Thursday, November 19, 2009

Steipler: "Better to be punished in this world"

17 comments :

  1. Lorencz is not reliable,can not be trusted. What he claims the 8risker rav told rav Shach (askanut etc..)is the oppisit of truth.he has his agenda.this i know from close talmidim.

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  2. Tziki kadera said...

    Lorencz is not reliable,can not be trusted. What he claims the 8risker rav told rav Shach (askanut etc..)is the oppisit of truth.he has his agenda.this i know from close talmidim.
    ==============
    Interesting point. However he has some strong haskomas that dispute this assertion. So should I listen to an anonymous commentator who is quoting unknown others or these haskomas?

    Furthermore, even according to your view, are you questioning the validity of the points made i.e, that it is better to suffer in this world?

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  3. To cast doubt on R' Lorenz is to also cast doubt on those who wrote the haskamot.

    This story reminds me of another that I had heard. When the haskala was trying to penetrate the communities in Mid-East by setting up "religious" schools that also taught secular subjects such as French, claiming it would better the future the children and their ability to make a Parnassah.

    The Brisker Rav(who made such institutions his mortal enemies) wrote a letter to the Ben Ish Hai warning him to oust them and not let them establish. The Ben Ish Hai responded that every Jew is chiuv to Dan L'Kaf Zechut, and thus allowed the establishment of the schools. Five years later he sat and wept when he saw the damage being done to the Torah community in Baghdad and wrote to the Briser Rav, "If only I had first heeded your advice I would not now need take such extreme measures to correct the situation."

    Those extreme measures were placing an absolute and permanent cherem on anyone involved with the schools in any way. One must wonder if in this situation the Vishnitzer Rav regretted his decision.

    In like manner it seems that when it comes to child abuse, those Gedolim who have taken it on as though it is a scourge that must be eradicated are those who we should be listening to.

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  4. There is an unspoken difficulty with stories and statements like these. The senior rabbis say one thing, and something else happens. The world calls this a credibility gap. Who is telling the truth? Who is the obstacle? There is no paper trail, and discerning the truth is maddening.

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  5. IIRC the gemara leaves it up in the air as to whether one is "better off" in this situation (see Horiyot 10b)

    GT
    Joel Rich

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  6. Horiyot (10b):
    R. Nahman b. Hisda made the following exposition: What is meant by the Scriptural text: There is a vanity which is done upon the earth: [That4 there are righteous men, unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked; again there are wicked men to whom it hanppeneth] etc?10 Happy11 are the righteous men unto whom it happeneth in this world according to the work of the wicked in the world to come;12 woe13 to the wicked men to whom it happeneth in this world according to the work of the righteous in the world to come.14 Said Raba: Would the righteous, then, if they enjoyed both worlds find it so distasteful? — But, said Raba, happy11 are the righteous men unto whom it happeneth in this world according to the work of the wicked in this world;14 woe13 to the wicked men unto whom it happeneth in this world according to the work of the righteous in this world.12 R. Papa and R. Huna son of R. Joshua once came before Raba. ‘Have you’, he asked them, ‘mastered15 this or that tractate?’ ‘Yes’, they replied. ‘Are you’, he asked, ‘a little better off?’16 ‘Yes’, they replied, ‘for we have bought some17 land.’ He, thereupon, exclaimed:18 Happy are the righteous unto whom it happeneth in this world according to the work of the wicked in this world.

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  7. When this individual ended up committing a crime again and then getting put in prison for the rest of his life, it came out that the rachmanus on his family was actually the opposite of rachmanus on his family, who suffered more bizayon and maybe would have eventually gotten there husband back in better shape.

    BTW, the attitude of the Steipler is this story strikes me as very true to form for him. His enormous yiras ha'onesh etc. Nothing good could come from going against his eitzah.

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  8. The Brisker Rav(who made such institutions his mortal enemies) wrote a letter to the Ben Ish Hai

    Interesting, The Brisker Rav lived 1886-1959, the Ben Ish Hai lived 1832-1909, so in order for the story to makes any sense, the Brisker rabbi sent a letter to Ben Ish Hai when he was a child/teenager and already a rabbi that can advise the Ben Ish Hai !

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  9. Rav Yehoshua Leib Diskin was also known as the Brisker Rav and he lived (1818–1898)which means he was a contemporary of the Ben Ish Hai (1832-1909)

    The following is from Artscroll.

    The Chicken Is Treif!

    Reb Yehoshua Vilner, a Yerushalmi chicken breeder, davened at the beis medrash of Rav Salant, and was very close to Rav Yehoshua Leib Diskin, the Brisker Rav.

    One Shabbos, during the break between Kabbalas Shabbos and Maariv, Reb Yehoshua related to the people sitting at his table that he noticed one of the chickens had more lice than the other chickens.

    “I have never seen such a thing before,” he told his listeners, “the lice were swarming all around his back. I asked the Brisker Rav about the kashrus of the chicken, and after thinking it over the Rav paskened that a chicken is not treif just because it has more lice than any other chicken.”

    Rav Shmuel, who was learning at a nearby table, overheard the story. After davening, he asked Reb Yehoshua to repeat the story. On conclusion, Rav Shmuel ruled that the chicken was treif.

    Reb Yehoshua was surprised at the psak of Rav Salant, who was known to be lenient in his rulings, and went back to the Brisker Rav to tell him of Rav Shmuel’s psak.

    But Rav Yehoshua Leib couldn’t fathom why the chicken was treif.

    “Please go back to Rav Shmuel and ask him the source of his ruling,” Rav Yehoshua Leib told Reb Yehoshua.

    When Reb Yehoshua returned to Rav Shmuel with the Brisker Rav’s request, the Rav smiled.

    “Of course there is no halachah that a chicken with lice is treif. However, it is logical to assume that if the chicken is not able to turn its head and clean itself from the annoying lice, just like all other chickens do, it must be because this chicken’s neck is broken,” Rav Shmuel explained.

    “In addition to the four parts of Shulchan Aruch, there is the fifth part - using one’s logic,” the Rav concluded.

    Proving his point, Rav Shmuel asked Reb Yehoshua to bring him the chicken - and indeed, its neck was broken!

    When Reb Yehoshua returned to the Brisker Rav with the source of Rav Shmuel’s psak, he jumped out of his chair and exclaimed: “Rav Shmuel is a chad bedara, a unique phenomenon!”

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  10. I usually hold that anything that comes out of Artscroll is mefukpak but I do not deny the miracle of a live chicken with broken neck.

    Not treating Artscroll as torah mesinai will make you a kofer in the eyes of kanoyin like Tropper and his sidekick Rabbi Raphael Bearmant.

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  11. of course most of lorencz's book is true and from secondary sources,but he has a little sheker.look at gitten 56. The hascamot mean he is a frum jew.. Remember he came up with the letter that the brisker supported voting!!!!!!!!?????????

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  12. Tzadik,
    Please... At least twice a year during my time in yeshiva, Rabbi Tropper read the famous michtav from Rav Hutner about the danger of some g'dolim biographies. It would not be an overstatement to say that it is a major theme of his; the idea that g'dolim are real people with struggles, ups and downs. Discuss issues if you want to but be fair. The string has NOTHING to do with R. Tropper and you felt the need to shlep him in to it with a complete irrelevancy. He must have accidentally stepped on your toe at a chasuna 40 years ago.

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  13. The string has NOTHING to do with R. Tropper

    I brought up Tropper because he was behind the ban of Rabbi Slifkin books. He also was involved in the ban of Making Of A Gadol where most of the rabbis who sign the ban do not know English and needed someone to translate… as we know here Tropper/Rony has his own way of translating/forging letters.

    BTW, The only rabbi on list who knows English is r’ Pinchas Schienberg (the one who wears 100 pairs of tzizis) who gave Tropper his semicha.

    I am sure Tropper does not like anybody who consider any rabbi as basar vadam. Ask him about his cousin Shlomo Carlbach who is alleged to molest little girls

    Without realizing that even chazal were humans how one can learn this like in Kidishin 81a where r’ Akiva and r’ Meir are running after naked girls.


    מאיר הוה מתלוצץ בעוברי עבירה יומא חד אידמי ליה שטן כאיתתא בהך גיסא דנהרא לא הוה מברא נקט מצרא וקא עבר כי מטא פלגא מצרא שבקיה אמר אי לאו דקא מכרזי ברקיעא הזהרו בר' מאיר ותורתו שויתיה לדמך תרתי מעי ר' עקיבא הוה מתלוצץ בעוברי עבירה יומא חד אידמי ליה שטן כאיתתא בריש דיקלא נקטיה לדיקלא וקסליק ואזיל כי מטא לפלגיה דדיקלא שבקיה אמר אי לאו דמכרזי ברקיעא הזהרו ברבי עקיבא ותורתו שויתיה לדמך תרתי

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  14. mrt wriote: "as we know here Tropper/Rony has his own way of translating/forging letters'.

    There is NO forgery whatsoever in that letter where rabbis warn against messader kiddushin of rabbi bomzer's converts etc.

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  15. Your implied lack of kavod for Rav Scheinberg is very chutzpadig. Rabbi Tropper has smicha from Rav Shach zt"l and Rav Ovadia Yosef. They are both extremely difficult smichos. He does not have smicha from Rav Scheinberg as far as I remember.

    Making of a Gadol was banned by Rav Volbe, nephew of Reb Yaakov who knew first hand the characters involved. Aside from that, I'm pretty certain he at least read English. I am not voicing an opinion about the ban, the Kamenetskys are kodesh kasdoshim. But there were big and sober people of both sides.

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  16. The opposition of Rabbi Yosef Haim and other Jewish community leaders in Baghdad to the European secular influence of the AIU and other European "export" institutions is very well documented.

    The first AIU school did open in Baghdad in 1864, but only after a compromise was made and that was that the local Jewish leadership (the Rabbis) retained influence over the subject matter and the selection of the teachers so that fundamental cultural and traditional values would be preserved.

    It is very well known and repeatedly written throughout numerous responsa that Rabbi Yosef Haim of Baghdad fiercely opposed from the very beginning, Europeanization and its accompanying secularization of Baghdad's Jews.

    See also for a historical source:

    Zionism in an Arab country: Jews in Iraq in the 1940s
    By Esther Meir-Glitzenstein p. 4

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  17. http://www.thevoiceoflakewood.com/3dissue/112009/pageflip.htm

    are these genuises of lakewood hooked on troppetoo?!?

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