I am not reading minds of the two-headed poster.
> After you straighten out Hakatan, you can convince Lubavichers that the Rebbe isn’t Moshiach.
funny! and after that come here and help any of us to change one middah and make this place more pleasant …
> “this phone will change your life” “
that might be true in unexpected ways. See Persian/Greek story about “when you cross the river, a great army will be destroyed”
qwerty> Many people have a hard time discussing individuals who were a mixed bag
everyone is a mixed bag, unless it is coming from a nicely printed “biography”. I don’t want to go back to Moshe Rabbeinu. Take Chofetz Chaim as an example – everyone is learning loshon hora sefarim and Mishna Berurah. His students were roshey yeshivos …
He also wrote multiple seforim trying to deal with Yidden becoming non-religious – some books for those who travel, others for those in the army, including short articles about halochos niddah asking literate women to read this to the illiterate ones… These books express tremendous ahavas Yisroel, but, as far as I can tell, his suggestions, such as “observant fathers provide travelling sons with money to buy kosher food and tell them really really well how important keeping kosher is” and “give tzedokah to travelers so that they eat kosher” and “keep mikvas at least somewhat clean so that Polish sanitary commissions do not close them” and “do not send yor daughters to Polish gymnasia” (but where?) did not really address core issues that caused assimilation and loss of observance. This does not mean, H’V, that the Rav failed, but this means that nobody is a navi and knows answers to all problems … and we see it better with time passed. Same with R Avigdor Miller, he addressed issues the best way he could, some better than others.
yuda> first invested in sefarim for the local kollel
great advice. To generalize a little, investing in open markets is attractive because it is a big market and it is just requires a click BUT it is very competitive. You are against all other people in the velt. Hashem put you into a certain place in the world – maybe in order to do something in that place. Someone can play S&P, but you are the one who can do something locally.
for a simple investment example: if you deal (reasonably and smartly) in real estate, you can get better ROI by knowing local trends, checking quality of the building, making your own repairs, renting to reliable people. More sweat but less competition. Similarly, investing in getting a state license that protects your job form competition – whether law or construction – will lead to bigger returns. Getting a good degree. Opening a local store. And as Yuda is saying, of course, investing in mitzvos and helping others. Sometimes, you can combine both – become a heart surgeon and give people a gift of a “lev tov” which is the best according to Pirkei Avos.
user> Suddenly there is this rift between people over a hashkafic detail
right, but in some context, it is a detail, and in others, life & death depend on it. When R Yochanan b Zakkai insisted on meeting Romans against the wishes of kanoyim, this was not a “minor” detail. In our times, there were people who stayed in badlands because of a hashkafa. Supporting medinah or not look optional if the group with a safek is small and state is strong, but how do you ever know what is critical. As invoting – the chance of your vote being decisive is close to zero – but cumulative effect of all decisions is decisive. As Rambam says, consider the world being balanced between tov vera and your next mitzva/aveira can change the balance.
qwerty, in Beitza you’ll be learning soon, from memory, that if your cow catches covid at the end of yontif, Rabbi Akiva says that you are not allowed meduaraita to schecht it right before the sunset, grab a piece of raw meat and eat it so that the schehita will be permitted “letzoerech yomtov” and you are not going to end up with a loss of having cow dying from the virus.
Gemora tries to find kashrus probvlem with such eating but can not. So, they conclude that the only explanation for the issir (meduaraita – sic!) is derech eretz – eating raw meat in a hurry. That is, derech eretz is meduaraita. QED.
Then, gemorah makes a general statement that Jews among nations are like roosters among birds and dogs among animals – have too much hutzpah/azut. So, Hashem gave us mitzvos (kashrus, niddah) so that we learn how to wait before doing what we want. Without it, Jews will not leave a place to other nations to live. This was proven in our times with all the mayhem non-religious Jews caused in the world.
DaMoshe > Where critical thinking comes into play is when there are modern situations that didn’t exist in the past. Critical thinking is needed to figure out how to take the Torah that was learned in the past, and apply it to the present situations.
Right, but it could also be that modern information will give you more insights on the problems that Amoraim were dealing with. Now, gemora is very good at conservative answers. That is, gemora is usually closer to math than to statistics – it has a way of making deductions that it is very sure of, rather than doing “the best guess” based on current information.
Still, we can come up with some issues and maybe teikus that we might know better. For example, we have medical research that does not contradict gemorah but is way more productive in conducting experiments comparing to how Amoraim collected empirical knowledge.