[Avodah] TIDE and Austritt

[T613K at aol.com]

In a message dated 7/11/2008, rabbirichwolpoe at gmail.com writes:


 
TK:  You have also alluded in the past to particular policy  battles fought 
between Breuer's and YU.  While my sympathies are mainly  with Breuer's, I have 
not seen in practice, and certainly not in my father's  life, a blanket 
rejection of YU outside of that localized community  tension.



RRW:  When I was at Ner Israel I heard all  kinds of negative comments re: YU 
and RYBS was never quoted as a  gadol

 
TK:  The RW world had serious differences of opinion  with RYBS.  He chose to 
go his own way.  If you were at my house you  would also hear negative things 
about YU and positive things as well.  To  reiterate what I said, I have not 
seen in practice a *blanket* rejection of  YU.  My father, for example, would 
not enter a C or R temple but WOULD  enter a shul with a YU rabbi.  Would even 
shake the man's hand, and if  he was a boyhood friend and classmate, he might 
even embrace the man!  Oh  yes, now I remember -- he had smicha from YU 
himself!  And he even worked  there for two years (two separate years in different 
decades)!  This would  seem to give him some standing to criticize what he 
didn't like there as well as  to praise what he did like.  Oh I just remembered 
something else -- my  father had dozens of close personal friends who were YU 
musmachim!  Fancy  that.
 
 

 



You define austritt as the shunning of fellow-Orthodox  Jews and rabbis.  I 
don't define it that way.  It doesn't matter how  it was  historically defined 
in Frankfurt or even in KAJ (where recently YU  rabbis have even been spotted 
on the dais at public events).
 
 

RRW:  >>Meetings  at secular events [NOT AT A SEDER] with  non-O clergy does 
not confer legitimacy. This is an old battle and is  obsolete. It only confers 
de facto reality no more than their being a shul  president or to non-Jewish 
Clergy.  Fro example at Soviet Jewry Rallies  non-Jewish clergy spoke and so 
did non-O Rabbis. Does not mean that we can  ride to shul the next shabos.<<

 
TK:  Such meetings DO confer legitimacy and give C and R Jews  "permission" 
to take their own rabbis seriously.  It is not WE Orthodox  Jews who are in 
danger of being misled and who might therefore ride to shul next  Shabbos -- it 
is our C and R brethren who are in danger.    They totally do believe that if 
the "rabbi" says you can drive on Shabbos  -- then you can.  They totally do 
NOT understand that they are doing  something against the halacha -- the C Jews 
believe that their poskim PERMIT  driving on Shabbos.  It is not at all clear 
in their eyes that their rabbis  are no rabbis -- and that is OUR fault.  We 
Orthodox Jews have shirked our  responsibility to our brethren, to our fellow 
Jews who are being sold patent  medicine by charlatans.
 
 

 


--Toby Katz
=============

President Reagan talked with the Soviets while pushing ahead  with the 
deployment of Cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe. He spoke softly —  after 
getting himself a bigger stick.  --Mark Steyn




**************Get the scoop on last night's hottest shows and the live music 
scene in your area - Check out TourTracker.com!      
(http://www.tourtracker.com?NCID=aolmus00050000000112)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20080711/e361e6e3/attachment-0002.htm>