n0mesorah

Dear Avira,

Is that response to my most recent post? Help me figure your point.

We’ve been down this one a bit. I don’t see why it’s relevant here.

I’ll answer your post. But it’s more for fun as I don’t see it getting us anywhere.

I think observance is the only legitimacy. It doesn’t matter which annuity or ideology you grew up with. The more observance, the more legitimacy.

I don’t think the Gaon or Besht or most others have major priority for the Ikkarim. We had this one out and did not come to bony conclusion. It is evident to me, that most people can’t discuss at any length what the Ikkarim even are. If there was more general awareness about them, I wouldn’t mention my take. Regardless, it is not relevant here.

I’m not sure what you mean with Lieberman. I’m not an academic or in any school. Maybe you mean that I’m well connected with the yeshiva crowd while not living among them. Okay, but I’m not part of any other crowd. Including…..

Chabad. Outside of an occasional good beer or clean mikva in rural USA, it’s just some regular learning, stimulating discussions, and looking at a publication here or there. It’s a very open place. Take advantage. They love it.

Another point.

Imagine that we would make a mathematical model of you system. Acceptance by the leaders of the previous generations, their peers, and subsequent generations, would have impact to calculating how mainstream they are. We would see that many names would fluctuate wildly over a short hundred years. So the system doesn’t really mean much.

It can be used as a handy rule of thumb. But not much more.

One quick example. Maybe nobody was more accepted as within the pale than Rav Meshulam Igra in his day. But the frictions led to him being left without a clear following already in his lifetime. He soon became all but forgotten. Did you ever try his sefer? Impossible! I don’t know anyone who learns it. And I’ve seen it of the shelf at most five times.

A counter point.

The populist history that is common among the uneducated. Yeshiva guys who don’t look at history seforim, Bais Yaakovs, the public generic history shiurim, the lay class, etc. is not at all in line with Chazzal or tradition. There is as much of the modern Jewish school of historical thought as any other component. Rav Belsky got a bit passionate about this. He mentioned Rav Yaakov did as well.

So while in watching tv or covering hair your system will usually come up on the side of proper observance, it clearly has a failing in assessing thought exercises.

Though to be fair, systems can’t be made to evaluate ideology. That have to be thought out or they won’t make sense. You need to actually think the Ikkarim for them to have relevance. As a list, it doesn’t have any impact.

Dear Avira,

Your post is all over the place. This was about pictures of women. You start with a gemara (I recall learning it. But I can’t remember where. Kindly source for me. Thanks.) about actual people. Then refer to repulsive sights. And then back to or maybe on to coming across pritzus. I’m not calling you out on any of it. It’s that I don’t get your point other than that more refined people get repulsed easier. I think that is a valid point. But not relevant here.

A refined person should be able to ignore the ads completely. And if the ads annoy you in any way, it’s predictable enough to avoid seeing them. What it takes at most is to walk away as the page loads. And then only look at the center of the page.

But that is all about something that our minds think as repulsive, shocking, out of the norm. I don’t think that would be any ads on this site. The only image I recall from this site, news or ad, is the stop sign from gaucher’s disease or whatever genetics.

Exactly what I need to make all my points!

So the system that you keep using to care your opinions on, is not foolproof. It depends on how one views the individual pieces inside of it. I have no complaint on you viewing it your way. Just that others who don’t share your (or my) ideology, can’t be faulted for viewing the pieces differently. Historicity is often silly. Me, you, and other too, all see themselves as verified by history.

In other words, while I don’t know any group that does not use the Ramchal, I do know that there is a difference of opinion as to why he was rejected and then accepted. Similarly, the different sides [of what you see as the cardinal three lines (Chabad, Zionism, Modernity.)] of orthodoxy – although you see only one of them as clearly supported by the historical system – are all founded on the same historical realities. They can’t be forced into one side of the issue without blunt force resulting in trauma to the historical record.

Thanks for the instant service!

I am truly humbled by the great standard’s of my holy fellow posters.

Dear Bob,

Since you have no qualms about sharing kefirah in public, I have no choice but to ignore you. And if the mods are true believes in the amittus of Telshe, you will be permanently banned from this site.

The OP started with this line:

“There is no question that there was major repercussions to the lockdown, ”

And leads to a question of amnesty. This assumes some New information was uncovered by having lived through the lockdown that was unknowable before.

But in reality, all of these effects were known and obvious before any lockdowns were implemented. Not only that, but it has been considered part of the policy question for decades. A lockdown is an extreme measure and comes with a significant price.

Also in reality, viruses are good at wiping out civilizations. The cost of ignoring an outbreak is much higher than any single lockdown. Which leads to a whole different question. There is a modern opinion that lockdowns are not the way to go anymore. But I have found nobody who has switched sides on this topic because of Covid.

The thread revolves around that maybe people in charge should have guessed at the outcomes of the lockdown. And that we are worse off because of the lockdown. Being that the powers that were knew all to well that society would be severely impacted, Your offer of amnesty is very generous. But still your perception of tough realities is even more generous.

Maybe we could all be generous enough to drop the topic.

Dear Motchah,

Punkt fakert! All the leading fighters of the Reform Movement give not learning TaNaCH as a factor in what caused European Jews to look outside Judaism in the first place. The only gemara method of education goes back seven centuries!

Your method boils down to who is included and who is not. As if Torah Observance was shoe kind of competition based on participation. The idea that it could be done entirely different by various groups is beyond your thinking. But if it actually in some instances occurred that way, you have all there mechanisms why it’s not real. Which makes your whole system very shaky. Many generations of Yidden made do with Divine Revelation and the prominence of Torah Study.

I really have no idea why you need this cumbersome system of popularity and ideology as governed by the implied displeasure of the gedolim.

And I’m really confused how such thinking has found such a strong home in the yeshivos of today.

I wouldn’t say a lot of what you think I would say.

But to play along, …… To which I would say the Beis Yoseif himself was aware of three different struggles for legitimacy among the leaders of the Jewish Communities of his day.

Even if I would concede to your version of history, it would still not help with when the gedolim split their opinions. Like AH”U or the fallout of Shabbsai Tzvi. And you would have to leave the Ramchal out, because nobody supported him in his lifetime.

In our day, a lot of the struggle isn’t about authenticity. It’s about balance.

Now here is how we see the breakdown.
I have it as:
25% observant
1% yeshivish standard.
Barely anyone who can claim authentic Judaism.

You have it as:
10% orthodox
5% ideologically ordained by Hashem

Dear Always,

No! No. No, no. And a thousand times No! A Mitvah toward another individual is specific to that person’s needs. Physical or emotional. It can be objective that they need it. But even without that qualifier your a thousand miles off. It has simply nothing to do with standard norms (which are always subjective).

I don’t know for sure what you intended by “Torah allows for social pressures”, but if your way of treating others is based on the local, social, norms, your likely hurting many people.

I always thought that Kedusha is associated with a greater control of what one’s focus is.

Dear Yabia,

I disagree that this system will help us with the basics.

Dear Avirah,

If you only include Yidden that are from communities to the right of MO, with no forms of Zionism, and no connection to Chabad, that will be significantly less than five percent of all Yidden.

If this is hard for you to calculate, think of this: How many of the half a million Yidden in South America will make your count? Twenty five thousand would be five percent. Or think of this. There are more Yidden in Florida than NJ. Only half the synagogues in NY are even Orthodox. And not even half the Yidden of Brooklyn will make the cut.

But you have a bigger problem. I am still included in your accounting of Klal Yisrael. It’s a never ending Jihad. The only way to claim your (The same is true for anyone else. There are dozens of books that make your argument.) opinions speak for Authentic Judaism, is to declare yourself it’s mouthpiece. Otherwise, opinions are just opined and don’t hold up to vigorous Torah study.

Dear Avirah,

There is a johnny-come-lately chumros movement in all kollelim today. And it’s anarchy. Find a senior posek who approves of thirty year olds that can’t remember what their father did but will pick up any chumra in the newest publication.

Is this teaching from the Goan legit? It doesn’t look like it was done in practice by any of his followers until a century later.

If you know anything about stock photos, it would be obvious that this wasn’t intentional. It’s called systemic racism.

What’s called knowing Hebrew? I can the texts. I speak Spanish better.

Dear Smerel,

I guess that your day job is not fact checking.

Sorry, but it’s a distant second. Starting a new thread with such a quote is incomparable on a far greater scale.

Dear Far,

It’s not a Torah thing. The real world is full of negative interventions and negative outcomes. Realizing that big parts of our existence just isn’t so great, is not at all problematic. Being paralyzed and useless while mulling over some negative happenstance, will make anybody less effective. And people do not take well to such emotions.

You ask how to deal with pentup negative thoughts and feelings. Here are five choices:

A) Ignore everything. If it’s out your hands, it’s none of your business.

B) Live in a fantasy. Whatever negative happens is only because of those who don’t share your fantasy.

C) Be positive about hating everything that is negative and speak out against It. You can have the anti negativity pulpit.

D) Deny that negativity exists. Truly believe that everything is really great.

E) Resolve to rid Earth of anything that may bring about a negative attitude.

For each option there is a corresponding ‘Torah’ value:

A) Hashem is in charge. Just daven.

B) Real Jews are not at all ____ . (Fill in the blank with the word ‘negative’.) If your being ____ , you belong in that other jewish community.

C) Make your most noticed weakness or most massive trait, into the entire meaning of Judaism. Hashem just wants to test us.

D) Hashem made it all perfect. We just have to believe that it is so.

E) We are here on Earth to to serve it’s fulfillment. Anything that get’s in the way of that is our obligation to make it serve Hashem.

Sorry for stealing your juice, put the point of my post is to demonstrate the silliness of trying to ground a personal outlook in the larger scope of Judaism. All five of these examples are much closer to each other in their outlook, than they will ever admit.

Sorry to leave you at this, but it’s much more negative than we even realize. Most people are in denial or are just coping with it. I can’t say that being negative is worse than being in denial. But still, getting stuck in any emotional state is counter-productive.

The real way to always be productive, is to find what would be worthwhile no matter what outcomes you may experience.

I’ve seen similar insane behaviors…….

……getting worked up over stuff like this.