Always_Ask_Questions

Baltimore, small boats are harder to hit than missiles. Missiles mostly follow a trajectory according to laws of physics. and you also have million $ budget to hit them. The boat can maneuver and is subject to waves and wind and you are using simpler munitions to hit a boat. Also, in this case, US Navy is covering large areas so sensors and munitions might be at far distance. So, even if everything is done right, the boat movement while munition is flying is affecting results. Look at Iraq/Afghanistan time videos of shooting moving vehicles – a somewhat simpler problem as the aircraft is closer and the car is moving on the road.

yankel> absorbing ‘losses’ by establishing a medina , and thereby ‘gaining’ a home for the many pleitim

help me understand this shitah. So, if the pleitim had nowhere to go and risked their lives or ruchniyous otherwise – it was still prohibited
to work wth the medinah to save those people? maybe I did not hap the whole message here.

Rocky> asking questions to a gadol you have never met before for a personal issue for 20 second answer

previous minhag was to send a shailah with detailed description – usually not by the person himself, but by a local rov who can describe halachik issues involved.

what is new – asking questions about personal life rather than halocha from the rav who does not know you.

common > expecting monetary support for a young couple, regardless of the financial needs of the couple or the financial strain on the parents GOES BACK TO EUROPE

supporting by those who want to have a learning son in law – YES,
building an extra room in the house for the new couple to live in – YES
expecting parents’ support for full expenses – NO

YYA> Kiruv, especially in Eretz Yisroel, is more “successful” than you think, but this isn’t a numbers game. And who could ignore the revolution going on for decades in the former Soviet Bloc nations (led to a large extent by, well you know which group…) where tens of thousands of Jews have returned to their roots and built families of Shomrei Mitzvos?

Agree on most of your points. There are different types of chabadniks – some have a goal of induction into Chabad, others are satisfied in having their students stam ehrliche Yidden. Similar thing with others who use the word “kiruv”. There is also an issue what happens when these BTs “graduate” into regular communities – they often do not get sufficient support there the way they were getting from their original teachers.

Similar with USSR – majority of those Yidden are in US and Israel. While there lots of successes, lots are lost. In US, many are outside of observant communities. In Israel, they are physically closer, I wish more people were paying attention to their neighbors …

Here is what I read in the name of Chazon Ish about mussar:
some people make a mistake thinking that middos are important for mitzvos bein adam lehavero, and yiras shamayim is important for mitzvos towards Hashem. And this is a mistake – if you did not work on your middos, it means you are in total power of yetzer hara. It is that yetzer hara is more often showing up in relationships with people than towards Hashem. But if you don’t know how to deal w/ yetzer hora in general, then the moment you have a difficulty in mitzvos to Hashem, this person will fail also.

yankel, as you, I acknowledge variety of opinions about L Rebbe with minor comments:

> product of years of university studies without yeshiva studies
whoever said that is probably somewhat biased – several years that L Rebbe spent when he was about 25-30 y.o. in U of Berlin and an engineering studies in Paris were way past his yeshiva years.

overall, criticism coming from people who did not show same level of care about Jews as a whole can be disregarded. Not because they are not knowledgeable in Torah – but because their views do not take into account relevant issues. Maybe a good analogy is a sanhedrin requirement to have
young children to make sure the judge has rahmonus.

yankel > he answered that that they are –after all , baalei mussar ….

funny, thanks!

There is a story about one R Salanter’s dvar Torah. He would usually post maarei makamos on the door before the speech. So, someone who did not like mussar that much changed that message to different sources. R Salanter was standing quiet for several minutes and then started speaking using the posted sources. Someone who noticed tiold him after – this is real gaonus that it took you just several minutes to come up with the speech according to new sources. Oh, no, he answered – I spent those several minutes pondering whether speaking to the new sources would be a sign of gaavah. If it were, then I would have just left the bimah.

Evalim, you have a good point. I don’t want to argue with that. I just want to say that what may seem “normal” to you may not be so normal to others.

> They aren’t consumed by hate for the state and don’t have deep hashkofos about what the early zionists did? It’s just not an issue. (Until they started arresting them)

Seeing (maybe a small number) jumping on buildings, gas stations, unfinished buildings, while the rest of the crowd passing by; as well as overall idea of ignoring the needs and views of the rest of the society – as much as some want to celebrate this, as much others do not want to be a part of. We discussed both sides here in detail, so we don’t need to rehash, but this is just one part of calculation that come for some. As Chofetz Chaim himself felt that he did not want to be torn between two groups he would have to visit …

> directly and unambiguously due to the Zionist Project radicalizing them

as one of my Israeli friends wondered – “is worth being cousins to people who kill their brothers?” Arabs & Muslims produced multiple wars and atrocities against each other in the last 80 years. We listed them here before. This proves that their attitude is not due to only Jewish influence.

Your argument of historical attitudes work to justify the “anti Z” position of 100 years ago. This position had a basis in history at that time, but it just happened to not be an accurate decision. You might come up with theological explanations why Hashem did not provide correct navua to tzaddikim,
and these are interesting to explore, but at least acknowledge the simple facts before going into theology.

R Twersky always suggests to ask such shailos of rabbis who are bokehs in psychology or are willing to work closely with professionals. Look at his books for more details.

I don’t know about schools in your area, but I saw cases where school request parents to put kids on medication as a condition of enrollment, while it is quite possible that the kids need better teachers. [As one rav, who byh had a double-digit of kids graduating from such schools, observed – everyone behaved in a class by the most respected rav and but almost everyone misbehaved in many other classes]. So, maybe start with paying attention if behaviors vary with the teacher.

in respect to the sad argument who is our worse enemy at certain time period, maybe we are not very good at predicting that, and finding explanations bdieved is not really a kuntz. As R Soloveitchik writes – the anonymity of the Ish that Yaakov is fighting symbolizes exactly that – we are not able to tell where the danger might come from. His example is that socialists were preaching that capitalism is causing antisemitism, and then they came to power and became even worse ones.

When looking for info about Slutsk, I found this funny story:
Rabbi Yoshe-Ber used to give the following explanation about why Misnagdim fast on the day of yahrzeit, and Hasidim make a feast with a lechayim.

Before the giving of the Torah, when Jews did not know how to learn, and they saw that Moses our Teacher was late, they surmised that he had passed away, and they made a feast: “And the people sat down to eat”. Year later, when Moses our Teacher indeed passed away, it was already after the giving of the Torah. Jews knew how to learn, and they did not make a feast. They only observed mourning, as it states in the verse: “And the Children of Israel wept over Moses.

yankel> calling gdolei hador by their first name

maybe rav vilna gaon?
in my stylebook, when name is personalized with a place or another marker, it is used without rav. I might be wrong, but this is why I say that.
If I recall correctly, R Kotler called R Soloveichik – Bostoner Rav, not Rav Bostoner Rav, and R Soloviechik called R Kotler Kletzker Rosh Yeshiva, not Rav Kletzker Rosh Yeshiva

on the other hand, R (just for you) Chasam Sofer called Moses Mendelsohn RaMaD – rav Moshe mDasau even when denouncing him, and other Rabbis of that generation did not all hold by the denouncing – while posters here use his name without rav and with bad words and protest putting him in the same list as R Hirsh – even as R Hirsh puts him on the list with Rambam (both respecting and criticizing – both of them). And mods seem to be not even allowing posts with his name in the title when the post is entirely a quote from R Hirsh (unless mods are simply overworked and do not start any new threads).

ujm> prior to Zionism Jewish life under Muslim rule was far far better than Jewish life under the rule of non-Muslims

true in many cases, but not all. You can’t average over all Muslim regimes. Still, 20th century is different and Hafez Assad is no Salahdin – it is filled with murderous regimes, many socialist but some muslim. This is not due to Zionism, but overall trends. Afghanistan, Yemen, Somali were able to oppress a lot of people far removed from zionist influence.

Given how much Torah and Torah-observant Jews came out of chassidus, it is clear that the foundations were true. It is quite possible that the opposition at the time did not see why these innovations were needed; or/and initial movement made some bad moves first and they were corrected, whether on their own or under Gaon’s pressure. In any case, a founder could not be have been totally wrong.

yankel > both are true

And this is not new. RJBS writes in the 1950s (under previous rebbe) that he can’t balance 3 things – (1) brilliance of Baal Hatanya; (2) ignorance of popular chabad literature (3) the heroism of the shluchim going and saving Jewish neshomos in all places

We know that even Mordechai was demoted in the Sanhedrin after he got involved in communal affairs.

> that a non-denomination/non-ethnic/neutral State in the Holy Land would be absolutely safer for Jews

Many seem to be skeptical of such, but – why don’t you start such a state under any of neighboring states? There are several new opportunities right now – putting a frum peace corps in yellow-line Gaza, Southern Lebanon, Southern Suria – just go negotiate with the locals.

this headline is totally different from another article:
“Ben Yeshiva” from Beit Shemesh “Arrested” For Draft Dodging

Maybe the best things each of us can do is to think how to alleviate this problem. Grab your kids and go visit such chabad family and help them out for a week or two and let your kids socialize with their kids, and then stay in touch remotely, and then visit once in a while and maybe invite kids to visit your community. “Adopt a chabad”.

Maybe this is how the isolationist community can participate in the outreach activities – by assisting the outreachers without exposing themselves to the dangers of the world out there.

Haimy on empirical studies –
you have to be careful extrapolating statistics from average population with 1.5 kids per family where parents are not involved with kids and kids watch whatever they want online with, byh, large families with dedicated families.

Just a practical thing – many families got a chance to discontinue medications that schools required kids to take and the kids had a chance to learn how to function on their own. Not all families used that chance, of course. Some doubled down so that kids do not bother them too much.

YYA, I agree on polls especially on such specific edgy issues. Still, there are some core convictions that people hold pretty steady. It might look “ironic” and frustrating that 5% of people who change their minds based on some silly news article decide elections, but it is really part of the “mechanics” of a modern democracy. Given that politicians have more information about voters than other way around, we usually get roughly two competing groups, each of them is capable of calculating a set of competitive positions that add up to about 50% of votes. So, they fight for that remaining 1% and everyone is focused on that, but the bottom line is that we get a government that is reflective of at least 45% of population if you disregard hot topics. In essence, the system works such that both candidates are acceptable. This is way better than what Chinese or Iranians get. We should be modeh on that. In US, you can see the other alternative – in state and city elections, you get non-competitive 70-30 elections, leading to corrupt and lazy governments. Or fractured elections, where an extreme candidate get enter without having large support (see Weimar Republic and NY City).

But, the original question was whether Israeli SC will be able to overcome a large majority opinion of public or they are truly stiffling of democracy, as muslim overseers are in Iran. I don’t think we decided this one way or another. Maybe like yir hanedahet this never happened yet. Then, the best way to check, as I mentioned before, try to take a position that large majority of Israelis support (if this even possible) and see how it goes. Just saying – SC will overturn it anyway, we should not even try, is a childish position – used to excuse irresponsible behavior.

rambam’s brother chose to become a merchant. He was raised in the same family as Rambam, so surely he had an option to zitz and learn.

passport taken away – I already quoted a sefer that if the czar knew how valuable Torah learning is, he would put a soldier with a bayonet near each Yid, and when the Yid gets distracted by reading YWN, the chayal will kick him with the bayonet.

I agree on differentiating between simply using secular knowledge and getting involved in research. And also that there is a lot of bad stuff in and around science. If you are interested in psychology, start with works by R Twersky. In economics or game theory, start with Prof/R Aumann. You can probably find a kosher scientist in any area 🙂

The first issue is more of a social one – what can we introduce into our homes without generating negative effects.

The 2nd one is also of two parts: applied research and “real” research. Applied research is similar to to simply “using” secular knowledge, except this “usage” happens at professional level – developing better iphones is not much different from using iphones.

As to actually participating in science as Jewish thinkers (as opposed to just being Jews who do science) – R Hirsh highlighted probably two most significant persons – Rambam and MM (or RAMAD as Hasam Sofer calls him – Rabbi Moshe from Desau). R Soloveitchik studied philosophy and tried to integrate it with his Jewish views, but I don’t think he is known in philosophy outside of Jewish circles. Maybe Einstein can be counted – it seems that his complex formulas were guided by a principle that the whole world needs to be described by one set of equations. His rejection of quantum physics was based on “God does not play dice”.

I agree that R Hirsh insists in primacy of Torah v science. What unites him with MM, I think, is the strong position that Torah can co-exist with modernity, that we can speak the language of scientists – at the times where so much scientists were attacking religion. I’ll take it as homework to look at what R Hirsh thinks of Kant and of relationship Torah v science. I can only recall his grandson R Breuer saying that Kant came to the border of Judaism but did not cross in.

My suggestion on MM and Kant was that MM had a first-hand exposure to what the new ideas are. So, he could predict what these ideas will do to Jews unprepared to meet those ideas (as R Hirsh discusses about Avraham raising Yitzhak near Gerar to get exposure to the non-Jewish thinking). This is my sevorah, not something I can proof from texts so far, but it makes sense (to me).