Joe:

save the spin, it’ll just get the thread shut down

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Of course it makes him look at if he cares more about a personal vendetta than he does about the party or the ideas he espouses. As if he is, he is, that’s the point. He’s revealing who he is. This isn’t some gaffe or accident. If it were something he threw off, and then realizes he was a little over the time, he had ample opportunity over the weekend to retract, to move away. Instead he doubled down. He widened the net of sort of non-Americans or people who aren’t impartial because of their ethnicity beyond Mexican-Americans to now include Muslim.

This isn’t a guy who has made a false step, of course he did. But the larger point is, he’s revealing who he is. It is not just that those who have now decided to throw in and support him for party unity or whatever reasons have made a tactical mistake in getting behind him. They have to ask themselves, morally, is this the man you want to be the leader of your party? That’s what’s at stake here. That’s why it’s a bigger issue.

Besides for R’ Tzvi Pesach Frank, R’ Moshe Feinstein, and the Tzit Eliezer, another one of the Gedolim who was vehemently against drafting Yeshiva bochrim was none other than R’ Avraham Yitzchok HaCohen Kook.

http://beta.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=20825&st=&pgnum=84

Some brief snippets:

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CTLAWYER:

Congrats; you have convincingly, if unintentionally, supported Joseph’s theory that being OOT by no means guarantees immunity from materialism.

DY:

Thanks for those sources.

Avi K:

I join DY in being unimpressed by your sources.

See the Rambam at the end of his introduction to Sefer HaMitzvos that says wars are only carried out with a King, a Sanhedrin, and a Kohen Gagol, brought down li’halacha in Igros Moshe CM 2:78), and Rashi in Eirevin 17a, Sanhedrin 2a, and Sotah 44b that says wars carried out in self-defense are not considered Milchemes Mitzva.

Also, see the Shu”t DY linked to.

As for the Rambam in Hilchos Talmud Torah, as others have pointed out the Shulchan Aruch and Rema do not pasken like that Ramabam, they pasken like the Rov Rishonim. Also see Igros Moshe YD 4:36 that holds the Rambam would be matir getting money for Torah today.

Somebody told me over Shabbos that perhaps Israel should consider lining the Gaza border with Gorilla exhibits; that way, the world will finally be outraged when Hamas launches any rockets.

R Gordimer is clearly identified as a MO rRabbi. He has smicha from what is the premier, if not only, MO Organization that issues smicha in the US. He is an executive member of the largest MO rabbinical board.

I guess the comments were too pointed for some and they therefore wanted to come up with some reason to ignore his message.

I do believe that there is an element of truth to that. It is always easier to shoot the messenger than to argue with the message.

Sam/DY:

Should middos tovos be mandated by law?

And if so, why stop with hunting? How about outlawing any movie that depicts cruel behavior?

Sam2:

Frum MO have always acknowledged dangers. No one wants their kids to live on a college campus (with a few exceptions). Everyone filters what television and movies and books and such that kids can read/watch. It has never been totally Hefker. With a few exceptions, most are realizing that kids living on college campuses is a bad idea.

I believe there is a substantiative difference between the two points that you are addressing. Filtering the media that one exposes one’s kids (and just as importantly, one’s self) to is a question of removing content that is objectively Halachicly prohibited. And as you’ve pointed out, the Halachicly-observant MO have always done that.

But the question of whether or not living on a college campus “is a bad idea” is not a question of how to deal with objectively objectionable (couldn’t resist;) content. It is a question of whether immersion in the secular culture that surrounds us is a problem in of itself, even if nothing one is exposed to is Halachicly prohibited.

I’m curious as to what the attitudes in the “frum MO” world are about that question, and whether they are changing at all.

As for how to regard Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer, while he is undoubtedly on the right-wing of MO, I think (hope?) that he is closer to the “MO ideal” than all of the pants/miniskirt wearing women who self-identify as MO. If he’s not MO, neither are a whole lot of other people who claim to be.

newbee:

Not the most noble quality to dictate what others can and cannot be emotionally upset over.

Says the person trying to convince me that I cannot be upset that people value animal life more than human life…

Listen, if you honestly believe that it’s OK to care more about the life of a lion or of a gorilla than the life of a human, or that the sufferings of the two groups is somehow morally comparable, we clearly do not share enough common assumptions to be able to have an intellectual conversation.

Sam2:

Many who go to secular college (who don’t live at home) are lost. Which is why so many MO won’t send to secular colleges now. At least, not to live on campus.

BarryLS1:

That’s reasonable… In my day, we went to college, took our classes and left. We never hung around or got involved in anything besides our classes.

Whoa, is the MO world beginning to acknowledge the dangers inherent in unfettered exposure to secular culture?

Here we go again…

(CNN) – Devastated. Heartbroken. In mourning.

Those are some of the words the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden used Sunday in a contrite explanation for the death of Harambe, a 17-year-old western lowland gorilla killed on Saturday to save a boy who slipped into the zoo’s habitat.

The boy was in “imminent danger,” leaving the zoo’s Dangerous Animal Response Team with no option but to shoot the 450-pound gorilla, zoo director Thane Maynard said in a statement on Facebook. Tranquilizers may not have taken effect in time to save the boy while the dart might have agitated the animal, worsening the situation, Maynard said.

“We are heartbroken about losing Harambe, but a child’s life was in danger and a quick decision had to be made,” he said.

The words did little to assuage an angry chorus of critics who believed the gorilla’s death was unnecessary. Many blamed the boy’s mother for failing to look after her son. Neither the boy nor his family have been identified.

Some even suggested the boy’s parents should be held criminally responsible for the incident. An online petition seeking “justice for Harambe” through criminal charges earned more than 8,000 signatures in less than 24 hours.

Others criticized the zoo for responding with what they felt was excessive force. Demonstrators gathered outside the zoo on Sunday calling for a boycott.

How far has the world fallen when people cannot figure out who’s life they should be more concerned about, a child or a monkeys?