AviraDeArah

Jack, find me one post shu”a authority who holds you’re not allowed to be a rebbe or rosh yeshiva. Hogwash. Motzi shem ra.

The heterim… Not that you’re willing to hear it, vary from schar shimur, schar batalah, etc…

It’s trolling to accuse thousands of tzadikim of just ignoring a chazal and violating an issur

As for lashon hora; please tell me why anything i said is lashon hora. I’d love to hear it. Is it sinat chinam? Is it ok for Norman lamm to call yeshiva people cavemen, but not to point out the horrible violations of torah the go on in a so called yeshiva?

jack…are you trolling? do you really think that anybody in the past thousand years has held halachikally that you’re not allowed to earn a living being a rebbe/rosh yeshiva?

Much like rabbi kook, where haskama of a person assumes the one giving it knows all the info, why don’t you ask rabbi bender if he thinks that equating torah and science is a “different derech”, or promoting feminism, or having a rosh Yeshiva who questioned krias yam suf in class, or rabbi shechters idea that you can sacrifice Jewish lives on the altar of zionism to protect the “nations life force”

Go ahead. He probably just thinks that they’re into secular studies and believe in having a Jewish state.

Ben… Are you being sarcastic? YU is the only”yeshiva” that is government subsidized, and which has massive endowments. The government doesn’t have any input in litvishe yeshivos…this whole thread is about how the government is trying to contr YU, given that they receive government funding and don’t consider themselves a religious entity.

From the YU pride alliance website: a quote from a member.

“I wish people knew that behind the smiles and rainbow flags, I carry the burden of knowing my decision to be true to myself may cost me my family and the future I always imagined. The lack of LGBTQ+ acceptance leads students to believe there is no other option than to be in a heterosexual relationship. This mindset is toxic and harmful to queer people. The YU Pride Alliance has helped me so much by normalizing the queer experience and letting me know that there is a community that supports me. They showed me that I can have a future as my authentic self.”

Ben – if those rabbonim ran YU, none of these problems would have developed. Instead, belkin, revel, lamm and others ran the place straight into the sitra achra.

That was predictable.

Ner yisroel is a Yeshiva kedoshah; the talmidim are not all yeshivishe. Some are, and some aren’t. Many frum YU boys would be comfortable there.

I didn’t say that a prohibited thing is allowed for parnosa. We allow less than ideal things for parnosa, and several rebbeim justified their presence in YU in those terms, including rav yerucham gorelick.

Shortly after the clubs came out, frum people like rav abba bronspiegel, rav parnas, and others left YU and started Landers in Queens. The kids are basically the same chevra as YU, but the atmosphere is more controlled, and there would never be an LGBT club.

As for rabbi shechter and rabbi willig being accountable; the world outside YU doesn’t consider them gedolim, much less people who we follow blindly. The real hypocrisy here is that YU ideology doesn’t believe in accepting daas Torah or the inability to cast doubt on gedolim… You can’t have it both ways. YU has no problem questioning, for instance, chumros of the brisker rov and seven questioning his mental health r”l, but if you dare question rabbi yoshe ber or rabbi shechter…. It’s a total double standard.

As for the kol torah in the beit midrash; I’ve been there. Some hoys learn. How many of them are learning and not engaging in higher Talmudic criticism? Who knows.

Ever been to BMG? All 5 campuses? It’s a lot more. I’d estimate is that altogether, BMG has about 8 times the amount of students as YU. Especially considering YU is the only place where the graduates of modern schools go to learn, while BMG is the largest of hundreds. Really tells you a lot about the results of MO Chinuch.

As to what I meant by “getting around,” there are several ways. I do not report my tutoring services to the IRS. They’re aware that people are paid in cash for such services, and they don’t realistically expect people to report it. But on a larger scope, rebbeim often work as 1099 employees and file for parsonage exemptions. While it’s a bit of a stretch sometimes, no one seems to care; I did it for years. There are also business expenses that you can claim which are a stretch, but not outright lying.

Many other people throughout history have spoken a form of Hebrew. The ramban speaks this out – the Phoenicians, canaanim…ivri means “ever hayarden”, the way people spoke on the other side of the jordan. There wasn’t anything holy about the way the canaanim spoke. But if you look at the names they gave their cities, they’re all hebrew.

Asks the ramban, how then did paroh not speak it? And why was a translator necessary when the shvatim met who they thought was the viceory? The answer is that Jewish people spoke in torah language, in a form of code…think of how we talk in lomdus – it’s not intelligible to an israeli. “The chiyuv is chal on the cheftza” – try saying that to a frei guy in Israel and see if he has any idea what you’re talking about. The same thing went for divrei chol; sichas chulin requires study, chazal say. It’s special, it’s cryptic
(this ramban doesn’t fit with the chasam sofer about the avos speaking a morphed version of a non jewish language…or it could be that the shvatim already had stopped doing that)

Assyrians, and even some modern day communities, can read kesav ashuris, and it is their main language. Yidden wrote in kesav ivris for millenia(as did the canaanim; the Greeks took it from the Phoenicians that they met in business travels). How then, can “Hebrew” as it is now be a “Jewish” language? Its holiness is inherent, Hashem made the world with it and from the aleph beis (always wondered which ksav this refers to), but not only jews spoke it, and when they did speak it, it was bekedushah, it wasn’t the mundane language that modern hebrew attempts to be.

I set up boundaries and rules in my classroom; things i know they’re going to do, i don’t punish severely – it’s certain things that they know are beyond the pale… they know as they’re doing it that they’re crossing a line. When a kid lost a parent, even the worst kids didn’t cross that line. My kids all knew i don’t have kids of my own (not that i made it public… Things come out) and no matter jow many times they cursed me out, that was something no one thought of doing.

In another class, maybe some kids would – it depends on the circumstances.

Chazal are saying there’s an advantage for a man to marry a wan from a less well-to-do background. She will be more appreciative, and she will have more respect for her husband.

Syag, i was referring to the system of acceptable punishments that that particular school had. We don’t do things like that anymore, and they don’t work for kids in our time. To be clear, i wouldn’t think of making one of my kids walk around without shoes.

As for being disturbed about wanting to act on things that happen outside school; think about it – a kid beats up his friend putside school; they’re in the same class, and you’re in a position to solve the problem, and deal with the culpability of one child if they are at fault – what’s the rationale not to? Are you only supposed to deal with what you see in front of your eyes and pretend nothing happens outside of the classroom?

As someone who has had every insult and defamation hurled my way ( i also do not have any children) by bratty children, i agree with the posters that under no circumstances can a rebbe take personal feelings to heart or make decisions based on them. When i write recommendations, i go by set criteria, not how the boy made me feel. Honestly, kids are mean and it’s happened to me (and every other rebbe i know!) that kids will ask mechilah years later for all the horrible, sometimes unthinkable things that they say and do.

I don’t know if the rebbe needs to ask mechila though; the kid needed a severe punishment for such a deliberately hurtful thing to do; same punishment should have been given if the boy said it to a different rebbe, or any other adult. Honestly, if things were the way they should be, I’d punish kids for things they do outside school if i found out about it, but administrations don’t believe in that for some reason. A rebbes place isn’t just a classroom; you’re supposed to train children for their lives, not just to sit still for a few hours and then be animals.

CTL; looks like an example of daas baalei batim being hepech daas Torah.

Daas baaleibatim – marry the same socio-economic class
Chazal – nacheis darga venisiv it’sa

Daas baaleibatim – don’t have blind faith and question everything
Chazal – one who asks “what was before”, or other willful questioning of Hashem and Torah…well, i won’t say what the gemara and rishonim say about such things.

There are a lot of options in explaining this; megalglin zchus al y’ddi zachai, etc.. is one mahalach. Another is that we don’t know his intentions; why exactly did the Yemenite jews need help? Because they were poorer than Jews in tel aviv? Why did he take a sudden interest in their non-existent plight? Maybe he was a Christian zionist who believes that jews need to return to the land for their false messiah to return.

Maybe he actually meant well but should have looked into the cultural erasure (to use a woke term) that the zionists were doing to sefardim and everyone else (yaldei tehran, etc)

I’ll explain it derech moshol. Do you remember the tropper fiasco? He got together scores of rabbonim to a meeting for his conversion organization. Were they all not gedolim because they couldn’t see past him and know that he was a sinner? Did they all ignore the audio taped evidence? Does it mean that what he did was ok, because the gedolim supported him? Or do we say that haskamos don’t mean anything if the issue is clearly bad.

100 rabbonim saying a piece of pig meat is kosher doesn’t make it so; it means a mistake happened. We can’t put our heads in the sand and pretend what rabbi kook said is ok. It’s not, it’s chazer treif.

Some knew that metzius, and others didn’t, and you can’t fault them for it – gedolim have more important things to do than study the works of controversial rabbinic figures. They learn torah day and night, and lead klal yisroel.

Calling rabbi kook a tzadik or rasha is only relevant when someone sees the forbidden things he said and mistakenly thinks rhat it’s ok to think such things, because after all, didn’t the tzitz eliezer refer to rabbi kook as maran? In times like that, it’s important to know right from wrong, tamei from tahor, rasha from tzadik. Who knows how they view rabbi kook in shomayim? It’s not really my concern, and i wouldn’t care if he was “really” a tzadik? It wouldn’t make his ideas or statements any less treif.

And that’s the danger of gedolim-approval of individuals vs. ideas/actions. Nobody would say that the gedolim approve of troppers actions, even though im sure there are still rabbonim who think he’s an ehrliche person – so too, the gedolim who respected rabbi kook is not a hechsher on his statements; that’s why i said it’s a tzarich iyun, much like the rabbis who defend tropper(if there are still any, I don’t know)

Zushy ,my mistake; you’re correct about rav Schlesinger’s yeshiva; i got mixed up with locations. You’re also correct that he’s a kanoi, but I don’t know who in brisk says he’s inaccurate. It’s true rhat in my years among brisker rabbonim i think i only heard about him once or twice, but i did not hear anyone say he was inaccurate.

Re, rav shlomo zalman; there are times that gedolim say or do things that are a tzarich iyun. We don’t change around the Torah because we see a tzadik do something we don’t understand. Here,rav shlomo zalman did not do anything against halacha, nor did he openly say that rabbi kook is acceptable/respectable despite saying that secular jews are holier than frum ones. What we have is him not changing his view despite being told by family and others that rabbi kook is chutz lemachaneh. So on that we have a tzarich iyun. It could be he didn’t want to listen to lashon hora. It could be that he loved torah so much that he couldn’t fathom a talmid chochom saying apikorsus. Who knows?

Regarding rav elchonon; his not visiting YU was complicated. Rav elchonon allows college in a teshuva – and rav boruch ber forbids it! If so, it should have been the opposite, rav boruch ber would not want to visit a place that was trenched in violation of halacha, and rav elchonon should have been ok with it.

The answer is that everyone knew what YU was. The question was, do we show American boys Torah and even teach there, and maybe make a difference? That’s what rav shimon shkop held. Do we visit to be mechazek acheinu bnei yisroel? That’s what rav boruch ber held. Do we make a machaah even though no one will listen and they will do as they please? That’s rav elchonon.

Rav elchonon was not outside the mainstream; he was a foremost talmid of the chofetz chaim, and was just as respected as the other two gedolei olam we’re discussing. He also literally gave his life for his talmidim, to make sure that they have the right kavanos when they will he slaughtered al kidush Hashem…rav elchonon was a pure angel.

If rav elchonon, who is the mamshich darko of the chofetz chaim, calls someone a rasha…it cannot be disregarded. One gadols rasha is not another gadols tzadik; rather it’s more logical that the ones who believe him to be a tzadik were misled. The satmar rov says this is not a stirah to gadlus batorah, to be too open and trusting.

Regarding shlomo lorencz; he was a confidant of many gedolim, and spent time with the rov, the chazon ish, gerrer rebbe, and many others. He was, however, a baal habayis. He made some mistakes in his book series, including a discussion with the rov that could not have been. He claims that the satmar rov said that the miracles of 48 were from the soton, and that the rov said that everything is from Hashem, and that the miracles were on behalf of the frum, inspite of the secular.

That story is impossible, because the satmar rov doesn’t say that the soton independently does anything. What he says in vayoel moshe and al hageulah is that the soton is in charge of testing klal yisroel, and has shown them signs and wonders to test them, to see if they will follow avodah zara. We find that in medrash rabba, where the soton showed klal yisroel a vision of moshe rabbeinu dying on har sinai, which led to the egel. So too, says the satmar rov, miracles don’t prove that one side of a question is right – the soton can present challenges to us, which of course are min hashomayim.

Umikra malei hu – the pesukim spell out that a false Navi may perform miracles! It’s quite telling that the anti-kabalah modern Orthodox people run to miracles to substantiate their claims that “god is on our side”.

UJM, it’s because publishing a sefer used to be a huge deal. In the past 40, 50 years, everyone can publish, and seforim are much cheaper and more available. Seforim like kovetz maamarim, maaseh ish, gedolim biographies, etc…also more people spent time in yeshivos where these things were more known, like Brisk.

Also of note is the sefer “hador vehatekufah” written by rav elyakim shclesinger, rosh yeshiva in lucern. He writes that rabbi kook became known as a “kailiker”, a kal-person, not so frum, who was into secular philosophy and was chased out of his rabbinic post in Lita, and then found a job in england. He writes what many gedolim said about him, including rav chaim brisker.

Syag, if i thought it was an issue of respect, i would capitalize; i made that clear in my post. I think it’s a grammar issue, much like capitalizing new york, America, etc .. In English, one would capitalize hitler too. So to keep English grammar in my posts is indeed a tircha. Reb e convinced me to capitalize Hashem, because the English language capitalizes anything divine out of respect… Not that every capitalization is because of respect

The imrei emes also said that rabbi kook calls “that which is tamei, tahor and that which is tahor tamei” even though truthfully it was obvious… Just sometimes you need a gadol to say something to get us out of the brain fog of the yatzer hora.

Want to know other things he said that weren’t daas torah? He called Rembrandt, a goy who was not a 7 mitzvos person, and who drew many untznius paintings…a tzadik! Because he had one portrait of the tosfos yom tov. He writes in “oros” that the neshomos of the secular are “yoser mesukanos” (exact quote) because they yearn for the land… That great egel hazahav.

I wish someone would have told me not to be satisfied with people calling you a masmid, that people are nispa’el very easily and that in an effort to be supportive, sometimes a person can fall into complacency.

Avram, it’s extremely rare for terror attacks to happen in England, Antwerp, etc .. France is very dangerous, that’s true. Shechita bans are an issue that was mainly aimed at halal, and we can fight that, or import meat from outside. The Antwerp community is far safer than a Jew living in eretz yisroel in the current state of things.

Reb e; you convinced me on capitalizing Hashem, because divine things are capitalized in the English language. Every other capitalization isn’t due to respect, but rather grammar, to which i say…nu nu, it’s a tircha, as AAQ said.

My rebbe rav belsky didn’t quote many chassidishe rebbes, with the exception of three that I can remember. One was the Satmar rov, who he lived near to when he grew up in williamsburg. When Rav Belsky was a child, he sold some food or drink; lemonade stand type of thing. A discussion among some people broke out if the food was kosher, for some reason. The satmar rov knew rav belsky’s family (his father learned by the chofetz chaim) and trusted them. He personally bought from the stand to show everyone that it was kosher!