AviraDeArah

ujm, having an attraction to married women is very different than having one towards men – one is a mayim ganuvim yimtaku variant of a normal, healthy desire, and the other is, rav moshe says, a desire to be lehachis, to flout the will of Hashem in its very essence.

Ym, so when the goyim decide homosexuality is fine, you just follow suit, unthinking, conforming, telling yourself that gedolim change based on the world around them.

Yayn ra’al masachti, kemaat she’avadti. no values, no definitions of morality except not directly hurting others .. Until that too, will be sacrificed in matters such as abortion and assisted suicide.

What shlaimus hadaas, daas Torah, have you acquired that will accompany you in olam haba? How have you made your mind in sync with the thoughts of Hashem? Have you ever tried to conceive such a goal?

Enjoy your new York times, your blissful ignorance of chovas haadam beolamo. Because you’re thinking like someone whose place is this world, and this world alone.

Not just you, I’m directing this to everyone who thinks it’s ok to change our values.

Sorry smerel, due to the repulsive nature of this sin, it is not the same as a machsom lefi group. It will normalize that which is supposed to be reviled. It will also open paths to forming relationships and coming to groups as “couples” who struggle together etc.

The general p’sak given to people who need to attend simchos, to preserve peace in the family, in which the soton is merakec beinayhem is that it’s allowed if you just stop by. To sit with mixed dancing is something I don’t think there’s any heter for.

Ask your rabbi if he’d have any trouble with you attending a simcha of neturei karta (the extreme ones, the guys who hug arafat) which will be full of israeli flag burning. Are you allowed to show up to preserve relationships with co-workers?

You’re not going to do it, but I’d love to hear what he has to say

Tuna, chazal blame noach for not davening for his generation, hence the mabul is called “mei noach.” If he was an oness, because he lacked zchus avos (which is arguable – he could have davened bzchua adam harishon) then he would not have been criticized.

Interesting to note that the beis yosef says that noach was an “ish tzadim” and a “tamim” “in his generations” – he says that the nain chait of the dor hamabul was znus. We see from yosef hatzadik that one is called a tzadik if he triumphs over the YH for znus – noach was an ish tzadik in that dor. In the dor haflaga, the main chait was in lack of emunah – the opposite is a tamim, like tamim tehiyeh. “His generations” refers to those two doros which he lived in.

The beis yosef uses this to explain why Hashem said that He saw noach as an ish tzadik lifanai – what happen to tamim? According to this, it hadn’t happened yet.

I’ve heard that there is a slight reception/data prioritization that the big name gets over their subsidiaries. i know plenty of people and companies who are very loyal Verizon customers.

They have to be “ameich”, oseh maysoh amcha, performing what your nation performs. Reshoim aren’t part of that

Common, exactly

1, European shtetls is the way of galus mandated from Hashem.

We swore not to violate that decree

And you celebrate those who violate their oath to Hashem.

Do you feel more in common with a secular israeli soldier than a mah yofis jew?

Not at all. It’s common knowledge that ben gurion sr”y thought that the frum would die out in one generation. He conceded because he didn’t want us shattering his image of jewish solidarity. He hated Torah with a passion as much as a yid loves it.

תועלת גדול היא להמון עם שאין מברכים על סיומים

Ubiq – nice try in attempting to evade your moral relativism when it’s clearly pointed out. I said it’s a chilul Hashem because it’s an abominable YH, it’s not something that should be discussed in the open. It’s more insidious than niuf, as Rav Moshe writes.

You then attempted to say that Rav Moshe’s Torah is relative to how goyim in his time viewed toevos. You compared it to smoking.

I said that the fundamental difference between those two is that one is a metzius example of the general moral value of guarding one’s health, likewise covering up child abuse to protect a yeshiv is one example of harming another. People can do things that they’re not aware violate their values and they’re not considered as having violated that value(though there definitely is a measure of culpability in the latter, just not to the degree that people think)

The value of toeva being a toeva that is meant to be reviled by the entire world(as it’s one of the 7 mitzvos) means that it’s not relative at all. It shouldn’t matter what any goyim say or if they change their opinion.

You then want to return to your starting point of “why is this different from any YH”

It’s different because it’s abominable. Niuf is unfortunately part of the normal, not perverse mindset of bosor vedam. Toeva is not. It needs to be identified as such, as Rav Moshe did.

Again, how would you feel if YU made a support group for people who are attracted to children? Do you think a yeshiva is a place for that?

Also, my other point of the club being a facilitator of toeva, as boys are discovering who else is like them…no one has addressed.

Whatever benefits are expected to be from this “group” can be accomplished in private, where such discussion belongs.

Reb E, I’m not convinced that everyone can change if they are desiring to be heterosexual. Conversion therapy doesn’t seem to work on a lot of people. One often hears three opinions, or rather two opinions and one heresy. Some say that they can change, and that they’re obligated to, and that their urges are bad. Others say that if they can’t change, they must live celibately and they can contribute to tzorchei tzibur. Then there are apikorsim who say that since they can’t change they should be allowed to do what they want.

I’ve long thought of a different idea. I don’t think fighting feelings helps, as the nature of the mind is to resist such things(i e., “Don’t think about pink elephants”). What works for intrusive thoughts us to let them be, and not engage them either negatively or positively. I believe one can develop an interest in women, perhaps tomboy types. I don’t think Marx is right that there aren’t heterosexual people – there definitely are people who naturally have zero interest in the same gender, and i think that’s the majority of people, as rav moshe writes, the YH isn’t for taavah like it is normally. While they claim not to have any attraction to women, i think it’s precisely because they TRY to be attracted, and their mind resists.

There’s no need for a “club.” If the intention is solely to support such people, they would appoint a group of therapists and/or rebbeim who specialize in understanding these struggles and let the students go to them. Actually, i think in light of the nisyonos we live in, every yeshiva should have one such designated person, for toeva YH and for normative YH.

Ubiq, you’re reducing morality to relativism.

Let’s break this down: causing harm to others is something that was and is accepted as bad by the world and by the Torah. The motions of (insert italics) what causes that harm (end italics) will be based on our best knowledge, and can be mistaken. It can also be relative to the times, because something considered hurtful 100 years ago today might be considered by the people who are being affected as harmless. Those are fluid; almost everyone referred to black people as “negros” in the 19th century, not in a pejorative. Today that is offensive.

What is not flexible, is the morality of the issue itself. It was and always is immoral to cause someone harm. Whether or not abuse always caused this level of harm, or whether or not people were aware of that reality (or your case of smoking) does not impact the value under discussion, namely harming others.

Homosexuality, however, is a moral issue in itself. It’s a specific sin, but it is under a larger category of perversions that are included in the 7 mitzvos bnei noach, as they are intended to be appreciated logically for their evil.

Rav Moshe is saying that goyim typically understand this; it’s part of our moral compass. The fact that we live in a depraved time when people don’t understand that doesn’t change our approach ideologically to the sin. What the Torah calls a perversion or abomination remains such. That means we are to be disgusted by it for all times. It’s not relative any less than the halacha its attached to is.

Lemosh, according to your view, if we live in a society where murder is acceptable when it’s, let’s say, in a duel, are we to say that while it can’t change the halacha that states that one may not kill another, we need to adapt our intellectual approach to murder in light of the society we live in? Are we to say that murder is any less evil in that society, but alas, we are anusin mipnei hadin and must maintain our policy of not murdering?

The point about “everyone understands it” as he makes clear, is that giving reasons for it undermines how bad and beyond the pale it is – and so it should be for a Torah jew. Being a jew in the 1950s was ideologically much easier. The fact that the world changed means it deteriorated, not that rav moshe was thinking the way that the world did, but rather the world though like rav Moshe! (And any othet observant jew at the time)

Syag, you’re referring to the “what,” and I’m referring to the “why.”
I’ve seen several accounts from survivors; they address what happened to them and the pain they went through as a result. But they never explain what about their experiences causes their pain, nor do they need to; it’s just a reality. My point is that it’s not a reality that we would know about without being told it.

Ask any elderly person what the big deal is if a kid gets touched; most don’t understand it at all.

1 – can you explain on a surface level why abuse causes such profound damage? It’s a metzius, but even the experts don’t quite understand it.

I also believe that in earnest, people in yeshiva administrations simply did not understand the far reaching psychological impact of abuse. It’s not a pasuk in chumash. It’s something the entire world didn’t understand until recently. I’m sure gedolim wouldn’t have approved of it, but to an average Jew, disrupting major mosdos over it seemed like overkill. It was a mistake, but i think it was an innocent one, without the intention to harm victims. The proof is that as awareness spreads, that “sweeping under the rug” is becoming FAR less common.

By the same logic, would YU have a support group for deviants sho are attracted to children? They suffer a lot too and many do not act on their urges….

But YU wouldn’t do that, because that YH is “bad” and this one is “acceptable” solely because the goyishe world sees it that way.

Ubiq – take it up with rav moshe who says explicitly that in
Igros Moshe Orach Chaim vol 4 teshuva 115.

I love how people can say that the gadol hadors perspective is gross….makes me chuckle for a minute…then the chuckle turns into sadness at the abject spiritual poverty in the fabric-wearing community.

Kuvult, and who told you you’re allowed to attend such events?

Rav avigdor miller did NOT support meit kahana. He said “you should know that he’s a shomer torah umitzvos” – calling someone an average jew is not an endorsement. Read his hashkofa seforim if you want to know what rav Miller held of zionism and militant baryonism

Meir kahana saw as much truth aa truth social

Ujm, zeldin has been gaining momentum – the debate that they finally agreed upon will make a pretty significant difference, imo.

All the polls show 6-9% are undecided; a strong debate performance against someone who has no experience debating might turn the tide further in his favor.