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n0 >So he is saying that we should continue supplying Ukraine with weapons. Were you trying to misquote or not?
right, I am pointing out that Ze is misquoting, or, more likely, reading some source that misquoted. I this misquote in Iranian news, for example. I hope Ze will clarify what her sources was, and we can learn something from that.
I guess a lesson for politicians is – speak precisely so that you can not be misquoted…
> What, then, was their reason?
I am pointing out a historical loophole in the Oaths that Yidden exploited (and maybe Hashem provided) – immigration happened under Ottoman Empire and British mandate, in a large part with their agreement. So, at that point, Arab opinions were not relevant – they were subjects. So, after Brits left, Jews and Arabs were left to their devices. At this point, Oaths are not shayach as Jews are already in the land. Would you agree to that? So, whatever wisdom was in the decisions after that, this is not about oaths. Similarly, the next waves were of refugees from Europe/Arab countries/USSR, not political movements to conquer anything (and as there was a state already, oaths may not be relevant to new arrivals anyway).
In many states, you can buy electrons from a list of companies. Sounds like, people should buy ot Sun to Fri from that Yid, but shabbos from someone else.
The question is how AI uses the data. In theory, machine learning (actual current technology behind AI marketing name) is capable of generalization and coming up with new solutions not envisioned by the developers and their data. In practice, most existing applications collect so much data that when confronted with new data point, they simply need to find a closest data point in the data they collected. Not much generalization, just old-fashioned database lookup. See, for example, a self-driving car that gets further away in the rear mirror. It seems that they are still not able to collect enough data to resolve all possible situations.
Neville> don’t say the land wasn’t conquered. Denying the Israeli War for Independence is crazier than denying the moon landing.
I don’t think this is clear. Jews came and acquired land, mostly legally. So, this did not violate oaths, I think. Opposition grew over time and got to a point of confrontation that involved nearby countries and was prevented by British Mandate. When mandate was over, confrontation started. Would you say that were Jews accepted dhimmi status in 1948, war would be avoided? Not sure, nearby countries were not that religious to be interested in that. Also, Oaths do not include a need to submit when already in EY, self-defense (including preventive) sounds pretty legit. And net waves of immigration – from post-war Europe, from Arab countries, Russian Jews – all were people escaping or after prosecution, not coming as a wall. The only people coming as a wall are American Jews, maybe.
Nechemiah – do you mean Persian king? Note the difference as at the moment Persians are somewhat better than Assyrians towards Jews
RebE, unfortunately, in the passing years, Moon completely lost the atmosphere, so the next dor haflaga would need to travel further.
space race was not completely political. Capability to send satellites is equivalent to the capability to send nuclear intercontinental missiles from which there was no protection at the time. So, that lead to MAD … and to explosion of Americans learning maths. Growth was so fast that there were no qualified teachers, of course, so US ended up with generational plague of teachers who hate maths teaching next generation to hate it.
RebE, is it a 65th anniversary of your arrival? Are you celebrating day of departure from Hungary or day of Arrival?
and I presume you meant “leaving due to Soviet occupation”, not revolution itself?
We have in Sotah ~42 that if a person has too much zevel coming out, he needs to check the status of his health and fix himself before things became worse. Similarly, B Metztya 107 talks about people being responsible for effects of cold and heat and how a healthy breakfast (bread, salt, water) has so many physical and spiritual benefits. At the same time, Sotah also says that Hashem protection is limited to people who do not have aveiros…
So, you need to read BB 116 in the context of these other sources. My suggestion is that one first checks his health, then checks his aveiros, and only then go to the chochom (not simply a talmid of one). Just for the simple reason that we, R’L, have more sick people than Chachomim, so the latter need some time to learn. Do you have a better explanation that covers all sources, not just one?
R Elchonon’s statement seem to contradict all of the sources, whether requiring refuah or going to the chochom. also, requires an explanation.
The question (not mine) was not what your name mean, but why did you choose it! Do we have something to learn from appeasement if we infuse some yeshiva enthusiasm in it?!
Earliest Chaim Berlin was named so in 1914 when Mr. Cham Berlain was already an adult, so he did not attend the yeshiva. So, most likely Mr. Cham Berlain was named after the _original_ r Chaim Berlin, son of Volozhin RY. This is also cler from the fact that Cham Berlain was a Mayor (Meir) of Birmingham, while Chaim’s brother was named Meir and also partioned his name from BerLin to Bar Ilan.
Ze truth> Reverence for words – an awareness of the wonder of words, of the mystery of words – is an essential prerequisite for prayer. By the word of G-d the world was created
Well said! Is there a source for these wise words?
fuller version of Mr. Borrell on May 8 is below. But Ze did not come up with this herself. From quick search, I see for example Iranian News reported the way Ze does. Out of curiosity, which agency did you read it from?
And everybody wants peace, yes, but for the time being, unhappily, Putin is continuing the war and Ukraine has to defend. And if we don’t support Ukraine, Ukraine will fall, in a matter of days. So, yes, I would prefer to spend this money increasing the, the well-being of the people, hospitals, schools, the cities, as the mayor is asking for. But we don’t have the choice.
…
What would be your message to Vladimir Putin?**Josep Borrell
**Well, the only message that the international community and certainly the Europeans are sending is ‘Sto
p this war. Stop this war. And stop bombing Ukraine, withdraw your troops’. I know he’s not going to do it, but every time I listen to some world leader saying I want peace. Yes, OK, if you want peace, push Russia to withdraw. Push Russia to stop the war. Don’t tell me ‘Stop supporting Ukraine’. Because if I stop supporting Ukraine, certainly the war will finish soon. But how? How the war will finish. It doesn’t matter? Yes, it matters. It is the most important thing. The war cannot just finish because Ukraine is unable to defend itself and it has to surrender. And the Russian troops will be in the Polish border and Ukraine will become a second Belarus. Do you want this kind of ending for the war? No.R Bruan has some interesting expressions:
I am not going to give an answer whether one should vaccinate or not, but I want to discuss the principle of Torah … medical questions are to be determined by doctors. You are not the barometer of truth. This principle that people should debate whether we should vaccinate or not vaccinate, and everybody has an opinion on the matter, is anathema to Torah.“You are not entitled to your opinion when it comes to medical matters!
“You are not entitled to your opinion when it comes to Torah matters!
“A, It’s a waste of time and bittul Torah. And B, the Rebbe wrote to people many times when it came to medical matters, they should not research this matter. They should listen to the doctors and not involve their minds in their condition other than to listen to doctors’ instructions,” Rabbi Braun said.
That was years ago, before the “information superhighway,” Rabbi Braun said. Nowadays, with the “social media explosion, everybody has an opinion which they spread around all over.”
“Every one of these WhatsApp groups should be closed completely – they have nothing to contribute to this discussion,” he said. “You can’t even answer a question about v’sen tal umatar, you are going to decide about pikuach nefesh issues – issues of life and death?!”
And someone will say, I will find a doctor who agrees with my opinion…I will shop out for a rov who agrees with my opinion,” he said.
…
“Conspiracy theories about doctors and Rabbonim is apikorsis,” he said. “You are not an expert – you are not the one to decide if there should be an eruv or not, or to vaccinate or not.”“Furthermore, you have no ownership of your body to begin with. That’s another principle of Torah – nobody has ownership of their body. This whole concept of liberalism where I get to decide what I feel is right and you are taking away my rights to make choices for myself, is also not according to the Torah,” he said. “You are not to decide whether to get vaccinated or not – that is a flawed way of thinking.”
Ze, thanks for the link! for those who don’t want to go to the link: the article lists who the panel was: a son of a BD member, a SIL of a former BD member, a melamed, someone who runs a Hotline, a sofer, a Rabbi, and a chiropractor. This is not Beis din, or even individual members of BD.
The article quotes at the end an actual BD member: Rabbi Yosef Braun, member of the Bais Din of Crown Heights, issued a clear call to members of the community not to follow the “lone” opinions of doctors, rather the majority who recommend being vaccinated
So, we can restore the honor of CH BD, B’H.
RBZS, see here https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/headlines-breaking-stories/308078/haircuts-on-the-night-of-lag-baomer.html
Rav Moshe Feinstein zt”l, however, argued against the Mshna Brurah’s position and allowed for weddings on the night of Lag BaOmer even if it did not fall out on a Thursday night. He writes that one can rely upon the lenient view – especially for one who has not yet fulfilled the Mitzvah of Pru uRvu.Asking for higher quality of baalei teshuva rather than quantity is not an answer when he have huge swaths of Yidden literally disappearing. If you think you can do better quality, go do it, rather than criticize other efforts.
I see commonality here on several subjects – do we look at a treif object (feminism/socialism/zionism) and see the worst manifestation of it, or do we try to see possible positive elements that might be motivating some of the adherents. This is nothing new – avoda zara started as an attempt to show respect to Hashem’s messengers; some religions started/ or became popular as misguided version of Jewish religion…
I think the hiluk is in timing: when Inquisition was chasing us it was not the time to ponder their Jewish roots; when commies were sending Yidden to gulag and closing schools it was not the time to discuss with them the betterment of the world … But, as I understand Lubavicher Rebbe quoted here, one can look at person’s motivations and try to find and strengthen the right things. As one (non-L, yeshivish) Rav told me, he was sometimes asked by non-religious people whether he is a “Zionist”. He did not want to sully the good part of it, so he responds: yes, as in “hamehazir shhinaso l’tzion”.
Ze, Chaim Berlin did not live in Berlin, he was born in Volozhin and niftar in Yerushalaim, being a chief Rabbi of _Moscow_ in between, so you should be ok with that!
N0, I think you are right. Modernity is plagued by ideologies, with people creating fake theories to justify what they are doing and both Z and our esteemed poster are doing a similar thing. It is not a surprise at all, in this context, that people bitterly opposing each other, have similar features. Nazis Y’Sh rose as opposition to communists Y’Sh but created a very similar movement.
Neville,
I was pointing out possible difference between Mizrachi – religious zionists, and other movements. This is in response to a poster who claims any association w/ religious zionism would be condemned by gedolim.According to a wiki, there seems to be 4 major school networks in 1920s Poland – Aguda that Chofetz Chaim presumably advocates for, tarbut, yidishist, and mizrachi. I looked further and I see multiple references against the first 2 and none so far against mizrachi. It seems also that more than half of kids went to Polish gymnasiums that are also mentioned but less, maybe this is more about girls, not sure.
In one letter, he explains what these two schools do – they sound Jewish to parents who do not pay attention, but they tell made-up stories unrelated to what Chumash says exactly, like Lavan having pity to Yaakov and not attacking him.
I am also seeing now a photo of 1919 mizrachi teachers conference and they are dressed frummer than 1950s Lakewood.
DaMoshe, amazing story! Thanks for sharing.
RBZS, so you do know the answer. Witnessing Rav’s behavior is one of the major ways to learn the halakha. It is a wrong idea that learning have to be from books, it is preferred to learn it from T’Ch – unless you suspect that R Moshe was under duress, or it was a wedding of a princess, or R Moshe (H’V) is disqualified by the virtue of having a bas going to college, or a bas bito learning Gemora L’A.
For those who want to take their words back, know that the eye is watching and recording it at archive org periodically. This is not taking into account NSA and FBI … But I think this is why we cherish this anonymous forum that people can post things they are thinking about and can get honest (and more) feedback from fellow posters. On many issues, you would be reluctant to propose an idea to your IRL friends and they may be reluctant to point the contrarian views to you. So, if you end up realizing that you said something that was not accepted, you may change your opinion, or you may change how you argue your case.
We mentioned r Elchonon here who followed in footsteps of Chofetz Chaim in evaluating grim reality of 1900s … interestingly, Chofetz Chaim repeats in his letters again and again about danger of sending kids to wrong schools and a need to have at least one kosher cheder in every town. I saw him specifically naming two treif groups: yidiishistes and tarbut, cultural Hebrew school. I don’t see Mizrahi mentioned. Did I miss it?
Incidentally, his definition of a kosher school: learning chumash with Rashi without skipping any psukim. Double check whether your kids didn’t skip Dina or Tamar or Timna or gemora that doesn’t advise full time learning rashbi style
In Meron, you should follow minhagim of Rashbi, not of your shell. He didn’t listen to music from a box for sure
HaKatan,
1) Who made you and me judges over judges? the chief rabbi owes us to show us his internal teshuvos as much as the State of Israel owes us to show how their atom bomb (that they may or may not have) works.
2) I looked up who is on London B’D. Graduates of Gateshead, Ponevezh, Etz Chaim, former dayan in Lakewood and Monsey. What else matters? How do you not treat them with respect? It is very confusing.HaKatan, as mentioned above, previous UK CRs attending similar ceremonies. On your other point, if you have a T’Ch, you interpret his actions l tzad zchus as much as possible. In this case, this is more than one, and heads of the whole shomer-mitzvos community. It looks like you are triggered by the Z word for political reasons. Please review halochos of how Jews are supposed to live with each other from pre-Z times and then apply them, rationally, to our times.
HaKatan, we re not talking about Z word. We are talking about basic halocho – there is a shomer-mitzvos community in a large country; they have shuls, shoichets, cheders, gemora classes … they have a duly constituted beis din and Chief Rabbi (which US does not have, btw). They have a chazoko to deal with their king, they are not ignorami, they know how to ask shailos when they need to. That is all. You may disagree with them on any issue you want, but you have no right to dismiss them from the Jewish community. Torah is marashas kehilas Yaakov. You are worse than Yannai who made fun of an ignoramus, you are ignoring people who are more learnt than you are.
They are – UK is probably the closest partner and similar economy to US in the world. And I am talking solely about personal experiences here. There is definite effect of US on the world in politics, science, world wars, anti-communism, etc that might not have happened where it just a rich province of UK.
Reasonably non-controversial eruvim are available in EY and many “OOT” cities in US. So, it seems that the most “in townies” consist of either people, whose wives can’t walk to shul or park with a stroller on shabbos like everyone else or those who use possibly invalid eruvim? This is not worth the large selection of restaurants …
This seems to be a quote or paraphrase of R Elchonon about Z:
Nothing is asked of a Jew but national feeling. One who carries shekels and sings Hatikva is exempt from all the commandments of the Torah. Clearly, this approach is considered idolatrous in the eyes of Torah.This seems to be talking solely about anti-religious Z, not Mizrachi. Maybe, he takes on Mizrachi in some other place.
It is telling that HaKatan brings R Elchonon here. He was probably one of the most anti-Z gedolei of his generation. There were others who were more accommodating. Weird decision to cancel a Chief Rabbi of a large country because a website of the beis din that approved Rabbi’s decision has a reference to a movement that one of the gedolei disapproved 100 years ago. It is as if it is an impression of “frumkeit” if one finds someone else to denigrate, while there is no down-side of rejecting a large community of Yidden.
R Soloveichik analyzes what interactions with christians are appropriate. He absolutely forbids any interaction about theology – no disputes, discussions, finding common points, etc. When catholics were preparing to renounce their position that Jews are in error and recognize us as “older brother”, he advised against attending: it is their problem, if they want to teshuva gezunte heig, we do not want them to expect any concessions in return! At the same time, we are interested in bettering the world and should absolutely have a dialog related to solving the issues of the society, world peace, etc.
found a good story about BB 116, why “chochom”
Rav Shlomo Zalman smiled back at the happy father and remarked, “Chazal tell us in Bava Basra 116 that if someone has a sick person among the people of his household, he should go to the ‘chochom’ and ask that he beseech Hashem to have mercy on the sufferer. “The language here seems strange. Why not direct someone to go to a tzaddik? Why a chochom? I once heard a tongue-in-cheek answer from Rav Eliyahu Kletzkin from Lublin. He explained that if a person goes to a tzaddik and the sick man recovers, the tzaddik could mistakenly think he is a baal mofes. For this reason it adjures one to go to a chocham. A wise man understands that this came from Hashem and will not think of himself as a baal mofes!”HaKatan,
I understand your passion and I see that you can come to the conclusions quiet logically – except that I disagree with your premises. As Avira, I also witnessed multiple Rabonim of different flavors, all refer to UK beis din with CRs with appropriate respect. Maybe, you are not aware how legal process work. London Beis Din _is_ the one that determines halocho there. If they have a need to consult someone else, rest assured, they will do that without your and mine advice. If you are in London, you follow their regulations. Just because you see something on the website that you disagree with does not allow you to disrespect a choshuv beis din.As already mentioned, take pairs of countries that have similar cultures but different government for some time: North and South Korea, West and East Germany, Lithuania and Belarus, China and Taiwan, etc and compare them.
One comparison – US v. UK or Canada, probably shows that American revolution is somewhat over-rated from this point of view – societies are relatively similar.
> Properly filing taxes is more important than keeping kosher,
Chofetz Chaim writes about letzanim who somehow think that kashrus is min ha Torah, while other lavim from the torah are, in his words “eitza tova”.
Specifically, when Polish government put “stringent” requirements on the cleanliness of Mikvaos, he suggeste to lobby Polish politicians, but also to try to collect funds to make mikvas according to the new laws, no suggestions to go around the new rules.
Re: CTL,
I can’t fully discuss what exactly his upbringing was, I was not there. I do agree that pre-war and later American Jewish life was in bad state. I heard from R Nosson Sherman that his father would tell his elderly members of the shiur to come even during bad weather – “because who knows whether there will be a shiur after you”. Not clear where things were better. Chofetz Chaim letters c. 1920 from Poland talk about not sending kids to anti-religious schools, closer to 1930 he talks more and more about at least keeping Shabbos, Nida, having at least one kosher cheder per town, and even a suggestion for T’Ch to travel to different towns because maybe people who did not listen to one T’Ch would listen to another one.Did things improve by now? On one hand yes, we have big observant communities. On the other hand, “the rest” of the Jews look completely lost, as Chofetz Chaim was warning about. In 1960-90s there were a significant number of baalei teshuva, which I think is not happening to the same degree now.
Right, to a chacham – not a “tzadik” – who will “ikaper” the anger of Hashem… So, if Hashem is angry at a person (and commentaries follow this line), maybe the first thing Chacham could do is figure out what the anger is about and help defend the sick person, possibly by giving him understanding what H’ is angry about. I don’t see commentaries saying that, but this sounds like peshat.
I am not sure if “sick person in his house” is a euphemism, meaning a person himself, or an adult is responsible for the health of his household?
Shenei Luchot HaBerit mentions this in passing when talking about health, starting with that the best refuah is prevention and taking care of his health even in small matters, and, at the end, it is all b’ yadei shamaim, daven, go to Chacham. So, maybe understanding of the Gemora is that you go to the Chahcam if you can’t figure it out and fix yourself.
> So, the working assumption by anyone who at least wants to be G-d-fearing, is that this was a tremendous chilul Hashem.
So, maybe it is healthy that Yidden are naturally appalled by what they think is hillul Hashem. There are mashalim about a peasant visiting a king and not understanding what is going on there (and not even tihnking of a shidduch with the princess). So, it is not surprising that a normal Yid from Brooklyn can’t relate to dilemmas of a Rav at the king’s table. It is worse in the circles where the reaction is “great, let’s go party with the king and marry his princesses”. Still, in older times, a Yid from the shtetl will not have a chance to disparage a shtadlan who represents him, he would simply not know about him. In our days, facebook is in every shtetl. So, somehow, our educational system need to prepare Yidden to either learn halochos of malchus or at least halochos of kavod haRa, even if the Rav is not from his shtetl. Otherwise, we increase machlokes in Israel.
this site allows a lot of filtering – by state, age. type of area, ethnic groups. I looked at the “healthier” group – 25-35 y.o.
There is less seasonality in 2018-2019 – deaths are in 1000-1200/week for 2018-19, then there is a clear jump in March 2020 to 1400-1600 band, reaching 1800 in Sep 2021, and going back to pre-covid numbers in Feb 2023.
For ages 5-14, need to smooth data to see the trend but still there is one – pre-covid 105/week
increased to 125/week starting first week of June 2020 (end of school year at home) and staying similarly elevated until Feb 2023 and normal now.I think it could be last several weeks of data is not final and could be adjusted, but the trend is healthy for the last several months.
You don’t have to go to this crazy gov site, but I just wanted to make sure I am looking at raw data and not corrected by some web developers.
CDC has a site Provisional Mortality Statistics, 2018 through Last Month Results. I plotted weekly total deaths in USA by week.
2018 and 2019 have winter peaks of 67K and 58K and summer lowers of 50K both.
2020 jumped from 60K to 80k for several weeks, from March to May;
again from Oct 2020 to Feb 2021, reaching 90K in the middle of that (with vaccine)
then from July 2021 to Feb 2022 with a peak of 85K at the top (delta)
then Nov 2022 to Feb 2023 with a smaller peak of 70K (Omircon)lowest level during summers of 2021 and 2022 is 57K v. 50K in previous years.
plots going to normal previous levels in the last 2 months when data is available – Feb, March 2023 (this does not mean that there are no covid attributed deaths, as there is expected decline due to vulnerable peopple who died 1-2 years before their time).
Interesting example of how loshon hara works: I think OP and supporting him Avira were satisfoed when it turned out there is an actual beis din in the far away England that issues psakim, but others were inspired by their ideas and continue arguing the case despite the evidence.
Neville, your question is already addressed in Mishna. An Yid was approached by Samaritans and paid money to confuse Rabban Gamliel about rosh hodesh. He took the money and fulfilled the deal – told the beis din that he saw a cow in the sky, etc. The psak was that he did not have to return the money. So, maybe you can sign up so that they pay you to convert other Yidden, take 1000 books and use them to heat your house. win-win-win.
I would like to defend CTL. I do not agree with many of his political positions, but I think he is reflecting an authentic Jewish tradition, mostly Yakkish – but not only – of Jews being comfortable both with Jewish sources and world culture. This may sound ridiculous if your family comes from the Pale or Hungarian villages, or Yemen, or Persia, or if your information comes from teachers from same places, but not if your family comes from London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Warsaw, Petersburg … True, many Jews in the latter areas ended with assimilation, but (a) those who survived are worth respect, and (b) a lot of people from other areas also did not end well.
What is effect of WFH on Brooklyn traffic? In many cities there are now less people in downtowns and there is less weekday traffic on major highways out of traffic, and probably also on weekends as people can have a weekend the whole week. I don’t think the traffic might fall below the levels of R Moshe’s time, though.
Neville > In Manhattan, the entirety of the frum, non-MO tzibbur follows his psak …
this is no good scotsman fallacy: you exclude frum MO from the tzibbur and now you can say “entirely”
[I have no dog in this food fight: personally do not use this eruv and do not care for the term “frum” ]does he mean where we are hated now or where we were ever hated? Spain has museums about the Jews they killed or expelled. Seemingly went around the world buying Jewish artifacts, and even desecrated gravestones of the Jews they prosecuted … New world mostly? Iceland, Finland, India, China, Japan, Central Africa?
That explains it! L kavod malchus, the lord rav pretended that this Rambam doesn’t apply to kings, so he let future king to be somewhat meikel in his marriage, leading to the king being good to Yidden for the remaining 46 years of his monarchy. See how much wisdom is required in interacting with them? Do you really think such shailos should go to the most esteemed litvishe poskim who dealt with Russian kings and comissars or to London beisdin who are boke in Anglican kings marriage minhagim from the time of Henry the 8th?