I had a conversation on another blog and wanted to share with you. I do not fault the person I was speaking with. I believe that she truly believe in what she says and is a good, albeit somewhat naive. For me it was important as I actually said what I believe about the politicizing of sages of years of yore by their descendants.
Here is a transcript
Argument:
That the parents cannot predict how the technology and their teenagers will progress and still want to shield them in their experimental years?
I still believe that the original concept came from the Israel where kosher families have to stay in touch in time of terrorist attacks, G-d forbid, so they came up with this strip-down version of cell phone and other parents who are not confident enough to keep up with modern innovations and their advanced kids joined the pool.
Instead of mocking everyone who means well, you’d better learn to art of defend from Раби ЛЕВИ-ИЦХАК из БЕРДИЧЕВА http://toldot.ru/rus/articles/art/3254
By the way, I made such an effort to deliver these two texts to you, that as a minimum you have to read and try to understand them before posting anything else:
Personal Mazel: http://www.divrei.org/new_page_37.htm
Global Mazel: http://www.divrei.org/new_page_56.htm
-FI
Argument:
It is easy for you to bash strangers, but if someone dear to you did something questionable, wouldn’t you try the alternatives first? The leadership is a combined soul and has to take many considerations into account (think parents). They are also limited in their response because unlike us, their actions make or break connections between individuals and community and religion… This is something you may not understand until you are there.
My counter-argument:
All is fine and dandy until we begin to twist the Halakha and thus commit falsehood (i.e the opposite of truth.) My main issue is not with the Hofetz Haim Ztz"l but with Rabbi Schwab Ztz"l. Our differences are ideological I guess. I'd rather live with the ugly truth and percieve the leaders as humans who have their own issues and thus are larger then all of us by being great leaders despite their shortfalls (example in mind, King David.) It's better then a beatify falsehood that make these leaders to be uber mantchen and thus people I cannot and do not want to relate to.
It is clear from this that while I follow my Rabbi to the letter in all issues of Halakha, I do not care for Da'ath Torah coming from the seemingly saints or angels (absolutly none human) who feel the leadership of the Haredi world in the last few generations.
For example, I read and give a lot of wheight to the opinions of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein as it appears in Igrot Moshe, but I do not care for the other person (it can't be the same one) who carried the same name and who is described in a book published by Artscroll about some Rav Moshe.
Yes, we all tell white lies and the Hofetz Haim Ztz"l tried to balance between the bare truth and Loshon Hara'! But the current situation in the Haredi welt - and if the story about Kosher cellphone is true then we have a prime example - the situation there is bad. However, your own posting proove that there is some hope. After all you do look to the internest and you do post there... and you do not ask your Godol for permission.
ZA
FI's answer
Hm, my Rabbi reads Internet and sometimes posts there,
and I wish the problem with the cell phones would be our worst problem.
We might have more differences than you see.
I lived under socialism and accept some bureaucracy as a necessary evil while you jump to global conclusions like a near-sighted teenager
Think about parenting model which, however imperfect, on average is better than orphanage. Parents are human, but hierarchy and reverence helps them to grow on the job and bring up kids to the best of their ability. Respectful kids (within boundaries) learn more and grow balanced.
And I wouldn’t lump together falsehood and sages. If you ever flew across the ocean you might noticed that a straight way is not the shortest. As an example, many problems occur when you try applying the same yardstick to different entities (e.g. Jews and Arabs). People who figured out how to live in our imperfect world with the most dignity are better teach the rest of us. If you are ashamed of Jewish sages you may want to think about other gurus who help people to sort things out.
Last night I went to listen to the short speech of some dignitary. I could hardly hear him, but he projected such a combination of simple calm, friendly confidence, being together, pleasant connection… that it gave you a hope that all of this is within human abilities. Afterward I had a meeting with a difficult person and a very touchy conversation went unbelievably well.
-FI
My answer:
I have been under socialist bureaucracy (though not in the Communist block). I am not talking about keeping the dignity of people; I am taking about falsifying what they had said in the public and even in published works. There are many cases in which the Hebrew original of some great Rabbi of previous generation express something, be it as benign as support for Zionism to an opinion that evolution might actually be true. Since that usually they may not falsify the original Hebrew, they would cut the whole passage in a subsequent eddition. The English translation... I would not even go there - and here I talk about falsification in the true meaning of that word! After I've seen what is done there, I've developed a policy that no book published by Feldheim, CIS and some others, in any language would enter my home (except of pure research on the falsification subject.) And the reason is מדבר שקר תרחק
FI:
You cannot expect me to discuss something so vaguely described!
There are plenty of situations when truncations would be justified:
Study books are often abridged and only quotes are brought to illustrate points of interest.
Disputes with Christians were concealed to prevent murders.
Only eternal prophecies came down to our generations.
Similarly, it may not be wise to make messages that were meant for a specific audience in specific generation available to our maximalists who compare sages' writing against Torah from Har Sinai and consequently trash them with the mud.
By the way, do you know for sure that sages themselves are involved in so called corruption?
Anyway, you may lose more than you realize. For example, in my youth I was supposed to take piano lessons and it was such a struggle that my brother decided that he is not going to torture his kids. But I came to different conclusion and gave my kids the opportunity to learn (with sensible pressure). A couple of them still play and enjoy it!
-FI
My answer:
We are talking about things that are falsely marketed as the full versions.
I do not buy such statements as "Only eternal prophecies came down to our generations" or "...it may not be wise to make messages that were meant for a specific audience in specific generation available..." These statements are used to suppress any other way of thought. The people who are making these assertions are usually the self appointed to decide what is and what is not appropriate for me to consume. I detest such self appointed thought police. Since you came from Russia, I would ask you to think Lenin and Stalin. These two arch-monsters appointed themselves to decide what one may or may not think, read or whatever and created the Cheka, NKVD and KGB as sorts of thought police.
Besides, R' S.R. Hirsch and others did not limit their published work to certain audiences, they published them for the world to read. I categorically deny the right of any of the people who had signed the infamous pashquill to ban the canceled concert from couple of months ago, I categorically deny their right to decide what is and what is not appropriate for me. I deny their right to censor (cut parts or alter meanings) books that had been written by previous generations sages. In short, I deny that these people (especially Rabbi Margulies of YTT [of Yudi Kolko infame]) are in any way shape or form superior to me.
And no, I am not a secularist, I do not find anything wrong with Halakha, I beleive that we all should observe all Mitzvot, that we all acknowledge Go-d presence in the world, that we all submit to Go-d's rule in the world and we all should listen to our Rabbis when they, acting in their domain of Halakha and Musar, guide us. Guide us yes, decide for us, no!
ZA
FI:
Soviets also had the army and police, would you denounce these institutions completely?
I agree that there should be some balance and the sensible people know how to control without oppressing. But I found that those who resist the management the most usually grow to control others, so basically they only want freedom for themselves. I don’t know anything about you, though, just a general comment.
There might be something to say in the defense of these authorities. Perhaps the book didn’t have “the full version” written on it. And perhaps it was produced as a study book for a particular course, and later released to the public “as is”.
You may agree that in the times when the general population is somewhat modest the Jews don’t have to take as dramatic measures to distinguish themselves in this particular regard, but when modesty is hard to find, the extraordinary statements are made, just to make an impression.
Leadership also has their ups and down. I heard that Moses stroked the rock because he didn’t recognize that times had changed and the new generation of Jews were not crying anymore for familiar Egyptian foods, but rather they were starving for agriculture of Israel and needed more respectful approach. So he got retired, yet you have to admit, that Moses remained Moses and earned our full reverence.
Similarly, many things befell zadikim and it might be punishment to us as well, G-d forbid. But if you keep the parenting model in mind, you will find the right way to relate to them and to benefit. Then one day you may grow into parenting/leadership role and realize that it’s impossible to do everything right, yet it is equally impossible to unload the burden.
And until that happens you may want to read and understand the following links on:
Personal Mazel: http://www.divrei.org/new_page_37.htm
Global Mazel: http://www.divrei.org/new_page_56.htm
-FI
My answer:
:-)
To answer the control (combined with parenting) issue - I always opened the world to my children while explaining the limits (it is a balancing act, but it is a must in the MO world.) Barukh Hashem, my oldest is married and covering her head and is trying to be similar parent with her first. The second one should follow her footsteps and the youngest seems that way as well. However, I do not and did never (beyond normal parenting) control any of them.
It was my oldest one who actually alerted me to the issue of cover-up. I've got these CIS books and gave it too her when she was nine years old. After a while she just refused to read them, so I asked her why. She referred to these publications, in her childis innocense as "this garbage." I took the books and read them - and I had to admit that my daughter has been right; that stuff is indeed, garbage. I then looked around and at one point found R' Schwab's article "on writing Jewish History"(*). I guess I already had my opinion set at the time, but I could have now solidify it and express it in clear terms. I difer from the censoring crowd on the dippest ideological level.
ZA
_________________
(*)Selected Writings: A Collection of Addresses and Essays on Hashkafah, Jewish History and Contemporary Issues (Paperback, 1988)ISBN: 0935063501
Jan 1988
Publisher: C.I.S. Publications
It was once on the internet but I cannot find the URL for now.
FI:
So you are not part of this kindergarten. Isn’t control part of normal parenting?
I wouldn’t call misleading “Selected Writings: A Collection of Addresses and Essays” and I know that there is readership for each category. Some wouldn’t go near propaganda while others are only comfortable with touchy-feely literature. Accordingly, there are different approaches to kiruv as well. I like both types of books within some boundaries. I didn’t read this particular book and not sure what the problem is, but I suspect that if not for your daughter’s cry of disgust, you would just put it away and grabbed another one to read. This is called natural selection of the leadership because rabbis without following are not leaders.
But back to your reaction - let’s say you find some distasteful dress in the store, if you set on high horse path of trashing the manufacturing factory, how would you differ from
Carol A. Valentine lady from http://www.come-and-hear.com/editor/valentine.html ?
-FI
My answer:
Listen FI
It seems to me that we live in two parallel worlds with almost no contact points. In other words, we are not even arguing about the same things.
So let me state my point in unambiguous terms:
1. The whole literature published by CIS and Artscroll about certain Rabonim is simple, poorly made, propaganda and false pretense to present certain people as larger then life, disguised as biographies.
2. Since all propaganda has reason and goal, we may deduce that the goal of this propaganda is to present a certain class of people as larger then thou and the reason is, as usual, to exert and maintain power over the consumers of this propaganda, either by those people or by their descendants.
3. The ban on the internet and other means of gathering knowledge (the Kosher phone idea and the assertion of the Rabbis authority over it are just the latest example,) the Herem on anybody who tries to reconcile Frumkeit and modern science and all other such acts cannot change reality and the Rabonim know that quite well. What they try to do is to maintain their power over their audience.
4. All these go very nicely with the propaganda that presents the Rabonim as if they are privy to some special means of knowledge that nobody else has which they call Da'ath Torah.
5. All the above have nothing to do with Judaism and/or Frumkeit which are maintained in the MO communities without these means. They also have nothing to do with Issur Loshon Hara in its original and true meaning. These are just clear and simple means to maintain political power. You of all people, with your background, should be able to recognize them as such.
I feel sorry when I speak with true believers and have break to them the hard reality. I would rather avoid doing so, but I can't, because the actions of these Rabonim, unfortunately, has a detrimental effect on my own life, Frumkeit and welfare. This negative effect is because they do whatever they could to discredit and destroy the MO world and assert their totalitarian kind of authority on us as well.
ZA
FI
“You don’t have to fight darkness; all you have to do is to turn on the light”.
I’ve heard you, but not sure if you are listening to me.
Yes, I am lucky to have a sensitive and versatile Rabbi; you can also pray at some Zadik’s grave to get lucky as well. There are plenty of Rabbis on Internet, if that is your requirement, just open your eyes and ears.
In your crusade please keep in mind that:
There were 12 tribes, so there are various completely kosher ways to serve G-d, if you impose your own standards you are no different from the dragons you are slaying.
Years ago my daughter gave me a wonderful book: http://www.bookfinder4u.com/IsbnSearch.aspx?isbn=0873066685&mode=direct
Awareness: The Key to Acceptance, Forgiveness and Growth
by Miriam Adahan ISBN: 0873066685 1583306277 0873066820 0873066685
It describes how the opposite types of personalities can each operate on either ideal, or average, or unhealthy level.
http://www.amazon.com/review/product/0873066685/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?%5Fencoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
Times change and it takes time to communities to adjust and to decipher what G-d wants from them now. Inevitably people vote with their feet and this is somewhat slow dance. Luckily the eternal nation can wait.
The survival mode of exile is not very conductive for unity and prophecy, but inevitably all the issues should be clarified for those who stick with Judaism. But for the sake of your offspring, make sure not to ignite the disgust around yourself. Did you read my links?
Personal Mazel: http://www.divrei.org/new_page_37.htm
Global Mazel: http://www.divrei.org/new_page_56.htm
You may want to think of angels as “bureaucratic laws”, or functions.
I as well cannot relate to certain group here and that they had low tolerance for my son's mischief in school. But I appreciate that they try to preserve an etalon to the best of their ability for the rest of us to align ourselves with.
-FI
My answer:
A quote from your link:
Therefore, whenever you feel tempted to communicate anything negative about a fellow Jew, ask yourself, “Is it worth it?”
I do not care too much for Mal'akhim and other Kabalisic notions and I do not doven by any Tzadik's grave. But I do care for the statement in the link. There is of course, a fine line, if I know for example that somebody has issues but on the other hand I have to give some advise about a shidukh with that person, I will try to apply the rule quoted above and other rules that the Hofetz Haim laid to us. If, on the other hand, somebody is twisting other people opinions because that somebody believes that he is superior to thou and thus has the authority to do so, I will fight to expose the truth, even if it meanss that I have to present that somebody as a lier.
And this is amplified when that somebody happen to actively trying to gain control over me! And, coming to think about it, I actually would follow the above rule, because in that case it would definitely worth it in my fight for survival.
Therefore, while on the personal level, we have not too much of difference (maybe only a matter of style,) on the public arena we differ. The issue at hand, Rabonim try to control my access to information as if I was an infantile child, this issue falls in the public arena and is a direct threat to me. Therefore, I fight to expose the truth.
ZA
FI wrote
What survival? What control of information?
My mom was a mere human, but she shouldered family surpassing psychical and intellectual expectations. Now should I tell my granddaughters that my mom was a mere human, or should I show them the limits she stretched and overcame?
And this is exactly how people become superhumans; they accept unbearable responsibility and get Support.
In a sense it’s your choice what trait to concentrate on – human or extraordinary.
Someone was complained that Mona Lisa didn’t make an impression on him, and he got a response that for so many centuries she had impressed so many people that now she got a choice whom she does or doesn’t want to impress.
I think I heard it from Rabbi Wine’s tape: not all stories about Baal Shem Tov (or Lubavicher Rebe) may be true but they differ from the stories about Isaac Newton (or Casanova) and therefore carry distinct message and have purpose.
-FI
My answer
Re: “You don’t have to fight darkness; all you have to do is to turn on the light”.
What survival? - as a free human.
What control of information? - you must be kidding or have not read anything I've written! So let me sum it up again; when the Rabonim tell me what I can or cannot read, listen to or watch, that mounts to control of information. This is something you do not see or choose not to see which is fine. I see it and reject all such attempts to curb my freedom. I've already answered here in this thread about parents-children relations in that case and I am pretty sure that what I have done in that is different then what is the norm in the Haredi world, but that is fine with me.
Your mother should be presented, in my opinion, as a mere human who did go through Nisyonoth and withstood them with the help of Go-d - she must have been a true Tzadeiketh and a person that your granddaughter should take as an example. She was an extraordinary human.
I do not want to respond to what Rabbi Wein had alegedly said about the difference between the stories about the great Rabonim and a lead scientist and philosopher. For sure I won't respond to something like equating them to a criminal - I would hope that Rabbi Wein had seen the falacy in that by himself at a later time. He would have much more difficulty had he tried to equate them to religious leaders of other religions, but he chose not to do so, so we should leave it at that.
Now, I do not need no such equation in order to extole the Rabonim. I also do not need to make them superhuman. The Torah tells us about good and bad things that Yehudah has done - he was human who could have falen into vanity as well as raise to the heights of Teshuva. So was King David and so was even King Ah'av. You know what, even Eliyahu is being reprimanded of sort by Go-d, basically for not being human enough in his Kana'uth (Oy vey, the Herem aginst me is already being signed right now.)
In a way, my position is that of the Mithnagdim before they were influenced by the Hasidim and invented the notion of Da'ath Torah. The Sages were great Tzadikim, but they were still human. When the Torah or the prophet or the Gemora tell us about some shortcomings of any of them, then we know that that person had had these shortcomings. Yet, we revere that person (most of them) and use his opinion. The sages' opinions must be respectfuly taken into consideration, but the truth might or might not not be with that particular sage or another.
BTW, this was Rav Moshe Feinstein's opinion and he accepted that other people, even lesser then him, may disagree with him in the quest for the Torah truth. The notion that how dare you question this or that Rabbi is new in the world of the Mithnagdim and it is much false.
ZA
FI wrote
You are so funny. Let me describe you two kinds of control.
Back in Russia citizens were allowed to read official propaganda only and general population believed that poor people in capitalist countries starve to death and don’t have their infected appendixes removed.
Whereas in parenting model children gradually get exposed to the information appropriate to their readiness.
Somewhere between these two types of control sits a Carol A. Valentine lady from http://www.come-and-hear.com/editor/valentine.html on her high horse.
If I were your Rebe I would provide you with sweet stories only, because you have a way to stretch, misinterpret, and misrepresent the issue.
Case in study – your comment about my Rabbi Wein’s line – he noted the differences between stories only and you proceeded to discussion of their equation.
And I trust that my granddaughters are smart enough to figure out that my mom was human even if I tell them about her breaking through the limits.
My message to them and to you is – if someone could do it, it is within human reach.
But please keep in mind that it’s lonely in management and everyone is only eager to find your faults. Let’s say someone would come to little kid and say, “your parents are set to control you so you support them in their old age, you would be much better off disregarding their advices…”
Even if parent’s advice may not be perfect all the time, it is still better than being a willful child or an orphan (and you have to admit that children have plenty of freedom in the family despite parental control).
Here are a couple of links for you to consider:
www.aish.com/omer/omerdefault/Counting_with_the_48_Ways.asp
http://www.bookfinder4u.com/IsbnSearch.aspx?isbn=1591396689&mode=direct
Taking Advice: How Leaders Get Good Council and Use It Wisely
by Dan Ciampa Hardcover | Harvard Business School Press | 2006-09-30
-FI
my answer
You asked - what control of information? I answered this question. Luckily the Haredi RABONIM who try to control the information have no direct influence on me currently, but I am afraid of their indirect influence.
I read Rabbi Zevin's series of Sipurei Hasidim through and through several times. They are all sweet, except of the Chabad stories who lack self humiliation.
I am a big admirer of Rabbi Wein. I believe that by equating the STORIES about Rabbies to the STORIES about a secular scientist, rather then the stories about other religious leaders he cheapened his argument. By mentioning the stories about a criminal he made his argument mute.
FI wrote
The bottom line:
There is a difference between control and advice.
If you don’t like a particular story it was not meant to you.
If you don’t like a particular approach – LET IT BE and people will choose whatever they need.
I wouldn’t worry about you being in danger of submissiveness.
Question your own interpretation, for example, I put Casanova name in parentheses as my own addition. I don’t even remember any names besides perhaps Newton in this exchange. But it was YOUR addition when you twisted the difference into equation, because Rabbi Wein spoke about DIFFERENCES between types of legends we say about contrasting personalities.
-FI
My conclusion
At that point I decided to leave it at that
It is clear, and I'd mentioned it, that we are in two parallel worlds. The reason I brought it here is because I've summed up some of my opinions in this conversation.
תוויות: מנהיגי החרדים, צנזורה
