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longrakel: Avi has been making up sources and alleged positions of various rabbis as the conversation has been going on.
Who dethroned MBD?
What’s so hard, Mutty? Say yes to every shiddich redt, and always say yes to another date. Anytime you reach 5 or 6 dates, propose. I assure you that you will get married sooner rather than later.
Crisis solved.
Apy: If she raises their salaries, she’ll have to fire some employees.
Then, Mutty, the way to solve the crisis is to get married!
What is the shidduch crisis?
When should the makeup start?
Is there any good reason an 8 year old or a 12 year old should NOT wear makeup if a 14 year old or 16 year old could? Why is a 16 year old different than a 19 year old in this regard? Why should age make any difference before she enters shidduchim?
Who cares what the anti-semites (of the Jewish variety or the non-Jewish variety) write about us? They don’t need the truth. They constantly invent whatever lies fills their agenda as they go along. Nothing we do will change that.
There is unfortunately no practical way currently at our disposal to dismantle the State of Israel, but if I were to say for instance that Christianity is Avodah Zora, would you ask me well no Rabbonim advocated dismantling Christianity?
Therefore, the very learning and teaching about how the State of Israel is a Gzeriah Raah is itself Hashtadlus to disabuse ourselves of that Gezeirah Raah.
Why did the Zionists forcibly cut off the peyos of the Teimani children against their parents will, and threaten to take away and institutionalize their children if they refused to cooperate and send their children to chiloni schools?
Sam: There is no definitive definition. Often many breaches in halacha are defended with “it’s okay by us since we’re MO”. Hence a “modern orthodox bungalow colony” is often a euphemism for “mixed swimming”. Essentially it is whatever the person thinks it is. Two different people, two different meanings.
Prove there was a Persian Empire.
If *you* can’t prove it, they never existed I suppose?
All the rabbis allowing this are pretty much MO rabbis.
Shvartza Wolf: All my assertions on this thread about Rav Soloveitchek are directly from his words in “Five Addresses”. Including clearly stating that “separatist Orthodoxy” would disappear and only MO will survive. “Tourist attractions” he says we would end up. Clearly he was 100% mistaken. And it was that which he said justified “Modern Orthodoxy” – survival, nothing else.
It’s a historical fact. How do you prove there was once a man George Washington? Or it that untrue without proof?
Shvartza: When Rav Soloveitchik writes “as long as one can live without it so much the better for the spirit ” that clearly is him saying stay away from it as much as possible. He clearly isn’t saying that once you have to deal with it, jump in to secular culture as much as you’d like. So it certainly is limiting the extent.
There was no “modern orthodox” leaders that created their movement the way l’havdil the baal shem tov started chasidus or rav yisroel salanter the musser movement. Instead, modern orthodoxy is just a bunch of people who like what the gentiles think and do, and to one extent or another, morph judaism to fit in, and then they spend their time putting major effort into figuring out what modern orthodox means. The root problem with Modern Orthodoxy, the issue from which stem all other issues, is that they incorporate secular, non-Jewish, values into their religious practice. What the secular world values, they believe is valuable. What the secular world thinks is normal, civilized, sophisticated, good, and proper, they do too, and they incorporate those values and attitudes, which are often corrupt and against the Torah, into their religious practice.
And so, because in the secular world, a “people” is bizarre when when youre talking about a people with no country and no common language – imagine the Italians without Italy or Italian – therefore, Zionism, which, to their standards “normalizes” the Jewish nation (that was actually the word the Zionists used) becomes almost a requirement of Modern Orthodoxy; because secular studies, college education, mixing of boys and girls and a general a collegiate, yuppy lifestyle, is considered “normal” in the secular world, it become part and parcel of the MO lifestyle.
And ironically, where college and mixing of the sexes is concerned, the MO community become tremendous meikilim way beyond what the halachah allows. In these areas, they will struggle to find heterim, whether they exist or not; on the other hand, regarding making aliyah, they will become fanatical machmirim, and despite the myriad leniencies and historical precedent of Jews willingly living outside of Eretz yisroel, they will often run around saying that you have to make aliyah, and not to do so is in violation of the Torah.
When secular values demand they be fanatical machmirim, they become fanatical machmirim; when secular values demand they become unreasonable mekilim, they become unreasonable mekilim.
Rav Hirsch did not encourage non-Jewish culture, in fact his policy of austritt was designed specifically to separate culture from education. He also did not send his students to outside colleges, he made his own. And why in the world would anyone consider it a positive thing to spend years learning secular law – and if so for law, why not for MTV trivia? If all knowledge comes from G-d (quote from Dr. Lamm) and therefore is worth pursuing then all knowledge that comes from G-d is worth pursuing – why limit your knowledge to what the colleges teach?
Rav Hirsch was talking about Germany during Haskalah. He was right, then. He and his small Kehilla (about 300 members) saved German Jewry. Rav Soloveichik was talking about New York in the 60’s. There was no comparison
Chazal suggest getting married at 18. While this is not written in stone, the suggestions is neither a minimum nor a maximum. One could get married younger than 18 (and still fulfill this Chazal since they are married by 18) or a bit older (since it isn’t a strict halachic requirement.)
twisted – so what? That makes the forbidden permissible?
cantoresq: Five Addresses, p.31 – “secular culture entails destructive elements, many negative and perverse aspects; it may be a blessing and a curse simultaneously, and thus AS LONG AS ONE CAN LIVE WITHOUT IT SO MUCH THE BETTER FOR THE SPIRIT “