Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
lakwoodrMember
Pum, I would go with HotSpot
lakwoodrMember“but that is an EXTREMELY slippery slope.
I am not afraid of a slippery slope. I try to do what is correct. I hope when the next issue arises I will be able to decide that properly also. I will not lock myself into things which are wrong in order to never have to make difficult decisions”
True point. Maybe I should have made my point differently. If we say about any issue that times have changed and the Torah therefore means something different, than there is absolutely nothing absolute in the Torah. Why can we not say that Kashrus, Shabbos or any other mitzvah is irrelevant today (or means something totally different than what Judaism traditionally explains it to mean,) since times have changed? The only true response to that is that the Torah transcends time and was written to all generations.
lakwoodrMember“Going out into the world without a good understanding of it defeats the whole purpose. It is like one sows without having plowed; the wind and birds will carry the seeds away, because they aren’t closed off and protected. So is he who merely reads Mussar like him who plants without a fence; pigs will eat and trample on everything. Some plant on stone. This is comparable to a heart of stone which cannot be penetrated unless it is struck until it breaks open. That’s why I wrote you to hit our children if they don’t obey you. “Train a lad in the way he ought to go” (Mishlei 22:6). This is an important principle of education.”
(Iggeres HaGr”a)
Now it may be claimed that times have changed and that the Torah has different interpretations for different times but that is an EXTREMELY slippery slope. And there are definitely contemporary, mainstream Gedolim who are of the opinion that it is valid today as it has always been. R’ Chaim Kanievsky for one. I personally heard him respond to a question posed to him – about educators in America who warn against ever hitting a child – with the one word response “Meshugaim”.
-
AuthorPosts