 |
| R Binyomin Cohen |
DY: "Someone sent me a great article in Hamodia (motto: “more boring than Yated”) from the Pesach supplement ‘Front Burner 3’.
In it, they asked a chashuve rav, R Binyomin Cohen, a lot of pretty hard-hitting questions.
I missed it, and I imagine many others did too - I don’t know who still reads anything but Mordechai Schmutter there.
Here are two standout questions:
There is a certain type of person who was once very committed to asking a daas Torah, followed rabbinic guidance faithfully and then felt he was led in the wrong direction. He’s now disillusioned and hesitant to ask again or to follow a decision. What would you say to someone like that?
RBC: Answer: I have to be honest: the phrase “asking a daas Torah“ is one I don’t particularly care for. The phrase implies that only some talmidei chachamim are capable of dispensing the Torah’s view on matters of hashkafah. The truth is that “daas Torah“ is the Torah’s view on a subject and is not its own category of Torah. It’s applying one’s chochmas haTorah in areas of hashkafah and public policy. It’s not the purview of a “specialist” in daas Torah.
That said — the answer I would give to someone who has been disillusioned is this: find a Rav or a Rebbe or a Rosh Yeshivah you can have a real relationship with, and ask him your questions directly. Not what you heard this one says in a shiur, not what that one posted online. A personal and sincere question deserves a clear answer.
Try to engage the person and try to understand what’s bothering him in his question. Try to answer his question and have a discussion with him about it. When we talk in learning, sometimes there’s a clear answer and sometimes there’s not. But one of the most important things a Rav can do is simply say: “I don’t know.” I cannot overstate how much comfort those words can give. If someone who had been stung by what he felt was overconfident guidance were to go to a Rav and ask a genuinely hard question, and if the Rav were to sit with it for a moment and say, “I don’t fully understand this either — let me think about it,” that person would feel validated in a way that years of confident declarations never could accomplish.
The starting point on issues of public policy and hashkafah is that we should implicitly trust and accept what the Gedolei Yisrael are saying about these issues. That doesn’t mean that I understand everything that is being said by them or in their names. My confidence in them doesn’t require me to understand every decision and every nuance. That doesn’t mean questions should be stifled or explanations shouldn’t be given. In general, the tzibbur is entitled to ask questions respectfully and sincerely, and we should do our best to answer their questions.
The Rav is saying that there needs to be more transparency. How does he see that playing out?
RBC Answer: Take the question of the giyus — the draft issue in Eretz Yisrael. Almost every family in the frum world has been touched by this in some way. Someone has a brother-in-law who asks them about it. A cousin wants to know the Torah position. And sometimes people are frustrated and embarrassed because they don’t really know how to explain it. They know they’re supposed to be opposed, but they don’t know the reasoning. And nobody has really laid it out for them.
I think it would be helpful to have an open, intelligent conversation about this. What is our approach, meaning the Olam HaTorah, the bnei yeshivah who follow our Gedolei Yisrael.
There are answers. I’m not saying I have the answers. But the conversation would be helpful. Instead, people pick up talking points from social media, from websites, from things they half-heard at a Shabbos table. That’s not education, and it’s not information; it’s miseducation and misinformation.
What we need is what in modern terms you might call, to borrow the term, “hasbarah“ — not propaganda in the pejorative sense, but genuine, thoughtful explanation. The kind of explanation that respects the audience’s intelligence and sincerity in trying to understand and be supportive. People want to be supportive of the position of the Gedolei Yisrael, for whom they have enormous respect; but they, in many cases, simply have never been told in clear terms what that position is.
Another example would be the Shidduch Initiative of last year. There was an enormous interest in it, a great deal of support and much publicity — and then it disappeared. People want to know “What happened?” It’s a legitimate question, and I think it deserves some kind of answer.
DY: What I find absolutely fascinating - and I suspect was absolutely intentional - is that the two examples R Cohen sites, the army and the shidduch initiative, are precisely those botched horrifically in the Agudah Yarchei Kallah Q and A.
Both questions were evaded or answered horrifically then, and R Cohen likely knows this and is responding to this.
However, I suspect that the answers that R Cohen hopes for will never come. Here’s why: He wants the emperor to show the clothes that he is not actually wearing.
Both of the Aguda spokespeople are incredibly chashuv, accomplished, well-spoken and intelligent people. I mean that fully. They are people that I personally highly respect despite disagreements. The reason why these articulate spokesmen of klal yisrael were unable to answer those questions honestly is because the honest answers are terrible!
R Deutch and R Elephant agree with R Cohen that “The starting point on issues of public policy and hashkafah is that we should implicitly trust and accept what the Gedolei Yisrael are saying about these issues”. That is why they are not answering honestly, because the honest answers will destroy any Modica of trust remaining!
R Deutch was one of the main drivers behind the shidduch initiative. As a person, he is deep and caring. He wanted to make sure that bnos yisrael got married, and was stifled in every way. He knows full well why the initiative collapsed and was probably more devastated than anyone else about it. But because he feels that revealing the truth would harm trust in Lakewood’s ‘leadership’ (I have no such compunction), he stammered with ridiculous claims that the initiative was just to send a message and not really meant to be practical. I’m sure the countless money on advertising, and tweaking to get all the gedolim on board was just to make sure the message was clear! (He does give himself away when he doth protest too much that all the roshei yeshivos deeply care about the singles. I’m sure they do, but they care about their yeshivos more.)
But since R Cohen wants honest answers, I’ll try to give it to him. They are not pleasant, but they are honest. I will be as straightforward and sincere as possible, without being sarcastic.
What is the Gedolim’s approach to Chareidim and the army, especially once the draft law collapsed and the war started?
Why did the Shidduch initiative collapse?
To be continued…
No comments:
Post a Comment