Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
katan > Oaths are brought down as halacha throughout the millenia, including by the Rambam himself
First, out of respect to your opinion, I am suggesting you doing hatarat nedorim. Let’s think of Rambam being here. We already discussed that he might first go to MIT to learn astronomy before applying to Lakewood. But he would surely look at the political situation right now and develop his opinions accordingly.
We also saw in multiple threads, that modern halocha often rejects idealistic Rambam’s positions, like a need to work and not take charity from Jews and non-Jews – because people in our days are not capable of following this. So, when Rambam sees medinat Yisrael supporting so many yeshiva students – do you think he will tell those students to quit, or will he support the medinah? How is that for a dimemma?
I think if we all stop making mods life hard by posting ad hominems and hateful comments, the level of moderation will improve. Maybe every time there is a day break, it is some mod taking a day off after reading all the posts so that we don’t have to.
[YU] > promoting a fusion of Torah with secular studies
what is this fusion? I didn’t notice it so far. They have Jewish studies and have general studies. Both are reasonable for the general community, not necessarily very high level. They are designed to a certain slice of am yisroel. You are free to argue for the benefit of Torah-only education for various reasons, and you can be suspicious of general college effect on Jewish youths, but it is silly to argue that an observant Jew is not allowed to learn biology or business in observant Jewish environment. Most of the students came to YU not instead of Lakewood, but instead of Columbia or SUNY.
> Also for record every single landlord should be scrutinized as to why the last person was thrown out.
good idea. You can usually find out through internet search who lived in an apartment (if they were renting legally there. if they were not – maybe you should not be there illegally also). So, find their names and contact them for a reference.
If this is true – this is either to a bad job educators are doing or maybe because they are allowing only the weakest students to go to IDF. We do have halochos that anyone in some Parsha or stam afraid should stay home. Maybe, yeshivos should have a special pre-army track – take physically capable students and teach them middos and halochos of how to behave in the army and show the world what the Torah education can produce. Start with a small group as a pilot project.
> The founding of the “State” was a conventional military victory
So you are suggesting that Z policies that prepared this conventional victory were logical and lead to the victory. And those who were not supporting them were working against the victory against the enemies (in other words, for the victory of sonei Isroel). In other words, all the arguments that Zs were the cause of Arab attacks need to be balanced with your opinion that they also caused those attacks to stop.
you forgot the terrible gezeira of preventing chassidim flying to see their rebbe z’tl.
I see in the news that a Charedi MK has no problem davening for soldiers welfare at the government meeting. So, maybe a first step could be introducing explicit davening for chayalim in the charedi shuls? This being the first step in changing the language people use in the street.
Khazar (and also Yemen Jewish state in about 10th century) is an interesting example – if this were controversial, there should be some discussion of shevuos at the time.
I think the weak spot in this discussion is that there are very limited sources on both sides – as the issue was not “hot” for centuries. So, it is worth looking at the times and halachik sources that discuss relevant issues – and if they skip over the issue of shevuos, what are the implications?
yankel, again,
I can come up with any answers to these questions from my comfortable chair and justify them, but it will be presumptuous of me.
I am just surprised why you are not taking my answer for an answer: start preparing your kids to confront challenges.
sources: chacham eninav b’rosho; mitzva of the father to teach the son to swim; r Akiva teaching students how to travel with gangsters on the road.PS I am not sure how did r Akiva allowed his students on those dangerous trips. Why didn’t he keep them in the yeshiva? was it a bein hazmanim tiyul?!
yankel> something which ALL of Israel’s defense ministers accepted (and were still accepting [!]) for fifty[!] years, was illegally overturned at the whim of seven [extreme left merets voting] individuals nicknamed judges.
You are talking about political acceptance. Israeli system has very little of stable laws that need a super-majority to overcome, like US does. So, by definition, political process can change things. Ben Gurion cannot obligate government 80 years later. BUt it can influence political debate. So, if you behave in a way that inspires other people to support your position, then your position will eventually become the law of the land. SC will not be able to stand in the way against 70-80 votes in the Knesset.
You should also study what happened under Tal law. My uneducated impression is that this was a compromise solution that had good intension of gradually bring some of the charedi community into the Army. It did not produce the result. I can’t tell whose fault is greater – army not being accepting enough, or charedim not intending to comply. But it ended in a failure and lead to backlash. And here we are.
yankel> I have a haredi neighbor who has a doctorate in mathematics,
I also know people like that, and most of them have pretty reasonable views. But I want to point out that many such professions require life-long education. In truth, most current white-collar professions require life-long education. So, will the community be able to pick up those jobs?
And we are not talking about just being able to be lawyer for car accidents. Xome of them have to compete on world-wide basis – high-tech economy and everything defense-related. Not just to get a customer, but also to stand to the adversaries. And it is not just time for a person to train, and it is also a time for the community to accept these new developments.If the community is full of propaganda against anything “modern”, will they be able to stop doing that? If people move into leadership based on such positions, how will they turn around? I hope they will, but it would be good to have a tangible proof of that. So far, those who learned how to interact with the society do it outside of charedim. Negative selection, if you will.
To sum it up, if you want to have observant economy in 2040, you need to start teaching English and math in elementary schools today.
Abba > The government forces them to declare that learning is their occupation.
I do understand the social dynamics here. Same as welfare in US “forces” some groups to not work for several generations already.
But an honest assessment is that Israeli government supports people whose occupation is Torah and earlier roshei yeshiva were imploring their students to learn at full capacity to keep that declaration honest (I brought a direct quote from Mir RY before). So, nobody is forced by the government to lie and pretend to be learners when they”d rater work (or do secretly work). I honestly don’t understand how such bizayon can come up to a mind of someone who earnestly learned Torah for a number of years.
A related mussar: one of my teachers saw a Philly chochom learning with a talmid, and a talmid brought tea to drink. They finished the blatt, and the talmid noticed that the chochom did not finish tea. Aware that you can only drink in beis midrash when you learn, the talmid suggested learning another blatt. To which the chochom retorted: I drink to learn, but I don’t learn to drink.
israeli doc, thanks for the excellent quote. Related, in Reeh on lo titgadedu, R Hirsh writes that this applies to the community in general – we should not split in .. multiple agudot (same shoresh) instead of uniting all Torah-observant Jews. A great lesson for all debates we have – there is no mitzva in finding how to separate from others, only an aveirah.
I presume this comment was written before Agudah was formed, or maybe even inspired it.
Abba> Do you really think The Israeli Supreme Court would allow it?
SC can be overturned by knesset – if there is large enough majority in knesset and in the streets for that. So, if you make sure that charedim are aligned with the rest of observant Jews, then, if demographics holds, such majority will happen way before 2060.
I think some posters are getting distracted by personal battles. It makes sense to point out an inconsistency in someone’s views as it pertains to validity of the arguments. But there is no need to repeatedly challenge your opponent to respond and to chase them through threads. It is really disrespect to readers and moderators.
If you have an urge to do that, do what gemora suggests for such urges: dress in all black and go to a faraway cable news channel and flame there. Then, come back here for a reasonable discussion.
somejew,
not to change the subject, but I am trying to see whether your shitah holds across other topics, for example is there an alternative in gemora to R Akiva saying that make your shabbos as weekday but do not rely on briyut? (Pesachim 112)Katan, please confirm that you showed your posts to a rav and he confirmed that these are appropriate expressions.
I mean, we had religious kehilot for centuries. Poland had vaad arba artzos that governed Jews in the whole country, collected taxes, and did not depend on goyishe charities. According to a chacham who studied history of Jewish Poland, Jewish institutions were parallel to Polish ones in their structure, that is up to the “modern” business and government practices of the day (and Poland was very advanced until industrialization, where they were so happy to be selling Ukrainian wheat to the West where people moved to cities to work, so Poland missed the boat of growing industry themselves.
> to abuse a gemara (Pesachim, page 112A)
same thing again – find one opinion and claim everyone who disagrees is a rasha
Meiri explains like SQROOT
Ben Ish Hai in addition to what you quote, brings another explanation: that people will hate those chachamim in power who rebuke them and also hate other talmidei chachamim. This is similar to what R Wein writes about anti-religious hate coming from the kehillot in Russia being responsible for forcibly drafting children and ensuring compliance.
As we are here , here is other advice from R Akiva to his son:
Make your Shabbat like a weekday and do not be beholden to other beings;
Join a successful person (in business, I presume)english > No gadol has ever advocated for this.
right, even Moshe Rabbeinu was refusing several times.
yankel > existence of the state is not against the oaths
this is a good distinction. There is such an idea as a social policvy b’dieved. R Soloveitchik published in article in support of YU opening a medical school.
Some people were upset – they were donating money for Jewish education, and now it expands into other areas. He says there that he was not consulted on this issue; if he were, he does not know what he would have said – but he can give a b’dieved justification, explaining that Jewish communities both in Lita and USA suffered from having only non-observant doctors and pharmacists who are not sensitive to religious concerns. Having them being exposed to a Jewish institution will be helpful for the communities.ZSK > equivalent of Don Quixote tilting at windmills,
this is a structural problem. If you are not following events, do not understand technology and politics, then you only see things when they hit you in the face. As R Avigdor Miller said – if something is happening in Viet Nam – learn lessons from it. Otherwise, the next lesson will be closer to home.
So, Jewish response to modernity seems to be often somewhat late. And memoirs (like mentioned here about Chevron) talk about what happened right there, without awareness of the world.
We don’t want, of course, to react to any new -ism, Judaism is conservative by design. But this conservative approach works in stable societies. When things change quickly, like yetiyat mitzrayim, hellenism, destruction of BM, and – recently every ten years … you have to do things within 18 minutes, maybe that is the lesson of Pesach …
To answer your question about army specifically –
I am not in that position, not living there, but I am pretty much sure this is how army works everywhere. You have same calculus as everyone else.I personally would probably not encourage my kids to play heroes and teach them some military skills that will keep them away from the most dangerous jobs. Maybe cyber, intelligence, drones, navy, engineering, cooks. And I would teach them how to behave in the face of nisayonos and even try to influence others with your behavior. Try the same and you’ll probably see risks drastically reduced.
yankel, you are asking a fair question. In fact, a close friend of mine used exactly such statistics explaining to me why he moved from a RZ to a chareidi community. I readily acknowledge success of charedim in keeping people observant. In fact, my kids went thru charedi schools.
What I am worried about that the defensive mechanism became the only factor to the degree that the community undermines major Torah values. R Soloveitchik perceived this contradiction early on in the 1940s on philosophical level: if we claim that we know Hashem’s truth and are now allowed to participate in the world affairs – how can we hide in the caves? But, beyond philosophy, you can see that in order to maintain the defense, all kind of arguments and behaviors fly in order to convince the followers not to look outside of the fence. All the books on middos and mussar get out of the window. What is the point of getting a majority in the medinah, if the resulting voters will no be Torah-true Jews.
Katan, I am specifically addressing the shevua, citing halachik mechanism on how to do hatara.
I am not sure what is your beef with Hertzl, who grew up in non-religious neolog family in the culture of assimilation, that he eventually rejected, he was married to a Jew and did not convert. Would you do better than that were you born there?
I acknowledge that the latest call mentions other Jewish tzoros in the opening paragraph. I am glad someone in moetzes secretariat read my post!
Whoever wrote this – I am not fully satisfied though: I’d like to see explicit davening for other tzoros, not mention them and then talk about the horror of the draft. Sounds very political. Please send us another draft (pun intended).
Abba, you describe that all learning is in order to get a draft exemption? Is it that bad?
somejew > The core ideology of zionism is alive and well, and it is a kefira that is at the core of the heretical teachings of RZ
you are trying to pull fast one.:
– Z is bad because it is anti-religious
– Z is still popular, because RZ is an extension of Z
– RZ is bad because it has Z in the name, even if it is not anti-religiousSqRoot, thanks for reminding us of this gemora. Any meforshim there?
yankel, give me an example of a charedi-run city that does not rely on subsidies?
not sure about statistics in Israel, but select some in US and check out census statistics on federal programs. I did not do this analysis yet because I am scared, so please do.
> maybe you can offer some suggestions to the IDF on how to train their soldiers better
It seems to be an unfortunate fact that all armies lose readiness during peace times, spending their resources on nonsense. You can see how tech is developing during each war, including very recent ones – suddenly, when confronted with reality, things start changing. But while every avoidable death is a tragedy, I think Israeli army is performing about as expected if not higher on the ground in this difficult war.
Also, there is a difference between army and high-tech: army requires short-term training of a large number of recruits. This was done on large scale many times. US did not have an army to speak of when entering either WW1 and WW2. Modern high-tech (iron dome and such) are not just static hardware that can be inherited from the secular state. It requires a lot of efforts of different technology and military experts to keep it working right in the face of changes. You might be able to keep the nukes, but air defence and offence will not come without trained experts and culture.
YYA> Ministry of Sports and Culture
Presuming that non-charedim are mostly the earners, we had to admit that they can subsidize whatever entertainment they prefer.
re: demographics.
It is an interesting topic. It seems that charedim have almost 7 kids, non-charedi dattim 4+, masorti 3, chilonim 2.1. All except chilonim above Arab birthrate and pretty high by Western standards. So, it is easy to see a religious Israeli government with all pro-religious group together in the near future.So, that will be the turning point in Israeli politics: hopefully, charedim will come out of self-imposed midbar and join universities and the army. Or they may be so much overtaken by the “temporary” ideology of protection that they’ll continue demanding the right nusach in the army shuls. It will take strong leadership to declare the end of the curfew and to make the move towards normal life.
Maybe we can split the difference by doing community hataras nedorim?
It is pretty simple: when we did 3 shevuos – did we envision a country millions people and animals living in EY with their own elected government, with so many people learning Torah and davening? Probably not, so that suffices for hataras nedorim.
> the same people that argue that “Zionism is surviving
I think posters on this forum agree that Z as a pure anti-religious ideology did not survive, but some of the things they achieved – did. As Ponevezh rav said to the Histadrut construction workers – I believe that this building will eventually be a yeshiva. But they built the building.
Forget about the pilpul. Look at a bigger picture:
The whole premise that the core of our religion is not to do physical actions to survive borders on herecy.
Whatever sources for bitachon you have from the Tanach, it is obvious that Tanach describes numerous actions taken by gedolei israel, starting from avos, Moshe, etc. So, your claim is exclusively based on the gemora about 3 shevuos. So, like some other religions, you are claiming that Jewish bris changed at about time of the 2nd churban that we are now ossur to deal with things we used to do before.
Note that I am not against shevuos-based realpolitik that Jews practiced over centuries when it was necessary. And I also understand gedolim a 100 years ago who had to consider dangers of assimilation and secularism involved, and having Jewish settlement in EY as a possibility. But you can really spend your resources better but trying to learn how to deal with current reality, instead of denying it.
> Czarist Russian army also had a Chareidi/Jewish division.
I think you are a little off. Russia had cantons – schools for children that were happed before the recruitment age and put into these schools for russification before they go to the actual army for 25 years. Those who survived and actually returned to the Jewish communities were having sad life, not knowing what to do in shul, having no good skills and often difficult middos that they picked up in the army. Chofetz Chaim mentions someone who was off and others were dismissive of the person and Ch Ch pointing out what this person went through. Ch Ch also wrote a sefer for these Jews – mahane Isroel.
R Berl Wein ZT’L mentions that he was once saw a non-Jewishly dressed man entering a beis midrash. Berl’s father interrupted the shiur, got up and warmly greated this person who did not look like a Talmid Chochom. He later explained to the kid that this was a former cantonist that deserves respect for simply coming back as a Jew.
Things were a little better in the Polish Army, Ch Ch organized help, including kosher food for Jews in the Army and it was seemingly possible to have a dialog with the commanders. There is a large number of Jews among tens of thousands of officers of the Polish army that were mass murdered by Soviets in Katyn during WW2, including chief Rabbi of the army.
yes, the headline above – that seems to correspond to the context – mentions “Lomdei Torah”, while I understand that the Rav is against any chareidi-affiliated person to not go to the army. Can someone please explain why there is the difference between public statements and the actual position?
I would think that those who support this position would be even more bothered by the difference and have an explanation for me.
anon > , can we even have a state controlled by frum Jews?
It is a sad fact that you are asking this question. If Torah gives us a guideline for life and gemora is full of discussions how to have yashar courts and government, then we should be able to demonstrate those qualities when in public life. The fact that you are not sure is a sign that there are some hesronos in the Torah we learn & practice.
YYA> Mizrachi .. They had their reasons for not fighting, and some of them reverberate down to today’s disputes.
My understanding was that Mizrachi tried to influence from within the coalition, but in certain times tried “fighting” by quitting. Both are called “fighting” in my book.
> Actually, various forms of “national service” were suggested at different points in the draft saga over the years. Sometimes tacit deals were put together,
I am seeing letters signed by Rabbonim that talk exclusively about opposing something. Is it that there is other activity behind the scenes? Possibly. But the fact that gedolim are not able to speak publicly about any such activity speaks about where the community is holding.
There are now announcements for a world-wide day of protests. I challenge you and others to offer something conciliatory at these protests. If you can’t say brocha for the chayalim, maybe start by saying tehilim but mention that these tehilim are for chayalim/shevuyim/etc
A more optimistic example are Baltic countries – US did not recognize Soviet occupation from 1945 to 1990 – until it ended. And so did most of the population.
Also, Poles kept hopes for their state from 1790 to 1920.
it is what generates clicks maybe? I think when a certain outrageous position is expressed, it is ok to respond a couple of times, but maybe stop otherwise and have more interesting discussions.
Mabe it is a psychological thing that you feel no need to respond to a reasonable post, but feel a need to respond to an outrage. Is it avak anger?
Train yourself to get dopamin from a good kashah instead of a provocative statement.yankel,
Maybe I was too brief. I pointed to the doctors to suggest that your argument is not consistent within itself. That is, if both losing religion and dealing with sicknesses is super-important over other goals, then you should approach dealing with sicknesses the same way, you are claiming to deal with a threat to religion: organize medical schools, send people to become doctors, conduct medical research. Indeed, chachomim in gemorah were interested in the medical science of their time. When learning a long gemorah in Avoda Zora discussing natural remedies, I raised the question – who is paying attention to the topic in our days? I was told that there is some charedi group in Israel that researches Indian natural remedies. Of course, this is not a true way to learn the gemorah. I hope someone will put glosses on the daf referring to modern medical recommendations on the issues that chachomim were raising. Less than that makes mockery of “learning” the sugya.But on the topic itself: Jews need to be able to live within the world. I am all for requesting the Army to have gender-segregated units – but if there is a war, then “you go with the army you have”, and you prepare in advance too.
HaLeivi, I saw DNA research showing that most Ashkenazim come from a population of a 100 men (not women), this is consistent with merchant theory.
Apparently, R Yaakov Kamenetsky on his late-life visit to Israel said that maschiach will come from R Auerbach’s yeshiva as they had top shiurim in Hebrew rather than Yiddish, making them accessible to Sephardim.
YYA, I am not sure that it is always to their benefit to switch minhagim, they then might become more “frum” than their grandparents but they lose the sense of their identity that existed in their family. A number of movements, active in teaching non-religious or problematic, presume that it is the best for those people to “join the movement”. Perhaps, the activists do not simply have knowledge to guide someone in a different tradition. A better Rav would say – we do X, your tradition does Y.
The joke supporting this theory is that chilonim typically have up to 3 children: with the third, children start outvoting parents in the family democracy, and parents cannot withstand the balagan, while religious Jews run their family as a king & queen monarchy …
Whole world is studying now how to increase number of children, with decrease caused by urbanization and affluency. It seems that economic policies – paying/reducing taxes for extra children, free kindergartens are not helping … maybe the best way would be for religious Jews to show the rest the beauty of having children and raising family. Invite someone for a shabbos meal, maybe.
There are also non-charedi religious families that might not reach into double-digits but are still way above 2.
And a swe started discussing in another thread, the challenge is how would a charedi community transform from a minority that complains to a majority that governs. I presume this will require a changing mindset with large number of people starting going into important jobs and the army. Alternatively, the country can discover oil or specialize in diamonds, and then pay guest workers and contract army like some rich Arabs do.
jdb, great post.
please clarify:
so your mashgiach is saying that you don’t need to wait for the wife to actually say that she needs more income, you can, and should, observe it yourself without her saying it?
and related question – could you also try to anticipate this happening, a couple of years in advance?there is an opinion that standing/sitting relates to who you are addressing: Hashem or congregation. Thus shome esre standing, shma sitting.
there are other considerations:
– standing near an open window might be stealing fresh air from others (Rav Salanter)
– sitting in a place you are not a regular of, might be taking a makom kavua from someone. (AAQ). But I have some support: I came to a place that I visit sometimes and wanted to take my usual standing place. (according to above). To my “annoyance”,, the standing place was already taken – by a chassidishe tzaddik from further away place. He was apparently holding by both my shita on not taking makom kavua and also by coming early.