העורך Editor
What Can We Learn From a Story Without Details?
Quoting Rabbi Chaim Aryeh Zev Ginzberg (in Mishpacha):
One day I received a call to drive Rav Yaakov to Brooklyn, where he would deliver a hesped for an elderly gadol who had lived many years earlier in America, but had spent the last decades of his life living in Eretz Yisrael. I was to drive him from Monsey to Brooklyn and then back to Monsey.
…
Years earlier the rav being eulogized had worked for a few years at an institution whose standing was controversial. And so Rav Yaakov stood up and said, “Some people may be asking why this great rav went to a particular institution.
“The answer is: He was an adam gadol, and on an adam gadol we don’t ask any questions!”
With that he sat down.
See the rest here.
Without knowing more, this story is worthless. If our readers can shed light, I would appreciate it.
re: The Case for Locking Economists Away in Mental Homes
For a more level-headed discussion than my own comments (that is, partially simple “pointing-and-shrieking“), hear Robert Murphy’s hour-long critique of MMT baloney and of Miss Kelton’s own “contributions”.
Or better yet, read the penetrating but readable article by Dr. Murphy on this!
הודעות של חיילים המאשרים שה’מלחמה’ נועדה להכשל
לא ראיתי בעצמי, אבל הנה מה שקבלתי במייל:
R’ Yirmiyahu Cohen’s ‘I Will Await Him’ Falls for the Naive Reading of R’ AY Kook
As we explained yesterday, there is no reason to believe Rabbi Kook thought the Three Oaths still applied, even in his day. (I don’t know where else Rabbi Kook addressed this question explicitly, if at all, but the whole thrust of his work and life is clear.)
Yet here is Rabbi Yirmiyahu Cohen recruiting even Rabbi Kook himself into the opposite camp in his book, “I Will Await Him” p. 250-251, all based on this one, single, singularly impossible passage (the Audacity of Hopelessness?):
(This scan was sent in by one of our anonymous anti-Zionist readers. I didn’t read before or after.)
Of course, even without the Arab threats, every State (or other autonomous grouping of people) requires an army, and this is unmistakable.
It is all the more ludicrous to think the permissibility of defending the Jewish people in our time utterly hinges on this question (even ignoring the Steipler’s differentiation between before and after the fait accompli of a State). Some degree of self-defense is permitted and obligatory even without full independence, אכמ”ל.
Rabbi Kook actually supported the establishment of pre-state self-defense militias (and used near-identical phrasing here and there). The borrowed verse “Not by might and not by power” means we recognize Hashem acting, occasionally even through the veil of obligatory human effort (ד’ דברים צריכין חיזוק), whether it be in earning a livelihood or defending our lives. We may continue acting with Bitachon in Hashem and continue “awaiting” the full and complete redemption, both public and private.
Why didn’t Rabbi Cohen ask a scholar or two before publishing this in a book? (I haven’t read his book.) More importantly, could the rest of his work be no less shoddy and irresponsible?
Rabbi Cohen himself seems aware of the vicious opposition Rabbi Kook aroused on the part of anti-Zionist Jews. I mean, bringing Rabbi Kook in support of wild anti-Zionist quietism is almost like Dominican meshumad Pablo Cursediani bringing “proof” from various Midrashim in support of Osso Ha’ish, Midrashim authored by those who in real life rejected the man and his movement…
Again, find the true background of Rabbi Kook’s words here.