Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Medical billing (done remotely).
Day trading.
Chareidi and Orthodox are terms that were applied to the group of people who never broke off or made themselves into some movement separate from the Judaism and Jews that simply existed previously.
YO: When referring to “Orthodox”, it is simply referencing the Jews who never broke off to form a new movement. In other words, “Orthodox” is simply referring to what used to simply be called “Judaism”. (This point is also true regarding the term “Chareidi”.)
In fact, the very term “Orthodox” was coined and invented by the Maskilim (intended in a mocking manner, based on Orthodox Christianity) to refer to those who didn’t join the breakaway Reform movement.
All the above posters on this thread advocating this feature are hereby designated as the volunteer programmers to technically implement this.
“For sure.”
YO: Wait! A wise man (guy?) said earlier in this thread (look above) “Who decides? Isn’t it yehirus to say that one knows who is a Gadol?”
So how can you say that you know that he’s a Godol?
YO: Do you believe that the Lubavitcher Rebbe was a Godol?
N0m: I’m not sure what you’re trying to say. But Rav Aharon, the Satmar Rav and Rav Moshe are THE reason Yiddishkeit is what it is today in America. All three were multifaceted across the Torah world, of course, but Rav Aharon made the Torah and Yeshiva world what it is today, the Satmar Rebbe made the Chasidus world what it is today (and ensured any Jew, of any affiliation, would be proud to walk in the streets and offices of America unabashedly and noticably from a mile away dressed as a Jew, something that was sorely lacking in America) and Rav Moshe made Psak Halacha what it is today.
They were THE three Gedolei Yisroel of that caliber in the postwar world of chutz la’aretz. They are responsible for ensuring the prewar Torah world of Europe continued in postwar America.
YO: Are you uncertain whether Rav Ovadia or Rav Moshe Feinstein were one of the Gedolei HaDor?
YO: How do you know that Rav Ovadia is a Godol?
Godol is a relative term; it means someone who stands out among his generation in greatness, which is measured in terms of Torah knowledge, and righteousness. There is no measurable threshold beyond which you are categorically a “godol”, like there is when a person gets a medical degree and becomes a “doctor.” Being that the term is relative, different people apply it to different levels for people, and even among those who are commonly referred to as Gedolim, they are not all the same. Rav Shach was a Godol, but he was not the Chazon Ish, for example.
There seems to be a common misconception that we are unable to comparatively assess the level of various Gedolim. This sometimes leads to comments, like, well my group has their own Gedolim so we are equal.
We can compare “levels” – in fact, we need to in order to judge who is an authority in the first place! If you can’t compare levels then how are you to know that someone is a godol? The fact that he is “accepted” as a godol only means that many people have judged his “level” to be that of a godol. But if you cannot compare levels, then these people have no right to accept him as a godol in the first place.
And the same common sense that tells you so-and-so stands out among his peers making him an authority, tells you that certain so-and-so’s stand out even more.
Or less.
Part of knowing who to follow is to know who is greater. Godol mimenu b’chochma ubaminyan is an assessment that it legitimately made. And as Rav Shach writes – if you don’t know who to follow, follow whoever is greater – and, he adds, you can of course tell who is greater.
If you yourself don’t know, then that’s fine – not everyone can know the answer to all questions they encounter – but why in the world would you say nobody else can know?
And it’s an error in logic, too, because they themselves compared “levels” of other people! i.e.: “Rav Ovadia Yosef is the leading Sefardi posek of our times.” And how would they know this if you cannot compare him to other sefardi poskim?
And how can one know whether “any of us are on the madreiga of assessing the ‘levels’ of other people” unless you assessed the levels of all those other people who said arent “on the “madgreigah” to do that?
If i were to ask you who is greater – Rav Ovadiah or Rabi Avika — would you say you cannot compare people? Rav Ovadiah or the Rambam? Avraham Avinu?
So clearly, we can compare “levels”, its just that to some, certain comparisons are “obvious” and others are not. Well, to other people, perhaps who are more knowledgeable and skilled in assessing these kinds of values, other comparisons are also obvious.
Rav Bick ZTL, Rav Henkin ZTL and others all disagreed with Rav Moshe on many occasion, and they were entitled. But unless you are qualified to agree with one psak over another, and in the base sense of a prevailing halachic behavior in your family or community, you should follow whoever is the bigger posek (or poskim), and that often would mean Rav Moshe. However, that having been said, there is no such Halachic status as “Posek Hador”. Rav Moshe ZTL was great beyond great, but there is no reason to consider his psakim more authoratative than let’s say Rav Aharon Kotler or the Chazon Ish. There would be no reason, let’s say, to follow Rav Moshe’s shiurim for the Pesach seder than those of the Chazon Ish. In fact, Roshei Yeshiva and Poskim, such as Rav Hutner, Rav Eli Meyer Bloch of Telz, the Debreciner Rav, the Chelkas Yaakov and others, sided with the Satmar Rebbe over Rav Moshe regarding the obligatory size of a mechitzah in a shul, and/or the permissibility of artificial insemination, which were the two big disagreements that those Gedoim had in halachah. It was indeed Rav Hutner who approached the Satmar Rav asking him to write a refutation to Rav Moshe’s psak about the Mechitzos. You will not find the phrse “posek hador” anywhere in any meaningful way. The Tzitz Eliezer uses it all over the place in his titles, and, I believe, either the Teshuvos Maharshal writes it among the titles to the Ramah, or the Teshuvos Ramah about the Maharshal. But in any case, the title connotes no halachic status.
Unfortunately, many of those who use Rav Moshe’s psakim do so only when he is maikel. He permitted Cholov Yisroel (only b’shas hadchak – though they don’t pay attention to that part of the psak); he lowered the height of the Mechitzos — psakim such as these made life much easier for the Modern Orthodox, and even the out-of-town Orthodox communities. They believe they need Rav Moshe’s psakim to facilitate their mission as Modern Orthodox rabbis, or to be able to cater to the not-so-frum and do Kiruv. That is not a bad thing. A psak is a psak. However, when the same Rav Moshe prohibits Shabbos clocks (in most cases), or prohibits going to college, or paskens unequivocally that boys are prohibited m’doraisa to be “just friends” with girls, the same rabbonim with “Rav Moshe’s mechotzos” and cholov stam suddenly rely on “other poskim” (though in the case of boys being friends with girls, there are no poskim of anywhere near that stature who disagree with Rav Moshe). Part of it is due, too, to the fact that, at least in America, the other two personalities who were considered Gedolei Hador of that caliber were Rav Aharon Kotler and the Satmar Rav ZTL. Because of Rav Aharon’s stance on college and secularism in general, and the Satmar Rav’s stance on Zionism, there was no way in the world that those two Torah giants were going to be considered authoratative in what constituted the Orthodox community in America in those days. Instead, Rav Aharon was largley ignored, as it was predicted the followers of his hashkofo would become “mere tourist attractions” (thats a quote from Rav Y.B. Soloveichik in his “Five Addresses” about who he refers to as “seperatist Orthodox”. Rav Aharon was the leader of that Hashkafa), and the Satmar Rav was passed off as extreme by these people. In other words, it was “safe” for people to accept Rav Moshe and ONLY Rav Moshe because once you accept someone’s psakim in hilchos shabbos and kashrus, for example, you are forced to at least think about considering the fact that their stance against college or Zionism comes with as least as much authority. Of course, Rav Moshe Feinstein ZT”L deserved all the honor and respect that he received. He was a Gaon among Geonim and a Tzadik among Tzadikim, and one of the great Halachic authorities of our times. Thats not the issue. The issue is the fact that people pick and choose which Gaon-among-Geonim to follow when and because it is comfortable for them to do so.
The Gedolim in the days of the Shulchan Aruch and shortly thereafter have agreed to accept the psakim of the mechaber (and the Rema) as authoritative. The Shach writes that one cannot even claim “kim li” against a psak of the Shulchan Aruch. This is akin to accepting someone as your “Rebbi”, where you follow his psakim. This is the same thing that happened when, let’s say, Klal Yisroel decided that the period of Chazal has ended after the 7th generraiton of Amorayim (Mar Zutra, Mar bar Rav Ashi, etc), and nobody from here on in can add to the Gemora. There was no “halachah lmoshe misinai” that told us that the Gemora was sealed; it was the accepted reality told to us by our Gedolim. The same thign applies to accepting the Shulchan Aruch and Rema.
mdd, what is your source for your quote from the Chofetz Chaim and Brisker Rov?
N0m: I understand that you have close family that identifies as Conservative Jews, but Mr. Zechariah Frankel was a clear and unambiguous heretic even in his time as noted by the Rabbonim during his lifetime, just like the entire Conservative movement that models themselves on Frankel’s ideas are as well.
AJ: Then explain how the JTS and OU have the same founding rabbis.
N0m: the MO *are*’ the left-wing of the Orthodox.
Before Rav Moshe came to America, there was very little Orthodoxy in America other than MO. A sizable traditional Orthodox community in America, aside from MO, only occurred in the postwar period with the influx of European Jewry to American shores in the post-Holocaust period. The trickle started coming in the leadup to WWII as well as during the war period. But the large numbers came postwar.
Until the postwar period it was not so easy to differentiate between MO and Conservative. They were often interchangeable and the some clergy and regular members easily shifted between one and the other.
The big postwar break came with Conservative officially started allowing things like driving on Shabbos. They tolerated that and worse for decades until then, but that’s when they started officially justifying it with pseudo-religious arguments emanating from their Rabbinical Assembly.
While the RCA reversed itself on using microphones on Shabbos and didn’t officially permit driving on Shabbos or open gender seating in shuls, the reality was even until the 21st century some OU Shuls had no Mechitza and some even had open parking lots on Shabbos, even if the latter at least wasn’t officially condoned, it was certainly tolerated with a nod and wink. Avi Weiss’ synagogue is still an official OU Shul till this day.
Ilex: The Conservative movement in the United States was founded by the faculty of the JTS. As you are defining JTS as originally Orthodox, it follows that the Conservative movement broke off of the Modern Orthodox movement.
The RCA passed a resolution in 1948 permitting microphones to be used in Shabbos. It was only in 1952 that they reversed themselves.
Sunday is no different than Tuesday or Wednesday.
N0m: Additionally, the Conservatives are pretty close to officially supporting intermarriage. Even though their so-called “Rabbinical Assembly” hasn’t yet declared they’re changing their religious law to say it’s okay (which they’ve already done with numerous other religious laws, including some of which I mentioned in the other comment), the Conservative “rabbis” already often officiate over their Congregants intermarriages.
Whereas the Reform movement probably has somewhere between close to 50% to an actual majority of their adherents who are halachicly goyim (intermarriages, fake conversions, patrilineal descent and over a century of decendants of all the preceding), by the Conservatives the percentage of their members who are not Jewish is between 25% to 33%.
N0m: There is little gap between the Reform and the Conservatives. The gap between Orthodox and Conservative is unbreachable . For examples, on the issues of homosexual conduct (officially approved by Conservative), female clergy (officially approved by Conservative), driving and violating Shabbos (officially approved by Conservative), eating non-kosher out of the home (officially approved by Conservative), etc. Conservative is a completely different religion from Judaism (what they call Orthodox) just as Reform is.
The Conservative and Reform each accept each other’s fake pseudo-“conversions”, whereas the Orthodox rejects the “conversions” of both the Conservative and Reform — and deems them all as remaining Gentile.
And Mr. Saul Lieberman from the JTS was the biggest apostate of them all.
Ilex: What you’re basically saying is that JTS was originally Modern Orthodox but later switched to Conservative. If that is true, that furthers my previous point regarding comparing MO Jews in JTS who went Conservative, to nowadays where MO Jews moved to Open Orthodox.
But the problem with your view is that the JTS itself was named after, and modeled on, the Reform/Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary of Germany led by Zecharias Frankel. The truth is that the Conservative movement in America was started jointly by the left-wing of the Orthodox movement together with the right-wing of the Reform movement. This explains how some of the same rabbis who founded the Orthodox Union (OU) also founded the JTS. Some of their fellow founding fathers in the JTS were Reform rabbis.
Indeed, in the early years of the Conservative movement there was a lot of cross-over, and often little differences, between Modern Orthodox and Conservative. Even as late as 1997 there were still seven OU Shuls that had no Mechitza.
Ilex: Explain the fact that the OU and the JTS share the same founding fathers.
Square and Moshe: Explain the fact that the OU and the JTS share the same founding fathers.
DaMoshe, in the United States the Conservative movement was an offshoot of the MO movement. As earlier mentioned, many of the same rabbis that founded the Orthodox Union (OU) also founded the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary.
So-called Chareidim never existed as a term until the MO made their seperatist movement within Orthodoxy. After the MO came into existence, the traditional Orthodox who never left or changed got their moniker of Chareidim, a term coined by outsiders. Chareidim are simply what was originally called Orthodox, just like the Orthodox are simply what was called Judaism before the breakaway Reform movement came about. The name Orthodox was also imposed on us by the non-Orthodox.
Only the poster who calls himself Yabia Omer, but is by his own admission not a Sephardi — even though he believes Ashkenazim like himself are the root of all evil — can authoritatively tell us what “The most pressing issue facing the Jewish community in 2023” is.
Or at least he can, certainly, tell us what is NOT the most pressing issue facing the Jewish community in 2023.
In five and a half months he will be back to inform us all what The most pressing issue facing the Jewish community in 2024 is.
Please do not sully him with Jewish years. His count is based on a certain individual who was allegedly born the number of years ago that Mr. Omer uses for his reference and count.
DaMoshe, it is a halacha that a Rov’s son gets priority over everyone else in taking over his deceased father’s rabbinical position. I’ve cited the Halachic sources on this forum in the past. It has nothing to do with Chasidim.
DaMoshe, can you please show me a source from anyone before the Rav Yisroel Salanter ztl who says anything about Mussar as Rav Yisroel Salanter explained it?
N0m: if you were around 100 years ago, when the Conservative movement was starting to, slowly but surely, break off from the MO movement, would you have been saying then about the Conservative movement what you are saying now how we should deal with the OO movement?
“The rabbi said obviously you can’t eat the meat, but the cold food shouldn’t be a problem and that includes the salads”
That’s the kind of “rabbi” that would tell someone “obviously don’t eat the pork they serve, since that’s very not kosher, but you can eat the lobster, since that’s less of a problem.”
N0m:
1. What basis do you have to claim that the RCA “was not happy to keep him” (despite actually keeping him)?
2. Which other members “they wished they didn’t have to deal with” and why? Why didn’t they expel those members?
3. “Agudah was no more than press release.” Agudah couldn’t expel Mr. Weiss from the RCA. What more do you think the Gedolei Yisroel on the Moetzes could have done than register a מְחָאָה?
4. “The Yated and Cross Currents did nothing constructive either.” What do you think they should have done?
Yseribus: Are you justifying jackbooted Israeli prison guards giving Jewish prisoners only pork every day? That would be no different than what doom777 described happening.
There is absolutely no justification whatsoever to forcing Jewish prisoners to eat treif, violate Shabbos or force them to do other aveiras. Even if they were completely guilty of violating some Israeli law.
Additionally, the Zionists put Jews in prison BEFORE trial and before conviction. Some are innocent. Some of the innocent may even be found not guilty in the Zionist court, even if you disregard false convictions and unjust and inhumane laws.
ubiq: Let me inform you otherwise. You likely exaggerate the mishkov zochor frequency and you might underestimate the eishes ish instances. (Speak to Rabbonim in the parsha and they can sadly inform you what’s going on.) Most otherwise frum men with SSA do not engage in mishkov zochor. And, likewise, most otherwise frum men with a taaiva for eishes ish do not engage in that.
According to current secular scientific surveys, 2% of men are exclusively homosexual. (I’d very strongly argue for several very good reasons that stat is a gross exaggeration, but for purposes of our discussion we’ll go with this figure.) Assuming 2% of frum men have exclusive SSA, we can also count on that most of those frum men refrain from mishkav zochor, given the terrible sin it is. Same with eishes ish. But eishes ish is a taaiva of the other 98% of men. So it is approximately 50 men with eishes ish taaivos to every 1 man with exclusive homosexual taaivos. (Again, approximately. Don’t get hung up whether it’s 50 to 1 or if it is 47 to 1 or whatever.) Even if you assume more men with exclusive SSA sin than other men, given such a huge disparity in comparative starting populations, the larger percentage of SSA sinners will still be a vastly smaller number of actual persons than the smaller percentage of non-SSA (exclusive) sinners.
P.S. Chazal say that a special taaiva for eishes ish (rather than for other single women) is definitely a thing that exists, and is not a negligible taaiva. But this Chazal isn’t even necessary to consider to accept my preceding points. It’s just another cherry on the top.
mdd: The shitta of some to not to eat in a Sukka on Shmini Atzeres, predates the existence of Chasidus.
fakenews: Perhaps to you “doing drugs” might mean taking tylenol for a headache. To many others it probably connotes narcotics abuse.
ubiq: You really think more men sin with mishkav zochor than sin with eishes ish?
Dear N0m:
The RCA was very happy to keep Mr. Weiss as a rabbinical member of their fraternity for as long as he liked. Indeed, Weiss remained a RCA member long long after he publicly became an apostate. In fact, the *only* reason Avi isn’t currently an RCA member is because he chose to not pay the RCA annual membership renewal. Until a short time ago he was still a RCA rabbi and the RCA continued to keep him on their rabbinical rosters indefinitely, or as long as Weiss wanted to remain a RCA member. The RCA itself not only never expelled him, they never even objected to his constant and repeated trampling of the Torah HaKedosha.
In fact, some of the OO leadership are *still* rabbinical members of the RCA today. Mr. Weiss’ synagogue in the Bronx is *still* an official OU Shul, despite Weiss bringing Christian pastors into his synagogue and himself conducting inter-denominational services (both with Christian and with Reform.) And Yeshiva University, where Avi was previously employed on their rabbinical staff, too, has not yet renounced Mr. Weiss.
Has the RCA yet issued a statement regarding the heretical activities of their long-standing RCA member Avi Weiss?
SKD2128: Welcome to the Zionist Entity. Everything you’ve described, plus much worse, has been ongoing in the non-Jewish State since 1948.
ubiq: So they don’t need support? Many men have difficulty with it despite that outlet. In fact many more men have difficulty with eishes ish, despite its outlet, than men who have difficulty with mishkav zochor.
ubiq: Do you, similarly, believe it would be a good idea for “Yeshiva” University to establish, in addition to its current mishkav zochor club, an eishes ish club? The latter, as you surely know, has many more men with that taaiva, than the former.
Avira, are there any other than the two you cited?
ubiq: Even if it doesn’t lead to more people practicing toeiva, condoning, supporting, normalizing and legitimizing those who already practice toeiva is disgusting and kneged haTorah.
“Also, I still have no idea what the original vent was.”
Check the Wayback Machine.
DaMoshe: In the example you just gave, if the person never says anything, never discusses the issue and doesn’t utter a word to people about it, it is very highly unlikely anyone else will say anything to him.
Gadol — Here’s the original comments:
For the full, untruncated, OP, go to the Wayback Machine.
N0m: That’s the point. JTS started as Modern Orthodox. With time they became Barely Orthodox. And eventually they are what they’re now, Not Orthodox.
Same as the sub-MO group Open Orthodox did a century later. The OO started within the YU/RCA/OU world, where some are still affiliated.
Hangout and frum are contradictions to each other. Especially for girls.
Frumguy: Any vehicle for tzedaka is most praiseworthy.
DaMoshe: How would anyone even know someone else has SSA if that person doesn’t act upon it, doesn’t advertise it and doesn’t parade it?
The example you gave only applies to the very very limited examples of someone like a therapist or religious leader who he privately confides to while seeking help in not acting upon his SSA.