To conclude: Yeshivos are a wonderful thing, truly; if you can keep them around honestly. But if holding your Yeshiva afloat requires wrongly putting the group ahead of the individual, the whole enterprise loses its Jewish value.
The same is true for other crooked worldly means, like impure funding, or deceiving your students into misreading (teaching Briskian baloney instead of honesty and logic).
To repeat the title once again: Judaism is anti-establishmentarian. (Even disestablishmentarian where necessary.)
העורך Editor
Antidisestablishmentarianism On Hyehudi.org
One of our more careful readers struggled to reconcile an article seemingly attacking establishments as such, such as this one, with many others which endorse them.
This is the quote he mentioned:
He added on a personal note (paraphrased):
I myself have anti/dis-Establishment inclinations, though am a big fan of Kehillos (indeed, that is what most people’s לבם חפץ), and am trying to figure out if there is a way to reconcile the two leanings honestly.
Answer:
“Inclinations” need to be reconciled by consistently obeying halacha, as Chazal say on “בכל לבבך”.
As for how establishments can exist if they put the individual first (when they must), I say: “בהדי כבשי דרחמנא למה לך”. Let Hashem work it out. (This applies to a great many areas.)
Let’s Get Rid of Our Feminist Readers!
Is there any misogyny in Mishlei and its commentators?
Mishlei 23:22:
שמע לאביך זה ילדך ואל תבוז כי זקנה אמך
Rabbenu Yonah idem – Women are not as intellectual as men:
אל תבוז אמך, אע”פ שאין החכמה מצויה בנשים. כי זקנה. ויש לה חכמת הנסיונות. על כן לא תבוז לה כי תעיד לך על אשר שמעו אזניה וראו עיניה. ויש לפרש, “אל תבוז כי זקנה אמך”. אל תבוז לדבריה אע”פ שזקנה והיא למשא על אחרים מפני שצריכה לזולתה ואין עזרתה בה.
(A certain rabbi once said in a lecture to men to never correct their wives. One of his homiletic proofs was stressing the word “לחכם” in the verse: הוכח לחכם ויאהבך)
Metzudos idem – Women tend to prattle senselessly:
כי זקנה, אף אם זקנה אמך לא תבוז אמריה לומר לא בסבי טעמא אף כי דרך נשים לה להרבות אמרים מבלי השכל.
And the simple meaning of Mishlei 11:22 is that it refers to an uncomplimentary female archetype, as pointed out already.
Is any of this misogyny? Not by my own definition. If racism consists of unjustified pride on the part of those doing the labeling, misogyny must be defined only as wrongly looking down upon the other sex. It’s not that different groups lack certain positives, but that we are all handicapped in different ways.
P.S., I forgot to mention “Eishes Chayil”: Competent women are rare.
How You Tell Who the Israeli Deep State Are
See who comes first…
There is a fascinating demonstration of this in the bestselling “As Long As I Live: The Life Story of Aharon Margalit” (“Es’haleich” in Hebrew), chapter 30 and on (p. 315 in the English-language edition).
“Nobody Nothingstein” as far as the regime is concerned, or as we ourselves call him, “Aharon Margalit”, was scheduled for a critical operation to remove a malignant growth from his face. The rare operation was scheduled far in advance and required many different doctors to be present, etc. Then a VIP’s son fell off his bike, and a scan revealed a tumor on his leg. So the dauphin came first, of course. Socialism (and waiting on line) is for the Little People.
Significantly, the book, published in Israel, casually neglects to mention the identity of this VIP. (I may or may not know.)
Yes, it all turned out for the best in the end (you’ll have to read the book!). But that’s not the point…
Don’t Emulate Rabbi Elyashiv on This!
Mishna Berurah, end of siman 317:
הפותל חבלים חייב משום קושר והמפרידן ואינו מכוין לקלקל חייב משום מתיר [רמב”ם].
Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv would answer shei’los as they were asked, taking people literally, as though they meant the words they spoke exactly, and without adding any additional clarifications, and with no differentiation between ignoramuses and scholars.
There is a famous\infamous story about this.
Someone observed two Jews asking the rabbi the apparently identical question; about tying bread bag metal strip ties on Shabbos. To one he permitted it and to the second he forbade it.
The observer, shocked, asked why and wherefore the difference in response to the two questioners. Rabbi Elyashiv responded that both had demonstrated the twisting action with hand motions, the first questioner once, and the other twice. To the one who mindlessly showed the twisting motion twice he forbade, and to the one who mindlessly did so only once, he permitted…