Always_Ask_Questions

some> I don’t believe that there is any respected student of the chazon ish that claims in his rebbi’s name that such a person is still part of “amecha

can you quote his students who say otherwise?

yankel> most mainstream rabbanim were against demo’s … this is not news at all

then, please continue posting these opinions and ask charedi publications to post them, and then maybe do something to enforce these opinions.
Demand your politicians speak about this problem in Knesset.
Have demonstrations against demonstrations.
Otherwise, everyone else assumes that the mainstream supports them.

Why is community so shy of opposing their own mistreats?

yankel> shavu’oth are different to hilchot lashon hara

you are right regarding having a solid source, but YY has also a point: there are issues that raise and fall with generations. There were periods when AZ was a burning issue, but we are not learning many of those halochos as daily necessity (while they are still on the books). So, Ch Ch felt that LH became a more serious issue than before (not just social issues but also technical – appearance of first media, maybe – newspapers and then telegraph?). So, a general prescription (agaddah) early on was sufficient to keep the village whisperers at bay, but more complex society required more halachik guidelines.

YYA< thanks for formulating this so well.

some> who is part of “amecha” (am yisroel/klal yisroel), and those basic requirements are 1) keeping most common mitzvos, 2) believing without doubt the 13 ikarim, 3) keeping shabbos publicly. … as my stance is well documented in Chazal and poskim.

I asked and may have missed the answer: could you pls provide a reference that says tinokos shenishba are not counted in amecha. From universally accepted sources, such as MB, not from the individual poskim, however great they might be. And also, you can’t make such decisions from books only – please tell us what your ruv said about this idea.

Given the severe implications of your so well stated position, I will have to exclude you from amecha unless satisfactory answers are provided.

Occam razor is sharp, don’t cut yourself!
In this case, Occam razor actually says that a group of rabbis does not like another group because they do not like their derech, regardless of gadlus or lack thereof.

YYA> I think we agree, I was just pointing out the technical reason why this PARTICULAR mitzvah campaign generated the most controversy.

Right, I am just saying that those who point out the controversy are hasidei shotim who refuse to touch a drowning lady. Just find a way to come and help. It is an emergency, if you can’t go into the fire, take a bucket and help bring more water.
(I am not against discussing problems, just keep them in proportion to importance).

YYA> BECAUSE OF OUR SINS, … Where is there ANY Torah source of any kind that faults the Jewish people or blames their suffering on their failure to have an army?

this is a great question.

Maybe Saul and Yoav not finishing off amelikites?
Deborah chastising Barak (not Ehud or Hussein) for not going into the fight?
Implicitly, Shimshon and Yiftach are imperfect leaders leading the fight when proper leaders were afraid, maybe retired to beis midrash
Jews asking Shmuel to appoint a king, as they were not satisfied with weak leadership in front of enemies
Plishtim capturing Aron, maybe because Eli’s sons were not good leaders.
Apocrypha about Macabees not fighting on shabbat
Most importantly, I think, Jews most of the time did not think about submitting to the enemies when it was possible to fight, so praise to Yehoshua/David/Deborah etc for fighting shows that having army is ok.

Those counting how many Jews are non-religious when geulah came or comes, are also same people who do not want to bother to go try to help those people. When Hashem suggests to Moshe to start a nation from him – the posters here would be onboard with the suggestion. And then Moshe disagreed – they would also condemn Moshe for going against Daas Torah (the one that we all agree here).

YYA> pitchforks …. Serving in the IDF involves multiple serious issues that the secular authorities have repeatedly refused to address,

this is what we discussed in another thread about chasing car thieves on bikes. If practicality requires a standing army and the only generals are the anti-religious ones, then you join them and deal with them.

Maybe we can take lessons from medicine: R Soloveitchik in an article explaining YU opening a medical school says that the frummest litvishe towns had two non-religious Jews – a doctor and a pharmacist. It was difficult to deal with them, but there was no other choice, there were no frum doctors. He even says it is harder to deal with non-religious doctors than with non-Jewish ones – the latter show some respect to religion if it is explained to them.

According to your theory, those Litvishe Yidden should have suffered with the doctors. Maybe check R Grozdinsky’s teshuvahs – did he pasken that way.

> Let’s focus on the core issue. Secular Zionism was a highly organized and targeted campaign to destroy Judaism and replace it with a secular national identity.

2nd, I don’t agree with this. Surely, they were anti-religious and often militant, but was this the main focus? The main focus was to organize as many Jews as possible to support their case and join the movement. They had enough non-religious supporters to look for. Were Hashomer Hatzair recruited primarily from yeshivos? I presume mostly among already numerous non-religious and assimilated Jews, who would otherwise become anarchists or communists.

Do you mean already in Israel? Same – majority of population was not religious and Zionists saw religion as a dying entity.

yankel> those rabbanims integrity and yirat shamayim totally precludes that from being the case

It may be so. I looked closely at the case of cherem of making a gadol and it seems clear that the author has great esteem of the gadol who banned the book and still describes his reliance on information from people around him. Consider this as they call in math “a proof of existence” for rabbanim making bad decisions based on bad facts. The usual explanation is that talmidei chachamim are perfect halachik machines – but they depend on the reliability of inputs, so GIGO applies. Chassidiche rebbes might overcome this and have direct access to ruach hakodesh, so if the signers were not just Litivishe, their signatures are reliable regardless of bad information they might have relied upon.

More generally, and without taking a position here, people who try to be pro-active and resolve new issues, put themselves at risk of both mistakes and accusations. Applies to many in history, both who are now roundly condemned and those who are eventually vindicated, see Rambam, Moses Mendelsohn, for example.

ZSK> The Rabbonim could certainly have told the outlets to turn the level of vitriol down and to be respectful in their criticism – which they did not.

more likely, that outlets were not listening to the rabbonim, and maybe rabbonim knew their limits already. There are lots of cases where rabbinical opinions show up late: turns out R Landau is against demonstrations. A year after covid after so many talmidim infected their revered teachers, we found out that R Zilberstein was sitting alone in his room all this time and then came to give a lecture behind a giant plastic fence. What stopped charedi press from posting pictures of the Rav daily before other rabbonim were niftar?

ZSK> Regarding use of electricity not being public order – it is public order if you consider the consequences of no electricity in the modern era, which would be utter pandemonium.

I agree. Yes, public order would require electricity for hospitals and even to make sure those driving on shabbos do not bump into each other. It does not mean that someone has to use it personally, so charedim seem to be ok here as long as they keep medical equipment for their own sick connected,

Shimon> We are sheep for the slaughter and proud of it,

I think you are going too far, while protesting against secular movements that were destroying Judaism 100 years ago (and full picture – it was not only zionism, it was bundism, socialism, communism, local-country nationalism …). We suffer when we have to, but we defend ourselves, either through presents or through fight when need to and are able to. This is Yaakov/Esav 101.

Shim re:Herzl > He saw antisemitism as a useful tool to convince Jews to join his secular nationalistic project. He said so to many non-Jewish leaders as well… More like a terrorist setting your proverbial building on fire to force out the children and kidnap them.

He was a journo shocked by the Dreyfus affair from his beliefs in successful assimilation. Why are assigning to him some nefarious motivations? He was telling non-Jewish leaders whatever he thought would work best to achieve his goals. He was a total ignoramus, but he was not a professional politician who needed to create a job for himself.

n = 2, x = 1, y = 2, z = 2
2 = 2
maybe you missed something in the riddle?

YYA> He wasn’t a Tzaddik BECAUSE he was a doctor. DESPITE being a doctor,

I will agree that he is not a tzadik “because he was a doctor” – it is clear that he is a special doctor, not like others. But “despite” is taking it too far – gemorah clearly values his services, otherwise who cares that he did not charge … he is special because he used his skills in the right way. It is not just tzniuyut – he does not charge fixed fee, respects dignity by not seeing who pays what, helps young T’Ch who do not have a job yet. judge pretend-swindlers l’tzad zechut, I probably skipped a couple of middos. Maybe I can accept “despite” as – a doctor has an opportunity to charge high fees and be dismissive of patients, he does not do that.

This easily transfers to our life: I asked a related shayla once – why are people visiting cholim are recognized as baaley chesed, while people doing heart operations are seen as “professionals”. The answer (from a yeshivishe rov): if a doctor’s priority is money, then he is a professional; if his priority is chesed, then he is baal chesed. Along the line of the gemorah. I am sure there are people in IDF who are there on a power trip, and there are those who are for the right reasons.

YYA> As soon as we have determined that the person putting on Tefillin is in fact a בר חיובא and has at least minimal intention to do a Mitzvah

Is the concern that the person does not care what he is doing or whether he is Jewish?

In terms of not caring, this might happen but how do we verify. Modern people are very fickle. I’ve accompanied a Chabadnik to blow a shofar to a pizza guy who continued making pizza while the shofar was sounding. I think he was paying attention, but it was really hard to say. This was not his first year, so there was no explaining happening. In the hospital, patients were aware and grateful, except I did not see those in worst condition, as he went there by himself.

As to non-Jewish: I understand that generally if someone presents himself in a shul as a Jew, we do not question his Jewishness. In theory, he might be a reform convert or even a curious Buddhist.. Can we stretch this to someone coming up to a tefilin stand that the person understands that this is a Jewish thing.

YYA> discussion (which is in fact a discussion in contemporary Poskim) started with Tefillin because theoretically there is a ‘down side’ of ‘defiling’ the Kedusha of the Tefillin)

I get it. Still, focusing on such a psak focuses on the big picture of what Chabad shluchim achieve. I am not suggesting mitzva b’yadei avera, but just fair appreciation. Especially when criticism comes from people who did not bother to do anything themselves…

I came up of an interesting definition of Chabad in R Soloveitchik 1976 hesped for R Rivkin, a Chabad Rosh Yeshiva at Torah Vadaas:
Therefore, having spent my young years in Choslovich and being familiar with chassidus, and particularly Chabad, if you were to ask me what Chabad wanted to teach Jews, I will give you the answer. Chassidus, in general, and the mission of the Baal Shem Tov, and particularly Chabad, was how to recite a berachah! As the Gemara states in Perek HaMeiniach (Bava Kamma, 30a): “One who wants to become a chassid, should fulfill matters of berachos,” meaning, “Do you know who is a chassid? One who knows how to recite a berachah.”

pekak, of course it is not a valid contract, as I said “forced on them”. I never heard an answer to this.

somejew, thanks, this teshuva deals with some other issues – whether it is appropriate to live among people who not keep shabbos, it is also does not discuss the issue of tinokos. You mentioned Rambam. So, hilchos mamrim 3:3 says this applies to people like Tzadok & Beitos and then defines tinokos as an exception to that:
אֲבָל בְּנֵי אוֹתָן הַטּוֹעִים וּבְנֵי בְּנֵיהֶם,
There is nothing here about killing them slowly, but rather bring them to teshuva and Torah with words of peace.
פִיכָךְ רָאוּי לְהַחֲזִירָן בִּתְשׁוּבָה, וּלְמָשְׁכָם בְּדִבְרֵי שָׁלוֹם, עַד שֶׁיַּחְזְרוּ לְאֵיתַן הַתּוֹרָה.

Note that Rambam here talks about generations of karaims, who would be more learned in Chumash than modern day non-O or non-observant Jews.

Am I misinterpreting this short paragraph incorrectly? Do your poskim disagree? And please post explicitly about this case, not about general opinion about mehalel shabbos.

Also, I notice that you are trying to bring sources close to your heart – Brisker, R Elchonon. I am very interested to learn what they say on this topic, but they are no substitute for normative halacha accepted by large swaths of Jews – Rambam, S’A, MB, R Moshe …

ZSK, use of electricity is not the same as dealing with public order.

I hope someone looked into how modern electric grid works. I presume most of it can be automated, so it is a question of metziyut – whether it is. Also, possibly you can establish a “kosher” station that puts enough electricity into the grid? In US, you can “buy” electrons from different companies, even as they are delivered over the same grid. You can also get solar panels, except you might be empowering their chinese producers that can come back and enslave you later.

qwerty> NCSY began in 1954. while the first Chabad House was established in 1969.

As I quoted before, R Soloveitchik acknowledged work that Chabad was doing earlier than Chabad houses – and he did not see any fault in their work.
2nd-to-last rebbe would send chassidim to a town for several years and then they would come back to the community, while the last one innovated settling in the community.

ZSK> Rav Goren is not a Rabbinic authority to the Charedi public

indeed so. I heard first-hand testimony about R Goren giving a visiting class in a yeshiva and then a student got up and demolished every part of his presentation. R Goren looked very happy and said that he gave this class several times already and nobody said a word! He asked for the student’s address, saying that he’ll review the arguments and send a response. The rav who told this story considers R Goren big talmid chochom based on both his writings and this episode.

yankel> the peshara was the inclusion of the words ‘tsur yisrael’ which the religious understood as referring to God.

right. But was it understood some other way by the non-religious leaders? They knew their Tanach … most were not tinokos shenishba. The argument is not that different from US first amendment: how can the state impose religion on those who do not agree. If there were a possibility to establish a smaller, but viable, religious state – maybe that should have been done, but there was no such possibility.

Also, I think the final draft was written by a small group that did not include Aguda rep, but Mizrachi R Maimon who insisted on mentioning Hashem, and Ben Gurion suggest the Tzur compromise. R Maimon put the Shem near his signature or something like that. But maybe they were texting others also. I am sure there are books written about this topic.