Always_Ask_Questions

Yya, there is a middle ground between explaining today’s news events with full confidence and proclaiming that everything is hidden. Sometimes it may take years or centuries, but we should make an effort to understand
A humble effort.

katan> The Zionists caused the Holocaust, and actively and otherwise contributed to it.

maybe we have a problem with the method the discussion. you are repeating statements, without bringing any specific proofs, at best referring to some isolated events.

Maybe, (I am guessing) you refer to spiritual reasons that are hard to argue about. In the physical world, you can point to German Jewry assimilation as possible trigger for German antisemites, Germans were mostly anti-Zionists, though. Other than that, WW1 and post-WW1 attempts to reach world peace are usually to blame. I suggest reading history books by R Berl Wein Zt’L to catch up on some facts.

YYA, I am not following Israeli politics “religiously”. My theory is that Knesset has the same role as dispersion of Bavel – it makes sure that nothing gets done, and it is good for the country. Of course, when things get serious like right now, it is different. My impression is that every negotiation with charedim usually negotiate for the various social benefits for the community, like paying for Nth kid more than for (N-1)st, etc. As a contrast, a lot of Mizrachi battles early on in Israel was about establishing religious institutions for the whole country. I am not saying that it is wrong for politicians to protect their communities and that charedim are the only one, most everyone lacks larger view.

Thanks for listing various organizations. So, back to the army topic – why not bring some of the army-related activity into negotiations – and into public statements.

YYA, you have a point, we are always stereotyping here, it is a nature of online anon discussion, thanks for reminding to keep it lower.

I am mostly responding to the positions articulated here by posters and sometimes articles with pronouncements. I am obviously aware that not everyone thinks like that – and I welcome when someone says that, like you sometimes do! I do think that info we are getting reflects some of the reality. I do get more feedback from US in-town communities – and sometimes stereotypes are, sadly, confirmed. Again, not to say everyone is doing same. One of my kids gets jelous sometimes and recently when the guest was discussing what kind of medical, dental, and educational things they get for free while we pay thousands dollars for, the kid started repeating after each item – why don’t we move to NY!? I had to shash him, so we dn’t get into discussion what kind of poverty programs are involved in getting all this “free” stuff.

yankel > he [sorry] seems to be lacking in basic yir’at shamayim ,

I scrolled up to see what caused your concern. It seems that you are concerned that I disagree with some charedi community positions? This is a kind of attempted delegitimization of other observant positions that concerns me.

somejew, I don’t think this can be resolved by quoting sources. I (earlier on) listened to sources from both sides in this interesting discussion, and it is clear to me that you need (as usual) to apply these sources to the current facts. So, I am usually trying to bring those facts and asking how different shitos apply.

for example, several people were saying that Zs created trouble in EY, where old yishuv lived in poverty and under pressure but without overt violence. There is some truth to that when you look from the facts of 1920. I am totally not surprised that many chachomim thought that. But, how do we judge this now in hindsight, knowing history of 20th century? Katan finally answered and said that he presumed that EY will remain British (or any Western) protectorate. A couple of us asked whether this is a reasonable assumption given that British and other empires fell apart and were overtaken by socialist and islamist governments. I don’t think we saw an answer.

In general, we all need to be a little humble about discussing these issues – answers might not be known and understood for some time. Quoting R Steinsaltz, it takes centuries for chachomim to come up with a final resolution for historical events. The idea that every political judgment by even most great chacham will be crystal clear like Moshe is not reasonable. Look at gemora – even records of most selected arguments by the most proominent chachomim reveals that many of them lose argument or do not know or forget a braisa here and there.

keith > Another thought I had. The line where something is lashon harah is it generally clear, but not always crisp and clear. If I am about to do something on Shabbos and it is not entirely clear, is it allowed or is it prohibited, it is a big deal to violate Shabbos. I will not do it.

a general nature of mitzvos l’Hashem and l’chavero – the latter depends on the person you are dealing with. You are not sure how he will react, and you are not sure what he was thinking about when he did something, and what lead him to that. So, these mitzvos are more complicated and there is more analysis of each case. with mitzvos l Hashem, you can study a sugya, digest different opinions, ask a shaila, come to a conclusion, and most similar cases will be the same.

YYA > The fact that the Sephardi חכמים are fully on board with a חרדי coalition stretching as far as the Yerushalmim tells you pretty much everything you need to know about where they really stand now.

I agree with most what you have (agreeing with me:), but I don’t agree with this last one. Sephardi chachamim indeed go great length to show uniformity and be seen as part of Israeli charedim. Still, the performative rejection of everything related to the country does not exist there.

Genteically. Ashkenazim seem to come from a 100 of _men_. Does not mean that just 100 of them travelled up to Europe, just that only descendants of a 100 survived. True sephardim – from Sefarad – settled from Amsterdam to Turkey after expulsion. joining local communities. I presume everyone from Mediterranean is partly true Sephardi. Not Iraqi/Iranians, Teimani.

somehow, in Europe they take long vacations – unless they work for an American company.

But from our perspective, we should not be taking “vacations”, we should be working less than full-time to leave time for learning, families, chesed. Somehow, I don’t see many people finding this balance – there are people who work too much and those who are trying not to work.

We are really the first generation where mass part-time Torah-true living is possible for masses – and nobody is even trying to achieve that.

YYA > First of all, you speak as if the government fully “bankrolls” the Chareidim, and as if that is the reason they are able to survive. …If you think parents don’t work hard, fight, bleed, and even die, you have never raised a house full of.teenagers…

I think what GH and I both are trying to say – you are looking from the inside of your community, but look from their POV. You are asking for credit for raising your own kids and saying that government support does not matter. Meanwhile, the others hear that your politicians are always demanding more and blowing up governments that does something for the country on every issue of your community.

And I am not asking for unrealistic 100% turns on any of these issues. Just stop blaming and complaining and try to find small ways to show others that good that you can show them. A

Very short vacations is a very American thing coming partly from protestant work ethics, together with other pro work, anti welfare views. Europeans take a couple of months off.

As to the feeling that if you are out for a month, bosses will see that they can do without you, there are 2 solutions: 1. Be your own boss 2. Create a system that nobody can figure out so bosses realize how indispensable you are.

Banks actually require some to take vacations to make sure someone can independently check your accounts.

Fake, re educating means fixing the wrong ideas they get from friends, chatGPT, schools and colleges. We do try to be proactive when we can anticipate problems, this works better for younger ones. First, we can predict problems from experience, and we can point to what their older siblings did.

YYA > The other 90% of the non-Chareidi Jewish population for the most part do see us as brothers. If and when they don’t, it’s because of the ערב רב junta who incite them

ok, we agree on criteria, question is to what degree this unity exists? I would say, if 60% of voting non-charedim supported you, then all political issues would be solved. As it is, the country seems to be divided on these issues. And don’t fully blame papers. Israel is small enough for people to see other people in person, not just on the screen. Charedi behaviors affect how they are seen. The more ways you can find to participate in the society/army, the faster you’ll get support.

YYA> Those subsidies were slashed over 20 years ago … What remains doesn’t begin to make a dent in the cost of raising children.

That is what I was saying – you are complaining when someone takes away benefits they gave you before. And then you point to others who get more somewhere else.
R Schach warned about it – when, to consternation of chaveri knesset, he advised against taking 100% school subsidies from Begin: there will be a new government at some point and you don’t want to lose your ability to be self-sufficient (well, 50% self-sufficient)

> They don’t feel the Arab children are their children either
how is this helpful? You are not pained that groups of Jews do not feel good will towards each other? From your writings, I would suggest every time you point to some other nation and that your community behaves at least as them, stop and re-evaluate whether you live up to Torah standard, or just looking for a justification.

> When (not if) there will be a Chareidi majority, they will have to deal with us on our terms, including cleaning up the IDF.
So, I suggest joining and influencing IDF now to prepare for your children being there.

> Our ‘benefits’ are the future of כלל ישראל, and especially the future of Israel,
So, take responsibility and participate in the country’s life as partners and not as renters who demand everything has to be to their standard before you come in.

But I see the long-term “plan” now – leadership asserts that members of the community will change to other groups if they were to be exposed to other views. So, let’s grow community until we become the majority and then we can participate in the society given that the other views will die out, and at least,we will have democratic majority to establish rules that we want. This makes sense, but I see a flaw: this greenhouse grown majority will not have abilities to function, as there is no experience for several generations. You can see this now with protesters. Imagine, they’ll be the majority – would they suddenly find chochma and middos to run the country, the army, international politics? We had this with Jews becoming free in, say, interwar Poland – there was a lof of heat, but these were all losing battles.

I am on vacation the whole year – my time is divided between doing something I like and get paid for, learning, and re-educating kinderlach

Avram, context there is the apparent charedi psak that fighting is a good substitute for learning. I suggested that this permits RZ opinion or at least worth asking a shailah.

In your case, you simply dismissed a well-respected rav (who is not charedi, but charedi rabbonim get up when he walks in) for expressing an opinion that one should read books about marriage and one needs to learn english to be able to read those books. Maybe, my rendering of his words was not as good as the original.

I think I already said that a claim of raising the new generation is a good one. But (1) Israel already provides subsidies. You hear protests when they are suddenly reduced (2) unfortunately, it seems that non-charedim do not feel that growing-up charedim are their children too. A T’Ch should be someone who is well-liked by people. (3) not serving adds to that feeling that growing population will not add to the defense of the country (4) same in politics – if growing charedi vote is only to support their own benefits, this does not add to mutual feelings.

YYA, so, you see that the lesson is there, but you don’t think you are great enough to deliver that. Of course, we are simply discussing the issues here, not generting psak. Now that we have a reference, you can respectfully ask whoever issued the psak you are following, what is his position on that.

katan > As it is, the Zionists SAVED lots of people, you wrote? The Zionists are responsible for death and destruction, physical and spiritual, of millions of Jews since they started over a century ago (including the Holocaust). An arsonist could run over with a fire hose and put out a little bit of the fire that burned down a big building that the arsonist, himself started – to use the Satmar Rav’s mashal.

You start going specific and then regress to general rhetoric. Try to stay on topic. There are specific large groups of people saved due to Zionists and Medinah either physically or spiritually from assimilation (we have R Schach to confirm that it matters by his analysis that Arab anti-semitism was calused by danger of Zionist assimilation): pre-war arrivals from Europe, post WW2 survivors, Sephardim in 1950-60s, Rusim in 1970-90s. American BTs who were excited about 6-day war. Who did they destroy? As I mentioned before, my theory is that it was a choice for non-religious Jews to be a Zionist, a Bundist, a Communist, or a gvir in Amerika. I don’t think there were people who contemplated between becoming a Stamar chusid or a kibutznik. Zionism was the best choice for their survival.

I learned recently an interesting halachic idea that you can discern an unclear case from how future unfolds. That is, if a korban intention was not stated clearly, you might be able to ascertain it from the actions that followed. This is applicable to unverifiable giur – if you see some years later that the ger is behaving appropriately (at a minimal level – keeping kosher, lighting shabbos candles), then the giyur can be confirmed retroactively. Consult your local beis din, don’t try it at home.

YYA> It was Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai who hid in a cave, not as a way of life, but to escape being killed by the Romans.

Well, he got there because he was disparaging the Romans in front of students. And it is about his way of life that Gemorah says that many followed his ways and were not successful. Others either acknowledged the good side of the regime or simply knew how to keep their mouths shut.

> are luxuries enjoyed by almost everyone

I am comparing the current maztav with our historical conditions. You are right psychologically – it is reported that person’s happiness is proportional to what he has comparing with his immediate neighbors. Move to a richer ‘hood – and be less happy. But, why not compare with how Yidden were able to live and learn in other times? If you have more resources than Rashi, why not sit and learn and try to emulate him? Or, as one ger asked – if we have now 1000 times more learners than during Rambam’s time – where are our 1,000 Rambams?

> Globally, the vast majority of Chareidim work. (Unless you define ‘Chareidi’ in No-True-Scotsman style as ‘full time learning’.)

It is worse in Israel, indeed, but similar problems exist elsewhere. We discussed it here. Educational system does not prepare for modern jobs. Best case is starting a 3rd-rated college for a medical technician job – after already married. Many using welfare programs “because they can”. All of that because “in modern times, we are too weak to follow Rambam”. If someone is weak, he is told to exercise, not to lie down and expect to be carried around.

katan > No, the Zionists need to pay the price for their own endless wars that they wickedly started against the will of the chareidim already living in E”Y when the Zionists first invaded and the chareidim begged the Zionists to stop causing trouble and to go away.

I suggest you tihnk through the whole operation. Maybe you have a plan, but I am not yet convinced –
go away where? So, not only you have no thoughts about those Jews who listen to their rebbeim and were murdered in Europe, you now suggest that Zionists should have gone – where? Back to Europe? To north/south America where they’d mostly assimilate (if they were to be admitted)? All of that in the name of the small community that existed then. What about all charedim who arrived after Zionists prepared a place for them to come?

YYA > certainly not 18 year old singles…

So, make it 19-y.o. married once and request them visiting home every night or shabbos.

NP > one does not mitigate the other.

Intellectually, I am with you. But we have an idea that someone involved in communal affairs is recognized and also might lose out in learning (Pirkei Avos, Mordechai). All the shluchim with their children growing up in non-religious towns – not all of these children are going to become talmidei chachamim. According to the logic of the “tzahal” threads – what they are doing is too risky and it is safer to sit at home and talk about hesranos of others.