21 Responses

1. Baruch Dayan Emet

2. Baruch Dayan Haemes.

3. baruch dayan haemet, i hope he did tshevua//

4. Who are you to judge?

5. to #4, #3 wasnt judging; he just made a statement.

6. Rabboisai,

   Boruch Dayan Emes,

   Its a horrible tragedy, lets leave the rest for the Almighty to decide, ok?

7. sammy, reading your comments wont get anyone anywhere either.your cyniscm spills through once again

8. How low will some commenters go?

9. This is a terrible tragedy.A young Jewish man died.Our job is to mourn.The Ribbono Shel Olam judges.Some of the early responders went to the wrong Yeshiva

10. If he misguided fellow Jews to sin via his “religious persuasion” making himself a chotei umachti, he would be unfit to be mourned, or to be buried among Jews, whereas if he did teshuva, he would immediately have changed his status.
    ===========
    Unless…y’know…you’re wrong and he wasn’t.
    Just a thought.

    Refuah Sholayma for his wife.

11. to past brisk

    Sammy response is cogent and to the point.

    Please address issues without aditorializing

    You stated “your cynicism spills through once again” please take time out and clearly identify such cynicism spilling

12. Bavod reshaim rina

13. sammygol, did you know Rabbi Korob personally? Are you certain that your comparison of him to Yeravam ben Navat is accurate? Are you sure that R. Korob knew (ala Yad Hachazaka Hilchot Yesodei haTorah 1:1)that Conservative Judaism is a false doctrine and yet persisted in it? Can you point to a single instance in which he disuaded a Jew to eschew traditional Judaism in favor of Conservatve Judaism? If you cannot affirmatively answer those questions with certainty, then you would be wise to stay silent and risk appearing ignorant that speak and remove all doubt.

14. Chazzen Leiben,

    Where did you see Sammy compare this man to Yeravam Ben Nevat?

15. Sammygol, you referred to him as a “choteh umachti” The Bible uses the same adjectives for Yeravam. The comparison was clear. Additionally, the p’sak about Conservative rabbis to which you refer is old. It was issued at a time when the overwhelming majority of Conservative rabbis were yeshiva educated and “fallen” Orthodox jews. These people went to Conservative temples simply to becuase they paid better and were more plentiful than Orthodox pulpits. That is no longer the case. These days the overwhelming majority of Conservative rabbis come from the Conservative movement, were educated in it, primarily at the Ramah camps, were turned on to what they experienced, and have chosen, based upon idealism, to become rabbis. They know no better, never had a chance to learn better. Joel Roth, the head of Talmud at JTS is a product of JTS himself. Gone are the days when the JTS faculty was populated by Saul Liberman, who learned in Volozhin, David Weiss Halivni who learned in Sighet and then Chaim Berlin and A.J. Heschel who came from the House of Apt. JTS is now populated by alumni of the insitution. Choteh umachti? I think not. I think the more apt adjective is tinok shenishbah. And please correct me if you can.

16. I’m not sure what constitutes a yishuv Yisrael. And at the outset I am not a posek, but I to arrogate to myself the right to perform ym own analysis and dtermine my own conduct. I am the one who decides if I need to ask a shaila. I am very aware of the p’sak of the Tashbestz no 63 in which he bends over backwards to dispute the Rambam regarding whether it is fair to assume that the annusim chose to stay and adopt Christianity or whether they were compelled to do so and had no choice. The Rambam is rather harsh, while the Tashbetz is far more lenient. All the teshuvot dealing with annusim were addressing cases in which they came to a Jewish community and wished to join it. It is with annusim that the psak of tinok shenishbah was expounded upon, and I see a clear analogy between annusim or b’nei annusim and someone raised with non-traditional Jewish beliefs (BTW so do R. Dovid Zvi Hoffman). But there is a big difference between the two situations. The annusim were never more than a small portion of the Jewish people. It was not difficult, nor was it in any way devastating to klal Yisrael to deal harshly with them in terms of personal status (and despite the ease inf writing them off, many poskim tried very hard not to do so). That is not that case today. Today the overwhelming majority of Jews are raised outside the pale of authentic Jewish tradition. K’fira sadly has become the Jewish norm. When determining how to address this reality from a Torah perspective, it seems to me that klal Yisrael does better to be meikil than machmir. Just as we accept R. Moshe’s kula and assume that any wedding officitated by a non-Orthodox rabbi is void (and it is clear that R. Moshe did not issue this p’sak merely to engage in internecine polemics, rather he wanted to avoid mass mamzeirut in the Jewish world. This understanding of the teshuva was adopted by R. Eliezer Waldenburg, as reported by R. Howard Jachter at an OU convention about 12 years ago), we should also adopt the flip side of that p’sak and assume that those rabbis really don’t know what they are doing in all areas, belief included. At the very least my s’vara should stop one from speaking ill of the dead.

    I’m not a full time cantor. But for the past several years, I’ve spent the High Holidays at Congregation Kodimoh in Springfield, Ma.

17. You know how one describes a Chazzen who is no good?

    ‘er is a VELT’S CHAZZEN…….er singt in de velt arain’

18. Funny I never heard that saying, but then again it pertains to bad chazzanim 🙂

19. Never assumed he was a bad ONE,
    just made a joke to break the tension and have some Fun,

    The you resumed with your humerous GRAMMEN,
    So now we dont just have a CHAZZEN
    But also a BADCHAN….

20. Sorry I can’t respond in verse. I never took it personally. Hope you didn’t either.

21. Once again, Sammygol is committing shameless chilul hashem. Gossip, gossip, gossip is all Sammy seems to know.