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hashtorani: There is a difference between following the shita of your Rav and claiming that other opinions have no standing, and that those who follow them are following avodah zarah. HaKatan does not need to always claim “The Zionists have no answers!”. We have many answers. The Rabbonim I listed above hold Zionism is perfectly fine. HaKatan attacks Rabbonim who hold like them. Just follow your Rav, and don’t attack others who hold differently.
Yes. Even though I don’t understand them, I do realize that there are legitimate Rabbonim behind them, and they are therefore legitimate.
HaKatan: As I asked you before, why can’t you accept that there are legitimate shitos which hold that Zionism is ok? Rabbonim such as R’ Yoshe Ber Soloveitchik zt”l, R’ Herschel Schachter shlita, R’ Aron Lichtenstein shlita, R’ Kook zt”l and many others held it’s fine. I’m not asking you to say you think Zionism is ok. Just realize that there are other shitos which are perfectly legitimate, from major Rabbonim, that say Zionism is perfectly fine.
HaKatan: I said I was done in this thread, and indeed, I won’t argue anymore. I just wanted to respond to your 3rd request for “forgiveness”.
The Rambam, describes the act of forgiveness as follows: “Once the attacker has asked forgiveness once, and then a second time, and we know that he has repented for his sin and he has abandoned the evil that he has done, then one must forgive him.”
In this thread, in the very post you asked for forgiveness, you claimed that I am oved avodah zarah. You clearly did not repent for your sin and you definitely did not abandon the evil you have done. Therefore, even after 3 requests, I still do not forgive you. First show true remorse for what you have done, accept that there are legitimate shitos which differ from yours, and then we can discuss forgiveness.
HaKatan: You call that an apology? That is a sorry excuse for one. No, I do not forgive you.
I’m finished with this thread. As I posted before, arguing with HaKatan is pointless. I’m not going to bother. I’ll leave this in God’s hands. I told HaKatan where he erred and he chose to ignore me. He has no excuses to give.
edited
DaasYochid: I guess you missed something.
Avram: I never said he wants someone to get hurt. But he does speak lashon hara and motzi shem ra about millions of Jews on a regular basis, and one day he will have to answer for that. He has spoken motzi shem ra about me many times, and until he apologizes and asks for forgiveness, I will not forgive him.
Everyone: Arguing with HaKatan over this is pointless. He has his misguided views and we won’t change them. After 120 when he’s punished for all the sinas chinam he’s caused, maybe he’ll finally see the error of his ways.
One note about the members of the IDF: R’ Shlomo Zalman zt”l used to go daven on Har Hertzel, because he said the graves of Israeli soldiers are kivrei tzaddikim.
A kesher needs to work both ways – if a teacher doesn’t want one, you can’t build one! When I was in yeshiva, our Rabbeim used to do things outside the classroom with us also. In the spring, when Shabbos started later, one Rebbe would sometimes play basketball with us for an hour. Another Rebbe would sometimes host something in his home, such as a Chanukah mesibah, a Friday night oneg, or something else.
When I was leaving the yeshiva, I asked my Rebbe if he minded me calling him to keep in touch. He was happy to say yes. Now, almost 13 years later, I still speak to him, and when I’m in the area, I stop by to visit.
mra: Not a lot. You can buy the labels at Staples for under $10, and print them yourself at home.
In shul, there are bar mitzvas every so often. I often see the father give the bar mitzvah boy a kiss after he finishes leining. When a little kid comes in towards the end of davening to be with a parent, the parent often gives the kid a kiss. Kissing a child in shul during davening is not allowed.
Mods, I found this in the Rules thread:
One user name per person. Period!
I demand that PBA be banned from the CR forever!
I agree with left to write. I think it’s essential to have a good relationship with everyone around us. Personally, within 3 houses in either direction around mine, there are families that are black, hispanic, Muslim (from India), Sikh, and white. Guess what? I have a decent relationship with all of them. I say good morning and good evening when I see them. One of them once even offered to shovel my sidewalk when it snowed on Friday night, knowing that I couldn’t do it until Shabbos ended!
That said, I don’t think R’ Weiss was correct in his celebration. I don’t have a problem with inviting some black members of the community in, and giving a speech about the contributions of Dr. King to society. But there is no reason to have a choir including women singing in front of everyone. There is no reason to have a gospel choir singing in a shul at all! There is a time and place for everything, and a shul is not the place for a gospel choir! I think he should have showed how Judaism can celebrate Dr. King, not that Jews can celebrate the same way baptists do.
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akuperma: Please don’t say his views are typical of Modern Orthodox. They are definitely not! Modern Orthodoxy would not say it’s ok to listen to a choir of women singing! They would not bring a church choir into a shul! His views are Open Orthodox, not Modern Orthodox! Please don’t lump us together with him!
I second Tiher R’ Yishmael from Kvartin.
I also like Sheyiboneh Beis Hamikdash from Koussevitsky.
My grandfather was a chazzan, and once recorded some of the parts of the Yomim Noraim davening. His Unesaneh Tokef was amazing! Never mind the tune, but the emotion he had was unreal!
I don’t know if it would be considered a “chazzanus” piece, but I’ve always like the Modzitz Mechalkel Chaim, sung by Ben Zion Shenker. I also like his Uvashofer Gadol.
A quick Google search showed that the Star-K and OU both had a notice from 2008 about a kosher product which was packaged with a promotional package of EmergenC. They said the EmergenC is not kosher.
Jewish music is music whose mother was Jewish.
I don’t know if he is pasul for eidus. For me, that’s not the issue. If the Israeli Rabbinate is willing to accept his word on conversions, it means there’s a lowering of their standards.
Here’s an example. I don’t use the Triangle K hechsher, because I disagree with some of their standards. So if a Rav from that hechsher tells me, “It’s kosher because it meets these standards!” I don’t think he’s wrong – I just have a different set of standards.
For a geirus to be done, there must be an acceptance of Torah and mitzvos. Even though there are differences of opinions about different derachim, such as chassidish, litvish, MO, etc. I’ve never heard someone say that the standard used by them is not acceptable for the acceptance in a conversion.
Now let’s get to Rabbi Weiss. His standards have been decried by many Rabbonim as being past the bounds of Orthodoxy. So when he says a conversion was done properly, it’s not a matter of not trusting him. It’s a matter of trusting him that the person accepted his standards, which others do not accept.
If he were to be a witness to an event, I wouldn’t have an issue with it. It’s not a trust issue. It’s just the standards he has are different than others.
yose, you’re correct, it isn’t easy. A kesher isn’t something that comes instantly. It can take years to form a real kesher.
Part of mourning is realizing what we’ve lost. We are supposed to mourn for a Rebbe muvhak just like for a relative – we tear keriyah for it! Just like you can’t replace a parent, you can’t replace a Rebbe.
I think gavra had some good advice. A talmid from the same rebbe as your rebbe would be a good idea, or a talmid muvhak of your rebbe.
Hatzlochah!
It says Asei L’cha Rav – so get yourself a new Rav!
I once heard that when the Chofetz Chaim was niftar, R’ Elchonan zt”l went to R’ Baruch Ber zt”l and said his Rebbe was niftar, so he wanted R’ Baruch Ber to be his new Rebbe!
Find yourself a new Rebbe to guide you. Obviously you should feel the loss of your previous Rebbe, but you should not go on without one.
Dash: I was told that to make a brachah, you need 5 lbs. of flour. However, if you’re using 3 cups of flour or more, you must be mafrish challah without a brachah (up until 5 lbs. obviously.)
I believe my wife takes it off after it rises the first time, before she makes the dough into the individual challos. She then forms the challos, and lets them rise a 2nd time.
The only time I make dough is when I make it in a bread machine. If I’m just making a dough, I am mafrish after it rises, as the rising is part of the cycle. If I’m baking it in the machine as well, I was told to cut off a piece of the finished bread as challah.
Sam2: Some of my favorite memories are from when I go to Lakewood and proudly wear my kippah srugah. I was learning once in a shul on a Yom Tov between Mincha and Maariv, and someone asked if he could take one of the seforim I was using. Not just for a second, he wanted to take it away. I told him I was using it. He strongly implied I didn’t know how to learn because I didn’t have a black hat. I told him that was stupidity, and offered to talk in learning with him. I then proceeded to teach him a real lesson. At the end, he apologized to me.
My company has an opening for a Junior Paralegal. They’re looking for someone with a paralegal certification, with 0-3 years experience.
Email Feif Un if you’re interested, he can pass it on to me.
OURTorah: Feif Un is not coming back. He even asked the mods to block his account so even if he was tempted, he wouldn’t be able to return (I’ll have to ask him if it was done yet).
As for your point, I think you’re completely off here. True, we need more love among Jews. That’s one of the few things we can actually learn from Avi Weiss – how to love every Jew! But here in the CR, there is too much hatred. Hanging out here obviously led Feif Un to lower his opinion of other Jews instead of raising it. He’s better off gone if that’s the case.
I, too, am guilty of this. When I read posts from chareidim bashing Modern Orthodoxy, it makes me think less of the chareidim. It’s something I need to work on.
For Feif Un, it’s even more difficult. He went through some very rough times with yeshivish people, which he’s written about here. He told me a while ago I can write about it, so don’t think I’m writing about someone else without their knowledge. When people here post disgusting things, it just brings it all back for him. He once told me that there are times he regrets becoming frum again, just because he hears from so many people how being Modern Orthodox is against halachah, how being a Zionist is apikorsis, etc. He said, “If I’m doing wrong anyway, if I’m an apikores anyway, why should I bother trying? Let me go eat bacon, not keep Shabbos, etc. Let me enjoy myself while being an apikores!”
It says that baalei teshuva get a special place where the biggest tzaddikim can’t get to. When someone demeans a baal teshuva and causes him to regret his path, I wonder what the punishment is? Is there a special place for that person as well, where the worst reshaim can’t get to? I don’t envy those people.
DaasYochid, I told him you said you like him, and he said if you want to keep in touch, you have his email address. He said anyone who knows his email address is welcome to email him. If he doesn’t like you or what you have to say, he’ll just add you to his junk list 🙂
slight edit
DaasYochid: I beg to differ. My first post was to say I thought the thread was a troll job (which I still think). HaKatan posted calling MO a “mistaken ideology” before any of the posters you mentioned joined the thread. I never said I thought the OP should stay MO. All I said was that not all MO schools were as the OP described. Personally, I think every Jew needs to find the derech that works for them (as long as it stays within halachah). That might be MO, it might be yeshivish, it might be chassidish. All I posted was that the MO school my kids go to has none of the issues described by the OP.
Charliehall posted that he should not feel a lack of respect for others who follow the MO derech, but that if he wants to switch to a derech that he feels brings him closer to Hashem, there’s nothing wrong with that!
Truthsharer only wrote that he should bear in mind the “grass is greener” issue – that he will likely see issues on the yeshivish side as well.
Nobody posted that the choice was wrong. There was simply advice given that he shouldn’t set himself up for disappointment.
As for the troll comment, I still think it was a trolling job.
Regarding your first post, I re-read it, and I apologize for the first part of my initial post. I thought I saw that MO don’t respect chareidi Rabbonim as a whole. My mistake. I’m sorry. I asked Feif Un about your point. He said that while he usually wouldn’t post attacks, he did it just to prove the point of the double standard here. When he (or others) complained about the attacks and insults allowed towards Modern Orthodoxy, the mods would justify why it was allowed. Yet when he started a thread using the exact same justification about a chareidi person, it was not allowed through. If there were no attacks on MO here, he would not have posted anything.
As for the RCA, if there is an issue with a release, then specify, “The people who write the statement.” When you say “The RCA”, that includes all its members, including gedolim such as R’ Schachter and R’ Willig.
Mods, Feif Un asked me to pass a message along to you. His last post was requesting that his name be blocked so he couldn’t return even if he was tempted to. Your response can be seen above. He asks again that you please block him, as he doesn’t want any temptation to return.
I may be beating a dead horse but I would like to say that I had struggled with that post of his. Had it been what he intended, it would have gone through. Unfortunately, he mixed the MO vs. chareidi/yeshivish with a whole separate issue, and I knew he would misunderstand the deletion. When we are angry, it is hard to be objective and I personally have tried to approve and delete fairly regardless of my own opinions. – 29
DaasYochid: As a MO person, I must disagree with some of your points.
Why do you think I don’t respect chareidi Rabbonim? While I may not follow what they say, it’s not due to a lack of respect. I have my own Rabbonim who I follow. Using a different Rav as your posek doesn’t indicate a lack of respect. Yet many chareidi people (including many posters here) show a constant lack of respect towards MO Rabbonim.
Feif Un never said the RCA is the same as the Moetzes. All he said is that insulting the RCA insults many huge Rabbonim, just as insulting the Moetzes would do. You say that the “big names” are not involved in making decisions, but I can tell you that they are consulted on many things. The big difference between the RCA and Moetzes is that the RCA takes a bigger role in daily life than the Moetzes does. The fact remains that the RCA has many members who are huge Rabbonim, bigger than anyone here, and nobody here has the right to insult them.
As for the thread with the teen, look again. Only one poster said the MO life was right for him, and that poster isn’t even MO. It was rebdoniel, who is open orthodox, and a big supporter of Avi Weiss. Please don’t insult MO by including YCT style people among us.
MO posters (like myself) only got insulted when HaKatan took the thread as an opportunity to proclaim that MO is a mistaken hashkafah which goes against Judaism. Look through the thread again.
Agreed
It depends on the borogoves. Were they mimsy? If they were, then the mome raths might be able to help you with them. Just remember to watch out for the Jubjub Bird!
DaasYochid: So now you want to argue that they SHOULD have specified that they don’t accept him? Why? The Rabbanut isn’t accepting him anyway. There was no reason to, and as I said, the RCA said many times that they don’t accept him.
PBA: Not accepting his geirus is the point. That wasn’t the “other things” that were being dragged into it. Because of the Avi Weiss thing, they brought in the question of which groups in the US are “frum” enough for them to accept. The RCA said this shouldn’t be a part of the Avi Weiss thing, and it’s something that can be discussed separately.
I read the RCA’s statement. Maybe I’m missing something, but I didn’t see in the RCA’s statement that they side with Weiss. It said, “Recent assertions that the Rabbinical Council of America advised the Chief Rabbinate of Israel to reject the testimony of RCA member Rabbi Avi Weiss are categorically untrue.” That doesn’t mean they support Weiss, it means they didn’t tell the Rabbinate to reject him.
The RCA has made it clear time and time again that they oppose Weiss. They do not accept the “semichah” he offers as legitimate. They themselves do not accept his geirus. They have issued statements against many of his policies. In this case, they just wanted to set the record straight, that they did not tell the Rabbinate to reject him. That is very different from supporting him.
In the statement, they continued by saying that they think it’s wrong to make the geirus into much more than it should be, and that it shouldn’t be used to bring up issues about the definition of Orthodox in the US. I agree with this 100%. Deal with the issue at hand. Don’t drag other things into it.
I grew up in NY.
A blizzard is not defined by the amount of snow falling. It depends on the wind, visibility, and length of the storm. To be a blizzard, it must have sustained winds or frequent gusts over 35 mph, visibility of less than a quarter mile, and last for a “prolonged time”, usually defined as a minimum of 3 hours.
Here we go again… HaKatan hijacking yet another thread to rant about Zionism.
Mods, besides the hijacking, how can you allow him to blatantly attack a huge segment of frum Jews like that? Saying that Modern Orthodoxy goes against the Torah? Come on! Posts like that shouldn’t be allowed through!
This was supposed to be support for a young boy, not a place to air our dirty laundry – thread closed for now
How many 9th graders do you know of who learn Even HaEzer? Like I said, Joseph loves to quote R’ Elchonon when speaking about Zionism, so the user name is also suspicious. As for fathers not going to shul, how would a 9th grader know if the fathers go to shul or not?
This thread is a troll job, posted to try and get some bad things said about Modern Orthodox people.
Here’s what I know about the MO school my kids go to, as well as the MO community I live in. Most fathers go to shul every day. The daf yomi shiurim (there are 3 every day) are packed with parents from the school. Every night there is a shiur between mincha and maariv which is well attended. There are various shiurim offered daily, as well as chaburos.
Most of the mothers cover their hair and don’t wear pants. Are there some who do? Yes, but the school teaches that it is incorrect. There are weekly shiurim offered for women in hilchos kashrus, hilchos Shabbos, and other areas which affect women directly.
The school stresses that Torah and Judaism come before everything else.
Honestly, the OP sounds like Joseph. He always quotes R’ Elchonon HY”D, and these are some of the things he loves to accuse MO of. I think this thread is a trolling job.
If the person has semichah, then call him Rabbi. If not, then he’s called Mister. If you want to use Reb, that can be used as well.
Mazal tov! I’m so happy to hear your family is doing well!
May you see continued hatzlachah and brachah! Just remember, everything comes from Hashem. As long as you put your trust in Him, you’ll be fine!
Syag Lchochma: Wrong, some people do care! I’ve heard that in many schools, the hanhalah uses a ruler to measure the 4 inches!
I can’t speak for others, but I don’t make fun of people for having different beliefs than I do. I sometimes argue when I think someone is doing something wrong (not just a chumrah, actually doing something wrong, such as people davening way after the zman on a regular basis).
What bothers me is when people try to say they’re better because they do things differently – and this thread is a good example! The OP said “someone frummer than you”. Just because you may keep a chumrah that I don’t doesn’t make you more frum than me. You may be more machmir, but that doesn’t mean more frum. We’re different, that’s all. Only Hashem knows who is doing things “better”, because only Hashem knows what’s going on in everyone’s heart.
When my kids see things which are different than the way we do things, we explain to them, “Different people do things differently, and that’s ok. We do things this way, and they do it hat way. They’re both right!”
You said that if a couple focuses on their relationship with Hashem, their relationship should automatically flow from that. I don’t necessarily agree with that, because the way you work on your relationship with Hashem is very different than working on your relationship with your spouse.
DaasYochid: A person’s relationship with Hashem is very different! There are all different kinds of people with different personalities. They don’t matter to Hashem, because He is perfect, and can relate to each type as needed. People are not like that. Just because you may share the same values doesn’t mean your relationship will work.
Ok, fair enough (although it’s information about myself which I’ve posted here plenty of times before.)
HaKatan: The thread was created to discuss the pronunciation of certain letters, not Zionism. Hijacking a thread to discuss your views (which everyone here already knows) is not the way to go. I’m going to respond once more here, but then stop, as I don’t want the thread to go completely off the original topic.
I understand that there are Rabbonim who were/are against Zionism. However, there are some things to consider. First of all, many of the Rabbonim you quote lived before the establishment of the State of Israel. It’s very possible that their views could have changed once the state was established.
Second, there are also plenty of big Rabbonim who support Israel, and are very strong Zionists. There is clearly a machlokes between Rabbonim here. You should follow your Rabbonim, and I should follow mine. This should be done with respect, not constantly bashing those who have views which differ from yours.
Like I said, I won’t respond anymore in this thread. If you want to discuss it further, please start a new thread instead of hijacking other topics.
Mods, I’m not sure why my last post wasn’t approved. Can you let me know so I can re-word it in an acceptable way?
You posted personal information and mentioned a topic that can easily get out of control.
If you leave out the comparison it’s fine.
Captain Obvious!!!
HaKatan: I said nothing about defending Zionism in my post. All I did was ask why you are attacking it. I did not try to refute your post, or say anything else about Zionism. You’re the one who brought it into a thread about Hebrew pronunciation, not me. Obsessed much?
So why are you sorry?
I think I saw some from French’s in Shop Rite.