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Current Rabbis: Enemies of Jewish Law

Indeed. There is no greater threat to Halacha than most rabbis charged with defending and disseminating it. We have already noted many examples, but the Shabbos eruv is one of the most obvious ones.

Fact: Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv knew and understood so-called ‘general’ eruvin are invalid but supported them nonetheless. He preserved the deceptive practice of merely instructing questioners to avoid relying on them, as though this avoidance was mere chumra.

Source: Tikkunei Eruvin #109 on Hyehudi, here (page 1, second column).

Many rabbis believe Judaism is their private business. Instead of speaking the truth, as they must, they calculate calculatingly what’s best for ‘sales’. And how could rabbis know Jews would violate Shabbos if they knew the eruv was invalid? It’s simple: they don’t. Like the Gemara says about non-Jews, rabbis don’t believe Jews can keep Shabbos. Worse, they themselves cause naive Jews to carry on Shabbos through their silence about (and actual involvement in) the counterfeit government city eruvin.

As usual, Rabbi Yitzchak Brand illuminates the scandalous history (emphasis mine):

[הטעם שגבבו קולות עד אין סוף, מביאים בונה תיקוני עירובין, תשו’ נפש חיה (ס”ס כה) שעשו כך בגלל שבין כך היו מטלטלין, וגבבו הרבה קולות כדי להצילן מודאי אסור, אולם לפי”ז היה ראוי להכריז שאסור לטלטל, אבל לא עשו כך ושוב רובם טלטלו. ועצם הנהגה זו צע”ג, שהרי מצילין העוברים רק מאיסור דרבנן, שאם יש רשה”ר דאור’ לא מהני עירוב, ומכשילין אלו שלא היו מטלטלין מקודם באיסור תורה.

ועוד שמעתי מרב אחד, משום שלא היה לכל אחד תנור לטשולנד [חמין] בשבת, ולאופה העיר היה תנור גדול, ושם הטמינו כל העיר את החמין, ואחר התפילה היו כולם הולכים ולוקחים את החמין מן האופה, ואילו לא היה עירוב בעיר, לא היה חמין בשבת, וזה היה בבחינת פקוח נפש רוחני, כי בלי חמין אין שבת ובפרט בארצות הקרות, וממילא כל היהדות היה עומד בסכנה, וממילא דחקו הכל כדי להכשיר העירוב, וזה בגדר הוראת שעה, אולם כהיום שכל יהודי יש לו תנור בשביל החמין, אין שום סיבה ליכנס בדוחקים כאלו].

[ועוד, מאן לימא לך שנהגו בסדר, ועי’ בה”ל (סי’ תרצ סעי’ יז ד”ה ואין לבטל) שהביא דברי הפר”ח (מנהג איסור סי’ י) ושם הביא דברי הריטב”א (פסחים פ”ד) שאפילו אם נעשו מנהג ע”פ גדולים בעולם, ועכשיו רואים שיש איסור צריך לבטל אותו, וכ”ש כאן שידוע שהיו תמיד עוררין גדולים על עירובין האלו ואכמ”ל, וע”ע ויקרא (כו מ)].

No matter how or why a sin began, after some time, status quo bias kicks in…

Bottom line? Today, all Jews must become independent Torah scholars, if possible. You must know when to ask, whom to ask, and how. Not only can we not rely on rabbinic leniency enacted in response to (real or imagined) human weakness, we cannot trust the language used for faux-stringency either.

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‘Who Spares His Rod Hates His Son’

A Personal Example

Chinuch – Childrearing – begins with birth. The first few years are the time to lay the groundwork for all future behavior.
One of the most complicated tasks facing parents is chinuch – proper child rearing. Considering that chinuch begins with a child’s birth and continues for close to, if not more than, two decades, it’s far from being quick and simple!
As parents, our task is to prepare our children for the future, giving them foundations that will last them their entire life. Accomplishing this is a continuous and formidable challenge facing parents on a daily basis.
Chinuch is often mentioned in the Torah, for example, “And you shall make [these statues] known to your sons and your son’s sons (Devarim/Deuteronomy 4),” “and you shall teach them diligently to your children (Ibid. 6:7).”
In the Talmud we find, “May Rabbi Yehoshua ben Gamla be remembered favorably, for if not for him, Torah might have been forgotten from the Jewish people… He established that the community must hire Torah teachers for the children in every province and every city.” (Masechet Bava Batra 21a). This was probably the first comprehensive, nationwide system of compulsory education in world history.
Beginnings
Chinuch begins with birth. The first few years are the time to lay the groundwork for all future behavior. Children are the most astute observers! They absorb everything they see and hear and then internalize these observations to create their personality. From their parents, they learn habits that will remain with them for their entire life.
For that reason, it is extremely important that even when a child is very young, parents must do their best to impart proper values and to behave ethically. Since parents are their children’s main role models, it becomes obvious that the children’s chinuch begins with the parents’ chinuch!
 
Children do not learn ethical and proper behavior through listening to lectures or discourses. They learn from observing their parents! When a parent behaves in an unethical or irresponsible manner, the impression deeply impacts their children’s souls, influencing their future behavior.
Clarify and Uproot!
It’s up to us to clarify what moral principles we want to instill in our children, and then perfect ourselves in them, so that we will become the type of role model we want them to imitate. This chinuch is based on the parents’ commitment to personal character development.
If we don’t want to see negative character traits in our children, we must first uproot them from ourselves. We need to learn to be careful in how we express ourselves, in both speech and deed. If we, as parents, are lax in certain behaviors, we certainly can’t criticize our children about them!
“He who spares the rod hates his child” (Mishlei 13:24). If we spare the rod of mussar – ethical exhortation – from ourselves, we are demonstrating a lack of concern for our children’s development.
When children hear words of rebuke from their parents while observing behavior deserving of that rebuke, they become confused by the hypocrisy. Hypocrisy destroys chinuch!  When faced with imitating what they’ve seen or what they’ve been told, children almost invariably choose to model the behavior that they’ve seen in the home, and then continue to educate their own children in the same way.
Modern democratic societies are concerned about the education of its citizens. But even more important than formal education is the chinuch that children receive at home.

Critiquing Sefer ‘Chafetz Chaim’ and Defining ‘Toeles’

In general, I am not in favor of Chofetz Chaim-based lashon hara guidelines (as her propounds in this essay), for several reasons. People over-apply them. They are formulated in a way biased to prevent possible slander, more than concerned for protecting potential victims. They took what had, until this point, been a mostly hashkafic and good-middot matter, and transformed them into halacha. And while some contemporaries disagreed with him, for lashon hara, unlike the rest of his halachic work, we don’t have an Aruch HaShulchan disputant to give contrast to his Mishna Berurah.

Hear hear!

The Pischei Teshuva (O.C. 156) notes that while Mussar books are strongly focused on the prohibition of speaking Lashon Harah, there is a worse sin – not speaking up to prevent harm to others!

I think the entire post shows the problem with trying to work out “Judaism” using feelings and Mussar instead of Halacha. This is a far wider topic. Anyway, see the rest of the article.