FrumWhere

I think the it’s a translation issue. In Hebrew, released and freed can use the same word

The Mesorah of MO is Have Your Cake And Eat It Too

#moishekapoieh, כשמו כן הוא. In your first statement you said you’d vote for the best candidate, and in your second sentence, you said you would vote for the worse candidate if the better candidate is Trump. That’s about as MoisheKapoieh as it gets.

Currently there is a great deal of noise about the CW case, and unfortunately, in my opinion it will never rise above that. The pattern in our Chareidi world generally is that after such an incident, the noise level, the outrage, the anger boils over, and the few well-meaning Rabbonim who truly care join the noise, and even say many intelligent and poignant things, but most of the Rabbonim remain quiet, and when the next case comes around, they again keep it quiet until it blows up, and then the cycle repeats itself. That’s what happened for more than 35 years with the first Kolko story, then with second Kolko fiasco in Lakewood, etc etc. The destroyed lives of victims are not reckoned with at all, only the minimization of tarnish or stain on the educator/rabbi/leader or perpetrator du jour.

I have a question, though. It seems that we have a new wrinkle in the CW case that we never dealt with before, whether to “burn” his books or not (previous perps apparently didn’t leave such popular material behind). While I personally am agnostic on that question, I wonder why we still allow Carlebach’s songs in shuls, weddings, etc., considering that there has long been a big (and appropriate and correct) movement in the Centrist and Modern Orthodox worlds to ban his tunes from their prayer services etc. I suspect that few readers here have any idea what I’m talking about,

I also doubt the moderators will allow this post…

edited

But no one has even charged that menuval actor (or someone else who is at fault as to how the bullet got into the gun) who shot and killed someone on the set. What’s up with that?

This is a very intriguing discussion. On the one hand, the complaint that it is childish and immature to feel a need to put down Talmidei Chachomim is quite valid. On the other hand, however, when foolish semi-learned and egoistic people create an atmosphere of embarrassment rather than one of Kovod HaTorah, they should perhaps be called out.

The second scenario presented by CS is unfortunately common, and also not as incriminating as it sounds. Many times very learned leaders of young men (sometimes known as Rosh Yeshivas), especially elderly ones, have convinced themselves, justifiably or not, that they have “something valuable to impart”, no doubt due to the fact that they often do have valuable advice for their young charges, but not necessarily in other situations, like a beis ovel. Their unwelcome verbosity, ergo, often “goes with the territory”, and probably ought to be tolerated in normal situations.

The first story presented, however, can be more problematic, since these “learned” fellows are seemingly violating clear halacha, and perhaps shouldn’t be shown much respect, but it really depends on the context. Let me explain.

A number of years ago, a major out-of-town g’vir lost his wife, and many noted personalities came to the l’vaya. This g’vir was perhaps not from the greatest bnei Torah himself, and many of his friends were also rather uncouth. Right after the seudas havra’ah, the ovel sat down in his living room for the first nichum aveilm, together with some members of his wife’s family. Immediately, in a poorly-orchestrated effort to “cheer him up”, a number of his crass friends started making foolish and inappropriate jokes and remarks, with the ovel himself laughing along with them, which created a very embarrassing situation for his poor father-in-law and brothers-in-law, not to mention the many venerable Rabbonim and Roshei Yeshivos in the room. After a few minutes of this, a number of the talmidei chachomim there began quietly conversing among themselves, in effect “tuning out” the un-Torah-like atmosphere around them, and after a short while, they stood up and “spoke 30 seconds to the availim said the posek and left.” Sounds familiar?

Pay attention to the context.

Philosopher, chill out. I’m also chassidish, and my kids got married in their 20’s, daughters too. If I have to explain the joke I was making, uch un vei. My point was to indicate that it was clearly a troll (hopefully), and I made a joke about it. Sorry it upset you and your chassidishe sensibilities, but I’ll bet that most people who read it found it somewhat humorous.

Avira, thanks for your courage. And thanks for protecting the Gadol HaDor in this thread, Rav Moshe Feinstein zt”l

If it’s your landline phone, here’s an old idea that still may work: hook up an old-fashioned manual fax machine to the line, set to answer after 2-3 rings, make sure there’s no paper in it, and ignore the phone for a few days (or longer). The robocall software recognizes that it reached a fax, and drops your number from its internal list. This has worked for me in the past

UJM: You’re way off base here, for a number of reasons. Censorship has no “Halacha” behind it, except in the context of self-censorship. Obviously there are things I may not say, write, hear, believe, etc. because I am controlled by Halacha and the will of Hashem. And obviously Halacha often dictates what I may say in a comment, news article, etc. If YWN would be concerned about that, many of the published articles wouldn’t see the light of day, and most of the comments on those articles would either be ignored or “redacted”. And then, of course, YWN would go out of business because it’s a boring website. Our discussion is about YWN’s moderation criteria, which clearly has little or nothing to do with halachic issues.

The “CR moderator” placed a highlighted comment at the end of my last post in this thread that stated that CR Moderators have no access to articles and their comments. I’m not sure what that was supposed to mean. This discussion is about YWN article comments, not about CR posts. The fact that they are a different group of people seems irrelevant…
The comment, however, that they placed after Mindful’s remarks was quite informative, albeit not completely true, and very poorly written. While it may be true that the moderators as a group try to preserve the dignity of Torah and its leaders (and often fail miserably, as noted by other posters on this thread, even in situations where it is not a question of missing an ‘innuendo’), there are many other situations where censorship is obviously being practiced, and it has little or nothing to do with ‘leaders’ of Torah, and that is also done inconsistently. It seems that some “moderators” are bigger kanoim than others, and some feel they have a “mission”. When there is a difference of opinion as to whether someone is a “Torah leader” worthy of “protection” or not, then the opinion of the “moderator” usually wins. That’s what is known as “censorship”. And that is why YWN’s integrity is not very robust.

The original post is a learned discussion, as is the correct answer alluded to by Reb Eliezer, but the rest of the responses are largely born of ignorance.

Chassidim in general (including Chabad) wear R”T tefillin for the latter part of Shacharis or afterwards. What Chabad does differently is that the Rebbe a”h instituted that bochurim should also wear them (contrary to implications in the Tur and Shulchan Aruch that only those steeped and habituated in Chassidus should wear them, which traditionally are not descriptors applied to bochurim). Sefardim also wear them, but they do as the Beis Yosef states to wear them simultaneously. Litvishe generally don’t wear them, as per the Gr”a, and the implications regarding being steeped in Chassidus.
The answer alluded to by Reb Eliezer is rather simple. It is known that the machlokes as to the Seder HaParshios preceded Rashi and R”T by many generations, so we want to be yotze both orders. But we don’t pasken like the R”T regarding the ink, so we aren’t choshesh for it.

From your brief description of the article by Rabbi Schonfeld, it sounds like this “loss” to the MO community is a gain for the Jews, since the chareidi Torah-adherents are sucking away the talent in the MO community. If so, it’s wonderful and celebratable, and we can stop crying about it and move on with more important and interesting things

I have the same concern. I would love to help him out if he needs it, and there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that he does, nor that giving to this “fund” would necessarily help him personally.

Your comparison to nazi atrocities and their perpetrators is misguided and rather shameful. Slavery until the US had a Civil War about it was global, especially in Africa. It was such an old institution it is even in the Torah! Does it make sense to tear down statues of our forefathers because they had slaves?

I’m obviously not justifying slavery, but the people who contributed to our society are not negated because they had slaves. They would, however, be negated if they perpetrated the murder of six million men women and children.

You’re also ignoring the fact that something that bothers you is not the same as assuming the right to destroy it, but a previous post already addressed that…

Millhous, you’re being very foolish. Which school is willing to risk the 1) illegality of giving the vaccinations and 2) the resulting justifiable lawsuits?