Always_Ask_Questions

ujm > “it is unfair that the Torah scholars are exempt from the army”

so, you are in favor of charedim who are not Torah scholars to go to the army. Maybe, there are several questions here (1) those who are not learning and (2) those who cannot pass a test on their learning (3) those who pass the test but do not show Torah attitudes in their behavior towards other Jews?

As one ger, former rapper, wondered – if we have more students now than at the time of Rambam, then our generation would have 100 Rambams. Where are they?

somejew > who are the “rabunim” you would want at such a meeting that are pushing Jews to vote

EH seem to have at least 2 rabbis on their board, maybe not at the level of those who werfe talking at the asifah. Otherwise, there are a number of rabonim at RIETS who could express pro-WZO line, such a R Schachter, R Willig, R Lebowitz, R Mayer Twersky. I really really do not understand why we-all do not insist of having our leaders express their opinion in the presence of others at their level. We should all learn from their debates, the same way we learn from debates of Tannaim and Amoraim.

123abc> No True Scotsman

indeed. The problem (for him) is that there are verifiable connections between true and false Scotsmen – they are from the same klan!
maybe that is why he refuses to say that, but continues repeating “I did not see any names”.

Avram > Well, saying “just keep the computer in the living room and tell your kids to be good. There, I’ve solved children and tech for you!” doesn’t sound appealing to me either.

I am NOT saying that this is just one thing to do. I am saying it is one of the things to do!

>> admin account.”
> They’ll have my bank account, email account, and photos, but at least they can’t update my drivers!

again, this is just one of the things to do, not the only one. With admin rights, all accounts on this computer will be compromised, your hard drive will be encrypted until you pay ransom, and your computer will be used as a server to do more illicit activities. I’ll stop here so not to give people more ideas.

and yes, why not have your email separate from your bank?

> So the Zionists caused a hundred years of wars and terrorism

I can understand Jews from Old Yishuv complaining, but most of the charedim came to EY when Zionists “were already in the Land”.
So, what rights do they have to complain? Just move to Iran or Russia, explain to them that you are anti-Z, and live happily thereafter.

ujm, I don’t have the primary source right now, quoting from secondary sources. It appears that your assertion is not correct and RJBS continued in SCA despite all opposition and his own reservations.

RJBS sees two expressions of Jewish unity – (1) as covenantal community “You shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” and
(2) based on joint historical fate “, it is a people that shall live alone”. This second one unites all Jews, religious or not, including in the eyes of our enemies. From this, it follows, as we mentioned above, (1) a need to be separate from non-religious groups/non-O groups in issues of religion and (2) a need for joint action/unity in communal issues.

now secondary analysis:
The Synagogue Council of America had been organized in 1926 by the six organizations comprising the three mainstream Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox rabbinical and congregational associations, including the RCA and Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America…SCA often found itself crippled by differences among its member organizations, and survived as long as it did on the strength of a one-organizational veto, which allowed the Orthodox groups to reject any joint action (particularly one that might be perceived as straying into the “spiritual” realm) they disagreed with.
…
In 1956, the Rav’s support for the SCA came under attack both from within his community (the RCA) and from without (the Lithuanian yeshivah world). Just days before the RCA’s Halakha Commission, of which the Rav was the chair, was to meet to address a petition from the RCA’s leadership to require withdrawal from the SCA, the ultra-Orthodox Rabbinical Alliance issued a public ban on all Orthodox participation in the SCA as well as other joint rabbinical boards. Neither the Rav nor the Halakhic Commission ever formally ruled on the question, despite repeated efforts by the RCA leadership to force the issue.[11] Indeed, the issue continued to simmer, but despite a widening of the gap between the “two camps,” the RCA and UOJCA remained members of the SCA until the Rav’s death in 1993…dissolution of the SCA in 1994 simply put a punctuation mark on a completed era. With the Rav gone, it was as if the last remaining force (within the Orthodox world) trying to maintain the tension between unity and separation, to restrain the deep separatist forces at work within Orthodoxy, within the larger Jewish world, and in the wider society, was released. It was in fact a watershed. [16] What the Rav’s death marked was not so much the end of the Rav’s influence, but the end of the milieu in which Conservative as well as Orthodox rabbis (and to some extent even Reform rabbis) came from (and in some cases adhered to) traditional roots and perspectives that made debates among them still possible.
[9] Rabbi Walter Wurtzburger, in an essay on the Rav’s life and writings, writes unequivocally that the Rav strongly supported continuation of RCA and UOJCA participation in the SCA, recounting that he and the Rav, along with Rabbi Klavan had strategized how to keep the SCA status quo from falling apart. See, “Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik as Posek of Post-Modern Orthodoxy,” in Angel, Marc D., Exploring the Thought of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, at 14 (1997).

> The filibuster is anti-democratic. In a democracy a majority of the legislature should be able to pass laws without a minority having veto.

You see how greek culture crept into the yiddishe shtetl of Monsey! It took just 2000 something years.

Who said we are looking for democracy?! Surely, american founding fathers did not. History assimilated lessons of Greek direct democracy and even more stable Roman Republic and decided that democracy is unworkable – for centuries. Indeed, how could you expect uncultured masses to participate in deciding complex matters of the state. Better left to the experts, appointed by the King. The idea was looked upon again in 18th-19th century and it started working after a number of trials-and-errors that cost millions of lives. US as a far-away huge province had luxury to think a little bit and then practice a little, and worked out a system that slows down democracy to make it manageable. By now, some of these safeguards are weakened (senators are not elected by legislators, states lost lots of powers, politicians have more information about voters than voters about politicians…), so stop picking on remaining ones, like filibuster, independent courts.

“On any computer, you should always have an admin account controlled by parents”
Avram > And what about the parents?

first, fyi – basic cyber practice on any computer you use: have an admin account and then a local account where you do your normal work. In this case, an intruder might take over a local account but not necessarily of the admin account. Then, just let each parent be an admin for the other parent. Or, have parent’s parents do that 🙂 Feel free to outsource this to local rav or rebetzin or to any third party.

Maybe, a fool-proof method would be a company that takes snapshots of private accounts every 10 minutes and then use a combination of AI and indian labelers to look for offending images. You want to start this?

> they don’t just focus on filters. Their stated services include hashkafic guidance and a 52-week curriculum geared for young women. My guess is that responsible usage comes up at some point in those 52 weeks and in that guidance.

I did not do thorough analysis, but I looked at a number of their and affiliated pages. I do not see the basic info that we are discussing about organizing the house and talking to children mentioned. 52-week course on hashkafic guidance does not sound appealing if they are not willing to put some basics upfront, and we don;t know what kind of guidance it is. Again, if I missed something, please let me know

ok, I searched around, here are some references that relate to 3 oaths. Note that I personally don’t want to debate this, just helping out with quotes, so you can shoot at each other with better precision. I am trying to omit agadic material and sources that one of the sides may not respect.

Rashi: it’s only a problem if the Jews come all at once

Avnei Nezer (Y.D. 453, 456) do not derive halakha from agada;
“Avnei Nezer” (Y.D. 456) once the nations of the world give permission for all the Jews to go up to the land of Israel, the oath is annulled

Yoma 9 says that we davka must (!) “rise up as a wall

Shir HaShirim Rabba 8, 9 (3), where R. Zeira, the author of the aforementioned “three oaths” in Ktuvot, changes his mind explicitly, and adopts the contradicting opinion mentioned in Yoma!

Pnei Yehoshua (on Ketubot 111a) points out that Yoma 9b implies the opposite

Hafla’ah (Ketubot,same), the “wall” only relates to the immigration to Eretz Yisrael from Babylonia.

Vilna Gaon, Commentary on Shir HaShirim 2, 7, in his Siddur: we swore not to rebuild the walls of Yrushalayim and the Beit haMikdash
commentary on Shulchan Aruch Even HaEzer 75, 17, “the mitzvah is upon him to ‘toil/work’ (לטרוח) to fulfill”.

San. 97b – does redemption depend on teshuva

For a comprehensive treatment of this issue, see Naĥalat Yaakov by R. Yaakov Zisberg, vol. 2, pp. 715-815.

Dr Pepper > I actually disagree with you on the part about a non-professional being responsible for damage caused when they had permission to work on something.

I probably missed out some important caveats. You can look at, for example
YD 336:6 – liability of doctors – experts v not
liability for advice – expert/not, paid/not – Nesivos Mishpat (306:14) CM 306:6-7
indirect loss CM 386:3

Dr Pepper > if you act one someone’s behalf without their permission and cause them a loss- are you responsible for making them whole again?

I believe so, and that is all halachos about doing some a favor without their knowledge is about. If there is a possibility of loss, you are not allowed it. If you are not allowed to, you will be responsible for direct loss.

Even with permission, if you are not a professional, you are responsible for losses. So, maybe here the idea of shadchan certification comes in. I wonder how many shadchanim actually know what they are doing and thus have immunity? This is probably relevant to the current state of art – after all, old times doctors had permission to drain your blood …

Avrah,
yes, chromebooks are also good solutions.
on opendns, you can disable wifi and just use ethernet cable to the router. You can use glue and nails to make sure the computer is not going to starbucks – unless you live near one. Talk to your neighbors not to use 613 as password to their network.

On any computer, you should always have an admin account controlled by parents, and you can install all kind of family control software in that account. As I mentioned, maybe the most fool-proof would be to get screen snapshots every several minutes and then either quickly review them or run thru some recognition software. You can probably write such software in one hour if you don’t want to pay $20 for shareware.

But my point about related issue is not a substitute for filters, but it is important not to just focus on filters.
There are these reasonable instructions on how to use electronics in the house, and these should be distributed to all parents and repeated multiple times. It is very suspicious that TAG is not mentioning these: either they are vested in their digital solution, or they do not look at the problem at large. In either case, this does not inspire confidence in their professional judgment and business model. I think interested people should talk to them and ask questions.

It looks like there are 2 issues in elections:
Daas> Your missing what some consider more important: joining an organization which is anti Torah

of course, I presumed past making that decision.

ujm > Everyone was opposed to participating in the Synagogue Council of America. Even Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik was explicitly opposed. Certainly the WZO isn’t any better than the SCA.

RJBS position on such issues (including other religions) was usually – no to cooperation or even discussion on religious issues, but yes to cooperation on social issues, such as solving world hunger, dividing NY abandoned orphans (he wanted Jewish community to take a portion of those proportional to their share in the town), and such.

I presume SCA was a religious organization. Does WZO discuss how we should all daven together? So, there might be a difference.

> Vayoel Moshe askes many (if not all) of these questions and answers them, k’derech haTorah.

as I said, I don’t think this scholarly debate will convince anyone, but you can as well mention how Satmar Rebbe answers these questions, especially those that are from classical sources, such as
(1) Avnei Nezer
(5) According to some opinions, the only way to violate the oath would be if people came to Eretz Yisrael in very large groups.
(6) The author of the “Haflaah”
(7) Rabbi Chaim Vital
(8) The Gra [Vilna Gaon] writes that the oath applies only to building the Beit HaMikdash, not to entering Eretz Yisrael.
(9) Elsewhere in the Gemara there are other, conflicting, sources.

this post did not provide references, but I presume the original article did – or maybe Satmar Rebbe quotes them.

I agree with akpuerma – there is a process here. WSJ analysis says that Supreme Court could – and should – address process issues when they go out of hand, by issuing their view of when district judges should be able to issue country-wide injunctions. So, savlanut.

somejew > We cannot paskin based of actions of a presumed tsaddik to go against halacha

I think this explains our disagreement. I (and others here) do not see a pre-existing halakha that those who were tolerant to Z or cooperated with them were violating. See discussion of Ohr Sameach who seemed to be tolerant to both sides of the debate and did not denounce anyone.

There were often Jews of different social opinion. At modern times, there were communists, socialists, bundists, reform, conservative. There are lots of different decisions on how to behave towards them under different circumstances. Often, we decide not to cooperate with such groups. But, in some cases, we do. Depends on lots of factors. And different gedolim can come to different conclusions. R Salanter writes with owe about ladies who join serious Torah classes in Germany and says – if I were to try this in Lita, I’ll be excommunicated…

YWN front page has an article with a video of some Omar on Times Sq who does not like Zionists but is not very good at defining who they exactly are. I wonder whether this is one of the participants in this thread went outside to vent his frustration. Next time you are passing times Sq make sure to ask Omar’s opinion on jimel shevuot.

Looking clamly at the debate – it is not believable that the right position on Medinah can be discovered through pilpul of this gemorah. Even gemorah itself does not always come to conclusions based on pilpul – even if it looks like that. Think of cases where someone is consistently more machmir or more meikil than others – does he happen to always find the meikel psukim – or maybe he starts with a position and then tries to defined it…

But in this case, where we are discussing major issues related to millions of Yidden – the right position is probably discovered thru analysis of Torah principles, politics, psychology, effect on future generations .., And maybe 100 years later … So, I think it is legit to have different opinions at this point, but it is not legit to use simplistic shortcuts to delegitimize serious positions of others.

Daas > taking the lomdei Torah out of the beis medrash would be a tragedy

so, you are also for drafting those charedim that are not in beis midrash? Is this your personal opinion, Daas Yachid?

Dr Pepper, I think this sounds suspicious. Theoretically, you are allowed to benefit the person without his knowledge, but in this case you are also bothering all the references.

ard > you realize that when you say “the authors of these letters”

And I am trying to understand the motivation besides these difficult lashonos – and giving you an opportunity to put your explanation, or if you have access, direct or phone or email to them or people around them – you can just ask these questions directly and let us know.

German elections, while they were fair, give us a good lesson – 1/3 of the country was voting for nazis because they were afraid of commies
and 1/3 – for commies because they were afraid of nazis. And the more they were voting this way, the more they were scared, etc
and german democracy was not built with enough strength to survive through such two-sided attack.

We still have this effect – with a crazy on one side saying something inflammatory, the other side gleefully sends those quotes around to fundraise.

So, try not to vote for someone just because they are opposite of something, find someone who cares for population in general.

Some jew, you are right in theory, that is why I am asking based on reported cases. Apparently r Eliashev relied on what his trusted assistants told him without double checking that required picking up the phone. I understand why this might happen, but I would have to presume that it is unlikely that this happened only once. In the other case, RJBS presumably didn’t disclose to the students his confidential sources in the Israeli government, just related the conclusion that it is best for soviet jews to continue being quiet. Interestingly, you are right that the students who didn’t follow this psak, as well as R Moshe, L Rebbe and r Teitz presumably reevaluated the explanations (other rabonim had a different explanation: personal risk to students from soviet agents)

Dr Pepper > In the name of “shidduchim” they’re all of the sudden allowed to call anyone

in fairness:
1) our community is dispersed and looking further around allows (in theory) for better matches, so if you have no personal connection, you have to rely on information from others.
2) sharing such info is, of course, allowed & encouraged, within some limits. There is probably more undersharing (“yes, he/she is a wonderful person”) and mis-communications: how does a rav on the phone knows what is a “good learner” for you?
3) people should be as sharing when selecting schools, business partners, and charities.

It would have been better for Napoleon if Berezina river parted for him when he was escaping Russia.