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Menachem, I’m impressed with your ability to find sources for things. I still think there’s a difference between what one rav says 100 years after the baal hatanya, and what the consensus of gedolim were and are regarding the gaons treatment as a rishon in halacha. Do chabad yeshivos teach shu”a harav as a rishon? It’s fine with me if they do, but that’s not what the rest of the Torah world does in practice.
Someday, you can find sources for that sentiment in rabbi reuvein schmeltzers sefer on emunah(the English one), he has a whole section on how you can teach emunah to children through stories of gedolim, and spends a great deal of time on the gaon.
Re, the ramban and rambam, you’re referencing rav chaim volozhiner in the back of ruach chaim, where it says that some were saying that the gaon was on the same level as the rambam, and rav chaim said “definitely not the rambam, maybe like the rashba or the ramban.”
Also, the term “tanna upalig” is used in the gemara for rav and othet 1st Generation amoraim (though almost always rav) that he can argue with tannaim because he was a tanna himself, but he eas also an amorah who other amoraim argued with, so even in the gemaras expression, he was a half tanna, half amora.
What this means for the baal hatanya is that he is fit to argue on previous generations, perhaps he can argue with the Gaon! But that doesn’t make him an actual tanna; gedolim are sometimes called tannaim as a praise(actually , i saw a letter from someone calling the Gaon ‘hatanna ha’eloki’ in the same vein)but not literally. By the gaon, they said that his neshoma literally belonged to tekufas harishonim
Cs, i hate to say it, but no jewish group “excelled” in the Soviet Union. Chabad, breslov and novarhdok held out and pushed back against the persecution, but they didn’t “excel,” they were silenced and most were taken to Siberia, etc…to the point where millions of russian jewish neshomos were lost to klal yisroel.
Arso, Menachem, re; gaon and baal hatanya:
I didn’t attempt to prove the gaons status from litvishe sources – there were no chasidishe sources in the gaons early life, because they hadn’t came yet! I’m referring to what the other gedolim said of him before the talmidei habaal shem were known
As for the baal hatanya receiving such a smicha, I don’t doubt it – he was one of the biggest achronim for a reason; everyone agrees to this, and the mishnah berurah cites the shu”a harav quite often for the same reason – he was , even among achronim, huge in ways that make this whole conversation a little bit unnecessary, because we have zero understanding of what these levels are to begin with.
But at the same time, i wouldn’t say that the baal hatanya could be compared with rishonim, while the gaon was indeed placed in such a category by his contemporaries. That doesn’t mean that every gadol from then until now has agreed to this, so it might be true that other gedolim(especially chasidishe ones) may have argued. Some said that the shaagas aryeh was bigger than the gaon in nigleh and that the gaon was bigger in nistar(and the shaagas aryeh did indeed argue with rishonim sometimes); this is something i also have no hasagah in.
So while in general comparing gedolim is a waste of time, i think the Gaon is an exception.
Saying that the Gaon was bigger than other gedolim isn’t because nost people said so; in the gaons time, the other gedolei yisroel said that his neshoma belonged to the rishonim, and was only here to hold back yeridas hadoros, to be a sign of what Torah used to be like. When rav aharon would said shiur, he’d say “es is shtait in aleh rishonim…rashba, rambam, gaon”
The gaon was able to make a golem at the age of 10. Rav chaim velozhiner writes that he heard from the gaon that once when sleeping, he learned over 2,000 perushim on three words of a pasuk, and with one of them, he was able to understand the shoresh of every eiver and gid in every animal in the entire world. This was on par with the arizals giluyim in his time.
This wasn’t exaggeration or praise; the gaon was unlike anyone in his time, or for several hundred years prior, and the baal hatanya was after him, so it is not unreasonable for even a chasidishe yid to say that the gaon was bigger than the baal hatanya.
As for the comparison with the chofetz chaim; I can’t comment much, and the distinction isn’t as clear to mye, only that the chofetz chaim was accepted as a gadol hador by chasidishe rebbes and litvishe gedolim alike, whereas the rashab, etc..was the rebbe of Lubavitch, and was not accepted by many other communities as the gadol hador(though he was held of by basically everyone). He was definitely outstanding among chassidishe rebbes, i have no doubt about that.
Aaq, you don’t need rabbi yoshe ber soloveitchik to pasken that; intentional exposure is clearly outlined in shulchan aruch and poskim.
Rav belsky told me that a frum person studying psychology is allowed to do so and “not be gores” garbage that is part of the course – now i don’t know if this psak applies only to someone who sat and learned for years in yeshiva, and for instance, would not apply to a woman or younger bochur who was not matzliach in learning.
Paul, that’s fine for learning secular studies in the bathroom, but if you want to exercise your brain, learn a maaracha of reb Akiva eiger!
Nom, we’re prohibited from exposing ourselves to negative influences, including hearing apikorsus, no matter how “strong” we think we are. It’s a clear violation of halacha to read or listen to apikorsus, unless one is on a very high madrega and is doing so to refute it.
Same with toeva culture; the rambams statements about influence are yaduah, and it’s just arrogant to say that one should just be strong; such people are usually the most influenced, but they’re unaware of it.
Cs, no one’s saying to put your head in the sand about issues that need tikun; what me and the others are saying is that it’s not important to know if you’re a tzadik or beinoni or whatever else.
Arso – yes, you understood me correctly
Aaq, i didn’t hear a reason from rav belsky, and i regret not asking him to explain his shitah. That very determined talmidim don’t need high school is pretty clear; they shouldn’t worry about parnosa, and they don’t need English to not waste time or be more disciplined; I’ve yet to hear another justification for English besides these two factors, which apply to the majority of talmidim.
If HS English is good for the majority because otherwise they’ll waste time and they’re unable to learn the entire day, and they need it for discipline, then changing norms in the working world wouldn’t make a difference. as for parnosa, even if it’s harder to find work without college, having a HS diploma makes it possible to go to college whenever the student wants, but I’ve yet to see any non yekkish rabbonim say that bochurim should be concerned with parnosa when they’re in their prime learning years, even now that it’s harder to get a parnosa without college. Day l’tzara beshaato. Even the yekkies after rav breuer no longer advocate for it, though they have no problem with those who do.
Avodas Hashem IS being in touch with your neshoma, because you’re feeding it what it needs, i.e. Torah and mitzvos, which the tanya calls “food” for the neshoma (regarding learning)
I’ve seen it quoted in the name of the baal shem tov that one shouldn’t dwell on their level, because if you’ll think you’re a tzadik, it’s gaavah, and if you think you’re a rasha, it’ll lead to depression, so just constantly try to do your best.
When an enemy submits, they’re accepting defeat; halevai the terrorists would be beaten into submission – but that’s not what happens lemaysoh. It only strengthens them and then they get to teach people that they’re martyrs, etc..
Maybe not all the terrorists live up to suicidal jihad, but it’s what they’re taught. But not wanting to get arrested and sent to rot in hail doesn’t mean that they’d choose not to die for their terrorism.
Aaq, this was what he taught well into the 2010s, until he was niftar.
Regarding the nefesh habahamis(a term used in sifrei mussar as well), seforim talk about it in, again, different ways for different people. Some stress taking care of one’s nefesh habahamis, comparing it to a horse and its rider, others talk about breaking it, but this is not what’s emphasized in the post-war world.
Cs, much like chasidus, there are many different paths in the baalei mussar.
The goals are the same; to reach tikun hamidos and be as close to Hashem as possible. So much so that several big chassidishe rebbes said that after rav yisroel salanter, the litvishe had taken a broad move towards penimius, to the point where they do not need chasidus at all. The gerrer rebbe(i believe it was the sfas emes) said similar things about rav hirsch.
Mussar seforim and mesoros range from stressing negative things, which is what you describe, to stressing positive middos and gadlus ha’adam, and a lot in between.
Novardoker yeshivos (which produced gedolim such as the steipler) traditionally taught talmidim to do things to break their middos and focus on their shortcomings, while slabodka (which is where rav aharon kotler, rav yaakov kaminetzky and many other American Torah builders learned) taught talmidim to focus on positivity and the greatness of a yid, az es past nisht, etc…
While that may have been the mesorah of novardok, every gadol I’ve learned about who came out of novardok embraced a different path for today’s generation (and that of the 1950s, for that matter), seeing that people are too depressed and not able to go the way of those baalei mussar of yore.
The Arizal said the same thing about fasting and self affliction; in “our” time, these things largely do more harm than good, and we get those benefits from Torah, tefilas, simcha, etc…
Baalei mussar teach a vast array of methods, ranging from what therapists call cognitive behavioral therapy, (centuries before the term was invented), constant self awareness, introspection , what breslov calls hisbodedus, meditation on maamarei chazal, and using the power of torah lishma to purify one’s self(rav yisroel salanter emphasized this a lot in his famous igeres, where he says that one cannot fix one’s middos without learning about their relevant mitzvos b’iyun)
Mussar is an entire field of study and a lifestyle of gedolei olam; it’s chutzpah to stuff it into one sentence.
Emunas, the tanya says that the shem mushaal was used for someone who has more zchusim than aveiros, that he’s zakai badin, because, he says, you can’t call someone with aveiros a tzadik at all. Someone who does teshuva shlaima has no aveiros at all, and if he continues not to do any, he’s the Tanya’s beinoni(and a tzadik in the vocabulary of the rest of the baalei hashkofa)
I think alcohol is more common, and prescription drug abuse with adults, because those things can come while in good surroundings; they start off innocuously
Part – i don’t live in eretz yisroel. I love eretz yisroel, and had some of the best learning of my life there, so I chose that as my screename.
American; i hear you, and yes, I’ve known bochurim in recent years who got exposed to drugs in certain types of yeshivos. But yeshivos aren’t the drug dens that public high schools are. It’s a very strange thing when it happens, and it’s not like you’re going to meet a drug dealer in BMG.
I’m just relaying my experiences with rabbonim; no one should take what is said on an online forum as a replacement for shimush or asking shailos. I’ve seen quite a few of these stories in both my line of work and elsewhere, so I’ve seen what rabbonim tend to do, but as i said in the beginning, it’s a very, very complicated question, and there are times that we simply cannot tell a BT that’s it’s ok. Does that mean we have to tell him to leave? Big difference; shev ve’al taaseh is sometimes a good option. But what if we know the BT will listen? Sometimes you’re mechuyav to tell them to leave.
Pekak, i went through a list of reasons why rabbonim usually tell people in that situation to remain married. But can you say that it’s an ideal for a person to have as their life partner someone who will not help them, and often hurt their progress? It’s just that the potential fallout is cumulatively worse; the BT might have regrets, might drop the whole thing, the frei spouse might get custody (especially if it’s the mother who’s not frum).
Why on earth would it be ideal to have a non frum spouse??
Thing, am i missing something? Who’s glorifying terrorism? I’m saying that being tough on them, including demolishing their family’s houses, etc… Doesn’t work in deterring terrorism when people are religiously and nationalistically motivated; they don’t care if they die in the process. They are driven by an evil idealism; that’s a lot harder to address than stam angry people.
“Addiction is nondiscriminatory. It doesn’t care about your religion”
Being Jewish is not merely subscribing to a religion. We are, in the words of the kuzari, a different beriah, a different level of creation above “medaber.”
A jew doesn’t have the same problems or the same mentality as anyone else. Of course yidden can get addicted, but the way you’re describing it is, i hate to use the word again because it makes me sound “extreme,” close to apikorsus.
I do agree that brushing problems under the rug was unsuccessful. The community is acknowledging the issues much more than it used to, but the truth remains that for the overwhelming majority, our community is spared the evils of the secular world. It’s mainly among those who leave the haven of the Yeshiva, etc..who fall prey to such things.
Menachem, i think it’s mentioned in the multi volume biography of the brisker rov, but I’m not certain – it’s part of the “torah she baal peh” of the yeshivos; I’ve heard the story countless times since i was a teenager.
Ujm, as far as i know, people who look for Orthodox rabbis for kiddushin will generally do things like marriage, divorce, funerals, etc…with Orthodox rabbis; it’s a mentality that “when” they do something religious, it’s authentic.
But im sure there are many such disgruntled women who ger a civil divorce and remarry r”l.
And yes, according to rav Henkin there’s a fairly large population of mamzerim, especially in America. But rav Moshe was rav moshe – he had the plaitzas to allow it, and i believe this is accepted by kiruv rabbis, but that’s not something i know for sure and i don’t expect anyone on here to take what is said on an online forum seriously enough to pasken such a shailoh.
As for the issue of staying married to someone who’s not frum – for many BTs, having to divorce would send them way backwards, they would lose control over the chinuch of their kids, and they may drop it altogether – it’s dinei nefashos to tell a BT to do such a thing. While of course it’s not ideal to stay married, if the home is kosher and the frum spouse can keep shabbos and taharas mishpacha, I don’t know of any reason good enough to tell a person to make such a sacrifice if they’re not holding by the madrega of wanting to do so themselves. And even if they want to, there’s the children to consider.
Cs, i hear you – i misread what you were saying about having beinoni moments; the only time i feel like that is right after yom kippur, but there’s a whole shmuzz about why we say vehu rachum right afterwards…
Menachem, the story was that rav chaim told this to a person who had started sinning and said that he had kashyos. Rav chaim said you can answer a kasha but you can’t answer a terutz.
Why would they not be chayav in sheba brachos, including the husband not working? They weren’t married before, and now they wre. It’s not “fixing” a bar kiddushin; without aidei kiyuma, nothing happened.
It’s not nearly as bad as the secular world – it just isnt. That’s equivalent to saying that Torah doesn’t do anything to make us a better people. It’s close to apikorsus in a sense.
Palestinians, driven by religious nationalism, will never be beaten into submission, whether it’s physical or financial pressure.
It only makes them angrier. Why hasn’t Israel learned this lesson in 70 years?
Aaq is making a very good point; people tend to think of cars as non humans. The same psychology applies to texting; people don’t realize that they’re communicating with another person, and will say things that they never would say on a phone call or in person. That’s why gedolim ruled that young people are totally forbidden to text.
A few days ago, i went to a local 7/11 for a midnight snack; it was about 1:30am. To my shock, i saw a kid, couldn’t have been older than 13, alone, on an electric scooter, schmoozing with the clerk.
He didn’t look jewish at all, but i overheard him telling the clerk, who is muslim, about his hebrew birthday. He also shared that he had begun smoking marijuana.
When the kid left, i asked the clerk what the story was, and he said that the kid comes from a home with a father who dresses like i do, and has been kicked out of every school, program, and even boot camp that the family has tried to put him in. The father routinely comes to the 7/11 to look for his son, who gallavants around the area at all hours of the night. The kid has committed crimes, stolen things and obtained $2,000 in cash, in ways “you don’t want to know,” the kid said to the clerk.
He had just turned 12.
It was the most gut wrenching story i had not only seen, but heard kf in our community.
If they had kosher witnesses, as is the case with many frei Israelis and sefardim, then there’s no need for a new kidushin/chupah/kesuvah. If there weren’t any kosher witnesses, such as a typical reform or conservative marriage, then they would need to do everything over again.
That’s what most poskim say. Rav Henkin held that at some point kosher witnesses probably saw them going into the husband’s house, etc..which is enough to make a kiddushin. It could be he said it lechumra to necessitate a get, but not that they don’t need to redo their marriage. Whereas most poskim held that a standard frei ceremony wouldn’t require a get, and the wife can remarry at will. I don’t know what the accepted practice is among rabbonim in that case, but baalei teshuva routinely get remarried al pi halacha
As for a chiyuv to divorce if one spouse becomes frum; this is very, very complicated and each case is different. Sometimes a frei person will agree to keeping a kosher kitchen and adhering to taharas mishpacha, while not being personally observant otherwise. This happens quite often.
Cs, with all due respect, you need a reality check. If you think you’re a tzadekes, you’re not. If you think you’re without sin(a beinoni), you’ve probably turned a blind eye to many normal chisronos that you have.
Chabad or not, you’re a regular person with a yatzer hora. You’re not dovid hamelech and neither was your rebbe.
It’s gaavah and dimyonos that’s above most things I’ve seen here.
i actually think teaching sentence structure and grammar is extremely important, because if i didn’t have a strong literary background(obviously all books need to be at the highest standard of kashrus, even if they arent quite as soiphisticated as shakespeare( that I grew up with, I think i would have had a harder time learning how to be medayak in rishonim, gemara, etc..or even how to lain a gemara itself.
I believe ive heard similar statements in the name of Rav Yaakov and his son Rav Shmuel Kaminetzky, that there should be one language, be it yiddish, english, whatever, where you’re totally fluent, because it helps you understand how to learn lashon kodesh and aramaic properly, which is key to textual analysis.
Sometimes I had to tell my friends who went onto lomdishe discussions that they were misreading the text; im not knocking lomdus, chas veshalom….i spent 90% of my time on lomdishe discussions, but my first glimpse of the sugya was with pshat and teitch, and any lomdus which was too far out of the bounds of the words and sentence structure was rejected.
Like in many areas, both are necessary parts; you cant begin to learn lomdus properly if your textual skills are lacking, but text without the lomdus is hollow and has little bearing on the truth of the sugya.
I have long lobbied for yeshivos to spend more time on learning skills, getting kids to be able to go to a maharsha when they dont understand tosfos and be able to decode his mode of expression,
reb e, no one knows for sure where it came from, because even when davening early, chasidim dont say tachanun and many skip it even during shacharis….they offer reasons like not being able to deal with the dinim and midas hadin that tachanun invokes…i also dont think that tachanun is a chiyuv m’ikar hadin – it says if you dont do it longer on mon/thurs it’s poretz geder…it’s possible that we acccepted it like a chiyuv, like maariv, but im not sure. either way i can hear them saying that theyre not fit to say it anymore.
Nom, i put it that way because that’s usually how these debates unfold, and this thread is a joke anyway.
Rav Belsky was neither; he had a nuanced shitah.
He held of high school english for the majority of talmidim, but for a minority which clearly demonstrate their ability and desire to learn all day, he would argue with parents to convince them to let their kids drop out of high school english, though I’m not sure at what grade he would allow/encourage it.
For the majority, he was against college, saying that high school was enough, and would discourage most from going, but would send a minority to jewish college programs.
So there were 3 levels:
Most overall should go to high school and not more; some should skip that, and others should even go to college.CS, do gazaanim in crown heights let their kids watch those films? If not, are they just good enough for the olamisher litvishe?
I neglected to mention the most basic issue with talking about Hashem’s middos, etc…is that they are all figurative. Hashem has no emotions or any other human characteristic; they are meant to be tools for us to understand on our level.
As for being selfish, we serve Hashem because that’s what He wants, but He wants it for our own good.
Wanting to be close to Hashem might technically, on some very obscure level, theoretically be selfish, but in practice, we have so much “yeshus” and desires for gashmius that if someone thinks that they’re serving Hashem for a reason above that, he’s delusional, and truly arrogant.
Cs, you don’t need chasidus to answer that question. Actually, it’s essential to have the basic yiddishkeit hashkafic answers to such questions first before delving into kabalistic concepts. Jumping ahead leads to lots of confusion. Before touching tanya and other chasidishe seforim, i learned ramchal, and some pieces from rishonim who deal with hashkofa issues extensively.
It would help you to learn the ramchals derech Hashem and mesilas yeshorim in the very least. Seforim like emunos vedeos or shaar hayichud in chovos halevavos might give you questions you didn’t already have in emunah, so maybe don’t go that route.
Anyways, to answer your question. Again, you can ask better – we see in chumash that Hashem gets “angry,” which also implies that there’s a timeline, a change. Hashem also says that He “regretted” making people by the mabul. What does that mean? It means not that Hashem changed, but the creations changed. The creations were no longer within the parameters of Hashem’s intention when they were created. The creations’ actions arouse heavenly mercy or strict justice, but that’s from the outside in: Hashem never changes. Same thing with nachas ruach – there are certain actions which are in sync with Hashem’s will, and cause the creation(s) to be in line with the purpose of creation, which was to bestow upon man Hashem’s pleasure(see mesilas yeshorim perek 1 for elaboration). Hashem, being the ultimate Giver (maitiv) created the world not for Himself, as He lacks nothing, but rather to give to others a perfection that he Himself has, on their finite level.
That’s ultimately what dirah batachtonim means on a basic level; having that dirah is what’s best for us, the created. Any interpretation, kabalistic or otherwise, which implies that Hashem os missing something, has violated the 13 ikkarei emunah.
Smerel, everyone’s pushing an agenda, besides for gedolei hador. I choose to listen to people who are more religious, because even if they’re biased, they’re airing on the right side (tarti mashma). The biases of a person who wishes to further Torah and minimize sin is better to me than that of leftists who wish to erode Torah under the guise of rationalism and tolerance etc…
The gadlus of this post is that the poster only made a few glaring errors; his post wasn’t full of misspellings and non existent words, because that would have made the joke too obvious and wouldn’t have started this ranting secular studies vs Torah only discussion. The Torah only crowd has been largely silent, showing that without secular studies, we are more than capable of reading things well and can see when something is clearly a joke.
Nom, because Hashem wants more than anything for us to learn His wisdom; learning is not a hecsher mitzvah in order to know what to do flr mitzvos; if it were, then you’d be asking a good kashya.
but that’s not what Torah lishma is. Torah lishma, says the rosh, brought in nefesh hachaim beginning of shaar 4 is learning leshem hatorah, to know what it says there, because we want to know what Hashem gave us.
The beis hevi criticizes the idea harshly of Torah just being a means of knowing halacha, and says that this was the sin of bayis sheni, when they didn’t make a bracha on limud hatorah, because they held it was not choshuv for its own sake, and was merely a hecsher mitzvah.
We learn because this is what Hashem wants us to do, and the reason wh He wants us to do it is mainly the above,and we get closest to Him though learning lishma.
Despite the verbiage of your posts, you’re betraying a very superficial understanding of what it means to learn and to serve Hashem in general.
Cs, why do you need to ask from dira batachtonim – ask better. If Hashem decided to create the world, it seems that there was a time that he did not, so how could he have changed his mind?
Rav saadya gaon dealt with the issue a thousand years ago in emunos vedeos, and he says that Hashem always wanted to create it. Some add that that our very concept of before and after had to be created too, along with time.
Same thing with dirah batachtonim.
Smerel, i believe I saw it in merosh amana. Not sure where… definitely heard it from the author of the Empty Wagon, and I’m pretty sure it’s in that sefer too.
Qwert, it’s a lot more than that. Gemara is the only way to reach the depth of chochmah elokis, of Hashem’s wisdom; it’s all in chumash ultimately, as the Gra writes in shir hashirim(and he used fo learn straight from a sefer torah in his final years without a gemara), but the only way we can access it is through sugyos hashas b’iyun.
Gemara connects a person to learning more than any other limud. It is in it that one can learn what a sevara is, how to think like Hashem on our level, who put His essence in the Torah, as chazal say that anochi Hashem stands for “ana nafshai kesavis yehavis,” i am writing and giving my soul to you,”
More than just training you to think truthfully.
57, I don’t know what made you think that I’m a satmar chossid; don’t believe the myopic modern Orthodox party line of “only satmar was against the state,” or the more corrupt “only satmar was against eretz yisroel,’ where religious zionists conflate a secular, atheist, land worshipping state with the holy land that Hashem promised to us
Edited
My rebbeim were not satmar chasidim. Most of the Torah world does not support dismantling the IDF immediately, as this would put jews in danger. I don’t know what the satmar rov held of this issue, but the gedolim mostly agreed that the state should be dismantled peacefully(and with it, the army). Rav shach would daven everyday for the peaceful dismantling of the state. But as long as there is a state, i am not aware of a large amount of gedolim who say that the army needs to be taken apart at the moment.
There are frum soldiers who believe in Hashem running the world; to them, their service is hishtadlus. It’s not a terrible thing to go to the army if one is unable to learn and stays exclusively in a charedi unit. Rav shteinman held of this to an extent
Cs, chabad was actually the least mocked by litvishe, misnagdim, and even maskilim lehavdil, because of how intellectual they were. They were different from the euphoric, emotional chasidus of poland and breslov.
To say that chabad were mocked more than others and use that as a shield against criticism (along with “you’re just a misnaged”) is revisionist history.
Davening for the welfare of jews, in eretz yisroel, in America, in the Israeli army, has nothing to do with zionism. The fact that there are people who are frum who are mishtadel to keep Jews safe is fine, but the only reason why we need an army is because the zionists put us in the lion’s den to begin with. The chazon ish made this point very often…i forgot the exact moshol he gave, but kt was something along the lines of throwing someone into a pit and then expecting them to be grateful to you for taking them out
Tut mir nisht ken tovos, as they say.
Rav millers fierce antizionism in no way contradicts what he said about davening for soldiers. When soldiers came to the steipler to ask for his bracha before a dangerous mission, he prayed for them fervently, because they’re yidden and they’re in danger; it’s really not that complicated. Actually, they’re in more danger because of the repulsive state of the army, because Hashem said in war that he will turn away from us if there’s ervas davar in our camp. And there’s no shortage of ervas davar in the IDF.
Moshe, you’re mistaken; zionism and its shmad state aren’t the biggest chilul Hashem today – they’re the biggest chilul Hashem in history. Never before was there an entity claiming to represent world jewry that denied Hashem and the Torah and facilitates one of the most hedonistic secular cultures on the planet
I wonder if rabbi pruzansky considers the mixed army to be a kidush Hashem
Fighting for the American army is also pikuach nefesh, because there are millions of jews in America.
According to the Rivash, the main mitzva of yishuv haaretz is buying land from goyim. So if i buy 4 amos in eretz yisroel, i am fulfilling the mitzvah in a better way than the Israeli soldier (who’s not accomplishing kibbush in any case.. It’s missing many conditions)