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Syag; I don’t see why it’s odd. it’s the source for the halacha that is under discussion
Goldi, a man can (and should… this is what I’ve done personally) hold the door open for someone who’s having difficulty, man or woman. However if it’s a woman, you should wait a few moments before going in so as not to walk behind her. Walking behind a woman is a concern for hirhur; chazal say better to walk behind a lion than a woman
Animal abuse is wrong because it’s against the Torah, not because animals are cute and we like them – tzaar baalei chaim applies equally to a rat as it does to a fluffy white kitten.
TLIK – the difference here is that it’s not just a halacha issue where there’s a chumra and a kulah, and you’re astounded at how otherwise very scrupulous people can be so lenient on thus shaalah.
Aveirah gorerea aveirah. If they were doing something halachikally wrong, it would spill over into their other practices as well, but as you noted, it doesn’t.
Let’s look at it from a bochurs perspective. The gedolei olam, people on whose every word we hang, people who we’re medayak in….almost all of them smoked. Some did even after finding out it was harmful; perhaps the boost it gave their learning (which it does) was more important; nevertheless, no gedolei yisroel encouraged it. Some already discouraged it in Europe, including the heiligeh chofetz chaim. There are still a few extremely choshuv roshei yeshiva who smoke. Smoking isn’t evil, it doesn’t display a bad midah or lack of yiras shomayim….it isn’t much different halachikally from eating a case of donuts everyday; actually, the donuts are worse, because it’s just a taavah, while smoking has mental benefits… it’s a stimulant which helps many people focus. I have never smoked, nor do I ever intend to, but I’ve known too many ehrliche yidden who do to be able to dismiss it out of hand as some sort of aveirah.
Comparing it with a device of clear ruchnius destruction is twisted; smoking was also not forbidden by ‘tons of poskim’. To my knowledge, the only body of ‘poskim’ who all of the sudden woke up and decided to forbid something was the RCA in the early 2000s. They let the internet, television, movies, intergender relationships, tznius, hair covering, and all manner of wanton sinfulness fester in their communities…but smoking!! Out come the payos – iz doch an issur gamur, venishnartem!! They also are the same types who isolate themselves from covid yet allow the diseased outside world directly into their souls, imbibing repulsive avodah zara, shfichus damin and gilui arayos without a second thought….and they expect us to take this ‘psak’ seriously? They also ‘paskened’ bot too long after about climate change….these wre are the self righteous, preaching to the choir activities of the largest branch of modern orthodox rabbis.
Holding a door open is a problem because you’re not supposed to walk behind a woman. There are other derech eretz alternatives; I really don’t understand your example from the chofetz chaim – having a beard always was a Jewish value. Not the highest on the list, but it’s something chazal talk about – hadras ponim zaken. It’s not a new invention.
Racism etc…i agree with ujm; i do agree though that hating a particular race would be contrary to torah values and calling attention to that is fine
I’m only saying so because you said that KH and CH”H apply to newly adopted and developed ideas; i disagree with that statement, as KH and CH”H should only apply to Torah values
Halevi, it depends on which morals. We have no reason to portray to the world that we are tolerant of toevah, that we believe in inclusion diversity and equity, or that we believe people can change genders on a whim. We also need not avoid behavior that xan be seen as antagonistic to the climate change movement – there’s nothing wrong with having a gas guzzling SUV if one has it for practical purposes, etc…
Chillul Hashem/kiddush Hashem is regarding Torah’s values, not self imposed made up malarkey.
A kohen’s kadima in this regard applies even if he’s an am haaretz; in other matters we say that a mamzer talmid chochom is kodem – or does it apply to pikuach nefesh too?
There’s a big difference between קדוש and מקודש, the latter being the expression that the bartenura and rambam use. Kadosh means something is holy. Mekudash means it is holi-fied, sanctified; consecrated – not intrinsically holier, but set aside from something else for a specific purpose. When the malachim praise Hashem, they don’t call him mekudash, they say kadosh. When you marry a woman, you call her mekudeshes, that she is now separate and specified for you and not other men l.
It might sound like it’s splitting hairs, but i think it’s emes.
I’ll try to fetch the sources for the oft-quoted sentiment that women are closer to Hashem’s idea of perfection and don’t need certain mitzvos – this isn’t one of my pet projects that i can rattle off sources for; though anti feminism sources….those I know a lot of.
Inquisitive, unfortunately being part of the Torah world doesn’t mean we’re impervious to bad middos, or even abuse. Being ehrlich in one’s middos is a lifelong endeavor, and some people might think that they are doing just fine without it… It’s very sad. With or without the externals, we’re all going to have these challenges. It’s up to us to take every opportunity possible to improve on those issues and identify the middos that we have and how to fix them.
That being said, the outside world is full of lashon hora and bad middos, not to mention untznius things – it’s how non Jews enjoy themselves. Most comedy is about making fun of someone else. Being part of the outside world definitely doesn’t help you grow in middos… Just imagine how much worse your parents would have been if they spent hours learning bad middos from movies and television…
Hashem says “i have separated you from among the nations to be mine”, and chazal say on that pasuk…if you are separate from the non jews, then you are my people – the non jewish world is not all bad; we benefit from science, medicine, buildings and the economy, but the culture is anti Torah and only exacerbates the challenges we have from the yatzer hora on a daily basis.
As to your questions in halacha; many poskim hold that one is not obligated to wear a hat and jacket while davening if that’s not how he normally dresses when meeting someone important. That just means it’s not an aveirah; we know that there’s a lot more to yiddishkeit than just “do this” and “don’t do this”. A hat and jacket is a constant reminder to a ben torah that he is part of the “ligyon shel melech”, the legion of Hashem – when it comes off, that feeling is partially lost.
A vartel is a different story with two opinions going back hundreds of years. Chassidim hold like the poskim who say it’s an obligation, and most litvishe hold it isn’t.
Ujm, where does the rambam or anyone else say that the brocho is because men are holier than women? Many seforim say the exact opposite, that women are on a higher spiritual level than men and don’t require the same mitzvos.
Also, we don’t find that there’s a kadima of men/women the same way we do with kohanim. Kohanim get manah yafah, the first and best choice of food, they are not supposed to serve us or dl favors for us, and other things of that nature, but if a man and woman are being given food in a line, there is no din that a man comes first.
The only time we find such a kadima, to my knowledge, is by pikuach nefesh, where fhe sum of mitzvos requires a kadima.
Inquisitive, consider where these reactions are coming from. Ask yourself why you don’t think it’s important to look different than the non Jews we live among, who have beliefs and practices that we need to be distant from.
People choose to dress a certain way and are doing so while fully aware of how they will be seen – they are making a conscious decision to align themselves with a certain group or way of life.
We’re not supposed to judge individuals, but by dressing a certain way, they’re putting out a very clear signal that they’re not interested in the lifestyle of a true ben torah(in the litvishe world).
Inquisitive, consider what the liars who pretend to be totally frum would do if they dressed the way they behaved in private…. The dress and communal affiliation will prevent them from intermarrying, breaking shabbos in public, eating in treif restaurants and more.
The distinction between ovdei avodah zara and stam goyim regarding taos akum, aveidas akum, etc, is found in a small minority of poskim. It’s not practical halacha.
Ujm, halacha is very clear that not returning a goy’s aveidah when failure to do so will result in a chilul Hashem is assur – we must do so to prevent a chilul Hashem. It’s considered a chilul Hashem because it looks like we don’t believe in being honest. We do, just the halacha allows us to keep their aveidos specifically. When a Jewish value is seemingly being violated, even if halachikally it isn’t, it’s a chilul Hashem.
To make a kidush Hashem, it’s allowed to return the aveidah, but it’s not a chiyuv.
Rav saadya gaon writes explicitly that the Jewish people are a nation only by virtue of its Torah. Umikra malei hu – hayom hazeh bheyaysi li le’am. Today you are for me a nation. In the midbar when they received the Torah. Not in eretz yisroel after the war and division.
The reaction of the gedolei yisroel, notably rav hirsch (few wrote a lot on zionism) was that Judaism is a religion, not a nationality. Rav elchanan discussed it at length in his ikvesa demishicha, as did thw aforementioned bayos hazman, by rav Reuven grozovsky.
They were reform? How dare you accuse the gedolei olam of such a thing?
Also, are we forgetting that MTA was founded under his auspices? It’s a separate school, and it has a relatively robust gemara schedule compared to the standard MO day school joke olaces
Cs, at least 8 oz… Gotta be on the safe side.
AAQ, my mistake; I actually remembered the OP wrong and thought she said BT; wasn’t trying to shoehorn my shitos… At least not this time
Ujm, it’s much harder if you’re nisht a hin nisht a hehr; sefardim often want only sefardi and ashkenaz (especially Yeshiva) are wary of sefardi backgrounds being less frum. That together with being a BT background makes it harder to get ashkenazi families, so if someone has a BT background and is half sefardi, and a woman…sefardim may be turned off by the yichus and ashkenazim will be turned off by the sefardi and lack of strong background.
Of course these are all generalities; people with much, and i mean much, more baggage/things that are deemed chisronos (i.e., emotional problems, abuse, past history of OTD, gerim, and much more…most of these things aren’t chisronos at all but are viewed such) get married all the time.
You’re raising very important concerns. The tzitz Eliezer mentions the argument against plastic surgery, that it is not healing, but rather saying to Hashem that his handiwork is faulty cv”s. There are also the issues of putting one’s self im danger, injuring one’s self unnecessarily, and vanity/gaavah. Some poskim allow it especially for women if it is to improve their appearance, and this is the position of rav Moshe feinstein in c.m. 2, 66. (though there is a simple distinction between facial defects and internal augmentations, which no teshuvos have been written about, as it involves a severe breach of tznius). Rav shlomo zalman differentiates between surgery removing a very noticeable blemish that causes psychological discomfort and social ostracization, and merely beautification to improve one’s appearance – the former is permitted and the later is not.
Aish.com has a very good article on the topic. However it is not the accepted practice among yereim veshlaymim and bnos yisroel kedoshos, unless there’s a very distinct blemish that will harm one’s ability to find a shidduch/be damaging psychologically/ etc..
If you’re fully sefardi you’ll have an easier time than if you’re half sefardi (especially if that half is your mother’s side). There are a ton of sefardi shadchonim in NYC; they also want professionals for the most part, and sefardim don’t place too much emphasis on religious background… Moreso on sefardi yichus. Divorce I don’t think will be a major hindrance either.
Lost, I’m no chosid of the lubavitcher rebbe, but I honestly don’t believe he meant such a statement for his religious followers – a menorah is a “symbol” (mehaycha taysa?) that most Americans can identify with? Tyranny? It was that the Greeks wanted to regulate our religion… many Americans would support a government reining in a “weird” religion. Americans want to be free to watch television and eat hot dogs, not serve Hashem. I think the lubavitcher rebbe was speaking to or meant for his statement to be heard by goyim, honestly.
I’m not a fan of pleasure trips either; I think they’re a luxury that only frustrates and gives a false impression of relaxation.
But what does that have to do with the value of such a traveller’s davening obligations??
The facts are the those “synagogues” were band aids against assimilation that never did anything to treat the problems facing American jewry. The yeshivos, with pure unadulterated torah are what gave lasting kiyum to klal yisroel. Any family that doesn’t take learning seriously ends up assimilated sooner or later
Charlie; do you really think that the non charedi orthodox world would have been much different in America if not for rabbi yoshe ber? He was hired in a Yeshiva, taught torah for many years and had students who built orthodox shuls, mostly with mixed dancing and darshening up the New York times and rambling about ethics and whatnot… His greatness in learning was largely, sadly ignored by the aforementioned liberal rabbi people. His students who became pulpit rabbis could have just as easily gone to RJJ or to rav Moshe, who gave smicha to thousands. If anyone was *the* gadol hador whose direct influence in psak was and is felt by all generations of almost all sectors of klal yisroel, it’s rav moshe feinstein. Rabbi yoshe ber’s students who were lamdonim, like rav michel shurkin, were usually part of the Yeshiva world which valued such things.
The yeshivos don’t ignore him just because he didn’t write much; his talmidim are very busy publishing the chidushei hagrid series. The reason why is because they understand his flaws and wish only to teach torah from true torah oriented gedolim.
” few charedi yeshiva teachers are linked directly to his mesorah”. He left his mesorah of beis brisk in exchange for Torah with kiekergaard. His mesorah was rav chaim and the beis halevi, both of whom are staples in the yeshivah world. In brisk, his father rav moshe is quoted extensively, even though he had some views that deviated from his mesorah. It’s all relative, no pun intended. Rabbi yoshe ber had absolutely no mesorah for going to university, aside from his mother’s side about whom rav chaim said “ich hob farliren a zun” when the women paskened a kashrus shailah in the kitchen on the day of his father’s wedding.
AAQ, do you really think that rebbe akiva was against the death penalty and therefore sought a loophole to break the kavanas hatorah?
He had a shitah in halacha that makes it virtually impossible to carry out misas beis din. It’s not activism; that’s what MO hacks claim because they wouldn’t know rishonim on shas if they bit them in the face.
I also don’t think that the influence of rabbi yoshe ber, or rabbi kook is on the rise. I think that the frummer elements of the MO and dati leumi world might be emphasizing them as opposed to the more modern rabbis, because they are shifting to the right, while left wing MO is shifting much more to the left, to the level of conservativism in the 50s.
In the yeshivos, you will never hear rabbi yoshe ber quoted, while 30 years ago you did – people in the yeshiva world were interested in what he had to say…now, he has faded into the limelight. Rabbi kook as well.
Another reason for this departure (and a way of seeing the falsity kf their opinions) is that both of them had visions of the future that have failed to materialize at all. Rabbi yoshe ber saw the future of the torah world in YU, and he said that if we remain yeshivish, we will die out. Rabbi kook said that the leaders of the state of Israel would all do teshuva and make a state that’s run by halacha. Neither of those things happened; in fact, the precise opposite occured. YU’s model for community and educatio, instead of becoming the dominant stream, has been reduced to being the kiruv cases for the mainstream orthodox. Their involvement in the secular culture has eroded them into being almost indistinguishable from their non jewish counterparts in thought and appearance, and often in deed as well. Rabbi yoshe ber would have recoiled in horror at the thought of LGBT rights, polyamory discussed by high school debate team groups, or even the movies consumed and imbibed by the MO masses.
Mdf, rabbi yoshe ber vacillated between shitos, ranging from yeshiva thought, to modernity. He never gave tochacha to his community either, which was a major reason for him not being accepted by the gedolei hador (as heard from rav belsky, regarding the tochacha part). Those two things together make me think that he didn’t consider himself a rov or manhig capable of dispensing torah wisdom, though intellectually he was more than capable. He kept changing his mind about things because he wasn’t comitted to a mesorah fully, and was trying to figure things out on his own.
This is my impression of rabbi yoshe ber based on the talmidim of his that I’ve known and read of.
I aget the feeling that he spoke one way with people like rav michel shurin, rav abba bronspigel, rav moshe meiselman, and rav aharon kahn…and another way with norman lamm and his sort. There were two parts to him that did not exist harmoniously; on the one hand, he was a scion of the brisker dynasty, and on the other, he was a PHd who knew like 10 languages and could write academically in all of them. I think a modern talmid brought out the academic, non traditional side of him, and a yeshiva man spoke to his deeply rooted Torah background. I think this frustration can be found in the title of his book “lonely man of faith”. He was a deep believer in Hashem and Torah, and I’m sure he cared about the mitzvos as well. But he also had a yatzer hora, and it succeeded in getting him into secular philosophies. He also had a wife who influenced him greatly as well. Rav simcha sheps was a rosh yeshiva in Torah Vodaas. He was also a talmid of the brisker rov, and probably the first in America to bring that mahalach to American bochurim (besides rav Moshe Soloveitchik, rabbi yoshe ber and his brother rabbi aharon). Once, a bochur said in shiur that “JB says the same sevara!”. Rav sheps kept a cup of orange juice on his desk at all times, should his blood sugar get too low, as he was diabetic. He suddenly threw the orange juice at the bochur, screaming “vi redst du oif a talmid chacham!?!”. After shiur one bochur who had a lot of guts asked the rosh yeshiva why he defended rabbi yoshe ber so much, as he’s not “fun unzerer”. Rav sheps answered him that rabbi yoshe ber was indeed a greater lamdan than rav aharon kotler, but we don’t follow him because he has been influenced greatly by his wife. Being big in learning means that we need to not disrespect him. It doesn’t mean we should refrain from calling out some of his false opinions. I never refer to him by insulting names such as JB, but i do not believe for a minute that he was from the gedolei hador to whom i must be machnia and mekabel kenisinasam misinai.
TS, i was saying the reason why lubavitchers refer to him as “the rebbe” even when talking to people who aren’t lubavitch, because they think he’s everyone’s rebbeh,nasi, etc. I don’t believe that myself: he was a rebbe of lubavitcher chasidim, not others and was by no means the first and foremost leader of a generation… We haven’t had one figure as a completely universal leader since rebbe yehuda hanasi
As it happens to be, i was zocheh to build a relationship with 2 chasidishe rebbehs; I don’t consider myself chasidish, but i do spend time in that world both physically and in my learning – chasidus has had a very big influence on my hashkofos. I love genuine chasidishe Torah, and I have the utmost respect for all groups of chasidim who don’t believe their departed rebbe to be the messiah…even when i am at a loss for an explanation of some minhagim that seem to be at odds with halacha. But the “final say” to me is in the world of bais brisk when there’s any conflict between the two; that’s my personal mesorah and I don’t think it’s any more correct than chasidus; if things had gone a little different in my early 20s, i could have ended up a satmar chossid, but that’s not what hashgocha had in mind.
Of course all chasidim refer to their rebbe as “der rebbeh”. I did too when i davened in a chasidishe place with its own rebbe. I didn’t refer to my rebbeh as “the rebbe” if i was talking to someone outside of my shul, because he’s not the rebbeh of everyone. When chabad writes about “the rebbe”, they can be talking to goyim, and he’s “the rebbe”, because he’s everyone’s rebbeh, the “nasi hador”, a messianic candidate, and some say more.
Sorry commonsaychel, looks like i believed the quote from you without looking it up – as such i owe you a bracha!
AAQ, I don’t think it’s circular at all; some rabbis have a mesorah and some have made a name for themselves while either leaving their mesorah or never having had one to begin with. Those who are pure in their beliefs and have spent their lives completely immersed in Torah without admixtures of foreign influence are worthy of having their opinions hallowed and revered as ayin ponim latorah even if average yodeah sefer individuals such as myself may have not been taught that way.
When a rabbi has a view of Torah mixed with haskalah or any other non-torah influence, that view is not worthy of respect, nor is the person who maintains it viewed as an authority or someone I can’t judge as i would any other non-gadol jew – I’m not out to judge them unfavorably nor do i think that they are all apikorsim, reshoim or what have you. I don’t think rabbi yoshe ber Soloveitchik, or rabbi hershel shechter was/is either of those things. But they are f lawed torah scholars with some opinions based on foreign influences and as such have biases that prevent them from being termed gedolei yisroel to whom i must be machniah. I am machniah myself to many rabbis who were on a lower level of learning than rabbi yoshe ber, but i do so because of their pure Torah minds.
He kept halacha, so it’s a kidush Hashem. Not answering during shemoneh esrei applies even to a king, except for a goyishe king kr other goy who might kill him if he’s mafsik. Being thrown off a olane isn’t pikuach nefesh, so answering to avoid the suffering is no better than if a snake is wrapped around one’s leg – what he did was the ratzon Hashem and is a bonafide kidush Hashem.
Avram, I think when commonsaychel made the remarks about humility, he was thinking using his jewish sensitivity….many people who support trump and/or conservativism in general, have a certain cognitive dissonance when it comes to contradictions to Torah in that community.
Yidden do chessed; that’s one of the 3 simanim. The problem is that chabad emphasizes it as part of their shlichus mission in an effort to spread neo-chabad ideology – they then use their chessed as an effective cajole to silence opposition, because how can you oppose people who do so much chessed? That’s one of their top 2 retorts to when someone even questions chabad or the lubavitcher rebbe.
If anyone’s noticed, i always refrain from calling the lubavitcher rebbe “the rebbe”, because it’s a tool chabad uses to aggrandize his status above other rebbes and rabbonim who were either as big or greater than him.
The Gaon or the ramchal (i forget which) writes that chilul Hashem derives from the word חלל, a void. By making a chilul Hashem,a person makes it look like Hashem chas veshalom isn’t in this particular place, because if he were, how can his mitzvah be disregarded?
Being “run” is a loaded term. On “big deal” issues tha agudah still represents daas torah from gedolei yisroel.
AAQ, I’m not machnis roshi bein shnei harim – rav aharon held against it and he was against college in general; rav ruderman used to say that he “doesn’t have the plaitzes of rav aharon” to take achrayus for the yungerleit having parnosa. Rav ruderman was a huge gadol batorah, and he doesn’t need my haskama; ner yisroel is a yeshiva kedosha and has its mesorah with its line of very choshuv roshei yeshiva.
I never said that the tzitz Eliezer was the least bit modern: chas veshalom! He was a big tzadik. There are many esteemed poskim who are very not modern who still are not rav moshe, including rav moshe shternbuch. Also, it’s not clear that rav moshe would argue on the psak you are attributing to rav shternbuch, since he’s matir in pikuach nefesh. As an aside, I’ve heard of such a suicide related psak, but do you know where rav shternbuch writes that? I have my doubts that he said so, but not for any modern/traditional issue, but I’m not dismissing it out of hand either.
Yabia, the land underneath it is holier and therefore much more disgraced and defiled than any other land in the world
AAQ, in eretz yisroel where the minhag was/is to light outside, no one ever had public lighting besides shul
Ctl; ner yisroel doesn’t have a section on campus where boys have collegw classes? I’m pretty sure it’s through john hopkins university, vetted by yeshiva staff
Ct, YU had a lot of influences before, during and after rabbi yoshe ber that were much more modern then he was. Rav elchanan visited it and torah vodaas, and remarked that YU is a bad Yeshiva with a good name, and that torah vodaas is a good Yeshiva with a bad name (the name implied that there’s something more than torah… It was given that name to make a board member happy who attended such a school in Europe..YU was named for rav yitzchok elchonon spekter).
Rabbi yoshe ber was responsible for only some of the problems in YU, but that isn’t really relevant to the view that gedolim had of him personally. He was told by rav shraga feivel that he could actually be a rosh yeshiva in torah vodaas if his wife would cover her hair, he would stop going to operas, and a 3rs condition that is supposed to be kept secret
Also, while rav aharon did not approve of having college in the same building as a yeshiva, he definitely held of rav ruderman
Shul is established in the rishonim, but you’re not yotzei through lighting there; it’s a minhag, but we can’t invent new minhagim based loosely on it
Reb E, there’s also no wick, that’s l”ikuva. That’s why a kerosene lamp is not good either
Commonsaychel is right; there’s no record of people lighting anywhere besides their home and shul..pirsumei nisa is a requirement of ner chanuka, but not something you are yotzei with anything other than the halacha of ner ish ubayso.
Ctl, ujm was being sarcastic, i think.
A lot of people say that the YH for haskalah was something our zaydes had to fend off and the nowadays the YH is all about tayvah. I think this was true in the 90s and 2000s. I believe the haskalah virus, with the mass dissemination capacity of the internet, has found many new hosts and is raging silently. Gone are the inflammatory newspapers and youth groups, but quietly, even lomdei torah are being influenced by garbage online. Prior to slifkin and the bumbling bloggers, no one had heard of haskalah driven hashkofa questions, rishonim who held rejected viewpoints, achronim who were influenced by Bible criticism(or even just the Bible critics themselves). No one honestly cared.
Just look at some of the posts online. I’m sure the posters who make claims like boruch above got ensnared by garbage online. They definitely didn’t hear it from their rebbeim.
Re, zionism… As long as there is a shmad state, there will be a need to know that we must be separate from it and recognize the false ideology it represents.
Re, other gedolim’s view of controversial rabbis…rabbi kook had a PR job done to him by both his supporters and detractors. His opponents tried to erase him from early 20th century Judaism. His supporters conjured up a fantasy world where the gedolim all held of him. The truth is that he was initially respected and held of, but was discovered to have had hashkofos that at the very least disqualified him from being an authority to rely on hashkofically. Rav zonnenfeld participated in the cherem. The chazon ish assered his seforim. Rav elchanan called him a rasha openly. That’s not talked about much, but it’s true.
Re, rabbi yoshe ber. It’s complicated; post war America needed solidarity. If the gedolim had made a huge machaah over him, it would have made a schism and undermined our efforts to rebuild torah. Especially considering that rabbi yoshe ber was on the side of building judaism and had faults that did not disrupt that goal overall. If torah were rebuilt and some people held of torah umada and Zionism, it’s wront, but can be addressed once we fight conservatism, reform and orthodox indifference to education. He was also a brisker at heart who often thought closer to his roots, sometimes wavering into modernishe ideas, sometimes not – he also firmly opposed bible criticism and radical changes that his followers would later try to implement (i.e feminism)
Yet in private, rav aharon definitely did not consider him to be one of the gedolei hador – go ask his talmidim; it’s not a secret.
See rashi on yaft elokim leyefes; even a positive admixture causes the shechina to depart
The maskilim try to have their cake and eat it too, by saying that they should be allowed to mix with goyim and change the mesorah…. And that they’re “really* the traditionalists, because only the chasam sofer started a new mahalach that you can’t change. That’s a stirah minay ubay. If it were true, why would suddenly all the people who just happen to be meticulous in halacha get up and make up a new religious model? Fear of losing their “control”? If that were true, that’s accusing the gedolei yisroel of falsifying Torah, something the maharshal says is yehereg velo yaavor.
Chazal said torah bagoyim al taamin, and that includes all hashkofic issues, as they’re hilchos dayos. ואבדיל אתכם מן העמים להיות למ, i have separated you from the goyim to be mine.. Chazal say if you are separate, then you are mine.
Shimon, in chagigah 15a we see that acher adopted Zoroastrian dualism, “shtei reshuyos” in the lashon of chazal. He saw the malaach matat sitting, and he knew that no one sits in the presence of Hashem, so there must chas veshalom be two reshuyos. While we don’t have a record of him performing acts of idol worship, this belief system is completely avodah zara.