Reply To: Responsibility to serve – without the politics

Toi, you wrote

“and i hate your narrow-minded liberalness. and your unwillingness to bend your liberal narrow-mindedness to the will of gedolim. and do you really stinking think that the people who you think of as gedolim woul approve of the idfs approach to yiddishkeit. for crying out loud go stuff a flag down your throat.”

I don’t know if this was aimed at me. Perhaps it was.

I have to say, it is a small step from hating “narrow minded liberalness” (an oxymoron, by the way. liberality is by definition open minded. Often too open minded, in my opinion) to hating the narrow minded liberal.

Hate isn’t a word I throw around much, especially when it comes to Jews, and especially during the three weeks.

“stinking think”?? What, exactly, does that mean?

Would those I think of as Gedolim approve of the IDF’s approach to Yiddishkeit? Aside from not expecting you to adhere to the approaches of those I listen to, and expecting you to accord me, or any other yid the same courtesy, I know that the Halachic decisors I respect most on this issue are the ones who see things as they are, and as they can possibly be, leaving the work to be done to find a way from where we are to where we should be. I have a much harder time with those who see things as they might be k’das v’din according to their shitos, but who aren’t interested in the derech of getting from the reality to the ideal, and, most importantly, dealing with the present circumstances in a practical way.

Go stuff a flag down my throat? That is neither going to help learning or davening to protect am Yisroel, or taking up weapons to protect am Yisroel, both of which are necessary, and neither of which is served by your harshness.

Toi, you have shared where you are from, or lived for a while. Let me ask you – is this diatribe the approach Rav Ochs would take? Rav Lowy? R’ Weber? R’ Felder? R’ Pam? R’ Fihrer? I could go on, but I don’t know a single rov in the city who would be maskim to such an approach. not one.