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If eshes chayil is indeed from a very chasidish community, i dont think the coffee room will provide her any assistance – be the ammunition for snarky comments? Yes, but helpful…no
The nafka mina is in the intent; one person gives chessed leshem his avoda zara…chessed leumim chatas, and a yid gives it for Hashem. Same action, different reaction; the oved avoda zara is punished and the oved Hashem lehavdil is rewarded. And yes, the opportunity to make a kiddush hashem is gevaldig – i remember once a guy ended up on the cover of the new york post because he returned a ton of money that he found in a desk that he bought at a yard sale; his obviously frum appearance was everywhere.
What would have happened if he would be dressed as a modern orthodox jew with a name like morris? Would there have been a kiddush hashem for everyone to see on the cover of the paper? Something to think about
I was saying that even if we accepted the meiri, which we have no reason to do, it wouldn’t apply in most cases…maybe it would in your location.
Avi; would you mind telling us where you got the story of rav aryeh levine from? You’re good at mareh mekomos
Also, while the torah worlds rejection of zionism was due to it being an admixture of foreign junk into torah, the canard of the meraglim is exactly the opposite….the meraglim felt that they had to rely on their own power and seeing how great and powerful the canaanim were scared them. Real jews believe it’s Hashem that lrotects us, not the Uzi (aptly called “my strength”). The sin of the spies was in denying the strength of hashem and only believing in their own kochi veotzem yodi.
No anti zionist rabbi ever said anything bad about eretz yisroel. here we go again with the circular logic of “if you say something bad about the shmad state, you’re slandering eretz yisroel!”. Eretz yisroel lechud and medina lechud. They’re not baalei batim over my holy land. Saying that the zionists were wicked and that they spread an evil immoral toeva-infused culture into the palace of hashem is NOT lashon hora against eretz yisroel.
Saying that such things are ok to be in the holy land IS LASHON HORA itself, that the land is some secular political entity, or the early zionist land-god nordic influence of the connection between man and land. To make an avodah zara out of eretz yisroel… that’s truly the sin of the spies on many levels
Avi; id think you’d be the first not to compare rishonim/achronim with neviim. If they had written “this is only beshaas hadchak” on the label, I don’t think it would have accomplished their goals at all. It’s up to those who are the baalei mesorah to understand what’s meant ledoros and what’s not. The vast majority of rav hirschs torah is ledoros and i am among his avid fans and admirers. There are, however, certain things that must be understood in the context of the state of german jewry. Modern people LOVE this academic context-oriented approach when it comes to dismissing the chasam sofer etc, or saying that the rambam was just parroting Aristotle cv”s, but when it comes to their own sacred cows…..the payos come out and we can’t question the context of unusual statements made by yechidim that don’t fit the framework of chazal. Why is it ok to say that chazal believed in the existence of the fire breathing salamander “just because the goyim did” but not ok to say that rav hirsch advocated for social justice to win the favor of the masses of german jewry who were falling away en masse? It’s hypocritical snd intellectually dishonest.
I never said that rav hirsch et al wrote about goyim because of his influence cv”s, by having good relations with them. I said that he was doing kiruv and packaging yiddishkeit in a way that’s palatable for newcomers and people educated with progressive and universalist ideology. Think of what aish hatorah does. Did rav hirsch argue with chazal that goyim who dont keep the 7 mitzvos bekavanah have no olam habah? There’s even a machlokes in the gemara in sanhedrin if goyim who DO Keep the mitzvos have it. Did he argue on the punishment of a mechalel shabbos? No, but he didn’t talk about it much either, because he had a goal, which he accomplished – the yekkishe community is along, if not the most staunchly traditional community in the world with their minhagim and adherence to halacha.
The kav hayasher, rav kordenoiver, was the rov of frankfurt a while before the aruch leneir; he probably had good relations with the gemutliche germans too, but that didn’t stop him from writing all about tumas akum, romemus yisroel, etc..
To clarify my position on the meiri and omission; even if the rishonim and achronim didn’t have access to it, fhe fact that the gedolei poskim, asher mipihem anu chayin, do not mention it, means that they learned the sugya differently and that the halacha therefore should follow the overwhelming majority who omit this exception to chazals rule that it is assur to return a goys aveidah. That’s different than the falacy of the omission of the 3 osths (it’s quoted A LOT in the rishonim and achronim…the rambam, ramban, tashbetz, rashbash, maharal, many others) but 5hat misses the point that the 3 oaths ARE A GEMARA, so the question is why aren’t they mentioned, not why are they….here it’s the opposite, here we have a chidush from a rishon…if it’s not mentioned, it’s clear that it’s not halacha. If a gemara isn’t mentioned, we ASSUME THAT A GEMARA IS A DIN, because it’s a Gemara….we then ask why it’s not in the tur and mishneh torah, and there are answers given. Either it’s stam a kefira in bias hamoshiach, as the satmar rov wrote, or it’s not a din per se, but an exhortation not to do it because there will be redifos chas veshalom (rav belsky zt”l), either way the gemara says not to do it so we don’t do it. It’s not like other things that the rishonim say are not nogaya anymore, like the refuos in the gemara which tosfos says are not nogaya, or mayim emtzaiim, there we have rishonim who bring the gemara and say why we don’t follow it. Here by the shevuos no kadmon says that it’s not nogaya.
Yes, if you learned the sugya of hafkaras mamonam and yiush with the rishonim you’d see that the meiri doesn’t fit at all. You seem to be very good at finding mareh mekomos for things, but i believe that your strength in bekius needs to be built around learning sugyos be’iyun, of which I’ve seen little example.
Also, who says the majority of goyim are mayshiv aveidos? I believe that they don’t. I don’t think most goyim put up signs or ads in papers that they found a diamond ring. The only thing theily seem to be careful with is returning dogs. Hamayvin yovin.
Yashrus doesn’t mean we treat goyim like yidden. Hashavas aveida is a special mitzvah, like Rashi says, between yidden. It’s not for goyim inherently, absent kiddush/chilul hashem tangents
7184319501 – relief. They respond faster with an email. Google relief jewish organization for the site
Maid; i feel that your question to our esteemed poster was accusatory and frankly abusive. Wanting to be with people who understand your personality because they have a similar neurological makeup is not “reveling”, it is feeling validated and familiar, and not the “other”. We’re not talking about someone who is, say overweight, and prefers being around obese people to not feel that they have to lose weight. Autistic people are born autistic and that’s how hashem made them; they deserve to feel comfortable among us and each other just as much as anyone else. Whatever differences they have socially etc, are not our business. Our business is to be mekayam veahavta lereacha kamocha and nothing more.
Think of it this way; you’re lubavitch, I’m guessing from your acreenane. Imagine never being around anyone – not one person, who has heard of lubavitch, nor are they interested to. They’re all, say… mongolians. They don’t even speak English. Wouldn’t you miss being around other yidden and especially around other chabadniks? Does that mean you’re “revelling”?
Ephraim has been hurt enough as it is, let’s not add insult to injury.
Avi – shimon ben shatach was making a kidush hashem…very simple. Re, the meiri; while it’s possible that the reason why his psak is not mentioned in the achronim, as in the nosei keilim and gedolei poskim, is that they didn’t have access to it – that’s not clear. I didn’t invent the idea that he wrote that psak under duress; it’s in….i believe the aruch hashulchan, but i have to check into it.
And yes, i do dismiss the psak of people who are incapable of seeing past the egel hazahav of zionism; it’s actually a pretty good litmus test to see if someone is motivated by emotion or pure daas torah, because the impulse towards it was extremely powerful….im pretty sure if i had lived under oppression as they did i would have fallen prey to it as well. It doesn’t mean someone is a bad person or unintelligent, just that to pasken halacha to the extent that i will be machnia my daas to them, one need be of a purely torah mind, and adding in nationalism, haskalah, rebbe-messianism, feminism, or other abberations to your Judaism disqualifies one from being so.
Re, rav hirsch; he wasn’t the only yekkishe rov who said that, but prior to his time, none of the yekkishe poskim report it. That includes the aruch lenair. It’s not a stretch that if the meiri wanted to keep peace with goyim, that rav hirsch would not also be so motivated…even more so as he was trying to package judaism in a way that would be appealing to enlightened german jewry.
It doesn’t change the fact that the rishonim and achronim; rambam, tur, rosh, ran, rif, mechaber, rema, sm”a, shach, chelkas mechokek, gr”a, nesivos, rav Akiva eiger, chasam sofer…. dismiss it by omission. The fact that it is appealing to rabbonim who were justifying judaism to its detractors in a hostile environment doesn’t change that we have no reason to pasken like it whatsoever.
Humanism and other such foreign motivations don’t count; if this would be any other shailoh you wouldn’t dig up a meiri and change established halacha based on it. Or mayeb you would, which is even scarier. The chazon ish in michtavim writes that we cannot do so and that whatever prints of the rishonim were in the possession of the achronim are halacha, all else is “ravcha lemilsa”
AAQ, also we have times when rishonim wrote things that were interpreted to be intended only for their time snd audience; many hold that the rambam wrote that there is no such thing as kishuf and sheidim to get jews away from such things that were culturally widespread in Egypt; the rambaN dismisses medrashim in his debates with Christians, while his actions were understood to only be permitted in that context
It’s not an issue of “convenience”, it’s an issue of, is this sefer going against pashut pshat and mesora from chazal? If it is, then we are open to exterior explanations… it’s not to fit some yeshivishe myopia as modern people claim. If chazal and rishonim say that the world is 5781 years old, then anything else we find should be made to comport with that, not the other way around. If chaz say that hashavas aveida stam is assur, and one sefer says a wild chidush that it’s not because of the way you learn the sugya normally; i.e. they’re automatically meyayesh because goyim dont return lost items al pi rov, or because of hafksras mamonam, or other pshatim, but a wild chidush that it’s only because they wouldn’t return ours….you can ask a ton of kashas on that pshat; why would the halacha of ownership and gezel depend on their attitude towards us? If one person steals, it doesn’t mean you can steal from him
Saying that it was a necessary contrivance is the more reasonable assumption
AAQ, definitely important to keep darchei sholom – also, to UJM, the achronim are medayak into the words “with” in that gemara; the consensus is that they do not neee to be together; see the taz i quoted above who talks about it
The gemara in kesuvos 68 says that we should have gratitude to the remaim, the fraudsters, because if not for them we’d have to give everyone indiscriminately without checking, and if we didn’t we’d be sinning every day
Imagine being grateful for thieves!
There is also a theory in the achronim that the meiri wrote that to show goyim that we don’t think of them as goyim as stated in the gemara, because that was only said about ovdei avodah zara, but that he didn’t mean it lehalacha.
The rambam.you quoted is, as not surprising…wrenched out of context. He does not say “non jew”, he says akum, which is in contrast to the lines above your quote where he says that it appears to him that a ger toshav receives chessed like a Jew. Then he says that even an idol worshipper receives tzedaka, visiting their sick and burying their dead, because of darchei sholom. See Taz on the shulchan aruch seif that you quoted that explains that there is no connection at all between the giving lf tzedaka to goyim and to Jews, by yidden it’s a mitzvah and by goyim it’s just darchei sholom.
Boruch….r. unterman was a zionist rabbi; that sefer does not convince me any more than it would if you’d quote him as saying that the state is the harbinger of moshiach.
What is his proof that darchei sholom means any more than darchei sholom? It’s clear from the gemara; the reason is to have peace with goyim. It is not chesed lishma.
He’s nust saying “well, no, the REAL reason is lishma, don’t be fooled by the language of the gemara”
He’s wrong about this just as he’s wrong about kesuvos 111a that “there isn’t REALLY an issue of the 3 oaths, just move along in the Gemara, nothing to see here…just donate to the JNF and all will be well!”
Boruch – the achronim completely ignore that meiri; it’s a daas yochid; I didn’t mention it because we don’t pasken like him.
I never said giving tzedaka to goyim is a bedieved, i said that it’s an ends to a means and not lishma or altruism.
Avi – the lives of the Jews in arab countries were still exponentially better than their ashkenazi counterparts. Blood libels were everywhere in Europe, but only happened in the 1500s in the ottoman empire – “suleiman the magnificent” issued a firma, a legal ban on blood libels in that time, as did another muslim ruler in the mid 1800s at the behest of moses montefiore. Then they became very popular…. Guess when? In the 20th century. Thank you Zionism.
Being a jew in galus was and is no picnic, but jews flourished in the arab lands, with free access to professions, markets, freedom of movement, yeshivos, and they had shuls.. I don’t know the details of your claims, but they had beautiful shuls, and their example is copied by sefardi jews in America, sometimes to a fault.
If not for zionism, we could have easily immigrated to Arab lands, had the zionists not stoked a fiery hatred of us prior. We didn’t need their help. If not for zionism, said the chazon ish, jews would jave davened and done teshuva and been saved from the holocaust like the yerushalmis who prevented rommel from attacking eretz yisroel with their teshuva and fasting. Instead they relied on kochi veotzem yadi and we know what happened afterwards.
The state is not just “imperfect” it is rotten at the core, the mamzer of the union between nationalism and jewish identitarianism
Gadolha, the issue here is the motivation. Giving to goyim is not because of altruism or lishma, it’s because of the gemara quoted at the beginning of this thread, and nothing more. Chazal say that we do it exclusively because of darchei sholom. There is no greater example of darchei sholom than a wealthy yid who would normally give only to yidden, but that would cause a lack of sholom with goyim, so he gives to goyim as well. Word for word what the gemara says.
The problem is when we make it into a lishma. It’s the same as the issur of hashavas aveida. It is unequivocally assur to return a goys aveidah. The only time one must do so is to avoid chilul hashem, and one is allowed to do so – although not required – to create a kidush hashem. People who go around saying to treat goyim the same as yidden are violating the Torah in a profound way. Rashi explains that when one returns an aveidah to a goy, he is “mareh beatzmo” he shows about himself that he’s not concerned with doing mitzvos for hashem, because if he were he would only do it when it is a mitzvah. Since he’s doing it for anyone, it’s saying that he does not care about doing mitzvos for hashem.
That’s when Jewish people knew this basic truth, so giving to goyim used to be a clear indication that such a person was not interested in torah. Nowadays we’re so taken by pluralism and false equality that we think we are all the same and are all afforded the same privileges. To the point that if someone thinks of discerning yidden from goyim, he is the one who is thought to have violated a false “torah” of equality and fairness. Genevas daas, hashavas aveidah, taos akum, all are “unthinkable”, a travesty to Torah and hashem because it doesn’t comport with modern ideology.
Re; israel and harping – whatever the status of Israeli frei people are, it doesn’t change the fact that Israel past and present has given a hard time to the torah world. They have, whether in knowing evil intent or not, presented us with roadblocks, bias and anti torah culture. And yes, they have become the lightning rod of anti semitism.
You can think whatever you want, but i suggest reading some history books about how Jews got along with Arabs before Zionism. The Grand mufti of Jerusalem, once a friend to Jewish people, pushed hitler over the edge to carry out the final solution. A million or so sefardi jews were expelled from their homes just after the accursed state was declared.
If the truth and following the Torah makes the frei hate us, then so be it – that’s nothing new. The am haaratzim always hated the bnei torah; it’s all over chazal. I’m not going to change my service if hashem, and my fulfillment of halo misanecha hashem esneh uvmiskomemecha eskoteit. I will not mix in with them, dress like them, talk like them, fight in their znus army or speak their filthy language when not necessary.
Reb Eliezer; you’re right conceptually, but I don’t think English gives special consideration to the term “God” above anything else that’s an honorific; proper nouns, Mr, Mrs, people’s names etc… Especially in the informal atmosphere of a message board, I don’t think there’s any pegiah in kovod shomayim if we are also not makpid on using capital letters for proper nouns… If there would be a contrast where people were careful to use the correct capitalization elsewhere and only by Hashem they weren’t, then it would be disrespectful
Also, it’s clear that jews and arabs were far from friends. We lived under islamic law, which allows jews and lehavdil christians to live peacefully under arab government provided they pay taxes and do not missionize. There were waves of islamic extremism under certain caliphates, but compared to living under christian countries where we were expelled, robbed, killed and humiliated all the time, it was much more liveable.
Zionism flipped that on its head.
Mental health
Avi; the toeva people are just as if not more militant in israel than they are in America, so that’s just flat wrong. America enshrines a religious tolerance that almost no other country has, for better or for worse.
How does israel not let us keep the torah?
– Kidnappings of thousands of yemeni children from religious families.
– almost successful in mandating autopsies
– forcing farmers to violate shmitah and kilayim(this was in the past and the frum ignored their decrees, like making grapefruit which the chazon ish assered)
– forced military service in an army dedicated to making Hebrew Nationals (you can look up ben gurions quote as to the purpose of the army being a “melting pot”( his exact words)
– forced gius banos, a fate that was deemed yehereg velo yaavor
– putting us in questionable situations such as having to decide whether or not it’s allowed to benefit from the mechalelei shabbos at the electric plants
– proliferation of treif food; most food in eretz yisroel is treif because of massive negligence in terumos and maasros
– when the swedish (Belgian?) Government wanted to and eventually did ban shechitah, their excuse was that the “leader of the Jews” netanyahu (the oichel nevelos mechalel shabbos and boel nidos that he is) ate non-kosher meat, so it must not be very important to you Jewish people.
– lack of equality in the job market; charedim are turned down for jobs because of the hatred taught by the government and the Zionists; discrimination is widespread across every sector, and is not cared about….if this were happening to toeva people, they definitely would win law suits for their “rights”
– proliferation of anti torah culture right in our midst; they put their nevala in our faces, and get the uneducated mizrachim to watch movies and be part of their filthy culture
– they force rebbeim to take mandatory government courses which include zionist apikorsus
– they keep is in constant worry over the arab enemies they made for themselves (see rabbi j.b. soloveitchik’s chamesh drashos where he admits this, though many in the religious zionist community harp on the chevron massacre, it is clear as day that it was incited by zionist activity and rhetoric rhat had been festering for decades prior)Need some more? I’ve got PLENTY
I’m very sorry that you have felt that you need to hide being autistic in the frum world. Whoever made you feel that way is NOT following the Torah at all, and if they succeed in making you G-d forbid leave Torah, it will be mostly their fault and they will have to live with that for eternity. I am as “charedi” as they come; I don’t go anywhere without my hat and jacket, and I have taught autistic children. I have friends who I went to high school with who are autistic. Some people in my beis medrash were autistic too. There is a place in the Torah world for every kind of jew who wants to serve Hashem
My heart goes out to you, my beloved brother Ephraim; if not for yourself, stay because klal yisroel needs good people like you!
Those examples are 100% true. Honoring someone who we directly benefit from; i.e. a supporter of Torah, is hakaras hatov. Voting too, is hakaras hatov because we have a debt to this country allowing us to be free to practice Torah (something not true of the “jewish” state of israel). None of that applies to giving money to veterans who indirectly help in maintaining this country without there being an element of darchei sholom or kidush hashem.
You and AAQ keep conflating honoring with lo sichanem. Lo sichanem means you can’t give goyim presents. Rav Moshe was speaking about honoring them, although in his specific case presenting them with a gift would be allowed because it’s directly tied to what he did for the yeshiva/shul whatever he helped.
Also, we would be allowed to give presents to people like police officers or ofhers that we rely on to actively keep us safe, both because of hakaras hatov and because it’s not “chinam”, just to show them favor – we stand to gain by building relationships with these people in the community.
None of these factors apply to random veterans, especially considering there has not been a war that has threatened American freedom in 80 years. After WW2, all subsequent wars have been either proxy (korea, vietnam), or deterrent to relatively minor threats (gulf war, Iraq, Afghanistan). No veteran alive today ha done anything to keep us safe personally.
Lo sichanem applies to any goy, except an established ger toshav. Muslims and ethical monotheists don’t have the din of ovdei avodah zara, but they are not a halachik ger toshav either.
The halacha about honoring goyim who are old due to their having had a lot of life experience and undoubtedly seeing miracles of hashem in their lifetime, as explained by the rishonim, is just that… it’s an honorable thing to give honor to. That has zero bearing on giving gifts, tzedaka, favors or compliments. Lo sichanem applies to elderly goyim as well.
Yabia – our concern for halacha…even the smallest kutzo shel yud, is unwavering and not dependent on anything else going on around us. “Alll Hashem has in this world is 4 amos of halacha”, it is everything to us
When the baalei tosfos were about to be murdered by crusaders, their last energy they spent writing a regular tosfos on bava basra. They wrote it in their holy blood. They were martyred the following day.
They didn’t write ethical exhortations or liturgical poems – the “big things” that a commoner would think of… they wrote nothing but halacha, and a halacha that isn’t practically applicable nonetheless.
All we have is Hashem, and all He has is Torah.
Mutar – Shevet halevi, chelek 7, 24, Halichos bas yisroel 4, 3
It’s prefaced with the shem hashem being one, so if he’s one, his name is clearly one as well; “and his name” 2x would only imply more than one person *maybe* if not for the first part of the pasuk
Avi, unitarians make up .3% of all christians in the USA. They are halachiklly a miuta dimiuta if even that much. The overwhelming majority believe in the trinity; the poskim say this is shituf. There sre deos yechidim that for goyim shituf is not assur, but for yidden it definitely is and we are forbidden to support it in any shape or form.
As for veterans vis a vis hakaras hatov; we don’t find a source in chazal as far as I know that interprets hakaras hatov that way. We have the gemara quoted above, which attributes tzedaka to nochrim as darchei sholom, but not an ends to itself, and as such if a person gives without the understanding that he is a frum jew, it will probably be assur the same way hashovas aveidah is assur; additionally it is a very serious issue of lo sichanem, giving free items to nochrim (or even compliments) is an issur/prohibition.
Hevei mispalel bead shlom malchus….daven for the welfare of the government, because if not for its fear, a man would swallow his fellow alive…pirkei avos
Without fear of punishment, there can be no society
As to connecting to animals – everything, every object and plantsnf animal has a spiritual source that can communicate. That is why we have seforim that say that there is “sichas dekalim”, talk of the palm trees – according to IYK, we should not eat fruits or vegetables, because if trees can talk then surely they feel pain when you cut them down or tear off their limbs….
Rather, the same way in perek shira, every living thing “sings” to hashem, so too inanimate objects…they all have a “sar” or spiritual component that is sentient. Animals themselves however, are not. They are programmed and have no neshoma, soul, free will, or what we would call emotions…they are a bag lf chemicals that react to stimuli.
Compassion to them, say the rishonim, are not because hashem cares about their pain (anyone who says that shiluach haken, sending away the mother bird before taking the eggs, is due to Hashem’s compassion, is only mistaken – gemara says this word for word), but rather for our own sake, that if we violate the laws of tzaar baalei chaim, and unduly hurt animals for no reason, we are building a trait of cruelty in ourselves that will affect how we deal with people. Causing pain for a purpose, whether it be for food, korban, medical research, etc…is perfectly fine and indeed a mitzvah.
This is what happens when you learn medrashim seriously with the meforshim.
Also, an imagined utopia where there is no violence even to animals….
Animals kill each other violently every day. The world is not the way it was in gan eden, and if you want it to be so, then keep the mitzvos and bring the geulah! That’s the only way. Having imagined compassion for animals does literally nothing towards that goal. You’re seeing an effect and mistaking it for the main goal; world peace even among people isn’t s goal in itself, but a kli machzik brocho, a vessel that holds bracha for us to be able to learn and do mitzvos unfettered.
Aharon hakohen, the elitome of compassion and peace – *gasp* killed animals for karbonos!
Pinchos was given a covenant of peace for…killing a wicked man!
Your ideas of peace are to be found not in Judaism, vut5in eastern religions like buddhism…so we have Zoroastrianism for the good things / bad things, and buddhism for the fake compassion towards “all living things” and superficial peace and love, all “based” on some reading of little medrash says….
Lovely
Iyk -I don’t understand why you’re assuming that connection to hashem means that we would automatically be in gan eden. Much of your assault on halacha and hashkafa seems to come from your own assessment of the torah ideas that you’ve either read about or been taught, but if they are leading in the direction of violation of the Torah, are you honestly pursuing the truth? Is rationalization and justification of your own shortcomings not a more reasonable explanation?
Just to clarify, the mesilas yeshorim in the first perek says that “the only “good” is being close to, connected to hashem. That’s the pasuk “veahi kirvas elokim li tov”, the only way to get that is mitzvos. Then he says that if so, all situations in this world, whether suffering or pleasure, are not inherently good or bad. Since “pen esba vekikashti veamarti mi hashem, ufen ivaresh veganavti”, “lest i become satisfied and i will deny and say “who is hashem”(i.e. forgetting that hashem is the source of the good situation) and lesr i become poor and i will steal(forgetting that it is hashem who makes us poor or rich and will provide for us even if we don’t steal).
He then addresses your question. He says that the main place for this closeness is olam haba. It was created with the perfection to sustain such an existence. However, he says one can and will attain “olam haba on this world” by doing the mitzvos and not sinning. It will be a life of connecting to hashem on our level, “shlaimu haamiti”, true perfection in his words.
That suffering is for our benefit is axiomatic in Judaism. If you would rather believe in the fake santa claus god who only gives us what we want and what we think is good, there are many idolatrous religions such as Zoroastrianism which believe in two gods, one good and one bad, which fit that horrible worldview. But Judaism says shema yisroel hashem elokeinu(lashon din, judgement) hashem (lashon mercy) echad
It sounds like you were either educated by chabad, with elevated concepts emphasized to you without teaching basics, like the mesilas yeshorim i quoted. Or you were taught not to ask questions by uneducated teachers who lack the knowledge to answer you when you were in high school. Either way you’ve come out with a mindset that if you can ask a question on a gemara or a sefer, that you have disproven it and can walk away ignoring what it says. In Yeshiva we question everything and raise contradictions all the time; this is why I was reasonably sure that you were a woman, because had you been to a Yeshiva and seen the way an average Yeshiva bochur analyzes a text yet leaves the beis medrash believing fully in the truth of what he has learned….. You wouldn’t be so quick to disregard basic torah ideas because you have a question.
honestly the mesilas yeshorim is the most fundamental work of musar and hashkafa that we have, and most of your tirades are disproven in literally the first 2 pages of the first chapter, much of which i quoted above.
Avi – the shirts you’re referring to are probably undershirts.
Piskei teshuvos isn’t a source; it’s a compilation of sources, so would you mind posting which source he brings? Also, if shirts and pants aren’t required to not be freshly laundered, then that just leaves…suits? Clothing that is meant to protect against sweat, like socks, underwear and undershirts, are not a problem because they’re not worn for their own sake, nor are they “choshuv”, but pants and regular shirts? They most definitely are.
What brings us close to hashem is mitzvos. Nothing else. The very word mitzvah relates to “tzavsa”, “connection”. Any other connection is imagined and psychological. So yes, fasting on yom kippur brings you close to hashem because he gave us the commandment to do it. Any objections you have to the practices of the kosher industry may be valid, but they do not permit you to eat non kosher food.
Someone who is upset over open violations of basic Torah law being done by someone who looks like a member of the community, without knowing whatever circumstances led you to this behavior, is not being judgemental. I’m sorry to be blunt – if you’re committing sins in full view of others, that is very different from what you do in the privacy of your home, it is a chillul hashem in the literal definition of the term and if someone cares about the Torah they will not readily be silent. Whatever reason you may have is not my business or anyone else’s; what is their business is that you’re doing something antithetical to Hashem’s will right in front of them, “in your face” type of thing.
Think of something you care about… what would you do if you saw a person hurting a child? Would you stand idly by and say “it’s his choice, I’m not going to judge”. “If someone was screaming racial slurs, would it not bother you enough to speak out? When it’s something you care about, you speak up – as rav chaim brisker used to say “when it hurts, you scream”
That doesn’t mean that everyone who rebukes you is doing the right thing. Often rebuke is fueled by less-than-holy motivations of knocking down others to make one’s self feel better about their own lack of self esteem.
Judgementalness is to judge you – or anyone else – as either being a tzadik or a rasha. Has anyone called you a rasha? If they have, they are mistaken. It is not in our ability to judge individuals, but we are obligated to judge actions and to stand up for kovod shomayim when applicable. One who does not protest chilul hashem is held accountable, as “silence is like admission”.
Hashem should help remove your pain and trauma and help you do teshuva shlaima, as you are his beloved daughter, the same as all of us.
“Stepping on clothes” doesn’t seem to have any identifiable source. It could be that on a dirt floor, stepping on them would make them not “fresh”, but the common practice of wearing clean socks and stepping lightly on clothes placed on a clean floor seems untenable…
In camp we always just wore our shirts and pants for a few minutes, sometimes 2 shirts at a time
Correction; i meant to say earlier that you get the mitzvah of davening with a minyan if you are *behind*, not if you’re *ahead” of everyone… I don’t know how to edit posts on here, so…
Davrning with a minyan is important, but it is an enhancement of davening. Saying the words is crucial, so even if you’re out of sync with the minyan, you’ll be getting the mitzvah of davening, if you want to sing the words to yourself to help focus. You can still answer amen yehei shmei rabbah, kedushah, borchu, unless you’re in the middle of shemoneh esrei. Furthermore, if you start at the same time as the minyan, many poskim hold that you are considered to have davened with a minyan even if you’re way behind or ahead of them. If given a choice between skipping words and being in a minyan, versus saying every word without a minyan, the choice is very clear – saying the words is the literal definition of davening, with only the 1st parshah of shma and the first brocho of shemoneh esrei being crucial to have in mind what the words mean. Everything else is an enhancement, important as it may be.
The overwhelming majority of conservative jews do not pray more than once a week, so it’s not an inconvenience for them to sing everything, since they’ll be out of temple afterwards, back to their car or phone or whatever else they do on shabbos r”l.
For people like yourself who want to say every word every day, three times a day, such a thing is very difficult for a lot of people who want to not spend more than 45 minutes by shacharis etc, but it is correct that sefardim sing almost everything out loud, so that would definitely be an option. If it means being able to daven properly, I’m pretty sure a Rov will tell you you’re allowed to change your nusach to sefardi, since the alternative is skipping words.
AAQ – they’re still very much sefardi; they meticulously keep sefardi minhagim and mesorah, and the yeshiva dress is just that – because they are bnei Torah. That’s how sefardi bnei torah dress in eretz yisroel too.
If someone wanted to revive the old sefardi bnei Torah way of dressing, then great! My point was that they dropped their goyishe dress that is common in the uneducated elements
What is the source for the chofetz chaim having to see rabbi kook? His students, as recorded by several including the son in law of rav yerucham gorelik, witnessed him belittle rabbi kook in grand fashion when he saw the latter praise the mechalelei shabbos soccer players. The former was eating breakfast and stopped when he heard, he banged on the table “kook muck shuck!!!” Ask any fallsburg magid shiur; rav abba gorelik related the story from his fathee rav yerucham all the time.
Rabbi kook has had a major PR job done to him over the years. The charedi world erased him from his once-had prominence, and the dati leumi world has reinvented him as a universally accepted figure.
Neither are true. He was initially held in very high esteem until his many aberrations were discovered and disseminated. Not least among them was his copying and pasting of 19th century Hegelian philosophy into Judaism. His acceptance and praise of anti religious murderers also was considered chanifa.
His statements that Rembrandt was a “tzadik” despite his not being a “7 mitzvos” follower and his numerous nude paintings… His vegetarianism and “compassion” which somehow was greater than all the tzadikim before him who ate meat, only served to buttress his growth into a divergent figure, not representative of normative judaism.
This change was made largely under the leadership of the chazon ish, who forbade his hashkafa books. See sefer maaseh ish for many details about this.
Rav Hutner famously removed rabbi kook’s picture from his sukkah, despite having learned by him.
These issues I’m sure have been discussed here a lot. Thankfully we have Gedolei Torah who are without these controversies, so why cling to the messianic speculations of people whose predictions have never come to pass? (I’m referring to his stated assurance that all the secular leaders of Israel would do teshuva)
Admittedly some gedolim defended him by saying that his ahavas yisroel made him go too far with the secular people, and this might be true. It also might be true that he was swept up in haskalah (he definitely studied secular philosophy), a lot of possibilities remain, but none substantiate his position of adding nationalism to a religion that has for millenia maintained its nationhood solely due to Torah and nothing else.
I highly recommend R. Aryeh Carmell’s sefer, known unofficially in yeshivos as “the small white book”, it’s called “siyata legamara”, it has a list of very common terms and how they’re used; it’s easy to memorize and is presented in a very clear format.
I’ve learned with adults who have started in their 40s…they are mechaven to rishonim and can learn tosfos just like anyone else! Never give up!
I think she’s unconsciously trolling
Also – adolf eichmann died on a Friday…im sure he’s in gan eden…. please; it seems dati leumi only take out the kabalah seforim when they’re desperate…. when they arent busy trashing on kabalistic teachings lf tznius, prishus, havdala from goyim and emunas chachamim
“relatively free of censorship”
….ever hear of chironos hashas?
And what is the source of that story? Rabbi kook wrote that all the zionist leaders would do teshuva in his time…almost none did. This is fanciful wishful thinking that is pervasive in the dati leumi community…pictures of ben gurion as a “national jewish leader” adorn homes, while he was a murderer of his own people…