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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 …
To answer your question about army specifically –
I am not in that position, not living there, but I am pretty much sure this is how army works everywhere. You have same calculus as everyone else.I personally would probably not encourage my kids to play heroes and teach them some military skills that will keep them away from the most dangerous jobs. Maybe cyber, intelligence, drones, navy, engineering, cooks. And I would teach them how to behave in the face of nisayonos and even try to influence others with your behavior. Try the same and you’ll probably see risks drastically reduced.
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.
Katan, I am specifically addressing the shevua, citing halachik mechanism on how to do hatara.
I am not sure what is your beef with Hertzl, who grew up in non-religious neolog family in the culture of assimilation, that he eventually rejected, he was married to a Jew and did not convert. Would you do better than that were you born there?
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).
Abba, you describe that all learning is in order to get a draft exemption? Is it that bad?
somejew > The core ideology of zionism is alive and well, and it is a kefira that is at the core of the heretical teachings of RZ
you are trying to pull fast one.:
– Z is bad because it is anti-religious
– Z is still popular, because RZ is an extension of Z
– RZ is bad because it has Z in the name, even if it is not anti-religiousSqRoot, thanks for reminding us of this gemora. Any meforshim there?
yankel, give me an example of a charedi-run city that does not rely on subsidies?
not sure about statistics in Israel, but select some in US and check out census statistics on federal programs. I did not do this analysis yet because I am scared, so please do.
> maybe you can offer some suggestions to the IDF on how to train their soldiers better
It seems to be an unfortunate fact that all armies lose readiness during peace times, spending their resources on nonsense. You can see how tech is developing during each war, including very recent ones – suddenly, when confronted with reality, things start changing. But while every avoidable death is a tragedy, I think Israeli army is performing about as expected if not higher on the ground in this difficult war.
Also, there is a difference between army and high-tech: army requires short-term training of a large number of recruits. This was done on large scale many times. US did not have an army to speak of when entering either WW1 and WW2. Modern high-tech (iron dome and such) are not just static hardware that can be inherited from the secular state. It requires a lot of efforts of different technology and military experts to keep it working right in the face of changes. You might be able to keep the nukes, but air defence and offence will not come without trained experts and culture.
YYA> Ministry of Sports and Culture
Presuming that non-charedim are mostly the earners, we had to admit that they can subsidize whatever entertainment they prefer.
re: demographics.
It is an interesting topic. It seems that charedim have almost 7 kids, non-charedi dattim 4+, masorti 3, chilonim 2.1. All except chilonim above Arab birthrate and pretty high by Western standards. So, it is easy to see a religious Israeli government with all pro-religious group together in the near future.So, that will be the turning point in Israeli politics: hopefully, charedim will come out of self-imposed midbar and join universities and the army. Or they may be so much overtaken by the “temporary” ideology of protection that they’ll continue demanding the right nusach in the army shuls. It will take strong leadership to declare the end of the curfew and to make the move towards normal life.
Maybe we can split the difference by doing community hataras nedorim?
It is pretty simple: when we did 3 shevuos – did we envision a country millions people and animals living in EY with their own elected government, with so many people learning Torah and davening? Probably not, so that suffices for hataras nedorim.
> the same people that argue that “Zionism is surviving
I think posters on this forum agree that Z as a pure anti-religious ideology did not survive, but some of the things they achieved – did. As Ponevezh rav said to the Histadrut construction workers – I believe that this building will eventually be a yeshiva. But they built the building.
Forget about the pilpul. Look at a bigger picture:
The whole premise that the core of our religion is not to do physical actions to survive borders on herecy.
Whatever sources for bitachon you have from the Tanach, it is obvious that Tanach describes numerous actions taken by gedolei israel, starting from avos, Moshe, etc. So, your claim is exclusively based on the gemora about 3 shevuos. So, like some other religions, you are claiming that Jewish bris changed at about time of the 2nd churban that we are now ossur to deal with things we used to do before.
Note that I am not against shevuos-based realpolitik that Jews practiced over centuries when it was necessary. And I also understand gedolim a 100 years ago who had to consider dangers of assimilation and secularism involved, and having Jewish settlement in EY as a possibility. But you can really spend your resources better but trying to learn how to deal with current reality, instead of denying it.
> Czarist Russian army also had a Chareidi/Jewish division.
I think you are a little off. Russia had cantons – schools for children that were happed before the recruitment age and put into these schools for russification before they go to the actual army for 25 years. Those who survived and actually returned to the Jewish communities were having sad life, not knowing what to do in shul, having no good skills and often difficult middos that they picked up in the army. Chofetz Chaim mentions someone who was off and others were dismissive of the person and Ch Ch pointing out what this person went through. Ch Ch also wrote a sefer for these Jews – mahane Isroel.
R Berl Wein ZT’L mentions that he was once saw a non-Jewishly dressed man entering a beis midrash. Berl’s father interrupted the shiur, got up and warmly greated this person who did not look like a Talmid Chochom. He later explained to the kid that this was a former cantonist that deserves respect for simply coming back as a Jew.
Things were a little better in the Polish Army, Ch Ch organized help, including kosher food for Jews in the Army and it was seemingly possible to have a dialog with the commanders. There is a large number of Jews among tens of thousands of officers of the Polish army that were mass murdered by Soviets in Katyn during WW2, including chief Rabbi of the army.
yes, the headline above – that seems to correspond to the context – mentions “Lomdei Torah”, while I understand that the Rav is against any chareidi-affiliated person to not go to the army. Can someone please explain why there is the difference between public statements and the actual position?
I would think that those who support this position would be even more bothered by the difference and have an explanation for me.
anon > , can we even have a state controlled by frum Jews?
It is a sad fact that you are asking this question. If Torah gives us a guideline for life and gemora is full of discussions how to have yashar courts and government, then we should be able to demonstrate those qualities when in public life. The fact that you are not sure is a sign that there are some hesronos in the Torah we learn & practice.
YYA> Mizrachi .. They had their reasons for not fighting, and some of them reverberate down to today’s disputes.
My understanding was that Mizrachi tried to influence from within the coalition, but in certain times tried “fighting” by quitting. Both are called “fighting” in my book.
> Actually, various forms of “national service” were suggested at different points in the draft saga over the years. Sometimes tacit deals were put together,
I am seeing letters signed by Rabbonim that talk exclusively about opposing something. Is it that there is other activity behind the scenes? Possibly. But the fact that gedolim are not able to speak publicly about any such activity speaks about where the community is holding.
There are now announcements for a world-wide day of protests. I challenge you and others to offer something conciliatory at these protests. If you can’t say brocha for the chayalim, maybe start by saying tehilim but mention that these tehilim are for chayalim/shevuyim/etc
A more optimistic example are Baltic countries – US did not recognize Soviet occupation from 1945 to 1990 – until it ended. And so did most of the population.
Also, Poles kept hopes for their state from 1790 to 1920.
it is what generates clicks maybe? I think when a certain outrageous position is expressed, it is ok to respond a couple of times, but maybe stop otherwise and have more interesting discussions.
Mabe it is a psychological thing that you feel no need to respond to a reasonable post, but feel a need to respond to an outrage. Is it avak anger?
Train yourself to get dopamin from a good kashah instead of a provocative statement.yankel,
Maybe I was too brief. I pointed to the doctors to suggest that your argument is not consistent within itself. That is, if both losing religion and dealing with sicknesses is super-important over other goals, then you should approach dealing with sicknesses the same way, you are claiming to deal with a threat to religion: organize medical schools, send people to become doctors, conduct medical research. Indeed, chachomim in gemorah were interested in the medical science of their time. When learning a long gemorah in Avoda Zora discussing natural remedies, I raised the question – who is paying attention to the topic in our days? I was told that there is some charedi group in Israel that researches Indian natural remedies. Of course, this is not a true way to learn the gemorah. I hope someone will put glosses on the daf referring to modern medical recommendations on the issues that chachomim were raising. Less than that makes mockery of “learning” the sugya.But on the topic itself: Jews need to be able to live within the world. I am all for requesting the Army to have gender-segregated units – but if there is a war, then “you go with the army you have”, and you prepare in advance too.
HaLeivi, I saw DNA research showing that most Ashkenazim come from a population of a 100 men (not women), this is consistent with merchant theory.
Apparently, R Yaakov Kamenetsky on his late-life visit to Israel said that maschiach will come from R Auerbach’s yeshiva as they had top shiurim in Hebrew rather than Yiddish, making them accessible to Sephardim.
YYA, I am not sure that it is always to their benefit to switch minhagim, they then might become more “frum” than their grandparents but they lose the sense of their identity that existed in their family. A number of movements, active in teaching non-religious or problematic, presume that it is the best for those people to “join the movement”. Perhaps, the activists do not simply have knowledge to guide someone in a different tradition. A better Rav would say – we do X, your tradition does Y.
The joke supporting this theory is that chilonim typically have up to 3 children: with the third, children start outvoting parents in the family democracy, and parents cannot withstand the balagan, while religious Jews run their family as a king & queen monarchy …
Whole world is studying now how to increase number of children, with decrease caused by urbanization and affluency. It seems that economic policies – paying/reducing taxes for extra children, free kindergartens are not helping … maybe the best way would be for religious Jews to show the rest the beauty of having children and raising family. Invite someone for a shabbos meal, maybe.
There are also non-charedi religious families that might not reach into double-digits but are still way above 2.
And a swe started discussing in another thread, the challenge is how would a charedi community transform from a minority that complains to a majority that governs. I presume this will require a changing mindset with large number of people starting going into important jobs and the army. Alternatively, the country can discover oil or specialize in diamonds, and then pay guest workers and contract army like some rich Arabs do.
jdb, great post.
please clarify:
so your mashgiach is saying that you don’t need to wait for the wife to actually say that she needs more income, you can, and should, observe it yourself without her saying it?
and related question – could you also try to anticipate this happening, a couple of years in advance?there is an opinion that standing/sitting relates to who you are addressing: Hashem or congregation. Thus shome esre standing, shma sitting.
there are other considerations:
– standing near an open window might be stealing fresh air from others (Rav Salanter)
– sitting in a place you are not a regular of, might be taking a makom kavua from someone. (AAQ). But I have some support: I came to a place that I visit sometimes and wanted to take my usual standing place. (according to above). To my “annoyance”,, the standing place was already taken – by a chassidishe tzaddik from further away place. He was apparently holding by both my shita on not taking makom kavua and also by coming early.Oh, no, Chaim Vital is haggada, not to be taken seriously
/sYya, 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.Not sure, what is the right thread, but I’d like to bring some halachik sources to support the idea that a religious community should behave so that other Jews – and non-Jews – be favorable to them.
Rambam sefer hamtzvos, neg 63:
category of hillul Hashem: a person known for his high level, who performs an act that regular people (hahamon) perceive as an aveira, … even though his action is mutar, it is hillul Hashem.also hilchos Yesodei Torah 5:11 adam gadol in Torah … and hasidut that briyut (this includes non-Jews, I presume) is suspicious, even if it is not an aveirah, it is hillul Hashem.
I understand this establishes a requirement to behave in a way that normal people outside of your community see your behavior as yashar. For example, maybe run and establish a verifiable system with fingerprinting and cameras so that people could see how long bochurim are learning. Maybe even make them hear some learning, that would not hurt too!
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.
yankel, I understand your argument, but they are not 100% evident for everyone.
1) 50-year-old policy by Ben Gurion was a political arrangement. He did not, and could not, bind later governments. And as discussed it (1) applied to true learners, (2) number of learners was small. It was working for you, but evidently not for others, who applied political pressure.
2) Tal law apparently did not achieve results that were expected from it. It was a great opportunity to show cooperation, but instead it seems that it was abused. Without that, or at least, without your opponents saying that, it would not have been changed – politically.
And you are free to apply political pressure to clarify laws about SC – and you will be successful when you will have super-majority of the country on your side. And, as I mentioned before, the best way to get sympathy from other groups is to cooperate with them.
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> When Moslem persecution in Bavel, and increasing danger traveling, made that system end, the local Yeshivos took over.
it has also something to do with what happened within the muslim empire – at some point, it allowed easy travel to Bavel, and later on, connections were severed. I don’t recall details right now.
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.
ZSK > It’s more trying to fit in with the outside culture than anything else.
Sephardim are very much keen on blending with the culture. So, in Arab countries, they dressed like Arabs. Now, when they decided they belong to the charedim, they started dressing like them. It is somewhat ironic – as the charedi garb is the statement of sticking out (after Poles stopped wearing that style), so Sephardim are wearing same but with a totally opposite kavanah: to blend in.
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.
you need to stop and think again what you are doing – when you start comparing how your misbehavior is treated comparing with others like that, and when your headlines copy hamas propaganda
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.
What unites multiple posters who criticize Israel’s policies, both those who are repeating same sentences over & over and even those who engage in the dialog – their criticism is totally without responsibility. It is up to the government/army to provide everything they’ll find acceptable, and they criticize.
They should act on their beliefs, create their fully independent, clearly unsubsidized community, whether in Israel, in EY outside of the Medinah, in Uganda and provide a shining example of how proper courts work, proper politics happen, proper army is organized, Last times Jews had reasonable selg-governance was in Poland – vaad arba artzos 200+ years ago. Israeli politics and US tight communities are a good practice but we need better orepration to self-govern when Moschiach comes
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> whoever is having kids in Israel and raising them is not doing so because of government subsidies, so the government is left with no leverage left there, and little credit.
I have $100 and you give me another $10. I still owe you $10 and gratitude.
> You don’t get it. We want a “Chareidi” majority.
Not sure you said ot right, but this attitude turns off all of us who are observant but do not choose to follow your leaders.
> The Chiloni government officials are just overflowing with Chochma and Middos like a broken toilet…
Someone runs the financial system and runs airplanes and makes those pagers explode. All of that requires chochma and judgment.
And multitudes of people working together and having advanced education in their fields.
Some of that requires decades of preparation. If you plan for the charedi army in, say, 30 years, you need to send enough high school
students to study physics right now.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.
YYA > The list of Sephardi Acharonim you haven’t heard of at all is as long as an encyclopedic Teshuvah in Yabia Omer…
Right, that is what I meant – this is whom Sephardim tend to quote. These two. You hear way more from a similar group of Ashkenazim.
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.
> can you now answer my question as to what this matters?
I presume this was a reference to a claim that without evilZs, Jews in EY would happily live in a British protectorate. I think this just shows that some arguments get repeated from letters written 100 years ago. It would be a reasonable assumption that Brits would rule EY – at least as reasonable as the idea that going to US and EY is more risky than living in traditional communities near Commie Russia and German Nazis. This was based on the experience of surviving WW1 – it was horrible but did not affect masses (outside of USSR that closed itself after that). But now in the hindsight, we see that British protectorate was not going to happen, but Hafetz Assad protectorate was a possibility. So, even if you were so cruel as disregard what will happen with all those potential Israelis, this proposition does not seem to make any sense.
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.
I think somejew is involved in his spiritual battles with Herzl. Could you come back to the earth and deal with simple things.
People live in a country that has a legitimate government. The government institutes a draft. In what other country, would you create disturbances to protest that? Jews were serving in Austrian and Russian empires, in democratic Poland and USA … Some found ways to avoid service, but I am not aware of Jews demanding exemptions based on their Torah learning or even just being a part of a community that values Torah learning. And when Jews were drafted into those armies, Chofetz Chaim and others were trying to help them any way they could – by providing kosher food, spiritual help, etc.How is the current case different? The only difference I see is that Israelis are more sensitive to the observant Jews than Russian Czar and Polish Sejm. So, you are exploiting their positive attitude to blame them for not providing sufficient kashrus in the army.
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
A long list indeed, but in last couple of centuries, Sephardim mostly quote Ben ish Hai and r Ovadia Yosef. Maybe rav’s own teacher or uncle and a couple of mekubalim. Ashkenazi list is way longer. Maybe because we disagree with each other more.