CTRebbe

Thanks for sharing.

Mitzva lefarsem

Unfortunately, since most yeshivas are in deep blue states it really can not make much difference. While I do think everyone should vote let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that a handful of Jews in democratic strongholds will make a difference. There are relatively small numbers of bachurim (18+) and yungerlite in PA, OH and Wisconson and hopefully they will vote. I think their main power will be in the davening and learning they do.

Reb Eliezer-The SA gets that language from the gemara in breachos. It means that whatever power and effectiveness your tefila had during the proper zman of tefila is gone, done, finito. You BLEW IT! That is not a heter to say if you want you can daven whenever you want. I aint no talmid chacham but I don’t think that the message of the gemara is that you can itentionally wake up every day past the proper zman and disregard all the halachic discussion about the proper zman tefila. It does not mean you get bonus points for davening before 10:30 AM.
What would you say about someone who does not wear tzitzis ? Its OK bec. they don’t need to wear a four cornered garment? Wearing a yarmalka has even less significance. It seems odd to be makpid on many non-halchachic issues but to totally ignore a whole section of shulchan aruch.

It is one thing if people say “What can I do, I have a hard time waking up in the morning” vs. we hold beshita that we will make a minyan past the time that halcha dictates. . How is that any different than the shita of the Reform and Conservative movements?

MO as philosophy/movement is certainly alive and well but has not enjoyed the same increase as the yeshivishe and Chasidishe communities. For those looking for hard numbers all you need to look at is the numbers from the day school census from 1998-2013. The MO students pretty much stayed flat but the chareidi numbers increased by an incredible amount. over 2/3 of day school students are in Chareidi schools (Satmar alone has 10%)
Limud hatorah has certainly increased in the MO community which can be demonstrated by the numbers of daf yomi attendees and the numbers of shiurim given in the same shuls compared to 30-40 years ago.

I think one of the biggest question on the MO community is the numbers of yeshiva and kolleit in post high school yeshivot. Think about how many more yeshivas there in the yeshiva world compared to 30-40 years ago. BMG alone went from 2,000-over 6,000 from 1996-2017. MO has YU and it is debatable if Chovivei Torah is included. Why have the numbers of their yeshivaliet stayed the same? Even many of the YU Roshei Yeshiva send their sons to Chareidi Yeshiva gedolahs.

Dikduk bemizvtos has made great strides in the MO community but it still has some pockets where it stayed behind (as have pockets in the Chereidi community).

I think we should also appreciate that MO did kept yiddishkeit alive during a time when people thought you were crazy for staying frum. Perhaps now that the non-Orthodox movements are on the decline it is possible that the MO philosophy is not as necessary and all Orthodox Jews are blending together much more with less polarization.

Instead of people knocking Lakewood for negligence they may want to look at it as a test case. If thousands of people have been living life as if before COVID-19 for 2-3 months and there is no significant uptick in cases, perhaps the concept of herd immunity has something to it. Maybe the lesson os that high-risk people should continue to take precautions but the rest do not need to. I an’t no doctor but at what point would someone analyzing the case study of Lakewood say “they are goning to all get again very soon” vs. “if they did not get it until now….”

Syag- Good points. I would also add that we are talking about the institution where you are entrusting YOUR children to grow and develop. If you feel that a yeshiva is so corrupt from the inside out you are making a really big mistake in sending your child to that school. If you live in an area with only one school that provides such horrible chinuch I would seriously consider moving. If someone feels the menhal is a ganav, why would think he is properly leading his teachers to teach right from wrong?

Maybe all the poor shnooks who are careful with money and spend within their means are the only ones who hang out in the YWN coffee room. My personal observations of the levels of materialism in the yeshiva world say otherwise. Count the number of pesach hotel programs during a normal year, the number of frum families flying to Florida in January, to EY for sukkos, new construction in Lakewood, Monsey, 5 towns, the price of houses in these areas and Brooklyn, percentage of BY high graduates attending seminary in EY, excessive spending on frivolities in simchos etc. etc.
Some of these are due to social pressures, desires for luxuries but I think most people would agree that the level of gashmius in America has increased manifold to a point that it is not sustainable. To ask the struggling yeshivos to suffer for that is not right.

Of course, it is controversial but I think you realized that. From the perspective of the democrats in the government it seems that they don’t really care about whether a person is trying to get out of poverty. They want those votes and therefore want to be seen as the ones who give out free money, take from the rich and give to the poor etc. The poor are victims and the rich are bad. The Republicans generally try to wean the poor away from poverty. Recently they did make a rule about able body people not being eligible for food stamps. It really all comes down to politics.
If you consider what goes on in academia you would realize that a few thousand graduate students taking money to study advanced Talmud is actually quite admirable. When you look at it from that perspective there is no moral flaw from the perspective of the kollel guys.
If every frum person would be scrupulously honest when it comes to these programs it would actually be a kidush Hashem. Unfortunately That may not always be the case.

Can we look at this from a positive perspective? This might be the best thing for these 1,000 or so bachurim whose plans were suddenly upended. My guess is that most of them (like most humans) had a certain life plan about how everything will fall into place; I will go to x yeshiva in Eretz yisroel for 2 years, get married to y type girl after dating for 2 months, my laws will support me with $_____ per month, I will stay in kollel for z years and then go into the shver’s business, I will have ____ kids and settled down in Lakewood in ____ neighborhood etc. Suddenly they get a lesson in life that life does not work that way. This is an incredible opportunity for every single one of these bachurim to turn off the autopilot and ask themselves questions like
“What are my goals for my yeshiva life and how will I accomplish them?”

“How much of my growth in Yeshiva comes from those outside of me (Rabbeim, cahveirim) and how much must come from within?”

“Is it possible that I have taken for granted my life as a yeshiva bachur with little/no responsibilities? If so what can I do to change that?”

“How will I adjust to life after yeshiva/kollel?”

“Am I really in yeshiva to “learn how to learn” and if so how will I know if I have achieved that? Maybe I should focus on just learning?”

“What do I hope to gain from my Rabbeim? Do I really need them to tell me which ketzos to look up? If I do not have that does that really mean I am lost?”

“If I ca not learn without another few hundred people in the same room as me what will happen after yeshiva?”

“Am I getting closer to Hashem in yeshiva? How? What is different now?”

“Do I have a plan for parnassa when I get married? Is there something I can do now to explore or experiment with that? Take college courses, itern in a certain business etc.”

What am I doing to take achrayus for klal Yisrael? Is there something I can do now to explore if perhaps I can have a future career in serving klal Yisrael full time instead of as a hobby or to lay guilt?”

Syag- I think your boys are a very rare exception. Everyone else can chime in but I don’t think most bachurim are self-supportive and cook their own meals at age 22. Does anyone disagree? BTW, going out to the pizza shop or burger joint with your parent’s credit card is not called preparing your own meals.

Syag-The point of disclosure is to bring these points into the open and let the answers come out. If the head of the organization can easily explain why he deserves a salary of $457,681 let him explain. He may say “If you don’t like it, find someone else who can do a better job”. Principal salaries are determined by supply and demand. It is a beautiful thing when people running tzedaka organizations simply take a moderate salary but not required.

We can also look at from the other angle. Instead of people getting angry at the guy making $457,681maybe they will gain a greater appreciation of the guy who takes a $96,000 salary and has 96.5% of the money he takes in going directly to the program. Perhaps in will help people make different decssions as to how they allocate tzedakah when they see where their tzedaka money goes.

Another unfortunate factor in all this is the power of glitz and heartstrings. The reality today is that campaigns have a better shot at bringing in more money based on their marketing campaign and/or if they can present a more emotional unique story. The ideal (although I admit there is no absolute measure for this) is that more money would be allocated to what accomplishes a greater good. True this “greater good” is very very subjective but if you could make the case to people in a forthright honest approach I think many would allocate thier tzedakah differently.

Joseph -Are you referring to this exemption “A school below college level affiliated with a church or operated by a religious order”

Which religious order or synagogues are the yeshivas affiliated with?

Gadol hadorah: Do you realize how ridiculous that argument is? If the chasisdim shvitz like the rebbe (I did not make up the term) with fur hats in the summer why should the rest of us be uncomfortable too?

Perhaps the Chasidim should question :yeah why are we wearing fur hats in the summer. Isn’t there a better way?

Unfortunately, the answer to these questions is similar to so many other issues like weddings, seminary in Israel, wearing less expensive fedoras etc. It needs a whole movement of people to say hey this is dumb why don’t we change it? Such a thing is very unlikely to happen in our society which by nature includes huge amounts of social pressure.

All we can do is gripe about stuff like this in the YW coffee room

It is rare today to see anyone under 60 today wearing a straw hat. Years ago wearing a hat was a dignified part of getting dressed and going out. Hence, it was more comfortable to wear a lighter weight hat in summer months. That meant even Gentiles wore hats. Today the only people who wear fedoras are those people trying to make a statement that they are part of the yeshiva world. If the yeshiva world does not wear straw hats it would be pointless to wear one.

I don’t understand the question. It is not relevant how people learned daf yomi in 1923. Just like they had different abilities and skills 97 years ago there were also a lot less people learning it then. The primary beauty of daf yomi is the structure. It obligates a person to stick to a schedule and keeps him on track. A secondary advantage is the idea of connecting with Jews all over the world. The level of depth a person applies to it will depend on a person’s abilities, time constraints, tools available etc. If a person is learning in kollel and can put in 4-8 hours a day into doing the daf -great. If he is a beginner learning it for an hour a day that also has a huge benefit. Every person needs to choose a learning program that best suits him.

I think if you compare the learning of those who learn the daf and the detractors you will see a big difference. Most of the detractors do not come any where near the daf adherents. They use it as an excuse. Would it be best if everyone would break their teeth trying to figure out every word of Gem. Rashi & Tos? Yes but the reality is that the only ones that can do that are big talmidei chachamim or people learning in yeshiva all day. Unfortunately, there are are many bachurim and kollel yungerlite who do not reach the same level of yegia and yedios of many balei batim daf yomi learners.

I never met Ra, Meir Shapiro but my guess is that if you would ask him this question he would say “just learn as much as you can!”

Although I agree 100% with the OP I do not agree with all the doomsayers of what will be the result of this. It does not need to mean that kollel enrollments will drop and that everyone will get “a dose or reality”. Hopefully it will be a wake up call to the younger generation to live a lifestyle more like the kollel families of the 70’s and 80’s. Less materialistic, not relying on parents, no entitlement expectations and most importantly—a renew commitment for mesirus nefesh for Torah. I did not get parental support during my kollel years and I think I was better off because of it. I made a couple of bucks during bein hasedarim and at night and it made me appreciate every minute I was privileged to still be in yeshiva. Hopefully we will “get it” and our yungerlight will gain that appreciation too.
Remember when a yeshivishe car meant a beat up 15-20 year old station wagon? Today it means a 1-2 year old Camry or SUV. There was a certain pride of those who drove the “woody” station wagon that ran on bitachon. Let’s bring those days back and ditch the whole gimme liefstyle which entails living off someone else’s pain and sweat.

Milhouse-I think your attitude is what underlying a generation or two of people missing the point. It is not good for our generation as a whole to follow a shallow lifestyle not based on ruchniyus. We are on this planet to get closer to Hashem. If you have $ and use it for things other than that goal you are missing out on the purpose of your existence. Just because an action has a loose relationship to Judaism does not mean that it is being in order to serve G-d and to get closer to Him or to bring your fellow Jew closer to Him.

Do people spend gobs of $ on simchos as a way to serve G-d? What is the effect it has on the rest of the community?

Do people go to hotels on pesach bec. they are better able to tap into the real meaning of the holiday there?

The OP is correct and those who miss the opportunity to learn from the magefa are the losers. A pandemic is a terrible thing to waste.

Perhaps if all the appeals were for only those who are Rabbeim in schools this discussion would be more on target. Notice that unfortunately the tzedkah appeals are across the board of the entire community. Perhaps a better solution going forward would be an initiative to make available subsidized plans for the Jewish community. Those wealthier members of the community would probably not apply or we could ask them to donate toward the full cost. If you add up the funds raised from just a few of the appeals you will see that they add up to several million dollars. That could better be spent toward subsidizing such a program and would also encourage more people in our communities in taking the trouble to get a policy. My guess is that there are many out there who have not gotten insurance simply bec. they never took the time to sign up for it. It becomes one of those things that are “yeah I guess its important but I will do it one day”

I hate to admit it by Joseph is actually making a very good point. The next question is what are the practical solutions that can be implemented to utilize these ideas after the crisis will IY”H pass? Most takana rules do not go very far. It is very difficult to get an entire tzibur to agree to make real changes.

A few participants are making the point that making pesach at home will involve the one time cost of buying new pots, pans etc. Unless someone was planning to go to a hotel as a single person I highly doubt that the total expenses would be more than the cost of a hotel. If its a large family it is nearly impossible (unless you cook in solid gold pots and plan to install a special new top of the line pesach kitchen in your home).

Even so, would it be such a bad thing if this would be the impetus to get a few more people to stay home for pesach? I think anyone over age 40 or so can attest that this mishgas of we NEED to go away for pesach is a relatively new phenomenon and perhaps it is time for everyone to rethink priorities? Just bec. it became the thing to do doesn’t mean we can start to use our brains and question if it is the wisest thing to do

Some brought up the point of elderly folks who have no where else to go. I understand that there are some elderly Jews who really do not have family that they can go to. But if more of the 30-60 year olds would stay home and make their own pesach maybe we could have more opportunities to bring back the way things should be and have Bubby and Zaidy at the seder. My gut tells me that no matter how learned Grandfather is, it is much more important to have him tell over sipur yitzias mitzrayim at a seder than to have a 24 hour tea room and chol hamoed with a concert, moonbounce and fire juggler.

I agree 100% with the poster that are advocating making aliya especially for those considering finally getting out of NY.
However for those unfortunate souls who have decided that it is not feasible to go home just yet, there are many reasons to consider moving “out of town” other than bag laws and taxes.
Housing prices is the biggest, but this has a snowball effect on many other major expenses.

Higher housing prices mean you need to pay teachers in yeshivas more to afford living there. This translates into higher tuitions.

Higher standard of living: How many houses in your “in town” neighborhoods have not been remodeled in the last 15 years? The gadgets, clothes your kids want etc.

The jewish stores in NY needs to keep up with a higher standard of living (and property rental) and hence charge higher prices. Did you ever compare the prices of clothing in Jewish stores vs. non-Jewish stores? Shoprite vs. Pomegranate?

The atmosphere “in town” is more tense and high pressured due to traffic, parking, income rat race etc. More judgemental. More stress (just to make a living).

Do a calculation in the minimum family income necessary to get by in NY vs. OOT and you will see that just like you can’t compare a dollar in 1920 to 2020 you also need to adjust a NY dollar vs. an OOT dollar. Higher salaries also require higher income tax, less eligibility to low-middle income programs etc.

The main thing holding back most people is the psychological barrier of thinking the world ends at the Verrazano bridge.

Maran Rav Chaim Kanievski shlita gave voting in it a thumbs up. Maran Rav Ovadiah Yosef Zt”l too. Sounds like it has the support of the major gedolim. Why should it be any different than voting for degel or shas? Can anyone explain what the downside is especially when so much is at stake? It seems like if the Orthodox would get their act together they could sweep this thing.

Why are posters assuming that it is true that gedolim support protesting? How many gedolim support protesting vs. how many have spoken out against it? Please show me which gedoilm support these protesters. I would be very curious to see the list.

Reb Eliezer’s comparison to the Chasam Sofer makes absolutely no sense and proves nothing.

I think most (although apparently not all) will agree that some form of break is necessary. Obviously the amount of break that is necessary is different for each person but we should be able to agree on what is a reasonable average. I think what has not yet been addressed is whether or not we should be following the schedule established 150 years ago in Europe when the modes of transportation were much different than today. Perhaps the main reason why yeshivos in those days gave off for the whole month of Nisan is that it could take a bachur a full week to travel by horse/ train etc. until he reached his shtetel. It was not practical to give off an extended weekend in the middle of the winter and instead they just gave off for 3-4 weeks in Nisan, Av and Tishrei.
Perhaps we should recognize the change in realities today and give off for an extended weekened in the winter and less dead time in Nisan and Tishrei.

Looks like it is very important to vote. I saw that Rav Asher Weiss, Rav Yitzchak Berkowitz and Rav Elya Brundy have all encourage people to vote. My questions are

1. Which party closest represent the Chareidi community ? Is it Eretz Hakodesh?

2. Is there any organization out there that is offering to fund the $7 sign-up fee? I know its relatively small but hey, every little bit helps.

Joe- What is your basis to say that the Israeli army has too many conscripts?