Avodah Mailing List

Volume 05 : Number 015

Thursday, April 13 2000

• Re: Why do we have to empty our garbage cans before Pesach?
• Re: RSL
• The "Children at Risk" issues of the Jewish Observer
• April JO Essay
• Re: The "Children at Risk" issues of the Jewish Observer
• Re: RYBS criticising secular Israeli leadership
• Re: The "Children at Risk" issues of the Jewish Observer
• Re: Brisker Chakira Concerning Ma Nishtana
• Re: Avodah V5 #14
• re: Children at risk
• Re: April JO Essay
• Israel... What a country!
• Re: Israel... What a country!
• Conservative
• Re: The "Children at Risk" issues of the Jewish Observer
• RYBS criticising secular Israeli leadership
• Re: ISrael... What a country

Aviva Fee wrote:

>>I do not understand why this is.  Even if there is chometz gomur in the 
>>garbage can, it should not be a problem for any of the following:

>>- - It was sold before Pesach
>>- - It was included in the bittul
>>- - The fact that it is in the garbage can shows that you consider it 
>>ownerless

If the chometz was sold with your mechirah then you cannot throw it out or have 
it picked up for 8 days.  If you do so you are either stealing or invalidating 
the original sale.

Even if it was included in the bittul there is still a mitzvah derabbanan of 
biur chametz.

You can't make something hefker if it is still on your property.  Some take it 
to the side of the road before bitul so that it is no longer on your property.  
Others pour ammonia or some other poisonous liquid or powder onto the garbage to
make it aino ra'ui le'achilas kelev (although presumably R. Blumenkrantz would 
disagree with that method).

Gil Student
gil.student@citicorp.com

And the proo for that statement is?  Do you contes that RSL was Dean of the
Rabbinica School and Rector of JTS?  Do you dispute that he was head of the
RA's Committee on Law and Standards?    What exactly do you find to be
hogwash?



----- Original Message -----
From: Yosef Gavriel and Shoshanah M. Bechhofer
<sbechhof@casbah.acns.nwu.edu>
To: Daniel B. Schwartz <schwartzesq@WORLDNET.ATT.NET>
Cc: Avodah <avodah@aishdas.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2000 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: RSL


> To put it delicately, the paragraph is hogwash.
>
> For those still offended by that relatively mild term, we can use "self
> serving drivel".
>
> Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer
> http://www.aishdas.org/baistefila    ygb@aishdas.org
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Daniel B. Schwartz <SCHWARTZESQ@worldnet.att.net>
> To: <Gil.Student@citicorp.com>; <avodah@aishdas.org>;
> <sbechhof@casbah.acns.nwu.edu>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2000 3:00 PM
> Subject: Re: RSL
>
>
> > The following is an excerpt from the Tradition Renewed, a history of
JTS.
> I
> > took this from theie Web Site, so I assume it is "official"  CJ material
> >
> > Finkelstein's administrative team was strengthened by one other
> individual,
> > Saul Lieberman,

Arnold Lustiger wrote:
<<Having spoken to a local psychologist who specializes in treating
"Children
at Risk", the numbers of teens affected today in the NY area exceeds
1000.

Although there is a danger of oversimplifying a very complex issue, I
would
like to use this post to buttress the following points:
1) to a significant extent, the problem is a direct result of RW
Yeshiva
education 
2) R. Eliyahu Dessler himself suggested that the the "dropout"
phenomenon
was a necessary price that must be paid to maintain this type of
education.>>

How does this fare in face of the concluding pargraph of your post,
that the same if not bigger problem exists in MO circles as well:

<<It is very important to note that the "moridim Kippa" phenomenon
among
the Israeli Modern Orthodox , a phenomenon that I understand afflicts
5-10%
of religious Zionist homes, clearly cannot be included in this rubric
-
professional careers and study are encouraged in Israel. In America,
Modern
Orthodox parents have more often glorified professional careers at the
expense of striving to be a gadol baTorah.>>

What are the relevant dropout numbers in American MO circles?

Avrohom Weidberg

The April issue of the JO includes an essay co-authored by fellow Avodah
member R' Ari Z. Zivotofsky and myself on the RSG-RABM controversy. Much of
the material was developed and honed in deliberations on Avodah. Thank you
all very much for your input and assistance!

Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer
http://www.aishdas.org/baistefila    ygb@aishdas.org

While I tend to agree that the "Children at Risk" problem is due in some
part to today's RW education (in that, 150 years ago, it wasn't expected
that all of our teenagers learn all day), this problem is (obviously) also
attributable to other causes.  It is impossible to know exactly how much of
the problem is attributable to each cause.

At the '98 Agudah convention, R' Shlomo Mandel (Yeshiva of Brooklyn, son of
R' Manis) stated that he personally interviewed many of these teens, and
that 75% of them admitted that their home environment was not a pleasant
one.  This issue (of whether, and if so, how much of, the blame is
attributable to parents) has been debated in previous JO's.

I have heard others attribute the "Children at Risk" plague to a far more
widespread (although not as noticeable) epidemic: the fact that many of us,
while "frum in practice," are "spiritually dead" on the inside.   In other
words, if we perform Torah and mitzvos as a matter of routine without any
genuine feeling or true cheshek, why should our children grow up with the
cheshek to be frum yidden?  If we can demonstrate to our children the
simchas hachayim that we have when we are fulfilling the dvar Hashem,
perhaps our children will similarly attain this attitude, which should go a
long way towards their remaining within the fold.

KT
Aryeh

==============================================

Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 19:10:37 +0200
From: "Carl M. Sherer" <cmsherer@ssgslaw.co.il>
Subject: Re: The "Children at Risk" issues of the Jewish Observer

On 12 Apr 00, at 12:47, Arnold Lustiger wrote:

> 1) to a significant extent, the problem is a direct result of RW Yeshiva
> education 

Maybe to a significant extent, but definitely not exclusively (as is 
implicit in the rest of your post). 

<snip>

On 12 Apr 00, at 14:27, Micha Berger wrote:

> PS: Could someone in Chicago who has R' Aharon's ear please relay for me the
> following question (as stated):
>     What do we do now that even the watch-fob is unimportant to them?

Can you repost the analogy (to me privately if you think everyone 
else remembers it)? I remember that it was quite clever.

-- Carl


Please daven and learn for a Refuah Shleima for our son,
Baruch Yosef ben Adina Batya among the sick of Israel.  
Thank you very much.

Carl and Adina Sherer
mailto:sherer@actcom.co.il

--- Arnold Lustiger <alustig@erenj.com> wrote:
> 
> I would
> like to use this post to buttress the following
> points:
> 1) to a significant extent, the problem is a direct
> result of RW Yeshiva
> education 
> 2) R. Eliyahu Dessler himself suggested that the the
> "dropout" phenomenon
> was a necessary price that must be paid to maintain
> this type of education.
> 
> R. Eliyahu Dessler's Teshuva
> 
> In 1951, R. Eliyahu Dessler (Mikhtav Me'Eliyahu, V.
> 3, pgs 355-60) wrote a
> sharply worded teshuva regarding the inadvisability
> of establishing a
> teacher's seminary which would issue academic
> degrees. Within that teshuva,
> he  wrote  the following:
> 
> "...the philosophy of Yeshiva education is directed
> towards one objective
> alone, to nurture Gedolei Torah and Yirei Shamayim
> in tandem. For this
> reason university was prohibited to their students,
> because [the Gedolim]
> could not see how to nurture Gedolei Torah unless
> they directed all
> education towards Torah exclusively. However, do not
> think that they did not
> know in advance that through this approach, G-d
> forbid, many (students) will
> be ruined, since they will be unable to survive such
> an extreme position,
> and [therefore] separate from the path of Torah.
> However, this is the price
> that must be paid for [producing] Gedolei Torah."



Time and again I come across the same problem: that of
the "Desslerian" approach to Torah. And time and again
I hear the argument that learning is to superceed all
other considerations at all cost.  I have lamented
many times in the past the potential for crisis that
this approach can cause and, as RAL points out in his
very poignant post, we are in a crisis now that is
very likely the direct result of the Desslerian
philosophy.

For years my protestations about the Roshei Yeshiva
turning a virtually blind eye to the problem landed on
deaf ears. Often I was lambasted for daring to
question the wisdom of a Yeshiva system that promotes
the type of policies which resulted in the very
problems that we experience today. 

Policies like those that discourage university
education and thereby preventing proffesional careers
for their students are only part of the problem.
Instilling attitudes of disdain towards any student
who proffesses interst outside the Koslei Beis
Hamedrash such as a proffesional career is another
problem.

It seems that it has taken a "Changing of the Gaurd"
so to speak. R. Leib Steinman seems to be the first to
publicly acknowledge the problem, although the
recognition of the problem, I'm certain, has been
there prior to R. Steinman. As RAL points out, R.
Steinman strongly supports the concept that not
everyone should be learning full time, implying very
strongly that the enterprise we have here-to-fore been
engaged in is, at best less than optimal. I believe
that Charedi enrollment in career path courses at
places like Bar Ilan is a direct result of the new
attitude fostered and endorsed by R. Steinman.

What makes this most encouraging is that R. Steiman is
most decidedly from the RW camp, a Rosh HaYeshiva in
Ponevitch, subordinate only to R. Schach, I believe.
My only regret is that it has taken this long and that
we have paid too high a price in human cost. 

It is my fervent hope that this "new" hashkafa catches
on like wildfire so that we can produce more "income
producers" who are Yarei Shamayim and who are Koveya
Itim, with pride in their proffesions.  The TIDE and
TuM schools of thought have aleady done this (only to
be looked down upon in the past by the members of the
Right).  Maybe now there will be a new sesne of mutual
respect developed amongst both the Right and the Left
as they merge closer together in Hashakafa instead of
diverging farther apart as they have in the past.

By encouraging those who can do better outside of
learning full time, we will not only help to reduce
the "Children at Risk" phenomenon but we will open up
more legitimate space to those highly motivated
Yechidei S'Gula who DO have the potential to become
the next generation of Gedolim, Roshei Yeshiva and
other Klei Kodesh.

It will be a better world.

HM

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R' Micha Berger wrote: <<
However, Mah Nishtanah is not a spontaneous question. It is a bit of liturgy
for the seder. I find it absurd to think the Rambam discusses ways to get
your kid curious enough to repeat the text he memorized in school for the
past two weeks. Curiosity has nothing to do with it.
<snip>
IOW, Mah Nishtanah is the "at pisach lo". It's part of "vihigadta livincha",
not "ki yish'alcha bincha machar". >>

I had the good fortune last Sunday night to hear the darshan R' Shlomo
Levinstein (author of the L'Or Ha-Ner Haggadah) give a  three-hour
overview of the haggada (from Ha Lachma Anya to Ha Gadya!).
His view was that the Mah Nishtanah could be regarded as the
questions the Baal Hagada formulated for the "eino yodea lishol".

Kol tuv,
Shlomo Godick

Aviva and Carl write:

>> But how can we place meaning with something that is a consequence of
>> inactivity.  If my beard is longer than your beard, it simply means
>>that
>> either I have not shaved for a longer amount of time or my beard simply
>> grows quicker.

>A Chabadnik once claimed to me that the beard reflects one's
>hadras panim. I don't have a source for that.

 A Chabadnik, who invited me for a Friday night dinner whilst I was in
yeshiva in Israel, quoted the Chofetz Chaim in his sefer "Tiferes ha-adam"
(or is it Tiferes yisrael? I'm not sure) which sounded similar to what
Carl was saying. (Ironic as it was, since I was in Chofetz Chaim at the
time, a definitely unbearded institution.)

 Shlomo

RAL quotes REDzl:

>"Of course, [the Gedolim] must keep watch to do what is possible to
>maintain those who cannot be Bnei Torah, but not through means that will
>influence
>those who remain [in Yeshiva]. For example, those who must leave...
>[should become] storekeepers or other jobs that are not professional
>careers,
>which require no [educational] preparation and do not attract the [other]
>students." 

 I'd just like to remark that in an unrelated sichas mussar, R' Yitzchak
Aizik Sher zl, of the Slobodka yeshiva, says pretty firmly that Chazal
were insistent upon diversifying education and that different people require different
options. It's in Leket Sichas Mussar (the blue volume, I believe. I'm not
sure offhand if it's al ha-Torah or al-haMoadim), in the midst of a sicha
on the Rambam's codification of the issur of TT for women (which is
interesting in its own right). 

I might also add something that I heard from a YAR (Youth At Risk) who's
somewhat related to me. He claimed that what bothered him was the
hypocrisy he witnessed in his yeshiva high school, how the menahalim would
fail to practice what they preach, especially when it came to monetary
issues. Somehow I don't think the JO mentioned that as a reason, but I
think it should be considered as well.


 Shlomo

--- "Yosef Gavriel and Shoshanah M. Bechhofer"
<sbechhof@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> wrote:
> The April issue of the JO includes an essay
> co-authored by fellow Avodah
> member R' Ari Z. Zivotofsky and myself on the >
RSG-RABM controversy.
> Much of
> the material was developed and honed in
> deliberations on Avodah. Thank you
> all very much for your input and assistance!

What is the "RSG-RABM controversy". Could you refresh
my memory?

HM

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Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 14:39:29 -0700 (PDT)
From: Harry Maryles <hmaryles@yahoo.com>
Subject: Israel... What a country!

<<Carl:
 
Your description of the state of affairs in Israel makes it sound like a
"wonderful" country. Who can now resist the "draw" of living in Artzenu
HaKedosha!>>

	I daresay there are very very few religious Jews in Israel who live
there   __because__  of the government rather than   __in spite of it__. 
Your calling it artzenu hakedosha says it all.

Gershon
gershon.dubin@juno.com

On 11 Apr 00, at 14:39, Harry Maryles wrote:

> Your description of the state of affairs in Israel
> makes it sound like a "wonderful" country. Who can now
> resist the "draw" of living in Artzenu HaKedosha!  Who
> would want to live under the oppressive regime in the
> USA after reading your below excerpted post. 
> 
> No wonder you made Aliyah.

One might conclude from the above that one's tachlis in life is to 
find the most politically comfortable place in which to live, i.e., to
discover the path of least resistance.

From the mussar shmuessen I've heard I always thought that finding 
a place maximizing spiritual growth and spiritual  "hitmod'dut" 
took preference.  

Oh well ...

KT,
Shlomo Godick

<<It seems than that RSL was hardly at JTS to lend it prestige, but was a 
major force in shaping CJ>>>

R' David Weiss Halivni spent three decades learning and teaching in JTS. 
Before the Holocaust he was a chassidishe illuy from Sighet who received 
Smicha at the age of 15. He joined JTS in order to learn Yerushalmi under R' 
Saul Leiberman. Eventually he left JTS because of the religious direction it 
was heading in. He writes ("The Book and the Sword" - his memoirs) having 
seen Dr. Finkelstein crying over the direction that JTS was going. RDWH 
moved a bit to the left of RSL and he left the seminary over the reforms. 
Had RSL been alive it can be assumed that he too would have left. If I may 
paraphrase one paragraph from a letter RDWH wrote to the teachers of JTS as 
to why he would not even partake in the vote on ordination for women (this 
issue was the straw which broke the camel's back):

'It is my unfortunate situation that the people I daven with I can not talk 
to and the people I talk to I can not daven with, but when the chips are 
down I always side with the people I daven with because I can live without 
talking but I can't live without davening.'

Moshe

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On 12 Apr 00, at 18:36, Stein, Aryeh E. wrote:

> I have heard others attribute the "Children at Risk" plague to a far more
> widespread (although not as noticeable) epidemic: the fact that many of us,
> while "frum in practice," are "spiritually dead" on the inside.   In other
> words, if we perform Torah and mitzvos as a matter of routine without any
> genuine feeling or true cheshek, why should our children grow up with the
> cheshek to be frum yidden?  If we can demonstrate to our children the
> simchas hachayim that we have when we are fulfilling the dvar Hashem,
> perhaps our children will similarly attain this attitude, which should go a
> long way towards their remaining within the fold.

This is precisely what R. Ahron Kaufman argued in the November 
JO. He described a situation where tfillos are a bunch of mumbo 
jumbo with the people saying them having no idea what they are 
saying. 

It makes sense to me because it explains why now and why davka 
in America (in Eretz Yisrael we have a dropout problem as well, but 
AFAIK kids are dropping out to join the chilonim, but they are not 
usually dropping out to join drug dealers and alcohol abusers). 
When I grew up in the US, we learned Hebrew (in fact we learned 
IN Hebrew, but then I went to an unusual school). We could read 
and understand a pasuk in Chumash without Artscroll (the very first 
Artscroll - on Megillas Esther - didn't come out until I was in 12th 
grade), and we knew what we were saying in davening and why we 
were saying it (in fact, we had to pass a test on five years of 
Beiurei Tfilla as a graduation requirement). While I would not argue 
that my high school education was perfect, I came out with a solid 
knowledge of Hebrew language (I would go so far as to say I was 
already fluent), and a decent understanding that helped me to see 
shul as a little more than going through the motions. In this regard, 
the Torah Temima somewhere in Dvarim discusses the importance 
of learning Hebrew language. I don't have the mareh makom handy, 
but someone on the list in Highland Park (RAL?) may want to ask 
my brother in law where it is because he showed it to me. Today, 
from talking to kids who have graduated high schools in the States 
(including the one I went to), this is no longer true. Kids come out 
without even a rudimentary knowledge of Hebrew language. A 
prescription for "going through the motions" if I ever heard one....

I would add that our attitude in performing mitzvos is important 
IMHO. That attitude is on display next Wednesday night (and 
Thursday night in chu"l) probably to a greater extent than it is any 
other time of the year. Do we go through the motions or do we 
really enjoy what we are doing? Are our children the focus of the 
seder or are we just letting them stay up late so they can get a 
prize for Afikoman (admittedly this is not an easy question when 
there is a wide age range among the children) which has nothing to 
do with the sprit of the chag? Do we rush through Magid as quickly 
as possible or do we savor every moment of recounting one of the 
formative events in the history of Clal Yisrael? Do we encourage our 
children to repeat what they heard in school or do we try to dazzle 
our guests with our own lomdus?

I am willing to bet that if you took a survey of those kids who 
dropped out, you would find that a far higher percentage grew up in 
homes where the seder ended by 9:00 or 10:00 than grew up in 
homes where the seder ended at 2:00 A.M. And I don't say that as 
a measure of how fruhm one home or the other is, but rather as a(n 
admittedly clumsy) measure of how much time one wants to give 
savoring the mitzva. (Please note that I have not yet seen the 
March JO so to the extent that there is anything in there about 
this, I haven't seen it).

Food for thought on Erev Pesach.

-- Carl


Please daven and learn for a Refuah Shleima for our son,
Baruch Yosef ben Adina Batya among the sick of Israel.  
Thank you very much.

Carl and Adina Sherer
mailto:sherer@actcom.co.il

>Daniel B. Schwartz wrote          Subject: Re: RYBS criticising secular
Israeli leadership

>ROY at one time was willing to seek out RSL, go to JTS and speak with
>him.  He did so when he was Chief Rabbi.....Why then does he adopt
>a very inconsistent attitude towards Sarid?  The obvious answers based
>upon the relative personalities of RSL and Sarid do not fully overcome
the problem.

I can't speak for ROY and I assume that he has a reply to all questions.

But you have to be blind not to see a difference in a Prof SL (who - as
RYSB
called him - was a hired gun) a teacher at JTS and a Sarid who is by all
accounts
a 24-carat Ocher Yisroel, who hates Torah and Shomrei Torah and is
trying
his darndest to destroy Yiddishkeit.

Who, if not one of the leading Torah personalities should
come out against him? This is not a job for stam a layman - but only for
a leader.

What is disappointing is that ROY is the only one we have heard from.
Where are all the other Gedolim - from all sectors of religious Jewry?
Aren't they just as concerned as ROY at what Sarid is trying to do?

BTW it's interesting to note that the first 3 letters of Sarid's name
in Hebew are RT for "Shem Reshoim Yirkov."
And if Sarid doesn't qualify for this Kelolo - pray tell us - who does?

SBA

Boy, for a first posting, I run the risk of getting a trifle political here.

Carl Sherer wrote:
: I also believe strongly that the future of Am Yisrael will be 
: determined in Eretz Yisrael and not in the US or anyplace else in 
: the galus.

Micha Berger wrote:
>While I agree with your point, I want to pick at a rather important nit here.
>"Galus" is not a geographic location. As your earlier post shows, it's alive
>and well in Artzeinu haKdoshah as well.

I agree with both points here.
Firstly, there is a HUGE galus mentality among the leadership in Israel,
both secular and religious, and even "haredi".  On the part of the
political leadership, including the religious segment, it takes the form of
bowing to external political pressure to give up strategic assets, whether
they be land, water, natural resources, or political aces.  This includes
the recent Supreme Court decision to free all Lebanese prisoners in Israel
without demanding the return of Israeli MIAs.  Israeli leaders routinely
run to Washington at the beck and call of "the goyim" while failing to care
properly for the Jews at home, whether poor, ill, or MIA.
It also takes root among the religious leadership when they continue to
treat issues such as agunot, kashrut, etc. as if they were in the shtetls
and not from the point of view of creating a Torah-true independent Jewish
society.  This is not healthy.

That being said, I also agree with Carl.  The struggles being waged by the
citizens of Israel, secular-religious, social, educational, et al, are
rooted in the opportunity of redefining the Jewish nation for the first
time in 2000 years.  For the entire "sojourn" of our nation, the term "Jew"
was defined by those in whose midst we dwelled.  We were "dirty Jew", "poor
Jew", "refugee", 'victim", etc.  We were those guys in black in the little
hamlets that could be oppressed and taxed at whim or treated fairly at whim.

Today that is not the case.  Today, there is a Jewish home, and a Jewish
state, and within it a Jewish majority which contols power in the society.
That gives us the opportunity to redefine the term "Jew".  Secularists are
fighting for one definition, and religious for another, and Modern Orthodox
for a third, and so on.
That is why Shas, Meretz, and Shinui are in the ascendancy in power terms
and the security-oriented parties like Likud and Labour, and even the NRP
are weakening.  That is why the biggest and most controversial headlines in
the news are religious-secular and not peace-land-security issues.

My two agurot worth. 

 
-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-
 
   ____ \/ ____					   ____ \/ ____
   \ o \||/ o /       Chag Kasher Vesameach        \ o \||/ o /
    \ ^ || ^ /       Yehuda and Rebecca Poch	    \ ^ || ^ /
     >--||--<       Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel	     >--||--<
    / v || v \         butrfly@actcom.co.il	    / v || v \
   /___/  \___\  				   /___/  \___\

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********************


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