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I heard that R Zelig Epstein was asked how did Mir Yeshiva decided to travel through USSR in apparent violation of Daas Torah of R Ozer who apparently advised them not to go. He answered – it was not a problem because this was before the Daas Torah…
Given that Mir students were getting Sugihara visas up to September 1940, and R Ozer was niftar in August 1940, it seems that DT was not yet operational during R Ozer’s lifetime. Maybe, out of modesty, the Rav authorized DT to start after his own petirah so that people would not think that he is doing it for his own aggrandizement?!
Chaim re: Egypt. This is exactly what US and similar systems are designed for – control by masses. This danger was known from ancient times and that is why “democracy” was discredited and was not tried for centuries. Possibly, early modernity that made more people educated allowed thinking about letting more people to participate in the government.
Ex-CTL, thanks for a good summary. I would like to point out a couple of points:
1) the federal system works in a unique way in USA – it is a big country with recently arrived (a couple of centuries on average) population that is pretty mobile (most, except the natives and the slaves, come from people who volunteered to go to the other side of the world). Thus, if you do not like your state laws, you can easily relocate to one of the remaining 49. Same language, currency, even starbucks and other chains. This creates choices for population and competition between state governments. This compensates for the biggest weakness of the modern state – there is competition in private sector, but not in public. Of course, the more feds take over, the less gov competition there is.
2) These freedoms of movement and of religion and of the press are used best by mobile and active population that is not afraid to make choices and act (anshei chayil in the words of Yisro). The rest of the population gets captured by whatever government and information channel they get… and they suffer from the freedoms they are not able to take advantage of. Arguably, these people would be better off with the government that takes care of them, does not allow hate speech, provides social safety, etc
If you know that daas Torah will be not tax deductible – do you still ask the shaila or compensate your daas Torah for the expense. Or, worse, you don’t compensate your DT and he feels that it is his obligation to respond to you but he cannot afford losing tax free status, so you made him into a ganav, thus losing his DT status, of course.
the question is “what came first” – a Litvak or a Chossid. You can obviously say that Chasidim started a revolution so that they can came later. But you can’t easily dismiss the argument that Litvak attitude was emphasized as a response to Chasidut and may not be same now as then.
Still, I quoted before a gemora about an amorah who silently refuses a shidduch with his Rebbe’s (Tanna!) daughter that probably means that at least THAT amorah was a Litvak.
Germans agreeing to a pace agreement, then developing nuclear capabilities, intercontinental missiles and missile defense before US did – would this be a better option? Or, maybe someone learned from Wilsonian WWI fail to “stop all the wars”
what are the implications of this very stringent interpretation of “benefiting the campaign”?
if a newspaper announces that this is an emergency and their goal is to stop election of a certain candidate, is their publishing activity a campaign contribution? If they have 1 million of digital readers, this would make it a million counts. The jury will take a lot of time to read them out.
when an elected official performs multiple acts to benefit his campaign (forgiving loans, proposing peace plans, issuing border instructions) – these are all benefiting his campaign. He should (1) reimburse USGOV all the expenses (2) use only funds he acquired via legit campaign donations for the reimbursement. Of course, you can argue that it is hard to prove that the president did this for campaign purposes, but after votes in South Dakota sue him, it will be up to a jury there to decide.
Chaim > chasdim just do it out of fear and the chumras come first.
I have an idea about the chumros – why so many people run for chumros bein adam l’makom, but not always bein adam l’chavero. As you say – fear.
You have a relationship with Hashem and you have only limited information about what He expects from you. What if $50 lulav is not enough for a chashuve Yid like you? My neighbor who is an am haaretz spent $100, so it may be $200 is expected from me?! This is a Jewish version of Pascal wager : if your error on being machmir costs you $100, and your error on meikel costs you olam habo, the choice is obvious.
It looks easier when you are dealing with people who provide you with feedback.
Someone is selling a car. You say – how about $2000 for this clunker? The guy agrees. So, obviously the price was right.
Your wife asks – when are you going to be home? After the latest maariv in town and a class after that. OK, says the wife … obviously, she is happy that you are learning and she has the zechus to put kids to sleep.There two possible errors here:
1) it might be that Hashem did not really care about $200 for the esrog. OK, so the loss is just $150, right? No, the loss will be all the time and effort you spent pursuing these chumros while neglecting other issues and learning and maybe stealing more from others for the chumros (if yo are meikel on using OPM, other people’s money).2) you can’t always rely on getting feedback from people.
a) They may think that you are dishonest and rude person, but they will not tell you that in your face. Did you have hear people saying bad things about others? Do they usually say it in their face or only behind their back?
b) they may know that they can’t expect more from you. A wife would be the first to know that.
c) they may not understand themselves at the moment that you are not doing enough for them. They may not know choshen mishpat to know, for example, that you have to disclose problems with your clunker when you sell it, or that the buyer is not allowed to insist on a lower price same way as the seller is not allowed to insist on a higher …So, bottom line is that one should appreciate complexity of human psychology and be fearful that they are not machmir enough in bein adam l’chavero , that are so machmir that Hashem will not forgive them until people do ..
Chaim > I question specifically the American style democracy. I advocate that yes maybe we need a style like you outline in France
American system is somewhat different from European. As Gemorah says – better to live in a new town than in an old, as its sins are fewer.
European countries are (or were until recently) groups of a small number of homogeneous groups. (Jews were an exception for most of last 2000 years, that is why everyone was against us). USA system was created from the scratch to accommodate differing views. Original idea was that each state is almost a sovereign entity that can have their own laws, religion, with certain federal laws that make the states leave peacefully and cooperatively with each other. Bill of rights applied to the feds, the state could have, and had, established religions, for example. Things are more complicated now, but the idea is still there: the role of the government, ideally, is not so much as to establish one community, but to accommodate multiple communities. This is really well designed for what the Jews want (and is similar to what we had in Poland as Vaad Arabah Artzot had a state within the state).
So, if you will invite government to suppress speech against us, then it will surely end up with suppressing our speech. We will be better off if we use the freedoms this country grants us to build a community with beautiful speech and actions between each other.
good observation. Here is a possible answer;
We often come here to discuss things we would not discuss with our neighbors in shul. Who wants to get into a daas Torah fight with the gabbay?!
Republican Jews can express themselves in shuls, while Dem Jews feel like marranos and come here to express themselves. So, let’s have rachmonus and let them be.CTL > I was quite specific about the NY DA, etc.
> You conflate this with a story about Merrick Garland who is a Federal official.The story mentions a “leak” to NYT that explained what Biden wants. Anyone who is interested in a political promotion could now act accordingly.
Just as a thought experiment, read the leaked article as it is a personally written by the President about what he expects from prosecutors. There is a good chance you will consider such an article inappropriate. How is it different when the article is intentionally leaked to the reporters?coffee > Ask Sam Klein
exactly, I just did.If increasing number of people increases choices, then the UN secretary will be the biggest tzaddik.
over long term, American and European systems are pretty competitive
Agree w/ Simcha – these matters are very complicated. All we can do is daven for Hashem to provide wisdom to the decision-makers and maintain unity without undermining their standing with demonstration for any of the preferred positions leading to headlines “Bibi is changing decision under pressure from XYZ”. Gov has way better negotiating position when they can say to pressing friends – all Israelis/Jews support the government policy, so you can’t pressure us into a different policy.
Any significance that 34 charges were summed up after 34 days of OMER? And the 34th day of omer itself was a MEMORIAL day in USA?
indeed, one of the Litvishe Rebbeim of the previous generation called some of the “litvishe” yeshivos – as litvishe teachers of Hungarian students. By now, it is Hungarian teachers teaching Hungarian students zecher l’Lita…
Btw, I am not sure why you spell them/us with F. Litvaks are mispronouncing Sh, not V! According to R Twersky, two Yidden in 1920s were negotiating a border between Russia and Lithuania (representing corresponding countries). They thought of going thru shtetls and asking them to recite Shir Hashirim. The ones that say “Sir haSirim aser leSlomo” would belong to Lithuania, the rest to Russia. (Maybe we need 2 people like that for Russia-Ukraine border now).
to segue into learning: this is a good moment to learn what is (and in this case IS NOT) a kosher witness. From Jewish POV, defense should all the right things – how much the witness was lying, including to the jury itself. If it were a beis din, they would say “enough, enough” after 2-3 examples and dismissed the witness.
Chaim,
I am not sure tuition vouchers should be based on income at all. You want the middle/upper class working community to afford the schools also. I know a number of families who would choose a Jewish school if it were more affordable (and they do when granted a scholarship).American precedent is social security: FDR on purpose started it as a universal program rather than just for poor to keep it popular.
not a peace plan, an election plan.
Yasher Koach! This is a great initiative – essentially a voucher system for Jewish schools, with money following students. If this is successful, hopefully, the subsidy will incrase. I heard Seattle also has a subsidy system. And, of course, some red states have state vouchers already.
mazal tov again. I don’t think you have anything to be ashamed of with your current name.
Chaim,
American founders created a system that tried to take into account human frailties and make it work around dangers of both despotism and lawless anarchy. At previous times, democracy was not a discredited word: ancients tried it in Greece and Rome and it was eventually supplanted by “benevolent” Kings, who were expected to be responsible with the people that “belonged” to them, similar to how every balabos takes care of things inside his house for his own sake. Letting unruly masses to run the country was considered insane. Two attempts were made simultaneously: France and USA. French experiment ran indeed insane very quickly, leading to mass lawful and unlawful murder of lots of people, both from old regime and between revolutionaries themselves. It did work out in a long term. American experiment ran surprisingly better and USA has 250 years of elections, interrupted just once by a civil war period. Compare it with the history of European countries and all the wars and revolutions they generated.So, there is clearly something done right in this country. Does it mean that courts and free speech rules are perfect? of course not. But it would make sense to learn first about how they developed in history. If you would like a kosher perspective on history. I would recommend Rabbi Berel Wein. I see that he has a book “The Golden Land: The Jewish Experience in the United States and Canada” also recordings on Torah downloads, etc.
R Yochanan b Zakkai was not sure till the end of his days whether he was right when he asked Vespasian for a little, and succeeded, or maybe he could have asked for more. Somehow he did not trust his daas Torah …
on the other hand, when rabbi Yehoshua ben Korcha calls (his student?) R Eliezer “vinegar ben wine” for becoming a Roman collaborator searching for Jewish bandits, R Eliezer tries to defend himself. But when a simple person says the same thing, R Eliezer sends the guards on him – so disrespect to daas Torah might be dangerous…. but then R Eliezer himself takes yissurim upon himself till his death because of this episode, despite others assuring him that his “gut judgment” was correct and the man was deserving and he himself tested his fat to prove that he is right. So, he also was not sure of his own daas Torah … not an easy question.
We have several posters saying here that even if they do not support T, they are not happy with the trial outcome. This is really good news. Besides immediate effects on the election, these events are dangerous as they might harden people’s views and make them hate each other more.
CTL > Do I want him incarcerated? NO
If Biden lost CTL, he lost the moderate wing of D party. He also lost all the Black “formerly incarcerated” vote. T may not have best legal council, but B does not have best political council.
> you ascribe far to much power to Biden. He does not control
WSJ editorial discusses this issue and mentions an April 2022 planted article in NYT that proclaimed Biden’s wants to the world, and any well-connected prosecutor will understand what it means.
Quote: The attorney general’s deliberative approach has come to frustrate Democratic allies of the White House and, at times, President Biden himself. As recently as late last year, Mr. Biden confided to his inner circle that he believed former President Donald J. Trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted, according to two people familiar with his comments. And while the president has never communicated his frustrations directly to Mr. Garland, he has said privately that he wanted Mr. Garland to act less like a ponderous judge and more like a prosecutor who is willing to take decisive action over the events of Jan. 6.
OK, so propose a law that sends to the Army those who R’L deserve kares – mechalal shabbat, worship AZ, eat blood, eat chametz on Pesach,, arayos, eat chelev, eat on YK, as well as I presume arba misos Beis din: bestiality/homosexuality/not listening to parents.
I would add specifically that geneiva is not sufficient, you will still be protecting Am Yisroel thru your learning as long as your levush is appropriate.
yid, thanks for bringing this quote, hope you mis-represented it by mistake and not on purpose.
This is a quote from RYBS eulogy for R Heller. He is using “modern Orthodoxy” (note my capitalization) exactly the way I use it above: a modern state of “orthodoxy” in general – that I guess RYBS is trying to improve and bring it back to the old ideals. Here is the quote in the context, so you can judge by yourself:
As long as Rav Hayyim was with us, among us, there existed a strong tie between us and earlier generations. . . . When I visited him at home, on the West Side of Manhattan, with its congeries of bustling, hollow, Jewish life; with its synagogues, societies, clubs, and their auxiliaries, I always felt as if I were entering another world, as if I had breached some border separating two realms of being—the domain of earlier generations, of Shakh, Taz, and Gra, and that of **** modern Orthodoxy ***** , with its snipped wings and rootlessness, unable to fathom the depths of religious experience. . . . Moved by old, forgotten tales, he chuckled and sorrowed with his heroes. Images he described came to life, pushed their way into his modest room. Do you know where this power came from? Not from any art of speech or imagery! He never used a metaphor. He lived the events he recounted. He himself belonged to those generations, whose greatness he transmitted to us. . . . O he was a remnant of the ancient scribes.
On eyn Yaakov, it is not simpler than halakha. I think Gemora usually lists accomplishments in the order of : baalei chumash, mishna, halakha, agadah, in this order…
Sechel, you ask 2 good questions: gemora before pshat, and halakha v agadah.
On first, I already explained ^ that many modern people need to be able to reason at the same high level they know secular science. Also, my Lakewood rebbe explained Rambam similarly: 1/3 division means you need to finish tanach, Mishnah/halakha, gemora/reasoning at the same time, which means gemora should take most of the time
Ok, so propose a law that anyone who is mechalel major mitzvos – shabbos, arayos, geneiva, spilling blood by insulting people, standing idle by his brother’s blood, etc should be drafted. This should get majority of the knesses behind it.
Thursday 1310 EST after eating a free lunch.
Jackk, according to polls I saw, way more people feel better about t administration than b. You ate entitled to your own opinions but not to your own polls.
All orthodoxy is modern. Rambam was modern, Mishna was modern, 10 commandments were modern – each of these were modern in their times. Stop bashing other people for no reason. If you must, at least find a good reason.
smerel> Today a similar speech on July 4th from a major gadol would be unthinkable.
Maybe you can just post R Moshe’s words. They should be operative unless later poskim contradict it explicitly, I think – and it is not out of question .. for example, praises of Germany by some Yakki gedolim did not age well. Look at R Shimon b Yochai who refused to “celebrate” any of Roman achievements, while his son, R Eliezer found it possible to work as a detective for the Romans.
Maybe because most Yidden are not in kesher with civil war origins of the day … we have schools open on the day, I am not mentioning this to coworkers
Re: mashgiach. So those here who sucked us into endless discussions about talmidei chachamim requiring exemptions do not agree with the esteemed rav, who clearly articulates that this is a social position for the whole charedi community.
Ujm, Sorry, didn’t reply to your post before. On those who walk bareheaded, I am all for helping them out and I am all for organizations and individuals who help them. I don’t think berating them would work.
As for fedora, my family minhag is to dress up like respectful members of current society, so I have no problem with others doing the same. My great greatzeidi dressed like a Vienna businessman, and I dress as a Midwestern businessman and it is all fine.
Akuperma > capitulation (surrender, being chased out like a scared dog with his tail between his legs) from Afghanistan led to both the Iranian sponsored Hamas attack on Oct. 7, as well as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
I agree, except the order of events, hamas coming last. What is most sad is apparent lack of introspection, doubling down on the same failing approaches. Americans were never strong on foresight, but they generally “do the right thing after exhausting all other options “. In this case, nothing short of losing election will change their attitude. This might work out in a long term, but too late for do many lives lost and strategic losses.
Yechiell, President Biden and his team definitely want to do good, but they are limited by their lack of intellectual abilities and their desire to do well, not just good. They sometimes succeed in battles against other politicians, passing laws distributing money according to their desires, but they have less success when confronting smart enemies, thus mostly failures in international affairs. They can’t even fashion money giveaways to their supporters to avoid obvious rulings from the Supreme Court. Compare complexity of Obama care with straightforward message of student loan forgiveness, there is no way that even peace-loving justice could interpret it as tax or something… so should we give them credit for good intentions and whatever good they were able under those intentions? Yes. But at the same time, we need to admit that they can’t acknowledge failures of their theories towards Chinese/Russians/Iranians/Talibs/inflation/natural gas ….
> . Yes those ppl should not have gone to meron as it is a sakana but to push an old man
Not commenting on your otherwise vile language, and not condoning police behavior also, but mi tzad hadin, a man putting himself in sakana gets malkus and that is what he got min hashamayim, and putting others, police, in the same makom sakana is really a rotzeach and probably loses protection min hashamayim, so he should accept the yisurin he suffered like r Eliezer did after he led to an arrest and murder of a yid, who turned out to be deserving the punishment.
I didn’t know ywn started putting party ads as regular articles.
Do such ads pay more than regular ones?Speaking of lag bomer, I am not sure whether we are achieving any tikkun for the hesronos or akivas students by not shaving for about 24 extra days, 1 per thousand? Maybe, instead or in addition, we should accept upon ourselves to be respectful to other opinions for whole 49 days?
Interesting mention of opposition to daf yomi based on more traditional strictures, like hevros tehilim/mishnayim/etc
It seems that pro-daf rabonim (not just R Shapiro, but those before and those who followed) responded to the needs of emerging modern Yid who is exposed to newspapers/philosophy/literature/techology/science, while those against were guarding the innocent balabatim. So, both might have been right for different countries and communities. This is similar how R Salanter marveled at shiurim in Germany where ladies showed up to listen. He said – if I were to do this in Lita, I’ll be kicked out.
sechel > Who says one should skip all the hachanos, and just say words with minimal kavanah in order to beet chatzos?
Beating chatzos does not sound like a high bar, and I don’t mean beet salad bar. But by that thinking, why not wait till tomorrow,
maybe you’ll have a better kavona then? I would rather accept an explanation that Chabad House visitors will be more comfortable waking up late or that a town needs a late minyan for anyone whose kavona woke up by chatzos or has a hangover. Or, as one Chabadnik told me (he started before hatzos but dragged the process well past) – “who knows where are these guys are going to go if I don’t keep them here.”Arso > The word idiot may indeed come from the Greek equivalent, but when it’s used by Chazal it doesn’t mean idiot.
Greek idiots seems to be similar to Hebrew amei haaretz – citizens, but not being active in politics and possibly lacking manners. So kohen idiot was proper greek borrowing.
Moving to Latin, it was more on uneducated and lacking derech eretz, and French & English made idiots what they are today.
Btw do NOT google for kohen idiot, it brings up a non-kosher witness at a current trial, R’L
How about going an extra kilometer and avoid having mishtara deployed to confront you when they have an enemy to fight or maybe get a day off… it is the least you can do especially if you claim learning full time (except when going places you should not)
Sechel, Rambam writes for those who have limited capacity to process information, and he suggests his sefer. I do agree that there is audience for this in our times. At the same time, we have now lots of people who are capable of processing complex information in secular context and they can and should access Torah at the same level. Some of such modern sources are somewhat partial to a specific approach to modernity, whether yeshivish, modernish, zionist or chabad perspective. Learning gemora directly gives background that is less biased. And daf ensures that you get all pages, not selected by someone
sechel > nd even if you dont understand everything, you can go further in rambam
WADR to Rambam, (Bavli) Gemora learning teaches how to deal with incomplete and contradictory information, so it might prepare you better to CR arguments
The sentiment that “baal batim” should learn something simple is somewhat outdated, at least does not apply to everyone. We discussed this in threads on ladies learning Gemora. Kal vehomer, this applies to men.
Some of the “BB” in our days are lawyers, doctors, engineers, politicians … They (a) have access to sophisticated information about other aspects of life (b) need to know how to answer numerous apikoiresim they encounter (c) are capable of learning complex things. It is probably obvious that they should not start with Daf of course, but rather first learn how to learn slower and in depth.
Another aspect – Gemora is a tool to be applied to current environment. Given how different current social and business environment is from the one in Gemora, learned BBim are the ones who can help apply Gemora method to current times, including being advisors to poskim or local Rabbis on issues that require expertise in medicine/science/business/psychology. For example, myu local hareidy rabanut reached out to a local charedi epidemiologist when covid started and his zooms were a hit with the charedi public as they could relate to him. Similarly, R Soloveichik justifies (b’dieved, in his words) opening YU Medical school, saying that we need doctors who are at least exposed to Yiddishkeit and can better relate to observant patients.