Liberal Rabbis: Don’t Blame the Chief Rabbinate – Blame Yourselves

(This article first appeared in Arutz Sheva.)

Liberal Orthodox rabbis are shooting the new Haaretz article rapid-fire through the world of social media, assuming it will help their cause and will damage the image of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate. The Haaretz article is entitled Rabbi of World’s Largest Orthodox Synagogue Accuses Israel’s Rabbinate of Blasphemy, and it bears the subtitle: “Appearing before a Knesset committee, Rabbi Adam Scheier calls his blacklisting by the Chief Rabbinate an ‘irresponsible’ act that has diminished his reputation in Canada.”

The article proceeds to explain that Rabbi Scheier’s name appeared in a list of 160 rabbis whose letters attesting to people’s Jewishness, for the purposes of marriage in the State of Israel, were rejected by the Rabbanut (the Chief Rabbinate). At a special Knesset session convened by MK Elazar Stern of the Yesh Atid party (which is largely perceived as an anti-religious party) , Rabbi Scheier related that the Rabbanut rejected a letter he had written attesting to a young woman’s Jewish and single status, and that the Rabbanut failed to contact Rabbi Scheier about the matter:

But they never even called me. Then later, they suggested it was another issue. But again they didn’t contact me – and I am the easiest person in the world to find.

The Rabbinate has eroded my own community’s trust in my reliability. This must end. The bureaucracy and exclusionary practices do not meet the basic standards of decency and professionalism.

This is not a matter of religious standards. It’s a matter of basic humanity. Diaspora rabbis deserve better, our communities deserve better and Israel deserves better.

Rabbi Scheier presents the issue in the role of victim, portraying the Chief Rabbinate as the faulty party and himself as the well-intentioned and just party who was wrongly injured and smeared. While one cannot defend any possible lack of professionalism, decency and efficiency on the part of the Rabbanut’s clerks – or on the part of any other government office – Rabbi Scheier’s allegations of absence of proper protocol and derech eretz (courtesy) are a wholesale diversion of the real issue.

What Rabbi Scheier failed to disclose in his comprehensive condemnation of the Rabbanut for rejecting his letter was that – believe it or not – there may have been some pretty good reasons for the Rabbanut to have been uncomfortable with him. For example, Rabbi Scheier hired and retains an ordained, female clergy member at his synagogue; she is involved with International Rabbinic Fellowship (as is he) and with Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance – both organizations that are outside of mainstream Orthodoxy. Rabbi Scheier’s wife is a rabbi, and he himself was ordained by an Open Orthodox rabbinical school which is affiliated with the school that ordained his wife and his synagogue’s female clergy member.

Ordaining women for the rabbinate and hiring female clergy are in violation of the rulings and policies of the generation’s foremost halachic authorities and preeminent rabbinical organizations; please see here, here, here, here, here and here. Rabbi Scheier is also a Senior Rabbinic Fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute, which is a pluralistic organization whose policies are outside of standard Orthodoxy.  This all does not speak well for Rabbi Scheier in terms of normative Orthodox identification.

These factors would give pause to any mainstream rabbinic body. So let’s please stop depicting the Rabbanut as acting capriciously and illogically, and consider the fact that perhaps there are some pretty good reasons for its concern. Rabbi Scheier is most likely a very fine and caring person, but the issue here is one of normative Orthodox identification and comportment.

The Haaretz article invokes the words of Rabbi Shlomo Riskin of Efrat, who argued that “the Rabbinate recognize automatically all Orthodox congregational rabbis.” Rabbi Riskin seeks for the implementation of a standard that is basically no standard, as rather than vet and investigate the competence and merits of each rabbi – something one would hope and expect the Chief Rabbinate would do, just as we would demand of any oversight body regulating sensitive issues – Rabbi Riskin seeks to have the bar lowered beyond belief, abdicating any real sense of responsibility for quality control.

Rabbi Seth Farber was a central player to this most recent attack on the Rabbanut, as is he for nearly all attacks on the Rabbanut. Haaretz reports:

Rabbi Seth Farber, the founder and executive director of ITIM, an organization that assists individuals in navigating Israel’s religious bureaucracy, provided updated figures showing that the Rabbinate continues to reject many rabbis from abroad.

“Over the past year, 627 individuals who applied to marry in Israel had their rabbinical letters of certification rejected,” he said. “That’s one in every four.”

Rabbi Farber maintains that the Chief Rabbinate should accept halachic testimony from Reform and Conservative clergy – rabbis who do not believe in, accept or observe Halacha. Nearly all of the 627 letters referenced by Rabbi Farber were written by Reform or Conservative clergy, but Rabbi Farber, while claiming to be an Orthodox rabbi, complains that the Rabbanut unjustly rejected those letters of testimony from non-Orthodox rabbis (!).

Please carefully read this article, documenting Rabbi Farber using false data and materially misrepresenting information, in order to malign the Chief Rabbinate and accuse it of that which it did not do. Rabbi Farber and others have an agenda-driven campaign to discredit and dismantle the Rabbanut, lobbying and pressuring for lower standards or no standards, rather than for reliable and tight standards that assure unquestionable adherence to Halacha.

It is always easy to play the victim; it is not always so easy to tell the truth.

 

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438 Responses

  1. Nachum says:

    You should have a word with whoever picks the pictures for these articles. The Chief Rabbinate hasn’t been in that building for years. Which may well be part of the problem.

  2. Nachum says:

    A couple of more points:

    1. You don’t do your argument any favors by pointing out any left-wing inclinations of Rabbi Scheier, bad as they may (or may not) be. The fact is that *no* rabbi- not even Conservative or Reform ones- is disqualified by the Rabbinate. The Rabbinate finds issue with *individual* letters, sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly, sometimes well-investigated, sometimes not. That Rabbi Farber kept claiming otherwise when he knew full well what the facts were is inexcusable. If individuals are unfairly disqualified, they should yell and scream and get redress (hey, even I had problems for no real reason), but the rabbis should stop acting all personally offended. The Rabbinate accepts letters from the furthest left Reform, so it can’t be anything personal. (You yourself write this in the linked piece.)

    2. Stern is religious himself, as are other Yesh Atid members, so it’s unfair to call them “anti-religious.” (I note that I really don’t like the party myself, mostly for other reasons.) Rightly or wrongly, they’re very much against the religious establishment, not “religion.”

    • Steve Brizel says:

      Stern is not considered a friend or supporter of the hesder yeshivot.

      • mycroft says:

        Not being a friend of the hesder movement does not make one non religious. IIRC Rav Amital stated that when Elazer Stern was still learning in Gush he was opposed to Hesder. This way before the evacuation of Gush Katif. One can argue pluses and minuses of Hesder but being opposed does not make one non religious.

      • rkz says:

        The problem with Stern is not his opposition to hesder, but his opposition to every expression of yiddishkeit in the public sphere

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Sterns views on Verus and Hala ha are illustrative of what happens when you elevate being a,resident of Israel and serving in the IDF into piat modern sort of definition of Jewiah identity. His views on most issues if not all should not be seen as authoritative on any halachic or hashkafic matter and especially with respect to IDF service.

      • dr. bill says:

        every? do you have a different definition of every that you can explain to the rest of us?

      • rkz says:

        “every” is “every”, that’s all.
        I used that word precisely for that reason

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Stern consistently is against Hesder and his views re Charedim are not an example of Ahavas Chinam. Perhaps Stern should have read RAL Zls article as to why Hesder was a lchatchilah before opposing it so vociferously.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Who says Stern was and is correct in his. views?

      • dr. bill says:

        people are not correct or incorrect; views are. some people have a (strong) tendency or track record one way or the other.

      • Nachum says:

        Lots of people have issues with the concept of hesder yeshivot for reasons that have nothing to do with religion.

        You may be surprised to find out that the vasy majority of religious Jews in Israel serve in the IDF like every other soldier, not in a religious program like hesder or “Nachal Charedi.”

      • Mycroft says:

        I am not surprised. Anyone who has visited Israel can see chiloni and dati soldiers often in same unit.
        There is a problem in having armed forces units segregated by religious ideology.. It is a political decision whether tho have. Hesder option.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Hesder serves to allow yeshiva students not to be corrupted by the atmosphere in the army and to.emerge therefrom.as Bnei Torah.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Like it or not hesder allows Bnei Torah to serve Israel and also work on living Bkedusha uvtaharah something which is oblivious to Stern.

      • dr. bill says:

        thank God many serve without hesder and are yeraim ushelaymim.

      • rkz says:

        Dr. Bill. I served without hesder (I was in atuda), and I hope that I have yirat shamaim, but Stern’s hatred of hesder is unfortunately not motivated by yirat shamaim

      • Steve Brizel says:

        That is their choice. Such a decision IMO is akin to deciding to enroll in hesder or to learn in a Charedi yeshiva should be undertaken as an individual decisiin and not to satisfy a sociological background or political agenda but where you can grow in Avodas HaShem .

  3. dr. bill says:

    Another good example of character assassination. i doubt you know much about the individuals you maligned or their accomplishments. You attack yesh atid as an anti-religious party despite having had 2 Orthodox rabbis in the Knesset; are those rabbis also suspect? Perhaps already guilty? Do you really question whether Rabbi Farber is a RIETS musmach?

    i am happy the CR has started up with Rabbi Scheier; another nail in their coffin. i think it is time to show your true colors and go after all the places Rabbi Scheier attended. I knew it would come in handy: I took a picture of the RCA president several years back greeting Rabbi Scheier after shachrit in his shul in Montreal.

    Even le’sheetasha, the rabbis mentioned are all avaryanim; but does that make the chief rabbinate tzaddikim? Did the last one join a kollel? have not heard much from him lately.

    • Steve Brizel says:

      Stern and his POV are well k nown and deserve to br critiqued for their full blown assault on hesder and the charedi world. 1960s

    • Steve Brizel says:

      Noone attacked anyones character. Rather R Gordimer strongly attacked his POV which resembled that of the persecuted martyr a typical pose taken whenever OO and its spokesmen and apologists afe critiqued.

      • mycroft says:

        Of course, when people disagree with a POV of favored Rabbonim you accuse them of trolling, having a vendetta against them, rather than answering the merits

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Unfotunately abyone interested can and should read your comments elsewhere tour commwnts are not moderated and then decide on their own whether you troll with respect to certain RY as oppoaed to merely disagreeing with their views based on what you purportedly know.

      • Mycroft says:

        complete nonsense. I treat RHS with far more respect than you show to Rabbi Weiss, Linzer, etc
        Rav Schachter is entitled to be treated seriously, but one must treat anyone’s statements through understanding that persons background. Worthwhile, listening to Dr Alan Brill on YUTorah and his lectures on Modern Orthdoxy and specifically lecture in the psak on women in mid 80s signed by RY and RHS. It is also worthwhile reading Prof aka plan on Revisionism on the Rav.

  4. mb says:

    Here’s my problem with who is or who isn’t Orthodox, Rabbis or institutions. It’s not new, and in my lifetime several of my Rabbis/teachers/inspirers have been called non-Orthodox, including CR Hertz zt’l by none other than one of the regular contributors of this esteemed journal. (The list of the others is too long, to print!).

  5. BD says:

    You’re now attacking Rabbi Farber, a RIETS musmakh and a true zadik, who is doing holy work in advocating for humane, caring treatment of converts? (Not to mention the attack on Rabbi Scheier, which, given your history of polemics, I find completely unsurprising.) Your constant resort to personal attacks and invective does more to alienate than convince. Even if you believe what you are saying is “truth”, since when does truth require insults and character assassination?

    • rkz says:

      A. I don’t know Rabbi Farber, but I do know that the treatment of gerim is not the issue. If someone is not Jewish, and a Rabbi mistakenly certifies that he (or she) is Jewish, the damage is for all Klal Yisrael.
      The CR may doubt Rabbi Farber’s judgment, and his middot are irrelevant (even if we ignore RAG’s documentation)
      B. Explaining that a person is (for sincere but mistaken reasons) is involved with kefira-inspired activities (e.g. women rabbis), is not an “attack”)

    • Nachum says:

      I greatly admire R’ Farber’s work- his organization has helped several friends of mine. But in this story, he was clearly stating untruths for their PR effect. I’m honestly sad to have to say that.

  6. Steve Brizel says:

    Wrapping oneself in the false mantle of persecuted martyrdom has been a primary method of the leaders supporters and apologists for OO for years when in fact the evidence is more than apparent of their departures from the halachic and hashkafic norms of Orthodoxy for years. R.Gordimer derserves a Yasher Koach for pointing out these facts.

    • dr. bill says:

      i assume you and Rabbi Gordimer know the young woman and are certain that she is not really jewish; it seems to me afflicting a human being is at the heart of this issue. but some roadkill while attacking OO is justified, probably explicitly at least occasionally.

      • Sam Karchi says:

        Cut out your cynicism, if the geiruth came through someone who is outside normative Judaism the validity of his Beth Din is void and with it the conversion. I think you have missed the point

      • dr. bill says:

        geirut – is that required for us normal jews who want to enter chareidiville; the woman was jewish from birth. do you want her to prove she was at maamad har sinai? your point about geirut is also wrong; we are choshesh that it might be valid and do a geirut le’chumrah. and i am cynical about all ourself appointed guardians of the faith and you as well.

      • Mycroft says:

        As to what may be considered a good gerus. The Rav in a case paskened that a women who ” converted” with a Reform conversion, married in a Reform ceremony required a get if she wished to get married. The Rav was choshesh that a Reform conversion as long as it had mikvah could perhaps be a kosher gerus. Note he clearly was rejecting another gadols opinion that no get required from marriage officiated by heterodox clergy.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Ignoring tbe facts on the ground that OO is permitting kohanim to.marry Divorcees and comverts and blessing same gender ceremonies is indicative of a studied refusal to face facts.

      • Tal Benschar says:

        “The Rav was choshesh that a Reform conversion as long as it had mikvah could perhaps be a kosher gerus.”

        EVery time this comes up you quote this, as though it is relevant to the issue at hand. The CR is being asked to marry someone to someone Jewish. That the Rav was choshesh le chumra that a Reform conversion is valid (and thus require a get because of chumras eishes ish) does NOT mean he would have agreed to marry that person to a Jew. I would be shocked for anyone to say the Rav would have agreed to that.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Don’t be dismissive of the overwhelming majority of Poskim who as R Asher Weiss noted disagree with the view of the Rogatchover ZL who RYBS relied on to claim that in an instance of a woman who ” converted” with a Reform conversion, married in a Reform ceremony required a get. Such a popint is irrelevant to allowing a Kohen to marry a divorcee or convert under any circumstances and approving of participating in or presiding at a same gender ceremony. Normative halacha is not “charediville.”

      • Mycroft says:

        Of course, roadkill is permitted in the war against OO. A lot is institutional, long before most of us had heard about Barry Freundels criminal activities, he was a point man against OO. I had pointed out in blogs citations from his then schuls website of all the Torah services for women in his schul . That was OZk because he was expert on attacking institutions of OO.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Barry Freundel drspite his disgusting conduct neither was the main or most influential point man against OO nor as influential as you allege in general without a factual predicate.

      • Reb Yid says:

        Barry was no friend of the progressive Orthodox community.

      • Mycroft says:

        He was a leader in GPS gerus. I commented on it on blogs before I had heard of Freundels problems with women.
        He was certainly influential.
        Explain why the powers immediately after he was proven to be a notorious violater of Halacha said all his gerus would be accepted but refused to stand behind gerus of standard RCA Rabbis who are now dead and have no known integrity problems. This is for gerus done decades ago following then CR RCA guidelines procedures. Issue is not Halachik but politics.
        Some commentators bring up examples of abuses that may have happened by a few but insist on defending anything by new procedures.
        It all depends on who is behind gerus. I remember a convert whose conversion was clearly leshem ishut, who after conversion would go to prior family Christmas parties and was criticized because conversion was apparently done by a leading LWMO Rabbi, when it was made known that a leading RY was on Bes Din then same critics would defend gerus. Facts did not change. If Toevah besgeretz BYada does not change no matter who was on BD.

      • dr. bill says:

        i was sitting next to the RY of YCT, when rabbi freundel was giving a vigorous condemnation of one often associated with left-wing, open, post, whatever modern orthodoxy about 8 years ago, who had just spoken. i turned to him and said he is delivering a needed message and he enthusiastically agreed. throwing all open/post/etc. in one basket and accusing all of the sins /violations /opinions /etc. of all is reminiscent of other less than credible individuals.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        RYBS spoke out vehemently against a kohen maarying a giyores and especially where there was a complete absence iof kabalas ol.mitzvos.

      • dr. bill says:

        non-sequitur. please try harder to stay on point.

        btw, we are still waiting for the OO rabbi who officiated at a gay marriage or ANY YU RY who disagrees with my comment on the Rav ztl’s point on HLMM. you have work to do.

      • Mycroft says:

        Obviously, the Rav followed Halacha and could not accept conversion when there was a rejection of Halacha.
        Issue revolves around miksat of mitzvot that ger believes he is accepting, and what qualifies as rejection. Ignorance and being an am haaretz is not a rejection. This was essentially Ravs position. Thus, it would be far more problematic to accept gerus frm a Rabbi who went to YU bright student and then went to JTS or HUD for ordination than someone who grew up C orR and believed that what he was doing was proper. A rejected is much worse than an am haaretz,

      • Steve Brizel says:

        We are talking about very minimal bordering on the nonexistent acceptance of mitzvos as opposed to a safek bdina.

      • dr. bill says:

        minimal acceptance is valid in certain circumstances according to RCOG ztl. for those who try to spin what is written need only read the criticism by RADKS ztl, who i suspect had influenced on the Rav ztl views. after he arrived in the USA, RMF ztl read RCOG ztl ‘s teshuvah and his written teshuvot afterward reflect a different view i suspect influenced by RCOG.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        If you think that Freundel was a leader iwith respect to GPS that is your opinion but you are sadly mistaken as you are with respect to the adherence to SA CM in presiding over Gerus with edim who were kerovim, etc. Repeating your agenda in this regard and belittliing the act of Gerus of a particular Giyores does not aid your case.

      • mycroft says:

        “Don’t be dismissive of the overwhelming majority of Poskim who as R Asher Weiss noted disagree with the view of the Rogatchover ZL who RYBS relied on to claim that in an instance of a woman who ” converted” with a Reform conversion, married in a Reform ceremony required a get.”
        Rav Melech Schachter wrote in1959 review article that the majority of poskim ruled that even a civil marriage required a get. Explain how a reform marriage requires a get less than a civil marriage

      • rkz says:

        There is an explanation for that. Jews that married civilly know that they did not marry kedat moshe veyisrael, and think that they are married by the secular law. According to the Rogochover, they are like bnei noach who the halakha views as married, and that was the machloket lehalakha about civil marriage.
        However, reform or conservative marrieges are presented as Jewish marriges, and so the couple assumes that they are married kedat moshe veyisrael. Since that is false, they are not married at alll.

      • Mycroft says:

        Rkz
        A person married by a Reform marriage is married civilly. The Reform Rabbi is treated the same as the Justice for this purpose.

      • rkz says:

        Mycroft, that’s absolutely true, but irrelevant. The couple thinks that they married kedat moshe veyisrael, and that’s false. Therefore they are not married at all. The fact that they are married according to civil law is not instead of marriage kedat moshe veyisrael, and therefore there is no chalot shem nisuim (sorry, I don’t know how to translate that). However, in civil marriage without any “religious” ceremony, the couple is married in nisuei bei noach (according to the chidush of the Rogochover, which was not accepted by many poskim).

      • dr. bill says:

        asking rkz to drei is like asking a fish to swim. unfortunately, such behavior has infected many areas of chareidi pesak

      • rkz says:

        Dr. Bill. I don’t know Yiddish. What do you mean?

      • , dr. bill says:

        to “drei” has various implications in yiddish. as intended it meant pilpulistic gymnastics, with some other undercurrents of meaning to some.

        the late Isaac Bashevis singer felt that for certain ideas Yiddish contains greater ability for expression than English.

      • rkz says:

        Dr. Bill. Thank you for the explanation. As for the issue itself, I think that what I wrote was a good sevara, but it is perfectly legitimate to disagree with me.

      • rkz says:

        I saw now that what I wrote is exactly what Rav Moshe (Igrot Moshe, Even Haezer 3 (in vol. 5 of IM) siman 25) (I learned it years ago, so I forgot that it’s not my severa but lehavdil the severa of Rav Moshe)
        So it is obviously a very good severa

      • dr. bill says:

        rmf ztl was a posek muvhak with a good dose of siyatah de’shemayah. that said the arguments he brings to support his positions do not necessarily benefit from that same assistance. even when his logic may be less than stellar, his pesak will likely be consistent with tradition. you cannot ask for more from a human.

        btw, that is how many moderns trained in 19th/20th-century advances in logic will approach meta-halakha and why eilu ve’eilu can be asserted.

      • rkz says:

        As I wrote before, it is perfectly legitimate to disagree with the severa, but there is no reason to mock it, ch”v.
        BTW, today is Rav Moshe’s yahrzeit.

      • dr. bill says:

        chas ve’shalom. it was RMF ztl who permitted and in fact encouraged dissent. i was explaining that pesak, which deserves respect, is very different from the logical reasoning in a teshuvah, which is like any sevarah – subject to harsh criticism. housed in a teshuvah does not grant it special status. gedolai yisroel are not immune from logical errors in their reasoning. YZB

      • Mycroft says:

        The Rav also held that non Orthodox clergy should be allowed to use Orthodox mikvaot for their needs including their conversions. He had different viewpoint than most of the other Gdolei Israel.

      • mycroft says:

        “dr. bill February 28, 2018 at 5:24 pm
        all require kabbalat ha’mitvot for sure; to what extent and to what level of certainty is the issue.”
        Agreed-using the Rav as an example, if someone rejected anything no conversion, but the Rav was concerned that a Reform Conversion that included mikveh might have enough kabbalat hamitzvot, and of course if Reform Rabbi an am haaretz might not have rejection of Torah and an am haaretz could be a valid judge for BD invlolving gerus

      • mycroft says:

        Dr Bill:
        ” . housed in a teshuvah does not grant it special status. gedolai yisroel are not immune from logical errors in their reasoning. ”
        Even gedolai yisrael can quote sources where there may be better versions that they did not use. Thus, quoting Rambam, there are cases where standard European version has different texts than Kapach or Frankel edition. To the extent that a gadol relied on texts which can be reasonably believed are not the correct version is also a matter to be analysed.

      • rkz says:

        Mycroft. The issue of girsaot is important, but irrelevant to the severa we are discussing here. What Rav Moshe explained in this teshuva is ased on severa, not on any girsa in the Rambam

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Denial of rhe facts on thr ground is another way of ignoring the dame. I dtand by my view.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Not tbe issue. The issue is creation of a,second tier of gerim who would not ne accepted within the O world but who will be so accepted in the heterodox movements.

      • Mycroft says:

        Nort a new issue see eg Introduction page xxv of A History of Judaism by Martin Goodman “Uncertainty about the status of a child …was already a concern when Josphus wrote…Then,as now, the conversion to Judaism of a gentile might be recognized by one set of Jews and not by another..”

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Hardly a halachic source in any eay shape or form

      • Steve Brizel says:

        The issue is not affliction but rather co.iance with halachic norms.q

      • Mycroft says:

        Steve
        You are the one who refers to “facts on the ground” all the time. Usually wo citation. I am giving a citation for a fact, nowhere am I claiming the book to be a source of Halacha. Of course, his facts are likely to be accurate and scholarly as one would expect from a Professor of Jewish studies at Oxford.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        You can do your own research i cited two prominent instances of OO violating halacha . Look it up yourself. Thete is no hetet for a kohen to marry s grusha or giyores. .

  7. Bob Miller says:

    From this piece—-The Haaretz article invokes the words of Rabbi Shlomo Riskin of Efrat, who argued that “the Rabbinate recognize automatically all Orthodox congregational rabbis.”

    Whatever recognition really means in this context, Orthodox has to mean something generally understood if recognition as Orthodox is to mean something. Relying on a shaky, idiosyncratic meaning of Orthodox in order to get recognized is both clever and subversive.

  8. dave says:

    I am Canadian and have never heard of Rabbi Adam Scheier, so his Canadian reputation is not so strong to begin with. I googled him. His synagogue may have lots of “memberships” but not a whole lot of warm bodies on cold Montreal mornings.
    Rabbi Riskin appears to have flown the coop years ago. He has his chasidim, to be sure, but his trips back to North America are only for visits to shuls like Rabbi Scheier’s.
    As Rabbis, I am sure they serve their flocks well and with good intentions. But their strain of Orthodoxy oftens strains to be actually Orthodox. I suspect the Rabbanut had more than enough reason to be skeptical.
    Further, what is the Rabbanut’s task here – to be a rubberstamp for anyone claiming to be a religious leader, or to actually vet people properly? If the former, Rabbi Scheier may as well be the CR himself (or perhaps his wife can do it if he is too busy). If the latter, they are just doing their job.

    • dr. bill says:

      lets see; which is it! “I am Canadian and have never heard of Rabbi Adam Scheier..” OR “I suspect the Rabbanut had more than enough reason to be skeptical.” i don’t know you, but i can recommend some fundamental texts on consistency.

      • dave says:

        Hey Dr Bill, you are correct – you don’t know me. But between those two sentences I did indicate that “I googled him”. So while you rummage through your consistency texts, you might want to bone up on middle school reading comprehension. Doctor.

      • dr. bill says:

        if a google search is a basis for your conclusions, then you are correct. you may not be inconsistent, just badly mistaken. on the other hand, the CR’s office may have done even less.

  9. Yaakov says:

    Some of the Rabbis on that list include Rabbi Josh Blass on Monsey/YU, Rabbi Josh Fass of Nefesh B’Nefesh, Rabbi’s Pinchas Chatzinoff and Shimon Russell who all seem like pretty frum, Orthodox Rabbis to me. Can Rabbi Gordimer come up with sufficient reason why these Rabbis were on the list, as well – ?

    • Nachum says:

      We know the answer: The Rabbinate was ordered to produce a blacklist. They actually had no such list. So they (foolishly) put together a quick list of all the rabbis who had at least one letter questioned in the last year. Such letters may be questioned for any reason, some of them ridiculous, some not, without it being any real reflection on the rabbi who wrote them.

      Want an example of “ridiculous”? My sister needed a letter. So her rabbi back in New York (100% Orthodox, YU musmakh, RCA board, etc.) wrote one in which he said that she was fully Jewish, religious, etc. etc. At the end he added the line, “And I’ve known her family a long time, because her father was my rebbe in the third grade in Ramaz!”

      The geniuses at the Jerusalem Rabbinate read it (I don’t know how; they famously can’t read English) and said, “He says your father was his rebbe. He doesn’t mention your mother. Was she not Jewish?”

      Facepalm.

      When it came to be my turn, the same rabbi asked if he should mention my father. I told him to write as little as possible.

      Turned out he wasn’t even in their system. I had to point out that my sister had gotten married under their auspices for them to accept me, which I will be honest wasn’t very honest of me. (She had basically gotten through because she was friendly with the guard at the entrance. I’m not making that up.)

      My wife’s rabbi- currently in jail for secretly taping women in the mikvah- was in the system *twice*, once under his Hebrew name and once under his English name, for two different roles.

      I can give you lots of other crazy stories from the Rabbinate. But this one is more a confluence of stupidity and publicity seeking.

  10. David F says:

    By advocating for rabbi’s whose credentials are suspect, people like Farber and Dr. Bill are actually working against the Geirim and ensuring that they’ll be hurt a lot more in the future if they have their way.
    The minute word gets out that the CR accepts the word of Reform, Conservative, OO rabbi’s, that’s the last time many Orthodox will ever consider marriage with a Ger, even one that may have been legitimately converted.
    Reminiscent of the way the activists and media that claim to be working on behalf of the Palestinians protest companies that employ hundreds of them because they’re located in a settlement.

    • dr. bill says:

      lets try something. pig, cow, horse. which one is different than the other two? try another. reform rabbi, chareidi rabbi, open orthodox rabbi. you say chareidi, i say reform. but we agree that both deal poorly with modernity. anyone watching objectively would respond like the Rav ztl did explaining why he gives tzeddakah to eidah types.

      onaas hager is not dependent on the opinion of third parties.

      • David F says:

        I disagree with your first point and your second is irrelevant and misses my point entirely.
        Onaas Hager is not “dependent on the opinion of third parties”, but when the third party claims to be acting out of a desperate desire to avoid Onaas Hager at all costs and ends up actually causing far more Onaas HaGer than currently exists, surely something is very wrong. And that precisely was my point. Insisting that sham geirus procedures be recognized for fear of violating Onaas HaGer, will end up causing very real Onaas HaGer and lots of it.
        That would be a far bigger shame.

      • Mycroft says:

        If you want a textbook case of onaas hager look at those who for political purposes have attacked the validity en masses of gerus for over half a century. Impacting not only Gerim but their grandchildren.

      • David F says:

        If that actually occurred, I’d be horrified. Problem is that I’m not aware of anyone who’s actually done so. Of course, those who wish to remove geirus standards are happy to lob that allegation in the direction of anyone who wishes to maintain standards, but that’s a far cry from actually portraying the reality.
        We all know too well the terrible damage done by unreliable rabbis of all stripes when it comes to geirus. The damage they’ve done not only to the institution of Geirus is incalculable, but they’ve done even worse to legitimate geirim who don’t stand a chance of full acceptance because the average Joe has no ability to know who was converted reliably and who not.
        Thus, there are large swaths of people who would virtually never consider marrying into entire families for the sole reason that they don’t have any way to verify the Jewish status of their descendants.
        Anyone legitimately interested in preventing Onaas HaGer would be insisting on very real standards that even if somewhat onerous at first, would accomplish worlds in terms of protecting the interests of legitimate geirim.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        “Dealing with modernity” does not mean that halachos relating to the definition of who is a Jew are abolished either by sociological and demographic changes or political fiat.

      • dr. bill says:

        of course it doesn’t mean that. every bar hochi who has read 19th century Jewish history knows what reform and chareidi reactions to modernity mean. go read.

      • Mycroft says:

        You assume more than I do, you assume that they’ve even read 19th century Jewish history

      • Steve Brizel says:

        DrKatz was a great historian. His expertise is history not Psak or giving a shiur or being a great rav or baal machshavah.

      • dr. bill says:

        spoken like a real dilettante. anyone who has read “divine law in human hands” or “a shabbat goy” or what Dr twersky ztl or dr. grach said of him, would think twice about your comment. the works of him, his students and grand-students are monumental contributions to the understanding of the development of halakha. yes, it changes. he was not a posek or rav or anything like that; just a talmid chacham atzum who became the rebbe muvhak of dr. grach for almost twenty years after his father and the grash.

        his insights were almost prophetic; in major political areas similar to the Rav ztl

      • rkz says:

        Dr. Bill. We already discussed the Katz issue. You nicely explained (and explained again now) your opinion on his stature. There are those in the field who have a different opinion, as I explained (if you want a longer explanation, you can see what I wrote in my doc. thesis, which can be read on Otzar Hakhokhma). BTW, my thesis advisor was a grand-student of Katz, and he agreed with my major criticism.

      • , dr. bill says:

        if you provide a link to your Ph.D. thesis I will peruse. in the interim, the opinion of some of the brightest people I know and my own reading will dictate my viewpoint. as I have said, one who creates a category and writes prolifically will make (many) errors.

      • rkz says:

        I don’t know how to link to it. I’ll be happy to find out how to do it.

      • dr. bill says:

        if the moderators would accommodate, they can give you my email address.

      • dr. bill says:

        thanks

      • rkz says:

        Very good idea

  11. Steve Brizel says:

    So tell us-why did RYBS give both to the Eidah and BMG-not because his views on Torah Avodah and Gmilus Chasadim were dictated and directed by a sense of MO PC.

    • dr. bill says:

      both were different then. my alter-ego often quotes teshuvot from both RCYZ ztl and RYW ztl that reflect views that the eidah would never take today. BMG did not produce the rancor that emerged with the Rav ztl’s death. in fact, when the Rav came to be menachem aveil RSK ztl, he got up to greet the Rav.

      today, i consider BMG and the eidah further from normative than Rabbi Sheier. i am in montreal often and daven in his shul during the week.

      btw we are still waiting for you to produce a YU RY who agrees with your view on the Rav’s yartzeit shiur comment on HLMM or the OO rabbi in Israel who performed a gay marriage. there is a consequence to making false claims; you lose credibility

      • Steve Brizel says:

        BMG has comminity kollelim which have had positive impacts on every community where they can be foind today. Ask yourself why many former huge donors to YU have donated huge sums to BMG .

      • , dr. bill says:

        at last nights Philadelphia yeshivah dinner that i had mixed feelings about attending given the late rabbi svei’s attitude towards the Rav ztl, but since the dinner was honoring a chareidi rav who i admire and have a strong kesher with, i went and quickly left after he spoke brilliantly. they had pictures of graduating classes of decades ago. that explains the major slide to the right and the basis for a reaction to maintain our traditions.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Tske a drive arou d the campus of BMG. There are numerous buildings whose donors are from prominent MI families who used yo give to YU and RIETS. Ask yourself why that is so and 20% of BMGs atudent base as per Dr J Wertheimer is of MO origin

      • dr. bill says:

        staying on the derech is hard. extremism is cross-religion world-wide phenomena.

        the MO community has always supported chareidi institutions; i would prefer they prefer aniyay ircha. otoh, yesterday, today or tomorrow, i have not seen BMG types reciprocate.

        lakewood is an odd city. a sefer critical of a position of RAK ztl spent 400 pages gathering strong evidence against his position AND NEVER MENTIONED HIS NAME. the author attributed that to minhag lakewood. sad beno shel sad. a real departure from traditional Judaism, bordering on the worship of a demi-God.

        the tension intrinsic to traditional judaism is hard for many people. extremism, with its rejection of rationality when it conflicts with religious beliefs, is an easier path.

    • Mycroft says:

      MO gave to non MO institutions for better or worse. The reverse is not the case. Very rarely will Chareidi give to MO institutions.
      Of course, the Rav did NOT feel apologetic about his students, he felt they including his MO students could rank with the best of Chareidim. He felt that they had nothing to be ashamed of. The attacks on MO are not new, they have existed since the Rav came to RIETS

  12. Steve Brizel says:

    For all interested, see in R Rosenthal’s links, the k=link to R B Lau participating in a same gender ceremony.

    • Mycroft says:

      I am not challenging you Steve because you are quoting someone else about R Benny Lau and homosexuals. I was a little skeptical because although Rav Benny Lau has pushed the envelope on women’s issues hiring a Rabbanit etc but he is clearly constrained by clear cut Halacha. He is the Rabbi of a schul that has a substantial portion of the members who are not desiring to push the envelope as Rav Benny is.
      I spoke this morning to a member who goes there regularly, most days twice a day. He stated that his guess and had read the link, in his opinion picture did not show proofof Rav Benny. He stated most aggressive move by Rav Lau was just after Trumps election when Rav Benny’s brother in New York -an open practicing homosexual who only relatively recently resigned from Conservative movement because they were not friendly to gay community protested the coming perceived discrimination of homosexuals by Trump – was given open comfort by Rav Benny. That led to an open rebellion by many in his schul including open letter by a leading member. Rav Benny walked back from his supporting language involving his brother and posted the attack on him and his mea culpa in the Ramban schul newsletter.
      Certainly, showing how even support of civil rights for gays could cause a rebellion , a gay marriage would have created a major scandal in Israel. Rav Benny is a major Orthodox figure. His brother in NY openly gay is a different matter, but his brother doesn’t claim to be Orthodox.

      • dr. bill says:

        i have never met him, but his books on tannaim and his book on yirmiyahu are the works of a talmid chacham. the crowd that attacks him are referring to his attendance at or a party after, i do not know which, a gay marriage.

      • Mycroft says:

        I have spoken a few words to him, and have heard his Shabbos afternoon shiurim which depending on season are either on Tanach or on Tannaim. He is certainly dynamic and knowledgeable.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        There has been to date no walking back frim his comments . You may like the shul his lectures and his books. I know of residents in his neighborhood who will not daven in his shul.

      • Mycroft says:

        I know oF many YU retired musmachim who Daven at Ramban. There are plenty of schuls in the neighborhood. I know of some who Daven elsewhere but walk distances to hear his shiur.

      • Mycroft says:

        Rabbi Blau has stated very aggressive words about how we have to treat with respect everyone including homosexuals. That has nothing to do with the charge which I have challenged that ARabbi Lau has performed gay weddings,

      • Steve Brizel says:

        He wished the celebrants mazel tov. That is giving his blessing as a rabbi. It is akin to saying a Dvar Torah at the chupah seudah or sheva beachos where none is appropriate.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        No you have watered down his remarks which are clearly in favor of same gender marriage.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Provide a link to where and when he walked back his comments.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        So R BLau put his foot in his mouth and caused a controversy in his own shul untill he issued a subsequent “clarification”. Post a link to the subsequent comment.it sounds all too much like R Riskins comments that he also trotted out and walks back from

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Show,us a link to what youbdescribe as a retraction. No link equals no proof.

      • Mycroft says:

        I saw the two comments by member and his response. Don’t believe me, you don’t have to. I don’t see you usually posting links to what you state.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Any claim of a retraction would be wholly inconsistent with his long standung support of such ceremonies . To the contrary when i.post from.my home I always try to post links .difficult to post links from.a cell phone.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        I question any such retraction if it was given because RLau has a long record available to any and all on Google that documents his support of such ceremonies.

      • Mycroft says:

        Steve
        Not everything is on Google. Thus what I stated that I saw was a schul e mail ov a newsletter. Of course newsletter was in Hebrew.
        If you try google.il in Hebrew might find it, but not sure you’d fine most schul mailings in US on Google.
        It might interest you that you’ll get different results even in English with Google and Google.ca.

  13. Steve Brizel says:

    Dr Bill.about two weeks ago I wrote a vwey long post re HLMMS RYBS Yahrtzeit shiur Chidfusheu R Chaim in Hilcos Maacalod 1959sAsuros RHS shiurim on the subject and the ET entry thereto. You obviously did not read the same or see R Rosenthals links re R BLau.

    • dr. bill says:

      yup, just as i thought, keep on spinning. i did not ask about others whose views are not being discussed by me; i asked about a specific yartzeit shiur AND YOU ARE STILL UNABLE TO PRODUCE A YU RY.

      as far as Rav B Lau, quoting rabbi Rosenthal’s post confirms my POV. he says celebrated; meaning celebrated at. those of us without bias might say attended as oppose to celebrated. you seem to have interpreted celebrated at as celebrated meaning officiated.

      you remain wrong on both issues. try admitting as oppose to spinning.

      • Mycroft says:

        Dr Bill
        See my response to Steve Brizel. I do not believe that Rav Benny ever officiated at a gay marriage ceremony. If he had we’d all have known about it. Rav Benny certainly has sympathy for his brother family relations. One does not look at brothers to analyze a person. Certainly no one would state that Rav Moshe Sherer had the values of his brother a Reform Rabbi, or reverse second winningest horse trainer in US history had a brother who was a RIETS musmach who made Aliyah. Never look at brothers, children, parents, grandparents to determine what a person believes.

      • dr. bill says:

        you are 100% correct. look at RMMS ztl’s brother or RAK ztl’s sister or my sister’s brother 🙂 . in some cases it affects the individual and their outlook more than others in both directions.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Irrelevant . Tbe comment speaks for itself despite all of your spin to te conrrary.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Google R B Lau on his views re gay marriage and same gender ceremonies. He has a long record of not nust empathy for the LGBT world nut supporting same gender ceremonies. Rationalizing his conduct and then claiming that he walked back from.the same via an an announcement that has yet to be produced here strikes me as a other example of defending the indefensible. Again would anyone here want to attend such a halachicaly contraverted event and wish the paries thereto Mazel Tov?

      • Steve Brizel says:

        I look at a persons actions and statements and stand 100& bebind my posts re R BLau. If younconduct thr most simple search on Google you will ser how OO and in particular the founder of YCT have departed from.elementary halachos with respect to presiding at the marriage of a Kohen with a gerusha. Hard to believe that the prodigious researchers cant find what was and is a matter of tecord on Google.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        R Lau praised a halachically forbidden act and union atrended and participared in the celebratiin of the same. Would you attend and celebrate such a ceremony?

      • Steve Brizel says:

        I view participating in and celebrating such a ceremony as equally problematic.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Why would he even attend and celebrate such a halachically forbidden union?

      • Mycroft says:

        It is an entirely different issue to attend a celebration than attending a ceremony. I would not attend a wedding of a coworkers non Jewish child in a church. I showed up at restaurant afterwards for celebration, didn’t eat anything but to wish congratulations . Ceremony different than celebration.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Wishing mazel tov or congratulations when one has a publicly documented position in favor of same gender marriage is halachically irrelevant and wrong. Again would you attend such a cetemony and wish congratulations?

      • Steve Brizel says:

        The issues are the same and WADR you are engaged in a pilpul to justify the unacceptable ny a eav eho has publicly and frequently supported samevgendwr ceremonies.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        What about an intermarriage of a relative with a future spouse of a dubious OO C or R conversion?

      • Mycroft says:

        I would not have attended the function. To be fair to Rabbi Lau in the cite that I found after googling Rabbi Lau and gay marriage, he dances around issues. He specifically states that kiddushin is only between a man and a woman. He states that it is not good for people to be lonely. He never indicates approval for forbidden acts. It can be unclear what he is praising, committed roommates to each other wo mishkan zachar, not traditional but where is the issur for those whom marriage is impossible.z

      • Steve Brizel says:

        The issur is a ceremonial u nion that legitimizes a forbidden lifestyle. See Chulin 92 b and Rashi and ma ny comments of Ramban in his commentary.marruage is “inpossible” only gor someone who has been brainwashed to view the LGBT way of l8fe as an alternative legitimate lifestule when in fact it was not so for tbousands of years. R Lau is attempting to be PC but his comments and public record on tbe issue speak for themselves.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        R BLau IIRC also attended and gave divrei bracha to his brothers graduation from.JTS.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        He attended and gace tbe celebeants his blessing as an Orthodox rabbi. Dont deny the facts.

    • Mycroft says:

      We had in Freundel a prominent Rabbi violating Halacha. We had at MTA Rabbis who violated Halacha – YU s defense was SOL. I do not attack RIETS that some of their musmachim have acted inappropriately.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Supporting sane gender ceremo ies and the lifestyle associated with it is a blatant rejection of the parsha of arayos . The acts that you mention were also terrible but not a full scale assault on halacha . Freundel is serving time. You seem oblivious to that . The MTA rebbe and administrators were fired. Let me know when a YCT or OO clergyman is fired for his violating halacha.

      • Mycroft says:

        I asked when an MTA alumni when the issue first arose did he hear about it. His answer was it is not new, when he was in MTA 25 years ago everyone knew.
        The Rabbe who was fired , thirty years earlier as fired by his schul because of dealings with a women not his wife. It was known, I had heard of that and I have never lived in the city where that Rabbi was a Rabbi.
        Firing someone when it makes the press, but was covered up previously not something to be proud of.

      • dr. bill says:

        a comment made it past the censors the year he left for florida; ve’hamaivin yavin. it is too risque to retell in public.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Look at your posts on other uncensored blocks. Your comments re your views of current RY of RIETS as not meeting your self described and created “ethical standards” are there for all readers to judge as to whether you “attack RIETS ” as to whether their musmachim “have acted inappropriately”. Drspite all of the available proof to rhe contrary one looks in vein for any critiqueet alone consemnation of the actions of OOs in the area of marriage arayos and rhe kedusha of kehunah and gerus by the founder and current leaders all if which can be found by anyone with a minimal ability to Google the same in English.

      • Mycroft says:

        I am waiting for you to ever critique any RY except for Arabbi Weider who you attack as not being in the mainstream for his positions. The attacks on OO are adaquate.y being done by you , Rabbi Gordimer, And others.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        I criticized R Weidets POV not his judgmemt.

      • Mycroft says:

        My ethical standard which I hope is in your Yahadus that the same Halacha that applies to the poor Applies to the wealthy. I hope you agree that it is not ethical to make a financial test for gerus.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        There you again aoplying Bernie Sanders rhetoric in the place of lomdus.

      • mycroft says:

        “Steve Brizel February 27, 2018 at 6:16 am
        There you again aoplying Bernie Sanders rhetoric in the place of lomdus”
        what specific part of the following do you disagree with
        “Mycroft February 26, 2018 at 11:45 pm
        My ethical standard which I hope is in your Yahadus that the same Halacha that applies to the poor Applies to the wealthy. I hope you agree that it is not ethical to make a financial test for gerus”

      • dr. bill says:

        steve, to rephrase the Rav ztl, az du veist fun donald trump’s rhetoric, dost bin ich zicher, ober az du veist fun lomdus, bin ich nisht azoi zicher. 🙂

      • Steve Brizel says:

        You constantly raise this retort but fail to see and tecognize that there is no free lunch in todays world and that Otisvile lnows no hashkafic boundaries. Your poats show a lack of respect for those who does not meet your self defined halachacic standards as opposed to engaging in denate as to what is needed today.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Who appointed you the ethical watchdog over the Orthodox world especially when many have questionned your interpretation of the relevant IRS sections and you conspicuously have nothing negative to say about the documented departures from OO which RYBS foesaw and criticized decades ago?

      • Steve Brizel says:

        The test of whether has the means to affiliate with the MO or even Charedi community in a fiscal sense is important. We all make choices where and how we live that require balancing costs and where we will grow in Avodas HzHem. OTOH hihtadlus must always be accompanied by bitachon that somehow in some way whatever we earn will be sufficient for our meeds in ruachniess and gashmius.

  14. Steve Brizel says:

    Hard to believe that intelligent people see no issue of concern and alarm let alone violations of halacha in OO presiding over marriages between kohanim and divorcees and converts and applauding participating and presiding over same gender ceremonies.

    • dr. bill says:

      presiding???? example??

    • Mycroft says:

      Name the people who you know were mesoderm kiddushin between a kohen and a divorcee or a kohen and a giyoret. Name the Orthodox person who sanctified a gay marriage.

      • dr. bill says:

        az moshiach vet kommen vel min essen a sedenyu. ver vil untz liggent zogen auf dem siddinyu?? ….

      • mycroft says:

        I don’t understand Yiddish.

      • dr. bill says:

        the torah was given in yiddish :). it is a takeoff on a famous yiddish song/leed sang by many chazzanim and others. bezemanainu, when sung by or at a charedi function a certain stanza is at times omitted. otoh, many yiddish songs are now sung without an appreciation for their hidden subtleties.

        anyone who did not get to hear the Rav ztl in his incredible yiddish, with both litvish and yekke roots, was not neheneh from olam hazeh.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Ask the founder and current head of YCT. R BLaus comments and tbose of the current head of HIR are web friendly. I stand by my comments .

      • Mycroft says:

        Dr Bill
        I was Neheneh from the Rav in English. I simply do not know Yiddish.

      • dr. bill says:

        as a rabbis say, it is worth learning just to listen. two examples – the rav ztl talking about those who raise their behind during the introduction to bentching during his shiur on davar shebekedusha where his explanation of the differences between kedusha at schachris and mussaf or the machloket about removing tefillin was soaring. the hashkafa part of the shiur on shilichut where he mentioned rav kook ztl and then talked disparagingly about himself while explaining the hashkafic elements of shlichut was beyond belief. beyond incredible depth, they were also hysterically funny. few speakers can intertwine humor to make significant points so memorable. they worked.

  15. Pesach Wolicki says:

    I am Israeli. Made Aliya decades ago. This writer clearly knows little of what he speaks. Yesh Atid is not perceived as anti religious. I don’t like them and would never vote for them but this was all I needed to disregard this American Jew who speaks about the Israeli scene. Stick to kashrus in the US.

  16. yg says:

     mycroft
    February 23, 2018 at 12:07 pm
    “Don’t be dismissive of the overwhelming majority of Poskim who as R Asher Weiss noted disagree with the view of the Rogatchover ZL who RYBS relied on to claim that in an instance of a woman who ” converted” with a Reform conversion, married in a Reform ceremony required a get.”
    Rav Melech Schachter wrote in1959 review article that the majority of poskim ruled that even a civil marriage required a get. Explain how a reform marriage requires a get less than a civil marriage

    Rav Zvi Ferber wrote a sefer on civil marriage in the 1930s, titled ‘Birur Halacha’. In it he quotes the views of many, many batei din and poskim from Europe and across the world. Nearly all the poskim agreed civil marriages do not require a get and children are not mamzerim. (Obviously, everyone says it is best to try to obtain a get.) The only 2 he quotes who disagreed are Rav Henkin and the Rogatchiver. It is not Rav Henkin against Rav Moshe. It is Rav Henkin against everyone else, including Rav Moshe. Obviously, everyone agrees lechatchila we try to have the woman receive a get, but almost all poskim say that the child is not a mamzer.
    According to Rav Ahron Soloveitchik, even Rav Henkin would not have paskened lemaaseh the child is a mamzer. (oral psak quoted by Rabbi Baruch Simon).
    Therefore, I was surprised to read from Mycroft that Rav Melech Schachter zt”l wrote in an article that the consensus was/is to require a get, since this goes against the reality at the time and goes against the sefer Birur Halacha I cited earlier.
    I looked up the article. He wrote no such thing.
    Rav M. Schachter was writing a book review of the first two editions of Noam. He discusses a few topics in detail. Then in the 4th section of his article he writes as follows (the parts in italics are a complete direct quote. Nowhere else does he discuss civil marriage in that book review article):

    p.160
    The following account of all the other problems and solutions, extremely abbreviated, eloquently speaks for the timeliness and utilitarian aspects of the Noam series.

    There are many short paragraphs each briefly describing the topics and arguments discussed. The following is one of those paragraphs.
    pp. 161-2
    Civil Marriages:
    Does a couple married civilly require a get in order to dissolve their marital bond?- i.e., is a civil marriage regarded as religiously valid de facto?

    On the basis of the established rule that no man wishes to consider his continuous sexual relationship with a woman promiscuous, the marital bond is strong enough to warrant a get for its dissolution. There are some who differ with this viewpoint. They hold that one who does not care for a religious ceremony is not presumed to be troubled by the change that he is living promiscuously all his life-time.

    That is it. No discussion of the consensus. Certainly, certainly no discussion of the ‘consensus’ in the US. I looked up the Noam volumes. There is nothing groundbreaking, just a discussion of the shittos. One article argues that CM requires a get. One article argues it doesn’t. One article suggests the Rabbanut should establish exact guidelines. RMS presents the discussions accurately. (There is another essay by Rav Henkin where he is discussing kiddushin al tnai and there he refers to his position that CM requires a get.)
    (It is quite possible that during the 60s, the more standard psak in the US was to require a get even bedieved (not to make mamzerus but to require a get), but that is because Rav Henkin was the Posek Hador in the US at that time! So, of course his minority position took hold here. However, when RMF came along, he straightened that wobble, and the US custom reverted back to the large consensus around the world of the previous generation as shown in Birur Halacha. So there was never a consensus in the US supporting R Henkin. He was the biggest posek so his position was followed. There was a consensus around the world that civil marriage did not require a get, as proven from Birur Halacha. RMF’s psak brought the US back in line with the normative psak. And there is no evidence the Rav would have poskened the children were mamzerim bedieved. )
    The Civil Marriage issue is a machlokes in psak where the Rav is clearly in the minority position, and it is a big, big shaas hadchak, and the psak fits into all klalei hapsak.
    Most of the time, the shayla is asked regarding the children from the second marriage, where it is already completely bedieved. And there is no record that the Rav would have poskened that the child is lemaaseh a mamzer. Even Rav Henkin, according to RAS, would not have said that.
    The Rav allowed his talmidim to rely on RMF’s psak when it wasn’t possible to obtain a get, and he allowed the children from the second marriage to marry.
    I wrote this piece several years ago in response to Mycroft’s claim. I am assuming he forgot the exchange. If he remembered it, then his present post is intellectually dishonest.

    • Mycroft says:

      Rav Melech Schachter in his review article cites what I stated, it is not a major issue there. It is just mentioned. Note Rav Melech does not state he disagrees with the point.
      The Ravs viewpoint is consistent with his two covenants Avot and Sinai. The Rav takes unity of Klal Israel very seriously.
      YU state normative psak, if it was normative why do people always give credit for RMF being matir agunot. Reality of course no one is matir agunot, being married is an objective question, if a gadol is wrong he has caused an eishes ish situation. It is no different than if a more liberal Rabbi is wrong with permitting renarriage wo a get, he also would be causing an eishes ish.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        The reality is that all great Poskim worked to properly alleviate the ploght of Agunos and thst the position of RYBS on this issue was a decidely minority position as oppposed to RYBS often stated strong opposition to Kohanim.marrying divorcees and converts. RYBS was quite adamant about maintaing the unity kf Kla Yisrael but nwver at the expense of obviating Kedushas Kehunah

      • Steve Brizel says:

        The prio post WADR does not support your premise.

    • Mycroft says:

      I have never stated what the Rav would have said had the Sheila been that the Reform conversion, Reform marriage had gotten married again wo a get and if the question was is the child a mamzer. That was not the question asked. I simply state what the Zrav paskened. Obviously, it is possible just by simple guess to see a possibility of the Rav using safek mamzer lehakhel but we don’t know. Many on this blog speculate what the Rav would have said with certainty on issues what they don’t know. They often use it to make revisionists viewpoints on the Rav. Simply look at his record.speculation is merely that. See what he paskened and what organizations that followed him to the t did.

    • Steve Brizel says:

      Yasher Koach for a necessary recapitulation of these issues. The restatement of a Daas Yachid on many occasions does not render the same the view of Rov Poskim.whether lchumra or lkula.

      • Mycroft says:

        No one has yet shown that the person who told me that R Kotler, R Kamenetzky and Rav Hutner also disagreed with Rav Moshe’s heter. I am relying on what a head of a local Kollel told me.
        The Ravs position, I know.
        So you’re Rov Poskim in America may well be a minority RMF versus everyone else.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        RAsher Weiss in the latest volumevof hid ShuT clearky demonstrates that the view relied on by RYBS namemy the views of the Rogatchover and R Henkin Zl was a decidely minority view.

      • mycroft says:

        “Steve Brizel February 27, 2018 at 6:09 am
        Get out of gour bubble and meet Gerei Tzedek and pseudo gerim
        I have met both. Have you?”
        I have met gerim.

      • mycroft says:

        Would you follow RHS when he disagrees with Rov Poskim?

  17. Mark says:

    Yesh Atid is not perceived as anti religious.

    ?????!!!!

    HaModia, Dec. 18, 2016

    This campaign against everything associated with Jewish observance has been spearheaded by local politicians, including the mayor of Arad, Nissan Ben Hamo, and his legal advisors; and with the open backing of Yesh Atid, whose banner has always been anti-religious hatred.

    Nir Orbach (secretary-general of HaBayit HaYehudi), Jan. 30, 2018 (in response to Ofer Shelach’s attack of Hesder and its Rashei Yeshivot – and call to defund them – for saying that girls should not serve in the IDF):

    Yesh Atid once again shows itself to be left-wing anti-religious. Religious Zionism does not need to prove itself to Yair Lapid’s party. ”

    So you might not consider them anti-religious, but your wholesale dismissal of Rabbi Gordimer over his accurate statement that they are perceived as such – and ending your paragraph with a circumscription of what he should “stick to,” – makes your real issue with the article (or perhaps with Rabbi Gordimer) quite transparent.

    • mb says:

      Ah, if HaModia say it, it must be true.

      • Mark says:

        We’re not talking about whether they are anti-religious, we’re talking about whether they are perceived as such. Clearly, HaModia does.

        But this is beside the point. Any party that calls for the defunding of Yeshivot whose heads take the position of all the greatest Torah authorities – without exception – that girls may not enlist in the IDF; or, in the case of Yair Lapid, calls for the dismissal of the Chief Rabbis who take this position, while omitting the title “Rabbi” from their names (1/10/14); is an unambiguously anti-religious party.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Why? Both Bennet and Stern have views that are far from rhe mainstream on many issues.

  18. Mycroft says:

    You are repeating a disagreement we had on a tangential matter from another blog. Rav Melech Schachter wrote a review of Halachik works
    Suffice it to say the Rav who held that even in a case of a Reform conversion and a Reform wedding the woman needed a get, His position is counter to RMF. RMF was willing to not demand a get even if all parties were born Jewish, the Rav not only demanded a get he demanded a get in the case of a Reform conversion. The Rav was not even willing to ne mistareph the safek of women being non Jewish with RMFs heter.
    FWIW I don’t claim to be an expert in the following but I was told by a head of a local Yeshiva who studied at BMG and had a close connection. To Rav Yacov and grew up n the LES when I to,d him about the Ravs position, that wasn’t surprise because RaAaron, Rav. Yacov and Rav Hutner all rejected RMFs heter of woman not needing a get. If others have different knowledge of those three gedolim ruling differently than what I was told I’d appreciate being corrected. I do know what the Rav held in this case.

  19. Steve Brizel says:

    Mycroft-please explain why you constantly belittle the bonafides of one giyores whose father is the POTUS but are completely silent as to tbe bonafides of the gerus of the current First Lady of Chicago and her children wbose comversuon was facilitated by the head of YCT who has been publicly supportive of same gender marriage since 2010.

    • dr. bill says:

      not that he requires my approval in any way, but he is the go-to posek in sheailot that come up in various batei dinim le’geirut. my sense is that he follows RCOG ztl as normally understood.

    • Steve Brizel says:

      Conduct a simple Google search. You obviously reject one Giyores and arent interested in anorher. Why not?

  20. Steve Brizel says:

    Mycroft -simple research will tell you who is being msader kiddushin for a kohen with a grusha.i gave you a hint last night.

    Dr Bill-RCOG zl woyld not have allowed Gerus Lshem Ishus if there wasnt even a pretense at what we call a MO level today.0

    • , dr. bill says:

      thank you for your insightful interpretation; i prefer that of gedolai haposkim who used their understanding of the position of RCOG ztl and Rav Shlomo Kluger ztl in many documented cases. as i will repeat, the response from the Kovne Rav ztl is a pretty accurate interpretation of what RCOG meant.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Igmorimg the facts on tbe ground by referring to how Gdolei HaPoskim.paskened fails to address the issue of today.

      • mycroft says:

        Are you seriously stating that one ignores how gdolei haposkim paskened.?
        Facts on the ground-i am not ware of the academic studies that you cite for your analysis of what the facts on the ground are

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Get out of gour bubble and meet Gerei Tzedek and pseudo gerim
        I have met both. Have you?

      • mycroft says:

        “Steve Brizel February 27, 2018 at 6:09 am
        Get out of gour bubble and meet Gerei Tzedek and pseudo gerim
        I have met both. Have you?”
        I have met gerim.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        You are adly mistaken of you think that OO clergy rely on RCOG Zl in such instances.

      • dr. bill says:

        gedolai haposkim used a logic applicable to the facts on the ground today. or do you think that halakhic history no longer applies? ask rav schechter about his viewpoint in cases of geirut leshem ishut.

      • Mycroft says:

        I assume that anyone sitting on the Bes Din for Trumps gerus believes in geirut leshem ishut.

      • dr. bill says:

        more precisely, does not forbide a geirut with a leshem ishut motivating factor. this has a long history of halakhic discussion.

      • mycroft says:

        “dr. bill February 27, 2018 at 7:44 am
        more precisely, does not forbide a geirut with a leshem ishut motivating factor. this has a long history of halakhic discussion”
        I am aware that probably most would allow a gerus leshem ishut. I am aware of some who wouldn’t including some non RW MO.
        What I am upset about is the lack of consistency in standards. If RIETS wsill teach their musmachim that they believe gerus leshem ishut is OK I would have no problem. If it is not OK, then it should not be OK even for the wealthy.

      • dr. bill says:

        it is not just the wealthy in the US. in Israel money will buy you a kusher ve’yusher geirus le’shem ishus from supposedly “religious” chareidi rabunim. you don’t even have to wait in line; however, you must wear a disposable tzniyut looking malbish.

      • rkz says:

        WADR, those are two different issues: Gerut leshem ishut and kannalat mithvot. Most poskim are meikel on the first issue, but all poskim today (and afaik that was always the overwhelming majority view) insist on the second.

      • dr. bill says:

        all require kabbalat ha’mitvot for sure; to what extent and to what level of certainty is the issue.

      • rkz says:

        From what I saw in this thread, I think there is a confusion between those issues, and that’s what I tried to clarify

  21. Steve Brizel says:

    FWIW i have met Gerei Tzedek in yeshivishe communities from mant different backgrounds of both genders who are fully observant and accepyed as members in rheir communities . I have also met many who were Gerim lshem ishus whose level of observance clearly eould not satisfy the criteria of RCOG . These pseudo gerim will not be accepted in the O world but will ne in the R andC communities. We are seeing challa8m.and mamzerim multiplyingnunder our eyes

    • Mycroft says:

      So why do you defend the famous gerus leshem ishus. It was even public that wedding was being held up for it.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        When you critique the gerus of tbe first lady of Chicago let us know. From.what I have read your comments about the
        Giyores lack merit and reflect your POV about a cerain Gadol BYisrael about who..you have formed erroneous ipinions without even discussing the issue firsthand

      • mycroft says:

        You believe everything he does is magic thus a giyores you would question if converting Rabbi was only a LWMO becomes automatically good if a leading RY was on the BD

      • Steve Brizel says:

        I stand by R Rakkafets comment in respect to your question and will awIt your response to.my query in tbe interim.

      • dr. bill says:

        good to hear, you stand by rabbi rakeffet. in his shiur on sunday, he STRONGLY supported Rabbi scheier and attacked the CR. try dreing out of that.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Who says and bow fi you know 100% that such wss the case? The giyures is Shomer Shabbos and identify with the Orthodox community far more than the average giyores lshem ishus.

      • mycroft says:

        Never knew shomer shabbos includes travelling on Shabbos gto go to vacation resorts.

      • Mycroft says:

        RKZ
        We are not Bochen kliyot valev. None of us know anybody else’s yiras shamayim. BTW gedolim Btorah are not necessarily correlated with any characteristic except knowledge. We simply don’t know people’s yiras shamayim. There have been too many surprises.

      • rkz says:

        Yirat shamaim is a prerequisite for a takmid chacham. Otherwise he is not considered a talmid chacha, at all (Shulkhan Arukh, YD)
        We are required to judge yirat shamaiim as precisely as we can

    • mycroft says:

      “dr. bill February 28, 2018 at 5:24 pm
      all require kabbalat ha’mitvot for sure; to what extent and to what level of certainty is the issue.”
      Agreed-using the Rav as an example, if someone rejected anything no conversion, but the Rav was concerned that a Reform Conversion that included mikveh might have enough kabbalat hamitzvot, and of course if Reform Rabbi an am haaretz might not have rejection of Torah and an am haaretz could be a valid judge for BD invlolving gerus

  22. Steve Brizel says:

    No OO clergyman will go to jail.fo enabling a kohen to marry a gerusha or giyores or aologize online or yo a packed Beis Medrash for doing so.

    • mycroft says:

      How about those who permit remarriage wo a get of those who held themselves out married and appeared to the whole world as not engaging in a promiscuous relationship.

      • rkz says:

        If you refer to a get for civil marriage, that is the psak of many poskim over the last two centuries. While there are indeed may poskim who disagreed and required a get, this was a machloket I halakha, based on different interpretations of chazal and rishonim. This is not comparable to akirat halakha because of the misguided far left western culture.

  23. , dr. bill says:

    i assume you know about the russian brother of a famous RY who rav druckman’s BD would not convert. in any case why this causes more than the need of a giyur le’chumrah in most cases, as opposed ” challa8m.and mamzerim” is beyond my understanding of traditional/normative/non-chareidi halakha

    • Steve Brizel says:

      Why?no elements of Gerus equals no gerus.

      • dr. bill says:

        and the connection of improper geirut to mamzeirut is????????? being choshaish for a geirut can cause mamzeirut, not by being machmir. here is where chareidim switched sides on a dime. really curious how your thought process might work! tell me EXACTLY how disqualifying a geirut can result in mamzeirut.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        You missed my ppint entirely. OO clergy by a ,simple Goovle search are engaged in presiding over weddings between kohanim and divorcees encouraging gentile women to have conversions that would not meet the standards you cited so as to.marry Kohanim and are extending mazel tovs and worse to same gender couples. They are causong the destruction of an entire area of halacha related to the definition of a Jewish family.the standard if Gdolei Poskim that you cited do not exist for OO.

      • dr. bill says:

        you said mamzeirut; EXPLAIN. stop avoiding what you wrote. if you think a geirut performed by rabbi linzer or katz or scheier is questionable, say so. it still HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MAMZEIRUT.

      • mycroft says:

        “encouraging gentile women to have conversions that would not meet the standards you cited”
        Do you believe gerus leshem ishut should be permitted?
        What standards do you belie e should apply for gerus? Besides your obvious one who is on BD.

      • Mycroft says:

        I am more interested in those who switch intellectual sides depending who they perceive is behind the issue.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Perhaps if the mayor of Chicago was a Republican as opposed to being an Ibama loyalist you would be more critical.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        I think that borders on intellectual dishonesty to suit your own ling standing critique of tbe current POTUS.

      • mycroft says:

        “Steve Brizel February 27, 2018 at 6:01 am
        Perhaps if the mayor of Chicago was a Republican as opposed to being an Ibama loyalist you would be more critical.”
        I have not stayed a night in Chicago since 1980. Only other time in O’hare airport was transferring planes on way back from the Quad Cities. I don’t follow Chicago, but i am much more aware of NY.

        Steve Brizel February 27, 2018 at 6:03 am
        I think that borders on intellectual dishonesty to suit your own ling standing critique of tbe current POTUS.
        What does gerus procedures have tho do with POTUS-he is not Jewish dos not claim to be Jewish

      • Steve Brizel says:

        A pseudo gerus is a fraud masquerading as a proper gerus for R and C sinadmuch no O rab would accept such ad a legitimate gerus. Their children are pseudo Jewish.

      • mycroft says:

        In fact as you certainly know a birth involving one partner not Jewish is not a mamzer. Thus, a ger is the only person we can be certain is not a mamzer.

    • Mycroft says:

      Obviously, potential mamzer is a lot wise problem, but no one cares.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        No a safek mamzer has many kulos that work in his or her favor that Poskim have always operated with and utilized .

      • mycroft says:

        Poskim have been hesitant to prove someone is a mamzer because the results are so Draconian.
        When I was in Yeshiva they made a point that many times we rely on chazakah, thus we dont check yuchsim more than we have to in a chasanah for example.
        Certainly many of our chazakot we know now are not empirically correct for most. With DNA-we know origin types of people, doesn’t always agree with mesorah

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Poskim do so because Safek zmamzer like Safek Orlah in Chutz LaArerz is
        A,Halacha LMoshe Mi SiNai where the Psak is always lkulah .OTOH Many Kohanim.can and are proud of the fact that they can trace their ststid back many generations.

  24. Steve Brizel says:

    Permiting a kohen to marry either a grusha or giyores renders a kohen and any sons theereof a challal.

    • rkz says:

      “Permitting” such a thing is kefira in the eternity of halakha, that’s much much worse than any specific mikhshol

      • dr. bill says:

        i would strongly oppose, but calling it kefirah is a bit strong. while the opinion of RDTH ztl was rejected strongly, he was not a kofer. i know of a small number of cohanim who married a gerusha or giyoret raising an orthodox family. sometimes the aveirah is not a sign of le’hachit but only le’tayavon.

      • rkz says:

        As I wrote a few days ago, no one is considered to be a kofer for an incorrect conclusion that he reached sincerely from chazal and rishonim. However, the opinion itself may be considered kefira. (Radbaz).
        However, the question of motivation is extremely important in this regard. RDTH ztl was a brilliant posek and rosh yeshiva, who permitted, it in certain case, and his psak was rejected by other poskim, while he himself remained an important posek. Everyone knew that he ruled that way leshem shamaim. OTOH, a wholesale “heter”‘ motiviated by far left western culture, is indeed kefira in the eternity of halakha (while the rabbis involved are not kofrim, but simply very very misguided)

      • dr. bill says:

        i agree; however, i would limit the use of the word kefirah, which has strong implications, to one who denies fundamental beliefs.

        i need to see the radbaz inside; in any case, kefirah but not a kofer is a chiddush, perhaps too insightful.

      • rkz says:

        This is how the Radaz explains the famous hasagat haRavad on the issue of Hagshama. Maran Harav zt”l (RAYHK) wrote that we follow Radbaz on this.

      • mycroft says:

        “he ruled that way leshem shamaim. ”
        Not about the psak, but in general we are not bochen kliyot valev. Poskim start with different hashkafot assumptions, one leading in particular homosexuals are reshayim, nothing biological about their preference, Conservative Rabbis are reshaaim , when one has one set of assumptions that will influence ones psak. We see it on the blogosphere, it is obvious that for many who said it is crucial rather than what was said.

      • rkz says:

        Mycroft. Not every “haskafic assumption” is legitimate.
        BTW, both assumptions that you mentioned are explicit in the teshuvut of Rav Moshe.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        How tbe family is raised is irrelevant to tbe issue of the destruction of Kedushas Kehunah.

      • mycroft says:

        “rkz February 28, 2018 at 3:31 pm
        Mycroft. Not every “haskafic assumption” is legitimate.
        BTW, both assumptions that you mentioned are explicit in the teshuvut of Rav Moshe”
        I was aware that it is what drives Rav Moshe. I had the pleasure of going to a Daf Yomi Shiur in Agudah headquarters by Rav Elimelech Bluth. I attended for a little bit more than a cycle. I was very impressed with Rav Bluth as a person, often in asides he would talk about Rav Moshes beliefs. One can see how Rav Moshe has beliefs that affect his positions. Every posek does that, if not could hire IBMs Watson to be posek if your concern was merely someone who could discuss sources.
        it is worthwhile to see what influences piskei halacha or the 5th chelek of SA. RHS certainly has a very strong anti feminist bent, the Rav has Jewish unity and Jewish people-hood see eg importance of Bris Avot.

      • rkz says:

        Mycroft, I certainly agree with what you wrote, but my original point still stands- not every hashkafa is legitimate.

      • mycroft says:

        “rkz March 1, 2018 at 2:18 am
        Mycroft, I certainly agree with what you wrote, but my original point still stands- not every hashkafa is legitimate”
        If you mean that every hashkafa to be legitimate has to agree with Rav Albo’s three of , existence of God,reward and punishment, divine revelation, I agree.

      • rkz says:

        Mycroft. I meant that an hashkafa that views the Torah (including halakha) as subordinate to a foreign ideology (e.g. far left western culture) is illegitimate.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        There is a teshuvah of RDTH ZL where he wrote about reviking smicha of a rav who had committed an avlah gedolah.

      • mycroft says:

        “rkz March 4, 2018 at 2:04 am
        Mycroft. I meant that an hashkafa that views the Torah (including halakha) as subordinate to a foreign ideology (e.g. far left western culture) is illegitimate”
        I agree that rkz March 4, 2018 at 2:04 am
        Mycroft. I agree that an hashkafa that views the Torah (including halakha) as subordinate to a foreign ideology is illegitimate . It doesn’t matter if foreign ideology is what you call left culture or that of a midos sdom society sheli sheli and shelcha shelcha. Any ideology left or right is illegitimate in determining Torah values-neither feminism nor anti-feminism have a place.

    • mycroft says:

      But not a mamzer, which given the increasing acceptance of remarriage wo a get shouldnt be your worry. Mamzer far worse.

  25. mycroft says:

    No one can matir a mamzer.Allowing an eishes ish to marry causes mamzerut. It is different than kosher food.I rely on a reliable hashgacha but food was treif. I ate treif, but mishamayim no impact and no impact on
    me. If a married women has relations even if she relies on incorrect advice of a Rav, the child is still a mamzer,of course no misa she thought she was doing OK, but still a mamzer.
    Being masig gvul, but issue among poskim which error are theymore afraid of Type I or Type II in how they treat safek ishut.

    • Steve Brizel says:

      You fail to distinguish between what is and isnt Kiddushin and a mamzer vadai which noone can undue the status of and a safek mamzer for which Poskim have found and used numerous heterim.

      • mycroft says:

        Cmon how do you ever have a vadai mamzer? Maybe the absent husband came back in a magic carpet and the baby is a product of mutations changing skin color. Maybe baby was product of artificial insemination. Even if one was witness to znus how do you know baby was a product of such znus.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        See a recent article in tbe Jewish Week on the issue for a start. Then learn what is a Mamzer Vadai and a Safek Mamzer. There are numerous kulis in Shas Rishonim and Poskim.that discuss the issue and which have contemporary application. Posing hypotheticals does not aid your query.

      • mycroft says:

        There are kulas when Chazal want there to be a kula, magic carpet example that husband came back in is an example. It comes down to kulas are OK if my hero says so, it is illegitimate to question him. When other Rabbonim have a different approach than my hero they receive condemnation.
        This area of ishut has proven that to me, the conversion in which we argue when it is believed that only name behind it was a leading Orthodox communal figure was attacked as obviously insincere, when the same people who attack that find out that a leading RY was part of BD LL OF A SUDDEN THE SAME ACTIVITIES OF THE GIYORES AND PURPOSE of the gerus can’t be questioned. Approaches to halacha and hashkafa are not being treated by objective analysis but a tribal who is behind it.

      • rkz says:

        Mycroft. The yirat shamaim of the rabbi involved is very important in halakha.

    • dr. bill says:

      if the women relied on the advice of legitimate poskim, there are very extreme measures that are invoked if feasible. a posek muvhak with breite platzes has options on occasion.

      • mycroft says:

        I realize that in practice Rabbonim would look to somehow not make an innocent third party suffer if the mother relied on an incorrect psak. Why if Halacha runs on objective criteria should that be the case. There is an innocent child in both cases, if a mamzer a mamzer.
        Is it the innocent child the new posek is concerned with ? Or some other ideal ?

      • Steve Brizel says:

        There are and have been numerous well established kulos used to avoid a psak of a mamzer vadai and instead pasken that a safek mamzer exits. You can only imagine the detective and investigatory work that is undertaken in such cases and which are not as black and white as you seem ti believe.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Are you referting to a vadai mamzer or a safek mamzer? Please clarify.

      • dr. bill says:

        in the two cases i know of, i was not aware of any sefaikot. btw, you still owe us 2 things. see above.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        I responded and stand by my comments R RBlau. You can look my other two queries re the founder and current head of YCT easily via simple Google search. I dont listen to shiurim.or ask RY if they agree or disagree with how RYBS preaented his understanding of the Perush HaMishnayos of Rambam hat you refer to but I do stand by what I wrote previously on HMM and refer uou thereto.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        I dont spend my spare time examini g listening or trolling the words ofRY to see whether they fit your understanding of a Perush HaMishnah of Rambam in Zeraim that RYBS developed in his YAhrtzeit shiur. I did weite about HLMM as developed by R Chaim in Chiddushei RC haim.to Maacalos Asuros and as by RHS in tbe name of RYBS snd in the ET. I stand by my comments re RLau. You can with a mimimal Google search answer my inquiries about the founder and current head of YCT.

      • dr. bill says:

        instead of blogging, learn more about HLMM. quoting a rav chaim is not sufficient to try to defend your obvious error.

      • Mycroft says:

        RKZ
        We are not Bochen kliyot valev. None of us know anybody else’s yiras shamayim. BTW gedolim Btorah are not necessarily correlated with any characteristic except knowledge. We simply don’t know people’s yiras shamayim. There have been too many surprises.

      • rkz says:

        See my reply above

      • Steve Brizel says:

        We assume that Gdolei Torah have a sense of Sod HaShem Leav to their thought processes etc that we don’t. That’s part and parcel of what separates any Gadol BaTorah from the rest of us.

      • mycroft says:

        A gadol bTorah is one who we assume knows more than us. They are NOT Neviim or bochen kliyot valev. We follow them the same way one would follow any expert in a field, they know more than us.

  26. yg says:

    Mycroft wrote:
    ‘Rav Melech Schachter wrote in1959 review article that the majority of poskim ruled that even a civil marriage required a get. Explain how a reform marriage requires a get less than a civil marriage’
    ‘Rav Melech Schachter in his review article cites what I stated, it is not a major issue there. It is just mentioned. Note Rav Melech does not state he disagrees with the point.’

    As I write before, I actually found and looked up the review. I quoted verbatim the relevant parts. RMS does NOT say or ‘cite what I [Mycroft] stated’. You were caught in a misrepresentation. That is clear.
    The facts are clear. All the poskim who took public positions held civil marriage is not halachic kiddushin, except for the Rogachover and Rav Henkin. (by the way they had very different reasons for their shittos. So it is actually the large majority v. two separate daas yachids.) Rav Ferber’s sefer is available. This is all in print.
    Rav Henkin held that way only to require a get. He did not view the child from a second marriage as a mamzer, as I quoted before. The same psak as the Rav.

  27. Mycroft says:

    Read the quote R Melech Schachter reviews a lot of different topics, he refers to the statement that states what I said.i have seen the paragraph that Rabbi Schachter wrote- I have the hard copy somewhere in my house. I tried to go to Tradition archives apparently do not have Volume 2 number 1 online. Why that one is missing I do not know.Per the index the article by Melech Schachter Practical Halacha in the Space Age is volume 2 Number 1 page 155. If someone has either access to the CDs that they sold at one time of old Traditions if that volume was on there or has the volume itself and could quote the exact words of the paragraph I would see if yg is correct or not in his statement that I misrepresent Rav Melech Schachter.
    Of course, my basic point is the Rav took that position that clearly a Reform wedding required a get. I have also stated that I have been told by a BMG musmach who was there during the 60s that Rav Aaron Kotler, Rav Yacov Kamenetzky and Rav Isaac Hutner disagreed with Rav Moshe’s heter. Does anyone have any evidence disagreeing with that statement.?
    Far more interesting is that there are those who attack other people for supposedly not following the Rav in area X or area y have no problem ignoring his psak , in a case where he was concerned about eishes ish.

    • mycroft says:

      I reread yg Feb 24 313 pmThe following is from yg. He does copy the paragraph.
      “pp. 161-2
      Civil Marriages:
      Does a couple married civilly require a get in order to dissolve their marital bond?- i.e., is a civil marriage regarded as religiously valid de facto?

      On the basis of the established rule that no man wishes to consider his continuous sexual relationship with a woman promiscuous, the marital bond is strong enough to warrant a get for its dissolution. There are some who differ with this viewpoint. They hold that one who does not care for a religious ceremony is not presumed to be troubled by the change that he is living promiscuously all his life-time.”
      RMS cites the ESTABLISHED RULE….a get for its dissolution. There are some who differ with this viewpoint…”
      This is a review article IIRC in other areas Rav MS makes brief comment on subjects. This quotation is enough to show that one could reasonably assume that the RYBS ZT”L viewpoint was at least consistent with the established rule.
      Of course, what is most interesting about the case of the Reform convert, Reform Wedding, civil divorce is that the Rav was not willing to combine the possibility that Reform Conversion is not a valid gerus with the position that Reform marriage may not require a get. Gerus requires a maaseh bes din, marriage does not. Thus, the Rav entertained the possibility that Reform conversion could be valid based on a miksat acceptance of mitzvot. Clearly, the Rav did not treat non Orthodox clergy the way RMF did.
      I find it very tough to believe that the Rav would have told people in a case where no get was possible that they could rely on RMFs heter. In the instant case, the sheila was can the women get married. Obviously, everyone would want to get a get misafek in practically every case. Sheilas were asked of the Rav in very difficult situations. For some reason there is a desire by many to have a revisionist attitude about the Rav and try and make him much more similar to RMF. The gerus aspect shows a different attitude towards non Orthodox clergy than RMF had. Once we see the gerus view of the Rav, one must consider the possibility that the Rav would have treated Reform marriages even more requiring of effectiveness than civil marriages.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        RMS is merely quoting the Chazaka expressed by Chazal why a get may be required . Once again rov Poskim among thrm RMF questioned and disagrred with RHenkin and the Rogatchover eho RYBS reiled on as to whether such a chazaka which would require a get was operative in the case of a couple whose wedding ceremony was anything other than a Maaseh Kiddushin and performed for that purpose. That is the issue.

      • mycroft says:

        The Rav was concerned that a Reform conversion could be a proper gerus. He differed in his approach to non Orthodox clergy than many others. He did not treat in general Reform and Conservative as the enemy rather as mistaken.
        Note RAL who stated we are not worse off if a person goes to a Reform or Conservative synagogue rather than going nowhere.
        I often have wondered about the negative impact on American Orthodoxy because of RALs aliyah.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        IIRC one can challenge such comments by looking at how community kollelim have effectuated change in tbeir host communities.R and C became irrelevant to their mext generation not because of strong Orthodox oppoisition to klapei pnim considerations but because the next generation of C and R walked away with their hearts minds and checkbooks . The great unaffiliated numbers today which include many of who ever had a Bar or Nas Mitzvah or celebrated a Pesach seder or even went to shul for Kol.Nidre and Yizkor are the results of two movements that both in different manners ealked aeay from.any semblance of traditional observance in their laiety and whose rabbis became cheerleaders for the progressive agenda. Orthodoxy was not responsible for these facts.

      • mycroft says:

        “The great unaffiliated numbers today which include many of who ever had a Bar or Nas Mitzvah or celebrated a Pesach seder or even went to shul for Kol.Nidre and Yizkor are the results of two movements ”
        There are many unaffiliated today who were educated by not Reform or Conservative but by musmachim from RIETS and other Yeshivot post 1984.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        RYBS despite your conyention ad based in a reading of one section of a letter to the contrary written in the late 1950s or early 1960s when MO was not yet a strong movement and was stll on the defensive used the terms heterodox and deviationist when referring to C and R clergy. Please dont rewrite history.

      • mycroft says:

        Stop ignoring words of published letters of the Rav. The Rav was very careful in his words. His words are consistent with RAL who stated we are not worse off if someone attended non Orthodox synagogue than no affiliation.
        In the 50s and 60s MO was at its strength when YU sponsored a lot of outreach see eg Yeshiva University Synagogue Youth before they were pressured to leave that. It is by the mid 60s and certainly later in your time when MO was attacked repeatedly .
        You are the one rewriting history-not me. For revisionism read Prof Kaplan on the Rav and Revisionism still accurate.

      • mycroft says:

        “.R and C became irrelevant to their mext generation ”
        There are day schools in communities in the US with no Orthodox synagogues.

    • Steve Brizel says:

      Any published Chiddushei Torah or Piskei Halacha or ShuT crom.either RAK RYK or RYH that would confirm.or refute what you heard from a BMG mumach?

      • rkz says:

        In Emet leYakov on even haezer, the editors write (and say that the source is mipi hashmua) that RYK held that civil marriages require a get

      • mycroft says:

        My source about RYK and requiring a get is one who knew RYK. Someone who spoke to him and knew his viewpoints.

      • mycroft says:

        The musmach is head of a post HS full time learning, some much older than ust post HS. I treat the man as integrity. Show me anything disagreeing with that musmach. I maintain that the facts on the ground were that RMFs heter was when it came out not universally accepted by a long shot. Unfortunately today people are too afraid to challenge openly psakim of leading gdolim. The reasons are well known, they choose to let truth be sacrificed just to never openly criticize a gadol btorah. The instant case is a classic example even the Ravs psak on Reform lady no one to the best of my knowledge who has written about states the obvious truth how the Rav disagreed with RMF.
        Since RMF we have seen many examples when people both on right and left have taken positions of no get required for remarriage. We can think of cases on both sides .

  28. Bob Miller says:

    Others may differ, but to me the detailed technical arguments here are hard to sort out. Somebody please put together a spreadsheet for readers. Who knows, it could be publishable. The same applies to other threads here discussing the same basic topic (how to view OO and liberal Orthodox output in context and respond to it).

  29. Steve Brizel says:

    Dr Bill wrote in relevant part:

    “instead of blogging, learn more about HLMM. quoting a rav chaim is not sufficient to try to defend your obvious error”

    I stand by the sources that I cited.

    • dr. bill says:

      irrelevant to your claim as they may be. i stood by the hudson river, what does that prove.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        You made the claim. Please provide the sources.

      • dr. bill says:

        that will not work. i told you the shiur by the Rav ztl on shenai minai mesoret. your task is to find ONE YU RY who agrees with your obviously mistaken notion of HLMM and disagrees about what i said the Rav said in that shiur. PRODUCE THE RY or go away. The rav explicitly gave two or more examples where Rambam used HLMM with something classified as de’rabbanan. ADMIT you errors. i actually heard the shiur and like you i was ignorant and as a young kid believed as you apparently still do, before hearing the Rav. i BH have not remained ignorant. phrases are not always meant literally; their meanings and implications may change over the centuries theTalmud was compiled. well before academics, rishonim knew that

  30. yg says:

    Mycroft repeats arguments he has made over the years which have already been thoroughly discredited and disproven. I am reposting some ideas from last year. These posts were not responded to and defended against by Mycroft. Yet he raises the same issue again. I see no point in further debating when even after being disproven, he makes the same point again a year later. For the sake of emes, as opposed to engaging in further discussion, I am reposting these ideas.

    mycroft
    March 17, 2017 at 1:44 pm
    BTW if one is willing to ignore the Rav on a safek ishut, don’t attack others who ignore the Rav in other situations.
    </

    Rav Zvi Ferber wrote a sefer on civil marriage in the 1930s, titled ‘Birur Halacha’. In it he quotes the views of many, many batei din and poskim from Europe and across the world. Nearly all the poskim agreed civil marriages do not require a get and children are not mamzerim. (Obviously, everyone says it is best to try to obtain a get.) The only 2 he quotes who disagreed are Rav Henkin and the Rogatchiver. It is not Rav Henkin against Rav Moshe. It is Rav Henkin against everyone else, including Rav Moshe. Obviously, everyone agrees lechatchila we try to have the woman receive a get, but almost all poskim say that the child is not a mamzer

    According to Rav Ahron Soloveitchik, even Rav Henkin would not have paskened lemaaseh the child is a mamzer. (oral psak quoted by Rabbi Baruch Simon).

    That is why the RIETS rabbonim go with RMF here, because his view is the large majority view.
    The fact that they don’t follow the Rav on this psak is completely irrelevant to the discussion of the Rav and JOFA/OO/egalitarianism/LBGQT. The Rav’s psak had nothing to do with responding to outside pressure. It was based on is reading of the sugyas.

    The issue of OO/JOFA is they paint the target and then look for ways to find it ‘within’ halacha. That approach to halacha is exactly what the Rav fought against for half a century. Saying the Rav is somehwere ‘between’ the RIETS RY and OO/JOFA is a terrible insult to the Rav and reflects ignorance of the Rav’s approach and/or ignorance (naivete) of the issue at hand.

    Take for example, the kashrus of swordfish. There was a debate about this, and many O rabbonim said it was treif and the C said it was kosher. The Rav happened to hold it was kosher. Let us say for sake of argument that some RIETS RY would pasken against the Rav and say treif. Would you then say that ‘just like the RIETS RY dismiss the Rav sometimes, so too the C movement is also not always with the Rav’, and the Rav is somewhere between C and RIETS, r”l?!! That would be absurd.

    1. mycroft
    March 22, 2017 at 5:14 am
    I am not RHS who certainly relies on Rav Asher Weiss eg according to Rav Shay Schachter reason that RHS stayed in US is that Rabbi Asher Weiss told him to stay in US. When Rav Asher Weiss spoke in our community a few years ago half his speech was praising his talmid Rav Shay. I am simply stating that RIETS RY are not following the psak of the Rav in ishut. A psak that the Rav was concerned about eishes Ish. You apparently pick and choose where you agree with the Rav. So can Rabbi Linzer, etc.Rabbi Linzer at least as big a talmid chacham as we are.
    1. mycroft
    March 22, 2017 at 8:36 am
    I am merely stating that my statements of where Halacha lemaaseh was in the US 60 years ago is consistent with the writings of Rav Melech Schachter, the Ravs position and certainly if I have been told correctly agreed with those who of Torah leaders from the 50s and 60s . You wish to follow RHS who follows R ASher W, and RMF go ahead- you just like the people who are being attacked from OO are choosing what of the Rav they agree with. They like you also state 2017 is not 1960s, the only difference is who they follow, you follow RHS they don’t. But neither follow the Rav.

    Mycroft’s claim that RMS write an article portraying he consensus of the 60s, which lasted for 50 years, until the anti-Rav minority view of the RIETS RY came along is just factually incorrect. We have a written record of Birur Halacha as well as RMF’s psak. In all cases, the rabbonim encourage and try to obtain a get. In the few cases where that is not possible, the RIETS RY follow the consensus, including RMF and present poskei hador, to allow the remarriage. There is nothing in that approach which rejects the Rav. Rabbi Rakeffet doesn’t follow the Rav on Land for Peace (inyanei nefashos), does he also reject the Rav’s legacy? The Rav allowed shaving every day during sefira, RAL did not. He poskened to shave only lekavod shabbos. Is that also a rejection of the Rav’s legacy?! RAL was much less supportive of celebrating Thanksgiving than the Rav was. Is that a rejection of the Rav’s legacy. There are other examples as well.

    The CM issue is a machlokes in psak where the Rav is clearly in the minority position, and it is a big, big shaas hadchak, and the psak of the ROETS RY fits into all klalei hapsak.

    Most of the time, the shayla is asked regarding the children from the second marriage, where it is already completely bedieved. And there is no record that the Rav would have poskened that the child is lemaaseh a mamzer. Even Rav Henkin, according to RAS, would not have said that.

    So again, Mycroft has attempted, and failed, to create a lot of space between the Rav and RIETS RY. He failed because as I have shown, there is very little space, if any. There is no space regarding approach to halacha and psak and the ikarei ha’das. There might be minimal space regarding some specific psakim.

    RMT has written that the Rav agreed with RHS’s teshuva of 1984. I explained at length the reality of why there is a perception that RHS moved away from the Rav. It is an incorrect perception. I will not repeat the entire piece here. There was no shift from MO to Centrism. There was a radical shift in feminism which required the leadership of the Rav to respond to, but he was too weak, so RHS took up the mantle and wrote the teshuva which turned out to have been nearly prophetic, r”l.

    Therefore, the following underlined sentence, where Mycroft directly compares (really equates) the approach of the RIETS RY (as expressed in this thread by S. Brizel) with the OO leaders, stands out for its utter ludicrousness.
    you just like the people who are being attacked from OO are choosing what of the Rav they agree with. They like you also state 2017 is not 1960s, the only difference is who they follow, you follow RHS they don’t. But neither follow the Rav.

    The ‘only’ difference’??!!! Have you read any of RAG’s articles? Have you read Rabbi Rosenthal’s book? They (OO/YCT/supporters of the LBGQT agenda etc…) question/reject many ikarei emunah. They question/reject anything close to the mesorah of psak. They question/reject Torah min hashamayim and certainly they question/reject TSHB”PEh min hashamayim. (See my earlier post for a brief sampling, but see the entire book.) There is no comparison at all between they do and the few times the RIETS RY don’t follow the Rav’s pesakim.

    Tragically, the leaders of YCT/OO, in a 100 years (maybe sooner), will go down as the founders of a new non Orthodox, out of the mesorah, movement, just as the R and C leaders have gone down in history.

    It is exactly the same thing here. The fact that the RIETS RY, although they certainly encourage and try to obtain a get, but bottom line do not define the children as mamzerim, and this is based on RMF (and the vast majority of poskim), IN NO WAY INDICATES THEY HAVE REJECTED THE RAV’S LEGACY. It is a machlokes in psak. However the entire agenda of OO/JOFA, which is to try to first accept the liberal, egalitarian, NYTimes approach to the world, where there is no absolute truth, and all behavior, no matter how far from Torah observance, is respected and supported, and then somehow reconcile that agenda with ‘halacha’ is completely against anything the Rav would have agreed with on any level. That is obvious.

    It is indeed tragic that OO/YCT has become a new Conservative movement. There is a lot of wasted talent there. RAG just points it out. It is ridiculous to r”l put the Rav anywhere near their camp. It is exactly the same as saying the Rav is closer to RIETS than the C because he paskened swordfish is mutar.

    o
    o mycroft
    March 20, 2017 at 4:53 pm
    I am personally not in favor of certainly the vast majority of positions that OO/YCT maintain. It end t ask my sheilas of a close talmid of RHS and a recent one non emergency he told me he will Che k with RHS in his next call with him, I certainly will agree with much more of RHS than OO, ThT however does not take away from the so far ludicrousness of comparing them to Conservative Judaism, to the best of my knowledge they have never ruled that one can ride on Shabbos to schul. I am not aware of them rejecting Halacha like CJ, if they do. And I mean the leaders, alert me know,
    There are plenty of YU musmachim who have rejected Torah over the years, show me how OO leader
    have rejected the authority of Shas and SA.
    Reply

     mycroft
    June 19, 2017 at 9:24 pm
    The complete breach between Orthodox Judaism and Conservative Judaism is at least 70 years old. Manifested after Rabbi Gordis 1945 article in allowing driving on Shabbos. Nothing in OO comes close to that

    Rabbi David Rosenthal wrote a book, ‘Why Open Orthodoxy is Not Orthodox’. I will be citing from that book. He starts by comparing statements of early R and C leaders to statements from OO/YCT leaders. I will be citing his direct quotes from OO/YCT leaders. (Members of the staff there, members of the board, graduates who are mentioned approvingly on the websites. None of the quotes below have been disavowed on any level. Just the opposite, when questioned, the heads of the movement give defenses.) He gives the exact references and context.

    Rejection of ‘Mosaic’ Law
    “The Rabbis reject Moses’ judicial views as conservative and archaic.”

    Denial of divinity of the Torah
    “The simplest explanation for these differences between the accounts in Exodus-Numbers and Deuteronomy is that they were penned by (at least) two authors with different conceptions of the desert experience.”

    “We do not have access to objective truth. Humans are created in God’s image, which means that human consciousness is the instrument of divine revelation..”

    “It began with the parts of the Torah which are clearly folkloristic or symbolic in character. The creation of the world in six days, the account of Adam and Eve in the garden, Noah’s flood and the tower of babel- all of these were easily identified as ahistorical…”

    “Abraham and Sara are folkloristic characters; factually speaking they’re not my ancestors or anyone else’s”

    Looking forward to redemption
    “My teacher Rabbi Dr. Cardozo once again hits a grand slam reminding us to get our priorities straight as we approach Tisha B’v. “Whether or not the Temple will be rebuilt is not our concern, nor is it our dream. It is of little importance….”

    “We have made too many mistakes throughout history. The thinking that the messiah is a person or event. They are called bar kochva… and certain Chassidic rebbes. It was Christian influence that helped further this idea of the single divine human. The Jewish notion, preceding that, suggested that all people are imbued with divinity. At the end of the day, I would like to suggest that we are moshiach- we are the ones we have been waiting for.

    Many quotes supporting the Ordination of women.

    The Torah subjugates women
    “And often she must contend herself to davening in a cage in shul…”
    “ I was viscerally in pain in my body because of the repression, exclusion, and marginalization of the feminine in the jewish texts.”

    Giving tacit permission to homosexual behavior (which is as (actually more) severe than driving on shabbos.)
    “I believe we have to come to terms with the fact that, in the long run, Orthodox homosexuals have no choice but to allow themselves to fulfill the intense desire for emotional and physical intimacy in the only way open to them.”

    Other quotes that gay men and women and their partners need to be “fully welcome and fully a part of our communities and schools”

    There is an entire chapter of quotes from YCT/OO supporting the LBGQT agenda.

    Criticism of the prohibition of a kohen marrying a divorcee
    “It hurts seeing the divorcee compared to a prostitute. Why should we ostracize someone whose sole crime is that their marriage dissolved?”

    Erasing troubling texts
    “…but the problem is intrinsic to Jewish texts in general, not just to mystical texts. It is true for the Tanach, Chazal, Rishonim, and Achronim. Texts are products of their times, strongly influenced by their contemporary social reality. As time goes by, we learn to adapt those texts to our new reality, excising or updating the troubling parts or reapplying them [note- Tanach is included] them in new ways.

    After the Holocaust, God needs to do teshuva, the covenant is not binding
    Therefore, morally speaking, God must repent of the covenant, i.e. do teshuva for having given his chosen people a task that was unbearably cruel and dangerous without having provided for their protection…Morally speaking then, God can have no claims on the Jews by dint of the covenant.. It can no longer be commanded…

    God’s imperfection
    “You know what is also interesting about this reading of Shemini Atzeret? God’s loneliness,,, It is funny to talk about God’s wants and needs..

    But that is clearly what we want to say as a community about God; God has issues, like all of us…”

    “In the talmudic imagination, between the two clauses in our verse (Exodus 3:14) Moshe taught God (whom he had only met) a profound lesson about humanity. He taught God that there exists an important, necessary gap between who God is and what we need God to be.”

    Chazal change the Torah
    “Simply read the biblical sotah procedure seems capricious and patriarchal. The rabbis, incorporating Divine ordained hermeneutics, drastically revised the procedure. The result: a process that is sensitive and somewhat egalitarian. They were the progressives of their time…”

    “In other words, Chazal avoided the problem by reinterpreting the laws and presenting their interpretation as the Torah’s original intent.”

    Changing halacha based on social norms
    Some of the leaders promote “finding within the Talmud voices that articulate those same values that are driving us…” [It is ironic that when Rabbi Weiss laid out his vision how his approach to halacha differs from the Conservatives, he wrote that the C held that “if a de’ah exists in the Talmud that never really took hold, one may follow it.” His description of C is nearly identical with what is written above from YCT.

    “my immediate goals for my years in Rabbinical school [YCT] is to acquire the tools that are necessary to overcome the halakhic and social impediments to change.”

    “In truth, this book also reflects my ambivalence about the binding nature of the tradition and the extent to which I follow traditional norms when they conflict with other values I hold.”

    Chazal as misogynists
    “We should resist relating to the metaphors of women as being humiliated and defiled as metaphors for the destruction of Jerusalem and instead cringe of their misogynist uses, we use them as a point of connection to violence against women of all types…”

    [at yeshivat maharat students have a procedure when they come across a “sexist” passage]
    “So we have a jar. In this jar we put a quarter, or a dollar, or whatever seems appropriate when a woman’s voice seems egregiously absent from the conversation.”

    [about shelo asani isha]
    “Written by male rabbis nearly 2000 years ago, these words evoke for me the sexism too prevalent in the O world and beyond. These words have echoes of religious misogynists who throw chairs at women praying at the western wall….”

    “One could also argue that we are religiously compelled to eliminate or adjust the berakha because it is a source of hilul Hashem. Without in any way being critical of our sages (who, like all of us, lived inside a set of contemporary and cultural assumptions), the berakha is a vestage of an understanding of women that is less morally developed than today’s understanding.”

    Diluting the difference between O and R and C
    “But my dream is to have HUC, the JTS, Hadar, and Chovevei on one campus, to move in together. We’d each daven in our own ways, but it could transform the Upper West Side. I’m not talking about closing down campuses, because I want more torah, not less, I want to hear different opinions. Disagreement is OK…”
    “Spiritual striving and religious growth can only be nourished in a state of openness. For this reason, Israel as a state should give equal opportunities to the C and R movements. Their rabbis should be able to conduct weddings and ceremonies.”

    “R Judaism grew by distancing itself from O’s stubborn mistakes. O grew by distancing itself from R’s radical mistakes. All denominations will thrive when they start learning from each other’s strengths and not just their weaknesses….

    “Opensinai.com, a unique online Jewish learning resource funded by [a YCT graduate], has launched. Read more about the impressive new initiative…”
    [the website says, opensinai “seeks to empower Jews throughout the world with the access to real-time pluralistic Jewish learning..”]
    See the book for many, many other similar examples.

    Degrading the Avos
    Many quote that avraham failed the akeidah.
    “Perhaps on some level in the narrative of the akeida, Abraham failed the test. I would suggest this is why God never speaks to Abraham after commanding him to take Isaac as a burnt offering.”

    “Avraham hasn’t just changed his name…. Rather, he has become utterly unrecognizable, losing his essence, his moral intuition. Avraham was willing to sacrifice. But he transcended the normative expectations for giving something up. He went too far.”

    [others in YCT/Maharat say God failed the akeidah]
    “While this was a test for Avraham, there was also a learning curve for God a well. So there seems to me in my read that God set out to test, assuming success, but it turns out that God has to learn along the way that there are actually dangers in this kind of universe… I think that in a sense you’ll forgive the irreverence here for those who find this blasphemous. I think in a sense it was God who failed the test here…”

    I know I am not quoting the full context. Rabbi Rosenthal does give the context and his presentation is much, much more damning than mine. It is frightening to see the exact parallels between the early trajectory of the R and C movements and the positions of YCT/OO.

    I have given just a very brief sampling of the quotations. For each quote, there are several (sometimes many) others. These are all commonly stated positions.

    See also the many articles of RAG on the topic.
    http://cross-currents.com/2015/09/18/responding-to-new-open-orthodox-provocations/
    http://cross-currents.com/2015/07/20/wish-i-didnt-have-to-but/
    http://cross-currents.com/2015/06/15/ordination-of-insubordination/
    http://cross-currents.com/2014/07/27/open-orthodoxy-and-the-rebirth-of-the-conservative-movement/
    http://cross-currents.com/2011/08/21/yet-more-morethodoxy/
    http://cross-currents.com/2013/07/18/from-openness-to-heresy/

    If one supports/condones/accepts without criticism ALL of the above ideas from Rabbi Rosenthal’s book and RAG’ articles, then such a movement is definitely Conservative (at best). And indeed it is “ludicrous” to maintain otherwise.

    To these I would add the following:
    Accepting the Absolute truth of the Torah that men and women are different and play different roles or not? Does one accept the complete authority of Chazal as defining our mesorah? referring to Hashem as the Godhead as opposed to Him, partnership minyanim, women reading megillah for men, women wearing tefillin, , women leading kabbalat shabat, women ‘saving’ their birchot hatorah so they can say a ’birchat hatorah’ at an aliyah,, Hashem not being ‘perfect’ because of His internal hashkafic contradictions, having publicly available podcasts discussing the most private of Jewish inyanei kedusha in the most public way, promotion of the LBGQT agenda, rejecting in one form or another the mitzvah of mechiyas amalek because it is ‘immoral’, davening maariv in a mosque to show solidarity with the Moslems, having a Church choir perform in the synagogue sanctuary to show solidarity with Christians, the list goes on and on and on.

    There are many more breeches and deviations one can add to the list. See RAG’s articles and see Rabbi Rosenthal’s book.

    The combined impact of Rabbi Rosenthal’s book, RAG’s articles as amplifying RMT’s strong essays and RHS’s authoritative tehsuvas is having an impact. More and more opinion makers are defining YCT/OO as C. The Agudah world refers to them as C. Rabbi Rakeffet refers to the as C. Rabbi Maryles’s blog refers to them as C. One RIETS RY said, ‘they are worse than the C. It took the C 70 years to ordain women. It took them around 7.”

    The burden of proof is not on me to show they are C. The burden of proof is on Mycroft and Dr. Bill to try some halfhearted defense to prove otherwise.

    I will let Mycroft get the last word, but before closing I would like to sharpen the mashal I wrote in the previous post about theRav and the RIETS RY.

    Mycroft claims the RIETS RY in many areas have left the Rav’s legacy and there is significant space between the Rav and the RIETS RY. In my previous posts I feel I successfully proved otherwise. The readers can decide.

    But Mycroft makes a more fundamental error than that. Mycroft repeatedly writes that he agrees the Rav would be “closer” to RHS and the RIETS RY than to OO/JCT. In my opinion, that word “closer” expresses a tremendous bizayon to the Rav. The issue is not whether the RIETS RY agree with every psak the Rav gave. The issue is far more fundamental than that.

    The word ‘closer’ indicates there is a spectrum along the same plane. On one side is OO/YCT, and far on the other side is RIETS RY, and the Rav is ‘in between’ but closer to the RIETS RY. R”l to syay such a thing. As proven conclusively, YCT/OO is C. The Rav is not along the same plane as YCT/OO.

    For argument’s sake, let’s say the RIETS RY prohibited swordifsh, and the Rav and the C permitted it. Would one then say the Rav is ‘closer’ to the RIETS RY than to C?! Certainly not.

    The Rav is infinitely far from C because they reject so many yesodos in eminah and have a completely corrupted approach to ‘halacha’,etc… It is exactly the same thing with OO/YCT. The Rav is not ‘closer’ to the RIETS RY than to YCT/OO. The Rav is with them completely in a different universe than the new C movement called YCT/OO. (even if one accepts there is some space between the Rav and the present RIETS RY, they are both together, infinitely far from YCT/OO.)

    Here is the mashal.

    There are 2 parallel lines that are one inch apart. There are two points on one line with space between them. Both points are equidistant from the other parllel line.
    The nimshal is as follows. Let us accept, for sake of argument, the notion that there is some space (IMO minimal at most) between the Rav and the present RIETS RY. They are the 2 points on the line with space between them. But they are both equidistant from the other line. YCT/OO/Maharat/support of the LBGQT agenda, etc.. is represented by the other line. The Rav is just as far from YCT/OO as the RIETS RY. Any suggestion otherwise is a terrible, terrible bizayon to the Rav.

    I maintain that a fair, careful reading to Rabbi Rosenthal’s book, and to RAG’s articles allows for no other conclusion.

    mycroft
    June 19, 2017 at 9:20 pm
    No it is clear that he has much problems with many aspects of OO, but I am simply reporting that if you treat them as Conservative, Conservative is better than nothing.

    Here Mycroft seemingly admits OO is C. Why he has changed back to defending a new C movement, I dont know.

    The issues facing O today are the deviations of YCT/OO mostly revolving around radical feminism, rejection of the complete authority of chazal, and ultimately heresy (depending on your definition), as has been very, very carefully documented by RAG. It is 100% clear that the views of RHS, (Rav Mayer Twersky) RMT, as well as RAG exactly represent the Rav’s approach to these issues. This is what the struggle is about. Take an average US non-yeshivish O shul. Would the Rav want the Rabbi of that shul to believe in or promote the following (take a deep breath):
    Women rabbis, partnership minyanim, women wearing tefillin, women reading megillah for men, women leading kabbalat shabat, women ‘saving’ their birchot hatorah so they can say a ’birchat hatorah’ at an aliyah, Avraham failed!! the akeidah because he should have told (or at least asked) Hashem ‘no, this is not moral’, Hashem not being ‘perfect’ because of His internal hashkafic contradictions, having publicly available podcasts discussing the most private of Jewish inyanei kedusha in the most public way, promotion of the LBGQT agenda, claims of the Rabbis of the Talmud adjusted the Torah shebichsav to be more moral and fit with the times (specifically regarding Sotah), the feminization of the siddur, women reading megillah in public for men (the Rav was against women reading for other women), referring to Hashem as ‘she’ or as Godself as opposed to He, rejecting in one form or another the mitzvah of mechiyas amalek because it is ‘immoral’, not saying shelo asani isha, davening maariv in a mosque to show solidarity with Moslems, having a non-Jewish choir perform in the shul’s sanctuary to show solidarity with Martin Luther King supporters, accepting and/or defending views that Torah is not MiSinai, alleigng that Chazal were misogynists, the list goes on and on and on. Unfortunately, and this is written with sadness, this list is far from comprehensive if one reads RAG’s articles carefully.

    All of these deviations and many more have been carefully documented on this site by RAG. Here, RHS, RMT, and RAG are leading the struggle to save that ‘average’ non yeshivish O shul from falling into the very slippery slope leading to Conservative Judaism. That is what is happening in some presently O shuls unfortunately, and that is exactly what the struggle is about. There is no question at all what the Rav’s legacy is on those issues, none whatsoever. As mentioned earlier, Rav Rakefet has also already referred to OO/YCT as Conservative. The facts in the previous paragraph do not reflect Orthodoxy. Rather, they describe a new form of Conservative movement.

    I would encourage the CC readers to read or reread RMT’s articles presenting the Rav’s approach to the feminist issues, as well his own application of the Rav’s approach to the new deviations. There is no space at all between RMT and RHS in these issues. Note the following opening footnote to RMT”s article about women wearing tefillin.
    “1] Rav Schachter shlit”a has authoritatively dealt with this question in his recent responsum. This essay, disseminated with his approbation, merely seeks to expound and expand upon some of the relevant, seminal issues in a popular forum.”

    Just one more quote from a 1999 article by RMT that is especially relevant:
    Accordingly, if, God forbid, halakha were to discriminate against women in the realm of tefilla, it would eo ipso suppress their religious experience and stifle their spiritual aspirations. Such a religious handicap would relegate them to spiritual mediocrity.
    This false, egregious conclusion replete with potentially tragic ramifications is dictated by women’s tefilla groups. These groups are predicated upon the mistaken notion that the experience of tefilla is enhanced by assuming active roles and conversely is stunted when such roles are off-limits. And yet women’s tefilla groups, conducted with even minimal technical allegiance to the particulars of halakha, cannot provide their participants with the same or even equivalent active roles to those that are available to men praying with a quorum. Within such groups it is impossible to recite devarim she-bi-kdusha as such, fulfill the mitsva of keriat haTorah, etc. And thus, according to the mistaken premise of the tefilla groups, women’s religious life remains muted even within such groups.
    The participants in women’s tefilla groups will, within the present generation, become intellectually and existentially aware of the failure of such groups and the concomitant false yet inevitable conclusion regarding women’s standing within Yahadut. We must recognize that the possible ramifications of this falsehood are especially frightening and particularly tragic. Propelled by negative momentum and misguided by erroneous teachings, some women, God forbid, could reject all remaining halakhic constraints in an unrestrained attempt to enhance their (inauthentic) tefilla experience in particular and religious experience in general. Needless to say, this development would be especially tragic.

    Unfortunately, this tragic ‘prediction’ from the turn of the century has come true. It is the same as RHS’s prediction in his teshuva.

    That is very important to remember. RHS and RMT take the Rav’s ideas and apply them to the newer deviations. They have different writing styles, but the thrust is the same. As mentioned in an earlier post, they do differ from the Rav in their slightly more moderate tone. They don’t, as far as I know, refer to the ‘gas chambers’ or ‘So instead of philosophizing, let us rather light a match and set fire to the beis yisrael, and get rid of our problems.’ If RHS has referred to the Holocasut or ‘setting fire to the beis midrash’ in his discussions of OO/YCT, I will stand corrected. As far as I remember, his most extreme comments are generally him quoting the Rav and applying his ideas to the newer deviations.

    Mycroft is (correctly) challenged by Rav Mayer Twersky’s role. There is no space between RMT and RHS in presenting the Rav’s views on the issues relating to YCT/OO. None. RMT is known for being extraordinarily careful with his words and very, very precise in his writing. And, as mentioned, RMT presents the Rav’s approach to the present day extreme expressions of feminism exactly as Rav Schachter. There is no space between them. So, Mycroft, as part of presenting RHS as not reflecting the Rav on these issues, is forced to writes things like (not a direct quote) that ‘most of what he writes he didn’t hear directly because he as too young, and the like. This is an example of grasping at (very, very weak) straws. RMT is a family insider. He would write things only of he knew them to be defintively true. Nearly all of what he writes is directly based on the Rav’s printed words and printed speeches. Wherever he doesn’t have an explicit source, he writes very compellingly. The fact is that RHS with RMT, as well as Rav Gordimer as their well written spokesman, are presenting the authentic views of the Rav regarding this new Conservative movement.

    Therefore, IMO the criticisms of OO/YCT on these pages, which are based on RHS’s ideas as a hemshech of the Rav are fully appropriate and accurately reflect the Rav’s views as explained by RHS and RMT and others.

    Finally, again I repeat the very insightful words of Rav Rakeffet, “JTS was started by well meaning Orthodox rabbis.” That is what the struggle is about. We are witnessing the rise of a new Conservative movement. There is no question the Rav would have been against, stridently against, their many, many deviations.

    The Torah world needs to have hakaras hatov to RAG and Rabbi Rosenthal for publicizing to the broader community these ideas. Hopefully, some congregations will be saved from r”l becoming C due to their efforts.

    • mycroft says:

      Dr Tovah Lichtenstein “In the United States, I believe that the infl uence of my father, the
      Rov, is on the decline, and part of the community which he taught and
      directed, is moving in other directions. There are those who are turning
      away from participation in the general culture as part of our tradition, and
      fi nd their home exclusively in the four cubits of Torah, shying away from
      general culture and a commitment to Zionism.xxix When the Rov appeared
      on the American scene, most of the community was inclining toward the
      left and the Conservative movement; today, the situation is more complex.
      The toil and effort which the Rov invested in raising a generation of
      Torah scholars has borne fruit and his students’ grandchildren, men and
      women, are involved in Torah study. And yet, there are former students,
      notable among them a number of faculty members or former faculty
      members at RIETS, who have not only turned their backs on the complex
      worldview the Rov espoused but are anxious to claim that the Rov himself
      turned his back on this view. It has even been claimed that “Whatever
      he (the Rov) did aside from learning Torah came to him coincidentally.”xxx
      It is, indeed, preposterous to think that his major philosophical essays,
      which interweave general philosophy and science, are “coincidental.” ” from http://traditionarchive.org/news/_pdfs/0007-00221.pdf

    • dr. bill says:

      you clearly have too much time on your hands. i was sitting with RHS at lunch one shabbat, having just received a pre-print of a teshuvah by Rav Asher Weiss. RHS disagreed violently. this a rare but in no way a singular event. check with his son again. i will not make it easy by telling you the pesakim. rhs is older and it would be inconceivable for that to be true. he has respect for RAW, but is certainly a bar hochi who can disagree.

    • mycroft says:

      “According to Rav Ahron Soloveitchik, even Rav Henkin would not have paskened lemaaseh the child is a mamzer. (oral psak quoted by Rabbi Baruch Simon)”
      I have never opined whether lemaaseh if the Rav was asked about the status of the child born would he be a mamzer. We all know safek mamzer lehakhel, but unlike others I am not speculating what the Rav would do in a different sheila. I refer merely to his psak that the woman cant get married wo a get.

      “Saying the Rav is somehwere ‘between’ the RIETS RY and OO/JOFA is a terrible insult to the Rav”
      It is a true statement, obviously the Rav was much closer in approach to Rav Schachter and Rav Moshe Meiselman than he was to Rabbis Greenberg or Hartman. The fact that reading Prof Kaplans article about Revisionism and the Rav that would be obvious certainly as to Rav Schachter and I will say certainly as to Rav Meiselman but that does not take away one iota from my statement that on a continuum the Rav is in between Rav Schachter and the others.
      ” Rav on this psak is completely irrelevant to the discussion of the Rav and JOFA/OO/egalitarianism/LBGQT.”
      If the Rav and that people don’t follow his psak and the underlying hashkafa behind it and how it differs from Rav Moshe is relevant. They have a right to reject the Rav as others have a right to reject them, but just don’t be a hypocrite and attack people who dont follow this psak or another psak of someone who was not their Rebbe

    • mycroft says:

      “The Rav allowed shaving every day during sefira, RAL did not. He poskened to shave only lekavod shabbos. Is that also a rejection of the Rav’s legacy?! RAL was much less supportive of celebrating Thanksgiving than the Rav was. Is that a rejection of the Rav’s legacy. There are other examples as well.”
      There is no disputing that RAL had other influences besides the Rav he was open about the influence of both Rav Hutner and R A Soloveichik on him. Both of those are much different than the Rav. I have no problem with someone not following someone just don’t claim that they are following the Rav.
      If want to quote a Lichtenstein on the Rav an YU RY see the following fragment quoted elsewhere in full on this post
      “there are former students,
      notable among them a number of faculty members or former faculty
      members at RIETS, who have not only turned their backs on the complex
      worldview the Rov espoused “

      • Steve Brizel says:

        R B Yudin in Torahweb’s wonderful new book on Chinuch mentions that one of the sons of RAL ZL who had learned in the Mir, suggested that changes be made re kashrus in RAL ZL;s homem RAL ZL was only more than happy to do so,

      • mycroft says:

        How does that answer the quote from Dr T. Lichtenstein ““there are former students,
        notable among them a number of faculty members or former faculty
        members at RIETS, who have not only turned their backs on the complex
        worldview the Rov espoused “

      • Steve Brizel says:

        I guess that her own kitchen was changed to accomodate the halachic views of her son. That IMO is what is called living in a glass house.

      • mycroft says:

        “mycroft March 11, 2018 at 8:35 am
        How does that answer the quote from Dr T. Lichtenstein ““there are former students,
        notable among them a number of faculty members or former faculty
        members at RIETS, who have not only turned their backs on the complex
        worldview the Rov espoused “

        Reply
        Steve Brizel March 12, 2018 at 4:04 pm
        I guess that her own kitchen was changed to accomodate the halachic views of her son. That IMO is what is called living in a glass house.”
        How does your response counter Dr Tovah Lichtensteins comment that there are students of the Rav who are RIETS faculty members who have turned their backs on the Ravs viewpoint.
        Re what may or may not happened in the Lichtensteins kitchen for peace some people will accomodATE OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS. hAPPENS ALL THE TIME WHEN NON RELIGIOUS jEWS WOULD BUY kOSHER FOOD FOR FRM VISITING RELATIVES

      • dr. bill says:

        actually, i heard the story directly from RAL ztl, when he spoke in west orange about ten years ago. (i was sitting next to an MD, who told me RAL is not well but is exerting significant energy to speak so coherently.) he said he was upset at his son and asked him I assume sarcastically if he is aware in whose home his mother learned about a kosher kitchen. he said his wife lowered the temperature of the discussion entering into a discussion of what chumrot he wants. RAL noted the positive results her temperament created. the context of the discussion is saved for another day

    • mycroft says:

      One of the problems that is created by those who go overboard and treat OO as Conservative is tafasta meruba lo tafasta. Not that anyone should care about my personal viewpoints but I would never ask Rabbi A Weiss a halachik question, I routinely ask sheilas of RHS talmidim and have had some referred to him-that does not make Rabbi A Weiss a rejecter of Torah. One can argue the issues, in most I might not choose to follow OO but that does not make them a rejector of mesorah.
      About 45 years ago I disagreed with Rabbi Riskin on his advocacy of female Rabbis but someone advocating them has not rejected mesorah, we have no mesorah one way or the other on the issue. A Rabbi is n ot a Rabbi was a two thousand years ago, a thousand years ago or even two hundred years ago. We have no smicha bizman hazeh. Someone wants to call a woman a yoetzet halacha, someone else wants to call her Rabbanit whats the difference. What is important is the functions that she is doing and are they ones that a woman can do. Everything else argued on both sides are sadly increasing sinat chinam. Discuss what a woman can do and leave the fight about titles out. Both sides are playing to their base rather than looking for achdus in Israel.

      • rkz says:

        As I have written before, the question of motivation is crucially important. Rhe “semicha” of women is based on feminism (as the vocal advocates of it clealy state and restate). That by itself is the major problem, and indeed is a rejection of the mesora (and more), even if there was no other halakhic problem with this project (and there are)

      • mycroft says:

        We don’t have semicha, as Rabbi Weider stated it is something else. One must look at the functions performed and there may well be othem, if so we have a legitimate halachik objection, anti feminism is no more legitimate for a position than feminism.
        FWIW I have not seen a satisfactory answer for me yet to Rav Schachters analogy of not having women schochtim, but that is a halachik argument not those that may or may not be true about peoples motivations

      • rkz says:

        http://forum.otzar.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=31425&start=80#p384733

        On p. 182 of the PDF of the linked journal there is an article I wrote (titled he’arot ha’orekh), where I discussed the issue (on a related matter)

      • mycroft says:

        Clicked on link given a lot of choices, tried to determine which of many was yours. but unsuccessful. Instructions once click on link.

      • rkz says:

        The link is a direct link to a post containing a pdf to be downloaded (yarkhon haotzar vol. 6). The Pdf has a table od contents. There is an article titled “he’arot ha’orekh”, with my name (Roye haKohen Zak), p. 182 of the pdf

      • mycroft says:

        “(yarkhon haotzar vol. 6). The Pdf has a table od contents. There is an article titled “he’arot ha’orekh”, with my name (Roye haKohen Zak), p. 182 of the pdf”
        Thanks I later found PDF on my laptop, I guessed by RKZ and looked for a name that would be consistent. Read the item, thanks

      • Steve Brizel says:

        The issues go way beyond ordination of women as documented by a reposting of comments from.a year ago. I ptedict that we will see OO clerics performing a d or applauding weddings between Kohanim and divorcees and converts and at same gender ceremonies in the near cuture all in the name of inclusiveness and pluralism

      • dr. bill says:

        you demonstrate the accuracy of chazal when they described the nature of “predictors” or ptedictors in your language.

        the obligation to be dan le’kav zechut should at least temper your predictions.

    • mycroft says:

      “There is no space between RMT and RHS in presenting the Rav’s views on the issues relating to YCT/OO”

      YCT and OO did not exist when the Rav was with us.
      Be specific of what issues the Rav disagreed with . I do not dispute that the Rav would more often be in agreement with RHS and RMT than he would be with YCT, but that has no relevance to any specific issues. Discuss issue by issue.

      • mycroft says:

        ” n p. 182 of the PDF of the linked journal there is an article I wrote (titled he’arot ha’orekh), where I discussed the issue (on a related matter)”
        Didn’t realize PDF was not opened but link in bottom went to page assume you wanted me to read what hagaon zvi schechter said.
        Thanks for the link.

    • mycroft says:

      “Rabbi Rakeffet refers to the as CI ”
      When he writes books like his on R Revel or R E Silver he is very worthwhile reading. BTW, supporting Meir Kahane is an approach at least as opposed to the Ravs approach as anything I can think of. Think back to Ravs speech in Rubin schul in 1968 against the bullying of Betar against a proposed speech by British ambassador to UN. Imagine that attitude against JDL.

      I

      • dr. bill says:

        i tend to agree. his scholarship and his personal views and politics are not to be given equal weight. my aunt, oleha hashalom, used to say (in yiddish, but for you an inadequate english translation) that he is like like a normally reliable milk cow who on occasion, kicks over the milk can. believe me, it loses in translation.

  31. Steve Brizel says:

    Mycroft wrote in part:

    ” There are many unaffiliated today who were educated by not Reform or Conservative but by musmachim from RIETS and other Yeshivot post 1984.

    Stop ignoring words of published letters of the Rav. The Rav was very careful in his words. His words are consistent with RAL who stated we are not worse off if someone attended non Orthodox synagogue than no affiliation.
    In the 50s and 60s MO was at its strength when YU sponsored a lot of outreach see eg Yeshiva University Synagogue Youth before they were pressured to leave that. It is by the mid 60s and certainly later in your time when MO was attacked repeatedly

    Let me post the following response:

    1) You are confusing two distinct phenomena-namely OTD Orthodox adolescents and the demise of R and C.

    2) The letter in question was RYBS’s respectful refusal to attend a dinner for a heterodox house of worship despite RYBS’s praise for the recipient of the letter. Your comments re the 1950s and 1960s are correct but ignore the fact that the OU and NCSY saw no reason for their work which was succeeding to be dictated by YU or any other yeshiva. FWIW, both the RCA and OU were under pressure to leave the SCA from the Yeshiva world but never left precisely because the presence of a veto over any discusions that remotely smacked of religious pluralism. On this isssue, intellectual honesty would dictate that your POV re the OU and NCSY borders on the hostile for reasons best known to you untlil you acknowledge the role played by NCSY and the OU in helping MO and the Yeshiva world move from their positions of being on the defensive in the 1950s and 1960s to being the most dynamic movements in American Jewry today.

    • mycroft says:

      “ignore the fact that the OU and NCSY saw no reason for their work which was succeeding to be dictated by YU or any other yeshiva.”
      NCSY existed simultaneously with YUSY. YU was not dictating what NCSY was doing its leaders had his own preferences not YUs. No problem, the problem is when steps were taken as Victor Geller wrote to ensure NCSY did not have competition and YUSY was stopped due to the encouragement YU received to leave the business.
      ” FWIW, both the RCA and OU were under pressure to leave the SCA from the Yeshiva world but never left precisely because the presence of a veto over any discusions that remotely smacked of religious pluralism.”
      The RCA had one former President who used to argue against RCA involvement, due to the Ravs influence never really a serious movement, the OU was a major battleground as to whether they should stay in. No secret major executive of Organization was firmly opposed to OU belonging.

      “On this isssue, intellectual honesty would dictate that your POV re the OU and NCSY borders on the hostile for reasons”
      lets start with forcing people who were successful in having gteenagers become frum out of the business-see Victor Gellers book, running an organization that could tolerate Baruch Lanner for decades because he brought in the numbers.
      “best known to you untlil you acknowledge the role played by NCSY and the OU in helping MO and the Yeshiva world move from their positions of being on the defensive in the 1950s and 1960s to being the most dynamic movements in American Jewry today.”
      I acknowledge that the successors to the Rav and his loyal students have worked to successfully disparage his ideology, referring to Dr Tovah Lichtensteins article “And yet, there are former students,
      notable among them a number of faculty members or former faculty
      members at RIETS, who have not only turned their backs on the complex
      worldview the Rov espoused but are anxious to claim that the Rov himself
      turned his back on this view. “

      • mycroft says:

        I should have been written no major pressure on RCA to leave SCA due to Rav but major executives within OU followed their Rebbeim not the Rav and pushed for OU to leave.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        The decision was made by the Board of Directors to stay.

      • mycroft says:

        Are you saying that Bd of Directors are not influenced by their Rebbem on proper halachik positions.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        I am saying that the decision to stay was determined by the board as opposed to the results of any halachic inquiry.

      • mycroft says:

        Are you really saying that OU Board makes halachik decisions without consulting Halachik authorities?

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Same.comments you have posted countless times on this issue and not worthy of a response.

      • mycroft says:

        In response to your constant attacks on Orthodox Jews who disagree with any position that you deem proper.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        When you write the same things about NCSY without acknowledging any of its positive achievements whenever NCSy is even tangentially raised in a discussion that IMO is sad if not irrational.

      • mycroft says:

        “Steve Brizel March 6, 2018 at 7:22 pm
        When you write the same things about NCSY without acknowledging any of its positive achievements whenever NCSy is even tangentially raised in a discussion that IMO is sad if not irrationa”
        I don’t see you writing positive things about OO Rabbis about the people who they have brought back to Yiddishkeit, day school advocacy etc. I worked with some of those people. Compare the number of my posts involving NCSY and yours involving YCT/OO.

    • mycroft says:

      ” the demise of R and C.”
      ” The United States has about as many Jewish citizens as Israel. Reform Judaism is the largest denomination of American Jews (about 38 percent) but has only a tiny presence in Israel. Conservative Judaism is the second largest US denomination (about 33 percent), and Orthodox the third (about 22 percent).”
      from https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/essays/demographics-of-judaism

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Their numbers are bloated with pseudo gerim and there is no shortage of Cand R shuls merging because they cant meet bills and and have a,shortage of youth.

      • mycroft says:

        Data please.
        How many “pseudo gerim? Schuls have merged. More C and R still have Hebrew Schools, for financial reasons practically all schuls have given up Talmud Torah.
        There are cities where no Orthodox schuls but C and R and even day schools.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Ever ver of patrimonial descent as a requirement for gerim? Many C And R have children who have eithet ontermarried or converted to Christianity. I have met prople who were born Christian met a R clergyman and now consider themselves Jewish. Denying xemographic realitoes such as merged houses of worship is denial of facts on the ground.

      • mycroft says:

        ” patrimonial descent as a requirement for gerim? Many C And R have children who have eithet ontermarried or converted to Christianity. I have met prople who were born Christian met a R clergyman and now consider themselves Jewish”
        How many of those are included in the numbers of R and C, Data. They are so much larger than us, that even subtracting any reasonable figure about number of converts , there are still far larger than us.

  32. dr. bill says:

    you can stand by them until ……..; that does not make them relevant. remember your growing list beginning with the name of ANY YU RY who disagrees with how I and everyone I know interpret the rav ztl’s yartzeit shiur where he talked very shortly about HLMM wrt rabbinic law. the name, please.

    • Steve Brizel says:

      You made th e claim. Provide links please.

      • dr. bill says:

        oy, your memory is failing you. remember your posts about HLMM NOT applying to non-torah obligations, i.e. de’rabbanans? still looking for the YU RY who disagrees with me about what the Rav ztl said in a yartzeit shiur. you are wrong – admit it. and don’t forget to listen to Rabbi rakeffet on 3/4.

  33. Steve Brizel says:

    Mycroft- we disagree as to your understanding of the letter in question. One can clearly argue that RYBS respected the heterodox clergyman in question but refused to publicly legitimize what RYBS always viewed as a deviationist movement. The SCA existed and funcguo ed solely because the RCA and OU had a veto power which they rarely used over any potential issues that were klapei pnim un nature. Agudah and he Moetzes disagreed in the 1950s. Tbe SCA died when R and C walked out in the late 1980s.

    WADR MO was on the defensive in the 1950s. YU wanted to run all of MOs policies including shuls and youth work without considering the fact that a new generation of MO lay leaders and NCSY which operated well beyond the metro NY area offered teens a chance at leadership and presented advisors and rabbinic faculty from.a full range of yeshivos and which in tbe 1960s and 1970s hoped that its most motivated and inspired alumni in the years prior to the move to the right and gap years for yeshiva school students eould attend YU and especiallly JSS and SCW. Why you maintain your attitude towards NCSY and its achievements remains a mystery to me.

  34. mycroft says:

    The SCA died in the early 90s due to financial reasons. The R and C really were not interested in supporting it due to financial. The SCA was a roof organization, it really had to raise money itself. IIRC sometime around 1980 their then Ex Dir left. They never had a replacement who was as capable as them.
    I remember YUSY and I was not living near the Metro NY area, many regional Shabbotonim. The reason why they disappeared is mentioned in Victor Gellers book. I don’t need the book for its general point I recall similar information myself from more than a half a century ago. YUSY did not disappear because it was unsuccesful.

    • Steve Brizel says:

      I think the SCA died because R and C disliked the veto .

      • mycroft says:

        A major reason why finances were an issue. Ultimately financial problems closed them down.

      • dr. bill says:

        what you think, may be of interest to you. for the rest of us, a brief discussion with those involved would give you the story. what is important is the Rav ztl was prescient and the RY who issued their issur were not. there is a fabulous comment by RAL ztl in Rav Sabato’s conversations with him about the TV RY, Rav grozovsky ztl, who did not join his fellow RY, despite his chareidi bona fides. it should give people some perspective on giving advice where it might be better to remain silent.

  35. Steve Brizel says:

    Once again your hostility to NCSY which really is a legitimate critic of Lanner and those who protected him long before sexual harassment was even the cause of the year is a mask for a wholesale denial of anything positive that was ever accomplished by NCSY. I stand by my critique of your all too predictable sour grapes like commenrs re NCSY.

  36. mycroft says:

    No I question integrity of people who knew of Lanners activities and didn’t care because he brought in the numbers. They were the leaders of the organization for decades. You have hakaros hatov for NCSY, I never said it did no good. But the behavior that was tolerated for decades is totally wrong.
    Sour grapes I am not in the business of anything Jewish. Not technically NCSY but why their backers spoke to YU to get rid of competition as Victor Geller writes IMO has no defense. I have not said that there are no people who have benefited from NCSY.

    • dr. bill says:

      ncsy is a relatively cost-effective kiruv organization, at least year ago. Its cost/kiruv achieved to various levels is still a large (and AFAIK undisclosed) number. Some other organizations are likely considerably worse. However, they provide employment opportunities for an oversupply of rabbis. Those who double as comedians seem to rise to the top in the kiruv enterprise; a point to ponder.

    • Steve Brizel says:

      Why do youtake Gellers book as gospel and reject that of Zev Eleff? Obviously you reject the proposition that great people take risks and make mitakes including the hiring and retaining of Lanner.your posts in general on this issue show a hostility to NCSY that you back away only when your bias is challenged

      • mycroft says:

        Zev Eleffs book was paid for by the OU. I knew the essence of what Geller wrote when YUSY disappeared over half a century ago. I am not the one with bias on NCSY. You are the one saying people were great. You knew a minor aspect of them, you knew that person better than I, but to me if someone is willing for numbers to accept a person who is acting inappropriately involving NCSYers for decades because he brings in the numbers that is much worse than a mistake it is a fundamental problem in ones behavior.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Wrong again
        Eleffs book was not paid for by tbe OU.

      • mycroft says:

        “Zev says most of his research was not conducted through interviews but through archival research. “Yeshiva’s archive was a great resource for me to utilize, and Rabbi Burg and Ronit Meitlis (Assistant Director of OU Program Development) were consistently supportive of me, looking at rough drafts of the book and putting me in touch with various former and current NCSY officials whose internal documents provided a wealth of information for me. Old NCSY manuals and published documents also came in very handy.” Funding for the book came from NCSY,”
        from
        https://www.ou.org/news/yu_student_zev_eleff_writes_history_of_ncsy_1954_1980/

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Wrong again
        Eleffs book was not paid for by tbe OU.

      • mycroft says:

        Funding for the book came from NCSY,
        from
        https://www.ou.org/news/yu_student_zev_eleff_writes_history_of_ncsy_1954_1980/
        Certainly a house approved book and NCSY is a component of OU.

    • Steve Brizel says:

      We now see that despite the fact that NCSY cleaned bouse you dont have any respect or anything positive to say about NCSY during the more than 10 years that NCSY was doing its work prior to Lanner becoming an advisor. You just have sour grapes about YU closing down its programs which did not serve rhe same numbers as NCSY as well as the lay leaders around the US who were impressed with the results of NCSY. Yes a hige mistake was kept in hiring and retaining Lanner but none less than RYBS.vouched for Lanner.

      • mycroft says:

        “You just have sour grapes about YU closing down its programs which did not serve rhe same numbers as NCSY”
        Do you have numbers of how many both groups served? Irrelevant, of cou0rse, the .issue is that backers of NCSY were responsible for closing down of YUSY.

        ” as well as the lay leaders around the US who were impressed with the results of NCSY”
        As were leaders in YUSY territory impressed with YUSY. Even if what you say is true, not a reason to “encourage” YU to leave the market.

        . “Yes a hige mistake was kept in hiring and retaining Lanner but none less than RYBS.vouched for Lanner.”
        Has any seen the contents of the letter from the Rav vouching for Lanner? Less than a month before the Jewish Week article about Lanner he was the guest speaker at my schul for Shabbos, the promo from OU had him as talmid muvhak of the Rav, which was clearly ludicrous.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        All ancient history. You nust bear a strong grudge against and dislike what NCSY has accomplished both bwfore and after Lanner. FYI AFAIK RYBS orally assured the leaders of NCSY that Lanner had done teshuva.

      • Mycroft says:

        Lander had done Tshuva from what? Cmon the Rav was relying on recommendations of others about talmidim before this time. The Rav had sent letters about other people with recommendations. Lanner was engaging in activities when the Rav was on the way down. It was obvious well before his last shiurim. Lanner was known for his activities for decades.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Lanner probably had a resume, as is the case of any speaker. . Now answer the followiing questions. Did participants in YUSY all understand that Shemiras Shabbos and separate dancing as well as Tefila behind a mechitzah were part of the raison de etre of YUSY? Who were the advisors? Which RY and rabbonim attended ? Do you know that many NCSYers first heard RYBS speak at a National Convention in 197 or 1972?

      • mycroft says:

        “You just have sour grapes about YU closing down its programs which did not serve rhe same numbers as NCSY as well as the lay leaders around the US who were impressed with the results of NCSY”
        Non responsive, I dont have the figures about numbers served, but there were areas where YUSY was strong and NCSY was not. Why did the” lay leaders” need “encourage” YU to close down NCSY. They wanted to get rid of competition for NCSY.
        Have you seen the letter that the Rav vouched for Lanner? What sort of vouching? Same one as when Lanner was a guest speaker at my schul and PR poster from OU, he came because of OU, listed him as talmid muvhak of the Rav. Simply ludicrous.

    • Steve Brizel says:

      Noone is denying that those who were great pioneers in kiruv also made a huge error in hiring and retaining Lanner . You have a grudge against NCSY because its structure which was based on NCSYers electing officers on a regional and national level , where teens met other teens from all over the country, discussions of the issues of the day within a Torah context, keeping Shabbos , exposure to a wide variety of advisors and rabbinic faculty, and separate dancing not dictated on high but voluntarily accepted in locales well beyond the New York area was very successful and led to many of its alumni becoming Shomrei Torah Umitzvos. Only when you are challenged repeatedly do you claim that you “have not said that there are no people who have benefited from NCSY.”

      • mycroft says:

        I don’t see you writing about people who have become shomer shabbos over the decades because of OO Rabbis outreach. It is certainly proper as you do to write where you feel they are wrong. Thus, I do not have to go write that NCSY has accomplished some good things in some cases.
        That does not change one iota from the accurate charges that I have made. It may surprise you that the reason why many people went into Rabbanus was kiruv. Many Rabbonim before NCSY was created were involved as a major function in kiruv.
        Retaining Lanner would have been a mistake if they did not know the truth, since they knew the truth about his activities it was not a mistake.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Only a few rabbonim were active in any kiruv on an individual manner as opposed to kiruv being an integral element of their job description before the 1960s

      • mycroft says:

        Trying to ensure that people would accept Torah and Mitzvot was a major part of the job pre 1960. In fact it was a much more frequent part of the job. Back then far more people had some connection to yahadus even if a three time a year Jew. I can think of many who came to YU in the 60s as a result of being reached by a local Rabbi who came from non shomer Shabbos. Many came with no connection ever to NCSY. It was not new in the 60s. That was the job of any self respecting Rabbi.

  37. mycroft says:

    “However, they provide employment opportunities for an oversupply of rabbis.”
    I have commented that perhaps a reason for the vast increase in assistant Rabbis is a make work effort for the oversupply of Rabbis. There were far more Orthodox synagogues 50-75 years go than today. I recall even large synagogues where a single Rabbi was it, except for a separate Talmud Torah principal, Rabbis were even responsible in general way for the Talmud Torah, much bigger operations.
    I recall attending an opening shiur by the Rav when a new synagogue edifice in Malden Ma circa early 60s, center and swimming pool were part of complex. The extra assistants add costs to Jewish Orthodox life. Raising costs raises the bar and limits those who can follow an Orthodox life. Relatively minor costs compared to others but others may also engage in featherbedding.
    “cost-effective kiruv organization, at least year ago. Its cost/kiruv achieved to various levels is still a large (and AFAIK undisclosed) number. ”
    May be true, but since they do not, nor does the parent organization report publicly its finances as do the following in their 990s among others RIETS, YU, Agudah, Yeshiva Univ HS , one has no idea what they are doing with their finances. At a minimum one must be clean not only beenei elokim but also nekiim beeinei adam

  38. Steve Brizel says:

    Maybe the demands of this generation warrant the expenditures . Assuming that there is a profligate spending of money requires proof by you of the same. We discussed your preference for the IRS as mandated and IIic an accountant and tax lawyer both rejected your contentions that mandatory filing even when not required would reveal anything of value. Perhaps if you read an annual dinner journal you would see where how and for what purposes any mossad raises its money and selects honorees.

  39. mycroft says:

    “Maybe the demands of this generation warrant the expenditures .”
    Maybe if we knew what the revenues and expenditures were one could make a value judgement.

    “Assuming that there is a profligate spending of money requires proof by you of the same.”
    No , the exact opposite if “OU Kosher provides kosher certification for over 1 Million products in more than 8,500 plants worldwide” quite clearly there are dealing with lots of revenue, an organization that deals in so much revenue should disclose. The OU does not claim to be a private club they claim to represent Orthodox Jewry.
    ” We discussed your preference for the IRS as mandated and IIic an accountant and tax lawyer both rejected yOf course, it does, one can compare organizations use of funds for insiders, thus Agudah IMO looks very good in their disclosures on 990s
    “Perhaps if you read an annual dinner journal you would see where how and for what purposes any mossad raises its money and selects honorees.”
    Are you maintaining that an annual journal and PR are as likely to be accurate as governmental statements prepared under penalty of perjury if wilfully false.?

    Reply

  40. Steve Brizel says:

    An accountant and tax lawyer both addressed rejected and dismissed your concerns as unwarranted .

    • mycroft says:

      Non responsive. “OU Kosher provides kosher certification for over 1 Million products in more than 8,500 plants worldwide” quite clearly there are dealing with lots of revenue, an organization that deals in so much revenue should disclose. The OU does not claim to be a private club they claim to represent Orthodox Jewry”
      It is an issue of liyot nikiim beeinei elokim vaadam.
      Since I have not seen the structure of OU, certainly entity of association of synagogues exempt from 990, but how related institutions eg OU Kosher or supervision of foods OK for celiac sufferers, I cant opine.Note that Catholic hospitals ultimately owned by church file 990s. The main issue is aJewish responsibility of ones who are stewards of communal money. Many years of my life I was a “member” of OU and never received info similar to stockholders of corporations do.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Where in Tanach and in what context is “liyot nikiim beeinei elokim vaadam”: stated? Based on the recent unauthorized and documented intrusions by the IRS against pro Israel and conservative groups-why would any entity exempt from filing a 990 volunteer to do so and risk the wrath of a career bureaucrat who might view tax avoidance as tax evasion and have an axe to grind against religious groups? You view Tzedaka as some sort of fiduciary obligation wherein civil rules re discovery etc govern. In the absence of evidence of fraud, the burden of proof of anyone asserting a purported misuse of Tzedaka strikes me as speculative, to use a word that courts use to dismiss a claim that lacks any evidentiary basis. Again, a tax lawyer and accountant challenged and refuted your contentions, but you still disagree for reasons best known to you.

      • mycroft says:

        Do you believe that the organizations representing Torah do not have to be clean beyond even the appearance of improprieties?
        Show me any case of a legitimate Orthodox charity losing its tax exemption?
        Yes I do view that those handling communal funds have a fiduciary responsibility to make sure funds are not wasted.
        Those claiming to handle communal funds have an obligation to show that they are not being used for private benefit. BTW, that is what most of the 990 info deals with.

  41. Steve Brizel says:

    Eleffs book was published by Ktav.

  42. mycroft says:

    “Funding for the book came from NCSY”

  43. mycroft says:

    “Funding for the book came from NCSY”

  44. mycroft says:

    “Funding for the book came from NCSY”

    • Steve Brizel says:

      Providing access to documents and teview of drafts by no means rendered Eleffs book an OU published work. Eleff was the autbor and responsible for its contents.

  45. Steve Brizel says:

    Any historian relies substantially on archival materials unless the author is completely biased from the onset . Your POV would render both the Works of thr Foinding Fathers and KGB archives unsuitanlr as dources

  46. Mycroft says:

    Nonsense. Archival sources are worthwhile but must be looked at with a grain of salt. Hypothetically would you expect archives to have notes of discussions where machers of one organization would threaten to cut off funding to another organization unless they ceased and desisted with certain activities. Memos and minutes are often not intended to reflect reality but to make an argument for the future. Analogy do you believe that by reading Corporate minutes you will get a true flavor of the various arguments that were made pro and con of making decisions .

    • Steve Brizel says:

      All serious historical and biographical studies begin with archival sources. No work of American history or that focuses on the damage wrought by Communism ignores the works of the Founding Fathers with respect to the Declaration of Independence , the Constitutional Convention or the Verona papers unless they have a preconceived bias to the subject. Show me a serious historical or biographical work that was not based in large part on archives. Only a biased author interested in revisionism without looking at archives. The real issue is that you trumpet Lanner’s actions and the failure to respond to the same as a pretext to not accord any Hakaras hatov to NCSY for its successes in the years prior to Lanner’s arrival and after his termination.

      • mycroft says:

        Certainly mipneinei harav is a source worth reading. There is certainly a lot not based on archives.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        The transmission of TSBP is nt definition an oral process from.rebbe to talmid. RHS obviously teliedvin what he learned frommRYBS dorectly and what otber reliable sources related to him as well as excepts of shiurim.and drashos that RYBS said as well.

      • mycroft says:

        Thus, it is not the documentary evidence that is important it is the person stating the information,you accept everything that RHS states as the only truth. There are multiple sources of truth and the context of what was said. Thus, even assuming arguendo that there is no mistakes at all in what RHS heard to what he is transmitting that does not mean for example that some of what he heard could be chakiras that he heard in shiur or what he heard in discussions with the Rav

  47. Steve Brizel says:

    Mycroft wrote in part:
    “I don’t see you writing positive things about OO Rabbis about the people who they have brought back to Yiddishkeit, day school advocacy etc. I worked with some of those people”

    Who, what and when? Please provide details.

  48. yg says:

    MYCROFT WROTE
    I don’t see you writing positive things about OO Rabbis about the people who they have brought back to Yiddishkeit, day school advocacy etc. I worked with some of those people. Compare the number of my posts involving NCSY and yours involving YCT/OO.

    YCT/OO is part of the C movement. Anyone brought back to YCT/OO yiddishkeit who accepts their principles as presented by RAG and RRosenthal and briefly listed above is not O.
    One could argue that it is better to be OO than to not be religious t all, as RAL ztl wrote regarding C. However, not everyone agrees with RAL on that. And furthermore, there is a sdifference. A person who is YCT/OO religious mistakenly thinks he is actually O and has no reason to look for more. Someone C, on some level, often recognizes it is all a fake and will look for more.
    NCSY has brought thousands back to O. The numbers are staggering. The Lily foundation did a study, in the early (mid) 90s, I think. The intermearriage NCSY has prevented alone is of staggering proportions.

    Your comparison between the accomlpishments of NCSY and the ‘accomplishments’ of OO is again “ludicrous.

    When you claim that repeated attacks on OO is an example of “tafasta merubah” and makes them into “martyrs”, that is a reasonable taana, which I and many others disagree with. But the taana is reasonable.

    But given that they are C, which is beyond debate, to compare them to NCSY in any level is utterly ridiculous.

    • mycroft says:

      “YCT/OO is part of the C movement.”
      I am not aware of them advocating chillul Shabbos like the Conservative law Committee did over 65 years ago. Show me what specific halacha they reject. Don’t tell me about those who they dont push out. Many Orthodox synagogues have welcomed those who are mechallel Shabbos to their schul.

      .
      “One could argue that it is better to be OO than to not be religious t all, as RAL ztl wrote regarding C. ”
      RAL is consistent with the Rav. The Rav in his letter to the President of Rabbi Shubows synagogue where he praises them for bringing Judaism to a section of a Boston is consistent. I am aware that elsewhere in his letter the Rav reiterates his objections to mixed pews..
      “However, not everyone agrees with RAL on that. And furthermore, there is a difference. A person who is YCT/OO religious mistakenly thinks he is actually O and has no reason to look for more. Someone C, on some level, often recognizes it is all a fake and will look for more.”
      One could easily on a pragmatic level argue reverse, that someone affiliated with OO and gets exposed to Orthodoxy by day school teachers is more likely to join a non OO Orthodox life than one who is C.

      “NCSY has brought thousands back to O. The numbers are staggering.
      The Lily foundation did a study, in the early (mid) 90s, I think. The intermearriage NCSY has prevented alone is of staggering proportions.”
      Is the study available online? I read studies. Note one has to be careful what one takes credit for, and also long term impact. Thus, at least the studies I have seen about the flipped out phenomena-very soon after returning test is ten-fifty years later Obviously, some people were brought back by NCSY, others impacted like Parah Aduma.

      “Your comparison between the accomlpishments of NCSY and the ‘accomplishments’ of OO is again “ludicrous.”
      My guess might agree with you. My point is that OO has brought some people to observe Mitzvot.

      “But given that they are C, which is beyond debate,”
      We disagree, I personally am not associated with OO, and in general disagree with much of what they do, but to state they are C is not beyond debate.

      “to compare them to NCSY in any level is utterly ridiculous.”
      they both to some extent try to get non observant Jews to become observant.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Mycroft wrote in part:

        “Note one has to be careful what one takes credit for, and also long term impact. Thus, at least the studies I have seen about the flipped out phenomena-very soon after returning test is ten-fifty years later Obviously, some people were brought back by NCSY, others impacted like Parah Aduma.”

        Many of my contemporaries who are proud alumni of NCSY can state that that NCSY was the equivalent of Kabalas HaTorah for ourselves our children and grandchildren. NCSY inspired us to become Shomer Shabbos and to seek a Torah education for ourselves and to build observant families. We do not view ourselves as having flipped out but rather as having acceopted Torah observance and study regardless of a hashkafic label, for ourselves and having raised families that deserve to be called a Batei Neeman BYisrsael. The demographers who value pluralism studiously ignore this fact.

      • mycroft says:

        I have never disputed that NCSY has done some positive things. That would not take away one iota from the scandal of keeping Lanner on board for decades knowing of his behavior, or the scandal of its backers succeeding in forcing other kiruv organizations to shut down.
        FYI I was referring in Flipped Out to the concept referred in year of Israel. There was a book published over a decade ago about the Year in Israel titled Flipped Out.
        I stand by comments that test of success is what happens decades later. Certainly, I will state again that Steve is a success of NCSY and shows great hakarot hatov.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        I see no scandal in YU realizing that it could not and should not compete with NCSY. Like it or not the OU saw no reason to have its views on any subject especially on kiruv dictated by YU. The facts are that NCSYers who had gone to both YU Seminar and NCSY during the same time period voted with their hearts, minds and their parents’ pocketbooks to go to NCSY events where they could become officers on a regional and national level and become role models for younger NCSYers.

  49. mycroft says:

    I worked with someone who davened at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale. He always told me how Rabbi Weiss encouraged day school and helped make it possible for non wealthy to attend. An important test is how religion treats less wealthy. It is no trick to bend over backwards in treating those who can reward you financially well, it is important how one treats the others.

    • Steve Brizel says:

      Every year NCSY raises its own funds to help financially challenged NCSYers attend YU, Touro, Yeshivos seminaries and its summer programs.

    • mycroft says:

      Steve
      There would be no scandal if the facts were remotely as you state. To the contrary YU was told by certain machers of OU that if they didn’t drop YUSY there would financial consequences to YU. It happened around 55 years ago. Maybe V Geller gave more details. No one at YU was trying to close down NCSY. NCSY did not want the competition. The machers involved were not from the Catskills

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Proof please besides your claimed inferences in Victor Geller’s book?

      • mycroft says:

        I am citing my recollections and knowledge from more than fifty years ago, and am citing V Geller as consistent with my recollection.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        No corroborated or substantiated sources,equal no sources.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        I know many who attended both YU Seminars and NCSY during the early 1970s. The simple facts are that NCSYers voted with their hearts, minds and their parents’ pocketbooks to go to NCSY events where they could become officers on a regional and national level and become role models for younger NCSYers. You would have to ask why local OU shuls decided to go with NCSY-lots of it had to do with YU attempting to assert itself as the sole leaders and spokesmen for MO when many in the OU viewed such as the role of the OU and did not view YU as the sole address for providing synagogue and youth services.

      • mycroft says:

        YUSY stopped existing way before the 70s. They were left with just running TLS. They were forced out of being a major player with local youth groups, and regional Shabbatonim etc close to a decade earlier. It is likely that your dealings with NCSY were post the YUSY retreat from being a full fledged youth movement.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Eleff wrote that there was a rentatove merger of assets which YU failed to honor by giving equal time and spave to NCSY.

    • Steve Brizel says:

      Again NCSY annually raises money from its alumni to help the financially challenged attend its summer programs.

  50. Steve Brizel says:

    Mycroft–show us a link that would lead a reasonable person to conclude that as a result of the efforts of OO, adolescents and/or adults have become taken on some semblance of evidence of observance such as Shemiras Shabbos and the like.

    • mycroft says:

      Show me the objective studies about NCSY, percentage of those who ever had any contact with the organization and results both positive and negative. Similarly, you rely on anecdotal evidence I rely on people who have become those who daven ,say brachos and send children to day schools as a rsult of influence of OO Rabbis.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Such a query ignores the fact that teshuva whether kiruv or its flop aide k own as chizuk are individual changes. You would have survey alumni of NCSY to get any data to support your contention. OTOH ig you look hard enough you will find many alumni of NCSY who are active in tbebKlei Kodesh and as lay leaders in many communities both on the OU and many other mosdos.

      • Mycroft says:

        To see NCSY effectiveness we have to determine effectiveness of all who came into contact with NCSY.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        That is not how effectiveness is measured. Looking at how many married Jewish spouses raised Jewish families and the roles played by NCSY alumni both in klei kodesh and as lay leaders are the indicia of the elements of Newish continuity a much ballyhooed but very misunderstood concept in tbe secular Jewish world.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Kiruv and chizuk are fundamentally individual responses that have long term communal effects.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Yet you and many within the MO world avoid dealing with the fact that without either attending NCSYs summer programs and a year or more in Israel at a yeshiva or seminary there is a documented drop off in basic Shemiras HaMitzvos among many MO adolescents and singles. Denying such facts and blaming it all on the move to the right is illustrative of an inability to engage in cheshbon hanefesh.

      • mycroft says:

        Obvious correlation/ causation fallacy

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Ignorance of what is tbere to be seen is not a denial of facts that have been reported and discussed here and elsewhere.

  51. Steve Brizel says:

    R Rosenthal on the footsteps of R Gordimer has documented with links available to any reader that OO is morivated by pluralism and inclusiveness at all costs without concern for either halachic norms or encouraging the acceptance of mitzvos . OO should not be compared with NCSY and its varied goals and programs which are far more wide ranging today than the NCSY of the 1960s and 1970s.

  52. mycroft says:

    “R Rosenthal on the footsteps of R Gordimer has documented with links available to any reader that OO is morivated by pluralism and inclusiveness at all costs without concern for either halachic norms or encouraging the acceptance of mitzvos”
    You are stating motivation, show me what Halachot they reject as a matter of principle. Attempt to be inclusive is not negative, unless you can show me what halachot they advocate not following. Tolerating not following halachot is not the equivalent. How is the attempt to be inclusive worse than following the mets halachik value of anti Feminism to drive ones halachik viewpoints. Neither feminism nor anti feminism is a valid criteria for taking a position.

    • Steve Brizel says:

      Feminism has always had its primary goal the destruction of the Jewish family. Tolerance is far different than the departures from halacha undertaken and advocated by OO.

      • dr. bill says:

        to paraphrase the Rav ztl, you know as much about feminism as I know about, as I know about, repeated a few more times as he faded away. those of us there about 50 years ago, probably remember the 20th-century sefer to which the Rav was referring knowing as little as the Rav knew about????? by anyone else that would be gaavah; by the Rav it was honesty on display.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Are you denying that feminists have always viewed and still view the traditional family as a comfortable concentration camp?

      • dr. bill says:

        again with your black and white view of the world. those who learn gemara at a more sophisticated level, either in the yeshiva or the academy, understand the need to be precise and question the validity of many broad assumptions.

        so to answer your question – ABSOLUTELY NOT.

        undoubtedly some feminist make such outrageous comparisons just as many on this blog make outrageous comparisons. it might stem from the same inability to think with precision and speak in a more accurate way. that behavior tends to categorize the radical fringe of many a group – OO, feminist, chareidi, liberal, conservative, etc. Despite RAL ztl’s caution about confusing tolerance for lack of principle, if more people took the time to seek to understand other viewpoints, as he did, the world would be a better place. Read how he deals with religious extremism versus how religious extremists express themselves.

  53. mycroft says:

    “Feminism has always had its primary goal the destruction of the Jewish family. ”
    Really? “Definition of feminism
    1 : the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes
    2 : organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests” from
    https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feminism

    “Tolerance is far different than the departures from halacha undertaken and advocated by OO.”
    State what you consider the departures from halacha advocated by Rabbis Weiss, Linzer or Katz.

    • Steve Brizel says:

      The founders of feminism always viewed and still view the traditional family as a comfortable concentration camp. That ideological statement says far more than a rather parve dictionary definition . As far as departures from accepted halacha, R Gordimer R Rosenthal and others have set forth a long list of the same and I refer you to reading the same which have been repeatedly documented here.

      • mycroft says:

        “The founders of feminism always viewed and still view the traditional family as a comfortable concentration camp”
        Give me a cite for the comparison to concentration camp. Give me a cite to an OO Rabbi referring to traditional family as ny type pf concentration camp.

      • dr. bill says:

        Venn moshiach vet kommen, vel mir doch a teretz nisht hoben. or for you 🙂 when the Messiah arrives we will still be missing a response. such feminists might exist; OO rabbis, however, only in the minds of…….

      • mycroft says:

        Thanks for translating for me who is Yiddish challenged.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Betty Friedan wrkte that and i posted a link to it here . Selling out to feminists demands is an obvious acceptance of that canard.

      • mycroft says:

        Betty Friedan is not an OO Rabbi.

      • mycroft says:

        “The founders of feminism always viewed and still view the traditional family as a comfortable concentration camp”
        Give me a cite for the comparison to concentration camp. Give me a cite to an OO Rabbi referring to traditional family as ny type pf concentration camp.

  54. yg says:

    o mycroft
    March 12, 2018 at 11:48 am
    “YCT/OO is part of the C movement.”
    I am not aware of them advocating chillul Shabbos like the Conservative law Committee did over 65 years ago. Show me what specific halacha they reject.

    We had this discussion last year.

    It’s not my job to prove OO is C. It is your job to prove they are not.
    R’ Rosnenthal wrote a book detailing the many, many examples of C ideology and practice within OO. The facts are overwhelming, r”l. Any fair reading of the book shows they are C. If you want to claim they are not, then you should go through the book chapter by chapter and refute the arguments. You won’t because you can’t.

    The entire yeshivish world views OO as C. The RIETS RY view OO as C. R Rakefet views OO as C. H’ Maryles’ blog began referring to them as C. That is the consensus because that is the fact.
    If you (and Dr. Bill) want to claim otherwise, against the prima facia proofs of his book, and the opinion of the overwhelming majority of leading Rabbonim in the US, the burden of proof is on you to disprove R Rosenthal’s book. I challenge you to do that. And again, I made the challenge last year, and you didn’t then, and you won’t know, because you can’t.

    Driving on shabbos is not the only thing which makes up C Judaism. Read his book.

    I listed many arguments from RRosenthal’s book which you did not respond to because , again, you can’t.
    Since the publishing of his book, things have only gotten worse.

    Regarding the Rav writing that being C is better than nothing, like RAL, agreed that he held that way. But as I wrote, being OO is worse because they can easily be confused to think they are O when indeed they are not. That is tragic.

    The Lily Foundation study is available, I assume. It is not an O organization by the way. One statistic among many. In the 1990’s the intermarriage rate among non O Jews was hovering around 60+% (Now it is higher). The intermarriage rate among non O Jews who attended NCSY was 2%!!!

    By the way, anyone involved in Jewish education is aware of the incredible impact of NCSY. This is bit of a silly discussion.

    • mycroft says:

      “It’s not my job to prove OO is C. It is your job to prove they are not”
      Just show me where Rabbis Weiss, Linzer or Katz advocate not following a halacha that is accepted by klal Israel from SA .
      ” many examples of C ideology ” Show me where they reject Revelation, just God or reward and punishment.

    • mycroft says:

      Intermarriage rate among those who attended NCSY is 2%-pst hoc ergo propter hoc. Post hoc fallacy.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Even when shown statistics you dismiss them. You just have a lack of hakaras hatov for what NCSY has accomplished both in terms of liruv and chizuk.

      • mycroft says:

        Maybe I should not use Latin phrases. Maybe in interpreting statistics should have stated
        “Correlation is a statistical measure (expressed as a number) that describes the size and direction of a relationship between two or more variables. A correlation between variables, however, does not automatically mean that the change in one variable is the cause of the change in the values of the other variable.”
        The intermarriage rate now of those spending 12 years in Orthodox day schools is greater than general intermarriage rate in 1920, Of course, that does not mean that attending Orthodox Day Schools causes intermarriage.

  55. yg says:

    o mycroft
    March 12, 2018 at 11:48 am
    “YCT/OO is part of the C movement.”
    I am not aware of them advocating chillul Shabbos like the Conservative law Committee did over 65 years ago. Show me what specific halacha they reject.

    We had this discussion last year.

    It’s not my job to prove OO is C. It is your job to prove they are not.
    R’ Rosnenthal wrote a book detailing the many, many examples of C ideology and practice within OO. The facts are overwhelming, r”l. Any fair reading of the book shows they are C. If you want to claim they are not, then you should go through the book chapter by chapter and refute the arguments. You won’t because you can’t.

    The entire yeshivish world views OO as C. The RIETS RY view OO as C. R Rakefet views OO as C. H’ Maryles’ blog began referring to them as C. That is the consensus because that is the fact.
    If you (and Dr. Bill) want to claim otherwise, against the prima facia proofs of his book, and the opinion of the overwhelming majority of leading Rabbonim in the US, the burden of proof is on you to disprove R Rosenthal’s book. I challenge you to do that. And again, I made the challenge last year, and you didn’t then, and you won’t know, because you can’t.

    Driving on shabbos is not the only thing which makes up C Judaism. Read his book. Apparently you have not.

    I listed many arguments from RRosenthal’s book which you did not respond to because , again, you can’t.
    Since the publishing of his book, things have only gotten worse.

    Regarding the Rav writing that being C is better than nothing, like RAL, agreed that he held that way. But as I wrote, being OO is worse because they can easily be confused to think they are O when indeed they are not. That is tragic.

    The Lily Foundation study is available, I assume. It is not an O organization by the way. One statistic among many. In the 1990’s the intermarriage rate among non O Jews was hovering around 60+% (Now it is higher). The intermarriage rate among non O Jews who attended NCSY was 2%!!!

    By the way, anyone involved in Jewish education is aware of the incredible impact of NCSY. This is bit of a silly discussion.

    • dr. bill says:

      if you wrote this way when i taught undergraduate courses in logic as a graduate student, you would fail. i don’t need to deal with al ha’geulah ve’al ha’temurah either. i might like some litvishe rabbonim of the previous generation, read them in the bathroom, but the paper i use there is not meant for commenting.

      i do agree with you about the effect of ncsy even on the non-orthodox siblings of a non-orthodox NCSYer.

  56. Steve Brizel says:

    The Lilly study is available via Amazon . The findings of the study were summarized in a 1998 Jewish Action article anf if you have the time there is a copy of the study in YUs library as well.

    • mycroft says:

      Sind old Jewish Actions are available online I went to 1998 issues on line I did not see any article, maybe I missed it. BTW there was an interesting analysis of 1990 Jewish census

      • Steve Brizel says:

        Google it under Faithful Youth

      • mycroft says:

        Thanks from article
        ” survey of more than 1,000 former members of NCSY. In it, a strong correlation is drawn between increased (or, at the least, not decreased) religious affiliation, observance and outlook, and membership (especially active involvement) in NCSY”
        “The Lilly Report cannot state conclusively that membership in NCSY is the overriding factor leading to increased Jewish observance, but it does indicate a strong correlation. Other studies have also cited a strong correlation between membership in youth groups and an increased awareness of Jewish identity. One such recent survey is the one conducted for Young Judaea, Hadassah’s youth organization,[1] to show how membership in Young Judaea, a non-denominational Zionist youth group, has a high correlation to Jewish awareness and in-marriage relative to the general Jewish population. For its own purposes, the Young Judaea survey compared the results of its survey to weighted data obtained from the 1997 National Survey of American Jews[2] – which, in turn, was conducted to show that members of a Jewish Community Center showed more Jewish awareness than did the general population not affiliated with a JCC.

        The demographics of these studies vary, and the results, therefore, cannot be directly compared with statistical accuracy. For example, the NCSY study deals with a relatively young population, many of whom considered themselves Orthodox in high school. Although many of these teenagers attended public schools, their synagogue affiliation, level of ritual observance in the home, or NCSY influence in their high school years made them describe themselves as Orthodox. Former members of Young Judaea come from various backgrounds and include a contingent of older people. Also, the organization considers itself to be pluralistic as regards affiliation with any particular “stream” of Judaism, and stresses Zionism rather than religion as the prism through which all matters Jewish are seen.”
        “Even after all the interviews are completed, numbers crunched and reports written, questions remain. For example, Dr. Friedman points out that: “It may well be that teenagers who are most influenced religiously by the NCSY experience are those who tend to be particularly drawn to a religious atmosphere and to the emphasis on religious learning that NCSY seeks to provide for its participants during the high school years.”

  57. Steve Brizel says:

    Mycroft-Zev Eleff cites Gellers activities as well as that of YUs CSD but notes that the numbers in CSD were declining just as the OU reinvigorated NCSY in the late 1950s. Eleff also documents how and wby the OU decided not to view itself as subservient to YU and that a proposed merger of assets between NCSY and YU failed because YU refused to give equal time to NCSY and viewed Shabbatonim as recruiting events for YU which lay leaders did not view as the purpose of Shabbatonim. You seem to forget or deny thr fact that way back when in the early 1960s NCSY and CSD avoided each others turf but YUs CSD began to snipe at NCSY as NCSY grew in size stature and rabbinic and lay popularity . Tell us whether in your experiences as a YUSY participant whether you ever participated in the election of officers or met teens from Alabama Ohio Chicago St Louis and the West Coast and whether there was total adherence to Shabbos and no mixed dancing at your Shabbatonim. Readers of Eleff and Geller should know that Geller worked for YU after working at the OU and NCYI the latter of which had no issues with mixed dancing during the late 1950s and which gradually moved away from such a position.

  58. mycroft says:

    I met teens from Ohio, Michigan and NY. I do not recall chillul Shabbos.
    YU ran TLS not only in Camp Monroe, before they started Morasha but also regional TLS. In addition to Shabbotonim.
    There is no doubt that YU used its YUSY as a way to attract students to YU. Many of whom went to YU from a Talmud Torah background and are frum and have frum grandchildren today. None of which would have happened without YUSY. YU also ran Continuing education in Jewish Ed through synagogues throughout North America.
    I personally do not recall mixed dancing as programs, did some teenagers act inappropriately, certainly, but much more recently I have seen some act inappropriately in NCSY activities.
    I was aware of YUSY in my area,not NCSY, may well be what you state is that then they both avoided each others turf, I have no knowledge of that. Nothing takes away from my statement that YUSY effectively was folded because of machers from one of the locations that you listed who caused a decrease of a kiruv organization..

  59. Steve Brizel says:

    You really dodged the specific question that I posed to you . Thats because you accept Gellers memoirs and reject Eleffs history. You are entitled to your beliefs but many would assert that they do mot resemble the facts on the ground.

  60. Steve Brizel says:

    http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/03/08/mother-couragewww.nysun.com/arts/reconsiderations-betty-friedans-the-feminine/86003/

    For those interested:

    “The job of housewife, in her estimation, was intrinsically unworthy and undignified, an occupation best suited to “feeble-minded girls.” She called the suburban home a “comfortable concentration camp” where women suffer a “slow death of mind and spirit.” Like the inmates of the camps, she said, American suburban housewives had become “walking corpses.”

    • mycroft says:

      One can’t take any comment of anyone and apply it to a whole movement. I’m sure RIETS would not want to be responsible for all intemperate utterances of a RY
      Betty Friedan was not an OO Rabbi. Betty Friedan does not equal feminism.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        All of feminist ideology begins with an attack on and denouncing the traditional family which is a key element in the transmission of Torah to the next generation. It is obvious that feminists are not content with mere access to textsvand literacy. Many refuse to accept any gender based differences in Halacha and Minhagim as having any validity.

      • mycroft says:

        ” Many refuse to accept any gender based differences in Halacha and Minhagim as having any validity”
        As far as I am aware no one suggests a man must be tovel in a Mikvah after 7 Nekiim. No one suggests a female circumcision.

      • Steve Brizel says:

        What a remarkably inappropriate comparision. One should never compare any RY Lhavdil elef velef havdalos with Friedan and her ilk.

  61. mycroft says:

    I did not dodge the questions , I wrote what I know, I did not see some of what you claim, I stated the states that I recalled people from, I didn’t recall from other states. Eleffs book paid for by NCSY I assume quotes accurate memos, that does not necessarily mean that history from one side is accurate.. FYI I read regularly what Eleff uploads to academia.edu.
    FWIW I have not disputed that NCSY is a net positive, I have disputed the black and white attacks that are made on everyone else who has ever engaged in kiruv and exaggerations and one sidedness. I respond to the attacks by pointing out that your heroes may well have done net positive but they’re not saints and those who had different approaches are not evil. I maintain that trying to ensure that you have no competition is a bad action.

  62. Steve Brizel says:

    Great people make mistakes. That seems to be something that you cannot accept but which defines anyone who pushes conventional thinkinh and assumptions. When Chazal say that the Avos or Moshe Rabbeinu sinned it meand that they sinned on their level not ours. That is how they are judged judt ad we are judged on our levels for our transgressions.

  63. mycroft says:

    Agreed, everyone makes mistakes I do, every Gadol does, every RY does. No one is infallible. Neither you or I are bochen kliyot valev. Some feminists may attack traditional family, whatever that means. Does a woman work? Is she educated? Is she treated as equal to a man? Is a man treated equal to a woman?
    There are many religious feminists, those who advocates womens education, those who advocate equal right for both sexes. How is someone advocating” 1 : the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes” opposed to the family, or even Torah values.

  64. Steve Brizel says:

    Feminism and its fellow ideilogical companions known as LGBT have wrecked havoc on the conventional family. The Jewish family which depends on a husband wife having and raising observant children is threatened by a movement that views proceation within marriage and its values as not in accordance with its goals. A society that does not value having children nor eaising them within a structure of values and mores anchored by tbe family will not survive without rejecting such a threat or developing coping mechanisms and strategies.

  65. Bob Miller says:

    How do we poor readers sort out all these assertions and recollections? Do we know if anyone in this thread has the breadth of knowledge to see the really big picture without major areas of ignorance or doubt? We could have 1000 comments and be no closer to closure. The blog medium is inadequate to the task. Before this thing reaches book length, I suggest that the main antagonists create their own books or at least booklets to develop their thoughts in the most understandable way.

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