Month: August 2016 – כ״ח בתמוז תשע״ו

Galus Judaism Is Not Libertarian

Haredi Rabbis Ban Vos Iz Neias, reports Failed Messiah from 2010. Here is the ban’s text:

VIN ban

How do I know if the facts are accurate?! And I have no comment on bans in general at the moment. But I do notice this sentence:

וכן כותב נגד שרים ופאליטישאנס שאנו תחת חסותם כדי להבאיש ריחם, והחילול השם נורא ואיום.

Nu. It is a desecration of God’s name to flatter the wicked. Besides, isn’t the idea of democracy that the politicians are under the peoples’ thumb, and not the other way around, as in Monarchy? And if the signers are aware we live under a ruling class, how do politicians fit into this? Politicians are mere front-men for the Deep State! Perhaps they hold that “Eved melech, melech”?

Sha’arei Teshuvah 3:148 says:

ונאמר (משלי כז, כא) מצרף לכסף וכור לזהב ואיש לפי מהללו. פרושו, מעלות האדם לפי מה שיהלל. אם הוא משבח המעשים הטובים והחכמים והצדיקים, תדע ובחנת כי איש טוב הוא ושרש – הצדק נמצא בו, כי לא ימצא את לבו רק לשבח את הטוב והטובים תמיד בכל דבריו, ולגנות את העברות, ולהבזות בעליהן (מבלי מאוס ברע ובחור בטוב), ואם יתכן כי יש בידו עונות נסתרים, אבל מאוהבי – הצדק הוא, ולו שרש בבחירה. והוא מעדת מכבדי השם. והמשבח מעשים מגנים או מהלל רשעים, הוא הרשע הגמור והמחלל את עבודת השם יתברך

And see further on, idem.

Some Other Minhagim…

 

If you’re anything like me, you want to know the real history your teachers’ teachers kept from y’all.

So here is a great summary of a book discussing the good, the bad, the ugly and especially the surprising Halachic customs. Written with special interest in the Ezras Nashim experience of course. Did you know women would do Sandaka’us (I did)? Divorce was insufficiently stigmatized? About Zimun of women and men (I should really write about that topic sometime)? The reason Yibbum was first discouraged? And more.

 

Making Aliyah: Look Before You Leap!

The Kedushah and the Pitfalls

Gil Student

The December 2004 issue of Jewish Observer has a very courageous article that is sure to ruffle some feathers. The article discusses the difficulties involved in making aliyah and even encourages some people not to make aliyah.

What is at issue is the vast cultural divide between communities outside of Israel and that in Israel (note that the JO understandably focuses only on the Haredi communities). In Israel, affiliation with a group and belonging to it is much more important than in America. Furthermore, the groups in Israel expect strict compliance to their social norms and lack of conformity leads to a degree of ostracization. While many adults can deal with that, children frequently have great difficulty with that. Generally, they either need to adjust completely to Israel or be able to live in relative isolation. Especially those who make aliyah in their teen years, when social patterns and cliques have already developed, have difficulty fitting in. Many – too many, end up leaving the Orthodox community entirely.

Rabbi [Zev] Oratz estimates that between ten and twenty-percent of children who make aliya in their teenage years end up going off thederech, meaning that a family that moves with three children in their teens (not an uncommon scenario) has a forty percent chance of one of their children abandoning Yiddishkeit…

[Rabbi Noach Orlowek] quotes Rabbi Nachman Bulman zt”l as having said that the time for families to come to Eretz Yisroel is either before the children are born or after they’re married. “I would certainly say,” he adds, “that parents who bring children here over the age of 6 or 7 are taking a big chance.”

R. Orlowek suggests that the children who have the least problems adjusting are those who are “confident, socially stable, and have no language problems.”

R. Avrohom Weinberg is quoted as saying “If a bachur follows professional sports in America, for example, he may not be looked at as doing anything wrong. Here, such a thing can get a boy kicked out of yeshiva.” That is, understandably, a very difficult adjustment for a child who was forced to leave his home and friends.

Continue reading…
From Hirhurim, here.

‘Zehut’ Can Do This – If They Have the Guts!

A Minority Report for Israel’s Right

Like all other groups and individuals, the Arabs are both harmed unjustly and benefited unjustly by the Israeli state in various ways. We anyway ought to shrink the state! So why not let Arabs hear all about it and get some votes, too? We can promote a more peaceful situation with the Arabs based on the near-universal wish for justice, law and order, and free markets. Although we may not become personally close to non-Jews, which is why their wine and bread etc. were banned, we can certainly make alliances if we’re careful.

The article doesn’t go far enough. The point is larger and more sensible than politics, whether municipal or national (which is mostly a delusion). I cannot include excerpts because it’s too good; just read it all!

Democracy – The Downward Spiral

What the doctrine of balancing budgets over a period of many years really means is this: As long as our own party is in office, we will enhance our popularity by reckless spending. We do not want to annoy our friends by cutting down expenditure. We want the voters to feel happy under the artificial short-lived prosperity which the easy money policy and rich supply of additional money generate. Later, when our adversaries will be in office, the inevitable consequence of our expansionist policy, viz., depression, will appear. Then we shall blame them for the disaster and assail them for their failure to balance the budget properly.

It is very unlikely that the practice of deficit spending will be abandoned in the not too distant future. As a fiscal policy it is very convenient to inept governments. It is passionately advocated by hosts of pseudo‑economists. It is praised at the universities as the most beneficial expedient of “unorthodox,” really “progressive” and “anti‑fascist” methods of public finance. A radical change of ideologies would be required to restore the prestige of sound fiscal procedures, today decried as “orthodox” and “reactionary.”

Such an overthrow of an almost universally accepted doc trine is unlikely to occur as long as the living generation of professors and politicians has not passed away. The present writer, having for more than forty years uncompromisingly fought against all varieties of credit expansion and inflation, is forced sadly to admit that the prospects for a speedy return to sound management of monetary affairs are rather thin. A realistic evaluation of the state of public opinion, the doctrines taught at the universities and the mentality of politicians and pressure groups must show us that the inflationist tendencies will prevail for many years.