tiawd

DY, I understand what the end game is. What I cannot fathom, though, is how these protests are expected to further that goal.

I don’t understand what the hava amina of those who call for these protests is. (I don’t care for the moment whether R’ Shmuel supports these disruptive protests or not.) What are they meant to accomplish, other than inconveniencing thousands of people and making chareidim look really bad? Do they really think the government will say, “Oh, they’re blocking traffic again. Let’s just release all the bochurim who have been arrested and immediately pass a law that no chareidi should ever be required to register for the draft again.” Really?!
Also, what did they expect. Fine, their psak is not to register for the draft. Of course, the police will arrest anyone who does so and becomes a deserter by law. So then they will stage a protest and block traffic, and the police will come and arrest protesters, and then they will protest again, and then they will arrest more people etc. etc. Isn’t this an endless cycle and an exercise in futility?

They don’t, they’re just the ones powerful enough to cover it up.

I don’t know who this rabbi is and what point he was trying to make, but this is an old argument usually used to validate non-frum movements in Judaism. The claim is basically that charedi rejection of modernity (chadash asur min hatorah and all that) is a reaction to secularism and didn’t exist before the 1800’s. Since before then there was no modern culture to reject, that rejection of modernity can’t be considered an intrinsic part of Judaism and is in itself an innovation.

I think this is really just a game of semantics, though. You can call it whatever you want- Orthodoxy, charedism, ultra-Orthodoxy, etc., but in all assential ways frum Judaism today is the same as it was 200, 400, 800, or 1400 years ago. I’ve read that before the enlightenment, the number of Jews who were openly mechallel Shabbos could probably be counted on the fingers. Before then, virtually all Jews kept Shabbos, kashrus, and believed in Torah min hashamayim and the coming of Mashiach, just to give a few examples. If that’s called being “charedi”, then it’s not new at all.

I assume the rabbi giving this speech wears a yarmulke. What was his point?

I think Lilmod made an excellent point- shouldn’t the purpose of Jewish music be to inspire people and give them his’orerus? If the words and the tune work together to accomplish that, then great. But if one or the other doesn’t inspire people, but is just the Jewish equivalent of a goyish dance beat, then what type of chutzpah is it to take words from Torah sources and exploit them to that end?

Obviously, each person has different sensitivities, but I think most people can tell if a song was meant to be me’orer people or not.

None of the accepted Rishonim ever said anywhere that Hashem is a physical being. Even the Raavad, according to most interpretations, only means that a person who mistakenly holds such a belief can”t be considered a min, since he’s basing himself on a literal interpretation of the pesukim.

I’m not sure that ?? ?? ??? ????? is really grammatically correct, but in any case what is the idea conveyed in that line of Tefillah? According to the Sefardim, it is that Hashem hears the tefillos of all people, and according to Nusach Ashkenaz, that Hashem hears the tefillos of Klal Yisrael. But what’s added by saying that He hears the prayers of “every mouth of His nation Yisrael”?

As far as Kegavna, it is a highly esoteric section of Zohar. I doubt 1% of those who say it really have any idea of what they’re saying. So the fact the Ashkenazim never adopted it is not at all surprising. Compare it to Berich Shemeih, which is also a section from Zohar, but has made it into almost all Ashkenaz siddurim in the past 300 years, perhaps because its simple meaning is easily understood.

Neville- The worst is ????? ????? ????? ??? ???????? ???? ???????? ???? ??????? ????? ????? ??? ???????. Other places where the nusach can’t make up its mind whether to say the Ashkenazi or Sefardi version are ?? ??? ???? ???? ?? ?? ??? ????? ?????? and ??? ?? ???? ??? ?????? ???? ?? ?????.

This thread is full of inaccurate and false statements. The Anshei Knesses Hagedolah were mesaken our tefillah more than 2000 years ago. We have no idea what the exact words of their nusach were, since Chazal actually forbade tefillos to be written down. (See Shabbos 115b “????? ????? ?????? ????”). They were only written later (I believe first by R’ Amram Gaon) because of ?? ????? ??’.

In any case, it seems that it doesn’t halachically matter so much. As long as one says the parts of tefillah that Chazal instituted and doesn’t say anything objectionable or false, he is yotzei tefillah. For example, the fourth bracha of Shmoneh Esreh is a request for knowledge. Therefore, it doesn’t matter whether one says ???? ???? ??? ???? ????? or ???? ???? ????. Neither would be considered ???? ????? ????? ?????.

If Chazal had established a specific nusach for tefilla that we were halachically bound to follow, mishnayos such as ????? ?? ?? ????? ???? ?????, ??? ??? ????? ???,??????????, ?????? ???? (Brachos 5:3). Since such phrase were clearly not instituted by Chazal, it would be obvious that it is asur to say them. Similarly, the gemara in Brachos 33b teel sof a certain chazzan who began chazaras hashatz “??-? ????? ?????? ?????? ?????? ?????? ??????? ???? ?????? ??????? ??????”. Rabbi Chanina waited until he finished Shmoneh Esreh, then took issue with him for saying so many praises of Hashem, as if those he said were all there was to say. However, if he had added other words of his own that weren’t inappropriate, R’ Chanina would not have been bothered to hear a nusach he had never heard before in his life. See also on 34a that R’ Eliezer had no problem with chazzanim adding and subtracting from Shmoneh Esreh at will, as long as they said the substantial parts of tefillah.

In short, all nuschaos of tefillah that have developped, Ashkenaz, Sefard, Moroccan, Yemenite, etc., are kosher. The question is only whether one has a right to change from the nusach that his ancestors davened.

Since I try not to bash any rabbanim, whether or not I hold of their shittos, I generally call him R’ Yoshe Ber. I think that name is pretty unambiguous; if I was referring to his cousin from Eretz Yisrael I would say R’ Berel.

Davening should not be too fast to allow pronouncing every word at a pace one would use in normal conversation. Would anyone disagree with that?

Popa: It depends when b’sofah is. If it’s only after they’re married, that would be better. Although, if they’re k’oyvim now, it might prevent the chasunah from actually taking place.

Sam2: Since the original topic was the tefillah of a goy, I don’t think chukkos hagoyim is an issue. I’m pretty sure goyim have no such issur.

Anyone can speculate on the reason for the minhag not to wear a tallis before marriage. However, I believe the Maharil mentions the difference of minhagim between b’nei Reinus (the Rhineland)for unmarried men to wear a tallis and of b’nei Ostreich (I’m not sure this is identical to modern-day Austria, but literally Ostreich means the “Eastern Country”) not to wear one until marriage. Apparently, the German Jews follow the minhag of b’nei Reinus and the Eastern Europeans go like the b’nei Ostreich.

I know I’m bringing up an old thread here, but I challenge anyone to find a mekor for this legend that dates back to within a century or so of R’ Meir bar Yitzchak. There are so many strange stories out there involving kishuf-practicing evil priests or other features that are hard to believe and often not historically accurate. If they have a reliable source, that’s one thing, but the fact that the ma’aseh exists in a sefer means absolutely nothing. As was said, I think by the Rambam, if a person wants to lie, they can lie just as well in writing.

If we’re in YWN, I think the best translation of “Cogito ergo sum” would be “I think, horaya I am”.

Ayen kan: http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/permissible-motzei-shabbos-activities

The Ethiopians practiced their form of monotheistic “Judaism” in Ethiopia. I’ve never had a chance to see the tshuvos on the matter (it would be nice if someone would give a mar’eh makom or post a link), but based on their practices it seems the only way to consider them as being originally Jews is to deny Torah sheb’al peh. It seems much more likely that they were originally a Christian sect that kept a very Biblical religion. But they kept their religion with much mesirus nefesh and were hated by the local Christians, which makes it unlikely that there was much intermarriage between them.

The bigger issue that everyone is ignoring is that these are major halachic questions which should be answered by a posek who has all the facts, not in the YWN coffee room.