Avodah Mailing List

Volume 35: Number 16

Sun, 05 Feb 2017

• 1. Liveral vs Conservative Value System (Moshe Zeldman)
• 2. Re: Liveral vs Conservative Value System (Rich, Joel)
• 3. Re: Liberal vs Conservative Value System (Rabbi Mordechai Harris)
• 4. Re: Liberal vs Conservative Value System (Zev Sero)
• 5. Going to a Hotel for Shabbos/Yomtov (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi)
• 6. B'shalach "To Live At All is Miracle Enough" Mervyn Peake, Collected Poems (Cantor Wolberg)
• 7. Rav Hirsch on Slavery (Professor L. Levine)
• 8. honest emotions (saul newman)
• 9. rav vs talmid chacham (saul newman)
• 10. gaon (saul newman)
• 11. Re: honest emotions (Micha Berger)
• 12. Re: gaon (Zev Sero)
• 13. Re: honest emotions (Micha Berger)
• 14. The Coca Cola Kashrus Conroversy (Professor L. Levine)

Is anyone familiar with works that discuss Torah representing a liberal vs
conservative value system (re social welfare, individual rights,
affirmative action, diversity, social justice)?

-----------------------------
Moshe Zeldman

Is anyone familiar with works that discuss Torah representing a liberal vs
conservative value system (re social welfare, individual rights,
affirmative action, diversity, social justice)?

-----------------------------
Listen hear for some discussion (bottom line is that we are somewhere in between :-))
KT
Joel Rich
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On Feb 2, 2017 5:23 AM, "Moshe Zeldman via Avodah" <avo...@lists.aishdas.org>
wrote:
> Is anyone familiar with works that discuss Torah representing a liberal vs
> conservative value system (re social welfare, individual rights,
> affirmative action, diversity, social justice)?

As Jonathan Haidt points out in his must read book "The Righteous Mind:
Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion", any Orthodoxy is
fundamentally not progressive nor conservative. Both progressive and
conservative ideologies have an anchor for behavior determined by the
internal status quo (one seeks to find 'better' through change, the other
seeks to maintain 'safety' or 'good' through sticking to what is proven).

Orthodoxy (of any kind) by contrast seeks to anchor itself to an external
'truth' which may be the same or different than the status quo on any
given issue. I'd add that even those who seek 'tradition' are also on that
international timeline vis a vis the status quo and merely placing primacy
on the legacy of the past attempting change from the status quo (just like
a progressive, but toward a nostalgic past rather than a hopeful future).

Thus 'Traditional' is also not a term which is compatible with
Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy must be willing to commit to or change along the
timeline from the status quo on any given issue in either direction at any
time based upon the best understanding of God's will, period. Sometimes
this means on an issue Orthodoxy will appear regressive, other times
progressive, and yet other times it will be lock step with the current
cultural milu. At all times it will not care which of these it happens
to be so long as it's fidelity remains to its external anchor, which in
the case of Orthodox Judaism is the will of HaKadosh Baruch Hu with the
best hope for understanding His will being the Torah and our Mesorah to
that moment of Revelation at Sinai guided in that understanding by each
generations best minds and leaders who must be ready to constantly apply
our best understandings to our current dilemmas.

- Please excuse typos as this was sent from my cell phone.

On 02/02/17 07:41, Rabbi Mordechai Harris via Avodah wrote:
> As Jonathan Haidt points out in his must read book "The Righteous Mind:
> Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion", any Orthodoxy is
> fundamentally not progressive nor conservative. Both progressive and
> conservative ideologies have an anchor for behavior determined by the
> internal status quo (one seeks to find 'better' through change, the other
> seeks to maintain 'safety' or 'good' through sticking to what is proven).

These definitions of "progressive" and "conservative" are very outdated. 
  Those terms, as used in politics today, no longer mean (if they ever 
did) what their literal definitions may imply. Neither "progressives" 
nor "conservatives" care much about the status quo.  Both seek to 
preserve the status quo to the extent that they like it, and to improve 
on it to the extent that they dislike it, but they have very different 
views on what is an improvement and what is a deterioration.

-- 
Zev Sero                May 2017, with its *nine* days of Chanukah,
z...@sero.name           be a brilliant year for us all

Who will be answering these questions?

The hotel staff? The rabbi? The Mashgiach?

And if one suspects they are cutting corners in Kashrus, can we consider
their answers to our questions reliable?

Let's say we ask the Mashgiach, When are you here - he shares the
responsibility with others, he is not there 24 7, are we going to become
the detective and check out his answers and verify his hours with his
employer, either the hotel or the Kashrus agency? on his pay cheque?

And why should we trust the Mashgiach if he is cutting corners, if he is on
the take? if hes getting favours, if he is afraid of losing his job?

The problems include what he DOES know and DOES NOT want to tell us and
what he knows or guesses we want to know and therefore tells us. Why would
you trust him? And even if he is reporting issues to the agency he works
for - it is most unlikely he will tell a stranger who asks. He'd lose his
job and at the end of the day, it is probably some minor Minhag.

Some suspect that the hotel kitchens and caterers are seeking every
opportunity to cut corners. Well lets ask, what corners are they trying to
cut, why what do they stand to gain? and they must be thinking they can get
away with it? on a regular basis.

As for those things the Mashgiach doesn't know, the things they get away
with when he's not looking, as per the concerns of one worried poster -
what CAN the Mashgiach tell you? That he has a suspicion?

And if, as the same poster opines, the presumption is that if an owner
wants to cheat no mashgiach will be able to prevent him [which BTW I agree
with] - then as I originally posted, what and why are we asking?

And what Qs would we ask to determine [as our poster proposes] whether
these owners are the kind of people who are likely to cheat?
Perhaps water-boarding is the solution - ridiculous.

this discussion is indicative of the shallow intensity that seems to have
pervaded and tainted Yiddishkeit, and in particular Kashrus. We focus on
minor peripheral issues and are encouraged to do so in order to promote the
business of Kosher - whilst we ignore the serious violations of systematic
endemic substitutions in Kosher meat and the refusal of Kashrus agencies to
take any serious steps to address the issue. One year after the Monsey meat
disaster the Hamodia mag ran a couple of pages interviewed various K
experts [they are all experts, no?] Whats Changed Since Monsy - the answer
- nothing had changed.

Using DNA would immediately put as top to this. When I put that proposal to
HaRav Y Belsky AH, with a business plan to immediately and rapidly
implement it,  he was overjoyed at that prospect. Did he have any influence
at the OU to have this implemented? that's right, not the slightest.
So we are busy plugging all the little imaginary cracks in the bucket
whilst doing nothing to mend the biggest hole in the system - business as
usual
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B?shalach has many miracles which we almost take for granted.
During the Israeli War of Liberation, an elderly man rushed into
a Synagogue in Jerusalem and pleaded with the congregants:
?Brothers we can no longer rely upon any miracles. Let us all
recite Tehillim.? 
This anecdote is telling. Our exposure to so many miracles 
causes us to think it is normal and natural.
The Sages of old instituted the recitation of the b?racha upon 
beholding the maabrot hayam, the beach-head of the Red Sea
which was the scene of the Exodus.
By reciting the b?racha upon seeing the place of k?riat yam suf,
we are reminded of the supernatural mode of our existence and
survival.

In Israel, in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles. 
David Ben-Gurion 

B'SHALACH contains a single mitzva of the 613, 
the prohibition of leaving one's Shabbat boundary ? T'CHUM SHABBAT. 
(T'chum's membership in the family of Taryag, however, is disputed).

Shemos 12:44 says

??  ?????-????? ?????, ???????-??????--?????????? ?????, ??? ?????? ????.


44 but every man's servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof  [from the Korban Pesach].


RSRH comments on this pasuk


????? ?????, ???????   The Torah here assumes that,  even The Torah here
assumes that, even amidst a people just released from slavery to freedom,
the possession of slaves acquired

abroad will continue to exist. To arrive at an understanding of this fact,
we must consider the background conditions.

A Jew could not transform a person [against his will] into a slave.
[A person could, however, voluntarily sell himself as a slave to a Jew.]
A Jew could acquire a person as his property [against that person's will]
only if, by accepted international law, that person was already a slave.
This transference into the property of a Jew was the only salvation for
a person who, by accepted international law, was stamped as a slave.
The saddening experiences of our own times (the struggle over the
slaves in the United States; the rebellion of the blacks in Jamaica in
1865) show how wretched and vulnerable is the lot of a slave, no matter
whether he was deprived of his rights by accepted international law, or
was granted equal rights but is still universally looked upon as a slave
or as someone who was a slave.

A Jewish home was a haven to a slave. There, he was protected by
law against mishandling; and - this should not be undervalued - he
could join if he wished (according to Yevamos 48b), through , God's
covenant with Israel, together with his master. He became a member of the
household, like his master's children,

and like them he participated in the Pesach offering, on which God's people was
founded.


Moreover, according to the Halachah, if you have in your possession
a slave who has not been accepted - through milah and t'vilah - as your
equal in God's covenant, you cannot place your home under God's  protection
and guidance, and you are not allowed to participate in the Pesach
offering.

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in a review of a memoir r pinchas hirshprung wrote in the 40's , the
Mishpacha article notes that he was discouraged by some talmidei chachamim
to write this way since 'honest emotional writing is demeaning to a talmid
chacham'

question ---  1] is honesty demeaning ?  2] is being emotional demeaning?
 3] is this specifically a Litvishe mehalech ?
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in re gemara Baba Batra 21a , could someone explain what the relationship
between the title 'rav' and 'tzurba merabanan' is?  it seems one could have
the former title and yet be felt to be relatively ignorant.  yet the rav in
question was of a sufficient madreiga to cause the death of another rav
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in childhood , probably effected by modern hebrew, gaon meant 'genius'
in current usage 'harav hagaon' , is it to mean genius above others, or
just an honorific with no particular implication?  [i wonder if anyone who
opens a yeshiva and thus becomes RY, automaticlaly gets this title]
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On Sun, Feb 05, 2017 at 09:09:53AM -0800, saul newman via Avodah wrote:
: question ---  1] is honesty demeaning ?  2] is being emotional demeaning?
:  3] is this specifically a Litvishe mehalech ?

There is a specifically Litvishe idea that emotions are to be kept
private. Eg this story told by RYBS about parting from his father
<https://books.google.com/books?id=Fg5eCThNlb4C&;lpg=PA68&&pg=PA68#v=onepage>

So much of spirituality is emotional, that to this branch of Litvisher
through, emotions are the qodesh haqadashim of the soul. (Note how Shir
haShirim is also likened to the QhQ...)

But as RYBS is emphatic when telling that story, the feeling is there,
and to someone else living in that culture, they know it's there. But
it's not for public.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             For a mitzvah is a lamp,
mi...@aishdas.org        And the Torah, its light.
http://www.aishdas.org                   - based on Mishlei 6:2
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On 05/02/17 12:20, saul newman via Avodah wrote:
> in childhood , probably effected by modern hebrew, gaon meant 'genius'
> in current usage 'harav hagaon' , is it to mean genius above others, or
> just an honorific with no particular implication?  [i wonder if anyone
> who opens a yeshiva and thus becomes RY, automaticlaly gets this title]

According to Sdei Chemed, erech "chanufah", by his day (~125 years ago?)
"harav hagaon" could be honestly used of anyone who had semicha.


-- 
Zev Sero                May 2017, with its *nine* days of Chanukah,
z...@sero.name           be a brilliant year for us all

On Sun, Feb 05, 2017 at 12:53:45PM -0500, Micha Berger wrote:
: So much of spirituality is emotional, that to this branch of Litvisher
: thought, emotions are the qodesh haqadashim of the soul...

Thinking about it more... If there is a seed of truth in the depiction
of a chassidic court in Potok's The Chosen, I want to amend that answer
to being a stream of thought in a number of East European mehalakhim.

To quote one of Reuven Saunders' lines from that book, he says about
his father, the rebbe:
    My father himself never talked to me, except when we studied
    together. He taught me with silence. He taught me to look into myself,
    to find my own strength, to walk around inside myself in company with
    my soul.... One learns of the pain of others by suffering one's own
    pain, he would say, by turning inside oneself, by finding one's own
    soul. And it is important to know of pain, he said. It destroys our
    self-pride, our arrogance, our indifference toward others. It makes
    us aware of how frail and tiny we are and of how much we must depend
    upon the Master of the Universe....

And on the next page, R Saunders explains:
    Reuven, I did not want my Daniel to become like my brother, may he
    rest in peace. Better I should have had no son at all than to have a
    brilliant son who had no soul.... And I had to make certain his soul
    would be the soul of a tzaddik no matter what he did with his life.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate,
mi...@aishdas.org        Our greatest fear is that we're powerful
http://www.aishdas.org   beyond measure
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Anonymous

Please see the interesting and informative article about this issue at

http://tinyurl.com/ha8zvv4


YL
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