AviraDeArah

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  • in reply to: What is the issur in flying on shabbos #2036203
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Complying with government rules is hardly a heter for chilul shabbos; there would have to be a pikuach nefesh issue vis a vis other Jews.

    in reply to: mashke on kiddush #2036178
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    AAQ, i heard from rav belsky that the issue of eating from a big lerusah doesn’t apply to shabbos, because aderaba, we want to show enthusiasm for eating seudas shabbos…kidush isn’t any different. Actually, it’s probably a hiddur, the same way it’s a a hiddur to swallow an entire kazayis of matzah in one gulp

    in reply to: Tanach in Yeshivos #2036175
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Nationalism is against open pesukim “hayom hazeh nihiyaysi li le’am” , today you are for me a nation… on the day of matan torah in the desert, not in eretz yisroel. Rav saadia gaon writes explicitly 5hat klal yisroel is a nation only because of its torah. It’s difficult to overlook such things and say it’s debatable, when the proponent of zionism were all influenced by secular studies and philosophers, including rabbi kook. There is chochma by goyim, but not torah, and the definition of our nation is a torah issue, to be understood by torah sources only.

    in reply to: Controversial topics list #2035934
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    I really don’t know how a “reader” can see that the rishonim didn’t have a mesorah, because I’m not a reader; i am a lomeid, and that means approaching the rishonim not as a book but as a piece of torah that is part of the continuum of Torah. You’re suggesting that i “can’t put my finger on it” simply because you cannot put a finger on what i was talking about.

    I’ll be clearer – there is a mesorah in how to understand both the language of chazal, the words of the rishonim, and how to properly use Talmudic logic to understand both. This is why steinsaltz, who had no formal education, is so off base with his pshatim (see rav aharon Feldman’s critique for examples). What would make sense to “echad min hashuk” isn’t always a good sevara or shmaataa aliba dihilchasa.

    The mechanics behind a gemara, which we call lomdus, is entirely mesorah driven. It’s hinted to in some rishonim, including notably the tosfos ri”d, called in yeshivos “reb chaim of the rishonim”, but mostly was not comitted to print. Rav Boruch ber (cited in rav hadomeh lemalaach) said that when writing chidushim, one should not write “too much”, not the entire shtikel, because we’re not writing artscroll type books. There’s a mesorah for the difference between a rashi writing “begemara mefaresh” and “mefaresh begemara”, as quoted in the shem hagedolim from the chid”a (could have been a different sefardi sefer, I don’t remember the name very clearly, just that it was sefardi)

    Chidushim are rooted in that passed down tradition; they’re not a free for all. If someone wishes to open a gemara and pasken halacha without rishonim and achronim, he is rightly deemed a baal gaavah and is held responsible for allowing that which is assur. For example, the academic mentality would not see anything wrong with annuling yom tov sheni, chumra derebe zeira, or other issues that one can dismiss with simplistic kashos. Yet one who does these things is in violation of halacha, because we have a mesorah that we do not deviate from.

    Bombarding with questions doesn’t dismantle an argument, but it is a debate technique used to make the other side less appealing, since it raises more questions than it answers; it’s not a real conversation point though, and it’s also evasive, like putting up flares in the hopes of confusing an attacker.

    It doesn’t mean that every perush of a given gemara was passed down, much like the discussions in the gemara weren’t passed down, but rather the product of torah reasoning that is based on the amoraim’s rebbeim. The methodology of seeing a good sevara from a bad one is part of this mesorah. You’ll notice that rishonim often say pshatim that are initially hard to understand, and could be dismissed by superficial kashas… only for someone like the chasam sofer or reb akiva eiger to come and completely overturn the sugya and show how the rishon was the best pshat.

    I wonder if you’ve ever learned in an iyun driven litvishe yeshiva, or if your experience was in a certain element in YU, an academic setting, a chasidishe yeshiva from which you weren’t intellectually satisfied, or a halacha kollel… it’s easy to hide behind the veneer of achievement in having completed many mesechtos, perhaps even shas (i admit i have not made a siyum hashas), and feeling that one has a complete grasp of gemara…enough to dismiss elementary teachings that one receives in a middle school setting. People who relish discussing “themes” in rishonim are usually at a loss for prime examples if asked; rishonim are way bigger than us and we should endeavor to understand what we can of their words without fooling ourselves into thinking that we can understand overarching “up teitches” the way one would with Dostoyevsky and Shakespeare.

    in reply to: mashke on kiddush #2035924
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    If it’s choshuv enough for a bracha achrona, then a cup that holds it should be considered a kos too by the same logic

    in reply to: mashke on kiddush #2035922
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Shimon, that’s not what the maharsham is talking about. Rov hakos/machzik reviis is an issue that’s relevant to hilchos pesach. I tzaychuntzu’d the maharsham; check it out

    in reply to: mashke on kiddush #2035892
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Some chasidim hold to do this bedavka, while others held that it eas because shnapps was more readily available than wine, but it was a bedieved

    in reply to: mashke on kiddush #2035888
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    the maharsham indeed defends the minhag in chelek 1, 175. He aays this is based on shitas ha’taz, that you make a bracha achrona on a shot glass of yayin saraf (schnapps) even though it’s less than a revi”is, because it’s considered choshuv. So too by kidush, where chamar medina is acceptable, a shot glass of this sort of chamar medina is considered choshuv.

    in reply to: Journalism Is A Dirty Business #2035864
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    I come from a journalism background. Even if you can avoid devorim asurim, the cynicism is inevitable. Negative stories are popular – “if it bleeds it leads” is the common expression

    in reply to: Chasimas Hatalmud: How did it come about? #2035776
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Ben, there is a lot of material in the mishnah that definitely predated rebbe. What rebbe did was:

    Get together all of the chachamim in his generation and collect each one’s mesorah(see bartenuras hakdoma)
    Took the words that had been recited and memorized and edit them together; cutting and pasting essentially.
    Paskened according to one shitah and made that shitah a stam mishnah or “chachamim omrim” (see mesechta beitzah 2b)
    Ordered them by topic and sub topic (seder and mesechta, perakim etc)
    Decide which material should be excluded from the core and left to braysos
    Fix up any mishnayos that may have had errors

    There’s a machlokes if rebbe wrote down the mishnayos physically or just did the above and make it the standard for klal yisroel going forward

    in reply to: Chasimas Hatalmud: How did it come about? #2035777
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    On aizehu mekoman, i saw one of the meforshim say that it’s an “old” mishnah because there’s no machlokes….ayn shom

    in reply to: Tanach in Yeshivos #2035742
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    I should also have clarified that my archetype MO teenager description included some things that i personally, thankfully, did not engage in, but it’s what I saw all around me.

    in reply to: Tanach in Yeshivos #2035741
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    I also would add that there is a lot in between the two categories you mentioned. There are also many members of the non-MO community who don’t care much about yiddishkeit and are going through the motions. But it’s the ones who do care but have heretical hashkofos and sinful behaviors (rhat they try to justify) that are worse. If someone just says “I’m not so religious”, that’s a shame, but it isn’t a threat to Judaism itself.

    There definitely are some people who are in the MO world who are just shy of ner yisroel/out of town torah institutions. That’s true in eretz yisroel too, where aside from nationalism, there are bnei Torah who wear kipos serugos who are just as committed (and probably moreso) as i am.

    I believe the disinterested people are not nearly as much of a threat as the haskalah influenced ideologues. Rabbis who learn alt but are attempting to undermine torah and perpetuate the sinful standards of the mostly ignorant masses of MO. Rabbis who believe in secular education as an ends to itself, feminism, LGBT rights, bible criticism, evolution, gender theory, and tons of other issues. They might learn day and night, and that’s why they are much more of a threat to Judaism.

    in reply to: Tanach in Yeshivos #2035740
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    DBS, that was an exact quote from rabbi shechter’s teshuva during the oslo accords.

    *Since Eretz Yisroel is vital to Jewish existence as a nation-state, conquest by a foreign power is considered a lethal blow to the conquered nation. Therefore, just as a doctor may amputate a patient’s limb in order to save the patient’s life, where the life of an entire nation is in danger it is permissible to sacrifice the lives of the few for the purpose of sparing the nation at large”

    This is straight European Nationalism. Not Judaism. In judaism, the Torah is the lifeblood of the people, not a secular state built by holocaust collaborating murderers.

    in reply to: Controversial topics list #2035739
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Also, if Hashem had placed me in a conservative community, I don’t think(or rather, i hope) you’d say that it’s some sort of insult to hashgocha if i changed, because they are not following the Torah; even those among them who claim to keep the mitzvos.

    MO has the same issues as conservative, though to a lesser extent. They believe in compromise, in not stressing certain mitzvos that are societally unpalatable, in justifying horrific violations of halacha (in a similar way to solomom shechter’s “catholic judaism” concept) and being inclusive of more and more depravity.

    I should share wkth with you one of my watershed moments. I was captain and founder of my school’s debate team. We competed in a league of MO schools; some mixed, some gender separate (mine was the latter). Things were fine until the last debate of the season. My English principal, (an old school MO person who was close with rabbi yoshe ber and his family) and i looked at each other in disbelief when we saw the email that contained the topic that we were to debate; polyamory. Yes, an umbrella organization approved by scores of MO schools was going to have a debate in a yeshuva auditorium between Jewish students as to the status of marriages….i dont want to finish that sentence. It also said that we weren’t supposed to debate it from a religious perspective.

    My principal and i wrote a scatching letter to the board and summarily resigned from the league, even though we were in the top tier. This was MO standard education in 2007; it’s only gone way downhill from there. The only reason why my principal was enraged at the topic was because she was from the old generation who copied the goyishe generation of the 60s(not hippies) and 70s, when America had basic decency and awareness of gender biology. MO copied goyim then, and they’re copying goyim now…just now we can see the results and how far one can go.

    in reply to: Controversial topics list #2035729
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    A mesorah doesn’t add to the integrity of torah, it is merely the transmission vehicle; it was meant to be transmitted from rebbe to talmid, father to son, in both content and methodology. Those are things you need a mesorah for; to know a good sevara from a crooked one, to know what the kavanos of chazal, rishonim etc were, it’s not about proving the Torah or adding credibility, it’s about getting the tools necessary to understand something that all along was based on a handed down tradition. When the mishnah was completed, it was cryptic and needed the gemara to explain it; when the gemara was written, it would have been a closed book if not for the rishonim; he rishonim thensleves are very perplexing and are constantly studied over by the achronim and ourselves…someone without a mesorah cannot approach these matters because they simply don’t have the tools.

    That doesn’t mean you have to blindly accept the particulars of what you’re taught; rashi argues with his rebbeim quite a lot, and tosfos argues on rashi on almost every daf. But those are in the details; tosfos doesn’t say that rashus entire approach was wrong and that they are inventing a new mahalach in torah ex nihilo.

    I know from my own years in yeshiva that had i not had intensive blatt shiurim id never be able to understand rishonim; i could try on my own, but it would have been a colossal failure….the worst part of which would be the fact that i wouldn’t be aware of how much of a failure it is

    Maysoh bereshis/merkava also was passed down without being written as per the rambam and other rishonim, for another example.

    And just what “great torah sages” are you getting this from? Do they have recorded torahs echoing your sentiment? Or is it “mesorah”? Or is it people who you consider torah sages, but are considered heretics by people like rav shlomo zalman (re, kapach) or the chazon ish (re, liberman), or rav shach and the steipler(re, steinsaltz)?

    in reply to: Tanach in Yeshivos #2035660
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Yehudis, i agree that there are differing levels of observance in MO; some are just shy of the yeshiva world. But the incubation of institutionalized heresy and devaluation of torah precepts is real and it has results. If MO valued torah as a whole the same as they value secular studies, they wouldn’t spend more time on the latter and be satisfied with a trifle superficial amount of the former. They would communally pursue advancement of Torah learning, but rather, the most important thing is higher education and a career. Of all the MO people in the country, one school, YU is the olace where those who have a drop more interest in learning go. Even there, it’s a minority who are talmidim of rabbi shechter and rabbi willig; most are there mainly for the college.

    in reply to: Tanach in Yeshivos #2035659
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Can you find a Yeshiva two hundred years ago?

    The ramchal and others who talk about what to learn all mention tanach; those who followed the rambam about being meshalesh definitely did so, and those who didn’t probably didn’t have fornal time spent on nach. Not everything which doesn’t come up in a bar ilan search is false

    I think it’s also a nice fairy tale to claim that there’s no mesorah and that until the chasam sofer everyone just thought and did whatever they pleased, had no rebbe, no shimush, and accepted any obscure sefer written by anyone who lived in the times of the rishonim. In this fairy tale, no one is an apikores, no one ever thought that hilchos deos was a halachik issue, and of course no one uses agadeta as a source for daas torah. Come to think of it, in the same fairy tale, there was a Jewish army defending its citizens, democracy and total tolerance for LGBT people. There was also no rashu that says that klal yisroel does nothing without its leaders, and all non-kashrus decisions were made by individuals without consulting the archaic and out of date daas torah. They also used to look at the characters of tanach as being no different than you and me, with no particularly special spiritual levels and attributes, and believed that parts of chumash were added later and compiled by some shadow beis din which has no record.

    Did i miss anything?

    in reply to: Controversial topics list #2035525
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Just because you weren’t given a mesorah doesn’t mean that there isn’t one (or several! Ayin ponim latorah). Maskilim were dismissed by the torah world because they deviated greatly from the mesorah; if you want to think that it’s a free for all… Well, firstly the mishnah says that torah was passed down (moshe kibel etc) and secondly, chazal say anyone who learned but was not meshamesh talmidei chachamim is an am haaretz. The rambam goes through the chain of mesorah. After chazal, everyone learned from a rebbe – no one just opened a sefer and wrote whatever they wanted. Achronim endeavor tp understand rishonim; have you ever learned reb akiva eiger? He constantly writes “lo zachisi lehavin divreihem hakedoshim”

    in reply to: Controversial topics list #2035426
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    I think the fact that you’re acknowledging liberman, who the chazon ish (a relative no less) referred to as a shanah upiresh, with the other maskilim, shows that we are on very, very different wavelengths. I don’t think i have anything to offer that would interest you, as my studies are from Torah’s own perspective, not academia and a desire to undermine mesorah. Take care.

    Halevi, I don’t think there’s anything to be gained in classifying rishonim….r. Moshe taku is an enigmatic figure who wrote one sefer that we don’t have a complete version of. He’s not quoted in tosfos, or any subsequent halacha sefer as far as i know. In an issue of halacha, we have a beaten path. We (well, nomesorah doesn’t) have a mesorah, handed down from the previous generations in both how to learn and how to believe. Not every statement from every sefer written by every rabbi who ever lived is the same or treated the same. No one’s going to quote a menoras hamaor to argue with something in the Taz or shach. No one’s going to take an obscure sefer and use it to overturn or even reexamine basic rishonim and achronim. The same maskilish ilk like to read r. Moshe taku as being someone who believes that Hashem chas veshalom has a body. We, in the nesorah community, reject this idea and say simply that we don’t understand what he said, and that we have a mesorah that to say such things is forbidden. Likewise, we have a definition of prohibited belief systems outlined in the rambam. One of them is listening to the chachamim who transmit torah from generation to generation,; one who rejects this mesorah, says the rambam, is “machchish magideah”, contradicting the Torah’s teachers. If someone says that a drasha is incorrect, or a halacha lemoshe misnai is false, he has done that.

    in reply to: Controversial topics list #2035427
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Also, i never said that the maskilim didn’t know what was inside the seforim. Rather, they fancied themselves as above the seforim and able to engage in, as they called it, higher criticism. They were more interested in the academic, the backstory and history of the sefer, and didn’t really care about internalizing torah as part of themselves, which is a large part of the mitzvah of talmud torah. People who learn the seforim struggle to figure out what the pshat is in the sefer

    in reply to: Tanach in Yeshivos #2035419
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Halevi, it’s axiomatic that every generation is further from sinai and lower than its successor…yeridas hadoros isn’t really a chidush

    in reply to: Dvar Torah Wiki: Why 8 days? #2035397
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    I’m sorry, but I don’t see why chazal would have us make a bracha on something just to distinguish it from the menorah in the beis hamikdash…

    in reply to: Tanach in Yeshivos #2035383
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    AAQ, if we judged people’s grandchildren or sons-in-laws, we’d have quite a lot to explain. Rav henkin was very anti Zionist. His grandson is the bnei bonim zionist/feminist. Rav chaim brisker said zionism is avodah zara; his grandson was rabbi yoshe ber; he also said when his son rav moshe was getting married, that “ich hob farliren a zun”, when the noshim paskened a kashrus shailah on their own at his wedding. Rav shach, who called Israeli democracy “cancer”, had a son who was a zionist.

    Rav yochanan ben zakai’s nephew was the head of the baryonim.

    Rav Moshe didn’t hold of any of the above deviances from Torah; he writes that women being taught gemara shouldn’t have to even be explained as it’s an open gemara. He also didn’t necessarily “choose” his son in law. He also would have been astonished at the opposition to metzitzah bepeh, and other innovations from his family. Gedolim’s personal family issues are not a proof as to what they hold. We can only go by their actual words and by talmidim who are mamshichei darcham. If you want to know what rav moshe held, you would want to ask rav bluth, rav dovid, rav belsky, rav nissan alpert, and other people who were very close to him.

    in reply to: Tanach in Yeshivos #2035381
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Twisted; i never said one shouldn’t have love for eretz yisroel. We should love all the mitzvos; we should kiss sifrei torah, eretz yisroel, and every other cheftza shel mitzvah. The problem is when you prioritize a certain limud to specifically engender love of one mitzvah over others, particularly when evil doers use that national affection for their nefarious nationalistic efforts.

    in reply to: Dvar Torah Wiki: Why 8 days? #2035380
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Ubiq, that’s a very nice vort – i had a different explanation of why beis shammai go by parei hachag (pashtus there’s no kasha because they’re not deriving or even necessarily comparing n”ch to sukkos, they’re answering the taanah of beis hilel that we usually say maalin bakodesh…)

    Chazal say that the number of parim decreased because it was being machchish the koach of the Umos haolam(while at the same time giving them chius), and pn chanukah, the shem mishmuel explains that we were machchish the koach of the yavanim…there were no new philosophers after the neis, he says, and we also used the nitzutz of kedushah that was “yaft elokim leyefes”, and used it for a mitzvah that is personified by “mehadrin min hamehadrin”

    in reply to: Controversial topics list #2035379
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    If I’m understanding you correctly, the idea that one rishon (r. Moshe tako, a rishon who’s never mentioned in halacha as far as i know. His statements were ignored by the rishonim like rav yosef albo, the ritva and tons others who take it for granted that it’s a braisa) And a karaite both claim something makes us believe it, because certainly if two distinct scholars agree on something, there must be some truth to it. Enough for you to use the term forger as a given.

    Let’s unpack that. You’re assuming that a karaite scholar has some measure of credibility or weight. Would you say the same if a rishon and a Christian/muslim/buddhist scholar agreed? You’re also assuming that this one rishon can overweigh every other riahon and achron who by omission and by quoting perek shira completely disregard this shita.

    Braysos are torah shebaal peh. Claiming that one is a forgery is probably under the category of machish magideah as per the rambams list of defining apikorsus. And no, I don’t throw around the term easily.

    People who harp on dayos yechidim when it makes them comfortable in biblical or Talmudic criticism, yet shun other shitos as “daas yachid” when it’s something they care about are the personification of intellectual dishonesty. One of my rebbeim used to say that the maskilim, who enjoyed researching the source of texts far more than actually learning them, are “modeh bemiktzas begalui and kofer hakol b’seser”.

    in reply to: Allowing Racist posts on this board #2035305
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    The majority are neither ashkenaz nor sefardi? What are they then?

    in reply to: Controversial topics list #2035252
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    I don’t believe the term “forger” used in association with perek Shira belongs in an Orthodox forum, nor does questioning the authenticity of halachik medrashim. Perhaps you’d find better suited company in the jewish theological seminary. I think the screename “nomesorah” is quite an accurate description.

    in reply to: Tanach in Yeshivos #2035197
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    AAQ, I’m sure if you dig through bible commentary of Christian sources, you’ll find tons of things that are in sync with meforshim. If you change the verbiage and repeat them to rabbis, and they accept them, that really isn’t relevant to the issues that separate Christianity from Judaism lehavdil.

    MO rabbis in regards to kashrus, gitin vekidushin, niddah, and other Practical halacha are usually within bounds. In YU the mishnah berurah is the default source for halacha, and I’d trust rabbi hershel shachter’s kashrus procedures.

    That doesn’t speak to the rotten core of MO in its institutionalized heresy. Rabbi shechter is fine with the idea that a secular state is the lifeblood of the jewish nation, and worthy of the wanton lose of jewish life, not because he learned it in gemara, but because of European Nationalism dressed up in techeles and a kippah. And he’s the frummest they have to offer. It only goes down hill from there, to rabbis who defend untznius dress, abrogation of halacha by teaching women gemara in a classroom setting, mingling of the genders (see the discredited author of bnei bonim for details on that), to full on feminism, LGBT acceptance, allegorizing of tanach, “revisiting” torah in light of modern ethics, de facto acceptance of secular morals, maskilish “parshanut”, rejection of kabalah, the list goes on…. I quoted several MO leaders in the closed thread at length; you can use it for reference. I’m hardly looking at the lowest rungs of MO – puk chazi! Of course the yeshiva community has its dropouts..chasidim do too, but they are a small minority who themselves identify more with an MO crowd.

    I mentioned a doable experiment that can show the divide in another thread – go to a MO shul, and I don’t mean the young israel of midwood. Take a poll among the men, ask them what caused the Holocaust. 80% will say the buildup of racism and intolerance, and that we can prevent it by being more liberal and championing social justice. 20% will say it’s from Hashem and we don’t understand it. Then go to a baalabatishe shul; 90% will say it’s from Hashem and we don’t understand it, and 10% will say it’s due to assimilation and haskalah, etc.. then go to a beis medrash, and there it will be 50/50 between the latter two options.

    in reply to: Tanach in Yeshivos #2035198
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    How exactly can one trash the yeshiva community in terms of torah observance? I’m aware that it can be belittled from a secular perspective, i.e. lack of education, poverty, etc..

    in reply to: Allowing Racist posts on this board #2035112
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    My mistake; the ratio is 20%/80%, with 3.5 million sefardim – my apologies

    in reply to: Allowing Racist posts on this board #2035107
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    That’s semantics; you’re saying lashon hora on an entire group (actually, sefardim are often stunned to find out how small of a minority they are in the Jewish population… Living in their neighborhood they sometimes think it’s 50/50). There are 13 million jews and only 1.5 are sefardi. Roughly 12%. So… What you’re saying is that 11.5 million jews are neurotic, while sefardim are mentally healthy. Just take out the word ashkenaz, put in jew, t then change sefardi for German, and you’ll see what we’re saying

    in reply to: Should Lace Shaitels be Allowed? #2035103
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Not to say there shouldn’t be discussion of those non-bechira issues that we can’t “really” fix (only Hashem decides who has money). Rav yehoshua leib started an orphanage, gedolei yisroel were very active in distributing tzedaka…all very big mitzvos, but they also realized that they are unable to fix the world and that the one thing we can fix is mitzvah observance

    in reply to: Should Lace Shaitels be Allowed? #2035100
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Those are communal needs; but most of the “writings* of rabbis are about halacha. Actually, very few seforim discuss the needs of the rabbi’s own community or what he did to solve problems. Your screename-sake rav ovadia wrote thousands of teshuvos about halacha, not political issues or how to fix poverty.

    Why am i not surprised that yabia and gadol’s list includes almost exclusively that which is outside the range of bechirah and instead the domain of hashgocha?

    in reply to: Tanach in Yeshivos #2035066
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Also, in a topic that includes the common practice of the mo educational system, it is more than relevant to address the methodology and results of the system as a whole, and where nach fits into that discussion.

    Rav yisroel salanter is quoted in ohr yisroel that the mishnah can’t be applied to our time(his time, kal vechomer ours) because on our level, what we call chumash is not really learning chumash, our mishnayos are on the level of chumash in that time, etc etc, that basically everything gets knocked down a level

    in reply to: Tanach in Yeshivos #2035064
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Nomesorah; you find it creepy that a person who feels robbed of yiddishkeit might have a lot to say about the thieves thereof? Perhaps you were raised very frum and are not aware of the communal sinfulness and ignorance that MO has permitted/encouraged. When I was exposed to authentic yiddishkeit(and no i don’t mean only litvishe) the difference was night and day. Do you really think there is “equal ground” between a system which foments institutional heresy and a system, flawed as it may be, which promotes complete uncompromising observance of mitzvos and the primacy of torah? Are there”relevant torah sources” that say that an ideal Jewish boy should go to goyishe rock concerts, have goyishe friends, dress completely like a goy save for a small piece of fabric lost in “blurios* of long hair, eating “only salads” at treif restaurants, violating 5 laavin with each bite, together with his illicit girlfriend, with whom he violates more laavin and worse routinely, his speech laced with nivul peh, on a lazy Sunday devoid of torah learning, finished off with the imbibing of a movie that reinforces his heretical pro-lgbt beliefs? He wakes up, may or may not wash negel vaser, might forget his tzitzis, is maybe reminded to go to minyan, but might not be in the mood.. Everything goes and chas veshalom if he’s made to feel guilty or pressured..

    I’m interested to hear what “sources” permit this typical day in the life of an MO non-otd teen.

    in reply to: Should Lace Shaitels be Allowed? #2034950
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    I’ve noticed that yabia writes the same response to a multitude of issues that he considers unimportant. Pray tell, what do you consider important for jews to be discussing in 2021? Was it different in 2020, or 2017? Is it, and I’m going out on a limb here, political issues the results of which aren’t in our range of bechirah?

    in reply to: Tanach in Yeshivos #2034954
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    When i say MO schools, I am referring to schools that have a
    Greater emphasis/more time on secular studies than kodesh, a mixture of boys and girls, a cultivation of a non/anti torah approach to ethics, civics, politics, and ideology, and other hallmarks of modern orthodoxy. Zionism is a separate issue, but fits into the last qualifier for the most part.

    There is a place for kiruv yeshivos, or as you described, private schools with a sprinkling of judaism for parents who otherwise would put their kids in fancy prep schools. That doesn’t mean that their education is valid or a serious attempt at transmitting Torah to the next generation. Good kiruv yeshivos know how to make the most out of what little time and attention for kodesh that the kids will put in.

    There are many yeshivos which cater to baalabatishe jews who want their kids to be ready for college, but this isn’t their main focus. Their high school years are filled with torah as the first priority.

    in reply to: What do we know? #2034948
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Medrash tanchuma parshas teruma, siman 6 brings rebbe yehudah saying that it was a one-horned, large animal with 6 colors (the baal haturim writes that tachash is gematria “שש גונא”, which means 6 colors), according to rebbe nechemia it existed bederech neis for one time just to make the yerios (curtains) of the mishkan.

    In shabboa 28a-b there’s a discussion regarding if the tachash was kosher, and if it was a chaya or behema; some hold that it’s a unique creature which is neither chaya nor behema.

    Rav hirsch writes that the shoresh of the word tachash is חש, that it was able to run very fast

    in reply to: Is thanksgiving assur #2034866
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Gadol; rav yaakov kaminetzky famously defended chanukah presents, but he was in the minority; most gedolim discourage it as an import from kratzmich. As for the big menoros; chabad hold that it’s persumei nisa to light a menorah in public, but most poskim were not happy with it, as it has no source in halacha. Chabad compares it to a shul, but the difference is that… it’s a shul, and when chazal were mesaken the mitzvah, they made a takanah for a shul as well as the ikar din of ner ish ubayso. What they put in front of their houses (and on their cars) is less questionable, as they’re not making a bracha and they agree it’s just a simana b’alma. I don’t suspect it’s an import from kratzmich, because they’re doing it to be mefarsem haneis and that people who pass by may remember to light menorah etc

    in reply to: Ashkenazic Trauma #2034782
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Sefardim were just as divided over the issue of philosophy in the times of the rishonim. I don’t believe Ashkenazim ever participated in book burning (at a time before the printing press no less) as sefardim burnt the rambam’s moreh nevuchim.

    in reply to: Is thanksgiving assur #2034775
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Also, i did a little digging and i see no indication of anti semitic or anti torah themes or statements from schiller. Apparently, one character may have been jewish and had some negative attributes, which the Nazis capitalized on, but can you name a source where he “had bad things to say about judaism”? Rav hirsch definitely would not have praised him or recommended that “every jewish home should have schiller” if that were true.

    in reply to: Is thanksgiving assur #2034744
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Nomesorah, what you’re saying is the equivalent of an achron explaining a machlokes rishonim…say the taz explains shitas harambam, and the raavad argues. Following your reasoning, we ahould ignore the taz, because the raavad was biggee – that’s not how it works. No one is saying that rav schwab was in the same league as rav hirsch; rav schwab isn’t arguing on rav hirsch, he’s explaining him, and as was pointed out, he was one of the two or three biggest mamshichei darcho and more than capable of saying not just “vos hut the rebbe gezugt”, but “vos volt the rebbe hht gezugt”

    in reply to: Ashkenazic Trauma #2034634
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    I was referring to the claim that Jewish people have “debilitating neurosis”. Nazis said that Jewish people were collectively mentally and physically ill

    in reply to: Is thanksgiving assur #2034563
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Ukm, I think what he means is that rav schwab said that after the Holocaust and seeing what Germans (and the rest) are capable of, rav hirsch would have not been as enamored with schiller. It should be noted that rav Hirsch’s praise of schiller was in the context of him having “jewish values” in his words but he was particularly glowing in his praises…rav schwab said that he wouldn’t have gone so far.

    AAQ, they all believed in the christian view of god as a trinity, and as such it would be assur

    in reply to: Ashkenazic Trauma #2034561
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    That’s exactly what Nazis and other anti semites have said about Jews. Enjoy their company.

    in reply to: Tanach in Yeshivos #2034378
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    AAQ, i think i was very clear in my post that i don’t look negatively individuals who enter professions or higher education. I don’t like the ideology that holds that this should be, bedavka, the mahalach for the tzibur. I also respect those communities where that is the norm, where they are otherwise very frum and committed to learning

    in reply to: Is thanksgiving assur #2034376
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Shimon, when did I ever say anything to the contrary about rav belsky? I don’t see where i backtracked. I also don’t see the relevance of whether or not i have smicha; if you don’t like what I say, then disagree; it’s an online forum, not a shu”t sefer.

    in reply to: Is thanksgiving assur #2034309
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Gadol, what would it explain? Torah vodaas is quite an eclectic yeshiva

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