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I am still waiting for someone to respond to my comment about “sharing the burden” of maintaining a Jewish majority is Israel (and the continuity of Klal Yisroel). Why doesn’t that burden need to be shared? Why does it fall so disproportionately on the Chareidim, and why don’t the other Israeli Jews at least have some הכרת הטוב, and shut up about the lighter burden – עגלה הריקה – that they bear?
I am still waiting for someone to respond to my comment about “sharing the burden” of maintaining a Jewish majority is Israel (and the continuity of Klal Yisroel). Why doesn’t that burden need to be shared? Why does it fall so disproportionately on the Chareidim, and why don’t the other Israeli Jews at least have some הכרת הטוב, and shut up about the lighter burden – עגלה הריקה – that they bear?
AAQ – yankel > if you would substitute the word OTD , with “serious major sickness” , you would not be so flippant … Is it so important to avoid major sicknesses? How many charedim went into medicine to help deal with them?
Stop being deliberately disingenuous. If OTD was as serious TO YOU as major sickness is serious TO YOU, then you would not be so flippant. Now do you understand?
At any rate, since you asked. In America there are many Chareidi doctors, as you probably know. (Again, unless you define Chareidi as inherently precluding work in any field, i.e. ‘No True Scotsman’.) In Israel there is Ichud Hatzalah, and many Chareidim who volunteer in MDA, as well as working in health related fields, including doctors (albeit fewer than in America) and nurses (probably more than in America).
HaKatan – The wicked Erev Rav should allow the Chareidim to work, in “modern society”, rather than forcibly impoverish them until they turn 26 years old; at which point, only then, they can start working.
But the Erev Rav want them in the army for the reason they don’t allow them to work: because they want to convert them from Judaism to (Progressivism) [fill in the flavor of the month] in their secular assimilation army. And that is a non-starter, of course.
Fixed your comment for you. Otherwise 100% on target.
AAQ – I don’t think it is likely “zionist” fault, as they were a significant part of those who survived and prospered after that.
So did the Germans… No one claims to be able to fully understand how and why Hashem operates. We have a Mesorah that “punishment” is the result of “sin”. The Holocaust certainly qualifies as “punishment”. Many people bigger than you and me said Zionism qualifies as “sin”. If you don’t like it, zol zein gezindt. You are still a Yid, and so am I, and so is HaKatan.
HaKatan said – Nope. Hashem designed this world, especially during galus, that we be separate from the nations. “VaAvdil eschem min haAmim liHyos li.” He also designed Antisemitism as a wake-up call for when Jews get too close to the nations, CH”V. As Rav Chaim Brisker noted, if the Jews don’t make kiddush, then the goyim will make havdala.
Why “nope”? That is exactly what I wrote. What do you think the ברית בין הבתרים means? That we are the עם הנבחר, and cannot escape that, with a clause for ארבע מלכויות to teach us that…
HaKatan – Zionism is, of course, the ultimate assimilation, and has spread its ideological tentacles worldwide in unprecedented ways. That is what is frightening to a maamin or at least to anyone who thinks he is a maamin.
I said that too, in different words. I added that Zionism is not the ONLY thing going on, and especially that WE need to do תשובה for OUR issues, instead of klapping al cheit for other Jews’ aveiros and slapping our belly thinking we’re ‘Sheiner Yidden’ because we aren’t Zionists…
AAQ said – Well, this does connect with Zionism. R Schach writes that because early Zs were ready to go to Beirut University, antisemitism had to be activated – to protect them from intermarriage. Inter alia, this means that R Schach thought that Hashem cares about Zionists …
Of course it connects with Zionism, that was part of what I said. But it has nothing to do with what the Goyim think they are angry about, it is something directed from Above. Who said Hashem doesn’t care about Zionists? They might not have cared about their end of the Covenant, but Hashem sure cared about His end, BECAUSE Yidden cannot escape our special connection to Hashem. That is exactly what the ברית is all about.
AAQ – But while the hesranos of Zionists are obvious, their achievements are also easy to see – all Jews who were saved through their efforts.
Something about the arsonist joining the fire fighters… (And even then, only partially.) The destruction had a great deal to do with assimilation and secularism, of which Zionism was a major part. (This is aside from the שלש שבועות issue, which I don’t want to go into again.) Many Gedolim said that, some out loud, some quietly, but to claim ‘we just can’t ever know’, or only with hundreds of years of hindsight, is disingenuous. Zionism wasn’t a PRACTICAL movement to save Jews. If it was, they would have been equally happy to save them by sending them anywhere they could go, by any means necessary. They infamously refused to do so. It was an IDEOLOGICAL movement to build a Judenstaat, everything else be damned. Some Frum Jews happened to have been saved by them by mistake because they knew someone who knew someone who begrudgingly gave up some ‘certificates’ earmarked for Chalutzim, to save some ‘old Rabbis from Poland’. והדברים ידועים ואכמ״ל. Please do not start another debate on the history, it has been thoroughly beaten to death.
AAQ – It may be not a surprise that Herzl that lived the modern life understood Dreyfus affair and what it implies while some rabbonim…
Herzl, at that point in his life, did not understand ANYTHING AT ALL about anything to do with Jews or Judaism. He was taken COMPLETELY by surprise, and said so himself. Emphatically so. He was shocked how viscerally the fine French gentlemen despised the thoroughly assimilated Dreyfus and the other thoroughly assimilated French Jews. Some good people explained to him that Christians don’t like Jews, because we rejected their religion. So, he came up with the brilliant idea of convincing all the Jews to convert to Christianity… He went all excited to the Bishop of Vienna, who explained to him that they already tried to do that, but it didn’t work… So then he came to the conclusion that if Jews had their own state, like the French have theirs, so then the Goyim would accept us as just another nation-state… היו לא תהיה. He went to his grave (from syphilis) still thinking that Uganda would be an ideal place for such a state… Rabbonim understand Torah, and Torah tells us EVERYTHING we need to know in order to be the עם הנבחר. Even if we die for that, we don’t die the way Herzl did ח״ו…
Oh yeah, and there was that guy who went to the Army Chiloni and came out as a Baal Teshuva. Yup, them’s the one…
AAQ said – teaching in schools how to interact with the world, including chilonim and the army – so that 20-y.o. go there without becoming OTD.
On what planet can schools teach 18 year old boys how to deal with the ניסיונות they face in the IDF, unless they are Yosef HaTzaddik? Even if the nisyonos were purely intellectual, that is highly dangerous. For גילוי עריות challenges, no amount of preparation can guarantee anything, at any age, certainly not 18 year old singles… If you took spiritual dangers as seriously as physical dangers, (גדול המחטיאו יותר מההורגו), you would never talk that way. And as Yankel Berel, myself, and others have pointed out again and again, the RZ Hesder Yeshivot DO try to prepare their boys, with a rate of failure almost twice as bad as Russian Roulette…
AAQ – It was Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai who hid in a cave, not as a way of life, but to escape being killed by the Romans.
“Chairs, food from the store, and phones without wires” are luxuries enjoyed by almost everyone who isn’t homeless, and some who are…
“Roads without manure” are freely available in all of the developed world except for Gaza and San Francisco…
“This price can be paid either by working or serving.” You are mixing two completely different issues. Globally, the vast majority of Chareidim work. (Unless you define ‘Chareidi’ in No-True-Scotsman style as ‘full time learning’.) They also pay most of their limited income to feed, clothe, and be מחנך the next generation of כלל ישראל, and the only reliable guarantee of a Jewish majority in Israel. Chilonim, in the best case scenario, ‘pay their dues’ for three years, and then do what they want for the remainder of their lifetime, which doesn’t necessarily go together with maintaining a Jewish majority in the Land. What about sharing THAT burden, which is so much bigger?
Yankel Berel – The only decision making process that we have full בחירה to control is our own. Also, blaming any סיבה בדרך הטבע for antisemitism or other ups and downs in Jewish history is the EXACT SAME כפירה as Zionism itself…
Sometime during the life of the Chofetz Chaim there was a major tsunami somewhere in East Asia, and the Chofetz Chaim got together the Yeshiva and gave a fiery shmuez of התעוררות לתשובה. When asked what the tsunami has to do with us, he responded with a question: If someone were to stand up on a soapbox in the main square of Warsaw and start giving a speech in Yiddish, which ethnic group do you think is his intended audience? The talmidim answered “Obviously, the Yidden, he is speaking a language only they understand.” Answered the Chofetz Chaim, “When Hashem does things in the world to be מעורר people to תשובה, He is speaking a language only (Torah observing and thinking) Jews can understand…”
AAQ – You need to “pay the price” for the luxury of living in the modern world. I presume if someone wants to live the ways of R Shimon b Shetach, there are still caves in the world where one can settle.
Most children in an average Talmud Torah would be able to correct your misquote, in that it was Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai who hid in a cave, and not as a way of life, but to escape the Romans who wanted him dead.
You mix together “working” and “serving in a co-ed Progressive תועבה army”, as if the two are equal and interchangeable. Working can be done in a wide variety of fields, including very low risk (ruchniyus wise) occupations. People who work, some harder than you do, some who earn more than you do, donate much money to support people learning full time so they can afford “chairs, food from the store, and phones without wires”, luxuries enjoyed by most people who aren’t homeless, and some who are… Roads without manure can be enjoyed, free of charge, in most of the developed world except for San Francisco and Gaza. Serving in the IDF involves being משועבד 24/7 (emphasis on the 7…) to hostile Chilonim who have an explicit agenda to remake ‘Chareidi’ soldiers in their image, all blather to the contrary notwithstanding, aside from the very real “gender integration issues” (that no amount of preparation and teaching can protect an 18 year old kid from, unless the 18 year old kid is Yosef HaTzaddik – get real brother.) That isn’t a price for a Jew to pay for anything, possibly including preservation of life, certainly including “phones without wires”, even if you could somehow find a phone with wires these days…
The only “luxury” on the table that could conceivably be “paid for” somehow is living in Eretz Yisroel (with or without chairs and phones and manure etc.) So, if there is no other option, Chareidim could go live in חוץ לארץ like you do… The zchus of living in ארץ ישראל is not דוחה any איסור. The Israeli government will then have to recruit other Jews willing to share the burden of maintaining a Jewish majority… Something that involves a longer and more difficult commitment than serving in the IDF, and that most non-Chareidi Israelis shirk their obligations to…
AAQ – Imagine you live 500 years ago – how much time you’d have to spend getting your food, cooking, walking, earning to have a couple of seforim – this generation is doing ok in terms of time available for learning.
You again miss the point. This isn’t primarily about learning, it’s about not being מחלל שבת (because the sergeant feels like it, not פיקוח נפש). It’s about not sharing sleeping quarters with girls (something RZ soldiers in Gaza complained about to no avail). It’s about many more things, that WON’T be dealt with, because the עברות are the whole point. It’s a feature, not a bug.
HaKatan – It is the ברית בין הבתרים that bothers the Gentiles. They don’t know or care about the difference between Satmar and Lubavitch, between Brisk and Har HaMor, between Ponevizh and Ponevizh, between Reb Arelach and Tzohar, or between you, me, ‘Square Root’, and ‘AAQ’. We are all Zhidden and fair game for murder ר״ל. The ideological flavor of the month (of the Goyim, or the confused Jews) makes no difference. Zionism was the second to most recent, and one of the most thorough, attempts by ערב רב to reject the Jewish end of the ברית בין הבתרים, and Hashem activated the Goyish end of the ברית בין הבתרים with devastating results. The most recent such attempt is post-Zionism/Progressivism, and Hashem again activated the system on Simchas Torah 5784. What WE have to do is תשובה תפלה וצדקה, and to help more Yidden do the same. Not deluding ourselves that the ‘only’ problem is Zionism, (and therefore we are OK, because we don’t like Zionism…)
Rabbi Pruzansky is telling it as it is with regard to the most recent episode of The Antisemitism Saga, however this has nothing to do with the real reason for antisemitism. Hashem created this force to keep us the עם הנבחר, even when some don’t want to be. When ‘Israeli’ tourists, who forgot that they are ‘Jews’, try to eat in a treif restaurant, the Goyim remind them. When ‘Israelis’ cruise to beach resorts in the Greek islands (right wing government notwithstanding), angry yokels show up and remind them הן עם לבדד ישכון. Who cares about Right, Left, Gaza, Progressivism, Nationalism, Communism, Jews-Killed-Yoshke, Jews-Killed-Palestinians, etc. The entire Zionist movement was based on the notion that by establishing their own nation-state they would lose the stigma of ‘Jews’ and become ‘Israelis’, i.e. a new type of Goyim, who would then be accepted into the ‘family of nations’. At the time, the global Leftist/Socialist/Marxist movements were their best friends (and the Right usually not so much so back then…), and Israel was a socialist de-facto one party state, with much government intervention in the economy and job market, for its first 30 years of existence. Then Hashem started taking them apart piece by piece, through various ‘natural’ events and shifting ideological winds, to the point where today it is painfully (for them) obvious that an ‘Israeli’ remains a ‘Zhid’, and antisemitism isn’t going anywhere… Actually, today’s Israeli Left thinks the whole Zionism thing was a mistake, and their solution is to embrace Progressive ideology, declare a secular ‘State of all Citizens’, and forget the whole ‘Jewish’ thing ever happened… That ain’t goin’ anywhere… But only the Arabs can tell them that, because they don’t listen to anyone else.
AFAIK, Breslov and Lubavitch in large numbers, Satmar (in their own kehillot), smaller numbers in Belz (mostly BT).
Non Political – There is a range of options between being in an ‘echo chamber’ and being a punching bag. I was merely suggesting to go for the more benign end of the spectrum…
HaLeiVi said – Yaakov Yosef A, you ask where the moderators are. However, when I tried being מוחה at one point for the very inappropriate manner in which anti Lubavitch spoke of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, a moderator responded with ‘how do you know he’s a Gadol’.
Let’s say they ‘don’t know if he is a Gadol’. (If someone would write here similar trash about the Rov of a local Shtiebel in Boro Park, or a third-tier Rosh Yeshiva, I don’t think it would fly as easily, but let’s say they really ‘don’t know’.) My Rebbe said about such situations ספק דאורייתא להחמיר, certainly safek of up to 31 דאורייתא mentioned in the Hakdama of the Chofetz Chaim, especially ביזוי תלמידי חכמים which is exceedingly severe. The threshold for triggering an issur of בזיון is much lower than being a ‘Gadol’.
Yankel Berel – I’m not going to go through your list line by line, despite having what to say. My real point is that no one posting here has any שייכות to being a בר פלוגתא with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Period. The most anyone of us is entitled to do is to choose a different Rebbe/Rosh Yeshiva/Rov, who may disagree with the Lubavitcher Rebbe on certain issues, but not to add our ‘two cents’ to any debate. All this is aside from the fact that no Lubavitcher could care less what anyone here thinks, so who are you trying to convince? (I am not a Lubavitcher, but I learn and love Lubavitcher Sefarim from all the generations of Rebbes and talmidim, as did my Rebbe.)
Speaking about ‘sharing the burden’, what about the burden of raising the next generation of כלל ישראל, or even just maintaining a large enough Jewish majority in Israel? Why isn’t that very real burden, which is MORE necessary for survival than even the IDF, also something that needs to be shared? And if the Chilonim (and some, not all, MO/RZ) don’t want to share the burden, they should at least be more appreciative of those who do serve…
By the way, when we talk about sharing the burden, what about the burden of raising the next generation of כלל ישראל, or even just maintaining a large enough Jewish majority in Israel? Why isn’t that very real burden, which is MORE necessary for survival than even the IDF, also something that needs to be shared? And if the Chilonim (and some, not all, MO/RZ) don’t want to share the burden, they should at least be more appreciative of those who do serve…
ujm – there is a great little pamphlet circulating now on the draft issue called הכלבים צועקים… You would love it. It doesn’t use the word ציוני or ציונות even once, and it quotes many RZ Rabbanim and Roshei Yeshivot Hesder on their perspective on tzniyus issues in the IDF (among other things). Whoever wrote it understands exactly what ZSK and I are talking about.
Yankel berel – well put.
By the way, when we talk about sharing the burden, what about the burden of raising the next generation of כלל ישראל, or even just maintaining a large enough Jewish majority in Israel? Why isn’t that very real burden, which is MORE necessary for survival than even the IDF, also something that needs to be shared? And if the Chilonim (and some, not all, MO/RZ) don’t want to share the burden, they should at least be more appreciative of those who do serve…
AAQ – If you are right and they are not “legitimate” then the system will work it out – Knesset will vote for ignoring them or write an explicit rule that defines what courts can do. But at the end, it will come to public opinion – if it supports certain actions, politicians will find a way to deal with that.
That should be true, except it isn’t… The small and vocal Leftist minority has a stranglehold on the Israeli economy, media, upper Army brass, and of course the judiciary itself… Even Bibi can’t stop them. Have you been following local news here for the last three years?
AAQ – Forget about the dictionary definition of ‘democracy’ vs. ‘republic’ etc. The Israeli Supreme Court is off the rails. Everyone knows it, even their supporters, except their supporters like it that way… They gave themselves de-facto veto power over all laws passed. Laws are written in the Knesset based on what the Bagatz will or won’t approve, much like Congress does with the President. That is not the role of a court in any country. Aside from the fact that they can declare laws ‘unconstitutional’, without a constitution… Or they can tell the Army what to do or not to do during wartime… This is complete insanity, not some ‘flaws’.
ZSK – I’m not going to get into what Israel has done in terms of aborting babies. That quite frankly has nothing to do with it.
Sure it does… ואכמ״ל
ZSK – IDF service is a government policy and legal issue.
So was the Cantonist decree or any other גזרות שמד.
ZSK – Charedim are in the govermnent and play a major role, therefore the policy and law concerns them.
They are there, and they can leave. The Kanoyim are still here after 77 years of not being in the government or taking money from them. If they call their bluff, there won’t be anything remaining for the Left to leverage.
ZSK – I lived in Bnei Brak for several years and also saw their lifestyle close up. What I saw was clearly very different from what you saw.
ממה נפשך, if they are for real, they will listen to the גדולי תורה. If not ח״ו, they will have an opportunity to choose. I also have seen a lot in almost 30 years of living in Israel, though I don’t agree with your assessment. My gut feeling is that when push comes to shove more are for real than you think. (I also think that the real loser of this מצב will be the AG/Bagatz Junta, becaus more ‘Chilonim’ are מאמינים than many here think, and civil war ר״ל is not an option for anyone.)
ZSK – But I am of the position that it is the law that everyone is to serve and Charedim do not have the right to exempt themselves based on ideological arguments.
I understand where you are coming from, but look at it the other way. (Don’t get me wrong, and I am not trying to make a 1:1 comparison in terms of intensity.) There were ‘laws on the books’ in the time of the Greeks, the Romans, all of Medieval Europe, Spain, Russia… The גדולי התורה of those generations taught us that our ‘ideological arguments’, i.e. the Torah (its letter and spirit) come before those laws. Sometimes we had a נס חנוכה, and sometimes we were tortured and slaughtered, but we are still here, and they are long gone… You may argue that here it is different, because it’s a ‘Jewish’ state with Chareidi participation in government, etc. The bottom line is that ALL of the Chareidi (and some RZ) Gedolei Torah aren’t buying it. As I have mentioned previously, the consensus is far too broad to blame on politics. This is real, whether anyone likes it or not. If it means all Chareidim becoming Kanoyim, with all that implies, so be it. We aren’t going anywhere, and there isn’t enough room in Israeli jails for 54,000 boys. The Israeli government will not be able to do anything more brutal than Antiochus or Hadrian or Czar Nicholas I ימח שמם. Then, as now, the point of the ‘laws’ was to integrate the Jews into their vision of the broader society, and they didn’t see themselves as villains or oppressors for trying to do so.
The reality is that the IDF has no use for thousands of Chareidi soldiers who ‘aren’t with the program’. For them this is a bigger pain in the neck then the Hilltop Youth (who at least believe in fighting Arabs…) Left to their own devices, the IDF brass (and probably Bibi and most of the politicians) wanted somewhat more of what has been going on until now – ויזנב בך כל הנחשלים אחריך to turn into Chardakim, some of whom may finish off still outwardly resemble Chareidim enough to be able to convince a new and slightly larger crop to join the next round. IMHO, the AG and Bagatz are (most unwilling) שליחים of the השגחה עליונה to raise the bar too high and too fast, and break the cycle. They themselves don’t understand that their actions and words are doing more to stop Chareidi recruitment (among those somewhat more serious, but still בקצה המחנה) than anything the גדולי תורה could have done on their own. This מצב will force the ‘at risk’ demographic to decide who they are and where they want to be. This will also harden and unify Chareidi positions on issues that may otherwise have been negotiable or internally contentious. Those who will leave will primarily be those who were looking to leave anyway. (Same thing that happened with the Hellenists, Meshumadim, Maskilim, etc.)
The bottom line is, pitting the ‘rule of law’ (something that isn’t exactly Israel’s strong point even in the best of times…) against the rule of Torah (as interpreted by the real גדולי ישראל, the ones the דעת בעלי בתים don’t like…) will not work. It might not be pretty, but it won’t work.
Sechel – I’m also a little suspicious about who ‘CS’ really is. If she just wants to be מתחזק with friends, there are plenty of Chabad and Chabad friendly websites and social media. However, the moderators should really clean up anything going near ביזוי תלמידי חכמים, of ANY kind, or hate language, again of ANY kind. (It says so in the rules, doesn’t it?)
Non political – The previous thread with the same name 3.0 was completely taken over by a disturbed troll who rambled out hundreds of posts full of crude hate language, including towards the Lubavitcher Rebbe himself. Either the moderators have to start doing their job, or just avoid certain subjects until they do.
AAQ – I don’t think you’ll gain understanding from other sectors when this continues like your community is an outside entity that needs to be wooed.
The bottom line is, our job is to serve Hashem on His terms, as defined in the Torah, as taught by גדולי הדורות חכמי התורה. That’s where it starts, and that’s where it ends. That is the definition of the Jewish People, that Hashem miraculously kept going through the millennia. The fact that about a century ago some people came along and decided they want to create עם חדש בארצו on their terms, and a few decades later they seemed to get their wish and called themselves ‘Israelis’, has nothing to do with us. We ARE an outside entity, because we define our national identity and covenant in completely different terms. We were here first, and we will be here last. How exactly that will work out is Hashem’s business. Our job is to keep the Torah = listen to the גדולי הדור. If you don’t like that, you can live your life how you see fit, I have no ability or desire to tell anyone what to do. The מצב בשטח, as they say here, is that most of the PEOPLE of Israel are much closer to Yiddishkeit than the STATE and its institutions are. I am involved in Kiruv on a number of levels, and I see it every day. But even in Kiruv, our job is to GIVE OVER the Torah, as we got it, and not to DEFEND it on whatever terms happen to be in style today. When you do it that way, and you are sincere about it in your own life, then people respect that, even if they aren’t perfectly comfortable with your position on every issue.
I’m starting to question whether posting here is worth it altogether, seeing the same דעת בעלי בתים tropes paraded day in and day out, often by people who live in חוץ לארץ and are far removed from the reality on the ground (and from serving in the IDF themselves…)
Are Roster – Preventing גילוי עריות does in fact come before saving Jewish lives. I know already the tropes you will answer with, and I don’t have time to repeat the answers on every new thread. Ask your local תלמיד חכם to explain the sugya. Suffice it to say that ALL the גדולי תורה here in Israel are united on this issue.
Simcha613 – Everything in Torah is ‘vague’ without the guidance of חכמי התורה גדולי הדור. Especially inyanim of Emunah and Hashkafah. That ‘vagueness’ is where דעת בעלי בתים comes from… There are many other problems with the IDF, that the Israeli government has no interest (or even legal ability for now) to adress. The גדולי הדור will decide what to do למעשה. Any further discussion is in fact ‘beating to death’ and a waste of time.
Ari Knobler – The Gemara you quote is referring to the learner himself. The Maharsha over there is referring to Doeg and Achitofel, and why their Torah learning didn’t protect them from dying prematurely (as punishment for their רשעות). Your attitude is called מאי אהני לן רבנן (as in היכי דמי אפיקורוס…), discussed in Sanhedrin 99b and the mefarshim there. If you are smart enough to read the Maharsha and quote half of it, you can easily find the relevant sources if you want to… At any rate, neither you or me can decide these matters למעשה, only גדולי הדור. If you don’t like it, then do what you want. כלל ישראל will keep on going…
You are accusing Chareidim of “cowardice” and “ideological convenience”? So, let all the Chiloni cowards join Yeshivos, if it is in fact so easy and convenient… Get real. Chareidim ‘give up’ many things secular Israelis (and MO) hold dear, for the sake of their ideology. If you think that the existence of כלל ישראל altogether, and our survival through the generations, is not the direct result of Divine Providence, which is dependent upon the ברית ושבועה at הר סיני when we got the Torah and promised to learn it and keep it, then ח״ו you have less אמונה than millions of believing Goyim… I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt, so I don’t think you really were מתיישב what you even wrote, because it’s so off kilter Jewishly speaking.
As it is, the real issue with the army is גילוי עריות, as has been discussed here many times, and hinted to in ‘yeshivaman613’s post here. We believe that אלקיהם של אלה שונא זימה הוא, and והיה מחניך קדוש (as in the ARMY מחנה…), do you?
Moshiach’s army?! LOL!!!!!! הלוואי the Roshei Yeshiva and some of the Maggidei Shiur might make the grade… Maybe… You’re comparing that to a Chiloni co-ed cesspool?! Not even a joke. In Moshiach’s army (if he will even need one) they won’t have abortion clinics… There will be some other differences too…
By the way, which IDF unit did you serve in?
ujm – This is the second time I completely agree with a post of yours.
AAQ – Same happened before between chassidim and misnagdim
A good example that has been noted by both Chassidim and Litvaks. Again, not davka through ‘learning’ by each other (although here too that has also happened), but simply by example.
HaKatan – The wicked Israeli Left (ערב רב) is pushing all kinds of filthy progressive ‘treif alphabet soup’ ideology, as well as kefirah and sometimes avoda zara (‘Bagrut’ points for studying other religions in high school, for example. Did you know about that?). They aborted more Jewish babies than the Nazis killed children in the Holocaust (2,000,000 plus vs. about 1,500,000, so much for them caring about ‘Jewish continuity’). They do all kinds of filthy and wicked things you don’t even know about. But they are so far off that they don’t even believe in ‘Zionism’ any more… So, when you yell about ‘Zionism’, you miss the point. It’s like the whole point of what they are doing is just to try to get you to say ‘Zionism’, and then they trapped your Neshama… Knowing the enemy (and who the real enemy is) is the most critical thing in battle (not trying to plagiarize Sun Tsu). Many, if not most ‘RZ’ people today in Israel, are significantly more ehrlich than the average MO in America. Some RZ are basically Chareidim in different clothing, and with some idealism about building settlements etc. They aren’t Kofrim. Neither are Belz and Vizhnitz and Ger… (Who do take limited money from the Medinah.) The real bad guys (who are dwindling in numbers) don’t even call themselves Zionists. Try Googling ‘Post-Zionism’, or read a little about the ‘Bagatz’ and the ‘Rotschild protests’. Half of what you write is dated and no longer correct, and the other half is correct, but it isn’t ‘Zionism’ any more. Understanding the issues better, and targeting your bullets where they belong, will make your message more effective and less offensive.
Chabad Shlucha – Please don’t take what I said personally. I have the utmost respect for Chabad and especially the Shlichim. The Rebbe זצ״ל didn’t hold of debates with misnagdim. There are plenty of Yidden out there to reach out to without wasting time debating people who have no intention of being מקבל anything.
Chabad Shlucha – Please, if you really do love and respect the Rebbe, his teachings, and his legacy (I also do, although I am not Lubavitch myself), PLEASE DO NOT START THESE THREADS. There are a small number (possibly only one) of seriously disturbed trolls, with an obsessive hate of Lubavitch, who hijack the conversation and turn it into a rage-room full of disgusting hate language and ביזוי תלמידי חכמים, that bears no resemblance to a real Torah debate. Look at what happened to ‘Hi I’m Back 3.0’, now with almost 900 comments, almost all of them pure garbage. (Where are the moderators?! Do they do anything at all? If someone would use the same language ‘qwerty613’ uses about the Lubavitcher Rebbe to describe a Litvish Gadol, would that also be OK with them? No deletions ever?) If you REALLY ARE CHABAD (?), so PLEASE DON’T FEED THE TROLLS.
Keith – You are right that lashon hara is terrible, but that doesn’t make any other Torah prohibition not terrible. I don’t think that the גילוי עריות etc. that goes on in the IDF is helping to bring Moshiach either… Neither is the lashon hara and שנאת חינם coming out of the pro-army camp, for that matter.
Everyone here should really stop and think for a moment – nothing anyone says here or in any real life ‘coffee room’ makes any difference in the situation in Israel, or anywhere else. So why the hyperbole? It’s enough just to say what you think and move on, if even that is needed…
Just to be clear. I am not interested in continuing the endless debate about Zionism etc. ad nauseam. It is not OK to call Jews kofrim, idol worshippers, galachim, etc., because they have a mistake in שיטה, and often not even that. (There are plenty of other possibly worse forms of krumkeit right here in the coffee room, especially of the מאי אהני לן רבנן variety, which is actual אפיקורסות according to the Gemara. I don’t see the Kanoyim calling them out.)
My only intention was to point out the complete fallacy of the opening post in this thread, which is in fact a man-bit-dog story. Aside which, it’s hard to give the IDF credit at all. Lazer Brody did not become Frum because his drill sergeant learned with him Likutey Moharan or taught him about Hisbodedus… Many people became בעלי תשובה after going through traumatic experiences or facing death, and that got them thinking about what the real תכלית of life is all about. Sometimes that can happen in the army. I have heard true stories like that about former soldiers in the American Army (which protects more Jews than the IDF…), the Russian Army (go volunteer there?), and also in the Israeli Army. Also about people who were in car crashes and jungle exploration mishaps, among other things. It isn’t some special סגולה of the IDF…
If you take the sum total of Jews who became Baalei Teshuvah due to their army experiences ALONE, and add the total number of Jews who became OTD due to ‘anti-Zionist’ rhetoric ALONE, then in my humble estimation you are still at least two orders of magnitude short of the number of Jews who went OTD in the IDF… There are also some former hostages who became בעלי תשובה while in captivity by Hamas, do you recommend doing that also?
HaKatan said – they are actually doing much more shmad now than then. Just consider the simple statistics of how many Israelis are totally secular (not just “Religious Zionist” idolaters, but totally secular).
They aren’t DOING more shmad now… Those Israelis are the grandchildren of the ones the old Zionists tore away from Yiddishkeit BACK THEN. The larger numbers reflect population growth over 70 years. (As opposed to secular Jews in חוץ לארץ whose numbers shrink due to rampant assimilation…) That is a terrible מצב, but the way to fight it is not by screaming (at other Chareidim no less…) about ‘Zionism’, but by doing more Kiruv, or helping those who do so.
AAQ – When speaking about how different communities are מחזק each other, I didn’t mean necessarily by direct contact and interaction, although that does happen to some extent. Simply knowing that some Jews out there, who also live in 5785 and deal with many of the same challenges you do, are better than you in field X, can often inspire one to invest at least a little more effort in that field than one otherwise would have been inclined. That idea actually was codified by the Rambam in Hilchos Deios, about the importance of where one lives and who one associates with, but the sources goes back to Tanach and Chazal in multiple places – הולך את חכמים יחכם and more. (Not דווקא one who is לומד מחכמים, even just הולך, to hang around with חכמים.)
The point you made about Rav Soloveitchik is לכאורה correct.
ZSK:
1. The ‘Bagatz’ is THE wedge preventing any cooperation in Israeli society in general, and plays incessant divide-and-conquer to achieve their own goals.
2. My focus was on ‘conscientious’, as in ‘due to matters of conscience’. The fact that those ‘matters of conscience’ are of the type ‘that to the non-Charedi majority boils down to cultural preservation’ doesn’t change anything. The ‘non-Chareidi majority’ doesn’t decide matters of Halacha or Hashkafa for us.
3A. You said – I don’t disagree with this and I’ve said so on more than one occasion on this forum. However, I do not consider such a good enough reason for Charedi and RZ men to not serve. – Well, גדולי ישראל do not agree with you. I don’t know what planet you live on if you think the Gerrer Rebbe wants to (or needs to…) bring down a government just to get his grandson out of the draft.
3B. “the Charedi leadership should be making real attempts to work with the IDF to make service possible” – Something that cannot take place under ‘Bagatz’ progressive dictatorship. Both of us know that, and you have also said so yourself.
4. Here you almost explicitly agree with what I said in 3B.
5. That is probably what will eventually happen once the Bagatz is out of the way, and real change to the IDF becomes possible. It doesn’t look like that is happening anytime soon.
6. I don’t have the time or the stomach to write in detail about politics. Suffice it to say that the usual דעת בעלי בתים deflections of blaming everything גדולי ישראל say that they don’t like on power politics won’t cut it here. It is clear that there is a broad and deep consensus here between a wide range of Rabbonim, Rebbes, and Roshei Yeshiva, which goes way beyond ‘politics’.
7-8. That is true, but only because those were the majority of the ‘Chareidim’ filling the quotas until now… The anti-Chareidi camp is starting to understand that, and they want real Chareidi blood, not the fake variety.
9. IMHO, the IDF isn’t so stupid, and they look the other way rather than drafting kids they don’t want. They play this same game לכתחילה with boys from strongly anti-Zionist communities and ‘Hilltop Youth’, among others. If they really wanted them, they wouldn’t ‘buy’ the psychiatrist stories.
AAQ – Not because ‘Satmar will stop davening by us’ or because of ‘Chareidi reaction’. Simply by seeing that there are people who (usually/in general/in many areas/disclaimer of your choice) do more for their Yiddishkeit, is מחזק the MO/RZ. Not because they are afraid of anyone, but because they are also Jewish and they also want to be ehrlich and this silently reminds them that they can be better. Again, I am referring to those areas in which Chareidim do in fact do better than MO. No intention to start a debate on the relative merits of either group. The same can also be said of the symbiotic relationship of all different groups of observant Jews, (Sephardim, Litvish, Chassidish, the serious RZ, and all variations of the above), who each excel in some way, and inspire others to be better too.
I didn’t understand what is the connection with the שיטה of R’ Moshe vs. R’ Yoshe Ber WRT entering non-Orthodox places of worship. No one, not even Satmar etc., ever remotely suggested that entering a MO/RZ Shul (at least normal mainstream MO that conform to basic Halacha) is in any way comparable to a non-Orthodox בית הכסא.
ZSK – I was also disgusted by the language used, and especially the timing, and I let him know that too. I’m starting to think that the real reason some people are so fixated on fighting ‘Zionism’ is that it ‘allows’ them to copy-paste harsh language from many decades ago, when Secular Zionism was a very real issue, and apply it to anyone they don’t like now, without feeling guilty – because such-and-such a Rov/Rebbe/Rosh Yeshiva ‘also said that’ (in a completely different era and context). Even back then, usually by the time these ‘statements’ attributed to Gedolim made it to street level or to biographies of questionable accuracy, much was added and embellished… The Chazon Ish and the Satmar Rov (for example) wrote many seforim. Someone who wants to see what they definitely did say can look there. But it’s more exciting to quote apocryphal (and ‘juicy’) stories…
sechel83 – Please stop dignifying this crackpot by engaging him in debate. He has absolutely no interest in what you (or anyone who disagrees with his obsessive hate) has to say. You are just causing his venom glands to produce more poison. Ignore him and let this disgusting thread finally die out, if the moderators refuse to do their job and erase it.
Calling any Jew a ‘galach’ ‘sheigitz’ etc. is disgusting, and accomplishes nothing to get your point across.
ZSK said – We’d can be sure we’d be better off if the entire Charedi and Chassidish Tzibburim publicly admitted their past positions toward Zionism were a Hora’as sha’ah that are no longer relevant and instead joined the rest of the Orthodox Tzibbur, got jobs, helped the RZ community turn the IDF into something respectable and paid taxes like they are supposed to.
Past issues with Zionism are not the reason for the present issues you mentioned. Most Chassidim do have jobs. There are different issues in Eretz Yisroel and Chutz Laaretz.
We’d also be better off the RZ and MO communities stopped compromising on Orthodox values to please their non-Orthodox and gentile neighbors, coworkers, colleagues, etc.
The main thing preventing them from doing so even more is that they see the example of the Chareidim. (Something Reb Yoshe Ber Soloveitchik said in his day about American MO and Satmar…)
And we’d be better off if the non-Orthodox communities just admitted they are essentailly bagel flavored progressivism and not attempt to speak for Judaism.
They have no way of figuring that out on their own, because for the most part they know nothing about real Judaism. The solution is not to ‘accept’ their matzav, but to be מקרב them. The rest will die out within three generations from assimilation, like half of them already did.
somejew – The story about the Chazon Ish doesn’t say so. לועג על דברי חכמים, certainly the way the Chazon Ish understood it, is something many ostensibly Chareidi people do in various ways. Learn the Sugya in Sanhedrin. Zionism has many problems, but not necessarily לועג על דברי חכמים, although it may be a big risk factor.