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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
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
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?
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
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.
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?
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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”
I was referring to the claim that Jewish people have “debilitating neurosis”. Nazis said that Jewish people were collectively mentally and physically ill
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
That’s exactly what Nazis and other anti semites have said about Jews. Enjoy their company.
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
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.
Gadol, what would it explain? Torah vodaas is quite an eclectic yeshiva
AAQ, I’m not against individuals entering professions; im not sure what gave you that impression. I’ve known many ehrlich doctors, lawyers and accountants. But they didn’t grow up with that being the focus of there lives or their parents’ highest hope. They learned behasmada and for whatever reason decided that they belong in that capacity. Most gedolim’s opposition for it to be the communal norm that most people should be guided in that direction has been discussed here at length; rav moshe guided the chinuch of the yeshivos and this was his shitah. I also have no taanos on people who are raised in a torah im derech eretz community, in which the norm is to learn intensively for a few years before going to college, and spending a year or two in kolel after marriage before entering the workforce. I have several friends in that community and they’re very ehrlich, learn a lot when they’re not working, and were not influenced by their college days.
MO schools don’t teach torah im derech eretz, they prioritize secular studies, secular philosophies, and teach a trifle amount of ‘hebrew’ as it’s called, to be forgotten when one exits the institution.
While I’m very opposed to zionism, I do respect the “chardal” types who learn a lot and are taught to be separate from secular philosophy and culture, and who would recoil in horror at the thought of mixing genders. My rebbe rav belsky told me once that they’re bnei torah, who have one meshigas(i don’t recall if this was his exact word, but i do remember it being a forceful term). The boys who were niftar al kidush Hashem in mercaz horav are examples of this.
Shimon; what have i said that doesn’t comport with what you know of rav Belsky? He wasn’t my only rebbe, and wasn’t my biggest influence, but i consider him my rov for psak halacha, and i was zocheh to learn a lot from him
Yes, i agree that there’s no danger or risk for people to learn navi, as long as they are either learning it with mikraos gedolos meforshim, artscroll, or have someone reputable explain it to them
I don’t think anyone equated davening in English/German to sermonizing… The teshuvos from the chasam sofer aren’t concerned with the latter at all. From what I’ve read about the German rabbonim and mamshichei darcho of rac hirsch, there was opposition to the change, but it didn’t lead to charems and communal schisms as was the case for foreign language davening
That’s irrelevant; what ujm and i (though he was more succinct) are saying is that a Christian modeling something after Shlomo hamelech doesn’t mean that the model has a Jewish connection that would make it not AZ related
Also, i said above that it’s not nach or its absence that makes the big difference. It’s the list of differences above that does. I know an old temani yid who told me that they spent a tremendous amount of time on tanach when he was in cheder, for most of his schooling years; he knows tanach backwards and forwards – that’s his mesorah, and if MO schools were half as frum as the temani yeshivos were, i would only say that the litvishe don’t hold rhat way, and nothing more. However, MO learning nach has to be seen both in light of the ignorant and irreligious character of the MO educational and societal framework, and the results thereof. A temani yid taught tanach will not use it to defend feminism, because he has never heard of such things. Nor will he use knowledge of tanach as a “shtuch” to show that he is better than his peers, because he is just as (actually, more) frum as they are.
Anonymous, christians believe in tanach and the god of what they consider to be the bible. According to their religion, jews worship the same god as they do chas veshalom, just the trinity hadn’t revealed itself until yushkes time. They say god was always a trinity cv”s, so their doing something for a commemoration of shlomo or moshe or anyone else doesn’t make it a “Jewish” root, because it’s all part of their own bible. The founding fathers with the exception of Jefferson believed in the trinity. When they said god, they referred to the christian idea of god.
I did misunderstand your post and thought that you were saying that most of the top boys in serious yeshivos are from modern backgrounds. My mistake. However your contention that we see from the fact that there are any boys who are good at leaning that are the product of MO is untenable. Many, many rosh yeshivos went to public school, including rav avigdor miller, rav yitzchok sheiner, and rav nosson tzvi finkel. Does that mean that the product of pubic school is rosh yeshivos? No! You’re trying to prove the authenticity of a system based on a tiny minority of its products. They are not given tools to sit and learn. They are given guidance and discipline in secular studies and western thought. They are taught that just sitting and learning is backward. Have you ever seen what goes on in an MO school? Or are you making this assumption based solely on the fact that there are a handful of essentially baalei teshuva in regular schools?
According to you, the differences between an MO day school and a yeshivish school are mainly semantic, and superficial. Let’s chart out the differences:
Yeshivish school:
– Most of the day learning gemara from lively, motivated rebbeim who themselves learn torah the whole day.
– No involvement with secular culture, movies, music, television
– strict adherence to halacha, with repercussions for breaking thereof
– absolutely no intergender interaction
– expectation that one will remain learning seriously no matter what they do for a living
– guided path for the majority to continue full time learning
– college discouraged for the majority
– prudence and discouragement of pursuing worldly passions and interests
– mishmar
– Sunday is the same as any other day for learning
– discouraging or at least not acknowledging zionism
– mussar taught from seforim and a mesorahTypical MO school:
– mussar based around social justice and prejudice, “anti racism”, with a sprinkling of teaching against lashon hora (regarding everyone, not just jews)
– assumption of or facilitated interaction with the opposite gender
– classes on and celebration of zionism and its secular, murderous founders
– tolerance of all matter of deviancy (except yeshivishe people or the dreaded “satmar”)
– celebration of and encouragement to pursue higher education for its own sake
– roughly half of the time spent learning torah as compared to yeshivishe schools
– Sunday is a day of abandon without any learning
– paltry amount of gemara skills learned, many children have no idea which mesechta they are learning or even what “mesechta” means. Most do not learn tosfos until mid high school, if at all
– integration of secular culture as a given part of jewish life, including consumption of music, movies, television, with a quiet suggestion that one follow the non Jewish rating system and avoid R rated contentWhere exactly are the parallels?
Here, the communities led by gedolim who we know of, such as eav Eliezer silver, did not engage in communal acknowledgement of Thanksgiving in the form of changing our davening (the most extreme case) or even just giving sermons. It’s not the same as “jews always have done it”, when we have no proof from poskim or teshuvos that allow it. Until such time, deviances from the norm of not acknowledging non-jewisy holidays should he considered abberations and halachikally unproven at best.
Nomesorah, jews have always spoken non jewish languages; the gemara was written in aramaic for that reason! A more valid comparison would be praying communally in English, which is something hard to attribute to any particular prohibition, yet is a dramatic breech of mesorah, and was forbidden by the achronim responding to such attempts by the early reform movement.
Gadolha, American jews owned slaves in the 19th century as well; that is their mesorah too. Rabbonim were fine with it. Are you alright with that?
They’re accredited through colleges; they’re not scams. There’s a mitzvah to make a living; there’s no mitzvah to be thoroughly and seriously educated(actually, it might be the opposite), so yidden find aitzos to get degrees and get paid more for the same jobs or start new careers without having to waste time learning about gender studies or how white supremacy is the foundation of America.
Rav avigdor miller researched the matter extensively and found compelling evidence that the gratitude expressed was to the trinity, not Hashem.
Nomesorah; i didn’t say that Thanksgiving is a milsa belo taam as mentioned in the maharik. I said that the claim that a once religious holiday can lose its status and become secularized is not true, as evidenced by the mahariks psak that something unknown is asur, because we’re worried that it’s rooted in AZ
Charlie, when a minhag is a minhag shtus or keneged halacha, we drop it. “The Jews of new york” hundreds of years ago are not the forebears of the massively diverse jews who live in NY of today. Any jewish community after that time in NY, say under rabbi yaakov yosef, did not do such outlandish things such as change our davening to fit a non jewish holiday. Can you provide one even remotely relevant source in the poskim to permit such a thing? Rabbis in early America weren’t always poskim; are there teshuvos on the matter? What some shul did in the 1700s has no bearing on “minhag makom”, im sorry but that’s not how halacha works. If that were the case, you’d have to research what this community did in all of their minhagim; we’d all have to keep whatever zman they held for shabbos, their nusach, and everything else, but no one has ever paid attention to what Jews living in America did as basis for anything. I would give examples of things that early American rabbis permitted, but my rebbe rav belsky said he didn’t want to “start up with them” when i asked him about something particularly questionable that they allowed, so i will not do so either
Ujm is correct that those who forbade it (especially rav avigdor miller) were American and able to read English historical accounts. The machlokes is more about the facts than halacha. Everyone agrees that if something has AZ roots it would be assur even if now it is not viewed that way (think of Halloween). Actually, the maharik in siman 98 says that this is the precise reason that a non jewish custom without a clear meaning is not allowed, because we’re worried that there’s a forgotten AZ component, and if so, it would be assur even if now it is merely cultural etc.
Mother’s day is a completely cultural holiday, as is the 4th of july and other secular national days. It is of note, however, that father’s day is not observed by most frum people, but mother’s day is…hamyvin yovin.
The oft quoted refrain of “we give thanks every day” does not speak to the issues involved with Thanksgiving, from a halachik save hashkofic perspective. We acknowledge that there are opportune times that we focus on a given theme, lehavdil. Aside from the halachik issues above, there is a deeper hashkofic problem as well. Jewish holidays, as explained by the ramchal, have a “koach hazman”, a spiritual power inherent in the day itself. The powers of geulah were the reason why the yidden left on the 15th of Nissan; pesach isn’t merely a commemoration of what happened in the past, but rather a time when the avodah associated with geulah, from one’s personal shi’bud, comes to the fore. Chanuka we celebrate torah she baal peh. But this is the reason why leshana acheres kavuah, the chachamim only instituted chanukah the following year. Says the ohr gedalyahu, it was because the chachamim wanted to see if the spiritual powers they felt on chanuka returned the next year; if they did, it was worthy of being a yom tov.
Acknowledging secular holidays (aside from showing patriotism to our host country on, say, 4th of july, veterans day, memorial day, etc) dampens our understanding of koach hazman and makes us establish holidays that have no bearing on us. There’s nothing special about this day that has a shaychus with hakaras hatov; that is something we focus on during pesach, chanukah, sukkos, purim, and other times whej gratitude is one of the central themes.
Nomesorah; “the top” boys in all of the yeshivos you mentioned were the products of MO yeshivos? Have you taken a poll? on what are you basing this statement? Having gone to a few of the places you mentioned, it is true that there are some boys there went to MO schools(myself included), but the overwhelming majority, 95-98%, did not. It’s not as if the MO school built them up to being bnei torah through modern orthodoxy, and then they went on to the next natural step to Lakewood. It was despite their background that they ended up there, often resulting in being ostracized from friends and even family.
As someone who went through the MO system, the schools are not interested in producing bnei torah, or even very committed jews; they’re interested in producing proud, educated, PHd -holding tax paying zionists who hopefully keep shabbos and wear fabric on their heads, (unless said tax paying position makes that uncomfortable)and make enough money to send their kids to the same enriched institutions(my own school is not enriched). There are some rebbeim in modern schools (again, myself included) who are trying their best to teach authentic torah in a maelstrom of heresy and bizayon hatorah, but that’s not the undercurrent students experience, not among faculty, home life, and definitely not among their social peers. We grew up making fun of “black hatters” and “those fanatics who won’t hug their aunts” or who won’t watch television.
Learning nach and feeling better about themselves, that they know something that the bnei yeshivos do not know, is just part of the lie that they’re sold. I learned nach in yeshiva; I later learned that I had been fed lies and been given a narrative around tanach that had no mesorah and was better suited for a bible class given by david Ben gurion. So yea, I think MO schools learning navi is a chisaron, not chas veshalom because of nach itself, but because of both how they learn it and the superiority it engenders over those who don’t.
Oh, you said perek…i thought you said pasuk, my mistake
Halevi, your friend’s idea is exactly the way my first beis medrash gemara rebbe taught me to approach gemara; we would learn the pesukim quoted, usually with the malbim if it was nach, then see how the gemara is using it, and then go back to the meforshim and see the pasuk in light of both. Especially in agadeta gemaros that many people gloss over, we would spend as much time explaining the pshat as we did on shmaatsa. We’d use maharal, maharsha, ben yehoyada, and others
Ts, learning halacha pesukah, halacha lemaysoh is a separate issue – it’s more of a hecsher mitzvah; the beis halevi explains that this is why yidden didn’t make a bracha before learning, because they looked at the whole learning as a hecsher mitzvah to know what to do and how to be mekayam the mitzvos, and we don’t make brochos on hecsher mitzvos. Not to be confused with shmaatsa aliba dehilchasa and al manas laasos, where you learn the sugya itself.
There is an obligation to be maavir sedra too, but most people don’t spend more than an hour a week doing it. We don’t find talmidei chachamim who don’t know tanach; they do! But the stressing of it in day schools and MO yeshivos leads to neither understanding of tanach al pi chazal, nor success in learning altogether. This can be seen by the amount of MO graduates (the half who are even frum) who learn on their own or at all after their year of fun and games in eretz yisroel. They might listen to inspiring speeches encouraging them to be good older brothers who take their younger brothers to movie theaters (i heard a motivational MO rabbi speaker person say this once) but very few learn in a semi-serious (i.e. daf yomi) context.
AAQ, the gemara itself says not to learn nach “overly”. I will add that people who learn nach in yeshivos often learn it without the nesorah of gedolei yisroel; they use it to question daas torah and dismiss many teachings of gedolei yisroel. They “read” about Devorah and think that women being rabbis isn’t such a bad idea, for one example. They also emphasize the historical side of nach, often against the accepted interpretation of the pesukim. They use it to support zionism and believe it engenders love of the land (it could if you distort it that way…)
All of our ideological enemies have stressed tanach, from the tzedukim, karaites, maskilim, secular zionists, and christians…what smerel said about how to build talmidei chachamim is 100% true. The poskim hundreds of years ago said that being meshalesh learning doesn’t apply nowadays, and that gemara takes priority, both because it is “balul mekulan” and because it contains the necessary tools to pasken halacha
I’m a professional babysitter, since that’s the heter for taking money to teach torah to children
Just because we yidden who read the news are used to hearing stories of smugglers getting caught, has no bearing on sheltered yidden in eretz yisroel who might not have heard of the past events. Drug dealers are indeed preying on the innocence of charedi youth.
I don’t see how we have the right to be a prosecutor and decide the fate of another jew who has not been tried in a beis din. We have no concept, in most cases, of jail. We definitely don’t have an idea of jail as a punishment in halacha. Who are we to decide that another jew should rot in a jail cell to “learn his lesson”? The gemara says that jail is worse than death (im pretty sure it’s in bava metziah, I have to check it up later). We sometimes take our cues from what society around us thinks is appropriate.
Also, I’ve heard the story about rav schwab before; comparing a rov not wanting to help a dishonest businessman who got caught to a case of a young person who probably was not aware of the severity of the situation is mistaken. Helping ganovim is a chilul Hashem and that might take priority over freeing a jew from jail. It would still be our responsibility to make sure he has tefilin, etc…being a ganov doesn’t mean you’re no longer jewish, or that we have no responsibility to him anymore.
rabbi hoffman, in his otherwise very good article, seems to be unaware of the amount of sakanah in modern day jails. Preventing men from being נאנס is pikuach nefesh, and this is very common, especially when the victim is an easy target like the average orthodox jew.
I agree with his conclusion regarding lev tahor; they’re rodfim who will harm others if left free.
I agree with some of what nosemorah is saying; i should have mentioned the nesivos sholom, as it’s the most user friendly sefer that doesn’t require a background in chasidus (or much machshava for that matter). I agree that tanya should be learned with someone who’s not lubavitch, because they are medayek in it like pesukim in chumash and build a lot more on it than the rest of the world does on seforim written by achronim. You can be medayak in it the same way you are medayak in the mesilas yeshorim (which should definitely be done as per the hakdama), but there’s a limit.
Eres is hebrew too; it’s in tehilim, the kapitel we say by nefilas apayin
Jews spoke a judaicized aramaic, similar to yiddish. I don’t think they had to adhere to very strict dikduk rules like lashon kodesh