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Chaim, who told you that tag is Torah m’sinai.
If you feel being influenced by their ads – call them up, ask who their posek is, and call that posek and ask him all the questions you have.It looks like there are 2 issues in elections:
Daas> Your missing what some consider more important: joining an organization which is anti Torahof course, I presumed past making that decision.
>> if someone is going to reject the Gedolim who pasken that it is forbidden to participate in the Zionist Organization voting
> Similarly, if you don’t vote in the WZO elections, you are rejecting the Gedolim who pasken that it is a chiyuv to.why don’t you guys politely invite both sides to a in-person or on-zoom meeting so that their chassidim could here them discussing this issue? I’m interested in buying a ticket.
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.
ujm > Square: Being that you’re bigger than the Satmar Rebbe
To be fair to square, he is simply quoting someone else.
> Tosfos Yom Tov attributed Tach V’Tat (aka the Khmelnytsky Massacres of 100,000 Yidden in 1648-1649) to talking in shul.
Please stop bad-mouthing Ukrainian Jews. I am happy to inform you that not all of 100,000 talked in shul. About 50,000 were not even there (current estimates of Jews in Ukraine at the time is 20K to 50K, I think). And maybe about half of them did not survive – and of those probably many not directly from the uprising, but from resulting diseases, etc.
I also wonder: most of these Jews were “arendators” – paying annual rent to Polish owners and then extracting product from local peasants. So, presumably many of them lived in very small places, with or without minyan. So, maybe “talking” relates to their relaxed attitudes towards their overall observance – when they decided to move from population centers in Poland proper… Maybe, even, when Jews who rarely came to shul would finally meet, either on shabbos or on yomtov – they had a lot of things to talk about, especially after the uprising started.
> 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.
Chaim> made up that this is Halacha when it’s really haskafa.
Well, the boundaries are not always clear, so he is within his rights to argue a certain position.> Repeated stories and paskim from gedolim done in front of 100s of people is mesora.
what is more concerning that he can not find “gedolim” within all texts written by others. Because, I presume, in his definition, a gadol is someone who teaches in certain yeshivos, lives in certain towns, writes in a certain way … I think if he were to bump into R Shimshon Hirsh in the street, he would think he met a university professor.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 > his psak is binding because of the authoritative sources his psak stands on until there is another countering psak that fulfils the requirements of SA: 1) gadol b’minyan and/or chochma, 2) someone who goes in a “good way, 3) paskins specifically because of his the contents of shas and poskim, and 4) who has publicized his halachik reasoning for peer review.
Truly, I am with you, I’d love to be in the bleaches of the Sanhedrin, seeing Satmar Rebbe debating R Kook. I really do not understand why we do not see modern Rabbis meeting for such discussions. They don’t have to be opposite of each other, just slightly disagreeing. We have stories of someone encountering someone at a chasunah or something and raising an issue. We have teshuvas, but not real debates. Sad. As R Steinsaltz used to say – gemorah says that if all gedolim gather on the same street in Yerushalaim and daven together, Moshiach will come. Why don’t they? We misunderstand the gemorah: only when Moshiach will come, such gathering will be possible …
Until then, you just can’t obligate me, a litvishe guy, to go learn shitah of a Chassidishe Rebbe from St. Mary of Hungary. You can interest me by quoting him in a good way, and so far you didn’t.
> there is no one who has even attempted a countering psak.
You have a problem with peripheral vision. you are looking at posts quoting various rabbis and still thinking “where are the gedolim”. Just because they are not standing on the shelf in your yeshiva, does not mean they are not. I don’t want to answer for others, but I was bringing shita of RJBS. He is of comparable learning & effect on Jewish community to Satmar Rebbe. You may not see that because his students do not march in uniform – and probably outside of your neighborhood. For example, when he was a student in Berlin, he was coming back to Vilno during vacations, bringing his “chidushim” to R Ozer. R Ozer would usually smile and turn around to his bookshelf and find the source of the “chiddush”. This story says not only that R Ozer was ready to talk to RJBS, but also when RJBS was in Berlin; that RJBS was actually learning during his university studies; that he was attempting chiddushim, and that they were quite grounded in mesorah – and maybe that it requires R Ozer to see that what RJBS is saying is actually according to mesorah. RJBS was definitely respected by his contemporaries, some disagreed, some not much. And he definitely published a lot of books with references. Maybe, you read either other authors quoting him in short, or his most famous short articles, then you need to go and read more – as we are discussing a comprehensive issue that can not be resolved in one paragraph.
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…
ZSK, I think for RJBS, RZ is very much related to MO – as in Orthodoxy is modern and is addressing modern issues, of which Israel is a major one.
Someone forwarded RJBS a newspaper article during WW2, asking him to respond in the paper. The article was by a British Jew who was astonished to observe German Jews in British internment camps. They were sitting and learning Gemora without paying attention to events around them. He writes – how can they be so focussed on discussing wars of the Roman Empire while totally ignore Normandy operation that may affect their whole lives. Are we a nation that is capable to operate in today’s world?
Rav did not respond to this letter at the time, but mentioned it 10 years later during heated discussions in Israeli Knesset: if the author of that article is still alive, he can now see Jews addressing issues of the day.
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.
It looks like there are 2 issues in elections:
(1) political decisions, such as recognizing Reform in Israel in some form. There it seems that all religious groups are united
(2) money distribution – not sure whether significant sums go to non-O/antu-O groups – are they? And then, presumably every O group champions their own groups. Maybe even those who will be calling not to participate in the elections.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?
Daas, I am not saying that everyone is doing it for the wrong reasons. A rough estimate, one should have iq at least 120 to be learning, which is 10% of population, this is not accounting for middos.
And I am not denying that many have good intentions and following the advice they are given. Still, at some point, people need to be responsible themselves. … A friend told me that he was trying to encourage his married son to get a better job to support his own family, and the son blamed his parents back for sending him to yeshiva that encouraged him to stay in learning too long.
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.
Daas > OpenDNS and the like are easily bypassed.
Together with a filter on the router? Maybe we should not go into too much details, children might be reading 🙂
I was trying to move soft on my relatively well behaved teens. This included
– monitoring their activities for some time to map out what is being used, and how it changes after some are blocked
– selective filtering out the worst, while creating minor problems in others. Sometimes even somewhat denying that my interference is the source of problems.
– in case of misbehavior or rebellion against the measures – whitelisting, leaving only math sites accessible 😉
– kids learned some of cool cyber skills that might help him land a job with NSA> Keeping an unfiltered computer in a public area is a disaster waiting to happen. There isn’t always someone else home.
Why such extreme – why totally unfiltered. This is in addition to other measures. But if you have an account that it totally opened to everyone, it would be pretty hard for someone to mis-sue it. And how many families have 1 teen sitting at home for long time periods? where are parents? siblings?
And for total assurance – You can also have a parent control system that takes snapshots of the screen every so many minutes so that you can exclude any untoward things happening when nobody is looking. One I saw was I think shareware for $30 or something like that.
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.
Menachem > So you agree with me that there is such a thing as accepting a “daas torah” and obeying them unquestionably even when you don’t understand.
acculturation. daas torah did not exist in Litvishe pre-WW2 community – but chassidishe rebbes already existed. Now, with so many people streaming to learn from litvishe yeshivas, the inmates gradually took over the asylum.
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.
Do you always need to know rebbe’s sources? Is seeing the rebbe actually doing something not sufficient in some cases? Maybe not enough to pass to others though.
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)
ard > one can always wave off daas torah by saying the gadol was lied to, have an open mind
I’ve heard gedolim admitting that, such as
– RJBS first was against open demonstrations for Soviet Jews (like other gedolims) but then changed it based on realization that his Israeli contacts provided him biased info (suggesting what was better politically for Israel at the time, not what was better for Soviet Jews themselves)
– R Eliashiv supposedly being told that R N Kamenetsky continues selling the book despite him pausing the sales, and later, supposedly, explaining “how would I know I was lied, I am not a navi”.These admissions raise the question how “daas Torah” operates – is it guaranteed Torah-based inference applied to externally provided facts? Does DT include ability to evaluate sources of information? Every beis din is supposed to be able to interrogate witnesses. What does it mean that an elderly DT is in full control of his Torah-attuned inference but is not able to pick up the phone and call relevant people? Given cases like that, how do you evaluate DS advise for elections? Do you respectfully ask him what his sources are?
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.You can’t legally vote for Biden any more (unless he is running for the dogcatcher), so time to retire this thread.
It would have been better for Napoleon if Berezina river parted for him when he was escaping Russia.
ZSK > RJBS is known for TuM, not RZ,
you may be right. RJBS was often looking from US POV, that is reacting to events in Israel from the POV of what choices were in front of American Jews or American Mizrahi. Even then, he sometimes prefaces his speeches with – I am not an expert on specific political issues, I am simply bringing my knowledge of Torah to contribute to the discussion. For example, he suggests to American Mizrahi to spend more energy/money on organizing American yeshivos rather than simply trying to fundraise for Israel (“I just built mine, I am not asking you to contribute but I am surprised you did not”). This stand-off view is actually makes it interesting comparing with those who were/are involved in daily issues in Israel.
As an illustration, I understand what you are saying about effect of Gush Katif, but from the outsider’s POV, it is a tactical issue, even as much as it was painful for some, and there is no way to make it as a defining issue in politics, even with the after-knowledge of the events that transpired later on.
ZSK to katan> when challenged, you ignore the challenge
I don’t think he is doing it to spite us. He is simply used to talk to people with same views and his “knowledge” is from his own sources, so he is not able to respond to texts he never saw… we all are confronted here with unfamiliar positions, but some react with curiosity and some do not.
non-political b’shem katan>
1) It is forbidden to make a state before Moshiach comes
2) You are joining in an enterprise with people who are using the said enterprise to replace authentic Yidishkeit with NationalismMy question is how should we behave now based on current situation, and I think we are all partially mislead by history of events. This is not new: Berel Wein, for example, blames animosity of Zionists towards religious communities on Russian czar’s policy that required the kahal to collect required number of recruits to the Russian army, creating negative forces in Jewish community between those in power and those who might get recruited, often poor/orphans …
So, try starting from a clean slate. How come similar people live their lives in US and other non-observant countries without being obsessed with sins of the government, but then do opposite where the country happened to be in EY and people in power happened to be Jewish. It is not that they want a choice to move to a non-Jewish state in EY – they could move to PA or Syria any time, just what is their problem; why can’t they find a way to live their life the way they want, accommodating demands of the government as Jews did over the centuries. If they demand more from the Medinah than from other medinos, then they are also zionists.
I tried posting what I learned from tag site, but it either got lost or filtered out. I’ll post just brief summary, if it is controversial, hopefully just the offending lines will be taken out:
tag has almost free option (one tim $25)
tag discloses that installation is free, but companies charge for filters
the disclosure is in small print, which is not a good midah but this is nitpicking
tag does not suggest free tools like openvpn that might be a good help for many people
tag does not seem to have serious discussion on how to deal with the problem – put computer in right places; talk to children; learn good things to do on computer, etc. This is I think is the major problem – insisting that filters are a technical solution to communication/education problem – this is a good emergency method to stop inappropriate behavior but it should not lure you into thinking that the problem is now addressed.somejew,
I am going back to your OM (opus magnus). You seem to be proving that we need to go over and thoroughly learn Vayoel Moshe because of his godlus. I don’t think it is a bad idea, but I don’t think you have to force people to do that.As many here posted, there are other respectable opinions out there – from those who are now cooperating with Medinah while barely tolerating to those who appreciate Israel’s role in giving homes to those who lost their homes to those who would hang the flag just one day a year to those who have hopes that Medinah will lead to something good in the future to those who think there is redeeming value in the Medinah despite shortcoming to those who were willing to work with Medina lehathila hoping to make it better to those, at the extreme, who think that Medinah can do nothing wrong. You may claim that some of the listed are not of sufficient stature, especially at the extreme, but there were many names posted here that are not disprovable by, for example, their association with other Talmidei Chachamim that you respect.
Thus, if I am not a Satmar, I do not have to rely on Vayoel Moshe if I am already following other mesoras. Same way, I don’t need to know all kavonos of all chassidishe rebbes before davening shacharis. I can rely on Gaon who did not learn those kavonos also. Now, if I were to insist that Vayoel Moshe is incorrect and a wrong shitah and makes a mistake – then I will be obligated to go research each of his heilike arguments one by one. But I am just not interested right now, no offense, but I have other lakunas in my Torah that I need to cover first. I might have done it were I to live in the time he published it. But right now, Medinah exists, it is full of religious Jew, b’h, so there are lots of other issues to deal with, such as whom to vote for in WZO elections. (can you write in Vayoel Moshe?).
Now, you insist that Vayoel Moshe is correct and every other gadol is not. To say that, you need to go and learn original sources of those you think are wrong and review their arguments. Thankfully, people here provided you a lot of references. Let us know which one you are starting with and let’s have a substantive discussion.
ZSK > significant plurality here is not going to agree with you
but this is a safe way for that group to get exposed to different opinions without risking physical exposure to army officers.
simcha > similar spiritual challenges occur when fathers and husbands realize they need to start providing for their families
part of the problem that charedi defense mechanism is based on isolation. I see same in US. My teens sometimes host friends from isolated towns – and some of them start doing questionable things the moment they are OOT. This is like someone who grew up in sterile environment and having no immunity against common diseases. So, the fears of exposure are partially reasonable and it is very reasonable to provide special units for such soldiers. I was reading about some charedim working on F-16 maintenance where get exposure to complex cognitive tasks and no serious challenge to the lifestyle. Hopefully, both sides can work jointly on figuring out a solution. Maybe those who learned how to search internet thru filters can join cyberunits 🙂
was it on the day of prayer that a son & a grandson of Meir Porush weer assaulted? I did not see it on front page here, as if safety & dignity of haredi politicians are not important.
Ard, there’s nothing in the Torah about protecting our spiritual values at the expense of other people and Hashem’s values. If you are carrying such a sentiment, you then presume that lives and spiritual situation of other Jews is of no value to you. I think the authors of these letters realize the difficulty. That is why they are smoothing over it by constantly putting together prayers for hostages and for those who don’t want to serve, trying to somehow latch to the prayers of the whole am yisroel.
But this only highlights the contradiction; Hashem please save the hostages, but not thru us. Esther tried that but then she listened to Mordechai.Zsk, I am not well versed in internals of tzahal. Would it be a case of rz having, on average, less interest in full time Army career, or is it that people tend promote people with similar values?
HaKatan, on the two actual claims at the end of your post:
Def rz and mo are not holding by 1. RJBS writes in many places about fallacies of non religious zionists on that.On 2, there are different opinions… RJBS hopeful in some cases and warning that, for example, megila says that jews should not feel safe anywhere, including in state of Israel. At the basic level, if you put aside history of animosity between different groups, what would be your problem with the state? It just happened that currently a group of jews, some religious, some not live in EY and they vote together how to fight enemies and how to collect taxes. We live among non jews like that in other countries. We lived in EY under bad Jewish leaders in history. We dealt with problems as they were presented. I don’t recall neviim recommending boycott of the state.
Litvishe rabbis of 100 years ago would be horrified if someone would charge them with solving social problems. In a crisis, many stepped up, like r Kotler saying that cpr sometimes requires breaking ribs. Now, someone had to deal with problems in the society created by several generations that lost balance in their life. I think we should not throw more societal problems on roshei yeshivos whose competency is in learning and making them address all the problems that were created in last 70 years. Get a group of professionals and businesses leaders and let them develop solutions, with proper halachik advice of course.
I am trying to understand shidduch strategy of guys who are not going into rabbanut, and will eventually need to look for a job – when they are looking for a girl or a shver who will support their learning for several more years. So, they are severely limiting their choices to a small number of rich girls, compromising on other issues, from middos to beauty, so that they can spend several more years not being responsible for the family, then go into subpar jobs due to their lack of skills and then having to support the wife used to rich life for the rest of his years. An alternative is so simple in our days: learn just 8 hours a day, work 6 to 8 hours a day, marry a wife of modest means and middos tovos who will raise great children and continue learning for decades to come.
From this, I am concluding, and unfortunately also observing, that guys who embark on this shortsighted path have to be seen with suspicion: either they have a feeling that they’ll fall apart outside of yeshiva, or they are a little lazy and use learning as an excuse, or they overestimate their own potential, or they and their parents have wrong ideas what Torah asks from jews …
Anon, are you sure. Wzo has large reform and anti religion factions, so the anti zionist vote in wzo will help to counter those votes.
Observer,
There is clear difference between halakha that is reasonably static over time and a psak that depends on a combination of issues at the time. Thus, r Shach deciding to participate more in Israeli politics is not a rejection of rabbis of previous generation.Rocky, so if you have enough backup to vote, you should now look into who to vote for.
Zsk > Modern Orthodox is about survival in the modern era as an Orthodox Jew
There is definitely an element of that, but the same is of the isolationist also, but both approaches have their own claim to actual Torah truth, not just Tactical survival. RJBS writes that I we hold to have access to Hashem’s truth then we should be able to relate to modern issues rather than hide in the cave.
Nonpolitical, it seems though that mo stereotypes are mostly based on charedi stated positions, while charedi stereotypes are based on projections. That is, if you tell that charedim do not want to work, you might get a response why it is a right thing to do. If you tell a mo that they are conservative, they’ll say it is not true.
Don’t drink and post
Chaim re deficit, you seem to be stating numbers in a weird way. First, deficit is spending- revenue. Given that revenue for the government is simply money taken from us, reduction in that is, by some opinions, good, but at least neutral. Revenue went from 18% of gdp to 16% during Trump years and then up to 20-21 for 2 years after that. Spending stayed flat at 20% until went up in 2020, so there was no extra spending pre covid. Defense spending, that is essential, was decreasing before and increasing during T years.
As to annual deficit itself, it indeed increased from .5t lowest during o years to 1t that was also seen in earlier o years. So, sum of t fiscal policies are: tax reduction, slight increase in defense, covid. I am sure you can argue with some of it, but not at all a disaster
Yeshivaman, thanks for the information.
But are you sure you are not a zionist in any form? If you are voting, you presumably care about wzo votes about issues in Israel? Don’t feel bad about this, I know one charedi rav who was asked by some non observant people if he is a zionist. He didn’t have a heart to say no, he said yes, in a sense of mehazir shehinaso ltziyon.Chaim, is tag giving instructions on how to deal with technology or only offering filters? I recall attending a presentation from a message I think from Baltimore that went through multiple things, including positioning computers in public places, negotiating rules with teens: buy a new iPhone in exchange for following new rules. Relying only on filters may not work: you are addressing symptoms not the problem and have a misleading feeling that you “addressed ” the problem.
HaKatan, usual assertion without the argument. What’s the point of taking your time to type this
BTW, if you go to moetzes website, it has RJBS photo in the list of former moetzes members right near r Silver