Always_Ask_Questions

Rav Elchonon was student of the Chofetz Chaim. So far, I was not able to find in Chofetz Chaim expressions similar to R Elchonon. In many articles and letters, he is using clear language of disapproval of various groups, but I did not see RZ among those groups. Did you see any?

yankel > This BG-Agudah agreement is nothing like a treaty between nations

right, as I showed ^, (1) that pre-medinah agreement did not even talk about the army, other issues, and (2) it explicitly says that this agreement is not binding on the future state – (3) even at that time, not 80 years later. So, with these 3-strong argument, I am sure the poster will change his mind.

yankel, I agree with you that SC moved into an ill-defined area. I also agree that Iranian regime claims to be a democracy with restrictions.

So, there are levels here. So, lets compare: Economist has a democracy index out of 10 in 2024: Sweden 9.9, USA 7.8 (was 8.3 20 years ago). Israel 7.9 (was 7.3). Iran 2 (was 3) – same as Russia (was 5) and China and Saudi Arabia. I am sure this is not a pro-Israel organization. So, Israeli democracy is doing OK – despite all the problems.

But again to your particular beef with SC: your attitude is legit, but it is simply that Israeli law had areas that were not defined well and it is natural for one of the competing branches of government to move in when others are not able to. It is problematic, without being “illegitimate”. For comparison, US congress is often unable to make important decisions, such as declare wars, sign treaties, and make major economic policies. Presidents end up making temporary decisions that they should not be doing according to constitutional design. So, some of those decisions are challenged in courts; others expire when government changes, etc.. Sometimes, public outcry – and a threat of the next elections – is such that presidents rescind their policies. It is a mess, but it is a legitimate democratic mess.

Same thing in Israel – your plan should be to build a bigger coalition that will enact new laws changing the system. This bigger coalition HAS TO include people with whom you don’t fully agree. Last I read was that proponents of judicial reform are now considering compromise measures that will bring more people onboard.

And to history of that – my humble understanding is that Tal’ laws was an attempt of such compromise – and there was no progress in bringing charedim into the army, community simply used this as an opportunity to continue previous arrangement. So, it may be that other groups are fed up with this behavior. You have to accept that and see whether you can restore trust.

Ms Kamala says in her new book that her perfect VP match was a man married to another man (and seemingly no other redeeming qualities), but she has rejected him that this was too much for Americans to buy on top of asking to elect .. a black woman (that she is not) and … having a Jewish husband.

So, apparently a Jewish husband is a hesaron in the eyes of some as much as having a male wife.

yankel > I treat both SR and r YB soloveitchik with reverence.
> Both were outliers and clearly a minority amongst the chachamim in their views.
…
> All chachamim seeing the current draft problem with all its current realities and all its repercussions , agree not to enlist ..

I believe most MO and RZ Rabbis, including many students of R Soloveitchik, disagree. I am not bringing names as it is usually not leading to a discussion on merits.

yankel, again, a modern democratic system is not a (discredited, unstable) Athenian version where everyone votes on everything. It might consist of multiple centers of power, some elected, some appointed. These centers can, and are expected to, compete for power between each other. Look up literature on American theories of “separation of power”. Israeli system is probably less thought through than others as the founders had a lot of things on their hands; and it is also under stress all the time. So, there is no surprise that there is a stand-off based on unclearly defined rules (and lack of constitution).

The best way out of this situation is to formulate a solution that will be supported by a super-majority of population. Then, the politicians will find a way to change situation, whether legally or politically. Such a solution necessarily has to be a compromise, not necessarily giving you everything you want.

katan > . Agudah predicated their “acceptance” of that “State” on the guarantee that this be the established and unchanging rule of their “State”.

Let’s clarify confusion here: 1947 letter
1) clearly says that this is not a legal commitment as Sochnut can’t obligate the future state (something we are arguing here)
2) does not even talk about military service.

Here it is, quoting from the June 1947 letter:
From: The Jewish Agency for Palestine, etc.
To: The World Organization of Agudath Israel, etc., Jerusalem
… We were satisfied to hear that you understand that there is no body authorized to determine in advance the constitution of the state, and that the state will be, in some spheres, free to determine its constitution and regime according to its citizens’ wishes.

Still, the Executive appreciates your demands, and is aware that these are matters that worry not only the members of Agudath Israel, but also many of the religious faithful in all Zionist parties or in no party, and it is sympathetic to your demands that the Agency’s Executive inform you of its position regarding the issues you have brought up, and what it is willing to do, as far as its influence and directives reach, in order to fulfill your wishes regarding the said issues.

The Agency’s Executive has authorized the undersigned to formulate its position regarding the issues you have mentioned at the meeting. The position of the Agency’s Executive is as follows: shabbat … kashrut … marital law … education

Katan,
there is nothing surprising that some gedolim disagreed. This was always the case, and especially in our times, when world changes so fast that nobody really knows what is the right direction. R Yohanan b Zakkai did not know till the end of his life whether he was right in his meeting w/ Vespasian or maybe he could have asked for more. And that was dealing with one general and a ragtag of Jewish rebels. Do you think he would be more confident if he was surrounded by Communists, Nazis. Arabs, and a bunch of Jewish ideologies. The sad fact is that you surely read our previous discussions and you know, for example, that R Feinstein had better relationship w/ R Soloveitchik. and that R Kotler respected him and partnered and respectfully argued in person. The fact that you bother bringing one-sided arguments (aka lies) to the group that knows better, is very strange.

Note that R Soloveitchik was not the head of Mizrachi. He supported and partnered with them, gave speeches at their conventions, but he is writing on multiple occasions that he is not a member, he has his own views, and especially protests any attempts by the political organization to make pronouncements on religious matters.

Katan, you are using circular logic – everyone related to zionism is a heretic. Therefore, all the people saved by Zionists and who are observant today are heretics and their lives do not matter. This is against anything I ever heard from gedolim of any direction. R Schach, for example, writes that Hashem caused Arabs to hate early Zionists to prevent them from assimilation into local culture. Clearly, Rav thought that Hashem cares. Even if taking your position, Israelis stayed Jewish, while similar Jews in other countries intermarried or were killed.

> President Trump

We don’t know what will happen in the future. We were discussing definite events in the past – none of the middle eastern countries stayed under Esav, they went thru communist and islamic phases. Your “solution” would have condemned all Jews of EY, Europe, Sefarad, USSR to either assimilation or physical suffering. Again, if you have a Rov to ask – I’ll be interested to hear his opinion on this hypothetical future.

somejew > I don’t remember that ever being request or the subject of debate around here.

First, I’d like to know whether your rabonim hold by the shevuos as halakha.

If they do, what would be their preferred position say in 1920s. One of your haverim suggested to keep EY in the hands of Esav. Several of us objected based on historical evidence that Esav retreated from the colonies and most of Middle East went through a lot of savagery in the last 80 years. There is also a question what would have happened with European survivors; Sephardim; Soviet Jews. At best, they would have gotten to the safe shores of democracies where they would have suffered same rates of assimilation as other Jew there. Again, this is not a shailah on the rabbonim who were against Zionsts at the time, those views had good sevorahs behind them. It is a question for rabbonim who already know what happened after.

Calls are done because they work. Check IRS 991 form (or some charity-following sites) for the charity to see whether they are spending too much of your donations to solicit further donations rather than the core mission.

some > So be it.

so, you don’t feel responsible that your arguments made me into a Zionist? So, you and havereha repeat views of gedolei yisroel ad nauseum and then fail in defending their kavod by bringing feeble arguments? I think you started well by quoting solid sources, but it is not sufficient to deal with reality of today. I think you are duty bound to go to “judges of your time” as Torah requires and ask them to explain to you, and to us, how those views transfer to modern times. I know you yourself have no shailos, so you don’t feel such a need, but you should do it for the of the reading public.

ZSK> You had those thoughts, you wrote them down, you posted them.

look, these guys did not come up with these thoughts out of nothing. These are real views of some other people, except the other ones keep it among themselves and did not really have a chance to check those views out with others. They just keep them pure, unexamined within themselves.

just an example from real life. One nice rabbi extended his hesed to have a hevrusa with me, we were learning nicely, he would bring tosfos and current poskim, I’ll bring some questions and real-life situations. At one point, I told him a story how someone reacted to me being Jewish in a remote location. He was very shocked – “are you saying you are wearing a kippah to your job”? So, this pretty reasonable and not closeted charedi internalized stories that all Jews who interact with non-Jews have to hide their kippot. Maybe, if you are not wearing a top hat, you are in that other group ….

Back to our characters, I think they give us good inside information and help us understand what is happening inside their communities. No apology needed.

The most suspicious part is that they claim to follow their gedolim, but when we here have a discussion on an issue, they are unable to go back to the gedolim and clarify the issues. We still do not know whether yeshivos have statistics on OTD in the army, or what was current path to non-Jewish government in EY and scores of other issues. I do not recall anyone saying on any topic here – I went back to Rosh Yeshiva and he clarified …

Avi > one of the rabbis quipped that daat torah had not yet been invented.

I heard this in the name of R Zelig Epstein. I am not sure whether this was related to another psak by R Chaim Ozer – when asked whether (Sugihara, etc) visas should be given to old people (who will be first to be prosecuted by Soviets who were invading Lita) or young ones (whose children will be taken to communist schools), he replied – to the older ones, because
(1) they’ll be in a better position to help those who remained when they reach US
(2) they’ll be of more use to the American Jews

So, depending on the timeline, this shows that R Chaim Ozer did not have a blank policy against leaving, and the reasoning was pretty sound in this grave situation.

At the time when cellphones were new, I asked a passing by charedi guy directions to a certain bus near thanah merkazit in Yerushalaim. He got out his pelephone and started calling his friends until he figured out how to find the bus.

Katan, I went to re-read a sefer of articles and letters from Chofetz Chaim in 1930s. He writes about different tzoros and wrong things people were doing, including sending children to non-Jewish gymnasia, non-religious or “cultural” schools. I could not find so far any criticism of RZ or even Z activites or schools (the publisher is charedi).

The fact is that those who followed Zionists to EY mostly survived and are Jewish. A large portion of them is shomer shabbat or “traditional”. Even those who are not observant (and most likely whose grandparents were not observant with or without Zs) are still Jewish and have a chance. A large number of people who never heard about Z, either post-WW2 or Sephardim came to EY without any ideology, but still benefitted. Those who listened to R Elchonon in large part perished, as did he. Those who survived and ended up in other countries also suffered high intermarriage rates. I am not sure how else you interpret these facts.

> You can look up the Satmar Rav’s holy words and see what he wrote. You can then take that to your LOR and ask him for details and see if he can provide to you those details if you’re really that curious.

You provided the words. We provided analysis that shows that the Esav idea, while reasonable at a time, does not match recent history. If you do not have an answer in your mind, maybe you can ask or write a letter to someone who share your views and share their answer with us?

Avi > what do your gedolim say about Internet usage?

Not sure where is this coming from? I presume everyone in this discussion got a psak allowing using internet!

To your question, I do not recall asking shailos on this. When internet was starting, I did help a couple of rabbis to set up websites and mailing lists. The only negative reaction was form one rebetzin that vetoed posting family pictures on the website. Presumably, ayin harah, not strictly privacy. This was before instagram, obviously. I did listen to some Jewish organizations focused on kids & internet, and took some of their advice to heart.

The closest possible answer – I asked recently whether yeshivos need to teach safe driving (based on a gemorah in avodah zorah that R Akiva and Rav Yehudah were teaching safe travelling). Rav acknowledge the need but refused to switch from teaching gemorah and poskim to common sense, suggesting instead to rely on “good math and English education” that will enable you to read and understand literature on the subjects you need in your life, starting with marriage. So, this position should also apply to internet.

Rocky, right, up to recently, majority of people lived in small villages and towns, who never saw number of people that make eruv meduaraita in their life.

Some mothers want to home-school their kids. Others have to work. If they work at school, they usually stick with the same subject and class for years. I know a mother who could not afford to stay home with her numerous kids. She taught for ten years from 1st grade to tenth to continue teaching her oldest child.

yankel > learning horayot reminds us how pervasive mistakes are.
> so – why do you consider AAQ as more immune to mistakes than the collective of our chachamim ??

We are bringing here different perspectives exactly to examine them. I enjoy listening to people with different views.

You also reflectively fall into “no true scotsman” pitfall that you usually avoid. My positions have support in some chachamim. I am most fond of R Soloveitchik’s approach. I did not start out as his talmid, but I found enough common points between my own thought process and his writings that I am paying attention to the other things he is teaching.

yankel, I am not sure why you start throwing insults all over, it obscures the points you are making and takes your mind off the points I am making.

A (modern) democracy does not mean that majority can always get their way. There are various mechanisms to keep the system stable despite the – often – ignorant and hot-headed majority. Courts are a natural anti-majority mechanism. In this case, you evidently need way larger consensus in the country than 51%. So, you need to think how to create such majority, partly by educating people, partly by modifying your position to include more of other groups. Presuming SC is occupying an extreme left-wing position, you should be able to unite 60-70% of people around some way of judicial reform that may look as insufficient to you, but moves the position enough to change the current situation. As I understand, there is actually a discussion of such ways in knesset.

Katan, you are trying to solve complex problem, while lacking awareness of the discussions you yourself held several days ago. We are not even talking about ideologies of 100 years ago that seem to touch your heart so much. We are talking about a person who lives in a country and has certain obligations as a citizen.

yankel > They will not transform the army. The army will transform them .

This is yeridas hadaros.

R Chaim Brisker was told about a (anti-religious) Yiddish theatre making a show of forming a Jewish army where future soldiers are being asked – did you build a new house, etc. When asked – are you afraid, everyone leaves and only R Chaim and R Spector left in the army… R Chaim remarked that this was all right, they just did not play the finale – they won the war …

So, you are saying, that out of, bli ayn hara, thousands of students you can not find a hundred that will withstand the view of ladies in the Jewish army? This is beyond pathetic. And, again, this is childish talk about someone owing you something. If there is a need to go to the army, you deal with that and Hashem will help you.

yankel. I think we need to thank Katan for clarifying his and his rebbes’ position. To summarize my underatanding:
– anti-Z was a very reasonable response at the time, when Jewish society was destroyed from within with all kind of -isms.
– in retrospective, Z turns out to be different from communism, bundism, german-jewish nationalism – as it created a place for those non-religious Jews to survive both the spiritual and physical abyss.
– also, in retrospective, as Katan helped us to understand, there was no alternative. If we were, H’V, follow other paths, our losses would be much higher.
– Why Hashem used non-religious Zs as a kli calls for us to do teshuvah – why the religious leaders, aside from a small number of RZs and similar, were not able to lead the nation. This was probably a culmination of the whole haskalah period: Jewish communities played defence against the onslaught of modernity, and we only now are figuring out how to live in this new world.