Always_Ask_Questions

why is alter rebbe’s son – mittele rebbe – mittele? was the next one considered the last one at some moment?

All he needs is a hammer and 4 nails to attach the laptop. No monthly fees.

Agree with Daas. RJBS indeed cared about all Jews in US and otherwise. He planned YU Rabanut curriculum in order to mass produce rabbis who would be able to serve multitudes of small communities in US. Still, this description (as others at other threads) seem to simply quote some sources that argue with RJBS without trying to understand him.

1) He does not call this “kiruv”. He calls these people “American Jews” and takes them as they are and looks prospectively that many of them are or soon will be college-educated. He describes how he was sitting thru hours talking to such young people, noticing that neither reform clergy, nor aguda rabbis would be able to address their questions.

2) he is not suggesting “lite” movement, he is always quoting and using his grandfather as an ideal. He defines the difference in the following way: agudah is trying to ignore the world around them. He says – if we claim that we have Truth from Hashem, we should not be hiding in caves, but rather learn to address problems of modernity.

Now, looking back at almost a century of this disagreement – agudah definitely had tremendous success in saving people from assimilation and growing large communities. Definitely, many from those communities would have likely assimilated without agudah approach. RJBS’s approach worked well for some people, but probably not so well for others. At the same time, it attracted a lot of people who would not ever understand agudah (or as RJBS put it – agudah will not be able to answer their questions). But, on the main question – are we actually representing Hashem’s Truth, RJBS seems to be on target – Jews always addressed the world events of their times. It is hard to imagine that Hashem lead the world thru so many developments during last several hundreds years, and he really wants Yidden to ignore all these events and continue reviewing laws of roman avodah zorah without addressing the modern forms.

I just don’t understand what stops the OP from attaching his laptop in the public area of the house and then discuss the filters.

yankel, a great point about Rambam.
So, a similar approach can be applied to non-religious Zionists (not RZ as you say): those were people who grew in the middle of assimilation, and, instead of fighting for “better world” in Russia and Germany like many other Jews did – they directed their efforts to help their Jewish brothers. Take Hertzl, for example. He is a pure tinok shenishba, grew up totally assimilated. In our times, he might have walked into a chabad house on campus and would be dancing for Moschiach right now. But there was no Chabad house in Vienna …

So, were RZ wrong when looking with such redeeming attitude towards non-religious Zionists? I don’t think there is no clear right or wrong here. Depends on a person, it is one or another, and in some middle cases, both attitudes may be legitimate. I suspect the hardened attitudes pro- and contra- go back to European scene where there was a political fight between different groups – and we inherited those attitudes even if there is no good reason for us to fight about it.

AAQ> Start with spending time with the child
Daas> The OP in this case is the child

Fair comment! I commend the OP that he is looking for the solutions himself.
In this case, spend more time with his parents!
R Twersky writes about a child of a psychologist who came to his father saying: I saved $100 already, can I use it to have an hour of your time?

why does a family need all these devices?
to stay constantly connected with friends after school? Definitely, not necessary, especially for boys.

> Large screen in the living room might not be a bad idea, but it is not the answer for a struggling bochur

why? what is your struggling bochur going to do with the screen in front of his parents and siblings?

Having screen in a public place is one of the first recommendations from one of the organizations who work to deal with this issue.
If things moved too far, they suggest for parents to negotiate – buy some fancy new device and any other benefits in exchange for
keeping device in the public place. Additional safeguard – have more than child per room, even if you can afford to have separate rooms.

When you suggest filtering in the privacy of his own room instead of monitoring by the family, you are outsourcing family to some filter
and webchaver… this should not be your first line of defence. Just start using computers together with kids, modeling for them what good
things you can do. Post about it on YWN together 🙂

Here is an example of cross-camp halachik cooperation:
R Ovadia Yosef has a teshuva whether a couple in Israel who got married outside of Rabanut requires a get (it is probably was some sort of a joke marriage between non-religious Israelis) and whether the lady is considered grusha for a kohen. He paskens that because Israeli Rabbanut requires marriage to be conducted through them, and the Hatan acknowledge their power when saying “al dat Moshe v _Yisrael_”, then the marriage is not valid.

It is great that we seem to have a majority here that are ready to accept the other side as being stam wrong and not kefirah.

The next question is who is right.

First version is – under the circumstances of the times someone lived and information he had, was someone right? In this case, most of those rabbonim were right in their own way, provided they were baki b’Torah and were able to approach the issues honestly. You go to shoftim of your times. Sanhedrin might need to bring a karbon if they make a mistake. So, if someone was a great Rav in all other aspects, he had a right to pasken according to his understanding. Should the Rabbis work hard to obtain military information about relative strength of Nazi, Soviet, and Polish army to figure out that Polish cavalry was doomed against tanks? Looking from our times – maybe, but nobody did. If they did ask Polish experts at the time, the answer was wrong.

Second version – what is the right decision from Hashem’s POV? I humbly think that we are not yet able to answer this question yet. The history is still being developed. When Jews started building second BM, there was abundant rain at night and they, thus, felt that there is Hashem’s brocha upon their work. Thus, (1) before the rain, they were not sure, (2) you need to watch for hidden signs. Are modern Zionists or modern Haredim experiencing hidden miracles? Maybe both are – Israel is a blooming country and Haredi yeshivos are full of students, all bli ayn harah.

Could they both be right? R Soloveitchik writes that one and same kohen godol has a tzitz (symbol of halachik decisions) and a choshen (symbol of politicla decisions). He says that “in our times” (1950s) the problem is that you have kohanim with tzitz (yeshovos) and kohanim with choshen (zionist politicians) trying to work on their own, ignoring the others.

HaKatan> In fact, Rabbi Dr. Soloveitchik acknowledged that he was breaking from his (rather strong anti-Zionist) mesorah in doing so, and the gedolim did not agree.

I think he does acknowledge this difference from his grandfather (but not his father). It does not mean that he abandoned his grandfather’s Torah. In multiple places, he brings his grandfather’s ideas, explains them, uses them as a guide. Every generation has their own issues to deal with, you don’t expect every rav to just confirm what his grandfather said. For example, when outlining his plans for YU Rabbinical school, he focuses on a streamlined system preparing multitude of local rabbis for many small communities that lacked them – so that they are able to do basics according to halakha and be attractive to American Jews: run the shul, say dvar Torah on shabbos, deal with kiddushin, and refer get cases appropriately. He contrasts it with Litvishe yeshivas (in Lita), where he says, in addition to gadlus of certain individuals, you had people who were hanging around for decades without any specific learning and outcome achieved.

Anyway, I have a feeling that your references here reflect that you read articles arguing against the Rav on specific controversial topics. I don’t think you ever opened an article by him.

you should also put your laptop (or better desktop with a large screen) in a living room so that others in your family see your screen.

yankel, thanks for trying to find a consensus. You need to define what “zionism” is and what “bad” is. If we talk about pre/poast war period, we are mostly talking about pre/early Israeli government. I think everyone agrees that they are “not part of Torah”. R Soloveitchik describes how a non-Jewish kid was watching with them an Israeli minister during 1950s pre-war events saying that he has faith in British minister and “Arab youth” that they’ll not savagely deal with Jews. The kid remarked “I would put more faith in G-d of Abraham” …

related questions are
– is it appropriate to cooperate with them to achieve better outcomes. In one narrative: Mizrachi thought so from the beginning and achieved a lot by both being in the government and quitting it when they could not agree. And Rav Schach and others agreed to that policy many years later. (I think this narrative is too simplistic, but still has something to think about).

– are there any redeeming qualities in the Z leaders and their followers? I think this is where opinions differ the most.

here is some history between early zionists and Rav Chaim Brisker

In 1904, years before Menachem Begin was born, Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism died, and Zev Dov Begin, one of the leaders of the Brisk kehila, wanted to hold a memorial service in the main shul. Rav Chaim Brisker said no and locked the shul. Menachem Begin’s father and his friend, Mordechai Schneidermann (whose grandson Ariel Sharon would later play a powerful role in Menachem’s life) broke the lock of Rav Chaim Soloveitchik’s synagogue to conduct a service in Herzl’s memory.

Does that mean that Begin’s father was not respectful of the Rav? When Begin visited the United States as prime minister, he visited the great rabbis of the Agudah in Rav Moshe Feinstein’s home. He also paid a call on the Lubavitcher Rebbe and held a meeting with Rav Yosef Dov Solovietchik, who insisted on coming to meet Begin, not the reverse. Rabbi Soloveitchik reminded Menachem Begin of the incident in which his father had disobeyed Rav Soloveitchik’s grandfather. The Rav told him that, in the family, they said that this was the one and only time the elder Begin did not follow the Brisker Rav’s guidance in regards to the kehila. Menachem used to tell another story of how his father and the Rav were walking together, and an anti-Semite began harassing the Rav. Zev Dov Begin took his walking stick and hit the gentile over the head. He went to jail, but he was proud that he stood up for the honor of a Jew.

here is from 1955:
After more than a half hour of futile effort to get Rav Soloveitchik to publicly oppose giyus banos [female draft into the IDF], Rav Aharon [Kotler] came up with the following brilliancy, of course in Yiddish. He said, Bostoner Rav [R. Soloveitchik], imagine that instead of the three of us discussing this issue, there were another three who were judging the appropriateness of drafting girls into military service. Instead of the Bostoner Rav, there was your zeyde, Reb Chaim. Instead of the Radiner Rosh Yeshiva [R. Mendel Zaks], there was your father-in-law, the Chafetz Chaim. Instead of me, there was my father-in-law, Rav Iser Zalman Meltzer. Bostoner Rav, what would your zeyde have said?

This masterstroke did not result in a shift in Rav Soloveitchik’s position. He got up and said that he had to leave, “Kletsker Rosh Yeshiva and Radiner Rosh Yeshiva, a gutten tag” and left.

Of course sending monthly checks for the same amount should have lower overhead than a real insurance.

1% known error? So if you pay 20 bills monthly on autopay, you will somehow miss 2 payments every year? Those two mosdos will not be happy.

Actually, Sesame Street in Iraq may be not bad. During Reagan times, we subsidized radio propaganda towards the Soviet Block and it was a great source of information there and presumably contributed to their downfall . Maybe, you want some edgier than Sesame Street, but maybe that is the level that works for current generation …

coffee > Extra kneich to Aaq if GH told you not to believe me

?! cool down your coffee. GH and my posts came in the same batch. I do not get private previews from the mods. And when do I do as I am told by either hagadol or hakatan.

Chaim > Firstly yes R kook is relevant
And ZSK similar.

I am thinking it is a stretch to try to have antiZ acknowledge R Kook and similar rabonim. It would be easier to have a dialog about Rabbonim that were well known to have respectful relationships (even with disagreements) with Rabbonim antiZs consistently recognize.

ZSK > They also (incorrectly) lump ideologically secularist Zionism together with Religious Zionism

Right. That is why I would advise these guys to go open a sefer from the Rabbonim they can accept and then let’s have an informed discussion. Let them point out what exactly they disagree, how R Yoel argues on R Soloveitchik and let us understand those disagreements. I am shocked, shocked that they are not showing any signs that they opened a sefer. It is not osur to read a kosher sefer that you disagree with. Beis Shammai & Beis Hillel knew other’s halochos.

Dr. Pepper – as far as I understand, sawyouatsinai is a generic “Jewish” dating site with YUConnects being a YU segment of that that will presumably not match you to shiksas or apikoiresim. It provides access for shadchanim, whether professional or amateur. I suspect that many of them are just interested yiddishe mamas. I don’t think this service is used wide enough in observant communities, maybe more in more modern, but still not enough.

There needs to be a “network” effect for something to work – shadchanim that talk to each other have more clients.

> what’s wrong with creating a barrier to new entrants?
that’s an old question. In middle ages, and before, there were guilds in each area ensuring limited service to keep prices high (and, presumably, quality too). Bava Basra describes such a situation and seems to conclude that if there is a talmid chacham, then he should decide, otherwise guild members are free to establish their rules and slash the tires (skins in that case) of those who break the rules.

Halakha also lists exceptions when unlimited competition is allowed – teaching and selling perfume. In both cases, benefit to customers (students and poor women) is so important that loss of income by the sellers is allowed. I would reason that shidduchim are in the same category (affecting both Torah students and poor girls 🙂 for marrying people, not for providing income to shadchanim.

re: loading resumes
Advertising directly might work, but will create an unhealthy situation with shadchanim bad-mouthing the service and probably lining up rabbis who will pasken against. I am thinking of buying them out – by paying for the data or by outcome on their customers, lederech shalom.

Gadol ™ > that can be done surgically and would have very widespread support. Instead, their meat-axe

R Berel Wein recommend an approach to history that judges personalities relative to what alternatives existed at the time, rather than in absolute terms.

In this case, events are fresh and still progressing, so may be too early for non-neviim to judge the outcome, still we already have solid baseline – first Trump term and Biden term that can be presumed similar (at best) to would-be Kamala’s term, lo aleinu.

So, “can be done ” and “better attitude towards Ukraine” are theoretical constructs – realistic D- alternatives are Biden/Kamala’s mindless expansion of government and giving free money “surgically” – to their own supporters (humanity students, unions, etc) and similar mindless Ukraine policy that did not try to achieve nor victory, nor peace, just to make sure there is no second Afghanistan that will hurt them politically.

Would Mitt Romney achieve better results? (1) he would not have a chance because he was not prepared to fight against such dirty allegations as “eighties calling back” (when he called out Russia as enemy) (2) even if he were to become a President, maybe he was not ready to fight real enemies who are not less vicious than democratic media.

HaKatan > Rabbi Kook and Eim HaBanim Semeichah are both irrelevant

I agree with you that the point of this discussion is not to rely on those with the most pro-zionist position. You obviously disagree with them vehemently.
It would be more productive if you can address more mainstream rabbis (quoted above all over) who accepted interaction with zionists – to some degree, in a limited way, conditionally, with reservations – but more than Satmar Rebbe. The best way would be for you to quote their seforim and explain what you think of those. This is not too much to ask.

Chaim > they all held of Zionism

Chaim, maybe you need define what the “held of Zionism” means. I presume they were not members of the hashomer hatzair. Were they supporting settling EY; or said that it is better for all Jews to be in EY than die under Commies and Nazis; or agreed to join government, etc. There are a lot of gradation.

For example, R Soloveitchik criticizes both non-religious leaders of Israel (and before) and also those religious leaders who refuse to cooperate with them …
in one 1945 speech, he talks about Tzitz (head, halachik decisions) and Hoshen (political decisions) being attributes of the same Kohen Godol. That politics should be dealt with, and dealt with in torah ways, and he says unfortunately we now have Kohanim with Tzitz and Kohanim with Hoshen each dealing only in their own area and refusing to cooperate.

R Steinberg passed away less than a year ago.

Chaim > There is no requirement in our Torah that another gadol needs to defend his hashkafa or approach.

I think you are right, and even more: when an important gadol takes a controversial position, others would surely join if they want to support him. So, if they politely stay quiet, it means they all do not agree with Satmar, just don’t want to openly contradict him.

somejew, you say well – but then you don’t follow up on your own pronouncements. We had here several people talking to you and referring each to a different source. It does not look like you bothered to read on and analyze any of them, while calling upon all of us to take Vayoel Moshe seriously. Why can’t you take R Soloveitchik (the one I was referring) or any of others mentioned here seriously? Why are we often having detailed discussion on respected “charedi” rabbis, but not on others? Keep it up.