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Are people here planning on going to the siyum harambam on Sunday?
Yes, of course.
meirs, why would you be celebrating Rambam?
Rambam learned chochmat goyim, even philosophy, wrote in Arabic, did not speak Yiddish, and even disapproved of those who take money to support their learning.
Can anyone explain to me the rationale of learning “rambam yomi”?
As a halacha sefer, we often do not pasken like the rambam; sometimes he is, in fact, a da’as yochid. You won’t know thar nor will you have an inkling of the depth of his Torah, which can only be seen if you are “in the sugya” and see how he learns pshat; that’s what we do in yeshivos. You also won’t actually have pshat in the rambam himself because of how often he contradicts himself, but since you’re reading it like a book you won’t have the achronim who resolve these contradictory statements.As a perush on sugyos… it’s not in order of shas.
Does this not give a false sense of accomplishment that you somehow have a tefisa on kol hatorah kulah because you’ve learned one rishon’s shitah of dinim without at the very least knowing remotely how to pasken?I can hear abln argument for going through kodshim and taharos with just the rambam, but even then, why not learn aruch hashulchan ha’asid, written by someone who a large part of klal yisroel actually paskens like?
This is a modified version of the argument I saw advanced on the old frumteens forum back when I was a kid
Can anyone explain to me the rationale of learning “rambam yomi”?
As a halacha sefer, we often do not pasken like the rambam; sometimes he is, in fact, a da’as yochid. You won’t know thar nor will you have an inkling of the depth of his Torah, which can only be seen if you are “in the sugya” and see how he learns pshat; that’s what we do in yeshivos. You also won’t actually have pshat in the rambam himself because of how often he contradicts himself, but since you’re reading it like a book you won’t have the achronim who resolve these contradictory statements.As a perush on sugyos… it’s not in order of shas.
Does this not give a false sense of accomplishment that you somehow have a tefisa on kol hatorah kulah because you’ve learned one rishon’s shitah of dinim without at the very least knowing remotely how to pasken?I can hear abln argument for going through kodshim and taharos with just the rambam, but even then, why not learn aruch hashulchan ha’asid, written by someone who a large part of klal yisroel actually paskens like?
This is a modified version of the argument I saw advanced on the old frumteens forum back when I was a kid.
Everyone is welcome to celebrate!!!
The daily learning of Mishneh Torah is instituted by the Lubavitcher Rebbe for many reasons. Two points are: Yidden should seek to in general learn lishmah. This limud of RMBM does provide some light on the entire 613, making the work unique in this regard.
The lishmah here occurs automatically since the learning is specifically not for the sake of finding psak. It is simply learning for the sake of the learning 🙂
/As a halacha sefer, we often do not pasken like the rambam
Rambam is in a league of his own in pursuit of truth using rational methodology. If you learn from him how to reason, you will not waste your time
Also, you will only learn his reasoning if you are in the sugya under discussion. If you learn his chidush, for example, that you need only have 40 hairs on payos harosh without the relevant gemaros, all you have is a sound byte of random information, but alas, you have “learned” his “rational methodology”, or according to the first poster, you have somehow learned torah lishma.
Torah lishma means you want to learn torah, and know it “al buryo” leshem shomayim, because hashem gave us a mitzvah to both learn and know torah. As a chabad chossid you should be familiar with the baal hatanyas shitah of the mitzvah of yedias hatorah, which he says is bigger than aisek hatorah. But that’s only if you know the dinim, as he explains openly. Knowing random words from the rambam without gemara-context or psak is arguably not aisek, nor yedias hatorah in such circumstances.
Torah lishma is your intention, not your methodology. Shmaitsa aliba dehilchasa is the mesorah; you’re conflating methodology with intention.
Alwaysaskquestions – if you want to have a serious conversation, leave out haskalah-driven analysis of rishonim. There’s no practical difference between the Rosh, baalei tosfos, the Rif and the Rambam. Shulchan aruch gave them practically equal consideration, as should we.
Imagine the magen avrohom sitting and thinking… let’s pasken like the rambam because his views sometimes have a analogs with in vogue rationalism! Brilliant idea!
Meirs; tosfos asks kushyos in the form of contradictions on literally every daf of gemara; it’s not a chisaron, it’s the foundation of the search for true understanding of all aspects of torah shebaal peh, including the words of the holy rishonim. A “quick” look at the meforshim is no different than spending 10 minutes on an amud and “quickly” learning up a complicated tosfos. It just doesn’t work.
Is the ohr somayach or rav chaim al horambam a “quick” read?
And yes, the cases in which the rambam contradicts either himself or shas are copious; that’s because he’s not a book to be read, but rather part of the continuum of torah itself.
There’s a famous vort from rav shach about why there are hava aminas in gemara. קודשא בריך הוא איסתכל באורייתא וברא עלמא “hashem looked into the Torah and created the world”, since in the world, hashem was בורא עולמות ומחריבן, he created and destroyed worlds before our own was made, that corresponds to hava amina and maskana. I was mosif on this vort that that’s why there are contradictions; the same way in this world, we see din and chessed, good things and “bad”, but we know that all of it is from hashem and that it’s no contradiction, so too in torah, there are contradictions everywhere, but it’s all really harmonious if we put in the effort to understand it
AviraDeArah – You attempt to portray yourself as a intelligent man by discouraging Limud HaTorah?
What type of negative self destructive person are you?
Are you saying that the Tena of Thousands that learn Daf Yomi shouldn’t learn it because they are not learning it B’iyun?
Your bitterness will not get you far>> Knowing random words from the rambam without gemara-context or psak is arguably not aisek, nor yedias hatorah
The way I (imperfectly) understand Rambam, he directly contradicts you and suggests reading him without sources. Luckily I can resolve this machlokes between CR and Rambam – maybe Rambam directed this just to balabosim like me.
As to calling “rationality” as “haskala”, I asked a deep Chabad scholar about some Rambam shita and Muslim philosophy and responded “Rambam was not afraid of admitting truth from any source”.
MosheKapoyer, admittedly, a lot of Talmidei Chachamim felt same way when Daf yomi was starting, so AviraDeArah is in a good company. If you ask me .. It is interesting, but takes time away from Torah learning :). At least with mussar, famous R Salanter’s answer was to spend available hour on Mussar and not Gemorah, as it will lead you to finding more time to learn Gemorah. I do not yet feel same effect from the Daf, maybe I need to finish it first …
The Rambam himself explicitly said that all a person needs to learn, in order to know the whole Torah, is the Tanach and the Mishneh Torah. According to the Rambam there is no need to learn gemara! Of course we don’t pasken like him on that question, and we do learn gemara and also other rishonim, but you can’t dismiss it out of hand as “obviously” wrong, as you do.
To highlight the end of that famous vort, a pasuk from yeshaya hanavi: “ki lo machshivosai machshviseichem”
To be clear again:
Learn for the sake of learning because the abishter commanded us to learn torah. Thats all its very simple. If a person (can and) wants to learn all the seforim in the world to come up with an “understanding” in their own head, please and do so lishmah!!!!!
Everyone is always invited to celebrate the siyum harambam on gimmel tammuz. May we, shas klal yisroel, celebrate this one and all siyumim hatorah from now on together in our holy land 🙂
I never mentioned a problem with daf yomi. My gripe here is with learning “rambam yomi”. I said that if one learns daf yomi style, they are not ready to learn rambam as a perush on that gemara, the same way they aren’t ready to learn any rishonim as a perush. I also don’t see s need for baseless ad hominem attacks, so rather than say you’re reactionary and projecting your own lack of self worth, I’ll just say that I wish you all all the hatzlocha in the world in learning
That being said, let us not be tricked by the yatzer hora of “abi az mer lernt”, that as long as you learn something it’s perfectly fine. Try going to a university and saying “well, I’m studying one page of economics and one of sociology a day without much effort, so…give me a diploma!
The ramchal says that המאור שבה מחזירו למוטב only applies when one learns Torah with at least the same vigor that he would exert in secular studies. Torah is not a joke and cannot be hefker, with everyone doing as they please while simply saying “abi az mer lernt”
Every word of Torah is dvar hashem, and the very act of trying to learn means everything to Hashem; some people find it hard to learn be’iyun or are unable to because of their workload – no one’s saying that they shouldn’t learn, chas veshalom!
Happens to be that halacha pesukah is that if one only has a short amount of time, learning practical halacha takes precedence over gemara, including daf yomi but there are people who need that motivation and would not learn otherwise. There’s a time and a place for “abi az mer lernt”, but it does not change the emes or the ratzon hashem as expressed in דבר ה זו הלכה.
I don’t see what is bitter or negative about such statements.
AviraDeArah> Torah lishma is your intention, not your methodology.
this is an interesting question.. We discussed here recently a Maharal in Netivos Olam that explains why a confused Bavli won popularity context against a more knowledgeable Yerushalmi .. [just imagine all Tannaim who made fun of those in the West seeing yeshivot learning Bavli, they’ll be confused more than Moshe in R’ Akiva’s class]. So, Maharal sees that Bavli had to reconstruct missing information and developed a method to do that (akin to modern pattern analysis – my words, not Maharal’s). So, now we can apply the same method to new situations. Thus, Bavli turned out more useful for future generations than Yerushalmi.
So, if I understand you correctly that we need to only learn halakhic conclusions without thinking how the authors came up to that, Maharal above seem to support the idea that learning how to think is also Torah. And there is enough in the Torah that different people can enjoy different parts of it. We don’t need to argue which part is more important.
Even in pure halakhic analysis, you may want to know the approach. for example, if you have multiple opinion, but many of them come from the same school or are independent opinions; whether they are using rational argument or relying on mesorah, and how strong that mesorah is; and whether underlying assumptions of the rational argument hold in current times.
So, if I understand you correctly that we need to only learn halakhic conclusions without thinking how the authors came up to that, Maharal above seem to support the idea that learning how to think is also Torah”
I never said to learn conclusions; I said that learning psak that we don’t follow without the background of the sugya is not a good idea, and lefi aniyus daati, might not be a kiyum of limud hatorah. We spend years figuring out how the chachamim came to their conclusions; proper sevara, logic, that’s the foundation of yeshiva learning – I don’t see how anything I said contradicts that. I also don’t see anything in your post about the distinction between methodology and intention in the definition of torah lishma.
The oft-quoted rambam about not needing anything besides rambam is being abused in a similar fashion as to how the reform use the story in the gemara about how hillel told the ger “that which you don’t like, don’t do to your fellow”. The reform ignore all of shas and all other statements from hilel hazaken, and say that hilel is advocating humanism and that only bein odom lechavero matters. So too with this rambam, because if you look at the rambam in hilchos Talmud torah – meaning his halachik rulings regarding how one must learn, he makes zero mention of learning mishnah torah or any other sefer written by himself.
What the rambam meant is up for discussion; it could be he was referring to other meforshim such as the rif or ri migash, since they weren’t as comprehensive.
“As to calling “rationality” as “haskala”, I asked a deep Chabad scholar about some Rambam shita and Muslim philosophy and responded “Rambam was not afraid of admitting truth from any source”.”
Interesting how one of the greatest chabad gedolim in history, and one of the biggest gaonim period, wrote that every word in the moreh nevuchim is based on chazal. That was the Rogatchover gaon.
Chabad is, unfortunately, beset with enough issues of late that such a contention is not high on the list of עקירת הדת that we see becoming commonplace. Here is not the forum for such a conversation at lengthy, but actually, the atzmus elokus ideology is less monotheistic than Islam.
Please remember that for Yemeni Jews, all there is , is the Rambam. There is a famous vort why the trees will rejoice in the time of Moshiach. Because we can ask the Rambam himself what he meant and won’t need trees for paper to print theories and conjectures. BTW, why don’t we say chazak but instead substitute hadran?
The siyumim are being held this sunday gimmel tammuz!!!
May we be zoche to celebrate all together in the holy land!!!
Everyone should have a beautiful shabbos kodesh!!!
🙂
Avira,
ok, seems we do not disagree much. I would like to mention one point though – your usage of Reform, etc as a warning. We need to maneuver carefully when encountering threats – Hellenism, Islam, Haskala, Communism … On one hand, the approach of keeping away from the threat worked many times at the time of encounter On the other hand, long-term we need not to get carried away and modify Yehadut in opposition to the threats long-gone. We are not stopping learning Humash because of Tzdukim … but we did stop reading ten commandments …
If Reform abused tikun olam, does not mean that we should ignore bein adam l’havero and push and shove each other on the way to a “mitzvah”. Secular studies were strongly associated with non-religious lifestyle at some point, and this now prevents people from getting honorable professions. Maybe Rambam’s/Aristotle’s halakhot deot applies here: community, as a person, needs to generally keep a middle path, but should deviate to compensate for a trend. As with a skidding car or a stable inflation rate, applying such controls inappropriately may end up in a ditch on a left or on a right side (or inflation/deflation), thus a need to see big picture where we are and which way we are moving. Maybe second derivative also.As to learning psak v. meta-learning, my Lakewood Teacher explained 1/3 humash/mishna/gemora as applying to total learning, so at some point one needs to learn more of the gemora (reasoning behind laws, rather than just laws) as it is a much bigger field. Hate to bring covid here, but it aptly demonstrates that modern life brings new issues very fast comparing with cneturies ago where drastic changes were relative rare. So, ability of the community to adapt is even more important.
Meirs; I don’t think anyone outside the inner circle can tell how dar reaching the ideology of a rebbe being divine has affected chabad.
I can point to several frightening examples of prominent figures in chabad which give a picture, like Shlomo Cunin, who on video said proudly that after mumbai “the whole world will know that it’s the rebbe who runs the world!” in the presence of many chabad rabbis – not one person protested. He said that the rebbe has some sort of dominion over the world. That might be a type of avodah zara which is a belief that Hashem gave over shlita to a certain malach or kochav independently, or it might be worse; it might be embracing atzmus elokus ideology in all its man-god depravity. That video can be found by googling “shlomo cunin chabad rebbe runs world” as the first result on Google.
Anecdotal encounters with chabad individuals include them trying to justify praying to their rebbe, who apparently can hear them from shomayim, granting him a certain omnipotence that is supposed to be Hashem’s. They have felt safe walking in the dead of night because they are carrying a picture of the rebbe. They believe he was a bonafide navi – I would be remiss not to mention the gravity of claiming to be a navi when one is not in fact… I would not want my rebbe accused of such grave sins.
Quick reading of chabad children’s literature is also frightening. I’ve seen the idea of doing a mitzvah because the rebbe said to do it. This was not in an overtly messianic publication. Go on a chabad forum and you will find many mentions of a “kiddush chabad” instead of a kiddush hashem.
It is for these reasons and more that many…many choshuve rabbonim will not eat chabad meat or drink their wine, including my rebbe, who was one of the leading poskim in America. I’m not sure if I should post his name.
Chabad has many poskim and rabbonim. I hope these ideologies have not reached everywhere, but nothing is certain. What is certain is the hadracha of the gedolei yisroel who distanced themselves.
It is my hope and prayer that the great chabad legacy be revived and that all false philosophies be forgotten.
Let’s consider Shna’im Mikra v’Echad Targum as a corollary. We could be doing something better with our time according to someone earlier — learning b’iyun, learning halacha l’ma’aseh. And yet the Shulchan Oruch tells us to be ma’avir the sedrah. And furthermore, “a yerei shomayim learns Rashi’s p’shat also.” This is despite the fact that Rashi’s p’shat is not always the halacha.
By analogy, while one could say that one could be learning something “better” than the “bare” Mishneh Torah, we can self-examine and realize that we botul some time everyday. So we can add the Rambam without taking away. Some of us learn one perek a day over three years to lighten the burden to make it more realistic. Also, it’s possible to dwell a little more on each halacha.
The Rebbe suggested learning the Rambam — it’s not like being ma’avir the sidra which is halacha — and thereby all Jews would be united in learning one item of Torah sheb’al peh every day. We certainly need unity.
Yisroel v’Oraisa v’Kudsha Brich Hu chad hu.The Rambam should be learned as a supplement for SA for zeraim, kodoshim and teharos, zman naket, grab on to the time, six mishna sedorim.
Reb Eliezer; I agree that for kodshim taharos and zeraim it makes some sense, but there’s still the issue of conflating mishnayos with da’eos yechidim; absent of a mesorah I’m wary of the pitfalls but I definitely would hear where someone’s coming from should they want to do it.
Enness; teshuvaso be’tzida – you admit yourself that shnayim mikra is a halacha. Even if we don’t understand something that chazal instituted, we’d be bound to adhere to it. But for us to invent our own systems which we further do not understand? That doesn’t sound reasonable – we’d say די לך בחידושו.
However that’s only under your premise that there is a comparison. However I don’t see anything in common. Klal yisroel’s mesorah is that Rashi is synonymous with pshat in chumash, to the point that his perush is the first and foremost explanation; everything else comes afterwards. That is the case in the every cheder of virtually every community in the world. The rambam by contrast, is not one and the same with psak or pshat in gemara; he is one of the main 4 or 5 shitos that one must learn in order to see a rudimentary scope of a sugya, along with rashi, tosfos, the rif, and the rosh. Like I said previously, shulchan aruch treated them with basically the same importance. .
Also, i addressed above the idea of not wasting time vs learning rambam. Reading sefer raziel hamalach is also better than wasting time, but when we go up to shomayim, they will demand a din vecheshnon on bitul torah be’kamus and b”eichus. Instituting something simply because people are mevatel torah and mevatel zman is…. I’m not really sure how to describe that. But it doesn’t make sense, that’s for sure.
Also, my concern, again, with rambam yomi is not that it’s bekius as opposed to iyun. Gemara can be learned in both of those ways and there is a time and a place for both. Some things are not designed for that duality. You cannot learn ketzos hachoshen or birkas shmuel in a bekiyus format.
The rambam has two practical functions in our learning, which end up being three. One is as a halacha sefer, from which it would be forbidden to pasken straight out of. The other is a perush on gemara; when we learn a gemara, the rambam is one of the shitos that we delve into, in order to understand the gemara. On this end, we also have to put in the work to understand his shitos, which are often contradictes by himself or other gemaros when taken at face value. I believe – and this is my opinion that I’m not fully convinced of – that learning random psak, such as the 40 hairs shiur for payos, without the sugya or without proper havanah, is not a kiyum of talmud torah. It’s a soundbyte of information without any context, pshat or anything. The rambam is not pesukim which one (according to most opinions) gets a mitzvah for even if he doesn’t understand it (this is true for shnayim mikra too). Even gemara, most hold you are not mekayam the mitzvah of talmud torah if you have no idea what you are saying. I don’t think rambam is any different in that regard.
You know that the Ravad used a very strong language against the Rambam by discouraging people from just learning it as they used to before the SA.
Perusing what people think of Rambam, there are complimentary (or more particular) arguments to my previous statement that he is a consistent rationalist:
1) he is summarizing Gemorah without necessarily trying to reconcile it with specific local customs, as some later ones do.
2) he is focused on what he thinks is the most logical conclusion, rather than resorting to voting. Voting would give you a statistically better result, but with less internal logical consistency.This just supports further my thesis that learning Rambam helps learning a method. You can probably learn from him how to stay on topic and summarize information in easily accessible way (I did not succeed here, maybe I should take on Rambam yomi …).
I would add that comparing with the middle ages, humanity – through trials and a lot of errors – made a lot of progress in developing rational approach, so Rambam helps us guide in how to use rational method. For example, if we look at halakhot of health and learning, we can easily expand and develop newer ways using Rabmam’s ideas.
Why does everything become an attack Lubavitch situation.
Time and time again we see how important Achdus in Klal Yisroel is. Chabad is here for all of us and frankly I find this attitude so unfortunate.Shtark – it usually is very peaceful until someone from chabad brings in chabad “propaganda” (and usually knowing full well what will happen next) Conversations around torah, life and politics can include everyone from everywhere
Shtark – chessed is such a powerful thing that even when confronted with accusations of avodah zara, one leaps into the fray to defend, or in most cases, deflect any and all criticism. We in the Torah camp should take a lesson and perhaps do more chessed… maybe then the masses of ignorami will stop hating us. Or not…har sinai is called such because sinah, hatred descended upon us right after we received the Torah. It would seem that whoever is beloved by the world is not representative of Har Sinai.
Interesting how attacks on the character of the kolel community, satmar, and other torah groups are seemingly justified or tolerated, while any issues taken with the undermining of Torah that is common (but not universal) among chabad, religious zionists, and liberal groups is deemed “sinat chinam”. One can say that charedim are “leeches”, and borrow terms from nazis, but if one criticizes spiritual deficiency… the one thing that halachicly mandates hatred….only then are Torah jews accused of sinas chinam.
I find that almost as hypocritical as claiming yishuv eretz yisroel to be a defining characteristic of judaism, castigsting all opponents of a secular state as being “meraglim”, only to go and sell the land that they “die for” to the highest bidder every shmitah. It was the so called “meraglim” in komemius and kibutz chofetz chaim who were moser nefesh for eretz yisroel in the true sense. גיבורי כח עושה דברו
Before anyone accuses me of trolling, triggering or what have you, I believe these are connected deeply. There is a distinction between Torah jews and those of us who are stragglers, along for the ride, perhaps the spiritual heirs of erev rav, who attempt to inject foreign refuse into the veins of klal yisroel.
There were many Gedolim, Rabbanim, and Rebbeim who had praised, corresponded with, respected and/or looked up to the Lubavitcher Rebbe (ZaTZaL.)
To state a few, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, Reb Dovid Feinstein, the Baba Sali, Reb Shlomo Zalman Aurbuch, Reb Elyashiv, Rav Kaduri, Rabbi YB Soloveitchik, Rabbi Lau, Lord Rabbi Jonothan Sacks, amongst many many others. As well, in the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s younger years, The Rogatchover Gaon, Reb Menachem Ziemba, Reb Yechezkel Michelsohn, the Teferes Yosef of Radzin, the Akaidas Yitzchak of Alexander, The Imrei Emes of Ger, Reb Meir Shapiro, Reb Chaim Ozer, Reb Baruch Ber and scores of others highly praised the Lubavitcher Rebbe for his tremendous scholarship piety.Shame on anyone to say that these Gedolim had anything to do with Avoda Zara or anything Heipach Da’as Torah. Shame on anyone who says that these Gedolim heaped praise on anyone who was C”V Maisis uMaidiach!
(Learn Rambam if you don’t know what those terms mean!)> shomayim, they will demand a din vecheshnon on bitul torah be’kamus and b”eichus
I thought you first need to pass the question on whether you were honest in business?
Maybe you know of a separate gate.
Such disrespect Am haratzus I have never seen in my entire life!
It says clearly in torah that when we learn the torah of a tzaddik his physical lips move in his kever and that causes a shinui in the air of the physical world! (“butterfly affect”) So when we learn the torah of the Rambam he is making a physical change in this world! Its a tremendous zchus!There is nothing wrong with learning Torah, whether it’s aliba dehilchasa or not.
(Or maybe we should stop daf yomi because we cant paskin halachos according to the gemara?)It is so sickening to see the disrespect towards the Rambam!
Aside for the fact that the Rambam was a tremendous Gaon, Tzaddik, Rishon, Ohev Yisrael ect,
(And if one of these sick participants in the discussion think they are to great for the Rambams tzidkus,)
Rabbainu Yonah, when he realized his mistake about opposing the Rambams Torah, he dedicated the rest of his life to travel to as many communities as he could, and in each shul or Bais Hamedrish he announced “I have sinned against Rabainu Moshe Ben Maimon, and I now confess, from the bottom of my heart and soul that MOSHE {The Rambam} IS TRUE AND HIS TORAH IS TRUE!”
If the Tzaddik, Rishon, and Ba’al Hsha’arei Teshuva -Rabainu Yona, declared about about the Rambam, who do these chutzpenyacks on YWN think they are, to disrespect the Rambam like that!And please reply honestly you chutzpenyacks, have you ever learned a full sefer of Ramabam!?
(I’m not talking about a few halachos here and there, I’m talking about a whole sefer!)RebE > You know that the Ravad used a very strong language against the Rambam by discouraging people from just learning it as they used to before the SA.
So, who won the argument historically? is SA a compromise: it is a systematic work but with references that Rambam omitted and paying more attention to practice? Would Raavad be happy with SA or still argue against?
I can’t help interjecting…
I only saw one “chutzpanyak” speak disparage about the rambam, and I doubt it’s who ur referring to.
I’m referring to the poster who implied that the rambam’s “rational approach” and “quest for truth” led him to unique conclusions in the gemara.aviradearah spoke rather disparagingly about someone, but not the rambam. and ur entire post makes it clear you didn’t read all his posts.
The arizal was very holy too, but if you say his words without understanding what you’re saying, it’s basically meaningless, but better than wasting time (of course we always have to mention that)
What does that have to do with the kovod of the rishonim? If anything, my statements that we must learn rambam as a part of the infinite continuum of the Torah and not just read it like a book is an actual honor to the rambam.
Learning superficially, in many cases, is a form of chutzpah – it makes Torah out to be simple, robbing it of the divine wisdom that is gained from learning Torah be’iyun.
Participant, I am saying that Rambam’s approach, being focused on rational, can be studied accordingly as a way of thinking. (I may be re-using Maharal’s paradigm that Bavli creates a method and that is why it is useful for future generations)/ I did not say anything about “conclusions”, I am not a Teimani.
Avira> Learning superficially, in many cases, is a form of chutzpah – it makes Torah out to be simple, robbing it of the divine wisdom that is gained from learning Torah be’iyun.
I think you are right. On one hand, it is wonderful that so many people have access to learning, on the other hand, it does indeed create attitude that we are all now Torah mavens, and then teachers, and then teach students for whom this will be full Torah.
Do we have any way to measure quality of Torah learning, outside of being a full baki yourself? Torah SAT and GRE? Rich people used to be able to hire a talmid chacham to go examine a potential hatan, but now whom do you trust to be an examiner?
I had this discussion with the person and the son I mentioned about davening mincha. The father raised the question what Rav I should be learning with back at home. The son gave a great suggestion: ask his yeshiva Rav whom he is asking shailot in Israel, then go up to the top, then ask this top Israeli posek who is his counterpart in Western hemisphere, and then go down – ask that guy to recommend whom he knows in my country, then in the city. My counter-suggestion was (and still is) – ask the Rav (or listen him discuss) the sugya I know well (I do not mean ust Shulchan Aruch, could be historical, etc) and select based on that.
I’ve made no mention of the lubavitcher rebbe himself.
I’m not a chabad chossid. As such, It does not really concern me if he was in fact a tzadik upon whom avodah zara was foisted, or if he was a maisis umadiach. What matters is that currently, there is a growing, evolving avodah zara ideology in chabad. The evidence to this is quite undeniable(I can supply you with much more, if you’re interested). That ideology was growing while the lubavitcher rebbe was alive(the brisker rov and chazon ish were noteably very wary at the time), but exploded exponentially after he passed away.
Either way, to your point: Gedolei yisroel not only corresponded with the likes of elisha ben avuya, but even learned from him directly! And lest you think that we are not on the level to do that nowadays, Rav Yaakov Emden also had a lengthy back and forth with Moses Mendelssohn sr”y, ending with a letter condemning him for straying from yiddishkeit to the point where he owned a dog (yes, dog ownership was indicative of deep defection from Torah, according to Rav Yaakov)
You left out Rav Hutner from your list of rabbonim – it’s noteable, because if you speak to a chaim berliner, or anyone who was close to him .. the question of Rav Hutner’s correspondence with the lubavitcher rebbe and the former’s opinions on the latter are quite evidence that correspondence has nothing to do with what a gadol holds of someone.
Also among the rabbonim you omitted was Rav Pam. Rav Pam originally said that we should stay out of the machlokes and that Rav Shach was talking only to bnei eretz yisroel. In his later years, when the personality cult became more apparent, Rav Pam retracted.
Again, I have no personal opinion of the lubavitcher rebbe, nor am I interested in forming one. He could have been a baal nissim and tzadik yesod olam, but that has nothing to do with my concerns.
It will not permit me to eat the meat and drink the wine of suspected idol worshippers, no matter how holy their rebbe may have been.
Also, I do not know where a sentence that includes rav moshe and rabbi Jonathan sacks begins, but it is not in a rational mind.
Rav moshe never praised the rebbe any more than he praised anyone who he wrote to who had a rabbinic post. Rav belsky zt”l one time told me that he did so in order that his psakim should be niskabel in all parts of klal yisroel.
I do not understand the brain that can have such a chutzpah towards the above mentioned Gedolim and the Rambam- a Rishon! Truly not a rational mind!
@avirah
I’m curious which hechsher you use. I’ve been told there are no kashrus agencies that avoid lubavitcher shochtim.“Learning superficially, in many cases, is a form of chutzpah” –
I dont know what superficial learning your talking about, I know of many chabadskers that listen to shiurei Rambam and they learn it very much be’iyun, with miforshim, and were it comes down to halacha, (or not,) so don’t come and state these untrue facts!
In fact, chabad.org just released an app to help with the daily RamBam that has numerous shiurim from different talmidei chachamim that teach RamBam in depth!(And if that is not enough for you and you stick to your baseless claim; have you ever heard of learning something B’Girsah?)
And about Chabad becomng an avodah zara sect (C”V), I as well had these concerns and voiced them to a college of mine who is a Chabad Chossid and he explained to me where I went off. I then, and you now, had/have absolutely no clue what a Rebbe (or Nosi Hador, as Reb Moshe refered to the Rebbe as,) is. So go do your research then come back to me. Get your facts straight!
AFellowJew and meirs – you may not realize this but we have discussed this at length, or should i say ad nauseum on many threads here over the years. You may think that if they just ask someone or “look it up inside” it will show them the light but it doesn’t work that way in real life.
There are many legitimate questions and only a handful of posters have had some serious answers but bottom line is, been there done that. You may have to agree to disagree but they are not just walking into this out of nowhere.
quite right. aviraahdearah is entering (or starting) this current debate with many years of coffeeroom experience under his belt so don’t tell him to look anything up.
Is that supposed to be your version of what i said or your own cynicism?
They may not understand that people have questions even after research. I was telling them that it wasn’t that they just tjought of it yesterday. Does that not work for you for some reason?MACHA’AH!!!!!
Rav Moshe Feinstein zt’l NEVER EVER referred to the Lubavitcher Rebbe as the Nasi Hador. Those words aren’t even in the lexicon of bnai Torah anywhere outside of Chabad.I see what your saying, but when you see one clearly is making things up and stating them as facts, or asking a quetion from a false premise, telling him to look it up makes perfect sense because he got the facts wrong!
I don’t see legitimate questions over here, I see a statement (or question as you call it,) that accuses a big group of Yidden being oved avodah zarah. This statement can only be “asked” out of a lack of knowledge of the subject at hand. The only way this “question” can be “asked” is if the questioner doesn’t know what a Rebbe or Nosi Hador means and he doesn’t know what purpose they serve. So it makes sense to tell the questioner to look up what a Rebbe/Nosi is, because that will answer the question, (by showing that that question doesn’t exist!) It does work that way in “real life.”
Telling someone, who made a statement with nothing backing it, and says that learning a part of torah {RaMbaM} is wrong because the people that learn it only do it on a very “low” level, should be told to check the facts. This is because this statement is wrong! The fact is that many people learn this RaMbaM cycle b’iyun! There are shiurim released everyday! (As said above.) So by telling people to “look inside” and check their facts does solve the problem in “real life”, because the question on the cycle doesn’t begin to exist!
(To add, even if p/p didn’t learn it b’iyun, (which for the most part is not true,) there is also a derech of limud called learning things b’girsa! Learning torah should not be discouraged even if it’s not being learned B’iyun! I’ts Am Haratzus to say that!)
This (false) Lashon Hara stated about a large group of Yidden is scary and disheartening! (The aveira is ma’avir many more times when said about a large group.)
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