Judgement in Elad Beit Yaakov – Accept S’fardim

torahpal:

Expect the courts to get involved. Expect (eventually) to have to let in Arabs and Jews for J. Its part of taking their tax money 🙂

SBZTCYY, Sorry to disappoint you. IF my own firsthand experience isn’t enough for you, My brother in law embodies Lakewood, where he learned for many years, and became a musmach. He was a talmid of R’Yaakov Kamenetzky zt’l. R’Yaakov was quoted once as saying “Loving your fellow Jew is a mitzvah in the Torah, and in addition it’s a segulah that if the love is given according to the Torah it will bring its recipients closer to Torah and to Hashem.” The judgement he was talking about is in short supply nowadays. Being Don L’chaf z’chus, and making a place for eager students who want to be within the hashkafic environment in that particular school, not outside it.

My nephew will b’ezras Hashem be getting his smicha soon. He’s learning in lakewood. Just for perspective, My cousin’s son is starting the smicha program at YU-RIETS this fall. My roots are from both chassidish and Yeshivish families and I am familiar, intimately so, with the nature of chareidi life, both in the past and now. I’ve sat down with my nephew, with sons of friends, with my own peers who studied in Beis Medresh there.

I’ve taught in a chareidi school, lived in a chareidi neighborhood, learned with a yeshivish chevrusa, written for a chareidi newspaper, and worked in my father’s (a’h) store dealing with a largely chariedi clientele. I’ve even raised money for a chareidi educational program in Israel. I don’t know how many times I’ve been on Rechov Sorotzkin. DO you mean by Kiryat Itri? By Mattersdorf? In the Belz neighborhood? By Bais Yaakov??

I completely agree with you that someone who puts themselves within the chutzos Hatorah is obliged to listen to the authority of the rabonnim. (Not the balabatim, mind you, or the tznius committee hoodlums, but the Rabbonim and those they designate). What I expect is that schools will judge favourably and give opportunities to people who earnestly want to follow their derech, not refuse to take them a priori because of a chashash of what might be or a simple sfardi name.

“Torah is not subjective or pick and choose.” You’re right, it isn’t. Since it all derives from Veohavto lereacho komocho anyways, let’s start with that mitzvah. And within the firmament of Torah you will find elu voelu divrei elokim chayim. Too many have forgotten that.

Torahpal, I think I had the same teacher. The saying is familiar. But I wish i could say honestly that all of the apparent wrongs that this story brought to the forefront were honest mistakes, or overzealousness in protecting the virtue of our families and communities. If we are not prepared to work to have a positive Hashpo’oh on those who are not quite on the derech, or even to take their children into the one place where they will get that Hashpo’oh, what does it say about our confidence in what we are teaching our kids, and have been for decades? what does it say about our confidence in our own education that our parents sacrificed for? What is a positive frum life for if not to have an influence on your fellow Jew? How can we tell people to become baalei tshuva, learn with them, encourage them, watch them grow in Torah, and then tell them – Oh, sorry, your daughter can’t go to the school we’ve been asking you to emulate, because she has non frum Grandparents or cousins, or she has spent too much time playing piano, or violin, or flute until now?

Why?