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@sechel83 Regarding apikorsim: If the shoe fits…. I mean, all we are saying is that the everyone except Chabad views certain practices as Apikorsus. Chabad does not and in many cases even encourages said practices. All you’ve done so far is attempt to defend those practices, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the g’mar din has already been signed and the frum veldt has made a decision.
@seichel You are incorrectly equating Chabad practices and beliefs with “Chassidus”. Vizhnitz, Belz, Satmar, etc. don’t spend three hours a day to go over their late Rebbe’s happy birthday letters.
@nomesorah This is personal experience and things I’ve been told. In places where Rav Hirsch changed his mind, his earlier writings were not translated. The one well known instance is in “The 19 Letters” he says that he will write a sefer called “Moriah” in which he will define what Talmud Torah im Derech Eretz is. However, he never wrote the sefer and never wrote a clear cut definition of it because later in his life he felt that too specific a definition won’t work for later generations.
@DaMoshe Very well, then a Rebbe is someone appointed by his Chassidim. However, said Chassidim cannot appoint a book to be their Rebbe.To add to the Chalav Yisroel discussion, Rav Ruderman ZT”L held that dehydrated milk is l’chatchila Chalav Yisroel and Ner Yisroel would serve OU-D food made with dehydrated milk.
@AviraDeArah Back? I never left! I think that other Rabbonim only agreed to Rav Moshe’s psak as a heter, and they argued on his view that it’s l’chatchila. I don’t think any of his talmidim claim that it’s a heter.
@coffee-addict I’m not sure what to take from that story. Obviously you viewed things one way, but I don’t know the precise circumstances, nor the people involved, to say that it’s an indictment of MO Yiddishkeit. I mean, there are plenty of very public controversial piskei halacha and hadracha to choose from.@adam-neira So who do you believe is Moshiach?
@neville-chaim-berlin I have heard b’sheim Rav Reuven and Rav Dovid (YBCLC) Feinstein that Rav Moshe ZT”L’s psak on Chalav HaCompanies (as you put it) is that we can rely on the USDA to make the food Chalav Yisroel and it’s not a heter.
I once asked a Rebbi what the definition of “kula” and “chumra” are in regards to modern halacha. He said that it’s simply a matter of who you hold of. Like in general the klal holds one way, and for whatever reason you choose to go according to a minority opinion. Depending on whether the opinion is more machmir or more meikel that would be a kula or chumra.
Like the Chazan Ish said that the s’chach of a sukkah cannot be held in place by something that itself is pasul for s’chach. He is a very minority opinion on that matter. But if you’re in position to follow it, then kol hakovod to you for making a sukkah that’s kasher according to everyone.
Similarly, if there’s a something that everyone considers assur, but there’s reasonable minority opinions who say that it’s really allowed, then given extenuating circumstances, it may be allowed.
@lakwhut No, a Rebbe is not forever. A Rebbe goes to the Oilom HaEmes just like all of us. That’s when he leaves his duties to his son or talmid.
@Adam_Neira What are you trying to say? That you know who Moshiach is and he is being silenced?
@Always_Ask_Questions You make a good point, however this is one thing you are neglecting from it. Having an oral tradition (Torah sh’Ba’al Peh) means having a Rebbi. We cannot just read books (no matter how holy) and have that be our Rebbi, we need a person who is dynamic and understands his talmid and the world.
@sechel83 That is how Chabad chooses to interpret that particular aspect of Chassidus. You should be aware that the rest of the frum world does not. We view Acharonim as Torah that is highly susceptible and open to machlokes from any other Acharon. Divrei halacha and hashkafa especially, since they are are often extremely subjective. I have two very misnagdish examples I can give you from personal experience with the Yekkish community (but this exist in every frum community except Chabad).- The translators of Rav Hirsch ZT”L’s works had to make a lot of decisions as to what would be published and what wouldn’t. The decided to all but ignore anything that wasn’t openly published by him (i.e. they left out letters and speech transcripts). Furthermore, they acknowledged that his views changed over his lifetime, and even his core philosophy of “Talmud Torah im Derech Eretz” differed from how he wrote about it in his 20s to how he wrote about it in his 50s. This affected which works they chose to translate.
- A while back, a woman found a stash of letters by her great-grandfather, Rav Eliezer Lipman Philip Prinz ZT”L, a Rav from Antwerp. They were all in Dutch, so she brought them to a relative to translate. The relative said that most of the letters, unfortunately, would have to be omitted since they were paskening halacha and there’s no way to know what the case was and whether it would still apply. One example was that he allowed people to open sidewalk umbrellas on Shabbos (I think the heter had to do with the construction of the umbrella and way in which it was opened, along with the fact that most of the community would still be mechalel Shabbos if he never gave a heter) which would either cause people to falsely think that umbrellas are muttar, or brand him a heretic.
Is this related to the false South American Christian rumor that a certain young maggid shiur was named Moshiach by his followers?
@sechel83 If you attribute the same chashivos to a posthumous transcription of a gadol’s speech that you do to Chazal, then I’m sorry we are even having this conversation. That is so far out of bounds for what Yiddishkeit is and is supposed to be.
@ujm No, I’m questioning whether it even happened.
@Always_Ask_Question In my personal opinion, the issue as I see it is that in many instances Chabad attaches almost as much importance on every word Rav Schneerson ZT”L said as if it were Chazal. There’s something very special about learning the writings of gedolim in depth, especially if he was your gadol (i.e. Satmar and “Divrei Yoel”).
There is a huge difference between something a gadol wrote in a sefer, and something that was in a letter or speech. Something in a sefer is meant for everyone and it’s expected that the gadol did due diligence to make sure that what was written is either applicable to the Doros, or has caveats about when it does apply. However, speeches and letters are all about specific audiences and to take those speeches and treat them as halacha applicable l’oilom vo’ed is not a proper mehalech. What worked in the Shtetl doesn’t work in the USA. What worked for Russian immigrants in 1970 doesn’t work for Israeli Yeshiva bachurim in 2023.
@sechel83 That is the most milquetoast non-answer response to a pretty harsh accusation I’ve ever seen. If anything, that letter confirms the original RCA statement. Let me summarize the letter:
“The Stadrus Rabbonim of America falsely accused us of believing the Rebbe to be Moshiach! Really, we believe that he has the capability to be Moshiach and will being us the Geulah which is a totally different thing! We should really be fighting the true enemy and not each other.”
@doom777 Well, it’s a problem that Jewish prisoners don’t have proper kashrus, but they are still prisoners. All Jews I know that went to prison in Israel did so because of something they did, knowing it was a crime. Some participated in a violent protest, burning and rioting. Some were draft dodgers. A couple tried smuggling.
While I don’t know the particulars of the case, I do know that it’s ringing a few false new alarm bells. For one, the Mishtara is known to be very rough with Arabs and absolutely do not let them get away with anything. Second, many of these cases of fights between Arabs and Jews are usually something that would have just stopped had everyone just walked away. It’s always some hothead who wants to be a hero that ends up in a street brawl.
@sechel83 Satmar does everything in their power to promote “Divrei Yoel” and “VaYoel Moshe” all over the place. However, they do not dedicate regular sedarim in Yeshiva to teach it, pasken halacha based off of the Rebbe’s speeches, nor make it a priority to memorize entire swaths of it.
I’m not “hiding the Rebbes amazing teachings”, I’m criticizing the undue amount of importance that Chabad puts on every word ever spoken or written by Rav Schneerson ZT”L. It’s Kodesh, but not that kodesh. There are many things he may have said that he changed his mind on, or that he was mistaken about at the time. Not to mention the changes in society and audience that make the words obsolete or irrelevant. You can’t base a Yiddishe lifestyle on things a single Tzaddik said decades ago!
The reason I mention it is that you want to prove to us that Chabad minhagim about certain mitzvos are justified because of things the late Rebbe of Lubavitch once said. However, that’s not good enough for us because of the circular logic.
The Lubavitch minhag is to treat Rav Schneerson’s writings and speeches as the be-all and end-all of Torah. So they interpret many of these writings and speeches to follow certain minhagim. And then justify those minhagim by referencing the writings and speeches. Circular.
Every time I read a story about the Evil Tzioyoini Malchus torturing and abusing the innocent pure Chareidi neshomos, I get very very skeptical. Because I have rarely encountered an instance where the true story is what was being reported.
I’m going to second what @AviraDeArah is saying regarding the non-Chabad outlook on Chabad writings. Many Chabadskers seem to be in total denial at the amount of importance the rest of the world gives to things like those written collections of drashos from Rav Schneerson ZT”L. Similar seforim are available for most gedolim from the 20th and 21st century and they are interesting things to peruse in your spare time or to get some hisoiroris out of. They certainly aren’t meant to pasken from, nor dedicate entire sedarim of your day to.
@Lostspark Don’t try and sidetrack the conversation that you brought up. Multiple users, myself included, have gave very detailed and reasonable responses to your Gish Gallop list of questions. Are there at least two or three that you would consider good answers to your arguments? Yes or no?
@Someday I usually don’t respond to long lists of “questions” or “evidence”. Invariably, even if every question is answered the original poster will just respond with “Well what about this NEW list of questions?” I want to be sure that, if I answer two or three of these with a decent amount of clarity that you will at least take a second to think “Maybe I’m wrong” instead of finding more stuff to throw a the wall. Anyhoo, here goes nothing.
- The flag is not waving it’s held up in a frame to keep it straight.
- The math as to how to land on the moon was solved in the 1940s. The computers to run the equations took up entire floors of NASA. The Apollo spacecraft had a small computer, but the big equations were run at NASA and the answers radioed in. Katherine Johnson famously won a presidential medal for her work in running those computers, though it took fifty years to get it to her as she was black.
- The live video feed was transmitted to millions of TV stations globally. I’m not sure why having the recording from the spacecraft is important
- And they were successful and the Russians admitted defeat in the space race. If it was so easy to prove a hoax, I’m certain the Russians would never have stepped down
- What particular technology was missing in 1969 that prevented them from landing on the moon? Rockets have been around for decades. Both the USSR and the US had already sent men and satellites in space, even to the moon.
- And the dozens of moon landing astronauts that came later? Or the thousands of people who worked on the project? Not one of them spoke out?
- There are actually images from modern telescopes showing the moon landing sites as seen from Earth. So your statement is factually incorrect
@Someday One main reason to go to the moon in the 60s was to prove to the Russians that it could be done. At no point did the Russians say “No you didn’t”. QED
@Neville-Chaim-Berlin You forgot that he also signed more gun control laws than Biden or Obama.
For decades, Flat Earthers, Moon landing hoaxers, and anti-Semites were all one and the same. Unfortunately, these days we have to take the anti-Semites out of the three since too many Yidden have unfortunately fallen prey to unsavory forums on the Internet and questionable reading material.
I think the Jews tricked us into thinking America went to the moon.
@Zetruth Your have been using several terms and proper nouns that are very popular among certain forums and communities. I want to be sure before I engage with you further. So let me ask again, the place where you get your news, do they talk about the Rothschilds and Globalists?
@Zetruth Out of curiosity, the places where you get your information from, how often do they mention the Rothschilds and Globalists?
Nuh, so let’s get things back to normal then!
Like, what’s your issue with Zionism anyway?
@Neville-Chaim-Berlin The point that @n0mesorah is trying to make is that statistically, no more people are dropping dead of random heart attacks today than they were five years ago. However, in 2020, way more people were dying of respiratory viruses than usual. Like way way more.
“The Fisher King” is a tale from various versions of the King Arthur stories. It’s a Christian parable where the titular king represents Yoshke and the knight Percival represents people following him.
A gunman just murdered eight people in Texas, one of the most gun-loving states in the US.
So a man, can easily purchase a gun, legally or illegally, and walk into a crowd of people of which probably at least 10% of them were carrying at the time, and still murder eight before being put down by security. Doesn’t that tell us that lots of people carrying guns doesn’t protect against armed criminals?
Rav Eichenstein, the Zidichover Rebbe of Chicago, needs a speedy refuah sheleima!
יהושע העשל בן שארצא באבטשא בתושח”י
Elu v’Elu Divrei Elokim Chaim. There’s a machlokes whether there can be an eruv put up around Brooklyn. Most Rabbonim either held like Rav Moshe that we can’t, or chose to be machmir. However, there are those whom we can rely on to allow an eruv. If you hold of those Rabbonim, OK. No need for name calling.
I mean, Rav Henkin ZT”L argued with Rav Moshe ZT”L on an issue concerning non-frum marriages and was much more machmire. You do not see talmidim of Rav Henkin running around telling people that they are mamzeirim, do you?
@Meno You’re right. “Simple” is a bad word to describe the solution. You know what would be a great, and simple, first step though? Saying that there is too much violent crime in the US and it’s caused by there being too many easy to acquire weapons. I think if everyone at least acknowledges that fact, then maybe we can start moving on a solution. Maybe people will think about voting for the guy who wants to rescind a ghost gun ban. Maybe people will cheer on their Congressman if he votes on a resolution tightening restrictions on where gun stores can be opened. Maybe people will stop and think next time they buy their fifth gun for home protection.
Because saying “The solution to too many guns is more guns” simply defies logic.
@mentsch1 I’m all for increased policing, but even in places where there’s a heavy police presence, and a pro-police populace, there are still way more violent gun-related crimes than there needs to be.
The fact of the matter is that in the USA it’s super easy for a criminal to get his or her hands on a weapons. And an innocent person who wants to commit a crime will have zero problems getting a gun. Unless you want a full on Communist Russia situation where the police can just arrest you for anything, the simplest solution is to get rid of guns.
I hate to sound like the old ba’al habus stereotype, but I agree with @Avi-K. People who openly look frum (or “Orthodox”) but privately lie, cheat, steal, speak lashon horah, get into fights she’lo l’sheim Shomayim, and in general make the lives of others more difficult should fall under the same category as “Orthoprax”. The only major difference is that an Orthoprax person has to keep his aveiros quiet, less he be ousted from the communities.
@common-saychel Anti-vaxxers talk about Fauci like Meshichisters talk about Rav Shach (l’havdil). He was a leader in his field and very well respected by his peers. He was also their spokesman, so most any opinion he had, was just an amplification of the overwhelming opinion of the experts.
@Always_Ask_Questions Because the svara doesn’t hold up against evidence. Like the other guy said, the US still got involved in many bloody wars. And we have had multiple instances of armed resistance against the USA (January 6th 2022, the Bundy Ranch), none of which were even remotely successful once the military got involved.
Besides, the whole cheshbon falls apart when you weigh the risks and rewards. In short, the reward of possible success in a very very hypothetical situation is far outstripped by the very real risk of the USA matching war-torn 3rd world countries in terms of homicides. Louisiana (a very gun loving state) has nearly twice as many murders per-capita than Sudan (a war-torn 3rd world country).
@Always_Ask_Questions No, I’m simply pointing out how bad your argument is. I am maintaining my position as anti-gun. So far your strongest argument to attack my position relies on a svara and a cheshbon that has zero evidence to back it up, isn’t stated by any authoritative expert, and is presented in a way that is impossible to prove or disprove. So if that’s the strongest argument to be anti-anti-gun, I’ll maintain my position.
@Always_Ask_Questions I agree with what @Avram_in_MD is saying. To go along with that, you’re putting out some very radical and unprovable theories about the benefits of the 2nd Amendment. If you have to get this abstract to talk about a very real and very pressing topic, I think you can say that you’ve lost the argument.
@Always_Ask_Questions I’m gonna put this one on my own stupidity. Can you please explain to me how the 2nd amendment prevented major wars from occurring on US soil?
@Zetruth Someone linked to the video of the conference. You originally claimed it was with the Crown Heights Beis Din. It clearly was not, it was just a few random people in various positions in Chabad. So I’m skeptical when you claim that you have “in your hands” a halachic decision by an authority.
@Zetruth Oh, that Kennedy. Why didn’t you say so initially? A few thoughts on him. He isn’t a public figure. No one heard of him before the pandemic where he made a name for himself fear-mongering and trying to convince people of…. something. It’s not that he was called anti-vax or a conspiracy theorist, he’s literally both of those things. He is against vaccinations and theorizes (without evidence) a massive conspiracy to do….. something.
@Always_Ask_Questions Look, if you’re trying to make a point about a very here-and-now issue by bringing up 75+ year old history, you’re not really getting your point across. You forget, America also had Vietnam and Iraq, two very bloody wars, in the much more recent past.
@keith Let’s agree on one baseline then move out from there: There are well over a billion guns in this country. That is a problem. You said yourself, ” They are all over. You cannot go back in time and change the past. You can only decide based on reality. ” Presumably, what you mean is that we do need to severely decrease the number of guns in this country because so many guns is way too dangerous and requires more people to buy guns to protect themselves, leading to an infinite feedback loop that can only end when every joe owns a nuke.
Once we have that down, we can continue.
@keith A few things:
- Even accounting for suicides, violent deaths by deadly weapon in the USA are on par with countries like Somalia. Places France, Finland, Australia, and other countries with heavy gun control, have a percentage of a percentage of violent deaths that the US has.
- Criminals in the US have easy access to black market guns because there are so many gun in the US. So allowing unlimited guns for law abiding citizens just puts more guns in the hands of black marketers and criminals
- I’ve spoken with people who are into dangerous weapons. They come in all shapes and sizes. By and large one common thread is their inability to explain why people need more than one pistol with limited rounds and limited caliber for self-defense.
- On a city-by-city basis statistics show no significant difference in break ins for cities that have a lot of guns per-capita than cities that don’t. So the idea that more guns means your family is better protected because criminals are too scared to break in, doesn’t have the data to back it up.
- It is an issue of pikuach nefesh because (as I have been repeating time and time and time again) the more legal guns there are, the easier it is for a criminal to get their hands on one. So yes, limiting legal guns in the hands of law abiding citizens is an issue of pikuach nefesh because that would mean less criminals with guns
- The argument that we need guns to defend ourselves against the evil US of A holds no water. If the government decides to turn against its people, we’re done for one way or another. Guns aren’t going to turn the tide on an army fighting on their native soil. Just look at the Bundy ranch and what happened when a banda meshugoyim went against the FBI. If you want to look at it from a statistical standpoint, make a cost-benefits-analysis. The current reality of gun culture continuing to take lives is a much higher cost than the small possible benefit that guns will save lives in a very hypothetical apocalyptic future.
@Zetruth There was never a psak by the Crown Heights Beis Din forbidding the COVID vaccine, and they never had an 8 hour phone conference discussing it.
I’m sorry to break this to you, but whoever is telling you these things is lying and you should stop believing them.
@Always_Ask_Questions I disagree. The system in the US regarding guns is completely farkakt. It’s difficult to fight, but Baruch Hashem there is a huge rising tide of US citizens trying to change it. It affects us very deeply because it means that the streets and our homes and schools are not safe. We need to support the people fighting against the 2nd amendment and stop defending NRA talking points.
@Always_Ask_Questions I think the point @jackk was trying to make was that there is abundant evidence that the Earth is round and anyone who cared could easily find out. Yet, people still choose to ignore what’s literally in front of their faces and claim it’s flat. So there’s no arguing with them since no evidence will convince them!
There was a recent documentary about Flat Earthers and there were two scenes that stood out. In both of them, people procured expensive equipment and worked really hard to set up an experiment that, if it succeeded, would prove the Earth was flat. Naturally, both experiments failed and the data showed exactly the curvature expected. In both cases the people just kind of went “Huh, I guess we need to try a different experiment”.
@Zetruth Then let’s talk about Kennedy. For one, who is Kennedy? What has he/she/it said or done that we should care about and why?
@Bath_Tavath The COVID vaccines have been extensively tested, possibly more so than any other medicine on the planet. And the risks are minuscule. For a healthy person, it’s literally riskier to drive down the block. It’s at least 10,000 times more likely an individual will contact COVID and face serious injury, then be injured by the vaccine in any significant way.
@Always_Ask_Questions Once again, you are pushing the “What if the government turns against me?” argument in another suit, “What if we’re invaded?”. It’s silly. For one, the logic requires the the US military is completely subdued by a foreign invader, yet held off by rednecks with rifles. One reason the US lost so bad in Afghanistan was their unwillingness to kill civilians (which they failed miserably at). I doubt an occupying force here would have the same hold ups. Another reason it’s a silly argument, is that it’s so extremely unlikely it’s barely even worth thinking about. The very real dangers that so many guns poses to Americans today far outweighs any potential benefit they may have in a very hypothetical situation.