Different Tracks of Modern Orthodoxy

Lakewhut, I’m not sure why you view that as a good thing. The fact that they take over local boards, in order to benefit the Jewish community, often creates a huge Chillul Hashem. Look at Ramapo, and all the games they played there – it was disgusting.
We are in galus. We are supposed to keep our heads down and do what need to do in order to get by. Being in public positions, taking over local governments – this is not the way to do things.

If you want to see the success of chasidishe tzedaka, look at where all the gemachs are, the bikur cholim, the community resources for chasanim, kallos, kimpeturins, medical referrals, clothing,…chasidim are the zevuluns of klal yisroel. The litvish are yissachar, and the MO are stragglers who contribute neither Torah nor gemilus chasadim. They keep their wealth to “philanthropy” causes that their wealth goyishe friends are into, while giving some to poor jews.

Avira,

Unbelievable. You branded an entire demographic of Jews as “stragglers who contribute neither Torah nor gemilus chasadim”. Since you can’t ask forgiveness from all of them, how will you ever do teshuva?

Everyone here seems to think that they can convince the other based on his own wishful thinking.

We have counties and zip codes that are majority charedi and some maybe even many-MO, why not compare their incomes, family sizes, welfare rolls, school enrollment, etc. Yes, census may not capture all sources of income, but still it would be a good start.

Dofi, a family of two parents and ten children earning over $80,000 a year is considered “impoverished” under federal entitlement benefits guidelines. In New York a family of that size, depending on their exact income, can potentially receive over $30,000 a year in Food Stamps/SNAP benefits.

Now you’re next door neighbor goy, who you like better than your fellow Yidden who don’t share your left-wing religious views, who lives with his girlfriend and dog, would be considered upper middle class with an annual income even lower than the $80,000 that Chasidish family with ten kids is earning.

So when your favorite antisemites are ranting in your local antisemitic newspaper like the New York Times or the Rockland Herald Record/Journal News, about those terrible “Jews” of Kiryas Yoel having high SNAP benefits enrollment in their population, that is because unlike the goyim you like with their dog and girlfriend earning less than the Chosid but doesn’t qualify for Food Stamps based on their tiny family size (1.2 children, dog not counted); whereas the Chosid with the higher income than him is deemed impoverished by the government based on his family size.

Dofi – modern orthodoxy represents illegitimate judaism and fake jewish values. It’s not the fault of its adherents who are brainwashed and kept ignorant of torah sources by schools which prioritize SAT scores and ivy league college admission statistics. It’s the fault of its fake rabbinic leadership which either encourages or allows this institutionalized ignorance, heresy and sinfulness to thrive.

Avira,
I would not defend all things that happen in MO world, and probably many are not defensible, but this is a fault dichotomy “prioritize SAT scores”. Getting a decent SAT score is a normal thing for a kid who speaks/writes English and took a good math course, and then spent a couple of months looking over SAT-specific material. This is not making people OTD or forcing them to miss a masechet. Not saying everyone has to do that, just that in certain circles, this is not a such huge effort.

There are mitzvos to teach the kid Torah, profession, and swimming, and you pursue all of them. Profession requires training. There is nothing political here, even if some make it – on both sides.

Marxist: So what? No one’s disagreeing with the concept. But if a 40 year old well-to-do artisan hippie living in Park Slope, earning $70,000 a year with his stud girlfriend earning $50,000 a year, with no kids, are considered upper middle class with their high educations with his Ph.D in Anthropology And Archeology and her Master’s in Culinary Arts, whereas the Chosid with his Satmar education earning $80,000 is deemed by Uncle Sam to be impoverished, it proves exactly what? That if the Satmar Chosid had aced the SAT and gotten his Bachelor’s and Master’s in Philosophy from Columbia University, that he would be earning at least as much as that artisian hippie from Park Slope — with the Chosid, by then expressing his artisian talents and a framed degree behind his desk, to match the hippie would take a $10,000 pay-cut?

Yserb, rav breuer said no such thing. He also said on himself that once he graduated, he never opened a secular book for the rest of this life (rav belsky said he heard this from him)

His essays, published a few years ago, are all about parnossa and aiding learning torah. Not a word about being “well rounded” or whatever.

Yseribus: That’s median household income, not median individual income. The artisian hippie from Park Slope lives with his girlfriend, who also is earning an income, a dog and maybe one child. Their combined income for a tiny family puts them squarely in the middle class. The Satmar guy earns more than either him or his girlfriend, but not both combined. And his Rebbetzin is running a nursery in her home — of her own ten kids, which she isn’t formally paid for.

So, sure, the goy has a higher combined household income with their 1.2 children, but the guy in KJ has a higher individual income, which isn’t reflected in the household income stats you refer to.

If you look at just the numbers for Kiryas Joel you see that the median household income is 40K. No non-Jews there to skew the data.

The point is that the government obviously does not want to have to subsidize people. If that hippie wanted to have 10 kids than getting a PhD in archeology and anthropology is not going to cut it. So yes Chasidim should not pursue such a career. But being a doctor, lawyer, accountant, dentist, actuary etc. – good clean professions that many frum erhlich Litvish people do will. Yet for that you need college education and a decent high school education before. And if you look at the Agudah Whitepaper they quote a Nishma research paper that shows that the average Hasidic income is 102K compared to what they term “Yeshivish” which is 164K. So Litvish is better off and pashtus is because they have a better education system and many of them become professionals instead of businessmen which is a highly stratified profession in terms of income.

No one has the right to tell any family that the wtfe has to get a job in addition to the husband’s job. Period. The normal default expected behavior of humans from the beginning of time until recent history has been the husband works and the wife runs the home and takes care of the children. That the world has gone beserk and started sending mothers out of the home is absolutely no reason to try to force Jewish women, Chasidish or otherwise, to do so. End of discussion. That is the Torah way. Halacha is full of admonitions that women should not leave the home other than the few times it is unavoidable. That others are following the Torah and Halacha on an issue where you feel you had to change b’dieved to do otherwise, is no excuse to try to force anyone else to take up your heter. And, no, entitlement programs do not require a two income family to qualify.

So with the primary reason for the disparity in income between Torah Jews and the national average being a one income family versus a two income family (especially two full time working adults), that disproves the lie that a lack of college or other community education decisions contribute to a notably lower income than average public school graduates in New York.

Furthermore, much like the Park Slope hippie with his archeology and anthropology degree not earning him any especially high income, a decision he consciously made since archeology and anthropology is his passion, something he’s willing to take a significant pay cut compared to other educational choices he had, something that is absolutely his right to choose. You are no one to tell anyone else to become a doctor, lawyer or whatever else you had a cholem about. And, yes, even with that decision should that goy have ten children no one else has any right whatsoever to complain. And on that same token, any Jew, Chasidish, Yeshivish or Litvish, has that same right to choose a lower earning parnassa to trade off for more family time, more Torah time, more educational pursuits or whatever else he rationals his decision on what career and incoming earning potential he decides.

If the government doesn’t want to give welfare to families with “too many children” who pursued a career in a lower earning bracket, the state legislature can disqualify such families from snap and Medicaid. But should they ever have the chutzpah to propose such legislation, the African-American community will riot in America’s cities, since that would bankrupt all their welfare queens, who are the real and most numerous beneficiaries of the entitlement programs, rather than any demographic of Jews.

Yserb, yekkishe rabbonim all had doctorates; it was part of his path to the rabbinate. German Jews respected people who were educated; it was that way since the aruch l’neir.

As for what you heard, talk to people who are into learning from Washington heights. A great deal sent their kids to my Yeshiva, and i know them personally. The Yeshiva rav breur started also teaches no such thing as secular studies being independently important, as rav Boruch ber described as pure apikorsus, that there is enlightenment outside torah, chas veshalom. Rav breuer hired people like the novominsker rebbe who certainly didn’t think fhat way, to be roshei yeshiva.

Derech eretz doesn’t equal secular studies.

If you heard that derech eretz has value besides parnossa, then you’re 100% right. Derech eretz, the full spectrum of worldly involvement, is a means of glorifying Hashem in the world, perfecting one’s character, and is far more than just making money or secular studies.

Again, nowhere does rav hirsch or rav breuer, or rishonim, chazal, or anyone besides maskilim, say that secular studies in themselves have value besides helping one learn torah or earning a living.

Rav hirsch writes, based on chazal, that the chochmos are the handmaids of Torah; they serve the torah, they are not anything of themselves.

Torah umada, made by people inspired by maskilim like belkin and revel, believes that they are, chas veshalom equal. You’re probably somewhere in the middle of the two, but still in the category of the apikorsus rav boruch ber described to rav shimon Schwab, the rov of the yekkies after rav breuer. You can find that piece, if you’re capable of reading rav boruch ber’s writing style, in the end of birkas shmuel on kiddushin. Check it out, it might give you an idea of how far away from yiddishkeit the world outside the yeshivos and chasidus is.

Daughter of JJ Herman order US gov pamphlets to be sent to Mir when she gave birth to a baby. She learned from those about Vitamins A and D and started giving cod liver oil to her baby. While she writes that local yeshivish people were generally laughing at her American minhagim, in this case, other mothers immediately followed and soon whole town smelled fishy. Tells you about both lack of knowledge and also interest and respect in scientific facts.

if there is C corp income that is not reported as personal income, it will be reported as C-corp income, presumably in the same zip code.

Yseribus: Is Rav Shach Litvish enough for you? First of all, before WWII, in Europe, virtually none of the Litvish Yeshivos had any serious secular studies program. All that is American. Secondly, Rav Chaim Segal ZT’L, the Menahel of the High School at Yeshiva Chaim Berlin was once told by Rav Shach ZT’L that if possible, he should not be teaching English studies. In Eretz Yisroel, almost all Chareidi Yeshivos do not have English at that age. Rav Aharon Kotler ZT’L made some kind of commitment not to allow English studies on the HS level in Lakewood. The exact details, and if this was actually a Takanah or merely a preference, is not clear and depends who you ask. In any case, Rabbi Elya Svei, Rosh Yeshiva of Philadelphia and a student of Rav Aharon’s, was asked why he allows English in Philly if Rav Aharon was against it. What difference can there be between the town of Lakewood NJ and Philadelphia PA? Reb Elya answered that he has no choice, and that currently, the Baalei Batim would not send their kids to the Yeshiva except under these circumstances. Is any of this the ideal? No. It is not. Is it justified? The schools say it is, as they have no choice. But the point is not what the Jews do, its what Judaism wants. Everyone agrees that it would be a higher level, a preferable situation if we would indeed not learn English even at the HS level, at least not beyond what is necessary to survive. Nobody claims it is an ideal.

Regarding High School, the only reasons it is allowed is either because education is mandated by State Law (in New York it is until age 17), or simply because if they did not have High School education in the Yeshivas, parents would simply send their kids to worse places to get it.

But it is definitely looked upon not as a l’chatchilah, but rather as something that is annoyingly necessary in the current environment.

Today, there are a small number of High Schools in America – particularly in Lakewood – that do not teach English. Also, many Yeshivos do try to reduce the amount of secular studies as much as possible, through knocking out the last semester of English, and a number of kids are leaving HS early to enter Bais Medrash.

Is Rav Moshe and Rav Ahron Litvish enough for you? Rav Moshe Feinstein ZT’L denounced college in a Teshuva, and in a famous speech delivered to his students, published under the title “The Counsel of the Wicked” (Vaad LeHaromas Keren HaTorah, New York, 1978). There he reiterates that everyone has an obligation to become great in Torah, we should not care so much about Cadillac’s (yes, this was said in the “olden days”), and that learning Torah is what we should be pursuing, not secular stuff. He says in America you do not need college to make a Parnassa, and we should be willing to live on little, not a lot, for the sake of Torah, and that R. Nehuray’s statement of abandoning all skills in favor of Torah applies all that more today that we live in a country where you can make a parnassa without college, with no miracles needed.

There is a tape available in many Seforim stores called “The prohibition to learn in Colleges” (Yiddish), which contains addresses by Rav Moshe Feinstein ZT’L and Rav Aharon Kotler ZT’L condemning college.

Ujm, you’re being mezakeh rabbi Shapiro after his writings are not as accessible as they used to be. These essays were part of my transformation from the spiritual depravity of the MO life to true torah, and reading his words gives me tremendous nostalgia and warm feelings. Thank you

Ujm, were you by any chance Taon over there?

I didn’t write much on frumteens either, but I was in touch with rabbi Shapiro quite often; i still talk to him once in a while, in fact. He was planning on writing his book on zionism for many years; originally it was going to be based on frum teens, but it ended up being a veritable encyclopedia!

@ujm There are a lot of contradictions and machlokesim in how the post-war 20th century gedolim spoke and acted on college, so “I heard from a talmid of Rav Moshe that said that he once heard….” doesn’t mean anything. Besides, I don’t know what put that bee in your bonnet regarding colleges. We’re talking about basic knowledge, not Masters Degrees.

I repeat: At the end of the day, in our times, we as Jews are not tzaddikim gemurim, so everything we do is b’dieved because of that. We need basic understanding of a variety of subjects (other than just Gemara and halacha) to get by in the world. Parnoso is one reason. Being able to communicate effectively to non-Yeshiva people is another. Understanding the changes in society and technology and how to understand it through the lens of halacha is a third. The trend of lack of education in todays Yeshivos, and the cloistering of certain communities, is a terrible thing that is damaging Klal Yisroel to zero benefit. In comparison, the damage that some MO communities do by insisting that co-ed high schools are good and proper, is miniscule.

While on the subject of FrumTeens, didn’t Rav Shapiro spends pages and pages of pixels trying to explain how his father taught in YU?

Yserb, you simply have values outside of torah if you think that lack of education causes more harm than institutionalized sin and heresy(the act of comingling and the idea that it’s proper, respectively).

What MO does is robbing Jewish children of avodas Hashem and olam haba. What a lack of education supposedly does, according to critics, at its worst, is harm a child’s ability to get around in olam hazeh. But it’s demonstrably false, because chasidim have very strong communitiea and families. Do you live for olam hazeh? I think it sounds like you do.

As for rav Shapiro, he didn’t spend that much time talking about his illustrious father in law, rav yeruchan gorelick, teaching in YU. He wrote that rav gorelick was vehemently opposed to modern orthodoxy, sent good talmidim away from YU, and only remained there due to parnosa necessity. Originally rabbi yoshe ber had told rav gorelick that the only yeshiva that can make it in America was YU, to which rav gorelick would krechtz about later, when the exact opposite was proven, where YU is a tiny fraction of the yeshiva world.

@ujm Please address my actual point about the educational tracts that are rapidly becoming the norm and stop trying to derail this into a conversation about college.

@AviraDeArah Your raya is from those Chassidim who live in cloistered communities and forbid any education they consider “outside”. We’ve well established on multiple occasions in this thread that they are not successful. Specifically, they rely very heavily on outside communities (tzedaka, legal council, political clout, etc.) to keep them going.

Like I said previously, MO communities promoting problematic anti-Yiddisheh things have been around forever and are dying out, which is why they aren’t as much of a problem as the growing trend of “Holy Am Ha’aratzus” in our own places.

Also, while many in MO are coming around, a very large amount are moving more to the samech mem, i.e. the left, with increasing abandonment of torah, gender bender and LGBT tolerance, open orthodoxy, etc…

More and more out of town pulpits are being taken by open orthodox “rabbis” which were previously held by young israel types.

Modern orthodoxy in its current state presents the greatest ideological threat to the continuity of judaism outside of the yeshiva and chasidishe world. It was never as bad as it is now.

Avaira,

It has to be a choice since it’s impossible to do both? Are you supported or do you earn a living and if so, how?