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“married to a woman with ordination from JTS”
And the problem with that is?
“Roosevelt into WWII”
You think that the US should have simply made peace when Hitler declared war on us.
You are clearly not a Jew.
“Just goes to show that we were right to begin with.”
I voted for Obama and the events of the past few months have made it very clear that the US dodged a bullet when it rejected McCain. We would be at war in at least four, possibly six countries, and as a result the economy would be in a shambles, and civil unrest would have been highly likely.
Obviously a later emendation.
When I was 17 I listened constantly to the three all news radio stations in Washington, DC. (Yes, you got that right. They were WAVA-FM, WTOP, and WRC.) Today I read YeshivaWorldNews constantly!
“It is the reason we Pasken like the Shulchan Aruch and even like Bavli.”
Any yeshiva bochur can give you lots of examples where we DON’T pasken like the Shulchan Aruch and where we go against even unopposed Bavlis.
“Those with a strong, unwritten, mesorah, discredited them immediately”
Those who had no sources had to revert to screaming “mesorah” even when there isn’t one.
“owning a small business meant you can work for yourself and thus only work 3 hours a day”
Most small business owners I know work more like 13 hours a day.
“What carries the day is the Mesora.”
That isn’t really accurate.
“how Klal Yisroel accepted things”
There are many examples of things that were never accepted in the past that are accepted today, such as universal kollel learning. And things that were fully accepted such as the lack of a need to worry about chodesh flour (at least for Ashkenazim) are being challenged based on texts, not mesorah.
Rav Soloveitchik’s son, Prof. Haym Soloveitchik, elaborated on this in his brilliant essay, “Rupture and Reconstruction”. The Shoah broke the mesorah and we are now have a text based tradition. That generates both leniencies and stringencies, and leads to innovations that our grandparents would never have imagined.
“I would like a degree in the medical field.”
If you don’t like science, that is NOT a good idea. All allied medical fields are highly based on science.
“OP is 23 and looking for a career”
That wasn’t what he said in the OP.
“There is very much an oral tradition, after Ravina/Rav Ashi, and it continues to this day”
But is an interesting question as to how the Gaonim came up with chidushim that had no basis in Shas.
“Rishonim usually (not always) learn a sugya the same way their rebbeim did. “
I am not even sure I would say “usually”. Rashbam and Rabbeinu Tam often differ with their grandfather Rashi. And Rambam was in a direct line of talmidim from the Rif, yet often disagreed.
“Corn is not suitable for human consumption anyway. It’s animal fodder.”
Corn (maize) has been eaten by humans for thousands of years.
When did showering become a bad thing?
Study something that interests you. A good rav who is knowledgeable about secular education might be able to help. If you try to study something that bores you, you will be unlikely to succeed.
“Universal Jewish education should be a mandate.”
It has been a mandate since Yehoshua ben Gamla Kohein Gadol.
“So far no one has given a real answer. “
I answered truthfully.
“a raffle donation is NOT tax deductible.”
I’d rather just write a check to the organization. If I want to gamble, I’ll go to Empire City or buy a lottery ticket.
Every day that isn’t Shabat or Yom Kippur.
“The point is having the internet in the home is akin to leaving a loaded gun on the kitchen counter.”
It is nice to see some sentiment for gun control here in the chatroom.
“But you don’t need to learn math in school. “
True, but most parents aren’t capable of teaching math to their children.
“Doesn’t this violate basic human rights?”
Ben Gamla didn’t think so.
I have never baked a sufficient quantity of bread to be chayev in challah biblically, and neither has my wife. We generally support our local Jewish bakery, which is a different mitzvah.
Every day, ten people in American get dihydrogen monoxide in their lungs and die! It is dangerous and we need to ban it!!!
I take the A train from the northern tip of Manhattan to Brooklyn several times every week. Never seen anything problematic. It *is* very crowded, though.
“Why don’t we edit maseches niddah?”
Yevamot is even worse.
I find this idea of “editing” to be somewhat offensive whether Torah or Shakespeare.
“One cannot abridge copyrighted works like Harry Potter”
You can if you get permission. There exist authorized abridged versions of many modern theatrical works that were specifically designed for high school productions.
“stopping the carriage horses”
His Republican opponent agreed with him on that one.
“Has nothing to do with D Day”
The reason was addressed a few weeks ago in Daf Yomi. 🙂
Our cats must be Jewish. They really know the meaning of Shabat menuchah!
My rav learned at YU. My wife’s rav learned at Lakewood. We have been happily married for nine years. Do not automatically assume that because you are connected to a different community that you are incompatible.
“Auschwitz and Treblinka were known about in 1943”
To be fair, by 1943 there was nowhere to flee. They should have listened to Jabotinsky in 1938, when there were still a few places that were letting Jews in.
“why do we Ashkenazim not eat kitniyos?”
Because we picked up a stupid minhag centuries ago, and Rabbi Yaakov Emden couldn’t convince us to stop holding by it. Most of us hold more strictly by kitniyot than by chametz — talk about insane!
“Halacha: anything written in shulchan aruch”
Mechitzah isn’t in the Shulchan Aruch. Does that mean I can go to a non-mechitzah synagogue to daven?
One might also ask why most shuls recite the “Anim Zmirot” which clearly treats God as corporeal. It is never recited in Rabbi Avi Weiss’s synagogue.
“in the majority, the ???”? is not followed.”
Which just goes to show that Rambam’s 13 principles are NOT universally accepted today. For more examples of such, see Prof. Marc Shapiro’s book, *The Limits of Orthodox Theology*.
It is intellectually dishonest to attack someone for not holding by Rambam’s principles when you are defending reciting Machnisei Rachamim — or, even worse, say it yourself.
“Nobody prays to angels.
Regarding Machnisei Rachamim, for those that say this piece, it is asking the angels to do their job, so to speak.”
You is far less convincing than the academics who say that the Torah is from God but not really written until the time of Ezra! Machnisei Rachamim is a prayer directed towards angels and there is no way to get around it. I won’t say it and neither should anyone else who thinks that Rambam’s principles constitute the basics of normative rabbinic Judaism.
“Public issues were always decided by Rabbonim, including the Vaad Arba Aratzos. “
The deciders were not always the greatest talmidei chachamim. We had an example of that in today’s Daf Yomi.
“That doesn’t necessarily mean that he knew how to get blue dye from the murex.”
This was probably said 3 years ago, but Rav Herzog z’tz’l was convinced that the Murex was the right animal but that the dye was indeed blue. Rav Herzog z’tz’l died in 1959 but the rediscovery of how to get blue dye from it was not until over two decades later.
‘Rav Soloveitchik was once approached with information about a certain ancient and rediscovered text of the Torah, that contradicted the Torah that we have. The Rav responded to his questioner “What is your opinion of the founder of the Reform movement”? The man responded “He is an idiot, an am haaretz d’oraysa!”. The Rav said back “Do you think we have a monopoly on ameratzim deoraysa”!?’
This was probably referring to the Qumran manuscripts, which do differ slightly from our texts of the Torah (and much more from out texts of Nach). The Rav was being kind; the Qumran community were not amei haaretzim, they were out and out heretics if for no other reason than they observed the holidays on different days. This is particularly notable given today’s Daf Yomi.
A bigger challenge is that Chazal and some rishonim appear to have texts that differ slightly from ours; the resolution is that Chazal did not believe that we had perfectly accurate texts.
“By definition, fundamentals of the religion cannot change. “
I don’t think that is the case. There were rishonim who clearly rejected HaShem’s non-corporeality. And most of us pray to angels these days.
“Whose unbroken Mesora are you referring to? Sfardim? Yemenites? You also ignore the Chassidim, who threw away centuries of Minhagim and Nusach?”
What unbroken mesorah promotes kollel for everyone? The only time in the history of the Jewish people that everyone was studying torah full time was the dor hamdibar, who according to Rabbi Akiva forfeited their share in olam haba.
“If you want a legit opinion against daas Torah, find a true gadol who holds that, if you can find any that do so.”
Rov Soloveitchik z’tz’l has already been mentioned.
“Charlie, I predicted that the Rangers would beat the other team to get to the championship. According to your logic, that proves that I have more hockey expertise than anyone who predicted that the other team would win.
In other words, It still doesn’t prove anything.”
That is one data point. Jabotinsky and Schoenberg, unfortunately, have six million data points on their side. 🙁
“How dare anyone blame gedolim for outrageous Zionist treachery?”
The Zionists had their own gedolim.
And blaming Zionists for the Nazis is like blaming Israel for Hamas and Hezbollah.
“lobbying governments to not allow in Jews”
I challenge you to find a single Zionist, religious or not, who supported the racist immigration quota law in the US — a law that had been enacted back in 1924.
“The pattern that always held true in galus was that if one place became dangerous then another would open up.”
Actually there WERE places that some Jews could have fled to had the money been available and the gedolim given the word to flee: The racist dictator Trujillo decided that more Jews meant more white folks in the Dominican Republic, and he offered to accept tens of thousands of Jewish refugees. (He was probably trying to atone for his own massacre of tens of thousands of Haitians.) And after a year’s residence in the Dominican Republic, it was possible to immigrate to the US.
Haiti also was selling visas to Haiti to any Jew who could come up with $5,000 and again after one year immigration to the US was possible. A few Jews (under a hundred) took them up on that offer, but I do know one rabbi whose grandfather went through Haiti on the way to the US.
“How would you expect the masses to know that Arnold Schoenberg was one of the best analysts of the European political and international situation of the time?”
Schoenberg wrote an article in 1938 predicting the murder of millions of Jews. But he couldn’t get it published by anyone because nobody wanted to hear such doom and gloom. So there was no way that anyone around his close circles could have known about his understanding.
“I think it just means that they understood the political and international ramifications of the Nazi rise to power better.”
That is what I meant.
“While many Rabbonim felt that Daas Torah was to stay in Europe, it could have been based on the fact that they misunderstood how powerful Hitler and the Nazis were.”
Ze’ev Jabotinsky and Arnold Schoenberg both predicted the shoah in writing in 1938, and they expressed the need for every Jew to get out of Europe ASAP. They clearly had better Daas even though Jabotinsky claimed to be an atheist and Schoenberg was a recent baal tshuvah from 35 years of living as a Christian.
“The Zionists caused the loss of Jewish access to the Kosel and Yerushalayin from 1948.”
The anti-Zionist lies get bigger and bigger. Zionists in the Old City were fighting the Arab rashaim who would have killed every Jew, Zionist or not, had they had the chance. (And they did just that at Kfar Etzion.) Jerusalem was under siege but rather than consolidating forces in more defensible areas the Zionists desparately tried to save the Jewish presence in the Old City and did not surrender until there were just a few dozen healthy fighters left. The Zionists included the entire spectrum from Shulamit Aloni who would eventually become the vitriolic anti-religious cabinet minister in the 1990s, to then-rabbinical student Shear Yashuv Cohen who would serve as Chief Rabbi of Haifa for decades.
It is unlikely that Charedi participation in the resistance would have changed the outcome as the Zionists had so little equipment and ammunition. But a little hakarat hatov would be in order.
“Tora knowledge does not make one an advisor as to which of two permitted stocks to buy.”
Permission to buy stocks at all is a chiddush, as neither the Torah nor Chazal ever heard of limited liability. 😉
Given that most mutual funds can’t even match the market average, it is questionable whether there are any real experts on investments other than Warren Buffett! If you actually know something about the business, the technology, and the management, you might know enough to be a wise investor, but that would be few of us.
But my comment was really regarding operating your own business. There is so much that is completely acceptable by secular law that is not permitted halachically. The Torah’s standards regarding transparency, treatment of employees, pricing, and other areas are far higher than is standard in the market today. Rabbi Dr. Aaron Levine z’tz’l wrote that had the economy followed Torah standards of transparency there could have been no crash in 2008.
“any posek will consult professionals in the field before paskening. For example, Rav Moshe asked an electrician what would happen if someone tovelled a toaster.”
Absolutely! Rav Moshe z’tz’l was a model of such. He also consulted prominent physicians before paskening on medical matters.
I have on very rare occasions been asked questions by a rabbi on areas of my expertise.
“why does Daas Torah extend to non Torah decisions such as finances and general life decisions?”
We don’t like to admit it, but there is a huge amount of halachah regarding personal and business finance that many of us ignore. You practically need yadin yadin semicha to be a frum businessman.
I can learn more Torah taking the train. So I avoid driving whenever and wherever I can.