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WB Getzel!
Syag: I just asked that question without taking a position since I wasn’t sure which is the proper path. But your approach, which permits respectful public discussion on the topic, seems to disagree with Sam’s approach which insists on no discussion – and the deletion of any comments already made on this issue.
Unless I misunderstood one or both of you.
Woha! Two months ago you were still dating the same guy for the past three years. Now that that has ended you’re worried so quickly?!
The halacha on custody says the mother gets custody till age 6 and then the father gets custody. The Shulchan Aruch says forcing is only permissible in the very few cases the Gemora specifically specified that it is permitted. The S”A and Rema EH 77:2/77:3 says a husband normally cannot be forced or even pressured to give a divorce. Rav Eliashiv in Kovetz Teshuvos 134 and Rav Sternbuch in Teshuvos v’Hanhagos 1:389 pasken that as well.
Yirei Shamayim.
Wikipedia claims his parents are MO.
I don’t accept that R’ Isser Zalman told anyone that he’s a godol. You posted no source since there is no source for that.
akuperma: If he has no chiyuv Get then the beis din has no halachic basis to make him pay her any monies. Of course he has his obligation as a husband to support his wife. And he can fulfill that obligation by letting her know that he filled the fridge with food, the closet with clothes for her, heated the home for her comfort and even bought her a nice bracelet for yom tov (which he put in her jewelry box on their bedroom dresser). And she’s immediately welcome to come home for all of it. He’s thus fully fulfilling his obligation to support her and he cannot be forced to send cash in lieu of that support.
If there’s no Chiyuv Get then there’s no chiyuv to give a Get.
DM: Virtually all of those quotes are invented. The easiest one demonstrating this is that R’ Isser Zalman never said to R’ Chaim Ozer that “We are Gedolim”. (I actually laughed at that one.)
Sam: If the phenomenon of bt’s being more likely to fry-out than non-bts is real, isn’t it legitimate to take into account that fact for shidduch considerations and discuss the reality with others?
That’s ridiculous. You’re parroting the common anti-chareidi contention that chareidi gedolim must conform with the party-line. That idea is completely absurd and unsupported. The open and shut fact of the matter is that Rav Hutner zt’l was one of the most outspoken and vociferous anti-zionists. (Have you ever read Rav Hutner’s article in the Jewish Observer? Here’s a small excerpt: http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/modern-orthodox-judaism/page/4#post-106892 ) He set the tone on the issue. He had the photo at one time (it wasn’t in the succa as early as ’35) out of respect since it was his rebbi. But he vocally disagreed with him and, as earlier said, he never quoted Rav Kook in any of his maamarim or seforim or shiurim in Yeshiva and Rav Kook’s seforim were never found in the Bais Medrash – a BM renown for many sifrei machshava.
I think you’re just being obstinate and stubborn. Unintentionally, of course, and probably unwittingly due to a desire for ideological steadfastness. C’mon, even without holding the book in your hand you can accept your ideological soulmate’s (on this issue) takedown of Kasher for his forgeries. [Yeah, yeah, we know, you’re not taking sides.] If you can’t accept Prof. Shapiro, on his scholarly article describing what he found, than I’m confident you’ll — on principle — be dismissive of R. Weinman’s evidence regardless of its strength. The good professor, as you surely read, took Kastner to task for forgeries more extensive than just what we’ve been discussing. If Shapiro accepted it so can you. Now go get the blazing book. Shapiro got it and so can you. (I know it’s been available in Lakewood seforim stores not long ago.)
This is a ruling that only the combined Piskei HaCR can make jointly. We need both sides, of course. What will your wife and her ex’s username be?
I meant well known among talmidim of the Brisker Rov and talmidim of Rav Gorelick.
There’s no stira about people, including the CC, having esteemed RAIK when he was in Europe and prior to his having moved to EY and taken the public zionistic positions he took that he had not adopted prior to that time, while losing that esteem once he took his (new) public positions in EY.
As far as documenting Kasher’s forgeries, google “Kalir, False Accusations, and More” for a seforimblog article by Prof. Marc B. Shapiro of the University of Scranton where he documents various forgeries and other misdeeds by Kasher. Some based on his own research and some based on the research of others – including his citing Zvi Weinman’s sefer I mentioned, Mi-Katovitz ad Heh be-Iyar, which Prof. Shapiro notes Weinman has shown, including with visual evidence, Kasher’s forgeries on the athalta di-geula letter.
jazar: He was also a close rebbi of Rav Hutner zt’l. However, as time went on Rav Hutner changed his position towards Rav Kook drastically, distancing himself from him in very obvious ways. He never quoted Rav Kook in any of his maamarim or seforim or shiurim in Yeshiva. In the ’60’s he took down Rav Kook’s picture that he once had in his Succah – a public statement. (Although he definitely did not publicly humiliate Rav Kook, he made sure not to give him any public honor, either, despite his being a talmid. He made sure that his students knew that he felt Rav Kook was wrong.) If you go into the Bais Medrash of Chaim Berlin, a place that prides itself on its emphasis on learning machshava, you will find many sifrei machshava, but you will never find, nor will you ever have found in Rav Hutner’s days, a single one of R. Kook’s books.
PAA: Again, when roshei yeshivos say things over numerous times to numerous talmidim over numerous years, all publicly in their shiurim, what they said is well known in the public. If you’re looking for a YouTube video of the Brisker Rov or Rav Gorelick saying it, I don’t have the link for you. But you simply can’t deny the reality. And as I said it is easily verifiable. Your “disproofs” fall by the wayside with this.
And telling me you don’t have the sefer I referenced and cited [pp. 134-136] as well as the Agudah publication issue date it appeared in prior to the sefer, that I sourced it in simply doesn’t cut it. It’s in your hands to procure a copy to view. I’ve given all the correct and necessary documentation you need proving the assertions. Kvetching you don’t have a copy and can’t find it online is not an answer. Continue the conversation after reading what I referred you to.
There have been various tzadikim who’ve davened Shachris well after the normative zman, some even after chatzos. (They practiced the same principle with Mincha and Maariv.) They even did so with a minyan (i.e. they weren’t doing it alone.) What shitta(s) are they based on?
We know that tzadikim today suffer for the sins of the klal (non-tzadikim) today. So how is the above any harder or easier to understand than this?
About the false kol koreh: a) You’re assuming the rabbis still alive at the time didn’t make it known it was a forgery. That can be a bad assumption on your part. They very well may have made it clear once they learned of it. (Don’t count on an anonymous internet poster to have to locate the denials from all those decades ago.) This is in addition to my contention that it didn’t even register on the richter scale to even warrant notice let alone a response. b) Furthermore, you could consider Rabbi Weinman’s publishing these very facts about the forgery in Z’eirei Agudas Yisroel’s Digleinu (Shvat 5738) as well as his Ad Hei B’Iyar to be the very response you seek. He cited the denials of the alleged signatories in both those publications and that’s how they let it be known they never signed.
He said it. There’s a great deal of evidence in support of it, as previously stated, and little against. Another piece in support of the idea is the aforementioned letter of Rav Elchonon, the Chofetz Chaim’s talmid muvhik who the CC recommended as his successor.
Sorry, but a letter purportedly 87 years old that suddenly appears 29 years ago in zionist literature doesn’t support its veracity. Where was it for the missing 60 or so years? Especially considering the forgeries that have been introduced. And the story about the Knessia you quoted differs from the previous versions proffered here.
Regarding the fake KK, I’ll suggest again procuring a copy of Mikatowitz ad Hei B’Iyar. Your answers are there. I don’t have the timeline in front of me, but as I recall R. Kasher printed the KK years later, after many of the alleged signatories had already passed away. And it did not garner the widespread attention you seem to assume it stirred. About the internet: you are speaking of communities that have largely shunned the internet. By far the internet is loaded with those taking positions against them that generally go unresponded (not only on this issue.)
Your last one is a more difficult question. But is not the halacha that if you start overhearing l”h you’re obligated to leave or close your ears you that you should hear no further?
If there’s no solution, you can’t blame the double parkers who have nowhere to park.
lc: So what can be done about it now? The housing isn’t going to be knocked down. Is there any way to avoid the double parking (whether someone’s waiting in the car or otherwise) considering there’s physically nowhere to park?
You sound like you desperately want to make a post on that loshon horadike thread. 😉
The minhag doesn’t come from any non-Jewish custom. The recent vintage claim purporting that is very far from compelling.
That list JCW publishes has has no serious halachic backing. They’ve been taken to severe task for this years ago already.
PAA: Two major roshei yeshivos were confident enough in the details to have repeated in to their talmidim many times over many years. That itself gives it an incredible amount of credibility. Don’t take my word for it; speak to a handful of their talmidim as I earlier suggested. As far as Avi K, I didn’t take his comment as coming from a talmid of Rav Gorelick. Additionally he didn’t even quote the YU grad he spoke with as denying it but rather saying the obvious that Rav Gorelick wouldn’t be mevaze a talmid chochom. The YU grad obviously felt that means he couldn’t believe the comment was made; but that is merely an extension he didn’t claim to know.
29 years ago is a short time. That sefer (as well as the next one you cite), I believe, is a zionist publication. Even R. Kasher’s forgeries are much older than that. We’ll need serious documentation this is a legitimate letter. Where was the letter until 29 years ago? (As an irrelevent aside, the internet is older than 29 years.) The proof for the Agudah convention you’re also citing is of relatively recent vintage.
RJBS’ comment is available on tape and if I recall correctly it is at a Q&A at one of his shiurim. That isn’t off the record. And even if RJBS had been speaking off the cuff (or record), what he said is what he said.
The fake KK could be laughed off. There’s no need to give a serious response to a purported KK that was mass mailed to rabbis and then published in their names (in a small publication) unless they wrote back beforehand objecting to it. (And when it was republished years later multiple different KKs each with different verbiage had their signatories combined into one KK.)
nishtdayngesheft: How did you make that conclusion?
I don’t know how it affects giving to it, but the ad was a big turn off in my eyes.
(I also never heard of that organization previously.)
Because this thread is a sticky in the Politics section, not the main CR page. The other threads mentioned above are stickies in the no-reply or untagged section. A sticky doesn’t have to be to the main page.
Not really, cherrybim. Educated and naive don’t usually go together. Better a domestic education than a foreign one. It would do the girls a lot better.
PAA: Do you take and dissect every letter I type as a gemorah? If it turns out there was a natural fish shortage circa 1914 and it couldn’t be fish does that disprove the maaisa or does it mean it might have been some other food? The story is over 100 years old so even under the best of circumstances you’d expect being off on a small detail doesn’t invalidate the essence. And this is the primary point. Two major world class talmidei chachomim told over this story. And they didn’t say it once in a shiur with a couple of students 50 years ago. They said it over and over many times over many years to many of their talmidim. You can’t make this up. It is relatively easily verifiable. Ask around. Speak to three or four of their long time talmidim. If all four look at you blankly like they have no idea what you’re talking about and never heard the story you can come back to me with a taaina. But that isn’t going to happen. (Btw, Avi K said he asked a YU grad, not a talmid of Rav Gorelick zt’l.)
Maybe it was later than 1914 and it ran an article on R. Kook’s not so brand new writing or saying. Maybe the CC did oversee what the paper wrote. He didn’t buy the paper; it came with his fish. Maybe R. Gorelick (senior) or his wife unpacking his fish read it and told it to him.
Regarding the non-religious soccer players:
“This sport that young Jews play in Eretz Yisroel in order to strengthen their bodies to be strong young men for the Nation, completes the spiritual strength of the Tzadikim above … playing sports to strengthen the body and the spirit for the strength of the entire Nation is a holy service to Hashem, and raises the Shechinah higher and higher, like the 80 songs and praises sung by Dovid HaMelech in Tehillim.” (Oros M’Ofel 34).
Can one imagine anything more contradictory to the basic values of our Torah? And I this one is quoted from him by Rav Yosef Yedid, word for word from the same Chibur:
http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=22671&st=&pgnum=449
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Until he came, we all knew Torah and Mitzvos were the only thing that gave us merits; Aveiros did the opposite. R. Kook mixed non-Torah values into Judaism that turn upside down what our religion tells us about good and bad. Don’t bother looking for sources for these and other such things. You won’t find any. Rav Yosef Yedid in that Teshuva I linked to above constantly refers to him mockingly as “This Navi” because he must have received his Hashkafos by prophecy, since there is nothing close in Torah literature that says such things. But I know where he got these Hashkafos from. It is secular Nationalist philosophy. That’s why you won’t find anything like this in Torah sources.
“One can view nineteenth-century European nationalism as an appropriate matrix for Rav Kook’s thought, and there is no dearth of analogues to Hegel, Bergson, and others in his writing.” (Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, Leaves of Faith II, p. 202).
What he did was, he took non-Jewish ideas about Nations, people, and politics, and attributed to them spiritual value, and considered their fulfillment the achievement of Torah objectives. By way of analogy, imagine if someone would say we will attain the lofty “chaya-yechida” level of Neshama, be “meyached yichudim” and cause the coming of Moshiach if we become communists. The Gerrer Rebbe, Imrei Emes, politely described it as being influenced by the fads of the times so much that it causes him to say good is bad and bad is good (????-???). (The letter of the Imrei Emes was edited by Simcha Raz to leave out the part where he writes how R. Kook “says tahor is tamei and tamei is tahor”.) Another example of this is the recently published “The Rav Thinking Aloud” by Rabbi David Holtzer. There, Rabbi JB Soloveichik tells – and this is on tape – about his meeting Rav Kook: Someone asked Rabbi Soloveichik: “You felt the presence of greatness?” R. Soloveichik’s answer: “I wouldn’t say greatness. Uniqueness. Greatness – if you understand by “greatness” intellectual greatness – no, I was not impressed by his scholastics.” (That entire paragraph (above is just the beginning) was met with such outrage by the religious Zionist community that in the next printing of the book, it was edited out.)
BTW, I’d like to see the original source of the purported letter of the CC’s son-in-law and the source of the alleged walking out of the Agudah convention by the CC. Considering the number of forgeries that have been introduced by RZs on this, it surely needs documentation. The letter I find especially suspicious. Both the letterhead and the signature identify his as “the son-in-law of the CC”. Whoever puts such credentials on their letters, let alone twice, once in the beginning and once in the end? Rav Chaim Kanievsky’s son-in-laws don’t stick in “son-in-law of Rav Chaim” on top and on bottom of their letters. And the photocopy going around online of the letter is a modern typeface with no signature. Where is the oldest source of this letter’s publication. So far I don’t see anything earlier than the internet age. (Not that there weren’t forgeries pre-internet.)
There was no widespread belief from the fake KK. It was almost unheard of prior to R. Kasher publishing it.
Rav Avigdor Miller zt’l more than once said that 99% of (frum) divorces were avoidable and unnecessary.
From Josh W:
I have heard reports of a troubling minhag this coming Shabbos, one with seeming pagan origins — a minhag which has become widespread in recent years — to bake or eat challah.
To explain, etymologically, to call the braided Shabbos bread bchallah is a bit confusing. Chazal referred to Challah, but as the portion which was removed from the dough and given as a present to the kohen. (See Bamidbar 15:20 — maybe it refers Biblically to a type of bread itself, as Philologos wrote.) It is only some time later (in a 15th century German work) that the Shabbos bread itself was called “Challah”. (See also Otzar Ta’amei Haminhagim’s explanation.)
To cite Menachem Mendel, who cites others:
The braided bread loaves of Germanic tradition were invented by the women of Teutonic tribes, who used to make offerings of their own hair to their Goddess. Eventually they learned to preserve their braids by substituting the imitative loaf, which was called Berchisbrod or Perchisbrod, bread offered to the Goddess Berchta, or Perchta. The name of the braided Sabbath loaf among German Jews, Berches or Barches, was copied from this tradition.
Could it be that those nice braids that my wife makes when she bakes ?allah really have their source in pagan goddess worship? The linguist Paul Wexler thinks that the original name was actually the German Holle which was the name of a pagan Germanic goddess to whom braided bread was once given in offering. [The German] Holle was replaced at a later date-under the pressure of Judaization-by the [Hebrew] ?allah, which bore formal and semantic similarity. (See his book The Non-Jewish Origins of the Sephardic Jews, pp. 68-69 and numerous other places in his writings.)
If so, we must protest this perversion of Judaism and introduction of pagan rites into our Shabbos festivities.
…
It was simply related by two different Rosh Yeshivos (RBS and RYG). You want more context? Rav Yeruchim Gorelik ZT’L used to tell how when he was a boy, he and his father were by the Chofetz Chaim when the Chofetz Chaim unwrapped the fish he was about to eat from the newspaper that the fish merchant wrapped it in. In that paper the Chofetz Chaim saw quoted Rav Kook’s famous statements about the heretical mechallel shabbos soccer players in Palestine, about how holy they are because they’re building up the land, etc. The CC make a fist and said those two words. That story was told over first hand in public countless times by Rav Yeruchem. And Rav Berel Soloveichik in Brisk used to tell it to his Talmidim as an example of what the CC held of RAIK.
The Imrei Emes said that he had a letter from Rav Kook retracting his statement about the soccer players and some other statements in his seforim because he regretted them. However, as an odom godol said to the Imrei Emes about that: “The whole world has his seforim – with the statements – and only the Imrei Emes has this letter. If the whole world would have the letter and only the Imrei Emes the seforim, that would be fine. But he publicly made statements, wrote them in his books, people built their lifestyles on them – and then, in private, he tells one person that he regrets it. But the public still has the old version!” Rav Kook never publicly retracted the statements that he said publicly. It is altogether possible that he regretted everything he said, but if nobody knows what his new policies are and they are still following the old policies, the people are still misled.
How does what you quote substantially change what I said Rav Elchonon referred to R. Kook?
R. Weinman called them years later. The KK published in the mizrachi publication was not widely disseminated. (Certainly not in chareidi circles.) And when they heard about it (from R. Weinman or whoever) I presume they laughed it off. Gedolim don’t need to open a press office to dispute every time (and it happens very often) that that they are misrepresented. Otherwise they’d have their hands full with public relations work. Does Obama dispute every misrepresentation or misquote made about him in every two bit press or website? If someone asks the White House press officer about it’s veracity he’ll be told it’s untrue. Finished. If they’re not asked they’ll ignore it. The WH is not going to be issuing official denials about every lie said about the President. And perhaps they did make it known it was a lie. Do they also need to take an ad out in the Yated or have a story run every time? Why would they bother about something from years before in some known unreliable publication that is opposed to them and their communities?
Someone can be narcissistic, ugly looking and destitute too.
You still should don sackcloth on that yom ha’atzmut.
The default NYC speed limit is 25. The police tend to ticket only when going at least 10 over the speed limit.
I’ve been more than once to the 24-hour Post Office in Manhattan on April 15th, after 11 PM, and there were always a number of frum yidden there too.
Torah She’bal Peh was not written from the time of Har Sinai through the Tannaic period. How many centuries is that? And even then it was written sparsely, not all of the Torah She’bal Peh was written. In the Amoroic time more of the unwritten was written. And still not all of it was written. Much was still passed down verbally.
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And more was written down during the period of the Rishonim, but still not all. etc. But all this is only tangential to the point. Mesorah has always been a feature of Judaism. A feature, not a bug. And a verbal (i.e. unwritten) mesorah is something that always existed. Especially insofar as they concern minhagim. Minhagim have always and frequently been unwritten. Especially until relatively recent centuries. So a lack of a written text proves not a whole lot other than it wasn’t written. (Or that it may have been written but the seforim containing it has been lost over the centuries as so many seforim have been lost to the ages.)
mw13: This has been around for years. It isn’t new. Why would there be a tumult now when the rabbonim already paskened this years ago? At least four years.
The parking system in NY, especially in heavily frum areas, is broken since there are too many cars and too few parking spots.
ubiquitin: The only baloney is what you think you know. The fact of the matter is, as any Jew should know, there are many unwritten mesorahs passed down verbally and always have been. In fact it’s a feature not a bug. You heard of something called Torah She’bal Peh? (I know much of it has been written already but it wasn’t always.) And there are many minhagim that were unwritten for many many centuries.
NYC lowered the speed limit a few months ago from 30 to the current 25.
ubiquitin: You don’t know the dating of the minhag. Minhagim were frequently not recorded in seforim and were only passed down via mesorah. So the earliest written record of it is in no way indicative of how early the minhag is.
nishtdayngesheft: The Kosher Switch video you speak of with the woman from the street is more than slightly off color. It is highly vulgar and disgusting and unbefitting a Jewish outfit.
Kosher lamp only covers and uncovers the light bulb by blocking or unblocking it. I don’t see how that is comparable to Kosher Switch.
Yeah, who needs a solution. Just let the cycle of war and terror against Jews in Israel that’s been waged against us for the past 70 years continue. Only over 25,000 Jews have died in Israel’s war and terror. Not such a big number, is it? Just march on.