There were fairly few visitors who left comments on my blog (but I treasure them all the more, oh happy few – “The fewer men, the greater share of kavod; Hashem’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more;
B’ mishaybeirach avoseinu, I am not covetous for gold, Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost; It yearns me not if men my garments wear; Such outward things dwell not in my desires. But if it be an aveirah to covet koved, I am the most offending soul alive". --- from the play ‘Melech Chaim Ha-Chamisha’, by R. William Shakespeare).
On Dovbear’s blog, however, it was a different story.
155 comments!
And several writers sought Lakewood Yid’s response. They craved it, they panted as puppies after the hare, they yelped at the prospect of chase. They positively howled.
And he responded.
Hereunder a selection of his responses.
[Note: Statement that he quoted in bold, as is farily typical. His comment thereupon in regular type. My comment to his comment underneath, in bold small type, within square brackets.
>Wow. I eagerly await LY's justification for this.
You asked for it. Here I go.
>I'm offended. How many in the Ger community are struggling to get by, and subsizing on government assistance? Quite a few, I'll bet. And their grand rebbe treats himself, not just to a first class ticket to America, but to the entire first class section?
He brings along his entourage. Some seats are "sold" to those willing to pay for the Zechiyah to travel with the Rebbe.
You'll spend 40k on a SUV, 20k on a pool, 10k on pesach hotel, and they are willing to spend on traveling with the Rebbe. Who are you to judge how they spend there money? (shall I ask you if your $85 custom shirt was a neccasity?
[That point about paying for the zechiyah is a good one. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if that flight turns a handsome profit well-before they’re airborne. And these people cannot escape – how many hours of subtle pressure will they be subjected to? By the time they’re on the ground in the New World, several will have to whip out their ATM cards just to pay the porters.]
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>And what about the women workers who were put out of work? I hope El Al paid them anyway.
Out of work? They simply swapped the females of this flight for the males of another flight.
>If you don't want to see women....stay home!
We believes the opposite. כבודת בת מלך פנימה
[I disagree with him on this one. But I will not argue it - he’s entitled to his opinion, I am entitled to mine. But note the plural form of the verb (‘believes’). In the heat of the moment, his thoughts adhered to a yiddish grammatical pattern. Interesting, no?]
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>And just from seeing a fully dressed woman doing her job? That's insane, disgusting and degrading to women.
The Rambam says that one should not even look at the colored clothing of woman. Is that also insane, disgusting and degrading to women?
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/i/5121.htm <http://www.mechon-mamre.org/i/5121.htm>
כ [כא] וכן אסור לאדם להסתכל בנשים, בשעה שהן עומדות על הכבוסה; ואפילו להסתכל בבגדי צבע של אישה שהוא מכירה--אסור, שלא יבוא לידי הרהור.
[The Rambam lived in the Islamic world. I shall assume that there was an influence from his environment, and that he found justifications for something he already believed (much as a Christian will find proof of some mighty weird stuff in the writings of the prophets). ]
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>I get that they don't want to watch movies. Whatever. So don't watch the movies. But to have the entire flight without them?
Oh, my heart BLEEEEEDS for those poor unfortunate souls who will have to go for 10 hours without watching the tube. Have a nice chat with your neighbor, read a paper, or close your eyes for some shut eye. And if you are still bored, strike up a conversation with a charedi passenger. You'll be pleasantly surprised.
[I have to agree with him. Absolutely. Talk, read, or sleep. That movie is probably garbage anyway, and how often can you watch Hugh Grant being loveably mumbly gimbolly English? From Heathrow to SF is three good-size books. If you don’t want to rely on the airport shops for reading material, bring some from home. Movies, bah!]
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>A rebbe cannot wear sun-glasses? A rebbe cannot divert his eyes and his mind from a shapely ankle? A rebbe might turn into a beast if distracted by a passing snooky? What kind of a rebbe is this?!?!?!?!? Depose the bulgar, and get a rebbe who at least has a modicum of self-control and common sense.
And that from such an illistrious yichus.
Gevald Geshrigen, mein tayera BOTH, hust dee amuhl gehert fin "heilege oigen"? Ken ah heiligeh tzadik zain in ree'ach hakodesh ven es dreit zich yungeh shikses?!?
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>Because that money could be used for tzedakah instead of indulgence.
>The very idea of flying first class to collect money for tzedakah is ludicrous.
Its not indulgence. Its Kovod Hatorah. Two of the greatest Gedolei Hatorah should sit farkveched like sardines for 10 hours?
>The big tzadik has spent his whole life immersed in Torah and he can't stop thinking about girls?
>So what? Are the rebbes that fragile that the mere sight of a woman in jeans or a short-sleeved shirt will send them into spasms? Guess none of their Torah study really did them much good, if they're that fragile.
הלל אומר, ואל תאמין בעצמך עד יום מותך
Hillel, who laid on the rooftop covered in snow to hear the words of Torah said that.
>Through your tax dollars. Chasidim are notorious welfare cheats. That's how they get by, as everyone knows. Ger does not offer social services.
Shame on you. Your so concerned about 3 or 4 stewerdess, and you have no problem libeling chasidim as notorious cheats.
[I have a slight problem with generalizations like ‘Chasidim are notorious welfare cheats’. That’s like saying Dutchmen are notorious penny-pinchers, Brabanders are men of blood – brigands, rapists, and incendiarists, and Flemings are soft as butter. There may be a kernel of truth, but it also tars many who are upstanding folks with the same brush.
I will say that I am inclined to believe that many Chassidim are poor as church-mice. A lack of easily convertible capital kinda goes with the territory. I will also grant that some are, by the standards of us outsiders, ethically challenged. Or nearly desperate. And I really get ticked-off by all the querulent shnoderish e-mails I get before Peysach, before Yom Kippur, before Rosh Hashana, before Chanukah, and before anybody else has sent out theirs. No, I cannot afford to drop some dough on every Tom, Dick, and Harry charity.
There are precisely four causes that I contribute to. And I am not a stingy Dutchman when I give (being, instead, more like a Brabander. But that is no nevermind).
1. Breast cancer research and treatment (benign self interest, in a way. There’s roughly one nice mammary per person on this planet).
2.
Aids-related causes. Because I cannot stand that self-righteous, bigoted, blinkered, mean-spirited attitude so characteristic of Fundamentalist Christians and the ultra-right, who hold that “those people” got “just what they deserved”. Who-the-sheol are they to be so judgemental?
3.
Non-denominational drug-treatment. Of which one of the better ones is the centre run by Chabad in Los Angeles (they are probably the LEAST likely to tell a person trying to kick the habit and get his or her life back together to find 'go find Cheeses and be SAYevedddd!').
4.
Street-corner beggars. Many of them are not capable of lifting themselves up by their boot-straps, and it really does take a five days a week to scam the system (and the pay-off, here in SF, is that you can live in a really horrid residential hotel rent free, with no money for food, OR you can eat for two and a half-weeks while living in doorways).]
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>As long as they aren't violating indecency laws, it's not the Ger's place to control other people's clothing choices.
They aren't. They are simply chartering a cabin.
>What's really outrageous is that EL Al caved to the demands. If I were running the airline, I'd have told them to blow off and buy their own airplane and hire their own crew.
Boy are you a bad business man.
>Which is why I think that the non-Orthodox who engage in real tikkun olam, even if they have a cheeseburger or two along the way, are doing more of G-d's work and are likely more assured of a place in the world to be.
>Her view of tikkun olam is the only real view of tikkun olam. The hasidic version is horse crap and excuse making.
If you have so little self control that you can't avoid a cheeseburger, your so called "tikkun olam" might be worthless to God.
[The same self-control which I advocate for rebbeyim worried about the temptation of a shapely ankle or a apple-like upper-body part comes into play with cheeseburgers. If a Rebbe can and should ‘not look’, then a frummer yid, a shomer mitzvos, can surely ‘not fress a burger’.
B'yadacher, I do not consider lapses such a humongous aveirah either. Life is a progression - you should be a better person when you leave it than when you entered. ]
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>where does this new style fundamentalist yideskeit come from?
From Avrohom Avinu.
"As he came near and was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, "Behold, I now realize that you are a woman of beautiful appearance."
Rashi:
"The Aggadaic explanation is: Until now he had not been aware [of her beauty] due to the modesty of both of them."
[Sometimes Rashi allowed the fumes from those casks of wine to get to his brain. Emmes.
Avraham Avinu is an interesting and inspiring character precisely because he isn’t a saint. Instead, think of him as the poster-boy for the progression from pretty fair ignoramus to G-od fearing complexity and motivation. The Avraham we first meet in Parshas Lech Leicha is not the same as the man who dies at the end of Chayei Sarah.
Rashi explains, but Rashi at times likes the simplest explanation that will clarify a point. Even if it bends credultiy outta shape entirely.]
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>are we all to stop flying unless we can buy first class tickets?is this holiness? is this what the torah wants from us
No. People like you don't need to.
See (cut) analogy about a speck of dirt on a potato.
[It’s a good point. I reject it, but I understand it.]
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>I'm pretty sure that the majority of people in williamsburg arent welfare cheats. DB, are you willing to back that statement?
What massive Motzi Shem Rah. And I will say this in defense of those who do cheat. There is a budget to welfare (etc) programs. If not me, the money goes to the next guy. Why should a mexican or black deserve it more than me, if thats what will enable me to learn Torah?
[Many commenters have jumped all over this statement (see here: http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2006/05/crooked-jewish-morality.html - and note especially some of the comments).
But this phrase hinges on the “more than”. This does not mean that they deserve it ‘less than’, as many seem to have read. It suggests to me that their need is equal.
I agree that it is an unfortunate way of expressing the idea. But careful reading, tayere chaveirim, is a mitzvah.
The point about the budget is also fairly accurate – once the pot is empty, even the most deserving pauper cannot get any soup.]
The point about the budget is also fairly accurate – once the pot is empty, even the most deserving pauper cannot get any soup.]
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>However, this separation of men and women always gets my goat because it implies literally putting the women at the back of the bus. It also shows a lack of respect for the female flight attendants who want simply to do their jobs.
At Matan Torah, were the women in front or the back? And you are sooooo concerned about a "a lack of respect for the female flight attendants". Where is your respect for two Gedolei Yisroel?
[Both writers here have a point. For myself, I have no problem with women sitting all over the bus – I have enough self-control that I can avoid looking at their shapely cheeseburgers.]
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>but...the pursuit of purity should not entail treating women like they are filthy scum that will defile and infect you
Who is treating them like scum? Women have a lofty position in Ultra Orthodoxy. Do you sing Eishes Chayil every friday night? Sit down for a few minutes and analyze what it says and them come back here and tell me that we treat women like scum.
[Note also that the reason why the inheritance of Jewishness comes from the mother is because the neshomo comes from the mother (yes, yes, I know that is hard to swallow for some skeptics – but if you don’t believe that, you probably don’t sing Eishes Chayil either, so….).]
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>please explain that bit about the servant (!) looking at the girl with the jugs.
>You know, Eliezer looking at Rivka.
Silly question. It was for the purpose of a shidduch. דאמר רב יהודה אמר רב אסור לאדם שיקדש את האשה עד שיראנה שמא יראה בה דבר מגונה ותתגנה עליו ורחמנא אמר (ויקרא יט <http://www.blogger.com/Local%20Settings/Temp/msohtml1/16/clip_image001.gif> ואהבת לרעך כמוך
And what did Rivka do when they approached yitzchok?
"And she said unto the servant: 'What man is this that walketh in the field to meet us?' And the servant said: 'It is my master.' And she took her veil, and covered herself.
[Ah, he reprimands me with the actual interpretation of the verse.]
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>I just realized that the Rebbe seems to prefer gay men to serve him than women....
Disgusting of you. You should bury your head in shame. (even if it was just a joke).
[Two comments:
Maybe the Rebbe is not judgemental. Why should he even devote anytime to considering what the sexual proclivities of people within seeing distance are? I certainly do not secretely go around thinking ‘that one is gay, that one is straight, that one is farklempt, that one has gender issues, and that one likes sheep. Kalvechomer the Rebbe doesn’t either.
2.
Rabbeyim and Catholic padreyim are not the same. I would rather not draw any comparisonim – I am not particularly fond of galachim. And certainly rebbeyim are not teevee-preacher meshuganim, all screaming vicious disapprovalim.]
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>and you're just the one to determine how G-d values the efforts of others in the realm of tikkun olam?
Of course not. But neither is Anonymousy who said:
"Which is why I think that the non-Orthodox who engage in real tikkun olam, even if they have a cheeseburger or two along the way, are doing more of G-d's work and are likely more assured of a place in the world to be."
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Now here is where I react to one of LY's comments directed at me. I do so because this is my blog, and I can.
>Gevald Geshrigen, mein tayera BOTH, hust dee amuhl gehert fin "heilege oigen"? Ken ah heiligeh tzadik zain in ree'ach hakodesh ven es dreit zich yungeh shikses?!?
Siz a gitte kashe. Ober a tzaddik ken di oign tsukleppn, voss? Reiach hakoidesh iz in rosh - di yinge shikses dreien zich nor ba ponim.
"Shoftim ve shotrim titeinu-lecha, be chol sheariteicha, asher HaShem notein lach" Er ken oikh nit kikn, nit?
The Back of the Hill
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In conclusion, Lakewood Yid scored many points. I still think that the expense is a monumental waste of money, I still think it shows a lack of humilty, but in the eyes of the Talmedim of the two rabbis in question, it may very well be money well spent.
I also do not agree with much of what he said. Two years from now I might agree more (not likely), and two years from now he may hold a different point of view (a bit more likely).
But he came out swinging, and acquitted himself well. Kol Hakavod.
I also note, again, an anti-Chassidishe taam to many of the comments.
Rabbosai, please! If you think Chassidim do not represent normative Judaism, surely such bitchiness doesn't either!
And, as they say, you win more flies with honey than with vinegar.
And, as they say, you win more flies with honey than with vinegar.
Don't you want some of 'them' to think like little clones of you? Of course you do! Isn't that the reason for aza gekvetch und geschrei?
Verbal baseball bats do not advance that cause.
Besides, who would you rather have covering your back – a buncha stubborn pissant Hhareidim or a buncha bigoted fundamentalist Christians?
I’m probably biased, but I would rather not be in the same state as fundamentalist Christians.
Besides, who would you rather have covering your back – a buncha stubborn pissant Hhareidim or a buncha bigoted fundamentalist Christians?
I’m probably biased, but I would rather not be in the same state as fundamentalist Christians.
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