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R Soloveitchik was not the head of Mizrachi, he switched his support from Agudah to them, but he had his own independent opinions. He did not use scare-quotes around the word “state”. He certainly criticizes non-religious leaders of Israel on various issues but I did not encounter where he blames them for ” skyrocketing jump in the hatred of Arabs” – could you clarify where he says that?
again, comparison with Muslim rule pre-20th century is a good explanation of the views at the time, but post-WW2 muslims did not treat Jews better than the West. Is this temporary? my guess is as good as yours, but those who were betting on good life under them were wrong – not as wrong as the bet for staying in Poland between Nazis and Commies, but still wrong.
R Soloveitchik writes on the fight between Yaakov and an anonymous ish – that this symbolizes that we often do not know where the danger will come from: we sense the danger, but the name is unknown.
> I use Torah sources ….I reject offering any gratitude to the State of Israel, just as I would reject
why don’t you use the Torah source of Ponevezher Rov – he said that he used to fly Lithuanian flag for their independence day and Israel is not worse?
> When you call a violent person a mamzer does that literally mean he’s an actual mamzer?
it actually means that the speaker is the mamzer.
somejew> Unless the Rambam explicitly states, ‘I disagree with this Medrash’ or ‘we don’t learn the simple reading of this Midrash,’ we must assume he is in agreement with tradition.
this is not what Rambam himself says abut believing in Midrashim in the intro to the Mishna, I recall.
coffee > bachurim who are being put in jail are only following their Rosh Hayeshiva and while they’re in Beis Medrash it seems like they follow him on all matters of Halacha
right, those bachurim are more consistent than some posters here. I wish some of them post here so that we can see what they are thinking.
Going back 1-2 generations, I heard from a reasonably-charedi Rav that when he was in Mir, students often went to demonstrations. He asked a shaila from his Philly yeshiva and the answer was – when you see Rosh Yeshiva demonstrating, then go, otherwise – zits and learnt.
yankel> do not think rav shach held chochma is ‘not necessary’
he did hold however that people and their worldviews are formed by their surroundings
for sure in their formative yearsfrom little I read, R Schach held that T’Ch should be always learning and this might be the source of criticism not just for those learning chochma but also involved in working with non-religious Jews? that would apply to a number of T’Ch. And also to Touro college – which is now pretty accepted in many charedi circles.
I did not read him on “formative years” (which ones are these – by Rashi and others it would be 16-24 for chinuch? LR was in his late 20s, I recall) – what does the Rav say?
But the main question that you did not answer yet – could you (or R Schach) point to specific examples where LR is (negatively) affected by his college knowledge. This will be interesting to analyze.
Interesting that we have – gemora mai chanuka that talks about prosecution & candles – and davening – that talks about miracles of the victory of tahorim v temiim, etc. At the same time, divrei Torah in this thread and in other places often emphasize the candles and various related topics but rarely talk about military and national meaning of Chanuka (and of course, other political groups over-emphasize it). Sometimes, it seems that we still did not absorb the events to be able to truly understand this holiday.
yankel> pretends to know better than the rabbanim much greater than him both in torah and yirat shamayim and pikchut , how to deal with the “rav of the town trotsky came from”
I beg your pardon – I am just quoting a maaseh of Chofetz Chaim that is presumably as reliable as other stories about him, that is “possible”. And in no way I am “judging”. We are look at the events 100-200 years later. We see many tools and institutions developed that make communities stronger. We might still not fully know which ones and under what conditions are the best, but we are surely doing better than in 19th century. It is not the literal “fault” of those rabbis that they didn’t develop philosophies and kiruv movements overnight, but it is a fact that some views that simply shamed people for “following their hearts” instead of doing as in “good old days” was not effective. Some, rare, people understood the problem and tried to find solutions. Some solutions were not helpful, others developed into something coherent over time … Those were not easy times, and we all do not know what we would have done.
yankel> was mentioned in public by rav shach as grounds for rejection of his opinion as automatic daat torah on many contemporary subjects .
ok, so it was not clear whether it was your words or you were quoting someone. I’ve looked again at this – I think this is probably in line with R Schach statements that a real gadol has to spend all day learning, rather than do other things – not just during his early years but continuously. I don’t think this was specific to college. If you think it is – maybe you can quote specific shitos of LR that were affected by his college education. This will be interesting to review.
More generally, I – as everyone else – understand the emphasis on Torah learning in last several generations giving all physical and spiritual disasters we endured. Still, does this mean that a true T’Ch should not know anything about modern chochma? Look, gemora has discussions on all matters current to them – agriculture, medicine, politics – and rabbis are able to discuss minute details of those issues and pasken about them. Gemora knows how many tefahim roots of different trees grow to the side, etc. Not counting T’Ch who were actually involved in various businesses and trades – surely they knew what they were doing. Taanis says that a doctor was visited by yeshiva (sic!) shel maale more often than Abaye – for his middos and work ethics. Presumably, the yeshiva shel maala was already aware how ineffective that bloodletting was, but still credited the doctor for the effort …
Given the tremendous growth of chochma in our times, it is silly to say that knowledge of modern science and technology is not necessary.
It is interesting how people who call on others to follow “gedolim” immediately start questioning “gedolim” who dared to disagree with them. Which supports my suspicion that these posters choose & pick – those gedolim who support their opinion.
Given these cognitive issues, my suggestion would be to choose an authority – and learn and follow him in everything. If you are following R Elchonon, please teach of more of R Elchonon Torah here, not just on one political issue; find yourself a rav who is a student of R Elchonon, follow him in all your hashkofos – including how you interact with people, ask him shailos – and let us know his answers. Same for Satmar.
> Zionists are the THE reason and cause 2,000+ years of history flipped completely from the Arabs/Muslims treating us,
this was answered already, not sure why you are repeating the claim without addressing our responses: modern Arabs were mis-treating many other groups in the last 100 years.
Furthermore, I don’t think Arabs changed much – it is just the western world was good to us, so far, post-WW2. And even Russians treated us better post-Stalin. And Arabs stayed the same – they always had bad leaders once in a while. Iran-Iraq war is not that terrible comparing with WW2, but it looked so 40 years later. Assad and Qaddafi were not worse than Stalin and Hitler.
yankel, you are correct, this is only 1% if so. But the value of this forum is that people can actually express themselves and I think it is very valuable. In person, most people will not express themselves this way, and it would be probably considered anti-social. So, yes, individual posters may have some agenda and middos, but overall, we are hearing here what other groups are talking about when others do not see them. This should be useful for people from different groups to see other perspectives.
For this particular observation, I heard multiple posters over several years. I presume whatever arguments are going in their communities where already posted. When I got to this forum, I was first uncomfortable that “yeshiva world” seemed to encompass only certain views, while others were rejected even when they were based on views of Talmidei chachomim. This may be getting worse, by the way. I recently picked up a semi-annual Torah ontology from 1990s. It has articles from several YU-affiliated rabbis and also from Ner Isroel. And it has a letter from a son of R Yaakov Kamenetsky commenting on one of the previous articles with a dvar Torah from his father.
ChatGPT correction of the title: AG requires yeshivot to provide proper accounting to make sure money for overseas students are not allocated to in-town draft dodgers.
> Only once new “Jewish leaders” arose and people began following them instead of the Torah
This omits part of the problem that those true Torah leaders were not able to inspire people to follow them. Same Chofetz Chaim reportedly refused to shake hands with the rov from the town where Trotsky was from…
Before this forum, I thought the people who believe that modern yeshiva way of life is the only appropriate are very idealistic. In this forum, I unfortunately discovered that they are mostly ignorant and raised on political slogans. It was a sad thing to learn.
RJ > announcing an event at a Lakewood park where Jews could “give kavod to the Moshiach”.
I once saw an appropriate response – a chabad piano player started “moschiach” song, so the Lakewood rov got up, picked up (a much smaller) chabad rabbi and danced with him until the latter fell off … – to show that Moschiach does not belong to just one group.
E120> . They’re working hard in the small, far-flung communities where mainstream kiruv organizations don’t go.
Not just that. “Kiruv” organizations started well later after Chabad in any-size towns. And also “modern” YU-affiliated rabbis were going into less-observant communities/
> If you really have a problem with it, instead of criticizing from a keyboard, put your time and effort into expanding litvish kiruv efforts.
Many are not capable. My kids report that many well-meaning volunteers from isolationist communities have hard time relating to aspiring baalei teshuva when given a chance to interact with them. Maybe, as a first step, such people could help support exisintg chabad/YU/kiruv communities. For example, visit those far-away chabad houses, have thier children interact with shluchim children, invite those children for “in town” va cations.
> why the condecending attitde towards baalei tshiva? they don’t neeed to be appreciated more than any other kosher yid. we all must do tshiva.
well, some “must” – while others demonstratively “did”. There is a difference.
Apropos quiz: 5 frogs are sitting on a log. One decided to jump off. How many frogs are now sitting on the log?
yankel> the only institutions he ever attended were universities
As I don’t understand how this related to LR’s credentials in Torah, I’m forced to point out that
bringing irrelevant info, hinting to some negativity, is not emes, it is pure genivah daas and lashon harah.R Eliezer b’ Shimon skipped most of the school and was hanging out in the desert. Yitzhak Avinu was hanging out
with Avimelech and his general. These are all facts, but these would be ridiculous statements.To reddem yourself, maybe you can bring some of the LRs Torah and show how it connects to his university education (which is not a hesaron by itself, of course) and then show how it eads to some questionable conclusions.
> . Relative to living under Christian and European rule, Jews have fared RELATIVELY and COMPARATIVELY far far better under Islamic and Arabic rule,
and then it was not so after WW2 … R Soloveitchik comments on the anonymous Ish that Yaakov is fighting – we usually cannot predict who will be our next adversary.
So, this raises a question about how Zionists were relatively better at anticipating where dangers were coming from than many other groups. Depending on your political position, I guess, you could argue whether this is a siman that their derech is successful or you can come up with some theological explanations why Hashem chose to keep others blinded but provided yeshua via this group. If we compare, for example, with the last years of second commonwealth, then the zealots did badly and rabbis were better at leading the nation. “But we now learn uktzin better” is an answer that gemorah seem to disapprove.
Al pi derech hateva, it may be that Zionists were involved in international politics, so they had some understanding of world events, comparing for those who were involved only in inter-Jewish politics only. We see similar things in Israel now where, according to Kissinger, “there is only internal politics”.
> 5ttttyyuuuuioiikkkkkkllllllllllllllkkio9
Just when I had an iyush, here is finally a coherent post in this thread.
yankel> the main point he was making is – that one cannot trade
> trade – meaning gaining one thing for the benefit of anotherThanks for the clarification. If this were a real equal trade-off – maybe you can rely on shev ve lo taase. For example, if you are under Nazis in Poland, maybe not worth running towards being under communists in Poland. Or, if you are under communists in Poland, no reason to run towards Nazis in Poland … but in this case, I don’t think there was a symmetry – there was no magic frum oilam left somewhere protected that would have been better than matzav in EY. Small yerushalmi kahal, as important as it was, could not stand on it’s own.
I am not an expert on L Rebbe, but I know a little about math & engineering. I do not see much of academic influence on L Rebbe Torah, aside from occasional references to scientific facts. This is in contrast with R Soloveitchik, R Hirsh, Rambam who are able to use their knowledge of science within their Torah, and there is nothing wrong with that.
yankel> same with the medina its not worth the ‘gain’ of the refugees if it involves the issur of establishing the medina
that statement was re the actions of the founders themselves.So, a questionable position on shevuos becomes a reason to destroy millions of Jews- on top of those already destroyed in USSR and then in WW2?
Again, I think pre-WW2 political anti-Z positions were pretty reasonable, but when it became clear that those who followed Zs were saved and those who followed other opinions were destroyed, it requires ridiculous mental acrobatics to continue maintaining that position. As your statement above demonstrates.
Baltimore, small boats are harder to hit than missiles. Missiles mostly follow a trajectory according to laws of physics. and you also have million $ budget to hit them. The boat can maneuver and is subject to waves and wind and you are using simpler munitions to hit a boat. Also, in this case, US Navy is covering large areas so sensors and munitions might be at far distance. So, even if everything is done right, the boat movement while munition is flying is affecting results. Look at Iraq/Afghanistan time videos of shooting moving vehicles – a somewhat simpler problem as the aircraft is closer and the car is moving on the road.
yankel> the late rebbi of habad never attended any yeshiva … even during his yeshiva years ….
he probably learnt either by himself or under his father r levi
so what I wrote was accurate : the only institutions he attended were universities …
.
I am confused – are these your words or you are quoting Talmidei Chachomim.The eplanation you gave sounds like something from chatgpt or from a seminary girl perusing resumes – “the only institution he attended …”. I presume he learned from his father. His youth was during WW1 and post that. R Soloveichik I believe also learned only with his father (after the mother discovered that his early chabad rebbe was not rigorous enough) and later with visits to R Chaim Ozer. R Eliezer learnt in the desert from only his father. Yitzhak learned from his father …
And his university studies were while running away from tzoros in Eastern Europe in late 20s. He did not even study humanities, just some modern physics, calculus and mechanical engineering. how does this pasel someone?!
again, if these are your own suggestions, that’s ok. I was afraid that some learnt people are saying this.
yankel> absorbing ‘losses’ by establishing a medina , and thereby ‘gaining’ a home for the many pleitim
help me understand this shitah. So, if the pleitim had nowhere to go and risked their lives or ruchniyous otherwise – it was still prohibited
to work wth the medinah to save those people? maybe I did not hap the whole message here.> there are virtually no “misnagdim” today;
not fully so. I heard from some yeshiva yidden when mentioning “chosid” in gemora clarifying “real chasidim”. This might be be real misnagdus, but a reaction to those who claim to be “chassidim” but then not demonstrating appropriate middos. I did not see such attitude towards chassidim who are mentchen.
Rocky> asking questions to a gadol you have never met before for a personal issue for 20 second answer
previous minhag was to send a shailah with detailed description – usually not by the person himself, but by a local rov who can describe halachik issues involved.
what is new – asking questions about personal life rather than halocha from the rav who does not know you.
> their own Shulchan Aruch that no other community has.
lots of communities have, or had, their own halachik books. Alter Rebbe was just slick enough to re-use the popular name (as did Kitzur).
common > expecting monetary support for a young couple, regardless of the financial needs of the couple or the financial strain on the parents GOES BACK TO EUROPE
supporting by those who want to have a learning son in law – YES,
building an extra room in the house for the new couple to live in – YES
expecting parents’ support for full expenses – NOMaseches Taanis lists holidays we had during BM times.
YYA> Kiruv, especially in Eretz Yisroel, is more “successful” than you think, but this isn’t a numbers game. And who could ignore the revolution going on for decades in the former Soviet Bloc nations (led to a large extent by, well you know which group…) where tens of thousands of Jews have returned to their roots and built families of Shomrei Mitzvos?
Agree on most of your points. There are different types of chabadniks – some have a goal of induction into Chabad, others are satisfied in having their students stam ehrliche Yidden. Similar thing with others who use the word “kiruv”. There is also an issue what happens when these BTs “graduate” into regular communities – they often do not get sufficient support there the way they were getting from their original teachers.
Similar with USSR – majority of those Yidden are in US and Israel. While there lots of successes, lots are lost. In US, many are outside of observant communities. In Israel, they are physically closer, I wish more people were paying attention to their neighbors …
There is nothing wrong, and a lot of right, celebrating a miracle that happened to someone and to his ancestors. If chassidim feel attached to a Rebbe to whom a miracle happened, what is wrong with that?
That said, relationships between chassidim/misnagdim and Russian government was “complicated”. People from both groups tried to use the government against the other at some moment, and the government, in turn, used the fighting to impose themselves on the Jewish community.
10+ years later during Napoleon invasion of Russia, Alter Rebbe was a daas yachid who supported the Czar. While all other chassidim/misnagdim weere looking to an end of Russian occupation of Poland, Alter Rebbe was (1) fearful of assimilation that would follow liberation (2) realistically felt that the Czar is not going anywhere … (and Lubavitch was more to the east of other groups).
Was being freed from the prison related to the future cooperation? I don’t know.
Here is what I read in the name of Chazon Ish about mussar:
some people make a mistake thinking that middos are important for mitzvos bein adam lehavero, and yiras shamayim is important for mitzvos towards Hashem. And this is a mistake – if you did not work on your middos, it means you are in total power of yetzer hara. It is that yetzer hara is more often showing up in relationships with people than towards Hashem. But if you don’t know how to deal w/ yetzer hora in general, then the moment you have a difficulty in mitzvos to Hashem, this person will fail also.yankel> it is disingenuous to use rav shach’s name in advocating for NK folly
disingenuous?! yankel, we all have lost our minds if we let ourselves quote talmidei chachomim in a way to improve our personal positions. It is a free-world disease of “free speech” where each side brings best arguments for their side, hoping for the other side to not find good arguments. We all absorb that and start using in the Jewish world. This is my biggest takeaway from discussions here – how assimilated we all are.
Just think – a T’Ch was holding certain positions and some guy in a basement has hutzpah to extract a quote from a T’Ch that fits him, disregarding the full views of the author. This is bigger bizayon of Torah than any anti-religious author is capable of.
yankel, as you, I acknowledge variety of opinions about L Rebbe with minor comments:
> product of years of university studies without yeshiva studies
whoever said that is probably somewhat biased – several years that L Rebbe spent when he was about 25-30 y.o. in U of Berlin and an engineering studies in Paris were way past his yeshiva years.overall, criticism coming from people who did not show same level of care about Jews as a whole can be disregarded. Not because they are not knowledgeable in Torah – but because their views do not take into account relevant issues. Maybe a good analogy is a sanhedrin requirement to have
young children to make sure the judge has rahmonus.> No weapons of mass destruction to be found. Just civilians who had their lives cruelly turned upside down and forever changed
some people just play games with facts, not caring about real people. Maybe ask Iraqis how many votes would Saddam get in recent elections.
If you look at various democracy indices – they were 0.1 (out of 1) and below under Saddam and are 0.2 to 0.4 now, a pretty good number for the region they are in.yankel > he answered that that they are –after all , baalei mussar ….
funny, thanks!
There is a story about one R Salanter’s dvar Torah. He would usually post maarei makamos on the door before the speech. So, someone who did not like mussar that much changed that message to different sources. R Salanter was standing quiet for several minutes and then started speaking using the posted sources. Someone who noticed tiold him after – this is real gaonus that it took you just several minutes to come up with the speech according to new sources. Oh, no, he answered – I spent those several minutes pondering whether speaking to the new sources would be a sign of gaavah. If it were, then I would have just left the bimah.
So, Israeli gov protects the bochur from going to a medina reshoyim and HaRav is unhappy? What a contrast with R Elchonon who warned Yidden not to go to a country that has minhagim against Torah.
Evalim, you have a good point. I don’t want to argue with that. I just want to say that what may seem “normal” to you may not be so normal to others.
> They aren’t consumed by hate for the state and don’t have deep hashkofos about what the early zionists did? It’s just not an issue. (Until they started arresting them)
Seeing (maybe a small number) jumping on buildings, gas stations, unfinished buildings, while the rest of the crowd passing by; as well as overall idea of ignoring the needs and views of the rest of the society – as much as some want to celebrate this, as much others do not want to be a part of. We discussed both sides here in detail, so we don’t need to rehash, but this is just one part of calculation that come for some. As Chofetz Chaim himself felt that he did not want to be torn between two groups he would have to visit …
Food on yohrtzeit seems to be a sephardi thing, except that they do not call it “yohr” or “tzeit” of course
> directly and unambiguously due to the Zionist Project radicalizing them
as one of my Israeli friends wondered – “is worth being cousins to people who kill their brothers?” Arabs & Muslims produced multiple wars and atrocities against each other in the last 80 years. We listed them here before. This proves that their attitude is not due to only Jewish influence.
Your argument of historical attitudes work to justify the “anti Z” position of 100 years ago. This position had a basis in history at that time, but it just happened to not be an accurate decision. You might come up with theological explanations why Hashem did not provide correct navua to tzaddikim,
and these are interesting to explore, but at least acknowledge the simple facts before going into theology.Happy, sorry I did not hap the issue first. You are talking public policy, not a personal gripe.
You are right. Seems that Aguda puts priority on accommodating those who are already machmir on shabbos and are trying to have a comfortable shaharis while making it hard to those who are struggling with the schedule of shabbos and might suffer a lfinancial loss and even those who might not keep shabbos under such stress. My guess is that the second group is larger and issue is more important indeed, although they are less likely to be Aguda members, which explains the organization’s stand that is, unfortunately, pretty consistent.
R Twersky always suggests to ask such shailos of rabbis who are bokehs in psychology or are willing to work closely with professionals. Look at his books for more details.
I don’t know about schools in your area, but I saw cases where school request parents to put kids on medication as a condition of enrollment, while it is quite possible that the kids need better teachers. [As one rav, who byh had a double-digit of kids graduating from such schools, observed – everyone behaved in a class by the most respected rav and but almost everyone misbehaved in many other classes]. So, maybe start with paying attention if behaviors vary with the teacher.
The reason this is important is because you work for a big company that requires you to work fixed hours, does not care about your timeline and would not even let you take half a day to work from home. Find a better employer or have your own business and you feel better.
It is actually a halachik question – controlling time is equivalent to avdus. It is reflected in halocha: if you are an employer, you should give employee time before dismissing them, but should allow them to leave any time (except if suffering losses) – if you force him to give you a notice, you are making him an eved. So, choose the job or a business where you can better control your own time to make yourself a free person.
in respect to the sad argument who is our worse enemy at certain time period, maybe we are not very good at predicting that, and finding explanations bdieved is not really a kuntz. As R Soloveitchik writes – the anonymity of the Ish that Yaakov is fighting symbolizes exactly that – we are not able to tell where the danger might come from. His example is that socialists were preaching that capitalism is causing antisemitism, and then they came to power and became even worse ones.
chief > saying not to bury Chassidim in Slutsk is a red herring
this is not a good argument, who knows what was the original cause – if there was animosity and even no burial place, then chasidim will not live there.
When looking for info about Slutsk, I found this funny story:
Rabbi Yoshe-Ber used to give the following explanation about why Misnagdim fast on the day of yahrzeit, and Hasidim make a feast with a lechayim.Before the giving of the Torah, when Jews did not know how to learn, and they saw that Moses our Teacher was late, they surmised that he had passed away, and they made a feast: “And the people sat down to eat”. Year later, when Moses our Teacher indeed passed away, it was already after the giving of the Torah. Jews knew how to learn, and they did not make a feast. They only observed mourning, as it states in the verse: “And the Children of Israel wept over Moses.
I think karpas also includes ponevezh and kosova, hometowns to some well-known rabbis!