Always_Ask_Questions

YYA, NP,
I think you are both right – Steipler both gently refuses their calls, and as gently but firmly says that misuse of Torah is forbidden.

> Democracy is not a Jewish concept

Well, majority of the CR posters endorse this – ergo …

YYA> according to the letter of the law, there are 55,000 bochurim who are supposed to be arrested

nothing to be proud of. There are millions of people who cheat on taxes or in business, or break immigration, driving and parking regulations. Police arrests enough of them or give them tickets to keep the problem limited.

If you ask me – I would give them a Torah test and start from the ones who fail the test.
Those standing on the building during demonstration get two points off – risking their life and trespassing private property.
Those on top of the gas station – 3 points off. + Endangering others via a possible explosion.
If they were smoking – one more point off.

NP> This is true even if there would be a small number of very competent engineers who disagree.

This is a legit question. I understand that when we lack a Sanhedrin, we are not obligated to follow the majority. In this case, I and many others decided to follow a shita different from you. Hopefully, we did it with intellectual integrity, not just because we enjoy kulos of a particular school. [the difference between me and others with same shitah is that many others do not bother to have discussions on YWN, and enjoy talking between each other. I am just happened to be a person who likes to hear from different sides directly].

Note also gemora avoda zara that explains the difference between sakanah and tumah. In your case of sakanah, you might need to follow majority. In many cases, you may want to follow the most conservative engineer. How well rabbis understood these halochos was revealed during first days of Covid. Not counting rabbis who ignored it, there were several outstanding teshuvos that I heard that demonstrate how a Talmid Chochom can apply his learning to a urgent and novel issue. Here is my short list. Maybe you have other:

R Henneman: when it was forbidden to gather in the same yard, he did not allow minyanim that consist of people in nearby yards which would be legal. Not because they do not form a minyan, but because of moris ayn – a passerby may not appreciate the minute detail, conclude that Jews violate the order, and then an Yid in the ER will not be given a ventilator.

R Mayer Twersky: Rambam says to consult a doctor and follow his instructions. Many Rabbonim followed this to a letter. Some invited frum or Jewish doctors or epidemiologists to consult. R Twersky noted that due to a high uncertainty, several doctors need to be consulted and the most conservative opinion should be followed. This is right from the book on robust statistics!

R Willig: on a question whether camps should refund tuition: Do your best right now. We are busy with dinei nefoshos, we will deal with dinei mamonos after the emergency.

YYA> The Gedolei Hador know all the Chazals that you quote,

we are mixing up themes here – another poster did not like my posts, I’ve never get any complaints from the gedolim about my posts (unless one of them is posting here anonymously to enjoy an honest back-and-forth with yungelite without flattery, and I doubt that).

IRL, I might have said something out-of-line in front of some Rabonim and they either (unexpectedly) agreed or laughed with me or expressed disagreement. Did not call me “naive” or “sofek mezid” though. The worst was probably when I tried jokingly flatter R Steinsaltz with an obscure literary reference and my tongue worked faster than my brain and it turned out an insulting reference. He understood what I said faster than I did and laughed whole-heartedly. I have only one excuse – he made a pun on my name earlier on 🙂

this is “nullification of democracy” when both sides reject the others as legitimate. This is not a good siman.

I don’t want to waste time psychoanalyzing AG, I am sure there are better places to do that. I am worrying on our side. Maybe now when “the state” took down a couple of people you don’t like an who might be corrupt – could you in return ask people to stop saying “arrested for learning Torah”? I am not asking going whole way to facts, maybe something in between – a learner arrested for not responding to a notice to appear while following rosh yeshiva’s instructions and while visiting parents.

YYA, sounds like an interesting book. I think it says similar things to what many posters are saying here: that there were religious people who participated in the settlement. If you don’t want to call them religious zionists, but call them haredim who arrived to dig wells, shoin.

> 8. The secular settlements were dependent on financial support from Jews abroad, no less than the “Old Yishuv” was. (The Kibbutz Movement was never a financial success story

Indeed. According to research I saw – when Sochnut centralized donor funds and re-directed them to kbibutzim in 1920-30s, this decreased development of manufacturing in Tel Aviv area [kibutzim were losing money, while manufacturing was profitable], leading to less German Jews deciding to come until it was too late. To be totally fair, acquisition of land enabled creating the state and provide physical protection beyond “city states” of Yerushalaim and Tel-Aviv.

YYA> If ALL the Gedolim agree wall to wall on something

I have a cute “mathematical” proof here.

Axiom: when all gedolim of one generation gather on one street of Yerushalaim and daven together, Moschiach will come [anybody knows the gemora page? It might be in Sanhedrin. I heard it from R Steinsaltz where he explained it tongue-in-cheek: we do not understand this gemora right – it is only when Moschiach comes, all gedolim will gather together …]

Fact “all gedolim” according to you gathered together. Moschiach seemingly did not come. Ergo, not all gedolim came.
QED

Another possible explanation – they gathered, but did not daven together. I am told that they decided to have tehilim instead of speeches, because there was no one agreed speech, as groups vary widely in the political terms.

PS One of my kids was asked to “daven to support gedolim” and say tehilim at the time of the march. Most kids were clueless what this was about, my kid was not brave enough/did not think it is appropriate to leave the room. Instead, he said tehilim for the refuah shleimah of hostages. Tehilim unite us …

YYA> If ALL the Gedolim

a true scotsman argument. The closer it is to our times, the harder it is to judge. So, I was looking as far as we can when the “modern” issues were already discussed. This is what often discuss here – first half of 20th century. I find the argument that R Kook, R Soloveichik, Lubavitcher Rebbe are as much talmidei chachomim as others of that generation. There is also enough evidence that at least some of more universally recognized talmidei chachomim, like R Feinstein, recognized the above. We had discussions here. I think we agree on this.

If they all were to sit in a Sanhedrin, they might be bound by rules of majority. Whatever the sins of our generations are, we do not have such a body. Thus, any of these T’Ch are a legitimate opinion. It is, of course, very tempting to fake “daas Torah” and simply follow a gadol that corresponds to your liking or who supports whatever you are doing. It is a difficult question for everyone. Some people are more self-aware than others in this …

For me, personally, I always suspected that I have a “modernishe” bias. For that reason, I was trying to learn only classical sources, not seriously learning any modernishe seforim, although I heard some of the shitos, of course. I started reading R Soloveitchik in depth relatively recently and found that many conclusions I came to are similar or parallel to his. This is not a proof that I am not biased, just a proof that I worked on my bias.

whoever brought up the letter, should pony up the date. Otherwise, it is posul like a get without a date.

YYA > . By the way, the Russian Army back then believed in Hashem in some form, prioritized the safety of their own soldiers before that of enemy civilians, and did not draft girls…

OK, OK, even as you are going overboard with Russian army caring of soldier safety … Just wanted to bring a story: I was reading a sefer that made a following point: “if the Czar would really understand the value of Torah learning, he would put a soldier with a bayonet near every learning Yid”. Here, I was turning a page and guessing that it continues “and when antisemites would come, the soldier would defend the Yid”. To my surprise, the next page said: “and when a Yid would distract from learning, the soldier will stab him with the bayonet”. That is, we are the problem, not the anti-semites. .. So, maybe time for the bayonets in yeshovos.

anonymous> RJBS was never a member of the Moetzes.

you seem to be a devote follower of aguda but never bothered to check who was in it?
See https://agudah.org/moetzes-gedolei-hatorah
Note the webpage title GEDOLEI-HATORAH

I am not sure where this discussion going. I don’t think serving is something to consider for middos development. We don’t create nisayanos for ourselves to practice. You live in a country that is in the situation where it needs an army. So, it is a necessity. There is a legit idea that talmidei chachomim do not serve.

How does this work in a democratic state where half of population disagrees, I don’t know. I see how people can disagree here. There is a gemorah in bava basra where amei haaretz wanted T’Ch to share tax burden and threatened to leave, and left – and the tax was rescinded. Gemorah does not seem to say what would happen without the miracle. I presume talmidei chachomim would have paid. So, move away from Tzahal protection and see if you deserve a miracle.

But this relates to talmidei chachamim ™. Not everyone else who is hanging around them.

Not sure if this is relevant, but something to think about: in Shevuos, I think, there is a discussion: you should buy hard-to-check items (blue color for tzitzes, maybe used cars) from a talmid chacham whose integrity you can trust. Then, the question is – would you trust his household – wife/child/servant. And the answer seems to be – you presume that they learned integrity from the T’Ch but when you see something suspicious once, the presumption is off. So, we hope that integrity rubs off, but it is not guaranteed that if you hang out around T’Ch, you’ll have same middos.

yankel, your attack on my “naivete” – do you have a point? What you see as “naive” is mu humble attempt to argue an issue from the first principles – what is it about, instead of starting with stereotypes and slogans from any of the groups. It is a well-regarded approach, practiced by Avraham (Rambam’s version) and Socrates. If you would like to have your objections, gezunte heig – and you often do – byt simply ranting at me because I am not using cliches dear to your ear is silly and unbecoming.

yankel> the intent of the left wing crooks who sit on the plum chairs in the court rooms and legal offices is simple

you are making it into a battle against left-wing. Look at the core problem. See discussion between Hashem and Yona about the kikayon – a simple example that Hashem cares about all humans and life… Charedim are citizens of Medinat Yisrael with an elected government where they are represented. The country has laws, elected officials. It has legitimate defence needs that are often fulfilled by something close to an open nes. You can vote and then follow the laws. If laws present challenges – you deal with them. We lived thru Persian empire, Roman empire, hoily roman empire, russian empire … we did not rebel because we were put in ghettoes, we deal with that and tried to influence the decision makers when possible. We did not cry to Hashem – we can’t learn Torah because Russian Czar is not providing us with childcare. Mittele Rebbe was learning while sitting with a baby (and got reprimanded by his father Alter Rebbe for not paying attention to the baby crying).

YYA > and start a new Moetzes

Thanks for the suggestions. That is exactly what R Soloveitchik had to do – he was in the early Moetzes and then quit to start different organizations.

Look at this debate – it is enough for one minor event (demonstration) lead to people putting away niceties and start putting statements saying that the other side is against the Torah. If you wait until your emotions subside – we seemingly had a lot of discussions to understand arguments on both sides, some valid, some not. If we are not able to continue this discussion based on one demonstration, this is not a good sign.

mycommentsforfree> doesn’t know of what Torah and Mitzvos mean
.
sadly, some participants (a minority, but quite a number of them including not just those sitting on the unfinished building but those on an explosive petrol station and on the road sign towards Mt Herzl beit kvurot) – did not learn chumash up to the mitzva of protecting the roof. They definitely should stay in yeshiva until they learn that, they are not ready for the tzahal, danger to others.

common, tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt

YYA> IDF doesn’t take the Chareidim seriously,

Then, work on being taken seriously instead of working so hard to alienated all other groups of Jews . Articulate conditions under which some of the community will do something for the country and continue discussing those conditions. You have enough politicians to do that.

Aguda sent me this: … in protest of the harassment and shocking imprisonment of lomdei Torah in Eretz Yisroel .. for the protection of lomdei Torah, and for the honor of Torah to be uplifted throughout the world.

What do I do if I think that protecting the honor of the Torah requires admitting that imprisonment of those who are not responding to army letters is not really “shocking”. And if you think that it is “shocking”, then why did you set up students for this by advising them not to respond in the first place?

I don’t think all complicated terutzim answer simcha’s point: communities that don’t feel they need to do anything for the threat from the enemies, suddenly march to protect themselves from fulfilling their civil duty. As YYA seems to admit, the language is “elevated” – “Torah” means “Yiddishkeit” and even those who don’t speak this “loshon” will use it here. Similarly, “gilui arayot” does not mean sleeping with your sister, but to the horror of being exposed to non-religious girls in the same Army unit … just request only unmarried girls in the unit …

I think we understand the fears of the community, but you should also understand that the self-serving cries of Torah using non-truthful loshon is not answering the questions people have.

YYA > hat if and when there will be a genuine operational need for Chareidim, for practical reasons, not for ideological reasons, then the IDF brass will have no choice but to sincerely engage with the Chareidim on terms acceptable to a majority of Gedolei Yisroel.

the best way to make army really need charedim is to develop desirable skills. For example, cyber or EW skills.

I have same question about the letter. It seems that the letter is from 1950s when the issue of elections was a new one. It is definitely pre-1977, because then Steipler would be mentioning a change in the government to a more positive towards religion.

Uncle > one will see the shocking reality that when there was machlokes, Klal Yisroel was defeated in war. However when there wasn’t machlokes even when they were עובדי ע”ז ר”ל they were successful and won their battles!

right. We also have generation of Bavel dealt with more leniency that the one of flood, due to their unity.

Maybe clearest is Yoma 9 – concluding that sinas hinam of BM2 was punished worse than all transgressions of BM1 … even as there was sinas hinam during BM – between leaders. So, for those who think that you can blubber online, humbly saying that we are nothing/gornisht – seemingly behavior of simple folks like us here weighs more than just between leaders.

in what sense was it an etsa and not a psak, esp if you are working under daas Torah hypothesis?

(granted, I often get such “etsa and not a psak” both from the Rav that does not believe in DT and from the one who does! 🙂

> by the way , from a klal yisrael perspective , with the benefit of hindsight , it was sound advice …

I agree, the small number of great rabonim who came to the US made a lot of difference.

Dovid > Ranked choice voting could work as intended, if the voters did their homework

this is what commies used to say (and will say again this time): communism will work except the people were not good enough.

so, in other words, as the voters do not do their homework, ranked choice does not work.

In NYC case, this seems like a rigged game – ranked choice in the primary lead to the commie Dem candidate, and lack of ranked voting in the general makes it almost impossible to unite opposition. Good thinking, NY-ers …

Overall, seems like re-running elections when nobody gets a majority is a better way.