Rav Yisroel Lau will be the guest speaker at the siyum Hashas

60% Chance of rain?

Fried Onions

You arent embarrassed to say such a thing a few days before Tishah Beav?!

Ohr Chodesh – oooo. krum. reform. calling names – nice response to a Rashi that contradicts your perspective. This is an anonymous forum, so your name and shame, malbin pnei chaveiro brabim intimidation tactics (particularly noteworthy in the first week of Av) won’t work. Try addressing the question like MW13 ( I may not agree with his perspective, but at least he is conducting himself in a menschlech way) instead of a kneejerk name calling dismissal.

mw13, thanks for your response. I have a few questions and observations. I am not an American, so I don’t know how it is now, but when I was in Yeshiva a few decades ago, there were a few American citizens in my class, and they had a legal requirement to register for the draft (even though there was no conscription at the time, registration was mandatory) and they did so, as penalties for not doing so were severe. Do yeshiva bochurim still do so? If not, why not?

My larger observation is that Israel is not America. There are, it seems to me, responsibilities that go beyond dina demalchusa dina, such as kol yisroel areivim ze bazeh, and how that is accomplished, the value and sanctity of Jewish life, and how it is safeguarded, as well as the obvious, which is that one CAN use the infrastructure and still be to some larger or smaller degree, a hypocrite. Many years ago, I had an ongoing online forum discussion with a man from Kansas who was insistent on Israel’s colonialist and imperialist illegitimacy. I pointed out to him that where he lived was clearly traditional Kiowa land, and his “occupation” of it, deriving benefit from it, was clear hypocrisy if he was going to criticize Israel, and even more so because Jews were there in Israel thousands of years ago and he was a newcomer of two generations in Kansas. I wasn’t saying that he had to get up and leave, but I was pointing out the moral quandary that his advocacy put him in. Same here, except that I expect higher moral and ethical standards from Chareidim than I do from an anti-Israel agitator from Kansas. In short, again, hypocrisy is hypocrisy even if you can continue using the infrastructure without sanction.

As to your response to the Zevulun Yissochor comparison. I have said before that I feel there is an unfortunate perception among chareidim (especially in chutz laaretz) that chiloni Israelis have only one thought in their mind, one goal in life that animates all of their actions, and that is to spiritually destroy chariedim. This may have been the case with a small number of hyper politicized secular zionists years ago (especially pre WW2), but it is simply not the case now.

Chilonim ( and there are many different motivations among them, they are not one homogeneous group) simply don’t care enough about the daily lives of chareidim to want to “shmad” them. Those chareidim who think they do have never talked about it with an average chiloni and have an exaggerated sense of self importance. Chilonim care about their business, their education, their security, their kids, their garden, their hobbies, their social life and a dozen other things more than they do about what kind of spiritual life the residents of Bnei Brak or Meah Shearim have. The only cases in which they do care are the points at which chareidi practice intersects or interferes with their lives and the freedoms Israeli law mandates to them. If you believe otherwise, again, you haven’t talked to the people you are describing as not being able to overtly discriminate (but wanting to). Someone has been lying to you about the chilonim. I suggest you think about why they would do that.

I concede that the Zevulun Yissochor comparison is not perfect, but the willingness of the chilonim to defend every Jew and lay down his or her life as part of a social compact with all of their fellow citizens, allowing their fellow citizens to live a normal life including learning in Yeshiva or Kollel represents the mundane side of the equation pretty well.

Ohr Chodesh, you wrote “It’s the non-Torah learners who are not giving sufficiently.”

I guess over 20,000 lives given to protect Am Yisroel isn’t giving sufficiently in your cheshbon.

And I will illuminate two of those 20,000.

Major Roi Klein z’l was a Golani brigade deputy commander. He was a Hesder Yeshiva graduate, He was killed in the 2006 2nd Lebanon War, in an ambush among the houses of Bint Jbail, a large village in southern Lebanon. Hezbullah terrorists killed eight soldiers, including Roi, and injured nearly two dozen.

There were two other soldiers next to Roi. A hand grenade was thrown at them and Roi shouted, “Grenade!” He then threw his body over it, sacrificing his life for the sake of his soldiers, who later attributed being alive to his act of selflessness.

In his last seconds of life, Roi mustered the strength to shout “Shema Yisroel” the prayer that Jews have prayed for centuries, declaring our belief in G-d and in a better world; the prayer that so many Jewish martyrs throughout the generations called out as they were being led to their deaths.

Here is the story of one of those “not giving sufficiently” who I knew personally. Steve Auerbach wasn’t frum, though he was traditional. He didn’t study in Yeshiva like Roi Klein did. He was, however, one of the best soldiers Israel ever produced. He was nicknamed “Guns”, because he was probably the best shot with small arms in the IDF and Magav. He was an instructor for the YAMAM anti terror commando unit. On the morning of May 18, 2003, he was on a bus in the French Hill neighborhood. He saw a man get on the bus dressed as a chareidi, but he immediately knew something was wrong. The man was pale and nervous. The bus was half full, But Steve knew, he told me, as he rode this bus often, that the next stop would have a large crowd of Bais Yaakov girls heading to school, and this guy was no chareidi. He began to draw his weapon and shouted to people to get down. The bomber detonated (early, as he had wanted to do so on the full bus as it made its way further into yerushalayim). seven people died, but dozens were saved. Steve was severely injured, leaving him a quadriplegic for the next seven years, until his death from his injuries in 2010. Steve had a hard time dealing with his injury, but he said he would do it again if he was in the same position. He loved the Jewish people. After his injury He spoke to hundreds if not thousands of young Jews about Eretz Yisrael and Ahavat Yisrael. He traveled around the world – even as a quadriplegic, more than once, to raise funds for sport therapy for children disabled by terror in Israel.

I knew Steve. He was a “non-Torah learner”, as you put it. You spit on his memory (and that of Roi Klein, who was a Torah learner as well as being a soldier, and those of over 20,000 more, frum and not frum, learners and not learners) by saying that he did not give sufficiently.

I’m not going to call you names, though, and I have ahavas achim for you even though I disagree with you. I just hope you learn something about those who “don’t give sufficiently”.

yichusdik:

“MW13… is conducting himself in a menschlech way”

Thank you.

“American citizens in my class… had a legal requirement to register for the draft (even though there was no conscription at the time, registration was mandatory) and they did so, as penalties for not doing so were severe. Do yeshiva bochurim still do so? If not, why not?”

No, because there is no longer (as far as I know) a legal requirement to do so.

“My larger observation is that Israel is not America. There are, it seems to me, responsibilities that go beyond dina demalchusa dina, such as kol yisroel areivim ze bazeh, and how that is accomplished, the value and sanctity of Jewish life, and how it is safeguarded”

I’m not sure how kol yisroel areivim zeh l’zeh ties into this…

“Many years ago, I had an ongoing online forum discussion with a man from Kansas who was insistent on Israel’s colonialist and imperialist illegitimacy. I pointed out to him that where he lived was clearly traditional Kiowa land, and his “occupation” of it, deriving benefit from it, was clear hypocrisy if he was going to criticize Israel, and even more so because Jews were there in Israel thousands of years ago and he was a newcomer of two generations in Kansas. I wasn’t saying that he had to get up and leave, but I was pointing out the moral quandary that his advocacy put him in. Same here, except that I expect higher moral and ethical standards from Chareidim than I do from an anti-Israel agitator from Kansas. In short, again, hypocrisy is hypocrisy even if you can continue using the infrastructure without sanction.”

I do not see how believeing that the State of Israel shouldn’t have been created puts one into the same hypocritical “moral quandary” as this anti-Israel Kansasian. How does using a countries’ infrastructure show that one believes in its founding principles?

“there is an unfortunate perception among chareidim (especially in chutz laaretz) that chiloni Israelis have only one thought in their mind, one goal in life that animates all of their actions, and that is to spiritually destroy chariedim… Chilonim ( and there are many different motivations among them, they are not one homogeneous group) simply don’t care enough about the daily lives of chareidim to want to “shmad” them… Chilonim care about their business, their education, their security, their kids, their garden, their hobbies, their social life and a dozen other things more than they do about what kind of spiritual life the residents of Bnei Brak or Meah Shearim have.”

Exactly my point. The Chilonim are not doing this lishmah to support Torah and those who study it, which is what the Yissacher-Zevulun pact is all about.

“the willingness of the chilonim to defend every Jew and lay down his or her life as part of a social compact with all of their fellow citizens, allowing their fellow citizens to live a normal life including learning in Yeshiva or Kollel represents the mundane side of the equation pretty well. “

First of all, I simply don’t see this willingness of the Chilonim to support the Chareidim that you refer to. Actually, they quite often rant and rave about having to support the Chareidi “parasites”, and would be quite happy not to do so.

Second, even if the Chilonim would be happy and willing to support the Chareidim as part as a “social pact”, it would still be a far cry from the Yissacher-Zevulun ideal, where both are leading their lives with the sole intention of supporting and honoring Hashem’s Torah in every move they make.