I just don't get it

yytz: As far as I know, there’s no pasuk that says, “Don’t worry about saving lives, just study Torah and that will save more lives than you ever could by trying to save lives.”

There is also no pasuk that says a person should learn medicine in case he needs to save a life. What we do have is the Yerushalmi that calls the lomdei Torah “neturei karta” over the guards. We have many gemaros that speak about how the Torah protects people.

The truth is, I think you’re right about this. How do I know X’s Torah study is enough to help Y. Maybe we should get Z in on it too, just in case. You know what- let’s get ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUV and W in on it. Then we can be be extra sure Y will be fine.

In fact, along the lines of give a man a fish/teach a man to fish, why don’t we get more people to learn more Torah so that they can ensure the protection of the Torah on themselves and their family a la Sota 21a, rather than reduce that protection from those that already have it.

In contrast, we are told “not to rely on a miracle,” that saving a life is like saving a world

I think that the definition of Teva is anything that come in the pre-programmed package. Torah is programmed to protect. That is not relying on a miracle, it is a natural affect of Torah. And yes, saving a life is like saving a world since a person is an “olam katan”. However, as the Nefesh HaChaim explains at length, Torah study sustains ALL the worlds.

zdad: If one listens to their gedolim then they should be rewarded from Hashem. Its not the job of fellow man to reward someone for following someone elses Gedolim unless they want to

I realized that although you didn’t counter my answer to your previous point, that this comment may have also been directed towards me based on my response to g_a_w.

So to answer I would say that it is true that a person does not reward someone else for following their gedolim. However, giving tzedakah to a poor person is not their reward. It is your commandment.

Really? ZeesKite isn’t female?

When did this happen, during my “vacation”?

Somehow I’m not really surprised, but still…

dunno. perhaps.

josh31: I’m sorry but I’ve read your post 5 times and I’m having a lot of trouble following what you’re saying. I think you are saying that in order to learn Torah without any secular studies, a person would be constrained to only a few subjects, which is why so many people advocating the no-secular studies approach only seem to know aggadata.

Then you bring in Zeeskite as an example of a girl with a wide chelek in torah. It happens to be that I had already known that he was a boy. But even if that wasn’t true, I don’t understand what point you were trying to make there. And I have no idea what you were talking about with 32 amos.

However, at least regarding you’re first point I can comfortably disagree with your assertion that people who advocate limiting secular subjects only learn aggadata. In fact that pure bologna.

Moving on. There may be nuances that you can catch in a given gemarah because of additional knowledge in math, just as a physicist or psychologist might. The Torah is infinite and encompasses all knowledge and that is to be expected. But that doesn’t mean the psychologist should learn physics in order to be able to glean those extra ideas. Unless that is something he is interested in pursuing. But the much greater body of Torah does not require any sort of advanced secular knowledge in order to understand it.

Derech: I agree completely that we should try to get everyone to study Torah or study more Torah. At the same time, we should also try to make sure everyone works at least a little bit too. Chazal say very clearly in Avos 2:2 that Torah and work should be combined. Torah study must provide more protection when we’re doing it the way Chazal said it should be done.

Chazal might not have said one should become a doctor to save lives. But they did say to teach one’s son a trade, and to teach one’s son to swim (this also saves lives). Teaching one’s son a trade presumes that one knows a trade. And as you know, Rambam, Ramban, Ramchal and many other gedolim who devoted their lives to Torah study also found the time to become physicians and, presumably, to save lives with their medicine expertise. We can’t say that we know better than them now, and that their medical activities were in fact a waste of time and bitul Torah.

A Public domain for Shabbos purposes is at least 15 Amos wide. The “King’s Highway” should be at least twice as wide. In Washington DC Pennsylvania Avenue is our equivalent to this and is considerably wider.

I am now learning the same Gemora that I learned a long time ago in Yeshiva. My outside knowledge and life experiences help me get a much better understanding of many concepts.

I realize that there a some who can gain a great and deep knowledge of their learning without the input of outside knowledge / experiences. They they have a special “Help from Above” and are very few. They rest of us have to use normal means to acquire knowledge.

charliehall: He got lots of support for the idea from frum academics like me, but no rosh yeshiva signed on

And I think here is where the dichotomy between us would become apparent. I would have said, if those with da’as Torah have a problem with this idea, there must be something wrong with it that I as someone without da’as Torah don’t understand. While you seem to be implying that you feel your opinion can hold weight against Roshei Yeshivah.

yytz: In Eretz Yisroel they call it “Torasan Umanusan”. Many mikvaos have separate prices for those whose trade is Torah. So I guess their fathers have taught them a trade. Also please see Siman 116 of Igros Moshe Y”D chelek beis here:

http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=919&st=&pgnum=188

I don’t think that the professions of those you mention (maybe with the exception of the Rambam), proves that one needs to have a profession. Only that they felt that they themselves had no recourse in order to support their families. Once they were in that position they chose a profession where they can perform chesed at the same time. The question is, were the Ramban here today in our society of kollelim, would he still choose to engage in a profession? Would you want him to?

HaARETZ July’08 in an article on

Self selection.

The problem becomes when you call anyone who wants to take away funding a “Rasha”, and declare that funding is a “right”.

Well, under the law previously, that funding was a right. I also recall hearing that some gedolim stipulated that charedi mosdos would be self-governming when they were forming the state, but I can’t recall who or for what.

I think the problem you have with calling them “Rasha” is not that they are wrong per se,just that it is bad politic. I think this is in-line with the garbage-burning way of protest. One of my rebbeim explained to me that in E”Y the only way for Charedim to get attention to their needs is by taking extreme measures. I am uncomfortable with it being raised in America. But if that’s the position they are forced into, what can they do?

Look, maybe you are right in the end. Maybe in the minds of the Israeli Charedim they have been demonized for so long, that they start to by into it.

yichusdik: At what point in our history did the guidance of our gedolim … turn into something completely different, i.e. a priori dictation to all of day to day decision making, ways of thinking, and even who to associate with or look at – without being asked a question about it first?

Are you saying that you think it became an assumption of what gedolim would say, or that gedolim did in fact become the dictators of day to day living?

If the former, than I would say that there will always be those that think they know what they don’t.

If the latter, I think t has to do with accessibility. In the past, going to see a gadol was an undertaking in travelling. You asked what was vital and did the best you could. Today’s yeshivah system allows for a relatively more intimate relationship. It is logical to try to emulate those that have reached a higher state of perfection than oneself.

That is not to say that there aren’t different drachim for different nitiyos. But most of those drachim can be found within the various gedolim that we have today. And even in the case of Rav Chaim, the story is that the Chazon Ish encouraged him in his derech halimud. I think even if one develops one’s own derech such as Rav Zilberberg and Rav Pincus, it is important to do so under the auspices of gedolim who have the ability to see the right of it.

Call it yeridas hadoros if you will, but everyone always thinks they are doing the right thing – even when its detrimental. I have seen/heard of cases of people “following their own derech” to a bad end. Maybe in the past, without all our psychological problems, this wasn’t an issue. Or maybe, we just don’t realize how much the gedolim of yesteryear actually did emulate their rabbonim to become what they became.

That is not to say that there aren’t different drachim for different nitiyos.

IMHO, the lack of recognition of this fact is one of the biggest problems in the greater Yeraim community, both on the “right” and on the “left”.

I have seen/heard of cases of people “following their own derech” to a bad end.

That is why you MUST always have a Rav for guidance.

IMHO, the lack of recognition of this fact is one of the biggest problems in the greater Yeraim community, both on the “right” and on the “left”.

I think that you are right, although I only meant netiyos in avodah, not hashkafa.

hat is why you MUST always have a Rav for guidance.

But that was yichusdik’s point, wasn’t it.