Yup. The subtitle is hilarious "The Government wants to spend an unprecedented amount on an effort to oppose the Sages' values...". Uh oh! The secular government is usually such a shining monument of adherence to the Sages values! They better not do anything to oppose the Sages values now!
happygoluckypersonage, it's not a zero sum game. It's possible for both the chareidim AND the government to run afoul of the Sages' values sometimes, and to adhere to them at others. In fact, that seems to be what's happening.
Torah didn't protect R' Akiva or his 24000 disciples. Why do you think your Torah learning merits physical protection when theirs didn't? Do you think they weren't learning enough Torah, or that your Torah is greater than theirs? If Torah learning cannot even guarantee that you won't be tortured to death with iron combs, what does it mean to say that "Torah protects"?
You guys bring a lot of Gemara citations to support your view, but I think this is quite unnecessary. "Torah protects" is a prediction about the physical world. If "Torah protects" is really true, then we should be able to independently discover that this protection effect exists, even if the Gemara said nothing about it! But if the protection effect is indistinguishable from statistical noise, then again, what does it mean to say that "Torah protects"?
It's a fair point. I don't like using that argument. Except, when people appeal to pesukim or gemaras to support their position that everyone must serve in the army, they're making a text based argument. In that case a text based response is equally valid.
It's hard to make the argument that Torah learning offers physical protection per se, but I absolutely agree that "Shomrei Torah impart tremendous benefit." The benefit is that there is a strong cohort of people who are ensuring that Torah, Judaism and the Jewish people continue to exist. I don't have numbers offhand, but if you look at non-religious Jews (maybe even Modern Orthodox Jews), a couple of generations down, you will most likely find non-Jewish grandchildren. I'm not saying everyone should be charedi (I'm not), and I'm not saying charedim are doing everything right (who is?), but without a mass of devout Jews (in Israel or elsewhere) how long would the Jewish people survive?
It’s been 180 years since Reform Judaism came to American shores from Germany. The Orthodox and Ultraorthodox have always been a small minority of the Jewish population, 8-10% at best. Yet the Jewish population is still here and the Orthodox continues to hover around 10 of the Jewish population? Where did all these non-Orthodox Jews come from? The liberal branches and the unaffiliated make up the vast majority of people who consider themselves Jewish from birth and heritage. You are making unfounded assumptions that without the black hats Jews wouldn’t survive.
There is one other demographic tragedy when discussing American Jewry. The history of American Jewry since the first Jews set food on N America and for each successive wave of immigration has been one of initially following mitzvot, intergration, assimilation, intermarriage, disappearance.
Your sophistry shows a level of kishron that Klal Yisroel could use. חזור בך חזור בך
The Orthodox were not 8-10%, they were 8-10% at best. Of course, you could have written 8-60% at best and also not have lied. Then you could use today's numbers of 10-15% to 'prove' they had lost their percentage.
Of course, we all know that שומרי תורה ומצוות were not 10% of the American Jewish population 80-90 years ago, and now they are higher than 10%, if we exclude the Goyim who fill the pews of many reform congregations. And even now, in Americ, 49% of Jewish children are in Charedi homes.
Probably a result of a patriarchal misogynistic communities forcing their women to have way too many kids that their lazy ass husbands can’t afford as the poverty rate among chassidim is around 20%, double what the rate is in the US as a whole. What they gonna do when the GOP they vote for cuts welfare and food stamps?
Even allowing for patrilineal descent, the number of non-Jews who are members of or active with Jewish congregations has grown enormously in recent years. I'm not trying to detract from whatever connection those individuals may feel with Jewish life, or with their Jewish family members, but I am not kidding myself for a second that they will be the ones sustaining Torah and Judaism for future generations. One thing I will say is that there is more Torah learning than ever today in non-religious congregations because, I think, many denominations have come to realize that without Torah, Judaism loses much of its meaning.
Iwish u were right but it is wishful thinking to think that ”there is more Torah learning than ever today in non-religious congregations”. I would love to know the survey that came up with these numbers. It is true that the Reform are engaging in cultural ceremonies but actual Torah learnig?
Now that there is a nation state, nobody needs the nation state in a book anymore. Yeah many people listen or read the parashah but not too many are obsessing over it in the liberal branches and many of those who are aren’t looking at it from a desire to keep Torah laws but to understand what kind of literature it is, how it fits into Jewish history, and gleam why it was written (by men)
No one is denying the deep value of limmud Torah. It's a core value of keeping Torah umitzvot, and yes, it has sustained us for the last 2,000 years. But you are putting forward an assertion that only those who study Torah full-time, (and take money for it) can be considered "devout". That's a massive insult to hardworking people who support their families and are also kovea itim for Torah every day.
That is not what I asserted at all. I asserted that charedi Jews present a significant mass of devout Jews and devout Jews are essential to the continued transmission of the Jewish people and of Judaism.
Never mind me, just checking the edit feature for banned commenters. By the way, do you know a guy named Daniel? I think he's related to another guy named "True Zealot".
This is roughly equivalent to saying: "If the IDF couldn't even prevent its own soldier Gilad Shalit being taken captive, it clearly isn't of much use to anyone else."
The Galilee campaign, also known as the Northern Revolt, took place in the year 67, when Roman general Vespasian invaded Galilee under the orders of Emperor Nero in order to crush the Great Revolt of Judea. Many Galilean towns gave up without a fight, although others had to be taken by force. By the year 68, Jewish resistance in the north had been crushed, and Vespasian made Caesarea Maritima his headquarters and methodically proceeded to cleanse the coastline of the country, avoiding direct confrontation with the rebels at Jerusalem.
The Galilee campaign is unusually well-recorded for the era. One of the Jewish rebel leaders in Galilee, Josephus, was captured. Josephus struck up a friendship with Vespasian, who would later ascend to become Roman Emperor. Josephus was eventually freed and given a place of honor in the Flavian dynasty, taking the name Flavius, and worked as a court historian with the backing of the Imperial family. In his work The Jewish War, the chief source on the Great Revolt, he provides detailed accounts of the sieges of Gamla and Yodfat, and of internal Jewish politics during the Galilee campaign.
Timeline
After the defeat of Gallus' army at Bet Horon in the year 66, Emperor Nero appointed general Vespasian, instead of Gallus to crush the Judean rebellion. Vespasian, along with legions X Fretensis and V Macedonica, landed at Ptolemais in April 67. There he was joined by his son Titus, who arrived from Alexandria at the head of Legio XV Apollinaris, as well as by the armies of various local allies including that of king Agrippa II. Fielding more than 60,000 soldiers, Vespasian began operations by subjugating Galilee.[2] Many Galilean towns gave up without a fight, although others had to be taken by force. Of these, Josephus provides detailed accounts of the sieges of Gamla and Yodfat.
Casualties
According to Josephus, the Roman vanquishing of Galilee resulted in 100,000 Jews killed or sold into slavery.[3][4][5]
WADR, your simplistic comment comes from the freethinking paradigm. Bounce it off a frum thinker and they'll tell you how it's been addressed throughout the ages. It's just too basic not to have been dealt with. In Yiddish lore, "Antplekt America." Or go through the archives of the comments of this blog and you'll find your answer too.
That's false in some cases and doubtful in others (especially what we now know about genetics.) But in any event, if you are reduced to redefining "protects" merely to " reduces incidence of", you can redefine the same thing for Torah.
Yes. And also, Torah did not merely fail to protect Rabbi Akiva. Torah put a target on his back. Torah got him killed. If he listened to Natan Slifkin's advice, perhaps he would not have been killed.
No one in the world, including R. Akiva himself, would disagree that teaching Torah got RA killed. And I don't think NS's worst enemies, real or imagined, would accuse him of posthumously deigning to "advise" R. Akiva of anything.
How is married women not covering their hair have to do with being שומרי תורה ומצות? How is being an apologist for the reform movement have to do with being שומרי תורה ומצות?
As I said before, I am able to admit my community's faults. You are NOT able to admit the faults of the DL community. It is you who are intellectually dishonest. So your comments are worthless.
"As I said before, I am able to admit my community's faults"
LOL. You are not. You simply use the no true Scotsman argument. Any woman for example, that wears a long glamorous lace top sheital (even not lace-top) is not real chareidi (as they ignore clear pronouncements of da'as torah). Any man that misses zemanei tefillah on a regular basis is not real chareidi. Any man involved in stealing benefits is not real chareidi. Any man who spends considerable time gossiping about 'yenem's money/business ' is not real chareidi. When you have finished, you might find maybe only Kiryat Seifer contain some real chareidim.
What are you on about. All of those people are real chareidim. Newsflash at 11, chareidim do aveiros. My argument has always been that in no way can you compare that to the secularist/LW MO community that openly disparages and corrupts Torah and mitzvos. Like comparing a guy who got a speeding ticket to John Wayne Gacy.
I am not comparing anything right now. Stop trying to divert.
Chareidim do aveiros like everything else but only they claim they a) do not, by finding heteirim for everything they do wrong* (not too dissimilar to LWMO, just different aveirios such as not dealing with sex abuse properly, stealing benefits or not giving their children tools to earn a parnossoh b) they faithfully represent traditional orthodox Jewry in the way it is supposed to be practiced whereas everyone else is off. In practice chareidi culture is riddled with hanhogos k'negged chazal. And its a feature, not an occasional lapse. Rabbonim will say outright nothing wrong with stealing benefits.
*PS you yourself reinterpreted chazal's insistence on people having tools to earn parnossoh as meaning 'ensuring their family has food to eat' (your implication being) even if it means through tzedokoh. It's clear from their own writings chazal did not mean that.
Chareidim and everybody else try to justify their sins when they do them. Newsflash at 11. But only the secularist rabbis try to change the Torah to accommodate homosexuality or coed schools or women not covering their hair. Unlike the secularists, I never heard a chareidi rabbi trying to say stealing or pedophilia is ok. Every chareidi rabbi I heard about this said stealing benefits is NOT ok. Secularist rabbis get up on the podium and say בפה מלא that many aveiros are totally fine or are not so bad as long as one identifies as Jewish and supports Israel. They are apologists for the reform movement, no wonder so many of their kids go OTD.
Chareidi society is generally consistent with Chazal (Slifkin's complete amaratzus about kollel notwithstanding), and whenever they try to be more consistent with Chazal, ignoramuses like yourself scream "CHUMRA!!!""
"*PS you yourself reinterpreted chazal's insistence on people having tools to earn parnossoh as meaning 'ensuring their family has food to eat' " - this is a flat-out lie. Another example of secularists who have no concern for the truth.
Where do Charedim claim they don't do aveiros? In all my life I've never heard such a claim. How people devolve into outright sheker just to make rhetorical points is beyond me.
And you keep claiming charedi culture is "riddled" with "stealing benefits". I've already pointed out the difference between taking advantage of available benefits (to which they would readily concede) to "stealing benefits" (a risibly false charge of which you you could not possibly have any proof.) Such specious claims, at least to me, substantiate suspicions that they are typically leveled by the jealous, as a perverse comfort from the pain of losing the culture wars.
You said that the latest windfall would support שומרי תורה ומצות. But what does not teaching a trade have to do with following הלכה? Your response is a non sequitur and doesn't justify your earlier statement.
I never said it does. I think there are ways chareidim can improve. But your bringing up teaching a trade is totally non sequitur, I was talking about supporting Torah and Mitzvos, and you brought up this supposed aveirah that chareidim do. What's next, coffee rooms and minyan factories?
The nutcases think that if you cut welfare payments to chareidim, they will start caving into all the secularist demands about education, army service, etc. No, that ain't how things work. Like, at all.
"In fact, it seems that according to Rambam, while petitionary prayer is of great religious importance, it does not actually serve to attain the object of one's requests."
I guess if your religion consists of hating Charedim, you might be able to justify praying for the collapse of the government. Ask your local rationalist blogger.
If petitionary prayers do not yield fulfillment to your requests (most of the time), then even the placebo comfort they might provide to the intelligent pray-er does not exist either. Then, what value do they have?
Aren't most topics taught in schools useless for actually earning a living? Is not learning about photosynthesis and Pythagoras theorom really something that hareidim can't make up for later?
Hey that’s not fair. I was defending those people who you said didn’t have good educations lol.
And I do accept the basic tenets of Judaism, the modern liberal version that includes repairing the world, the importance of all people as individuals and their collective groups, and to respect the Torah, Neviim, and Ketuvim as our national historical literature which should be studied for its own sake to gleam what our ancestors believed, what it has to tell us about their society, and who wrote it and when, and why. One can choose not to live their life according to how people who thought the earth was flat and covered by a dome and didn’t know where the sun went at night AND still be committed to the Jewish people. Well, most of them anyway (not so much the arrogant racist Jewish fundamentalists who comment on your page though) 😉
Because the successful Charedim don't enter the secular workforce, leaving that for the weaker-minded. Nothing to do with education.
The proof is; secular people who know nothing about טומאת התהום, מיגו להוציא or חזקה דמעיקרא, totally ignorant people, are sometimes successful in business. How is that possible? Some loser freyak, who doesn't know which way to hold a Rabbi Akiva Eger, should be able to make millions of dollars on a startup?
But the idea that the difference is education for the youth is not proven by the data. The fact that Charedim, in EY, who go to work, earn less than their secular counterpart is not proven to be connected to their lack of secular education in their youth.
You're not being clear. It appears that you're avoid the issue brought up by RNS and have addressed other issues instead.
RNS said "the workforce".
You said "secular workforce". So you changed the topic.
Then you compare earnings of Charedim vs secular. That may indeed be an issue of discrimination. But it's not a valid comparison in regards to the value of an education. It could be that an educated Charedi will be discriminated against in regards to earnings, but that same Charedi would still be earning more than that he would earn had he not gotten an education. As such, you actually haven't responded to RNS's assertion.
Yeah right. Go and ask chassidim (I am sure you will agree that chassidim make up a substantial number of chareidim) and see how many of them of can explain those phrases. You will get plenty of blank looks. As for the rest, sure they may have heard of those phrases, but not much more than that.
And in any event, go into any non-chareidi yeshivah, and they will know of those phrases too.
Moshe Rabbeinu demanded that Reuven, Gad, and Menashe help conquer the Land before retiring to east of the Jordan. Sounds like a draft to me, one that Chazal would surely not oppose.
And if a draft to conquer the Land is kosher, kal vachomer one to DEFEND it is.
Sadly, it seems to that your secular education failed to provide you with adequate critical thinking. Maybe try joining a kollel?
The draft Moshe Rabbeinu demanded was an army compromised of exclusively of religious “fanatics”. You sure you know what a קל וחומר is? דיו לבוא מן הדין להיות כנדון…
Exactly. The secular and secularists don't deserve to be in the land in the first place. The mighty armies of the sinful Kings back in the time of the מלכי ישראל and the מלכי יהודה were wiped out. It is only in the merit of the Shomrei Torah that the secularists can survive, for which they should be eternally grateful. https://irrationalistmodoxism.substack.com/p/does-torah-protect
"Fanatics" or not, does that matter? You seem to have conceded that they were indeed "drafted" and Chazal had no problem with it.
Or, since Moshe (Yehoshuah?) drafted only "fanatics," is the current draft "anti-Chazal" because people other than fanatics are being drafted?
I understand kal vachomer as a principle of logic: if something is true (the Land must be conquered), than a related something which is more obvious is also true (the Land must be defended). Please explain your idea of a kal vachomer and where I've failed.
Even if it's not a kal vachomer, would you agree that a Land that requires conquering also requires defending?
Yes it matters, because the draft is to be part of a wholly secularist religious hating army which obviously is against Torah ideals. So when the army is radically different the kal vachomer fails.
Your are also comparing conquering a land by decree of God to the 1948 conquest. They have nothing to do with each other.
Lou, you've said that chareidim aren't allowed to enter the workforce (or aren't allowed to earn more than they do--it's unclear) because of the draft. If that were true, then everyone subject to the draft would likewise be barred from the workforce (or from earning more than chareidim do). Obviously that is not true; there are millions doing so.
Furthermore, chareidim have the same entree to the workforce as everyone else, but for the waiting period they impose on themselves by CHOOSING to take the draft exemption.
It's learning how to learn. The specifics tend not to matter so much, but the rigor of secular subjects isn't the same when learning Torah. It's different skills.
I can't speak for others, but I have a PhD in Biostatistics and I find learning gemara to be much easier than the advanced math courses I took in grad school.
Most "difficult" sugyos r difficult only because u have to reconcile too many independent axioms. Sure, if u have to find common ground among the unproven postulates that God created the world and he ALSO is good, just, fair, honest, merciful, infallible, consistent, and wrote the Torah, which usually needs interpretation to understand what it says, then OF COURSE many sugyos r difficult. If u grant many fewer assumptions, then all problems and sugyos r quite easy to understand. If we assume God created the world, but that he did not give innumerable laws, moral or otherwise, then it is easy to explain his failing to intervene during the holocaust.
I'm not sure what you're blabbering about but sure, if you don't need to accept the impossible axiom that Hashem exists, no questions are actually difficult, nor do they matter anyway.
U can accept that God exists without buying all the other axioms that Judaism postulates. For example, God may exist, but the holocaust pretty much disproves that God is always good or that he loves the Jews. Study a little bit about the Zoroastrianism and duality of the godhead before u buy into what Chazal erroneously thought of what they called avoda zara.
A real shame for the Torah world; Hashem cries about those who can learn but don't:(
(Perhaps on a more serious note, as I think about it, I'm starting to think that Hashem knows what He's doing by creating this divide. Imagine what would happen to people like Josh Berman if they entered our Batei Midrashim...)
There are lots of ways to contribute that are not in the framework of traditional learning. I don't have much problem with Berman, who is a pretty faithful defender of the Torah (except for a few things). I have no idea if he knows how to learn, and his contribution doesn't have to be that.
The problem starts when people who know how to do other stuff (like Charlie Hall), but are otherwise amei ha'aretz, all the sudden think they also know how to learn and start bringing their halfwitted opinions into the Bais Medrash...
Now, explain the Lindeberg-Feller Central Limit Theorem in plain language. I won't even ask you to prove it. If gemara is so much more difficult, this should be easy for you.
Huh? I googled it, it's an extension of the CLT when the variables are not iid (https://myweb.uiowa.edu/pbreheny/7110/f20/notes/9-23.pdf). Now your turn. Explain the similarity between fulfilling and violating a condition despite the condition's impracticality, in plain language.
Insults? What insults? I just made the totally uncontroversial point that what you guys consider "learning" is something completely different from what actual Gemara learning is. So of course it's no surprise that you find it easier than math. Let me guess, do you also find "Where the Wild Things Are" or "Goodnight Moon" to be easier than math?
I recall that a certain Rosh Yeshiva made that point to encourage his students. He said the basic corpus of Torah literature- T'nach + Meforshim, Midrash, Shas + meforshim, the fundamental halachic codes and important שו"ת while taking years to master, is still far less material that what a PhD in English Literature would have to know.
"I studied Victorian Literature, and though I didn't keep count, I suspect I read in the region of 200 books and many many more articles. (I didn't count, but I suspect around 500). Of course, most of it turned out to be blind alleys, so I ended up citing around 200 sources in the thesis."
That should give you an idea what the Rosh Yeshiva was driving at.
So I have no problems with the claim that secular study is harder that Torah study. Despite that, there is more depth to Torah study than anything the greatest of secular authors can produce. One Torah scholar alone can come up with dozens of chiddushim to the same sugya- or dozens of answers to a single question. But all that doesn't negate the claim that secular study is harder. It just doesn't produce the same quantity/quality of fruits.
The RY reached a conclusion that is impossible to ascertain. What were his units of measurement to make a comparison between the relative sizes of Torah vs. secular knowledge? Number of pages of each?
My point: there is no valid way to measure an entire corpus of knowledge.
No, Dov. Understanding the basics of the natural world is an important skill necessary to being a good citizen and a good employee. I have met Haredim who, unfortunately, do not understand the role and function of blood in human life.
Yes. Blood is the red fluid circulating in your vascular system, delivering oxygen to tissues, removing waste products, and maintaining blood pressure. It contains special cells that perform many additional functions as well.
Then what bearing does that have on being a good citizen? When W Harvey was ridiculed as a "circulator", and earlier, were there no good citizens/employees?
A good citizen understands the doctor when they explain your parent's medical condition and treatment options. Then, said citizen can explain to zaydie that hi-dose internet Vitamin C will not cure his, chas v'shalom, cancer.
I find it hard to believe u do not know that today u need a higher level of general science to understand the world than in the 17th century. But I do understand that old standby yeshiva technique of wearing down your opponent with dumb questions.
I try to extend great respect to seniors and to doctors. See the cover story here for an interesting photo and episode of an Orthodox man showing his appreciation forty years later to the medic who saved his life. https://mishpacha.com/for-this-child-we-prayed/
As you are both a senior and a doctor, I wouldn't drei you a kup to wear you down. Your brevity and choice of words didn't serve you well. The specific definition of 'citizen' is often understood as referring to ones interaction with society at large, not a private interaction with a doctor etc. 'Blood' and 'human life' are laden with emblematic meaning and since there was confusion about 'citizen' (and 'employee' too) I wondered if you actually meant them in their simplest (but by no means their most common, depending on the context) definition or something else.
But anyway, the solution to this ignorance is not education but humility. If the doctor says, he knows what he's talking about and listen, unless you want to go for a second opinion from another competent doctor. Further complicating matters is that denial rears its head when a life-threatening condition is discovered. I had occasion to bring an uncooperative relative to the doctor. But the doctor was a veteran at the game and instead of wasting his breath haggling, stated his opinion and told us to confirm with the rabbi, good bye. So we went to the rabbi (also a veteran) and the relative cooperated, despite being just as dumb or as in denial as before.
I started grad school at age 32; my wife started medical school at age 36. Is that possible in Israel or are career paths closed off early as is the case in many other countries?
1) That even the most rudimentary education towards learning a trade would permanently and pervasively ruin everybody. There is no one who could survive the heretical onslaught which is the Pythagorean theorem.
Everyone will fail!
2) That even the most sophisticated education for an exclusive profession can be attained later in life by someone who has neglected the most rudimentary education.
Is it relevant to the "Torah protects; ignorance (of secular knowledge) is bliss" camp that it is one thing for them to hold these beliefs; it is quite another to demand that the great majority of the Israel join them in that belief and subsidize them.
To put this in a broader context, one of the bedrocks of a liberal democratic system is that I have a right to believe whatever I want - as long as I don't try to impose those beliefs on others by, for example, demanding that they pay for them. And yet that is exactly what the Charedi camp is trying to do.
Of course, they may respond by rejecting the premise - that Israel is a liberal democracy. Which admittedly highlights a contradiction built in to the democratic experiment: it allows those who reject the fundamental principles of the system to take advantage of the system by participating in it, and subverting it. But the Chareidim should at least be honest about their demand that their fellow citizens finance what 80% of the country sees as beliefs that will destroy the state.
A journalist called Charedim "parasites"? Drop everything, OMG!!!----Political opponents have called them this name for at least fifty years, why does it shock you? This is what happens in politics - your opponents call you names. I got new for you: the Charedim also call the Chilonim names. Only a fool (and yes, there are some fools, but not that many) sits there worrying about how his political opponents try to spin them.
"The charedim are kicking and screaming about the new government, which will cause many people to leave kollel and change the way in which they educate their children. But the irony is that the particular person most hated for all this, the person who is behind the make-up of the government and its policies, is Yair Lapid. And do you know which single person is most responsible for Yair Lapid's extraordinary rise to power?
Moshe Abutbul.
....
It was Mayor Moshe Abutbul's appalling mishandling of Beit Shemesh in general, and the Orot Banot girls' school situation in particular, that drew Beit Shemesh into the headlines, caused the rest of Israel to react with horror, and led to the 19 seats that Yair Lapid won in the Knesset. It was because Abutbul immediately caved in to the extremists, refused to condemn their terrorizing of children, refused to express any support or sympathy for the girls who were being traumatized, and sought to prevent the Orot Banot school from opening, that Bet Shemesh became the focal point from which Lapid drew support.
You can be sure that with the re-election of Abutbul, there will be further explosive events in Beit Shemesh, since Abutbul never takes a stand against extremists. Abutbul will continue to give the city a bad name - indeed, just a week after his last re-election, he got in trouble for making disparaging comments about homosexuals. And the rest of Israel will respond by continuing to give political power to Lapid and Bennet.
....
The result will be that in the next national elections, the charedim will again be unable to enter the government. The government will continue to be able to bring charedim into the workforce and IDF and stem the crisis discussed earlier."
That was 2014. Now it's 2023, and you're complaining about Charedim- who somehow have managed to sneak back into the government, with Moshe Abutbul somehow even managing to snag a deputy ministry- wielding too much power. And you're making yet more prognostications.
Along the way, you've offered various anecdotes about Charedim voting for Yesh Atid, a charedi spring where charedim are becoming irreligious en masse, charedim dying en masse from covid, charedim finally seeing the light after meron, charedim finally seeeing through the farce of daas torah in the wake of Walder, etc etc etc ad nauseam. One wonders who keeps voting all of these charedi politicians into the knesset. Tel Avivians?
You probably would do well to get out of the fortune telling business. Maybe focus more on eating various locusts or chasing down headless chickens like you used to do in the good old days before you turned into an English version of Yediot.
Overall a fabulous comment, but your hope that he desist from fortune telling can't be expected from a Baal Yesurim until you address them. If you have, or anyone has, any ideas how to do that, let us know.
"One can only pray that somehow the budget will fail to pass and the government will collapse."
This is a political issue -- it's about the distribution of Government funds. Israel is still a democracy -- votes count, more than prayer. The willingness of Likud to accept the haredi demands, to maintain the coalition and keep Bibi out of jail, are worrisome to an outsider.
I know this has been brought up in the past, and I'm not calling anyone names, but the idea seems quite relevant:
Sanhedrin 99b - אפיקורוס כגון מאן אמר רב יוסף כגון הני דאמרי מאי אהנו לן רבנן לדידהו קרו לדידהו תנו
who is an example of an apikorus? Rav Yosef says: It is referring to one who conducts himself like those who say: In what manner have the Sages benefited us with all their Torah study? They read the Bible for their own benefit and they study the Mishna for their own benefit.
רש"י: מאי אהני לן - והם אינן יודעין שעולם מתקיים עליהם
The Gemara then goes on to say that such a person is actually worse than an אפיקורוס because he is denying flat out psukim, but we can start here.
Vehemence is a neutral thing. It itself is nothing negative; when used for the good it's good, otherwise otherwise.
For the record, רבנן means the תלמידי הישיבה when in the context of אמרו לי' רבנן לרבא/ לרב פפא/וכולי... and סברי רבנן למימר.
In particular, רבנן in Sanhedrin 99b that דוד quoted means תלמידי הישיבה. People did not say מאי אהנו לן רבנן about the Rabbonim and leaders because they surely were אהנו to the people during their constant interactions with them. Rather, it refers to the תלמידים, the so-called leidikgeyers.
But I can't even begin to address your vehemence. I feel pain that circumstances and/or thoughtless people/institutions brought you to where you are. You should only know goodness.
I identify as charedi, and, essentially, I agree with the points you are making.
However, I think we should be trying to find the best way of solving this whilst taking into consideration why the chareidi leadership are making the decisions they are, and to engage with them regarding the serious problems they are bringing to the state of Israel.
There is little point in criticizing their approach, if they won't agree to make any changes. After all, even if, for example, a left wing government were in charge, and they withdrew all funding for chareidi schools would that really bring about any educational change in chareidi institutions? It would likely only bring increased poverty and groing hatred/distrust between the chareidi community and the rest of the Israeli population.
As far as I can see, the best way to solve these problems is to engage with the chareidi community, understand the reasons for what they are doing, explain the problems it's causing and working together to find solutions/compromise etc.
Once one subtracts non-working and working-off-the-books haredim, Arabs, retirees, and minimal income households, how many taxpaying households are there in Israel, between whom this billion dollar bill will be split? Maybe 350,000, meaning $3,000 per taxpaying family?
Does it count towards their ma'asser money, given the amazing Torah they'll be enabling?
זכרון says that overall the budget is ~130bn. If that passes fact-checking, the allotment to Chareidim is 2%-3% Then at most you can count 2%-3% of your taxes toward Maaser.
Also, is the 130bn divided among the 350k taxpaying households and how much per each?
An elephant in the room is how much of the budget goes to secular entertainment (in general & per capita) and how that's a 'necessary' expense while the 2%-3% (if that is the correct figure) Chareidi allotment will bring the country to ruin.
I was looking for a needle, not a haystack in which I didn't find what I'm looking for, namely, what the total budget is. Never mind that the article leaves the reader dull and witless about what the Chareidi perspective is, or that there even can be one. Maybe there's something of that in the comments, which I may or may not have time to read. Thanks anyway. Good Yom Tov to all.
Too bad you ignored the haystack, which explains why the billion dollars is only a small part of government's subsidies to haredim and how the billion invested will harm the country financially for the near future.
It is very confusing that each side of the debate claims to be the only 1 consistent with Chazal's teachings. Obviously, each side can invoke passages that support their contention. It is unconvincing to Haredim for u to tell them that the anti-education faction goes against Chazal.
Right.
Like the other $131bn is pro-Chazal.
Yup. The subtitle is hilarious "The Government wants to spend an unprecedented amount on an effort to oppose the Sages' values...". Uh oh! The secular government is usually such a shining monument of adherence to the Sages values! They better not do anything to oppose the Sages values now!
happygoluckypersonage, it's not a zero sum game. It's possible for both the chareidim AND the government to run afoul of the Sages' values sometimes, and to adhere to them at others. In fact, that seems to be what's happening.
Oh, you didn't find the subtitle humorous? Too bad.
Wow, long time no post. Looks like you didn't take my recommendation yet. Oh well.
A billion dollars is a small price to pay for the tremendous benefit Shomrei Torah impart. Like, a really small price. Be happy Hashem is letting you guys stay in the Land for now. https://irrationalistmodoxism.substack.com/p/does-torah-protect
Torah didn't protect R' Akiva or his 24000 disciples. Why do you think your Torah learning merits physical protection when theirs didn't? Do you think they weren't learning enough Torah, or that your Torah is greater than theirs? If Torah learning cannot even guarantee that you won't be tortured to death with iron combs, what does it mean to say that "Torah protects"?
You guys bring a lot of Gemara citations to support your view, but I think this is quite unnecessary. "Torah protects" is a prediction about the physical world. If "Torah protects" is really true, then we should be able to independently discover that this protection effect exists, even if the Gemara said nothing about it! But if the protection effect is indistinguishable from statistical noise, then again, what does it mean to say that "Torah protects"?
It's a fair point. I don't like using that argument. Except, when people appeal to pesukim or gemaras to support their position that everyone must serve in the army, they're making a text based argument. In that case a text based response is equally valid.
Even I can make a prediction more accurate than "Torah protects." For example, "HGLP will not respond to these arguments"!
I was wrong. I am disappointed, happy.
What sort of response were you expecting?
He will.
It's hard to make the argument that Torah learning offers physical protection per se, but I absolutely agree that "Shomrei Torah impart tremendous benefit." The benefit is that there is a strong cohort of people who are ensuring that Torah, Judaism and the Jewish people continue to exist. I don't have numbers offhand, but if you look at non-religious Jews (maybe even Modern Orthodox Jews), a couple of generations down, you will most likely find non-Jewish grandchildren. I'm not saying everyone should be charedi (I'm not), and I'm not saying charedim are doing everything right (who is?), but without a mass of devout Jews (in Israel or elsewhere) how long would the Jewish people survive?
It’s been 180 years since Reform Judaism came to American shores from Germany. The Orthodox and Ultraorthodox have always been a small minority of the Jewish population, 8-10% at best. Yet the Jewish population is still here and the Orthodox continues to hover around 10 of the Jewish population? Where did all these non-Orthodox Jews come from? The liberal branches and the unaffiliated make up the vast majority of people who consider themselves Jewish from birth and heritage. You are making unfounded assumptions that without the black hats Jews wouldn’t survive.
There is one other demographic tragedy when discussing American Jewry. The history of American Jewry since the first Jews set food on N America and for each successive wave of immigration has been one of initially following mitzvot, intergration, assimilation, intermarriage, disappearance.
Your sophistry shows a level of kishron that Klal Yisroel could use. חזור בך חזור בך
The Orthodox were not 8-10%, they were 8-10% at best. Of course, you could have written 8-60% at best and also not have lied. Then you could use today's numbers of 10-15% to 'prove' they had lost their percentage.
Of course, we all know that שומרי תורה ומצוות were not 10% of the American Jewish population 80-90 years ago, and now they are higher than 10%, if we exclude the Goyim who fill the pews of many reform congregations. And even now, in Americ, 49% of Jewish children are in Charedi homes.
But what's life without a little mendacity?
Probably a result of a patriarchal misogynistic communities forcing their women to have way too many kids that their lazy ass husbands can’t afford as the poverty rate among chassidim is around 20%, double what the rate is in the US as a whole. What they gonna do when the GOP they vote for cuts welfare and food stamps?
You don't have to suffer in silence. Help is available.
Even allowing for patrilineal descent, the number of non-Jews who are members of or active with Jewish congregations has grown enormously in recent years. I'm not trying to detract from whatever connection those individuals may feel with Jewish life, or with their Jewish family members, but I am not kidding myself for a second that they will be the ones sustaining Torah and Judaism for future generations. One thing I will say is that there is more Torah learning than ever today in non-religious congregations because, I think, many denominations have come to realize that without Torah, Judaism loses much of its meaning.
Iwish u were right but it is wishful thinking to think that ”there is more Torah learning than ever today in non-religious congregations”. I would love to know the survey that came up with these numbers. It is true that the Reform are engaging in cultural ceremonies but actual Torah learnig?
Now that there is a nation state, nobody needs the nation state in a book anymore. Yeah many people listen or read the parashah but not too many are obsessing over it in the liberal branches and many of those who are aren’t looking at it from a desire to keep Torah laws but to understand what kind of literature it is, how it fits into Jewish history, and gleam why it was written (by men)
No one is denying the deep value of limmud Torah. It's a core value of keeping Torah umitzvot, and yes, it has sustained us for the last 2,000 years. But you are putting forward an assertion that only those who study Torah full-time, (and take money for it) can be considered "devout". That's a massive insult to hardworking people who support their families and are also kovea itim for Torah every day.
Shannon made no such assertion
That is not what I asserted at all. I asserted that charedi Jews present a significant mass of devout Jews and devout Jews are essential to the continued transmission of the Jewish people and of Judaism.
Another comment demonizing dati leumi. As if chareidim don’t go off the derech.
Never mind me, just checking the edit feature for banned commenters. By the way, do you know a guy named Daniel? I think he's related to another guy named "True Zealot".
So why can't you just say that instead of saying things that are nonsensical?
Huh? I said both. And there is nothing more nonsensical than an atheist.
"There is nothing more nonsensical than an atheist". Even if that's true, how does it justify your own nonsense?
This is roughly equivalent to saying: "If the IDF couldn't even prevent its own soldier Gilad Shalit being taken captive, it clearly isn't of much use to anyone else."
A more accurate comparison: "The IDF couldn't even prevent its own Commander-in-Chief and 24,000 of its soldiers from being taken captive"!
Not sure why you're making this into a numbers game, but here you go anyhow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galilee_campaign_(67)
The Galilee campaign, also known as the Northern Revolt, took place in the year 67, when Roman general Vespasian invaded Galilee under the orders of Emperor Nero in order to crush the Great Revolt of Judea. Many Galilean towns gave up without a fight, although others had to be taken by force. By the year 68, Jewish resistance in the north had been crushed, and Vespasian made Caesarea Maritima his headquarters and methodically proceeded to cleanse the coastline of the country, avoiding direct confrontation with the rebels at Jerusalem.
The Galilee campaign is unusually well-recorded for the era. One of the Jewish rebel leaders in Galilee, Josephus, was captured. Josephus struck up a friendship with Vespasian, who would later ascend to become Roman Emperor. Josephus was eventually freed and given a place of honor in the Flavian dynasty, taking the name Flavius, and worked as a court historian with the backing of the Imperial family. In his work The Jewish War, the chief source on the Great Revolt, he provides detailed accounts of the sieges of Gamla and Yodfat, and of internal Jewish politics during the Galilee campaign.
Timeline
After the defeat of Gallus' army at Bet Horon in the year 66, Emperor Nero appointed general Vespasian, instead of Gallus to crush the Judean rebellion. Vespasian, along with legions X Fretensis and V Macedonica, landed at Ptolemais in April 67. There he was joined by his son Titus, who arrived from Alexandria at the head of Legio XV Apollinaris, as well as by the armies of various local allies including that of king Agrippa II. Fielding more than 60,000 soldiers, Vespasian began operations by subjugating Galilee.[2] Many Galilean towns gave up without a fight, although others had to be taken by force. Of these, Josephus provides detailed accounts of the sieges of Gamla and Yodfat.
Casualties
According to Josephus, the Roman vanquishing of Galilee resulted in 100,000 Jews killed or sold into slavery.[3][4][5]
1939-1945. 6,000,000
WADR, your simplistic comment comes from the freethinking paradigm. Bounce it off a frum thinker and they'll tell you how it's been addressed throughout the ages. It's just too basic not to have been dealt with. In Yiddish lore, "Antplekt America." Or go through the archives of the comments of this blog and you'll find your answer too.
See also https://www.rationalistjudaism.com/p/storks-chicks-and-refuseniks/comment/15333193, דיבור המתחיל "A good idea."
If the vaccine didn't stop Covid, what did it mean to say "the Vaccine protects"?
If eating healthy can't stop leukemia, what does it mean "Eating healthy protects"?
If exercise can't stop a heat attack, what does it mean to say "Exercise protects"?
Becausese although they don't 'stop', they reduce incidence of.
That's false in some cases and doubtful in others (especially what we now know about genetics.) But in any event, if you are reduced to redefining "protects" merely to " reduces incidence of", you can redefine the same thing for Torah.
Yes. And also, Torah did not merely fail to protect Rabbi Akiva. Torah put a target on his back. Torah got him killed. If he listened to Natan Slifkin's advice, perhaps he would not have been killed.
There are things more important than living. If not what's the point of life?
No one in the world, including R. Akiva himself, would disagree that teaching Torah got RA killed. And I don't think NS's worst enemies, real or imagined, would accuse him of posthumously deigning to "advise" R. Akiva of anything.
What does not teaching a trade have to שומרי תורה ומצות?
How does teaching a trade detract from שומרי תורה ומצות?
How is married women not covering their hair have to do with being שומרי תורה ומצות? How is being an apologist for the reform movement have to do with being שומרי תורה ומצות?
As I said before, I am able to admit my community's faults. You are NOT able to admit the faults of the DL community. It is you who are intellectually dishonest. So your comments are worthless.
"As I said before, I am able to admit my community's faults"
LOL. You are not. You simply use the no true Scotsman argument. Any woman for example, that wears a long glamorous lace top sheital (even not lace-top) is not real chareidi (as they ignore clear pronouncements of da'as torah). Any man that misses zemanei tefillah on a regular basis is not real chareidi. Any man involved in stealing benefits is not real chareidi. Any man who spends considerable time gossiping about 'yenem's money/business ' is not real chareidi. When you have finished, you might find maybe only Kiryat Seifer contain some real chareidim.
What are you on about. All of those people are real chareidim. Newsflash at 11, chareidim do aveiros. My argument has always been that in no way can you compare that to the secularist/LW MO community that openly disparages and corrupts Torah and mitzvos. Like comparing a guy who got a speeding ticket to John Wayne Gacy.
I am not comparing anything right now. Stop trying to divert.
Chareidim do aveiros like everything else but only they claim they a) do not, by finding heteirim for everything they do wrong* (not too dissimilar to LWMO, just different aveirios such as not dealing with sex abuse properly, stealing benefits or not giving their children tools to earn a parnossoh b) they faithfully represent traditional orthodox Jewry in the way it is supposed to be practiced whereas everyone else is off. In practice chareidi culture is riddled with hanhogos k'negged chazal. And its a feature, not an occasional lapse. Rabbonim will say outright nothing wrong with stealing benefits.
*PS you yourself reinterpreted chazal's insistence on people having tools to earn parnossoh as meaning 'ensuring their family has food to eat' (your implication being) even if it means through tzedokoh. It's clear from their own writings chazal did not mean that.
Chareidim and everybody else try to justify their sins when they do them. Newsflash at 11. But only the secularist rabbis try to change the Torah to accommodate homosexuality or coed schools or women not covering their hair. Unlike the secularists, I never heard a chareidi rabbi trying to say stealing or pedophilia is ok. Every chareidi rabbi I heard about this said stealing benefits is NOT ok. Secularist rabbis get up on the podium and say בפה מלא that many aveiros are totally fine or are not so bad as long as one identifies as Jewish and supports Israel. They are apologists for the reform movement, no wonder so many of their kids go OTD.
Chareidi society is generally consistent with Chazal (Slifkin's complete amaratzus about kollel notwithstanding), and whenever they try to be more consistent with Chazal, ignoramuses like yourself scream "CHUMRA!!!""
"*PS you yourself reinterpreted chazal's insistence on people having tools to earn parnossoh as meaning 'ensuring their family has food to eat' " - this is a flat-out lie. Another example of secularists who have no concern for the truth.
Where do Charedim claim they don't do aveiros? In all my life I've never heard such a claim. How people devolve into outright sheker just to make rhetorical points is beyond me.
And you keep claiming charedi culture is "riddled" with "stealing benefits". I've already pointed out the difference between taking advantage of available benefits (to which they would readily concede) to "stealing benefits" (a risibly false charge of which you you could not possibly have any proof.) Such specious claims, at least to me, substantiate suspicions that they are typically leveled by the jealous, as a perverse comfort from the pain of losing the culture wars.
You'te
a terrible person,slandering people,; G-d thinking what different people deserve to be punished, condemning people wholesale.
You said that the latest windfall would support שומרי תורה ומצות. But what does not teaching a trade have to do with following הלכה? Your response is a non sequitur and doesn't justify your earlier statement.
I never said it does. I think there are ways chareidim can improve. But your bringing up teaching a trade is totally non sequitur, I was talking about supporting Torah and Mitzvos, and you brought up this supposed aveirah that chareidim do. What's next, coffee rooms and minyan factories?
"I never said it does."
You didn't. That's why I asked.
"I was talking about supporting Torah and Mitzvos,"
Indeed. So how does disincentivizing the halachic obligation to teach a trade, support Torah and Mitzvos?
Can you answer the question without saying "gay"?
Because despite Slifkin's insane theories, supporting Torah students is not disincentivizing anything. If you want to get technical, study after study in Western countries shows that cutting welfare payments does not increase employment (for one of MANY examples, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jun/05/docking-welfare-payments-is-not-incentive-to-work-report-claims) and increasing welfare does not increase unemployment.
The nutcases think that if you cut welfare payments to chareidim, they will start caving into all the secularist demands about education, army service, etc. No, that ain't how things work. Like, at all.
"One can only pray that somehow the budget will fail to pass and the government will collapse."
Whatever makes you feel better. Just remember:
https://www.rationalistjudaism.com/p/ring-of-power
"In fact, it seems that according to Rambam, while petitionary prayer is of great religious importance, it does not actually serve to attain the object of one's requests."
I guess if your religion consists of hating Charedim, you might be able to justify praying for the collapse of the government. Ask your local rationalist blogger.
If petitionary prayers do not yield fulfillment to your requests (most of the time), then even the placebo comfort they might provide to the intelligent pray-er does not exist either. Then, what value do they have?
Aren't most topics taught in schools useless for actually earning a living? Is not learning about photosynthesis and Pythagoras theorom really something that hareidim can't make up for later?
There's a reason why charedim who enter the workforce earn vastly less than non-charedim. It's because they have a vastly inferior education.
That’s not true Rabbi, they have an extensive education on Iron Age fairy tales and irrelevant food and other taboos.
This discussion is for those who accept the basic values of Judaism. Since that isn't you, please refrain from commenting.
Hey that’s not fair. I was defending those people who you said didn’t have good educations lol.
And I do accept the basic tenets of Judaism, the modern liberal version that includes repairing the world, the importance of all people as individuals and their collective groups, and to respect the Torah, Neviim, and Ketuvim as our national historical literature which should be studied for its own sake to gleam what our ancestors believed, what it has to tell us about their society, and who wrote it and when, and why. One can choose not to live their life according to how people who thought the earth was flat and covered by a dome and didn’t know where the sun went at night AND still be committed to the Jewish people. Well, most of them anyway (not so much the arrogant racist Jewish fundamentalists who comment on your page though) 😉
Ooh I like this!!!❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Because the successful Charedim don't enter the secular workforce, leaving that for the weaker-minded. Nothing to do with education.
The proof is; secular people who know nothing about טומאת התהום, מיגו להוציא or חזקה דמעיקרא, totally ignorant people, are sometimes successful in business. How is that possible? Some loser freyak, who doesn't know which way to hold a Rabbi Akiva Eger, should be able to make millions of dollars on a startup?
Are you against the weaker minded learning a trade?
No, I am not against anyone learning a trade.
But the idea that the difference is education for the youth is not proven by the data. The fact that Charedim, in EY, who go to work, earn less than their secular counterpart is not proven to be connected to their lack of secular education in their youth.
You're not being clear. It appears that you're avoid the issue brought up by RNS and have addressed other issues instead.
RNS said "the workforce".
You said "secular workforce". So you changed the topic.
Then you compare earnings of Charedim vs secular. That may indeed be an issue of discrimination. But it's not a valid comparison in regards to the value of an education. It could be that an educated Charedi will be discriminated against in regards to earnings, but that same Charedi would still be earning more than that he would earn had he not gotten an education. As such, you actually haven't responded to RNS's assertion.
I didn't mention discrimination.
When I wrote 'secular workforce', I meant to answer the canard that Kollel yungeleit are somehow doing nothing.
Most charedim know nothing about טומאת התהום, מיגו להוציא or חזקה דמעיקרא too.
Virtually all Chareidim are familiar with מיגו להוציא and חזקה דמעיקרא by the time they finish high school.
Yeah right. Go and ask chassidim (I am sure you will agree that chassidim make up a substantial number of chareidim) and see how many of them of can explain those phrases. You will get plenty of blank looks. As for the rest, sure they may have heard of those phrases, but not much more than that.
And in any event, go into any non-chareidi yeshivah, and they will know of those phrases too.
I note you dropped tumas ha'tahom, though.
"There's a reason why charedim who enter the workforce earn vastly less than non-charedim."
Because they aren't allowed to because of the anti-Chazal draft?
Moshe Rabbeinu demanded that Reuven, Gad, and Menashe help conquer the Land before retiring to east of the Jordan. Sounds like a draft to me, one that Chazal would surely not oppose.
And if a draft to conquer the Land is kosher, kal vachomer one to DEFEND it is.
Sadly, it seems to that your secular education failed to provide you with adequate critical thinking. Maybe try joining a kollel?
The draft Moshe Rabbeinu demanded was an army compromised of exclusively of religious “fanatics”. You sure you know what a קל וחומר is? דיו לבוא מן הדין להיות כנדון…
Exactly. The secular and secularists don't deserve to be in the land in the first place. The mighty armies of the sinful Kings back in the time of the מלכי ישראל and the מלכי יהודה were wiped out. It is only in the merit of the Shomrei Torah that the secularists can survive, for which they should be eternally grateful. https://irrationalistmodoxism.substack.com/p/does-torah-protect
"It is only in the merit of secularists who go to the army that Shomrei Torah can survive, for which they should be eternally grateful." Fixed!
"The mighty armies of the sinful Kings back in the time of the מלכי ישראל and the מלכי יהודה were wiped out. "
דורו של אחאב עובדי עבודת כוכבים היו, והיו יוצאין למלחמה ונוצחין...שלא היה ביניהן דילטורין. לפיכך היו יוצאין למלחמה ונוצחין.
אבל דורו של שאול כולן היו דילטורין. ...לפיכך היו נופלים במלחמה.
Actually, the Northern Kingdom was very successful economically and militarily throughout its life, until the very end. Go learn some nach.
"Fanatics" or not, does that matter? You seem to have conceded that they were indeed "drafted" and Chazal had no problem with it.
Or, since Moshe (Yehoshuah?) drafted only "fanatics," is the current draft "anti-Chazal" because people other than fanatics are being drafted?
I understand kal vachomer as a principle of logic: if something is true (the Land must be conquered), than a related something which is more obvious is also true (the Land must be defended). Please explain your idea of a kal vachomer and where I've failed.
Even if it's not a kal vachomer, would you agree that a Land that requires conquering also requires defending?
Yes it matters, because the draft is to be part of a wholly secularist religious hating army which obviously is against Torah ideals. So when the army is radically different the kal vachomer fails.
Your are also comparing conquering a land by decree of God to the 1948 conquest. They have nothing to do with each other.
You have to know about it to hold like it
Lou, you've said that chareidim aren't allowed to enter the workforce (or aren't allowed to earn more than they do--it's unclear) because of the draft. If that were true, then everyone subject to the draft would likewise be barred from the workforce (or from earning more than chareidim do). Obviously that is not true; there are millions doing so.
Furthermore, chareidim have the same entree to the workforce as everyone else, but for the waiting period they impose on themselves by CHOOSING to take the draft exemption.
It's learning how to learn. The specifics tend not to matter so much, but the rigor of secular subjects isn't the same when learning Torah. It's different skills.
I can't speak for others, but I have a PhD in Biostatistics and I find learning gemara to be much easier than the advanced math courses I took in grad school.
CBH - I'd love for you to join my Chabura! We were dealing with some rather difficult sugyos, maybe you can help us out...
Most "difficult" sugyos r difficult only because u have to reconcile too many independent axioms. Sure, if u have to find common ground among the unproven postulates that God created the world and he ALSO is good, just, fair, honest, merciful, infallible, consistent, and wrote the Torah, which usually needs interpretation to understand what it says, then OF COURSE many sugyos r difficult. If u grant many fewer assumptions, then all problems and sugyos r quite easy to understand. If we assume God created the world, but that he did not give innumerable laws, moral or otherwise, then it is easy to explain his failing to intervene during the holocaust.
I'm not sure what you're blabbering about but sure, if you don't need to accept the impossible axiom that Hashem exists, no questions are actually difficult, nor do they matter anyway.
U can accept that God exists without buying all the other axioms that Judaism postulates. For example, God may exist, but the holocaust pretty much disproves that God is always good or that he loves the Jews. Study a little bit about the Zoroastrianism and duality of the godhead before u buy into what Chazal erroneously thought of what they called avoda zara.
For sure! In this thread alone he openly displays his learning abilities https://www.rationalistjudaism.com/p/a-billion-dollars-against-chazal/comment/16384648 I don't think anybody in Lakewood would have ever thought of such brilliant reasoning 🤡
A real shame for the Torah world; Hashem cries about those who can learn but don't:(
(Perhaps on a more serious note, as I think about it, I'm starting to think that Hashem knows what He's doing by creating this divide. Imagine what would happen to people like Josh Berman if they entered our Batei Midrashim...)
There are lots of ways to contribute that are not in the framework of traditional learning. I don't have much problem with Berman, who is a pretty faithful defender of the Torah (except for a few things). I have no idea if he knows how to learn, and his contribution doesn't have to be that.
The problem starts when people who know how to do other stuff (like Charlie Hall), but are otherwise amei ha'aretz, all the sudden think they also know how to learn and start bringing their halfwitted opinions into the Bais Medrash...
Uh, based on the "learning" that you display in your comments, it's no surprise you find Gemara easy...
Related: https://irrationalistmodoxism.substack.com/p/why-i-changed-my-mind-about-female
Now, explain the Lindeberg-Feller Central Limit Theorem in plain language. I won't even ask you to prove it. If gemara is so much more difficult, this should be easy for you.
Huh? I googled it, it's an extension of the CLT when the variables are not iid (https://myweb.uiowa.edu/pbreheny/7110/f20/notes/9-23.pdf). Now your turn. Explain the similarity between fulfilling and violating a condition despite the condition's impracticality, in plain language.
That isn't explaining it. State the conditions under which it holds, and whether they are necessary, sufficient, or both.
You are in over your head.
Oh and great cherrypicking! Cite Rambam on one issue and ignore him on another.
I am proud to be in the company of the great Rabbi Moshe Kahn z'tz'l as the target of your insults.
Insults? What insults? I just made the totally uncontroversial point that what you guys consider "learning" is something completely different from what actual Gemara learning is. So of course it's no surprise that you find it easier than math. Let me guess, do you also find "Where the Wild Things Are" or "Goodnight Moon" to be easier than math?
No comparison. Limudei kodesh r MUCH easier than advanced secular study.
I recall that a certain Rosh Yeshiva made that point to encourage his students. He said the basic corpus of Torah literature- T'nach + Meforshim, Midrash, Shas + meforshim, the fundamental halachic codes and important שו"ת while taking years to master, is still far less material that what a PhD in English Literature would have to know.
That is laughably false. What was he measuring by, word count? 🤡🤡🤡 Even if that was his metric, I doubt it.
Here's what some random Eng. Lit Phd wrote:
"I studied Victorian Literature, and though I didn't keep count, I suspect I read in the region of 200 books and many many more articles. (I didn't count, but I suspect around 500). Of course, most of it turned out to be blind alleys, so I ended up citing around 200 sources in the thesis."
That should give you an idea what the Rosh Yeshiva was driving at.
So I have no problems with the claim that secular study is harder that Torah study. Despite that, there is more depth to Torah study than anything the greatest of secular authors can produce. One Torah scholar alone can come up with dozens of chiddushim to the same sugya- or dozens of answers to a single question. But all that doesn't negate the claim that secular study is harder. It just doesn't produce the same quantity/quality of fruits.
The RY reached a conclusion that is impossible to ascertain. What were his units of measurement to make a comparison between the relative sizes of Torah vs. secular knowledge? Number of pages of each?
My point: there is no valid way to measure an entire corpus of knowledge.
Don't both have ranges of difficulty?
I think Hall was comparing post-grad secular study and kollel-level learning.
Both are actually really basic. Junior high school level.
No, Dov. Understanding the basics of the natural world is an important skill necessary to being a good citizen and a good employee. I have met Haredim who, unfortunately, do not understand the role and function of blood in human life.
"the role and function of blood in human life."
Can you be more specific?
Yes. Blood is the red fluid circulating in your vascular system, delivering oxygen to tissues, removing waste products, and maintaining blood pressure. It contains special cells that perform many additional functions as well.
Am I going too fast?
Then what bearing does that have on being a good citizen? When W Harvey was ridiculed as a "circulator", and earlier, were there no good citizens/employees?
A good citizen understands the doctor when they explain your parent's medical condition and treatment options. Then, said citizen can explain to zaydie that hi-dose internet Vitamin C will not cure his, chas v'shalom, cancer.
I find it hard to believe u do not know that today u need a higher level of general science to understand the world than in the 17th century. But I do understand that old standby yeshiva technique of wearing down your opponent with dumb questions.
I try to extend great respect to seniors and to doctors. See the cover story here for an interesting photo and episode of an Orthodox man showing his appreciation forty years later to the medic who saved his life. https://mishpacha.com/for-this-child-we-prayed/
As you are both a senior and a doctor, I wouldn't drei you a kup to wear you down. Your brevity and choice of words didn't serve you well. The specific definition of 'citizen' is often understood as referring to ones interaction with society at large, not a private interaction with a doctor etc. 'Blood' and 'human life' are laden with emblematic meaning and since there was confusion about 'citizen' (and 'employee' too) I wondered if you actually meant them in their simplest (but by no means their most common, depending on the context) definition or something else.
But anyway, the solution to this ignorance is not education but humility. If the doctor says, he knows what he's talking about and listen, unless you want to go for a second opinion from another competent doctor. Further complicating matters is that denial rears its head when a life-threatening condition is discovered. I had occasion to bring an uncooperative relative to the doctor. But the doctor was a veteran at the game and instead of wasting his breath haggling, stated his opinion and told us to confirm with the rabbi, good bye. So we went to the rabbi (also a veteran) and the relative cooperated, despite being just as dumb or as in denial as before.
I started grad school at age 32; my wife started medical school at age 36. Is that possible in Israel or are career paths closed off early as is the case in many other countries?
U r both remarkable exceptions that less talented people can never accomplish.
There are two mutually exclusive principles here:
1) That even the most rudimentary education towards learning a trade would permanently and pervasively ruin everybody. There is no one who could survive the heretical onslaught which is the Pythagorean theorem.
Everyone will fail!
2) That even the most sophisticated education for an exclusive profession can be attained later in life by someone who has neglected the most rudimentary education.
Everyone will succeed!
Is it relevant to the "Torah protects; ignorance (of secular knowledge) is bliss" camp that it is one thing for them to hold these beliefs; it is quite another to demand that the great majority of the Israel join them in that belief and subsidize them.
To put this in a broader context, one of the bedrocks of a liberal democratic system is that I have a right to believe whatever I want - as long as I don't try to impose those beliefs on others by, for example, demanding that they pay for them. And yet that is exactly what the Charedi camp is trying to do.
Of course, they may respond by rejecting the premise - that Israel is a liberal democracy. Which admittedly highlights a contradiction built in to the democratic experiment: it allows those who reject the fundamental principles of the system to take advantage of the system by participating in it, and subverting it. But the Chareidim should at least be honest about their demand that their fellow citizens finance what 80% of the country sees as beliefs that will destroy the state.
A journalist called Charedim "parasites"? Drop everything, OMG!!!----Political opponents have called them this name for at least fifty years, why does it shock you? This is what happens in politics - your opponents call you names. I got new for you: the Charedim also call the Chilonim names. Only a fool (and yes, there are some fools, but not that many) sits there worrying about how his political opponents try to spin them.
"The amount of harm that the charedi mass-poverty system causes both to themselves and can bring upon the country is incalculable."
Nearly ten years ago, you offered your prognostications:
https://www.rationalistjudaism.com/p/good-news-for-jews
"The charedim are kicking and screaming about the new government, which will cause many people to leave kollel and change the way in which they educate their children. But the irony is that the particular person most hated for all this, the person who is behind the make-up of the government and its policies, is Yair Lapid. And do you know which single person is most responsible for Yair Lapid's extraordinary rise to power?
Moshe Abutbul.
....
It was Mayor Moshe Abutbul's appalling mishandling of Beit Shemesh in general, and the Orot Banot girls' school situation in particular, that drew Beit Shemesh into the headlines, caused the rest of Israel to react with horror, and led to the 19 seats that Yair Lapid won in the Knesset. It was because Abutbul immediately caved in to the extremists, refused to condemn their terrorizing of children, refused to express any support or sympathy for the girls who were being traumatized, and sought to prevent the Orot Banot school from opening, that Bet Shemesh became the focal point from which Lapid drew support.
You can be sure that with the re-election of Abutbul, there will be further explosive events in Beit Shemesh, since Abutbul never takes a stand against extremists. Abutbul will continue to give the city a bad name - indeed, just a week after his last re-election, he got in trouble for making disparaging comments about homosexuals. And the rest of Israel will respond by continuing to give political power to Lapid and Bennet.
....
The result will be that in the next national elections, the charedim will again be unable to enter the government. The government will continue to be able to bring charedim into the workforce and IDF and stem the crisis discussed earlier."
That was 2014. Now it's 2023, and you're complaining about Charedim- who somehow have managed to sneak back into the government, with Moshe Abutbul somehow even managing to snag a deputy ministry- wielding too much power. And you're making yet more prognostications.
Along the way, you've offered various anecdotes about Charedim voting for Yesh Atid, a charedi spring where charedim are becoming irreligious en masse, charedim dying en masse from covid, charedim finally seeing the light after meron, charedim finally seeeing through the farce of daas torah in the wake of Walder, etc etc etc ad nauseam. One wonders who keeps voting all of these charedi politicians into the knesset. Tel Avivians?
You probably would do well to get out of the fortune telling business. Maybe focus more on eating various locusts or chasing down headless chickens like you used to do in the good old days before you turned into an English version of Yediot.
Overall a fabulous comment, but your hope that he desist from fortune telling can't be expected from a Baal Yesurim until you address them. If you have, or anyone has, any ideas how to do that, let us know.
"One can only pray that somehow the budget will fail to pass and the government will collapse."
This is a political issue -- it's about the distribution of Government funds. Israel is still a democracy -- votes count, more than prayer. The willingness of Likud to accept the haredi demands, to maintain the coalition and keep Bibi out of jail, are worrisome to an outsider.
Its called a mature and well thought out investment.
Studying the crocodiles abdomen may give one the title "doctor" but hey, in the next world it wont get one very far.
On the other hand studying Torah may mean eating class 2 zucchini for 70 years but the million year afterlife will be so much more enjoyable.
Its called a well thought out and mature investment
I know this has been brought up in the past, and I'm not calling anyone names, but the idea seems quite relevant:
Sanhedrin 99b - אפיקורוס כגון מאן אמר רב יוסף כגון הני דאמרי מאי אהנו לן רבנן לדידהו קרו לדידהו תנו
who is an example of an apikorus? Rav Yosef says: It is referring to one who conducts himself like those who say: In what manner have the Sages benefited us with all their Torah study? They read the Bible for their own benefit and they study the Mishna for their own benefit.
רש"י: מאי אהני לן - והם אינן יודעין שעולם מתקיים עליהם
The Gemara then goes on to say that such a person is actually worse than an אפיקורוס because he is denying flat out psukim, but we can start here.
When the talmud refers to 'Rabbanan' it does not mean 'stam' people in kollel. It mean real rabbonim, leaders of communities. Manhigim.
Not groups of avreichim trying to find the next chumrah or possul the next eiruv.
Vehemence is a neutral thing. It itself is nothing negative; when used for the good it's good, otherwise otherwise.
For the record, רבנן means the תלמידי הישיבה when in the context of אמרו לי' רבנן לרבא/ לרב פפא/וכולי... and סברי רבנן למימר.
In particular, רבנן in Sanhedrin 99b that דוד quoted means תלמידי הישיבה. People did not say מאי אהנו לן רבנן about the Rabbonim and leaders because they surely were אהנו to the people during their constant interactions with them. Rather, it refers to the תלמידים, the so-called leidikgeyers.
But I can't even begin to address your vehemence. I feel pain that circumstances and/or thoughtless people/institutions brought you to where you are. You should only know goodness.
It means understanding the importance of the Torah's role and of those who learn it, and that it keeps the world running and safe.
Well, if you read Lehovin, you would know the government also spends tons of money to brainwash Chareidim, which is exactly like the nazis.
https://daastorah.substack.com/p/the-vaccine-is-kefira
I identify as charedi, and, essentially, I agree with the points you are making.
However, I think we should be trying to find the best way of solving this whilst taking into consideration why the chareidi leadership are making the decisions they are, and to engage with them regarding the serious problems they are bringing to the state of Israel.
There is little point in criticizing their approach, if they won't agree to make any changes. After all, even if, for example, a left wing government were in charge, and they withdrew all funding for chareidi schools would that really bring about any educational change in chareidi institutions? It would likely only bring increased poverty and groing hatred/distrust between the chareidi community and the rest of the Israeli population.
As far as I can see, the best way to solve these problems is to engage with the chareidi community, understand the reasons for what they are doing, explain the problems it's causing and working together to find solutions/compromise etc.
Any thoughts?
Once one subtracts non-working and working-off-the-books haredim, Arabs, retirees, and minimal income households, how many taxpaying households are there in Israel, between whom this billion dollar bill will be split? Maybe 350,000, meaning $3,000 per taxpaying family?
Does it count towards their ma'asser money, given the amazing Torah they'll be enabling?
זכרון says that overall the budget is ~130bn. If that passes fact-checking, the allotment to Chareidim is 2%-3% Then at most you can count 2%-3% of your taxes toward Maaser.
Also, is the 130bn divided among the 350k taxpaying households and how much per each?
An elephant in the room is how much of the budget goes to secular entertainment (in general & per capita) and how that's a 'necessary' expense while the 2%-3% (if that is the correct figure) Chareidi allotment will bring the country to ruin.
See yesterday's Times of Israel analysis, rather than have me encapsulate it for you.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-new-state-budget-favors-haredim-and-hurts-them/
I was looking for a needle, not a haystack in which I didn't find what I'm looking for, namely, what the total budget is. Never mind that the article leaves the reader dull and witless about what the Chareidi perspective is, or that there even can be one. Maybe there's something of that in the comments, which I may or may not have time to read. Thanks anyway. Good Yom Tov to all.
Too bad you ignored the haystack, which explains why the billion dollars is only a small part of government's subsidies to haredim and how the billion invested will harm the country financially for the near future.
What's the total budget?
Sorry, you'll have to do your own research. You can Google it as well as I can and you can read the article I linked to as well as I can.
It is very confusing that each side of the debate claims to be the only 1 consistent with Chazal's teachings. Obviously, each side can invoke passages that support their contention. It is unconvincing to Haredim for u to tell them that the anti-education faction goes against Chazal.