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is it fair that we look down at people who choose to do less than their families standards?
is it fair to expect a certain behavior of people coming from certain schools, communities… if it may have never been a fit for them?
shud we forever be limited to the mindset of our upbringings when making decisions?What is less? That’s a huge range. If people are eved Hashem, even if they don’t practice the same type of frumkeit as their parents, I don’t look down on them. But OTD or immature, barely holding onto Yiddishkeit, life is one long party types, i certainly look down on these people.
Do we expect more from a Prince?
Or can the king’s son acts no differently than the commoner on the street selling hot dogs on the corner in his stand?
Shudda wudda cudda
Why judge anyone on a personal level? Why also suggest that the Torah isn’t “a fit” for a certain person? Maybe sitting and learning isn’t a “fit” for a man at a given point in his life, but does that mean he should be made to feel comfortable in his decision to dress in jeans, watch movies and eat anything that says “kosher” on it, because he “doesn’t fit” into the archetype yeshiva rubric?
Rav Shlomo friefeld z”l is reported in his biography to have reacted two different ways to two different people. One talmid was a BT and began wearing chasidish clothing. He told him that he wasn’t ready, while another talmid who had grown up chasidish had shed his garb – the rosh yeshiva told him “you didn’t come here to fall”.
Dropping from one’s mesorah – whatever that may be – is far reaching. Rav tzadok hacohen writes in many places that Hashem cares more about where you’re heading than where you actually are. Rabbi yisroel reisman said on numerous occasions that when young couples decide to go against their upbringing in issues such as cholov yisroel, it’s building a house on spiritual deficiency and regression.
Avodas Hashem is all encompassing; it applies to all people on their level, but it is always the end all be all. No one “doesn’t fit in” to being an eved Hashem in all that they do.
Philosopher; I don’t see how a yid can look down on another yid, no matter how far they are from yiddishkeit. Only Hashem knows the value of an individual, and given that person’s nisyonos, who said you’d be any better? We all struggle with ahavas yisroel, but to openly say that you feel superior to them as individuals, not as ideologies, is repugnant
“מִי יוֹדֵעַ גְּדוּלָּתָן וּמַעֲלָתָן בְּשָׁרְשָׁן וּמְקוֹרָן בֵּאלֹקִים חַיִּים.” who are we to look down on a fellow yid. who knows how great his neshama is? who knows how great his tests are? who knows if we could stand the challenges he has? this is the fundementals of avas yisrael as described clearly in tanya!
we must encourage them not look down at them. negativity is only good for corona tests we must look at them as a fellow neshama with a deire to serve hashem that has been hidden by some dirt. help them clear away the dirt and they will see the bueetiful engravement of a rotzon far der eibershter inside.
AviraDeArah, I 100% look down on any Yid who was frum and now violates Shabbos or does similar severe sins. It may be repugnant to you, but I’m not trying to gefel you so I don’t care what you think.
philosopher excuse my language but your a ‘Yesh’! a Yesh is someone who thinks he exist thinks he is great enough to be able to look down at another yid. this is clearly violating the fundamentals of ahavas Yisroel to look down at another yid especially if nothing good comes out of it. ahavas yisroel is not to shomer Shabbos individuals or those who follow your customs. Its harder to have ahavas Yisroel to another yid whom you consider lower, so in order to have a proper ahavas yisroel you have to realize that all yidden are brothers Mamash! “וְלָכֵן נִקְרְאוּ כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל “אַחִים” מַמָּשׁ, מִצַּד שׁוֹרֶשׁ נַפְשָׁם בַּה’ אֶחָד” we come from the same root and no matter what we do we cannot change our root just like brothers have the same source, their parents, we have the same source, hashem, and how can we look down at a brother if at the end we are all from the same source? I think its integral to learn perek lamud beis tanya to understand why what your saying, philosopher is not only wrong but against torah. Im not trying to be harsh, im trying to come out of ahava not to ch’vsh try shteching you.
The Farby
Ahavas Yisroel does not extend to those who reject following the Torah.
Farby, you are mixing up the yoitzeras. I never said that I hate these Jews, I said I look down on them. In this mixed up world everyone is equal, but the Torah has very harsh words for these people. It is absolutely not violating the halacha to look down on Yidden who intentionally violate halacha.
No one in this world has not sinned, however this is the bilbul hamoichos of the dor: the ehrlicha person who tries to do Hashem’s will is considered equal to those who eat treifus, violate the Shabbos, etc. That’s why we have scores of frum people going otd, I mean why not? They are loved and accepted in many communities and by many people so why not?
I’m not saying to hate or reject them, but I am saying that there’s nothing wrong with looking down on those who reject the Torah and do not follow it’s laws.
philosopher, I agree with Farby and AviraDeArah. I think it is pompous and arrogant to look down at individuals who no longer share your beliefs or practices. Regarding your comment about otd people, how can you look down at someone for thinking differently without rejecting them?
Philophisor, theres one issue, i dont believe this theology cause ive been told it works ive seen love and warmth help people i know both tinoiks shenishba and people who went otd come back to yidishkeit. my grandfather sheyichye helped over 10 people become baal teshuvas in his shlichus. he was always an optimist and he never ever looked down at a single yid. he would have the most not observant yidden come to eat by a shabbos meal or come over to help them. he never looked at a yid by his aveiros, he looked at yidden like they were yidden with heilike nishomos that came straight from the eibershter! his aproach of love and warmth has helped tens become baal teshuvas or return to the derech. your aproach is negative and has no place in a yidishe derech. we live in a yiridos hadoirois and negativity only pushes people further.
ujm WHAT??????? when did you make this up. sorry im just astounded by such ignorance. EVERY yid no matter how far is a yid and belongs to the yisroel in ahavas yisroel.
i feel like although one MUST be shomer torah and mitzvos one must have ahavas yisroel to those who dont and has an obligation to help them become shomer torah vmitzvos. i partially agree with farby that you have to be positive but you cant make them think that what they are doing is ok.
ujm, ahavas yisroel is important to every yid and that includes helping them keep torah.
Bennythekvetch, of course, if Yiddishkeit to you is about ” practices and beliefs”, not about the Truth, not about the eternal words of Hashem, not about what Jews over the centuries gave up their lives for, not about the fact that Hashem has COMMANDED us to keep His mitzvos, then yes, I can see why you wouldn’t look down at Jews who know Hashem’s laws and throw them away. It is not a Torah obligation in any way to love people who threw away the Torah and deliberately engage in sin.
Your comment actually does not make sense. If it is about “beliefs” then accordingly it is my belief that I can ” look down on people who know the halachas yet still violate the Torah”. This is my belief, how exactly can you decide for me what my beliefs, religious or personal, should be? Especially if you accept that they are following their beliefs then what gives you the right to bash mine? If they can have their beliefs accepted what makes you entitled to have my beliefs denigrated?
ujm. do you have a source for that? i have a feeling thats made up.
I can share from personal experience that “being looked down on” can foster resentment and push a yid further from yiddishkeit. When I was young I had a rebbe who looked down on me at a time that my emunah was shaky. While I may have deserved some of the verbal putdowns and dirty looks at the time, my attempts to be closer to Torah were met with contempt, not positive reinforcement. Needless to say my path back to Hashem took an even longer detour.
@ the OP, Like it was said in the other thread “Lack of capitalization gives the bochurim away “.
That being said, if that person is a “Bum” meaning he is doing nothing with his life, I look down on such people as bottom feeding losers, I myself felt that FT learning was not for me so I entered the workforce @ at 19, went to college at night was kovayah itim, got married to a bais yakov girl, married off 3 children one of whom is in kollel long term.All the Seforim throughout the ages that discuss the point clearly say that Ahavas Yisroel doesn’t extend to those who reject the Torah. Including the Chofetz Chaim.
All the Seforim throughout the ages that discuss the point clearly say that Ahavas Yisroel doesn’t extend to those who reject the Torah. Including the Chofetz Chaim.
YOU ARE SO DESTRUCTIVE TO KLAL YISROEL!! I can’t stand when you do this. You are presenting halachik issues as if they are social issues. Every single jew out there was respected and met with GENUINE WARMTH from the chofetz chaim, from reb moshe Feinstein, from reb dovid trenk. Everyone has heard how the chofetz chaim treated the yid who broke shabbos. Why do you do this??
Thank you orangecountychapper. Please forever ignore posters and people who do this, and to anyone out there struggling with Judaism, I know you read these posts and think this is the majority but IT IS NOT.
commonsaychel, you probably would’ve been recieved with greater warmth from many here and in the frum communities had you chosen to go down the BUM route. Imagine that people give me mussar for saying that I don’t look down at people choosing to be oived Hashem in a different way than there parents are but I at the same time berate me for have for looking down at those throwing away their Yiddishkeit. It’s unbelievable.
Historically, those who have sinned openly were not accepted within klal Yisroel, unlike today where we have to accept these people and their choices. Now, it is certainly not wrong to believe in these people to do teshuva, but that doesn’t mean that
“Imagine that people give me mussar for saying that I don’t look down at people choosing to be oived Hashem in a different way than there parents”
Where is someone saying that?
Syag – it’s not as though halacha ends and social matters begin…i hope that’s not what you were saying. As the chazon ish says, the halacha itself in our time is that we love and are mekarev reshoim – he didn’t say that we put aside halacha because of other considerations or to get along in society… halacha teaches us how to live as Jews in every time and place, and here the poskim are telling us what the halachik practice should be. They’re not starting off with the assumption that we should love OTD or frei-frum-birth people; if the halacha would be to hate them, as it was a few hundred years ago, then that’s what we would do in American society, shunned and looked down upon as we would be.
Ujm is correct, but there’s a big caveat that he’s missing…. it’s open pesukim… רְאַת ה’ שְׂנֹאת רָע in mishlei, “halo mesanecha Hashem esneh(tehilim 139:21)….”, Rambam hilchos rotzeach 13:14, chinuch 238…rambam holds that we hate him after seeing him sin , chinuch holds that it’s only if you’ve rebuffed him for his sins several times
But come most of the achronim including the chazon ish in YD 2 28 and say that nowadays we don’t know how to give proper tochacha, so these halachos no longer apply. It is perhaps for this reason that the tanya even in his time advocates seemingly not to hate reshoim.
Rav shlomo zalman – a great lover of every Jew – did not hold like the chazon ish that everyone today is a tinok shenishba.
Also whether or not there is a mitzvah to hate or a mitzvah to love reshoim, no one is saying that we should be misga’eh on them and think that we are definitely better than them. The rambam writes how only Hashem can know the true measure of one’s sins snd mitzvos…we all know people who are barely frum who go out kf their way to buy expenses esrogim or do a lot of chessed; those things are real. The chozeh of lublin was once asked on chanukah to curse a moser, an informant. He said, “how can I curse him when he is lighting up shomayim with his neiros?”.
Gaavah is gaavah, and unless you’re talking about understanding the chashivus of who you are relative to your being a ben torah, a “gaavah dekedushah”, which is more about what Hashem gave you and about gratitude for the madrega you’re on….then it’s a horrible middah…the only middah which Hashem calls a toe’va (mishlei 16:5)
Common; so you don’t look down on professionals who live abominable lifestyles, but you do look down on unemployed people who take advantage of their parents? It seems that you’re not opposed to looking down on people in principle, just you’ve chosen what’s important to being a respectable person and what’s not integral – having a profession and being frum respectively
No one’s saying the western nonsense idea that “everyone is equal” – reshoim are reshoim and tzadikim are tzadikim, but we never know how we’re doing and how someone else is doing to the point when we can say that we are qualitatively better than someone else – the rambam says only Hashem can make these calculations. That being said, teaching others not to go in the ways of reshoim – tinok shenishba or not – has a lot of value. Their lives are not meaningful, their behavior is egregious, and they are not ever truly happy in this world or the next. Only Torah can do that for a person, and it’s an important lesson. None of that has anything to do with being dan an individual.
Avira > chazon ish in YD 2 28 and say that nowadays we don’t know how to give proper tochacha
What was the chiddush here if R Akiva said this way earlier? Maybe you are skipping over something?
L’maase, I am wondering even when we talk about people who did receive Jewish education in large quantities – can we be sure of the quality? We are now discussing seriously when is geneiva allowed. I kind of suspect that in previous times, this was better undertsood.
Syag > Everyone has heard how the chofetz chaim treated the yid who broke shabbos.
True, but he has limits also. He visited a Jewish commissar who was taking Yeshiva boys into Soviet army and said that he did not come to give tochacha as he realizes it is not going to help, but he come because when the commissar will be accused in Shemayim, he will defend himself – if Ch. H were to give me tochacha, I would have done teshuva. “So I came to take this defense from you”. Of course, this can be interpreted as a round-about way to cause teshuva….
@Avira, we all make judgement calls, for example you look down at the MO lifestyle, I feel if the person is being a productive member of society he is contributing something even if he is not in the halls of yeshiva all day vs someone who “drays zich pist” all day long.
PS your story about Rav Friefeld ztl is a made up story I know that for a factSyag, wrong.
You wrote “Everyone has heard how the chofetz chaim treated the yid who broke shabbos.” That bochor didn’t “reject the Torah”, which is the term I carefully used. In fact, that bochor was in Yeshiva learning Torah. He sinned on Shabbos for reasons of taaiva, not lhachis. Of course we love such people. And try to teach them to add help them to teshuva.
But someone who holds the Torah is man-written, non-binding or changeable and REJECTS it as written by G-d and compulsory as such, him we do not love.
ujm what is ahavas yisroel? what is ahava? if we all come from the same shoiresh we dont differentiate.
UJM PLEASE BRING ME A SOURCEThat bochor didn’t “reject the Torah”
Neither did most of these kids. They just rejected a system where people who called themselves Ehrlich treated them like dirt. Kinda like what you are touting here and elsewhere.
even tho he did bust me i think me and syag agree that you have to bring them back with love and hate drives them away
Syag, you have a strong tendency, many years in the making, of putting words and thoughts into others mouths where they don’t and never existed. Indeed, in my EVERY COMMENT HERE I specifically, clearly and directly only referred to those that “REJECT the Torah”, in those verbatim words! Yet, you syag, nevertheless, falsely attribute my comment to referring to anyone that didn’t reject the Torah.
This is an old habit of yours. You do this to anyone you disagree with. Just yesterday it was Reb Eliezer that you did this to. Everyday you find another victim.
Common – you said it very accurately; I look down on the mo lifestyle. I don’t look down on any individual Jew, as this is against the Torah principles explained above. You also skirted around the point i was making, that you’re actively look down on people who are less worthy of respect in your eyes, not due to objectively important issues such as mitzvos, but rather their ability/desire to work.
So to be clear, would you respect an OTD doctor more than a frum young man who doesn’t work, has depression, lives in his parents’ basement, and plays video games all day? Do you really think that the Torah agrees with you about judging others, and that if you would go ahead and judge others, that the Torah would want you to judge them that way?
Avirah, if I can jump in, life is not black and white. Please stop about this judgement business. Stop being woke. If someone who is frum lives in their parents basement and plays video games all day then there’s something mentally off with them. No normal frum person sits in their parents basement all day playing video games. If they are otherwise functioning and play video games all day then there’s nothing wrong with looking down on them.
This has nothing to do with an OTD doctor (who is a rare breed in any case as most OTDs do not become professionals) who is judged in a completely different way.
This wokeness that has permeated the frum world from the outside world is clouding people’s judgment on what dan l’kaf zchus means. Dan l’kaf zchus applies to frum people only.
Avirah, if I can jump in, life is not black and white. Please stop about this judgement business. Stop being woke. If someone who is frum lives in their parents basement and plays video games all day then there’s something mentally off with them. No normal frum person sits in their parents basement all day playing video games. If they are otherwise functioning and play video games all day then there’s nothing wrong with looking down on them.
This has nothing to do with an OTD doctor (who is a rare breed in any case as most OTDs do not become professionals) who is judged in a completely different way.
This wokeness that has permeated the frum world from the outside world is clouding people’s judgment on what dan l’kaf zchus means. Dan l’kaf zchus applies to frum people only.
“I look down on the mo lifestyle. I don’t look down on any individual Jew, as this is against the Torah principles explained above”
Beautiful. I wish more would follow that example.
Syag, false. Excuses, excuses, excuses. Everyone went through the same system. Some people suffer more than others in life but those are not necessarily the ones who throw away Yiddishkeit. Today’s stupid excuse is trauma when most don’t have trauma it’s fake news.
Now am I saying the system is perfect? Absolutely not. I myself was discriminated against due to my family situation, which also wasn’t a bowl of cherries, mildly put.
How in the world does anyone think they have an excuse to throw away the Torah and mitzvos because life isn’t exactly the way they want it to be?! We are here to grow from our challenges, no one can use their God-given challenges to throw away Torah and mitzvos.
The woke secular society has influenced frum Jews as well. As someone who went through many, many challenges in life, I look down at people who throw away the Torah and oftentimes their entire lives, simply because they have challenges which EVERYONE does. The vast, vast majority of OTDs were absolutely not abused, it’s fake news.
Has everyone forgotten about bechira?! That term has been thrown into the trash bin. Now it’s about “trauma”…whether someone has trauma, real or imagined, there’s no excuse to drop Shabbos and eat chazer.
Can people love OTDs and people engaged in non-stop frivolous behavior? Absolutely, that is your ideoligy. However, as everything in life, this has repercussions with the communities being the most accepting of sinful people having the most of them.
Historically Rabbonim and frum Jews did not accept excuses from individuals who threw away Yiddishkeit, whether they were maskilim or converted to Christianity ( with the exception of forced conversions) and they were dealt harshly with. People say today is different and we must accept them the way they are then that’s their opinion. Hashem commanded us, without exception and without excuses, to fulfill His commandments, and we will be punished ( which we see this happening more and more frequently H”y) if we disobey and therefore if those who know better engage in abominable behavior and are mechalelei Shabbos, and eat treifus are, at the minium, looked down upon by people who do not take trampling of His mitzvos and His Torah lightly.
Being dan l’kaf zchus only applies to frum people, not have turned away from Yiddishkeit.
@Aviria “you said it very accurately; I look down on the mo lifestyle. I don’t look down on any individual Jew.”
I too don’t look down on individual Jews, this subgroup became a new lifesytle with a support network etc. If someone works in the trades for example I could not care less how small his Yalmulka is and that his father wears a stamril or wide brim black hat, however if he spend his days sleeping late, hanging out in the pizza shop and working at dead end jobs on occasion yeah he is a bottom feeding loser.
You have one lifestyle you look down on and I have another lifestyle I look down on, differert stroke for different folks.Yasher Koach Avira and Philosopher for putting it very well and correctly.
Common; so according to you, being a productive member of society is more worthy of respect than keeping the mitzvos while being a bum/shlomazel/whate have you? That’s not “well you tolerate this lifestyle and i tolerate this one”, no. There’s a bigger difference than that.
Here’s my view – it’s clear from chazal and rishonim that we do not know the value of any other jew and it is arrogance to elevate one’s self above anyone, even kal shebekalim. This means that despite the various shitos about hating/loving, either way I do not feel that I am better than another jew. Azoi shtayt in rambam.
Your view – you can know if you’re better than another jew if that Jew is a “bottom feeder” who does not work. Work and financial responsibility are the sole arbiters(pun intended) of what you respect and disrespect. They could be ochlei nevelos mechalel shabbos and boelei niddos, but you do not look down on these “personal choices” since they are a productive member of society.
My view of your view – if.we go with the idea that we can know if we’re better than someone else, then we would only use the Torah ls value system, and not whether or not someone is productive, to determine it.
Philosopher; I’m not discussing being dan lechaf zchus. If I know someone eats treif, and I see them eating a food from a McDonald’s bag, i will not be dan lechaf zchus that he is using the oaper bag to store kosher food. What i am saying has nothing to do with diyun, it has to do with the unknowable definition of who is of a greater value – who is a better person, and that is something that only Hashem can know. Only Hashem knows what I would do if I had this person’s nisyonos, etc..
That being said, recognizing madregos is something we can and should do. I have 15 talmidim. My job as a rebbe is to evaluate each one’s strengths, weaknesses, level lf frumkeit, middos, and other facets of their personality. That doesn’t mean I think that one kid is “better”, or that I was a better kid than they are.
I agree that a grown man who plays video games all day etc, is going through a mental health crisis. I believe the castigation made by commonsaychel is exceptionally harsh and hurtful to people who struggle with lack of motivation, depression, anxiety, etc…. people like this who look down on others only make it harder for people like that to get better or feel better about themselves, which will result in motivation and self esteem.
People who are insensitive to depression and share their displeasure with sufferers only serve to perpetuate the cycle of self loathing and lack of motivation.
> Everyone went through the same system. Some people suffer more than others in life but those are not necessarily the ones who throw away Yiddishkeit. Today’s stupid excuse is trauma when most don’t have trauma it’s fake news.
Not everyone agrees. R Yaakov Kamenetsky had a 2nd grade teacher in Lita who accused him of lying when he was late and had an unusual explanation – he was urgently sent to find a substitute knife for a bris milah, Rav was hurt but survived. Later in life, he and his former classmate Rav Ruderman wondered how many more Chachamim could have came from that class, if not the teacher …
@Avira, I am not talking about someone who struggles with mental illness, I am talking about a new subgroup of ppl who dray zich pist, Sorry if you hatred of MO does not let you see past that
Philosopher, as someone who has seen many, many OTD people in my line of work… almost all had some serious trauma, mental health issue, or abuse. People don’t wake up one morning and cast off the Torah; there’s a reason for it. Being around negative attitudes also turns people off.
Many OTDs were never really “on” to begin with…many MO kids who can barely read Hebrew and live almost the same lives as their non Jewish counterparts, I’m hardly surprised when I learn of their abandonment of whatever shabbos and kashrus they had learned of.
This is the fault of the broken MO system, not the kids who are taught that the end all be all is the state of israel and going to college.
As for “unzerer”, we have to clean house as well. Hashkofa is lacking in the yeshivos and bais yaakovs; people have no idea what basic jewish thought is and how to apply the chazals that they memorize into their lives and their worldviews.
The mussar movement as well as chasidus served as a bulwark against haskalah, because it gave a torah worldview to people instead of falling prey to the “isms”. That’s what we need and that’s what I’ve seen as ultimately successful in being me’orer people to love yiddishkeit.
Before the age of 20, beis din shel maalah doesn’t judge, yet you seem alright with it.
Avira,
an interesting test case. Mental illness aside, could you point to a source that says that people who are not doing mitzvos bein adam l’makom are dealt harsher than ben adam l’havero. I clearly understand that we feel that way, as l’makom makes us feel Jewish, but it is not clear to what extent…Ben sore umore is eating/drinking/stealing, nothing about shabbos or kashrus
Hashem being not so harsh on Migdal Bavel generation as they have unity between themselvesIf you let your hypothetical bum get out of the house, the case become harder to defend – here he is driving endangering people, not wearing mask when visiting grandma, forgetting his kid in a hot car. Even in the basement, he might hack someone or steal from his parents to get money to pay for the video games.
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