Modern Orthodoxy at a crossroads

I read it. It’s a great article! It’s very well written, very informative, and very balanced.

It’s definitely worth reading.

I’m getting vibes from the article that Rav Adlerstein and many other “right-wing YU”-type RCA rabbis (btw I am aware that Rav Adlerstein didn’t go to YU) want to make a splinter organization if the RCA doesn’t take a stand on its Orthodoxy.

I don’t see that in the article from R. Adlerstein or as being realistic in any event. If they want to be right-wing-types they can simply be Chareidi. There really isn’t any room for a something more right-wing than the RCA but less right-wing than Chareidi.

I liked the article.

Id like to add-

From my involvement with YU-right wingers, I can say that they are at least as aidel and Torah-dig as other right-wingers. Theyre Real McCoy through and through and not learning because they’ll do better Shidduchim or because its the tradition in their circles, etc. They really want to be Marbitz Torah.

ofcourse- shaychis?

Did anyone read the letter that appeared in the Yated Ne’eman a few weeks ago about the YU roshei yeshiva and YCT?

There are a lot of disaffected young adults (20’s) who are likely to be attracted to this “orthodoxy” which crosses many red lines, but they can still call themselves observant because the leadership tells them it’s OK.

Confused.

The hashgachos I use do not hire Am Haaratzim as rav hamachshirs. (I’m not talking about the mashgiach temidi- I’m talking about the person taking responsibility.)

From my involvement with YU-right wingers, I can say that they are at least as aidel and Torah-dig as other right-wingers.

—

This was the case even 25 years ago when the YU right wing started to take shape.

YCT (Yeshivas Chovlei Torah), on the other hand, is an outgrowth of the Upper West Side “chattering classes,” composed of borderline con-servative, a handful of followers of Rabbi David Weiss-Halivni, Soviet Jewry activists who were “fellow travelers” as far as Yiddishkeit was concerned and then they were left without a cause when Communism fell, and “social” baalei tshuva who came out of the 60s and 70s counter-culture. All of these people kept their krum values including a desire to add leftist “social justice,” feminism, environMENTALism etc to Yiddishkeit. (C.H. was our representative of that crowd; many of them were raised with almost Communist values by the children of Bund leftovers, labor organizers etc and they really don’t know any better.)

YCT won’t last, but sadly it will take a few hundred or even a couple of thousand Yiddishe neshomos down with it. They are really no more significant or authentic than the US Neturei Karta, except that they are placing “rabbis” in congregations where a real kiruv organization might otherwise have gone.

YU and much of the rest of non-Chassidic American right-wing orthodoxy will converge together and become a Torah-true but more open society.

Itche:

I don’t understand what you are getting at.

All the hashgocha agencies use am haaratzim as mashgiach temidi’s.

I don’t know what conclusion you want to draw from that, but it does not seem logical to therefore decide that you will eat from a hashgach which uses am haaratzim as rav hamachshirs. Or a mikva. Or an eruv.

I think the article gives more creedence to YCT than it merits.

Frankly I have never heard YCT ever mentioned in publically shul or in private conversations. ONCE when the Rabbat came out was even Avi Weiss mentioned.

I hear more about YCT here than I do anywhere else. I wonder if some are just pumping them up.

I do think YCT is to MO what Netueri Karta is to Charedism. Even the leaders have the same name WEISS

As long as the RCA sticks to its guns and doesn’t accept YCT semicha as legitimate, things will be ok. Most shuls won’t accept a Rabbi who’s not an RCA member.

I have a friend who got semicha from YCT. He’s a great guy, but I wouldn’t use him as my Rabbi. When he got a job, it was in a place where most of the members of the shul weren’t shomer shabbos, and the youngest person there was over 70. If they stick to those shuls, I think we’re fine.

The fact is that Modern Orthodoxy made its stance. It issued statements against the radical changes that Avi Weiss wants to implement, and is not treating his school as legitimate. Other than that, they just don’t even acknowledge it. Why should they?

Itche:

I’m still confused.

Are you trying to convince me that I should not eat hashgachos who use am haaratzim as mashgiach temidi?

I trust the rav hamachshir that he knows what he is doing.

ok. I’m assuming you have an opinion. So, what is your opinion?

Do you think it is ok to eat from a hashgacha where an am haaretz is the rav hamachshir?

Or do you think that even the mashgiach temidi has to be a talmid chochom, and you never eat out.

Why are we even discussing this? This is stupid.

Even in Riverdale I belive the Hebrew Institute is the smallest shul of the orthodox places there.

He is basically insignificant even in his own community

GMan: Actually they’re here all the time in the CR (and elsewhere online) defending themselves.

ya i would be too. why is the rca having such a hard time? he doesnt really address why its so terrible if the RCA denounces these people. personally i think theyre wackos but i guess in a world of crazies…

ya i would be too. why is the rca having such a hard time? he doesnt really address why its so terrible if the RCA denounces these people. personally i think theyre wackos but i guess in a world of crazies…

How many Charedi Rabbis denounce Neteuri Karta??

This is the main problem: People like Avi Weiss and YCT believe that the primary point of the Torah is chesed, which is a very valid belief.

If that is the case, then it raises many difficulties in some of our practices, which are legitimate kashyas, just like any other kasha in any sugya.

For example, they grapple with how one can be commanded to kill a child of certain nations. This is a very serious question. It is compounded by the fact that simple answers like they will grow up to be wicked, is also a justification for the Nazis killing our children.

So it is very convenient for the Chareidi world to just smugly say that our religion says so, end of story. Because that raises questions as to how we look on in horror when an Islamic terrorist kills one of our children. He believes just as strongly that his religion is the only true one, and has commanded him to kill Jewish children R”L (case in point, the Fogel murders).

So while one may disagree with Avi Weiss’s answers or his approach to these difficult questions, but I highly doubt anybody from the Chareidi world has any answers at all. It is convenient to just ignore things that one doesn’t want to face, and go around smugly patting oneself on the back for being a very religious person.

Another issue the people of Avi Weiss’s camp raise is if a woman can be a brain surgeon these days, why can’t she study gemara? Remember that Sarah Schenirer also met with opposition when she founded the Bais Yaakov movement, because it was against the mesora. However, because girls were then required to go to school for secular subjects, it was reasoned that she must have a Jewish education, as well. Should girls just be taught pirkei avos these days, when they go to college and medical school and learn sophisticated subjects of all other kinds?

The questions are not easy, but ignoring them is.

“How many Charedi Rabbis denounce Neteuri Karta??”

Too many to list. Hisachdus Horabonim, for starters.

popa- i think R chaim soloveitchik said it best- theyre not kashos; theyre tirutzim.

Zdad- lts of them. and the ones who dont are because they dont feel theres too much sakana in a bunch of self-hating crazies. if MO feels some level of threat they should also feel compelled to respond. which i also think is the reason no chareidi gedolim (not newspapers-i mean the manhigei hador) took a stand against weiss; they dont even have a chashash that their kehillos will be swayed- no threat- hence no reaction.

Papa, yes, we cannot change halachos, but excess baggage that has no basis in halacha, like requiring people to dress in black and white, can be discarded for the sake of not turning people away.

The question becomes what is halacha and what is not. It is not always clear.

Popa,

When HIR lets a woman lead Kabbalas Shabbos they do so because they don’t think they have stopped observing halacha. Let’s say for the moment that it’s true that they’re deciding halacha in such a way that they can avoid suffering from the cognitive dissonance that would come from Halacha conflicting with their sense of morality (and I suspect they’d deny that they’re doing that either). I have a hard time defining that as Rishus, or almost everyone would be a Rasha.