Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
n0mesorah,
“For now, let’s continue on the other 607 mitzvos only.”
As I’ve argued before, I don’t see how this distinction can be made – a basic level of belief is a prerequisite for fulfillment of all of the mitzvos.
“Second of all, I put myself in a theological bind. In order to put my defining point into focus, I pushed it beyond any reasonable parameters. Of course any sane human has to be thinking something to be observant.”
Correct, hence my not-so-reasonable examples of an athiest observing mitzvos out of guilt, etc. It’s not sustainable at all, and only the external will be kept (and then perhaps only when others are looking), and mitzvos have both external and internal components.
“However, that may speak more to our humanness, than to spirituality. After all, do malachim ‘think’ when they observe His will?”
The Torah was made for humans – it is the blueprint of humanity, and in fact the astonishingly blunt and accurate knowledge of how humans work was what drew me who grew up non-frum into Torah more than any “age of the universe” type arguments that are popular with Aish, etc.
“My main point is this. Every Born-Observant Jew, starts of practicing before they understand any Torah system.”
I don’t really agree with this. Young children innately have an innocent and pure faith that is cute beyond words, but are also ruled completely by their yetzer hara. This is a necessary part of their development, because children need to have their needs met for survival. As we get older, we can increasingly suppress and control our yetzer hara, but our knowledge and understanding also becomes more complex, which gives the yetzer hara new areas to attack other than the stomach and the toys.
“Some people never get that there is a specific purpose to Torah. And they have a mush where others have a sense of purpose.”
And this is something to be sad about and try to change, not accept with a shrug.
“If they preach their lack of knowledge, the proper response is ‘you need to learn more’ or something similar.”
Not if they start gathering adherents to their cause.
“But if they change their practice because it is all mush anyways, then they begin to lose their bona fides. if this is true, then it follows that observance can be achieved without any real idea of the Godhead.”
Not so, only outward observance, which is incomplete, and as I’ve been arguing this whole time, not sufficient to actually be considered fulfilling the mitzvos at all. In another hopefully approved post, I pointed out that our acceptance of “Orthoprax” is more due to our inability to see inside a person and thus using the outward appearances as a proxy. But our acceptance does not a kosher Jew make. That’s up to Hashem, as it says (paraphrasing Chumash Devarim), the revealed are for us and the hidden are for Hashem to deal with.
“I contend that some people are not just uncomfortable talking about Hashem, they really do not understand what the whole conversation is about.”
Yes, someone gave us a children’s book that told the story of Passover, and while the illustrations were great, I noticed that the book did not mention Hashem at all! It made it sound like Moshe Rabbeinu was a magic man who did it all – the book could’ve been titled “Moses and his magic staff”. So I read it to my kids, changing the words to say that Hashem did all of these things, and then chucked the book into the trash after they went to bed.
To keep the mitzvos on even the basic level, one has to fully accept all the mitzvos. Now, the query of the six constant mitzvos becomes unavoidable.”
Nu?
TS Baum,
“Only by the mishichistim. that’s what you are forgetting. Again, the Rebbe was no way into Yechi, … you can’t say this as “general luabvitch”
My questions – if the mishichists have indeed corrupted Chabad concepts and gone astray, should they be rebuked or encouraged to return (as this thread’s title states)? And if so, who should do this tochacha? Because Chabad itself does not seem to be opposing them with any vigor, and you seem to get upset when non-Chabad Jews do so.
n0mesorah,
“Why Chabad does not have a track with zero kabalistic teachings, is a good question that will not get a good answer.”
That doesn’t really bother me. The backbone of Chabad is the Tanya, which, if I understand correctly (and Chabad posters please correct me if I’m mistaken), is a sefer that brings the kabbalistic secrets of Torah, which they call Chassidus, out of the realm of the esoteric to make them accessible to every Jew. So to have a “Chabad” track that ignores what makes Chabad unique doesn’t really make sense, just like a BA in art history program wouldn’t make sense in BMG.
Your later argument seems to be that mishichism/elokism/etc are simple people misunderstanding kabbalistic terminology. If so, then is it not dangerous to disseminate kabbalistic concepts to those who will likely misunderstand and go astray? Your earlier argument seemed to be that non-Lubavitchers just don’t understand the kabbalistic concepts and terminology that Chabad uses. If so, and the Tanya is kabbalah for the masses, why can’t the concepts just be explained?
n0mesorah,
“I’m not sure if this is aimed at me or the topic. Either way, I do not understand how this fits with the rest of your post.”
It was “aimed” at you – because your entire argument here effectively is to stop questioning Chabad because they can still be nominal Jews so long as they do the outward mitzvos.
“If you need a theory, there seems to be an elitist bent. With Chabad claiming a higher understanding of God’s world. And the Yeshivish (? is this accurate ?) anti Chabad claiming to know how and why Chabad is out of the Pale.”
I think also it’s the response that is given. When Rav Moshe Feinstein ZT”L made his psak regarding chalav stam/”companies” dairy, he received considerable opposition from some other gedolim. Rav Moshe’s response to the opposition was to point to his psak, where his Torah reasoning was extensively documented – and he asked those who opposed the psak to please bring their own Torah to refute him. No demonizing of any side, CV”S was involved. Interestingly this did not resolve the dispute – there are frum Jews who hold to this day that Rav Moshe’s psak causes Yidden to eat unkosher dairy, but the power of the Torah behind each opinion has brought a measure of peace to klal Yisroel.
By Chabad, and this is my own perception so I hope TS Baum or others can show me differently, they do not respond to opposition with extensive Torah reasoning to demonstrate why they are correct, even to get to the “agree to disagree” point as in chalav stam. They instead declare that the opposition just cannot understand these things, do the same things themselves, and if further pressed will ultimately vilify the detractors as wicked “snags” – even gedolim! I know they do not have a monopoly on the vilifying, but puk chazi who has set up a separate communal infrastructure in almost every respect and does not engage with the rest of frum Yidden.
n0mesorah,
“I’m using the ‘beliefs are irrelevant’ line, for the opposite extreme. When determining what is within the ‘norms’ of Frum Yidden, I think it is about observance. As beliefs alone does not make a Yid.”
That seems fallacious to me. Just because beliefs alone do not make a Yid does not mean that observance alone does so. Both are needed.
“So long as all the practice is being practiced, there is room for more extreme thought systems.”
We tend to accept those who are outwardly observant as “frum” and consider those who are not outwardly observant as “not yet frum” because, as human beings, we can only perceive the outside of another. Therefore, we use observance as a proxy. This is a human limitation, but you seem to be turning it into a personal philosophy. Also, Jewish history shows that we do indeed have machlokes based on thought systems rather than observance. Sometimes the new and different ideas become integrated into klal Yisroel, other times they result in groups R”L going off the derech.
n0mesorah,
“My position did not change. As long as observance is a given, it is of little consequence to the Torah way of life what theories are prominent in a given group.”
I provided my interpretations of how I understood your initial position (beliefs are irrelevant) and subsequent position (beliefs do matter – they can raise your level). If you hold that your position did not change, than one of my interpretations is incorrect. Which one is it?
My discussion with you is largely a tangent off of this thread, based on what you wrote:
“When a Yid does a mitzvah because he is a comitted Jew, that is the desired outcome of creation. This is even if the Jew has no concept of a creator or any idea of the god-head.”
My major objection to this is that having a concept of a creator and Hashem as our G-d, and rejecting idolatry are themselves mitzvos – so absent these beliefs or in the presence of idolatrous beliefs, one is not fulfilling the desired outcome of creation. I pushed back hard on this, and you then (seemed to) acknowledge that beliefs matter, but more as a “level” thing than a fundamental mitzvah. This did not answer my main objection, but I put that objection aside temporarily to ask a secondary question – if beliefs indeed affect your “level”, then is it legitimate to question or investigate beliefs whose adherents claim are the highest of the high levels? I went on that tangent because this seemed like an inconsistency in your own stance. But unless I’m misunderstanding you, we still disagree on whether a basic belief that there is One G-d Who we cannot perceive or make an image of, Who created and rules the universe, Who took us out of Egypt, and Who commanded us to do the mitzvos, is in itself a mitzvah and necessary to fulfill the other mitzvos.
“I hear the question. But it’s not for me to answer.”
Why is it not for you to answer, unless you have embraced spiritual stagnation?
“Should we tell Chabad that their teachings must be wrong, because outside of Chabad they do not preach the same? Chabad is wrong because nobody else is Chabad?”
Not sure I like how you worded it (particularly the wrong because nobody else is line), but in essence, yes. Kol Yisroel arevim ze bazeh – we are one nation, one people, and we are responsible for one another. So why can’t questions be asked and answers given, without hostility and hatred?
Always_Ask_Questions,
“two lanes narrow into one into a turn to another highway.” … What are the options? … 2) Accept suffering as punishment for other avonos
Sounds like you are describing the merge to get from I-70 eastbound to I-695 (Baltimore Beltway) heading north, in which case yes you are definitely there to atone for your aveiros.
“90% of cars organize into one lane long before the turn and move slowly for 5-15 minutes. 10% of cars speed by and then merge in right before the turn. Of course, more than 10% ends up merging in, significantly delaying the rest.”
My take: 1) Some of the people “speeding by” to merge further up are not in your good-behavior lane because your good-behavior comrades are not letting them in. So many times I have tried to merge into a slower moving lane, either to queue up as in your example or because I need to exit, and not a soul lets me in. I’ve almost taken to not even turning my blinker on, because the blinker signals these friendly people to pull up right to the bumper of the car in front of them. 2) Part of the big delay is because the beneficent souls who are in the “correct” lane care more about being vindictive towards those they perceive as being in the “wrong” lane than providing as smooth a flow of traffic as possible for those behind them. 3) Bottlenecks are not always due to human failings – vehicles cannot double their speed when the lanes halve into a dangerous curve and merge.
What are the options?
If you had your eyes in your gemara or on your cell phone, or your coffee mug like civilized drivers, you wouldn’t even notice the maleficence around you. You wouldn’t even notice the slowdowns in front of you!
“3) count how many Jews fly by”
That would be antisemitic.
Always_Ask_Questions,
“Slow down, learn Mishna by heart, listen to a tape, talk to the kids in your car, call your mother, let a couple of people in front of you, drink coffee slowly…”
All great suggestions that can help reclaim commuting time as a productive part of life. I just have one thing to add – my stress behind the wheel is connected to lateness, and if I’m sitting in traffic and getting late for something, no thoughts, tapes, or conversations will alleviate my stress or turn back the clock. So to me, the most important way to cope with traffic is to accept its existence and account for it in my planning. My wife’s rule of thumb for urban driving is to double the time. If the mapping software estimates a drive will take 15 minutes, plan for it lasting 30. A 30 minute drive will actually take an hour, etc. And don’t forget to include extra time for parking and walking to the destination (extra 5 minutes if there’s a parking lot, extra 15 minutes if you have to park on a street, and even more extra time if you’re bringing kids). On many an occasion you’ll “hurry up and wait” as they say in the military, but then you can implement AAQ’s great suggestions with no stress. And if something comes up on the way, like spilling coffee on your shirt, you’ll likely have more time to deal with it without becoming truly late.
coffee addict,
“Government, if there was more lanes there would be less traffic”
More lanes may alleviate some issues, but not all, especially bottleneck situations. Just like throwing an army of utility workers into a job won’t make it go any faster if their cherry picker can only hold one person.
n0mesorah,
“Where do chazal mention that it is our obligation to tear apart Judaism by learning up people’s personal devotions?”
Deuteronomy 13 for starters.
n0mesorah,
” I’m not advocating this as the ikar. I’m saying this is the basic idea.”
Ok, so this seems like a big change from your initial stance, which ridiculed any debate about beliefs because they were irrelevant to Yiddishkeit. So now you’re holding that beliefs are relevant, but a lack of them is still within what you see as the “baseline” of normative Judaism. I vehemently disagree, but before we go on that merry-go-round again, given your new position that beliefs do matter inasmuch as they raise your level of Yiddishkeit – I don’t understand your point in this thread. Your initial argument seemed to advocate for people to leave Chabad alone, because who cares what they believe as long as they do mitzvos, as beliefs are irrelevant to Judaism, and it’s silly to quibble about beliefs since reality is beyond our comprehension anyway. Now, however, you seem to imply that beliefs can indeed raise your level. Fine. And maybe some are not ready to jump to higher levels, and pushing or berating them for it may do more harm than good. Ok, I can agree with that. But Chabad claims that their derech is the superior form of Judaism, and only through Chabad can you reach the absolute highest levels. They put this into action via missionary work, and they express considerable hostility towards Jews who disagree with their derech (the “snags”). The similarity between these attitudes and those of early Christianity is probably why there is so much consternation – Christianity after all resulted in 2000 years of torment for Jews. But to lay out my question simply: if beliefs do matter for your level, and a group claims to offer the highest level… should their claims not be checked into on behalf of those who want to climb higher?
“I doubt anyone’s commitment comes only from their awareness of Hashem. Bilam had a strong awareness of Hashem and moving else. So he was only absorbed in himself.”
I didn’t say that awareness alone was sufficient. We have mitzvos to love and fear Hashem, and a cursory reading of Chumash reveals the importance of faith in Hashem.
“A committed Jew is one that maintains his Judaism as his own identity.”
But what is Judaism if divorced from Hashem?
“The person with the personal beliefs that you outlined is rather stupid. That he still maintains all the mitzvos, is very special in the eyes of Hashem. What do you expect of such a person?”
There’s stupid and wrong, and stupid and right. Should we condemn the stupid to wrongness?
“A Jew with little insight into the divine, is limited in their spiritual growth. This is so obvious, it is almost redundant.”
On the contrary, it is so wrong, I almost don’t know where to begin. No, a simple person isn’t going to delve into esoteric kabbalistic concepts, but a simple and true faith can shake the heavens.
“A fully practicing atheist can say kiddush and kaddish for us.”
I don’t think so. If an athiest writes a perfect sefer Torah, we have to burn it. And I don’t think we can say amein to their brachos.
“I posted that piece to clarify why all of chabad is within the parameters of normative Judaism, as much as any other group. It was never intended as the ideal.”
But they claim the mantle if the ideal, hence the scrutiny.
Always_Ask_Questions,
“I tried relying on them with kids and it did not really work”
I am not a fan of Google, but if you are already enmeshed in the Google ecosystem, their Family Link feature is really useful. For example, if you have a Chromebook for your child, you can:
1. Create a Google account for your child and enroll it in Family Link. You can then use the Family Link settings to completely lock down the Internet except for sites and apps that you explicitly allow.
2. On the Chromebook, sign on initially with your own account so it is the “admin” account that controls the device settings.
3. In Settings, go to “Manage other people”, turn off guest browsing (very important), and limit sign-ons to only accounts you specify (so they cannot create a new unmanaged Google account and sign in with it). Allow your child’s account to sign in, and any others you want (e.g., sibling accounts, their school accounts if they have).
4. Log in the child account, authorize the sign-in with your password, and s/he has a laptop that is locked down to your specifications.With these steps taken, I have not discovered a way to “break” the setup (so long as your child does not know your password!), but once Google thinks they are over 13, they can unenroll their account from Family Link. If they do this, you will get an email and can take whatever action you need to.
There are some pitfalls to Family Link – the white/blacklisting only works at the domain level, so you cannot allow/block specific Web pages within a domain (e.g., you cannot allow http://www.theyeshivaworld.com but then block the CR). The Debian Linux container available on newer chromebooks (crostini) cannot be used with Family Link. And it ties you and your child to Google, which harvests all of the personal information you give it for dubious uses. As children get older, they will also start to push on the boundaries set by Family Link, so you’ll have to maintain an ongoing dialog with them.
MenachemFivenbirmbaum,
“I don’t understand. Everyone talks about how social media is asur, yet tons of Frum Yidden use WhatsApp on a day to day basis.”
WhatsApp is more akin to texting than social media, though its group chats have more advanced features than SMS/MMS, and users can post a “status” (series of images) that their contacts can view and respond to. WhatsApp is a FaceBook (“Meta”) property, so if you use WhatsApp, be aware that you are interacting with FaceBook. While messages sent and received in WhatsApp are encrypted, so FaceBook cannot directly read them, they do harvest all of the metadata surrounding your messages. They can see what numbers are in your groups, which you chat with and when, and since everyone shares their contact lists with WhatsApp to see statuses, they can connect your phone number to your name many times over, as well as your contacts. And if someone you know tags you in a picture on their own FaceBook account, they also know what you look like. So even if you never touch FaceBook itself, WhatsApp reveals you to the Zuckerberg. Fun!
n0mesorah,
“God fearing key is not so accurate. Fear of God takes a Jo’s of goods work for most of us. I mean continued to keeping the mitzvtos (within the Jewish community).”
I could not decipher what you were trying to say in this sentence, can you rephrase it? Also, if you are correct, than it’s wrong to see in sefarim Jews referred to as “yirei Shamayim” or “baalei nefesh”, etc. Shouldn’t those terms be eschewed in favor of “shomrei mitzvos” only, if that’s the ikar?
“The idea necessary for mitzvos is a mitzaveh -commander. Not boray – creator. You have a big swing there between a mitzvah for it’s own sake and a good luck charm. There is a lot in between.”
People do things for a reason, and if someone has no concept of Hashem, their “committment” comes from somewhere else. Sports fandom was a silly example, but is it less silly at the end of the day than an athiest doing “mitzvos” he thinks are worthless because of communal pressure, or a pushover resentfully doing them just to please grandparents, or from Holocaust guilt, or whatever other reasons that make a “committed Jew”in your mind?
Re: your distinction between Hashem as the Borei Olam and the Ribono Shel Olam – if someone believes that the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe, and the Xian man-god commands us to do the mitzvos… so long as he puts on tefillin every day, takes arba minim, and avoids melachos on Shabbos, he’s doing nothing wrong before Hashem in your mind and is even a “committed Jew”?
Also, you have ignored my point that one who does not know or believe in Hashem cannot fulfill any of the mitzvos properly, especially ones that deal directly with how we are supposed to feel and know about Hashem, such as loving Hashem, fearing Hashem, remembering the Exodus, etc.
n0mesorah,
“Instead of fighting about what is proper belief like a bunch of simpletons, we would do better to discuss the benefits of an unshakable conviction in the ultimate divine powers.”
So your fight is not with me, it’s with Yaakov Avinu. When he and Lavan made a treaty, Lavan invoked the (plural) G-d of Avraham and god of Nachor, but Yaakov would only swear upon the Dread of Yitzchak. Things were tense, Lavan practically brought an army with him to assault Yaakov. Why on earth did Yaakov jeopardize this tentative peace treaty with his powerful relative by kvetching about the details of Who’s upstairs? And, surprisingly if beliefs are not so important, we learned at the seder a few weeks ago that chazal felt this simpleton belief quibble was a matter of great importance, saying that Lavan tried to destroy all of klal Yisroel with his little statement.
n0mesorah,
“On yidishkeit. When a Yid does a mitzvah because he is a comitted Jew, that is the desired outcome of creation. This is even if the Jew has no concept of a creator or any idea of the god-head. Just the act itself, is included in ‘boruch asher yakum es divrei hatorah hazos’.”
Define “committed Jew”. You may have an unusual personal definition of this, but the vast majority of the frum world would say the term is synonymous with “G-d fearing Jew”, and the attention to the details of mitzvos flows forth from this fear and love of G-d.
If one has no concept of his Creator, how would he fulfill Anochi Hashem Elokecha asher hotzeitzicha meieretz Mitzrayim? Or Veahavta es Hashem Elokecha? Or es Hashem Elokecha tira? Keriyas Shema? Tefillah? The seder? Brachos? Sukkah and tefillin, for which specific reasons are given?
You are divorcing the mitzvos from their very essence and purpose, which is to serve Hashem (including the mind and heart!), and while bedieved one fulfills a mitzvah even if he didn’t have specific kavannah for it according to some opinions, like showing up to shacharis half asleep and waking up to figure out which yom it was to say “hayom yom chamishi”, that is only because he has a concept that what he did was a mitzvah (i.e., that there is a Creator, G-d, King of the Universe who commanded him to do such). Without that knowledge and belief, how can what he did be considered a mitzvah at all, or even more, the desired outcome of creation?? If a guy blows a shofar on Rosh Hashana because he thinks it’s a good luck charm to help the Mets make the playoffs, did he fulfill the mitzvah of shofar?
n0mesorah,
“I really think that fighting over proper belief is simple minded. Do you disagree?”
I sense a bit of Jonathan Swift in your responses. So yes, who cares on which side we open our eggs. However, if not for a belief in Hashem, that He created the world and that He is actively guiding the world and sees us and what we do, why do the mitzvos at all? I have non-frum relatives who R”L do not believe that the mitzvos are important. And I can’t let them cook unsupervised in my kitchen. Not because they don’t respect the mitzvos for my sake. On the contrary, they are very respectful, they check hechsherim, they ask which are milchig and which are fleishig keilim, etc. So why not? Because kashrus accidents invariably occur, and because I believe in Hashem and that the mitzvos are actually vitally important, I want to know about the kashrus accident, even if it means a big inconvenience, loss of the food, or even losing the keilim. But my relatives don’t think that kashrus is such a big deal, and being nice, don’t want to cause me “unnecessary” stress or inconvenience. After all, the Torah says not to distress other people, right? So they will likely not mention the accident at all. No harm, no foul.
Kuvult,
“You bought into the lie that anyone that’s not Frum lives an empty life full of sin. Do you think a Secular boy is interested in discussing gender instead of sports or dinosaurs or playing cops and robbers (or as your kids play “Talmidei Chachomim and Apikorsim”)?”
Lol, you castigate avira for crudely stereotyping of secular Jews and non-Jews, but then turn around and crudely stereotype frum Jews.
Always_Ask_Questions,
“Sephardim seem to have more united communities, with many masorti people who feel like part of am yisrael even if not always observant or learned.”
Admittedly I don’t have a large amount of experience with Sefardic communities. In my neighborhood, the Sefardim are overwhelmingly Israeli and speak Hebrew as a first language. And I notice that the native Hebrew speaking Ashkenazim also have a good camaraderie with the Hebrew speaking Sefardim. So it’s possible that a common Israeli language and culture in the midst of a foreign country help with the camaraderie we see, whereas many Ashkenazic families have been in the US for several generations now, struggling against or succumbing to assimilation. Feel free to prove me wrong – I’m just thinking “aloud” here.
“Possibly, we suffer the post-haskala shock that we probably need to get over already. Number of reformim, socialists, OO is not that high any more, most non-observant Jews are ignorami rather than apikoiri.”
Ignorance of Yiddishkeit doesn’t mean ignorance of other “isms” as well. I think the perception that their numbers or influence is going down is more due to our being increasingly sundered from them than an actual reduction. When I was growing up, many non-Orthodox Jews (myself included) knew grandparents or great-grandparents who were frum, and had good memories of seders, or Shabbos dinners, despite feeling rather lost and confused. Nowadays for many secular Jews, there is R”L absolutely no connection to Torah Judaism whatsoever. Judaism is defined as the Democratic party platform and appropriating the Passover story for social justice causes.
Kuvult,
“I’m not sure where the argument even is. In my OP I said … I learned the correct Derech is to place people into different groups based on certain criteria.”
The argument is because we sensed your sarcasm loud and clear. And you didn’t say certain criteria, you said petty little factors.
“The bigger question is why do you all at some level feel uncomfortable with it that you feel the need to justify or defend it?”
Reduction fallacy. There may be more reasons people are responding than discomfort.
n0mesorah,
“It permits to smoke and drink. “
This is a highly misleading statement.
n0mesorah,
“Hashkafah is how we integrate the dichotomy between our Torah lives and everything else that surrounds us. Those who surround themselves with only Torah have no need for hashkafah.
This is an extremely narrow redefinition of hashkafah.
Always_Ask_Questions,
“On a personal level, if someone lost friends due to being more observant, it is also a reflection on someone’s level of observance. A true Torah scholar should cause positive emotions among at least some of their friends at least according to beis Hillel”
I agree with a few caveats:
1. A change in derech usually causes a change in focus or priorities, which may result in some friendships gradually drifting apart and other friendships becoming closer, or new friendships developing. This is a normal part of life.
2. Much of this conversation is centered on children – and children are not socially mature creatures yet. Yes we need to provide chinuch and guide them to become respectful, sensitive adults, but it’s a process.
Kuvult,
A few of my thoughts.
1. The parents today who you are having a problem with are your classmates and peers who now have their own children. Assuming you’re right that there was some sort of massive genrational shift in behavior, is it possible that your peers may have had different opinions and experiences than you did growing up?
2. What you describe as your childhood is still very much the way things are in smaller OOT communities, where there simply isn’t sufficient infrastructure to provide services tailored to each family’s derech. Maybe an OOT locale or lifestyle would be right for you and your family?
3. You seem very bothered by the perceived rejection and separation, but you also seem unaware of how bitter and hateful some of your statements directed towards the “others” in your community is coming across. Several people have tried to explain the concerns at play with respect to intrusion of an exponentially increasingly toxic secular culture into their home life, but you consistently revert to an insistence that it’s all about “petty little things” like hats and kippas. Do you hold up your end of the bargain, being very friendly to Jews who wear black hats and think the internet is evil, smiling at them, greeting them, and respecting their differences (such as not eating Triangle-K) even if it means their kid is not going to eat lunch at your house?
4. I agree with you that it is vital for parents to instill the family derech into their kids, but unfortunately even in the frum world a kid’s (especially teens) peers tend to have an outsized influence on his/her physical, emotional, and spiritual well being. If your child’s friends all have smartphones with unfiltered internet access and your child does not, and their conversations all revolve around the latest and greatest movie that your child has not seen, and most of their socializing happens on some app that your child does not have, your child may absolutely love his/her derech intellectually, and yet still feel miserable and conflicted emotionally, and feel drawn towards the technology and media that you feel is harmful with a mixture of curiosity, guilt, and resentment towards both their friends and their parents.
When I was 8 or 9, I came across my preschool “yearbook”, which had a section where they wrote down something each kid had said about their parents. One kid had said “my father is 10, and my mother is 5.” That boggled my mind, and the only conclusion I could come up with is that both parents had been born in leap years on Feb 29th and only counted their birthdays every 4 years, making the father actually 40, and the mother actually 20. I never stopped to consider that preschoolers don’t understand long time periods, and that the preschool teacher may have put that in the yearbook because it was cute, not because it was true.
Always_Ask_Questions,
“Imagine, melech Shlomo is coming to your house and you proudly serve him a bishul yisroel tuna sandwich. He might just turn around and decamp to the nearby house that serves a halav stam cake”
Fish and bread are more prominent meal foods than cake. If you invite me to your house for lunch and serve me a tuna sandwich, great. If you serve me cake, I’d still be grateful of course but I’d think our definitions of what constitutes lunch are different.
Gadolhadorah,
“If the average frum yid is accepting a certain hashgacha, someone who wants to step above the “average” can only be machmir by relying on a non-mainstream, ultra-conservative hashgacha”
Let’s not be so cynical. It’s been my experience that those who are “machmir” have reasons for doing so, such as not relying on a specific kula that an agency allows. Many therefore do rely on “mainstream” hashgachos for many items (same as other agencies!), but not for foods where the problematic kula is applied.
None of this has anything to do with derech eretz, mitzvos bein adam l’chaveiro, or spousal obligations. In fact, letting one’s own insecurities generate resentment towards other Jews who may be more stringent with specific halachos is in itself a violation of a mitzva bein adam l’chaveiro. Seriously, just get the chalav Yisroel, pas Yisroel, yoshon, heimishe hechsher, or whatever for your friend, use disposable/sealed packaging as needed, and show some love and respect, and you’ll find that you get it right back.
GotAGoodPoint,
“How do we know that זה refers to matza & marror, and means by night, maybe it refers to the קרבן פסח and זה applies already by day.”
I’m not sure I understand your question. The korban pesach is slaughtered during the day on the 14th of Nissan, but it is eaten by night with matzos and maror. So wouldn’t the time that זה refers to be night by the korban pesach as much as with matzos and maror?
jackk,
You’re not even bothering to rewrite the talking points in your own words anymore. Out of curiosity, what is your goal here on this forum? I personally do not fit into a political box and like to have a back and forth with other posters, but in our few interactions you seem incapable or unwilling to do so.
huju,
“I sense that Gadolha and Common Saychel have doubts about Chabad’s readiness to raise a minyan. And yet Common S tells us Chabad did help him/her raise a minyan.”
He did not tell us that – he said that he posted on godaven. From my personal experiences with far-flung Chabad houses, making a daily minyan is not one of their biggest priorities. I’m sure the shaliach will try to help if requested, but you should ask what the chances are of success.
I was in the Smokies a couple of summers ago on the NC side of the park and was pleasantly surprised to encounter more than one other frum family during our stay. I had never seen other frum people there before on previous trips. Chol Hamoed is probably a bit tougher to swing given the distance from frum communities (Atlanta is probably the closest and is several hours away).
mdd1,
“The bodies could have been planted.”
You should apologize to kollelman.
“Also some rogue Russian soldiers may have committed crimes”
Of course, nobody is disputing that.
“but not the execution of a lots of people”
How do you know? Did you go to Ukraine and conduct surveillance?
“and also not as a policy of the Russian army.”
It doesn’t have to be an official military or government policy to be a war crime. Most likely the specific atrocities we’re reading about in the news now are largely a result of poor training, poor discipline, poor logistics forcing Russian soldiers to forage for food among a hostile populace, poor morale, and rage over the high number of casualties they’re taking.
“Look at the news — there are alleged Ukrainian atrocities against Russian POWs dating back to March 30 and so on. “
Yes, there are Ukrainians committing likely war crimes as well, including poisoning Russian soldiers, and abusing or executing POWs. Maybe Russia can appeal to the ICC.
mdd1,
“it implies exactly what i wrote. One is not prohibited from bombing a hospital or a school if there are enemy combatants there unless excessive force is used,”
You’re weaving quite the web of fantasy in order to defend your position. First you posit that Ukrainian soldiers were present near the hospital. That may be so, but there’s no evidence of it. Then you posit that whatever imagined Ukrainian solders that were there had a significance to the Russian war effort that justified shelling a maternity hospital. So maybe Ukrainian soldiers found a nuclear warhead lying around and were preparing to lob it at Moscow from the roof of the hospital, and Russia only had a few artillery pieces within range to prevent the attack. This is quite the leap of faith.
Given that Russia has a supply of precision guided weapons in its arsenal that can be used against the Ukrainian military in urban combat, I think the case that firing artillery shells into heavily populated areas near (or at) highly sensitive civilian locations constitutes a war crime is fairly strong. But the hospital and theater shelling are not even what has generated the recent accusations of war crimes. It’s the evidence of mass killings of civilians in the Kyiv suburbs. What’s your spin on that?
ujm,
“The ICC has no jurisdiction to indict or request extradition of any parties or state nationals, that committed any gruesome acts outside any jurisdiction not party to the ICC.”
Your statement is factually incomplete. The ICC nominally has jurisdiction only in respect to its signatory nations, but a nation that is not part of the court can still grant the ICC jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute potential war crimes committed within its own territory. Ukraine has done so, and the ICC has already opened an investigation. And yes they can in fact indict Russian citizens. Now, Russia and the US maintain that even if indicted the ICC has no jurisdiction over their own citizens, unless it is authorized by the UN Security Council, where of course both the US and Russia hold veto power. So it’s unlikely that any indictments from the ICC will have much effect on Russian civilians, but that’s quite different than what you are saying.
And again, all of this is an irrelevant smokescreen, because whether or not the ICC can successfully prosecute someone for a war crime does not affect the definition of a war crime.
ujm,
“Russia is not party to the Rome Statute of the ICC and its rules are not international law binding upon non-signatories.”
Russian individuals can still be accused of war crimes and arrest warrants issued, even if Russia refuses extradition or recognition of the court. A special tribunal can also be initiated specific to the conflict in Ukraine. But at the end of the day your point is irrelevant – not recognizing an international court does not redefine what a war crime is.
mdd1,
“If enemy combatants take up positions in or near a hospital, you are allowed to fire at them. You have to learn the laws of warfare to know what constitutes a war crime.”
It’s weird that you’re lecturing me about a need to learn the laws of warfare – what exactly are your bonafides, and what do you know of mine? It seems to me that you are making things up as you go along your quest to defend Russia.
From Article 8 (War Crimes) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, we see the following defined as war crimes:
Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated.
Attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives.
So no, you can’t just blast away at a hospital or civilian shelter or obliterate towns because enemy soliders may be operating nearby. And the hospital attack is hardly the only evidence of war crimes. The heightened accusations of war crimes leading to this thread have come up after finding executed civilians in the Kyiv suburbs vacated by Russian forces. There have also been reports of Ukrainian civilians poisoning Russian soldiers – this would also be considered a war crime.
“Russia also has a number of reasons/justifications for their invasion.”
This is absurd. Since when do “justifications” permit crimes?
“You and others here were to quick to swallow the Western/Ukrainian propaganda.”
Well, jackk thinks I’m a Putin apologist, and you think I swallow Ukrainian propaganda. I must be on the right track!
jackk,
“Putin, his regime and many members of the Russian Army are guilty of war crimes in Ukraine on a scale not seen in decades.”
This is a fairly Western ethnocentric viewpoint. The war crimes in Ukraine are heinous, but are small in comparison to the Rwandan genocide and the subsequent Second Congo War (a continent-sized conflict involving at least 9 countries), which brutally killed millions. The Syrian civil war was also far more deadly and rife with war crimes, as was the Janjaweed’s campaign of horror in Darfur. Don’t forget that there are seven continents on this planet, and Africa and Asia are far bigger than Europe.
“This never was about invading Ukraine but a complete genocide of the people living in Ukraine.”
Russia is certainly committing war crimes and atrocities against civilians, including mass killings, but a genocide is different. When you make wildly unfounded statements, you provide an opening for Russian propaganda, as can be seen in this thread already.
mdd1,
“2cents, did you support the US invasions of Iraq and Afganistan, the Israeli invasion of Gaza and bombings of Lebanon? Plenty of civilians were killed there etc.”
I disagree that the US and Israeli campaigns are at all comparable to Russia’s invasion and war against Ukraine. The US campaign against Afghanistan was a direct response to the 9/11 terror attack, and Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon was in response to a violent cross-border attack that killed and captured Israeli soldiers, and cross-border shelling. The US war against Iraq had much less justification, though Iraq was failing to cooperate with nuclear inspections. In all three of those campaigns, however, precision munitions were primarily utilized by the US and Israel. These weapons are much more expensive than conventional artillery and are designed to hit the intended target accurately while minimizing collateral damage. The US and Israeli armed forces were also working to limit their attacks to military targets, and took responsibility and corrective actions after mistakes. Israel would even “knock” on buildings it was about to hit, giving advance warning to those inside to get out beforehand. Israeli and US soldiers are well trained, well organized, and have a robust disciplinary system in place where soldiers are accountable for their behavior.
In contrast, Russia has relied primarily on less accurate conventional artillery in urban areas, has applied scorched earth tactics rather than precision strikes against legitimate military targets, has appeared to deliberately target civilian residences, hospitals, and shelters, and has poorly trained and poorly disciplined soldiers that have rampaged against defenseless civilians to vent their wrath over staggeringly high numbers of casualties due to their poor training, discipline, and the tactical decisions of their “superior” officers.
jews4biden,
“Religions seem to be the same as cults, but everyone goes crazy about cults, and most people (except atheists) are pro religion?”
The term “cult” does not have a cut and dry definition. In older usage, it may describe a group within a broader religious tradition that focuses its devotion on a particular religious ritual or figure, such as Catholic cults dedicated to certain saints. In modern English usage, however, it is a pejorative used against people who think things you don’t like. Thus, secular people hostile towards religious belief may label all religions as cults, while religious believers may label those who hold beliefs they are opposed to as cultists. Not all accusations of being a cult or a person being a cult leader are religious in nature (Exhibits A and B: Donald Trump and Anthony Fauci, depending on your political views).
How I personally define it: a cult is a group of people with complete devotion to a charismatic leader, where the leader exercises almost complete control over his/her followers’ lives. Cultists usually will break off contact with family and friends at the behest of this leader, will give him complete control of their finances, their children, where they live, etc. By this definition, a cult would be avoda zara for Jews, as it involves the worship of a human being, whether or not the cult is based on religion. Unlike ujm, I would not call those who worship a dead man a cult, as the dead have no power to control others, though such worship is still avoda zara. However, cults can form when a person claims the mantle of a dead figure that others worship and uses that claim to control them.
commonsaychel,
Did I say asking shailos of a posek is wrong? Stop being a troll.
commonsaychel,
“then why ask a halacha lmishya question to a bunch of ramdom people online instead of asking your rav who paskens your shalos.”
You’re doing the coffeeroom all wrong.
TS Baum,
“Any normal person doesn’t eat pizza between meals! It is the meal!”
This may be partly a generational thing. When I was younger and my parents would pick up a pizza for dinner, my grandfather A”H would insist that other things like pasta, salad, and bread get ordered as well, because as he’d say, “pizza is not dinner, it’s dessert!”
Anecdote aside, in 2014 the USDA released a survey called “What We Eat in America”, and a document specifically on pizza called “Consumption of Pizza.” Remarkably, on any given day, 1 out of 8 Americans ate pizza. And as far as the breakdown on the type of eating, around 10% of the pizza consumed in America is done so as a snack. So yes the majority of pizza eating is done at mealtimes, but maybe over 4 million pizza snacks occur each day in this nation.
WolfishMusings,
Indeed, and moving to DST year round will make global warming much worse too 😝
Always_Ask_Questions,
“most world cities have poorer East due to prevailing westerly wind, so eastern of two nearby towns will be more polluted”
This only holds in the midlatitudes.
Always_Ask_Questions,
“How is a circle on your hand with 2 sticks, or numbers on your computer, materially affect your life?!”
So the problem is not that we Yidden care about the circle with 2 sticks, we don’t. However, the goyishe bossman does, and tells us to be seated in our fuzzy-walled cells interacting with the glowing rectangle in the morning by the time the short stick is pointing left and is orthogonal to or at an obtuse angle to the longer stick pointing straight up. And now they’re proposing to advance the rotational cycle of these sticks during the cold season so that they reach the bossman’s allotted time too early to daven shacharis.
“I’ll try tomorrow telling my wife that I’ll be home at mincha gedola and I hope to be able to report the results of this experiment.”
I bet it’d go over better in December than in June.
“what does everybody think of this”
I saw in the media that the sleep “–>Experts®™©<—” [insert gong and angelic choir sounds] have said that eliminating the bi-annual transitions is a good thing, but that we should go to full-year standard time, not daylight time, as the former is better for sleep. Sorry folks, but Science hath Spoken, and thou must Believe in the capital-S Science and Listen to the Experts, for anyone who dost not obeyeth is a heretic and must be banned from public life. Shuls should check the watches of mispallelim at the door and turn away any who have their watches set an hour ahead of standard time, for they have had less sleep and are more likely to get into accidents and are a clear and present danger to society.
Keep midday Noon!
Always_Ask_Questions,
“I apologize if I offended you or someone else.”
I confess that I was bothered initially by what you wrote, and that may well be my own problem. But just in case I am mochel you, and I hope nothing I have written has caused you pain or offense. I know we’ve disagreed sharply at times, and I try hard to focus on what we’ve written and not say anything personal, but I may not always succeed.
Always_Ask_Questions,
Thank you for sharing those sources. They seem to fall into two distinct categories:
1. It is forbidden to call one’s parents by their names.
2. How to handle disagreeing with your parentsAviraDeArah’s hypothetical child certainly didn’t violate #1. Did he violate anything in #2? He didn’t disagree with any position held by his father, nor did he affirm his father’s words. In fact, the hypothetical father stated no opinions whatsoever, nor did the child. He simply asked a question: did you ever get that garment checked? It says wool on the label. The source you brought that has the closest relevance to AviraDeArah’s example was the Prisha: “But if there is definite proof that a mistake was made in religious matters, then one is obligated to point this out.” Not getting a wool garment checked for shatnez is a mistake in halacha which led to a clear and definite violation of halacha in AviraDeArah’s hypothetical. Perhaps you can say the son was not sure, but the son did not disagree or level an accusation against the father, or “correct him” as you wrote – he asked a question! Did you get this garment checked?
You leveled some serious charges against AviraDeArah due to his example which by even your own sources doesn’t appear to violate any clear issur in kibud av, and then implied that I look for excuses to get out of observing mitzvos bein adam l’chaveiro when I defended AviraDeArah from what I thought was unwarranted and harsh criticism. I think it’s possible you’re reading way more into the example than was actually there.
Always_Ask_Questions,
“I don’t want to throw quotations at you, I suggest you yourself look up halochos of talking to a parent and tell us how this matches.”
By all means, bring ’em!
“But as usual, somehow the first instinct in bein adam l’havero is to find an excuse why not. Not healthy.”
So explain to me how you can frequently assume the worst about people and then lecture them about bein adam l’chaveiro?
Always_Ask_Questions,
“speaking respectfully with your parent is as basic halakha as keeping shabbos.”
What is considered respectful and what is not is highly subjective and depends on the parent and child in question. I did not find AviraDeArah’s wording to be disrespectful. Some may find “ta” rather than “totty” to be disrespectful, but Avira’s father may not. It seems that you’re more interested in the fun of trying to hit Avira from the right, so I’ll join the fun. How could you give an example of a child referring to his father in the 2nd person as an example of respectful speech? There are children in some Jewish families who wouldn’t dream of such chutzpah! You should have written, “Totty, how is shatnez checked in a bekesha?”
“Your kid should have just switched it off first, of course.”
You’d want your kid to walk into a kitchen that is ON FIRE to turn off the stove? I’d want my kid out of the house as quickly as possible.
Here’s the thing: Avira and I both brought stories in an attempt to show that nobody is perfect, mistakes happen even with the best intentions, and the right thing to do is to correct the mistake and keep moving forward and not let yourself become derailed – while also saying that it’s possible that no mistake was made at all. I’m not sure why that message bothers you, but by Avira’s story you went off on a tangent about how kids these days become frummer than their parents and disrespect their mitzvah observance. Perhaps that’s a worthy topic to be discussed separately, but how is it relevant here? And furthermore, Avira’s story was talking about wearing straight up shatnez, not a chumra such as gebrochts that might cause a child to stop eating at his parents house. So the tangent was not only irrelevant, but inappropriate to the example.
As for my house-on-fire story, my point is that there are times for polite obfuscation, but there are also times that true respect calls for a shorter and more direct statement. If I’m about to accidentally put a piece of bacon in my mouth thinking it was kosher corned beef, I hope my kids stop me directly rather than blathering about how they learned in school that bacon was unkosher, or how to tell bacon from corned beef while I’m eating it. Their misguided “respect” would have caused me to unintentionally sin!
WolfishMusings,
Are you still reading this thread?