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Dear Youdont,
It’s not about how much halacha you know. It’s your unwillingness to insist that the eruv be up to the the standards that you know are required. The ‘shrug’ = it’s a good eiruv I’ll see it whenever but until then go ahead and carry – is the crux of the problem. It is not a Torah approach to Shmiras haMitzvos. And it is what caused the downfall of Conservative Judaism.
I know that after a rav actually sees the eruv he is bombarded with issues by many who do not know what they are talking about. But that comes with the territory of being a rav. If your not interested, one (Or two!) can become a high end driver and drive the rav. That way when the rav is not around, the driver can play the role himself.
Dear Youdont,
I’m not anti Eruv. The problem is that you are assuming what I am from an online post. Just like you assume Rav Moshe’s entire rational from Rav Dovid’s letter. Where in his teshuva on Williamsburg (I 138) Flatbush (IV 87-8) or Boro Park (V 28) does he write that Brooklyn contains three million people?
This is okay for the coffee room. But it is not allowed in bais midrash.
Dear Youdont,
On Conservative and Reform.
This has nothing to do with eruvin.
It is about making rabbinical prerogatives out of the Torah. No matter what your opinion is about Rav Moshe’s opinions, a proper eiruv still needs to be constructed.
I really can’t tell what you understand form my posts and what you don’t. Conveniently, you don’t seem to get my references to any of the recent scandalous eiruvin. But I’m glad that you remembered that an eiruv needs shituf.
Dear Youdont,
“As if the average Yeshivaman knows the difference between a kosher eruv and not.”
Do you even realize what you just posted?!? I caught you with your pants down!
That was your response to why an Eruv needs to actually be constructed by one who is knowledgeable in eruvin. So your saying, that it doesn’t matter if the eruv is kosher or even if it exists, just just trust the rav hamachshir and that’s it. This is exactly what Rav Moshe had on his mind. That some piously cultured individuals would come along and drag the whole community into an eruv debate without ever bothering to prove that they actually constructed the eruv. There are dozens of his rabbonim that can attest to this. Some of them who support putting up an eruv in Brooklyn. Your method is crucial to the existence of Conservative Judaism. Just let the rabbi decide. Nobody else knows enough to contradict him. If the rabbi says it then so it is. But the yeshiva world will always insist that we have a Torah. No rav will ever be good enough to convince us that we don’t.
Dear Youdont,
So I am still missing your point. So then what is your point?
Because I think I’m doing an excellent job putting words in your mouth.
My point is that telling a Litvish/Yeshivish fellow to learn Chassidus to change his understanding is not true anymore. If he thinks against Chabad before, he’ll think the same after becoming an expert on Chassidus too.
Dear Youdont,
Chas v’shalom that any Rav would not want to associate with RMMK! Where did you get that from?
Dear Sechel,
And yet there are some people who are gifted enough to achieve these states, yet they rarley daven or learn chassidus. So please explain why this is even part of this debate. If the Baal Shem had never spread his torah to his talmidim ch”v, nothing would be different. He didn’t invent any aspect of Hashem.
I define stam halacha as the unanimous agreed upon concept. It’s not so relevant to this debate. Something becomes a kula when it is not firmly justified in halacha. It becomes a chumra when there are alternate methods that are justified in halacha yet the practitioner only does this one. [Most minhagim are chumros. Some are kulos.] It becomes yehura when there is firm halacha, yet the practitioner insists on a higher standard for his own version of halachic reasoning.
Dear Neville,
Outside of Europe the focus was on what the milk actually was. It’s hard to know what was the Rishonim’s practical criteria. The Chasam Sofer is the first mekor that Chalev Yisroel is about actually seeing the milk. It’s not like meat that needs someone qualified throughout the process.
Dear Neville,
How does a pasuk tell us stam halacha? Especially according to your take that it is whatever came earlier, than your indicating that Torah Shebksav is the first Law, and Torah Shebaal peh is after. Which is untrue and heretical.
Dear Neville,
Contested minhagim from White Russia.
The three are:
1) Skipping shalosh seudos
2) Eating before shacharis
3) Not sleeping in the succahThey all had their rationales that aren’t so relevant today.
But people tend to keep their minhagim.
So I don’t see what the issue is.
Because it’s not just Chabad that does these things.
Shmini Atzeres is a machlokes Rishonim. Same as tefillin on Chol Hamoed. Both depend on how to learn the conflicting sugyos. Already the Beis Yosef normalizes in the idea of arbitrating on Kabbalistic terms. This wasn’t accepted in Eastern Europe until the Gaon. The question depends on what the Gaon actually held versus what he did versus what he said versus how he is quoted. In over two hundred years of debate, there hasn’t been a satisfactory answer.
Dear Sechel,
You seem to have a low opinion of the Baal Shem. Why do you need that he learned from AchHa”sh and Moshiach to justify his existence?
Both mussar and chassidus are not the intense regimen that they were intended to be. These movements within Judaism don’t last very long as movements. Today, it is more accurate to refer to them as tools.
There is a part of Mussar and Chassidus that are the same.
What is the totality of being a Yid.
There is a part that is definitely different.
The direct effect on the practitioner.
And there is a much debated gap between the similarities and the differences.
How you feel about that gap, is how much of a misnagid you are.
It also took me a few minutes to figure it out.
If someone qualifies for SSA and learns all day, that is an older retired person. Kudos to him!
Dear Avira,
We can wrap up this topic.
What if it isn’t both? Here it is only the second. Because Rav Moshe is explicit that it is not lacking in halachic standing.
Dear Richmond,
When I was in Alabama, I didn’t use the eruv. Even though nobody would ever call that mobile park a reshus harrabim. You know why? Because there wasn’t one. Even though it was mostly enclosed. An eruv having never been put up, or put up by those who don’t know eruvin well, is an absolute deal breaker to almost all yeshivaliet. I don’t why the chassidim have a problem with this concept.
Put up a good eruv with clearly defined boundaries that is regularly checked. Start with checking your bungalow colony’s eruv annually.
Dear Youdont,
You made a lot of assumption about my opinions.
I make a point of using local eruvin. I was never advocating against all or most or even some eruvin. The problem today, is rabbonim who put their names on eruvin without consulting a topological map and walking the perimeter. The rav did not even know first hand that the eruv was constructed.
I want to know what your point was that made you post here originally. I see that you think Rav Moshe’s opinion was that Brooklyn has the same population problems as Manhattan did. This isn’t true. And you keep insisting it is, because you insist it is so. As I have posted above, other rabbonim are entitled to their opinion and may disagree with Rav Moshe’s psak. Yet even the mattirim didn’t think that applied to a rav that didn’t even kn ow mishnayos eruvin. Even if he had photographic memory of the teshuvos.
Eruvin are the responsibility of the local rav. No rav equals no eruv. This is an old criteria. And it is close to the core of the Brooklyn Eruv as can be demonstrated by the original need for the Boro Park Eruv. I first heard of the eruvin vaad from Rav Tuvya’s talmidim. Rav Moshe was very serious about Brooklyn and all his contemporaries admitted that is what he held. Nobody is impressed that you can read a loophole into his shittah. It’s not Rav Moshe’s way to force an issue, yet he did that with Brooklyn <strentgh>more<strentgh> than Manhattan.
I’m not starting with Rav Moshe’s teshuvah. I don’t have an agenda here other than pointing out that the OP wanted to throw out eruvin and gain approval of the YV at the same time.
He is in la la land.
Dear Neville,
Nothing about Chabad. The switch to not wearing tefillin on Chol Hamoed is the most likely of the four to have been influenced by kabbalistic theories. Rav Moshe wrote a teshuva about it.
Near Washington NJ.
The air is much clearer now.
Plenty more birds alive than dead!
Dear Neville,
An explicit pasuk! what does that mean? Which tanna did not read the pasuk? The Mordechai didn’t have the pasuk in his Sefer Torah?
Dear Neville,
Well there is a discussion what kind of gezaira there was. The people outside of Europe who actually had access to chalav temayah did not have the same approach. I would also call the Pri Chadash a kula. As well as relying on a katan. Have you ever watched your own milk? It’s really simple.
No tefillin on Chol Hamoed is a tosafos.
How much exposure?
I am seeing dying birds.
Dear Youdont,
You still didn’t post your point.
There were some rabbonim in Europe who were hesitant about all eruvin. They kept it to themselves and didn’t build or forbid eruvin. I agree that it is weird how some want to be machmir and have an eiruv. Proper construction and regular inspection is not a new concept.
I am getting the feeling that you are trying to defend a certain figure who was disgraced by the mattirim of the Boro Park Eruv.
Dear Youdont,
Rav Moshe was a Rav in Russia and a Rosh Yeshiva in Manhattan. You can take all your useless halacha and throw into the any of the bodies of water in between. None of this works that way. There was a Vaad for Eruvin that met constantly. And Rav Moshe kept repeating that Brooklyn can’t have an Eruv.
And obviously you are way out because Reform and Conservative didn’t care much for observance. They wanted communal affiliation. (And social mobility.)
Dear Youdont,
Your position is not that far off of theirs. The difference is that Conservative was honest enough to eventually say what the theory behind their approach was.
There are a whole bunch of disputes with Rav Moshe that come down to the other side having Conservative opinions but being too scared to really say them. This is because Conservative was very much legitimized in Europe. Every Orthodox group got the message and hid their underlying approach to Torah and Mitzvos for decades. Until Rabbi Avi Weiss was stupid enough to go public with his theories.
Dear Avira,
Does bedieved mean that it’s lacking in halachic standing, or that there are possibly better options?
I’m using the first definition. What did Rav Belsky mean?
Dear Sechel,
They should first be learning Gemara the way they learn Rishonim.
Dear Avira,
You wouldn’t find a good history of early chassidus without it.
I’m not one bit Chabad. Go to the oldest lakewooders and ask them. The next generation went to Carlebach. I don’t care if his lomdus was comparable to the Rogotchover or not. It’s not about his batting average. The question is, was he a real Talmid Chochom. And the answer is, yes as much as any other contemporary Rebbe in both niglah and nistar. This doesn’t mean he didn’t say unusual things. He was exciting and charismatic besides for being highly intelligent and well learned.
A bunch of known Rabbonim had to be explained relatively basic ideas by Rav Moshe. They wrote to him on some topic that they thought they knew better than Rav Moshe, but Rav Moshe showed them that they didn’t know it all. The Rebbe wasn’t on Rav Moshe’s level, but he knew what he was talking about. If you think Rav Moshe was a great ball masbir, I doubt you understand Dibros.
You could just go the route of the other poster with Zionism. That because he was Chabad it doesn’t count that he knew how to learn. But then you have to concede that you can never have a normal debate with Chabad.
You seem to think that the problem with these debates is because of Chabad being closed minded do anything that does not put the Rebbe in a perfect light. While that is true, you are being even worse. The only thing that you are bringing to the table is that anti Chabad could be just as closedminded. So end of debate. Chabad wins. Now we all have to suffer, because they will just keep on bringing it up again and again.
Dear Neville,
What is stam halacha decided by other than precedent?
And your incorrect about what chalav yisroel meant throughout history. There were many different ways of going about it. The Gemara wasn’t invented in Europe. I’m not moving the goalposts. Your kicking the ball through endless fields thinking that there has to be a goal at the end of the next one.
My apologies that learning the real sugya doesn’t conform to your preconceived notions of halacha.
Dear Neville,
Those that switched from wearing tefillin on chol hamoed because of the Zohar.
Dear Avira,
There is a lot of space between ‘bedieved’ and ‘not machmir on his children’. I don’t understand how you use them to mean the same thing.
Let’s pretend you got the part about yeshivos correct. How does that help your stance. It’s still kosher lechatchillah like Rav Moshe wrote at length in Volume 1.
Dear Avira,
This is the sugya. The Chassam Sofer used the Rashi from cheese for milk. The Chazon Ish is completely rejecting the comparison. Same as Rav Moshe. If you go through the nuance, he is even more lenient in theory. There wasn’t a reason for the Chazon Ish to pasken. He was never in a country that had applicable standards for the milking process. And the heter of the government had already been in use for decades. The heterim of the Pri Chodosh had already been relied upon in parts of Europe.
Dear Da,
I heard directly from Rav Reuven Shlit”a, that he does not believe that story.
Dear Damoshe,
You are obviously misunderstanding something. Such an obviously wrong idea couldn’t have been anyone’s intention.
Dear Yabia,
I have to think about this second layer.
Anyways, you left out tosofos itself.
Dear Youdont,
Eruvin is one of the most learned mesechtos by kolleliet today.
There was much more to Rav Moshe’s stance than population by area. Your entire knowledge of Rav Moshe’s teshuva seems to come down to just the parts where the word ‘chiddush’ is included. It’s like learning the whole Shulchan Aruch in the old print, but just where the pointing finger was inserted.
Rav Moshe published how he understood the sugya. He paskened according to how the public would treat the issue. Puk chazi how Hilchos Eruvin is slowly unraveling.
Dear Youdont,
The issues of proper construction and frequently checked, are even greater factors in the year 2023.
I have no idea what the debate at hand is. It is hard for me to isolate your posts to a single point.
Dear Youdont,
So to be clear, Rav Moshe’s opinion was against eruvin in Brooklyn. You don’t have to agree with it. Or even know why it fits with what he writes, but that was without a doubt his actual opinion.
Dear Youdont,
Modern American Cities are set up very differently than cities in prewar Europe. The suburb was just coming into existence. This is a major key to reading all the teshuvos from that era.
Dear Youdont,
The CJLS understands Eruv as a neighborhood marker. They considered entire regions to be enclosed by eruvin. They allowed driving to shul in 1950. By the sixties, the laymen were driving everywhere.
Which sentence is outlandish and needs a source?
Davening to the Rebbe is a major tenet of the Baal Shem’s teaching. What it meant is a major dispute. That was the Rebbe’s topic. He was defending the notion. Not creating a new one. What he meant is another dispute.
The fact is that these three minhagim are not unique to Chabad. they were prickly issues in White Russia from before the days of Chassidus. The fourth one was Tefillen on chol hamoed. It’s funny that nobody here has a problem with that.
The God Embodied concept is not the same as Christianity. It is closer to Islamic Mysticism than Christian Theology. I’m not going to link to Kabbalistic sources that I do not understand. But there wasn’t anything new here. This why some anti Chabdniks call the Tanya kefira.
Shabbsai Tzvi was the first time these ideas were debated openly across the Jewish (And Muslim.) World. But it had been in the open for three hundred fifty years. If you want to ban this kind of Torah, start with the Zohar.
Dear Avira,
The majority of the Rebbes were clamoring to speak with him. He was in touch with Gedolim from all parts of the Diaspora. He had some correspondence with Rav Moshe. Unlike some others, Rav Moshe did not have to explain him things. He was Ari Shebechabura by Rav Weinberg in Berlin. The Lakwood Yeshivaliet would go to his farbreingins because they liked his lomdus.
If your position would be that he was a flawed human being, you could get away with that. (Unless the mods don’t want that debate.) If you think he was mistaken or delusional about certain things, very few people can assert the truth, so you’ll win the debate. But to say he wasn’t a gaon when his genius blew away some of his greatest detractors and he has thousands of profound and deep writings, makes you lose all the debates. From your ability to admit the truth, he could easily be alive and sitting right next to you.
I wish you would take this advice, because once you wrap your head around how great he was according to the yeshivishe standards of a gadol you would have a much easier time debating Chabad. When you write everything off, you lose. This is the primary reason that Chabad increased it’s dominance since the Rebbe died.
Because the lines of Chabad, Yeshivish, and Chassidush, have been redrawn. Learning Chassidus shouldn’t cause a radical shift in a yeshivaman’s thinking.