@n0mesorah Nobody pretends that the meshugoyim around the Golan have any sort of relevance. Na Nachs and the people who unfortunately attribute strange things to the RASHBI don’t have any sort of Torah backing. They are just unfortunate misguided people who got caught up in what is otherwise a legitimate minhag of visiting kivrei tzaddikim at certain times. There’s a reason many Roshei Yeshivos banned attending the Meron or Uman ceremonies, and those who allow it require everyone to stick with a particular group. There’s no Torah, no leadership. And no one of any relevance or respect is saying that it’s OK.

@ujm Thank you for your input. None of that is true.

@AviraDeArah That is a very idealistic way of looking at the world. Unfortunately, even men with years of learning fortifying them, they are still human and often have difficulty internalizing their Torah and are subject to temptation. Fakhert, I would say. Chazal teach us that men have a much stronger Yeitzer Horah than women which is why we have so many more mitzvos. Women also have a stronger connection to their parents and home. So I can make an argument that it’s more dangerous for men to go out in the world.

I don’t understand the question. You’re supposed to call the references before the first date, how else would you know if it’s a good shidduch?

@ujm Are you seriously trying to compare child rearing and education in the frum world today as it was 100 years ago?

@n0mesorah So we are talking about teenagers, good because that makes a lot more sense. It just goes back to what I’ve been saying this entire time. Teens in certain communities that do not enjoy learning Gemara don’t relish the two choices placed before them: Learn Gemara (the thing you’re bad at and don’t like at all) for the better part of a 10 hour day or be a failure. So they act out. It’s as simple as that.

Is Matrix still the big place for frum women to work in?

@n0mesorah And why didn’t it work specifically in Lakewood in the 21st century? Every other city, country (besides Chareidim in Eretz Yisroel), and time period in the post-Holocaust world strongly encouraged it. So why did it break down all of a sudden? It’s an ideological thing, plain and simple. A silly, misguided, ideology that people have fooled themselves into thinking is Torah.

(Aren’t you Lubavitch? Didn’t the late Rebbe of Lubavitch also encourage studying math, science, and history in Yeshiva?)

You just described a ten hour day. Yeah, there’s a few breaks, but it’s still majority spent on Gemara and halacha.

“I don’t know why people will forget science”. Well, they won’t (probably). But their kids never learn it in the first place and that’s who will be replacing them.

Nobody who wants to be taken seriously would suggest that these kids are violent because they do not know enough math or science.

That’s not what I meant. Lemme explain. Kids in these types of Mesivtas are shown a single criteria for being a success: Knowing how to learn Gemara. When they fail at that, or just simply don’t enjoy it, they often act out.

@coffee-addict Is that the Gemara about the man who overheard the neshomos of two girls talking and it took them three years to realize that someone was listening?

@n0mesorah Almost every Mesivta I know of starts with davening sometime between 7 and 8, and has a full schedule until at least 5, often with night seder. That’s ten hours.

I mention Gemara and Halacha because in those type of places, those are generally the only two subjects that are actually taught. (Though, now that I think of it, Mishnayos too.) Chumash, kids are expected to learn on their own, math is assur, mussar usually boils down to a speech once a week and maybe some Mesilas Yeshorim bein ha’sedarim, science is apikorsus, and Nach is usually not taught at all. So Gemara and Halacha.

I’ve heard from many Lakewood parents that they wouldn’t send to the high schools with curriculums other than Gemara and Halacha because those aren’t good enough. I don’t know exactly where it started, but it seems pretty obvious to me that it’s very ideologically driven at its core. The movement has so much momentum that even if there’s a silent majority that wishes Yeshivos would offer math, science, history, etc. they are swept up with those that actively fight against it.

It’s leading to disaster in the sense that there simply isn’t enough knowledge to support our growing frum community. We need askanim, businessmen, scientist. People like Rav Moshe Heineman SHLITA who can take apart an oven and determine how can be redesigned to be opened on Shabbos without an engineering degree are few and far in between (and even he relies heavily on Star-K engineers). People lobbying the government who are currently fighting for the “right” for parents to raise kids ignorant of anything outside of Gemara and Halacha are themselves mostly college educated. The real estate companies that employ massive amounts of frum people are run by those who learned math and social studies in high school. And I’m not even going into the massive amounts of sheer illiteracy plaguing our community where people eschew doctors in favor of “natural cures”, bringing long dormant illnesses back, or those that literally believe the Earth to be flat. Where will these people come from in the next generation?

We are already seeing this happen in Eretz Yisroel, nebech. The only reason the Chareidi oilom precariously survives is a combination of the massive amount of power in the Knesset allowing tons of aid to be directed to Chareidi families. And that’s still not enough, as evidenced by the sheer number of people who survive on tzedaka alone, often forced to travel overseas just to beg! This is the future we have to look forward to if Moshiach doesn’t come soon.

And we wonder why there is so much teen violence.

@ujm So then name them and quote what they said. As far as I know, there was one Rosh Yeshiva (who himself went to a Yeshiva high school where he studied math, history, etc. and is now considered one of the Gedolim) twenty years ago said that in Eretz Yisroel there are more talmidei chachamim because the Yeshivos only teach Gemara and halacha. However, various members of the Moetzes openly disagreed with him and he himself has backtracked on that statement (and continued to lead a Mesivta that has a full curriculum in math, history, etc.).

@benTorioh You didn’t address a single thing I’ve said! I’m not talking about whether Moshiach will be from the Mechayeh Meisim or before. I’m talking about worshipping dead people. And I stand by that. There is no non-Chabad frum Rov who will say that people in Shomayim watch what’s going on in the world, listen to teffilos directed towards them, and respond to those bakoshois.

You’re the one being motzei shem ra. The criticism of Chabad for these actions and beliefs is extremely well known and as universal as possible. You’re saying that all these chashuva chashuva Gaonim don’t understand a pashuteh Gemara!?

I do believe “Hashem has no body” is more complex than you think (we have many Gemaras, pesukim, and ma’amorim that refer to body parts when talking about Hashem). And I think it was one of the Ani Ma’amims that fell under a machlokes Rishonim. Still, there is universal agreement that Hashem absolutely does not have a body in the way we understand and does not C”V put himself into human form.

@n0mesorah Depends on how you define “worship”. I’m pretty sure that most poskim agree that saying a teffila asking for a bakosho from a dead person with the intent that the dead person can hear the teffila and act to fulfill the bakosho constitutes “worship”. Lubavitcher Rabbonim are literally the only Jews who disagree with that.It’s literally on the website of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Ohel HaMeis and repeated in countless Chabad speeches and outreach programs available online. I’m just going to leave off with some Gan Izzy songs:

His father hears and explains<br>
“My dear son, there is one indeed<br>
Since you’re a chossid, you’re personally loved<br>
By the Rebbe, who cares for your needs”<br>

To be a chossid I strive, to the Rebbe mekusher<br>
To give over my life to the Rebbe’s avodah<br>
I yearn to be close, my heart and my soul<br>
A connection to the Rebbe I hold<br>

Though now we don’t see the Rebbe lematah<br>
In a guf physically, the work so much harder<br>
But a talmid I am, his Torah I learn<br>
While I eagerly await his return<br>

Our Faithful Shepard won’t forsake his flock,<br>
The Rebbe’s loving care will never stop,<br>
In spite of the darkness, The Rebbe hears our cry,<br>
For He is a diamond in the Rebbe’s eyes.<br>

@ujm Rav Aharon Kotler ZT”L also lived 70 years ago and we should not be beholden to his ideas regarding how frum communities should be set up since the world has changed so much since then. Besides, Rav Schneur ZT”L didn’t seem to have any issues with frum High Schools in Lakewood that were started in his time.

@n0mesorah I’m sorry, but do you mean that you can’t name one Mesivta that has a ten hour day with only Gemara and Halacha? And yes. There was an ideological choice that was made (the mechanism of how it was made isn’t clear and I know you’re going to jump on me if I don’t get every detail exactly correct). At some point in the last 20 years, many frum communities decided on an anti-Torah derech of insisting that anything other than Gemara and Halacha is batala. In time, this will lead to disaster and we’ll have the usual tehillim zoggins and askanim begging to mitigate that while these communities pretend that they don’t know why this disaster is happening.

@benToiroh There is a simple solution to this argument that everyone is ignoring. Ask any non-Chabad Rov if they believe if the late Rav MM Schneerson ZT”L can be Moshiach. They will overwhelmingly answer in the negative. Press the issue and ask if it is within the boundaries of emunah to believe so. They will mostly answer that yes, it is a problem emunah wise if one believes that.

What this means, is that we can split Torah fearing Jews of Klal Yisroel up into two camps: Those that have no problem accepted that a dead man can be (or is) Moshiach, and those that say absolutely not. At this point, it isn’t even an “Elu v’Elu Divrei Chaim” question, since the side that rejects the messianism believes the other side to be following a non-Torah path.

So we are left with a choice. You can follow the Torah as it’s been interpreted and accepted by all of our Rabbonim since forever. Or you can follow a small subset of Rabbonim that have broken away from the klal and are no longer accepted as being part of it.

This thread disgusts me. Switch around the names of the people involved and you could be reading something from Al Jazeera talking about a Hamas murderer R”L.

Nebbuch, a Jewish person lost his mind and committed a horrific senseless act of murder. Please don’t try and paint it as anything else.

Happy π (Poalei Agudas Yisroel) day to those who celebrate!

Question: Didn’t she pass away 11 years ago? Are you asking why YWN didn’t post something now?

@AviraDeArah The same Gaon who hired goyishe teachers to learn all the chochmas of the world (except alchemy)? I guess we are only left with OPs question: Is it required or only reccomended?

@Always_Ask_Questions If they are not necessarily in Lakewood then they aren’t in Lakewood and irrelevant to our discussion. Furthermore, I find that kids in schools who offer optional studies rarely take advantage of them and most just do the bare minimum.

There is a huge failure in Yiddishkeit that we are now considering studies like math, science, and history to be bad.

@Avram-in-MD Fair enough. Teens at risk isn’t a phenomena restricted to certain communities with certain hashkafas. However, although many teens become at risk because of personal problems, making it an issue in every community, different hashkafas have different things that put their teens at risk and have to put out different ways of helping them. In many MO communities, teens become too enamored with the dark sides of secular society so they have organizations like NCSY to steer them on the right path. In some communities, however, they close their ears and say “La la la can’t hear you learn more Torah!” instead of addressing the 800 pound gorilla.

Everyone (except @ujm and @kuvult) is correct. Chareidim in Eretz Yisroel have long recognized this as a problem. Not every teenager is equipped to learning eight hours a day. When they get frustrated at the extremely limited options they are given, they lash out and become rebels. If Yeshivos are so insistent on this Apikorsus of forbidding any classes that aren’t Gemara and Halacha, they should at least give the boys an option to take up a vocation. Be a car mechanic, carpenter, painter, artist! Kids need an outlet!

And to be fair, the only reason Kol Torah had Ivrit shiurim was because of all the German and Italian bochurim who came to it after the war, attracted by the German Roshei Yeshivos, Rav Schlesinger and Rav Kunstadt.

@Always_Ask_Questions It will be a cold cold day in Ecuador before I acknowledge that crossing by any other name!

The path along the Hudson River just north of the Tappan Zee Bridge in Nanuet is a great biking place.

@coffee-addict “What is the machlokes between the Vilna Gaon and Rav Meir in Baba Kama about corn?” Narischkeit in, narischkeit out.