doom777

Yes, but why would we help you with that? If YWN wanted to make their videos downloadable, they would’ve.

So we are all in agreement? Dr Friedman believes that the Haredi way of life is parasitic, and seeks to end it using IDF conscription. This implies that activists for “Equality of Burden” are at least partially motivated by the desire to eradicate Haredism, and consequently, that they believe that IDF conscription of youth will lead to this outcome. Now we don’t have to agree with them, maybe they are wrong and enlisting in the IDF will not hurt the Haredi way of life, but it’s still a relevant tidbit.
Here is another fun tidbit: a dictionary entry. Pay special attention to the third definition.

genocide (countable and uncountable, plural genocides)

The systematic and deliberate destruction of a group of people, typically by killing substantial numbers of them, on the basis of their ethnicity, religion, or nationality.
(by extension) The systematic killing of substantial numbers of people on other grounds.
(by extension) The systematic suppression of ideas or practices on the basis of cultural or ethnic origin; culturicide.

Let’s not let the super Zionists and Neturei Karta hijack this discussion into whether Zionism is a treif avodah zara, or the culmination of Jewish dreams.

The conversation in this thread is whether or not the IDF is shmad. We don’t have to come to an agreement regarding Zionism as an ideology in order to properly evaluate the threats and benefits coming from IDF service. For example, Bedouin Arabs are not zionist (obviously), but many of them serve in the IDF for their interests. Alternatively, many Zionist inclined, but G-d fearing Israelis do not send their kids to the Army, to avoid OTD.

So lets focus on the IDF. The argument for going to the army is to take part in the general society, to share their burdens, as well as placate our secular brothers who demand that we take our part. The arguments against it, is that it will take Jews away from learning, and overall it will force Jewish boys in an culture that deprioritizes Jewish values, while normalizing secular ones.

It’s obvious to me that the threats outweigh the benefits. We have no obligation to placate people who want to destroy us (spiritually or physically). If they are unhappy with us, it’s their anti-Semitism (hatred of Judaism is just as anti-Semitic as hatred of Jews) speaking, and we may never comply. Sharing the burden may be a good midah in general, but every middah should be evaluated. Charity is also an important middah, but you wouldn’t give 10k to charity if your children can’t afford clothes.

The IDF does not need haredim because of any manpower losses. It’s true, there is a manpower shortage in the IDF — but there is also an overabundance of manpower. The answer to this riddle, is that high quality combat troops are in short supply, however low quality people who can’t be relied on are everywhere. Now what kind of soldiers would Yeshiva Boys, or even Shababnik at risk boys become? How many yeshiva boys run even 5k? Enlisting haredim will not solve any IDF manpower problems, and the service limit will still have to be extended to keep the combat troops in uniform.

So why do Israeli elites want to enlist the haredim? They say it themselves, to “integrate” charedim into society, meaning to make them non-frum. Simcha said:

The army is not trying to destroy religion. In fact, over the past few decades, the army has become more and more Torah friendly. I believe they make sure to have minyanim available for soldiers who want it (at least in the more religious units). They have a mehadrin level of kashrus (as opposed to regular rabanut).

It’s true there is kosher food and minyanim in the army, but being frum is not just about kosher food and tefillin. The fundamental of being a frum Jew, is declaring that Hashem’s word is of highest importance in your value system. As an IDF soldier, can you say that you will only follow your commands as long as they don’t contradict Hashem’s Torah? No, you may not. If your commander orders you to do something prohibited by the Torah, you must do it. For an example, see the officers cadets who were expelled because they refused to listen to women singing. (however if your commander orders you to do something against international human rights, not only can you refuse, but you must refuse such an order. shows you what their values really are)

Final note, as I already mentioned in other discussions on this topic, personally — all of my friends went to the Army, and almost all came in frum, and came out OTD. I’ve seen too many of these cases. This is not an acceptable supposition. Even if the IDF needed us, this price of losing your entire olam haba, and bringing asonot on Am Israel is just too high.

I am a student of Rabbi Kahane, and I’ve never heard any of his followers claim that Mossad assassinated him.

Sam: you forgot how 10 days before Simchas Torah, the leftists perpetrated an actual pogrom against Yom Kippur prayers.

I don’t hold that the oaths are halacha, and you raise good points, but the reason Tur, Shulchan Aruch, and downstream commentaries like Mishna Brura don’t mention them, is these seforim don’t deal with any halachos of land of israel. Same reason there are no halachos of Shmita in Shulchan Aruch.

I can’t tell if it’s assur or mutar, but even if it’s mutar, why would you want to?

Serious question: what would you expect Rabbis to say, had they been given a microphone? To remind people about Hashem? Whoever believes, believes, and whoever doesn’t doesn’t. To call for more learning? People should be learning more always, what does that have to do with the situation? If you want to say that it is lack of learning that brought this calamity, what is your evidence? I’ve been to frum atzeiras for the matzav, and even the best speakers had nothing to say.

The only Rav who was able to convincingly connect current events to Torah was Rav Meir Kahane, and he is no longer with us.

All the speakers were boring, they were not there to provide any insights, but rather only to show support through an act of speaking. Ideally, there would be no speakers at all, we’d just all gather in the National Mall, chant ‘no ceasefire’ three times, daven mincha, and go home.

Torah learning is only one of the mitzvas. The state of the Jews is a function of Jews’ overall dveikut to Hashem.

With regards to the “civilians” conversation,

We need to make a differentiation between Criminal Justice, and War. In Criminal Justice, especially Jewish Criminal Justice, you can only convict someone if you have certain proof that they committed a transgression. You need two witnesses, and a warning, and a minor can not be liable.
In War, your priority is to protect your people from attack, or to conquer an enemy. Even Western armies will kill a six year old child if he points a gun at the soldiers. In fact, Western inspired international law is much more lenient that we imagine, and most claims of “war crimes” are not. As Jews we must follow Jewish law in warfare, just like we follow Jewish law in eating, Jewish law in marriage, and Jewish law in civil disputes.

An excellent question, lakewhut. It should be asked more often.

It looks like Israel’s goals in this war are shrinking with every day. While in the begining, they wanted to “Flatten Gaza”, the goals now are merely to rebuilt deterrence, and incapacitate Hamas’s military and administrative capabilities. If that sounds familiar to you, it should — these are the same goals that Israel set for itself at all previous engagements with Hamas. This shows that all talk about a change in “contzeptiya” and deep soul searching is empty — Israel is back at the same plate.

The reason Israel is regurgitating the same concepts that have shown themselves so impotent, is Israel has no other concept. Israel has to either 1) accept Arabs next to them, or 2) expel them, or 3) expel themselves. Expelling the Arabs, like Rabbi Kahane zt”l hy”d begged us to do for decades, will carry with it a stiff diplomatic penalty — Israel may find itself as isolated as North Korea, which will also be a victory for Iran. We just need to consider if that’s better than what happened two weeks ago.

Yserbius: because you are using only conjecture. I have personal experience with the system, and it’s significantly worse than you can imagine. Noone that didn’t go through it doesn’t know what it’s like.

For example, the prison uniforms are not made of shatnez, but the “Mashgiach” in the kitchen is another prisoner. Not only are these prisoners often careless about halacha, but also there is an obvious conflict of interest where the Mashgiach lives in fear of the institution he has to look over, and I saw one case where the Mashgiach found bugs in the rice, and told that it’s pasul, but there wasn’t enough to replace the afflicted rice, and the completely secular prison warden tried to force the Mashgiach to approve it nonetheless, and when the Mashgiach still refused, he was punished and placed in solitary confinement.

First, “Elokeihem shel elu sone zima hu”. Meaning sexual based offenses are considered especially heinous, even if the word “toeva” is used for both.
Second, there are no “unscrupulous business practices” parades, no “unscrupulous business practice pride month”, and unscrupulous business people are not trying to turn the entire world “unscrupulous business practice.
In relation to previous point, it’s the difference between leteavon, and lehach’iis

The problem is not the positive mitzvos, it’s the negative ones. Someone who is mehalel shabbos is haiv. Someone who is not mehallel Shabbos, is not Haiv even if his reasons for not doing it are stupid.

Many of my friends in Israel dropped out of school at age 13, started working construction, and by the time they are 25, they each have a small construction company, wife, several kids, own a home, and learn Torah every evening (mostly Likutei Moharan, but still). Some have even later completed school and gotten engineers degrees, or at the very least general contractor licenses.

This is the first time I am hearing about Rabbi Weismann (a google search shows that he is a rav, if he is not, I apologize). I am only responding gufa to the article.

We should strive to emulate the naviim. For example, David HaMelech wrote songs to praise and thank Hashem, so should we. Now our songs will probably not be as good as the original David’s Tehillim, and they may or may not be remembered for generations, but that’s no reason not to try.

Simcha:
“halacha is not unethical, but one can be an Orthodox Jew and a Shomer Torah UMitzvos while still being unethical”
1. If the Torah and Mitzvos don’t say that something is unethical, then who are you to say that it is?
2. Do you accept upon yourself Torah UMitzvos? Are you willing to hurt people, commit crime, and fraud when the Torah requires you?

I think that there is an intuitive code, called “derech eretz” which is “kodma latorah”. However the Torah supersedes any d.e. considerations, and informs us on what true d.e. really is. I.E. “tikkun olam” is not a reform invention, it’s mentioned in mishna, but chazal used it sparingly.