"The charedi community thinks that if you need to borrow chairs from the neighbor for a shalom zachar, and you need to rent more for a bar mitzva, then if you’re doing an even bigger event, you just need to arrange even more chairs. They don’t understand that if you’re doing an event for 200,000 people, you don’t just need a lot more chairs, and bleachers tied together with zip ties. You need professionally and scientifically trained engineers and experts in crowd control who can determine what the structural requirements and safety protocols need to be. Otherwise you get a situation where people are killed."
Good thing thing the modern state of Israel has a super-duper high tech border wall which ensures that no one gets killed by marauding terrorists. It held up about as well as a bunch of bleachers with zip-ties.
Upon reflection, in this particular case you're right; my comment was a cheap shot. Apologies. (Not that I agree with your assessment of charedi reasoning.)
While irrelevant, it's not pointless. It gets right to the point of SS's thinking.
Which is utopian messianic. Anything less than perfection is worthless. The imperative is to focus on failure.
His narrative is one which only includes the greatest misses- it starts with < 1% of the entries in Herzl's diaries, continues with Yisrael "Farabulist" DeHaan, "One Cow in Palestine", "Only with Blood", Perfidy and not much else.
Similarly, all that indulging in cutting & pasting also is indicative of a cherry picker who can't assess the bigger scale.
This latest great failure in SS's laundry list of Zionism's greatest misses, started with the Gaza expulsion which occurred with the consent and compliance of UTJ. Why? Because according to R. Jonathan Rosenblum writing for the Aguda's Jewish Observer, "United Torah Judaism's decision not to join the anti-disengagement forces reflects the strong preference of the (sic) Torah leadership to avoid casting the decisive vote on matters of national security, and especially not against the will of the majority of Israeli citizens."
That "the Torah leadership" didn't take a position on this crucial issue vindicates this very post that they do not apply "Torah on a Large scale".
You said a whole bunch of words there. Some of them might be accurate. But mostly they seem like discombobulated emoting of some sort.
"Anything less than perfection is worthless."
I have never said any such thing because I think no such thing.
"Similarly, all that indulging in cutting & pasting also is indicative of a cherry picker who can't assess the bigger scale."
As opposed your hallucinated ideas about my thinking?
Personally, I'd prefer if it you stopped trying to think my thoughts for me and just explain why you think what I'm saying is false. But whatever makes you happy...
I have never said any such thing because I think no such thing.
You have continuously focused on the negative with the implication that the State must be judged according to the sum of its failures. Your denial would be more credible if you actually clarify what you mean by your negativity.
" why you think what I'm saying is false"
You've lost the plot. I didn't say you lied.
"As opposed your hallucinated ideas about my thinking?"
Your denial would be more credible if you actually clarify what your thinking.
I'm going to ban you every time you reappear with a pseudonym and post your AI generated comments. And in future I will also delete all your previous comments.
Here's a true story: During the 1956 Sinai War, Rav Soloveitchik (the Boston/YU one) wondered aloud to his shiur how Ben-Gurion could justify sending men to their deaths. After all, people always die in war (midrashim notwithstanding), and by ordering a war, the Israeli government was condemning at least some people to die, and how could they be 100% sure the war was justified? After all, there's this possibility and that...and then the Rav broke off, smiled, and said, "Well, I guess this is why they don't have roshei yeshiva running countries. Nothing would ever get done, we'd all be too busy making chakiras instead of coming to decisions."
You see, the Rav realized that the war was, in fact, (most likely) needed. And while there *are* halakhot of war, they aren't (due to millennia of exile) widely known, especially back then, and even halakha can't answer every question of when to start and how to fight wars. So...Ben Gurion it was. (And Bibi it is.)
I think thinking about these topics is akin to building the bet hamikdash in Haredi eyes. In other words it's forbidden because Hashem will do it magically from shamayim.
Because their whole view of religion is supernatural they are waiting for it to happen. The magical utopian mashiach will work it all out. Till that happens we are in golus and thus waiting and acting as a small scale community.
That vision only includes the בית המקדש descending from Heaven. It does not include Torah institutions, agriculture, roads, houses, schools, businesses, railways, ingathering of the exiles, hospitals, clinics, sewers, power plants, communications....
(Setting aside Uriah's wife's point that "Tosafos" is not a person). Precisely the point. The Tosafists wrote in a era when none of the was in any way practical and they were just analyzing texts L'Hagdil Torah. You can't use that to make practical decisions. (I think that we should be staying off the Har Habayit to avoid inciting a civil war, but that is a practical consideration).
This all is based on the classic idea of בעתה ואחישנה, and fully dealt with by many Religions Zionist founders. If you read Rashi there clearly, we are "hoping" this will happen.
This is more understandable supposing hypothetically the nation of Israel was worthy of Moshiach in the 1700’s. Where would everyone live? What infrastructure was in place for them? There were barely any buildings in the country at that time, let alone to house the entire Jewish nation, nor was there even a considerable agricultural or economic society. The only probable way for that to happen was by virtue of an enormous miracle. Today on the other hand, much is already in place, and the need for a miracle is fairly smaller. One should not wait for a miracle, because Jews are not supposed to rely on one as long as there is a measure of action we can take.
But again to your point, when do we start taking the Temple mount to the next level?
"Today on the other hand, much is already in place, and the need for a miracle is fairly smaller."
True. But I'm not sure there a minimal shiur for אין סומכין על הנס. There is, however, a minimal shiur for השתדלות and even the most fervent messianic Zionist hasn't met that standard.
Before quoting Tosfos would you kindly inform us: :
Who was Tosfos? Was Tosfos his complete name? When and where was he born? When did he die? Who were his parents? Who were his contemporaries? Did he have any disagreements with other poskim of his or earlier periods? If so what were they?
Before figuring out Tosfos' name, blood type, and place of birth, can we focus on the actual point - what he says? Because his biographical information has minor significance to someone who wishes to understand Torah.
You want me to trust your advocacy of Tosfos’ reasoning and viewpoint and it seems you know nothing about him. That’s like voting for a someone for President of USA without having the slightest idea of hardly anything about him except maybe his preference for breakfast.
It’s not so much your ignorance that’s astounding, it’s your preference for his biographical immateriality that’s eye-popping.
I know, it's absolutely mind-boggling that a Sefer that was accepted by Chachamim for generations as authoritative should continue to be accepted.
What a crazy Charedi idea.
No MO, or Chardal, or Dal, would ever accept the words of Tosfos, even when Tosfos brings proof. No! If he says it, it must be wrong! Until we know the name of his pet hamster, his words are by definition wrong!
It's just like voting for someone for president. Absolutely.
(In short: tell me you never learned a word, without saying you never learned a word.)
But anyway, it is telling that Slifkin's supporters include people like this. It says something about his position that it resonates with people who have no background in learning Torah.
How do you know I have no background learning Torah? It’s precisely because I have studied the “Torah” whatever that all encompassing term means that I recognize how easy it is to manipulate the “Torah” to make it fit with your awful beliefs.
Your appeal to authority to legitimize “Tosfos” isn’t very clever and neither is your appeal to ignorance.
As for my deference for Rav Slifkin, his religious beliefs are much of a higher rank than mine. I have very little religious beliefs. But one thing I do know, if I were of the proper age and citizenship I’d risk my life in Gaza to save a religious Jew fighting for the deliverance of the State from a depraved foe, and that truly religious Jew would do the same for me. Unlike a Chareidi kollel bench-kvetcher.
That's definitely how many chareidim think, but many don't. Even according to the "Ultra fundamentalist" Rabbi Avigdor Miller, we are waiting for when Jews will somehow be free to do what they want in the land without the world against them. Also pretty magical, but not exactly the same. Everyone agrees it will happen at some point, the only question is what comes first.
Yeah, and if they get slaughtered in the process because they don't have an army ... ? It's like the guy in the flood who refuses to get on the boat and the helicopter because he's waiting for Hashem to save him.
Not quite. Because it was overcast he couldn't tell whether it was still more than three days before שבת when it would be permitted to embark on a ship.
Yehoshafat was criticized for being too friendly with Achav and his family, and in fact, his son "went off the derech" by marrying into that family. Non religious jews are our brothers and unconditional love for them is seemingly the correct approach towards them in this day and age (we are not talking about Achav, who went to great lengths himself to rebel against Hashem and is listed by chazal as one of the kings to have no chelek in olam haba, but rather perhaps more analogous to a later generation of kings, who just continued in the ways of Yeravam, which did not land them on the list, since they didn't initiate this).
However, for one to take the approach of focusing on all we have in common with them and their approach, basically saying that it's almost ideal (at least compared to charedim) would seem to be to the religious detriment of dati leumi and perhaps related to why so many do go off the derech- in the army and elsewhere, and I don't think that's how hesder yeshiva students usually approach them (hence, their "going off" rate would be lower). (As an aside, I think this failure can be seen to lead to the opposite problem, albeit, more in the modern orthodox community than dati leumi, namely, teenagers "flipping out"/ becoming charedi. From what I can tell, a kid is more likely to buy into whatever they're selling in yeshiva, (at the impressionable stage of life that he finds himself there, when he's looking to be idealistic) if his family background in hashkafa is weaker. Kids who are brought up keeping halacha "just because" while their views have mostly been influenced by secular society and not much Torah, are ripe for accepting whatever they're told the Torah says about anything by their kind, caring rabbeim. We would do well to inculcate our actual Torah values at home, and yeshiva can then become a place to grow in knowledge and understanding of those values instead of becoming a place to completely change from the theoretical values that the parents had and failed to know enough to be able to inculcate them.)
I think you're correct in much of the content of your critique of the charedi community, however, growing up in beit shemesh, I have seen that kids and teenagers do associate them with "religion" and overly zealous criticism of them causes kids to want no part in said religion (this could be a fault of the parents, failing to focus on why dati leumi more accurately represents Torah values, unfortunately much of the dati leumi community, in this way like many charedim, do not really know much about Torah ideology and also follow halacha more as mitzvas anashim melumada and aren't capable of properly explaining the ideals of this community based on Torah sources). I believe overly praising the secular world, who actually are just looking to be practical and for the most part are not trying to fulfill Hashem's will, only serves to exacerbate this issue.
In sum, I think focus on demonstrating through Torah sources why the dati leumi approach is correct, and only in this context, contrasting with the issues of the charedi world and showing how their interpretation of sources do not represent an accurate picture of what Hashem in His Torah demands of us, while not overly associating with and praising the values of the secular community, could perhaps be a better approach from a chinuch perspective to inculcate authentic and sincere avodas Hashem. The willingness in the last few posts to hold dear the values of the secular zionists more so than the religious non zionists has been disappointing to me. Rav Aharon Lichtenstein would say that we do have much in common with the charedi community, while those similarities have to do with malchusa derekiya and our similarities with secular jews is mostly limited to things related to malchusa de'ara (he certainly valued the former over the latter).
Thank you for your friendly and complimentary response, my anonymous interlocutor :)
As I perhaps did not make completely clear, but thought could be gathered from some of the things I said, my main concern here would be for the "weaker" parts of dati leumi/ modem orthodoxy. People who might practice more of a "social orthodoxy," where they keep the halacha that they keep and maybe learn a bit of Torah to be "yotzei" (a daf yomi shiur in the morning or the like), but spend much of their free time watching TV or playing sports and general culture has much influence on their household atmosphere. There is of course much to improve from an avodas Hashem perspective, but I think charedi bashing and explicit focus on how much they have in common with secular society will only exacerbate matters if the goal is (and I think many parents in said situations do have this goal) to raise kids with at least the same connection to religion. I think the more serious parts of modern orthodoxy and dati leumi naturally do see themselves as being closer to charedim than secular, since their highest value is avodas Hashem and they just disagree about the way to go about it.
The reason kids and teenagers with such backgrounds would associate charedim more with religion than people like them is that charedim- at least ostensibly- demonstrate more commitment and passion to the religion they practice and the unlearned person can get the impression that this is a "true Torah lifestyle" and when it is disparaged by people they respect, they think that a true Torah lifestyle should be thrown out the window. Kids and teenagers are not very good with nuance, especially when they're ignorant about the issues in the first place. This wouldn't be a problem in the charedi community because they already see themselves as having "true Torah Judaism" and aren't being bashed by themselves.
This has always and will always continue to be the strongest argument against the Chareidi worldview, their total lack of identification with the larger klal of klal Yisroel. It shows a disconnect from our shared Jewish history as well as their non-respect for tanach.
Reb Cholent, I would highly recommend you take a second and more critical view of history than the one you seem to have picked up in artscroll books. The “Chareidi ideal” is an aberration from history and not like you say “focused on a specific recipe handed down from their ancestors”. Though it may be surprising to hear, Judaism has been constantly evolving and this fascination and clinging to shtetl ideas about life is not “traditional Judaism” but in many ways a turn against it
Reb Yaakov, I would highly recommend a second reading of that article as it is not a celebration or negation of any movement but rather pointing out what I see as a sociological fact about the Israeli State
Fact – Haredim are growing in number and growing in political strength. They fail to confront the fact that, as a gadol once said , “With great power comes great responsibility“
At the beginning of the existence of the state of Israel Haredim could sit and learn and look upon the Medina as their shver for financial support . There comes a time, though, when you, the Kollel learner, grow up and have kids of your own and soon, YOU are the shver. That means somehow you need to make a living and help run things and take actual responsibility for getting things done.
The Haredi Community clings to the idea that even though we are living on our own land, we are still in golus . That way they can dodge responsibility for helping run the state – making sure the trains run, the electricity and telephone system are working, all the while, taking advantage of the fact that someone else is taking care of these things. That way, they can avoid the unpleasantries of having to learn stuff like math and English and the sciences.
If your ideal is that all of Clal Yisrael are shomrei Torah and mitzvos, then it’s about time for the leaders to figure out how that can happen.
"At the beginning of the existence of the state of Israel Haredim could sit and learn and look upon the Medina as their shver for financial support."
No they didn't. They worked. Until Begin. One of the most important critiques about contemporary Charedi society, is that it is most contemporary and actually represents a break with traditional Jewish life.
"we are still in golus . That way they can dodge responsibility"
All through golus, there was no such thing as dodging responsibility.
But the Chareidim aren't serving a well rounded meal... They're serving just cholent.. and as they become a larger segment of the population producing only cholent won't be viable..
Because they'll be fewer and fewer people available to produce the other dishes, and yes.. to guard the potato field.
The charedi community still follows the principles of Austritt of Rav Hirsch. They are a separate community that interacts with the general population only when absolutely necessary. Yes it still lives by the old rules. Rav Goren complained that the charedi rabbis rely heavily on nonJews for Shabbat problems which he felt was not appropriate for a Jewish state as opposed to a small community in the diaspora
This response just proves the point. Like all other unimaginative and warmed over replies, it indicates precisely the inability to think beyond the ghetto scale.
Irrelevant. The post was about the inaction when it comes to appying Torah on a large scale. You're changing the topic, which indicates you can't handle the topic and prefer to provide a narrow ghetto scaled response to applying Torah on a large scale.
Honest question. Do you feel successful if your writings lead a chareidi person to become a non-chareidi contributing member of society (serve/work etc) but lax in halacha?
Meaning, do you see contribution to society as more important than commitment to keeping all the mitzvos?
Published on May 10, 2023 by Kassiani Nikolopoulou. Revised on October 30, 2023.
A fallacy of composition involves assuming that parts or members of a whole will have the same properties as the whole. This leads to wrong conclusions because what is true of the different parts is not necessarily true of the whole.
"The charedi community thinks that if you need to borrow chairs from the neighbor for a shalom zachar, and you need to rent more for a bar mitzva, then if you’re doing an even bigger event, you just need to arrange even more chairs. They don’t understand that if you’re doing an event for 200,000 people, you don’t just need a lot more chairs, and bleachers tied together with zip ties. You need professionally and scientifically trained engineers and experts in crowd control who can determine what the structural requirements and safety protocols need to be. Otherwise you get a situation where people are killed."
Good thing thing the modern state of Israel has a super-duper high tech border wall which ensures that no one gets killed by marauding terrorists. It held up about as well as a bunch of bleachers with zip-ties.
What an irrelevant and pointless comment.
Upon reflection, in this particular case you're right; my comment was a cheap shot. Apologies. (Not that I agree with your assessment of charedi reasoning.)
Yes! It’s a brilliant example of a non sequitur!
Cherry-picked? Did you ever hear of a place called Meron?
While irrelevant, it's not pointless. It gets right to the point of SS's thinking.
Which is utopian messianic. Anything less than perfection is worthless. The imperative is to focus on failure.
His narrative is one which only includes the greatest misses- it starts with < 1% of the entries in Herzl's diaries, continues with Yisrael "Farabulist" DeHaan, "One Cow in Palestine", "Only with Blood", Perfidy and not much else.
Similarly, all that indulging in cutting & pasting also is indicative of a cherry picker who can't assess the bigger scale.
This latest great failure in SS's laundry list of Zionism's greatest misses, started with the Gaza expulsion which occurred with the consent and compliance of UTJ. Why? Because according to R. Jonathan Rosenblum writing for the Aguda's Jewish Observer, "United Torah Judaism's decision not to join the anti-disengagement forces reflects the strong preference of the (sic) Torah leadership to avoid casting the decisive vote on matters of national security, and especially not against the will of the majority of Israeli citizens."
That "the Torah leadership" didn't take a position on this crucial issue vindicates this very post that they do not apply "Torah on a Large scale".
You said a whole bunch of words there. Some of them might be accurate. But mostly they seem like discombobulated emoting of some sort.
"Anything less than perfection is worthless."
I have never said any such thing because I think no such thing.
"Similarly, all that indulging in cutting & pasting also is indicative of a cherry picker who can't assess the bigger scale."
As opposed your hallucinated ideas about my thinking?
Personally, I'd prefer if it you stopped trying to think my thoughts for me and just explain why you think what I'm saying is false. But whatever makes you happy...
"Anything less than perfection is worthless."
I have never said any such thing because I think no such thing.
You have continuously focused on the negative with the implication that the State must be judged according to the sum of its failures. Your denial would be more credible if you actually clarify what you mean by your negativity.
" why you think what I'm saying is false"
You've lost the plot. I didn't say you lied.
"As opposed your hallucinated ideas about my thinking?"
Your denial would be more credible if you actually clarify what your thinking.
"You have continuously focused on the negative with the implication that the State must be judged according to the sum of its failures."
Nope.
"Your denial would be more credible if you actually clarify what you mean by your negativity."
You're assuming my negativity and then asking me to clarify it. That's not how this works.
"Your denial would be more credible if you actually clarify what your thinking."
What isn't clear?
I'm going to ban you every time you reappear with a pseudonym and post your AI generated comments. And in future I will also delete all your previous comments.
Here's a true story: During the 1956 Sinai War, Rav Soloveitchik (the Boston/YU one) wondered aloud to his shiur how Ben-Gurion could justify sending men to their deaths. After all, people always die in war (midrashim notwithstanding), and by ordering a war, the Israeli government was condemning at least some people to die, and how could they be 100% sure the war was justified? After all, there's this possibility and that...and then the Rav broke off, smiled, and said, "Well, I guess this is why they don't have roshei yeshiva running countries. Nothing would ever get done, we'd all be too busy making chakiras instead of coming to decisions."
You see, the Rav realized that the war was, in fact, (most likely) needed. And while there *are* halakhot of war, they aren't (due to millennia of exile) widely known, especially back then, and even halakha can't answer every question of when to start and how to fight wars. So...Ben Gurion it was. (And Bibi it is.)
""Well, I guess this is why they don't have roshei yeshiva running countries..."
What if said ראש ישיבה was זכריה בן אבקולס ?
Well, we know how that turned out.
I think thinking about these topics is akin to building the bet hamikdash in Haredi eyes. In other words it's forbidden because Hashem will do it magically from shamayim.
Because their whole view of religion is supernatural they are waiting for it to happen. The magical utopian mashiach will work it all out. Till that happens we are in golus and thus waiting and acting as a small scale community.
Was Tosfos a Charedi? He's the one who quotes the idea of the Beis Hamikdash coming down from heaven.
That vision only includes the בית המקדש descending from Heaven. It does not include Torah institutions, agriculture, roads, houses, schools, businesses, railways, ingathering of the exiles, hospitals, clinics, sewers, power plants, communications....
There's a mitzvah to build the Mikdash. (It applies even before Mashiach comes, by the way.) Are we not supposed to merit that?
Good question!
Reb Yehoshua Leib asks it, I think in Parshas Behaaloscha. He claims that we will fulfill that by making the gates.
(Setting aside Uriah's wife's point that "Tosafos" is not a person). Precisely the point. The Tosafists wrote in a era when none of the was in any way practical and they were just analyzing texts L'Hagdil Torah. You can't use that to make practical decisions. (I think that we should be staying off the Har Habayit to avoid inciting a civil war, but that is a practical consideration).
This all is based on the classic idea of בעתה ואחישנה, and fully dealt with by many Religions Zionist founders. If you read Rashi there clearly, we are "hoping" this will happen.
This is more understandable supposing hypothetically the nation of Israel was worthy of Moshiach in the 1700’s. Where would everyone live? What infrastructure was in place for them? There were barely any buildings in the country at that time, let alone to house the entire Jewish nation, nor was there even a considerable agricultural or economic society. The only probable way for that to happen was by virtue of an enormous miracle. Today on the other hand, much is already in place, and the need for a miracle is fairly smaller. One should not wait for a miracle, because Jews are not supposed to rely on one as long as there is a measure of action we can take.
But again to your point, when do we start taking the Temple mount to the next level?
"Today on the other hand, much is already in place, and the need for a miracle is fairly smaller."
True. But I'm not sure there a minimal shiur for אין סומכין על הנס. There is, however, a minimal shiur for השתדלות and even the most fervent messianic Zionist hasn't met that standard.
Would you like to share what that standard is?
If you can honestly mistakenly say כוחי ועוצם ידי, then you haven't done enough השתדלות.
@Zundel
Before quoting Tosfos would you kindly inform us: :
Who was Tosfos? Was Tosfos his complete name? When and where was he born? When did he die? Who were his parents? Who were his contemporaries? Did he have any disagreements with other poskim of his or earlier periods? If so what were they?
Before figuring out Tosfos' name, blood type, and place of birth, can we focus on the actual point - what he says? Because his biographical information has minor significance to someone who wishes to understand Torah.
@Zundel,
You want me to trust your advocacy of Tosfos’ reasoning and viewpoint and it seems you know nothing about him. That’s like voting for a someone for President of USA without having the slightest idea of hardly anything about him except maybe his preference for breakfast.
It’s not so much your ignorance that’s astounding, it’s your preference for his biographical immateriality that’s eye-popping.
I know, it's absolutely mind-boggling that a Sefer that was accepted by Chachamim for generations as authoritative should continue to be accepted.
What a crazy Charedi idea.
No MO, or Chardal, or Dal, would ever accept the words of Tosfos, even when Tosfos brings proof. No! If he says it, it must be wrong! Until we know the name of his pet hamster, his words are by definition wrong!
It's just like voting for someone for president. Absolutely.
(In short: tell me you never learned a word, without saying you never learned a word.)
But anyway, it is telling that Slifkin's supporters include people like this. It says something about his position that it resonates with people who have no background in learning Torah.
@Zundel,
How do you know I have no background learning Torah? It’s precisely because I have studied the “Torah” whatever that all encompassing term means that I recognize how easy it is to manipulate the “Torah” to make it fit with your awful beliefs.
Your appeal to authority to legitimize “Tosfos” isn’t very clever and neither is your appeal to ignorance.
As for my deference for Rav Slifkin, his religious beliefs are much of a higher rank than mine. I have very little religious beliefs. But one thing I do know, if I were of the proper age and citizenship I’d risk my life in Gaza to save a religious Jew fighting for the deliverance of the State from a depraved foe, and that truly religious Jew would do the same for me. Unlike a Chareidi kollel bench-kvetcher.
That's definitely how many chareidim think, but many don't. Even according to the "Ultra fundamentalist" Rabbi Avigdor Miller, we are waiting for when Jews will somehow be free to do what they want in the land without the world against them. Also pretty magical, but not exactly the same. Everyone agrees it will happen at some point, the only question is what comes first.
One doesn't have to be a messianic Zionist to see the positive aspects of Israel.
Yeah, and if they get slaughtered in the process because they don't have an army ... ? It's like the guy in the flood who refuses to get on the boat and the helicopter because he's waiting for Hashem to save him.
Not quite. Because it was overcast he couldn't tell whether it was still more than three days before שבת when it would be permitted to embark on a ship.
Yehoshafat was criticized for being too friendly with Achav and his family, and in fact, his son "went off the derech" by marrying into that family. Non religious jews are our brothers and unconditional love for them is seemingly the correct approach towards them in this day and age (we are not talking about Achav, who went to great lengths himself to rebel against Hashem and is listed by chazal as one of the kings to have no chelek in olam haba, but rather perhaps more analogous to a later generation of kings, who just continued in the ways of Yeravam, which did not land them on the list, since they didn't initiate this).
However, for one to take the approach of focusing on all we have in common with them and their approach, basically saying that it's almost ideal (at least compared to charedim) would seem to be to the religious detriment of dati leumi and perhaps related to why so many do go off the derech- in the army and elsewhere, and I don't think that's how hesder yeshiva students usually approach them (hence, their "going off" rate would be lower). (As an aside, I think this failure can be seen to lead to the opposite problem, albeit, more in the modern orthodox community than dati leumi, namely, teenagers "flipping out"/ becoming charedi. From what I can tell, a kid is more likely to buy into whatever they're selling in yeshiva, (at the impressionable stage of life that he finds himself there, when he's looking to be idealistic) if his family background in hashkafa is weaker. Kids who are brought up keeping halacha "just because" while their views have mostly been influenced by secular society and not much Torah, are ripe for accepting whatever they're told the Torah says about anything by their kind, caring rabbeim. We would do well to inculcate our actual Torah values at home, and yeshiva can then become a place to grow in knowledge and understanding of those values instead of becoming a place to completely change from the theoretical values that the parents had and failed to know enough to be able to inculcate them.)
I think you're correct in much of the content of your critique of the charedi community, however, growing up in beit shemesh, I have seen that kids and teenagers do associate them with "religion" and overly zealous criticism of them causes kids to want no part in said religion (this could be a fault of the parents, failing to focus on why dati leumi more accurately represents Torah values, unfortunately much of the dati leumi community, in this way like many charedim, do not really know much about Torah ideology and also follow halacha more as mitzvas anashim melumada and aren't capable of properly explaining the ideals of this community based on Torah sources). I believe overly praising the secular world, who actually are just looking to be practical and for the most part are not trying to fulfill Hashem's will, only serves to exacerbate this issue.
In sum, I think focus on demonstrating through Torah sources why the dati leumi approach is correct, and only in this context, contrasting with the issues of the charedi world and showing how their interpretation of sources do not represent an accurate picture of what Hashem in His Torah demands of us, while not overly associating with and praising the values of the secular community, could perhaps be a better approach from a chinuch perspective to inculcate authentic and sincere avodas Hashem. The willingness in the last few posts to hold dear the values of the secular zionists more so than the religious non zionists has been disappointing to me. Rav Aharon Lichtenstein would say that we do have much in common with the charedi community, while those similarities have to do with malchusa derekiya and our similarities with secular jews is mostly limited to things related to malchusa de'ara (he certainly valued the former over the latter).
Thank you for your friendly and complimentary response, my anonymous interlocutor :)
As I perhaps did not make completely clear, but thought could be gathered from some of the things I said, my main concern here would be for the "weaker" parts of dati leumi/ modem orthodoxy. People who might practice more of a "social orthodoxy," where they keep the halacha that they keep and maybe learn a bit of Torah to be "yotzei" (a daf yomi shiur in the morning or the like), but spend much of their free time watching TV or playing sports and general culture has much influence on their household atmosphere. There is of course much to improve from an avodas Hashem perspective, but I think charedi bashing and explicit focus on how much they have in common with secular society will only exacerbate matters if the goal is (and I think many parents in said situations do have this goal) to raise kids with at least the same connection to religion. I think the more serious parts of modern orthodoxy and dati leumi naturally do see themselves as being closer to charedim than secular, since their highest value is avodas Hashem and they just disagree about the way to go about it.
The reason kids and teenagers with such backgrounds would associate charedim more with religion than people like them is that charedim- at least ostensibly- demonstrate more commitment and passion to the religion they practice and the unlearned person can get the impression that this is a "true Torah lifestyle" and when it is disparaged by people they respect, they think that a true Torah lifestyle should be thrown out the window. Kids and teenagers are not very good with nuance, especially when they're ignorant about the issues in the first place. This wouldn't be a problem in the charedi community because they already see themselves as having "true Torah Judaism" and aren't being bashed by themselves.
This has always and will always continue to be the strongest argument against the Chareidi worldview, their total lack of identification with the larger klal of klal Yisroel. It shows a disconnect from our shared Jewish history as well as their non-respect for tanach.
Reb Cholent, I would highly recommend you take a second and more critical view of history than the one you seem to have picked up in artscroll books. The “Chareidi ideal” is an aberration from history and not like you say “focused on a specific recipe handed down from their ancestors”. Though it may be surprising to hear, Judaism has been constantly evolving and this fascination and clinging to shtetl ideas about life is not “traditional Judaism” but in many ways a turn against it
Reb Yaakov, I would highly recommend a second reading of that article as it is not a celebration or negation of any movement but rather pointing out what I see as a sociological fact about the Israeli State
They're Jews. (Well, many in the US aren't, but many are. And Israel almost all are.)
Fact – Haredim are growing in number and growing in political strength. They fail to confront the fact that, as a gadol once said , “With great power comes great responsibility“
At the beginning of the existence of the state of Israel Haredim could sit and learn and look upon the Medina as their shver for financial support . There comes a time, though, when you, the Kollel learner, grow up and have kids of your own and soon, YOU are the shver. That means somehow you need to make a living and help run things and take actual responsibility for getting things done.
The Haredi Community clings to the idea that even though we are living on our own land, we are still in golus . That way they can dodge responsibility for helping run the state – making sure the trains run, the electricity and telephone system are working, all the while, taking advantage of the fact that someone else is taking care of these things. That way, they can avoid the unpleasantries of having to learn stuff like math and English and the sciences.
If your ideal is that all of Clal Yisrael are shomrei Torah and mitzvos, then it’s about time for the leaders to figure out how that can happen.
"At the beginning of the existence of the state of Israel Haredim could sit and learn and look upon the Medina as their shver for financial support."
No they didn't. They worked. Until Begin. One of the most important critiques about contemporary Charedi society, is that it is most contemporary and actually represents a break with traditional Jewish life.
"we are still in golus . That way they can dodge responsibility"
All through golus, there was no such thing as dodging responsibility.
" we are living on our own land"
Do they believe that?
But the Chareidim aren't serving a well rounded meal... They're serving just cholent.. and as they become a larger segment of the population producing only cholent won't be viable..
Because they'll be fewer and fewer people available to produce the other dishes, and yes.. to guard the potato field.
And they become more obese and more slothly, and develop more and more chronic diseases due to their single dish diet.
The charedi community still follows the principles of Austritt of Rav Hirsch. They are a separate community that interacts with the general population only when absolutely necessary. Yes it still lives by the old rules. Rav Goren complained that the charedi rabbis rely heavily on nonJews for Shabbat problems which he felt was not appropriate for a Jewish state as opposed to a small community in the diaspora
here is Rashi "שֹׁפְטִים וְשֹׁטְרִים – שֹׁפְטִים, דַּיָּנִים הַפּוֹסְקִים אֶת הַדִּין; וְשֹׁטְרִים, הָרוֹדִין אֶת הָעָם אַחַר מִצְוָתָם, שֶׁמַּכִּין וְכוֹפְתִין בְּמַקֵּל וּבִרְצוּעָה עַד שֶׁיְּקַבֵּל עָלָיו אֶת דִּין הַשּׁוֹפֵט"
Source for the quote from the Brisker Rav?
Well said!
The berating (of Chareidim) will continue until moral improves
Morale. Although morals could use improvement too.
He leift of the last 'e' for efficiency. Don't obses over mising leters.
How about until they cease to be a deadly parasitic growth on klal yisrael and take human decency and adult responsibilities seriously
This response just proves the point. Like all other unimaginative and warmed over replies, it indicates precisely the inability to think beyond the ghetto scale.
Irrelevant. The post was about the inaction when it comes to appying Torah on a large scale. You're changing the topic, which indicates you can't handle the topic and prefer to provide a narrow ghetto scaled response to applying Torah on a large scale.
Constructive dialogue with who exactly? Meanwhile, I'm finding my writings to have many positive effects, thank you.
Honest question. Do you feel successful if your writings lead a chareidi person to become a non-chareidi contributing member of society (serve/work etc) but lax in halacha?
Meaning, do you see contribution to society as more important than commitment to keeping all the mitzvos?
This perspective
Source for the Brisker Rov story please?
"Shoftim v’shotrim - creating a legal system and a police force" see Rashi for the real explanation
Fallacy of Composition | Definition & Examples
Published on May 10, 2023 by Kassiani Nikolopoulou. Revised on October 30, 2023.
A fallacy of composition involves assuming that parts or members of a whole will have the same properties as the whole. This leads to wrong conclusions because what is true of the different parts is not necessarily true of the whole.
bsorot tovot