Nope

You know, qwerty, speaking to “the group” and not directly to me doesn’t prevent me from seeing what you wrote. And since you’ve already broken your self-imposed statement at the top of this page (“I’ve decided not to address any of your comments directly,” on June 23) by doing just that (“To Nope,” June 26), why then you might as well continue doing so.

Now, R. Friedman’s statements did come up at the time, but the focus was on something else altogether: the possibility of teshuvah for various classes of reshaim (and, intersecting with that, whether today’s porkei ol are in that category, or are tinokos shenishbu). I stated that no matter how far a person is gone, teshuvah is always possible and is accepted by Hashem. You had, as I recall, pooh-poohed that notion, and said, in essence, that just because we find such examples in the Gemara doesn’t mean that it can actually happen in our times. (I can’t promise that I’m quoting you precisely, since those comments on VIN have long since disappeared, but that’s my recollection.)

You know, I was always taught that the Torah is eternal. Check with R. Fishelis whether that’s correct. Now, the Torah pretty clearly states that there is the potential for teshuvah, that Hashem looks forward to us doing so, that one who does teshuvah is thereby spared punishment for his aveiros, etc. etc. None of these are R. Friedman’s, or any Chabad person’s, chiddush; you can find them in pesukim throughout Tanach, in Gemaras and Rishonim and Acharonim. Start with the first page of Rabbeinu Yonah’s Shaarei Teshuvah, for example.

(Furthermore, reliable Torah sources also make it clear that even before the person does teshuvah, and even if he is to be branded as a rasha, then there is still room for Ahavas Yisroel towards him or her, again contrary to your position in those debates. בהשגחה פרטית I just came across something along those lines in Artscroll’s Ein Yaakov, Sotah 47b, quoting Noam Megadim by R. Elazar of Tarnogrod, a famous early Chassidic (not Chabad) rebbe: “…the premise that a tzaddik cannot love a grave sinner is mistaken… No one is entirely wicked – nor for that matter is anybody wholly perfect. Even great and saintly people contain some small measure of evil within themselves. And so, just as when it comes to ourselves, we must love and draw close that which is good within us while hating and rejecting our evil side, that same attitude must be employed regarding the wicked… we must realize that the sins they commit do not define their essence. Every Jew has some spark of goodness and holiness within him that remains untainted by sin, and we must make every effort to find and love that spark.”)

Now, somewhere in the course of that argument you brought up the notion that you’re going to eat something non-kosher (a McDonald’s cheeseburger, as I recall, not “a pork sandwich on Yom Kippur,” not that this detail is material to this conversation), and I’d have to take the blame for it, since I was insisting that teshuvah is possible no matter what. As I recall, I had said I’m willing to take that onus, and to be answerable to the Beis Din Shel Maalah, if you send me a video of you doing so, but not just on your say-so that you had done it. See, you may want to look up the concept of “calling one’s bluff,” something that any normal person comes across at least once in their lifetime.

—

AAQ: Yasher koach. I’ll be sure to look it up.

This is true, that there are others who disagree. R. Avigdor Miller being one of them, and indeed one can choose to follow him. Now, I seem to recall some comments of yours – why, yes, there they are, on the previous page of this thread – that took a somewhat different view of the matter:

“Rabbi Miller’s opinion is very far from Halacha.”
“I asked Rabbi Fishelis if it’s such a serious offense and he told me it’s absolutely permitted. So we can put this subject to rest.”
“[Rabbi Fishelis’] word is golden and he’s universally accepted. Rabbi Miller was wrong. Case closed.”

So it’s good to see that now you’ve abandoned that notion, and are talking the way a ben Torah does, understanding that there can be multiple valid opinions and that eilu v’eilu divrei Elokim Chayim.

(Not sure if this may have posted already; apologies for repeating myself if it has.)

It still would be good to check (a) whether in fact R. Fishelis said that, or whether one only thinks that he said it, and (b) what his reasoning is. The honest thing to do would be to ask him for a letter over his signature, or a voice note, saying this.

(And by the way, “Please go over to MTJ at your leisure… Rabbi Fishelis is in Israel now.” So by all means it could be good to go over to MTJ, to learn Torah or to talk with the bnei hayeshivah, but to find out what Rabbi Fishelis actually said, you wouldn’t be able to “at your leisure.”)

You know, that other thread is right here on this very forum, and it’s easy enough for anyone to see that neither I nor Yaakov Yosef there said anything like what you’re claiming. Both of us said that R. Feldman ***could*** have done that, that’s all. Yaakov Yosef can speak for himself, but as for me, I specifically stated, and reiterated:

“it would have been better, and smoothed things over a lot, if R. Feldman had indeed picked up the phone and asked R. Friedman point-blank what he meant and what are his sources. Does that ***obligate*** R. Feldman to have done so before making his video? Well, I’m not about to tell a world-class talmid chacham what he’s obligated to do…”

So your screed about what I said and about what “L” stands for is, yet again, pure projection. Really, a normal person should have more self-respect than that, to say and repeat again and again something that everyone can so clearly see is false.

To everyone else here: look, I have no dog in this fight about the ins and outs of what Chabad and their Rebbe has or hasn’t or would have or wouldn’t have said. But perhaps we should consider, in view of the above, how many arguments against them in this thread and all of the previous ones – which I’m not about to go and start hoovering up and analyzing – are based on similar misrepresentations, misunderstandings, or (as above) flat-out lies.

“Rather than dealing with Nope…”

Or, in other words, “rather than admitting the things about which I was wrong, as has been amply documented.” And you claim to be only standing up for the truth!

And then you double down. R. Friedman didn’t “call G-d a monster,” he said that ***if*** He had said such-and-such, then He would be that. Do you understand what a conditional statement, or a reductio ad absurdum, is? He’s saying that G-d is ***not*** saying such-and-such, therefore He is ***not*** such-and-such. Here, look at a Rashi from last week’s Parshah (Bamidbar 14:28), explaining a statement of Hashem’s: אם לא כן אעשה, כביכול איני חי – “if I do not do such-and-such, then (so to speak) I am not alive.” Previously in this thread I quoted a Sifri that says, “when you (Jewish people) are My witnesses, I am G-d; when you are not My witnesses, I am (so to speak) not G-d.” Here’s the original: כשאתם עדיי אני אל וכשאין אתם עדיי כביכול איני אל. By your “logic,” are Rashi and Sifri denying that G-d is alive or that He is G-d, chas veshalom?

And very well, let’s say R. Friedman is correct that you can’t be punished for lying. (You’ll notice that nowhere in this thread, or anywhere else, have I said that I ***agree*** that it’s so; maybe, maybe not, but the man has the right to his opinion.) But come on; are you a five-year-old, that as long as there are no punishments, then you’ll just try to get away with whatever you can? Have you no self-respect, that everyone here can see you lying through your teeth?

You know, stamping your feet and saying “Nuh-uh” is not an argument. Watch the video again and see what R. Feldman says about R. Friedman. He calls him a “bor birshus harabbim,” a “fool,” and an “am haaretz” – but ***not*** a “kofer.” Seems that you just looked at the title of the video and didn’t bother watching it. Well, I did, and if you listen to the whole thing – it’s less than four minutes; surely you can spare that amount of time – you’ll see that the words “he is a heretic/kofer/whatever” ***do not*** appear in R. Feldman’s actual speech. So, for you to repeat, after this was pointed out to you, that “R. Feldman called him a Kofer” and to accuse me of “twisting what Rabbi Feldman said” is a flat-out lie, of the kind that you claim to be so against!

As is your claim that I said that “Rabbi Feldman was obligated to call” R. Friedman, when I ***specifically stated*** that “I’m not about to tell a world-class talmid chacham what he’s obligated to do.” I said that ***you*** are obligated to call before hurling accusations. Are you unable to tell the difference between R. Feldman and yourself? Is your ego that overweening that you think you reach anywhere to R. Feldman’s ankles?!

I also notice that you don’t actually have anything to say about the substance of the sources that I brought, just to claim that they’re “cherry-picked” and to repeat your smears. You know, the honest thing to do in such a debate would be to address those sources and explain why they’re not relevant to the topic at hand, such as “because Rabbi X explained to me that source Y actually means Z,” not “because I say so.”

And as for “a doctoral thesis,” here’s the part of my post that answered the question about whether I “agree” with what R. Feldman said:

“I’ll first point out that it’s a sickness to demand that one “agree” with a gadol b’Yisroel who says this or that, as though the validity of their opinion depends on whether I “agree” with it. It’s time you learned the gaping difference between sports or politics or whatever, and Torah, where our lodestone is emunas chachamim and anivus and shiflus before those who have molded their thought processes according to Torah.”

I’m sorry if that, a grand total of 72 words, is too much of a “doctoral thesis” for you to understand.

(As for the TV – very well, R. Fishelis said there’s no problem. It would be good, and כך היא דרכה של תורה, to understand his Torah thought process in reaching that conclusion. תורה היא וללמוד אני צריך, and of course there is also the possibility that you heard only what you wanted to hear.)

So now we’re at a crossroads. You can try to address my points rationally (since you claim that your Torah is rational). You can show where R. Feldman called R. Friedman a kofer, or where I said that R. Feldman was obligated to call R. Friedman before saying that, etc. etc., and when you can’t find those, then you can do the honest thing and retract those accusations. Or, though I hope not, you might persist in being like a character, “The Day-Old Goat,” described by R. Feldman himself in his book The Juggler and the King, pp. 54-55:

“Having nothing positive to offer, the only direction he can move in is a negative one. Realizing that he has not succeeded in earning on his own merits the glory for which he so desperately lusts, he thinks that at least he will get it by default, through eliminating all other candidates for glory. He therefore sets out to destroy the reputation of everyone around him. He imagines that when he has besmirched everyone else’s reputation sufficiently, then the people’s inexplicable blindness will at last be lifted, and, the field now being clear, they will be able to recognize his splendid qualities. That this will not work is obvious at first glance; but then, nothing is obvious to someone so intoxicated with dreams of glory.

“Rabba expresses this final effort by imaging the Torah scholar as the River Jordan and the day-old goat’s attempt to denigrate others as fouling that river and damming its flow. The goat hopes that by creating a foul odor around the talmid chacham he will prevent his Torah teachings from influencing the community. But of course, a river is not easily dammed for very long, and eventually the foul-smelling blockage is dissolved and carried away, and the pure water flows forth again.”

(Bear in mind, too, that unlike on VIN, your posts and mine here will be up for a long time to come, so that everyone can judge for themselves what is the “foul odor” and what is the “pure water.”)

Have a look at Makkos 1:10 (7a): “Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva say, ‘If we had been on the Sanhedrin, no one would have ever been executed.'”

Now, are R. Tarfon and R. Akiva “declaring that there’s no punishment”? Are they denying pesukim in the Torah that openly say that someone who does X is put to death by method Y? Chas veshalom. They’re saying, as the Gemara there makes it clear, that they would use the Torah’s very own methods to bring up technicalities that would, in practice, cause the death penalty to not be applied in any given case.

Well, then, what prevents you from taking R. Friedman’s statement in the same vein? (A point that Yaakov Yosef has already cogently made. As for R. Feldman, see below.) Consider how in our most recent interaction on VIN you thought that anyone who regrets the deaths of the Meraglim doesn’t believe in sechar ve’onesh, whereupon I cited for you Shulchan Aruch and Beis Yosef and Shelah who indeed express such regret and practical actions on that basis. So it should be very clear that there is a world of difference between saying that there is sechar ve’onesh, and saying that it must needs apply in this case or that one.

(This also answers your pretended contradiction between R. Miller’s and, יבלח”ט, R. Friedman’s, statements. Both, of course, believe in sechar ve’onesh; R. Miller is saying that it actually applies in practice to a person who does such-and-such, while R. Friedman is saying that it does not. Really no different than any other machlokes in halachah where Rabbi A says that someone is chayav and Rabbi B says he’s patur. For more on the television issue, see below.)

——

Now, as for R. Feldman’s criticisms of R. Friedman:

I think that there’s no question that it would have been better, and smoothed things over a lot, if R. Feldman had indeed picked up the phone and asked R. Friedman point-blank what he meant and what are his sources. Does that _obligate_ R. Feldman to have done so before making his video? Well, I’m not about to tell a world-class talmid chacham what he’s obligated to do, and I don’t think that Yaakov Yosef meant any such thing either.

But here’s the critical part: there is a vast difference between what a manhig b’Yisroel (like R. Feldman) does, and what ordinary Aharons or Sheldons like you or I do. Let’s consider: you (by your own admission to me in the past) can’t learn Gemara without Artscroll. I can, but (by my own admission above) am unfamiliar with many areas of Torah literature, and have to depend on others who have gathered the relevant sources. How does either of us begin to compare with R. Feldman, who has spent his entire life studying Torah and making Hashem’s Will his will, and who has thousands of Bnei Torah to his credit? The Gemara tells us that a talmid chacham’s anger can be justified because “the Torah burns within him,” and that he needs to be “vengeful and grudge-bearing like a snake” for the honor of the Torah; do you think that these apply to people who are far below that caliber? Well, then, if R. Feldman saw something that (in his Torah-molded mind) is objectionable in R. Friedman’s talks, then yes, he has _earned the right_ – through his decades of service of Hashem – to call it out in the strongest terms (and to decide, with the same Torah mind, whether he needs to first talk to R. Friedman about it). You do not, any more than I could read a couple of books about dentistry and then decide that I can waltz into your office and start doing root canals.

(I might also add: consider how just now you thought that a certain gadol called Religious Zionists “kofrim,” when in fact (a) you had the wrong gadol, (b) he was referring to a different group, and (c) he didn’t even use the word “kofrim” or “kefirah.” And that was with the English translation right there in front of you! Can you honestly say that your “Toras Qwerty613” is otherwise so truthful, so rational and free of errors, as to use it to sit in judgment on others’ statements without at least checking with them first?! And notice, as above, how many times before that, too, you’ve taken it as a given that no one could possibly believe such-and-such – “checkmate” – and been wholly unaware of sources to the contrary that I, by no stretch of the imagination a great talmid chacham, found.)

Note, too, that R. Feldman _doesn’t_ call R. Friedman a kofer. He says that his statements are kefirah and that he’s a “bor birshus harabbim” (a pit – i.e., danger – in the public domain). You may think those are the same thing, but they are not; as an example, R. Hillel makes a statement in Sanhedrin 99a (אין משיח לישראל) which the Gemara itself harshly criticizes, and which the Radvaz says is flat-out kefirah – and he also says that R. Hillel is not branded a kofer for it, but an annus.

You, on the other hand, seem to delight in labeling anyone you don’t like, right off the bat, with all kinds of personal epithets. So yes, it is your responsibility, before doing so, to make sure that you have checked every side of the issue (and yes, that includes calling people up and asking them what they meant). And even after doing so, really, you lose nothing but your ego in staying quiet; again as Yaakov Yosef well put it, see to it that you’re in compliance with the 613 mitzvos (as, for example, R. Feldman is) before you start on this “614th” one.

——

Television:

First of all, who ever said that R. Miller’s position is “the last word”? Seems that this is yet another example of you reading something that isn’t there. In fact I asked whether, quote, “any Torah authority disagrees with R. Miller on this… if you can find such, then we have a basis to talk.” So we can start by asking which major Posek you asked, and then ask him why he holds that R. Miller’s comparison to ספרים החיצונים is incorrect (as the Gemara often puts it, “what would he do with” that analogy).

And again, that he disagrees doesn’t _invalidate_ R. Miller’s right to a different opinion. What should one do in practice? Consult one’s own rav. We might, though, also note that your Posek isn’t saying that one _has to_ have a TV, just that there’s no problem with doing so. Very well, then, one can not have a TV and be yotzei both!

Your comparison with a computer doesn’t even begin, considering the basic point that computers are used widely as a tool for parnassah, while TV is rarely if ever used for that purpose. In halachah, we have the din that it’s assur to go to certain places where women are not dressed tznius’dik (the example in the Gemara is the riverbank, where women would roll up their sleeves and hitch up their dresses to launder clothes) unless “one has no other way” to get to some other place; R. Moshe Feinstein in fact has a teshuvah on the subject (Orach Chaim 1:56) where he explains in the same vein that there is a heter, where it’s necessary for parnassah, to go to such a place and rely on one’s ability to avoid untoward thoughts, while there is no such heter where there’s no need. Again, to me that seems to quite obviously map to the distinction between a computer (necessary) and a TV (not), but again I’d be interested to hear your Posek’s views on the subject.

Here’s a Rashi, Sotah 38b, ד”ה ושמו, about Birkas Kohanim: ולא עשאה צורך ישראל אלא צורך מקום – Hashem did not make it a need for the Jewish people, but a need for Hashem.

So, what’s your take on this Rashi? It doesn’t agree with Toras Qwerty613 and therefore is “heresy,” ch”v? It’s “some Rabbi out of context” and therefore can be ignored? Or does there maybe come a point when you realize that there are sources of which you’re wholly unaware?

qwerty613, I didn’t just “try to convince you,” but brought a source to that effect: R. Kook (Igros Hareiyah 1:170-171), who flatly states as follows (emphases mine):

אותם הבנים אשר **סרו מדרכי התורה והאמונה** על-ידי זרם הזמן הסוער, הנני אומר בפה מלא שלא זו הדרך אשר ד’ חפץ בה. כשם שכתב תוס’ סנהדרין כ”ו ע”ב ד”ה החשוד, דיש סברא לומר שלא ייפסל חשוד על העריות לעדות משום דחשיב כמו אונס, משום דיצרו תוקפו, וכה”ג שכתב כן תוס’ גיטין מ”א ע”ב ד”ה כופין, שכיון שהשפחה משדלתם לזנות חשיבי כאונסין, כן היא ה”שפחה בישא” של זרם הזמן, שנתנו לה מן השמים שליטה טרם שתכלה לגמרי ותנדוף כעשן, שהיא משדלת בכל כשפיה הרבים את בנינו הצעירים לזנות אחריה. הם **אנוסים גמורים** **וחלילה לנו לדון אונס כרצון**… **אע”פ שהם טועים בזה לגמרי מצדי-צדדים**, מכל מקום, **אי אפשר לדמות אותם לרשעים ההולכים רק אחרי תאוותם הבהמית** באין שום מטרה של יושר. ואם לא נדחה אבן אחרי נופלים כאלה כי אם נקרבם כפי היכולת, אז כאשר זרם-הזמן יתהפך ויכירו את הטעות הגדולה הנמצאת בעיקר הרעיון, שבשבילו זנחו את בית-חייהם, **יהיו מוכנים לתשובה ולהטבה**, והדורות הבאים יוכשרו ע”י זה להיות רמים ונעלים מאד, מחזיקים בתפארת ישראל ובאור ד’ המאיר בקרבו בכל חום ועוז

In case your Hebrew skills aren’t up to par: סרו מדרכי התורה והאמונה means that they grew up with Torah and emunah, and left it. You know, like Dershowitz. And R. Kook is calling them “complete annusim,” saying that while they’re very wrong in their beliefs and actions, there is latent potential in them that will eventually make them ready for teshuvah and improvement.

So, it appears that your definition of “a liar” is someone who brings sources to back up what he says. Meanwhile, from the rest of this thread (and back on VIN at the time), apparently your definition of “kofer” is “someone who says something in Torah that I don’t approve of.”

As I said the last time I commented here, I have no intention of getting involved in the substance of the debates in this forum. But perhaps the above may give some people pause as to whom they’re considering an ally in their fight on behalf of Torah and emes.