Always_Ask_Questions

Definition of T’Ch may vary. Gemorah has a lot of discussions about T’Ch that go beyond just being “book smart” into middos and ability to recognize emes and do timely teshuva. And a classic apikoires Acher is not called T’Ch, I think, even as R Meir learns from him (the good part).

On the legit question on difference between RJBS and Saul Lieberman: R Moshe has a teshuva allowing to use Lieberman’s edition of Tosefta. He does not treat RJBS same way, he treated him as a chaver and a cousin. To what degree they were close? Relatives did not tell elderly RJBS that R Moshe passed away being afraid that this will affect his health, but he figured it out – as that yomtov was R Moshe’s turns to call him and when he did not, RJBS called himself and found out.

Unrelated, here is some interesting info I found on this topic

Saul Lieberman (son-in law of Meir Bar Ilan)was apparently drive by (1) desire for economic security that he could not obtain in other places (2) a hope to move JTS students towards more observance – his way of kiruv different, obviously, from the ways others looked at kiruv

When Agudat ha-Rabbanim publicly burned Kaplan’s prayer book in 1945, they wrote a public letter to ” “ha-Rav haGaon R. Shaul Lieberman, gavra raba ve-ish ha-eshkolot.” Quoting a secondary sourtce: The letter continues that they have heard that Lieberman treats Kaplan as one who has been excommunicated, but adds that this is not a solution. The letter concludes by stating that since they have so much respect for the learning and personality of Lieberman, they have therefore published this open letter. “We are concerned for his honor, which is the honor of the Torah.”

In a later discovered letter from Sail Lieberman, he responded: Lieberman expresses his pain that the open letter was published. He goes on to state that if the heads of Agudat ha-Rabbanim thought that it was forbidden for him to teach at the Seminary, why did they not summon him to appear before a beit din. Lieberman further states that before he accepted the job, he consulted with three universally recognized sages in Jerusalem. Although he does not reveal their names, he says that he is prepared to do so if necessary. only one of these sages refused to give a ruling. The second said that he did not see any clear prohibition against accepting the position at the Seminary. This is perhaps understandable; after all, there is no prohibition to teach non-Orthodox Jews. In accordance with this, R. Moses Feinstein ruled that as long as one is not pressured to teach anything in opposition to tradition, and especially if one needs the money, it is permitted to teach at a non-Orthodox Talmud Torah. The third sage said to Lieberman: You are the man, go and be successful, but only if you do not remain at the Seminary permanently … at the Seminary he is permitted to teach what he wishes. He also mentions that if another two or three Orthodox teachers joined the faculty, they could turn it into a wonderful place…and he would later successfully recruit a number of outstanding Orthodox scholars to join the faculty, either as permanent appointments or as visiting lecturers. Lieberman adds that since the Seminary officially recognizes the authority of the Shulhan Arukh, as long as this remains the case he hopes that much good will result from his presence there. “I say, with all due responsibility, that I am sure that my presence at the Seminary prevents the outbreak of a great dispute which would lead to a terrible hillul ha-shem.

YYA, I am with your history up to & including discrimination of Sephardim. After that, the question is how prevalent each of these things were.

How many sephardim wanted to join charedi schools and were prevented by the government v. how many did not want to or were prevented by schools teaching in Yiddish and general attitude towards sephardim even among charedim. (not to pile on here, but I heard from a charedi black ger who was asked directly what problems he encountered in Israel – mentioned that their kids had a hard time in Israeli charedi schools, and he quipped “we converted because of Judaism, not necessarily the Jews”. This was somewhere in 1990-2000s.)
How many parents were fooled that their children were sent to a yeshiva and sent to kibbutz instead?

Again, I am aware of these stories, but I do not know whether this explains major population trends. For what I know, most Sephardim are reasonably “traditional” – either observant in large part or non-observant in some way, but still respectful of chachamim and religion in general, not like Ashkenazi leftists. So, even if someone tried, this was not very successful. At the same time, many are pro-Israel, pro-Army – and I hope that charedi kahal develops a coalition that includes these Yehudim (and their opinions and sentiments) into a grand Jewish coalition.

yankel> SC’s unauthorized [critical fact , not to be ignored] grab of power at the expense of the elected representatives renders israel into a pseudo democracy or not

I see, thanks for reminding me. As I mentioned, it is a feature of modern democracies to have separation between political and judicial power. That means that, usually unelected or rarely or indirectly elected, judges have power at the expense of elected representatives. As a classical example, US Supreme court under John Marshall “grabbed” the power of judicial review over duly voted and signed laws (if I am not precise, I am sure there are lawyers here who will correct me).

You may point out specific Israeli features that are not in others, then please do exactly that, otherwise your statements do not have the power of conviction you think they have.

PS Note that Jewish law has also features of separation of power: Sanhedrin is parallel to a King. King is recognized to have powers outside of Sanhedrin, for example, he does not need all this witness business to execute a rebel. Kohanim have power over Beis Hamidash procedures and finances. There is even a federal system – Horayos discusses implications of some or majority of the tribes following erroneous decision of their tribal courts. Including a question – is majority of the tribes counted by population or by count of tribes (as in electoral college in US).

Freudian slip – r Blau, not r Lau, chief rabbi and a talmid of r Auerbach.

> needs to be interrogated stasi like

I usually skip immature language, looking for substantive arguments if any, but this is a good illustration what could go wrong when “Torah-self-true” community will get a majority of votes. Will their increased involvement in the world lead to adopting the good things that Esav developed in the last several centuries and discard the rest [the way R Meir was able with Acher], or will it adopt new technical capabilities without using them properly. We see this danger with lots of under-developed communities, where wilde chayos are using modern weapons and propaganda technologies to subdue population and attack neighbors (this probably started 100+ years ago – would nazis & commies be that successful without modern communications and weapons?). Obviously, observant Jews are not holding at the same level, but will we be able to read population surveys, understand how non-direct democracy works, deal in international affairs. If the plan is to have a religious majority in Israel in 10 years, and a charedi majority in 20 years – start designating 1000 students of Greek in the elementary school as Rabban Gamliel did, so that they’ll be ready to lead the nation in 30 years.

KGN> there are many Observant Jews in the army who want more of such units such as the “Haredi” unit. … but it’s also the PM’s fault.

Maybe the goal should be to find a position that unites a large block of population. It is usually about getting 51% to push a position and then it gets bogged down somewhere in the system. It is more beneficial in a long-term to get to 60% consensus – that in this case should include a larger percentage of non-charedi religious; of “traditional”, and maybe some “secular” who want shalom in society. With 60%, you can find out that PM and others will support that. As it is now, PM needs to balance multiple interests on multiple important issues, so he can’t advocate a position where he’ll lose support on other issues.

I don’t think you can get further than 60% – NY Jews are only 67% united against the muslim socialist, while opposing groups shows at 95%.

KGN, if someone is suspected of stealing and he goes to a public place and shows stolen items – he can be arrested for stealing

in this case, someone claims (1) being 100% occupied by learning, (2) being untrained to fight and get involved in risky things (3) being unable to get involved in things where his Torah morale will suffer.

So, a person who has time to climb up the unfinished building without owner’s permission effectively disproves all points above.

Whether he should be drafted is a separate discussion, but this is the premise here.

YYA> 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 am talking about the first part. To the second, my personal opinion is that he has a lot of right insights on issues of dealing with modernity. You don’t have to agree. I am saying that those who reject the first part are showing themselves as not talmidei chachomim, I am not listening to them further. That’s all. I have no problem respecting those who simply disagree, and I don’t think he expected everyone to agree.

A separate issue is that often psak or shitah is addressed to certain audience. RJBS was addressing educated and often assimilated Jews; while some others addressed very segregated communities. Not the same advise is needed for both. RJBS writes about this explicitly in 1950s – describing how he spent an evening with college students who were excited to talk to someone who can address their issues. Otherwise, their choice was either reform or NY-based shtetl rabbis who could not relate to them.

This was at the time – all proto-charedim were recent arrivals and they were addressing those who arrived with them, but could not relate to the American Jews who were in US for 2nd generation already. He similarly criticizes Mizrachi – who were coming to collect from American European-based Jews. He says – you do not see what happens with their children? they will not donate to you … opening schools in US is more important than in Israel, because in US they’ll assimilate while in Israel, they’ll still be accessible. Things are of course different nowadays.

yankel> adherence to ‘indexes’ and ‘scores’

this index is computed by international organizations for the whole world. It generally makes sense. It does not claim that China or Russia or Iran are democratic! If there is a possible bias, it will be anti-Israel especially in the last several years. I am not sure why it is “groupthink” to pay attention to a compilation of data. You seem to be rejecting it just because it exists.

Yya, this was from someone’s memoirs, probably several weeks after the war started, USSR attacked Poland 2 weeks after Germany did and lines of control were fluid at that moment.

Yankel, I agree, but so many people were following logic that sounded kosher at the time. At minimum, this shows limits of our understanding of current events. Or think whether it was possible for polish jews to figure out politics of the time? On one hand, ww2 events were unprecedented even after terrible ww1 where most casualties were soldiers, not including russian revolution. On the other hand, is it not delusional to think you are safe when sandwiched between commies and nazis with millions already killed even before ww2 on one side and specific prosecution of jews on the other.

YYA> Rabbi Chiyya and his sons who led a taanis-atzeres tefillah,

Hm, no, this does not sound it – no mention of “one street in Yerushalaim” or the notion of all chachomim in one generation. Thanks, though.

AAQ> 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.

YYA> What relevance does any of this have to the present situation? The IDF itself was radically different 50 years ago.

the relevance is that when someone talks about current IDF, I first check out, or ask, what he thinks about RJBS or about positions he was holding. If turns out that this person dismissed RJBS that I don’t think this source is of interest, whether he is mistaken, misusing Torah for his purposes or stam not smart enough. 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.

I think the new point in this thread is a list of halachik sources that ignore the issue. The list is very impressive. I wonder what the other side thinks about that rather than 100th discussion whether Ohr Sameach wrote or not a letter.

YYA> You don’t know anyone like that? Maybe that has to do with where you live and how much interaction you have with Sephardim and Teimanim aged 70 and up?

Obviously, you know more people like that. Still, I do meet enough of these groups to get some statistics. Otherwise, I would not make such a statement. If you can’t fight off the yetzer hara questioning whether I have substance when I make statements, we can as well stop this Stasi interrogation.

So, if I know 100 Sephardim and 99 of them did not have such experiences, then this is limited to 1%. Now, you know 10 people with such experiences but these are out of1000 sephardim, then it is still 1%. Obviously, there are biases, as not each of them travels to America and I did not visit all communities in Israel, but I also read and talk to people that travel. Anyway, if you can show that such experiences were prevalent – I’ll be happy to listen.

YYA> This is a general machlah of historians to read everything as Goyish influence on Jews, and not the other way around.

could you stop being so sensitive. The historian was observant. Jews affected Polish development, you are right, does not necessarily they built all of it.
You are expressing thes ame idea I am making – that Jews participated in the “modern” (at the time) economy.

There is a report in a sefer of two trains with Jewish refugees in Sep 1939 – one going from Nazi occupation to Soviet, and the other going in the opposite direction, with passengers of of both them shouting to the other – idiots, where are you going!?

I saw this recently as a gilgul as a joke in JFK airport to/from Israel. I don’t know whether the joke author heard of the true original …

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?

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).

yankel > it seems that this rave sized you up – even without reading your posts – as someone with whom he has no common starting points
> thats why he withdrew from the argument

I don’t think so, and I was pretty polite and reserved and made sure to express my agreement on the good points he made. I did not even say what bothers me. I asked whether anything bothered him … He continued looking for an explanation.

> hazon ish writes in letter that if there is no common starting point between two divergent opinions , then arguments are futile

this may be the core problem. This presumption that if someone does not agree with your (group) conclusions that they “have no common point” – and presumably your is a Torah point and the other is not is the core problem here.

[about charedi cyber unit]
YYA> Been there, done that, bunch of baloney… They had some cool code name for it though…

why baloney? please share your experience with that

So, why wouldn’t Steipler allow his opponents to use language misleading reshoyim – when they were confronting an anti-religious 1950s Israeli government?

AAQ> Ok, so then claim your position and defend it: your position is not about protecting learners, but about anyone from your community joining.
YYA> That is my position, and in practice that is the (not publicly stated) position of the vast majority of Gedolei Yisroel.
.. . ועם עיקש תתפתל

what you are saying sounds like a plausible explanation. Maybe it is my (and whoever else is telling me that) wishful thinking that some rabonim would be willing to compromise. You do mention that they might compromise on OTDs, you know that could be a first step.

And if your theory is correct, and public statements of “defending Torah” are misleading “reshayim”, this seems very confounding. You see, if you are fighting some reshayim who value, say, money, then you can mislead them to protect Torah by discussing money matters. Here, according to you, in an attempt to protect the “kahal”, the claim is being made that protecting only Torah. That is, you presume that the “reshayim” will be attracted to that claim, that they respect the “Torah learning” claim. That is a very twisted situation. And, I am afraid, this might explain hostility that arises in opposition such dishonest claims.

Maybe it does not even matter whether your explanation is correct or not, what is important is moris ayn – that many people presume that they are being misled by these statements. Maybe, the rational political argument in your community is that this negative effect is a price to pay for the political benefits they bring. For the rest of the Torah community (my impression), this is just the negative effect on the whole klal Yisroel.

I am not 100% sure how NY politics will go. It could be that some Jewish organizations will find common language with the new mayor in distributing government funds to schools, apartments, children subsidies and he’ll look for some support of this kind.