8 Comments

I protest.

ZL Teitelbaum, aka the 'Ne'im Hamidos', aka the Rebbe of NJ wheat, is not the representative of Charedim. He is just another simple guy, at the back of the Beis Hamedrash, reading the weekly output placed on the tables.

Find a real leader, not someone who inherited real estate and lots of meat.

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Sorry, but I think this article is not necessary. To be a maskil, one must be a maskil, and stam idiocy shouldn't be worthy of any response.

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author

I think most of what we respond to, including the stuff at RJ, falls under the category of "stam idiocy". Unfortunately, that too requires a response. Somebody has to be the garbage man.

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Mar 9, 2023·edited Mar 9, 2023

No, if you are fighting MODOX, than it is a fight against people who in general accept Chaza"l's authority, just assume that chaza"l were sometimes wrong on scientific issues. Likewise, sometimes they argue how to interpret specific points (normally points that extend the torahs opinion to what is accepted today in western society).

This article is against an idiot who has the approach of a kra`i to mikra, and disregerds chazals understanding entirely, and even his own approach doesn't begin to shtim with the text.

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"No, if you are fighting MODOX, than it is a fight against people who in general accept Chaza"l's authority, just assume that chaza"l were sometimes wrong on scientific issues"

1) isn't this a fact? There are plenty of places where chazal were wrong on scientific issues.

2) That has nothing to do with Modox. Many chareidim, including gedolim such as R

Dessler and R Shmuel Kaminetz say this.

3) Modox is a hashkafa of Torah Umadda. Has nothing to do with Chazals (supposed) inerrancy.

4) Agree that Lau is Conservative, probably not even Open Orthodox. Not mainstream at all. He explicitly disregards chazals interpretation, so I am unsure why it is even pointed out in this article .

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Mar 8, 2023·edited Mar 8, 2023

I don't think that right. The liberal modox probably have doubts whether the whole thing happened. Like the Gaon says about Jonah, like Shir Hashirim and Job, it's all allegorical. That's a better way of resolving all these questions

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author

You're right about that. But I don't think the Gaon said Yonah never happened. Yonah ben Amitai was a real navi. Just that his story also serves as a parable, the same way Pharaoh is a parable for the yetzer hara.

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The amhaaratzus of using the Ga'on about Yonah as a source for the morons is akin to using the Ga'on as a source that Iyov never happened.

Of course, Iyov is a machlokes in the Gemara, Shir Hashirim is not a story, and Yonah actually happened. The story is the allegory.

And Esther certainly happened, we have an unbroken tradition until then. We know who our ancestors until then were. It's not that difficult.

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