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Mentsch, when the toeva marriages issue was an issue, i heard the same from basically every gadol who spoke about it. Rav aharon shechter, rav hilel david…i can’t remember all of the names i heard back then.
i know of some chasidishe rebbes who endorse democrats in general, but their rabbonim who were considered gedolei yisroel, such as rav yechezkel roth, etc..have made no such pronouncements when the candidates support such things.
The reason is simple; how are we allowed to do something which will further chilul Hashem and promote violations of the Torah? Goyim must keep the 7 mitzvos, and these laws contravene them.
I’ve never heard a rational heter for voting for such a person. It’s not about chanifa, or praising the politicians… you’re allowed to do that to further our causes; you can honor reshoim for legitimate purposes. But you can’t do actions which will cause spiritual calamities to happen, and voting does that.
Mentsch, rav belsky told me explicitly that it is assur to vote for a candidate who will support toevos, etc..
And when both candidates support it, he told me not to vote.
Mentsch – i stand corrected; i didn’t know that it was the norm to eat or otherwise use the animals that they kill. I found out that it’s actually illegal in most states to kill for the fun of it without using the animals.
Cs, seforim say that shuls and batei medrash will fly there…where does it say that houses will?
Mentsch, how many hunters eat what they kill? Very, very few. I do agree that hunting for food is perfectly moral.
Cs, why does it matter so much to chabad the way that they’re seen? Not as yidden, but specifically that people should appreciate and think favorably of their specific group and their specific rebbe.
Why is the phrase “kiddush chabad” a thing?
Why is it that all other sects care only about chillul/kidush Hashem, and how the world views Torah jewry, irrespective of if they’re litvishe, satmar, sefardi, or anything else? Is the image of chabad and its leader more important than the image of any other entity which subscribes to Torah Judaism?
A broken clock is right twice a day
A nutjob who touts innumerable conspiracy theories will get one right every few decades… So what?
Yserb, what other dangerous items are limited in quantity? Knives, lighters, matches, bows and arrows, electric appliances, flammable gases, propane, legal fireworks… All can be dangerous. But US law doesn’t impose any bans on them.
And my example of pets isn’t very good, because in that case, it’s due to animal cruelty laws
Yserb, that’s zoning issues, I’m talking about commodities. Items that one can buy legally. We don’t have laws which mandate how much of a given item you can own.
The only thing i can maybe see comparable is that some locales have limits on pet ownership.
Nom, are you saying that religious fervor is something admirable?
I’m surprised, because you seem to prefer being apathetic about religious issues, except for an apparent soft spot for neo chabad.
Edited
The bardichever said that goyim treat their churches with great respect and never talk during prayers, whereas yidden have a millennia struggle with such things, because the yatzer hora tells goyim to pray, and yidden to talk.
All of the flare and passion which comes easily, with just learning sichos, or singing, shows merely a religious fervor, not genuine avodas Hashem. Real passion for torah comes after the struggle of learning how to learn gemara, the sobering pain of failure, both in learning and in mitzvos… When the passion comes quick, it’s never a good sign
It’s just like fresh baalei teshuvah; the excitement isn’t forever and it’s superficial important, yes, but only as much as what it’s put into
Cs, Oh wait…i misread what you quoted; my apologies. The Arizal, according to what you wrote, wasn’t talking about moshiach dying .. Moshe didn’t die on har sinai.
Cs, i do not believe that such an Arizal exists, because if it did, it would have been discussed here at some point, or one of the dozens of Lubavitchers who I’ve debated with would have told me, or i would have seen it in the messianic literature.
But I know very few maamarim of the Arizal, so please let me know if you find something like that, and we’ll discuss it.
I do appreciate your tone though; it’s refreshing.
As for Moshe and the soton’s image…no one thought Moshe rabbeinu was moshiach ben dovid, the final redeemer.
The nisayon of seeing Moshe dying wasn’t a yatzer hora of “let’s see if the jews believe Moshe died,” because what if he did? People die. Tzadikim die too.
The nisayon was what they did with that information. They reacted by saying not that Hashem will appoint another leader, and that they trust Him, which would have been fine… they said that Moshe had independent power, and they are lost without him. They have no way of reaching Hashem without him, so they chose something to be the go-between that they never needed…the egel was something that they saw on the kisei hakavod, and they gave it the same independent importance and holiness that they mistakenly gave Moshe.
Did Aharon know that Moshe was alive? Maybe. Maybe not. That wasn’t the point.
Zetruth…where to begin…
Cursing is something chazal say not to take lightly, the curse of a simple person, or his blessing. (Megilah 16, a, statement pf rebbe eliezer in the name of rebbe chanina)
All the more so the curse of a tzadik.
And we see clearly from chumash how yaakov was worried about being cursed by yitzchok. There’s also a lo saaseh to curse another jew in chumash.
So that premise is wrong.
Now we get to your other premise, that we are supposed to forgive everyone and pray that no harm comes through us. B’nfol ouvecha al tismach, do not rejoice at the fall of your enemy, etc..
That applies to yidden. When it comes to the umos haolam, we daven for our enemies downfall. Kel nekamos Hashem, etc… it’s all over our davening.
We will never forgive hitler, for instance. I think you’d agree with that.
And failing to save Jews is something that would definitely warrant a curse.
By “slippery slope,” i am referring to the government being able to dictate how much of something you can own, based upon its determination of how much of that you “need ”
It’s a communist-esque idea, and while it may be intended initially for safety, it creates a dangerous precedent. They might say that you don’t need more than 2 cars, 1 house, 1 vacation house…20 changes of clothing… Enough food for a week …
We don’t have any other commodity that is regulated by such an idea, as far as i know.
yserb, i was wrong about Texas; they have high gun ownership and a massive amount of burglaries, the most in the nation.
But Texas, despite loose laws, only has a 35% gun ownership rate
Other states which have a high number of gun ownership of over 50%, Including vermont, Maine, Alaska, have fewer burglaries.
So it’s not clear; you can find some states with more guns and more burglaries, others with fewer burglaries.
But the states with the highest percentage of gun ownership do seem to not have more burglaries than the average.
We’ve also discussed why the rambam says “killed,” and it’s not a diyuk, because the word next to it is “if he was not successful to this point, or was killed”
Dying would mean “not successful to this point”
And killed is used because he’s fighting wars, so that’s what typically happens when fighting, as in the case of bar kochva
Cs, despite the work of Lubavitch in Russia, yiddishkeit was not “kept alive.” If you don’t believe that, check out Brighton beach and see how many frum people there are. Not a lot. 99% of Russian jewry totally were and are secular.
And others worked on their behalf too, including rav Yitzchok zilber, as mentioned earlier in this thread. He taught Torah in secret, and anyone who is frum either had him to thank or chabad, or both. Usually the latter.
And it’s unfalsifiable that the Lubavitcher rebbe killed him. He could say he was doing something in shomayim; I’m sure he did what he thought was some sort of kabbalistic act. But do you think other tzadikim weren’t davening for him and Russia to fall? How do we know any more than, say, if a televangelist had made similar claims?
I looked up the doctors plot. Historians are not clear on the details, and there’s no direct evidence that stalin was planning genocide against Jews. On the surface, it is agreed upon that it was a plan to purge the communist party of people stalin didn’t like, and 6 out of 9 of the doctors accused were Jewish. I don’t know if that’s sufficient, because many doctors are jews. There are only second hand accounts of stalin planning to deport jews or worse. And one report says that he wanted to deport them all to the Jewish Autonomous Zone, which actually would have been a net gain, because they probably would have not intermarried and would have been able to stay frum, to an extent.
I actually was not familiar with the sources you quoted, but there isn’t a contradiction to the rambam and there’s no second-coming-after death or partial accomplishment either. Rashi compares it to Moshe rabbeinu, who was known to the yidden, but had not done any redemptive acts. He then was hidden and returned, so these opinions in chazal(which are not standard in achronim who talk about bias hamoshiach) are saying that moshiach will be known, and then disappear, and then return to redeem us.
But no one said a word about dying. Because that would be disqualifying, as was the case with bar kochva. As soon as he died, everyone agreed he was not moshiach. They didn’t say that he would return.
And the rambam is clearly talking about retaking eretz yisroel, as he says all of the enemies “misaviv,” surrounding us, paired with “gathering all of the exiles”…bar kochva was most certainly fighting to retake eretz yisroel and restore Jewish sovereignty, as will be the case when the real geulah happens.
Aaq, communism “mellowing” after stalin is little comfort to the millions of jews who were shmaded subsequently, and their descendants.
Yserb, i personally don’t see a need for more than one gun per person, because I don’t believe in hunting. But Americans do, and a firearm for self defense isn’t ideal for hunting, according to those who engage in the barbaric activity – and goyim are allowed to do so under the 7 mitzvos, so it’s not something we have to fight against.
One can ask why a person would need more than one set of kitchen knives, too; i don’t know if it’s a fair law in practice. I don’t know of a correlation study between the amount of guns owned by an individual and the propensity for violence.
I agree with lowering the amount of guns overall, and theoretically limiting the amount one can own will do that to an extent, but not a large enough extent that would justify the precedent of the government limiting people’s ownership of legal items…we don’t have such a law anywhere else, and it can be a slippery slope.
Now if it can be shown that ownership of many weapons increases the chances of violence, then maybe i can support it. But a lot of the motivation seems to be because “big scary gun” goes together with “big scary arsenal” and “big scary magazine”
I don’t think those things make much of a difference.
A mass shooter really could do the same amount of damage with a glock and a few magazines, as he would do with an ar-15.
Actually, i think rifles are safer than small guns, because they can’t be concealed; theres a reason why laws regarding long guns are far more lax than handguns…while used in mass shootings for some reason that probably only psychopaths understand, thats about the only time they end up hurting people; handguns account for over 90% of all gun violence, because they’re concealable and portable.
but i think that regulation should come from the top down; limits on shops and manufacturing, but in terms of what a consumer can own…it seems like an overreach.
Aaq, plenty of people walk into a young Israel and become frum. It happens out of town all the time, and it happens in NYC sometimes too. Very few just show up in a chasidishe place or a litvishe beis medrash, however.
Litvishe kiruv is not about shul as much as community kolelim, and they are very successful
Yserb, i didn’t say to throw in the towel. I meant that you can’t drain all of the guns from law abiding citizens while criminals will continue to have them. Limiting future manufacture makes sense, and down the line, you can start limiting sales, while keeping the ratio between legal guns and the availability of illegal weapons equal.
You don’t want a situation where criminals run amok terrorizing an unarmed civilian population. The reason why rural areas have less crime is because people are armed.
And it’s not NRA propaganda: many, many invasions are prevented by gun ownership. And the possibility that the home owner is armed is a powerful deterrent. The amount of break ins in Texas, is not the same as new York City, and there’s a good reason for that.
I do agree that it’s rare that there’s a hero who stops a murderer because he was the good guy with a gun. But that’s because not all that many people carry guns; if more did, it would happen more often.
Not that i think everyone should do that; just explaining the numbers.
And again, you’re falling back on the “big scary gun” talking point. I suggest learning a bit about firearms first. I did, because i found the gun rights debate interesting. A 9mm Glock pistol is every bit as deadly as a rifle. Just one is longer and scarier looking.
Cs, chezkas moshiach is only personal traits? This is totally off The rambam clearly mentions bringing back yisroel to teshuvah(ALL of them) nd fighting the wars as a chazakah. He has to be hogeh batorah, too
It says he will bring all of yisroel to keep the Torah. Are all or even a quarter of yisroel keeping the Torah, 2 and a half decades after the Lubavitcher rebbe passed away? No. They’re not. Chabad are not the only ones taking over frei shuls; many litvishe and MO rabbis are as well.
And in those chabad houses, are they all suddenly becoming frum? Usually it’s old timers who maybe keep a few things, maybe eat a Shabbos seudah before watching TV.
And don’t get me wrong, it’s great to keep even one mitzvah. Abstaining from sin for a minute is huge, too. But that has nothing to do with the criteria for moshiach.
And once more, as mentioned ad nauseam, the rambam says that of a messianic candidate doesn’t finish his job, and dies, he is not moshiach at all, he is disqualified. He will not return to “finish” – that’s Christian second-coming ideology, and it’s not Judaism.
As for fighting the wars and defeating our enemies; again, the rambam says “all” “misavev”, that didn’t happen.
Of course, the whole remote controlled killing theory is unfalsifiable. Maybe it was the satmar rov who killed stalin? Maybe it was the belzer rebbe? All of klal yisroel were davening for the Soviet union to fall
I’m not dismissing the idea of a tzadik being po’el things in shomayim to save klal yisroel, end gezeros, daven for the fall of our enemies, etc… But it’s not what the rambam is talking about. He’s talking about retaking eretz yisroel, and his example is bar kochva.
And again, Stalin’s death meant almost nothing to the spiritual plight of Russian jewry. I’m not familiar with a plan to commit a Holocaust, but even if that were the case, the Soviet union was the “enemy” and it prevailed. And when it fell, it had already shmaded, r”l, millions of our brethren. That’s not a messianic victory, it’s a tragedy of historic proportions.
Also, stalin was one of many enemies of the jews. After his death, nothing improved in the Soviet union for Jewish people either .. The persecution continued unabated for decades.
And what about all of the other enemies? There were still tons of extremist Muslim terrorists, neo Nazis and Jewish persecutors, such as militant anti religious Zionists.
Cs, an army of shluchim is not a sign of a Messiah. That army was not “kofeh kol yisroel” to keep the Torah, as the rambanlm stipulates. The vast majority of klal yisroel became less religious during the lifetime of the Lubavitcher rebbe, with conservative growing in America during the 40s until around the 80s. And even when they declined, it wasn’t because they were all becoming frum; the intermarriage rate only increased.
At the time the Lubavitcher rebbe passed away, 90% of world jewry were not frum. Now more are, but it’s due to having more children and intermarriage more than the BT movement, which currently is almost entirely among sefardim… Ashkenazim have an intermarriage rate of more than 70% now .
So did the Lubavitcher rebbe bring all of yisroel to the Torah? Not by any stretch. Not even close. Not even close to being close to being close. Rav saadya gaon brought far more Jews back during this fight against the karaim, and nobody thought he was moshiach.
As for yichus, there were many gedolim who were descendants of dovid hamelech, including all of the rebbes of riszhin.
Also, what rav moshe meant by dovid and galius not being klei zayin refers to the war in general with the plishtim. When their champion was defeated, they abandoned their campaign. The war was over without a formal military conflict.
Someday, don’t be surprised.
Something chabad, Zionists, and MO all have in common is that they fabricate and twist sources to suit their deviations from mesorah and false ideologies
But messianic chabad takes the cake in this regard.
Cs, as i suspected. He doesn’t say a word about a spiritual war. He says it will be won without “him needing weapons”, like how chizkiyahu won wars through prayer, dovid killed golius, etc…as in Hashem will just topple the enemies, without a conventional war.
But it’s very much physical enemies. Not the yatzer hora or avodah zara etc