‘Pre-War Era Bnei Torah Were More Confident in Their Ability to THINK’

Seichel!

I will never forget a conversation I had with Rebbetzin Zlata Ginsburg a”h. We were discussing the differences between the yeshiva world in the 1990s and the yeshiva world of pre-war Europe, where she was born and raised. Rebbetzin Ginsburg was a daughter of Rav Yechezkel Levenstein zt”l, famed mashigach of Mir and Ponovezh, and the wife of Rav Efraim Mordechai Ginsburg zt”lrosh yeshiva at Mirrer Yeshiva in Brooklyn and a close talmid of the Brisker Rov. She was born in Kelm and was raised in Mir and Kletzk in the heart of the pre-war yeshiva world.

She told me that one fundamental difference was that bnei Torah of the pre-war era were far more confident in their own abilities to think, analyze something, and make a conclusion based on their own seichel than people are today.

She told me that so many people don’t seem to have confidence in their ability to think and draw conclusions based on what they see. They are constantly running to ask others to think for them.

I asked her, “So people shouldn’t consult with their roshei yeshiva, rabbonim and mentors?”

She replied, “Of course, there are times when you have to ask a question to ah kluger Yid (a clever Jew).” [“Not every talmid chochom is ah kluger Yid,” she added parenthetically.] “But that is only after you have thought the entire thing through on your own and broken the question down to its essence.”

She felt that the lack of ability to think for oneself was a combination of intellectual laziness and lack of confidence in one’s own abilities. The bnei Torah of pre-war Europe were far more secure in their ability to think for themselves, she would say.

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From Yated, here.

לבנות מזבח בגורן ארונה היבוסי – ותעצר המגיפה

תפילה בהר הבית לעצירת המגיפה

תפילות לעצירת המגיפה העולמית מדי יום בהר הבית • היום ב-12:30 תפילה מרכזית עם פיטום הקטורת • הכניסה מ-7:00 עד 10:30 ומ-12:30 עד 13:30 • יש להקפיד על כללי ההלכה

בן למואל יום ראשון, י”ט אדר ה’תש”פ

מדי יום יתקיימו בהר הבית תפילות לעצירת המגיפה העולמית.

היום (ראשון) בשעה 12:30 תתקיים תפילה מרכזית עם אמירת פיטום הקטורת.

הכניסה להר הבית בין השעות 7:00 עד 10:30 ומ-12:30 עד 13:30.

יש לטבול ולחלוץ נעלי עור לפני העליה להר הבית.

הכניסה בהתאם להוראות משרד הבריאות.

מאתר חדשות הר הבית, כאן.

Does Calling Up a Jew in Quarantine = ‘Bikur Cholim’? (And Does It Matter?)

Video call to the ill patient

Question:

Can one fulfill the mitzvah of bikur cholim via a video call or phone call or does one have to be in the presence of the patient?

Many thanks

Answer:

While this is an act of chesed to speak with and inquire over the phone or video, the actual mitzvah of Bikur Cholim is only fulfilled as it was originally commanded to us, by a visit in person.

תשובת מורנו הרב

מצות ביקור חולים ע”י שיחת טלפון

רבינו האגרות משה יו”ד ס ס ינ”ג דן אם אפשר לקיים מצוה זו ע”י שיחת טלפון וכתב לדון שהרי מצאנו כמה טעמים במצוה זו א’ שיתפלל על החולה ב’ שישמשנו ג’ שיחזקנו בדברים ולפי הטעם שיתפלל עליו או יחזקו זה שייך גם על ידי שיחת טלפון אך לפי הטעם שישמשנו זה ודאי לא שייך בטלפון אך לענ”ד נראה פשוט שבודאי אין מקיים מצוה זו בטלפון דגם אם שייך לחזק רוחו ע”י שיחת טלפון הרי אמרו שצריך לבקר את החולה ואפשר לקיים מצוה זו רק ע”י ביקור ממש ולא ע”י שיחה מרחוק וצריך לקיים מצוות התורה ותקנות חז”ל כפשטות מעשיהן ולא בכל דבר אזלינן בתר טעמא וכיוצא בזה כתבתי במק”א עין מנחת סל גיטין ק י”א וס ג’ בענין קנין מעמד שלשתן דהנה בגיטין י”ג ע מבואר שאין סברא בקנין זה אלא הוי הלכתא בלא טעמא ובספר שו”ת דבר יהושע חידש שגם בשיחת טלפון משולשת אפשר לקנות בקנין זה אך לדידי פשיטא שאין לשבש ולשנות את עיקר צורת המעשה שתקנו חז”ל משום הענין הפנימי שיש בה ולכן גם אם מסברא אין לחלק ביניהם אי אפשר לקנות ע”י שיחת טלפון דבעינן מעמד שלשתן שהם עומדים ונמצאים במקום אחד ומשו”כ נראה דאף דבכל שישת הטעמים הנ”ל אפשר לפעמים לקיים ע”י שיחת טלפון מ”מ אין בזה מצות ביקור חולים אלא גדר גמילות חסד בעלמא ובודאי ראוי לנהוג כן כשאין בידו לקיים מצות הביקור כפשוטו מצד החסד שבמעשה אך אין בזה עיקר מצות ביקור חולים

From Tevunah.org, here.

Online Aliyah Seminar Draws 2,500 Jews

‘Virtual’ Mega Aliyah Event Draws 2,500 Participants In Face Of Coronavirus Crisis

JERUSALEM (JNS) — The annual Mega Aliyah Event, which provides potential new immigrants (olim) with an all-encompassing slate of resources for retirees, young professionals, medical professionals, families and singles, that was set to take place in New Jersey on Sunday, with an expected 1,500 individuals in attendance from 15 states across North America, was turned into a virtual meeting due to the recent coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak worldwide.

And a record 2,500 participants joined online in real time.

The virtual event included multiple online lectures on a wide range of topics in order to provide potential olim with accurate, reliable and relevant information to help ease their aliyah process. The webinars were broadcast live, via Zoom, and delivered by Nefesh B’Nefesh experts as well as Israeli professionals in the medical, legal and financial fields.

“During this challenging time, we are directing our hearts and prayers to those affected by the coronavirus pandemic,” said Rabbi Yehoshua Fass, co-founder and executive director of Nefesh B’Nefesh. “In light of this complex situation, we refocused our approach and decided to use the best technological and digital tools available to provide potential olim with all of the same, necessary information, continuing our support in every situation on their way to fulfilling their Zionist dream of living in Israel.”

The online seminars included rights and benefits for new arrivals, converting a U.S. medical license to an Israeli license; Israeli tax payments for retirees and the general public; employment options in Israel; buying and renting apartments; the Israeli education system; and the Israeli health-care system.

During the online event, potential olim were able to ask questions via a chat function or call into the Nefesh B’Nefesh call center (1-866-4-ALIYAH), which was staffed by the organization’s aliyah and employment departments, to answer any inquiries and questions from participants.

Following the virtual fair, all lectures were saved on the Nefesh B’Nefesh YouTube page and are available to watch at any time.

From Vos Iz Neias, here.

Corona: Knowing Who To Trust Is Trickier Than You Think

Suddenly Everyone Is a Corona Expert

In 2008, I ran for federal office in Illinois. I had the opportunity of spending every day speaking to voters.

It was an affluent and well-educated district, the most affluent and well-educated in all of Illinois.

Favorite places to campaign in the mornings were the commuter rail stations. Everyone there had a minute or two to spare as they waited for the train.

I observed a phenomenon that I wouldn’t have believed had I not observed it.

Every day of the week, including Thursday mornings, I would hear what was on the minds of the people I saw. By Thursday night, the weekend news cycle would start. A story would break, an idea would get disseminated. Friday, it would catch on a little more. Saturday and Sunday, it would be all over the networks. And by Monday, people would be radical and opinionated supporters of some idea that they literally didn’t know a thing about four days earlier.

Weekend-after-weekend, this would occur, like clockwork. And again, these weren’t grade school dropouts I was talking to.

There’s an aspect of confirmation bias that marketers have long understood as significant: the more education you have, the more successful you’ve been inside a system, the less likely you are to see contradictory information from unfamiliar sources as valid. Also, the less likely you are to approach the ideas presented to you by a trusted source in a circumspect fashion.

Basically, if you’ve got a PhD, you eat most of what’s fed to you, as long as it’s fed to you by the right people.

And the news doesn’t just have a way of getting people opinionated, it has a way of making one feel educated, almost expert on a topic.

Gary Johnson, bless his heart, appeared on TV during the 2016 election not knowing, gawd forbid, what Aleppo, Syria was. Few Americans know what Aleppo is. Many who are honest with themselves only remember the name of the city because of Gary Johnson. The great gaffe though was that he didn’t know Aleppo during a media educational blitz on Syria. Every well-heeled and educated person in America was quickly learning all the most important three to five talking points about Syria that the echo chamber media deemed important, allowing them to feel educated enough on the topic, but as anyone who actually knows the topic would realize: actually quite ignorant of it all.

Nearly all Americans were ignorant. Some were self-certain in their great knowledge, despite their ignorance. Gary Johnson made the mistake of being openly ignorant and unaware of the latest propaganda being used to manufacture consent.

He could hardly have done a better job proving himself an outsider worthy of derision. If you aren’t up to date on all the latest propaganda then you are clearly not in the know. And Gary Johnson, barely notable to more than 1 or 2% of voters, became known immediately by every know-it-all New York Times, New Yorker, and Weekly Standard reader.

How dare he not be able to recite the most important three to five talking points like it were the Gospel. How dare he!

The three to five talking points of every important topic is distributed weekly in the technocrat’s bible – The Economist. The Economist appears to have tremendous breadth and depth of knowledge. But that appearance has serious limitations. I’ve never once been impressed by The Economist’s coverage of a topic I knew intimately, and have long disliked the pretentious title of a publication that is practically anti-economics. But reliably, the technocrat learns everything he or she needs to know in its pages in order to sound smart to those who don’t know any better and to be able to uphold the status quo with certainty while actually knowing very little.

That is The Economist: not only the anti-economist but also propagandistic anti-thought snippets for the people who have had some of society’s most costly resources poured into developing their minds.

Having witnessed years of propaganda every weekend since 2008, after which people suddenly care with passion on Monday morning about things they knew nothing about the previous Thursday, the appearance of experts on the coronavirus is no surprise.

Virtually no one knows anything about this topic that they didn’t get from a sensationalized media source, and 75% of that, at the very least, is second- or third-hand information from the least reliable, least independent, most biased of sources: a government. Not just any government, the Chinese government.

SARS (2002) is still being figured out. MERS (2012) is still early in the process of being figured out. It’s possible it will never be fully understood. Yet three months into the WuFlu/Wuhan Corona/Covid-19 outbreak every know-it-all in my life is suddenly a corona expert?

Give me a break.

It’s all the same nonsense.

Some stuff we just don’t know. That means live your life as best you can, hope for the best, prep for the worst, love the people close to you, be mindful of them, and don’t let some know-it-all con you into their grand schemes. Chances are, they know as little as you do, but while your mistakes might impact the few loved ones around you, their mistakes may impact billions.

Medically, the establishment helped encouraged ideas that didn’t pass the sniff test: like unwashed hands being used by doctors to birth babies, lobotomies, X-rays to treat ringworm of the scalp, the Tuskegee patients thinking they were receiving medical care and being allowed to develop advanced syphilis in the name of research, thalidomide, standard episiotomies, standard hysterectomies, using nasty, dirty amalgams in dentistry and then topping it off with mercury, the swine flu vaccination debacle of 1976, asbestos in talcum powder. This list can be much longer. Every example on the list received the affirmation of lots of experts and caused harm to lots of overly trusting people.

Being able to make a mistake that may impact billions: That’s a power no one deserves. The more they claim to know, the less likely they are to know. The more they need to insist to people that they know, the less likely they are to actually know. Most of us have pretty good BS detectors. Trust your BS detector.

Now, more than ever, as more people get fearful, as the media stokes that fear, as the grocery store shelves get more empty, as the government steps in to say they are here to help, the more vital it is than ever to trust your BS detector.

When it comes down to it, you’re probably the only one who is actually motivated to protect your own interest. No matter how bad it gets, and no matter how much anyone claims expert status about a topic, you’re the only one who deserves credit for being the expert on you, and the only one who deserves permission to be “the decider” for you.

From LRC, here.