15 Comments
Jul 23, 2023Liked by Ash

I'm not sure, but I don't think he was actually a Rosh Kollel. (He apparently also was a rabbi of a shul that didn't exist.) Secondly, the sefer is reportedly more fluff than stuff. This doesn't necessarily detract from your point, but it's probably better to make sure not to overstate the case.

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author

People who knew him IRL told me that. Have not confirmed.

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A friend of mine knows him well, told me he was never a Rosh Kolel.

Btw heard he was spotted in Belz last week horving over many seforim...

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“the sefer is reportedly more fluff than stuff“

Doesn’t appear that way to me, admittedly upon a courtesy glance.

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Jul 23, 2023Liked by Ash

Could be. I davka said "reportedly" because I haven't seen it myself. Although he has at least one nice haskamah I know of (of course that certainly doesn't mean much).

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Terrible story. I'm glad the first time I encountered it was here, so I don't need to know the name. Thank you for your honest and sensitive coverage - extremely rare to see.

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Great post!! Great point!!

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“wrote a whole sefer on gittin “

It’s not on gittin, it’s on Agunos.

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Sorry, bad example. Like the guy got the halacha, but not the "underlying reason"? Highly doubt he's shomer negiah...

By the way don't think he was ever a rosh kolel

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author

a) he was.

b) Let me rephrase. He learned, but his learning was all intellectual. Thats why his learning might have been top notch, but it was worthless because he didnt absorb the morality of it.

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a) He was a rosh kolel the same way his name was Kyle Deschanel

b) This issue has nothing to do with absorbing the morality of his learning, at least not the way you're making it. Nothing to do with your examples. This guy didn't observe anything, what he learned, nor the reasoning behind it. I'm seeing some Slifkinesque reasoning here. Take an irrelevant whacky story, use it as a soapbox to complain about something random that's bothering you, and subtly imply with guilt by association that all chareidim that have chumrahs are equal to this loon.

You're free to write any article, but don't bring in this whacky story as if it has any relevance to anything.

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author

>subtly imply with guilt by association that all chareidim that have chumrahs are equal to this loon.

I'm probably guilty of the first two. Disagree with the above accusation though.

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Here is where I will disagree with you ash....

Although your point is a good one I don't think this case is the best example.

Most guys in the Jewish community that go off after a divorce descend into a Nihilistic hole of indulgence.

Its not that they weren't taught its that they are rejecting everything they were taught because they are saying screw everything im just going to party.

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author

This happened while he was married. He told his wife he was learning all night. It's the cause of the divorce, not a result of it.

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