[Avodah] Reading Newspapers and Other secular Literature on Shabbos

Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org
Thu Nov 1 10:11:03 PDT 2018


On Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 03:16:31AM -0400, Toby Katz via Avodah wrote:
: (The other thing that upset Lakewood, according to my father, was the
: book's portrayal of the Netziv's first wife as a woman who loved to
: learn and had seforim piled high on her kitchen table. My father was
: amused by this, too. <<We never had learned women in our history!?>>)

Also, Zionism. The Netziv supported Chovevei Tziyon.

I enjoy pointing out to people that although Zionism was a hotly contested
issue in 19th cent Eastern Europe, it was not a communal
division line. And so the Netziv's yeshiva had no problem having
R' Chaim Brisker as its segan RY.

(We really don't see Zionism opening up as a community-defining matter
until sometime during or shortly after WWI. The Agudah's first attempt
to have a Kenesiah Gedolah was interrupted by that war. Many rabbanim
were stranded on the way to it. Including RAYKook, who spent WWI in
Switzerland and then England. On their second and successful attempt, in
1923, being a Zionist made you ineligable for membership in the Agudah,
and RAYK wasn't invited.)

: The Levanon and the Magid were both Torah publications. So no, the
: Netziv's Shabbos relaxation did not consist of reading maskilishe
: newspapers!

HaMagid was an shomer Shabbos *Haskalishe* newspaper. For example,
they did a piece on Yom Tov Lipman Lipkin's (a/k/a Lipman Yisroelovitch
Lipkin, as he was registered under) going to college for a degree in
math, and praising R' Yisrael Salanter for being liberal enough to let it
happen. (In reality, there is no indication RYS agreed to the decision.
And the son ends up OTD, so at some point father and son part hashkafic
ways.)

Not JO. (Which also isn't reading the news on Shabbos, regardless of
whose paper.)

About my earlier mention of the Netziv's Zionism, both were Zionist
papers.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When a king dies, his power ends,
micha at aishdas.org        but when a prophet dies, his influence is just
http://www.aishdas.org   beginning.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                    - Soren Kierkegaard


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