Michtav M’Eliyahu (1:75): Our Sages have already told us to listen to the words of gedolim - “Even if they tell you that left is right.” Furthermore a person should not think, Gd forbid!, that they have certainly erred just because someone so insignificant as himself has perceived that they erred. In fact it is important to know that one’s perception of reality is totally null and void as the dust of the earth in comparison to the clarity of intellect and Divine assistance that they have. We have an important halachic principle that one beis din can not nullify the ruling of another beis din unless it is greater than the first in wisdom and number. Otherwise it is likely that that which he thought that he perceived is merely an illusion and distorted understanding of reality. This is what is meant by Daas Torah - which is an aspect of Emunas Chachomim (faith in the sages).
So who do you know who is a "gadol" and which "gadol" to follow?
ReplyDeleteI do not think rav Dresler could imagine a generation where the collective daas torah would be exposed as gullible as best and corrupted at worst, i.e. the way the "gedolim" were led by Tropper and the response to child abuse
ReplyDeleteThere are times,you don,t have to listen to the gedolim- for example,
ReplyDeleteIf they tell you to protect someone who is a danger ,such as, a pedophile.
You can turn that person in.
Such rulings violate - both spirit and torah law- aswell as rabbinic law.
RAV MOSHE has a teshuvah on this.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_DdpsaegqGNM/TPgBGwp_zPI/AAAAAAAAApM/jr88fPptRXI/s1600/RAV_NACHUM_ADERABAH_Page_2.jpg
ReplyDeleteR' Nuchem Rosenberg wrote this halacha teshuva that al pi Shulchan Aruch, the phony cherem put on him by corrupt rebbes & rabbonim who are trying to cover up for molesters & noyafim has no chalos
Several non-corrupt rabbonim were moyche against the corrupt by calling R' Nuchem to an assifa of 100s of people to give him an award after Satmar was mevazeh him befarhesya with shekorim in their newspapers
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_DdpsaegqGNM/TPgBKgkx5bI/AAAAAAAAApQ/QvMRzWJ2fqs/s1600/RAV_NACHUM_ADERABAH_Page_3.jpg
The teshuva continues that farkert, corrupt rabbonim who issue phony charamos are themselves put in cherem min hashamayim (Shulchan Aruch)
The corrupt rabbonim also posseled his mikvos shelo al pi din for which there is a klala
And the Satmar bums who signed against him are also in cherem for going to arkaos against each other over money
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_DdpsaegqGNM/TPgBCxcvcmI/AAAAAAAAApI/mQsn2ydZU0E/s1600/RAV_NACHUM_ADERABAH_Page_1.jpg
Many of the corrupt rabbonim who signed the phony cherem are giving hashgochos
Satmar hashgochos & Vaad of Kiryas Yoel
Belzer hashgochos
Skverer hashgochos
Viener Monsey hashgocho
Kossover hashgocho Boro Park
Hillel Weinberger - Nitra
Yechezkel Gold - Monsey
Meshulem Berel Polatsek - Maged Yehuda
Afilu einer vus zitzt oyf der Moetzes, der Mattersdorfer
Surprise, surprise, the Gedolim have told the ordinary people to listen to and obey the will of the Gedolim. Well, the majority decides who is a Gadol/are Gedolim and the majority follow their Gedolim. OK, but if the majority of the people don´t see some Gedolim as Gedolim. Just see them as "Gedolim", that is self-proclaimed Gedolim with a minority following? Shouldn´t those "Gedolim" follow the Gedolim of the majority? So why are the Haredim, the minority of World Jewry following Gedolim that are not recognized as Poskim by the Jewish majority.
ReplyDeleteThere is a Yerushalmi that refutes this absurd concept of left= right. The Yerushalmi itself considers it an absurd claim.
ReplyDeletehttp://twitpic.com/3idy37/full
ReplyDeleteWhy did they come out now bechol toykef, Chassidish & Misnagdish, against Vos Iz Neas? What did that Satmar blogger do worse than the other blogs? And they do know who he is by the way although they can't prove it, so why aren't they mazmin him like they claim they would be in a sekunda if they had any idea?
What does that VIN poster say (translation)?
ReplyDelete"Vos episs? said...Why did they come out now bechol toykef, Chassidish & Misnagdish, against Vos Iz Neas? What did that Satmar blogger do worse than the other blogs?"
ReplyDeleteGood question, maybe it is because the shanda of the incest scandal from Rabbi Gershon Kranczer is so great that they had to come with a distraction. It's easier to attack a news blog like VIN that it is to issue a public call for a rabbi and rosh yeshiva from Brooklyn like Gershon Kranczer who "took care" of many learning disabled boys from Litvishe and Chasidisha kreizen from all over Brooklyn in his Yeshiva Tehila Ledovid and to call on whoever is hiding him to make him come out and face the serious accusations of incest against his own daughters from which he ran like from a house on fire confirming his guilt, because no one runs if they are innocent.
"And they do know who he is by the way although they can't prove it, so why aren't they mazmin him like they claim they would be in a sekunda if they had any idea?"
If they are mazmin him, he can answer that how can they do it if, as if well-known and public knowledge, when the CRC bais din of Satmar called one of this anti-VIN kol kore's signers and a main leader of Agudas Yisroel, Rav Aron Schechter to a din Torah, not once but three times, he ignored them and did not come, so it would look very funny if a poshute blogger is expected to show up but a choshuve rosh yeshiva who refused to show up is allowed to refuse going to bais din.
It's also a lot easier to distract from the huge hot internal civil war going on in Satmar between the two brothers who both claim to be the Satmar Rebbe and their two camps that are fighting for control, the followers of Aron Teitelbaum versus the followers of Zalman Leib Teitelbaum. Every day there are worse stories about hoe each camp treats each other, so better to fight VIN that to work at making sholom. It's all about distractions and making the oilem goilem forget about what is really going on in the real world.
Just some thoughts.
How on Earth are the rabbis going to ban computers, cell phones, BlackBerrys, IPads, and all the gizmos and gadgets that hook up to the Internet that's in almost everyone's hands?
ReplyDeleteAlmost every Chasidisha and Litvisha yeshiva kid, boys and girls, know gantz fein how to get access to the web and surf on it. Mothers shop online for diapers and clothes and get the best deals. Fathers find bargains for the house and things to buy on Amazon from air conditioners to toothpicks. The best airline tickets are bought online from JetBlue and other bargain airlines.
The frummest shulls, yeshivas and shtiebels send out weekly Emails and updates and APPEALS for gelt and dinners and all sorts of things!!! People look for shidduchim on various frum shadchan sites, keep in touch with family spread all over the world, and for Lubavitchers spread in every ek velt, the Internet is a key to mechanech the kids on live video every day with live teachers and rebbes and events.
When elderly zeidas and bubbies and relatives cannot attend far-off simchas, arrangements are made for live streaming video. Bills are paid online. Bank statements are made and reviewed online. The cell phone is giving way to the BlackBerry as the basic tool of communication with free IM and instant Internet connections and of course phone service.
So the real $64,000 question is how the rabbonim intend to deal with these facts of life because the random bannings of Internet usage makes "hypocrites" out of innocent users. Sure there is easy porn online, and its a huge problem. The way to deal with it is complex, but perhaps it is no different in dealing with how a normal family functions and educates its members about resisting and blocking out negative implications and consequences of sexual life from their homes, so that, for example, in spite of a mother and a father fulfilling pirya veribya (procreation) in the same household as they live in with children, often in very confined quarters, ways are found to discuss what it means to be tzniusdik (modest). Some families discuss what it means when Mummy goes to the mikva, what it means when Tatty and Mummy are alone, what it means when Imma is pregnant, how babies are born, why a girl gets a period and what it means, that boys should not rub themselves, that boys and girls must stay clothed in each other's company -- the point being that the yetzer hora le'arayos (the libido) can and is dealt with, and this attitude of positive chinuch (moral education) must be extended to the usage of technology. There is no way but through. To bans will result in nothing.
The Information Age needs to be tamed with chochma (wisdom) and chinuch (education) not with ka'as (anger) and gezeiras (decrees).
Recipients:
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the distraction tactics , for example in Chassidic agng wars. But noone ever mentions the Ponovetch wars, and the attempted murder of one of the would be Rosh Yeshivas.
Is the Torah no more than listening to whatever the rabbis say? Or is the Torah something deeper than this, something that we can know in our heart that it's right when we hear it?
ReplyDelete>>But noone ever mentions the Ponovetch wars, and the attempted murder of one of the would be Rosh Yeshivas<<
ReplyDeleteWell, let's hear it then!
The Yerushalmi mentioned in one of the comments above is brought in the Torah Temimah on the posuk of Lo Sasur. Ayen shom.
ReplyDeleteNo one runs away if they are innocent?!sorry, that's simply not true.Iknow one person who ran away and he's 100% innocent.Another person i know was told to run away by his friends as he couldn't win as the courts favor a woman and he didn't have a good lawer.He did stay,and shocklingly,he won!
ReplyDeleteThat post about innocent was from me.I forgot to fill out the username.
ReplyDeleteSorry,contrary to your claims.A lot of chareidi bochurim or girls don't go near the internet.Saying almost every is simply false.
ReplyDeleteExcept the claim he makes is only with regards to cancelling a gezeira of the sages, not to decisions of a BD in general. Even that is disputed by Raavad.
ReplyDeleteHow does he explain the existence of Maseches Horayos?
ReplyDeleteThey probably don't teach it in his yeshivas
ReplyDeleteHis explanation is too easy. "You, the unwashed masses, are too stupid to know what's good for you. Sit down, shut up and do what we say."
ReplyDeleteReminds me of that old blog essay "Daas Torah vs Daas Hedyos" where the author went over every major crisis that affected the Jewish people in the last 3 centuries and how Daas Torah got it wrong every single time while Daas Hedyot figured the situation out correctly.
When that keeps happening, all you can do is play The Matrix card and try to convince people not to believe the reality in front of their eyes. Then it becomes a self-selecting process - the smart people leave, the stupid stay.
Stupid people are good fodder for cults
ReplyDeleteTo be fair... Does R Dessler ever say that the consultation is what we today call "Daas Torah"? This quote seems to be more about specifically HALACHIC authority.
ReplyDeleteAs I said in another comment "a few seconds ago", this seems to be about halachic authority. And yes, people today do pasqen for themselves far more often than is healthy. And as advice about a snap-judgement that second-guesses the experts it seems true of any field.
ReplyDeleteGreat question!
ReplyDelete