"It isn't meant to bow to wishes of the klal but if it initially was founded as an umbrella organization for all orthodox jews."
There's never been a modern orthodox presence on the American Agudah moetzes. Not now, not in 2000, and not in 1950. Closest they got to that was Rav Soloveitchik, and he left once he shifted his own views. You can praise that or you can bemoan it, but that's the way it's been for 75+ years.
This out of town/in town/Lakewood talk you and the letter writer are talking about is ridiculous. There is a broad spectrum of people in town, as well as out of town. The Rabbinic leadership is unpredictable based on their location. (Rav Brudny is in town. Rav Feldman out of town.) Out of town has a very large presentation on the Moetzes. The Moetzes did not issue a statement against the rally.
And I never knew agudah has "constituents".
I agree with commentator Shaul Shapira that this letter is beyond pathetic.
Nit sure what you mean... there was big tension which way it should go, with them electing to remain silent. Then some rabbonim released a kol koreh despite being on the moetzes.
Same thing as the Eretz Hakodesh debacle. It's no secret certain RY threatened to leave the moetzes if it took a side on that issue.
Remaining silent makes perfect sense. It means everyone should follow their own Rabbanim. What exactly would you rather happen when there's a disagreement with the moetzes members?
The moetzes is currently very broad, with Members of the "right" and "left" of chareidiland being represented. Do you want them to fire all the "right" members?
There aren't Chasidish because it's irrelevant as all Chasidim do what their Rebbe says and that's it. Many Rebbes were asked to join and turned it down, as mentioned publicly by the convention last year. Same with MO, all they'll care about is what YU of OU has to say and won't compromise their Hashkafa to join. There are Sefardim on the Moetzes.
For many years, Russian/Lithuanian Jewry resisted any party organization and separation. By nature they were not argumentative, and leaders like Reb Yisroel Salanter and the Netziv were opposed to it. German and Hungarian Jewry, otoh, were based on separation from the irreligious and the absolute refusal to recognize the non-religious as the faces of Jewry.
The Aguda was founded when Polish/Lithuanian/Russian Jewry decided to change course. Instead of a pan-Jewish coalition, it was a pan-religious coalition, and founded to separate from the Zionists, Reform, Haskala, Communists, Bundists, and other trouble makers. The parameters of that separation were a source of constant conflict in the Aguda. Do they separate from organizations that don't believe in separation, like Mizrachi and Status Quo in Hungary? They were an umbrella organization for all of those communities. The basic difference between the Aguda and the other organizations is that the Aguda is based on Torah, and Torah is not democratic or representative. The Aguda is the umbrella organization of all who accept the Torah as their only guide and wish to separate from the non-religious.
The Agudah, on this occasion, was unsure what to do, because the rally had an unclear purpose. But this is their raison d'etre, and always was. For them to change their fundamental beliefs and to commit to 'achdus' with organizations that they believe are the opposite of Judaism is unfair.
If people disagree with the Moetzes, that does not require that the Moetzes change their opinion.
I don't think that's the issue here. The issue is that many Moetzes members hold one way but defer to the more right wing to stay united. Case in point Rav Elya Brudny about the rally and before that all the moetzes members having to cover for Rav Elya ber. He's not even on the Moetzes and wasn't by the meeting, if you want to listen to him good, if moetzes good.
The idea that they defer to someone outside of the Moetzes is the correct thing to do. The Aguda is a Torah organization, they don't own the Torah. In EY, neither the Chazon Ish nor the Brisker Rav were Moetzes members, yet they were deferred to. When Rav Shach read a letter from the Steipler at a Moetzes meeting, a chatzuf of a Rebbe said, "let's vote". Rav Shach walked out of the meeting for that.
This story has much more background to it. The Agudah was basically inevitable when it was founded. Maybe a blog dedicated to this will include my posts on this and other historical issues as relevant to nowadays.
It was not founded to represent all orthodox Jews. Mizrachi was a major factor in US in the 40's and 50's, as well as agudas Harabbanim. They tried getting things under one banner and were never successful, as there was the RCA, OU and others that ran other Orthodox groups.
I knew all that, but Agudah was not the big umbrella in America when there were other umbrella organizations. I know things were bigger then in Europe. In their initial years they didn't reach out of NY practically, and even Rav Ruderman in Baltimore was on Mizrachi.
I know Agudah and Agudas Rabbanim got along, my point was that it wasn't just one Go-to.
After the rally's botched response to the Agudah I was sent this letter circulating on Truth Social by my crazy Aunt who keeps 153 cats:
Dear rally guy:
There is not a neat division between "Lakewood" and "Smiling Chilled Baltimore Agudah People Who Wear Black Hats". Rather, there is spectrum. And on the spectrum, people respect each other. Rav Olshin respects Rav Heineman. Rav Shlomo Miller respects Rav Reisman. Nobody respects Shlomo Riskin. So take a chill pill.
Your ideas of what Lakewood is are skewed. Where in Lakewood exactly do you live?
Lakewood has become diverse for a long time already..there are MANY Lakewood people that fit better within Agudah than a very yeshivish style....and many that are somewhere in the middle.
Perhaps the majority of Lakewood is closer to your description but there is a large minority.
If however you add all the surrounding towns: Jackson, Toms River, etc....that minority gets even bigger...thousands of people living in Lakewood and it's environs are more Agudah or somewhere in between compared to your description of what they are.
Clearly you see what you want to see. You are almost delusional.
You clearly are out of touch with reading comprehension. I did not write this letter.
Additionally, I live in Lakewood and so does the letter writer. Of course there's a large agudah minority- mostly exiles from flatbush, but many also exiles from Lakewood. It does not change the fact that the yeshivos hashkafa is dominant in Lakewood - who is Daas Torah here, Rav Yaakov Bender or Rav Yitzchok Sorotzkin? Those are very different ends of the spectrum.
That is precisely why many are disappointed in the Agudah. We want to follow daas torah, but if it keep kowtowing to the extremist minority, you won't have an organization left. The Aguda should follow R Bender, R Brudny, R Kaminetzky, who represent the core base of the Agudah.
I do. I consider R Brudmy my moreh derech for many things. Again, I didn't write the letter. But there's a strong sense that in many issues, there's a compromise going on to the more rightwing gedolim because otherwise they would leave the agudah. The Eretz Hakodesh fight leaps to mind.
Actually, Rav Shalom Kamenetzky told me that. He also confirmed with me about what Rav Yaacov said about Rav Baruch Ber, that his being mevatel daas to Rav Chaim was not his techunas hanefesh and he would've been greater if he didn't. He said that to me in front of bachurim in his shiur as well.
Could be. But I don't think it's a one way compromise. My sense is that R Malkiel and R Feldman would probably prefer a more full throated rejection of any tziyonishe-adjacent activities.
1) What makes one person any more "an exile" than anyone else, particularly if he himself is from Lakewood...and many people there are similar to him....other than your negative, immature, and egotistical world view?
2) Try reading your posts, mkay? The letter (whichever moron wrote it) paints Lakewood with a single brush even while you agree there is a "large minority" of others. Describing something by ignoring a significant part of it is for hockers and losers.
3) People have been living in Lakewood for decades who aren't particularly affiliated with the Yeshiva. Yes, decades. There were frum Jews in Lakewood even before the Yeshiva. The roshei yeshiva went to very mixed schools...what made them any less "exile" than the next?
4) The fact that you consider R' Bender and R' Sorotzkin to be at very different ends of the spectrum shows that you have no clue at all what you are talking about. You are a delusional individual. You are skewed.
Those two may have differences but to consider them at opposite ends rather than at two different positions, apart but not extremely far apart, on the very same litvish/rosh yeshiva spectrum, shows how out of touch you are. You really have no idea what you are talking about.
You're ranting and raving. I assume you might have a point to make. I might even agree with said point. But you'll need to make it in a lucid manner. You can add all the insults afterwards.
Mainly my point is that I find your non-stop stream of consciousness shrieking annoying and not conducive to anything. Like I told you once, you aren't going to convince anyone of anything by calling them a whole bunch of names. But you do you.
That is part of the problem. Many people in Lakewood identify with the mainstream moderate hashkafa but are confined to follow a different rhetoric because of how things are run in the town. This causes them to not follow any authority at all, something all will agree is harmful.
Just by the way....days ago the vast majority of frum Jews voted for the Agudah Democrat member.
Ofcourse the rosh yeshivas backed him....and they are followed by so many....but the fact that there was so little push back demonstrates that Agudah is viewed in a more positive light than this letter thinks. (In fact the letter demonstrates anger.. perhaps at the results of the recent elections...fueling his diatribe.)
If the divide was so intense...if the issues were so stark (the writer is delusional frankly) you would have had more push back....even with the arguments that the askunim pushed it...and how much people follow the roshei yeshiva and the rabbonim. If the divide was so strong the numbers would be different.
The article paints Lakewood differently than what it truly is, when taking into account all its Jewish inhabitants and the surrounding cities...and the recent extreme voting results, notwithstanding the push from the Rosh Yeshivas and Rabbonim, demonstrates...that even among the hard core yeshivish...even there....they are not so very radically opposed to Agudah, even with the differences....if they were the votes, and specific voting districts would have shown that.
The Avi Schnal thing is totally different. In that case all members of the Aguda were on the same page from the beginning, as well as Lakewood. So in that case we were lucky that there was at least collective leadership. The main problem is when Lakewood runs their own program and it's aguda trying to keep up, even when they disagree.
That is largely in part because others supported the reason behind it, tuition relief, but last year Murphy only got 1 3rd of Lakewood votes even though the Yeshiva endorsed him, and the same was with the election of Cris Christie.
Okay. Narrow it down however you like. The point is the same: Agudah isn't 'out of step' any more than it ever was. It hasn't changed in any fundamental way. It might have shifted a bit one way or the other, but fundamentally, there's a pretty direct line from the famous letter rejecting participation in NY board of rabbis to rejecting participation in a rally with a lineup like that.
Not really - one is a religious gathering where joining gives legitimacy to Reform, and one is secular and does not. Rav Hirsch was clear on that difference when it came to Austritt, and for that matter Chareidim sit in the Knesset!
It's more complicated than that. R Hirsch refused to cooperate with anything which had a religious angle to it. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23258649?seq=4 That was where he differed with R Hildesheimer. Similarly with the dispute between R Soloveichik and the signatories to the ban. R Soloveitchik believed in limited cooperation in certain areas. Agudah was more rejectionist.
You might still be right that the rally was a purely humanitarian event, but it certainly had some religious overtones. Anyone who's shocked that Agudah discouraged it hasn't been paying attention.
Another point, besides for the inaccuracies, is that your cynicism borders on blatant hatred for frum yidden. It really comes through very strongly and you need to work on yourself. You are being oiver on very serious issurim.
Chas veshalom. I promise I don't hate a single yid. In fact, if younlnow.me, you'd know that the main reason I think people should be frum and the best argument for kiruv is the gadlus of frum yidden. I think 1 "Lakewood Extremist" is generally a better person than 100 Frei people. (With a few exceptions on each side, but as a general rule true).
That letter is actually very respectful. And your comments are the most hateful here by far. So if you can't respectfully disagree and lack the ability to have a normal dialogue, please do every one a favor and shut up.
Was that picture taken before R Ahron and R Yoshe Ber got into their big argument or after. If before, that proves nothing. Anyway, so what if they were next to each other by dinners? Norman Lamb (Yes, I misspelled that on purpose) attended BMG's groundbreaking event in 2001. That doesn't make him part of aguda. Rav Yoshe Ber was ousted from the aguda for not joining in signing against a national body of Rabbis including Orthodox and Reform. An umbrella organization it is, but not a large umbrella, which is fine by the way.
AFAIK, Rabbi Soloveitchik was not ousted from the Agudah. He left of his own volition, when his opinion on Zionism changed. Read the <i>fir drashos<i/> and you will see how he changed.
As from what I heard from someone who spoke to Rav Shneur about it, He joined RZA because he felt more aligned with them, but he was already feeling very uncomfortable as he was pushed around a lot by Aguda meetings because of his refusal to sign the interfaith ban. Maybe 'ousted' was too strong of a word.
Haha, another version on RJ, based on mine!
The following anonymous letter has also been circulating:
Dear Agudah Yid,
I write to you as someone who considers himself an “Pro-Israel” even if I missed the rally due to pressing mental health issues! ...(rest is the same)
You seem to be advocating for the Moetzes to become a representative body, representing the 'wishes' of Agudists.
You seem not to understand the point of the Moetzes.
Or you understand it too well.
Not my letter. But yes, representative as in having the Gedolim match the constituents. Satmar Rebbe is a gadol, but not on the moetzes.
"It isn't meant to bow to wishes of the klal but if it initially was founded as an umbrella organization for all orthodox jews."
There's never been a modern orthodox presence on the American Agudah moetzes. Not now, not in 2000, and not in 1950. Closest they got to that was Rav Soloveitchik, and he left once he shifted his own views. You can praise that or you can bemoan it, but that's the way it's been for 75+ years.
Fair.
My point was more about having more out of town representation then in town.
I understand that it isn't agudahs policy to join with modern orthodox and that wasn't my recommendation.
This out of town/in town/Lakewood talk you and the letter writer are talking about is ridiculous. There is a broad spectrum of people in town, as well as out of town. The Rabbinic leadership is unpredictable based on their location. (Rav Brudny is in town. Rav Feldman out of town.) Out of town has a very large presentation on the Moetzes. The Moetzes did not issue a statement against the rally.
And I never knew agudah has "constituents".
I agree with commentator Shaul Shapira that this letter is beyond pathetic.
Nit sure what you mean... there was big tension which way it should go, with them electing to remain silent. Then some rabbonim released a kol koreh despite being on the moetzes.
Same thing as the Eretz Hakodesh debacle. It's no secret certain RY threatened to leave the moetzes if it took a side on that issue.
Remaining silent makes perfect sense. It means everyone should follow their own Rabbanim. What exactly would you rather happen when there's a disagreement with the moetzes members?
The moetzes is currently very broad, with Members of the "right" and "left" of chareidiland being represented. Do you want them to fire all the "right" members?
Admittedly you and Shaun Spira brought up good points.
Not sure if you noticed but I pulled down some of my comments as I want to reconsider my final opinion.
However I still standby my statement that the Agudah has gotten more right wing/ lakewood.
I meant out of town hashkaficly not geographically.
And if Agudah does not have constituents..so why isn't there any chasidish/MO/sfardi rabbanim in it.
Sorry I don't buy that.
There are chassidish and sefardi. Modox are opposed to the concept of a moetzes so that's obviously not an option.
There aren't Chasidish because it's irrelevant as all Chasidim do what their Rebbe says and that's it. Many Rebbes were asked to join and turned it down, as mentioned publicly by the convention last year. Same with MO, all they'll care about is what YU of OU has to say and won't compromise their Hashkafa to join. There are Sefardim on the Moetzes.
The Aguda history seems to have been forgotten.
For many years, Russian/Lithuanian Jewry resisted any party organization and separation. By nature they were not argumentative, and leaders like Reb Yisroel Salanter and the Netziv were opposed to it. German and Hungarian Jewry, otoh, were based on separation from the irreligious and the absolute refusal to recognize the non-religious as the faces of Jewry.
The Aguda was founded when Polish/Lithuanian/Russian Jewry decided to change course. Instead of a pan-Jewish coalition, it was a pan-religious coalition, and founded to separate from the Zionists, Reform, Haskala, Communists, Bundists, and other trouble makers. The parameters of that separation were a source of constant conflict in the Aguda. Do they separate from organizations that don't believe in separation, like Mizrachi and Status Quo in Hungary? They were an umbrella organization for all of those communities. The basic difference between the Aguda and the other organizations is that the Aguda is based on Torah, and Torah is not democratic or representative. The Aguda is the umbrella organization of all who accept the Torah as their only guide and wish to separate from the non-religious.
The Agudah, on this occasion, was unsure what to do, because the rally had an unclear purpose. But this is their raison d'etre, and always was. For them to change their fundamental beliefs and to commit to 'achdus' with organizations that they believe are the opposite of Judaism is unfair.
If people disagree with the Moetzes, that does not require that the Moetzes change their opinion.
All of the other organizations you just mentioned don't cover religious Jews.
Agudah is supposed to be for all religious jews.
It is for all religious Jews.
And the psak was, that all religious Jews should keep away from the irreligious, not joining up for rallies etc.
You can disagree, but that's what the Mo'etzes is for.
For you to demand that the Aguda ameliorate its stand because its constituents are not listening, is a misunderstanding of what the Agudah is.
Admittedly you have given me points to ponder...thanks.
Fair.
I don't think that's the issue here. The issue is that many Moetzes members hold one way but defer to the more right wing to stay united. Case in point Rav Elya Brudny about the rally and before that all the moetzes members having to cover for Rav Elya ber. He's not even on the Moetzes and wasn't by the meeting, if you want to listen to him good, if moetzes good.
The idea that they defer to someone outside of the Moetzes is the correct thing to do. The Aguda is a Torah organization, they don't own the Torah. In EY, neither the Chazon Ish nor the Brisker Rav were Moetzes members, yet they were deferred to. When Rav Shach read a letter from the Steipler at a Moetzes meeting, a chatzuf of a Rebbe said, "let's vote". Rav Shach walked out of the meeting for that.
Yeah, I'm shocked how shocked people are.
That shocks me
This story has much more background to it. The Agudah was basically inevitable when it was founded. Maybe a blog dedicated to this will include my posts on this and other historical issues as relevant to nowadays.
It was not founded to represent all orthodox Jews. Mizrachi was a major factor in US in the 40's and 50's, as well as agudas Harabbanim. They tried getting things under one banner and were never successful, as there was the RCA, OU and others that ran other Orthodox groups.
This is really tiresome, but Agudah was not founded in the US.
The Agudas Horabbonim was never a competition to the Agudah, they fulfilled different functions. And were decimated when Chabad put their hands on it.
I knew all that, but Agudah was not the big umbrella in America when there were other umbrella organizations. I know things were bigger then in Europe. In their initial years they didn't reach out of NY practically, and even Rav Ruderman in Baltimore was on Mizrachi.
I know Agudah and Agudas Rabbanim got along, my point was that it wasn't just one Go-to.
After the rally's botched response to the Agudah I was sent this letter circulating on Truth Social by my crazy Aunt who keeps 153 cats:
Dear rally guy:
There is not a neat division between "Lakewood" and "Smiling Chilled Baltimore Agudah People Who Wear Black Hats". Rather, there is spectrum. And on the spectrum, people respect each other. Rav Olshin respects Rav Heineman. Rav Shlomo Miller respects Rav Reisman. Nobody respects Shlomo Riskin. So take a chill pill.
Signed, Chilled Yeshivish Agudah guy
Your ideas of what Lakewood is are skewed. Where in Lakewood exactly do you live?
Lakewood has become diverse for a long time already..there are MANY Lakewood people that fit better within Agudah than a very yeshivish style....and many that are somewhere in the middle.
Perhaps the majority of Lakewood is closer to your description but there is a large minority.
If however you add all the surrounding towns: Jackson, Toms River, etc....that minority gets even bigger...thousands of people living in Lakewood and it's environs are more Agudah or somewhere in between compared to your description of what they are.
Clearly you see what you want to see. You are almost delusional.
You clearly are out of touch with reading comprehension. I did not write this letter.
Additionally, I live in Lakewood and so does the letter writer. Of course there's a large agudah minority- mostly exiles from flatbush, but many also exiles from Lakewood. It does not change the fact that the yeshivos hashkafa is dominant in Lakewood - who is Daas Torah here, Rav Yaakov Bender or Rav Yitzchok Sorotzkin? Those are very different ends of the spectrum.
That is precisely why many are disappointed in the Agudah. We want to follow daas torah, but if it keep kowtowing to the extremist minority, you won't have an organization left. The Aguda should follow R Bender, R Brudny, R Kaminetzky, who represent the core base of the Agudah.
"The Aguda should follow R Bender, R Brudny, R Kaminetzky, who represent the core base of the Agudah."
So go follow them. They'll just redirect you to the Agudah anyhow.
I do. I consider R Brudmy my moreh derech for many things. Again, I didn't write the letter. But there's a strong sense that in many issues, there's a compromise going on to the more rightwing gedolim because otherwise they would leave the agudah. The Eretz Hakodesh fight leaps to mind.
More accurate would probably be that you are your own moreh derech, and your views usually align with Rav Brudny, no?
(Not saying there's anything wrong with that)
Not really.
You are supposed to follow Gedolim that you resonate with.
See malbim in devarim
If the Malbim resonates with you, good:)
Actually, Rav Shalom Kamenetzky told me that. He also confirmed with me about what Rav Yaacov said about Rav Baruch Ber, that his being mevatel daas to Rav Chaim was not his techunas hanefesh and he would've been greater if he didn't. He said that to me in front of bachurim in his shiur as well.
Could be. But I don't think it's a one way compromise. My sense is that R Malkiel and R Feldman would probably prefer a more full throated rejection of any tziyonishe-adjacent activities.
True
It's hard to always know their opinions when they are voted down already behind closed doors.
1) What makes one person any more "an exile" than anyone else, particularly if he himself is from Lakewood...and many people there are similar to him....other than your negative, immature, and egotistical world view?
2) Try reading your posts, mkay? The letter (whichever moron wrote it) paints Lakewood with a single brush even while you agree there is a "large minority" of others. Describing something by ignoring a significant part of it is for hockers and losers.
3) People have been living in Lakewood for decades who aren't particularly affiliated with the Yeshiva. Yes, decades. There were frum Jews in Lakewood even before the Yeshiva. The roshei yeshiva went to very mixed schools...what made them any less "exile" than the next?
4) The fact that you consider R' Bender and R' Sorotzkin to be at very different ends of the spectrum shows that you have no clue at all what you are talking about. You are a delusional individual. You are skewed.
Those two may have differences but to consider them at opposite ends rather than at two different positions, apart but not extremely far apart, on the very same litvish/rosh yeshiva spectrum, shows how out of touch you are. You really have no idea what you are talking about.
They are on opposite ends of the frum spectrum.
You have mental issues.
And you're a very stable genius.
Good zug.
Thank God I'm not a delusional yeshivish wannabee like you guys seem to be here.
Chill, dude
Sure, dude.
(Why haven't you drowned yet in the yam suf, markivois? Get back under.)
You're ranting and raving. I assume you might have a point to make. I might even agree with said point. But you'll need to make it in a lucid manner. You can add all the insults afterwards.
Gotcha. You might agree to my points, which likely means you concur but are not mature enough to readily agree. That's the main thing.
Sometimes fools must be called out too but try to see past the rhetoric. Your on the right path.
Mainly my point is that I find your non-stop stream of consciousness shrieking annoying and not conducive to anything. Like I told you once, you aren't going to convince anyone of anything by calling them a whole bunch of names. But you do you.
If even the people that agree with you think that you are annoying...maybe relearn how to debate a point without using insults as a way to deflect.
That is part of the problem. Many people in Lakewood identify with the mainstream moderate hashkafa but are confined to follow a different rhetoric because of how things are run in the town. This causes them to not follow any authority at all, something all will agree is harmful.
Did you read the article?!
You clearly didn't.
Right...I commented and responded at length making a number of points based on the article..but I didn't read the article. Makes perfect sense.
I don't judge your comment by its length rather on its content....
Just by the way....days ago the vast majority of frum Jews voted for the Agudah Democrat member.
Ofcourse the rosh yeshivas backed him....and they are followed by so many....but the fact that there was so little push back demonstrates that Agudah is viewed in a more positive light than this letter thinks. (In fact the letter demonstrates anger.. perhaps at the results of the recent elections...fueling his diatribe.)
If the divide was so intense...if the issues were so stark (the writer is delusional frankly) you would have had more push back....even with the arguments that the askunim pushed it...and how much people follow the roshei yeshiva and the rabbonim. If the divide was so strong the numbers would be different.
The article paints Lakewood differently than what it truly is, when taking into account all its Jewish inhabitants and the surrounding cities...and the recent extreme voting results, notwithstanding the push from the Rosh Yeshivas and Rabbonim, demonstrates...that even among the hard core yeshivish...even there....they are not so very radically opposed to Agudah, even with the differences....if they were the votes, and specific voting districts would have shown that.
Btw, I agree with the Avi Schnall point and it is the main reason I disagree with the letter writer.
The Avi Schnal thing is totally different. In that case all members of the Aguda were on the same page from the beginning, as well as Lakewood. So in that case we were lucky that there was at least collective leadership. The main problem is when Lakewood runs their own program and it's aguda trying to keep up, even when they disagree.
"Just by the way....days ago the vast majority of frum Jews voted for the Agudah Democrat member"
The vast majority didn't vote.
Thr vast majority of frum Lakewood voters....and there was also high turnout.
That is largely in part because others supported the reason behind it, tuition relief, but last year Murphy only got 1 3rd of Lakewood votes even though the Yeshiva endorsed him, and the same was with the election of Cris Christie.
Very low turnout
He won by 7,000 votes in Lakewood, the same number as those enrolled in the Yeshiva, LOL.
This letter is absurd beyond words. If you don't want to follow the moetzes, don't. But it isn't some new development that Agudah is charedi.
"Why should the Lakewood yeshiva world have such a strong voice in the Moetzes of Agudah when the Lakewood yeshiva world is not even part of Agudah?"
What is this even supposed to mean?
Chareidi is a broad term.
Okay. Narrow it down however you like. The point is the same: Agudah isn't 'out of step' any more than it ever was. It hasn't changed in any fundamental way. It might have shifted a bit one way or the other, but fundamentally, there's a pretty direct line from the famous letter rejecting participation in NY board of rabbis to rejecting participation in a rally with a lineup like that.
Not really - one is a religious gathering where joining gives legitimacy to Reform, and one is secular and does not. Rav Hirsch was clear on that difference when it came to Austritt, and for that matter Chareidim sit in the Knesset!
It's more complicated than that. R Hirsch refused to cooperate with anything which had a religious angle to it. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23258649?seq=4 That was where he differed with R Hildesheimer. Similarly with the dispute between R Soloveichik and the signatories to the ban. R Soloveitchik believed in limited cooperation in certain areas. Agudah was more rejectionist.
You might still be right that the rally was a purely humanitarian event, but it certainly had some religious overtones. Anyone who's shocked that Agudah discouraged it hasn't been paying attention.
So religious that no rabbis of any stripe spoke?
An event can have religious overtones without a Rabbi speaking.
Another point, besides for the inaccuracies, is that your cynicism borders on blatant hatred for frum yidden. It really comes through very strongly and you need to work on yourself. You are being oiver on very serious issurim.
Chas veshalom. I promise I don't hate a single yid. In fact, if younlnow.me, you'd know that the main reason I think people should be frum and the best argument for kiruv is the gadlus of frum yidden. I think 1 "Lakewood Extremist" is generally a better person than 100 Frei people. (With a few exceptions on each side, but as a general rule true).
Where's the hatred here? He disagrees with the hashkafa, dosent seem to hate them.
That letter is actually very respectful. And your comments are the most hateful here by far. So if you can't respectfully disagree and lack the ability to have a normal dialogue, please do every one a favor and shut up.
What is cynical about it?
Oh no, Ash is going to ban me for misrepresenting him
This is great! Honestly, I'm disappointed I didn't get an IM post calling me out. That's what I'd ban you for.
Happy, can I write a counter guest post on IM?
Not interested in putting effort into it if you or someone else is planning the same....
Ooh, I'm getting my chopsticks ready:)
sure, you have my email
Sent
Iyh will send in a few hours
Was that picture taken before R Ahron and R Yoshe Ber got into their big argument or after. If before, that proves nothing. Anyway, so what if they were next to each other by dinners? Norman Lamb (Yes, I misspelled that on purpose) attended BMG's groundbreaking event in 2001. That doesn't make him part of aguda. Rav Yoshe Ber was ousted from the aguda for not joining in signing against a national body of Rabbis including Orthodox and Reform. An umbrella organization it is, but not a large umbrella, which is fine by the way.
Good point...I have to do research
BTW, look at BMG's collage they made of Rav Ahron with one of the pictures captioned "giving a shiur at Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan".
AFAIK, Rabbi Soloveitchik was not ousted from the Agudah. He left of his own volition, when his opinion on Zionism changed. Read the <i>fir drashos<i/> and you will see how he changed.
As from what I heard from someone who spoke to Rav Shneur about it, He joined RZA because he felt more aligned with them, but he was already feeling very uncomfortable as he was pushed around a lot by Aguda meetings because of his refusal to sign the interfaith ban. Maybe 'ousted' was too strong of a word.