Texting On Shabbat By The Orthodox And Haredim Becomes Epidemic – Are Rabbis At Fault?

The practice has become so widespread – some say half of Modern Orthodox teens text on Shabbat – that it has developed its own nomenclature – keeping “half Shabbos,” for those who observe all the Shabbat regulations except for texting; “gd Shbs,” is the shorthand text greeting that means good Shabbos.

 

For Many Orthodox Teens, ‘Half Shabbos’ Is A Way Of Life
Texting on Saturdays seen as increasingly common ‘addiction.’
Steve Lipman • The Jewish Week

At a recent campgrounds Shabbaton sponsored by a local Modern Orthodox high school, the teenage participants broke into small groups after the meals, as is usual, to talk with their friends.

On their cell phones.

Of the 17 students who attended the weekend program, said 17-year-old Julia, a junior at the day school, most sent text messages on Shabbat – a violation of the halachic ban on using electricity in non-emergency situations.

“Only three [of the 17 students] didn’t text on Shabbos,” Julia says. Most did it “out in the open,” sitting at picnic tables. “They weren’t hiding it.”

The students at the Shabbaton were not the exception for their age group. According to interviews with several students and administrators at Modern Orthodox day schools, the practice of texting on Shabbat is becoming increasingly prevalent, especially, but not exclusively, among Modern Orthodox teens.

It’s a literally hot-button issue that teachers and principals at yeshiva day schools, whose academic year ends this week, acknowledge and deal with it in both tacit and oblique ways. For the most part, they extol the virtues of keeping Shabbat rather than chastising those who violate it.

The practice has become so widespread – some say half of Modern Orthodox teens text on Shabbat – that it has developed its own nomenclature – keeping “half Shabbos,” for those who observe all the Shabbat regulations except for texting; “gd Shbs,” is the shorthand text greeting that means good Shabbos.

Not surprisingly, because of texting’s high-tech nature, it is the frequent subject of bloggers and discussion groups on the Internet.

Schools are still looking for ways to deal with the issue, how to recognize the extent of the problem without issuing directives that are likely to be ignored.

Bottom line: The teens who text probably won’t stop.

“It’s a big problem,” says Rabbi Steven Burg, international director of the Orthodox Union’s NCSY youth group. Teens who text on Shabbat are an open secret in their schools and social circles, he says.

“Adults don’t know how common it is,” one student at a local yeshiva day school says. “Everyone is doing it.”…

The Shabbat texters, according to anecdotal evidence, include kids who grew up in less-observant homes as well as students from chasidic or so-called black hat backgrounds.…

The Jewish Week's report goes on to cite an expert, Michelle Friedman, who doesn't see this kids as "at risk," and mentions that some kids think that because a cell phone doesn't use very much electricity, their sin is lower than say, turning on a TV. A kid is quoted who says Shabbat is boring. And the problem is treated as an addiction by Rabbi Burg.

But here's an interesting series of facts that again demonstrates the problems that happen when rabbis use Jewish law to enfore their own ideology:

Telephone usage on Shabbat was originally permitted by some of the world's most important rabbis/poskim. In Lithuania, Belarus, parts of Poland and in Western Europe, telephone usage wasn't seen as a Shabbat problem.

Why?

Because electricity was not seen as fire or as boneh (another Jewish legal category of non-permitted Shabbat work).

Indeed, initially many rabbis were willing to permit full electricity usage on Shabbat.

But there were two exceptions: making light and making heat to cook. These exceptions were done more to be careful, to include the opinions of other rabbis who prohibited electricity all together on Shabbat. The first was seen as being too close to fire when done with incandescant bulbs; the second was seen as leading to actual cooking on Shabbat, which is forbidden in its own right, as opposed to warming pre-cooked food, which is permissible using certain methods.

Until the end of WW2, many hasidic rebbes turned electric lights on and off on Yom Tov, Jewish holidays, seeing electricity as a possible form of fire but viewing that form as a constant flow, meaning turning on an electric light was the same as lighting a candle from an existing flame – something permitted on Jewish holidays but not Shabbat. And some Orthodox synagogues in the US were using microphones on Shabbat and Yom Tov both, because there was no heat generated to cook and no light involved.

But there was a problem wil all of this normalcy – Hungarians.

When rabbis from the communities that followed the Chatam Sofer arrived in America and Western Europe, they rejected many halakhic (Jewish legal) norms of their new communities. They demanded halav yisrael milk (milk watched from the milking process to bottling to prevent non-kosher milk from being added in) even though the normative rabbinic opinion was that halav yisrael milk was not necessary because non-kosher milk was not commercially milk and because the pasteurization process and government regulation both made it functionally impossible to mix pig's milk or camel's milk with cow's milk.

The rejected the rabbis and the customs of their new communities.

And they rejected electricity use on Shabbt or Yom Tov because hadash assur min HaTorah, the aphorism of the Hatam Sofer, a play on a biblical verse: everything new is forbidden by the Torah.

These Hungarian rabbis and their non-Hungarian allies fought a war against electricity usage on Shabbat and Yom Tov. And they won.

In Israel, the Hazon Ish, unable to base his ruling prohibiting electricity usage on Shabbat solely on the fire issue created another issue out of whole cloth. It involves completing an electrical circuit, which the Hazon Is related to building a building, another prohibited Shabbat activity. The Hazon Ish's understanding of electricity was seriously flawed and it does not stand up to scientific fact – something many rabbis admit. But he was the major halakic force in Israel at that time and his ruling became – and remains – law.

One of those non-Hungarian allies was the 6th Lubavitcher Rebbe, Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, who as he was was wheeled of his rescue ship from Europe declared that "America is not different," meaning that the halakha and customs of America could not be allowed to stand, just as much as it meant that America would have to become a European shtel, and its Jews ultra-Orthodox.

Eventually, Schneersohn sent his son-in-law, Menacchem Mendel, to various wavering rabbis to explain to these men that electricity wasn't what they thought it was – it was, instead, assur, forbidden to use of Shabbat and Yom Tov. And Mendel Schneerson was believed because he came with a titile that was only half true, and that barely. Mendel Schneerson had been billed by his father-in-law as a famous electrical engineer. Yes, Schneerson had a degree from a Paris technical college in Electrical Engineering. But he had almost flunked out (another son-in-law of the 6th rebbe and classmate of Mendel Schneerson there had flunked out), and he had barely worked in the field.

Mendel Schneerson's spin on electricity does not hold up scientifically, and most major poskim – rabbis who decide difficult halakhic issues – never embraced it as fact.

As Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, the leading posek in Israel a quarter century ago, electricity is not technically prohibited on Shabbat. It does not have the status of a biblically-based or rabbinic prohibition. It's like a custom, but less than a custom. When asked by doctors what should be done with electric medical equipment on Shabbat he invoked the old light/heat for cooking rule.

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, the leading posek in America at that time, ruled that batteries are not electricity under halakha, a fact that allowed certain medical devices to be used.

But neither rabbi advocated or would allow a return to the correct, pre-WW2 views of electricity.

And now we have texing.

Because a cellphone relies on a battery to run, it isn't electricity according to Moshe Feinstein. And because the light those screens and buttons generate does not come from incandescent bulbs, there is no light generated in a way that would violate the light-making prohibition.

So a cellphone is not in a nd of itself a true Shabbat violation.

But what about texting? Doesn't typing letters violate the Shabbat prohibition of writing?

No, because that prohibition requires two letters to be handwritten, and the writing must be permanent. Writing that has no permanence and that exists only in electric bits that will display when called up is not permanent.

I don't write this to encourage or endorse texting on Shabbat.

I write this to show what rabbis who pursued ideology above truth did to Judaism. They unnecessarily and often dishonestly restricted something that would have made Jews' lives easier – too much easier in these rabbis' view.

And now something has come along that is very addictive, can be done in private or in public almost unnoticed, and 'violates' the restrictive Shabbat these rabbis cheated to obtain – and thousands, maybe tens of thousands of Jews ignore them.

But these Jews for the most part do not know the ins and outs of halakha. They think they are violating Shabbat just like lighting a campfire would violate Shabbat, except maybe, somehow, a little bit less.

That is a situation far more dangerous to Orthodox Judaism in any of its stripes than open endorsement of electricty usage on Shabbat by ultra-Orthodox rabbis ever would have posed.

And that is another example of the law of unintended rabbinically-generated consequences.

Comments

[Deremes]

He may have been lenient to others but was machmir for himself.

Posted by: Loshonhora | June 23, 2011 at 02:55 PM"

As are and was alot of big poskim koicah dehtira odif

[A Yid]

You're then insane cult member, sarah.

[...]

Posted by: Shmarya | June 23, 2011 at 02:35 PM

Shmarya please ban yourself from commenting or stop insulting your readers or change your blog's rules to reflect that personal insults are permitted for all in the comments section.

[masortiman]

"If you were a bit more alert, you might have understood the point of this post: that when you ban things to make political points or to draw tighter, non-halakhic lines around the community, the end result is that people often end up breaking real halakhot root in real Torah law.

As for Klein and his friends, to compare him to Saul Lieberman is a ridiculous. It's like comparing a fly to a fruit tree."

I did not say Klein or other conservative rabbis of that time were of the same importance or learning as Lieberman. Lieberman taught at JTS, and I dont think he thought all the other JTS affiliated authorities were ignoramuses (perhaps you dont think they were either, but merely think that they did not know enough about the decisions of post 1850 O rabbis - one difficulty with insulting language, is that its hard to make out exactly what you think)

You seem to admire R Halivni. I know he was unhappy with the path of CJLS and JTSA, causing him to depart in the 1980s. R'Klein was president of the RA in the late 1950s, and wrote his Guide over many years, concluding it in 1979. I would think that if R Halivni had such difficulties with the C movement, he would have left JTSA earlier. OTOH given that Klein's Guide was not completed till 1979, I suppose its possible that Rabbi Halivni considered Klein ignorant, and his guide a motive for leaving JTSA. If that is the case, it is the first I have heard of it.

[masortiman]

"If you were a bit more alert, you might have understood the point of this post: that when you ban things to make political points or to draw tighter, non-halakhic lines around the community, the end result is that people often end up breaking real halakhot root in real Torah law."

No I saw your point. I believe that the law "was not given to angels" and that the danger of excessive strictness is quite real. I am somewhat skeptical that there IS a "real halakha" that can be established on purely formal grounds, at least to the extent you seem to believe. I am not sure I would go as far as "where there is a rabbinic will, there is a halachic way" but I think from the reading I HAVE done, of O sources as well as C sources, that the breadth of what can be done is fairly broad. Within that breadth, addressing non formal questions, which IS about making substantive choices is possible and necessary. I also believe its appropriate for the rabbinate to look to the life of Am Israel - not to poll all Jews, or all observant Jews, or any other simple measure - but to examine how jews of differerent levels of observance wrestle with a matter, and what different feasible alternatives mean in terms of their religious and spiritual life. I have seen such considerations, woven in with more traditional textual and halachic dicussion (as I can understand it) not only in C tshuvot, but in C discussions. I am delighted with the halachic discussions within my movement, and find they inspire me to be more observant - I wish more ordinary C Jews would listen to them (too many of our affiliated laity are not C at all, but Reform Jews (often Orthodox raised Reform Jews) who happen to like a more traditional service). Your discussion of halacha I do NOT find inspiring. That in this case you happen to be arguing against a chumra, is neither here nor there, I suppose. That you spice it with insults right and left, and with a focus on your own brilliance against everyone else's (everyone from R' Broyde to R' Klein either doesnt know as much as you, is corrupt, or has submitted to hungarian hoods) does that make it less unbatempte.

Perhaps you dont want me in your audience. If so, I will leave - there are increasing numbers of other blogs to follow, including others that cover the doings of the UltraO world that interest me.

[ZIY]

Funny that Shmarya places the Rayatz (Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson) on the side of the Hungarians being against using electric on yom tov etc.

While this is generally true, did you that in 770 there was an intercom system connected to each floor? As the story goes IIRC, the Rayatz, who lived on the second floor, once wanted to hear how the chasidim were farbrenging etc. in the shul on the first floor. So before yom tov (I don't think it was erev shabos), he put a pin into the intercom in his room before yom tov so that he would be able to hear what is going on downstairs on yom tov. IIRC, the last Lubavitcher Rebbe (Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson) even mentioned this at a farbrengen in the early years as an example of the Rayatz' devotion to his chasidim.

When I first heard this story, they would say that the intercom was not electric, but rather worked with some type of hydraulic system. However, when I spent some time in the Rashag's apartment on the third floor & visited the Rayatz' apt. on the second floor, the intercoms I saw, though old-fashioned, did not seem to be particularly hydraulic...

[ZIY]

As for the halachic ramifications of using a cellphone on Shabos, there is one more minor issue that was not addressed, & that is, "Uvdin d'Chol." Yes, this is a very flimsy categorization & does not seem to follow a particular pattern as to when we say something is uvdin d'chol or not, but assuming that cell-phone use is defined as such, it would then ipso facto make the cellphone muktzah. But again, this is so vague a category that we can use it to say that one cannot, say, read a newspaper on Shabos (which, of course, one may, though perhaps not the most sacred Sabbath act).

Last week, Reb Zalman Schechter spoke in New York & mentioned the fact that in the early 1900s, Rabbi Dr. Leo Jung, Orthodox Rabbi of the Upper west Side's Jewish Center, permitted elevator use on Shabos (no it was not a "Shabos elevator"...).

[Shmarya]

You can see the evidence in Friedman and Helilman's book.

Posted by: Shmarya | June 23, 2011 at 02:35 PM
Why are they the authority of truth? they are no different to Donald Trump's claim Obama was born on foreign soil.

Because they did years of research and have well documented it.

On the other hand, Chabad has been caught lying so many times already, that if they claimed the sky is blue it would need to be taken with a very large grain of salt.

[Shmarya]

LH –

I should also add that your reference to Rabbi Schmelkes is laughable.

He's a da'at yachid and a very machmir one, at that.

[Shmarya]

I would think that if R Halivni had such difficulties with the C movement, he would have left JTSA earlier.

Halivni left over one specific issue, which I believe started with women's ordination.

Halivni did not consider many of the JTS stff to be frum or knowledgeable from what I've heard, but stayed as things got progressively worse because he could have some positive influence on JTS. But women's ordination (or whatever that one issue was) was the straw that broke the camel's back.

[ZIY]

As for if the Lubav Rebbe received semichah from the Ragotchover or not - well no official semichah document has surfaced yet. There are semichah documents that the Ragatchover wrote for other Rabbis, including for Lubavitcher chasidim (perhaps even the Rebbe's father, R' Levi Yitzchak?), but none for the Rebbe. However, some of the letters (at least 1) between the Rebbe & the Ragotchover is an in-depth discussion on Hilchos T'reifot, which is traditionally part of the semichah curriculum. So at least they were in epistolary rapport on the semichah material, though there is no actual certificate.

[Shmarya]

Your discussion of halacha I do NOT find inspiring. That in this case you happen to be arguing against a chumra, is neither here nor there, I suppose. That you spice it with insults right and left, and with a focus on your own brilliance against everyone else's (everyone from R' Broyde to R' Klein either doesnt know as much as you, is corrupt, or has submitted to hungarian hoods) does that make it less unbatempte.

Perhaps you dont want me in your audience. If so, I will leave - there are increasing numbers of other blogs to follow, including others that cover the doings of the UltraO world that interest me.

Posted by: masortiman | June 23, 2011 at 03:50 PM

Please.

What I said clearly is that R. Broyde was not quoting RSZA. He PARAPHRASED him. There is a nuance in the PARAPHRASE that you do not grasp.

As for the rest of what you wrote, stop whining.

You very clearly have a small amount of halakhic knowledge and quite admirably are working to expand it.

But you do not understand the history or the halakhic import of what you advocate, and you do not understand even a little bit what this restrictive Eastern European narishkeit did and still does to Jews here.

And until you understand what it is that you do not know, you won't ever learn and get the information to fill those gaps.

[Neo-conservaguy]

Halivni did not consider many of the JTS stff to be frum or knowledgeable from what I've heard, but stayed as things got progressively worse because he could have some positive influence on JTS. But women's ordination (or whatever that one issue was) was the straw that broke the camel's back.

If I understand correctly, it was the process that JTS took to get approval for the ordination of women that was at issue. The talmudic faculty did not agree in majority with the request, so the vote was put to a much larger audience at the seminary with some curious timing as well, which was seem as an affront to the alleged halakhik process. In a strange sense, it was a reverse of the dynamic that occurred in the law committee when they allowed a tiny minority (6 votes, I believe) to pass the infamous driving on Shabbat decision, despite the impassioned arguments from wiser rabbis against such an obvious d'orita violation of combustion powered vehicles.

[sarah]

“Because they [Friedman and Helilman] did years of research and have well documented it.”

Wow, this indeed is a very scholarly book. Is it scholarly because it did thorough research into all available facts and came up with a honest description of that period of time or is it a great work since it manages to create a falsely concocted, revisionist account of history.

Did these 2 “honest” professors even contact and talk with these people who have important first hand info about the very subject mater of their “scholarly work”? did they document any of these discussion and findings? Oh, you will tell me that peoples memories are faliable. Yet the “holy work” of Friedman and Helilman is clearly infallible (in your mind) – even though they spoke to almost no one who actually knew the Rebbe personally at that period in time.

Here is a very small sampling of the info that is out there:

chabad.org/1491011
chabad.org/490072
chabad.org/586340
chabad.org/604930
chabad.org/527752

[sarah]

Here are some more people who Friedman and Helilman “forgot” to interview as part of their “honest”, “thorough”, “scholarly” work.

chabad.org/604941
chabad.org/586339
chabad.org/586338
chabad.org/527033
chabad.org/574993
chabad.org/443375

[sarah]

final list

chabad.org/443390
chabad.org/1264768
chabad.org/295124
chabad.org/702090
chabad.org/748972
chabad.org/490077
chabad.org/666135

[Shmarya]

Please.

There's a concept you don't know about because you have been ill-educated. It's called projection.

You take a person who is now famous but who was many years ago unknown, and you'll find lots of people who "remember" seeing him somewhere that he never was.

That's because people like to be associated with fame, and their minds play tricks on them.

But when actual research is done, the records, etc., that should exist for that person to document the presence do not exist.

Add to that the fact that these 'testimonies' are almost all second hand.

And then add to this the fact that Chabad has been caught lying so many times already that nothing it claims can be believed at face value.

And then add one more fact: the hasidic/haredi world is full of ill-educated cult members a lot like you, who believe fairy tales and miracle stories – stories that do not and never could have stood up to honest investigation.

Remember the Rebbe's 'engineering degree' from the Sorbonne and the 'testimonies' of the people who saw him there?

All false.

The Sorbonne does not and did not teach any form of of engineering and there are no class records for the Rebbe, even though detailed records for other students exist.

But the Rebbe did go to a French technical school. He was a poor student who pulled up his grades after being warned by the school. He graduated in the middle – not the top – of his class. Mendel Horenstein, the Freirdicker Rebbe's third son-in-law and close friend of the Rebbe, did not graduate because his grades were too poor.

But before anyone had done the research, Chabad claimed the Rebbe graduated the Sorbonne with a degree in engineering, and that bastion of honesty Mendel Schneerson allowed that false claim to be made. He also allowed Chabad to claim that he was a top student, which he was not.

But you're in a cult and facts – real, hard, proven facts – don't matter to you.

The Ba'al Shem Tov is 'flying' in his horse-drawn wagon, and the 'miracles' are flowing to all.

[masortiman]

for anyone who is less interested in the question of the influence of Hungarian rabbis, and more interested in how ordinary, nonfru Jews are wrestling to reclaim shabbat, in a world dominated by technology, I suggest the following

http://www.sabbathmanifesto.org/about

[masortiman]

NCG

The ability of a minority of given size to pass a tshuva is and was established CJLS procedure. AFAIK there was no established principle that decisions on admission to the JTSA could be made only by the Talmud faculty.

IIUC Halivni later stated that he was about to introduce his own tshuva, which would have allowed a woman whose MOTHER had voluntarily taken on the obligation of positive time bound mitzvot to be ordained, since in her case the obligation would be inherited and not voluntary - but he withdrew it in the kerfuffle about procedure, and of course never reasserted it at the Metivta.

A very odd way to go about making halacha - a more interesting halachic historical what if, than "What if the hungarians with blackjacks hadnt coerced everyone into misunderstanding Auerbach, so frum teens would know that texting on shabbos was a minimal violation, and they could type "LOL!OMG!This is less than a SHVUT!C U L8TR at mInChAh"

[Jeff]

Shmarya, I just saw this. Excellent, just excellent.

(And I wasn't aware of that business about Halivni.)

[Shmarya]

A very odd way to go about making halacha - a more interesting halachic historical what if, than "What if the hungarians with blackjacks hadnt coerced everyone into misunderstanding Auerbach, so frum teens would know that texting on shabbos was a minimal violation, and they could type "LOL!OMG!This is less than a SHVUT!C U L8TR at mInChAh"

Posted by: masortiman | June 24, 2011 at 08:53 AM

What a little asshole you are.

Your complete ignorance of American Jewish history and Israeli religious history is astounding – but not as astounding as your arrogance.

Do you want to understand what some of these Hungarians and their allies did?

Look at New Square, little man.

Look at bricks thrown through windows and rabbis 'helped' down stairs.

Look at 3 am telephone calls and threats against children.

Try to open that arrogant, ignorant little mind of yours to the reality of Judaism and Jewish history instead of your childish little fantasy world where George Klein is a gadol.

[masortiman]

Who is George Klein? Is he a rabbi? Is he a relative of Isaac Klein?

I know very well what has happened in New Square. You provide a handy place to follow it (thanks for that) but if you werent here, there are other places. You DO realize that to establish what accounts for second half of the 20th century beliefs about diversity of opinion among poskim, telling me about recent events in New Square is irrelevant.

I suggest you go ask your friends at UTJ if they share your viewpoint on R' Klein, R'Neulander, R' Ginsburg, R'Roth, and all the other leaders of mid and late 20th c Conservative J (not if they AGREE with them, but if they share your disdain) Do you actually HAVE friends at UTJ?

[masortiman]

"What a little asshole you are"

I love you too. Have a good shabbos.

[Shmarya]

I once attended a large gathering of college students held by a haredi group.

One of the students asked a long involved question based on the learning he had done, largely on his own in English.

The rabbi answered him, explaining that the halakha was different than the student thought.

The student responded much like you. He went into a long rebuttal, citing more things he had read.

The rabbis again patiently explained why the student was wrong.

And then, again, the student launched into a long rebuttal, citing more and more things he had read, and ranging farther afield to 'prove' he was right and the rabbi was wrong.

Finally, exasperated, the rabbi screamed at him.

You see, you're very much like that student.

You many things on a surface level but nothing much in depth, and you do not know halakha and how it functions at all.

But you won't shut up.

You keep citing irrelevant things.

As I said very early in this exchange, you are in way over your head.

You acknowledged that to be true but you refuse to act on that acknowledgement.

You are the textbook definition (and I mean this literally) of a shoteh, a fool.

And you will never be anything but that unless you learn to accept your deficits.

[Shmarya]

You DO realize that to establish what accounts for second half of the 20th century beliefs about diversity of opinion among poskim, telling me about recent events in New Square is irrelevant.

You do realize that history is not irrelevant, and that New Square mimics earlier Chernobyl history, as I point out in a this post:

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2011/06/a-precursor-to-new-square-a-shabbat-story-of-hasidic-violence-678.html

[masortiman]

I am not arguing with you what the halacha is. I was mostly challenging your assertion about the nature and historical origin of 20th century opinions on it.

I have however dropped that discussion - I did so several posts ago. I do not have the ability to bring relevant evidence on it - I admit that. I do not trust your assertions on it. I will try to get a hold of the Neulander tshuva (its not online) which I except to have more detail on the history than Klein's brief statements in the guide.

I continue to find much of what you have posted on this thread illogical, a statement I can make without claiming any knowledge of halacha.

Right now I am mainly trying to take issue with your statements about various Conservative rabbis, which are disrespectful, and AFAICT inaccurate.

BTW
"You do realize that history is not irrelevant, and that New Square mimics earlier Chernobyl history, as I point out in a this post:"

Yes, the history of Chernobyl may well be relevant. But in the post above on this thread you did not cite what happened in Chernobyll, but what happened in New Square. If A is relevant to X, and B mimics A, but B is not relevant to X, it makes sense to discuss A in regard to X, not B. Maybe thats not the approach in yeshiva - its what I learned in a secular U.

[masortiman]

BTW, I learn new things every day

I just read the following

"Klein ... transferred to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTSA), where he was ordained in 1934 and received the advanced Jewish legal degree of Hattarat Hora’ah under the great talmudic scholar Rabbi Professor Louis Ginzberg. He was one of only three people, along with Boaz Cohen and Louis Finkelstein, to ever to receive this degree from JTSA. Klein subsequently earned a PhD from Harvard under the pioneering academic of Judaic studies Harry Wolfson."

[sarah]

Shmarya, so your basically saying that as far as you and these “professors” are concerned, any/all potentially negative info on Chabad and the Rebbe is always believable and 100% true. Any positive evidence must have been concocted and contrived by the “chabad misinformation apparatus”.

If the authors of this work of trash had any integrity and honesty in their backgrounds they would have - at the very lease – interviewed people who how they or their parents/teachers related about their personal encounters and impressions of the Rebbe during the subject period of time.

This book relies on NO LIVE EVIDENCE from people who know the Rebbe in Berlin or Parris. The concocted their own reality.

Shmarya, to say the Rebbe was a “mediocre” scholar in Torah and secular studies show how blind and biased you are. EVERY SINGLE intelligent man who dealt with the Rebbe – in both Rabbinical/Torah issues or secular knowledge were amazed at the scope and depth of the rebbes scholarship and knowledge. You have become totally blinded and irrational by your deep hatred of chabad to think rationally.

Shabbat Shalom!

[Shmarya]

Yes, the history of Chernobyl may well be relevant. But in the post above on this thread you did not cite what happened in Chernobyll, but what happened in New Square. If A is relevant to X, and B mimics A, but B is not relevant to X, it makes sense to discuss A in regard to X, not B. Maybe thats not the approach in yeshiva - its what I learned in a secular U.

Posted by: masortiman | June 24, 2011 at 02:53 PM
masortiman

No.

Skvere is a BRANCH of Chernobyl.

Again, you're in way over your head and you do not realize how utterly foolish you look.

[Shmarya]

If the authors of this work of trash had any integrity and honesty in their backgrounds they would have - at the very lease – interviewed people who how they or their parents/teachers related about their personal encounters and impressions of the Rebbe during the subject period of time.

Again, you're confused.

2nd and 3rd hand 'testimony' gathered from people who have an agenda or who have inducements is not particularly valuable.

Heilman and Friedman have talked to some of these people and are familiar with many of the videos you posted.

But that 'testimony' is not particularly valuable, especially when there is such a strong history of lying.

Shmarya, to say the Rebbe was a “mediocre” scholar in Torah and secular studies show how blind and biased you are. EVERY SINGLE intelligent man who dealt with the Rebbe – in both Rabbinical/Torah issues or secular knowledge were amazed at the scope and depth of the rebbes scholarship and knowledge. You have become totally blinded and irrational by your deep hatred of chabad to think rationally.

Shabbat Shalom!

Posted by: sarah | June 24, 2011 at 03:09 PM

He was a mediocre student in engineering school His student records exist and suuport what I'm saying.

As for Jewish studies, I wouldn't say he was mediocre.

What I would say is that he was nowhere near as exceptional as Chabad would like you to believe.

[Shmarya]

This book relies on NO LIVE EVIDENCE from people who know the Rebbe in Berlin or Parris. The concocted their own reality.

Not at all.

They did speak to people who *personally* knew the Rebbe in Paris and Berlin, and you can see that in their book.

They also found school records, apartment records, etc.

The problem here is twofold:

1. You can't tell the difference between real peer reviewed history and hagiography.

2. You reached a conclusion on the evidence that was predetermined by your positive view of the Rebbe as a tzaddik and messiah-like figure rather than looking at the evidence and evaluating it honestly.

[Shmarya]

BTW, I learn new things every day

I just read the following

"Klein ... transferred to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTSA), where he was ordained in 1934 and received the advanced Jewish legal degree of Hattarat Hora’ah under the great talmudic scholar Rabbi Professor Louis Ginzberg. He was one of only three people, along with Boaz Cohen and Louis Finkelstein, to ever to receive this degree from JTSA. Klein subsequently earned a PhD from Harvard under the pioneering academic of Judaic studies Harry Wolfson."

Posted by: masortiman | June 24, 2011 at 02:56 PM

You truncated the quote. Here's the beginning of it that you left off:Klein was born in Ruthenia, Hungary and emigrated with his family to the United States in 1921. He earned a BA from City College in New York in 1931. Although nearing ordination at the Yeshiva University's Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, he…So Klein was HUNGARIAN, meaning he grew up under the halakhic influence of the Hatam Sofer, and he was Orthodox educated.

These points weaken your position.

[masortiman]

which point? that his position on electricity is an independent POV on the halachic history, useful to challenging your claim on that

Or that he was a esteemed halachic figure of his time?

if the former, than touche, I grant you that. I no longer, based on my present admitted lack of knowledge wish to challenge your assertions relative to the halacha of electricity. at all. (my only reservation is that I want to see some discussion from a POV that is neither yours, nor that of that your O opponents)

The latter is what is of primary interest to me. That he was raised Orthodox, and grew up in greater Hungary does not contradict that. I cant imagine you believe it does. (If you do, there are some biographical facts about R' Weiss Halivni you might want to check - and yes, Sighet, though in romania between the wars, was as much part of greater Hungary as Ruthenia (which was part of Czechoslovakia between the wars) indeed Sighet was VERY hassidish (and was also the home of Elie Wiesel, who happens to be a friend of Weiss Halivni, IIUC)

[Shmarya]

Please.

My point, which was clear, is that Klein grew up under rabbis who followed the Hatam Sofer and in an area where opposition to electricity usage on Shabbat and Yom Tov was high. So it is entirely predictable that he would view electricity usage as problematic.

As for Halivni, he made a major break with the hasidic movement and with ultra-Orthodoxy and wrote books that documented what he calls the maculate text of the Torah.

He was a very different type of person than Klein, both in theology and in stature.

[masortiman]

"No.

Skvere is a BRANCH of Chernobyl.

Again, you're in way over your head and you do not realize how utterly foolish you look."

I am quite aware
that the skver dynasty is connected to the chernobyl dynasty. Ive lately taken to telling a little joke about Gorbachev and the Skver rebbe based on that.

The issue is time. There may be no before and after in the torah, but to those of us who study secular history, there is a before and after. 19th c thuggishness could (possibly) effect the statements of early 20th poskim. 21st c thuggishness does not. Now you may believe that the existence of a very nasty incident of 21st century thuggishness PROVES that everyone connected to the perps has ALWAYS been thuggish AND that that thuggishness has ALWAYS been effective in achieving its ends.

I do not share that way of analyzing groups. Call it excessive tolerance if you like. I think its the best defense againt the totalitarians of Skver, or anywhere else.

[Shmarya]

Please.

I gave one current 21st century EXAMPLE to truy to explain to you what these communities are like.

Before that I gave examples of early and mid-2oth century thuggishness and of 19th century thuggishness.

But you are ignorant of this history.

Again, you're in way over your head.

[masortiman]

"My point, which was clear, is that Klein grew up under rabbis who followed the Hatam Sofer and in an area where opposition to electricity usage on Shabbat and Yom Tov was high. So it is entirely predictable that he would view electricity usage as problematic."

Okay. Neulander is a better source anyway, since its a full tshuva, and all I have from Klein is a brief discussion in the guide. I just have to get a hold of the Neulander Tshuva. CJLS doesnt have pre-1970 tshuvot online.

"As for Halivni, he made a major break with the hasidic movement and with ultra-Orthodoxy"

Yes, I am aware of that. Klein of course did as well.

"He was a very different type of person than Klein, both in theology and in stature."

I have only read Klein on halacha, not on theology. I am aware that Halivni is widely respected. As of course were Ginsburg, and Finklestein and other luminaries of JTSA. I will not take your word on Klein's stature. IIUC Halivni's views on the origin of the Talmud (which IIUC is really the core of his scholarship) have been challenged strongly by Neusner.

[masortiman]

"I gave one current 21st century EXAMPLE to truy to explain to you what these communities are like.

Before that I gave examples of early and mid-2oth century thuggishness and of 19th century thuggishness."

The only mention you made in THIS thread, the one that you used to assert my ignorance, was the 21st century example.

[Shmarya]

That isn't true. You ignored what I wrote.

The same brick throwing, stone throwing and harassment, etc., happened all through the 20th century, with a bit of areduction in the first few years afyer the Holocaust.

[sarah]

What some have to say about the Rebbe’s scholarship;

chabad.org/1264768
chabad.org/1130192
chabad.org/132946
chabad.org/132968
chabad.org/132964
chabad.org/132939

[sarah]

Shmarya, here is some info on the Rebbe’s secular knowledge.

chabad.org/531057
chabad.org/712317
chabad.org/1317507
chabad.org/724789
chabad.org/724794
chabad.org/433710
chabad.org/959354
chabad.org/1161500
chabad.org/443375
chabad.org/132944

[Shmarya]

Please.

I also know people who had contact with the Rebbe and found him far less amazing in these regards.

But Chabad.org doesn't post videos of them.

[visiting the sick]

Telephone usage on Shabbat was originally permitted by some of the world's most important rabbis/poskim. In Lithuania, Belarus, parts of Poland and in Western Europe, telephone usage wasn't seen as a Shabbat problem.

Does Shmarya cite which poskim allowed this? No. This is shoddy blogmanship.

[GodFearing]

I am dumbfounded by LoshonHora's post back on June 22nd. That is the EXACT idealogy which pushes the young minds AWAY from orthodox Judaism.
This nugget is the most enlightening (to those who want to know why kids are so off base/track in current times) "Now most yeshivos or at least mesivtas forbid cell phones & ipods, that doesn't mean they are 100% sucessful, but they could cure the epidemic by expelling those who don't adhere to the rules". Expel them because they're using cell phones and deny them a Yeshiva education? GENIUS! Typical of a religious mind to jump to a last resort, FIRST. Its kind of like when I was younger I was warned, "Do something bad on shabbos and youre going to hell"...that just enticed me to be religious.
As for those who think those numbers are inflated, I actually feel they are DEflated. I live in the NYC area and I can assure you most HS kids in the modern orthodox schools ARE TEXTING ON SHABBOS. I'd say A LOT more than 50%. Mostly because I have relatives in the schools and I am privy to what they do and what their friends do etc etc.
This situation is a product of bad parenting (i.e. forcing religion down kids throats) and even worse Rabbinical guidance in shuls and schools. It is, always has been and always will be about MUSSAR. No one with the ability to think critically on their own will ever succumb to such stupidity. The sooner the Rabbaim figure this out the sooner the Jewish people can be saved spiritually.