Always_Ask_Questions

qwerty, sorry for repeating that idea, I just find it very relevant. I agree that people are different, but I was pointing out that the same issue was apparent at the time – combination of glorious past, with current ignorance and dedication.

DaMoshe, could such schools run on a small budget while the emregency is ongoing?
pulling several classes together? classes in homes instead of a separate building?

phil> Throughout the generations many Jews have left the fold, never has there been this concept of trying to reel them back

seriously? I suggest opening any book of Navi and see them addressing people doing various aveiros. For a random example, see R Gamliel, I think, talking to people distraught by the BM destruction who refuse to drink wine, eat meat, etc – probably early members of some sect or new religion. He is presenting them with a logical argument, trying to change their behavior. Overall, efforts of “teaching Torah” include not only learnng pilpul with young rab onim. but also teaching ignorant ones. See R Akiva teaching kaddish to a son of Roman tax collector.

Say, you have a problem with multi-generational reform Jews or Ivy League grads running with the red flag, but I am sure you can find some small-town ignorami or russian immigrants whom you could help. Did you?

user, so you think it is normal that Jews behave like that? Middos should be discussed in schools and shuls.

fake> When I do it, it�s because I spaced out

when I do it, I make clear that I am wrong – ask to be let in, le someone pass, waive my hat

Chaim,
true all schools everywhere need to rely on donations, but tuition is the starting point …

Let’s put two of your questions together – is it worth going to college? can we pay tuition? your answers seem to contradict each other – there are great ways to do without college and, no, we dont have money to pay for schools… there is no same answer for everyone, of course, but college is a proven way to get good pay & benefits at minimal risk for a large swath of middle class. Going into business involves risk, which may be hard for a head of a family and leads to ethical dilemmas in how you treat other people and taxes. Ideally, one should get education and have a solid profession and then go into business – whether in the same profession or otherwise. Then, there is no yetzer hara to do something wrong as you have a profession to fall back on. This is nothing new – it is in gemora Kiddushin 30something + last page.

Touro is a good tool for people who are not fully prepared at high school and can get reasonable education in kosher environment. Online and diploma mill is also a good tool, provided it is not a total scam. I know people who post-lakewood planned to go into health sciences or even MD, they have talent, interest, and support of their hopeful wives – but often lack skills in reading and math to pass exams, so they spend several years, trying to get in.

I don’t know the whole story, (and not sure whether I want to know), but there should be more here.

Let’s say it is a great school and suddenly half of parents do not pay. Maybe they all worked under the same dude selling Amway or selling iphones to each other on Amazon. So, what stops the school from adjusting – combining classes – same or sequential years – and finish the year this way? It is more likely that the parents were not happy with something in school.

Overall, our educational system is not fully competitive the way gemorah describes it – where everyone can open a home-based school and neighbors can’t complain. That is, unlimited competition to enable poor parents to afford a teacher. Our schools are vertically integrated – doing multiple classes – and often create niche monopolies by specializing in hashkofa. That is, the parents have very little choice and that choice comes in big decisions and high switching costs.

Alternative ideas:
– encourage small schools that do one or small number of years – so that it is easy to start a new one. Rav Ruderman and Rav Kamenetsky had an insensitive 2nd grade rebbe in their litvish town – but it was one year only. Next year was a different rebbe in a different yard.

– tzedokah and subsidies should go directly to parents rather than to schools, so parents should bring money with them to the school of their choice. This is school voucher system that exists in many states.

– maybe money should follow the individual teachers, based on parent feedback. Again, enables teachers to switch schools if they are not rteated well.

yankel on Poland:
there is a good reason so many Jews moved to Poland (including areas taken later by German/AustroHung/Russian empires).
When Poles were rebelling against Russia, Jews generally supported Poles. In 1918, I think, Poland became independent again and was going through a complicated period trying to figure out how to live on their own + with significant minorities + surrounded by enemies. So did Polish Jews who went through assimilation and participated in left-wing, often anti-Polish activities. When Soviets occupied their part of Poland in 1939, they mostly put Jews on front lines of the new regime interacting with population (as there were more communist Polish Jews than Poles and to directly increase the tensions).
So, there is a lot of very complicated dynamics here, without denying bas things that were happening. Anecdotal direct testimony from a left-wing Yid: his father had a factory in Poland, the factory was moved by Germans, he himself spent WW2 in Soviet camps. When he came back, his Polish workers suggested to work for him for free until he is able to reconstruct the factory. He told them that he learned how USSR operates and has no hopes, and left for EY.
There is also aspect that post-WW2 US history of that period influenced by left-wing Jewish historians who would not investigate obvious Soviet crimes against both Poles and Jews but rather write big books investigating events by Poles. Check out, for example, history of Katyn’, where Soviets killed most of captured officers of Polish army (remarkably, seems nobody agreed to cooperate) – including a lot of Jews, including army chief Rabbi. Germans uncovered and publicized this when they captured that territory, but USSR and allies denied this as “German propaganda”. Russians admitted the truth. I think, in the 1990s. As far as I know, Jewish/Israeli historians never challenged this. If someone is near Yad Vashem asked them to show you the name of Polish Army Chief Rabbi and see what they answer.

ishpurim> you should be allowed to cut in front of a single driver.

The issue of the rabim is appropriate when you are allowed to do that. For example, a bus stopped at a bus stop – you should not go around it if the bus has more people than your car has. But cutting in front should not be allowed. As someone mentioned, most people don’t do it in a human line – because they see humans in front of them. It is lack of basic sechel to understand that there are people inside the cars you are cutting of.

I asked recently a shailah – whether I should yield to an almost empty bus, when I am driving minivan of kids to school. The rav suggested that yes – there is no respect to a bus driver per se, only when he is carrying rabim. I am thinking that slowing him down when he is on the way to pick up rabim or even having a break still affects the rabbim. Anyway, I value a moment when the kids are a captured audience, and I can model good middos for them. I sometimes suggest them counting how many opportunities we get to let someone in the lane in front of us. This almost lead to a crash recently – my daughter while learning to drive, started abruptly braking on a major road attempting to let someone waiting to merge. Maybe if you popularize this middos approach in your locality, things on your road will improve.

PS For those who insist that these people are on the way to the hospital – put a talles and emergency lights so that people understand that you are driving like that for a reason.

Blue,
it seems that you are reading or listening to something that makes you so offended, leading to you considering others so offensive to you that you are now allowed to use any means possible to fight the “evil”. No wonder you notice that even people in your shul are reporting you to police, if I parse your statements correctly. As Satmer suggest, try – for a little while – live ehrliche Jewish life and see if police is still pursuing you. Then come here and report.

For the sake of the argument, every min doesn’t have to be every specie, one type of elephants would be enough.

2) Im trying to explain R Avigdor Miller�s position not try to argue with you

We agree there is precedent to taking on chumras
We agree that taking on chumras can be a good thing
We agree that Rabbi Miller favored chumras over kulas

Are you arging in front of a goyishe judge? You bring half of the material here.

I hope you agree (at least many classical sources do, as I quoted)
chumros are also dangerous and need to be administered by a doctor and individually, etc.

I presume R Miller saw American Jewry in such a sorry state that he recommended collective taking of a mass dose of antibiotics.
There is a lot of justification for this view, especially in his time and place.
Still, at some point it is time to detox, but the patient forgot the difference between food and rugs. Addiction has to be treated, see R Twersky, not your local drug dealer. I understand I am jumping between metaphors here …

coffee > The difference is chareidim conform their life to the Torah (Torah being the ????) whereas MO conform the Torah to your life (your life being the ????)

I just heard someone on the other side from you formulating how he sees the charedi side: checking if H’V someone somewhere enjoying eating something to osur it.

The issue of chumras is discussed on maseches Nedarim and it is clearly a double-edged sword: sometimes they are good if they help you to improve yourself; and sometimes they are bad as your motivation is off, you reject what Hashem provided you with, etc [in gemora: I ate only once from a karban of a nazir when I saw his motivation was pure].

Here are several ideas how to measure your chumra level:

– when you do a halocha, you can look up Sh’A to see what is right. If you do a chumra, there is no good measuring stick, you depend on your sechel

– for most middos, the middle is the best (Aristotle, Rambam Hilchos Deos). When you have a problem with middos, you should correct yourself. Sometimes, by going to the opposite side of the middah until you train yourself and then you go back to the middle. Ask chacham about middos same way you ask doctor about body sickness.

– when a person needs a chumra, it is his own chumra (see previous). When multitudes do the same chumra [as their leader], it is usually off [I think this is Chasam Sofer]

– if your chumros are overwhelmingly bein Adam ‘Makom, then it is probably wrong. If a person is doing chumros and then fails in basic bein adam l’havero, then he is definitely wrong.

– Bava Kama suggest 3 ways to become a chosid – nezikin/brochos/middos. If you and everyone around you use only one gate and two are standing empty, it is a problem.

So, now that R Landau and R Hirsh told bochrim to stay and learn, can charedim organize their own force to catch those who disobey this psak and deal with them in a beis din, before they get caught by civil authorities. This would be a good step towards learning how to run a country.

There seem to be halachik reasons against chumras, quoting from secondary sources:

1) R Moshe – do not make chumros that all poor people will not be able to afford. In regards to a proposal to use only new sticks for matza baking

2) Gittin 5 – do not add extra text to Gittin – that is disrespectful to rabbis of previous generations who did not use the chumra. [This seems to be taken care of by claiming that previous rabbis performed same chumros]

3) Da�at Torah(???? ?? ???? ?) – seems to be your case, qwerty – one should not come to a meal and then refuse to eat something and publicly refuse to eat something there when it is supervised

4) There is a story about R Moshe, I hope I remember it right – he was invited at a simcha to eat at the front table that had yashan. He refused out of fear that people will point out that R Moshe only ate at that table.

Is this a serious problem? If you have people who work hard, earn little, and then feel pressure to spend beyond their means, it is a very serious problem.

People who do not understand it, do not understand that “gelit is tzeit and tzeit is Toirah” – they probably either live in their parents’ basement or have government support.

It seems that the first source of the problems is non-cooperation of some states & cities in arresting “worst ones”. Do we hear of ICE abuse in red states? not so much.

So ICE responded with escalation and arresting who they can. Is it a governmental response to report required numbers? Or is it a deliberate policy to “negotiate” with those states? I don’t know. Anyway, it seems when there are excesses, real or possible, there is public opinion reaction and government reacts to that, so the system works as it should. So far.

But those who honestly have a problem with these cases, rather than making a political point – should go and help ICE arrest criminal aliens and resolve the problem. Maybe organize patrols near police stations, make citizen arrests when someone is let go by local police and call ICE and use your whistle to call ICE.

YYA> In simple English, the rationale boils down to one line: �If they will anyway have boyfriends/girlfriends [=???], better they should have Jewish boyfriends/girlfriends than Goyish ones

I am not sure I can fully summarize Rav’s arguments, I think they change between different teshuvos and speeches. But here is some of it (from 1950s):
– most modern women get various ideas and opportunities in non-Jewish culture and they need to be knowledgeable in Jewish values to understand why they are different and better than alternatives (he is not talking Brooklyn, same way as R Avigdor Miller’s advice is not for those at Harvard).
– some of modern women, those who have/are getting high secular education, are capable and require same level of Jewish learning.
– having separate classes will mean that girls education will be at lower level than boys and the goals needed above will not be achieved.

I would note that Rav presumes that American Jews will be involved in American culture and education as a given. I am not sure to what degree he approves of it for “masses”, but he simply takes it as a fact. For example, he criticizes Mizrachi who come to US to only fundraise for Israeli education – mostly from first generation Americans. He says – think that Israeli Jews will get something anyway, but second-generation American Jews might disappear (and not donate to Mizrachi). He says I was able to open the high school, I am not asking you for money, but I am stunned that none of you offered to help.

On the subpar Jewish education for girls, I can see the argument at the time. I think it is only partially true today. We seemingly have lots of schools for girls. And as a parent, I don’t want my daughters to focus on what the boys are learning (and, to be truthful, same goes for sons :). And YU has separate college for girls, and so do many MO schools. At the same time, those girl schools often make girls incurious and spend time to indoctrination in skirt length and not using cellphones (that they are all using). I know it is important, but I also know that they love talking at home about actual learning.
So, to summarize, I would characterize Rav’s push for co-ed learning as haraas shaah, similar to Chazon Ish’s hiding in a desert. None of my kids went to co-ed so far, not counting online colleges, and this does not contradict my respect of the Rav.

YYA> Among Sephardim who went to Ashkenazi institutes of higher Jewish learning, I believe there are more in Yeshivish places than in YU style places.

I think many of them, including charedi T’Ch are more accepting of non-charedi positions on various social issues. As you probably know a joke about a lady who sat down near a rov on a bus to annoy him and caused a scene. Next day, she sat down near Sephardi rav and he paid no attention to her. When questioned why he did not upheld kavod Torah, he humbly responded: Hu rav, ani – chacham.

I once heard a sephardi ashk-yeshivish-educated moetses-following rav giving a chanuka dvar Torah, who never ever quoted anyone RZ, highlighting military aspect of Chanuka. I needled him (in private) “you sounded like a hidden Zionist”, to which he answered, to my amazement: “why so hidden”. I was not quick to answer – because you said this only in private …

qwerty> something that a frum Jew did that totally turned her off from the religion.

There is a story about R Eliezer Silber visiting Yidden just freed from Nazi camps. One of them said that he lost his emunah after observing someone “frum” who smuggled a siddur in the camp – and then every day lent it to others and taking their meager food rations as payment. Rav challenged him – this is one person, but what about hundreds of people who borrowed his siddur in order to daven for a day who gave away their last food?

YYA> Even if I don�t know what exactly �Chareidi� is,

You keep harping on the “charedi” self-identification. I don’t really care. Was Rambam charedi? I asked here before – and would he be now?
When I started wondering whether Rambam in our times will go to Lakewood or to MIT first (nobody answered here), someone said – to Lakewood, because after MIT, he will not be admitted to Lakewood.

I gave an example of two T’Ch who mutually respected each other, disagreed on a number of issues, and also were both connected with multiple other respected rabbis, with whom both sometimes agreed, sometimes disagreed. Let’s say, you are a pashute kosher Jews totally disconnected from this internal football, say, a Persian or a Teimani, landing in NYC. You know what Torah is, you can read it by heart, you know Rambam and S’A … So, you listen to these two T’Ch. Do you have a way to select which one of them is the “real Torah”, or maybe you decide that both have value, and you show both a good Sephardishe respect.

For example, on co-ed high schools – R Soloveitchik writes certain rationales for this. He was certainly aware of all possible objections. In fact, his first response from a shaila from NY board in 1950s was that he is not going to respond to such a provocative topic without an assurance that someone needs it. Only when they wrote back that they bind themselves to follow his psak, he writes a full answer. In truth, some of his rationales are somewhat outdated and may not apply in our times – and a lot of serious MO schools are indeed not co-ed any more.

rescue> Try walking into a store in one of our communities not dressed in the latest outfits. People won�t treat you like a human being.

I walked into the Bobove shul on shabbos some decades ago, dressed in a decidedly modern suit. When the Rebbe Z’L walked in briskly, he made a beeline from the row of shtreimels waiting to greet him to shake my hand.

YYA> �cursing� a king, not �criticizing�.
the difference is not that big given how people “criticize”.

years ago, I actually got a psak to behave with respect towards pretty wicked (literally, not metaphorically is it is often used) political Jews. So wicked that I am, like Baba b Buta, scared to say their names even anonymously. When I responded – how can I show respect to such a vile person, the (charedi) Rav said “just show respect to his position”

I understand your attitudes towards your PM. Most other people in Israel have their own reasons to not like him – except when they need him… My attitude towards Bibi is biased by an early observation. In the mid 90s when he was dealing with difficult Clinton-time political situation, I happened to read his father’s book on Abarbanel. The main thesis of the book seems to be that despite all his involvement with the government, Abarbanel somehow missed that moment when expulsion edict was promulgated. He tried everything he could to fight back, but failed. Seems like a life of achievements ended with a failure at the most important moment. But that was not the end of the story – Abarbanel switched to supporting the exiles in places where they settled, giving them nechama and an attitude on how to look to rebuild in the future. It struck me at that moment how this was prescient to what the author’s son was dealing with in Israeli politics. I shared this observation with several people and they found it reasonable. That was before Bibi had to do with several other crises over these years …

> Wishful thinking?
yes, but better than an alternative. One of the motivations for LH is said to be an indirect way to boost own self-esteem. It is silly to always claim how smart you, or your group, are – but you can achieve the same relative boost by tearing others down.

coffee, refuah shleimah. I hope you appreciate your Jewish doctor who is more likely to be MO than a BMG grad.

Part of the argument is that “MO” is not well defined. It could mean students of R Soloveitchik (TMP true MO) or it could mean your local members of kiddush club (KMO kiddush MO). …

coffee> Those things are only because of the modern part of modern orthodoxy in other words if those weren�t American values I don�t think modern orthodox would be machmir in those things

Could be. But then NMOs (non-modern O) might be machmir on something just because Americans are for it …Presumably, TMOs who were to live in, say, Stalin’s Russia would not be copying Stalin’s values. Anyway, values are values. As I mentioned, being an erliche and qualified doctor produces a lot of chesed, and I hope you have a good one and appreciate him.

> Also �Torah lishmah�? Who are you kidding? The only way to get MO to a shiur is by offering food

These are KMOs. TMOs learn either at their shul or at a local kollel after a long professional day. They choose which classes to attend without a need to show kavod to a high-position rav. When they teach, they don’t worry whether someone will pay them or that someone will find their teaching deficient … H’V I am saying that NMOs are generally learning lo lishmah, but there are challenges to overcome. Some of my kids are volunteering in kiruv, and they have several NMOs and MOs participating. NMOs are regularly absent when there is a paying babysitting opportunity, or even when they fulfilled their school “chessed” quote.

> is deliberately trying to maintain an endless state of [at least low simmer] war and fear in order to strengthen his political position.

this is an example of LK we are discussing. In US, politicians are almost exempt from libel laws in favor of free expression. Do we have a similar exemption for Jewish public figures, whether they are tzadikkim or not? Bava, in Bava Basra, is very careful not to criticize a king, presumably mostly out of fear, but maybe not also. Maybe if we ascribe good intentions to politicians, they’ll have to behave accordingly?

Baruch> You want to argue with Trumas Hadeshen? With the Gemara?

I don’t think your opponent said that the sefer is fake. But it is possible to bring some of the opinions, rather than a variety of different opinions. Especially, when the issue is so sensitive. So, the question for you is – are there are other opinions and how we see all of them in different context. For example, about 100 years ago, sheitels were not considered tzanua, just the opposite.