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(There is also Hidabrut’s new YouTube alternative here.)

במאמר חדש וקצר אודות נהיגת נשים במכונית.

I suspect the rumor quoted in Rabbi Dov Eliach’s beautiful “Hagaon” biography the Vilna Gaon said the Arba’ah Turim was a “ספר משובש מאוד” is accurate. (Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, though he originally gave a written approbation to the Sefer, was unhappy about this sentence after it was published (and two other small things), so told me a grandson of a certain close friend of Rabbi Kanievsky a few years ago.*)

The Beis Yosef, unlike the Kesef Mishneh, is constantly getting stuck on understanding what the Tur really meant. See for example the Perishah Y.D. 194:11 which the B.Y. seems not to have even thought of (although he surely saw the Agur quoted in Darkei Moshe).

The Bach, too; sometimes he edits freely, and other times he “says Peshat” (…!). How do they all decide which approach to use each time? I think the Tur itself is not mentioned as often or as prominently in halacha as he would have been, had the book been clearly phrased and well-edited.

(See also B.Y. Yoreh Deah 194 end of sub voce “Ain Ha’isha Teme’ah”.)

*Which, by the way, tells us how to judge Rabbi Kanievsky’s official, reported “retraction” of his Haskamah (approbation) upon the outrage expressed by Chassidim regarding the two chapters in “Hagaon” concerning the Vilna Gaon’s opposition.

It’s hard to prove Judaism has been subverted in our time because those claims which made it most vacuous are kept out of the books. You can find such travesties as Mechiras Chametz and hair-like hair-coverings in the Poskim, but the very worst heresies are only passed on orally, like in a cult, especially to those who fall afoul of them.

This is why it’s harder to find written evidence on the regular bookshelves of Chassidic and Mussar antinomianism, the esoteric meaning of the “Chadash assur min hatorah” catchphrase, Brisker doctrines on denying reality (such as the infamous “Am Ha’aretz chicken” story) — among other things, and many more.

For a “book-based” nation, it seems strange there are important customs that somehow manage to evade a well-written exposition. Like the “holy” battles of Rabbi Shach against half of his contemporaries, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum‘s view (adopted by other fools “in principle”) Eretz Yisrael is only for Torah scholars (Only Teshuvos Vehanahagos writes about this a bit, because he lacks the horse sense to realize this doctrine contradicts entire parshiyos in the Torah, see the parable here!).

Like the “insight” Yeshiva youth need not (and therefore ought not) observe the Torah they are busy studying (which has nothing to do with the Dinim Vehanhagos sometimes looped in on this!), hinted at throughout the “Tenu’as Hamussar” set by Rabbi Dov Katz (such as reading Shema at its proper time or covering the tables on Shabbos (which has nothing to do with eating, as they are covered on Yom Kippur, as well), or eating only truly kosher food).

Like the notion, all mitzvos are capable of observance without their numerous, peripheral “Tzitzin” of halachic “side-constraints/conditions” leading Judaism away from “legalism“.

Chazon Ish – Emunah Ubitachon, end of chapter 4:

והתמדה בדרך הדביקות מצד אחד וההזנחה בתלמודה של המצוות מצד שני, יוצרת שיטה שלמה הנראית לרבים, ומתבלטת כיצירה מסוימה, המכרזת על עצמה, ועל אלה המתיחסים אליה, כאילו אמרו חלילה הרינו מקבלים עלינו מלכות שמים ע”מ שאין עלינו דקדוק הדין.

וההכרזה הזאת הלא היא מחמורה שבחמורות, חבר הוא לפורקי עול, ולא עוד אלא שהקבלה על הדברים שהם נכנסים במחיצות קבלתו מזויפת בהחלט כאשר סיג וצרורות של המראה מעורבות בה, עירוב מכוון ומבוסס, מחושב ויסודי.