Pashuteh Yid

Joseph, among the statements of the Rambam in Hilchos Deos are relative sizes of the sun, moon, and earth. They are off by quite a bit from modern accepted figures. Are you going to tell me that the modern astronomers don’t know these sizes? We have a GPS system which is based on the exact positions of satellites. I have reason to believe that scientists know something about orbits. They have also sent man to the moon and back. The Rambam also says the planets are set in hard spheres, and there is no space between these spheres. Why haven’t our rockets crashed into any of them? The gadlus of the Rambam was that he would be the first to say to use the science of our times.

As far as gemara in Pesachim where Chazal were modeh that the non-Jewish astronomers were right, why in the world should I accept a dochak pshat from the sefer that you quote. What is the hechrech to interpret the gemara any differently than it says in black and white. Note, Rebbe Akiva Eger in the gilyon hashas tries to say Chazal were really right, just did not have a ready answer in that debate, as you try to say, but do you then accept his pshat of bokea chalonei rakia that there is a big window in the sky that opens during the day and closes at night to block the sun?

Second you keep quoting Rabbonim who validate the scientific knowledge of other Rabbonim from various eras. But that is called preaching to the choir. Can you provide a single instance of a Gadol from any era who was mechadesh a scientific principle which was previously unknown to the world, and is accepted as correct today. I.e., Archimedes lived at the time of Chazal, I believe. He has a principle that is still in physics books today that submerged objects displace their volume of fluid, and floating objects displace their weight.

Also Pythagoras’s theorem is still used today. While Chazal mention it only for the square case (1:1:1.4 or 4:4:5.6, etc.), it holds for rectangles, too. Please find me a single scientific chidush from a Gadol of any era which demonstrates that they were ahead of the other scientists of their time by virtue of their Torah knowledge and which stands the test of time so that it is correct even today.

If you want to believe that Chazal and the gedolim of today know modern science, you may believe it. However, don’t expect many of us to believe something which can easily be demonstrated, but has not been. (And which of the 13 articles of faith does it violate, anyway?) Note, the Rambam writes that we are not even required to believe a Navi until he proves himself by means of osos and mofsim. I also recall reading that at least one sefer says one is never obligated to believe something that goes against his physical senses. If you can’t show me a single gadol today that could pass a grad school exam in science, then why should I believe it was different 100 or 300 or 1500 years ago. (Note they could certainly pass if they went to grad school and studied the material, but we are talking about getting it from the Torah alone.)

Finally, Rashi in many places does mathematical calculations. He very often, despite his derech of always writing as short as possible, will go to great lengths to do a multiplication. Don’t have a ready example, but he will say something like 258.25 times 5 is such and such, keitzad, and then multiply the 200 by 5, and the 50 by 5, and the 8 by 5, and then the fractional part by five, grouping fractional part into whole numbers and remainder,and then add everything up taking many lines to illustrate the correct answer. But this is basically 5th grade math. It took a very long time to set up the problem in those days. They didn’t have the quick mathematical symbols and language we have today. If Rashi lived today, would he spend a whole paragraph doing a simple multiplication? I am chas veshalom not saying anything bad against Rashi. I am just saying that he used the tools available in his times.

The gadlus of Torah is menschlachkeit and midos. It was not given to be a science book.

More in future posts, IYH.

Haven’t had a chance to read through this all. I am now writing from my lab, and some of these posts are rather disturbing to say the least.

A few prefaces:

A) There is clearly nothing wroing with studying science, and today it may be the greatest method of understanding niflaos haborei that we have.

B) Studying science is possibly the greatest chesed there is, as one who suffers from a disease wants nothing other than some relief.

C) I don’t believe that evolution has been proven for reasons I may discuss in another post, as it is long. However, we must learn to take what scientists have proven and separate from what is speculation. The differences are often subtle. But we must learn the art of critical thinking. In gemara terms, is something muchrach or not. Every single line one reads or writes in science must constantly be filtered this way.

Now for the direct issues:

1) Joseph, you brought Chazal’s knowledge of the rakia as a proof to their expertise. Kindly define what the rakia is and what it was that chazal added to our understanding of this astronomical entity that we did not know before.

2) Somebody wrote that one shouyld not study science from science books, but rather from the briyah. That is rather silly, and in your whole lifetime you will probably only gain the most simple and superficial understanding if you try to reinvent the whole wheel on your own. As Newton said, if we have seen further, it is because we have stood on the shoulders of giants. We can’t get anywhere new in science without understanding all that has preceded us to the best of our ability.

3) Tha gemara Pesachim clearly states that Chazal felt that non-Jews knew better than we did about astronomy. So all these arguments saying that they knew more than the scientists contradict an explicit gemara. Chazal were men of humility and emes, and did not hesitate to credit others. The same with Kibud Av which is learned from a Non-Jew in Kiddushin. Chazal searched for emes no matter what the source, as they had such integrity and intellectual honesty.

4) The Rambam Kiddush Hachodesh (17,24) similarly says that anything proven scientifically or mathematically has the status of divrei neviim.

5) The Rambam also says that the reason Chizkiya buried the Sefer HaRefuos was because it didn’t work.

6) As much as the astounding amount that scientists know now, it is just a drop in the ocean of what there is to know. This does not mean scientists are stupid or arrogant. It means there is plenty more work ahead of them.

7) As was discussed in another thread on this topic, I proved that chazal could not have known modern science, since if they did, they would have had a mitzvah de’oraisa of lo saamod al dam rayecha to launch an airplane at the advancing Roman horsemen at the time of the churban. One cannonball probably would have made all the horses and fighters retreat in panic. Since chazal did not do so, it means they were unable to. Similarly, if today’s gedolim had knowledge of how to cure cancer, they would be mechuyav to share that knowledge. Since they don’t, it means they do not know how.

8) Reb Moshe and Reb Shlom Zalman freely acknowledge that when they need to know how something works in order to pasken, they ask the scientists or engineers. They admit they they would not know on their own.

9) If you believe gedolim know more science than the scientists, kindly find me one who is willing to sit for a graduate level science exam on things we clearly know. Such as how to design a GPS system, or organic chemistry. (Noncontroversial and straightforward things.)

10) If our gedolim do not know, then as was raised before, exactly what generation did this stop. When Joseph quotes the Rama about science, did he know these things? If he did, when in the last 300 years did gedolim suddenly lose this ability?

Are you allowed to just write the city of MIT and Harvard, instead? Look, you may need a bigger kesuva to fit in the words Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but it may get you a good job later on.

I totally disagree that there is anything wrong just because a book is non-jewish. It all depends on the book. Predictably here, people jump and insist that yiddishkeit is all about being close-minded and walling ourselves off from all contact with the world, thinking we are the only good people, and everything and everyone else is bad and Hashem is angry at them all, and he will even get angry with us if so much as read someting that they wrote. He is just waiting for an opportunity to throw us into gehenom, and reading Sherlock Holmes is as good an excuse as any. He is smacking his lips and rubbing his hands in glee as he relishes this opportunity to punish people for reading anything other than what’s on the approved chareidi booklists.

So a child should not read Johnny Tremain about the American Revolution, or Red Pony, or a biography of Einstein or Edison or Abraham Lincoln? We are in this world for a purpose and we have a mission to spread kindness and warmth and to accomplish as much as we can and help the less fortunate and to be a light unto the nations. If we have no knowledge of other people and cultures, we will not have any common language to share what yiddishkeit has to offer. A Jewish child may find the most inspiring book he ever read was a biography of Jackie Robinson, the first black baseball player, or the story of Rosa Parks. The biography of Beethoven is heartbreaking as is his music. And a child may even become motivated to be a bigger masmid by reading about Bill Gates who from his elementary school days often spent nights in the computer lab of his school shteiging in computer theory, and the teachers would wake him up in the morning on the floor of the school.

There is nothing wrong with a child reading about this unbelievably great world that the RBSH created, and all that has transpired, as he learns to separate the good from the bad and to strive for the good.

By allowing a child to broaden his mind and develop some anivus, not thinking that everyone else is bad and worthless, it helps him develop better ahavas habriyos which is the foundation of the world and of all midos tovos.

When he is told that everything is treif and stupid, it leads to the kind of personality disorders that cause people to run around on the streets calling their fellow Jews Nazis. It leads to kids going off the derech because they have no motivation to do anything, since the thought of doing nothing but learning, and not even being allowed to get any secular training to make a decent living is so depressing that they begin to despise the religion. Everything is treif and asur, so they can’t develop any goals or hopes for the future or to use their G-d given talents to better the world, whether by means of curing a terrible disease or inventing a new technology (I don’t mean a new Shabbos blech) or developing expertise in classical music or anything else of interest to them. They remain ignorant of the entire world, and appear to the rest of the world as a bunch of simpletons locked into the 17th century. How can one possibly think of going into kiruv when he comes across as a total ignoramus?

There is plenty to gain from being exposed to other cultures. (The gemara says that various tannaim said oheiv ani es hamedayim or oheiv ani es haparsiim–I love this or that nation because they have such and such admirable traits.)

If you want to believe that avodas hashem means one should be close-minded, that is fine. But at least realize that just as much good, if not more, can be accomplished by being open-minded and friendly to all, and acknowledging the accomplishments of others of all types.

PM, you no doubt know that Shulchan Aruch says that a woman who doesn’t wear makeup according to the norms of her place can be divorced without a kesuva. Now of course, the husband can be mochel if he wants.

However, the down side is that what if he is later strolling down the street and sees all the other women wearing gorgeous makeup, and his wife looks very plain. He may either start to look at other women, or may subconsciously start getting upset with his wife that she doesn’t measure up, either of which is bad for shalom bayis.

Note that there is a story about the wife of reb Aryeh Levin who always said she was jealous of the zchus of a particular woman. This woman would put on her finest and get all dressed up to go out and greet her husband every day on the way home from work. She would wait on the corner for him to arrive.

What gets me nervous is that if a seminary can ignore the countless gemaras which say that it is the derech of women to wear makeup, and that the father or husband must provide them, and that women are mechuyav to use them, then maybe we must be choshesh that they are trying to shmad girls to another religion. Remember that not all forms of apostasy are kulas. The tzeddukim or karraim believed that one cannot have any light burning all shabbos long because of the posuk lo sivaaru aish bchol moshvoseichem byom hashabbos. They also believed that a tvul yom could not prepare the parah adumah, but we are meikil. They were far more machmir than we are, yet they are apostates.

The next thing is that they will then not allow their young children to play with children from homes where the mother does use makeup because it is a bad influence.

It is a vicious cycle. The more chumras they invent, the more separation they need from those who don’t keep the new chumras. This then requires even more new chumras to prevent any contact between the groups.

Joseph, although you have numerous sources that makeup is the norm for Jewish women throughout the doros, and have one that possibly says it can be harmful when overdone, so you assur the entire concept? Food is also harmful when used to an excess. Even water can be fatal if one drinks too much. So you are going to assur these, now, as well?

Joseph, you know as well as I that the Yeshivishe velt discourages boys from working and wants them to stay in learning, preferably.

You also know that they denigrate secular studies, and many high schools in EY don’t offer any at all. That includes all the mainstream Chareidi yeshivos ketanos. In the USA, it is sometimes as little as 90 minutes a day, or even less in frummer yeshivas. Very rarely do they have proper labs and advanced courses beyond the minimum regents standards (which have been extremely watered down last few years).

You also know that for many years they were opposed to college, even the frum ones.

You know I did not say any sheker.

Wasn’t the 12 months between kiddushin and nisuin in the time of gemara so that the kallah could look her best on her wedding day? (Lefarnes es atzmah btachshitin, if I recall?) Also, gemara says a father is required to buy his daughter things that will make all the bochurim jump on her (want to marry her on the spot).

Second, whoever came up with this angry G-d theory? If a kallah wears makeup at her wedding, does this angry G-d blow his top, blow his stack, or blow smoke out of his ears? Why worship an angry G-d when one can worship a kind benevolent G-d instead? I mean, really, whoever came up with this nonsense? Maybe they need to attend some anger management classes, so they wouldn’t project their own anger on G-d.

What yeshivos need to teach their children is that making a parnasa is the most ruchnius thing there is. One uses a brain that Hashem gave him, his eyes and his hands and his legs and has a place to go where he can use these, and does 8 hours of work, using the raw materials Hashem placed on earth, and creates some product or value, and presto, miraculously bread comes down min hashamayim. It is a peleh when you think about it. The biggest nes that there is, that Hashem has created a world that can sustain all creatures with what he put into it. For example, all computer chips are made from silicon. What a miracle that this is basically sand, found everywhere. Millions of people in the computer industry make a living from sand.

Instead of denigrating work, we should teach how much of a ruchnius experience it is and how it creates such simcha when one can bring home a sufficient paycheck. We rob our students of this, and hurt them for life by feeding them propaganda that work and secular studies are treif.

Incidentally In Orach Chaim 306, it says explicitly that one is permitted to arrange a teacher to teach his son a trade even on Shabbos, since it is considered cheftzei shamayim. (Chafatzecha asurim, cheftzei shamayim mutarim.) The Mishna Berurah says that because without a trade, one will turn to theft (based on well-known gemara).

How in the world did the yeshivishe velt manage to invent that a mefurash halacha no longer applies?

The fact that the kedoshim in Europe wore light suits and hats of any style shows explicitly that Hashem’s army has no black and white dress code. It is only today where artificial chitzonius is the norm, that such a dress code has evolved, the same as the Borsalino hat. (Is the Borsalino also a part of Hashem’s army’s dress code? What did the Rishonim do before the opening of the Borsalino company? Do the Rishonim have any chelek in Olam Haba?)

It is just a game of appearing yeshivish and wanting to fit in with a certain crowd and in some cases, wanting to feel that one is above the hamon am. There are many sincere yidden who dress many different ways.

Sammy, I understand your point, but I believe the original proposal here was to have non-Jews run the lot, and not to charge any money. Some Chareidi Rabbonim did approve.

First, as pointed out, having a kidney removed is major surgery and puts the donor at risk.

Second, profiting from kidneys seems rather unseemly. For someone to make 150,000 profit from this scheme does not seem above board.

Third, if there is a waiting list for donors, and one pulls shtick to get himself to the top of the list, that may be alleviating his own pikuach nefesh, but increasing the pikuach nefesh of someone else who now has to wait longer.

Fourth, if we allow organs to be bought and sold, it will increase the chances of violent attacks by people looking to steal somebody’s organs.

DD, that is a beautiful story. There is a similar story about a hesder boy who locked the door between the kitchen and dining room, so only he would get shot by the terrorist in the kitchen, not the entire yeshiva which was eating in the dining room.

And of course this mesirus nefesh has gone on right up until today with so many boys including many hesder boys who went proudly and bravely to fight any time their nation called them up. Many paid the supreme sacrifice R”L. The most beautiful picture ever taken is the one of a soldier on top of a tank in the 1973 war, his head wrapped in his tallis, and holding a Lulav and Esrog with his eyes closed, as he makes the bracha. Such a person knows what it is to ask the RBSH for mercy on him and the klal. A person who is facing pachad mavves but envelopes himself in dveikus to the Borei Olam as he pours his heart out bsimcha on yontof.

Just last year, there are pictures of the boys fighting in Gaza making minyanim in the field near their tanks. The Rosh Yeshiva of Sderot gave his boys a shmuz before they left to be mechazek them so they would overcome their natural fear. (He himself has served in the army.)

When the boys are not in service, they are learning Torah bsimcha and giving chizuk and doing chesed of all types to the frightened town of Sderot. In his recent speech at the Sderot dinner, Dov Hikind said if not for the Yeshiva’s chizuk and reaching out to all the members of the town and personally befriending each and every person, the town would not exist today, as they all would have left.

This is true Torah mesirus nefesh, that of ahavas yisroel and building and appreciation for the work of every other yid and idealism that we will have an even better tomorrow, as we fulfill yishuv haaretz and work with the medinah to build and create and establish more and more and continue to improve the lives of all its citizens and spread torah warmth so that people will on their own want to learn torah more and more because they will see it as the source of all this chesed and love and caring for this town and the entire klal. Vheishiv lev avaos al banim vlev banim al avosam.

Darchei Noam, punkt farkert. Because the sanctity of EY is so great, we must be nizhar that much more so on the kavod of our fellow Jews and mItzvos bein adam lachaveiro. The Har Habayis was chosen because of the story of the two brothers who looked out after each other.

Regarding screaming Shabbos, Shabbos, and physically blocking people from movie theatres, etc., let’s examine this for a moment, totally unbiased. If these demonstrations had the goal of getting the nonfrum to observe Shabbos, and were a halachically recommended way of doing so, then please tell me why we don’t do this in the USA. Bud Selig is the Commissioner of Baseball, and the owner of a team that I believe plays on Shabbos. (I am not aware of any team asking not to play on Shabbos for religious reasons.) Why have no groups sanctioned flying out men to physically block the games from taking place, and block the Commissioner from attending?

Furthermore, why has no Rosh Yeshiva anywhere in the USA recommended that the boys fan out and 10 a piece will go to each reform synagogue in the area and block the cars from entering the lot, and physically block the congregants from entering the building, all the while screaming Shabbos? When the police are called, they should fight with the officers. I daresay that even if the boys did it on their own, any yeshiva in the USA would throw those boys out for good.

Why has Aish Hatorah not adopted this method into their kiruv repertoire?

The reasons are rather obvious:

1) It will not create any more Shmiras Shabbos, but will only turn people off and get them furiously angry with the Jewish religion, in general.

2) It will make a Chillul Hashem when the boys get arrested, and it gets into the papers.

3) It will create a lot of bitul torah if the boys are incarcerated for periods of time.

4) It will make future parnasa difficult for the boys if they have police records, and can’t find jobs.

5) The way to really get people interested in Shabbos is to make them realize on their own that Matanah tova yesh li bveis ginzai, vshabbos shmah. As someone posted recently, invite them for a meal and give them chulent and sing zemiros with them.

So therefore, not a single Rosh Yeshiva in the USA that I am aware of tells or allows their boys to try to force Shabbos down the throats of nonreligious Jews via confrontational demonstrations.

So this begs the question as to why such a foolish and counterproductive approach that does nothing but create animosity is regularly used in Eretz Yisroel, and those who do it are looked up to as very holy heroes. Shabbos is not more mandatory in EY than in the USA since it is not a mitzvah hatluya baaretz, rather it is in effect bchol moshvoseichem. So why the different approach?

The answer is that these demonstrations have nothing whatsoever to do with Shabbos. They are simply outlets for venting one’s hate and sinas chinam against the medinah and zionists and to get one’s frustrations out that the medinah exists and is flourishing. As the Rambam says, ripping garments on Shabbos in anger is chayav, even though kol hamekalklin pturin, however, here it is mesaken hu etzel yitzro hara. One is giving his yetzer hara an outlet.

The Chazon Ish writes in Hilchos Shechita that one is not allowed to use any verbal or physical violence against the nonfrum of today, since they will only conclude that the Torah is violent and want to have nothing to do with it.

So unless somebody provides me with a single Rosh Yeshiva in the USA who would sanction such behavior and send his boys out to the ballgames and Reform Synagogues, I must conclude that it is the the negiah of sinah which causes this method to be used in EY, Ki hashochad yeaver pikchim, viysalef divrei tzaddikim. Nobody is immune from the shochad of sinah.

Kilobear, first of all, I had tried to post an apology to you about my overly harsh language in an earlier thread, but by the time I did, the thread was closed. If by getting upset about ahavas yisroel causes somebody to feel bad then I have defeated my whole purpose.

Second, I personally agree that one should wear socks, and make sure my daughters do. I also do not wear jeans, and feel funny when I see in some shuls the one giving a shiur between mincha and maariv is wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Nevertheless, these people are machshiv Torah and it sends a positive msg when the teens in shul see a “cool guy” who is teaching the words of the Mishna Berurah and expounding on his sevaros. They see that one can be just like them and still be involved in learning. So there are two sides to everything.

But my complaint about the tznius book, is that dignity is a personal matter, and you don’t legislate it or start making up all kinds of rules that have no sources behind them such as how blue or green socks reflect light a certain way. One should not micromanage tznius to the point that it looks like OCD disorder. It should be mentioned that we must dress dignified and befitting, and zehu. Girls aren’t morons who need to be spelled out every single detail. This stifling set of arbitrary rules filling the book many of which have the most tenuous source if at all, will do nothing but turn off people or cause fights by people who think they really are halacha.

Another example of a source is that tight garments are forbidden because of the pasuk in shir hashirim which says chamukei yeraychayech, from which Chazal darshen mah yerech bsayser, af divrei torah bsayser. (And since it doesn’t say mechuseh, the author concludes the form can’t show.) The drasha has nothing to do with tznius of dress. It has to do with keeping sisrei torah secret. (Otherwise it would be a bah lelamed, vnimtzah lamed.) It is saying that the metzius is that the yerech is bsayser, so therefore we must keep divrei torah bsayser. An analogy is dadecha yirvucha bchol es, mah dad zeh kol zman shatinok memashmesh bo motzai taam, af divrei torah kein. It is not a chiyuv on the tinok, it is using a metzius to learn the nimshal.

Lately it is fashionable to use shiur charts on pesach. Now a kzayis is certainly a halacha with many sources written about it. However, I gurantee you that previous generations and even the gedolim of those times did not use them even for this mitzvah d’oraisa. They ate matzah bsimchah but did not get OCD over it. Whatever they ate was good enough. They estimated the size of an olive or beitzah and that was it.

Tznius by definition means being private. To write a whole book on your opinion of how girls should dress in the most excruciating detail seems to be the exact opposite of tznius.

Joseph, Avraham Avinu’s meseches Avodah Zara had 400 chapters 🙂

I find it hard to believe that everyone should sit facing the Torah, since in many shtiebels the tables have people on both sides, some sit facing forward, and some facing backwards. There is no way they could all be facing the Torah unless half were standing and turning around.

But if one is walking by the Torah, probably one should try to face the Torah, as it says achoreihem el heichal hashem. For this reason I believe many shuls read haftarah on the side of the bimah. You don’t want to have your back to the sefer torah which someone is sitting and holding, and also don’t want to have your back to the aron in front.

Let’s say I don’t like sitting down in restaurants. I can always go home. How does some other family sitting down in a restaurant enjoying a nice meal with the bubbies and zaydies who worked hard to support the family for all those years impact on my ruchnius? What ruchnius is there in sticking my nose into somebody else’s family simcha, and trying to ruin it for them?

I mamash think there are some people who simply can’t find any ruchnius if it doesn’t involve the feeling of holier than thou. Yiddishkeit loses all meaning for them if they can’t find someone to look down at. Don’t the mussar sefarim (or even Pirkei Avos) say one is mechuyav to be mesameach in the simcha of another, just like being nosei b’ol R”L in the difficulty of another? Wow, I did a big mitzvah today, I ruined the meal of a bubbie or zaydie who struggled all their lives, traveled for many hours, and want a little nachas from the grandchildren for a few hours in a nice restaurant. Big yasher koach to me, I made the RBSH very happy today.

Chaverim, your use again of the pejorative “Zionist converts” again demonstrates the lack of a Jewish heart and compassion, and ignorance of history. In fact, why did we get into such a mess with Russian converts? Because the Russian govt wiped out all traces of Jewish learning. Therefore many Jews did not know anything of their heritage and married non-Jews. (If anything this proves the need for a Jewish state, since intermarriage is far lower than it was in Russia, so you have disproved yourself.) But getting back to the topic at hand, we have Jews who want to make Aliyah from Russia who have a non-Jewish spouse. What is your solution? Tell them to get divorced, leaving broken families and children? Don’t allow them into the country at all, and leave them lost to yiddishkeit forever? Thankfully the medinah has compassion and is trying in the best way possible in conformance with halacha to allow these families to remain together. The best solution seems to be to motivate the non-Jewish spouse to convert and accept mitzvos. However, there may be individual cases where this fails. I believe Rav Ovadiah Yosef agrees with this approach.

It is very easy for a kannoi to scream asur and blame the medinah for a problem that was actually caused by a lack of a Jewish medinah where Jews were at the whims of cruel anti-semitic rulers in golus. It is much more difficult to solve the problem than to scream about it, because solving it actually takes compassion, careful learning and Torah knowledge to do, whereas screaming can be done by any klutz on the street. Thankfully the klal was blessed with compasionate poskim like Reb Moshe in his time, who tried as hard as he could to help Jews in trouble (he freed 2000 agunos from WW2). Far be the day when insensitive, coldhearted kannoim start to deal with difficult issues of the klal.

Squeak, I understood. It is because they don’t want any Jewish institution being associated with secular knowledge. BTW, what do they feel about Machon Lev (Jerusalem College of Technology) in Israel?