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Marion

Mon, Dec 01 2008, 11:41 am

Tamiri wrote:

Hey, I suggested Barbara has MO thought process based on what she wrote and got a "disgusting and insulting" retort.
Some other gal suggested that the thought process was "apikoress" and.... silence.
Why did *I* get blasted? Rolling Eyes

I responded to one of the apikorsus comments. There were a couple, but my reply works for either.

marina

Mon, Dec 01 2008, 12:05 pm

Tamiri- I would guess that Barbara mistakenly thought you were serious and meant it in an insulting way.

The rest of this discussion is best framed in a "to what extent should we rely on miracles" paradigm. Barbara is pointing out that having everyone sit and learn is essentially forcing us to rely on miracles and ein somchin al hanes would apply. Hashgacha pratis is not mutually exclusive with the concept of hishtadlus or free will.

Quote:

You see, I don't believe that everything happens because that's exactly the way HaShem wants it to happen.

Saying that things happen beyond G-d's control is apikorsus.

Quoting Barbara's post selectively, twisting it around and then crying "apikorsus" is intellectually dishonest and beneath the posters who are doing so. I find it to be also in extremely poor taste.

There is a world of difference between saying that things happen beyond G-d's control and between saying that things happen that is not the optimal way Hashem wanted it to occur.

Did Hashem want it to happen that Adam and Chava got kicked out Gan Eden? Did Hashem want the Jews to build a golden calf? Did Hashem want the Beis Hamikdash to be destroyed? Did Hashem want us to suffer in exile? Does Hashem really want moshiach not to have come yet? In a global sense, yes, you can say that no event takes place without the will of G-d. But whether we sin or not, for example, is our choice and G-d surely does not want people to sin, to murder, to kill innocents in a chabad house in Mumbai, but they do anyway. Is it part of the bigger picture, the larger plan? Sure, you can say that, but it doesn't absolve you of any moral individual responsibility. No one is allowed to say, hey, if I steal this loaf of bread, clearly Hashem wanted it that way, so here I go.

Whether someone is allowed to say, I will not work/serve in the army and depend on Hashem to send me parnassah/safety, that is a discussion of whether we should rely on miracles and the level of bitachon that is required of us. It has nothing to do with apikorsus or free will or aveiros. Her statement is simply a point that she believes, like many of us do, that depending on someone else to fight your battles for you is depending too much on miracles and not putting forth enough of your own initiative. You are welcome to disagree with her position, as I do to some extent, but it is disrespectful to allow this conversation to degenerate into ad hominem attacks.

HindaRochel

Mon, Dec 01 2008, 12:39 pm

sarahd wrote:

Political leadership, not military. If Chizkiyahu or Dovid Hamelech were running the country, then talmidei chachamim could safely enlist in the army.

And if you think a yirei shamayim would ever make it to chief of staff in the Israeli army under any other circumstances, even if every single hareidi man enlisted at 18 and served a full three years in a combat unit, you're really deluding yourself.

Exactly how do you expect those with yirei shamayim will make it anywhere if they aren't in the army and haven't been there for 20+ years.

You join the army. You get yelled at a lot. At first you learn to drill, and you push yourself to the max physically. Then you get a lot of boring jobs. Hopefully. If things are too exciting it is probably because there is a war. You do drudgery and you listen to idiots yell at you, and you mourn those buddies and commanders who are killed guarding a crossing or at war. You get injured or you rescue the injured or you are shot at, or you shoot others. You make it. You make it for a number of years.

And you start rising in the ranks.

The only way to know they won't make it is if they are there, the majority of them are there, and don't rise. Not a few here and there, how many people do you think rise to the top ranks? Exactly how many chief of staff's are there?

bandcm

Mon, Dec 01 2008, 12:45 pm

Marion wrote:

Chava wrote:

Quote:

You see, I don't believe that everything happens because that's exactly the way HaShem wants it to happen.

Saying that things happen beyond G-d's control is apikorsus.

Not it's not. G-d gives us freedom of choice. That means that a person who Hashem meant to be one of the biggest tzaddikim has the choice to do the worst aveirot.

G-d gives us free choice, but everything is still known and planned by Him.
Let me explain. If I know you love chocolate, and I say, "Do you want a chocolate bar or a bowl of cereal?" I have given you free choice. However, I know what you are going to choose. And if I was G-d, I was the one who gave you your partiality for chocolate. And if you shocked me and chose cereal, well, if I was G-d, I would have known that too.
It's complicated, and takes years of studying chassidus (or perhaps other disciplines, such as Mussar, with which I am not familiar) to begin to understand, but let no one say that G-d can't plan everything, or that things happen outside of G-d's control.

octopus

Mon, Dec 01 2008, 12:50 pm

bandcm, we can't really fathom the true meaning of free will and how to reconcile that with Hashem knowing everything and controlling everything. We can draw analogies to help us understand, yes. But if we truly understood how G-d runs this world....then we would have to be G-d.

shalhevet

Mon, Dec 01 2008, 4:35 pm

HindaRochel wrote:

sarahd wrote:

OK, so lots of MO boys do just that. Not only that, but everyone knows they are among the most idealistic and dedicated soldiers in the IDF. So maybe name a few who have risen to top ranks. You won't even find one. Because the army doesn't want someone with a kippa at the top.

ora_43

Mon, Dec 01 2008, 4:39 pm

dainty diva wrote:

And in my rebbe's opinion, the English were good enough to protect Palestine! It was the problem of establishing a Jewish State and therefore relying on chosheve bocherim to serve in the army instead of learning!

What does your rebbe say about the Hevron massacre, the Tzfat pogrom, and other times when the British did nothing to protect Jews?

I don't understand the line about "relying on chosheve bocherim." Men who learn in yeshiva full-time have been granted an automatic exemption from IDF service since the very beginning. Nobody is dragging men out of kollel to make them serve in the army.

shalhevet

Mon, Dec 01 2008, 4:40 pm

marina wrote:

Quote:

You see, I don't believe that everything happens because that's exactly the way HaShem wants it to happen.

Saying that things happen beyond G-d's control is apikorsus.

Quoting Barbara's post selectively, twisting it around and then crying "apikorsus" is intellectually dishonest and beneath the posters who are doing so. I find it to be also in extremely poor taste.

I think I understood exactly what she was saying. Maybe you'd like to elucidate how my post quoted selectively or twisted Barbara's post.

If I misunderstood her, she can explain how for herself what she actually meant.

mali

Mon, Dec 01 2008, 5:19 pm

justmom wrote:

Tamiri, I hear you loud and clear. Shalhevet, who is going to protect you and your family if Tamiri's son and all the boys leave the army? Hashem is not prone to send revealed nissim in our days-- and after all the sinas chinam exhibited here recently, I'd be surprised if we were zoche to any nissim at all. We need the nissim of the Israeli army to make Hashem's nissim seem to be b'derech hatevah.

please remind me who protected us during the gulf war...

mali

Mon, Dec 01 2008, 5:20 pm

and then just a quick reminder who the carriers-out of the evacuation two years ago were...

dainty diva

Mon, Dec 01 2008, 6:57 pm

What my rebbe says? Pure instigation, that's all! All through the yrs. yidden lived peacefully side by side w/the arabs. Until the zionists came about, claiming land, displacing arabs, so on and so forth....

bandcm

Mon, Dec 01 2008, 7:52 pm

octopus wrote:

How Hashem runs the world...no, humans can't understand.
But the meaning of free will and Hashem controlling everything...the more chasidus you learn the more you understand (I mention chasidus because this is what I, personally, have learned. There may well be other disciplines which discuss these ideas too.).

bandcm

Mon, Dec 01 2008, 7:57 pm

dainty diva wrote:

Are you for real?
Ever heard of the Almohades? They were really nice Muslim Arabs who murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews, beginning about 800 years ago.
Those nasty bad Zionists who displaced Arabs...do you think they chased them from their homes at gunpoint?

Racheli

Mon, Dec 01 2008, 8:40 pm

Why couldn't Tamiri be serious in calling Barbara modern orthodox as a compliment. When did Modern Orthodox become an insult? I'm proudly Modern Orthodox and I agree with everything Tamiri has said here.

BeershevaBubby

Mon, Dec 01 2008, 11:45 pm

Racheli wrote:

She was being serious... as Tamiri is proudly DL/MO as well.

Tamiri

Tue, Dec 02 2008, 12:02 am

Thanks. I can sleep well knowing I have spokespeople accurately speaking for me. :D

BeershevaBubby

Tue, Dec 02 2008, 12:06 am

Tamiri wrote:

Thanks. I can sleep well knowing I have spokespeople accurately speaking for me. :D

You can mail me my usual fee LOL

baba

Tue, Dec 02 2008, 4:11 am

dainty diva wrote:

You cant be serious! Ever wonder what happened to the nice Jewish communities in all the Arab countries? I'm sure that was also all the "zionists'" fault.

sarahd

Tue, Dec 02 2008, 4:47 am

Was it not? Pogroms were just about unknown in the Arab world before the Zionists came around. The Middle Eastern and North African communities had to leave after the establishment of the State of Israel.

baba

Tue, Dec 02 2008, 5:26 am

sarahd wrote:

Very very untrue! And you're confusing something that was a trigger, not the actual cause. There's always an excuse to persecuit Jews. Since the state of Israel people, and apparently even Jews, have found a new one. But how can you even look at the our history and think that what went wrong in the Middle East is all Israel's fault. Just google if you want. But I can bring many examples of persecution from before 1948.

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