If you’ve learned anything from the shakla v’tarya of regular learning, Grandmaster, you should know that setting up straw men is a frankly amateurish way to argue. So let me address your points, even though you ignored mine.

Being the am hanivchar means exactly what it says. Chosen. For a higher purpose, a higher calling. An Ohr Lagoyim. It also means chosen for nisayon. As you might know, we don’t always do very well with our nisyonos. Have you learned sefer Shoftim? We have sometimes abjectly failed our nisyonos individually and as a people. We have shown hakodosh boruch hu that we have the potential to lower ourselves to the 49th level of tumah, but also to raise ourselves to the 49th level of purity. If we are superior in ANYTHING, it is in our potential. Don’t ever have the arrogance to think we are at the 49th level of purity simply by being born into yiddishkeit. We have to work at it. Anivus, by the way, is something else we should work on.

I fully concede that the yeshivos in NY and elsewhere do not have a gun problem. I’ve got a newsflash for you, though. Young people are physically hurt and bullied every single day in yeshivos, as they are elsewhere. there is a makkah of lack of derech eretz and lack of kovod all over the place. If you want to take comfort and pride in the fact that our bochurim are not shooting each other, please do so. I’m more concerned about the problems that need to be addressed, rather than the ones that don’t.

I don’t live in New York, and where I live the public schools don’t have metal detectors, so I can’t speak to the NY experience. Frankly, though, it is an irrelevancy and a straw man, because I never asserted that all yeshivos were more dangerous than all public schools.

Now perhaps you could address the points I raised.

ROB – Yes I know the story…Its kind of intimidating, actually.

I mean at V’anachnu Korim Umishtachavim. my understanding is M’B says full kriah – head to the floor, but M’E says no, only on Yom Kippur. Instead we do a deep bow like for Modim in shmoneh esrei.

The first R’ Pinchas Horowitz was born in Prague, lived there (built the Pinchas shul there)then lived in Kracow in the late 16th early 17th century. He was the Rav of both Prague then Krakow, and was also the head of the vaad arba hoaratzos. He was Married to Miriam Baila, sister of the Rema. He lived a very long life for the times, until 83. The Sheloh is a descendant of His, but a different line than mine. (I’m actually 3/8 Horowitz, got it from both sides).

Yes, I know he was a businessman, in Brody, where he had a lumber business. He did not take the position of the rav of the community, but he supported a lot of learning, and many people came to him with Shailos from around Galitzia. This sort of informs my position on the appropriateness of disregarding the Rambam and being completely supported by the community instead of learning AND working. My grandfather was and my son is named for him.

A few answers to questions that have been asked.

First, the name Feivel or Feivish. It’s actually worse than being from a christian name like Fabian. The name comes from medieval usage of the name Phoebus – one of the names of the Greek god Apollo! It was a kinui of the name Uri, meaning light, and Phoebus was a name associated with the sun. Don’t take my word for it, look it up. As someone who has researched Rabbinic genealogy for 20 years, it has come up commonly in both my family and many other yichusdik families.

Next; the name Leib may come from the German Loew, but it may also come from the Hebrew Lavi (lamed vet yud alef) for lion cub. There is actually an interesting discussion of where the old French, Latin, and Greek Leon/Leo/ and German Loew word came from, and most etymologists posit a Semitic (Hebrew or Phoenician, which are essentially the same) origin.

As to the issue with Zionist names. You know, I’d like to suggest that anyone who is able should go to visit the citadel in Akko where the old British prison was. It is now a museum. In that museum in one of the displays are the tallis and tfillin of a young man named Dov Gruner (a’h). Dov Gruner was a member of the Irgun, and he was hung in that prison by the British in 1947. He was yeshiva educated born lived and died as a frum Jew. One of the most important and meaningful elements of my first visit to eretz Yisroel was saying tehillim in the place where he was killed. My Brother is named Dov Pinchas. Dov, in honour of Dov Gruner, and Pinchas for our great great great great great grandfather Harav Pinchos Halevi Ish Horovitz, The Hafloh. From what I know of my ancestor Rav Pinchas, and his brother R’Shmuel Shmelke, and and all of our other illustrious forebears, they would have been proud of their descendant carrying the name of a gibor b’Yisroel like Dov Gruner.

SBZTCYY, Sorry to disappoint you. IF my own firsthand experience isn’t enough for you, My brother in law embodies Lakewood, where he learned for many years, and became a musmach. He was a talmid of R’Yaakov Kamenetzky zt’l. R’Yaakov was quoted once as saying “Loving your fellow Jew is a mitzvah in the Torah, and in addition it’s a segulah that if the love is given according to the Torah it will bring its recipients closer to Torah and to Hashem.” The judgement he was talking about is in short supply nowadays. Being Don L’chaf z’chus, and making a place for eager students who want to be within the hashkafic environment in that particular school, not outside it.

My nephew will b’ezras Hashem be getting his smicha soon. He’s learning in lakewood. Just for perspective, My cousin’s son is starting the smicha program at YU-RIETS this fall. My roots are from both chassidish and Yeshivish families and I am familiar, intimately so, with the nature of chareidi life, both in the past and now. I’ve sat down with my nephew, with sons of friends, with my own peers who studied in Beis Medresh there.

I’ve taught in a chareidi school, lived in a chareidi neighborhood, learned with a yeshivish chevrusa, written for a chareidi newspaper, and worked in my father’s (a’h) store dealing with a largely chariedi clientele. I’ve even raised money for a chareidi educational program in Israel. I don’t know how many times I’ve been on Rechov Sorotzkin. DO you mean by Kiryat Itri? By Mattersdorf? In the Belz neighborhood? By Bais Yaakov??

I completely agree with you that someone who puts themselves within the chutzos Hatorah is obliged to listen to the authority of the rabonnim. (Not the balabatim, mind you, or the tznius committee hoodlums, but the Rabbonim and those they designate). What I expect is that schools will judge favourably and give opportunities to people who earnestly want to follow their derech, not refuse to take them a priori because of a chashash of what might be or a simple sfardi name.

“Torah is not subjective or pick and choose.” You’re right, it isn’t. Since it all derives from Veohavto lereacho komocho anyways, let’s start with that mitzvah. And within the firmament of Torah you will find elu voelu divrei elokim chayim. Too many have forgotten that.

Torahpal, I think I had the same teacher. The saying is familiar. But I wish i could say honestly that all of the apparent wrongs that this story brought to the forefront were honest mistakes, or overzealousness in protecting the virtue of our families and communities. If we are not prepared to work to have a positive Hashpo’oh on those who are not quite on the derech, or even to take their children into the one place where they will get that Hashpo’oh, what does it say about our confidence in what we are teaching our kids, and have been for decades? what does it say about our confidence in our own education that our parents sacrificed for? What is a positive frum life for if not to have an influence on your fellow Jew? How can we tell people to become baalei tshuva, learn with them, encourage them, watch them grow in Torah, and then tell them – Oh, sorry, your daughter can’t go to the school we’ve been asking you to emulate, because she has non frum Grandparents or cousins, or she has spent too much time playing piano, or violin, or flute until now?

Why?