[Avodah] TIDE and Austritt

[Samuel Svarc]

> From: Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org>
> 
> ... MSS:
> : To me it is clear, after reading R' Elias ;) and Collected Writings,
that
> : [TIDE and Austritt] 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.
> 
> It seems to me that while in your first paragraph you say that it's
> clear that TiDE implies Austritt, regardless of which community it is
> you're walking away from, in your second paragraph you open the door to
> the possibility of cooperation on non-Torah matters.

TIDE requires Austritt. If one recognizes something other than Torah then
the Torah in TIDE is not reigning supreme.

As for the "possibility of cooperation on non-Torah matters", this is
something that needs more detail to be answered intelligently. Oh' and TIDE
doesn't recognize any "Non-Torah matters", as all of DE is part of the
rubric on which Torah must be the master of.

 
> RYBS's midpoint answer also insists on a society in which Torah reigns
> supreme. However, it does so without cutting themselves off from the
> non-observant world in matters in which that allegiance isn't threatened.

I'm no expert on RYBS, so no comment.

> On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 10:05:54AM -0400, T613K at aol.com wrote:
> : If you are asking whether austritt was a hora'as sha'ah -- no, I really
> : don't think so.
> 
> Not really. I'm asking whether Austritt means a rejection of a particular
> kind of anti-O community, one that does not describe today's pathetic
> legacy of that community.

(R' Micha then describes the historical situation in Germany in relation to
the R & O communities.)

The beauty of RSRH's torah is that he didn't address certain situations and
build things on them. He built edifices of thought based on what the Torah
says, and with that addressed situations. So the answer is: No. Austritt is
not bound to one particular situation but rather that nothing may reduce
Torah's dominion. On which side of the line a situation lies is the rub. So
the particulars are not always easy to figure. But the principle is crystal
clear and is *not* based on the particular historical situation of eighteen
hundred Frankfurt.

> 
> : I admit that that whole last paragraph has no source other than my gut
> : feeling, based on the emanations of penumbras from the corpus of
> : Hirsch's writings.
> 
> WADR, though, you already "admitted" a few weeks backthat your view
> of TiDE is based on the assumption that your father (note to newbies:
> RNBulman) "channeled" RSRH. OTOH, I can not picture someone of your
> gather's stature adopting someone else's hashkafah wholesale, with no
> personalization.

So which points do you think RNB personalized, and what is your evidence for
those points? Lacking those, it appears that your intent is more to
disqualify RTK from basically ever voicing an opinion on TIDE (as opposed to
just straight quoting from RSRH), with the handy rebuttal, "That's RNB not
TIDE".

> Therefore, without a source in RSRH, I'm compelled to assume you're
> really describing RNB's TiDE, not RSRH's.

Even when two separate people (one of whom never heard RNB) give essentially
the same answer? Something is compelling, but I think it's more your desire
to find Austritt amenable to certain participations with non-O communities.

KT,
MSS