Always_Ask_Questions

yankel> non defined ‘esav’ will take care of the land , o

nothing to be lolling about. This was a pretty reasonable position to take in 1900 – before WW1 and even in 1920s. At the time, various shades of communism were the biggest danger against the legit western governments, and some versions of zionism were a part of that in addition to being anti-religious. Arab countries were least affected by that. So, no wonder, so many people were involved in battles against those movements.

It is now, from the knowledge of WW2 events and history after, we see that the proposed path would not be feasible. Katan’s only fault is that he reads thoughts of 100 years ago without considering the events we know now. But, you see, as we asked them for what solution they are thinking about, they at least exposed what their plan was, and we can now judge the feasibility of those plans or lack thereof.

yankel> there is no source whatsoever for the court to cancel any law

if this is true, then nothing stops the knesset from ignoring them. (As some US president said during a similar confrontation with the US SC – now, let them enforce it). Apparently, Israeli laws are not that clear cut AND/OR there is no political will for the government to override the SC. That is how political systems work. Maybe this system is not perfect, and – after this experience – there will be a “judicial reform”. But, generally speaking, this is how modern democracies work – they develop a system of rules and players that contradict each other. The goal is, following Pirkei Avos, to simply not allow people from swallowing each other alive, but use peaceful arguments to resolve the issues. So, just work within the existing system, try to improve it, but don’t make accusations that delegitimize the other side and even hint on violence. Especially, if you are trying to represent a Torah-based view. We can’t use vile language.

Re: constitution. There are democratic countries with and without constitution. So, you can’t say one way or another. I do think that it helps. Constitution is not adding legitimacy to the legal system, it simply adds stability – it usually requires a bigger effort to change constitution than regular laws. In US, it is quite extreme – not only supermajorities in congress but also supermajority of states. In Russia, on the other hand, Putin can change constitution to adjust election rules any way he wants to.

Haimy, structured learning a worthy exercise, I know programs that organize that, but it is also not a substitute for personal connection – being friends, knowing families, participating in other people’s lives. It does not mean you have to go to any crazy party they have. I think this idea that we as a community will melt if we relate to our fellow Jews is a sad story.

PS Also, I am with Lubavitcher Rebbe on not using the word “kiruv”. It is somewhat presumptuous to feel that you are closer and can direct someone. (I felt this way myself and later read that LR rejected the term when it became popular).

Ysiegel, thanks for your vivid description! please post more if you can. I would say it is definitely worth trying to improve the conditions, but what you describe sounds like a reaosnably challenging way of life that a normal religious person should be able to handle. Waking up and starting marching before davening? Think of Jewish merchants in history that travelled with caravans. You get to go when they get to go. Could be with dawn. No free hour to learn? You can review Mishna by heart while you are marching. Visiting lecturer is not inspiring? Download a pre-recorded lecture by your rosh yeshiva and listen to that together with your friends. This is challenging but not the end of the world.

yankel > same with Tal law . – overturned by the same merets voters aka supreme court UNAUTHORISED to do so.

I think we all understand your opinion and political position. You just need for a second take off your political hat and put on your democratic hat – and read what ZSK is saying what the current law and political decisions are. You are free to call people to change that, but using the language that they are UNAUTHORISED is taking a step too fat for a person who values EMES. If Haaretz uses such language, that’s fine, but it is not appropriate for religious people, I think. Again, I understand that you think they went too far and you might have political ways to change that – use them.

yeshivot know the actual numbers. Maybe a yeshiva should invite a statistician to analyze what happens with the students who go or don’t go to the army and maybe come up with possible reasons – what is army doing, what is that yeshiva is not teaching enough. If such a study exist, please share the link. If it does not, please ask your Rosh Yeshiva to conduct the study – and tell us what he responded.

R Yosef is no godol, he is a _Chacham_.

and the poster who is talking this way about the Chacham who is a head of a Sepahrdi Moetzet just proves that his stand of respect of Talmidei Chachamim is not serious. He simply chose a position first and then he “respects” those Rabbis who agree with him. This is, of course, disrespect to those Rabbis also.

> so – seems like my initial impression was correct –

not sure how your logic works here, but I am glad to click on one thread that does not say “nu, mr X, when are you going to answer”. I suggest we discuss the substance of the issues. Maybe you can answer – how did R Akiva let his students onto dangerous roads where not just zionists, real ganavim and listim were travelling.

Yes, there is a heter, but there is also a place for tzniyut. Gemora Taanit talks about a very special doctor with more visits from the heavenly yeshiva than Abaye and Rava together – he had special clothes for women to wear during bloodletting, plus discounts and food for young (and thus not yet working and poor) talmidei chochomim.

Haimy > I believe that we should feel hakaras hatov to the individual soldier putting his life in danger on my behalf. We shouldn’t have hakaras hatov to the State, whose goal is Shmading Klal Yisroel.

This is a great approach. Talking about “state” is a waste of time, indeed, focus on people.

> I’m not advocating that we associate with & mingle with tinokos shenishbu.

There are limits, of course, but wouldn’t you feel for those Jews. There might be less urgency in Israel, but in US and other galut countries, those remaining non-observant Jews are on a steep path to assimilation and disappearance. I often wonder how can so many Jews walk calmly to their shuls while their brothers are being annihilated nearby.

Haimy > Gedolei Yisroel have not encouraged Mass aliya in the past or present. As Rav Avigdor Miller ZL said, if you were born here, you probably belong here.

I am all for caution and conservative policies. But, as you know, in some cases, like before WW2, this policy led to bad results. That also lead to numerous people losing their trust on chochomim (or at least claiming that this was the reason). how do you account for this, or maybe you know how did R Miller talk about this?

I think if we all stop making mods life hard by posting ad hominems and hateful comments, the level of moderation will improve. Maybe every time there is a day break, it is some mod taking a day off after reading all the posts so that we don’t have to.

> Also for record every single landlord should be scrutinized as to why the last person was thrown out.

good idea. You can usually find out through internet search who lived in an apartment (if they were renting legally there. if they were not – maybe you should not be there illegally also). So, find their names and contact them for a reference.

> The founding of the “State” was a conventional military victory

So you are suggesting that Z policies that prepared this conventional victory were logical and lead to the victory. And those who were not supporting them were working against the victory against the enemies (in other words, for the victory of sonei Isroel). In other words, all the arguments that Zs were the cause of Arab attacks need to be balanced with your opinion that they also caused those attacks to stop.

Khazar (and also Yemen Jewish state in about 10th century) is an interesting example – if this were controversial, there should be some discussion of shevuos at the time.

I think the weak spot in this discussion is that there are very limited sources on both sides – as the issue was not “hot” for centuries. So, it is worth looking at the times and halachik sources that discuss relevant issues – and if they skip over the issue of shevuos, what are the implications?

yankel> something which ALL of Israel’s defense ministers accepted (and were still accepting [!]) for fifty[!] years, was illegally overturned at the whim of seven [extreme left merets voting] individuals nicknamed judges.

You are talking about political acceptance. Israeli system has very little of stable laws that need a super-majority to overcome, like US does. So, by definition, political process can change things. Ben Gurion cannot obligate government 80 years later. BUt it can influence political debate. So, if you behave in a way that inspires other people to support your position, then your position will eventually become the law of the land. SC will not be able to stand in the way against 70-80 votes in the Knesset.

You should also study what happened under Tal law. My uneducated impression is that this was a compromise solution that had good intension of gradually bring some of the charedi community into the Army. It did not produce the result. I can’t tell whose fault is greater – army not being accepting enough, or charedim not intending to comply. But it ended in a failure and lead to backlash. And here we are.

Abba > The government forces them to declare that learning is their occupation.

I do understand the social dynamics here. Same as welfare in US “forces” some groups to not work for several generations already.

But an honest assessment is that Israeli government supports people whose occupation is Torah and earlier roshei yeshiva were imploring their students to learn at full capacity to keep that declaration honest (I brought a direct quote from Mir RY before). So, nobody is forced by the government to lie and pretend to be learners when they”d rater work (or do secretly work). I honestly don’t understand how such bizayon can come up to a mind of someone who earnestly learned Torah for a number of years.

A related mussar: one of my teachers saw a Philly chochom learning with a talmid, and a talmid brought tea to drink. They finished the blatt, and the talmid noticed that the chochom did not finish tea. Aware that you can only drink in beis midrash when you learn, the talmid suggested learning another blatt. To which the chochom retorted: I drink to learn, but I don’t learn to drink.

Abba> Do you really think The Israeli Supreme Court would allow it?

SC can be overturned by knesset – if there is large enough majority in knesset and in the streets for that. So, if you make sure that charedim are aligned with the rest of observant Jews, then, if demographics holds, such majority will happen way before 2060.

somejew,
not to change the subject, but I am trying to see whether your shitah holds across other topics, for example is there an alternative in gemora to R Akiva saying that make your shabbos as weekday but do not rely on briyut? (Pesachim 112)

I mean, we had religious kehilot for centuries. Poland had vaad arba artzos that governed Jews in the whole country, collected taxes, and did not depend on goyishe charities. According to a chacham who studied history of Jewish Poland, Jewish institutions were parallel to Polish ones in their structure, that is up to the “modern” business and government practices of the day (and Poland was very advanced until industrialization, where they were so happy to be selling Ukrainian wheat to the West where people moved to cities to work, so Poland missed the boat of growing industry themselves.

english > No gadol has ever advocated for this.

right, even Moshe Rabbeinu was refusing several times.

ZSK > equivalent of Don Quixote tilting at windmills,

this is a structural problem. If you are not following events, do not understand technology and politics, then you only see things when they hit you in the face. As R Avigdor Miller said – if something is happening in Viet Nam – learn lessons from it. Otherwise, the next lesson will be closer to home.

So, Jewish response to modernity seems to be often somewhat late. And memoirs (like mentioned here about Chevron) talk about what happened right there, without awareness of the world.

We don’t want, of course, to react to any new -ism, Judaism is conservative by design. But this conservative approach works in stable societies. When things change quickly, like yetiyat mitzrayim, hellenism, destruction of BM, and – recently every ten years … you have to do things within 18 minutes, maybe that is the lesson of Pesach …

yankel, you are asking a fair question. In fact, a close friend of mine used exactly such statistics explaining to me why he moved from a RZ to a chareidi community. I readily acknowledge success of charedim in keeping people observant. In fact, my kids went thru charedi schools.

What I am worried about that the defensive mechanism became the only factor to the degree that the community undermines major Torah values. R Soloveitchik perceived this contradiction early on in the 1940s on philosophical level: if we claim that we know Hashem’s truth and are now allowed to participate in the world affairs – how can we hide in the caves? But, beyond philosophy, you can see that in order to maintain the defense, all kind of arguments and behaviors fly in order to convince the followers not to look outside of the fence. All the books on middos and mussar get out of the window. What is the point of getting a majority in the medinah, if the resulting voters will no be Torah-true Jews.

I acknowledge that the latest call mentions other Jewish tzoros in the opening paragraph. I am glad someone in moetzes secretariat read my post!

Whoever wrote this – I am not fully satisfied though: I’d like to see explicit davening for other tzoros, not mention them and then talk about the horror of the draft. Sounds very political. Please send us another draft (pun intended).