Always_Ask_Questions

The discussion of 3 oaths was relevant 100 years ago. It is not now – when we have a state. See what Hashem says to Yonah regarding the kikayon.
It may be of historical interest to see who was right or wrong, but this is also limited – there were much bigger mistakes made 100 years ago, underestimating danger from Commies and Nazis to Yidden in Europe comparing with relative safety of EY and goldene medinah.

akuperma> By drafting, and arming, Hareidim who see the zionist state as lacking legitimacy, you are giving weapons to those who will turn on the medinah.

Do peleg really represent ajority of charedi public? Probably, a majority of them will quickly learn how to live with the Army without comproming their principles – as long as the leadership let them do it.

ZSK, thanks a lot for looking it up! I am glad the story is confirmed. Would anyone know what charedi poskim say about such matters – either early on or now.

Just> Everyone would be obligated to become a doctor in order to save lives. Rav Moshe Feinstein zt”l famously rules that no such obligation exists.

Self-protection from attackers is different from being a doctor, and obligation would be different. And even when one is not obligated, we have a lot of people who are trying to be super-frum in mitzvos. Maseches Taanis describes a doctor who was visited by yeshiva shel maaleh more often than Abaye and Rava (despite his bloodletting methods were not the most effective ones – surely a fact known b’shmayim!). I would presume many would like to follow in his steps.

Katan> LOL. As per halacha?

I have siddurim that have prayers for Emperor Franz Josef and for Czar Niklai Alexandrovich (different siddurim, not at the same time :). Ponevezh rav used kal vahomer for having Israeli flag from having Lithuanian Republic flag. So, my kal vahomer is much stronger. So, you should also have prayers asking Hashem to have President and Prime Minister favor the Jewish people.

on military prison without glatt kosher salami: could their friends bring food to them or this was not allowed?

Also, rabbonim who advised their students to risk prison should be responsible for the quality of the accommodation. They should either bring the food themselves (R Arye Levin used to do that during the mandate) or negotiate with the prison authorities in advance: “Shalom, this is Rav ploni, I am planning to advise my talmidim to violate a law, is it possible to deposit some glatt kosher salami in your freezer?”

ZSK> the fact that you’ve reduced the vast, multi-faceted corpus of Jewish tradition to a single, 20th-century anti-statist polemic

what I found interesting in this discussion that R Elchonon was a close student of Chofetz Chaim and they were writing in the same time period. So, what explains such contrast between REW loud position and Ch.Ch. not taking the stand? Did they ever discuss this between each other?

ZSK> Secularist Zionism is, Religious Zionism isn’t. The State exists, deal with it – ideally recognizing what HKB”H has given us (by saying the prayers for the State and IDF per halacha

to be fair, specific R Kook’s prayer is not without a controversy. Maybe charedim could settle on a pareve version at the level of Der emperor Franz-Jozef.

As it is, I feel uncomfortable when there are tehilim after davening in black-hat shuls. Some ended, some continued after recent hostilities stopped. Are they saying it for the chayalim, or are they saying it for draft evaders? Even as my Rav paskened that “there is nothing wrong saying tehilim with other Yidden”, I am not sure what to do. As a comparison, karbonos are invalidated by a wrong machshovah.

On a related note, some charedim positions are for public consumption but not necessarily held universally (as we see from some posters here). When I explained my kids, who are in a moderate-charedi school, that “EY” is sometimes used to avoid saying “medinah”, like in “I am traveling to EY”, they were first appalled at the thought and denied that this is possible, then admitted, then started noticing that some of their teachers are saying stam “Israel” in the class, but not when in public.

yedl > Kiruv Rechokim

a good point. This term makes it explicit. Just saying “kiruv” makes it sounds a little nicer – but to whom can “kiruv” be applied if not to rechokim?
It is like saying “differently abled” applied to “disabled”, not “gifted”, although direct reading could mean the latter.

I don’t know whether LR or anyone else made a distinction. Does anyone know?

CTL,
so you prefer to live in the world where our enemies influence countries in the world while we live according to the rules? There is mitzva to surrender.

If US was able to capture a dictator, improve chances for democracy in the country, improve US standing in geopolitics, decrease standing of various reshoyim – what makes you upset? See an article by our French brother H Levy in today’s 1/7 WSJ – he destroys such attitudes in much better English than mine. He has his own concerns, of course. There is no op-ed without concerns.

somejew > @always_ask_questions
> I don’t know what you might mean by “secular”. I would rather this conversation be Torah-centric (sorry zionists)

IDK, some (other?) jew used this word “secular” in his accusations, I was exactly trying to get some clarity! Thanks for switching now to “Torah centric” approach!

in which case the baseline of who is called עמיתך is:
1) michalel shabbos b’farhesia
2) generally keeps common mitzvos (kosher, mezuzah, tahars mishpuche, tzniyos, mechitza, etc)
3) believes in the 13 principals of faith

Chofetz Chaim and I 🙂 hold by captured tinokos. This is pretty clear in cases, say, Reform Jews in US and non-religious Jews who came out of Russia: they are not familiar with basic Torah concepts and they also might think that they are familiar with them.

Israeli Jews are a harder case, as one might think that by the virtue of proximity and lashon, they are not ignorami. But culture is still culture: they live among “their people”, their knowledge of religion is superficial, in part acquired by observing Yidden in unfamiliar kaftans marching by and paying no attention to them. Also, there are multiple sub-cultures out there. You seem to be focused on “Zionists”, but as Riva and others told you – there are no real anti-religious Zionists left out there – there are anti-religious secularists; there are partially religious pro-medinah Jews who are not attached to any anti-religious ideologies; there are religious Zionists with whom we don’t have to always agree, but who are doing fine on your 1-2-3 list.

To sum it up, I don’t think it is easy to characterize everyone, but my estimate is that number of non-amitecha is pretty small, B’H.

ZSK> [RZ] hey rediscovered the parts of the Torah that the author has conveniently forgotten in the comfort of his Exile—the laws of Yishuv Ha’Aretz, the laws of Jewish sovereignty, and the laws of Pikuach Nefesh on a national scale.

Maybe you can help me clarify whether this is real. I heard this from a RZ rabbi – but I am very suspicious of any ideological bias – so I am not sure whether this is story is 100% yashar. So, according to him, early on in Israel (or even before the medinah) there was a problem (maybe in Haifa, not sure) – where the thieves figured out that it is much easier to steal cars on shabbat. So, mishtarah asked a shailah of an “old school” rabbi, who advised them that there is no pikuach nefesh, but there is some tzr for the tzibbur – so it is asur to do miduaraita, but possible to violate midrabonon – so the police should use bikes instead of cars to pursuit the thieves. This was obviously not helpful. So, a RZ psak is to allow mishtarah to do their job in order not to have all cars in the city driven to Lebanon.

yedl> I don’t think Chabad ever used the word Kiruv.

Indeed, and LR explicitly disapproved it. I didn’t like this word also before finding out his position. Just because your parents sent you to a cheder, and his parents did not send him – does not make you closer and him further away from Hashem. Look at Michtav Eliyahu, essay about Sulam Yaakov – yes, different people start at different levels on the ladder, but they are all united with a challenge and desire to go up and danger of going down.

I think “kiruv” originated with Ohr Sameach and Aish, fine institutions as they are, but they probably needed a powerpoint slide to explain the concept to the donors. Just saying we need to save drowning Yidden somehow did not raise the funds …

flaiming> current economic setting which makes it difficult for any family to have children.

the general tendency is that the richer the society is, the less children they have. Policies that pay more for children help, but very marginally.

China is especially interesting – they rescinded their “one child” policy – but it already became a cultural norm.

I believe R Mazuz said today or yesterday that there is no contradiction between love of Torah learners and love of IDF soldiers.

pekak, great we agree on a lot of points.
In terms of curriculum, it is a great point that Gemora sharpens the minds.
Ideally, we should have Abaye and Rava discussing cars and modern physics … One possible reason we don’t is that we don’t have minds that are comparable… even with the benefit of having all information and all methodology and tools (books, search methods, indices) that they did not have … it is quite possible, of course, that all this extra information hurts modern scholars more than it helps and we do not have any Abayes and Ravas…

BTW, one gemorah conclusion is that the ocean is a better rosh yeshivah than the one that uproot mountains. This is not true anymore, as modern scholars can uproot mountains while using all the texts and tools we have.

Still, it seems that we are not even trying – we have halacha working in multiple streams. How often do we have two rabbis meeting and having a public discussion about halakha? Maybe I am too impatient – after all gemora is a summary over several hundred years, and modernity did not get there yet.

qwerty> What I take exception to is the propaganda that Chabad is Mikarev Yidden all over the world. Putting on Tefilin on a 90-year-old Mechallel isn’t Kiruv.

Qwerty, you are going to Newcastle – not to sell your coal, but to tell them that their coal is not good enough?!

“kiruv” organizations attempted to copy what Chabad – and many community rabbis – was doing before them: talk to Jews where they are. I already quoted R Soloveitchik commending Chabad about these activities before the latest LR became the head of the movement. RJBS himself addressed that by talking to college students and trying to raise community rabbis so that they can lead small congregations all over the country
.
Majority of the communities that sponsor this “kiruv” are themselves not ready to worry about fellow Jews too close – but at least they can sponsor “kiruv” shluchim (which is great).

Reducing their activities to putting tefilin on non-observant people is not fair (and why this “Ageism” anyway). This may be a visible transaction but a lot of chabad shluchim spend a lot of time raising their students (the best way they can – some fail in longer term, but the question then is – would they be better without chabad, and the answer seems to be “no”.

ZSK> What Pekak said is true – Sifrei Shu”t are practical applications of Halachik issues (which is why they are usually more interesting than Gemara itself).

Right, I am just asking whether we-all live accordingly. 500 years ago, someone who learned gemora would be able to navigate his daily life. A lot of issues we are facing today are post S’A and post Mishna Berurah that created some unified halochah. Responsa differs by a group, most people do not learn it directly, so we are back to pre-gemorah mode where each one is asking his local rav and hope that he’ll ask the right posek.

Theoretically speaking, “gemora” means not the fixed dafim, but abilty to analyze sources of halochs (see Rambam). so learning how to navigate road traffic is no different from watching your cows.

pekak,
1) I am not sure about your insistence of differentiating between “rov” and “talmid chochom”. I don’t think I said anything about who to ask. But I’ll be interested in hearing your opinion. Do you mean to focus on a community having one source of halocho from the “rov”?

2)
pekak> Some people have good middos without being talmidei chachomim and some talmidei chachomim may be sorely lacking in middos.

Is there an Am haaretz chosid? Not according to my pirkei avos… I understand of your observation that there are people who learned seforim and have no middos, it is a little disrepectful to T’Ch to call such people T’Ch … Our sources are obviously disapproving of bad middos that are kodem l’Torah, but it is not clear what their title should be.

anyway, my examples may be considered more of chassidus than of normative halocha, but those are easier to bring. If you want actual halocho – how about modern issues of paying taxes, relying on non-Jewish public assistance, following parking regulations.

I mentioned safe driving recently. R Akiva taught his students how to walk among unfamiliar people in Avoda Zara. Did your yeshiva teach how to behave on the road? I hope it did.

pekak, first, I did not specify who you can ask. If you so medakdek – one definition of “talmid chochom” is indeed as you are saying – someone who can answer shailos in the maseches he is learning. A “chochom” is someone who knows to answer in all masechtot.

Frankly, when a question is tricky, I prefer asking a “chochom” – as many shailos crossover multiple areas, as in the brocha on the airplane example above: you need to know brochos, you need to understand what is person’s culture – is pizza a lunch or a desert for him, you need to know middos – are you bothering people around you …

But do you agree that those who lived among cows and learnt Bava Kamma were better informed about halochos of daily life than those who drive cars and did not learn anything about halochos of cars.

Another example: a bochur was driving R Kamenetsky on coney Island and tried to maneuver around a slow bus. Rav stopped him, explaining that “rabim” have preference. This halocho is as commonplace in our days. I presume the bochur knew what to do about a camel and chanuka candles in reshus harabim … why didn’t he know this one? Of course, there might be a bus lane already on Coney Island by now, so someone learnt that lesson.

yankel> ujm’s proposal to ‘give’ EY to the US , is a total non starter

maybe not whole EY, just Gaza and part of PA? US can have a territory without giving it citizenship (state status) until they develop institutions and Congress (Senate?) accept them. This is how except first 13 states joined.

yankel> Napoleon invaded Europe against the wishes of its citizens there over two centuries ago. Napoleon insisted on fighting until he conquered all of Europe.

I don’t think this is such a simple story. Napoleon attacked countries that were attacking Frnech Republic and he was bringing ideas of French revolution to the rest of Europe. Many people were enthusiastic about this. In Russian empire, Poles and Polish Jews (except Chabad) were. Another lesson for Israel.

flaming, I think you start with an unrealistic assessment of current situation – it is not random, this framing exists among anti-Israeli activists that paint a picture of big powerful Israel against small hamas.

Imagine, Israel sandwiched between Switzerland and Netherlands, peacefully coexisting with them, and their only problem would be Gaza. Possibly, then, there would be a better way to deal with Hamas – most likely, close borders for weapons, move civilian population around while supplying them with food and slowly smoking Hamas out of tunnels. As it is, you might have noticed that there are several other groups/countries eager to attack Israel; partners are supporting today, stopping supplies tomorrow, etc. Under these conditions, Israel needs to prioritize defence and deterrence. In a case of a doubt, they can, and should, take the harder line.

ZSK > Re Rambam’s approach to Avraham Avinu and the Akeida/Nevua: I don’t think that’s terrifying. It makes a lot of sense, all things considered.

I am also inclined to think that Avraham would not go without being sure, but Rambam’s description of Avraham spending 3 days in quiet contemplation is a little too much. It does match Rambam’s description of Avraham as a Mesopotamian Socrates though.

> Re more or less mysticism: I’m inclined to believe more, but I may be mistaken.

There are many aspects here, so just to be more specific:
gemora spends a number of pages dispensing medical advice. When you read it on our times – seriously – you would probably need to learn modern medicine and work on summarizing medical info for the daf yomi followers. Modern rabbis seem to think it is not their business and just send you to the doctor, but they should also enable people to know how to select that doctor, know how to read medical information, and earn enough to be able to get good health insurance.

Or nezikin and employment law – it is way more complicated in our days. Should we learn about car damages as much or more as we learn about bull fighting?

It seems that R Moshe (minority view) that snow is muktza is based on two considerations: (1) there is no use for it (2) people perceive it as nolad.

For (2), I would say that currently people know that snow is coming from clouds just by watching weather forecast. So, the perception has definitely changed.

On the permitted shoveling when there is a tzibur need (3 people or more, going to shul included) – it would only allow a small path along where people need to go. Also, not over dirt or grass. Preferably to shovel fresh rather than frozen snow.

O also wonder whether it should only be allowed if you did what you could before shabbos – such as sand the road. [you can also salt it, but then you’ll have to fix the road, of course]. This halocha would be a modern one – as previously we did not know before shabbos that there will be snow on shabbos.