Always_Ask_Questions

The reason this is important is because you work for a big company that requires you to work fixed hours, does not care about your timeline and would not even let you take half a day to work from home. Find a better employer or have your own business and you feel better.

It is actually a halachik question – controlling time is equivalent to avdus. It is reflected in halocha: if you are an employer, you should give employee time before dismissing them, but should allow them to leave any time (except if suffering losses) – if you force him to give you a notice, you are making him an eved. So, choose the job or a business where you can better control your own time to make yourself a free person.

chief > saying not to bury Chassidim in Slutsk is a red herring

this is not a good argument, who knows what was the original cause – if there was animosity and even no burial place, then chasidim will not live there.

I think karpas also includes ponevezh and kosova, hometowns to some well-known rabbis!

guys, don’t get the bait from the several posters posting nonsense. everyone already know what they’ll post. By addressing them on such sensitive issues you might (1) violate one of the halochos of LH – praising someone who is not considered 100% tzaddik by everyone in the world as you are causing someone to respond negatively (2) by diverting conversation to the trolls, we are not discussing underlying issues (3) this also turns away both readers and posters who might have contributed to the discussion

serious comment: regardless of what anyone thinks of the merits of the letter, it is reflecting what some of the public that is generally religious thinks.
it should matter to everyone. What words or actions can change that?

for example, a sephardi charedi politicians replied to an accusation – “we are davening for soldiers 3 times a day”. I don’t know whether this sentiment will move the public by itself, but even that may be said bysome non-Sephardim only conditionally – “we are saying tehilim and keeping soldiers quietly in mind”. Maybe saying something – anything – explicitly – could be a step in the right direction?

Shimon> Some Chassidim who were there were surprised.

This is very concerning. Does it mean the rebbe did not have a chance to explain himself in the years before?
What is the point of a rebbe having chassidim if they don’t absorb pretty basic ideas.
Maybe the rebbe thought that this is self-evident and did not bother to explain?

I don’t know about Beis Levi, but R Moshe Soloveitchik, Chaim Brisker’s son was a Rav at a chabad town and initially hired a chanbadnik as a teacher for his son, RJBS (until the mother caught up with the fact that the son is learning chassidus at the expense of Gemorah).

I think discussing merits of Torah learning instead of serving is unbecoming – as it is clear, and and was expressed here to, that most proponents of not serving are in reality against anyone from their community to serve, whether they are learning or not. Thus, any such discussion is based on lies – just a red herring argument and is a disgracement of True Torah Learning. Those who follow this argument think that any argument is OK when dealing with anti-Torah establishment. So, if you seriously argue against their fake position, you are being treated as anti-Torah.

R Soloveitchik was not frozen out of aguda, he is listed on moetzes website, he left on his own.

I don’t want to take sides in this discussion. I’ll also bli neder get to learning chassidus when I am finished with nigleh. [just a tiny dig: when I see people engaged in serious chassidus who seemingly did not yet learn how to be nice to a shul member or a goy b’shuk – I am wondering whether money spent on the spodek were well spent].

But my question is – how can you insist on carefully following minhagei Baal Shem tov or any Rebbe – when chassidus itself started as a change of their tradition – not just “nusach sefard” that is still ashkenaz, just sefard-style, of course, but also creating separate kehilos, diverting community taxes. So, after such a radical revolution (and I do understand that there were good reasons for that) – now suddenly we can’t change anything in the levush for 200 years.

Did someone write about this question?

in the non-denominational state, you will get exemption from the army service if you can recite by heart either Quran or Shulchan Oruch, or you can do half each.

If we learned anything from the last century, we should be humble in our (collective) ability to predict what will happen in the world, and we should be observing and reacting to what is happening, trying to do it together rather than fighting each other. Nobody won cultural and religious wars of 1930s Poland.

Right, is it a given that kids need to be in company of similar age kids, so that they learn things from each other? The class based learning is simply to enable teachers to say a lecture to multiple students at the same time. Something that technology already solved. Maybe a kid can benefit more from being around mature adults plus siblings?

YYA, right, that is why I asked whether anything changed in last 6 months.
I don’t see better answers. I also see Israeli trust on courts being consistently low for number of years without much change. It might be that any change that increases confidence of some part of population, it decreases confidence in the other.

Here are a couple of tidbits I found:
gallup collected in Jul-Aug 2025:
confidence in courts 43% (v 46% a year before) – all at the expense of Bibi’s supporters (fell from 47% to 37% in a year)

israeli voice index – confidence in democratic rule in mid-40s for last 15 years

I am obviously further away from the events, but I also have contact with all of these groups. Our town has representatives of all, maybe except NK, BH.

I found an interesting story reported by R Moses Schick in response to rumors that he saw Hasam Sofer throwing MM’s Biur to the ground. He says the real story was that Hasam Sofer was giving a dvar Torah at his house while visiting and asked for Chumash to quote psukim. Rav’s other chumashim were in shul and he had only Biur in the home. Knowing HS’ attitude, someone told him that “there is no chumash in the Rav’s house” … when HS later commented to someone about lack of chumashim in Rav’s house, Rav Schick explained to him what happened and explained that he is basing himself on another Gaon who studied Biur [maybe R Akiva Eger? AAQ]. R Schick also said that he went through whole chumash and did not find any problems. Hasam Sofer referred him to a particular verse in Devorim [presumably 2:10-12].

YYA, on R Hirsh on MM, I would have to ask you to trod to sefaria and read the 18th letter. It is not long. I posted new threads twice, once with my comments, 2nd with just quotes from R Hirsh, but this did not show up. I hope it is because of MM name in the subject, not because R Hirsh is not frum enough. I’ll be interested in hearing your opinion on that. He indeed criticizes, as you are suggesting, both Rambam and MM for not making Torah primary viz-a-viz sciences.

Interesting you mention lubavitch. I heard the following moshal from a chabad rabbi, not sure what the origin is: an assimilated Jew came to MM and said that he almost succeeded at emancipating himself from Judaism, but sometimes he has very severe doubts that make his life hard – and asked for an advice how to deal with these doubts. Sure, said MM, here is a simple advice: in the morning do natilas yadayim, then take this water that has tumah, and drink it. And this will help you rid of the doubts. The Yid did that and indeed had no more doubts! Then, he thought about it and realized that this means that the tumah that he drank was a real thing, therefore … etc. So, he did teshuvah, and, indeed, never had any more doubts, as MM predicted.

This story probably summarizes at the uncertain place of MM in Jewish history.

YYA, MAG is a good example: a quick check shows a poll 6 months ago – 41% for, 42% against, 17% unsure. Did this change by now? Maybe

If not, this is something you feel everyone is against because everyone around you is against …
This phenomenon is attributed to a Manhattan (Democratic) socialite: how could Nixon win the election, I don’t anybody who voted for him!

YYA, good questions.
R Hirsh does not necessarily sees his times as unique, he traces MM approach back to Rambam (both in positive and in criticizing both of them).

I think you are over-simplifying when saying that R Hirsh came to the rescue, while MM created problems. Chacham einav b’rosho. MM saw first-hand the new questions and tried to answer.

And, btw, this is a typical thinking error people do in their lives: they consider the benefit v price of a possible action, but they do not consider the costs of inaction. (true if the options are similar, then shev vlo taase might be legit). In this case, all others who criticized MM provided help to a limited number of Jews who were willing to fully isolate, but did not provide any help to the rest. It is not only reformim and assimilations who are at fault for what happened to those Jews, but also those in the leadership who did not provide an alternative (say, something similar to what R Hirsh provided a generation later). Again, I am really “blaming” leaders of that generation, but trying to explain from our later knowledge what the options were.

R Soloveichik observed something similar in US 1940s – he was talking to american-born children of immigrants and answering their questions, observing that their pitiful choice between american reform clergy and NY European rabbis that could not relate to them.

YYA, I agree with most of you posted. And with NP that R Hirsh had more aspirations for modernity than just save Yidden from it.
a couple of comments:

1) Some things may be hard to judge from historical perspective: we might think that Jews were not yet influenced by modernity during MM times. He might have seen it differently – first, he was among the more modern ones, 2nd, he might have seen where things are going. For analogy (hey, you went to skiing) – suddenly in 2025 everyone is talking about effect of “AI” on human condition. Those who worked in the area had these discussions for about 50 years already. So, with MM not just being exposed to “universities” but talking directly to Kant, surely saw better what is coming.

2) R Hirsh explains his view on MM in the 18th of “19 letters”, including where he thinks MM made mistakes. I tried posting, it did not appear, I’ll try again. His view is clearly NOT that MM was doing something wrong, he just did not reach correct derech.

3) we recognize that Goyim have chochmah. Modernity brought that chochmah to new levels. T’Chachomim were always interested in Chochmah. Should we ignore it? I understand that we may not want to introduce medical studies in yeshivos, but should we at least integrate that cochoma in our behavior – use technology, measure our students with standardized tests, use psychology to improve learning …

4) Abstract for a minute from a need to protect ourselves from danger. Do we have any responsibilities in this world besides learning? Avraham thought so. R Soloveitchik suggests that “if we claim to know the truth, then we should not hide in the caves”. I presume most of opposition to this come from the “protection” paradigm – that then expands into justifications why we should not. What do you think?

yankel, I am not well versed in SC decisions beyond a couple of the ones in the news –
please give me an example where SC ruled against a large majority of public opinion.

participant> I should have better pointed out Trump’s tariffs causing inflation

I suggest going to your local library to peruse WSJ. It has a lovely discussion over last several months on whether this is actually the case. Turns out:
1) empirical data is inconclusive
2) tariffs are not static, they are being updated as we speak, many are being reduced and effect changes
3) and, most obvious, it is pure avoda zora to worship just one part of the issue. The tariffs are in place to (a) change long-term economic relationships, (b) affect power relationships with enemies.

YYA, funny. Notice the clickbite does not say “VP”. That is why it is important to use correct titles – Mr, Mrs, PhD, JD (sic!) Sen, VP …

I believe there were cases in US elections where the other side launched independent candidates with same or similar name as the sitrah ahera.

> Court emphasized that promises of future legislation cannot serve as an excuse for nonaction today.

this sounds like a straight legal ruling. How can one argue with this, whether you agree or not with the previous actions. Hopefully, this will lead to a faster agreement on the new law.

An interesting question about “culpability” of Jewish leaders at the time. I absolutely recognize great things many rabbonim did at the time creating asnd preserving certain communities. Same goes for more modern cases of Israeli and American charedim. At the same time, so many Jews assimilated at the time – conventional thinking is to blame Reformim, MM, “the times” … but surely we can also contemplate why rabbonim of the time were able to save only small minority.

In theory, all institutions we have now – schools, communities, bays yaakovs, a yeshiva year in EY, moetzes … could have been implemented at the time.
More realistically, R Hirsh’s and R Salanter’s approaches might have worked in 18th century Germany. The approach that was used (and still used by some) is to preserve saving minority by abandoning the rest, as is done on submarines where the safe sections are sealed off from the ones that are already damaged even if there are people still there.

I am in no way “blaming” those rabbonim from my “hindsight” position. But the objective result was far from perfect and we should not discard efforts of those who tried to save the remaining Jews through other means.

YYA, thanks for a long exposition on MM. Your explanation of Biur is new to me, but sounds plausible, and I am aware of the rest. I think your reasoning shows where we look at things differently: you presume that the only possible type of interaction of a frumer Yid with modernity is “kiruv” – that is we just need to show “them” how wrong they are. Hadash asur min haTorah, to quote the MM antagonist. Others, that I think include MM, R Hirsh, R Soloveitchik and l’havdil AAQ, think that we need to address the changing world – as did all generations of Jews and other tzadikim. Adam worked the fields instead of remembering the life in gan eden; Noah built the ark and took care of the animals instead of writing memoirs about the destroyed world; R Yohanan b Zakkai predserved what he could instead of ignoring presence of Romans. As R Soloveitchik writes, if we claim to have Hashem’s Truth about Life, we should not be hiding in caves. (I am ignoring here cheap ideas of Reform and such as “adaptation” to modernity, I am talking of true Torah response).

So, from this POV, German Jews were on the way to modernity one way or another. Hasam Sofer saved some in Hungary, but, to my knowledge, had not much effect on his native Frankfurt. Only R Hirsh did. So, my imperfect understanding is that MM tried to find compatibility of his Jewish views and his views of modernity. I am in no way saying that he had success, I am saying that he made an honest effort. And he was in a good position for the effort – both solid Jewish background, personal integrity, and advanced understanding of modernity (Kant was the major figure of Enlightment and he had great respect for MM). Besht indeed was born earlier – but he did not have direct contact with modernity. Even R Salanter, way later, said at some point that he can not do much for Litvishe Jews as they are sliding down the slope, and he sees more hope in talking with a French professor who is at the bottom but is at least stationary.

YYA> If Stalin ימ״ש would have been OK with that, then we would have been OK with him.

Abraham Hershel wrote about German Jews who would be ok with nazis except that nazis rejected them – in the 1930s in a nazi-censored publication. He wrote a “historical” article about Sephardi Jews who were kicked out right before Spaniards went into Americas and showed some brutality there. He concludes – it is better to be a victim than a perpetrator… I know you did not mean that, you just hoped to live as a dhimmi, but I could not miss a chance to reference this idea.

Maybe you can pursue your logic further – if you would be ok to live under commies (more realistically, an oppressive but non-ideological czar), then you should be at peace living in modern Israel. After all, you always have a chance to go to a neighboring country, like Jordam and now even Suria. As only several crazies tried doing that, it means that most of charedim appreciate zionist protection.