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I’ve edited the post for clarity.
This was the original post where I brought it up
Warning – According to halacha, it is assur to say anything negative about a book, so posters should be careful about their responses.
Do you same that as well for the Chosen and Portonoys Complaint?
I dont think I praised Portnoys complaint in that statement, I did say it was a classic in the secular world. But those 2 statement are not against either other.
YELLOW AGAIN!!!
zahavasdad,
The problem as I see it , in the general world nothing is sacred and you can pretty much say what you want. You can portray any character any way you want.
That’s true, but not really germane to the discussion of whether The Chosen portrayed chassidic Jewry in a positive light or not. I do think the novel portrayed modern Orthodox Judaism in a very positive light, but not chassidism.
You can also portray people as complex individiduals . for example In the chosen Reb Saunders has a dark side. A frum book would never show a dark side to a Rav (I didnt say a sinning side, just a darker side)
Reb Saunders is not a real person at all. He is a character conceived by Chaim Potok, and as such informs us as to the author’s perceptions of chassidic Jewry, whether or not he is complex.
Avrum – +1
Obviosuly Reb Saunders is not a real person. Its a novel.
I fail to understand why anyone one frum would deem “Portnoy’s Complaint” to be Jewish literature.
Perhaps the Chosen can be called such because the story has something to do with Yiddishkeit. I vaguely remember the Chosen, I read it so many years ago.
I googled Chaim Potok and according to Wikipedia, he was raised Orthodox and became a Conservative rabbi. Someone like that is someone whose perspective on Chassidism or Charedi’ism is not going to be accurate and is not going to be something we would want to be influenced by.
If I am not mistaken, Rav Moshe Feinstein, zatsal, wrote that Conservative Jews are apikorsim (meaning those Conservative Jews that actually know what Conservative hashkafa is and believe in it) even if they are tinok shenishba (even if they as people are blameless, the fact is that their beliefs are kefira).
According to that, it would seem that CP would qualify as an apikorus, and in any case, his beliefs were kefira. The purpose of his novels was to present his hashkafos regarding Orthodoxy and these hashkafos are kefira.
Jewish Literature and frum literature are not nessasarily the same thing
The Chosen was written in 1967 during Rav Moshe’s Lifetime. I am sure someone at some time asked him about it. I would not call it Kefira unless Rav Moshe said this book was Kefira
If anyone wants to read a book about a real person who was a tzadeikis but also a human being who is presented accurately as an imperfect human being (yet still a tzadeikis) who had to constantly work on herself to become the tzadeikis that she was, read “Emunah with love and chicken soup”. Definitely much better reading than Chaim Potok or Fiddler on the Roof, etc.
Randomex – guess it’s a good thing I never read it then.
LU
I dont think its for you,
Back to my original question, Is it OK to speak Loshon Harah about it?
“The Chosen was written in 1967 during Rav Moshe’s Lifetime. I am sure someone at some time asked him about it. I would not call it Kefira unless Rav Moshe said this book was Kefira”
That is ridiculous. I wouldn’t assume that anyone asked him about it, and I wouldn’t assume that you would necessarily know if someone did.
Are you going to say that Portnoy’s Complaint is not full of pritzus because you don’t have proof that Rav Moshe said that it is?
Is it Rav Moshe’s responsibility to list every book and every place that has problems, and if he doesn’t, that means it’s fine?????
If Rav Moshe said that anyone who believes in Conservative philosophy is an apikorus, that would mean that everyone who believes in Conservative philosophy is an apikorus regardless of whether he mentioned every single Conservative person in the world.
“Jewish Literature and frum literature are not nessasarily the same thing”
From a Torah perspective, there is no such thing as Judaism apart from Frumkeit. Something which is Jewish but not Frum is not Jewish (I’m not talking about people, but about concepts). THAT is exactly what is wrong with these books!
By that standard , Fiddler on the Roof is not Jewish
At least Fiddler has something that relates to Judaism.
Portnoy’s Complaint does not have that. You have not said what would make it “Jewish” literature. Sure a non Jew might call it that because it promotes a stereotype of Jews they would like portrayed, but that hardly makes it Jewish.
“Just One Jew” by Moishe Mendlowitz
And there’s a biography of Rebbetzin Vichna Kaplan that came out recently that is really good. I think you would like it. It’s called “Rebbetzin Vichna Kaplan”. She was the founder of the original Bais Yaakov in America. It has lots of stories about the school and the girls, and it was very interesting.
Go, My Son by Chaim Shapiro.
the yellow notebook so inspirational
Like WHAT?
Miracle Ride
Dancing in the Dark
The Betrayal, the outcast, (Isterak, Mehalelail)
Deep Blue
On switchblades and skullcaps
Don’t know any more decent books to list unfortunately. It’s so sad.
For yourself? A guy? A gerbil?
Wait, what?
I think she was just being mean
But what was the mean meaning of it? (I may or may not be drunk.)
Chas v’shalom, Lightbrite is never mean! I think it was just a joke. I don’t think it had much meaning – probably about as much as yours do, RY. Of course yours may have more meaning than I realize. And then again, so may this.
I may not be drunk. A teeny bit of chocolate liquor can not render someone drunk.
Being a joke makes it no less mean.
Wait what?
I wasn’t sure if she meant for herself or a guy.
So I wrote this…
“For yourself? A guy?”
But that sounded so straight forward and I added gerbil because gerbils are cute and happy.
Have you ever seen an unhappy gerbil? They’re adorable.
So sad that it was taken as anything offensive 🙁
The question was about who the book is for because what if rebshidduch wanted to recommend or give the book to a guy?
Would that be tznius?
Thus I asked. Why would you think otherwise Mod-29?
Rebshidduch: I have been holding my tongue for a long time contemplating if I should say anything to you. If so, then how. Truth is that LU has been doing a great job.
Last night I decided to open up to you. When I read your question, it was important to know who the book was for and why you asked before listing of suggestions imho.
Why? Well if it is for yourself (which makes sense and is serious) or a gerbil (which makes no sense and is silly), then the answer is different than if it is for a guy (especially one who you want to give rides to).
What I have been wanting to say for a long time now is that you remind me of myself. It’s amazing really.
Rebshidduch: Your chessed is so strong and you want to help these guys because you see the GOOD in them that it is so difficult to see anything wrong with being a light.
You are way more skilled in this than myself, but I recognize it and am learning from you right here when you share and LU is telling you what not to do. I had family telling me at certain points to stay away.
However, I was also doing things on my own and didn’t talk about it with anyone, which had consequences. The whole time I thought I was doing a good thing.
It may even look like other people are wrong about you needing to stay away and you are helping this guy see light so he can come closer to Hashem.
At least that is how it looked to me.
Frankly I still find myself over stretching myself to mekarev.
And the more I learn about Torah, the more I want to share that beauty with someone else.
I am not going to tell you to do or don’t do something.
I can tell you something. You said that you want to get married. You have time. That is a gift. We are all alive Baruch Hashem and we have one thing. All of us. Time.
Here is your TIME.
You have the bechira on how to spend your time. Even if it is hard to fathom why being nice to a guy is something you cannot be, I am guessing that you still care about tznius. So think about that for one thing because if it is important to you then maybe it is worth it to consider it a challenge to work on.
Also. There is the thing about learning Torah in my humble opinion.
The more your light grows, so does the tricky yetzar hara. Your good middah strength of seeing the good in others will also grow stronger. So will the yetzar hara’s power over convincing you to use your TIME in a way against what you really want.
Remember that your nisayon in life may be different than that of your friends and family. Truth is that it is unique.
Your tests are special for you. Hashem needs you to harness your strength. Some people may have the nisayon of being more generous and kind to a fellow Jew. Others may have to work on focusing more on themselves and holding back.
I can be totally wrong, but it seems like the best thing for you is to focus on yourself and creating boundaries to have healthier relationships with friends and family. It is hard because you are not in control.
At the same time, you have a choice. Guys will get over it. If they need a ride, and you are right there with your car, crazy as it may seem, Hashem may have set it up for you to witness or hear about so that you choose to not give him a ride. You will drive home with an extra seat and that could be an example of you passing your nisayon.
Right now your husband is alive. He is living his life and probably looking for you too.
What if investing this time in guys who are not your husband takes you further from him?
You are spending more TIME with guys who already told you that they aren’t your husband. With their words and actions they don’t want what you want.
Give yourself SPACE to be around the guy that you want to be around.
Furthermore, a person can only change himself. Last year I dated a guy and his friend was very OTD. I told the guy that I was dating that I wanted to give his friend a book that may help him.
Then I realized that giving this guy a gift was not tznius. Instead of seeing the gesture as one of sharing the light, spreading the light, with no attachments, that guy chas v’shalom would see a nice girl giving him something. It is a bummer that I cannot just give something to a guy, but I see that when I don’t, I also have more space. I don’t need to have awkward conversations because I did not get into it in the first place.
Btw even recently I gave a guy a siddur and don’t think that it was tznius or appropriate. I had an extra that I bought to give to a friend.
I didn’t plan on giving it to him but then he was there and I told myself that maybe Hashem wanted him to have it because he seemed so far from Yiddishkeit. I thought maybe he will open it and use it.
Once a rabbi gave me the same exact exact siddur and since then I have been giving them out too. It’s a tiny little powerful picture book that fits in your pocket. Maybe I can pass on the rabbi’s goodness like a shliach.
But the truth is that I am not a rabbi.
When I do chessed, it is gendered. Even when I don’t see it. And I don’t understand a lot of it because I want to live in a happy fairy sparkly loving glitterland.
You know that place. It is a good place where helping is always good and brings you closer to Hashem and heals the world. It is a spiritual place.
The thing is that we live here. In a mixed material world where we elevate the material and make it holy. That requires us to hold back sometimes. Hold back on reaching out personally.
If someone is OTD, the best thing that you can do is maybe refer him to a rabbi or kiruv expert. Or let him figure it out. And stay away.
If that seems too hard then try it once. An experiment. Do it one time and see how the rest of your day and night play out. Be strong and go to sleep that night as part of an experiment and ask Hashem for clarity.
Tell yourself that you are good.
You are good!
Occupy your time with what will help you grow and as hard as it is, look away if you need to, and give the JOB to someone else. It is not your job to mekarev a guy. If you want, pray for him and let it go.
So that is it.
Sending you love and blessings.
And thank you to posters and blessings to all
“Being a joke makes it no less mean”
That sentence makes no sense. Being a joke makes a mean comment no less mean but there was nothing mean about LB’s comment. As I pointed out, it was a meaningless comment and a meaningless comment can’t possibly be mean (although it can be a joke and usually is, and was in this case). On the other hand, assuming that LB was being mean was rather mean.
LB – +1 googol! Nice! And very nice of you to bring in your experiences.
Rebshidduch – I had previously recommended a book that is about that. It’s called “Just one Jew” by Moishe Mendlowitz. It’s about a guy from a very Frum home who stopped being Frum when he was 18 and was chozer b’teshuva THIRTEEN years later at the age of 13!!
It’s well-written, enjoyable reading, inspiring and fascinating.
LU: !!!! Thank you <3
Rebshidduch: 🙂
(fyi… I’m in my early 30’s)
There is always more to learn and grow. Good for you that you’re working on yourself 🙂 I believe in you!
LB – you’re the best! How was your Purim? I guess it’s over by now.
Rebshidduch – that is great that you want to go to seminary and I really hope it works out! If it doesn’t for some reason (and I hope it does), you might want to look into summer programs.
I know that seminaries used to have summer programs sometimes and I assume they still do. And you don’t necessarily have to have gone to that seminary in order to attend the summer program. For example, I know a girl who went to Darchei Binah’s summer program even though she hadn’t gone to seminary. This was years ago though, so I have no idea if it still exists.
I still think a year-long program would be the best, and I think Neve would be a great idea for you. This is just if it doesn’t work out.
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