"It’s just a claim that they brandish to feel good about themselves and to rationalize their avoidance of sharing national responsibility."
It's pure self-justification, to feel morally superior and excuse themselves from participating in the collective obligations of citizenship. Instead of engaging with shared duties, they frame their disengagement as virtuous, deflecting from their lack of contribution to national responsibility. Avoiding accountability while maintaining a facade of righteousness and "contribution".
(Cue all the Charedi defenders who will now psychoanalyze Rabbi Slifkin's supposed obsessive hate for Charedim.)
It's not just chareidi defenders. It's also chareidi opponents. Lots of people think Slifkin is very obsessive. Because he is. He's obviously mentally ill. Certifiably nuts. And so are you if you defend this behavior.
Typical Charedi psychosis. Nothing can be permitted to penetrate the comfortable bubble of delusion. Anything which threatens it is evil. Anyone who does is insane.
I have such a hard time understanding Orthodox Jews who deny human responsibility for the effects of human actions. The entire halakhic system simply cannot work if you deny the natural cause-effect chain due to human action. If every action I do does not mechanically cause results according to natural rules but needs God to pull the strings that determine what will happen next, then how could a Jew ever be guilty of violating Shabbat or eating non-kosher? I didn't cook the food on Shabbat; God did! God could have decided that the food would not cook. According to the view of the writer in Yated Ne'eman, there should be no such thing as non-observant Jews.
It is certainly irrational, but it aligns with the trajectory (ad absurdum) of other fundamentalist religions. For instance, consider the medieval Muslim philosophy of Occasionalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occasionalism):
"Occasionalism is a philosophical doctrine about causation which says that created substances cannot be efficient causes of events. Instead, all events are taken to be caused directly by God [...]
The doctrine states that the illusion of efficient causation between mundane events arises out of God's causing of one event after another. However, there is no necessary connection between the two: it is not that the first event causes God to cause the second event: rather, God first causes one and then causes the other."
You are punished for your actions not the results. Let me ask you a question. Rosh Hashana is coming and we say in Davening based on the Gemara in Rosh Hashana that every person has a din and is either written for life or death. Imagine Reuven was inscribed for life. During that year Shimon decides he wants to kill Reuven. Can Shimon kill Reuven?
ויצילהו מידם. פי' לפי שהאדם בעל בחירה ורצון ויכול להרוג מי שלא נתחייב מיתה משא"כ חיות רעות לא יפגעו באדם אם לא יתחייב מיתה לשמים, והוא אומרו ויצילהו מידם פי' מיד הבחירי ובזה סתר אומרו ונראה מה יהיו חלומותיו וגו' כי הבחירה תבטל הדבר ואין ראיה אם יהרגוהו כי שקר דבר:
ויצילהו מידם. "He saved him from harm at their hands. This action was applauded by the Torah as man is a free creature possessing freedom of choice and able to kill people who are not guilty or have not been convicted, as distinct from wild beasts which do not kill humans unless the latter are guilty of death in the eyes of G'd. The words ויצילהו מידם mean that he saved them from the evil consequences of carrying out their freedom of choice to kill. By doing what he did Reuben nullified the brothers' statement: "we shall see what happens to his dreams."
First, "you are punished for your actions, not the results." That's against Halakhah. If someone puts a piece of raw meat in the oven and turns on the heat and then goes away for an hour, and meanwhile someone else comes and takes the meat out before it gets cooked, does the Halakhah treat the person who put the meat in the same as in a case where no one took it out and it did get cooked? Halakhah cares about the results of your actions. If two people inflict the same wound on two other people, one dies in treatment and the other is saved because he had a superior doctor, does Halakhah give the same penalty to both people? Halakhah considers the result to be the responsibility of the perpetrator of the action.
Now, as for the Gemara in Rosh Hashana. This is an ancient question that the Rambam could not figure out the answer to. We don't understand how to reconcile Divine foreknowledge with free will. God's decree exists in His knowledge in a way we don't understand. It does not take away our ability to make free decisions. If the Gemara means what you say it means, there would not be such a thing as free will.
Regarding your second point you have free will to try to kill the other person. You will simply not succeed. Everyone agrees that there is hashgacha pratis and therefore at any time hashem can intervene and save the person. Nimrod wanted to kill Avraham but could not.
Regarding your first point. Halacha being an earthly system deals with the results on earth. The Beis din here can only deal with results as it can’t read minds etc. But when you are judged in heaven it’s not results that you are judged on but your actions and intentions.
Marty, I’m not sure if we disagree. Let me try to make my point more clear and tell me if you agree. Consider this thought experiment. Imagine that the beepers exploded due to a Jewish man named Reuven who pushed a button that caused them all to explode. Now say he pushed that button on Shabbat. Halakhah would say there are at least two melakhot involved here, combustion and drawing blood (we’ll leave the complicated issue of closing an electric circuit aside). In this thought experiment, let us cancel out the heter of pikuach nefesh (saving lives) somehow – say that the terrorists were not threatening life but only property, or, say that Reuven could have pushed the button on Friday or Sunday but specifically chose Shabbat in order to purposely break Shabbat – he’s that kind of guy. Do you agree that the Halakhah would pronounce Reuven as chayav, as responsible for the result, and therefore worthy of the proper halakhic punishment (either a korban, karet, or stoning, depending on the exact cirumstances)? Additionally, do you agree that Halakhah would count up each exploded pager, and each injured person, and attribute each one to Reuven, multiplying the number of his violations (known in Halakhah as גופין מוחלקין)? Furthermore, would you agree that all those who helped Reuven by setting up the scheme, assuming they also all encouraged him to push the button specifically on Shabbat in order to break Shabbat – in my thought experiment they’re that kind of guys – are classified by the Halakhah as mesay’e’a yedei ovrei aveira – assisting the sinner? If you agree, and you agree that pretty much any yeshiva bochur would agree, do you see how this halakhic way of thinking, when applied to the real-life case before us, contradicts the claim of the Yated writer that the Mossad or IDF are not responsible for this outcome?
Not the way they see it. The world runs on 2 levels. Halacha in this world works with what we see. Reuben pulled the trigger he is chayav. The Gemara in Beitzah says that מזונותיו של אדם קצובים לו בראש השנה. And yet, there are halachos of hasagas gvul etc. If my income was fixed on Rosh Hashana then someone being משיג גבול shouldn’t affect me and yet I can go to Beis din and stop him. Why? Because Halacha deals with the way the world looks to keep up the illusion. The world is a test to see if we can see through the illusion of השתדלות and understand that it’s all from hashem. But in reality in שמים the victim only died because there was a גזירה on him to die. My income is fixed and no one can take away a penny from me. If he wasn’t supposed to die then Reuven would not have been able to kill him no matter what he did. The same applies to anything that happens. There is a famous statement of the BESHT A leaf doesn’t fall unless there is a גזירה משמים. Therefore, the beepers only blew up because there was a גזירה משמים.
I understand the idea that there are two levels. What I don't understand is how the writer in Yated can write as if there is only one level, the heavenly, non-halakhic one. The halakhic level should obligate him to give gratitude and acknowledgement to the Mossad and IDF.
Not sure why it's controversial, you can kill someone even if not destined to, only hashem can step in if one is worthy. Find me someone who argues with that, and don't tell me שער הבטחון בחובות הלבבות.
Agreed, though there are other similar opinions out there. My intention is merely to point out that it's virtually impossible for us to assert when Hashem will intervene and when He will not
R' Slifkin, there's just one problem citing anything from Tanach, or even Chazal, in this context: Charedim have never really given up their belief that the entire Zionist enterprise is illegitimate. I mean, sure, they live here, and so have to get money from it and (for both money and their safety and lives) can't quite hope it disappears, but they're still not happy with it. So you say, "The Torah says to go to war" or "David went to war" or whatever, and their automatic response will be, "Yeah, but none of that is about pasul Israel."
(Never mind that, as R' Ahron Soloveichik once said, you can say what you want about Ben Gurion or any other Zionist founder of Israel, they weren't a fraction of the reshaim some of the kings of Israel were. And before the usual suspects jump down my throat, of course an evil king is still legitimate. Think about it.)
My sister told her little son once that Hashem made everything in the world. A while later they were taking a walk together, and he said to her, "Look at that nice Sukkah that Hashem made!"
Nu, so what took them so long? It's not bad enough that their Beyn hazmanim caused the slaughter and the war. It's those ישיבות לנושרים; I've said for years that we would be safer with smaller, more professional yeshivot.
"The accomplishments, Yated declares, are all thanks to charedim who started Elul zman and are intensively learning Torah."
Hmmm. I don't think any work went into designing, developing, nor distributing those pagers and radios during Elul zman. This all happened many months earlier. I suppose from the Yated's perspective they would argue that none of the pagers would have blown up were it not for the learning Torah. That's not a very persuasive argument.
As an aside, hearing about the beeper bombers was the funniest thing I have heard in a long time. מגיע להם!!
I didn't see the article inside, but I suspect you misunderstood what they meant. Certainly they acknowledge that this mission was accomplished by the IDF/Mossad.
They are merely saying that God allowed this mission to be successful due the Jewish people keeping and learning his Torah.
Faceless non-interactive text is an incredibly poor means of communication so, relative to the severity of what I am saying, I will be keeping this short.
If I have any success at reaching you despite this meager medium it will mean the two of speaking via Gmail Meet or Whatsapp as soon as possible.
I'm a fan of transparency for humankind so I would like to make our conversation a podcast on my channel (and yours if you would like) but that's entirely up to you. We can speak beini liveincha with no record or, as I assume you (very admirably) prefer, recorded as a podcast but not as a "gotcha", where - as with anyone I've ever recorded - you can choose to exempt anything you say or do from publication. From a single word to every word.
What we need to speak about (and again we can 100% speak privately if you prefer) is that I believe it would be a sin to harbor my feelings for you rather than to speak face to face so that I can not be oiver Loi Sisnah es achicha as (hopefully) you come to desire to fix what you have done and make me whole.
I went looking for any responses regarding my comment asking for contact information from the man from Gaza you wrote about, and found that my comment was non-existent. (I am Yadidya YDYDY.)
This confused me so while I hadn't been planning to (as I had provided you my direct whatsapp number there so I felt checking for a response to be unnecessary) I checked the other page where I had left a comment and couldn't find it either.
What I found instead was someone referring to me as a Jew for Jesus.
I responded - quite politely! - to this disgusting rechilus but found that it wouldn't post. Further down the comment page I discovered why:
Under the absent comment of "BANNED USER" was our little rachil repeating his great discovery. I assume he first wrote that one, you banned me, and then - fearing that the target of his rechilus waa longer identifiable he penned the original comment that I had seen and attempted to respond to.
I wrote to him privately to give him the option of doing tshuva - to zero affect. He sounds like a kid who grew up on reddit and accepts their values.
But you definitely know better, and what you did was a thousand times worth than what he did.
If this letter is unclear to you, I should explain that there are paragraphs written by Rambam in Hilchos Deos perek Vav that I take so seriously that I have TWICE done what little I could to disseminate them to the world by translating them for my mostly non-jewish audience, milah b'milah.
First here, In front of The Great Pyramids under the title: "Morals of Egyptian Rabbi Moses"
My understanding is that sinah shebaleiv is wrong because every ben bris is by nature empathetic and doesn't want to cause people pain but only does so by accident or due to the pressures and imperfections that we are all prone to as human beings, and that therefore the injured party is required to discuss his claim with the injuring party because we are all supposed to be brothers, in love with each other.
Rambam takes this so very seriously that he even calls Avshalom a Rasha for preferring to hate Amnon rather than to preferring to attempt to fix the relationship with the man who raped and cast away his sister.
When you think about the fact that Rambam calls attention to such an extreme case, calling Avshalom a Rasha for refusing to make peace with the man who raped his sister, you see how essential this is to his view.
I don't expect you to put yourself in my shoes so I'll help. I feel so strongly against you that if the mitzvah of lo sisna did not exist and if I had the power to do so I would curse upon you nearly every klalah imaginable.
Lacking your contact information (and I have made attempts) I had no choice but to get your attention by ridiculously writing to you here. You can delete or not delete this comment as your values dictate but there's no need to keep it up for my sake. You have my whatsapp number and email address, and they are easily available on both my Substack and YouTube if you've misplaced them.
Those are the ways to reach me if you want to. I won't be returning to this comment here so if you want to delete it I assume that would be wise.
May you have a beautiful shabbos, and may God grant the miracle that despite the poorness of this medium, my words reach your heart.
Losing your cheilek in oilam haba for the pleasure of imagining that someone someone might smile at your joke is an unwise use of your one shot at miskabeid b'kloin chaveiroi.
I assume you're usually better than that, otherwise I wouldn't bother pointing it out to you.
Perfectly said:
"It’s just a claim that they brandish to feel good about themselves and to rationalize their avoidance of sharing national responsibility."
It's pure self-justification, to feel morally superior and excuse themselves from participating in the collective obligations of citizenship. Instead of engaging with shared duties, they frame their disengagement as virtuous, deflecting from their lack of contribution to national responsibility. Avoiding accountability while maintaining a facade of righteousness and "contribution".
(Cue all the Charedi defenders who will now psychoanalyze Rabbi Slifkin's supposed obsessive hate for Charedim.)
It's not just chareidi defenders. It's also chareidi opponents. Lots of people think Slifkin is very obsessive. Because he is. He's obviously mentally ill. Certifiably nuts. And so are you if you defend this behavior.
So why do you follow his blog?
Rationalist Judaism, the 21st century version of this
https://www.ranker.com/list/asylum-visitors-in-the-nineteenth-century/christy-box
19th-Century Tourists Visited Mental Asylums Like They Were Theme Parks
Thanks for sharing the link to Mental Asylums.
Today you don't have to visit one, just go on to this blog and observe people like you!
Because I like watching the downfall of the enemies of the Torah. It's a little taste of Olam Haba.
Because Mr Pseudonym here is obsessessed with Rabbi Slifkin.
Typical Charedi psychosis. Nothing can be permitted to penetrate the comfortable bubble of delusion. Anything which threatens it is evil. Anyone who does is insane.
I think it would be great to get Charedim to join the Mossad. They would use their sharp analytical minds to remain two steps ahead of the enemy.
Unlike the IDF, the Mossad would be easier for Charedim to join, since its not a כור היתוך like the IDF is.
What evidence do you have that charedim are any more sharp than anyone else? Evidence seems to point the other way.
Charedim wont do any work. They enjoy living off society.
It's waaayyy more secular.
I have such a hard time understanding Orthodox Jews who deny human responsibility for the effects of human actions. The entire halakhic system simply cannot work if you deny the natural cause-effect chain due to human action. If every action I do does not mechanically cause results according to natural rules but needs God to pull the strings that determine what will happen next, then how could a Jew ever be guilty of violating Shabbat or eating non-kosher? I didn't cook the food on Shabbat; God did! God could have decided that the food would not cook. According to the view of the writer in Yated Ne'eman, there should be no such thing as non-observant Jews.
It is certainly irrational, but it aligns with the trajectory (ad absurdum) of other fundamentalist religions. For instance, consider the medieval Muslim philosophy of Occasionalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occasionalism):
"Occasionalism is a philosophical doctrine about causation which says that created substances cannot be efficient causes of events. Instead, all events are taken to be caused directly by God [...]
The doctrine states that the illusion of efficient causation between mundane events arises out of God's causing of one event after another. However, there is no necessary connection between the two: it is not that the first event causes God to cause the second event: rather, God first causes one and then causes the other."
You are punished for your actions not the results. Let me ask you a question. Rosh Hashana is coming and we say in Davening based on the Gemara in Rosh Hashana that every person has a din and is either written for life or death. Imagine Reuven was inscribed for life. During that year Shimon decides he wants to kill Reuven. Can Shimon kill Reuven?
See אור החיים, בראשית ל"ז, כ"א
ויצילהו מידם. פי' לפי שהאדם בעל בחירה ורצון ויכול להרוג מי שלא נתחייב מיתה משא"כ חיות רעות לא יפגעו באדם אם לא יתחייב מיתה לשמים, והוא אומרו ויצילהו מידם פי' מיד הבחירי ובזה סתר אומרו ונראה מה יהיו חלומותיו וגו' כי הבחירה תבטל הדבר ואין ראיה אם יהרגוהו כי שקר דבר:
ויצילהו מידם. "He saved him from harm at their hands. This action was applauded by the Torah as man is a free creature possessing freedom of choice and able to kill people who are not guilty or have not been convicted, as distinct from wild beasts which do not kill humans unless the latter are guilty of death in the eyes of G'd. The words ויצילהו מידם mean that he saved them from the evil consequences of carrying out their freedom of choice to kill. By doing what he did Reuben nullified the brothers' statement: "we shall see what happens to his dreams."
https://www.sefaria.org/Or_HaChaim_on_Genesis.37.21.1
Yes that is a very famous and controversial Ohr Hachaim that everyone knows. We had a whole discussion about it here.
You say two things, so let's take one at a time.
First, "you are punished for your actions, not the results." That's against Halakhah. If someone puts a piece of raw meat in the oven and turns on the heat and then goes away for an hour, and meanwhile someone else comes and takes the meat out before it gets cooked, does the Halakhah treat the person who put the meat in the same as in a case where no one took it out and it did get cooked? Halakhah cares about the results of your actions. If two people inflict the same wound on two other people, one dies in treatment and the other is saved because he had a superior doctor, does Halakhah give the same penalty to both people? Halakhah considers the result to be the responsibility of the perpetrator of the action.
Now, as for the Gemara in Rosh Hashana. This is an ancient question that the Rambam could not figure out the answer to. We don't understand how to reconcile Divine foreknowledge with free will. God's decree exists in His knowledge in a way we don't understand. It does not take away our ability to make free decisions. If the Gemara means what you say it means, there would not be such a thing as free will.
Regarding your second point you have free will to try to kill the other person. You will simply not succeed. Everyone agrees that there is hashgacha pratis and therefore at any time hashem can intervene and save the person. Nimrod wanted to kill Avraham but could not.
Regarding your first point. Halacha being an earthly system deals with the results on earth. The Beis din here can only deal with results as it can’t read minds etc. But when you are judged in heaven it’s not results that you are judged on but your actions and intentions.
Marty, I’m not sure if we disagree. Let me try to make my point more clear and tell me if you agree. Consider this thought experiment. Imagine that the beepers exploded due to a Jewish man named Reuven who pushed a button that caused them all to explode. Now say he pushed that button on Shabbat. Halakhah would say there are at least two melakhot involved here, combustion and drawing blood (we’ll leave the complicated issue of closing an electric circuit aside). In this thought experiment, let us cancel out the heter of pikuach nefesh (saving lives) somehow – say that the terrorists were not threatening life but only property, or, say that Reuven could have pushed the button on Friday or Sunday but specifically chose Shabbat in order to purposely break Shabbat – he’s that kind of guy. Do you agree that the Halakhah would pronounce Reuven as chayav, as responsible for the result, and therefore worthy of the proper halakhic punishment (either a korban, karet, or stoning, depending on the exact cirumstances)? Additionally, do you agree that Halakhah would count up each exploded pager, and each injured person, and attribute each one to Reuven, multiplying the number of his violations (known in Halakhah as גופין מוחלקין)? Furthermore, would you agree that all those who helped Reuven by setting up the scheme, assuming they also all encouraged him to push the button specifically on Shabbat in order to break Shabbat – in my thought experiment they’re that kind of guys – are classified by the Halakhah as mesay’e’a yedei ovrei aveira – assisting the sinner? If you agree, and you agree that pretty much any yeshiva bochur would agree, do you see how this halakhic way of thinking, when applied to the real-life case before us, contradicts the claim of the Yated writer that the Mossad or IDF are not responsible for this outcome?
Not the way they see it. The world runs on 2 levels. Halacha in this world works with what we see. Reuben pulled the trigger he is chayav. The Gemara in Beitzah says that מזונותיו של אדם קצובים לו בראש השנה. And yet, there are halachos of hasagas gvul etc. If my income was fixed on Rosh Hashana then someone being משיג גבול shouldn’t affect me and yet I can go to Beis din and stop him. Why? Because Halacha deals with the way the world looks to keep up the illusion. The world is a test to see if we can see through the illusion of השתדלות and understand that it’s all from hashem. But in reality in שמים the victim only died because there was a גזירה on him to die. My income is fixed and no one can take away a penny from me. If he wasn’t supposed to die then Reuven would not have been able to kill him no matter what he did. The same applies to anything that happens. There is a famous statement of the BESHT A leaf doesn’t fall unless there is a גזירה משמים. Therefore, the beepers only blew up because there was a גזירה משמים.
I understand the idea that there are two levels. What I don't understand is how the writer in Yated can write as if there is only one level, the heavenly, non-halakhic one. The halakhic level should obligate him to give gratitude and acknowledgement to the Mossad and IDF.
I believe the Ohr Hachayim (Yosef in pit sugyah) would disagree with your first point (which was really your second point at one point :-) )
Yes, but that Ohr Hachaim is very controversial and many want to reinterpret it.
Not sure why it's controversial, you can kill someone even if not destined to, only hashem can step in if one is worthy. Find me someone who argues with that, and don't tell me שער הבטחון בחובות הלבבות.
Agreed, though there are other similar opinions out there. My intention is merely to point out that it's virtually impossible for us to assert when Hashem will intervene and when He will not
Please read it and then get back to us how to reinterpret it.
R' Slifkin, there's just one problem citing anything from Tanach, or even Chazal, in this context: Charedim have never really given up their belief that the entire Zionist enterprise is illegitimate. I mean, sure, they live here, and so have to get money from it and (for both money and their safety and lives) can't quite hope it disappears, but they're still not happy with it. So you say, "The Torah says to go to war" or "David went to war" or whatever, and their automatic response will be, "Yeah, but none of that is about pasul Israel."
(Never mind that, as R' Ahron Soloveichik once said, you can say what you want about Ben Gurion or any other Zionist founder of Israel, they weren't a fraction of the reshaim some of the kings of Israel were. And before the usual suspects jump down my throat, of course an evil king is still legitimate. Think about it.)
My sister told her little son once that Hashem made everything in the world. A while later they were taking a walk together, and he said to her, "Look at that nice Sukkah that Hashem made!"
This view of some magic formulas to evoke
G-d, rather than a structured view of human actions and growth, is suspiciously unJewish and in fact rings fairly Catholic.
Actually, the educated Catholics are more sophisticated than that as well.
Nu, so what took them so long? It's not bad enough that their Beyn hazmanim caused the slaughter and the war. It's those ישיבות לנושרים; I've said for years that we would be safer with smaller, more professional yeshivot.
"The accomplishments, Yated declares, are all thanks to charedim who started Elul zman and are intensively learning Torah."
Hmmm. I don't think any work went into designing, developing, nor distributing those pagers and radios during Elul zman. This all happened many months earlier. I suppose from the Yated's perspective they would argue that none of the pagers would have blown up were it not for the learning Torah. That's not a very persuasive argument.
As an aside, hearing about the beeper bombers was the funniest thing I have heard in a long time. מגיע להם!!
Seems that when it comes to protecting beloved Trump, ramping up Torah study is not a suggested solution, at least according to the American Yated.
https://yated.com/what-will-stop-the-trump-assassination-attempts/
Not the same Yated...
Refer to Drashos haRan #10 for a fuller unpacking of "kochi v'otzem yadi".
Spoiler alert - it is not a sin to say it.
They have lost their minds
I didn't see the article inside, but I suspect you misunderstood what they meant. Certainly they acknowledge that this mission was accomplished by the IDF/Mossad.
They are merely saying that God allowed this mission to be successful due the Jewish people keeping and learning his Torah.
Dear Nosson,
Faceless non-interactive text is an incredibly poor means of communication so, relative to the severity of what I am saying, I will be keeping this short.
If I have any success at reaching you despite this meager medium it will mean the two of speaking via Gmail Meet or Whatsapp as soon as possible.
I'm a fan of transparency for humankind so I would like to make our conversation a podcast on my channel (and yours if you would like) but that's entirely up to you. We can speak beini liveincha with no record or, as I assume you (very admirably) prefer, recorded as a podcast but not as a "gotcha", where - as with anyone I've ever recorded - you can choose to exempt anything you say or do from publication. From a single word to every word.
What we need to speak about (and again we can 100% speak privately if you prefer) is that I believe it would be a sin to harbor my feelings for you rather than to speak face to face so that I can not be oiver Loi Sisnah es achicha as (hopefully) you come to desire to fix what you have done and make me whole.
I went looking for any responses regarding my comment asking for contact information from the man from Gaza you wrote about, and found that my comment was non-existent. (I am Yadidya YDYDY.)
This confused me so while I hadn't been planning to (as I had provided you my direct whatsapp number there so I felt checking for a response to be unnecessary) I checked the other page where I had left a comment and couldn't find it either.
What I found instead was someone referring to me as a Jew for Jesus.
I responded - quite politely! - to this disgusting rechilus but found that it wouldn't post. Further down the comment page I discovered why:
Under the absent comment of "BANNED USER" was our little rachil repeating his great discovery. I assume he first wrote that one, you banned me, and then - fearing that the target of his rechilus waa longer identifiable he penned the original comment that I had seen and attempted to respond to.
I wrote to him privately to give him the option of doing tshuva - to zero affect. He sounds like a kid who grew up on reddit and accepts their values.
But you definitely know better, and what you did was a thousand times worth than what he did.
If this letter is unclear to you, I should explain that there are paragraphs written by Rambam in Hilchos Deos perek Vav that I take so seriously that I have TWICE done what little I could to disseminate them to the world by translating them for my mostly non-jewish audience, milah b'milah.
First here, In front of The Great Pyramids under the title: "Morals of Egyptian Rabbi Moses"
https://youtu.be/h-BOkIuOKCA
And again, last week here, in a more urgent manner, under the title: URGENT: Dear Rabbis and Committed Jews"
https://youtu.be/gp53ggoLsaY
My understanding is that sinah shebaleiv is wrong because every ben bris is by nature empathetic and doesn't want to cause people pain but only does so by accident or due to the pressures and imperfections that we are all prone to as human beings, and that therefore the injured party is required to discuss his claim with the injuring party because we are all supposed to be brothers, in love with each other.
Rambam takes this so very seriously that he even calls Avshalom a Rasha for preferring to hate Amnon rather than to preferring to attempt to fix the relationship with the man who raped and cast away his sister.
When you think about the fact that Rambam calls attention to such an extreme case, calling Avshalom a Rasha for refusing to make peace with the man who raped his sister, you see how essential this is to his view.
I don't expect you to put yourself in my shoes so I'll help. I feel so strongly against you that if the mitzvah of lo sisna did not exist and if I had the power to do so I would curse upon you nearly every klalah imaginable.
Lacking your contact information (and I have made attempts) I had no choice but to get your attention by ridiculously writing to you here. You can delete or not delete this comment as your values dictate but there's no need to keep it up for my sake. You have my whatsapp number and email address, and they are easily available on both my Substack and YouTube if you've misplaced them.
Those are the ways to reach me if you want to. I won't be returning to this comment here so if you want to delete it I assume that would be wise.
May you have a beautiful shabbos, and may God grant the miracle that despite the poorness of this medium, my words reach your heart.
Got my Thursday cholent, now I'm satisfied
Booooo……
Losing your cheilek in oilam haba for the pleasure of imagining that someone someone might smile at your joke is an unwise use of your one shot at miskabeid b'kloin chaveiroi.
I assume you're usually better than that, otherwise I wouldn't bother pointing it out to you.
You should be a Talmudic rabbi. It’s amazing how you can so quickly connect unrelated concepts.