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On which arm does a lefty liberal does not put tefillin on?
CTL, I admit that this is a case where questions are not appropriate .. or maybe inappropriate questions are inappropriate. I am for AAQ, not for AAAQ – always ask any questions.
> In my own experience with “reading something”, conflating correlation with causation is a pretty common practice, particularly in polemical pieces and news articles,
I would not quote a news article to an esteemed chevra here as a possibility. So, we agree here. I meant that I saw a research paper and scanned it for conclusions, without reading carefully how research was conducted.
Note that google et al personalize your search results based on your history (middah k’neged middah, or they are letting you go where you choose to)… for some reason, I can’t find all these nasty things people here are saying are out there on Internets – what I search for, I got scientific papers as results. (or you can search scholar google com or books google com to begin with)
Legal liability is when you expose yourself to a risk of very high damages in US of A. For example, you run a corporation, and if your business fails,, you lose your business, but not all your private property. If you start behaving illegally, say, comingling your own money with corporate, this opens a way to lose everything you and your family have. (this is an illustration, not a legal advice, I am not a lawyer).
Same here, yeshiva may lose all their funds and licenses to a lawsuit by someone hit by a drunk yeshiva-bocher. Presumably, yeshiva is making use of donations, and I can’t imagine how one can risk someone’s holy tzedoka in such a way.
just get into the car before shabbos and it will stop at pre-defined time. Or make it work like shabbos elevator – stop at certain times for you to get in and then continue on the same path whether you get in or not.
n0 > Platonic Aristocracy.
Oh, I see where I made you upset. Platonic roshei yeshivot running the velt. It may be a great ideal, but I don’t think this reflects the practice. R Avigdor Miller testifies how great Talmidei Chahcamim were in Slobodka before WW1 – and how totally unmoved most of the people were.
I do agree that there is an element of aristocracy with Talmidei Chachamim maintaining their learning despite what happens aroud, but they are not existing in vacuum. I may be pushing beyond what I learned from my Teacher, who only related this to responsa, not to overall limud, so I am not like Rabbi Eliezer who taught only what he learned from his teachers …
n0 > Someone who is capable of answering shailos may do so even if nobody listens to him. Like, חליצה על ידי שליח. This nistar is a quick thinker who knows certain complex sugyos in his sleep. Certain conflicting topics are ran by him by some very big name poskim.
You are contradicting yourself: “if nobody listens” , and then “by some very big name poskim.”
Avira > don’t know why the words of 2 achronim, even if true, would establish enough precedent to overlook the baalei machshava throughout the doros
In the sprit of Purim, I would like to insist that this is not a foreign idea to you.
I presume most people here can’t parse most of the equations written by Albert Einstein. What makes you think you understand his neshoma?
He was very focused on understanding how the World was created, believing that there is an underlying unity of the world. Not just rejecting statistical view of the world as in “does not play dice”, but trying to uncover how multiple physical theories can be unified. This is solid scientific interpretation of Hashem’s creation of the world and he spent most of his later years pushing in this direction. He was probably Spinozian in the sense that he looed for universal laws only, not Hashem’s continuing role in the world, but I think Spinoza had more serious Jewish background that he consciously rejected.
CTL, I am with you on the suits. Gemora suggests dressing in black when going away to hide avonot …
You don’t have to look this way at inappropriate invites. Maybe chasidim do not see you as a potential chatan based on your suit, while the others care enough to ask. They may not know that you are not at that page and maybe they could use better approaches, of course. A bigger problem is when nobody asks or invites at all.
kaltlitvak> standards of frumkeit that mo adheres to is signifigintly less than that of the more yeshivish community.
Thanks for explaining yourself. Now I see where you are coming from. I don;t frankly understand this desire to measure standards and how do you define communities. There are standards that Torah and halakha defines, and after you pass that threshold, there are a lot of options and trade-offs. “Increasing standards”, often referred as chumros, is not an obviously good thing. The one with more nedorim is not necessarily the winner. Hanging around a yeshiva town without a job is not necessarily better than working as a doctor and learning at night. Being meikel in work environment is not worse than being meikel in taking welfare funds from non-Jews, or even Jews. I may be throwing back similarly inflammatory and stereotypical positions – not in order to rehash them, but just to show that this is not how you relate to people.
Anecdotally: I was telling an anecdote to a “yeshivish” hevrusa about an event that once happened with me when someone interested in Jews observed me for some time at the Army training polygon far from any Jewish presence. So, my hevrusah reacted – oh, you are wearing a kippah when in such places!? Not that there would be something wrong with not wearing it, but I first thought that this is his assumptions about me and Jews in work environment in general, but then I thought maybe this is how he thinks he would have behaved (based on the stories he was raised on), and he stays within 4 amos to save himself from the danger.
Avram, I am not claiming causation, just claiming seeing a report on that but did not look at what they analyzed. We don’t need to presume that the authors were stupid and do not know correlation from causation, so it stands teiku unless you want to google and read about it.
random > Score-as-much-as-you-can games that end only when a
loss condition is reached go back at least as far as TetrisRight, but that game never ended, no loss condition …
> What do you say about serious global halachic questions that are decided by an unkown talmid chochom sitting in kollel for twenty five years?
sounds intriguing. Sowa not contradict my thesis at all – someone decides to send him questions. I am not sure what are you trying to contradict.
Avira, I was not precise, we discussed specifically Polish responsa. I tihnk this is connected historically with overall decline of Poland during industrialization when they enjoyed being the most productive country while others to the West retooled… Jews being part of the economy developed accordingly.
I already commented on your really sick attitude of questioning credential of anyone quoted outside of your immediate knowledge. I presume YWM has a hidden list of Torah credentials that they do not allow to offend, I am not sure how one registers with the list.
Maybe we can zoom out and look at the big picture: Jews lived in subjugation for centuries under various despots. At least, we kept as a community when oppressed. In the last couple of centuries, it became even worse – Jews were still oppressed and the “easy” way out was through assimilation that many took. Communities were destroyed. As R Avigdor Miller testifies – 1938 Slobodka/Kovno there was a great yeshiva indeed, but nobody outside of the yeshiva was influenced by it, most surrounding Jews gravitated towards socialism, etc.
So, suddenly within less than a 100 years, Jews suddenly became capable of obtaining a viable state, and not just in Uganda, which would be an achievement by itself, but in EY! Go back in time and tell this to Yidden in 19th century – or even in 1930s Germany or Russia – and they’ll run to say Hallel on Yom Haatzmaut. Will you scare them by saying that half of citizens will be non-religious and read newspapers full of lashon hara?! They’ll say – is it better here where we live among Poles and Ukrainians?!
Avira, I see your point, we need a kosher leader who has a potential. Let’s put it this way – early Zioni settlers had some leaders among R Kook’s students, and even Menachem Begin later on… Can we join Ben Gurion expecting him to do teshuva? not an impossibility.
But probably a better answer would be to observe that Jews were coming not as a wall, many driven by persecution and economic problems, and the actual war was not a conquest but a defensive war. Presume, Israel is not formed yet, and Jews live comfortably in USA. I would also be not in favor of forming a Jewish army to attack, unprovoked, a unified Arab state that consists of Egypt/Palestine/Syria to conquer EY absent major signs min hashamayim.
American strength is in “scaling” to large organizations, so we are bound to use that midah, creating biggest yeshivos, biggest kosher food businesses, etc leaving it to French to create tastiest, etc.
Still, the problem with organizations is that responsibility goes to some person whom you do not know, and whose values may not be same as yours. Chofetz chaim who lived in the age of emerging political organizations opined that even in the organization consisting of Rabonim, the power will belong to the secretary … I also once (sic!) saw a Rav being on a panel discussing certain social issues pointed to another Rav on the same panel, who ran a way bigger organization, and mentioned that that Rav offered to join their efforts but he politely declined reasoning that he feels better being fully responsible for what his little mossad was doing … I presume that he mentioned this publicly for the benefit of the listeners.
WSJ? A paper that follows some journalistic standards. As the target audience are people making business decisions based on what they read there, there is some minimal incentive to avoid total lies like some other ones.
Carribean islands belonging to Netherland? I guess, NYC was also part of EU then.
R Twersky quotes R Sorotskin that Torah davka does not mention Moshe’s name around his yohrtzeit because Hashem does not want us to have Hero worship. So, all the discussions trying to find Moshe’s name in the parsha seem counter-productive.
An interesting point regarding legal liabilities to the Rebbe and the yeshiva. If true, a responsible yeshiva will advise Rebbe against such activity.
n0 > also advocate for better uses of time in general
this is true. Also important what is the trade off between. I believe (meaning read something, but did not check) that there is a general decline in teenage crime & pregnancies attributed to teens spending times on the phone instead of in malls & gangs.
n0, this is exactly what “indirect” elections are. Baalei batim direct their effort in certain direction and it indirectly affects Rabonim they do not control directly. Same, as a FCC or CDC chief may affect you iwth their decisions, but you have no _direct_ impact on their election, but do have indirect through all other elections you participated in.
This is not my idea, actually but a retort I got from a Talmid Chacham yearss ago. He was teaching about certain historical change in Ashkenazi teshuvos from business ethics towards pot-and-pan kashrus. So I asked what I thought was a sharp question – “so it is _your_ fault?”. He retorted – “No, it is _your_ fault”.
> they just value our religion less.
not sure I am reading this right, given unclear “we” and “they”, but whatever group it is – this “value our religion less” shows unusual capability of reading people’s hearts and minds. Are you counting value by money spent on lulav? yeshiva? by money not earned by not working productively? by spending more effort on learning? on chesed? on mesiras nefesh confronting sonei yisroel? so many factors and you figured out all of them just by looking at someone’s jacket? Hope I am misreading this.
GadolHadofi, thanks for the correction! Your version appears to be right. I definitely heard R Ouerbach, maybe my source confused kol vekol and added the name.
We definitely need to keep the right track of the yeshiva from where Moschiach will come!
YG > -My rebbe attended a very prestigious modern day yeshiva.
I was not doubting your rebbe’s education, just bringing good sources to support the practice. As R Avigdor Miller writes: European yeshivas had less people than now, but better education
So, it seems we identified the most difficult issue: will people accept a Moschiach from another group? What happens when Hashem sends him and he is not accepted?
Maybe we should start working on the achdus then rather than pushing for specific candidates and disparaging the ones we disagree …
R Kamenetsky also thought about it when he remarked in R Auerbach’s yeshiva that Maschiach is going to come from that yeshiva because they had top shiurim in Ivrit instead of Yiddish and thus making it accessible to non-Ashkenazim. Obviously, he meant that achdus is a prerequisite at least
for the M/ himself,, but maybe he meant that a Sephardi with Ashkenazi learning would qualify and get everyone’s respect?R Steinsaltz offered a more conservative “rely on Hashem” solution: he used to say that we mis-understand Gemora that if all Rabbis of one generation daven on the same street of Yerushalaim, M will come … it means that only when he comes, they all be able to daven together.
A final thought – maybe having M b Yosef and b David is to soften some of these acceptance issues? Yosef and David are abotu different styles of leadership, after all. So, maybe one will be moderni, one charedi, or one sephardi, one – Asheknazi, one – litvishe, one – chasidishe
so, if your preference is charedi/ashkenazi/litvishe, you may accept if at least 1 of the 2 is moderni/ashkenazi/litvishe or charedi/ashkenazi/chasidic or charedi/sephardi/litvishe
> The opinions of ordinary people will not count, not at all.
This is not correct. Jews have indirect electoral system:
People hire local Rabbis in a shul, support local schools, ask shailos and send their children and shekels to yeshivos. They also visit Rebbes and bring donations.
Local rebbes, melameds send their shailos and children to Talmidei Chachamim they consider best in learning and middos.
Eventually, this affects who is writing teshuvos, determines school curriculum, and becomes member of Meoetzes and Sanhedrin. Could a Talmid Chacham, like Rogachover, be recognized even if ordinary people do not appreciate him? yes, but only if other “accepted” TCim recognize him.
fallsburger > The secular world understands ad hominem attacks?
of course, you are right about average behavior. MSNBC and Foxnews comments ain’t better than YWN. But WSJ (sometimes) are. When Gemora says “yesh chochma b’goyim” did not mean that any drunk in the street is worthy listening to. When Rambam learnt Aristotle, he did not mean that any Greek is worth reading.
What SQRT means, I think, that we can find examples of people having proper behaviors and they are worth emulating.
Avram, thanks for correcting. Last “inappropriate” on discussions with Hashem was meant to be opposite, of course. R Yohanan’s remark to Resh Lakish seems to be inappropriate given that it lead to death and insanity of both … If there are other opinion, I’ll be happy to listen.
1a2b3c, thanks for the brochos!
This is a good example how ad hominems start – you see one typo or unclear thought (and there are lots of them in an informal formal) – and make assumptions about the person you do not know personally. If you were to hear the same from your hevrusa, you would just correct him without thinking much. Humanity will eventually develop better attitudes towards online discussions. As an example, I see my kids easily doing quality shopping online. They quickly take review in – which ones are fake, which ones are by not knowledgeable or stable people, etc.
We have an example of this in Hagada: both chacham and rasha say lachem “to you”. Difference is that chacham’s other words are respectful and knowledgeable. I would not be surprised that chacham would get dental injuries in a modern online forum.
Yeshivaguy > if a 9th grader would come to ask a 12th grader a question in learning or in hashkofah, the 12th grader would answer him warmly and cordially, being friendly.
I believe this is how Volozhin and maybe other early yeshovos operated, with Rabonim running major shiurim and after that older students helping younger ones. They did not have a full staff of babysitters.
well put, especially for online discussions. There is even less to gain here by questioning someone motives and putting people down, so we will be better served by responding to the logic.
That said, ad hominems got a bad name, especially in modernity, as so many people conduct baseless attacks on their opponents in the “free speech”/”everything goes” environment.
How do Jews deal with it? On one hand, we generally avoid ad hominems against Talmidei Chachomim – a lot of Gemorah discussions are based on someone reporting what he heard from his teacher’s teacher – and integrity of that is not questioned. On the other hand, we clearly check integrity of a witness, and discard his opinion when he is shown to be not kosher – especially
if his behave is trief in the area that is being discussed.an example of inappropriate ad hominem – R Yohanan commenting on Resh Lakish’ knowledge of sword making. examples of inappropriate ad hominems – discussions (Avraham, Moshe) with Hashem, insisting that He should do according to what He promised.
Cheap ploy. Most people here expect Moschiach to come from a yeshivish or, ok maybe, a chasiddish community. So, his language will be according to the school he attended.
Of course, one could observe that Jewish leaders were always expected to communicate well with the world – from Moshe’s education in the palace to R Gamliel having 1000 Torah students and 1000 Greek students in his household … So, either Moschiach will have to come from YU or Lakewood needs to improve on Yinglish classes. Maybe, though, Moschiach will come from lepers in Rome as Gemora suggests, so maybe he’ll speak Italian with the Pope.
akuperma> since when do we vote? it isn’t an elected position
I think some vote is expected, if not for a specific person: First two kings were appointed by a Navi Shmuel, after people _elected_ to have a king. Previously, Shoftim were appointed by some or other body. So, at minimum, Jews need to consent to having a ruler with certain powers, and then delegate, in some Republican manner, the actual appointment.
> This is not my Beis Hamikdash. This is not my kibbutz goliyos.
This is a dangerous thing to say… Like some JEws complained tht Moshe was not giving them cucumbers, or Ezra taking them into a sakonah. How do we know what Hashem’s plans are, just because things are not going the way you would have done that.
Re; expanding territories: indeed, if Jews are legitimately settled in EY, they are entitled to protect themselves, including creating defensive borders. If Arabs did not attack, one could have argued that there was no basis for expanding.
Avira > We are definitely not bound by them in the wars of moshiach – how else is he supposed to fight them?
And that may be the point of the disagreement. Some claim – controversially of course, that Medina is Reishit Tzemichat Geulateinu, and you would agree that – according to their shita – fighting is appropriate. So, you feel strongly that Medina has no value, then it is possible that fighting is not OK (although the UN vote argument might still hold). Of course, this is, again, a circular argument as you brought shevuos to show that their policies are wrong…
Now, both sides can bring arguments whether Medina is Reshit or not, we will know at due time, so, literally, Teiku.
does blended whiskey count as two?
what is the minimum (and maximum) shiurim?if you are plowing a field, see people marching to Yerushalaim, you ask them and they say “to greet Moschiach” -finish plowing and go. So, speculation may be for those who are not doing anything else, which might be an aveira delaying Moschaich’s arrival.
PS Plowing is _not_ a recommended job l’hathila, a clean and easy job is preferred.
Shimon > remnant holdover from prewar Europe,
R Berel Wein similarly (but with slightly different emphasis) traces the way non-religious parties relate to datiim in Israel to the history of Jews under Russia, where Russian government forced kahal to be in charge of selecting who will be drafted into Russian army, leading to corruption of the kahal, bribery, oppression of orphans, leading to the strife and alienation between leaders of Jewish community and the “masses”.
Gemora has a lot of conditions that describe Talmidei Chachamim, such as “merabim shalom b’olam”.
If you dismiss these issues just because other people are worse or “they started first”, seems like you are treating “yeshiva” as just “my team”, which kind of misses the point. Rav Salanter was holding the opposite: if a professor in Paris is spouting apikorosus, it means we in the yeshiva are doing something wrong.
> Let those who are fully able to do this mitzva properly do it without being told off or prevented in any way. And if you can’t handle alcohol, then stop pretending
Well, who is deciding whether the person is able to do it properly? Surely, someone who already decided that majority of poskim approve of this and reads MB accordingly is in the best control of his faculties to make the evaluation. As R Twersky writes – smarter alcoholics are hard to cure as they are good at coming with tirutzim justifying their behavior.
Halocha thrives on creating objective measures that leave nothing to Yetzer Hara to hang on: arba amot, 50 amot, etc. I see above such an emerging list – wine, at the end of seuda, being able to say birkat hamazon…
Police ask drunk drivers to say alphabet backwards and walk along a straight line. Maybe similar measures can be established? Recite mishnayos .. find Amalek posuk in Chumash
simcha> though I can’t say for sure if it’s my Yetzer Hara or my Yetzer Tov driving me
Both are OK, as long as you are not driving yourself.
It is ok to be ambivalent towards political movements, but that does not mean that you need to reject the good out there. One Rav told me that when someone asks him whether he is a Zionist, he refuses to say “no”. He says instead – yes, in the sense of “mehazir shechinato leZion”
Refuah Shleima!
Avira > they’re excluding themselves from the yeshiva worlds definition of the term gadol. So why are they upset when we don’t call them gedolim?
more true scotsmans here.
> there were gedolim who had positive views of the state early on, including the ponevezher rov. That doesn’t mean that they would say so now,
again. So, you easily presume that some “gedolim” were holding to their opinion due to the pressure of time. Then, others can say that Chazon Ish would change his opinion now, seeing how many kosher things happen in Israel. Your belief in daas Torah seems to be pretty shaky.
> But that view doesn’t mean that they believed in nationalism, or other foreign ideologies – they viewed the state as a Hatzolah, not as an ideal.
agree. And you deal with non-ideal reality, not withdraw from it. Jews are surrounding by “non-ideal” surroundings for centuries.
Avira > what we’re really saying is that to be a gadol beyisroel, one needs to be free of all foreign influence. One must have pure daas torah.
Please define what “free of foreign influence” is and what the source for that is. Was Rambam tainted by secretly reading Aristotle and studying Muslim science? Was Rabban Gamliel tainted by his atrsolobe and having 1000 members of his household studying Greek? Rav Salanter’s son was a mechanical engineer and an inventor and Rav was proud that he was able to re-engineer his son’s invention by seeing the drawings. Is mussar out now?
Avira > he said they’re real, and very important. And what he says fits into what the “derech moshol” might mean in the iggeres, but in no way has any authority ever said that the shevuos just don’t matter, or we can disregard them because they’re “just agadeta”, again, whatever that means.
I think we now agree here that the shevuos are, on one hand, important and are there to guide our attitudes but, on the other hand, not simplistic halachik conclusion that any movement towards EY is verbotten unless it is fully in conformance with Beis Shammai. In fact, I recall Vilna Gaon’s commentary on Hagada HaLachma Ani is that Jews will first go to EY and only later become Bnei Chorin.
Des[ite some Rebbes here admiring themselves and their colleagues, there are, unfortunately, enough teachers who are suboptimal even in their sober state, kal vahomer drunk. I presume every Teacher who understands the challenge of his job would think thrice before diminishing his capacity. Maybe a better question would be a testimony of how gedolim behave on Purim. Chafetz Chaim? R Aharon Kotler? Rav Soloveichik? Rav Feinstein?