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To illustrate, I was the founder and captain of my high school’s debate team. I was in a boys-only school, with mostly yeshivishe rebbeim, which catered to the MO world. My classmates were all MO, or not frum(the school was for kiruv as well). I doubt anyone here has heard of it. Anyways, my English principal was a person who sacrificed for Torah. She was modern, but was full of maasim tovim; she would give of her time, money, and resources to help at-risk teens and kids who wanted to become frum… she’d lay for their tickets to go to yeshiva in eretz yisroel, and many other things… May her neshoma have an aliyah.
I was a spirited 15 year old who loved debating; my jewish history teacher introduced me to a network of MO schools that had a debate league. We joined, and competed quite successfully, despite being a school that did not emphasize academic performance. We qualified for the semi finals in the season’s tournament….then we received word of what the topic would be.
Before this, the topics were all pareve. Should there be a draft, should the government subsidize health care, should foreign policy be geared towards nation building…. topics that were not hashkafically sensitive.
My principal and I saw the email at the same time. We looked at each other in disbelief. I believe she understood at that point what MO had become…the topic was polyamority. I had never heard of the term, but one need not be an etymologist to figure out what it meant.
We dropped out of the tournament. My principal and I wrote a fiery letter to the board, and the MO school that was hosting the event.
It was eye opening…the first of many experiences that made me realize that Torah Judaism is only to be found in the Yeshiva.
There always has been a “right wing” of MO that looks like baalabstish litvish, with zionism and small amounts of television nixed in.
My diatribe was aimed at the wider MO community, and to use modern expression, they are my “lived experience”, because I grew up inside modern orthodoxy myself. I was saved from a life kf fake judaism and rabid materialism masquerading as yiddishkeit in high school…there were many factors in my defection, including rav avigdor miller’s seforim, the old frumteens website, some patient neighbors and friends, and some of my rebbeim who saw an opening to dispel the thick haze of tumah I was living in.
1. Broken educational system which facilitates mixing of genders contrary to basic jewish standards of tznius and kedushah. Even in separate schools, downplaying of related halachos, including deoraysohs and abuzrayhu legilui arayos. MO children believe that having girlfriends is an acceptable standard, rachmana litzlan. MO sponsored “sex education” which prioritizes “safety” and “respecting choices” that teenagers make (this is from an NCSY website).
2. Demonization of the Torah world, castigation of us as “cavemen” to quote Norman lamm; then they turn around and accuse us of “sinat chinam” everytime we utter a word about the wanton sinfulness and abrogation of halacha that is commonplace in MO.
3. Acceptance of foreign philosophy, nationalism, humanism, existentialism, and “Knowledge lishma”, even sometimes equating Toras Hashem temima with secular studies.
4. Blind dash into whatever lenient opinions one can find in fundamental Torah ideas such as tznius. Perplexing stringency when it comes to particulars such as techeles and krias hatorah.
5. Incubation of feminism and inventing “meta halacha”.
6 Making secular concepts such as self determinisn and emphasis on lesiure a part of Judaism.. Letting number 3 influence their halachik decisions, if you can call them such.
7. Having zero standards as to what they allow into their heads – no book is forbidden, no website inappropriate… save for out and out “adult content”. Non Jewish music permeates their souls and makes them desire secular lifestyles.
8. Spiritual achievement secularized and made mostly applicable to civil rights, activism, kindness (to goyim as well), “environmentalism” based on a sole medrash that they wrench out of context… denying Hashem’s sole control over the world and thinking that we can “save” the planet by driving hybrids
9. Affirmation of to’eva and gender benders, to varying degrees depending on how modern. Almost none would advocate for the death penalty, even though it is prescribed in the 7 mitzvos of bnei noach.
10. Admiration of reshoim, both zionist and non-jewish.
11. Invention of new values of what’s evil… instead of what Hashem gives us in the Torah, the new evil is always racism, sexism, “homophobia” etc..
12. Undying loyalty to a secular anti religious “Jewish” state
13. Failure of educated MO rabbis to steer their people back on the derech
14. Institutionalized sinfulness…. abandonment of laws of tznius dress in favor of what “i feel is modest”. Widespread lack of knowledge of hilchos shabbos, MO rabbis pandering to women who do not want to cover their hair.
15. Inclusion of insincere converts who convert to marry high profile jewish men, and who have not been taught basic halacha
16. Dismissal of mussar and hashkofa as “extreme”
17. Desire to sacrifice parts of Torah “to save judaism”….from itself?
18. “Reexamination” of Torah ideas in light of modernist ethics. The akeida? Amalek? We must ignore chazal and search….find some way of making pegs fit into square holes.
19. Denial of rabbinic authority…”chicken shailoh Judaism”, as I call it…placing the authority of a rabbi in one’s life only in regards to shabbos and kashrus questions. Denying the place of rabbis as the “eynei haeidah”, the eyes of the population
.. Rashi says that klal yisroel doesn’t do anything without its leaders, yet MO pretends that Torah leadership never expanded past shabbos and kashrus….josephus, not a fan of the rabbis, said that the entire populace listens to their every word in politics…yet MO claims that daas torah is a new concept….suddenly when it’s something they don’t like, “new is bad”, the payos come out and they say we need to be wary of change! Yet feminism, evolution, climate activism, secular studies and everything else…. that’s fine.I teach MO children, though not in an MO setting, they are totally unaware of basic jewish practice. I’ve been asked matter of factly, “sheilos” regarding going to the movies with one’s sin-partner, i.e. girlfriend. Any Torah jewish teenagers who engage in illicit activity, at least are aware that they are going off the derech and as such, have a higher retention rate.
Very commonly, a teenager will repeatedly ask me if a mitzvah is obligatory…the assumption always is that it isn’t. Then, the common response is that they’re not interested, or…”what if someone chooses not to?”. MO education makes a very big deal out of choices… choosing to keep shabbos is great, choosing not to….well, you need to respect other’s choices.
This is abridged and written when I’m half asleep….I can write a book (and I plan on it someday) detailing the layers and levels of degeneration, deception, lies and Torah violations of modern orthodoxy.
They’ve robbed klal yisroel of Torah for far too long. It’s time we said enough.
Duvid… there’s nothing christian about saying that we are not god and that He has not divided himself into parts. Also, it’s the Arizal, bot the Tanya that uses the expression. And it’s “mamash mamash”, not just one mamash.
According to the way my rebbeim explained it to me, it’s not difficult – there is a piece of literal godliness within us, it is not a part of Hashem himself, but a holy spark from an infinite flame, so to speak.
Christian theology in its current incarnation among evangelicals is that god manifested as yushke and that everyone who believes in him has yushke and therefore god inside them. This is actually cery, scarily similar to how chabad views the last rebbe.
When a kabalah sefer says something that goes against the 13 ikkarim, we must say that we are misunderstanding the kabalah, which itself was never intended to be understood by the uninitiated. Many gedolim believe that the time has come to reveal kabalah – but they do not hold that one should let himself be hefker and read every sefer and come to whatever conclusion he wants. There needs to be a mesorah. Chabad broke that mesorah and are very independent in their learning of kabalah.
The only way you can severely disrupt Torah philosophy is through kabalah; that was the downfall of shabsai tzvi, frankel….lehavdil rabbi kook, all was made possible through reckless use of kabalah (and haskalah, in the latter’s case)
Shimon, it seems that you believe that pashut pshat in mitzvos are childish, and that drush and remez are “mature”, for the big boys….i don’t often say this, but that is a bizayon hatorah. Just because children learn something doesn’t mean it’s childish.
As for being yotzei yeshivas sukkah…this is a pri megadim explaining a bach, quoted in mishnah berurah; he says that when the Torah specifically gives a reason, kavanah is me’akev. That’s by tefilin (lemaan tehiyeh), tzitzis (lemaan tizkor) and by sukkah (lemaan yaydu). Some hold that the bach was saying like you, but the pri megadim holds it’s le’ikuva
Lit – that term doesn’t mean age… I don’t think you’re familiar with how’s it’s used.
Shimon, ki bechipazon isn’t the only reason given in the pesukim – and of course the Torah’s stated reasons for mitzvos aren’t the only reason for them. Those reasons, though, are real and essential to those mitzvos. If someone eats in a sukkah and does not have in mind lemaan yeydu dorosaychem, many hold that he is not yotzei even if you hold mitzvos ainan tzrichos kavanah, since the Torah explicitly said a kavanah to have.
It was asked where it says that we should love gerim because we were gerim, and…it says so twice, so obviously that’s a big deal. Are there other reasons? Sure, but we don’t ignore pashut pshat in pesukim.
Avi – here we go again. Criticizing the evil doing enemies of Hashem who live in Israel and elsewhere has nothing to with being from meraglim or slandering “the land”. I never said the fruits are not tasty, the air is too humid, the weather is too hot, or other land-specific issues. Actually, how many israel-loving zionists routinely complain about such things? That’s actually dibas haaretz and would put them in the category of meraglim, so to speak.
I cannot speak for every rabbi everywhere, but I believe if someone were to ask holocaust survivors if they have love for nazis or kapos….well, 40 years ago when they were strong enough, I think they’d make an impression on such a person’s nose that he wouldn’t soon forget. And I couldn’t blame them.
We don’t know clearly who’s at fault, but with the availability of Torah and the exposure that many have…. it’s questionable if the chazon ish would still hold that way today. What’s also clear is that anti religious people are our enemies and seek to undermine us. Chazal wouldn’t have been kovaya a bracha ledoros if there wouldn’t be such people in every generation.
Erbius – I’d like to know what those quotes are. Maybe there’s more to this than the gemara and rambam we’ve been discussing, but i doubt it. No one’s saying… again, that it’s not important and crucial to a marriage. So is trust. That’s not a halachik discussion though.
Also, regarding distinction, i was referring to a rambam about the ways of talmidei chachamim “and their students”, where he says that they are distinct. The rambam does not, to my knowledge, hold that it is a halacha to dress jewish, but many others do, and that has been the mesora in most jewish communities. The naharik in 88 is a famous source for this discussion, and he’s quoted by the rema in shu”a.
Koltuv, it isn’t hateful to expose deviant beliefs, regardless of who holds them. A great deal of lubavitcher chasidim believe things about tzadikim and especially their rebbe that are undeniably heresy. It really doesn’t matter if that person has a job with a mainstream publisher of Torah literature, though I hope he is not counted among those who attribute Divinity to a rebbe.
A common trick that MO and chabad utilize to stifle dissent and critique is the charge of sinas chinam, baseless hatred.
It’s the accusation itself that’s baseless.
Who knows how many times we need to remind people that the halacha, for the past 600 years, has NOT been like the rambam vis a vis tzedaka/learning. The radvaz on the rambam says torah would have been forgotten if we followed this rambam. Also, the Ran in nedarim says that the minhag in bavel was to get married tirst and then learn, because the women supported the husbands. The situation was different in EY because the women were weaker and unable to work that much.
Rav Moshe says it’s ARROGANCE to want to keep gadol haneheneh meyigaas kapo in our times.
It is indeed foolish to jump the gun and get married without any financial plan, be it your own work, your parents’, in laws, wife or whatever.
Anyways, where did you see that letter? If it were known to be directly from the chofetz chaims son in law, ill of course accept it but we’d simply have to see if this was before or after the soccer player incident. There could be a multitude of reasons why tzadikim do things, but we do know that rabbi kook went from being very esteemed to being erased trom history by the Torah world, and there were several steps and events that caused this. There was the soccer incident, the university speech where he said ki mitzion taytzay torah in a place where they teach api(courses) (one of my old original quips from my yeshiva days). Then there was the banning of oros mayofel, and the famous kol koreh from the rabbonim of yerushalayim. A lot of things happened in the middle and it was a tumultuous time in klal yisroel where communication and spread of news wasn’t very available.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if gedolim initially defended him, as he was one of the prized volozhiner talmidim. In those days the haskalah claimed a lot of casualties…my grandfather unfortunately was one of them. He was a promising talmid of rav shimon shkop but fell prey to zionism and haskalah in university; boruch hashem my family came back, but there are countless people who could have been but sadly weren’t.
In “hador vehatekufah”, a very prominent rosh yeshiva in Switzerland who is in his 90s writes that rabbi kook was known at a certain point as a “kayliker”, a person who went “Kal”, modernishe, and was forced to take up rabbonus in England because of that. Was this the way he was seen elsewhere? No. It takes time for people to figure it out and the Torah world took a good few years to see his shortcomings and to discern that his hashkafa was Hegel, not Judaism.
AAQ, who says minim must mean only those who try to undermine us? Also, the term zeidim means wanton sinners….”oivecha”, your enemies, includes people who are enemies of Hashem, whether or not they are political enemies of klal yisroel. Someone who is proud of their sinfulness is an enemy of Hashem, even if he’s fine with others’ keeping Torah.
Happens to be that the zionists DID try to undermine us, and to a much larger extent anf scope than the tzedukim and reform ever did. They literally redefined the word Jew. They tried to strip us of our entire religion; the reform were not as militant, nor did they claim that they represent all of jewry. Neither did the tzedukim.
When the zionists nearly succeeded in uprooting the jewish
family with gius bonos, when they kidnapped religious children, when they sold us out to nazis and kept communities in Hungary in the dark while they saved their own skins, when they made the world think that Israel equals Jew and that we are a nation because of a land and a made up language… that dwarfs all the sabotage of the tzedukim by a wide margin.That being said, I’m speaking mainly of rabbi kooks approval of their leadership – people who the chazon ish and everyone else would agree know better and are full fledged heretics. Even those who were raised to hate religion… that’s a machlokes. Avi is correct that the chazon ish considered them innocent tinokos shenishbu, but many others did not. Rav chaim brisker famously quipped “a nenach an apokores is oich an apikores”.
I do not have chilonim in mind when I say that bracha. I do, however, have in mind zionist leaders and other anti religious people who live in Israel, who seek to spread heresy and undermine Torah, whether or not they put fabric on their head.
That letter can’t be true, because we have eye witness testimony from several students that the chofetz chaim rebuked and mocked rabbi kook’s name when he saw the newspaper article regarding rabbi kook’s praise of chilul shabbos by the “holy” soccer players
Also, it’s false that Litvishe rabbonim don’t know kabalah. The Gaon was a tremendous source of post-arizal kabalah; probably the most prolific, too The zkan rosh yeshivos in America, Rav elya ber vachtfogel, is an open mekubal. As was rav elya weintraub… My rebbe rav Belsky wouldn’t talk about it much, but it was known that he was very into kabalah. The common saying is that the Litvishe show their nigleh and hide their nistar, while chassidim show their nistar and hide their nigleh.
The arizal famously writes that it’s *mamash mamash” but how is that understood? My rebbeim told me that it’s referring to godliness, that just as a flame is not diminished, decreased or divided by igniting something else, Hashem kavayachol made a tiny fire of godliness called a neshoma.
I cant say I have a mekor for this; these ideas are heavily dependent on having a rebbe and a mesorah.
The fact that chabad and others might use kabalah to go off the derech was predicted by the Gaon and the tzlach as one of their criticisms of chassidus. However, the chofetz chaim famously said that the Gaon’s opposition would, in his time, only be to chabad and (some say) breslov. All other chassidishe groups have become more down to earth.
The text is very clear, despite differences in nusach. Vechol hakinim(heretics) cerega yovaydu, means they will be destroyed. Al tehi sikva, they should have no hope – no hope for anything. They have forfeited all of their connection to klal yisroel by their egregious sin of heresy.
If they do teshuva, fine, but we daven for their immediate (kerega) destruction. Tell me, would you daven for a kapo to do teshuva? What about a nazi who happened to be Jewish? Davening for teshuva has its limits, and chazal place those limits squarely on apikorsim. Reshoim who are full to busting in sins, we daven for. Heretics we don’t. I’ll look up your quotes from rav yaakov emden and such, but the text is rochel bitcha hakatana clear.
Also, Avi – there are different kinds of reshoim. Hating them in general is NOT sinas chinam, as it is not baseless; that’s chazal and rishonim across the board. We don’t daven for them to die, as bruriah convinced rebbe meir that yitamu chataim means that the sin should perish, and not the sinner. We daven that a regular sinner does teshuva. That doesn’t mean we love him or do chessed for him. If someone is not oseh maysah amcha, he loses all privileges of a jew, but he’s still someone we hope comes back.
The kind of reshoim that rabbi kook is advocating for….are far worse. We daven three times a day for apikorsim to die. Yes, die. Be destroyed forever. That’s the bracha of leminim ulmalshinim. If someone refuses to say that bracha, we remove him from the amud and don’t let him daven, because we understand from his actions that he is an apikores or that he sympathizes with them.
Did rabbi kook say that bracha? I hope so. For his sake.
AAQ – that’s precisely my point; there’s no difference between sefardi-yeshiva dress and ashkenaz-yeshiva dress; if a community of sefardim decided that they’re all going to look like the ben ish chai, gezunterheit! We all took a certain mode of dress, the same way we took goyishe languages, and made it our own that we can always be recognizeable as Jews. Especially bnei torah, who the rambam exhorts to dress with even greater distinction. In poland, you were able to tell a yid a mile away…in some Litvishe yeshivos, they weren’t makpid on looking different, because they were so completely separate from goyim, spending their entire time in the beis medrash, that they barely even encountered a non-jew.
Especially in America, rav moshe writes that we need to look different; it may not be a halacha according to some, but it is a great tool, and those who dress goyishe usually are indistinguishable from their non jewish counterparts in many other ways aside from their dress.
Avram – we’re not so far apart in our understanding of the rambam, since you admit that he comes to love through the actions delineated in that halacha and that the goal is to have a loving marriage; i agreed with that idea, that you come to love through giving – we only differ on my stance that I don’t think there is an actual obligation to feel that ahavah, and you think that there is.
It hearkens back to a type of apikorsus that I discussed elsewhere; to blame our suffering on “hatred” “racism” and “bigotry”. Those things didn’t cause the holocaust. Hashem did. Why he did? Different discussion. But to attribute Jewish suffering to anything other than divine decree is denial of the 13 principles of faith that Hashem runs the world. It makes one lose their status as a Jew and their olam haba – people talk this way and it’s very frightening. “Stamping out” racism won’t save a single jewish life.
Also, Avi, we are told not to have mercy on idol worshippers even if they appear downtrodden or oppressed; mercy has its limits and while we were the victims of genocide, that does not stop the Torah from demanding that we wipe out amalek, 7 umos canaan etc..
The idea of feeling the suffering of the oppressed and remembering our own suffering is limited. I don’t like it when people equate the suffering of reshoim with, say, the holocaust or other calamities. We are not them. The erech of our lives is not the same, or even in the same universe, as others.
Who says that the reason for loving a ger is because we were gerim in Egypt? That is only a reason to make us sensitive to how they feel (I would extend this to making deprecating comments about other ethnic and religious groups).
Who says? Hashem says so himself in two pesukim. One is vayikra 19:34, where the pasuk says “you shall love him as yourself, for you were gerim in the land of mitzrayim”. The other pasuk is devorim 10:19, “and you shall love the ger, for you were gerim in the land of mitzrayim”
We don’t need rabbi kook’s “ahavas chinam” philosophy to explain simple Hebrew translation of pesukim. I’m not even going to touch your conclusions about how we should not disparage false ideologies. Sheker sonayso ve’esahayva, ki torascha ahavti (tehilim 119, 163) falsehood i despise and am disgusted by it, because i love your Torah”. I’ll go with tehilim over a diyuk in a controversial rabbi.
Avram – just to clarify (i know i write long posts…i never was good at being mekatzer), i never said that love isn’t important or that one should remain miserable in a loveless marriage. I said that it’s not a mitzvah and that rather it is the result of fulfilling the Torah’s plan for marriage. A person can make himself love his wife by giving; I was clear (but loquacious) about that.
Re, regulating emotions – look at the seforno on lo sachmod. Other rishonim discuss this point too, but it’s fleshed out in musssr seforim; if memory serves, rav dessler discusses it in michtav me’eliyahu. It’s not that emotions are not regulated at all, it’s that spontaneous feelings are not prohibited by halacha and neither are constant positive feelings obligatory. When discussion ahavas hashem, the rambam and others say how to bring one’s self to ahavas Hashem; learning about the bri’ah, learning Torah, and contemplating all the good Hashem does for him. The sefer hachinuch, brought in mishnah berurah, says that if one is loveah machshavto, dedicates his focus on enjoyments of olam hazeh without any intention of serving Hashem, he has violated the mitzvah of veahavta es Hashem elokecha.
What comes out is that you don’t violate ahavas Hashem if you’re not thinking loving thoughts all the time. You violate it if you intentionally veer off the path that brings to loving Him.
The aforementioned seforno says that the Torah cannoy obligate us to not feel desire for someone else’s property…rather if you change your paradigm, and understand a Torah concept that everything we have comes only from Hashem, and that we cannot of our own decision earn more lr get someone else’s thing save for the hand of Hashem giving it to us, we will automatically feel no jealousy, since you only desire things that you can realistically have. He says it’s like desiring to marry a princess; you don’t, because you know there’s no chance of it happening.
Re, rambam and women’s obligations. Why by a man would there be a mitzvah of ahavah and kovod, and by a woman there should only be kovod? Wouldn’t it be a two way street? We’re not talking about masculine responsibilities; there’s nothing male or female about loving one’s spouse. According to my pshat it makes a lot, and I mean a lot, of sense.
I think one should say שלא אהיה כקרח ועדתו
Besides railing kanau’us i actually do have a sense of humor
An asmachta is used by chazal to attribute to a pasuk something that is not in the pshat or deoraysoh-level drash. It means that the Torah is hinting out to something beyond what it is directly talking about. Here, the rishonim who discuss the mitzvah of veahavta and its laws do not mention the gemara in kidushin lf asur lekadesh… ad sheyirena.
Chazal are talking about a halacha that seems to be mederabonon in nature(i will imyh look that up because I’m not sure of it at this time), but even if one is violating veahavta medoraysoh by disliking another jew, there’s no reason to think that it is specifically talking about one’s wife more than any other jew, so applying veahavta is not pshat or drash – it’s a very clear example of asmachta, since like you and I quoted, the word reah/reus is used in regards to marriage.
This is in response to Avram’s pshat on the other “hikacked” thread.
Avram; I hear that you can read the rambam that way; mah depasach bei – he starts off with kovod and the first perush is spending, the 2nd statement is ahavah and then the 2nd perush is lo yatil aleha aimah yeserah etc
According to that we still have the problem of why the rambam omits ahavah by a woman. She definitely is capable of not treating her husband lovingly, keaynaynu haro’os.
It could be that the seder is laav davka. Since we see from kibud av veaim that kovod does not mean giving of your own money, and from the rambam minei ubei we see that the wife’s kovod to her husband does not involve expenditures, ot could be that the rambam is mefaresh mah desayam bei, that which he ended off with , that ahavah is explained first.
But there’s a problem with my pshat too. How would it fit with “yoser megufo”? If kovod refers to monetary expenditures, then it’s very good…if middos, it’s not geshmak. Not impossible, but very not geshmak.
Do you have any other terutz as to why the rambam would omit ahavah by the wife?
Avram; I’ll respond to you in the main thread that was started – i do hear where you’re coming from, but i disagree, as i will explain there
“And the Gemara at the beginning of the second Perek of Kidushin applies the aforementioned Pasuk of ve’Ahavta l’Re’acha Kamocha to one’s wife, and there is an argument to be made that it is the Ikar Kiyum of the Pasuk.”
I nearly fell over in my chair reading this. The sefer hachinuch in mitzvah 243 does not even quote veahavta in regards to one’s spouse at all. He goes through all the maamarei chazal and how the mitzvah applies. He even refers to it in the header as “the mitzvah of loving yisroel”. I think a much clearer pshat is that the gemara used reicha as an asmachta, since raus is connected to marriage in tanach “rayasi, yonasi”, etc, and of course you are no less obligated in veahavta with your wife. The rishonim and achronim who discuss veahavta barely mention it in regards to one’s wife in particular. It’s klal gadol batorah, the guiding principle of all interpersonal relationships and skills. It is not just about sholom bayis. Please learn the basic sources before coming up with wild and anti-halachik conclusions.
“No time to look up details now, but the Rambam Paskens that it is a Chiyuv”
Please see my above diatribe where I explain the rambam very clearly.
Commonsaychel – you’re speaking to my point. It shouldn’t be an issue because if you’re having a torahdig marriage, there will be love. I felt however, that it’s important to dispell the “there HAS to be” misunderstandings that are common in such discussions.
My view is: the Torah is not there to confirm everything we think is right and wrong. It’s not there to simply tell us what is a sin and what is an obligation. It’s Hashem’s infinite wisdom brought to a level that we mortal beings can appreciate. The Torah’s mitzvos are a derech hachaim, they enrich our lives and guide us, but there is much, much more. Torah elevates us by virtue of us internalizing Hashem’s word. The fact that Hashem’s chochma was gozer that something be assur or muttar, itself is of immeasurable value, as is the dveikus bashem that one achieves by knowing that halacha.
There are many halachos that don’t fit into a given ethical paradigm, be it current day, medieval or ancient. There are likewise many things that while wrong or discouraged, or even unthinkable, are not specifically a mitzvah or an averah. Cannibalism is only assur because a dead body is assur behanaah, but not intrinsically. There is also no mitzvah to love one’s parents any more than any other Jew.
For many things, we say that the Torah was given to bnei odom. That’s the meaning of derech eretz kadma latorah; it is a prerequisite; the Torah will not tell you mitzvos that you are expected as a ben odom not to do. That’s why there is no mitzvah specifically to not be angry or have other bad middos (there are other reasons for this too, that the Torah does not demand emotion since we’re not always in control of our feelings).
Whenever we find ourselves thinking “this HAS to be assur”, think again. Many bad things are not specifically forbidden.
Ad kan hahakdama.
We find the word love and honor used by chazal and rambam to describe the proper relationship with one’s wife. Chazal say it not in the halachikally impersonation sense, but rather “one who loves his wife as himself and honors her more than himself, on him the pasuk says etc”.
That sounds like a mussar vort. Akin to shom’im cherpasam ve’ainam meshivin, which is a middas chasidus and not a halacha.
Then we have the rambam. He says “tzivu chachamim”, so we are to understand that there is a halachik discussion taking place here. What is that halacha? The rambam in the same halacha qualifies his stance; he says he spends money on her. This implies that the term “oheva kegufo”, he loves her as himself, refers to actions – not emotions. And specifically actions of giving, not things like compliments and writing poems (both are very, very good ideas however). This fits in beautifully with the understanding of ahavah given in the seforim, that it comes from the word “hav”, “to give”. The more you give, the more you love. The rambam can easily be speaking of giving extra to your wife, more than feeding and clothing her.
The next halacha in the rambam discusses a woman’s obligations to her husband. There he does not mention a word about love, only what she must do and how she must perceive her husband. In light of the above, the omission is clear; the wife does not provide anything of her own possession to her husband, so she is not so obligated.
Another poster decided that the above pshat was not true, because he came in to the discussion assuming “there HAS TO be a mitzvah” since it’s an important matter. I agree it’s important. Actually, having a loving relationship is so important, that it’s one of the highest priorities in a man’s life. But it’s a result of following the derech hatorah in marriage, not an imperative of itself. The same way there’s no mitzvah to trust your wife, yet trust is just as key to a marriage, if not more so, than love.
So instead, he decided that a woman naturally loves her husband. I guess that’s because women are into love since the time they’re little, often dressing up as kallos, and in general being more inti romance and such. Non jewish women revel in romantic comedies, etc..
That proclivity towards the superficiality of “love” does not mean that they feel actual ahavah more than men. I think the opposite is true; women are happy when men dote on them and “chase” them – chazal say that one who loses an item chases after it, and that’s a mashal for men and women, chava being taken from adam, etc..
I have to say that I’ve seen no examples of iyun skills on here… I’m not a big talmid chochom, but I received a good chinuch and was given the skills necessary to learn up a sugya…rav Meir Shapiro was asked why he made a yeshiva for 1000 talmidim even chazal say that only one in a thousand end up being moreh horaah, to which he answered – at least the other 999 will know enough to be able to tell who that one gadol is. That’s how I see myself in learning; echad min hachaburah; I don’t know that much, and I’m not a huge lamdan, but I can be nosei venosen, and I can tell when I or someone else hit a nice chidush
Shimon, it wasn’t a hagaah, it was the fact that the rambam in the next few words says what oheva kegufo means by example of how he uses his money. He qualifies his statement by example; if he had just said oheva by itself, or given the example of other chavivus, compliments, etc…then you’d be right.
As to a woman naturally loving her husband more… I’d say that’s a much bigger hanacha and a much bigger chidush; where did you get that from? We know elsewhere that love means giving; that’s not my chidush, it’s all over seforim…ahava comes from “hav”. My only chidush is that that’s the rambam’s kavanah. Your pshat on the other hand, ignores the rambam’s qualification and invents an entirely new idea that women love their husbands more…
I’d say if anything that in my experience that it’s the opposite; men have to win over women more.
It seems quoting halacha 20 of said rambam is not acceptable, so I’ll just say that when discussing the woman’s obligations to her husband, the rambam noteably omits loving him, because of what i said above – her obligations have nothing to do with giving snd providing, so she’s not obliged to “love him as herself”, because that’s the kind of love we’re talking about. I take back my comment about not being married to this pshat – it’s meduyak in the rambam very clearly
Rational; there are a lot of things that make Judaism look unpalatable for western audiences. We’re not reform, who change the Torah to make it go down easier for the consumer, chas veshalom. If they are true, they are not “unthinkable”; the Torah was given to bnei adam, “mentchen”, and not animals. The Torah is also above our understanding, and is a chochma ila’ah, an elevated wisdom emanating from Hashem, who is “les machshava tefisa bay”, no thoughts can reach him. Pointing out how this is true through demonstration that there is no mitzvah to love your parents, children, etc, is important – we should not lower the Torah to an earthly document of laws akin to hamurabbi chas veshalom. I doubt a newcomer to Judaism will be discouraged ny reading a coffee room thread.
Re, the rambam in hilchos ishus – if I haven’t made it clear by now in my posts, I’ll say it outright; im not “omed al diburo”, and I’ll admit that i don’t know everything; i can admit that I was not aware of the word “love” in rambam nor in the gemara he’s based on (see magid mishnah there). That being said, the rambam follows this statement of oheva kegufo etc with discussion of how to spend his money. The ahavah he refers to seems to mean giving her things and making her feel loved. He is not referring to an obligation as to how he feels about her. Let’s say he’s never worked at marriage before; he started out with gaga feelings and infatuation. Then one day, it hits him that he’s not feeling love very much anymore. He starts feeling resentment; maybe regret. The answer here is to give! Give of time, money and resources and he will build ahavah. The gemara that the rambam is based on says “one who loves his wife like his body, and honors her more so, on him the pasuk says “and you will know that your tent is peaceful etc..”.
I still think it’s referring to behavior, not to an obligation to feel a certain way. Could be that I’m wrong; I’m not “married” to my position
Also, shimon, i never said it’s not important. If you call, I said that if you value your olam hazeh and olam haba, this should be high on your priority list.
Shimon, I believe you have the idea of love inverted. You say that if one does not love his wife, he should get divorced and find someone he loves, or force himself to love her. It seems as though you’re saying that love comes first, and is then evidenced by wanting to care for and give to one’s wife. That is, pardon my bluntness, very goyish. Goyim believe that love is natural and comes by itself for some inexplicable reason.
The Torah is saying the opposite. By placing financial and emotional responsibilities on the husband, the Torah is creating a recipe for love that will promote sholom bayis. Responsibility and unconditional commitment are the keys that unlock a loving marriage. They are not results, they are causes.
Reacha would apply equally to all jews – in theory, halacha requires no more love to one’s wife than to a begging vegrant, if he’s Jewish. All the lofty ideals of marriage and what it’s supposed to be like – ishto kegufo, etc, are real and important. Marriage needs a lot of things; trust, for instance. Is there a halacha that one is obligated to trust one’s wife? There isn’t. I never said one should not endeavor to love one’s wife – if you value your olam hazeh and olam haba, this should be high on your priority list, but i do not like creating halachos when there are none.
“It says in mishnah torah” – where? Where does any halacha sefer say that a man is obligated to love his wife?
Indeed, when one fulfills the obligations of kovod, shear kesus veonah, those mitzvos lead to a loving marriage. Ahavah comes from “hav”, to give; the more one gives his wife, the more love there will be. That’s beautiful, but again, we are violating bal tosef jf we invent a mitzvah just because something is important.
Kovod, she’ar kesus ve’onah, vesimach ea ishto….those are mitzvos. If you find something”megunah” and have a distaste for her, the gemara says that’s a violation of ve’ahavta lereacha kamocha, but where does it say it’s a mitzvah to love your wife? People are likewise “astounded” to learn that there’s no mitzvah to love one’s parents….a loveless marriage isn’t fun. It isn’t healthy, but where does it say it’s an aveirah?
“Keep in mind that one of the mitzvos is to understand the real world, i.e., the physical environment, human behavior, and the effects of human behavior, inter alia”
Which one of the taryag mitzvos is this? I suppose Rav Yisroel Chaim Kaplan, Mashgiach of beis medrash elyon and a lamed vavnik, did not fulfill this mitzvah, as his rebbetzin had to remind him the difference between a nickel and a dime every time he used them! A lot of gedolei yisroel, especially in later generations, were aloof from the world and did not know “velt zachin”. That did not diminish their daas torah and their understanding of how the world runs on a deeper level. The heiliger Steipler was as cloistered in learning as can be, yet he had a profound understanding of psychology, as can be seen in the seder aitzos vehasrachos. He could have easily been a top notch therapist if he had so chosen, without reading one psychology book.
In mishnas rav aharon, rav aharon kotler has a shmuez where he says that in essence, modern orthodoxy is akin to reform, as they blth originally began as attempting to “save” yiddishkeit by making sacrifices and changes.
Modern orthodox has a higher drop out rate – double, actually – than the yeshiva world. When people see that you’re willing to forego Hashem’s will for the sake of whatever thing it may be, the door is open, the pischa shel gehinnom is underneath it, and it takes a miracle and zchus avos not to end up there
Biden resigning would just mean that the beloved openly communist kamalah harris would become president. What good would that do?
Huju, you’re deflecting the discussion which you started that had to do with inherently spiritual things, i.e. bais yaakov, yeshiva, kolel, etc, and are now pretending that your gripe is with how much it costs to buy a black hat. Modern orthodox jews have their fair share of exorbitant costs; college tuition, fancy technology, etc…buying an iphone 12 is a LOT more than a borsalino, and way more than a kosher phone. Happens to be that my hats were never more than 150, even for my wedding. Many yeshiva guys buy cheaper hats. My suits are also 75-120, except for my wedding suit. I’m very frugal, and so are most of my yeshivishe learning-man friends. Also, FYI, tan suits are just as expensive as black.
To pretend that the divide between MO and the yeshiva world can be reduced to exteriors is disingenuous. If MO wore colored shirts and light suits but kept the laws of tznius, covering hair, separation of genders, had filters on their internet and kept halacha normally, it wouldn’t bother me at all of they dressed lighter. Chofetz chaim boys dress that way, and they have a robust Torah chinuch, with nothing in common with an average student in a MO school. A chofetz chaim boy in high school can discuss reb shimon and reb chaim with a yerushalmi boy with little issue aside from a language barrier. Yeshiva styles change and don’t matter much; to think that the hat and jacket make the ben torah is very, very superficial.
When pressed into frustration over a lack of a robust Jewish education, the product of modern orthodoxy resorts to insulting his opponent’s use of English.
Huju…so, perhaps you want the Torah community to be more like yourself?
Reb Eliezer, I really like that vort, very meduyak
Ari; that’s very true, especially when MO move out of Brooklyn and aren’t as embarrassed to send their children to public school r”l. I have talmidim who are in danger of going to public school because their parents would rather finance a new house; I’ve had yo move heaven and earth to find a school for them.
Myocarditis, inflammation of the heart, was first recognized as a possible side effect in Israel among men under the age of 30. There were no disproportionate amounts of other populations contracting that condition, neither in Israel or in the US, where the FDA concluded that there is a rare chance of – again – men under 30 developing myocarditis. It also is extremely treatable with medication and hardly ever results in death. The signs are also very noticeable; elevated heart rate, chest pain, etc….
Did your friend have any other issues? Originally the FDA was reluctant to classify myocarditis as a side effect because the condition happens to people at a certain rate in general. We’re talking about millions of people, a percentage of which will unfortunately contract certain conditions over the course of a few weeks or months. Only if there is an elevated instance of the condition developing should there be an indication of causality, bot mere correlation. That’s a distinction that people don’t seem yo understand in the anti vaxx movement. Anecdotal evidence is not evidence at all, especially when dealing with millions of people.
“” I expect that, in the future, frum families will, CORRECTLY , cut corners on the “requirements” I described and thereby sustain the frum lifestyle””
You are clearly saying that at least some of your requirements should be changed philosophically, not just practically. As Avram pointed out, do you believe in cutting down on mitzvas peryah verivya? The minimum is a boy and girl, but the mitzvah is to have as many as possible. Cut down on yeshiva/beis yaakov? That is the very source of the continuity of klal yisroel. Have women go to school after seminary? That’s already happening 90% of the time by Litvishe women. They’re not going to New York University though, so maybe they should in order to get better educated about why they should be feminists and BLM activists with pronouns in their twitter profile. Maybe that’s what you want out of klal yisroel.
Because if Avram understood the incontrovertible logic of huju, he would unequivocally agree. Therefore, it is per force that he simply didn’t understand it.
Huju doesn’t like people who learn more or keep mitzvos better than he does. With a paltry education, how exact can one be in shmiras shabbos before putting up one’s hands in frustration at the son/daughter who comes home from Israel with a black hat/acceptable tznius clothing, pointing out error upon error, questioning their ability to eat in their parents’ home?
Benephraim, there is some truth to the idea that the kolel system is a horaas shaah, but there has never been a shaah that was in greater need of it then our time, with its hitherto unthinkable nisyonos and toxic culture
It would seem that huju lives in either a very modern homogeneous community, with his knowledge of the frum world gleaned from the internet and Netflix, as Avram pointed out….or this is just trolling.
Also, the mindless quoting of chazal and rishonim who advocate going to work instead of taking tzedaka to learn is without defense. It remains an established fact that the achronim down to contemporary poskim – deciders of what halacha means – not lnly allowed but encouraged being supported in order to dedicate one’s self to learning. The early achronim including the radvaz say that if we’d follow the rambam’s psak, “Torah would have already been forgotten from klal yisroel”. Then again, modernishe people would applaud forgetting Torah besides social justice, “cultural” shabbos and kashrus and of course yishuv etetz yisroel performed by people who have the halachik status of goyim as mechalelei shabbos befarhesya. (Had to throw that in)
Rav Moshe wrote 40+ years ago that if someone says he wants to be mekayam gadol haneheneh meyigas kapo nowadays, he is arrogant. How much more so today?
The situation you described is inaccurate and mixing together the “chumros” of the Litvish and Chassidish world. Litvish stay in kolel more, but the women by and large all get degrees and bring in salaries of 60k+ once they get off the ground. Chassidim do not go to school(the majority, both men and women) but the men go into business and do quite well most of the time.
Also, as someone who has been in the yeshiva world (not the coffee room) for the past 15 years….a very large number of men are going to school. I’d say most at this point, outside of Lakewood, have gone or will go to college at some point. In Lakewood too, things aren’t as clear cut as they were 10 years ago, but the average yungerman in kolel will go to work in some capacity within 10 years of marriage.