AviraDeArah

Ujm, OP is talking about (mainly) boro park children’s “fashion” j.e., what mothers decide wear their kids wear.

I think it comes from a few women who go down 13th avenue with 5 kids in tow, all dressed the same – at some point people start copying it and eventually it becomes the current style

I don’t think mods reject posts that don’t fit into their shitos; they allow anything from fringe MO to brisker fanatics like myself

AAQ – i understand that rabbi tendler said so, when i said “this has nothing to do with rabbi tendler” I meant that when responding to the statement, I have no intention specifically at rabbi tendler or any other individual, only that the statement that was said is a mistake. I’m addressing the content and not the speaker thereof. It doesn’t concern me if he said it or not, only that rav moshe was crystal clear in his teshuvos and to say that he would have said differently nowadays is to ignore the simple words of those teshuvos.

Gadol, where in the OPs post do you see any hint to changing “a bit”, “retaining individuality” and that she wants someone who is comfortable with her background? I think that’s wishful thinking or not wanting to accept that someone actually became more religious…all she said is that she became more frum and doesn’t want to be limited to BTs and other MO graduates…

As someone who is essentially a male carbon copy of what you described, i had no problems being rehdt to choshuve families in the Yeshiva world. It’s more about your current association, the company you keep, and how much you’ve integrated into the community. Going the right seminary matters a lot – the same way the Yeshiva a boy chooses does as well.

If you’re only recently becoming more frum post seminary years, then you might find some difficulty, but ultimately the right person won’t care, and there are plenty of young men who are in your situation.

“do not look at the vessel, but rather what it is inside it”

Lemay nafka mina?

Syag, rabbi yaakov shapiro is very typical of the core yeshiva world, as I later learned in my years at various yeshivos. There are many things that aren’t palatable to the general population and are not as widely known. For instance, rav moshe has a letter about college where he says that “even though we don’t tell this to klal yisroel”, regarding his shitah that it is assur for most yeshiva bochurim to go to college.

AAQ – the money isn’t wages, it’s just a little matan schara betzidah; he would be learning anyway, but he is specifically learning with him… this sort of thing happens all the time.

I’d recommend luach dot com for classified ads of this nature, or macherusa

Melbourne; tzidkus and the lack thereof do not absolutely qualify or disqualify a given psak – it doesn’t concern me if the last lubavitcher rebbe was a tzadik, or how big of a tzadik he was. It’s true that we only listen to rabbonim who are yirei shomayim, but that’s because if they’re not, they’re not reliable. But reliability has more criteria than tzidkus – if someone shows us that he is not following normal halachik reasoning, we simply will ignore him, no matter what mofsim he may or may not do. The fact that chabad constantly talks about his miracle workings is evidence that there is a need to compensate for the gedolei torah vocally opposing him.

He said something (and other things) which according to normal halachik reasoning are invalid. It was for these reasons that he was opposed; not because of “jealousy” or “hisnagdus”, there were crystal clear reasons given by gedolei yisroel who opposed his innovations, this being one of them. It doesn’t matter that he knew more torah than me; if something is wrong, it’s wrong.

If a rov told me, for instance, that women may be ordained, I would not check into his yichus or examine his hanhagos and how much he knew, and then accept what he says if he’s a tzadik and talmid chochom. We have brains that can see emes. I have a great deal of emunas chachamim; i follow any psak from my rebbeim and constantly sought their advice on personal issues, having confidence that their words were coming straight from the Torah they learned yomam velaylah. Yet if my rebbe told me to step on a bug on shabbos, or eat McDonald’s, ad kan rebbe. At that point i would assume that either he has lost his faculties or has become a rasha.

The lubavitcher rebbe was not accepted in the first place as a universal gadol gador. Yet even if he were, there are limits.

As i understand it, tzfas lubavitchers are known to be more extreme. The fact that he never responded to my questions regarding if he believes in the last lubavitcher rebbe as the essence of god wrapped in a body, enabling his followers to pray at his gravesite(thereby answering the question of not davening to intermediaries)….makes one wonder if he not only says yechi, but perhaps says ‘boreinu” as well; maybe he says it under his breath. I’ve known people who try to avoid answering such questions because they are not allowed to betray their faith, much as we would try to skirt around questions about lehavdil mechias amalek…we wouldn’t deny it but we’d try to make it less offensive to a secular or very modern person who asks us. So too, believers in the rebbe-god ideology try to beat around the bush and avoid simply saying that no, a tzadik is not god nor is he god wrapped in a body, and one may not pray to him, and that he does not know your thoughts or hear you except when Hashem wants him ( or anyone else, relatives etc) to.

My rebbe Rav Belsky told me that the OU checks out every chabad shochet to see if they’re rebbe god people; not meshichisten – crazy as that might be, it is not avodah zara and would not disqualify one from shechting.

“”Haha melbournian! Are there no chabadniks near you down in Australia or something? at the rate of ignorance and downright stupidity that the yeshivish world is running on, the future of Chabad’s image doesn’t look too bright…..””

Why are you concerned with the image of chabad? Do you endeavor to make a kidush chabad instead of a kidush Hashem? Or are they one and the same to you?

Chazal say that olam haba is where tzadikim sit with crowns on their heads and enjoy the ziv hashechina, the splendor of Hashems presence. Perhaps the atarah mentioned here is a tzadiks wife? An eshes chayil is called “ateres baalah”…

Ujm, while AAQ’s story has yet to have been sourced, i don’t see a contradiction – turning away during kiddush or brochos is a viable heter expressed by many poskim, usually as a bedieved, or even shaas hadchak. Honoring one’s parents is just as important as any shaas hadchak situation i can think of, so the two stories are not in conflict.

AAQ – I must say that some of the shitos outlined in that article seem out of context and some seem pretty hard to believe at all; can you copy and paste the footnotes too?

AAQ – young men shouldn’t have to know what to do if their nother is not tznius; it’s a very sad thing indeed and improper chinuch either way….

I don’t think there should be a distinction made between tefilin and tznius; both are discussed by halachikally binding(pardon the pun) literature and both have certain parameters that are completely universal, while tznius also includes standards that are subjective, the poskim make it clear which things are universal and which things aren’t.

Single women covering their hair is subjective. Knees, elbows and collarbones are not. The latter are the things that are most derided, based on the supposed ridiculousness of measuring such things with rulers etc….you don’t hear the same derision regarding issues that depend on local custom.

At this point I don’t think it’s highly speculative to say that a great divide is being drawn between those whose desire to not cut themselves off from non-jewish ideology has not, until recently, put them at total odds with halacha, and those who are using the Torah as their sole guide and defining factor..

20 years ago it was easier to be a practicing Jew who thought similarly to non jewish counterparts; today it is completely impossible. Something has to give – it’s either Hashem or the ba’al; it is precisely like Eliyohu on Har Karmel…ad mosai atoh posayach al shtei haseifim…

The rizhiner rebbe said that before moshiach there will be such an event as with Eliyohu, only that the fire will come down on the side of baal.

At the risk of arguing that this is semantics, I believe it is just that – if we can agree that punishments are necessary when infractions are perpetrated, then it is logical that those punishments are part of the disciplinary inculcation that CT was referring to. The punishing act, be it tangential (time out, etc) or corporeal, has the effect of discipline, since the child has learned that when he does A, B(negative consequence) happens. He therefore is trained not to do B.

Hitting children is a touchy subject with a lot of reactionary speech that is born of trauma and/or lack of education. It serves no purpose to discuss in this forum the merits and shortcomings of the practice and its relevant sources, whether it’s a mitzvah, a necessary evil, or ill advised in our times. We’ve been down this road before from the same poster, who unfortunately seems to have a preoccupation with this subject. I wish her the best.
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I caution anyone who might be offended or who has experienced trauma in this regard to not read the following paragraph.
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It is worthwhile to mention the gemara in makos daf 8a, which says very openly that it is a mitzvah to hit one’s child even if they are learned and not expected to do something wrong, because of the Pasuk of yosir bincha vayinechecha (interesting that chazal derive this mitzvah from here and not from chosech shivto). In previous discussions of this matter, this gemara was not mentioned for some reason

This also obviates all attempts at “drushifying” chosech shivto etc

Rabbi wallerstein works with some types; he, like most rabbis, isn’t for everyone. If the shtuchiner rebbe was suggested by someone who knows both the man and the rebbe, then it’s worth a shot. It would be worthwhile to ascertain what the issues are; are they trauma related? Is there abuse involved? Mental health kr learning disabilities? Very rarely is it just theological questions.

Also, we used to use 3 braided whips, not sticks, for makos – but rest assured, recalcitrant husbands would be beat up as well when they are obligated to divorce but refuse

I don’t know if rav ovadia would have said that regarding a charedi neighborhood, as AAQ pointed out earlier; in sefardi communities, levels of religious observance among those who refer to themselves as orthodox vary quite a lot. For such a community, I agree that pants are a better choice, as this isn’t corrupting others or bringing in a foreign nisayon into the minds of women.

Melbourne; I don’t mean to knock what you were raised with – i can only relate normative halacha as we have learned it from rishonim and achronim, and as there is a mitzvah deoraysoh to sleep in a sukkah, that mitzvah was given with full knowledge of the spiritual characteristics of a sukkah, so if someone felt the kedushah of the sukkah, it would not fall under the category of things like cold, rain, etc, which are simple identifiable discomfort ,”mitztayer”. However what the last rebbe said was even further, not that you’re patur because you feel the holiness, but rather that you’re pained that you’re not pained and that you don’t feel the kedushah, which is itself an exemption. We don’t find such far removed, indirect concepts in relation to halachos of any other mitzvah. I can’t tell you that it’s ok not to sleep in a sukkah for the above reasons, but i can say that throughout the generations, the majority of ashkenazi Jews have not and do not sleep in a sukkah outside of eretz yisroel. The reasons for this range from not being able to sleep in a sukkah with one’s wife, to being cold, and so on – all physical discomfort.

AAQ – it’s not me necessarily who sees muslims as enemies, but rather the vast majority of our community, so much so that associating something with islam/arab culture would be automatically a pejorative – i wasn’t saying whether or not this is proper or not, nor do i have a clear opinion on the matter. On the one hand, I’ve looked at the arab/muslim community with an open mind, not wanting to listen blindly to the zionists who consider them all our enemies. However at every turn I’m confronted with evidence that points to extremely high levels of anti semtism, largely due to zionism, endemic in the Muslim and particularly the Arab world. Not every single one hates us, but studies show that a very large percentage does, in Europe and the middle east at least. The amount of mainstream Muslim organizations that are found to have funded terrorist ones, politicians who espouse anti semitic views, and media which perpetuate anti semitic libels….i don’t believe that the zionists are completely lying in this issue. Just based on what my fellow talmidim in brisk encountered when mistakenly entering an Arab village is enough to make me want to avoid it as well; i don’t see why these sentiments are hateful or buying into the zionist narrative that they alone can protect us from our enemies. They lit the fire, threw us in it, and are now saying that we only can be saved by them.

I definitely don’t think that they’re irredeemable like the zionists say that they are; they grow up on lies about Jews, and i believe that educating them and the rest of the world that zionists do not represent all Jews will solve a great deal of the problems.

The fact that they are monotheistic would have been relevant 140 years ago before zionism came and spurred the arab countries to expel sefardi Jews etc, but now my point is that regardless of their religion, they are not something most jews would find flattering to be compared to, whether or not those feelings are justified is unclear to me entirely, but also not relevant either.

Re, Rav Ovadia; he addressed married men very clearly – those who leave their families are acting irresponsibly and without menthlickeit (he didn’t use that word, i forget his exact language); he didn’t mention bochurim at all…as for the misbehavior of some attendees; I’ve never been there, so I don’t know, but it seems to me that if someone wanted to sin, tel aviv is a while lot closer than uman.

I’ll admit i am not knowledgeable in Ukrainian politics, or even the exact details of tach vetat that you mentioned ( i.em chimilnicki’s political views); i just know that he killed hundreds of thousands of jews in his hatred and that he is still venerated by poles and Ukrainians as a national hero. I think what you said about Ukraine being a very different country than it was pre-war is very relevant; perhaps a wholesale boycott would be fruitless, as would abstaining from visiting uman due to an indirect boost to their economy. In my family, the Germans are collectively, not individually irredeemable and we would not drive Germans cars etc even if they paid us to; lots of European Jews feel the same way, as Germany is still Germany

Melbourne; i thought that when you said that some chabad rabbonim slept in a sukkah, that you meant that it was not abandoned fully like it is now, but was subject to the same rules that everyone else followed, namely that if you were cold you didn’t do it.

How does saying that some chabad rabonim slept in a sukkah connect to the kabalistic reasoning attributed to the miteler rebbe? Also, for the record, no one has produced evidence that the miteler or anyone else at all employed kabalistic reasons to override halachik obligations, nor has anyone provided evidence of a community or even a daas yochid who abstained from sleeping in a sukkah outside of ashkenazim in europe who lived in cold climates. To add to my original case, I don’t think there is a minhag among sefardim to not sleep in a sukkah either, as they did not live in cold places. I will bl”n look into that, as I have a friend who is a baki in sefardi minhagim… I’ll also give a look into the kaf hachaim, which would probably mention it if it were a minhag

Syag, thank you for the compliment; i appreciate it, and i do try to avoid ad hominem; i was in a certain mood last night and looking back on the last thing i said, i think i was channeling someone else who posts here