More on Daas Torah: Lawrence Kaplan

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More on Daas Torah: Lawrence Kaplan

"The idea of Daas Torah, as a charismatic notion of rabbinic authority, is something different. It doesn’t come out of nowhere, so it’s not yeish me-ayin. But, as I and others see it, it is an expanded view of traditional conceptions of rabbinic authority, precisely because of greater challenges in the modern period to rabbinic authority. And the classical sources which have been cited as support for it don’t seem to prove the larger claims made on its behalf. One such source is the notion of Emunas Chachamim.  But it must be said that the phrase is very general; what it means is not so clear. The meaning attributed to it by the exponents of  Daas Torah seems to be a late nineteenth century development, imported from the Hasidic view of the Rebbe. The source cited most often in support of the notion of Daas Torah,  and which I focused on most in my article, is Lo Sasur. As I pointed out, according to most authorities it applies only to the Beis Din Hagadol. I further pointed out that the view of Afilu omrin lekha al yemin shehu semol is that of the Sifre. The Yerushalmi is the other way, that only if they say yemin is yemin  and semol is semol do you have to listen to them. In my article, particularly the Hebrew version, I went through all the different ways how different scholars try to reconcile the two sources. The authority who seems to be the key figure for the exponents of Daas Torah is the Sefer HaChinuch -- he’s the one who  applies the Sifre generally to Chachmei HaDor. But the Sefer HaChinuch’s view is more of a practical view; you have to submit to the authority of Chachmei HaDor not because they necessarily have such great understanding, but just because otherwise you’re going to have chaos and anarchy. So it’s a more practical view. So what I suggested is that the modern view of Daas Torah – again, I’m not saying it was made out of whole cloth – is arrived at by taking the idea of the Sefer HaChinuch applying Lo Sasur to all Chachmei HaDor and combining that with the view of the Ramban who talks about the Beis Din Hagadol’s great understanding and how God will protect them from error, etc [7]."

continue at Sefarim blog

True Lithanian Judaism is gone

Linked comment, Micha Berger on Orthodoxy today:

"I do not identify with mod-O. In fact, there is not a movement around today I would feel comfortable identifying with.

Sociologically, my neighborhood has little mod-O presence. Actually, around 1/3 of the rabbis are from YU, but it's a sea of black hats, black suits, and white shirts even in their neck of the woods. My own LOR is a Lakewood product (and my father's chavrusah). In terms of my attire, I don't dress yeshivish or mod-O outside the workplace; I dress East European (long jacket, etc...)

But even in my YU days, I was in R' Dovid Lifshitz'a shiur. The Suvalker Rav didn't know Lithuania? I had a rebbe who learned in Grodno under a former Telzher Rosh Yeshiva, so my connection to that world is more direct than you're simply writing off with the words "YU".

For that matter, going further back, my elementary school hired rabbeim from Williamsburg, and the taitch for "Bereishis" was given as "In unfang".

So kindly refrain from reducing people to stereotypes, and then attacking their ability to comment based on your own assumptions.

You also seem to think that today's "chareidi type yeshivos" more authentically reproduce Telz or Volozhin than does RIETS. That's a fantasy. Not that Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan does either. (BTW, under the Alter, Kelm had a yeshiva qetana with limudei chol WITHOUT gov't coersion!) And while Volozhin, Kelm and Slabodka didn't have classes in limudei chol beyond what the Czar forced into Volozhin, it was expected of the talmidim in their spare time. See R' EE Dessler's recollection of his father giving him Uncle Tom's Cabin to read. But I'm not going to pretend they were YU -- just that they aren't today's Lakewood, either.

True Lithanian Judaism is gone, r"l. If it weren't I would probably have a spiritual home.

Bikhlal the line between chassidus and Litvishkeit largely fell since we left Eastern Europe. In R' Aharon Kotler's day only the rabbeim wore black, only the rabbeim were allowed to have beards, and talmidim were encouraged to argue back during a shiur -- even R' Aharon's. Today's yeshivish student is expected to wear a uniform (as per chassidus) and view his Rosh Yeshiva as a chassid does his rebbe. The masses don't even know enough hashkafah to know the machloqes between the Besh"t and the Gra about tzimtzum -- transcendence vs immanence, or about sheleimus vs deveiqus.

Yes, the typical O Jew today spends so little time thinking about the fundamentals he doesn't realize he holds conflicting beliefs about whether G-d is in Shamayim or everywhere, and about man's mission in life. Not the conflict -- it's resolvable. But not to even know there is a problem to resolve? So of course he ends up judging based on lifestyle. Chassidim, particularly after the uniforming and daas Torah, have a more similar lifestyle to the yeshivish than MO does. So, they think it's more similar in philosophy as well."

http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2013/05/rabbi-micha-berger-why-yeshiva-world.html

Gratitude

Feeling gratitude should be one of the essential activities of life. As Rabbi Miller points out, people will not feel gratitude if they are unhappy. A life of asceticism and denial for denial sake is a terrible mistake because it leaves people struggling with the middah of gratitude. They will not feel grateful if they are miserable. Yes, self-denial is a part of life, but only one part. If you turn that into the whole thing, you create a mess.

When we allow ourselves to enjoy the many kosher activities of life, we should then feel gratitude to our Creator. When we do not, we miss out on one of the great opportunities of life. William Shakespeare offered some powerful words on the mistake of ingratitude.

Blow, blow, thou Winter Wind by William Shakespeare
 
BLOW, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
  As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,         5
  Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh ho! sing, heigh ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
        Then heigh ho, the holly!
        This life is most jolly.  10

      Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
      That dost not bite so nigh
        As benefits forgot:
      Though thou the waters warp,
      Thy sting is not so sharp  15
        As friend remember'd not.
Heigh ho! sing, heigh ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
        Then heigh ho, the holly!
        This life is most jolly.  20

age of Marriage

"In the Chazon Ish on Y'D hilchos Talmud Torah and in Igros
Chazon Ish Volume 2 # 135 he Writes that 'From the Mishna and Gemora the age of Marriage is
18 yrs old. That is the way people were 'Noheg' for many Generations' and he continues ' Some delay marriage for Learning Torah...but that is the Way ONLY for a few individuals'!"

Wise counsel from the Chazon Ish

"1-Do not borrow money from
People

2-do not do strange things even
If it involves Ruchnayus

3-try to stay away from eating
Until satisfying desire.

4-Quote "I love to make peoples
Hearts happy, it is my obligation
To be cautious not to cause discomfort for another jew even
For ONE SECOND!"

Igros 1-letter 33

5-"it is human nature to get tired. There should be NO feelings of guilt or sin only recognition of G'D nature.
One should Ignore Hashem's
Nature which is the ultimate
Experience of Hashem's will".

"Therefore , I decree upon you
To interrupt your learning completely for 2 weeks and
You should increase eating healthy food and increase your sleep and take relaxing trips and
Other kinds of 'Batala'"

Igros volume 1-35

Going back to college

After becoming frum, I went into the standard college is shtus mode. I tried to maintain this for many years, but it never really took hold. And I don't think that the difficulty of change is the primary reason for that. The reason is that college is not schtus. Certainly much of it is. I knew that even then. But much is quite positive. It's madah, it's chochmah, it's even Torah in a way. Overall, college lead me to yiddishkite as I learned about religious devotion via the poets, learned to think in new perspectives, learned about moral conservatism, learned about Bible from Christians on campus. I never hooked up with the religious Jews because I found them too odd.  The Christians knew how to be pleasant. But I didn't become Christian. Rather, they introduced me to my tradition. College has its problems - the promiscuity is terrible. The snobbery is terrible. But parts are quite positive. Moreover, I worked my whole life to get there, so to try to extirpate it from the mind is unhealthy - you wind up cutting off much of your brain along with that kind of gesture. So now I embrace my college and I don't hide it even from the Lakewood crowd.

Not for the Jews Alone

"But the Torah has also taught us not to conceive of this our destiny and of the lot which awaits us because of it and for the purpose of its fulfillment, in terms of isolated phenomena. Even as it has taught us to acquire the proper, thoughtful appreciation for nature through God, and for the place of man in nature, so it also demonstrates to us that the founding and the destiny of our people is most intimately linked with the course of the history of mankind as a whole, which is no less guided by God than is our own. It teaches us to recognize that the purpose of our founding and our introduction into the midst of the nations was that we might teach mankind, and reclaim mankind for, the knowledge and recognition of God, and of its own destiny and task as assigned it by Him. At the very beginning, Abraham was appointed to be "the spiritual father of the multitude of the nations." It was through him, and through the generations that would follow him, that blessings were to come "to all the families of the earth." At the time of His very first intervention in the course of the history of the nations in behalf of Israel, God referred to the latter not as His "only son" but rather as His "first-born" son. In the same spirit, God declared the aim of the miracles He had wrought for the deliverance of His people in Egypt to be "that His Name might be proclaimed throughout the earth" (Exod. 9: 16). And it is repeatedly stated that a reason for the preservation of Israel among the nations was that all the nations might be brought back to a purer knowledge of God (Num. 14:13 ff)."

R' Hirsch, intro to commentary on Tehillim