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YO, you’re mixing up cause and effect. They never HAD to shun people because there was never a movement like reform from which they had to separate.
Farby, that is not the way chazal define a yeshiva. It says by chizkkyahu “heshivu yeshiva al kivro” that they “seated” a yeshiva on his kever. Yeshiva means a place where people sit and learn; ze hu.
I do agree however, that placing one’s family at risk – even a little – is outside the bounds of hishtadlus. Chayecha kodmin.
Kiruv kollelim usually operate in groups; they ensure that the yungerleit have accesa to charedishe mosdos, and proper standards of yiddishkeit for their families. Every local kiruv family that I know insulates their kids from exposure to the chevra they are mekarev. Campus kiruv is something i personally feel is mishandled. Mike moskowitz supposedly became pro LGBT because of his discussions with college kids who he was supposed to be being mekarev. The dangers of immersing one’s self in such an environment should be enough for us to take stock of how we do kiruv at colleges.
YO, it originated in Europe because of the European enlightenment. There was never an Ottoman empire enlightenment.
Philosopher; as someone who has placee children in kiruv yeshivos, I can say that they are careful to only take verified Jewish children…to a fault. I say this because many parents who are proud of their jewish identity despise being interrogated and forced to provide evidence of their yahadus. They already think that the frum don’t consider them Jewish…lehavdil, imagine the umbrage we would have if someone wanted us to prove who we were… This insensitive attitude I’m sure has resulted in many lives lost. One may wonder; if one jewish child will be deprived of Torah, isn’t it worth the wasted resources on a few others who are not actually yidden?
This has been a gripe of mine for quite some time.
Like I said above, the chazon ish supported kiruv in eretz yisroel. Gedolei yisroel such as rav pam, the novominsker rebbe, rev yaakov, and many others, oversaw kiruv yeshivos in America – rav pam started shuvu in eretz yisroel. Kiruv is far from limited to Aish and “kiruv professionals”, it has the backing of the full gamut kf gedolei yisroel. The satmar rov famously held a shitah that is somewhat similar to philosopher; we need to be sure that our own are taken care of fully before branching out….he did however, say that in post war America, where people barely could keep shabbos and kashrus without great mesirus nefesh.
Would he say it in our time? That’s anyone’s guess…i personally think he wouldn’t.
YO – the sefardim didn’t so anything more “right” than their ashkenazi counterparts…the European enlightenment simply was that, European! It didn’t reach most of the sefardi lands.
Sefardim fell prey to haskalah-esque nisyonos in Italy during the Renaissance, and in Spain pre-inquisition; in those days, it was the Ashkenazim who were the “frummee”.
People have a yatzer hora; if anything, sefardi heritage suffered more than ashkenazim when both moved to eretz yisroel. The frummer sefardim were more easily ensnared by the zionists than the entrenched yerushalmis. The chazon ish famously said that if we don’t change to speak ivrit, we will lose acheinu bnei hasfardim.
If a girl gets married to a Ben Torah while still idealistic, before she begins to accept the “real world” perspective and gets deflated by her co workers and everyone else, she has a better chance of retaining that enthusiasm
Philosopher, we don’t have much precedent to determine that, because up until the 1920s the majority of klal yisroel were frum.
It’s probably due to a lack of resources that in the early days of American jewry, there wasn’t a massive kiruv movement. The chazon ish encouraged kiruv in eretz yisroel, and even instructed yungerleit who were fit for the job to remove their yarmulkahs in kibutzim, knowing that people would listen to them more if they didn’t look too frum.
To think that we should abandon the millions of secular jews to be lost forever is not something I’ve seen advocated by anyone
Shimon, he calls himself rabbi; i wasn’t referring to myself
As a republican, you believe that’s what America needs
As a Jew, and ostensibly a rabbi, what do you think?
YO – Parshas zachor is a chiyuv for women. Krias hatorah is most certainly not.
Novelty, a nose ring for a man or a woman in our society is a statement of complete hefkerus; it’s not a tznius issue…as you mentioned, it used to be the norm and was no different than earrings or necklaces. Long wigs are a tznius issue. It’s mixing two different ideas
Also, when did philosopher quote either a ramban or a ramchal?
Sheb – the ramban was most definitely a posek, and one of the gedolei rishonim on shas… he’s literally what we mean when we say “shas and poskim”, just like the ran, rashba, ritva, etc…..there were many communities that exclusively followed shitas horamban in halacha; i saw this mentioned in either shem hagedolim or knesses hagedolah; I forget which.
The ramchal didn’t write much on halacha, but he most definitely was a posek, as was any gadol beyisroel in those times….poskim take a lot of things into account when deciding halacha; the holy writings of the achronim who focused on machshava included.
The sefer ohel yaakov (rav yaakov sasportes) writes that shabsai tzvi introduced some positive things, such as saying birkas kohanim everyday in chutz laaretz. He writes that we specifically should avoid doing them, not to give credence to his heretical movement. If this was said about someone who believed in the torah, yet corrupted it and abused kabalah indefensibly, then kal vechomer to a group that rejects Torah and mocks rabbinic mesorah as being misogynistic.
The chofetz chaim said that there won’t be any more dibukim after the one he himself excised from a young girl. This happened jn front of major talmidim inclusion rav elchonon…the chofetz chaim said also that there will be a time soon that people will be so starved for ruchnius and engulfed in a materialistic society devoid of anything supernatural, that they will jump at the chance to see such a thing
What’s the best wine to drink on Purim?
Machlokes Rashi and Bartenura
Also, while beis din on earth punishes for 12/13, beis din in shomayim only judges at 20
Gemara in yavamos has this case quite often
Philosopher; atzvus is a bad middah in general, but no rosh yeshiva or mashgiach will tell a bochur with depression that it’s his fault and that all would be solved if he had proper hakaras hatov and other necessary hashkofos. Most poskim do not hold that middos are in themselves sinful, barring perhaps gaavah (the very middah which leads one to feel better than someone else)
Mental health is real, and has its own set of chochma – see the steipler’s “aitzos vehadrachos”, as well as the gamut of chassidishe seforim that deal with mareh shechorah…they never tell the person that it’s their fault and that they’re being sinful in their misery, because that’s a great way to ensure that they stay depressed!
I totally agree with your description of many people who scream to be dan lechaf zchus on people… except when it’s things that bother them, like bad middos, or “bottom feeders”. From that we can see that they don’t truly believe in being dan lechaf zchus, but rather are using it as a defective tool to avoid criticizing people and practices that they themselves deep down believe are acceptable on some level. Chazal say this openly in meseches megilah 6b, “if someone tells you not to oppose the evil doers…one whose heart desires it says so”
I never advocated wholesale diyun lechaf zchus. I merely am saying that we can never know who is “bettee” on an individual level. We can know that theoretically, a person who does more mitzvos is better than someone who does less, but the rambam says that this cheshbon is only known to Hashem, because it’s qualitative and not quantitative. We never know someone’s nisyonos and kochos. It could be that given my kochos, I’m just as bad as someone who does bigger aveiros, because maybe I’m able to be a gadol beyisroel, and this person understands much less and has a pekel etc..
I’m not chas veshalom justifying going OTD because someone has had shverkeiten. There seems to be two schools of popular thougt.
A. People are held accountable for their actions and the minimum they must do is entirely their fault. No exceptions, no excuses – din is din and Hashem would not give someone a mitzvah they can’t do.
B. You can’t blame people who have had trauma or bad experiences for going off the derech; Hashem “understands” and they’re nebach, but still good people.My way is totally different. The Ohr Somayach writes that every mitzvah has a minimum that every jew, no matter what emotional state they are dealt (his words) can accomplish. It’s true that “there’s no excuse”, however the rambam also writes that the punishment for one who sinned because of great challenge from the yatzer hora is totally different than that of a wanton sinner.
Hashem will definitely judge everyone who sins, for every sin…kol haomer HKBH vatran yivasru chayav…. however the extent to which he is punished varies astronomically from person to person. One person eats treif because looking at kosher labels makes him have a panic attack, and another because it tastes good. Both will have to answer for their misdeeds, but on completely different levels.
For this reason we cannot know who is better than anyone else.
Philosopher, as someone who has seen many, many OTD people in my line of work… almost all had some serious trauma, mental health issue, or abuse. People don’t wake up one morning and cast off the Torah; there’s a reason for it. Being around negative attitudes also turns people off.
Many OTDs were never really “on” to begin with…many MO kids who can barely read Hebrew and live almost the same lives as their non Jewish counterparts, I’m hardly surprised when I learn of their abandonment of whatever shabbos and kashrus they had learned of.
This is the fault of the broken MO system, not the kids who are taught that the end all be all is the state of israel and going to college.
As for “unzerer”, we have to clean house as well. Hashkofa is lacking in the yeshivos and bais yaakovs; people have no idea what basic jewish thought is and how to apply the chazals that they memorize into their lives and their worldviews.
The mussar movement as well as chasidus served as a bulwark against haskalah, because it gave a torah worldview to people instead of falling prey to the “isms”. That’s what we need and that’s what I’ve seen as ultimately successful in being me’orer people to love yiddishkeit.
Before the age of 20, beis din shel maalah doesn’t judge, yet you seem alright with it.
Common; so according to you, being a productive member of society is more worthy of respect than keeping the mitzvos while being a bum/shlomazel/whate have you? That’s not “well you tolerate this lifestyle and i tolerate this one”, no. There’s a bigger difference than that.
Here’s my view – it’s clear from chazal and rishonim that we do not know the value of any other jew and it is arrogance to elevate one’s self above anyone, even kal shebekalim. This means that despite the various shitos about hating/loving, either way I do not feel that I am better than another jew. Azoi shtayt in rambam.
Your view – you can know if you’re better than another jew if that Jew is a “bottom feeder” who does not work. Work and financial responsibility are the sole arbiters(pun intended) of what you respect and disrespect. They could be ochlei nevelos mechalel shabbos and boelei niddos, but you do not look down on these “personal choices” since they are a productive member of society.
My view of your view – if.we go with the idea that we can know if we’re better than someone else, then we would only use the Torah ls value system, and not whether or not someone is productive, to determine it.
Philosopher; I’m not discussing being dan lechaf zchus. If I know someone eats treif, and I see them eating a food from a McDonald’s bag, i will not be dan lechaf zchus that he is using the oaper bag to store kosher food. What i am saying has nothing to do with diyun, it has to do with the unknowable definition of who is of a greater value – who is a better person, and that is something that only Hashem can know. Only Hashem knows what I would do if I had this person’s nisyonos, etc..
That being said, recognizing madregos is something we can and should do. I have 15 talmidim. My job as a rebbe is to evaluate each one’s strengths, weaknesses, level lf frumkeit, middos, and other facets of their personality. That doesn’t mean I think that one kid is “better”, or that I was a better kid than they are.
I agree that a grown man who plays video games all day etc, is going through a mental health crisis. I believe the castigation made by commonsaychel is exceptionally harsh and hurtful to people who struggle with lack of motivation, depression, anxiety, etc…. people like this who look down on others only make it harder for people like that to get better or feel better about themselves, which will result in motivation and self esteem.
People who are insensitive to depression and share their displeasure with sufferers only serve to perpetuate the cycle of self loathing and lack of motivation.
Common – you said it very accurately; I look down on the mo lifestyle. I don’t look down on any individual Jew, as this is against the Torah principles explained above. You also skirted around the point i was making, that you’re actively look down on people who are less worthy of respect in your eyes, not due to objectively important issues such as mitzvos, but rather their ability/desire to work.
So to be clear, would you respect an OTD doctor more than a frum young man who doesn’t work, has depression, lives in his parents’ basement, and plays video games all day? Do you really think that the Torah agrees with you about judging others, and that if you would go ahead and judge others, that the Torah would want you to judge them that way?
Am I somehow living on an alternate plane where I don’t see bnei Torah constantly involved in abhorrent behavior, while my counterparts in a different plane see it everyday?
No one’s saying the western nonsense idea that “everyone is equal” – reshoim are reshoim and tzadikim are tzadikim, but we never know how we’re doing and how someone else is doing to the point when we can say that we are qualitatively better than someone else – the rambam says only Hashem can make these calculations. That being said, teaching others not to go in the ways of reshoim – tinok shenishba or not – has a lot of value. Their lives are not meaningful, their behavior is egregious, and they are not ever truly happy in this world or the next. Only Torah can do that for a person, and it’s an important lesson. None of that has anything to do with being dan an individual.
Common; so you don’t look down on professionals who live abominable lifestyles, but you do look down on unemployed people who take advantage of their parents? It seems that you’re not opposed to looking down on people in principle, just you’ve chosen what’s important to being a respectable person and what’s not integral – having a profession and being frum respectively
Ujm is correct, but there’s a big caveat that he’s missing…. it’s open pesukim… רְאַת ה’ שְׂנֹאת רָע in mishlei, “halo mesanecha Hashem esneh(tehilim 139:21)….”, Rambam hilchos rotzeach 13:14, chinuch 238…rambam holds that we hate him after seeing him sin , chinuch holds that it’s only if you’ve rebuffed him for his sins several times
But come most of the achronim including the chazon ish in YD 2 28 and say that nowadays we don’t know how to give proper tochacha, so these halachos no longer apply. It is perhaps for this reason that the tanya even in his time advocates seemingly not to hate reshoim.
Rav shlomo zalman – a great lover of every Jew – did not hold like the chazon ish that everyone today is a tinok shenishba.
Also whether or not there is a mitzvah to hate or a mitzvah to love reshoim, no one is saying that we should be misga’eh on them and think that we are definitely better than them. The rambam writes how only Hashem can know the true measure of one’s sins snd mitzvos…we all know people who are barely frum who go out kf their way to buy expenses esrogim or do a lot of chessed; those things are real. The chozeh of lublin was once asked on chanukah to curse a moser, an informant. He said, “how can I curse him when he is lighting up shomayim with his neiros?”.
Gaavah is gaavah, and unless you’re talking about understanding the chashivus of who you are relative to your being a ben torah, a “gaavah dekedushah”, which is more about what Hashem gave you and about gratitude for the madrega you’re on….then it’s a horrible middah…the only middah which Hashem calls a toe’va (mishlei 16:5)
Syag – it’s not as though halacha ends and social matters begin…i hope that’s not what you were saying. As the chazon ish says, the halacha itself in our time is that we love and are mekarev reshoim – he didn’t say that we put aside halacha because of other considerations or to get along in society… halacha teaches us how to live as Jews in every time and place, and here the poskim are telling us what the halachik practice should be. They’re not starting off with the assumption that we should love OTD or frei-frum-birth people; if the halacha would be to hate them, as it was a few hundred years ago, then that’s what we would do in American society, shunned and looked down upon as we would be.
Avi – just to be clear, rav moshe isn’t saying that there’s no source for the minhag as the others you quoted. He’s saying that it’s a dovor she’beino uvaynah for which he has veto power.
Shimon – there’s a lot of misquotation here in general; usually i mix up names of sources when i make a mistake, but I don’t invent things out of thin air. The sources I quoted above were from a reliable melaket. If what I say is krum to you – simply disregard it, but just to clarify, you’re the one who wanted to be natir a potential deoraysoh of stealing thousands of times over, while i was saying that it’s not yosher, in accordance with the overwhelming majority of poskim. If you don’t believe me, ask any LOR, because this is something even MO are makpid on.
Gadolha, I was saying that AAQ’s description of the speaker sounded to me like he was being meikil on dinei momonus that non-jews would also not consider geneva, because if there’s no chilul Hashem (because it’s not assur and it doesn’t look like geneva to goyim either because they do it too)
Philosopher; I don’t see how a yid can look down on another yid, no matter how far they are from yiddishkeit. Only Hashem knows the value of an individual, and given that person’s nisyonos, who said you’d be any better? We all struggle with ahavas yisroel, but to openly say that you feel superior to them as individuals, not as ideologies, is repugnant
Rav Shlomo friefeld z”l is reported in his biography to have reacted two different ways to two different people. One talmid was a BT and began wearing chasidish clothing. He told him that he wasn’t ready, while another talmid who had grown up chasidish had shed his garb – the rosh yeshiva told him “you didn’t come here to fall”.
Dropping from one’s mesorah – whatever that may be – is far reaching. Rav tzadok hacohen writes in many places that Hashem cares more about where you’re heading than where you actually are. Rabbi yisroel reisman said on numerous occasions that when young couples decide to go against their upbringing in issues such as cholov yisroel, it’s building a house on spiritual deficiency and regression.
Avodas Hashem is all encompassing; it applies to all people on their level, but it is always the end all be all. No one “doesn’t fit in” to being an eved Hashem in all that they do.
Why judge anyone on a personal level? Why also suggest that the Torah isn’t “a fit” for a certain person? Maybe sitting and learning isn’t a “fit” for a man at a given point in his life, but does that mean he should be made to feel comfortable in his decision to dress in jeans, watch movies and eat anything that says “kosher” on it, because he “doesn’t fit” into the archetype yeshiva rubric?
Aaq, I don’t think it’s a desire for geneiva, I think that in mamonis issues with goyim or especially with corporations and/or the govt, we are not to waste our money or forego opportunities that are allowed according to halacha, especially if in doing so no chilul hashem would arise.
Shmiras aynayim is not something we seek kulos in.. it’s part of the yesod of kedushas yisroel.
I’d be remiss if i didn’t mention the shoel mayshiv, probably the most famous teshuva on this topic – it’s in 1:44
Shimon; that shitah is a daas yochid. See Shevet Halevi 4:202 Practical Laws of Money p. 117 cites a letter from Rav Karelitz, Rav Elyashiv, and Rav Wosner. Quotes Emek Hamishpat 4 (quoting Rav Nissim Karelitz) as holding that it is forbidden buy illegal software.
Igros Moshe 4:40:19, Rav Elyashiv (Mishnas Zchiyos Hayotzer ch. 18, Emek Hamishpat), Teshuvos Vhanhagos 1:829, Netsiv in Meishiv Dvar 24, Minchas Yitzchak 9:153Rav belsky is quoted in piskei halacha as holding that it’s assur, as I have also heard it mi’peh kodsho personally
I wish i could rattle off mareh mekomos on non-controversial issues as much as I can about MO, chabad, zionism, college and lther issues… I’m being honest
That’s the rema in yoreh deah**
Novels are different than nonfiction. Nonfiction books are not explicitly forbidden by shu”a (see above), and might fall under xhochma which is allowed be’akrai, meaning here and there
I wasn’t addressing the details of the issue in this post, i was wondering why people feel this way – you explained it quite well, that the “creepy” factor is because per force, the man addressing them must have taken notice of the way they are dressed.
I can see that very clearly if the statement was made in person, but for a man to air his grievances on a forum doesn’t imply that he is noticing the way you or any individual dresses. There are gechidei segulah who never notice anything about women, like the boss you mentioned, but for the vast majority of ehrliche men, there is a huge nisayon for shmiras aynayim which is made a thousand fold worse by the “personal” decisions women make.
Ever notice how it’s fine for women to reprimand men for “male” issues such as wasting time during kolel hours, but if men address women’s issues, it’s “creepy”.
Can the be attributed to an assumption that women are oppressed by men and are controlled by them by means of how they dress? Those are common attitudes in the feminist movement
Zohar 3:79a, parshas naso or pinchas, not sure which one
I think you meant “hisnagdus”, but litvishe don’t shy away from kabalistic minhagim; the gaon was among if not the principle kabalist of the past few hundred yearsI quoted the shu”a in OC, 307 16 which forbids secular novels that do not contain any inappropriate content, because of al tifnu snd moshav leitzim. He speaks out in the same seif that if the content has divrei chesek, what we would call romance, then it is even more assur. He also says that novels or literature that has value for yiras shomayim are permitted, quoting Josephus as an example. Rav Hirsch purportedly ecommended reading the german writer schiller, saying that he has Jewish values.
Why the yeshivos emphasize bitul torah in these discussions is mind boggling
I made a mistake earlier; the yarmulkah explanation was the maharil diskin, not the the beis halevi – also a brisker, just not the beis halevi. Shulchan ha’ezer in 9:10 says that this was the zchus of kimchis. Divrei yisroel EH, 30 brings testimony about rav yosef chaim zonnenfeld, so far as to say that kolel shomrei hachomos would refuse support stipends to families where the wife does not shave her head.
preparation beforehand would help a lot… perhaps cutting it short at first..women today base a lot of their self image on their hair. That’s not a bad thing, just if you’re a member of such a kehila, it would be healthy not to initially get too “attached” pardon the pun.
We can’t do away with a kehilah’s minhag, endorsed by its poskim because some people have mental health issues.. We fix the mental health issues and their causes, not change a mesorah.
Aaq, just to be fair, rabbi yoshe ber would have been beyond my pedagogical abilities by age 8 – he was a veritable genius, all other considerations aside. I do appreciate the thought experiment though; very original!
I could relate more to being given the opportunity to be a melamen for my grandfather. He grew up in the 1910s, and learned in 2 yeshivos of note. He eventually went to the University of Berlin and came out….well, “nisht arein gein”. If I were learning gemara with him I would relate halacha to mussar, hashkofa, politics etc the way some of my rebbeim did; show him the breitkeit, the breadth of Torah and how applicable it is to every situation. Perhaps if he were satisfied in his knowledge that “hafuch boh vehafuch boh dekula boh”, and wanted only to use secular studies to understand Torah, not as a “complement” or as something independently important, it would dissuade him from following the mad dash off the cliff.
When I learn with my kids, I try to show them what learning can do for them, how enveloping and encompassing it is..we have a game where they try to find something in the world that has no connection to Torah, and each time I show them how everything is in the Torah. Once I took some of my boys on a laser tag trip – they said… that’s it, there’s no way you can find a Torah lesson in laser tag. I told them that laser tag teaches us that you can do something which seems to have no effect whatsoever…you don’t feel or see the laser coming out of the gun, but it definitely has a result!
Yabia – 100% correct! There’s also a zohar that according to many shitos advocates for it because of kabalah reasons
Syag; there’s a difference between how i deal with people offline, versus how i respond to ideas expressed by anonymous users, in responses that are likewise anonymous and not aimed at any person individually. I have no idea who “mindful” is, I’m only pointing out that this reaction proved my point about chaim jachter’s horrific duplicity. And he is someone I’ll talk about because he’s a public figure who has spread disinformation on important Torah principles.
Other posters, such as AAQ, I’ve developed something of a rapport with. I disagree with him a lot, but he seems to be talking m the aforementioned wavelength; it’s not personal or emotional.
You’re right that there’s a time and place. I realize this may horrify some, but I’m involved in chinuch and have seen a fair deal of hatzlocha specifically with the subset of jewish communities that i rail about on here. Interpersonally, one must be non judgemental and “pick their battles” etc erc. I’m on here not to communicate with people, but to address what they say. I don’t think that’s destructive. I also don’t think I have a holy mission, a chiyuv machaah or something. If I can express torah thoughts that often are not spoken or known about, then I feel a sense of fulfillment in doing so.
Torah Judaism is la’fukei other streams of people who believe that they represent judaism, but do not. Whether it’s admixtures of heresy from goyim in the form of tikun olam social justice, tolerance of the alphabet squad, or mixing in 19th century European Nationalism, “knowledge for its own sake” or any other sort of mixture of Torah with something else.
Torah Judaism shouldn’t have to be; it should be as you say, a redundancy, but there became a need to distinguish ourselves from the less observant or non-observant “denominations” that call themselves representative of Judaism.
Mindful – it’s exactly that reaction that chaim jachter wanted to elicit when he quoted the satmar rov as if he were the only one who qualified the heter of the chofetz chaim as applying only to tanach.
Your reaction is proof of his deceitful tactic working…. it’s far from “just satmar”… it’s chazal, rishonim wnd achronim across the board. Rav Moshe writes that it’s unnecessary to even address the issue, since it’s a simple gemara.
Also, did you know that the beis halevi – not a satmar chossid – says that women don’t wear yarmulkahs because their hair will be cut off anyway upon marriage, so it’s already considered cut and is therefore like a yarmulkah?
Your rant is an excellent caricature of the yatzer hora of modernity… purely emotional, copying feminist attitudes and making baseless claims of superiority over the more observant classes of Jews.
Aaq, a school that teaches gemara to girls as a part of the class that she must attend is definitely coercion… coercion doesn’t mean tying people down, it means making them do it as part of their education.
MO does that and there’s simply no defense for it.
Also absent from this discussion is the yerushalmi which says that the reason is because of a combination of 2 factors; noshim daatan kalos(in regards to being tempted more easily than men) and the fact that Torah makes one “arum”,” crafty”, that she can cover up her sins if she is nichshal.