[Avodah] TIDE and Austritt

[Richard Wolpoe]

On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 2:34 PM, <ssvarc at yeshivanet.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 01:39:57AM +1000, SBA wrote:
> : Does anyone deny that RSRH and SIL had strong kanoi and anti-zionist :
> hashkafas? Or is that one part of the TIDE world that we want to forget :
> about?
>
> R' Micha, in reaction, asked:
> A question for Avodah -- were Austritt and TiDE inextractably linked as
> one overall hashkafah? Or can one agree with RSRH on TiDE but relegate
> Austritt to a time when R was in rapid growth and a challenge to O?
>
> My answer:
> To me it is clear, after reading R' Elias ;) and Collected Writings, that
> they are inextricably linked. It is a clear outgrowth of the need for the
> Torah to reign supreme in all areas, including communal as well.
>
> However, the question of his reaction to Israel is more complicated, and I
> won't venture a guess as to where he would of ended up. Someplace on the
> spectrum from Brisk (total Austritt) to Agudah (ideological Austritt but
> pragamatic cooperation), where exactly I don't know.
>
> KT,
> MSS
>
>
I have not read  Rav Elias. It seesm to bme very obvious.
Yet Austritt was inextricably linked to TIDE in Germany
As far as I am concerned, in the USA and in the Post-holocaust world there
is not a shred of evidence that it is necesary or even desirable for TIDE to
work.

The USA is not a centralized society as was Germany under th Kaiser. I won't
go into all of this but it is obvious that communities wer acreatuers of teh
Government and indepndence was paramaount

This was never true of the USA.

The basic assumption of Austritters of both TIDE and  other RWO  communities
is really based upon a flawed premise.

Illustration. If I am a military chaplain in the US aremd forces I recognize
chaplains of other demonations as legitimate pastors, too. That in NO WAY
means I recognize their underlying religion or faith as a "valid
"altenrative".

R. Dr. Norman Lamm was raked over in the Jewish Observer on this one decades
ago. But it was a fasle straw man. Working with leaderrs of non-Halchic
ongregations in NO WAY confers upo0n them any kind of  religous validity, it
is only the defacto recogntion of communal leadership. As Lamm retorted "yes
like Jewish Boy Scout Troops"
or something simliar.

I grew up in W. Hartford, CT. All kinds of clergy got together for all kinds
of reasons. I never ONCE thgouth [even when a young kid!] that any Modern
Ortho YU type rabbi  felt that  they recognized C or R rabbis as legitmate
because they discussed some common  communal need.  This is IMHO a canard
based upon "guilt by association"

Believe me, the rabbi where/when I grew up was pretty close to the left of
MO, but he at least once stated publicly that R rabbis gave him less of a
hassle than C rabbis. There was NO QUESTION that  even w/o Austritt,  no
theological recognition was forthcoming.

In the bio of Rabi Breuer, it mentions that at the death of Rabbi Nobel's
[rav of Gemeinder O rtho's in Frankfort] passing was ignored by the Austritt
Breuers. Nevertheless, it is R. Nobel's original landesgebet that is
included in the Roedelheim Siddur following WWI.

I also need not regale y'a;; that certain G'dolim  [{e.g. R. D. Lifschutz
ZTL] was both Agudist and YU-Mizrachi at the same time.  And RYBS shared the
Dais with R. A . Kotler at Hinuch Atmzai dinners etc. Or that R. Shraga
Feivel Mendelowitz hand-picked Dr. Joe Kamenetsky as his successor etc.  So
certain elements of Austritt have been ignroed in the Greater Agudist Ortho
Community at large.

-- 
Kol Tuv / Best Regards,
RabbiRichWolpoe at Gmail.com
see: http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20080630/315c1774/attachment-0002.htm>