Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
“And how do you know that they have a Tzelem Elokim?”
Well, the Torah explicitly says so.
Bobby Fischer was a Jew. He was possibly the greatest chess player in history, and the only American born chessplayer who ranks with the greatest ever.
He was a Jew who converted to Christianity, violated a US embargo on Yugoslavia, didn’t pay his taxes, admired Hitler, denied the holocaust, described Jews as criminals and murderers, called himself the victim of an international Jewish conspiracy, applauded the 9/11 attacks, called for death to President Bush, called for a military coup in the US, called for the murder of Jewish leaders in the US, and called for the murder of half the Jews in Israel.
Still think Mother Teresa ranks below this rasha?
A lot of us DO think about this every time there is a disaster. But we are not on the level to definitively associated particular sins with particular punishments today — we have no naviim. Better would be to search ourselves to see how we can each do tshuvah every time there is such a disaster — and every day there is not one, too!
lostinba,
I would do everything you can to reach YOUR rav who is familiar with YOUR situation even if it means calling him in the middle of the night. I can easily see space to be mutar here but I can easily see being machmir. YOUR rav who knows YOU and YOUR situation is the best person to help you make this difficult choice.
All the best!
“I once wanted to invest in real estate. The building had the basement reserved for worship and church meetings. We were told by a big Rav that we can’t be the owners of such a place.”
And yet if you already own the building, if a Christian group wants to rent part of the building for religious services you may be legally required to rent it to them!
“There is a specific Issur D’Rabbanan to deal in Traif food.”
Not so simple! It is mutar to sell stam wine and treif meet to non-Jews. It is mutar to own an interest in a non-kosher restaurant (although not to profit from basar v’chalav). Consult a rav before going into such a business.
I’d take Mother Teresa over Bobby Fischer.
Being a Jew gives you the potential for spiritual greatness. A non-Jew can only achieve that level by converting to Judaism, accepting the mitzvot. But we are entirely capable of rejecting that potential and lowering ourselves to the level of the lowest animals. And unfortunately, some of my fellow Jews have done just that.
I won $1 on the first day of the Virgina lottery, some decades ago. (Won $2 on a $1 ticket.) Never bought another ticket.
I won $1.50 on my very first play of a slot machine at Foxwoods casino. I decided I liked coming out ahead, and didn’t put any more money in the machines.
My wife is a doctor and loves it. There are few professions where you have the potential to perform the mizvah of saving lives every day. It isn’t for the squeamish thought, or those who don’t realize that pikuach nefesh absolutely trumps tzniut. And it is definitely NOT for those who see it as a lucrative profession.
Just today my rav related a story from over 20 years ago when he was assaulted by someone who could easily have killed him. A Hispanic Christian from his neighborhood to whom he had been friendly intervened and saved his life, driving away the mugger.
I’ve also had the fortune of being able learn one on one with two charedi rabbis, one Chasidic, one Yeshivish. The Chasidic Rebbe would go out of his way to greet and thank the non-Jewish police officers who would guard the shul. The Yeshivish Rav would repeatedly relates stories of how important it is to treat non-Jews with total respect and dignity.
“In God We Trust” never appeared on a US coin until the 1860s, nor on paper money until the 1950s. I’m old enough to remember currency that did not have it!
I know an absolutely brilliant female professor at Touro.
cantoresq,
That was precisely my point!
I can only try,
Thanks! Your rav’s answer makes perfect sense.
The proposals are DOA.
But we do need some inflationary actions. You don’t see it in NY where housing prices have begun to rebound, but much of the US has experienced a 1930s style bust. Deflation is FAR worse than inflation.
Actually, because the Republicans went out of their way to target conservative Democrats for defeat, the Democrats in the House are much more liberal in the upcoming Congress.
And nobody, not even Boehner himself, thinks Boehner is a “moderate”. He has proposed no bipartisan legislation of which I am aware.
“LDL And TRYGLYCERIDES KOOKED ALTOGETHER”
ROTF!!! But olive oil is low in LDL and triglicerides — it is a very healthy food in moderation.
Maybe we should all get together and learn a classic mussar text?
What does Jewish music sound like?
The only Jewish composer of the past century who truly produced music that was uninfluenced by non-Jewish styles was Arnold Schoenberg, and I’ve never heard his music played at a simchah!
“We seldomely find ‘wrong’ in the Rishonim or Acharonim, even in the face of alot of proof.”
True. But sometimes we do. Ibn Ezra famously got some geography in Eretz Yisrael wrong. We don’t rely on Rambam’s medical writings, nor his astronomy. (He would not have wanted us to!)
That they got some facts wrong, however, does nothing to detract from either their greatness in Torah or their authority in halachah! The abovereferenced yud that isn’t missing has no halachic consequences, and neither does the question of Rivkah’s age, but sometimes the differences found in different manuscripts does.
“When Rishonim argue on Rashi they don’t say he is wrong”
Actually, sometimes they do!
“Becuz the gedolim said “
SOME of the gedolim. Other gedolim celebrated it, as have other Jews in America for 221 years.
“multiple contradictory Medrashim”
It is worthwhile to review the Rabbi Avraham ben HaRambam’s “Discourse on the Sayings of the Rabbis” that discusses how to understand midrash/aggadata. It is printed at the beginning of the Ein Yaakov aggadata collection.
“Rashi can make mistakes”
I don’t think relying on the best text that you have is a mistake!
“Tosfos says that the Seder Olam says that she was three. Tosfos actually goes ahead and says that it can’t even be a mistake in the text since the whole conversation there is explaining how we get age. He only says that there are other Midrashim that argue.”
Not just other midrashim, other texts of Seder Olam that differ.
“I don’t understand how you can say about something that Rashi brings and accepts, that it doesn’t make sense on the basis of your “advanced” moral standards. If only you would have been around in Rashi’s day you coulda taught him a thing or two. “
I don’t argue based on advanced moral standards; I simply point out other texts and other rishonim who disagree. I am not of the stature to argue with a rishon! But we know in at least one case that he had a defective text of the Torah, there are many examples where he had a different text of the Talmud than we have today, and there are manuscripts of Seder Olam Rabbah that say 14 years.
“Wolf since you say Rashi is wrong and he wrote with ruach hakodesh that automaticaly makes you an apikorus.”
You’ve just declared Ibn Ezra, Rambam, Ramban, and many other Rishonim and Acharonim to be apikorsim!
Rashi was incomparable! The first word on Tanakh and most of the Bavli, as well as being the posek hador for Ashkenazic Jews in northern France during his lifetime and the teacher of many who would follow. Also an invaluable source for knowledge of the medieval French language and lifestyle. But it is possible to disagree with him. Our religion is rabbinic Judaism, not Rashiism.
The point is academic “modern researchers” cannot declare Rashi’s girsa “incorrect”.
You don’t have to be a “modern researcher”.
Look at the Rashi to Bereshit 25:6 where he quotes a Bereshit Rabbah on the Hebrew spelling of ?????????????. Rashi says the spelling is “defective” yud missing. Which is correct:
(1) Ever sefer torah on the planet today is correct; Rashi and Bereshit Rabbah were mistaken or had a defective text.
(2) Rashi and Bereshit Rabbah are correct; every sefer torah on the planet today has a misspelled word.
(3) Both are acceptable; the spelling in a sefer torah is not critical.
????
“What would be the point of that? We don’t reconcile the text based on ruach hakodesh, we base our text on our mesorah (and on majority), the same way that Rashi did. “
Correct! And as I pointed out, sometimes he had incorrect texts. Rifkah’s age may be such an example.
How old is your son?
I thought we were supposed to spend 20% extra to beautify a mitzvah, not 2000%.
anon,
Correct, Washington did not believe the US to be a Christian nation; he respected the separation of church and state. Personally he was an active lay Anglican/Episcopalian. He was a member of the Vestry in colonial times, which had the very important role of distributing communal poor funds. His letter to the Jewish congregation of Newport is an amazing statement of acceptance of a minority religion; one has to go all the way back to the Roman Empire to find something similar. (And as we all know, Rome did not always practice what it preached.)
Jefferson might be described as a Deist, but even that isn’t clear. He went to great lengths to disguise his actual religious views. He clearly was not a trinitarian Christian and he edited his own version of the Christian gospels, taking out everything that looked supernatural to him. Ironically, some of the worst attacks against him came during the 1800 Presidential election — his opponent John Adams was clearly a Unitarian heretic (and didn’t hide that fact).
Here is the text of Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli as ratified by the US Senate:
Since under the US Constitution treaties become the law of the land, this language would appear to still be in effect.
FWIW, Tripoli is now part of Libya.
Wolf,
Interestingly, despite all the references to God and Natural Law in the Declaration of Independence which he largely wrote, Jefferson was widely derided during his lifetime as a non-believer.
At least most of the motzi shem ra about me is posted in places like YWN so I at least can argue against it. And I’m blessed to live in a community that believes none of it.
“In EY there is an unsettled dispute as to who rules the roost.”
There is NO question as to the original minhag of America: The Spanish/Portuguese/Dutch Sefardic nusach. There is not a single orthodox Ashkenazic synagogue in the US that is less than a century NEWER than Shearith Israel in Manhattan and Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia. It is no wonder that every single Ashkenazic congregation founded in America prior to 1850 either died or became non-Orthodox; to violate the well-established minhag hamakom was itself a serious halachic issue. Note that both Shearith Israel and Mikveh Israel remain orthodox to this day.
“I also notice you describe your wife as covering her hair in order to differentiate yourself from the mo”
I noticed yesterday in my big MO shul that almost every woman was wearing a hat. A few were doilies on their head, and the Rebbitzen was wearing a wig. Some women I knew to be single had uncovered heads.
Rak Od Pa’am,
That is a great argument for Jews being vegetarians!
ronrsr,
we seem to have similar tastes!
Remember that the source for this is at BEST a midrash — Seder Olam Rabbah — and that there is no chiyuv to accept literally any particular midrash. Kal v’chomer when the midrashic source Rashi quotes may have been a defective text. (His text of the gemara differs from ours in numerous places, and there is even one place where he quotes a Bereshit Rabbah that has a different spelling of a word in Chumash than we find in today’s sifre torah!) So while Rashi may have had ruach hakodesh, it was not a high enough level of prophesy to identify defective texts.
I personally know many with semichah who insist on NOT being called rabbi. One insisted that he was told personally by Rabbi Moshe Feinstein that the title should only be used by people serving in rabbinic postions, such as teaching, chaplaincy, or synagogue clergy.
I also know people without even yoreh yoreh semichah who are referred to as rabbi.
“If she agreed to support his learnign for five years then she has to do what she agred to.”
Moshe, have you ever read the text of a ketubah?
2010 Subaru Impreza hatchback
1998 Subaru Legacy Outback wagon
“Since Turkey had been eaten for many years before the question came up”
Actually that is not true; no Jew ever saw a turkey until 1493. The Rema lived from 1520 to 1572.
“A turkey unto G-d”
LOL! The “hodu” as applied to the bird comes from India, from where it was mistakenly thought to have originated. (“Hodu” is also the Hebrew word for India, from “Hindu”. You find the word in Megillat Esther.)
Rabbi Ari Z. Zivotofsky has a nice article on the kashrut issues regarding turkey; it was published in *Journal of Halachah and Contemporary Society* in 1998 and can be found through a quick internet search. As always, CYLOR.
Complete text of the first Thanksgiving proclamation by President Washington:
General Thanksgiving
By the PRESIDENT of the United States Of America
A PROCLAMATION
WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requefted me “to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establifh a form of government for their safety and happiness:”
NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and affign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclufion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed;– for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to eftablish Conftitutions of government for our fafety and happinefs, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;– for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffufing useful knowledge;– and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleased to confer upon us.
And also, that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgreffions;– to enable us all, whether in publick or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us); and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.
GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand feven hundred and eighty-nine.
(signed) G. Washington
Those who asur Thanksgiving are probably unaware of the history of Jewish observance of the holiday. The facts are that the small Jewish community in America enthusiastically endorsed the holiday immediately after President Washington’s 1789 proclamation. I have a copy of the order of service in New York (then the capital) at the still existing (and still orthodox) Congregation Shearith Israel on Thursday, November 26, 1789, along with the sermon that was given that day. The service skipped tachanun, and added many additional psalms along with a prayer for the government (in English!). The sermon by Chazzan Gershom Mendes Seixas — a drash on Mizmor L’Todah — was so well received that it was published a few weeks later. That made it, and not any sermon by a Christian, the first Thanksgiving Day sermon published in America! Jews have been celebrating Thanksgiving since 1789; it probably has the status of a local chag.
Unfortnately the order of service and sermon don’t appear to be online except on my facebook page in a photo album. (I scanned it in; they are in the public domain.)
“Professor Broyde surely makes some interesting academic observations on the matter. But for halachic conclusions, we rely on Rabbonim. “
Professor Broyde is also Rabbi Broyde — a very distinguished member of the Rabbonim and a Dayan on the Beit Din of America.
“I like turkey. (That’s the only part of this discussion I’m interested in.) “
That itself is a shilah! We had no mesorah for turkey since it is a bird native to North America.
“Charlie, are you saying that there are no Yeshivish Roshei Yeshiva that hadn’t gone to University? I do remember some very prominent RY with college educations. “
Not at all! For example, Rabbi Avigdor Miller z’tz’l went to YU. So did Rabbi Daniel Greer. Rav Hutner z’tz’l took classes at the University of Berlin (where he became close to Rov Soloveitchik). There are others.
There are also examples of Chasidic Rebbes with university education including many of the members of the Twersky/Twerski families. (The different lines spell their names differently in English.) And of course the Lubavicher Rebbe earned an engineering degree in France.
I guess my distinction is that even many of the university-educated yeshivish rabbis generally downplay (or, in the case of R’Miller, actively discourage) university education. Like many generalizations, it is imperfect and should be accepted with caution.
I think that the real truth is that all Orthodox rabbis — and in fact all Orthodox paths — put Torah first. And while we agree on 99% of the Torah, there are some important differences, including the desirability of a Jewish state, the degree to which secular education is to be encouraged, the degree to which Torah opportunies in particular advanced education should be open to women, and the degree to which we should attempt to coerce mitzvah observance. Many if not most of these are public policy issues, not halachic issues.
“have respectable talmidim who are carrying on and espousing his legacy and who can be consulted.”
Rav Soloveitchik z’tz’l has thousands of talmidim teaching today in America and in Israel. His talmidim probably have thousands of talmidim.
“Dr. Lamm, though he was merely President, and not Rosh Yeshiva”
He is Rabbi Dr. Lamm. And he was the only person to earn both semichah and a doctorate from Rav Soloveitchik.
“Zionism (nationalism he calls it) is Avodah Zorah, and so religious Zionism is nothing but Avodah Zorah mixed with religion “
Plenty of gedolim have been Zionists and we can rely on them when they argue successfully against Rav Wasserman z’tz’l.
What is your purpose in bashing gedolim? Have you ever read *Kol Dodi Dofeik*? Or anything by Rav Kook z’tz’l? Or anything by Rav Herzog z’tz’l or Rav Amital z’tz’l or Rav Lichtenstein? You never bring any arguments against anything that any actual religious Zionist has said or written, you just bring *ad hominem* attacks from a very small number of rabbis. Not once have you ever pointed out even a single problem with *Kol Dodi Dofeik*. If you think that there is one, speak up and say what it is, or shut up.
“the most vehement fighter against Modern Orthodoxy on these shores”
R’Kotler z’tz’l invited Rav Soloveitchik z’tz’l to be the keynote speaker at the first fundaising dinner for Chinuch Atzmai. Some fight.
‘ a modern orthodox person must dress like the goyim (they are after all “most people”) and speak like a goy.’
Please cite the posek where it is asur to use correct grammar and vocabulary.
Also, black fedoras, white dress shirts, and suits are certainly goyish dress.
“YCT isn’t Orthodox. “
More motzi shem ra. There is nothing about it that isn’t orthodox.