mariner

To all you “chassidim” from the “heimishe oilam”:

the mitzvah tontz DOES NOT come from the machzor vitri! it comes from the gemnora, and it is Keitzad merakdim lefnei hakallah. the machzor vitri calls THAT the “Mitzvah Dance”! that DOES NOT include dancing with a women, your wife or other, which is what the mitzvah tonz is. i have been to manny weddings where they have one, and the girl tends to have no clue,(and i have worked at REALLY CHASSIDSHE WEDDINGS) and she gets up and start fumferting around, yes it isnt really dancing in the horah-type way, but it can be concieved as dancing non-the-less. rebbes use a gartel 15 feet long, and the kallah stays put on a chair, and that is only if it is the rebbes daughter, otherwise no gartel is used at all.

the reason why lubavitch and litvish dont do it is because we feel it is assur al pi halacha! a rosh yeshiva not being mesader kiddushin if it is done, i have never heard of, and my rosh yeshiva is a kalta litvak, and i have been to chassonahs where major roshei yeshiva were messader, and there was a mitzvah tonz after, they just get up and leave, if they haven’t already left by then. i did not have one, as it was not MY minhag, regardless of my father in laws minhagim, it made no difference,. when a badchen was hired, i had him unhired. how dare chassidim try to ram their minhagim down our throats. it is disrespectful, as is making comments about my child’s hair because it is cut before 3 years of age. im sorry if my son should look like a male, and not some shaygetz hippie!

chassidishe minhagim have alot of problems, not only mitzva tonz. putting up segulas in cribs of new borns, upsherin, wearing rabbeinu tam tefilin when not worthy (there is no way that by being born to a father who came from a town in hungary or chassidih poland, you are now holy enough to wear rabbeinu tams), not sitting in a succah on shminey atzeres, not wearing tefillin on chol hamoed, and the list goes on and on, not to mention daveing nusach sfard which is it best a nusach that was invented at best 200-300 years ago, depending on the chassidic sects version you daven!

trust me when i say the litvish have very good reasons for not doing these things, the chassidim are the ones who have to give answers to questions! I’m sick and tired of chassidim smashing the litvish because we don’t do all these minhagim you invented 200 years ago, while most of the litvish minhagim, your own ancestors did going all the way back to the baalei tosafaos!

before all you ppl start to say how litvish this and litvish that, just remember ALMOST ALL major mekomei torah in Europe were LITVISH! mir, ponevich, kamenitz, brisk, telz, slabodka, volozhin, kelm, baranovich, novordhok, etc. the list goes on, so when a rosh eyshiva with a pedigree coming from those holy mosdos says it is assur to have a mitzvah tonz, no one may argue! yes you may have your minhagim that disagree, and that is fine for you, but not for us, so deal with it!

sweib, you are right.

koton – i have heard that story about rav eliezr gordon beofre, and from what i have heard, he was not successful in his pushing his ruling. (many, many roshei yeshivos disagreed, including brisk!)

stories are just that, stories told by people with an agenda. unless you have found this story in a sefer that rov gordon wrote, then its just a story with absolutely no basis in fact. as for the three rulings of the gedolim of Eretz Yisroel, if you ever play sports, or let your kids play sports, you are going against their rulings, and you must stop immediately, since if you pick and choose, you’re mesorati (your words not mine).

now for the actual history of shaving told to me by teh agudas yisroel archiver:

it seems that in lita that the governemnt in the late 1800’s ruled that people must have clean faces (i think rabbi’s had exceptions). rabbonim had decided at that time that this was a sign from hashem that we no longer have the right to keep our beards, that this was one more thing hashem was taking away from us in golus.

one can argue that now he has given it back, etc, but you then will prob have to believe that hashem gave us eretz yisroel back as well, and we all know the chofetz chaim was aginst the state of israel [you hear that agudas yisroel, you mesorati movement organization of pick and choosers, how dare you join the israeli government ;-)]

lemaaseh, koton, you are a hothead that needs to cut back on your rhetoric. yes, me and you cannot pick and choose who to hold like, but my rov and your rov CAN and MUST. there is no black and whte in halacha, there are shades of gray! otherwise we would all be holding the same thing, since almost all rabbonim are bassically of 2 schools, those stemming from Volozhin, and those stemming from the Besht. the only way that there could be any machlokes in any shailo today would be over the fact that rabbonim pick and choose how to look at shailos, and look at previous seforim to pasken. most people hold like rav moshe for alot of things, yet chalev stam still to this day is not eaten by most of the yeshiva world. people use timers on shabbos, especially for their air conditioners, when rav moshe was vehemently opposed.

basically, koton, ill assume that you mean good, but cut the rhetoric, please, bec it can be sent right back at you, and your words may end up painting you in a very bad light.

Right-on gingerkale. i have seen plenty of pictures of bochurim from all the yeshivos of Europe: telz, kelm, kamenitz, slobodka, novordhok, etc. ALL the bochurim were clean shaven, and they used a chemical that burned the hear all the way, including the root, so there is no way a lift anc cut shaver that just cuts the hair, and not the root is worse. it is imposible svorah to say such a thing. yes, the chofetz chaim and the chozon ish may have assured it, but , and i dont mean this in a chutpadihk way, they were only 2. many, many, many rabbonim, of which included many gedolim, did allow such shavers, including rav moshe! i do find it funny how some feinsteins, and i am not sure if it is the roshei yeshiva or other grandchildren, who claim rav moshe would never hold of the shavers (lift and cut) today. unless someone can speak to the dead [hey, you never know :-)], that can in no way hold any halachic authority. le’maaseh, teh jewish thing to do is not ask stupid sheilos on random message boards, and get answers from no faced answerers. teh thing is to get up , find a rov who has smicha, (not a rosh yeshiva, since not all actually have smicha, unless of course yours does) and ask him. and also ask him why yes or no.

my rov told me that checking lift and cut gets looked at as any other rotary blade, check against arm hair, and if it is a razor, then its no good, if its not, then kosher. the fact that lift and cut is a scissor that is too good, made no sense to him, and he is the talmid muvhik of one of the gedolim of yesteryear. (and has smicha from rav shlomo zalmen aurbach)

People have to stop being judgmental. if people have a serious problem with the tznius in their community, they should talk to their rav, not send email to the editor of a website, that is ludicrous. it is an attempt to feel good about themselves that they are “doing something”. in my neighborhood, marine park, a rov was told about the problem, and he spoke about it on shabbos with seichel and a bit of class. to some people he made a roishem, on others it didn’t. a tv has nothing to do with it. (i do find it funny that ishbainanoshim uses fughedaboutit in his message, which comes from movies and television shows portraying Italian mafioso slang!)

tznius is something that there is no black and white. most people here kleep on saying that the knee needs to be coverd, and the elbow needs to be covered. they clearly never learned a halacha of tznius in their lives, and just roboticaly repeat what people have told them. hilchos tznius is not really learned in yeshivos thoroughly due to the fact that rebbeim consider it not tzniusdig. that is stupid, and leads to these problems. it MUST be taught. the halacha is about the bone of the thigh and the bone of the forearm.. there is a “MACHLOKES” as to whether the elbow and knee are part of this due to these bones being a ball and socket connection. most rabbonim hold that they must be covered. again, most, but some disagree, and say that covering up to the knee and up to the elbow are fine as well. calling these people goyim is just ignorant and pure sinos chinam.

you want to change things letter writers one and two, go to your ROV, not yeshiva world. if you have daughters, have them speak to other girls in your shul. have your wife speak to the other wives. but of course, since you don’t due these things, i take it your both coward-like creatures who hides behind the rhetoric and pseudonyms of the blogosphere, not even being man enough (or women enough, but i doubt your women) to say what neighborhood your from.

Moderator – i think from now on, you should put first names and last initials on the mailbag letters, like in newspaper letters to the editor.