AviraDeArah

Halevi, it’s axiomatic that every generation is further from sinai and lower than its successor…yeridas hadoros isn’t really a chidush

AAQ, if we judged people’s grandchildren or sons-in-laws, we’d have quite a lot to explain. Rav henkin was very anti Zionist. His grandson is the bnei bonim zionist/feminist. Rav chaim brisker said zionism is avodah zara; his grandson was rabbi yoshe ber; he also said when his son rav moshe was getting married, that “ich hob farliren a zun”, when the noshim paskened a kashrus shailah on their own at his wedding. Rav shach, who called Israeli democracy “cancer”, had a son who was a zionist.

Rav yochanan ben zakai’s nephew was the head of the baryonim.

Rav Moshe didn’t hold of any of the above deviances from Torah; he writes that women being taught gemara shouldn’t have to even be explained as it’s an open gemara. He also didn’t necessarily “choose” his son in law. He also would have been astonished at the opposition to metzitzah bepeh, and other innovations from his family. Gedolim’s personal family issues are not a proof as to what they hold. We can only go by their actual words and by talmidim who are mamshichei darcham. If you want to know what rav moshe held, you would want to ask rav bluth, rav dovid, rav belsky, rav nissan alpert, and other people who were very close to him.

Ubiq, that’s a very nice vort – i had a different explanation of why beis shammai go by parei hachag (pashtus there’s no kasha because they’re not deriving or even necessarily comparing n”ch to sukkos, they’re answering the taanah of beis hilel that we usually say maalin bakodesh…)

Chazal say that the number of parim decreased because it was being machchish the koach of the Umos haolam(while at the same time giving them chius), and pn chanukah, the shem mishmuel explains that we were machchish the koach of the yavanim…there were no new philosophers after the neis, he says, and we also used the nitzutz of kedushah that was “yaft elokim leyefes”, and used it for a mitzvah that is personified by “mehadrin min hamehadrin”

The majority are neither ashkenaz nor sefardi? What are they then?

AAQ, I’m sure if you dig through bible commentary of Christian sources, you’ll find tons of things that are in sync with meforshim. If you change the verbiage and repeat them to rabbis, and they accept them, that really isn’t relevant to the issues that separate Christianity from Judaism lehavdil.

MO rabbis in regards to kashrus, gitin vekidushin, niddah, and other Practical halacha are usually within bounds. In YU the mishnah berurah is the default source for halacha, and I’d trust rabbi hershel shachter’s kashrus procedures.

That doesn’t speak to the rotten core of MO in its institutionalized heresy. Rabbi shechter is fine with the idea that a secular state is the lifeblood of the jewish nation, and worthy of the wanton lose of jewish life, not because he learned it in gemara, but because of European Nationalism dressed up in techeles and a kippah. And he’s the frummest they have to offer. It only goes down hill from there, to rabbis who defend untznius dress, abrogation of halacha by teaching women gemara in a classroom setting, mingling of the genders (see the discredited author of bnei bonim for details on that), to full on feminism, LGBT acceptance, allegorizing of tanach, “revisiting” torah in light of modern ethics, de facto acceptance of secular morals, maskilish “parshanut”, rejection of kabalah, the list goes on…. I quoted several MO leaders in the closed thread at length; you can use it for reference. I’m hardly looking at the lowest rungs of MO – puk chazi! Of course the yeshiva community has its dropouts..chasidim do too, but they are a small minority who themselves identify more with an MO crowd.

I mentioned a doable experiment that can show the divide in another thread – go to a MO shul, and I don’t mean the young israel of midwood. Take a poll among the men, ask them what caused the Holocaust. 80% will say the buildup of racism and intolerance, and that we can prevent it by being more liberal and championing social justice. 20% will say it’s from Hashem and we don’t understand it. Then go to a baalabatishe shul; 90% will say it’s from Hashem and we don’t understand it, and 10% will say it’s due to assimilation and haskalah, etc.. then go to a beis medrash, and there it will be 50/50 between the latter two options.

My mistake; the ratio is 20%/80%, with 3.5 million sefardim – my apologies

Not to say there shouldn’t be discussion of those non-bechira issues that we can’t “really” fix (only Hashem decides who has money). Rav yehoshua leib started an orphanage, gedolei yisroel were very active in distributing tzedaka…all very big mitzvos, but they also realized that they are unable to fix the world and that the one thing we can fix is mitzvah observance

Also, in a topic that includes the common practice of the mo educational system, it is more than relevant to address the methodology and results of the system as a whole, and where nach fits into that discussion.

Rav yisroel salanter is quoted in ohr yisroel that the mishnah can’t be applied to our time(his time, kal vechomer ours) because on our level, what we call chumash is not really learning chumash, our mishnayos are on the level of chumash in that time, etc etc, that basically everything gets knocked down a level

I’ve noticed that yabia writes the same response to a multitude of issues that he considers unimportant. Pray tell, what do you consider important for jews to be discussing in 2021? Was it different in 2020, or 2017? Is it, and I’m going out on a limb here, political issues the results of which aren’t in our range of bechirah?

Medrash tanchuma parshas teruma, siman 6 brings rebbe yehudah saying that it was a one-horned, large animal with 6 colors (the baal haturim writes that tachash is gematria “שש גונא”, which means 6 colors), according to rebbe nechemia it existed bederech neis for one time just to make the yerios (curtains) of the mishkan.

In shabboa 28a-b there’s a discussion regarding if the tachash was kosher, and if it was a chaya or behema; some hold that it’s a unique creature which is neither chaya nor behema.

Rav hirsch writes that the shoresh of the word tachash is חש, that it was able to run very fast

Sefardim were just as divided over the issue of philosophy in the times of the rishonim. I don’t believe Ashkenazim ever participated in book burning (at a time before the printing press no less) as sefardim burnt the rambam’s moreh nevuchim.

Nomesorah, what you’re saying is the equivalent of an achron explaining a machlokes rishonim…say the taz explains shitas harambam, and the raavad argues. Following your reasoning, we ahould ignore the taz, because the raavad was biggee – that’s not how it works. No one is saying that rav schwab was in the same league as rav hirsch; rav schwab isn’t arguing on rav hirsch, he’s explaining him, and as was pointed out, he was one of the two or three biggest mamshichei darcho and more than capable of saying not just “vos hut the rebbe gezugt”, but “vos volt the rebbe hht gezugt”

Ukm, I think what he means is that rav schwab said that after the Holocaust and seeing what Germans (and the rest) are capable of, rav hirsch would have not been as enamored with schiller. It should be noted that rav Hirsch’s praise of schiller was in the context of him having “jewish values” in his words but he was particularly glowing in his praises…rav schwab said that he wouldn’t have gone so far.

AAQ, they all believed in the christian view of god as a trinity, and as such it would be assur

AAQ, i think i was very clear in my post that i don’t look negatively individuals who enter professions or higher education. I don’t like the ideology that holds that this should be, bedavka, the mahalach for the tzibur. I also respect those communities where that is the norm, where they are otherwise very frum and committed to learning

Gadol, what would it explain? Torah vodaas is quite an eclectic yeshiva

Shimon; what have i said that doesn’t comport with what you know of rav Belsky? He wasn’t my only rebbe, and wasn’t my biggest influence, but i consider him my rov for psak halacha, and i was zocheh to learn a lot from him

I don’t think anyone equated davening in English/German to sermonizing… The teshuvos from the chasam sofer aren’t concerned with the latter at all. From what I’ve read about the German rabbonim and mamshichei darcho of rac hirsch, there was opposition to the change, but it didn’t lead to charems and communal schisms as was the case for foreign language davening

Also, i said above that it’s not nach or its absence that makes the big difference. It’s the list of differences above that does. I know an old temani yid who told me that they spent a tremendous amount of time on tanach when he was in cheder, for most of his schooling years; he knows tanach backwards and forwards – that’s his mesorah, and if MO schools were half as frum as the temani yeshivos were, i would only say that the litvishe don’t hold rhat way, and nothing more. However, MO learning nach has to be seen both in light of the ignorant and irreligious character of the MO educational and societal framework, and the results thereof. A temani yid taught tanach will not use it to defend feminism, because he has never heard of such things. Nor will he use knowledge of tanach as a “shtuch” to show that he is better than his peers, because he is just as (actually, more) frum as they are.

I did misunderstand your post and thought that you were saying that most of the top boys in serious yeshivos are from modern backgrounds. My mistake. However your contention that we see from the fact that there are any boys who are good at leaning that are the product of MO is untenable. Many, many rosh yeshivos went to public school, including rav avigdor miller, rav yitzchok sheiner, and rav nosson tzvi finkel. Does that mean that the product of pubic school is rosh yeshivos? No! You’re trying to prove the authenticity of a system based on a tiny minority of its products. They are not given tools to sit and learn. They are given guidance and discipline in secular studies and western thought. They are taught that just sitting and learning is backward. Have you ever seen what goes on in an MO school? Or are you making this assumption based solely on the fact that there are a handful of essentially baalei teshuva in regular schools?

According to you, the differences between an MO day school and a yeshivish school are mainly semantic, and superficial. Let’s chart out the differences:

Yeshivish school:
– Most of the day learning gemara from lively, motivated rebbeim who themselves learn torah the whole day.
– No involvement with secular culture, movies, music, television
– strict adherence to halacha, with repercussions for breaking thereof
– absolutely no intergender interaction
– expectation that one will remain learning seriously no matter what they do for a living
– guided path for the majority to continue full time learning
– college discouraged for the majority
– prudence and discouragement of pursuing worldly passions and interests
– mishmar
– Sunday is the same as any other day for learning
– discouraging or at least not acknowledging zionism
– mussar taught from seforim and a mesorah

Typical MO school:
– mussar based around social justice and prejudice, “anti racism”, with a sprinkling of teaching against lashon hora (regarding everyone, not just jews)
– assumption of or facilitated interaction with the opposite gender
– classes on and celebration of zionism and its secular, murderous founders
– tolerance of all matter of deviancy (except yeshivishe people or the dreaded “satmar”)
– celebration of and encouragement to pursue higher education for its own sake
– roughly half of the time spent learning torah as compared to yeshivishe schools
– Sunday is a day of abandon without any learning
– paltry amount of gemara skills learned, many children have no idea which mesechta they are learning or even what “mesechta” means. Most do not learn tosfos until mid high school, if at all
– integration of secular culture as a given part of jewish life, including consumption of music, movies, television, with a quiet suggestion that one follow the non Jewish rating system and avoid R rated content

Where exactly are the parallels?

Nomesorah, jews have always spoken non jewish languages; the gemara was written in aramaic for that reason! A more valid comparison would be praying communally in English, which is something hard to attribute to any particular prohibition, yet is a dramatic breech of mesorah, and was forbidden by the achronim responding to such attempts by the early reform movement.

They’re accredited through colleges; they’re not scams. There’s a mitzvah to make a living; there’s no mitzvah to be thoroughly and seriously educated(actually, it might be the opposite), so yidden find aitzos to get degrees and get paid more for the same jobs or start new careers without having to waste time learning about gender studies or how white supremacy is the foundation of America.

Nomesorah; i didn’t say that Thanksgiving is a milsa belo taam as mentioned in the maharik. I said that the claim that a once religious holiday can lose its status and become secularized is not true, as evidenced by the mahariks psak that something unknown is asur, because we’re worried that it’s rooted in AZ

Ujm is correct that those who forbade it (especially rav avigdor miller) were American and able to read English historical accounts. The machlokes is more about the facts than halacha. Everyone agrees that if something has AZ roots it would be assur even if now it is not viewed that way (think of Halloween). Actually, the maharik in siman 98 says that this is the precise reason that a non jewish custom without a clear meaning is not allowed, because we’re worried that there’s a forgotten AZ component, and if so, it would be assur even if now it is merely cultural etc.

Mother’s day is a completely cultural holiday, as is the 4th of july and other secular national days. It is of note, however, that father’s day is not observed by most frum people, but mother’s day is…hamyvin yovin.

The oft quoted refrain of “we give thanks every day” does not speak to the issues involved with Thanksgiving, from a halachik save hashkofic perspective. We acknowledge that there are opportune times that we focus on a given theme, lehavdil. Aside from the halachik issues above, there is a deeper hashkofic problem as well. Jewish holidays, as explained by the ramchal, have a “koach hazman”, a spiritual power inherent in the day itself. The powers of geulah were the reason why the yidden left on the 15th of Nissan; pesach isn’t merely a commemoration of what happened in the past, but rather a time when the avodah associated with geulah, from one’s personal shi’bud, comes to the fore. Chanuka we celebrate torah she baal peh. But this is the reason why leshana acheres kavuah, the chachamim only instituted chanukah the following year. Says the ohr gedalyahu, it was because the chachamim wanted to see if the spiritual powers they felt on chanuka returned the next year; if they did, it was worthy of being a yom tov.

Acknowledging secular holidays (aside from showing patriotism to our host country on, say, 4th of july, veterans day, memorial day, etc) dampens our understanding of koach hazman and makes us establish holidays that have no bearing on us. There’s nothing special about this day that has a shaychus with hakaras hatov; that is something we focus on during pesach, chanukah, sukkos, purim, and other times whej gratitude is one of the central themes.

Oh, you said perek…i thought you said pasuk, my mistake

Ts, learning halacha pesukah, halacha lemaysoh is a separate issue – it’s more of a hecsher mitzvah; the beis halevi explains that this is why yidden didn’t make a bracha before learning, because they looked at the whole learning as a hecsher mitzvah to know what to do and how to be mekayam the mitzvos, and we don’t make brochos on hecsher mitzvos. Not to be confused with shmaatsa aliba dehilchasa and al manas laasos, where you learn the sugya itself.