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To RebYiee23
Normally, I don’t take Joseph literally, but here I wonder…..the optics aren’t especially pretty. But giving Joseph the benefit of the doubt, as he is always prone to do for others, I assume he meant this as a metaphor that in Z’man moishiach, all broigas will be resolved (except perhaps for a few yellow flag wavers who may not have gotten the memo).I think this might have been posted before a Hatzalah van and first responders carryingsome sort of restraining device was seen near the corner of Eastern Parkway and Kingston Avenue dragging away this guy waving yellow flags singing yechi to a nigun that sounded like some uber Litvish rebbe doing the baracha for sefiras h’aoomer. How many divisive statements can you manage to fit into one paragraph labled “achdus”.
It really comes down to one’s level of education/experience with matters of halacha and self-confidence in researching certain types of questions where more likely than not, no psak is required. There are some yidden for whom the sequence of putting on their shoes in the AM is a shaylah worthy of asking their Rav. The threshold for asking a question obviously is very personal and there is no right or wrong answer. If you are lacking in confidence and have a Rav who never seems to bothered to answer even the most trivial questions, go for it.
There seems to be a parallel trend to use diminutive versions of solid Hebrew names to make them sound less formal….Avrumale, Sarahle, Feigele, Just add an “ale” to any name. Just look at the names in the simcha roster here on YWN….
At some point, the Mods may want to reconsider the value of continuing these two parallel threads on Chabad. While the early postings were VERY informative about Chabad mesorah and hashkafah and the questions were pointed but respectful, the last day or two have spiraled downward into an exchange of insults and mindless rants. I’m all for not censoring legitimate dialogue and debate but as several have noted, this is ending badly….
There are “anti-semites” and self-hating Jews. I can identify with the latter having been labeled as such many times here on YWN for expressing a viewpoint that is somewhere between anti-Yeshivish and borderline apikorsus (sometimes both). None of the textbook definitions of “anti-Semitism” is especially helpful in the context of trying to fit the term within the umbrella of “groupism”. About 2 weeks ago, there was a very interesting Congressional hearing (archived on C-Span) about proposed legislation to define “anti=Semitism” for purposes of allowing DOJ to prosecute hate crimes. Among the 5 noted law school professors and reps from ADL etc., there was a mixed view of whether such a definition was either feasible or useful.
I’m wondering how many Litvish members of the CR, after having read through these several threads over the past few days, felt compelled motzi shabbios to run out and purchase yellow flags and today were marching up and down Eastern Parkway screaming “yechi”??/
“I thought it was Rambam but maybe it was an article in Hamodiah or a schmooz I heard at my Shver’s niece’s afruf, but whats the difference, Moishiach is Moishiach”……
I have to agree with Sechele…..even the world’s biggest misnaged couldn’t have done a better job of being mevaze the Rebbe and making Lubavitch look like a bunch of meshugaim than Chacham. Even if the Rebbe was among us, this thread would likely make him think twice about some of his alleged chassidim.The world has evolved and so have the majority of yidden. If a fur is used entirely for purposes of style and fashion (even if to emulate the style and fashion of a prior generation) engaging in the horrendous practice of trapping fur-bearing animals where they die horrific deaths is clearly being mechallel tzar baalei chayim. To waste thousands of dollars on fur streimlach is an inyan that has been debated many times previously. Perhaps those chassidus who for some reason still feel the need to wear streimlach (which is obviously their right) might consider feaux fur going forward.
Five threads and approximately 273 postings later, no Chabadnik Is going to convince a single member of another chassidus, much less a true Litvisher skeptic that the Rebbe is alive/niftar and is/will be moishiach. However, even assuming they are all a bunch of meshugaaim in total denial of reality, Chabad does more for yiddeshkeit than any other segment of the tizbur. Not sure what is gained by continuing to engage in these online theological debates.
MDD1
Your multiple postings prove the point that misnagdim are really Chabad wannabees who are jealous of both their hashkafah and ahavas yisroel. Its a lot easier to post rants about followers of the rebbe being guilty of all sorts of apikorsus than to study the rebbe’s writings and at least understand the underlying hashkafah they follow. Do some take his words a bit more literally than others? Of course, but I think we see much more of that tendency in Litivish circles.
For those of us who have been fortunate to be able to travel in many of the remote locations in the world and have spent shabbosim with shiluchim in places where one would never expect to find other yidden much less a welcoming “home” for Shabbos, all I can say is they have done a great job “hiding” their moishichist meshugaas from the world. Yes, there are some who have drunk the cool aid (or O’d on Moishichist chulent) but the majority are incredibly intelligent and talented yidden with a degree of mesiras nefesh and ahavas yisroel that it would be wonderful to see replicated in other chassisdus and the Litvish velt.
As much as some of the Chabad-haters here may not like it, Dr. Sorkin is obviously doing something right since the Rav’s condition is reported today to be substantially improved although he still is in much sakanah. Yes, the tefillos too are important but never underestimate the power of a Lubavitch physician.
Get over it….it was a Lubavitch doctor but who cares??? Stop trying to find reasons to fan the flames of broigas within klal yisroel. Tehillim for R’ Shteiman were said by Chabad shiluchim at their annual kinos this past shabbos. I’m sure if the doctor was Litvish, someone would have somenow concluded that was an indicator they cared more about the affiliation of the doctor rather than providing the best possible medical care (lubavitch).
You should have known that it was just a matter of ie before some of the usual CR suspects would be comparing those chabadniks who believe the Rebbe may retun a moishiach to Jews for Jesus.
Fpr a variety of reasons that don’t warrant detailing here in the CR, you have made several fundamental errors in both your initial purchase agreements, willingness to accept oral reps by store managers and subsequent responses to the collection agency. Diversified is a very agressive agency but generally stays within the law. Get yourself a good attorney an take her/his advice, Good luck
There is no reason why the tzibur must “choose’ between those who believe the rebbe is/was/will be moishiach, those who feel such beliefs are apikorsus and the large percentage of yidden who don’t know/don’t care as long as z’man moisiach is sooner rather than later. And to those who expect to see a guy wearing a white kitel riding a white donkey along the Belt Parkway headed to 770, yasher koach for “keeping the faith” since there are at least a few equally passionate yidden (including several here in the CR) who think you are looney tunes but nonetheless will embrace you as “achenu kol yisroel”…
Dressing up young kids in “adult” lvush sometimes is visually jarring where the streimlach are bigger than the kids. However, in the alte heim, the nobility and monarchy would always dress their kids in royal attire from almost the day they were born
Not sure what the focus of this thread is…..in many Chassidus, the Rav and his “court” often are wearing streimlach and bekeshes that are VERY fashionable by chassideshe standards costing thousands of dollars and clearly distinguishable from the lvush worn by the 99 percentile of the Rav’s chassidim. Not saying its right, wrong or simply irrelevant but “lvush” is obviously meant to create a class sytem where the leadership/nobility is a step up (sartorially) from the peasants…
“Someone should stick up for satmar…”
What is there to “stick up” for? They are mamash “real” chassidim…..the issue though is whether they are at the same madregah of chassidus as the guys with the yellow flags on Eastern Parkway…
Because this is a website for frum yidden, there is an implicit presumption that everyone here has their own LRP….not true. You would be amazed at how many frum yidden have never really selected and relied upon an LRP and either are “self-paskining” using online research or simply have not ever thought about consulting an LRP for issues in their daily life. ZD wisely notes that if you are staffing a Halacha helpline you don’t want to be judgmental and turn away shaiylos simply because you don’t know the person on the other end of the line.
Without saying chabadniks are “better” than other chassidus, segments of the litvish tzibur, etc. the only point several of us are making is that its rare to see them mamash fighting among themselves for control of a particular shul in Monsey, in the civil courts for control of the assets of the chassidus (not that anyone really would fight over 770) or violently demonstrating in the streets calling members of the IDF and police “Nazis” etc. Are some portions of their hashkafah a bit over the top (e.g. running up and down Eastern Parkway with yellow flags alerting us to Moishiach having been sighted on the Long Island Expressway)…perhaps yes but still I don’t know of other segment of the tzibur with such ahavas yisroel . End of story….nothing more to say.
“What is a “benefit” is not up to the Gedolim in the Coffee Room or even the real The Gedolei Torah. ”
What IRS tax examiner or compliance officer would have the chutzpah to challenge any taxpayer claiming an exemption from the new rules on “taxable income” who cited one of the “gadolim” from the CR as the basis for such an assertion. They would quickly nod their head knowingly and apologize for even questioning your knowledge of tax law.
On last night’s kinus of the Chabad Shalichim (which is available via podcast) there was a brief clip of the Rebbe being asked to define what was meant by “being a chasid of the Rebbe”. He answered simply by saying “a chasid of mine is simply a yid helping another yid in need”. When you watch the news in EY with R’ Auerbach’s followers engaging in violence, property destruction, showing hatred of the medniah an disrupting the lives of hundreds of thousand of yidden and then watch a chabad shalicah helping yidden in the far corners of the world put on tefillin for the first time, its fairly straightforward what the Rebbe meant and what it means to be a Lubavitch “chassid” or whatever you want to call them. Do other chassidus engage in their own forms of positive engagement with other yidden…Yes, but not to the same degree. Do Litvish mosdos do good work for the tzibur? Yes, but again, not to the same degree.
There are several yeshivos that offer varying degrees of secular/college level studies but those are probably not considered in the “upper tier” from a purely lamdus perspective. A chavrusah is an organic thing that exists through the interaction of its participants, not on the shteiging skills of any one person. If the chemistry isn’t right, any chavrusah will have challenges even if the participants are individually the “stars” of that particular institution
While the focus of the legislative language is to tax “imputed income” from tuition discounts provided to graduate teaching assistants at “liberal colleges” (obviously not so worded in the bill), the IRS rules could easily sweep in imputed income to kollel yungerleit who might also be teaching in a cheder affiliated with the kollel or any of a number of situations. Most kollel yungerleit are not making big bucks (even if the wife is working) and with the expanded personal exemption for a half dozen kinder, probably not much risk of big tax exposure. If so, the mosdos will have to gross up the compensation to offset their increased tax liability (absent a rich shver to pay the tax bill).
Even the most ardent misnaged will acknowledge that the work of the Chabad shalichim has brought more yidden back to torah-true yiddeshkeit than any other segment of the tzibur. Chabad shalichim are non-judgmental and see every yiddeshe neshama as worthy of their time, attention and energy. For most frei yidden, they have no knowledge of any of the dozen or so chassidus represented in the United States, much less the litivsh communities other than Chabad. You can have legitimate disagreements with the shita of the rebbe on some issues or aspects of their hashkafah but don’t ever suggest that Chabad isn’t unique and constitutes the spearhead of Hashem’s army.
Three hundred plus postings and a gazillion words later, no one has yet provided a convincing argument as to why a woman shouldn’t follow the guidance of her Rav or posek as to whether a real haired sheitel, a faux hair sheitel, a tichel, a snood, or a paper bag with holes cut out provides the appropriate hair covering for a bas yisroel. While yiddeshkeit provides considerable opportunity for individual hashkafah, apparently those in CR are of the belief that women must adhere to whatever chumrah/kulah they hold by and failure to do is is apikorsus and leads to all sorts of pritzus.
Why would you ask a poishete dentist when you can get the opinion of so many experts on everything here in the CR….you get the world’s best eitzah at zero cost from those who aren’t afraid to opine on subjects they know nothing about and do so with great passion and without equivocation.
I don’t think anyone considers the new age Breslovers as real chassidim. The litvishe Chassidus seem to be distancing themselves from Chabadniks in both their lvush and hashkafahl as well as their politics. For Lubavitch, the more years that go by with no “rebbe”, the less it has in common with the Litvish chassidus where the centrality of the current rebbe;’s personality is a key component of their hashkafah and minhagim.
Solar panels physically cannot “consume” electricity. An incorrectly installed meter, whether a “smart” meter, time-of-use meter, load differentiated meter, etc. for customers with net-metering arrangements can show absurd amounts of energy or record capacity use during peak hours that will ratchet up the bill, especially if the highest marginal peak hour price (which can be 5x to 7x times the off-peak price) is applied across all consumption blocks. All of you who have these ridiculous bills should retain a billing consultant who will come in and figure out for your the source of the problem and engage with the utility billing department. There are several qualified energy auditing firms in the Atlanta area if you are an AGL customer.
Alternatively, you may have simply signed an abusive contract with the solar provider under which you are being charged some absurd fixed monthly G&A type charge which presumes an order of magnitude higher load than net-metered or contains some other provisions which no sensible customer would have willingly agreed to (unless you didn’t read the fine print). There are a lot of scams out there which have nothing to do with the utility but are entirely bilateral agreements between you and the solar system intaller. Sadly, you may be locked in since stupidity is not normally considered an event of force-majeure’
Yossi….either you are misreading the electric bills, have a broken meter or are not accurately conveying information in what you are posting. Your characterization of the facts doesn’t make sense. The output of the rooftop array on a net-metered basis was expected to be deficient relative to your load from an energy perspective. No utility company “charges” a customer for energy self-generated to offset load or injected to the grid via a feed-in tariff. Perhaps type slowly and accurately state whats going on.
The IDF has probably the lowest sartorial-focus among advanced nations in the world, yet no one would questions its efficacy as a fighting machine. Most IDF units have a hard time marching in step and many young chayalim look like they just fell out of bed and wearing uniforms two sizes too small or large with many ad-hoc fashion accessories. Likewise hashem’s army doesn’t need to be dressed like a bunch of penguins if they are able to shteig more effectively wearing a different colored shirt.
What possible reason could there be for not allowing a clean and sharply ironed beige or light blue shirt versus white..? This mindless focus on trivia rather than midos and lamdus seems to be counterproductive
Yossi….
you are either misreading the billing statement or you are not accurately stating the provisions of the the PPA…your post doesn’t make sense. If your load had nearly tripled according to the meter and you haven’t installed new appliances or charging a car in your garage, the meter is incorrect.Its one of those rare occasions where I think Joe’s point is well taken. If you have a good relationship with your rav and respect his judgement, no reason not to consult with him on ANY important decision in your live, halaachic or otherwise. In today’s world, we get information overload and often want to make a decision but have some hesitancy and are unsure how to resolve. A rav can simply be a good person to bounce ideas off and also may be a great networking source who might refer you to others in the tzibur with subject area expertise you might not have been aware of.
One person’s kulah is another’s chumrah….there are so many inyanim where varying degrees and forms of observance span a broad spectrum. What passes for hidur mitzvah among some is the baseline or starting point for others. A simple recognition of these variances w/o being judgemental would go a long way towards breaching the gap that seems to arise over so many nonsensical issues. Recognition does not mean “acceptance”, “endorsement” etc. It simply means that others rely upon a different rav with a different view.
“Are there many frum people without a rav??””
Actually, a fairly nuanced question. As Sarah Palin would say, among “REAL Frummies” they “go by” the Rav of their chassidus/yeshiva/shul/beis medrash etc. A study a few years ago by some YU professor found that among MOs (aka Young Israel types), they tended less to always use the rav of their local shul as compared with being their “own Rav” and intellectually researching whatever inyan was of concern and making their own decisions w/o consulting anyone. Obviously not what chazal had in mind in re “aseh l’cha rav”.
There could be problems with the inverter or wiring that could easily result in metering issues. Also, make sure the higher bill is for the energy (kwh) component of the bill and not for the capacity (KW) component which may in some cases may be ratcheted up for peak useage. Also, if you are some type of “net metering” program you may not be getting credit for energy fed back into the grid.
As to leaks, call a good roofer, not the electrician
DY….brilliant in its simple elegance and total transparency. Perhaps when you move beyond the beta version and roll out the actual product you might add a fourth option for “Joe’s World”…..
Seems like this would be more useful if they provided some indication of which hotlines are likely to offer chumrahs/kulahs on specific areas of halacha. This would facilitate Joe’s concerns about wasting time shopping around or cherrypicking before a poishete yid with limited time gets a Rav or Posek on the line who will provide the “right answer”
There are many chassidish hashgachos that provide supervision outside of the larger concentrations of frum yidden, to the extent a local establishment wants to be able to offer the assurance of high standards of kashruth to its clientele.
Its very difficult to “call up” a local vaad or hashgacha agency and “ask them” about their reliability….what are they going to tell you.. “Of course, our mashgichim are big talmeidei chachamim and yirei shamayim and are able to stay awake most of the time to assure that no treifus walks through the door…”. Your best bet is to find some local chassideshe hashgacha, if one if available, and either patronize their establishments or ask them to opine on any others. Some will disagree, but in the large percentage of cases, you can’t go wrong with chassideshe hashgacha.
Joseph Says
“This new age idea that men should keep out of women issues, popularized in political culture in debates about abortion and other contemporary liberal thought, is entirely and completely a goyishe train of thought.:
No Joe…its NOT “new age”…your constant effort to denigrate women in the name of Halacha is fairly transparent but most of the time, ignored…nor is misogyny a goiyeshe concept. More and more bnos yisroel are getting an education, becoming more informed of their rights and responsibilities under both halacha and civil law and and no, its not apikorsus to disagree with those who would keep women in some dark virtual cave and allowed to come out only when their husbands or fathers gave them permission. You paint a very sad picture of any women in your life by your commentaryTo Meno…
And what other “chiddush” (aside from the nexus between the mitzvah being all about tzinius) do you wish Rav Moshe had been aware of??..”which poskim bigger than Chacham Ovadiah disagreed with”…
We should have some sort of rule that if you are going say Gadol X is “bigger” than Gadol Y or that the holding of Posek A ” trumps” Posek B (except for Ungarashe yidden living in Bnai Brak)…etc. you have to also post your Gadolim ranking or Posek “top 10” listing….this A is bigger than B stuff is both silly and not especially informative since no one has a clue as to the criteria you are using and generally, different groups have different perceptions as to who is the gadol hador (not that I would know). That’s why we have our own local rav or posek to hold by, and generally we take their guidance. However, one of the great gifts of the YWN CR is that if you carefully scroll through the archives, you can always find some attribution to some gadol or posek who will hold the exact position you are hoping to legitimize.
A. There is always somewhere that yidden need rain/wind/dew or other meteorological interventions (and there is even a ski area on the Hermon whose parnassah requires ample snowfall)
B. Given the reality of global warming, its not clear that any of this matters anyway…we hold by the shita of R’ Al Gore but not all do.I’m sure you can find both frum men and women wearing just about ANY color (although various shades of black have been the “in” color at the fall and spring runway shows for men for the past several hundred years). Yes, you will find some niche chassidus wearing white bekeshes and knee sox but those seem to be an exception….in some other cases, the standard chassidishe lvush prescribes that only the rebbe is wearing white (or white stripes) but the masses are still dressed in standard penguin garb…
Joseph!!
Yashyer koach on your mathematics and analytical skills…..impressive