Avi K

Rav Elliezer Melamed, the rav of the yishuv and rosh yeshiva, wrote the following:

Recently, a troublemaker distributed libelous materials accusing Tommy Waller, an American Christian, of being a missionary. This despite the fact that Tommy has been actively recruiting Christian volunteers for Israel for ten years, and not a single Jew claims that Tommy or any of the thousands of people he has brought here have tried to undermine their faith. Therefore, I feel it is incumbent upon me to speak on his behalf.
Out of an abiding faith in the uniqueness of the Jewish people and in the Divine mission to settle the Land, Tommy has rallied support for Israel from American Congressmen and Senators. The head of the Shomron Regional Council, Mr. Gershon Mesika, told me that Tommy’s activities have been very influential. Each year, through the summer, he organizes groups of Christians who love Israel to volunteer here. As he is a big believer in family values, many of the volunteers come with their entire families, including the young and the elderly. In recent years, at the request of the Regional Council, the Har Bracha settlement has hosted the volunteers on a hilltop near our community. From this base, the volunteers set out to work in vineyards and orchards throughout the Shomron.
Because of our difficult history with Christians, and due to concerns about possible missionizing, I felt it necessary to meet with Tommy. I wanted to have an upfront discussion with him about precisely what his positions were. At the same time, I wanted to convey a Jewish position without kowtowing or obsequiousness.
In the course of our conversation, I asked him: “If a Jew were to come before you and ask you whether it is better to be a Jew or a Christian what would you tell him?” He responded: “I would tell him to be a Jew!” Tommy added that he had not always thought this way. Originally, like other Christians, he was interested in everyone becoming Christian, but eventually he realized that this earlier position was the result of ignorance. Now, following his exposure to the Jewish renaissance in the Land ofIsrael, he wishes for all Jews to observe the Torah and mitzvoth.
I asked Tommy what led him to dedicate his life to bringing Christian volunteers to Israel. He told me that he read Yeshayahu 61:5: “Strangers shall stand and pasture your flocks; aliens shall be your plowmen and vine-trimmers.” This greatly moved him, and he said to himself: “Maybe I can be the one who is privileged to fulfill this holy verse!” Ever since then, he has encouraged people to visit Israel and to help Jews work the land.
Every summer Tommy brings hundreds of volunteers, some for a week and some for longer periods. They bring us greetings of peace and friendship from tens of millions of Americans who love us, and when they return home they serve as loyal ambassadors for Israel.
For the Sake of Heaven
When I began to look into this issue a number of years ago, I publicly declared that I would not accept any money for myself or my yeshiva from Christian friends of Israel, so that I could research the subject without a conflict of interest. I also made a statement to that effect in my column about two years ago.
In the meantime, at the initiative of a Jewish go-between, the Har Bracha settlement received such a donation, 120,000 shekels which it used towards building a park that cost over half a million shekels. When I heard about this, I asked the secretary general of Har Bracha to do me a favor and return the money. This was not because I felt there was any halakhic problem with accepting it, but because I wanted our positive attitude towards Christian philo-Semites to be purely for the sake of heaven. The righteous secretary general apologized and said he had not thought I had included the settlement in my commitment. (In truth, while I am the rabbi of the settlement, I cannot make commitments for it.) To my delight, he nevertheless responded positively to my request and returned the entire amount.

Rav Shalom Gold and Rav Dov Lior disagree. Their views can be seens on the website Jewish Israel.

Neville, Orthodox shuls (that is to say they have a mechitza and use an Orthodox siddur) with non-Orthodox members is nothing new. As I posted in the “Pilgrim” thread, immigrants cast of observance straight away for economic reasons. They and their children (when they went to shul- generally for Yizkor out of respect for their parents) wanted the familiar forms of worship because they at least realized that a shul is. However, the people who go to these shuls are not MO. They are non-observant Jews who want a communal setting and have a natural conservative (as opposed to Conservative) outlook. MO is a halachic/hashkafic sheeta.

MW13, I am not a spokesman for anyone but myself. Moreover, of those groups you mentioned none believes that we should not force anybody to what is right except the libertarians, who are now mostly organized (they are not fully libertarian as they have some nationalistic planks) as the Zehut party under Moshe Feiglin. The rest do believe in forcing people to do what is right – in their opinion. It just so happens that this is a point of intersection.

CTL, your family is a shining exception. The Ridbaz, in fact, left Chicago declaring that Judaism would never take hold in America (on the other hand, the main claim of Mordechai Kaplan was that mitzvot such as Shabbat and kashrut had to be “relaxed” so that Jews could make a place for themselves) .

Sweatshops had signs “If you don’t come in on Sat don’t come in on Mon”. Until Torah uMasora was established after WW2 there were no day schools (all of the yeshivot you cite were for older boys – there was nothing for girls) and then they faced enormous opposition from parents who wanted their kids to be “Americans”). Everyone went to public schools, which were bastions of conservatism but also places for inculcating Xtian values. Even when I went to public school in the Sixties there was singing of religious songs near Dec 25 (I was able to get away with not singing by virtue of the fact that there were enough kids to enable me to hide in the crowd).

It should also be noted that merely coming to America at the time was often a rebellion against the rabbinic establishment as only the strongest received heterim. Their children very quickly through off everything. For example, a survey of Brownsville, Brooklyn (then an almost completely Jewish neighborhood) in 1940 showed that only 9% of the Jews went to shul regularly (Jews in Gotham p. 54). The growing discrimination against Jews in employment certainly hastened this trend. It was hard enough for a secular jew to get a good job. In fact, despite being at the top of his class in Harvard Nat Lewin was rejected by a series of firms when he brought up Shabbat. Finally he did what many others did and went into government service before opening his own firm.

Neville,
1. I do not know all of the details nor am I a rav so I cannot condemn or condone their alleged actions.
2. Why were were you complaining about her giur before it was”cool”? Are you against accepting gerim? Are you a dayan?

Lesschumras, I heard about a case where the ger (a man) said that he would not marry a woman who would marry a goy. There is also a story about a goy who decided to keep Shabbat but carry his siddur to shul so as not to be chayav mitta. When his Jewish neighbor pointed out that there was an eruv he said “You rely on that eruv?”

Joseph, what about your position? How do you presume to possel Ivanka Trump’s conversion. Answer the question and stop stonewalling!

Neville,

1. Someone uses the Kushners for maasei rav he already has a twisted and incorrect definition of Orthodoxy. They, BTW, have never held themselves up to be role models.

2. What about the chillul Hashem of constant public micro-examination of a couple’s observance or lack thereof and the obvious glee with which these blemish finders (only in others, of course) condemn them without even knowing all of the facts.? How does this make the Orthodox community appear? Moreover, if you want to find blemishes whose condemnation will score points with the non-Orthodox community then condemn the welfare cheats, slumlords. corrupt business people, etc. (BTW, financial crimes are a toeva – Devarim 25,13).

3. How are they damaging the integrity of other gerim? Jared Kushner the born Jew is doing the same things. Besides, do you really think that there are no other gerim who backslide just as do born Jews (see SA YD 268:2 that we do not tell him all of the details of observance so this could very well happen and see seif 12 that if he does fall down so long as he had intention to keep everything at the time of the giur he is like any Jew who falls).

KJ, the exile of Am yisrael is over. It ended in 5708. However, some individual Jews are in physical or spiritual exile, or both..

Joseph, the nullification of the “gerut”, if it took place (there is no actual record) of Borokowsky was based on the fact that it was a forced conversion (his “father-in-law” had threatened to reveal his shady activities to the authorities) . Moreover, he continued to conduct himself a gentile, eating pork and going to church.

In any case, you are over on kabbalat LH (the newspaper reports), LH (no toelet) and MSH,at “least” of the talmidei chachamim you besmirched. You are also paskening without a license.

Edited

Bmyer, and their yetzer hara was correspondingly greater. BTW, I read a few minutes ago an interesting chiddush. The Izbitca says that they intended to do an aveira llshma. They did believe in Am Yisrael’s ability to keep the Torah so they tried to prevent them from entering the Land. However, the did not appreciate the essential qualities of the Land. Rav Soloveichik says something similar. Just as Miriam did not appreciate Moshe sufficiently so too the spies did not appreciate EY sufficiently.

Actually many women left babies on Rav Chaim Brisker’s doorstep.

After Hashem’s promise and after all of the open miracles in the desert it was unbelievable kefira. As for LH, I heard that the Ben Ish Hai said that it is even assur to complain about the weather in EY.

There is in fact a village near Hevron whose residents are known to be descendants of converted Jews. Amateur historian Tsvi Misinai even claims that 85% of all Arabs in EY are descendants of Jews. However, it seems more likely that the vast majority are descendants of Arabs who came from Lebanon and Syria to take advantage of economic opportunities opened up by Zionist settlement (Arab workers were widely used both because they were willing to accept lower wages and because it made necessary Shabbat violations, such as milking cows, possible. Later the British ym”s opened up the land to Arab immigration while severely limiting Jewish immigration. Mark Twain wrote in “The Innocents Abroad” that when he was here EY was a desolate, depopulated land. Other travelers wrote similar descriptions. See “Palestine, a land virtually laid waste with little population” taken from Joan Peters’ book “From Time Immemorial”.

Joseph, why are you conducting an Internet war against Ivanka Trump? I am starting to suspect that you are an anti-Orthodox agent whose assignment is to make frum Jews look as bad as possible.

G, if a ger later went OTD he is like any other Jew who fell. That is halacha pesuka. In the Langer case Rav Goren invalidate a geirut that was coerced and where the person continued to eat pork and go to church. Rav Eliashiv resigned from the Rabbinut in protest and today thosewho claim to be his followers are doing reasons known only to themselves.

Joseph, what is the chava amina that one should not love a fellow Jew because he follows different rabbanim? Is there one to think that an Ashkenazi should not love a Sephardi because he eats kitniyot during Pesach. Should a Sephardi not love an Ashkenazi because he does not say selichot until just before Rosh HaShana?

Several times I have dreamt that I was dreaming but I have never been able to continue a dream after waking up. In any case, the Taz says that we do not know how to interpret dreams and Rav Aviner says that today they are meaningless because we are swamped with info from all sides and they come out in dreams. Once I dreamt that people were speaking in Russian and woke up annoyed that I did not understand my own dream.

RY, people don’t hug and kiss their dogs as they do their kids.

Randomx, why does one need to wash one’s hands if the animal is clean? please cite sources. I am also interested in knowing what you infer. Do you mean that a kid who engages in vandalism should be thrown out?

Chaver, they are talking about vicious dogs. Even they are allowed in a place where they are needed for guard duty. This should be obvious. if the Torah tells us to throw the tereifot to the dogs it obviously presumes that we have dogs.

LB, joy has nothing to do with jumping around and singing “Mitzva gedola liyot b’simcha” (which is not true – sometimes there is a mitzva to be in avelut and really we should be all year round because the Bet HaMikdash still has not been built). Joy is the inner satisfaction one receives from doing a mitzva. One can attain this when learning Gemara and Halacha. In fact, intellectual joy is on a higher level than emotional joy. as the intellect is what separates us from the animals (just look at the eyes of a dog when it see its master and you will know that they feel emotional joy).

Joseph, men should become lawyers and CPAs and put in 3,000 billable hours per month as per the ketubot they signed so that their wives can stay home and make on-line purchases. When will the men learn? On shabbatot and moedim. The rest of the time they will suffice with keriat shema morning and evening.

So far as the OP’s question, just as there is no free lunch there is no free day care. Someone has to pay.

Joseph, your record in the CR is worse than that of the ’62 Mets. A ger is still required to honor his biological parents for two reasons:

1, It would be a chillul Hashem not to as gentiles honor their parents.
2. Gratitude for bringing him into the world.

Apushatayid, many Jews have a Jewish name for shul and a non-Jewish name for the office. At one time Julius was a common name for Jews, perhaps because Julius Caesar followed a very pro-Jewish policy. I do not know why Morris, Seymour, Rhoda, Arnold, Martin, etc. became popular among Jews. BTW, Harry S Truman did not have a middle name. He had two grandfathers named Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young and his parents wanted to honor both (his mother’s brother was named Harrison but was known as Harry).

Mik, please cite your source for saying berachot loudly (more than enough for someone to ear so he can say “Amen” – and BTW, if a gentile says a blessing to Gd a Jew must answer “Amen” (Rema OC 215:2 and see http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?pgnum=74&req=1809&st= for a different opinion ). It could be that as bnei Noach are commanded to believe in Hashem, at least to become chassidei Umot Haolam if one knows that the gentile will answer “Amen” it might be could to say it so that he can hear it after explaining it (use your common sense – it is the fifth section of the SA).