Controversial topics list

HaLeivi, the topic is still going strong and will likely never die in the secular world and in Israel…we need stay relevent 😏

turns out Sephardic view of Ashkenazim is a controversial topic. This was a legit question, in my opinion, but very sad negative reaction. As R Tarfon said – nobody in this generation can accept Tochacha …

Dear Ujm,

Clear as in that it would never be applicable in the way you imagine it. It’s on this site. No need to deny it. It’s just a wonder that some be people can study a sugya in depth, and it is inconsistent with the way some other people drool their way through ideology. Amazing, is it not?

Dear Ujm,

To be blunt, your opinion was already squashed. If there was going to be a response, it would have happened before I gave up.

But worry not! We can add on a new controversial topic. Claiming a Torah approach off of one modern day approach/custom/rabbi/essay without any regard for the great number of Torah sources. Come to think of it, this one topic may be inclusive of many others.

On the authorship of the Zohar. There are two concepts of authorship in Judaic texts. On the Zohar, both authorship questions are almost unanimously considered to be settled. Which to me is somewhat controversial because no other classic Jewish text, has a unanimous perception of even one authorship discussion.

n0m- things don’t have to end in rifts, I just think there are a lot of posters who are used to the Twitter format of conversation. Throw in a good one liner, give a shtuch, toss a compliment, shrug someone up. Its all very monologue-ish. Lots of people talking at people.

Add to that the fact that if you agree with someone there may be less back and forth to be had.

Remembering conversations that didn’t always go into rifts, the running theme was to give more emotionally and personally. To discuss topics about things you found inspiring, challenges you met, poems you wrote, risks you took and what you learned. And join others in sharing and hope others join. People used to enjoy those topics and I think some here still would but we’d have to agree to ignore the hecklers.

phil > “Trauma” is the code word

I agree that words could have been used better. Still, several last centuries – haskala, WW1, communism, nazis, transplant to US and Israel – would probably break any other community other than us, tough Ashkenazim, already prepared by crusades, ghettos, hmelnitsky, cantons, pogroms … But any survival is accompanied by PTSD, where T stands for Trauma and we would be better off understanding this experience.

> I would not take “toichacha” from Sephardic

“the prisoner cannot free himself” re:R Yohanan pulling a colleague out of sickness but not himself.
People from outside can sometimes help us see what we are not seeing.

> , in particular Ashkenazim, are so varied, it is stupid to lump everyone into one group

yes, but we all are amazingly similar genetically (coming from ~ 100 men in middle ages), and are united by our love of fighting words, as we are amply demonstrating here.

Dear Ujm,

Your correct. Thanks for taking the time! I posted one more and it got lost somewhere it disheartened me, and I never rewrote it. After Chanukah I intend to go through the sugya again and finish posting. That will bump the thread. If I do not get to it, you can just link the thread and ask others to chime in for me.

Dear Avira,

This topic is about controversies. Perek Shirah is largely considered to be a legitimate midrash that appeared somewhat suddenly. Which is normal and uncontroversial. However, there were instantly two claims that it was forged. One of the Rishonim said it was forged by a Karaite. And a notable Karaite claimed that it was a forgery from a mideastern rabbi. So the controversy is how can two opposing theologies, see a forgery in the same work.

Similarly, there is an old discussion if there used to be many different versions of the Sifre and Sifra. Or if the one we possess today is the one often mentioned in the gemara…. Etc… No malice intended. My apologies.

If I’m understanding you correctly, the idea that one rishon (r. Moshe tako, a rishon who’s never mentioned in halacha as far as i know. His statements were ignored by the rishonim like rav yosef albo, the ritva and tons others who take it for granted that it’s a braisa) And a karaite both claim something makes us believe it, because certainly if two distinct scholars agree on something, there must be some truth to it. Enough for you to use the term forger as a given.

Let’s unpack that. You’re assuming that a karaite scholar has some measure of credibility or weight. Would you say the same if a rishon and a Christian/muslim/buddhist scholar agreed? You’re also assuming that this one rishon can overweigh every other riahon and achron who by omission and by quoting perek shira completely disregard this shita.

Braysos are torah shebaal peh. Claiming that one is a forgery is probably under the category of machish magideah as per the rambams list of defining apikorsus. And no, I don’t throw around the term easily.

People who harp on dayos yechidim when it makes them comfortable in biblical or Talmudic criticism, yet shun other shitos as “daas yachid” when it’s something they care about are the personification of intellectual dishonesty. One of my rebbeim used to say that the maskilim, who enjoyed researching the source of texts far more than actually learning them, are “modeh bemiktzas begalui and kofer hakol b’seser”.

Dear Avira,

You are misunderstanding my posts completely. The authorship of Perek Shirah is not at all the discussion. The controversy is that the conflicting accusations here imply that a Tosafist forgery and Karaite forgery could theoretically look the same. As to say that the division between Jews a thousand years ago did not have much depth.

You brought up how much weight to give to words of the Rishonim versus others. I really do not buy it. I think all scholars can speak for themselves. If we need to give their words added weight, than why bother with what they said? If you think that the value of Our Sages is the esteem we accord them, then why bother? Instead of going on, I’ll just respectfully disagree. The words of the Chachamim need to be delved into to the utmost. There is no place for sacred goats in Judaism.

You are even further of off the beaten path with your statement about Beraisah and Torah Shebal Peh. The focus is on the scholars not scholarship. That is not how heresy works. You seem to have compartmentalized the Rambam’s edifice of proper thought and true belief.

We agree about the intellectual dishonesty of making the student comfortable with the texts instead of properly analyzing them. As well as using under quoted

The rebb you mentioned, was he well read in their biographies, or did he just assume that. Because it sounds silly to charge Zunz, Buber, or Lieberman- with opening a sefer and not knowing all it’s contents.

Also, i never said that the maskilim didn’t know what was inside the seforim. Rather, they fancied themselves as above the seforim and able to engage in, as they called it, higher criticism. They were more interested in the academic, the backstory and history of the sefer, and didn’t really care about internalizing torah as part of themselves, which is a large part of the mitzvah of talmud torah. People who learn the seforim struggle to figure out what the pshat is in the sefer

Dear Avira,

Your entire dance of a worldview is based on nobody from the mesorah camp every having fully relied upon someone from the scholarship camp. Or someone from the scholarship camp having a major positive impact on the mesorah camp. The problem is that there needs to be some agree upon line from Sinai. And there just simply is not. All lines of mingling takes place from one edge of the spectrum to the other. Rabbis, spouses, and ideas meet up without even the slightest hint of a schismatic line in the sand. You can keep dancing around to keep up the illusion that there is some line somewhere. It is not there.but the Jews will persevere by joining up and not by drawing lines in the sand. Our Great Torah Sages parade over your lines with smiles and winks.

Look around and see how the Torah is infinitely greater than the entire world. If we all fit on Earth, kal vachomer we all fit in the Torah. It does not mean that they [or you, or me] are in accordance with the Torah. It means that the Torah is not threatened by their studies. You have already moved on from one community. No reason to get lost and confused in another community. You were not born here like I was. The yeshiva does not espouse the doctrine that you think it does.

There is no reason to mention academics that have zero objectivity. For those who excelled in yeshiva, it is all a waste of time except the best scholars or essays. [I’m talking about academics discussing Torah topics. Not fields which have more objectivity in today’s universities. But I assume there are some.]

I realize that we could be missing each other completely. I humbly suggest that this topic works the other way. You can think anything. Nobody else knows what is in your head. The sugya is not what must I believe, but what do we believe. So the question is not what is my obligation or exemption. But what am I gaining insight into, versus what am I missing out on. Sure, one can follow some witless academic into a systemized construct that needs no Ikkrim at all. But that follower will lose out on much of the breadth and depth of our heritage. Besides for that academic possibly being an apekorus and missing out on both worlds.

In light of this, what points the Rambam to respond to Taku. Of course there is grounds to say that God is corporeal. But that is not what we Jews think. So what is there to gain?

Big words coming from somebody who rejected the community Hashem sent him into without properly understanding their relationship with Torah. You are doing it again in the yeshiva world. The Torah giants and the major thinkers of the yeshivos do not play your game.

Now here is what you missed.

Nineteenth century history. Unless you want to join Netziv was a maskil and not deserving to be a Rosh Yeshiva club.

The Rambam connects Rav Ashi with Sinai. That refers to the existence of Talmud. Not Judaism.

The Mishna connects the courts or our ethicis with Sinai. Are you insinuating that without this one Mishna, we should assume that the Torah showed us one hundred fifty years ago? (Or whenever you assume was The Great Theological Battle Of Torah True Jews Versus Jews Who Could Not Have Been Torah True Because They Disagreed Over Something That We Did Not Even Care About. Again, I think parts of both the modern and yeshiva world stake their validity to this event having taken place.)

After Chazzal……. When was Chazzal? Were they always zal?

Learned from a rebbe…. The Shagas Arye? The Baal Shem? The Rogotchover? Rav Elyashiv? The ones we never hear about?

Meshamesh….. So get some shimush. You’ll no you have shimush when it ish implicit that his mind is unreadable. And you have to see his actions and reactions to know what he thinks.

No one just opened a sefer and wrote what they wanted. Do you mean just randomly editing what was already published? Maybe that is correct. But entire Seforim have been written without any method of that the writer was trying to convey. Or to cover a topic were the author writes repeatedly, that he never learned these topics.

No idea what your acharonim on rishonim point is.

Do you ever study Rav Akiva Eiger like I do? Or do you see those words and shrug?

My view is that the Torah is divine and those who teach it are the apex of all mortals. If that is correct, what a tradition – even the best tradition add to it’s integrity?

A mesorah doesn’t add to the integrity of torah, it is merely the transmission vehicle; it was meant to be transmitted from rebbe to talmid, father to son, in both content and methodology. Those are things you need a mesorah for; to know a good sevara from a crooked one, to know what the kavanos of chazal, rishonim etc were, it’s not about proving the Torah or adding credibility, it’s about getting the tools necessary to understand something that all along was based on a handed down tradition. When the mishnah was completed, it was cryptic and needed the gemara to explain it; when the gemara was written, it would have been a closed book if not for the rishonim; he rishonim thensleves are very perplexing and are constantly studied over by the achronim and ourselves…someone without a mesorah cannot approach these matters because they simply don’t have the tools.

That doesn’t mean you have to blindly accept the particulars of what you’re taught; rashi argues with his rebbeim quite a lot, and tosfos argues on rashi on almost every daf. But those are in the details; tosfos doesn’t say that rashus entire approach was wrong and that they are inventing a new mahalach in torah ex nihilo.

I know from my own years in yeshiva that had i not had intensive blatt shiurim id never be able to understand rishonim; i could try on my own, but it would have been a colossal failure….the worst part of which would be the fact that i wouldn’t be aware of how much of a failure it is

Maysoh bereshis/merkava also was passed down without being written as per the rambam and other rishonim, for another example.

And just what “great torah sages” are you getting this from? Do they have recorded torahs echoing your sentiment? Or is it “mesorah”? Or is it people who you consider torah sages, but are considered heretics by people like rav shlomo zalman (re, kapach) or the chazon ish (re, liberman), or rav shach and the steipler(re, steinsaltz)?

Dear Avira,

I hear your experience. And I still am telling you that it is the same in every community I know. The only difference is the starting point. The momentum and direction are too similar to avoid parallel results.

I mean it from a communal perspective. Of course certain individuals will do better in one place over the other.

I really don’t know how a “reader” can see that the rishonim didn’t have a mesorah, because I’m not a reader; i am a lomeid, and that means approaching the rishonim not as a book but as a piece of torah that is part of the continuum of Torah. You’re suggesting that i “can’t put my finger on it” simply because you cannot put a finger on what i was talking about.

I’ll be clearer – there is a mesorah in how to understand both the language of chazal, the words of the rishonim, and how to properly use Talmudic logic to understand both. This is why steinsaltz, who had no formal education, is so off base with his pshatim (see rav aharon Feldman’s critique for examples). What would make sense to “echad min hashuk” isn’t always a good sevara or shmaataa aliba dihilchasa.

The mechanics behind a gemara, which we call lomdus, is entirely mesorah driven. It’s hinted to in some rishonim, including notably the tosfos ri”d, called in yeshivos “reb chaim of the rishonim”, but mostly was not comitted to print. Rav Boruch ber (cited in rav hadomeh lemalaach) said that when writing chidushim, one should not write “too much”, not the entire shtikel, because we’re not writing artscroll type books. There’s a mesorah for the difference between a rashi writing “begemara mefaresh” and “mefaresh begemara”, as quoted in the shem hagedolim from the chid”a (could have been a different sefardi sefer, I don’t remember the name very clearly, just that it was sefardi)

Chidushim are rooted in that passed down tradition; they’re not a free for all. If someone wishes to open a gemara and pasken halacha without rishonim and achronim, he is rightly deemed a baal gaavah and is held responsible for allowing that which is assur. For example, the academic mentality would not see anything wrong with annuling yom tov sheni, chumra derebe zeira, or other issues that one can dismiss with simplistic kashos. Yet one who does these things is in violation of halacha, because we have a mesorah that we do not deviate from.

Bombarding with questions doesn’t dismantle an argument, but it is a debate technique used to make the other side less appealing, since it raises more questions than it answers; it’s not a real conversation point though, and it’s also evasive, like putting up flares in the hopes of confusing an attacker.

It doesn’t mean that every perush of a given gemara was passed down, much like the discussions in the gemara weren’t passed down, but rather the product of torah reasoning that is based on the amoraim’s rebbeim. The methodology of seeing a good sevara from a bad one is part of this mesorah. You’ll notice that rishonim often say pshatim that are initially hard to understand, and could be dismissed by superficial kashas… only for someone like the chasam sofer or reb akiva eiger to come and completely overturn the sugya and show how the rishon was the best pshat.

I wonder if you’ve ever learned in an iyun driven litvishe yeshiva, or if your experience was in a certain element in YU, an academic setting, a chasidishe yeshiva from which you weren’t intellectually satisfied, or a halacha kollel… it’s easy to hide behind the veneer of achievement in having completed many mesechtos, perhaps even shas (i admit i have not made a siyum hashas), and feeling that one has a complete grasp of gemara…enough to dismiss elementary teachings that one receives in a middle school setting. People who relish discussing “themes” in rishonim are usually at a loss for prime examples if asked; rishonim are way bigger than us and we should endeavor to understand what we can of their words without fooling ourselves into thinking that we can understand overarching “up teitches” the way one would with Dostoyevsky and Shakespeare.

> Judaism IS based on mesorah.

It is, and sometimes we do not have mesorah and we need to figure it out and create a new mesorah. This is either because information was lost (we discussed this before – Maharal about Bavli method of reconstructing missed information) and sometimes we have new circumstances (Churban, Modernity) and we can apply those Bavli methods (that include sevorah) to new circumstances.

Corollary: when we see people who are not good at applying sevorah to simple rational life problems, these people can not be counted among those who mastered Bavli.

Dear Avira,

I see that you are framing the debate like this. There is the Yeshiva Mehalech Halimud, or the Academic Blither Blather. This is the direct heritage of the theological battle of yore, (which is not really investigated honestly. Yeshiva Blither versus Academic Blather). now, it is obvious that these academics are clueless. (I assume we both mean those who want to reimagine entire sugyos because they found one source that every tenth grader is aware of.) Therefore the Yeshiva has a monopoly on the only real way to study The Torah truthfully. Any other way will fail. And the academics are clueless because they tried on their own. In conclusion, anybody who is not learning in the yeshiva way, or better yet was rejected by The Rosh Yeshiva (For example Steinsaltz.) must have tried on his own and is no better than the academics.

Dear Always,

Judaism is based off of reality, the revelation, and prophecy. When there is a lapse and we are unsure, historically we have always doubled down on Torah study, until we recovered our direction. Until we reach clarity we have a dictum, better be called a fool all my days, then be seen as wicked even once before God. Some people save this dictum only for when they have clarity.

Torah is not merely data then can be lost or retrieved. It is living. More alive than anything but life itself. From Rabban Yochanon Ben Zakkai to Rav Sadya Goan To Rashi to the Maharshal to the Ramchal to Rav Hirsch to Rav Chaim to Aryeh Kaplan, there is not any genesis of a new torah. The study of Torah is by itself self replicating, as is any organism capable of being sustained by life.

Are the Republicans the party of life or death? When it comes to abortion it is murder almost in all circumstances and when is comes to Omecron COVID-19 variant they downplay it.

Reb E,

It is unfortunate that Covid has become political, on both sides of the political spectrum. However, who is to decide if lockdowns are pro-life as lockdowns change life as we know it.

The republican states have not done that bad compared to the states with strict lockdowns.