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I believe it was Rabbi Grylak in Mishpacha who argued the contrary: that the Arab world’s descent into anarchy is the best thing that’s happened for Israel(or did he say for the Jews?) since the liberation of Soviet Jewry. He believes that it will take these wretched countries decades to climb out of their mess. He credits HKBH for this, and so should we. No one should be blind to the danger that the situation presents, but no one should sink into despair either; it isn’t the Jewish way.
HaKatan, Tisha Be’Av is indeed approaching.
Dozens of countries were established out of the rubble of WWII and the fallen empires. One of them has been so much more successful than the others that discussions of those countries routinely leave it out of the class. Gentile and secular-Jewish scholars try to explain how that one country is so different. They go only so far and admit that there’s something additional that they can’t explain. A few even credit HKBH.
Now you come along and explain that it’s the other way around: Israel is the product of total evil and is a total failure. It’s so self-evident that no reference to history and fact are needed. There’s even a shmuz that says so! So let’s keep fighting Zionism as if it were still a menacing mirage.
I hope you meant your post to demonstrate what sinat hinam is, for those who find the concept hard to grasp.
Choppy, I didn’t argue that a rasha mrusha and an apikorus gomur goes straight to Gan Eden. I argued that the decision is made by Beit Din Shel Ma’ala because only it can make this ruling on the basis of fact.
Yichusdik, well said. Two additional concepts worth remembering are yissurim mekhaprim and mita mekhaperet. On these grounds, if it’s our decision to make, every such casualty goes straight to gan eden as a kadosh.
We news junkies risk falling victim to a fallacy (not a lie, but a fallacy). The sites we read, including this one, funnel bad news from all over the world into our minds. They report every antisemitic statement made anywhere on earth. Even if every item is true, the sheer concentration of such items creates the impression of the sky falling in, which it hasn’t. We ought to respond by doing as the rabbanim say (tshuva and ma’asim tovim), and better still as the rabbanim do.
Coffee addict, I thought Beit Din Shel Ma’ala made those decisions. Wrong again! Instead, “we” should take over from Beit Din Shel Ma’ala and rule against people who can no longer testify about what they ate, did on Shabbat, and believed or didn’t believe about the Torah — and on this basis bar them from olam haba.
The arguments seem to boil down to this: we’re too high and holy to dirty our hands with those vacuous Tsiyonim, we’re supporting them by learning, we’re doing these traitors a favor by learning (just see what’ll happen if we stop!), “they” don’t need “us,” the ____ (fill in midrash, Rambam, admor, etc.) says we don’t have to serve, and all this entitles “us” to a class exemption from military service. Is this ugly, or what?
Ohr Chodesh, Choppy, maybe others — taking shamayim by storm, going to prison in the hundreds of thousands, civil war …. Is there something about this situation that reduces people to incoherent babblers? Rabbanim were of many minds about whether the Holocaust was a sha’at shemad. Kal va-homer nothing happening today deserves this kind of rhetoric. Believe it or not, there were times when Am Yisrael didn’t have 60,000 full-time learners, and the world spun on its axis anyway.
Choppy — he and I both live in Israel (at least I call it Israel) and I emailed my reminder this morning Israel time, about 11 hours ago. He hasn’t posted since then. The brawl I spoke about took place on Israeli sites, so it could have come under Israeli law. Is it the same person? Well, the Loyal Jew in the earlier posts ranted against all the things that outrage YWN’s Loyal Jew, basically word-for-word: in-laws who don’t provide lifetime kollel support, criticism of “frum” spitters and vandals, the nonreligious (the “erev rav”), the Zionists for causing the Holocaust, sports, and so on. There won’t be a lawsuit over this. First, I was much more vehement last time than now because then he had turned his attention to me personally, and he didn’t deny the “charges” but simply stopped posting. That was enough for me (?? ?????). Second, I didn’t and won’t use his name in any public communication, so he’s got nothing on me except that I like ping-pong.
Choppy — his posts here coincided topic-for-topic and almost word-for-word with some nasty exchanges on ynet and other places. In those exchanges, it was all the same stuff but worse, including going after people by name. When my name came up, I asked an acquaintance at ynet to follow up on some details and the rest fell into place. In the manner of cowards and bullies, he hasn’t been heard from since on those sites. Over here, I did the erekh apayim thing when he called my views “reform,” but when he assailed (by name!) the reservists in Lebanon who invested their spare moments in the Daf Yomi, I drew the line and reminded him that it’s a small world and that Israel’s libel laws apply just as they did on ynet. Enough said.
About “Loyal Jew” — I think the commenters here will no longer have to ignore him, retort to him, or anything else. He’s been libeling people on other sites, too, and on one of them he gave away enough personal details that I tracked him down and warned him about a new law in Israel that forbids defamation on-line. In the manner of cowards and bullies, he immediately un-subscribed.
I might be the most influential because I may have just gotten rid of Loyal Jew! From Google and an earlier brawl with him on another site, he gave away enough personal details that I contacted him and gave him a brief lesson on Israel’s new libel law….
Ibmzr, you call working, in whatever occupation, “doing something crazy for 40+ hours a week” and an insurmountable obstacle to “proper ????? ???.” Well, you’ve narrowed the notion of “proper ????? ???” so severely as to dismiss our role in ma’aseh bereishit and empty Torah of nearly all applied value. I strongly object. Wherever we go, we do ????? ???. It’s not that we “can” do it or “might” do it, but that we “do” do it, for better or worse. Hinuch, too, is done not only in the classroom but everywhere. Again, it’s not something that *can* be done; it gets done, to whatever extent one is up for it. And guess what else: interacting with goyim is good. You can’t know yourself without having some idea about what isn’t yourself. The workplace, where yishuvo shel ‘olam takes place, is the right setting for all of these.
A few years ago, sites that spoke of “shidduch resumes” did so in a sarcastic tone of voice, as if saying “No one real does this.” Today it’s de rigueur and the only debate concerns the level of detail. What has changed?
I represent only myself and not some in the community, but I’d say two things:
1. Rav Aviner described Tzahal not as our common denominator but as “single largest common denominator we have.” Unfortunately, Am Yisrael is in such a condition that, measured in numbers, this is true.
2. Nowhere in the article, and nowhere at all to my knowledge, does Rav Aviner suggest that this is the situation he prefers. In fact, his decades-long record leaves no doubt that he regrets this strongly and considers Torah the true common denominator.
Do not look for nonstop flights; they can cost 50% more than stopover flights, if not more (my guess is $1500 from NY instead of $1000). Look for discounted flights from any important European city to Israel and then connect with the best of them by booking a discounted flight from New York to that city. Allow several hours to change flights and don’t be afraid to stay over for many hours.
I’ve assumed that you would be taking off from NY, but the same goes for any N. American city that flies to various European destinations. Good luck.
Sam2
Touche, I should have known.
Feif un
It’s a touching story but Israel didn’t have its own TV station until 1968. The only TV transmissions that could be picked up in Yerushalayim were Jordanian….
Further on Hungarian Jewry: for some of the frum, maybe the frummest, it went beyond indifference. Rabbi Teichthal (or an associate of his, writing about him-I don’t have the source in front of me) remarked about the leading rabbis in Hungary before the Shoah: to carry on Shabbat, they put up an eruv. To charge interest, they issued a hetter iska. To carry debts over on Shmitta, they put out a pruzbul. To enjoy hot food on Shabbat, they allowed the blech and a little help from the Shabbes Goy. But for one thing they couldn’t find a hetter: to save their souls by moving to our holy Land. That they ruled out, because of … all those whom Ben Hecht blamed for the destruction of Hungarian Jewry.
AD(H)D is definitely real and is not limited to children. It can even present in adulthood. Mine comes b”h without the “H” part but includes a fringe benefit: the ability to “hyper-concentrate” when it’s really necessary. I owe my life and livelihood to that ability and wouldn’t trade it for any medication.
Ben Levi, the leap of faith is captured in the title Hecht chose. It tells you his conclusion before you even open the book: that Hungarian Jewry was done in neither by the Nazis nor by the community’s own indifference but by our own traitors. This kind of literature is produced after every national disaster, including (lehavdil, of course), Germany’s defeat in WWI. Hecht admits that he’s not a historian, which is to his credit because real historians understand that once the Allies decided on Germany’s total defeat as their only goal, they (especially Britain) wouldn’t allow any unilateral initiative to negotiate with the Nazis over the rescue of Jews. The Nazis knew this and toyed with Kasztner, Brand, Rabbi Weissmandel, etc., currying favor only with the thought that it might help them in their postwar trials. And as for the information that Kasztner “withheld” from the Jews, again, escapees from Poland had been reporting it for years.
Ben Levi, first, Kasztner was never put on trial. Second, Hungarian Jewry proved its blindness and complacency long before Kasztner moved from Romania into Hungary. Third, you have to make a huge leap of faith to accept Mr. Hecht’s argument, that is: this one man, Kasztner, blinded hundreds of thousands to a truth that they would have believed, and acted upon, had only Kasztner spoken out.
Throughout the war, Jews escaping from Poland warned the Hungarian Jews about the Nazis’ schemes and intentions. The typical response they received was “meshugeneh poylishe!” Even when Hungarian Jews were ordered to report for transport to Auschwitz, many swallowed the Nazis’ line about “resettlement” and showed up with pots, pans, and fine delicacies. Blaming all this on Kasztner doesn’t make sense.